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.

Green & Red coconut chutneys

I usually make a green chutney and/or a red chutney to go with the dosa.

Green Chutney

Half a coconut grated
Curry leaves
Green chillies
Some ginger
Soaked tamarind
Salt

Red Chutney

Half a coconut grated
Dry red chillies
1 onion (or preferably some sambar onions)
Some garlic cloves
Soaked tamarind
Salt

Grind well and add seasoning with jeera or mustard.

Tender Coconut Dessert/Fresh Orange Kheer

My friend Aditi's recipe, she's a super-innovative cook. A perfect summer dessert! There's also a variation, - fresh orange kheer - adding it at the end.

Ingredients

Milk - half litre
Condensed milk - half a tin
Coconut milk - you can buy that small packet of Hommade coconut milk (I think it is around 200 ml)
The white stuff inside the tender coconut (ask the tender coconut man for the really tender ones, so that this is almost translucent) Leechis or any other soft sweet translucent fruit will also do - thatti nungu?

Preparation

Take half a litre of boiled milk.
Add half a tin of condensed milk to it, keep on fire, and keep stirring until the condensed milk is well-blended with milk. Does not have to boil.
Take it off the fire and allow it to cool completely.

Then add a small packet of coconut milk. Or make the coconut milk fresh if you can :)
Add thinly chopped pieces of the white stuff you get inside tender coconut - ganji or whatever you call it. Or the lichee or the water chestnut or whatever other fruit you choose.
Check taste - if you want it sweeter, add more condensed milk.

Now chill it nice and proper in the fridge/freezer! The chilling is what adds a lot of the flavor.
Serve chilled.

Variation: Fresh Orange Kheer

"the same milk and condensed milk recipe can be adapted to make fresh orange kheer.... yummm!
leave out the coconut milk, though....
allow the mixture to cool down, then chill.....
once really cold, plonk in peeled orange segments without the pith and pips....
i like this one even better than the tender coconut variant...:-)"