THE CHEF and HER KITCHEN: Navratri Recipes

Showing posts with label Navratri Recipes. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Atta Ladoo | Easy Diwali Sweets

Atta ladoo recipe with step by step photos.Ladoos are popular sweets for any occasion and there are various ladoo varieties like rava ladoo, moong dal ladoo, minapa sunnunda, boondi ladoo, moti choor ladoo, atta ladoo, besan ladoo, dry fruit ladoo, gond ladoo to name a few.I find the ladoos made out of flour are easy to make compared to the ones like boondi ladoo or moti choor ladoo.I love rava ladoo,motichoor ladoo and moong dal ladoo the most among all the varieties.My mom always adds nicely fried nuts(in ghee) to the ladoos which adds a nice bite and taste to the ladoo and hence I highly recommend to add the fried nuts for the ladoos though it is optional.You give a try once and let me know how you liked it.

As Diwali is nearing by I have tried to post few easy and quick recipes for the festival as homemade sweets and savories are always the best compared to the store bought ones.These atta ladoos are quite healthy as it is made out of wheat flour and is an ideal snack for the kids and adults.Though it has good amount of ghee in the recipe it is still a healthy ladoo which one can eat without any guilt.

Check out other Diwali sweets recipes on my blog:

Check out various Diwali Sweets Recipes here.
If you are looking for more Savoury Recipes,Check out Diwali Savoury Recipes here.

Here is how to make atta ladoo recipe with step by step photos.

Atta Ladoo Recipe | Wheat flour Laddu:

yields:12 ladoos

Prep time: 10 mins | Cooking time: 20 mins | Total time: 30 mins

Cuisine: North Indian | Category: Sweets

Ingredients:

1 cup Wheat flour(Atta)
1 cup Sugar powder
1/3 cup Ghee(+2 tbsp ghee if needed)
8-10 Almonds,finely chopped
8-10 Cashew nuts,finely chopped
2-3 tbsp Raisins,optional

3 Cardamoms,seeds removed

Method:

Grind 1/2 cup + 2tbsp sugar along with cardamom seeds to a fine powder.

Dry roast wheat flour on low-medium flame for 8-10 mins until you get a nice aroma from it and the flour starts turning brown in color.Make sure you keep stirring it constantly and not let it burn.

Heat ghee in a small kadai and add chopped almonds and cashew nuts and fry them until the badam turns slightly brown.Add raisins to it and fry until they swell and remove them and keep aside.

Mix together sugar powder and roasted wheat flour and fried nuts and raisins without any lumps and it is mixed properly.Check for the sweetness now if you want more sweet add 1-2 tbsp extra sugar powder and mix well again.

Add hot melted ghee to the wheat flour and sugar mixture to it and mix it properly until the ghee is coated properly.If you try to make a laddu it should hold the shape, if it is not add 1-2 tbsp melted ghee and mix it again.

Let the mixture becomes luke warm and can be handled with hands.Make lemon sized round balls out of it and arrange them in a plate.
Once it is cooled completely store it in an air tight container.These can be stored for over a month.

Enjoy it as a dessert or snack.

Notes:

These laddus can be stored for over a month and hence store it in an air-tight container.
If you find it difficult to make laddus out of it and the mixture is dry,feel free to add 1-2 tbsp melted ghee to it and mix again and then start making laddus.
The addition of fried nuts in the ladoos make them taste extremely delicious,so I highly recommend to use them and not to skip them.
Always roast the wheat flour on low flame until it turns brown and starts getting a nice aroma,do not let it burn.

Technorati Tags: wheat flour laddu,atta ladoo recipe,easy diwali sweets recipes,easy ladoo recipes,laddu varieties,kids recipes

Navratri Recipes 2015 | South Indian Navaratri Recipes

Happy Navaratri to all my friends and readers!!
The Navaratri festival has started from today and it will be celebrated upto 21st October and on 22nd october it is Vijayadasami(Dussera). Navratri festival is celebrated for nine days worshiping Durga devi in different forms on each day and on the 10th day Vijayadashami is celebrated.
This festival is celebrated in most of the states in India in various forms. Dasara is celebrated in a grand manner especially in cities like Mysore and Calcutta.While in North,a fast is observed on those days and also celebrated with garba and dandiya where as in South,many people celebrate the festival by keeping Golu(an array of Idols) and pooja is performed on those 9 days inviting many ladies for haldi-kumkum.Various varieties of sundal and kheer varieties are prepared on those 9 days during Navratri to offer to the people who visit the Golu.
We used to go our grand-mom's place for Dussera and it used to be a big festival with Golu and lots of guests kept coming through out the 9 days to visit our golu.We make a traditional sweet like holige or any thing equivalent on the first day and last day of Navratri and a simple sundal and kheer variety during the other days.I am compiling few recipes at one place which are ideally prepared in south Indian homes during Navratri for Pooja.I would have preferred to do a pictorial index but the list was so long that I went with the simple recipe index.I hope it is useful for you.Once again,Happy Navaratri to all !!

NAVARATRI RECIPES - SOUTH INDIAN:

Sundal varieties:

Vada/Snack varieties:

Traditional Sweet Varieties:

Kheer/Payasam Varieties:

Rice Varieties:

NAVRATRI VRAT RECIPES - NORTH INDIAN:

People in North observe fast during those 9 days of Navratri,only few kinds of flours and vegetables are supposed to be eaten during vrat.Instead of the regular salt, Sendha namak is used on the fasting days.Though I do not have many recipes in my blog I would like to share the recipes which comes under that category.

Navratri Vrat Recipes:

Sweets:

Beverages:

Snacks:

Technorati Tags: navaratri recipes, navratri recipes, navratri vrat recipes, navratri recipes 2014, naivedyam recipes, naivedyam for navarati, navaratri sundal varieties, payasam recipes ,sabudana recipes for vrat, vrat recipes

Chakkara Rekulu | Crispy Sugar Poli | Easy Navaratri Sweets Recipes

When I started writing this post I was quite confused what I should name this sweet. 'Rekulu' in Telugu means 'Sheets' and as these polis are rolled as thin as a sheet they got the same name or rather I would say that is what we call them at my place.It is called as 'Rekulu' at my place but I never saw any post on the web when I searched for this sweet.

This recipe is quite similar to the Sweet Diamonds but we prepare it in a different shape. We use chiroti rava to prepare the dough and that yields a very crisp poli/puri when deep fried, it actually comes out crispier than a papad. If your rolling skills are good then these polis are very easy to prepare and they can be prepared much ahead and hence it is ideal to serve as a prashad during Navaratri.We usually pair it with a namkeen or sundal and pack it in a polythene and give it in thambulam to the ladies who come for Haldi Kumkum during Navaratri.

If you want various Sundal recipes which can also be served as Prashad during Navratri, then check out this POST where I have posted several varieties of Sundal recipes.

If you are looking for various Poli recipes which can be prepared ahead and can be served as a prashad, then check out these recipes:

Chakkara Rekulu | Crispy Sugar Polis:

Yields: 8-10 polis

Prep time: 15 mins | Cooking time: 25 mins | Total time: 40 mins

Cuisine: South Indian | Category: Sweets

Ingredients:

for poli/happala/puri:

1 cup Chiroti Rawa(very fine semolina)

1 tbsp Ghee

a pinch of Salt

Water,to mix

Rice flour,to roll

to sprinkle:
1/3 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Cardamom powder

Method:

Grind sugar with the cardamom powder to a very fine powder and keep it ready.
Take chiroti rawa in a wide bowl and add ghee and salt to it and mix it with finger tips.Add enough water and knead it into a stiff dough which should be similar to poori dough.
Smear ghee on top of it and cover it with a lid and leave it aside for half an hour.

Take a very small gooseberry sized ball and roll it into a very thin roti of 8" diameter,almost as thin as a papad. Sprinkle rice flour while rolling which makes it quite easy to roll.This is very important step,roll it as thin as possible.
Fold the roti into half and press on the four points as shown in the figure below using a fore finger.This will make sure that it does not open up while frying.Fold it again at the center to get a triangular shapes puri.(I have used old set of photos which I used to prepare Paal Poli,hence the final fold is not shown in the picture,but you can get an idea by seeing the final product )

Roll all the happalas(puris) and spread them separately on a plate or paper.They do not take much time to fry and that is why you need to roll everything before you actually start frying.
Heat oil in a kadai(big enough) to fry the happalas, add one happala(puri) at a time and deep fry on low-medium flame until they are crisp on both sides.drain them into a colander.
Leave them for 2-3 mins and arrange them individually on a wide plate and sprinkle ground sugar powder liberally on the fried puris/polis on both the sides of the poli.
Once they are cool store them carefully in a air-tight container.They stay good and crispy for 10-15 days.

Notes:

Chiroti rava is a very finer variety of rava(sooji) which is usually used in making Holiges.The polis which are made up of chiroti rava are more crispier and tastier.If you do not get access to chiroti rawa you can even grind the regular to a fine powder and use in the recipe or replace with maida,but they would not be as crispier and tastier as the ones made with chiroti rava.One can even make the happalas with 1:1 proportion of chiroti rava and maida to make happalas.
These polis can be served with Gasgase Payasa and in that case you don't need to sprinkle sugar powder on top of it.

Technorati Tags: sugar poli, easy navaratri sweets, easy poli recipes, chakkara rekulu ,navaratri neivedyam recipes ,sweet poli

Til Poli | Ellu Holige | Nuvvula Bobbatlu | Sesame Holige

Holige is one of the most favorite sweets in our family and gets featured quite often either on a festival day or we get to eat it when we attend family functions.There are various varieties of Holige and the most popular among them is Pappu Obbattu(Bele Holige) which is our typical community special as the stuffing is made up of toor dal and jaggery and also Coconut Holige. Pappu Obbattu(Bele Holige) has shorter shelf life and has to be consumed in 2-3 days where as Coconut Holige has longer shelf and can be stored upto a week.

Ellu Holige and Shenga Holige(Groundnut Holige) are North Karnataka specialties and they can also be stored up to a week. These holiges are slightly crispy and soft to bite when they are hot but becomes slightly hard when sits for long, but if you reheat the holige on tawa it turns soft. Try this Ellu Holige recipe for the upcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival.The filling can be prepared even on the previous day so that it would be easy for you to prepare holiges on the festival day.

In Maharasthra Tilgul Poli is prepared during Sankranti, but that version is slightly different as they use a combination of ingredients like groundnuts,sesame seeds,besan,dry coconut and jaggery for filling which tastes delicious and I would post that version some time later.

Check out other Holige Recipes here:

Sesame Holige | Ellu Holige | Til Poli Recipe
Yields: 9-10 Polis

Prep time: 30 mins | Cooking time: 30 mins | Total time: 1hr + 1 hr resting time

Cuisine: South Indian | Category: Sweets/Festival Sweets

Ingredients:

Ghee/oil, to fry poli/holige

for outer layer/dough:

1 cup Maida or Chiroti rava

a pinch of Salt

1 1/2 tsp ghee, melted

1/3 cup Oil, to soak the dough

Water, to mix the dough

for filling:

1 1/4 cup Sesame seeds

1 cup grated Jaggery

Method:

for outer layer/Dough:

Mix flour(maida) or chiroti rawa with a pinch of salt and ghee and add water to it and knead in to a very smooth dough. The consistency of the dough should be very loose than the regular roti dough, this is the most important step otherwise you will not get softer polis.You can add a pinch of turmeric powder to the dough if you want.
Now using your fist hit the dough for few mins to get the softer dough or lift the dough and drop it hard into the bowl and repeat it until the dough becomes very smooth.
Now place this dough in a deep vessel and pour oil over it until the dough is completely soaked in oil. Let the dough rest for a minimum of 1 hr and upto 2 hrs. Drain the excess oil and use it for other purpose.

for the filling:

Dry roast sesame seeds until they turn slightly brown and starts to pop up in the pan.
Grind roasted sesame seeds to a powder in the mixie and then add grated jaggery to it and run it again to get a uniform mixture. The mixture might become sticky which is fine.
Store it in air tight container.Make this on the previous day itself to ease up the process on the festival day.

to prepare Ellu Poli:

Cut the holige paper into a round and place it on the rolling stone which we use to roll rotis. Grease holige paper or banana leaf with oil.
Pinch a small amla sized dough(the amount of dough should be half the quantity of the filling you take) and flatten it a bit using your hands as shown in the pics and place one ball of filling and seal it properly from all the edges like how we do for parathas. Now flatten it slowly with hands to get 5" diameter circle. Alternatively you can roll it like parathas like how we do in between two greased transparent sheets. Adapt the method which ever is convenient for you

.
Now place the holige paper along with the poli(with poli facing down the tawa)on a hot tawa over the low flame.
Let it sit for 20-30 seconds and now peel the holige paper gently scraping it along the edges using a spatula. See the pics to get a clear understanding of it.
Now fry it on both sides applying ghee until light golden in color. Pour the ghee over it, do not try to spread ghee over the poli while frying it. Do not fry it for long time, it will make the polis bit hard so quickly remove it from stove when you get to see the brown patches on it.
Repeat the process for making all polis, smear the holige paper liberally with oil and follow the same procedure.

Serve the Ellu holige warm or hot with melted ghee.

Notes:

These holiges can be stored upto a week.They turn slightly crispy and hard when it cools down, you can reheat them on tawa before serving for soft holiges.
You can replace sesame seeds with groundnuts and follow the recipe to make palli obbattu,even it tastes delicious.
You can add 1/4 tsp cardamom powder to the sesame filling, but I prefer without it.

Technorati Tags: sesame holige, nuvvula obbatu, nuvvula bobbatlu, nuvvu purnam bakshalu, til poli, tilgul poli, gulpoli, easy holige recipes, how to make bobbatlu ,til holige ,ellu holige recipe

Rajma Sundal | Navaratri Sundal Recipes

Happy Navratri to all!!

Yesterday was the first day of Navaratri and we offered Rajma sundal as prashad and I am here to share the same in my space.One can prepare various varieties Check out the various Navaratri recipes here for various sundal, kheer, snack and rice varieties.

We always make a variety of sundal for any festival as it not only adds the number of items to the menu but also it is very easy to prepare and an absolutely guilt free snack to compensate the extra calories from the fried stuff and sweets made on festivals.Hubby is a big fan of sundal especially when made with kala chana,so I end up making Kala Chana Sundal more often compared to other sundals.It is a perfect guilt free snack which can be served as a snack or as a side dish in lunch or breakfast.
Check out other Sundal Varieties in my blog here:

Rajma Sundal | Kidney Bean Sundal Recipe:

Serves: 3-4

Prep time:10 mins | Cooking time:40 mins | Total time:50 mins

Cuisine: South Indian | Category: Snacks

Ingredients:
1 cup Kidney Beans (Rajma)
1/4 cup grated/chopped fresh Coconut
3-4 Green chillies,sliced
1/2" Ginger

juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt to taste

to temper:
1 tsp Urad dal
1-2 Red chillies,broken
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
a sprig of Curry leaves
a pinch of Asafoetida(hing)
1 tbsp Oil

Method:

Soak rajma overnight or at least for 8-9 hrs and clean them again for 3-4 times with fresh changes of water.
Grind grated/chopped coconut,ginger and green chillies to a coarse paste in whipper mode.

Pressure cook Rajma for 5-6 whistles until soft,I generally pressure cook for 2 whistles and cook on low flame for 5-6 mins for making sundal.The rajma should be cooked soft but should holds its shape and it should not be either hard or mushy. You can add salt while cooking rajma or add it at the time of tempering.
Drain the rajma and keep it aside,you can use this drained water to make healthy rasam.

Heat oil in a kadai and crackle mustard seeds and add urad dal and red chillies and let them turn slight brown.
Add hing,curry leaves and ground coconut-green chilli-ginger paste and fry it for a minute.

Add cooked and drained rajma and required amount of salt and mix well and cook it on low flame for 2 mins.Do not fry them for long as it makes the sundal very dry.
Switch off the flame and add lemon juice and mix well.

Serve them hot,warm or cold as a snack or with lunch.

Variations:

You can replace rajma with kala chana, white chickpeas,lobia,green gram,yellow peas or chana dal for variation or you can even use mix of these legumes to make variety sundal.
You can even add coriander leaves in the end.
If you want softer sundal add 2-3 tbsp reserved water(drained from rajma) after you add rajma to the tempering and cook till soft and water dries off.Add ground mixture and salt later and fry for 2 mins.
Use light Red color variety rajma for this, do not use rajma in deep red color or black color as it does not cook properly.

Technorati Tags: rajma sundal, sundal recipes for navratri, sundal recipes, kidney beans recipes, sundal varieties, legumes

Navaratri Recipes 2014 | Navratri Vrat Recipes

Navaratri will be celebrated from 25th sept- 3th October. Navratri festival is celebrated for nine days worshiping Durga devi in different forms on each day and on the 10th day Vijayadashami is celebrated.This festival is celebrated in most of the states in India in various forms. Dasara is celebrated in a grand manner especially in cities like Mysore and Calcutta.While in North,a fast is observed on those days and also celebrated with garba and dandiya where as in South,many people celebrate the festival by keeping Golu(an array of Idols) and pooja is performed on those 9 days inviting many ladies for haldi-kumkum.Various varieties of sundal and kheer varieties are prepared on those 9 days during Navratri to offer to the people who visit the Golu. We make a traditional sweet like holige or any thing equivalent on the first day and last day of Navratri and a simple sundal and kheer variety during the other days.I am compiling few recipes at one place which are ideally prepared in south Indian homes during Navratri for Pooja.I would have preferred to do a pictorial index but the list was so long that I went with the simple recipe index.I hope it is useful for you.Happy Navaratri to all !!

NAVARATRI RECIPES - SOUTH INDIAN:

Sundal varieties:

Vada/Snack varieties:

Traditional Sweet Varieties:

Kheer/Payasam Varieties:

Rice Varieties:

NAVRATRI VRAT RECIPES - NORTH INDIAN:

Navratri Vrat Recipes:

Sweets:

Beverages:

Snacks:

Sabudana Thalipeeth
Sabudana Tikki | Sabudana Cutlets
Sabudana Khichdi - Maharastrian style
Sabudhana Upma/Saggubiyyam Upma(with out onions)
Spicy Phool Makhana | Roasted Lotus Seeds
Aloo Jeera
Fruit Cocktail Sticks
Fruit Chaat | Cut Fruits | Fruit Salad
Sago Chiwda | Puffed Sago Snack
Alu Fry | Potato Fry - omit garlic in the recipe
Groundnut Sundal/Peanut Sundal

Payasam Recipes | Kheer Varieties | Festival Payasam Recipes

As the festive season is in full swing, its time when various kinds of Paysam/Kheer varieties are prepared as an offering to the God. No festival is complete without a Payasam. Payasam can be prepared with various ingredients such as Samiya, Sago, Suji, Rice, whole grains, various dals like Moong Dal,Chana Dal and vegetables like Carrot, Pumpkin, Bottle gourd and fruits like mangoes, tadgola, orange etc. I have compiled a list of Payasam recipes which we usually prepare at home. Plan to keep updating this list as and when I prepare more varieties. In case you have any specific requests for any Payasam variety , do leave a comment - will try posting that in the future. You can try preparing a few of the below during the 9 day Navratri festival. For accessing the complete list of Navratri recipes check out the post here.