Pongala Payasam - Sweet rice pudding

Its basic ingredients are rice, jaggery and ghee. This has an unique taste as we add grated coconut, some chopped bananas, and finally for flavour cardamom powder.

Ingredients

Kerala matta rice(brown rice) or raw rice - 1 cup
Jaggery - 3 balls (grated)
Ghee - 1 cup(be generous adding ghee)
Grated coconut - 1 cup ( i used coconut flakes)
Banana - 3-4 sliced into small rounds
Cardamom pods/powder
Water to cook rice.

Soak rice , boil water in a big pot/pan, add rice. When rice is almost cooked add jaggery , mix well and cook for 5 minutes. Keep stirring and add ghee spoon after  spoon until the payasam  gets thickened. Lastly add sliced bananas, coconut and cardamom pods or powder mix well. Sweet rice pudding(Pongala payasam) is ready.

This is very similar to Chakkara Pongal/Sweet Pongal!

Meen Mulakittathu (Red chilli fish curry) and Chakka puzhukku (Mashed tender Jackfruit) - Kerala's delicacies

This is a typical Kottayam style fish curry prepared using red chillies and other spices,      mainly flavoured with cocum(tamarind). This curry tastes better next day, tastes  like pickle .
It goes well with rice, rotis, appam.  Main combination is Kappa (Tapioca)and meen mulakittathu. Here i have taken mashed jack fruit as a combo for this curry.
For this curry you could use king fish, tuna, seer fish, salmon, travelly, mackerel and sardine. I have taken Sardine this time.

Ingredients

Sardine - 1/2 kg (marinated with turmeric and salt)
Onion/Shallots - 1 cup thinly sliced
Fenugreek Seeds -1/4 Tspn
Garlic sliced - 4-5 cloves
Ginger sliced - 1 tbspn
curry leaves- 1-2 stems
turmeric Powder 1/2 -tspn
Red chilli -  5-6 nos
Coriander powder - 1 tbspn
Cocum (Kudam Puli)-2-3 pieces
water - as required
salt to taste
coconut oil 2 1/2 tbspn

Soak cocum (kudampuli) in luke warm water.
Grind red chillies,coriander powder , 2-3 shallots and fenugreek seeds to a fine paste.

Heat oil in a pan add chopped onion, ginger, garlic and few curry leaves. Cook on medium heat till it turns brown.Now pour in  chilli paste. Stir to combine with the oil and let the masala cooks well keep sauteing till it turns dark and you see oil on top.
This is a very spicy curry. So adjust chilli powder according to your spice tolerance level, you could also add kashmiri chilli powder for more color and neutralize spiciness.

Now add soaked cocum (kudampuli), you can add its water also. Add salt, bring this to boil and then add fish. Add  water, make  sure that fish is fully covered in the gravy. Cook until you get a thick gravy. Once cooked,switch off the flame , add coconut oil over the fish curry and curry leaves to get that  typical aroma and taste of kerala's fish curry.

Mashed Jack fruit (chakka puzhukku/chakka vevichathu)

Ingredients

Unripe jackfruit (I bought 2 pkts cleaned and cut jackfruit from indian store)
Grated coconut – 1.5 cup
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Garlic sliced –  2 – 3 nos
Green chillies – 2 – 3 nos
Curry leaves – 1 – 2 stems
Red chilli - 2 nos
mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Coconut oil – 1 tbsp
Salt – To taste

Cook jackfruit adding turmeric powder, salt and sliced garlic. Cover and cook until done. Meanwhile grind coconut and green chillies to a coarse mixture. When jackfruit is cooked add coconut-chilli mix, coconut oil and curry leaves to it and combine well. Mash it with wooden ladle or with back of spoon. Season it with red chillies and mustard seeds.

Serve  hot with mulaku chammanthi(Red chilli chutney),thenga chammanthi (coconut chutney),mango pickle or fish curry.

Banana Split Ice cream

Ingredients

Ice cream - Vanilla/chocolate/strawberry. Any ice cream of your choice(I used home made vanilla and chocolate ice creams)

Banana - as required
Some chocolate chips,chopped nuts

Strawberry jam - To prepare jam, take 1 cup chopped strawberries,  mix chopped strawberries with 2 tbsp sugar, keep it aside for half an hour. This will help strawberries to release its juice, now transfer to a pan and cook for 15-20 minutes stirring continuously until the juice is reduced and forms a thick sticky consistency.let  this cool

Melted chocolate

Take a long serving bowl, scoop ice creams in the middle, put slit bananas on either side, spoon strawberry jam/melted chocolate on top of the ice cream,decorate it with some nuts and choco  chips. Tasty banana split ice cream is ready to serve :)

Chicken - Mushroom rice

Ingredients
Cooked rice - 1 bowl(I used left over rice)
chicken - 1 breast piece( marinated with coriander pwd - 2 tbspn, turmeric pwd-1/2tsp, pepper pwd - 1 tspn, lemon juice-1 tsp, chopped garlic-2 cloves and salt)
Mushroom - 1 bowl
Green onion(spring onion)-1 bowl, spinach - 1 bowl
Chopped ginger - 1 spn, Red chillies -2 nos, coconut oil - 1 tbspn, ghee-1 tbspn, lemon juice-1 tspn, Salt -as required.

Heat coconut oil , put ginger and red chillies. To this add chicken and when chicken is half cooked, add in mushroom. Stir well and with lid on cook for 5 minutes. No need to add water as mushroom itself contains water. Add salt and spinach to this. Spinach takes very less time to cook. Give a good stir and cook for 2 minutes. Now time to add rice. Mix all the ingredients and cook for at least 2 minutes until rice absorbs all the flavors and masala.
Lastly add green onions, ghee and lemon juice. Mix well. Lemon juice gives a little tanginess to rice and ghee enhances the taste.

I didn't add coriander leaves , as such it contains lot of greens.

Sausage Pizza

Recipe

Pizza dough - its just a basic pizza dough. All purpose flour 3 cups, instant yeast 1pack, 1 teaspoon each of sugar and salt, 1/2 cup olive/vegetable oil, 1 cup milk. Mix all together and prepare dough. Leave this to rise for at least 2 hrs.

For topping

Tomato salsa - I like to use tomato salsa as it already has tomatoes/chilli/garlic/onion/coriander leaves and also gives a smoky flavor,moist texture and spiciness to pizza. You can use tomato ketchup/sauce.

Chicken sausage - cut into round pieces. I had cooked sausages adding chilli, turmeric powders, salt and pepper before spreading onto pizza.
Grated cheese (Parmesan cheese) as required
Bell peppers(capsicum) 1-2 cut into round shapes

Preheat oven to 350 F(USA)

Divide dough, roll onto pizza pan. Spread tomato salsa, cooked sausages and capsicum evenly on the dough, sprinkle enough cheese. Bake 15-20 minutes, season it with oregano.