To Reduce Cholesterol

This is something my sister-in-law has tried successfully on my brother who had high cholesterol. My father, who's a cardiologist, and who was monitoring my brother's cholesterol levels, was surprised to see the reduction in cholesterol levels in a month!

Ingredients

Fresh Garlic: A tablespoonful, peeled (My sister-in-law roasts this for a few seconds with skin on, on a tava, to take away the pungency a bit)
Fresh Curry Leaves: A tablespoonful (soak in water with salt and turmeric powder for 15 mins if you want to make sure it's really clean)
Shallots (Sambar Onion): 5-6 peeled

Procedure

Grind all three, make a  chutney. Have once a day, mixed with any kind of food. Rice and dal is a good camouflage :)  You can be innovative and grind this with other ingredients that may take away the pungency - like tamarind.

Tip from my friend Anil: Curry leaves chutney and curry leaves in butter milk (with complete removal of butter version) is a medicine to reduce  cholesterol.


How to include garlic, curry leaves and/or shallots in your diet

Chutneys are obviously the best way to get these in fresh. I use these in various cooked dishes too, see labels.


Curry Leaf Chutney

I use this in my chutney - see post below - though it has coconut, not sure people with high cholesterol are allowed that.

Groundnut Chutney

Grind roasted groundnuts with some garlic and curry leaves and red chilly to make chutney powder.

Curry Leaf Chutney

This is the chutney which contains all 3 cholesterol-reducing fresh ingredients: garlic, curry leaves, shallots (sambar onions). My staple chutney with dosas.


Ingredients

Coconut: Half
Curry leaves: A handful. Soak in salt and turmeric powder and water for a while if you want to really clean it.
Garlic: A handful, peeled
Shallots: A handful, peeled
Tamarind: a small lemon-sized piece, soaked in water at least 15 mins before.
Green chilly: 2, or more if you like it spicy. Always check with one chilly first - some big chillies are hot :)
Salt

Procedure

Grind all of it in a grinder :)
Season with mustard seeds and asafoetida in a little  bit of oil.

Kerala Fish Curry, Oil-free

(Click photo to enlarge)

So I should've taken the photo before most of the fish got polished off, but well, I forgot, greed :)

You can use this exact same recipe for prawn curry too.

This is a routine, ordinary fish recipe from Kerala, with only fresh ingredients, no ground masalas, and absolutely no oil. The only real effort is the making of the coconut milk - but the reaction to the curry is usually so good, in the end you feel it was all worth it :)  You can also buy coconut milk in packets these days. Remember that it is concentrated, you need to dilute a bit when adding.

I use an earthen-ware pot to cook this. You can use any thick vessel too, but see if you can buy a pot - am sure it adds something to the taste.

Ingredients

• Fish (any one, though the most popular are seer, pomfret, karimeen(pearl spot), sardine, mackerel. I used karimeen this time, 4 of them.) Preferably something with one center bone.
• Ginger, one big piece, lightly crushed
• Green chilly - 1
• Red chilly powder - 1 teaspoon
• Turmeric - half a teaspoon
• Curry leaves - 2 whole sprigs, you can leave the sprig as it is, without pulling out the leaves.
• Shallots (sambar onion) - a handful, sliced in half
• Kodampuli - 3 pieces, soaked in water beforehand (http://www.kodampuli.com). This is what adds that typical addictive sourness/tanginess. You should get it in any Mallu grocery shop, or ask any Mallu friend to get it for you from Kerala. You can keep it for years, in a bottle, won't go bad - it's dried and preserved. If you can't get this, use tamarind, lots of it. Or green mango slices!
• Coconut milk. 1 packet. Or make it fresh this way: For 4 fish, I used half a coconut, you can add a whole coconut if you want a thicker gravy - scrape it, grind in the mixie, add warm water and extract as much milk as you can. Grind twice, strain the milk so no coconut scrapings remain in the milk.
• Rock salt, a teaspoon (if not, ordinary salt)
• Cornflour. If you want to thicken the gravy in the end, mix a bit of cornflour in water and add and boil for a couple of minutes.

Preparation

Just put all the stuff together in the pot, with half the packet of coconut milk, add the fish, add water to immerse it all, and cook, with lid half-open. That's it! Taste in between, add more chilly/ginger if you want it spicier. Coconut milk reduces the chilly flavour. In the end add the remaining thick coconut milk to thicken the gravy.

Fish cooks real fast, so keep an eye. Some big fish may break when you try to turn them around, like it happened to one fish in the photo :) - but hey, it still tastes delicious, you will search out the pieces and eat every last bit! It is best to not turn them around.

Some people do add a drop of coconut oil in the end, to give that extra flavour. If you want the gravy thicker, add some cornflour as described above.