Vendaya Keerai Sadam | Methi Rice

With the thought of 30 mins meal mela in mind, it's invetiable that we come up with yet another simple and easy to make Methi Rice. This is Athamma's creation and needless to say it always turns out so good. Though she was hesitant that the rice might turn out a wee bit bitter, we couldn't find it at all after making it. 

Vendaya Keerai is a healthy option for Diabetes. Athamma tends to include this in as many forms as she can in her regular diet. Though rice is normally not advised for diabetic, there is no harm in including a cup of rice in your meal, especially if it's packed with so much beneficial things.

The rice was so good on it's own, that I didn't have to make any side dish to be served with it. However you can serve with curds.

Sending this to my 30 Mins Meal Mela

Vendaya Keerai Sadam

Vendiya Sadam

Ingredients Needed:

Cooked Rice - 1 cup
Methi Leaves. trimmed - 1/2 cup
Salt to taste
Oil - 1 tsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Lemon juice - 1/2 medium

For the paste

Onion - 1 medium
Tomato - 1/2 medium
Clove - 2
Cinnamon 1"
Cardomon - 2
Coconut - 2 tsp
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger 1"
Green Chilies - 2 long
Coriander leaves few

For Tempering

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Mustard Seeds, Urad Dal - 1/4 tsp
Roasted Groundnuts - 1 tbsp
Channa Dal - 1 tsp
Cashew nuts few

How to make the Methi Rice Mixed rice

Wash and soak rice, cook in your regular method. Keep it aside.

Wash and drain the methi leaves.

In a mixer take all the ingredients for the ground masala along with the methi leaves. Grind to a smooth paste using little water.

Heat a non stick pan with oil and ghee. Temper with tempering ingredients. Saute for couple of minutes.

Now add the ground masala and saute well till the raw smell leaves. This may take about 5 - 7 mins.

When the oil starts coming out from the masala, add the cooked rice and mix well. Finally mix in the lemon juice and remove.

Serve hot.

Methi rice

Notes:
Saute the ground masala till the raw smells leaves.
Make sure you don't add lemon juice still on stove.

Since this has masala in the rice itself you don't really have to serve anything special for this.

Ven Pongal Recipe | How to make Ven Pongal Step by Step Recipe

When it comes to a typical South Indian breakfast, Ven pongal or Pongali as we say in Telugu, features side by side to Idlis and Dosas. Now when I go to restaurants, it's a hard choice to select which one to eat, among the Pooris, Idlis, Dosas and of course this very tempting Khara Ven Pongal. So I normally order whichever one I would want to eat and hope others would order the rest so that I can taste! Athamma would invariably order this Ven pongal and I get to taste it and know that the dish tastes awesome. If you have had a prasadham from temple, you will know how well this dish is made. One can never beat the Kovil ven pongal prasadam.

With all the love and affection this dish gets at home, I have mostly followed by method of roasting the spices and then cooking it as I have shown in the first Ven pongal recipe. There are couple more methods of making a ven pongal. In my first method, I had arrived at my own recipe where I used garlic, which is not usually added. Still it always  makes it a heavenly meal.

Today's recipe is the second way of making Ven Pongal. Every time I make it, hubby dear says it's not spicy referring to the peppery taste that comes from a temple prasadam. Later I remembered our office cook who makes the most yummiest pongal, and she is your typical measurement by look and instinct person. It's extremely hard to get measurement from her as she hardly knows the count. She does everything from experience and only knows by andaz. She resorted to using this method of adding powdered pepper, saying everybody is removing the whole peppers she adds. Later while browsing through Meenashki Amma's Samathu Paaru, I read that she has listed out some four varieties of making Khara Pongal and found that she also uses similar way. I was happy that unknowingly I had been following a prescribed method.

Khara Pongal tastes great with the coarse peppercorn and ghee. Please don't go stingy on the ghee part, though I use half cooking oil also. As you might know, the Temple prasadam is always full of ghee and it's fine to include that once in a while.

Soaking Time : 10 - 15 mins
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time - 10 mins
Method of cooking : Pressure Cooker
Cuisine : Tamil Nadu, South Indian Recipe

Khara Ven Pongal - Method 2

Ingredients Needed:

For the Pongal

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Split green gram / Moong dal / Pasiparupu* - 1/2 cup
Water - 3 & 1/2 cups**
Salt to taste


* We also refer split green gram as Split yellow Moong dal
** The amount of water depends on the rice you use, normally for Ven pongal more water is added since this dish is more of a runny types. Even after adding more water, once it's cooked if you allow it to rest, it gets to that nice soft texture.

For the Seasoning:

Ghee - 3 - 4 tsps
Cooking Oil - 2 - 3 tsps
Whole pepper corns, - 1/4 tsp (abt 10 nos), powdered coarsely
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Whole cashews - 7 , broken into tiny bits
Curry leaves few
Ginger - 1" (can be added as grated or as big chunks)

How to make Kara Ven Pongal

To make the Pongal:

Wash the rice and soak for 10 mins. Meanwhile dry roast the moong dal for 5 mins on high, when you start getting the aroma, remove, allow it to cool and add to the rice to soak. Wash again once the time is up.

Take this soaked rice and dal in a pressure cooker, measure 3 & 1/2 cups of water, add salt. Cover with lid and pressure cook for 3 whistles. Remove and keep aside for the pressure to release.

Tip- When you are in a hurry, you can easily remove the pressure by putting a spoon under the whistle, thereby slowly releasing the pressure. Take caution not to remove the whistle in haste, wait for the pressure to completely fall down, before opening the lid. Remember the food will be still cooking in and will burst out if you do it hastily. Please don't attempt this method if you don't know the physics.

To make the seasoning:

Coarsely powder the peppercorn, make sure you don't powder it fine. We don't want it completely powdered, it should be like how it's in the picture, even more bigger if you can't stand the pepper spice.

Heat the ghee, oil in a small pan. add the cashew bits, allow it to get roasted well, then add the whole cumin, pepper, garlic, then finally the curry leaves. Take care since the curry leaves will have water and it might splutter out.

Pour this seasoning on the cooked pongal. Mix well couple of times. At this stage, the pongal might look soggy, but when you add the seasoning and mix couple of times, you will get that typical look of that soft, well done pongal.

Cover for couple of mins for the season to steep in.

Notes:  This can be completely made with just ghee, will be more tastier. By making cashews into tiny bits, you get to mix it more and adds crunch. Green chilies can also be used if wanted.

This is mostly served with Coconut Chutney in Tamil Nadu along with either Vegetable Samber or Vengaya Sambar. I mostly make Groundnut Chutney.

Since this is my neivedhyam on Saturday, we offer this to God and no tasting is done before that.

Other Pongal Recipes

Savory Pongals
Ven Pongal Recipe 1
Whole Green Moong Dal Rice Porridge | Pasipayar Ven Pongal | Pesalu Pulagam

Sweet Pongals
Bellamannam / Sakkarai Pongal
Broken Wheat Sweet Porridge | Samba Godhuma Sakkara Pongal
Sakara Pongal with Sprouted Whole Moong Dal

Soya Beans Kurma!

Soya Beans were always something I avoided! Not that I don't like it actually, its more to do with health reasons. I remember eating this when I was about 13 - 14 years, Amma made some dish with it for the first time. Shortly after eating it, I noticed my eyes were red. Dad said maybe these didn't suit me. Well I really don't know if it was these or something else. Those days I had some allergy to certain foods, which to my bliss, never got discovered. And I happily ate everything on earth, except these!

Infact few years back, the soya meat as its called the meal maker, was so popular that it was added to all vegetarian dishes. After turning a pure vegetarian, I somehow could never palate anything in resemble. The rule for me was quite simple, when you decided not to eat something, why even eat something in imitation? I don't like imitations, be it anything for that matter!

So almost many years passed without me trying to try these beans again. Infact it was for a blog event that I ended up trying tofu, of course in my mind, I couldn't replace Paneer with it. That's a different story. But these beans I always kept a safe distance. Finally I had to succumb to the peer pressure! The peer here being my Athamma as she shares the kitchen sometimes. With her finger still recovering, she isn't entering the kitchen. So I have been the reigning king, queen of the kitchen.

But when she was cooking, one fine day she decided she wanted to prepare a dish with the Soya beans. Infact went ahead bought it. Well I couldn't say no right, so just mentioning my rashes, I tasted it quite reluctantly and was happy nothing happened. Seeing that nothing happened proved quite a teaser for her. In the end, this has become a permanent addition to our list.

This rich creamy Soya Bean Kurma we had last week. This isn't exactly the way kurmas are made, but then I am never known to stick on to any particular instructions. I strongly believe recipes are emerged most times, very rarely created! I will surely make a special note of those created ones pa moi!

Before I get on with the recipe, just wanted to bring attention to this noble cause taken up by a fellow blogger, Shoba. She is a volunteers at Cancer Institute Foundation, and they have come up with a Cooking Competition event called "Kitchen Khiladi". I got to know about this through Shoba. So if you live in Bay Area, CA, then you must check this out and participate. For information about CIF, please visit http://www.cifwia.org

Soya Beans Kurma

Ingredients Needed

Dried Soya Beans - 1 cup
Onions - 2 medium
Tomatoes - 3 medium
Ginger Garlic paste - 1/2 tsp
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Salt to taste
Coconut Milk - 1 cup thick
Cashew Almond powder - 2 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 2 tsp

Method to prepare:

Wash and soak soya beans overnight. Wash and pressure cook till soft. Depending on the brand, it might take about 3-4 whistles.

Heat a pan with oil, saute chopped onions till brown. Then add ginger garlic paste. Fry till it gets browned.

Add the chopped tomatoes, salt and turmeric. Simmer and cover for 5 mins. Remove lid and stir again. Cook till the tomatoes are soft and well cooked.

Add in the chili powder, coriander powder and simmer for 10 mins till the oil comes out of the sides.

Pour in the cooked soya beans and combine everything well. Cook in high flame for couple of mins, till the beans are well coated.

Next goes the cashew nuts, almond powder, mix well. Then add in the coconut milk.

Bring it to boil. Then add required water and simmer for 10 mins. When you find that the gravy is thick enough, you can sprinkle the garam masala, garnish with coriander leaves and remove.

The thickness of the gravy depends on what you serve it with. It can be little thin when served with Rice, else thick creamy gravy goes well with Rotis!

Note: Cashewnuts and almond powder can be easily prepared and stored. We get coconut milk from the coconut gratings that we again store. So this dish is pretty quick and gets done fast.


Sending this to my dear friend Harini who is guest hosting the famous MLLA 13th edition! The event "My legume Love Affair" is the brain child of Susan, The Well Seasoned Cook!