Coconut Vada | Coconut Fritters Indian Style

It's been so hot this entire week, you can imagine how hot if 6.30 am looks 10 am. So it's been such a pleasant surprise to have the sudden showers blessing us. Since last night it's been raining and the city dwellers were in for a nice day. Most of them enjoyed the entire day by going out and I am sure it will continue so for couple of days. I dread the hot summer again.

Today being a holiday for the boys, they were out of ideas on how to spend the whole day. Athamma was worried how they will manage their summer vacation that will soon start shortly. Though they look short of ideas, you will be impressed on how they keep themselves so well occupied. Peddu made his breakfast clear saying he wants Appam, while Chinnu wanted Chocos, their latest addiction. Seeing him opt for that, Peddu cancelled his order and wanted the same as his brother.

Konda has thought them to say "Order Order" when they all sit down to eat. Which only happens for couple of dishes. Rest you can either see Athamma running around or me doing the honours of feeding them. They eat themselves only if its appams and when one is done, they will call out Order Order, they even tip me after their meal. So it's kind of fun to see how they go about. 

Coming to recipe today, since it's raining, I thought I might post this deep fried delight. An innovative dish that Athamma thought of and we ended up making it often.

It's made with Freshly grated Coconut with Besan and spices. You can shallow fry it, if you want to avoid the oil. Else it tastes great.

Ingredients Needed:

Fresh Coconut, grated - 1 cup
Ginger Garlic paste - 1/2 tsp
Besan / Gram Flour - 3 tbsp
Red Chili powder - 1 tsp
Fried Gram flour / Putnala podi - 1 tbsp
Ajwain Seeds/ Vamu - 1/4 tsp
Bread Crumbs as required
Corn Flour - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Oil for deep fry

Method to prepare:

Grate the coconut fresh. Take it in a bowl along with ginger garlic paste, red chili powder, besan, fried gram flour, corn flour and Vamu. Mix well

Sprinkle little water just enough for it to hold together. Divide into equal balls, and flat them into round vadas. Make sure they hold their shape.

Roll these vadas over bread crumbs and deep fry them in hot oil. Remove these are fried on both sides

Notes:

Add just enough water for the mix to hold the shape.
In the pan, add very little oil for the vadas to be immersed and not as you deep fry your regular fritters.
You will feel the crunchy taste of Coconut when you bite into it.

Enjoy your Vadas with a cup of coffee!

Have a great weekend ahead.

Lunch Box Series : LBS#56 ~ Beans Mulagootal & Parippu Thogayal!

I have always admired Aparna's pictures and her stories. I normally never go further to read the recipe in most cases when I am admiring the pictures more. So when I clicked her menu, I was surprised at how well she had lined them up. I have always wanted to put a picture for all my index pages, but never came around doing that. Seeing her Index page, it surely makes me want to do it right away!

I was excited seeing her Palakkad Cuisine. Kerala Cuisine is one of my favorite ones and especially after blogging I have come to know that even within that there are so many different styles.  Then seeing that she has a good collection of baked goods, I remembered I have not yet got my muffin tray from Divya, who was sweet enough to get me one from her native. Hopefully I should get it within this month for me to attempt some baking from Aparna.

By the way which reminds me that T&T is until September 15th and not end of this month as I wrongly mentioned.

I wanted to choose something that I could carry for my lunch and I decided on Beans Molagutal as I remembered that beautiful picture from memory. Aparna mentioned that this dish is bit bland so the parupu thogayal goes well as a combo. So made both the dishes for afternoon lunch. Since this is a lunch box Series, I had to hurriedly take a group photo. Requested Hubby dear to take individual pictures to highlight the dishes more.

Today's Lunch Box had

Beans Mulagootal
Parippu Thogayal
Plain Rice
Curd Rice

I know I am posting my lunch box series after a long time. I felt I haven't been cooking much differently these days. Guess I have till rethink and plan for some exciting lunch..:)

Beans Mulagootal

Ingredients Needed:

French Beans - 1 cup
Toor Dal - 1 cup
Turmeric powder a pinch
Salt to taste

For the paste

Fresh Coconut, grated - 1/2 cup
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Urad Dal - 1 tsp
Green Chillies - 2 long

Seasoning:

Cooking Oil - 1 - 2 tsp
Mustard Seeds, Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves few

Normally Coconut oil is used here, but I used regular oil.

Method to prepare:

Pressure cook toor dal for 4 whistles, once the pressure falls, remove and add finely chopped beans. Pressure again for another 2 whistles or till the dal is soft.

Meanwhile in a pan heat oil, roast the urad dal. Add cumin seeds. Fry till they start crackling. Then once cooled grind along with green chilies and coconut to a smooth paste adding water.

Once the pressure is off, add this paste and 1 cup water. Bring to boil. In the pan, heat oil add mustard and urad dal along with curry leaves.

Then pour this over the boiling dal.

Notes: Aparna added only 1 chili, while I added 2, still it wasn't very spicy. I know this kootu is supposed to be a bit bland. So you can make this dal chutney and spice the meal.

Parippu Thogayal

This one is made with Toor dal, Urad dal with Coconut. Since this is spicy Aparna says its a good combination with the bland mulagootal! I must agree with that for sure. It indeed was good. And my colleagues ate the chutney as such.

Ingredients Needed

Fresh Coconut, grated - 1/2 cup
Toor dal - 2 tbsp
Urad Dal - 1 tbsp
Red Chilies - 6 nos
Tamarind - small marble size
Hing/ Asafetida a pinch
Curry leaves few
Salt to taste
Oil - 1 tsp


Method to prepare:

Heat a pan with oil, roast toor dal, Urad dal well till they start turning golden. Add the chilies towards the end along with hing and curry leaves.

Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Grind with coconut, tamarind and salt adding little water into a coarse paste.

Serve this with mulagootal and rice.

This thogayal will go well with plain dosa too.


I really had a great lunch thanks to Aparna. This is similar to the kootu that is made in Tamil Nadu except I never knew if one adds Urad dal to it. But on the hole a wholesome meal in making!

This is for Tried and Tasted, event hosted at my space, an event by Lakshmi of Kitchen Chronicles

Vermicelli Coconut Burfi

After what was a nomad life for the better half of the month, we are back to our routine with Athamma returning from her trip. I think she cut short her trip because of the simple fact that Chinnu refused to speak to her over the phone. While Peddu tried enticing her by promising never to ask for endless cups of Bourn vita to be eaten as snack or bullying her, Chinnu did a stunt of not talking to her. I tell you my boys know how to get their Nanamma back home.  As Konda is busy with her Summer activities that involves painting, swimming and stitching, she is not aware much of other things. For which I am thankful..:)

For those of you who wanted to know the progress of my book, well I finally was able to install the software to do the design. I can confess enough how much of a stress it was, trying to lay hands on the software to do the designing. When I finally installed it successfully, I was feeling so light as if I have the entire part done. Well I know the big work starts now. On the recipe part, I am so tempted to include so many but will again have to audit on how many to take in and include for later.

Coming to the recipe for the day, it is a sweet dish that Amma made the other day after getting inspired by the telly. There are so many cookery shows in the TV these days that one can get worked up seeing so many aired at the same time. Most times it will be a fun thing watching Athamma or Amma trying to watch all the shows in one go. They check out one show, if it is not good, switch to the other. They simply watch for the fun of shows as most never get to be done nor even being jotted down. But they do attempt at dishes when it calls for ingredients that are readily available with them like this one. Amma adapted this to suit her way of cooking.

Vermicelli Coconut Burfi

Vermicelli - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Fresh Coconut, grated - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Cardamom  a pinch
Cashew nuts
Raisins
Ghee/ Clarified Butter for roasting

Method to Prepare:

Heat a pan with ghee and roast the vermicelli till golden in colour. Keep it aside. Then roast the nuts, raisins and remove.

Boil the milk and add the vermicelli, simmer till done.

Add sugar and stir well to get the sugar dissolved. Simmer and continue to cook till the vermicelli is done and the milk is all evaporated.

At this stage add the grated coconut and mix well. When you find the mix is coming together, you can add the roasted nuts and raisins.

Grease a plate with ghee and quickly spread this mix over it. Cut into diamond shaped Burfis and decorate with nuts if you want.

This made a good one to make when you are in a hurry as it gets done really fast.

Enjoy your weekend!

Silky temptation of thin finely roasted Vermicelli, cooked over slow flame with milk boiling to thickness though not enough to cut through with knife, sweeten with a bowlful of sugary granules, thicken with pristine white, flowery coconut that was grated with a swollen elbow, that tastes to juicy if you sneak in between the cooking, crowned with jewels enough to put a ruby to shame, that swam in a hot oil to balloon twice its size and with a nutty taste of the cashews in between. If you had removed a while before it would have been called kheer, a moment later it evolves itself as The Burfi!

Well wondering what all this is about! Sra and Nandini tempted me to describe food that was cooked, this is the best I could've get at..:)

Coriander Coconut Chutney | Kothimira Kobbari Pachadi

Chutneys or Pachadis are indispensable part of a breakfast, atleast in most South Indian families. I have always known Amma making either Peanut Chutney or Coconut Chutney every day of the week. Only later when we grew up that she ever tried other chutney varieties with tomatoes, onions etc. 

We love groundnut chutney/ Peanut chutney with anything or everything. Apart from this was the Coconut Chutney that was prepared frequently, because my brother liked only this. So Amma ended up prep it up with other interesting ingredients to bring variations to this. One such ingredient was adding fresh coriander to the coconut chutney.

Fresh Coirander adds such flavour the regular Coconut Chutney, plus this is a nice way to include the coriander in your diet.

Ingredients Needed:

Fresh coconut - 1 cup
Fresh coriander leaves - 1 small bunch
Green chillies - 5
Fried gram - 50 gms
Tamarind - 1 inch
Water - 1/2 cup
Salt to taste

For tempering:

Mustard seeds, Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 8-10
Oil - 1/2 tsp

Method to prepare:

Grate the fresh coconut or cut into small bits so that it is easy to grind them in the mixer.

Wash the coriander leaves and put it in a colander to get the water drain.

In a mixer, take all the ingredients except the seasoning items, pulse it to fine paste. Add water as required.

Remove to a bowl, heat a pan with oil, add the mustards and urad. When it starts spluttering add the curry leaves and immediately pour over the ground chutney.

Most times, we place the curry leaves on the chutney and pour the hot oil over the leaves. This way the leaves don't loose their freshness.

Serve with Dosa, Idlis.

Fresh Coconut Milk ~ Indian Basics!

Well I am sure many of you make use of this important paste in most of your cooking frequently. Of course, if its Kerala cuisine, no doubt its extensively used. I use coconut paste in most of my kurmas and few rich gravies call for this coconut milk. Appam another of my favorite dish gets accompanied with this sugared coconut milk. Konda loves appam with coconut milk. So the Sundays that I make Appam, this is a must. I remember the way Amma used to make this specially for me. I was the only person eating it and she so painstaking used to make it. The first or the thick one gets added with sugar and the second milk, which is much thinner gets into the Tomato Kurma

Updated on 12th Mar:

Actually I scrape the outer layer before chopping to prevent the black layer getting in. If its a tender coconut, you can actually remove a thin layer and you will get a pure white. coconut for milk. But with mature ones, on scraping the brown outer part will peel off. If you check out the pieces you find it brown and while in most places! And also when its mature one and after pulsing it, the brown part stays back after running it through a sieve.

Thanks to my blogger friends for sharing their tips, I am sure its going to be very useful. Though grating it sounds a tough job as I can't grate a coconut for nuts!!.

If you are using coconut this is not so mature or thick, within few minutes in the mixie yields good amount. But if its really thick, you got to run it few times more to get the milk.


Wash and chop the coconut into smaller pieces.

First run them in the mixie for couple of rounds, then add required water and pulse it again.

Strain it over the sieve. Thick milk will fall down. Press firmly so that you get most of it out.

Pulse it again with more water to get thinner milk, which can go into any gravy that you planned.


Fresh Coconut Milk for Appam

Fresh thick Coconut Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 2 tsp (depends on your taste)

The thick coconut is mixed with sugar and served for Appams