Roasted Coriander Chutney Recipe - Kerala-Style Malli Chammanthi

This roasted coriander chutney or malli chammanthi is a favourite from my childhood. I have many memories of enjoying this chutney along with some flavoured rice - usually lemon rice - wrapped in banana leaves for an overnight train journey

I don't do guest posts very often simply because it's hard enough to manage my own blog and cook, click, download, edit, upload, compose, and publish 3-4 recipes in this here blog per week. But earlier this year, I found myself with a bunch of recipes that were all quite similar and photographed in a very similar manner and I took that chance to do a couple of guest posts for folks. Divya of Easy Cooking is more popular for her bakes and brownies but we have been in touch since the beginning of her our blogging days. She lives in Cochin and often posts Kerala recipes that make me terribly homesick.

So anyway, back to the roasted coriander chutney. This is more of a thuvayal than a chutney which means it goes better with rice and rasam / kuzhambu than tiffin items like dosa, idli. Use the freshest coconut that's available to you and your heart will sing with the simple flavours of the chutney. Paired with a simple instant tomato rasam, this is the best combination I can think of.

ROASTED CORIANDER CHUTNEY RECIPE (For Rice)

Ingredients:
Fresh grated coconut - 1 cup (frozen works if you don't have fresh coconut in hand)
Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp (or a bit more to taste)
Shallots / ulli - 3
Garlic - 1 clove
Red chillies - 1-2
Tamarind - one small piece
Coconut oil - 1 tsp (or any cooking oil)
Salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the coriander seeds
2. On low heat, roast them until the colour lightly changes and the seeds begin to turn fragrant
3. Add the shallots, garlic and red chillies. Roast for a few seconds until the shallots begin to char and the chillies turn shiny
4. Turn off the flame and add the coconut and tamarind. Stir well to combine
5. Grind to a smooth chutney consistency with salt. Don�t add water
6. Goes great with rice and rasam or lemon rice.

Chicken Fried Rice Recipe: Indian-Chinese Style Recipe

This is a quick chicken fried rice recipe that I tried at a friend's place almost a year back. We had vegetarians in the group so I made vegetable fried rice and some chicken fried rice to mix things up a bit. You can make a very quick chicken fried rice if you have cooked or boiled chicken in hand. I generally add a vegetable or two like I do for egg fried rice - carrots, beans and capsicum being favourites - but this is entirely optional.

The chicken fried rice from my childhood was almost always take-out or eaten out. I remember the delicious chicken fried rice at Anjali Hotel, one of our favourite and pretty much only nice restaurant back in the day in Kottayam. Their fried rice was almost white but had a lovely flavour. Since i add ketchup to mine, it does have a darker colour but this is my almost-perfected fried rice recipe which I absolutely love! This is very similar to my egg fried rice recipe, except that we need to saute the chicken before adding it to the rice. So let's go make some chicken fried rice, shall we?

To see how to make fried rice step by step, please check out the vegetable fried rice recipe post.

CHICKEN FRIED RICE RECIPE

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Serves 4-6
Recipe source: Amma

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of cooked rice (here's how to cook rice for fried rice)
• 1 cup of mixed vegetables, chopped fine (I used carrots and beans), optional
• 1 cup of cubed boneless chicken pieces, boiled for 10 mins
• 1 small bunch of celery stalks, chopped fine (discard the leaves)
• 1 small bunch of spring onions, chopped fine
• 2 tsp of soya sauce
• 1 tsp of green chilli sauce
• 2 tsp of tomato sauce or ketchup
• 1 tbsp of freshly minced ginger + garlic
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
• 1-2 tbsp of oil

How to Make Chicken Fried Rice:

0. Boil the cubed chicken pieces in water for about 10-12 mins until the flesh turns opaque and you are able to shred it to pieces. Mix this with 1 tsp pepper powder, some salt, and 1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste. Let marinate for for 10 mins and lightly saute in some oil. Drain and set aside.

1. Heat some more oil in the same pan and add the onions. Let them fry on medium heat until light golden brown, don't let them brown too much. Then, add the ginger + garlic and fry for 2 mins.

2. Add the finely chopped vegetables (if using) and celery and mix well. Cook for 2-3 mins until they wilt just a bit. Then add the soya sauce, tomato sauce, and green chilli sauce. Fry on high heat until the sauces bubble and reduce flame to medium-high, stirring constantly. Continue to stir-fry for another 2-3 mins. The vegetables should be cooked yet crunchy and not mushy or soft. If you are not using vegetables, you can skip to the next step after adding the sauces but I recommend adding atleast some carrots or capsicum to chicken fried rice to give it a more interesting look and flavour.

3. Add the cooked rice and chicken pieces and stir well to combine. Remove from fire, check for salt and add more if required. Add the pepper powder and spring onions and mix well. Pat down into a tight mound and keep partially covered for 30 mins before serving. 

Note: If you want to add some eggs to the chicken fried rice, scramble a couple eggs with salt and pepper and mix into the fried rice at the very end. This would make a pretty complete meal in itself and you don't need to go crazy making side dishes for your chicken fried rice.

If you do want side dish ideas for fried rice, may I suggest Gobi Manchurian, Szhechuan Eggplant, or Chilli Paneer?

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Lasagna Recipe - Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna Recipe

A vegetarian spinach and mushroom lasagna has been on my mind for ages now. Yes, I knew the lasagna had to have spinach and mushroom in it and be vegetarian since TH enjoys lasagna too so I can't be selfish with it. One of the major reasons for postponing the making of said lasagna is the fact that ricotta cheese is awfully hard to find in Singapore. It's available in select supermarkets across the island but mostly the ones near the city. Since I do all my cooking for the blog over weekends and usually grocery shopping happens on a Friday evening, this was hard. I bought milk thinking I'll make ricotta cheese at home but that didn't end up happening either.

But, I made it happen one weekend. I made TH trudge along with me all the way to the Cold Storage in Great World City Mall and I bought a tub of ricotta. I had all other ingredients for my spinach mushroom lasagna so, yay! Of course, you can skip the mushrooms if you don't like them, make a mixed vegetable lasagna with zucchini, eggplant, capsicum, etc. The choices and creative flexibility for a lasagna is quite endless.

Now, the thing with making a lasagna is, you do need a bunch of ingredients. But it's more assembly and baking than actually cooking so it's not as time-consuming as you'd think. Being Indian and primarily cooking Indian food, I found it amazing that I could pull some ingredients together, layer then in a baking tray, stick the tray in the oven, and chill by the TV while my dinner got cooked. Try it, it's amazing!

The leftover lasagna freezes well (if you don't want to eat it two days in a row - otherwise just refrigerate and re-heat the next day) and you can pull it out on one of those days you don't feel like cooking. Win!

This Golden Onion Mushroom Quiche is another great and easy recipe you can try.

VEGETARIAN SPINACH MUSHROOM LASAGNA RECIPE

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 6 lasagna sheets
• 1 bunch of spinach
• 12 button mushrooms
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese
• 3/4 cup of grated mozarella + cheddar (or use pizza cheese)
• 1.5 cups of canned tomato sauce (use pizza or pasta sauce for a different flavour)
• 1 of onion, sliced
• 1 tsp of dried herbs like basil, chives, oregano, or a mix
• 2 tsp of olive oil

How to Make Mushroom Spinach Lasagna:

1. Cook the lasagna sheets according to the packet instructions and set aside.

2. Heat the oil and add the sliced onion and garlic.

Saute until soft and then add the mushrooms...

... and spinach

Add some salt and cook until the water given out by the vegetables is absorbed and they are cooked. Set aside.

3. Mix the dried herbs and some salt with the ricotta.

4. Take our your baking tray - you can use metal or glass but I recommend glass. I used my pyrex rectangular baking/storage tray which also has a lid for easy storing later. Add a few drops of oil in the tray and spread evenly. Spread about 1/4 cup tomato sauce at the bottom evenly.

5. Lay two cooked lasagna sheets over the sauce. You may need more or less depending on the size of your lasagna sheets and your tray. It's okay if they overlap a bit but no gaps please.

6. Spread half the ricotta cheese mixture over this evenly

7. Top it off with the cooked mushroom spinach mixture.

8. Lay more lasagana sheets over this. You can add the tomato sauce over the lasagne sheets this time and proceed with the rest of the layers.

9. I did a total of 2 layers, ending with the lasagne sheets. So I spread the remaining tomato sauce over this and added the mozzarella cheddar mixture on top. Thrown in some dried herbs and pepper over this too.

10. Cover the tray with aluminium foil and bake in a 180C / 350F oven for 30 mins. Then, remove the foil and bake for a further 10 mins. The cheese on top will bubble up nicely and the edges will start to curl away slightly from the tray. Remove and let cool down a bit before you slice it. Serve hot.

Cabbage Thoran Recipe - Kerala Cabbage Thoran with Coconut for Onam Sadya

Cabbage Thoran, or rather, Thoran in general, is an everyday dry curry for rice made in Kerala using any vegetable of choice, grated coconut, shallots, cumin, and chillies or chilli powder. Thoran is a mild and very lightly spiced with the flavours of the vegetables shining through. In northern Kerala, thoran is referred to as upperi but to us, upperi refers to the Kerala Banana Chips.

When we were newly-weds, it used to irk me that TH refers to every vegetable side dish as "curry". So he'd call Cabbage Thoran cabbage curry! I would keep correcting him and finally he can recognise a thoran. Mission accomplished! To balance our tastes, I always add lesser coconut in a thoran than what someone living in Kerala or has access to lots and lots of fresh coconut would. Even then, Thoran is soul-food for me, and I love cooking up different versions depending on the vegetables in hand.

Cabbage Thoran is a pretty standard dish in any Kerala Sadya Recipe List since it's easy to make and goes well with the Parippu Curry and Kerala Sambar served at a Sadya. Also, if you are someone who dreads the nasty smell of cooking cabbage, fear not. The shallots and cumin seeds in thoran make it go away completely. Trust me on this.

Amma cooks certain types of thoran in a very no-hassle way. Just mix up all the ingredients, add it to the kadai and sort of steam cook it until done. You can leave the thoran to cook and go about the rest of your cooking for the day. We also cook Raw Papaya Thoran in a similar way. Also, here's the recipe for Tamil-Style Cabbage Poriyal, which is made slightly differently.

CABBAGE THORAN RECIPE

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 4 as a side
Recipe source: Amma

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of finely shredded cabbage (I use one of my fave kitchen gadgets for this)
• 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
• 2 green chillies, chopped
• 4-5 of shallots, ulli - chopped fine
• 1/2 cup of grated coconut
• 3/4 tsp of cumin seeds, jeera, slightly crushed
• A few of curry leaves, roughtly torn
• 2 tsp of coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp of black mustard seeds

How to Make Cabbage Thoran:

1. In a wide bowl or plate, mix the cabbage, turmeric, curry leaves, shallots, cumin, coconut, and salt. Let it sit for 5 mins - the cabbage will let out some water.

2. Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds. The bubbles are because of the coconut oil.

3. When they pop, add the cabbage mixture and stir well to coat the oil and the ingredients well. Pat down tightly and close the pan. Cook on very low heat for 12-15 mins. You can check in between to make sure that the bottom is not getting burned but if you keep the flame super low, you should be fine.

4. Uncover, stir through to make sure the cabbage is cooked (if not, cook for a while longer) and adjust salt if required.

That's it. No-fuss, hands-free Cabbage Thoran is ready!