Last week when i decided to make paratha, I didn't have green chili in the fridge so I decided to use the sweet bell pepper instead. When I minced it in the mixer, the idea suddenly came to me to use mutter as well and make this tasty mixture. When the parathas were done and we tasted it right away it was tasty and crispy. But when we actually sat down for lunch, that's when the parathas had cooled down a bit and they had started to get soggy and somewhere too difficult to eat without creating mess. So in the evening I used the remaining mixture on the bread along with some tomatoes and cucumber and it made perfect sandwich. The taste of spread comes out better too. So I think this one definitely works better as spread on bread, burgers or as side chutneys than paratha stuffing.


Ingredients
2 Cup Muttor
1 Sweet Bell Pepper
1 Lemon
4 Garlic Cloves
Handful of the Corriander Leaves
1 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Salt to taste

Method

• Squize lemon juice in the mixie.
• Add in chopped sweet bell pepper, garlic, salt and coriander leaves and make a smooth paste.
• Add in muttor, red chilli powder, coriander powder and make fine paste in the mixer.

Notes
I used frozen peas without thawing them but fresh peas could be used too.
We had this one as one of the chutneys for burger breads when we barbequed and everyone loved it.

The first time i ate guacamole at Chipotle, i fell in love with it.. Then i searched for recipes and came up with this perfect one. Tasted awesome and finished in few minutes :)


Ingredients
3 Avocados
2 Spoon finely chopped Onion
1 Spoon finely chopped Tomato
1/4 Spoon finely chopped Green Chili
1 Garlic Clove
Handful of Coriander Leaves
1 big Lemon
Salt to taste

Method

• Scoop out avocado and dice them in the bowl.
• Add in onion, tomato, green chili
• Add in finely chopped garlic clove and coriander leaves.
• Add in Lemon juice and salt to taste.
• Mix well, smashing it a bit and serve

Notes
I didn't smash the avocados completely so that i could get pieces of it while eating.
Consume quickly as otherwise avocados would turn brown as they are high in iron contents.

A must have dip for Chicken Satay, I had to make this. Especially for Ajoy as he is such a fan of this sauce that he sometimes asks for it in Chinese restaurant too :) forgetting that he is in Chinese restaurant instead of Thai :)


Ingredients
1 Cup Peanuts
2 Spoon Brown Sugar
1/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
2 Spoon Soya Sauce
1 Spoon Oil
1 Garlic Clove
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
Salt to taste

Method

• Dry roast the peanuts and let them cool
• Add peanuts, brown sugar, red chilli powder, soya sauce, oil, garlic clove, lemon juice and salt in a mixie and grind to sticky powder
• Add half cup of water and grind again till smooth paste

Notes
I had used double quantity of red chilli powder but it had become little extra hot so I have suggested only 1/4 spoon for red chilli. If you feel it is too mild for you try adding some more chilli while grinding

I read about this special chutney for the medu wada in the cookery book that I have and tried this. It tastes amazing with the wada obviously not as nice as sambar (wada sambar being my favourite). But I was in kind of wrapping up mode that time and hence didnt want to prepare sambar so this chutney made nice alternative.


Ingredients
1/2 Coconut
1/4 Cup Chana Daal
6 Green Chillies
1 Bunch Corriander
1/2 Cup Curd
1/2 Spoon Mustard
1/2 Spoon Udid Daal
A pinch of Asafoetida
1 Spoon of Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate coconut and grind it in mixie with green chillies, corriander leaves, chana daal(one used in chivadas) and salt.
• In this mixture mix curd
• In a small pan heat the oil and let mustard and udid daal splutter in it. Also add Asafoetida.
• Mix this oil into the chutney and serve.

Notes
I used coconut water itself while grinding coconut so that it tastes nice and i dont need to add sugar.
You can also add Red Chillies into the oil for even better taste but i didnt have it so had to skip that.

In hyderabad, there is restaurant called chutneys. They serve wide varieties of chutneys along with the main menu. So thats where I had this chutney and decided to prepare this simple chutney with my dosa.


Ingredients
1/2 Coconut
1.5 Spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• Grind the coconut, sugar and salt mixing with little water to get sweet chutney

Notes
Do not grate the coconut fully, otherwise the chutney will turn brown.

Ajoy had been asking me to prepare vada paav or batata wada since long time.. And I thought there is no better day to prepare this than his bday :) So here is what we had for our breakfast today morning.

Vada Paav


Ingredients
2 Potatoes
6 Paav
1/2 cup bason
1/2 Lemon
4 Green Chillies
1/4 spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 spoon Ginger Paste
A pinch of Eating Soda
1/4 spoon Mustard
1/2 spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 spoon Red Chilli Powder
Salt
Oil

Method

• Boil the potatoes
• Grind the green chillies, garlic paste, ginger paste to form fine paste
• Cut the potatoes into small pieces.
• Add the ground paste, lemon juice to it and mix well
• Heat little oil, add the mustard, let them sputter and then add the half of the turnmeric powder
• Add this oil to the potato mixture and mix well.
• Prepare 6 round and little flat balls out of this mixture.
• In a small vessel, mix bason, red chilli powder, remaining turmeric powder, eating soda and prepare thin batter
• Heat oil in a pan, add 2 spoon of heated oil to the batter
• Dip the potato ball in the batter and fry it in oil
• Cut the pav in half, put the garlic chutney and wada in it and serve hot

Notes
The batter coating on the potato vada shouldn't be thick otherwise the wada won't taste good. Mix more water if its too thick.
We are adding heated oil to the bason because that will make vada less oily.. Making use of soda instead of oil will make it very very oily.
Potato Vada can be served separately with sauce as well. (Without paav)

Garlic Chutney


Ingredients
1/2 Dried Coconut
10-12 pieces of Garlic
4 spoon Red Chilli powder
1-2 pieces of Tamarind
1/2 spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• Heat a pan and fry the grated coconut till golden brown in colour
• In a mixer, first grind garlic pieces, red chilli powder, sugar, salt
• Add the tamarind and grind again
• Now add the coconut and grind to fine powder

Notes
You can save this chutney for few days. It tastes nice with bhakari as well.

I prepare this chutney especially for chaat items. But it can be taken as a side dish during main course especially with parathas.


Ingredients
1/4 cup pudina leaves
1.5 cup corriander leaves
4-5 green chillies
1/2 tea spoon sugar
Salt

Method

• Add pudina leaves, corriander leaves, green chillies and couple of spoon of water to the mixie and grind
• Add sugar and salt to it and grind again for a while

Notes
In this chutney you can add little chaat masala and amchur powder, if you are going to serve it with parathas, it would taste delicious

Since we were kids, we all in our family loved this dish. And i can't believe that i didn't try it earlier.. But today when I tried it, it turned out as good as mom's mainly because i telephoned almost three four times to mom to ask all the details :)

Aappe


Ingredients
1/2 cup Udid daal
1/2 spoon harbar daal
3 cup idli rawa
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix harbara daal and udid daal and soak it for 12 hours
• Also soak idli rawa separately for 12 hours
• After 12 hours grind daal in a mixie removing water from it to get fine paste
• To this paste add idli rawa and again grind to get fine paste
• Keep aside this paste for 12 hours
• In the morning heat the aappe pan and add this mixture in it
• Cook both sides of the aappe on medium flame and serve hot with the coconut chutney

Notes
During winter days, it takes time for batter to be ferment in 12 hours, so boil water in a pot and keep pot containing the grinded paste on top of this pot.
Use non-stick aappe pot for better results, it doesn't even need oil. Other aappe pots needs oil and batter might stick to the pot resulting in a little mess.

Coconut Chutney


Ingredients
1/2 Coconut
Handfull of corriander leaves
4 spoon of chana
1 green chilli
1 tea spoon sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• In a mixie, add grated cocounut, corriander leaves, chana, green chilli, sugar and salt and grind it
• Add little water if required while grinding to get chutney

Notes
In this chutney, chana daal(without cover) is optional but it gives nice taste to the chutney

I had never prepared chicken biryani before so when i decided to cook it i did search a lot on internet. Also asked our maid for it so that i get to know how they cook it. And then i came up with this one which is outcome of my research.

Chicken Biryani


Ingredients
1/2 kg chicken
4 cups of rice
1 cup milk
1 cup curd
2 onions
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 tea spoon ginger paste
1/2 tea spoon garlic paste
3 spoon turmeric powder
3 spoon garam masala
3 spoon red chilli powder
2 spoon corriander powder
1 spoon cumin powder
1 spoon green cardamom powder
A pinch of Safron
Salt to taste
Oil
Method

• Heat oil in a pan and add finely chopped onion to it
• Once onion is reddish add tomato puree to it and cook well
• Add garlic paste, ginger paste, 1 spoon garam masala, 1 spoon turmertic powder, 1 spoon red chilli powder, 1 spoon corriander powder and 1/2 spoon cumin powder to it and stir well.
• Add curd and salt to it and cook for a while
• Add chicken pieces to this mixture and cook till gravy dries completely and oil separates out. Keep aside
• Mix 4 cups of rice, milk and safron and cook it
• In a heat little oil/ghee and add green cardamom powder to it
• Add remaining turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, corriander powder and cumin powder
• Mix cooked rice and salt and stir well
• In a cooker pot add a layer of this above prepared rice then cooked chicken pieaces and then remaining rice
• Let it cook on vapour for a minute or two
• Serve hot with the groundnut gravy and raita

Notes
I had been told to fry uncooked rice on ghee, add other masala items and then cook the rice but I prefered to it otherway that is to add masala after cooking rice as it gives nice aroma and taste to the rice.

Groundnut Gravy


Ingredients
1/2 cup Groundnut powder
2 Tomatoes
1 spoon garam masala
1 spoon turmeric powder
1 spoon red chilli powder
1 spoon corriander powder
1/2 spoon cumin powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Heat oil in a pan and add finely chopped tomato to it
• After tomatoes are cooked well(it becomes paste), add red chilli powder, corriander powder, cumin powder and garam masala
• Add groundnut powder and salt to it
• The miture will be like a dry chutney ball, let it cook for a while
• Add water to it and boil it to get the thick gravy

Notes
The above gravy is not too hot as I didn't have enough curd for raita, you can make it hot as per your taste

Tamarind chutney you can prepare and store for 2-3 weeks, so that you can use it on some chaat items, somosas etc.


Ingredients
3 spoon tamarind
8 spoon water
4 spoon jaggery
1 spoon red chilli powder
Salt to taste

Method

• Soak tamarind with water for few hours
• Grind tamarind, jaggery, red chilli powder, salt in a mixie to get thich chutney

Notes
I sometimes add 1 date piece to the tamarind while soaking to get richer taste

I always relished the pudina chutney served with tandoori chicken or kababs. This is my try and it turned out quite well..


Ingredients
1 cup punina leaves
2 spoon corriander leaves
2 cup curd
salt to taste

Method

• Grind the pundina leaves and corriander leaves in mixer
• It will form watery paste, filter to get the pudina water
• In a pot mix curd and salt
• Now mix the pudina water spoon full at a time till completely mixed

Notes
Use thickest possible curd as we are anyway adding pudina water so it will be little thinner anyways

When Seema was visiting us, I decided to cook Sabudana wada as i was sure she would like it.. And She actually loved it and asked for recipe as well :) The sabudana that day was soaked perfectly and hence wadas were kurkura as well :)

Sabudana Wada


Ingredients
1 cup Sabudana
1-2 medium sized potatoes
1 cup Groundnut powder (not too fine)
3-4 finely chopped green chillies
1 spoon jeera
1 tea spoon jeera powder
1 tea spoon coriander powder
1/4 cup corriander leaves finely chopped
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste
Oil/Ghee for frying

Method

• Wash and Soak sabudana for 3-4 hours with 1/4 cup of water.
• Boil or cook potatoes in cooker well enough so that they can be crushed to make a paste
• Mix potato crushed potato, soked sabudana, groundnut powder, finely chopped corriander leaves and green chillies, jeera, jeera and corriander powder, sugar and salt.
• Make small flat round wadas out of this mixture
• Fry them on medium flame. Make sure oil is well heated otherwise wada and oil both spoil.
• Serve hot with curd chutney :)

Notes
I normally soak sabudana overnight rather than just 3-4 hours as I can't get up in the morning at 4 :)
Quantity of water (1 cup sabudana and 1/4 cup water) is very important to get perfectly soaked sabudana. Earlier I didn't know about it and result was always random. Sometimes paste and sometimes too hard.
You can also try crushing green corriander leaves and green chillies in mixer. It gives nice colour to wada. I haven't tried this as yet.

Curd Chutney


Ingredients
1 cup curd
1/4 cup Groundnut powder
2 green chillies / 1 tea spoon red chilli powder
1 tea spoon jeera powder(optional)
1 tea spoon finely chopped corriander leaves (optional)
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix sugar and salt in curd and let it dissolve well
• Mix rest of the ingredients to form uniform mixture.

Notes
I don't use optional items as wada already has enough jeera and corriander.
Also I prefer red chilli powder over green chillies in the chutney

This chutney, i have learnt from ma - ajoy's mom. They prepare it quite often and it tastes owesome as a spread on the bread.


Ingredients
3-4 cups of corriander leaves
1 tomato
2 handsfull of fried groundnuts
1 greed chilli
Sugar
Salt

Method

• Add Corriander leaves, tomato, groundnuts, chilli, sugar and salt to taste into the mixer.
• Grind it to fine paste and thats it your chutney is ready

Notes
No need to add water as tomato, sugar and salt give enough of water for the spread