Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich | Egg Sandwich Recipe | Sandwich Recipes

When I saw a lovely Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich recipe in Pinterest, I immediately pinned it to my Bookmarked Recipes board. Sandwiches are not mom-approved dinners for an Indian, I know. Or maybe it is for some of you but in my home, bread was bought when someone was sick, that someone mostly being my mom who doesn't want to cook or wants to serve some toast in the morning instead of the usual fare. Even during my school days, my tiffin box barely had sandwiches in them. It was usually idlis or mini dosas or maggi noodles with vegetables or even ghee-roasted bananas.

I, on the other hand, buy bread when I am lazy. And make sandwiches for dinner when I am super lazy. TH loves them though and I find them passable for dinner so it's sort of a win-somewhat win situation.

I generally make pretty standard mint chutney sandwiches or guacamole sandwiches but decided to kick it up a notch and try these Avocado Egg Salad Sandwiches. They were delicious, not to mention so flexible and customisable with pretty much whatever you have in hand.
You may also want to check out this Watercress Dal Recipe.

Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich | Egg Sandwich Recipe

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Makes 4 large sandwiches (serves 2)
Recipe inspired by: Honey What's Cooking

Ingredients:
3 eggs, hard boiled
A small bunch of fresh watercress leaves (or salad spinach)
2-3 stalks of fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
2-3 stalks of spring onions (or chives or scallions)
1 ripe avocado
A few drops of lemon or lime juice
2 tbsp of any salad dressing or mayonnaise
1 tsp of black pepper powder
1/4 tsp of salt (adjust to taste)
8 slices of bread, edges trimmed
2 tsp of mustard (or butter)

How to make Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich:

1. Wash the watercress leaves well and chop them fine. It's easy to find watercress in Singapore so I used that. if you can't, then use rocket leaves, fresh baby spinach, or any salad green you prefer.

2. Crumble the boiled eggs with a fork.

3. Add the avocado flesh, chopped watercress, coriander, spring onions, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

4. Add the mayo or salad dressing. I used caesar salad dressing.

5. Mix well again, adjust salad dressing or mayo to taste. You can even omit them if you like.

6. Add lemon juice to taste and mix again.

7. Trim the ends off your bread slices and add spread mustard on one side. This is optional, I happened to have some lying around and used it.

Assemble it, and done! We enjoyed this easy egg sandwich for dinner and ended the meal with a glass of milk each.

Do you have a favourite egg sandwich recipe you'd like to share? Leave a comment!

Yam Fry | Kerala Style Chena Fry | Yam Fry Recipe

Elephant Yam (Chena or Senai Kizhangu) is one of my absolute favourite vegetables. Amma makes this senai kizhangu varuval (chena mezhukkupuratti in Malayalam) quite regularly especially when I am at home and now my mom-in-law too makes it a point to make it each time we visit them too. Her version is a bit different which I will share soon.

When I was taking the pictures at home in Kottayam (which explains the great light and the real banana leaf in the picture!), amma insisted that I highlight the health benefits of Yam, especially for women, so here goes:

- Elephant yam is naturally high in fibre content and our diet needs to be high in fibre for easier bowel movement
- It is high in Omega 3 Fatty acids which helps reduce bad cholesterol in the body and improves good cholesterol levels
- Consuming elephant yam, especially in women, increases estrogen levels which aids in maintaining the hormonal balance and also with PMS
- Yam is a cooling food so ideal if consumed in summer. Roasting or frying it helps reduce the adverse effects of eating a food that's too cooling

There's a couple more benefits like minerals and all but let's get on with learning how to make yam fry, shall we?

Yam Fry Recipe | Chena Mezhukkupuratti

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serves 4
Recipe source: Amma

Ingredients for Yam Fry:
3 cups of Elephant yam, cut into small cubes
5-6 dry red chillies
2 strands of curry leaves
1 tsp of salt (adjust to taste)
1-2 cups of oil

How to make Yam Fry:

1. Boil the cubed yam pieces in salted water until the pieces are cooked yet firm. Don't let them get to a mush. This will take about 5 mins. Make sure you add enough salt at this stage since it's hard to adjust salt once the yam is frying. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan (there should be enough to cover the yam pieces so the amount of oil depends on the size of your kadai or pan).

3. Add the semi-cooked yam and fry until golden brown. When the yam is almost done, add the chillies torn into halves and the curry leaves.

4. Draining the yam from the oil will be a bit time consuming since they are small pieces so you can do what my mom does. She fries all the yam in one batch and once done, leaves the pan on a slanted surface and pushes the yam away from the oil and lets it collect over a period of time. Once done, gently transfer the yam from one side into another bowl.

This is a really easy recipe for yam fry that uses no masala or flavour except for the curry leaves. The yam has a beautiful flavour of its own and that will come out when roasted.

I love chena fry with moru kachiyathu or thakkali kuzhambu - pretty much any coconut-based gravies will taste great with it.

Masala Vadai Recipe | Paruppu Vadai | Parippu Vada Recipe

When it comes to vadai, I am a sucker for Masala Vada (or Parippu Vada) as we call it in Kerala. Chaayayum Parippu Vada-yum is a common reply if you ask someone "what's for tea?" It's also widely sold in trains along with Pazham Pori and if that's not a sure sign of a snack's popularity, I don't know what is.

I have made Masala Vadai using channa dal and it's crisp and delicious, no doubt, but nothing compares to making Paruppu Vadai with peas dal (or vada paruppu as it's called in Tamil Nadu). They smell and taste quite different from channa dal and toor dal and are definitely worth an extra trip to the supermarket, trust me.

Masala Vadai Recipe | Paruppu Vadai | Vada Recipe

Preparation time: 2 hours
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes 12 paruppu vadai
Recipe source: Amma

Ingredients for Masala Vadai:
1 cup of split peas dal (pattani paruppu, peas parippu, vadai paruppu)
2-3 dry red chillies, crushed (or 1 tsp red chilli flakes, or use green chillies)
1" piece of ginger, minced
6 of shallots, sliced
1 strand of curry leaves, torn into small pieces
1/4 tsp of hing (asafoetida, perungaayam)
1 tsp of salt (adjust to taste)
2 cups of oil, for deep frying

How to Make Masala Vadai:

1. Wash and soak the dal for 2 hours and drain in a colander for a few mins.

2. Reserve 2-3 tbsp of the dal and grind the rest into an almost smooth paste without adding any water. Add the reserved whole soaked dal to this.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients to this (except oil) and mix well uniformly.

4. Take a lime-sized ball of the mixture and make into a smooth ball (or as smooth as you can, because some of the shallots will stick out a bit and we don't want to have a fight with the shallots at this time, really).

5. Pat the dal ball into a flat disc of about 1/4" thickness. Repeat with the rest of the dal mixture and lay these discs on a plate.

6. Heat oil to almost-smoking point and gently add 2-3 of the vadai to it (depending on the size of your kadai, taking care not to overcrowd the vadai).

7. Fry until both sides turn golden brown.

8. Drain and set aside on a plate lined with a kitchen towel. Repeat with the rest of the shaped vada mixture.

The street vendors in Kerala generally sell paruppu vadai with a thick coconut chutney which is delicious so I made the same. This is totally optional but highly recommended.

Coconut Chutney for Masala Vada (or Medhu Vadai, for that matter)

Grind together: 1/2 cup coconut, 2 shallots, some ginger, 1 clove of garlic and one green chilly (ignore my shrivelled green chilly piece, that's all I had) with some salt and little sprinkling of water to a coarse chutney. You can also add a tiny piece of tamarind to this if you want.

I know that seemed like a lot of work but apart from soaking the dal for the vadai, there's really no hard work needed to make masala vadai. Otherwise, I wouldn't be making them, would I?

Serve the Paruppu Vada hot with some equally steaming hot Cardamom Tea and the spicy coconut chutney on a rainy day. I made these on a very rainy afternoon which explains the tone of my pictures. That worked out well, eh?

Masala vadai is my entry to MLLA November 2012 hosted by Briciole and conceptualised by Susan.

7 Easy Recipes for Karthigai Deepam (Karthikai) Festival

I am on an attempt to remember and document festival celebrations from my childhood and going by that, Karthigai Deepam has got to be the best and most colourful among them. Until I was 10, we lived in this sprawling L-shaped house that had a terrace as large as the house itself. Amma had a huge garden and the terrace had edges all along it's periphery. For Karthigai, we would start the preparations around 4pm and from what I remember, it was one of the most elaborate festivals we celebrated (although only Diwali warranted new clothes).

We had two maids at the time who would get fresh cow dung from the milk man down the road. They would then line the terrace walls and the compound wall with small pats of cow dung about a feet apart. One of us would then follow with the mud diyas which would, by the way, be brought out from storage that morning and aired in the sun. These are then placed on the cow dung so that as the cown dung dries, the diya is held firmly in place. Oil comes next and this is brought by appa (he had a provisions store back then) by the can - the cheap gingelly oil that's exclusively used for lighting lamps - and poured by the maids. My duty came next which was to line each of the diyas with the wick, the threaded kind bought by the dozens from the market. Once done lining the entire house (there would be close to 250 diyas by the time we are done), I would impatiently wait for dusk to fall because amma was very strict about when to start lighting them. 4-5 of us would start lighting the diyas from various points holding candles to each of the wicks, and in about 15 mins, our house would look gorgeous, the best it does all year. We would then all go out the gate, stand in a corner, and admire this blessing, this home that we all live in every day and take for granted.

Over 22 years later, these memories still linger very fresh in my mind and often when I have dreams of the old house, Karthigai and this routine we had plays a part.

Anyway, on to the food. Admittedly, I didn't remember what food was made for Karthigai back then because the lighting of the lamps was more of a focus than the food (again, unlike Diwali) so I asked amma last weekend when I spoke to her. She said we generally only make sugiyan and two types of vadai (medhu vadai and masala vadai) for Karthigai. A Tamilian friend of mine said that her mom invariably makes appam for Karthigai so I am including that in the list too.

Sorry for the rambling! I will move on to the recipes now.

7 Easy Recipes for Karthigai Deepam (Karthikai) Festival

Click on the images to go to the recipes

1. Medhu Vadai

2. Masala Vadai 

3. Keerai Vadai

4. Aval Vadai

5. Unniyappam

6. Nei Appam

7. Sugiyan

Karthigai Deepam 2012 is on November 28th this year and I wish everyone a wonderful year ahead filled with joy, light, and love.

Aloo Methi - Methi Aloo Recipe (Dry)-Potatoes with Fenugreek Leaves

I had some methi leaves left over after making Methi Pulao and decided to try Aloo Methi with it. I also had one fresh corn cob and decided to throw that in too. Nothing like bringing together some fresh vegetable wilting away in the fridge, eh?

I love making dry curries with aloo, especially using Russet potatoes. They cook very fast and turn almost creamy when they are done which tastes fantastic with both rotis and rice. Throw in some methi leaves for the bitterness and corn for the sweetness and you have a winner. I really resent Kerala not taking up to methi leaves more, imagine all the methi I could have eaten if I'd started young!
Other methi (fenugreek leaves) recipes you may wish to try - methi matar malai, methi thepla, methi pakoda, methi yogurt curry, methi sambar, methi dal, and this spiced methi paratha.

Aloo Methi-Methi Aloo Recipe

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients for Aloo Methi:
2 large potatoes
1 cup of packed methi leaves, picked off the stems and washed
6-8 shallots (chinna vengaayam, ulli)
1 tbsp of oil
1/4 tsp of black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp of crushed cumin seed (jeera)
1-2 tsp of coriander powder
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
2 tsp of red chilli powder (adjust to taste)
1/4 tsp of hing (asafoetida, perungaayam)
1 tsp of salt
1/3 cup of shaved or canned corn (optional)

How to make Aloo Methi:

1. Peel and cut the potatoes into bite-sized cubes. Shave the corn off the cob if using fresh corn (or if using at all). Slice the shallots or use an onion instead to make things quicker.

2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds.

3. When they start to pop, add the shallots, potatoes and corn. Stir well.

4. After 3-4 mins, add the methi leaves. Mix again and let it cook for another 2-3 mins, stirring occasionally.

5. Then add the cumin, coriander, chilli, and turmeric along with the hing. Mix well to combine. Cook on low heat for another 5-6 mins at which time the potatoes will turn soft.

6. Add salt. Mix and continue to cook until the potatoes are cooked through.

Serve hot with rice and rasam or rotis. I especially like dry sabzis with roti and curd, there's just something nice about that.

This particular night, we had hot aloo methi with coconut milk rasam, rice and microwaved appalam.

Chicken Thoran-Kozhi Thoran-How to Make Chicken Thoran

Chicken thoran is one of those dishes from my childhood that aatha (amma's amma used to make). It was not everyday fare because you need boneless pieces of chicken to make it and you need a lot to feed a family of 8.

Although generally thoran is a Kerala preparation (pretty much any vegetable can be made into thoran using grated coconut, shallots, cumin, and green/red chillies), I am led to believe this is a Reddiar recipe that first originated in Thirunelveli when the Reddiar community was concentrated there. Maybe they decided to call it thoran after moving to Kerala and being introduced to the concept.

Either ways, this is a delicious chicken recipe and very easy to make even for beginner cooks. If you want to check out more chicken recipes, my favourites are - chilli chicken dry, chicken iguru, pepper chicken masala, and chicken biryani.

Chicken Thoran - How to Make Chicken Thoran

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves 6-8
Recipe source: Amma

Ingredients:
500 gm of chicken, cleaned, deboned, and cut into small chunks
1 tbsp of butter
2 tsp of red chilli powder (adjust to taste)
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
2 strands of curry leaves
1 cup of grated coconut
3/4 cup of sliced shallots (chinna vengayam, ulli)
2 tsp of garlic-shallot paste (grind together some garlic and shallots)
1 tsp of salt (adjust to taste)
1 tbsp of oil
1 tsp of black mustard seeds
1 tsp of urad dal (ulutham paruppu, uzhunnu parippu)

How to Make Chicken Thoran:

1. We need to cook the chicken first so add the pieces to a pan.

The chicken pieces are cooked in butter and my mom being her true self, whipped up some fresh butter for the dish.

2. Add the butter and red chilli powder and turmeric to the chicken pieces.

3. Stir well and add the curry leaves.

4. Turn on heat to medium-low and cook stirring occasionally for about 10-15 mins until the chicken is cooked and the water it lets out has evaporated. If there's more water left, cook on high flame until it's all absorbed.

5. Meanwhile, get read with your sliced shallots, grated coconut, and shallot-garlic paste.

6. Remove the cooked chicken to a bowl and heat oil in the same pan. Add the mustard seeds and broken urad dal.

7. When the mustard pops and the dal turns golden, add the sliced ulli or shallots.

8. Fry until it turns golden and add the shallot-garlic paste. Fry for another few seconds.

9. Next, add the cooked chicken pieces to this along with salt. Mix well.

10. Finally, add the coconut, mix well and let the thoran simmer for 3-4 mins until the ingredients come together and there's no excess moisture left in the chicken thoran.

Done! This is a fabulous accompaniment to rice and vatha kuzhambu or rasam. In fact, pretty much any kuzhambu without coconut goes very well with it.

Huge thanks to amma's patience while I clicked the step by step chicken thoran pictures in her kitchen. I really got in the way ;)