Nisha and Nishanth's Culinary Debacles

Parippu Vada's remind me of my time back in MCA when friends would get parippu vada's when studying late in the evening for exams. I finally got around to trying to make them and according to Nishanth, it was quite decent. http://www.mariasmenu.com/vegetarian/parippu-vada-lentildal-fritters It did not turn out to be spicy, and it could do with more green chillies if you like a bit of spice in the vadas. I decided to skip the saunf too.

I had soaked some black chick peas and decided to try out the Kerala style kadala curry. I tried the following recipe out: http://www.sailusfood.com/2012/12/31/kadala-curry/ Nishanth liked the curry although it wasn't as spicy. The addition of fennel and coconut milk gives it an interesting twist.

I bought the Idiyyapam press from the Indian Supermarket, Irving. There's a photo out there of something similar to what i bought and the attachment used for the Idiyappam. http://www.flickr.com/photos/38480170@N08/4601744052/ I followed the following recipe for idiyaappam and served it with either vegetable kurma or egg curry: http://dailygirlblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/idiyappam-rice-noodles.html The following youtube video also helps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duAz8PGXhOU

This is a kerala recipe that my mother in law sent me. I tried it out the other day and it came out pretty ok. Ingredients: 1. 1 large raw banana or 2 small raw bananas 2. 1/2 shredded coconut ( can get the frozen shredded coconut which would be around 1 cup coconut) 3. Yam or cucumber (optional) apparently kalan can be made only with raw banana or cucumber or yam or a mixture of these 3 4. 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 5. Salt to taste 6. 1/2 tsp chilli powder 7. 2 green chillies 8. 1/4 tsp jeera 9. 2 cups sour curd. 10. 1 tsp oil 11. 4 curry leaves 12. 1/2 tsp mustard seeds Method: 1. Cut the banana, yam and cucumber into small 1 inch square pieces. Boil these in 1 cup water along with the salt, turmeric powder and red chilli powder until soft. In the pressure cooker it requires 1 to 2 whistles. 2. Grind the coconut along with 2 green chillies and jeera 3. Make a puree of the curd 4. Add the curd to the boiled vegetables and boil until the mixture thickens (reduces t...

New year debacles: a) plan of cooking chicken fried rice never worked out!!! One cool recipe we found was here: http://mydhaba.blogspot.com/2005/07/chicken-fried-rice-chinese-style-with.html b) found a cool mallu blogger link here: http://malluspice.blogspot.com/ -> gotta try beef fry some day soon..

Indian Doc's http://isouthpotpourri.blogspot.com/2006/08/malabar-koyi-biriyanimalabar-chicken.html was just awesome.. some thing on for christmas I guess.. :) with all the drizzlling in Dallas today, it looks just delicious. No biriyani tastes better than Calicut Chicken Biriyani. worth the pain at the end of it..