Health for life

Papdi or papris are small round shaped deep fried biscuitss made with ined white flour and oil, with ajwain or kalonji seeds to enchance the flavour.Papris are usually served in North Indian fast foods called chaat, papri chaat is quite famous street food in Mumbai and this dish is often eaten in streets. This papdi or papri are very important for making bhelpuri chaat.

Some people may use gram flour and wheat flour along with white flour for making these papdis, but nothing will beat the taste of papdis prepared with maida flour.In India, we can get easily these papdi from stores, but here in Paris its quite a hard task to get them, thats why i prepared these crispy biscuits at home also at the same time i prepared some green mint chutney and sweet tamarind chutney. These chutneys are the most  essential chutneys used in almost every chaats served in Chaat food shops.


1cup All purpose flour/Maida
1/2tsp Ajwain seeds
1/4tsp Kalonji/Onion seeds
Salt
Oil for kneading
Oil for deepfrying

Take the maida,oil for kneading,kalonji seeds, ajwain seeds and mix well.

Now slowly add the water and make a smooth sough,keep aside closed with damp cloth for 15minutes.

Knead well the dough again,pinch the dough as two portion, roll a portion as a large circle and with a round cookie cutter make out small thin circles. Prick it with forks.

Heat enough oil for deep frying, once the oil gets hot, slowly drop the circles and allow to cook.

Flip it and cook on both sides until they turns golden brown, fry in small batches and drain the excess of oil in a paper towel.

Store this papdi in an air tight box and use when needed.

Green Chutney/Mint Chutney:


1cup Mint leaves
1/2cup Coriander leaves
1/4cup Raw mango (grated)
1no Green chilly
Salt
1tsp Lemon juice
1/4tsp Sugar

Blend the mint leaves, coriander leaves,grated raw mango,green chilly with salt,sugar and lemon juice as smooth paste.

Store in an air tight container and serve as per need.

Sweet Tamarind Chutney:


1no Small orange sized tamarind deseeded)
1/2cup Seedless dates
3/4cup Jaggery
1/2tsp Red chilly powder
1/2tsp Cumin powder
Water
Salt

Soak small orange sized tamarind in 2cups of warm water and bring it to boil and put off the heat.

Blend together this tamarind paste and seedless dates as smooth paste.Strain it through a sieve.

Transfer this paste to a pan and cook in medium flame with jaggery,red chilly powder, cumin powder and salt until the chutney turns thick.

Once cool, store it in an air tight box and rigerate for further use.

If i make idlies or dosas for our dinner,my better half need atleast two side dish to enjoy his dinner, obviously ill try to make variety of chutneys. Sometimes ill break my head and everytime ill mix and match the ingredients according to my fridge eventhough my pantry will have always idly podi. One of my recent trial is this delicious chutney with a combination of three bellpeppers along with almonds.

This chutney will get ready in a jiffy, just saute the roughly chopped bellpeppers with few spices and almonds,grind it and your chutney is ready to enjoy with some soft idlies or crispy dosas.Today am starting my third week of blogging marathon with a fantastic theme, my theme for this week is cooking with capsicum as the main ingredient.Obviously my next two day posts for this weeks blogging marathon is going to be delicious dishes with capsicum. We enjoyed thoroughly this chutney with these crispy Soyabean Dosa.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#34.Sending to my own event Healthy Diet-Vegetarian Side dish guest hosted by Nandoos..

Am running my third week of blogging marathon from today onwards, and the theme of this week is Chose an ingredient and cook from different cookbooks. If you are living in abroad especially in European coutries,you dont have that much chance to get Indian cookbooks from our nearby libraries, the only way to get your cookbooks is either you have to order them through online or else ask your family from India to send them. But fortunately i have never bought my Indian cookbooks till now this way, in my previous post i have told that i have won a bunch of cookbooks through many food events in this blogsphere.Am quite happy with this decent number of cookbooks and i really want to cook from them, thats the reason i chosed this theme.

This theme was quite tough and really challenging, thank god my cookbooks rescued me and i chosed coconut as the main ingredient and cooked from three different cookbooks. For the first day i chosed a basic Andhra style coconut chutney aka kobbarikaya pachchadi from Cooking at Home with Pedatha. I prepared this brown chutney last week and this pachchadi will definitely tickle your tastebuds.Seriously i loved learning this chutney through this cookbook which is quite new for me.With a mild tanginess and spiciness, this chutney is a pect pair for hot steaming idlies as well as for rice porridge. We just loved it..Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#26.


1cup Grated fresh coconut
1+1/2tbsp Thick tamarind pulp
Oil
Salt
1tsp Jaggery

1st tempering:
1tbsp Urad dal
1tsp Mustard seeds
1/4tsp Fenugreek seeds
8nos Dry red chillies
2nos Green chillies
Few curry leaves
2tbsp Coriander leaves
1tsp Asafoetida powder

2nd tempering:
1/2tsp Urad dal
1/4tsp Mustard seeds
1/4tsp Asafoetida powder

In a pan, heat enough oil and fry the urad dal from the 1st tempering until they turns golden, add the mustard seeds and fenugreek seed.

Add the dry red chillies and fry until they turns brown, now add in the remaining ingredients and put of the stove.

Grind this tempered spices with coconut,tamarind pulp,jaggery,salt into coarse paste, dont add water while grinding.

Heat the remaining oil, add all the spices from the 2nd tempering and fry until they turns brown, add this tempered spices immediately to the pachachadi.

Serve with any kind of dishes. 

South Indian cuisine have varieties of chutneys and i cant imagine having my breakfast dishes like idlies or dosas without chutneys. Obviously i do prepare variety for chutneys while i was searching for a different healthy chutney i came to know about this hurali aka horsegram chutney through one of my friend who lives in India, she told that one of her aunt who lives in Bangalore shared her an interesting chutney with horsegrams. Obviously i asked her for the recipe and she was kind enough to share her version of this chutney.

Since this chutney is well known in Karnataka,obviously it falls under the Regional foods. Also this dish name starts with H,so i prepared this chutney few months back to make a post for this long blogging marathon. Honestly i have fallen in love with this chutney, we enjoyed thoroughly with rice and dosas for our lunch and dinner. Horsegram have many nutritional value and this wonderful beans is very much advised to dieting peoples and very much good for diabetic persons.This chutney is a keeper and am preparing this dish quite often to add nutritious horsegrams in our diet.Sending to Srivallis Side dish Mela.


1/2cup Horsegram
1no Garlic pod
1tbspCoriander seeds
2no Dry red chillies
1tbsp Grated coconut
Salt to taste
Oil
1/4tsp Mustard seeds
1/2tsp Urad dal
Few curry leaves

Heat enough oil, roast the horsegram until a nice aroma comes from.

In the same pan, add the coriander seeds,dry red chillies and garlic flakes,roast for a while.

Grind together the roasted horsegram,roaste spices and grated coconut with enough water and salt.

Heat again enough oil,let splutters the mustard seeds,urad dal, curry leaves.

Add this tempered spices to the grounded chutney,give a mix.

Serve it with dosa or idli.



Logo courtesy : Preeti
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 32 );