Cornmeal Idli

Idlis are a classic south Indian breakfast item that are prepared with skinned black gram (urad dal) and parboiled rice or cream of rice. My version today is a twist to the standard version, using cornmeal. Cornmeal is ground, dried yellow corn which ranges from coarse to fine textures. Mine is the coarsely ground version, similar to idli rava aka cream of rice typically used in idli preparation. 

Corn is naturally gluten free but be sure to read the labels since other gluten products may be processed in the same facility. Cornmeal is a good source of carbohydrates, phosphorous and iron. These idlis are obviously vegan and gluten free and make a great breakfast or dinner option. Serve them warm with some side dishes like chutney and sambhar for a filling meal. Ours were served with vegetable saagu and chutney. 

Ingredients: (Yield - about 20)

1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup skinned black gram / urad dal
3/4 cup water
1.5 tsp. salt or to taste

Directions:

1. Rinse black gram / urad dal thoroughly twice with water by rubbing between fingers. Drain and soak in water in a container for about 3 hours. Similarly rinse cornmeal with water and soak in water in another bowl. 

2 & 3. Drain the water from both black gram and cornmeal containers. Squeeze out the water from the cornmeal as much as possible.

4. Add black gram, salt and water (as needed) to a blender and grind finely. (It took me less than two minutes to grind in the blender. Skip adding salt while grinding if living in a hot climate. Add salt to the fermented batter before making idlis.)

5. When the black gram is ground, add cornmeal to the blender.

6. Run the blender for a couple of minutes just to blend the mixture.

7. Transfer the batter to a container and cover it. Leave it in a warm place to ferment overnight. The final batter should be of thick, pouring consistency.

* If living in a cold place, leave the batter container in the oven with the light on. Don't turn on the oven. The batter may take 8 - 10 hours to ferment in a warm place. It may take longer to ferment in cold climate. 

* Heat water in a idli cooker / pressure cooker / steamer base on medium heat.

8. Stir the fermented batter with a ladle.

* Grease the idli plates and fill the moulds with the batter. Place the idli stand in the steamer and close the lid. Don't use the pressure valve if using pressure cooker.

* On low medium flame, steam for about 20 - 25 minutes or until when the surface of the idlis don't stick when touched with moist fingers. Turn off the stove and let sit for about 10 minutes.

* Run a sharp spoon around the edges of idlis and remove the idlis.

* Serve them warm for breakfast drizzling some melted ghee over idlis, along with coconut chutney and/or sambhar. Ours were served with vegetable saagu and chutney. 

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Kuzhi Paniyaram / Guntha Ponganalu

 

Soft and spongy ponganalu / paniyaram can be a perfect mess-free lunch / snack item for kids since they don't even need a side dish. They happen to be one of my son's favorite lunch box item since his kindergarten days. When he was young, I just used to pack them, cut in halves along with a fork and the box used to come empty. Of course now he is older and I pack a side dish too.

I follow my mother's recipe usually but previously during one of the marathons I had come across this recipe. I was intrigued to see idli rice and sago in the recipe and had tried it immediately. Trust me, this recipe is a keeper. I was so glad that I thought of giving this recipe a try. It yields soft, flavorful and very tasty paniyarams.

Ingredients:

1 cup idli rice

1/2 cup raw rice (I used extra long grain rice)

1/4 cup sago / sabudana

1/4 cup skinned black gram / urad dal

1 tsp fenugreek seeds / methi seeds

Salt to taste

2 onions - peeled and finely chopped

2 tbsp minced coriander leaves

For seasoning / tadka:

2 tsp oil, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tbsp chana dal, 1 tbsp urad dal, few minced curry leaves and 2 minced green chillies if not serving kids

Method:

* Soak rices, uard dal, sago and fenugreek seeds in sufficient quantity of water for 4 - 5 hours.

* After the soaking period, discard the water, wash the mixture with fresh batch of water. Grind them fine using water as needed to form a thick batter. The batter should not be runny. Add salt and mix well. Allow it to ferment overnight in a warm place or about 8 - 10 hours.

* When ready to prepare paniyarams, heat oil in a small pan. Add mustard seeds, urad and chana dals to the oil. When dals start turning reddish, add the minced curry leaves and green chillies if using.

* Add this tadka, minced onion and cilantro to the fermented batter and mix well.

 

* Heat the ponganalu skillet and add a few drops of oil in each mould. Then fill them with batter.

* Cover the ponganalu skillet with a lid. Turn down the heat and cook for about 5 minutes or till the ponganalu batter doesn't appear raw.

* Then flip them, add a drop or two of oil and cook till the other side lightly browns as well.

* Repeat the process with the remaining batter. Serve warm paniyarams with chutney.  
They store well in refrigerator for 2- 3 days. And they freeze well too for a handy breakfast on a busy work day.

This is going to be my contribution to "Mess-Free Kids' Snack / Lunch Dishes". Check what other marathoners are cooking at BM #34.

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Guntha Ponganalu

Guntha Ponganalu served with Dalia Chutney

The name says it all. Guntha = the deep impressions in the skillet and ponganalu = puffed ones.

If you have encountered guntha ponganalu earlier, you already know that it is hard to escape from their enchantment. These soft, plump, fluffed beauties are cooked in ponganalu penam - the special skillet with the moulds. Though they are popular as a breakfast item at homes, they are also sold as a street snack during evenings in Rayalaseema region and are usually served with erra karam.
My mother always prepares fresh ponganalu batter instead of using left over rice / idli batters to prepare them. I follow the same method and the recipe for our favorite breakfast is given below.
M's family got to know about these homemade plumpies through my mother and me and they instantly fell in love with them.

For 9 -10 generous servings, ingredients needed are:
3 cups rice (long grain will do)
1/2 cup uraddal
2 tbsp poha
1 & 1/2 cups yogurt to grind the batter (or as needed)
2 tsp salt
A handful of chanadal (soaked in water for a couple of hours or overnight and drained)
2 onions, finely minced
Oil

Preparing batter:
Wash and soak the rice, uraddal and poha for a minimum of 3 hours. The longer you soak, quicker & easier the grinding would be. Throw away the water used to soak.
Grind the ingredients with as little yogurt as possible into a thick, smooth batter. Add the salt and mix well. If the batter is runny, chances of making fluffy ponganalu are almost ruined.
Keep the batter to ferment overnight in a warm place. During winter, keeping the batter in a warm / lighted oven would help. Also remember, the fermented ponganalu batter would not double as idli / dosa batters.

Preparing ponganalu:
In the morning, when ponganalu needs to be prepared, add the chanadal and minced onion to the ground batter and mix well.
Heat the ponganalu skillet and add a few drops of oil in each mould. Then fill them with batter.



Cover the ponganalu skillet with a lid. Turn down the heat and cook for about 5 minutes or till the ponganalu batter doesn't appear raw.



Then flip them, add a drop or two of oil and cook till the other side lightly browns as well.



Serve with chutney or with errakaram for a Rayalaseema touch.

They are going to be a part of -
Shabitha's Celebrating Mom
Jyoti's Mother's day event.
Divya's 'Show me your whole grains'.

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Sunnundalu - The Two Versions and Poha Pongal

For the past one month, I was going through a 'No interest in blogging' phase. And also my busy life kept me away from blogging and blog hopping. I would like to thank all of you who kept visiting my blog. Hopefully, I would be blogging again as usual and visiting my blogger friends.

To me personally, the word 'sunnundalu' has the strong power to invoke memories, the pleasant memories of my grand mother. Sunnundalu are dear to me because they always remind me of maternal grand mother and her wonderful cooking. Also, they are the only sweets with a healthy tag attached to them, at our house. My mom never made them at home and we always got our supply of minapa sunni from our grand mother. Even at an old age, she painstakingly used to grind the uraddal in an old fashioned stone grinder and pack bottles of it to send them along with her children and grand children who visited her. The only thing her daughters had to do was adding jaggery and ghee to the ground uraddal whenever they felt like eating sunnundalu. She passed away a decade ago and the last bottle of minapa sunni she sent to my mom is still with her. My mom is holding on to it as a form of connection with her mother.


Sunnundalu belong exclusively to Andhra, I think. They are a power house of protein since the main ingredient used is uraddal - the black gram of India. This nutritious ball of uraddal flour coupled with jaggery and ghee, is a delightful dessert to kids and adults alike.
I am posting two versions of sunnundalu here. The first one is my grand mother's ofcourse. She used to use the uraddal with the husk.

Version 1 :
Ingredients to make around two dozens of small laddos:
Uraddal with husk - 1 cup
Jaggery powdered - 1/2 cup (or more if you prefer)
Melted ghee - 5 Tbsp

Method: Fry the husked uraddal on low-medium flame till it turns golden brown. Let it cool. Powder the urad dal into a coarse powder. It should resemble very fine sand. You can store it in a bottle and use it later too. This coarsely ground urad dal remains fresh for atleast a year (or more). Traditionally, urad dal is powdered using a stone grinder. I used my coffee grinder to achieve the required consistency.
Combine the powdered jaggery to it and mix it thoroughly. Add ghee little by little till the mixture comes together and you are able to form the balls out of it. Add more ghee if required. Take small portion at a time and make a round ball out of it using your hand. Repeat the same with the remaining mixture.

Version 2 :
Ingredients:
Whole uraddal - 1&1/2 cups
Powdered sugar - 1/2 cup (or more if you prefer)
Melted Ghee - 5 Tbsp


Fry the uraddal on low-medium flame till it turns golden brown. Let it cool. Powder the urad dal into a fine, coarse powder. Combine the powdered sugar to it and mix it thoroughly. Add ghee little by little till the mixture comes together and you are able to form the balls out of it. Add more ghee if required. Take small portion at a time and make a round ball out of it using your hand.

This goes to 'Favorite dessert / sweet' event hosted by Hima of 'Snackorama'.

POHA PONGAL
My observation and experience has led me to believe that poha can be a good substitute for rice in most of the rice based, Indian dishes. Poha bisibele bhath, poha payasam, mosaravalakki (yogurt poha) are some of the examples where rice is replaced by poha with out altering the taste or texture of the dish. I was wondering lately whether replacing rice with poha works in pongal and I did experiment to find out. As usual, here too poha mingled humbly with nutritious moongdal, the fragrant, savory ginger and the spicy pepper for an aromatic, mouthwatering poha pongal.

Ingredients:
Poha - 1 cup
Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Ginger (grated /finely chopped) - 1 tbsp
Ghee - 4 tsp
Pepper corns - 1/2 tsp
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Few curry leaves (optional)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt

Fry the moongdal on medium flame till it turns slightly red. Cook it along with the water and turmeric powder in a pressure cooker till you hear two whistles. Alternatively you can cook the moongdal in a pot adding sufficient water. Keep the dal stirring in between to avoid the moong sticking to the pot at the bottom and getting burnt.

Mean while, wash the poha twice with the water and drain all the water. Cover with poha with a lid and keep aside.

Do the tadka. Heat ghee in a small pan. Add ginger, cumin seeds, pepper corns, pepper powder, curry leaves in that order. When ginger pieces turn brown, turn off the stove.

Add this tadka mixture, poha and enough salt to the cooked moongdal and stir properly with a ladle. Again turn on the stove and let this mixture / pongal simmer on low flame for about 10 minutes so that it can absorb the flavors of the spices added and poha is cooked. Stir once again and turn off the stove.

Serve hot pongal with ginger gojju or chutney. Though it is optional, Pongal is usually served with a generous serving of ghee to make it more delicious.

This goes to 'Think Spice - Ginger', hosted by Sunita of 'Sunita's world'.

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