Green Plantains and Green Long Beans

This recipe is from my great grand mother, who was a great cook.

Raw green Plaintains - 2

Long green beans - 1 bunch

Shallots - 5

Red chillies - 2-3

Green chillies - 2

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Curry leaves

Oil - 1 tbsp

Salt

Peel the skin from the raw bananas and slit it into fours .Cut into small pieces and keep it in water to avoid darkening. Cut the green beans into 2 inch long pieces. Cook the plantains and green beans with the slit green chillies and salt with a little water for around 5 minutes. Drain the water if any. Chop the shallots and red chillies in a chopper. Heat oil in a frying pan and let the mustard seeds splutter, add the curry leaves and the ground shallots and red chillies. Fry for some time till the onions become slightly red and a nice aroma comes. Add the cooked plantains and beans and saute for a few minutes. Can be served with rice or chapathis.

Lappam

When we were in Pondicherry, we used to spend the weekends at a Chettinad restaurant "Appachi" which I beleive one of the best restaurants we have ever gone for nice authentic spicy food. Chettinad cuisine resembles Kerala cooking in the different spices they use as well as the taste and appearance; their cuisine has a lot of fish, prawn, crab and mutton dishes. One of our favourite dishes was their Mutton pepper fry and we used to have it with Lappam which is like a kerala porotta but without frills and very thin but basically the same taste. Yesterday, we were talking about Pondicherry and I thought we should have the lappam and mutton fry and decided to experiment on it and it came out really well. We enjoyed the dinner. It was really spicy and hot...........

All purpose flour /Maida - 3 cups

Eggs - 1

Sugar - 1 tsp

Salt

Water

Oil - 1/2 cup

Mix the flour, eggs, salt and sugar. Add enough water and knead it into a soft dough. Add oil spoon by spoon and knead it well until the dough becomes very soft. Keep it aside for an hour to make it more soft. Divide the dough into 10 equal balls. On an oiled board try to flatten the balls as thin as it gets. In a hot griddle cook the lappam with little oil. Serve hot with any spicy curries. It tastes the best when it is hot.

ps. Dont worry if the lappams break when you try to make them thin.

Spicy mutton fry

Mutton - 2lbs

Onion - 1

Garlic - 8-10 pods

Ginger - 2 inch piece

Green chillies - 5

Red chilly powder - 1 tsp

Corriander powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Fennel powder - 1 tsp

Grama masala powder - 1 tsp

Pepper powder - 1tsp

Curry leaves

Cilantro chopped

Salt

Oil - 3 tbsp

Tomato - 1

Blend the onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies in a chopper.

Mix the mutton with this ground masala, chilly powder, corriander powder, turmeric powder, pepper powder, fennel powder, curry leaves and salt. Pressure cook the mutton for 5-6 whistles in slow fire. Once done, in a kadia pur some oil and add the cut tomato pieces and some more curry leaves and fry the cooked mutton with the gravy for some time till the gravy becomes slightly red and reduced.Add the garam masala and cilantro and mix and serve hot with chappathis, lappam, porottas etc.

ps. can control the level of spice by reducing green chilly numbers..........

Chicken Pulav

This is an easy chicken pulav recipe from my mother.

Whole medium chicken cut up in small pieces - 1

Ginger- garlic paste - 2tbsp

Yogurt - 3/4 cup

Red chilly powder - 1 1/2 tsp

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp

Salt

Marinate the chicken pieces with the above ingredients for 1 hr.

Basmati Rice - 4 cups

Hot water - 6 cups

Whole cloves - 3

Cardamom- 2

Cinnamon stick - 1 pieces

Whole black pepper - 5

Salt

Oil - 3 tbsp

To prepare ghee rice, season the oil with the whole spices and fry the cleaned and drained rice for 2 minutes and add hot water and let cook.

In a separate pan saute 1 sliced onion till slightly brown. Add the marinated chicken pieces with the marinade. Let cook till the chicken is done. Once done, save some gravy from it. Add some finely chopped cilantro and mint leaves to the chicken. If you like cashew nuts and raisins, add a handful and some fried brown onions. Mix the saved gravy with the the prepared ghee rice. Layer the rice over the chicken and on the top sprinkle some chopped cilantro/mint, cashew nuts, raisins, fried onions. Cover with aluminium foil. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the pulav for 20- 25 minutes. Mix the rice and chicken together before serving and decorate with nuts, raisins, cilantro/mint and fried onions.

If you like eggs, Boil 2-3 eggs and add to the chicken before baking. Serve hot with yogurt salad, sweet chutney and pappad.