Vegetarian Thai Red Curry

          Another cuisine that I like is the Thai Cuisine, though, being a vegetarian, I can taste only very few dishes, I love their Red Curry, Green Curry and Pad Thai. We can make these curries at home, we get readymade Red Curry and Green Curry Paste, but, for today I have made the red curry paste from scratch. Apart from the spices that we use in the Indian kitchen, there are a few ingredients that are unique to this curry, lemon grass, galangal, kafir lime leaves and basil leaves. I got the lemon grass and basil leaves, but was unlucky with the galangal and kafir lime leaves, but I replaced them with ginger and grated lemon zest respectively. The curry turned out awesome and tasted very good with plain rice..

Poori Urulaikizhangu Masala, Potato Curry

          Poori Urulaikizhangu, whenever I make pooris ( which is not often ), this is the side dish that I make with it. Though we can serve pooris with chana masala and kurmas, in my house this is a favorite. This is an easy dish, the flavors are very simple and there is not much oil or cream or coconut in this dish, so it's light and delicious with the deep fried pooris..

Fluffy Pooris ( Puris )

          It has taken me so long ( more than 3 years ) to post these pooris/puris, though I make rotis/chappathis every other day, I make pooris very rarely, also, till now, I never got a chance to take pictures. Making perfect pooris might be a little hard for a beginner ( I have also been one ), they might turn out flat and crispy. The key to getting soft and fluffy pooris is in preparing the dough correctly and then rolling them, not too thin, of course, all this comes with practice..

Vendakkai Podi Curry, Bhindi, Okra Curry

          Today's dish is another Vendakkai/Bhindi/Okra curry, slightly different from the regular stir fry. Whenever I made vendakka curry, I used to feel that a little tanginess would make the curry more tastier, so sometimes I add some chopped tomatoes at the end. But this time, I wanted to use some tamarind and also to make the curry more interesting, I made a spice powder along with some coconut and tamarind. This curry goes very well with rice and sambar or dal..

Rava ( Semolina, Sooji ) Idlis

          I had made Rava Idlis from scratch, many years ago and after that, whenever I made it, I used the readymade mix only, but doing Rava Idlis from scratch had always been on my do list. And finally, I did it recently, not once but twice, both the times it came out very well, so from now onwards, no more readymade mix. These idlis can be made instantly, no fermentation, just need some curd and Eno/fruit salt to do the work. I was totally happy with the result, the texture of the idlis was perfect, they were soft and tasted delicious..

Bottle Gourd ( Sorakkai, Lauki ) Soup

         
          Today's post is Bottle Gourd/Sorakkai/Lauki Soup, another simple and delicious recipe from my friend. This soup is so easy to make, just needs a couple of ingredients and can be done in under 30 minutes, that includes the time taken to open the pressure pan ( waiting for the pressure to be released completely ). I have used some Italian seasoning and pepper which gives a wonderful flavor to this soup..

Cholar Dal, Bengali Style Chana Dal ( Lentils )

          Though Bengali cuisine is more famous for non-vegetarian dishes, especially fish, there are still many vegetarian dishes that we can try, and I really liked the few dishes that I had a chance to taste at a restaurant here. Today's dish is one of them, Cholar Dal, it's chana dal cooked in Bengali style, this dal has a slight sweet taste from the raisins and sugar added, it's not very spicy and has a nice flavor from the ghee and coconut pieces and goes really well with luchis..

Eggplant And Coriander Curry

         
          For the month of February, I was paired with Lakshmi Vimala for the ' Shhhh Cooking Secretly' event, she had given me eggplant and coriander leaves as the secret ingredients. I came up with this curry with the two ingredients, I made a masala with the coriander leaves and cooked the eggplants in it. It turned out to be very flavorful, and tasted very good with both rotis and rice..

Saamai ( Little Millet ) And Vegetable Upma

           This is my 500th post, it took me more than 3 years to do this, with my laziness, I can't believe that I have done so many posts. Actually I should have celebrated it with something sweet, but I noticed it only now, Well then, coming to today's post, Millet Upma, I have started including millets in our diet at least 2 or 3 times in a week, mostly I use it in the place of rice, in idlis, dosas, pongal and pilafs. I made this upma, some time back, I have used saamai/little millet and I have made it slightly different from the regular upma. The upma was very flavorful and colorful from the different vegetables and was very filling too. We can serve it either with coconut chutney or even with yoghurt/curd..