Air fryer Masala peanuts

Hunger and distance from home are directly proportional, in my opinion. The moment you step out of home, you tend to feel hungry and that feeling intensifies with the distance that you travel away from home. When there are kids in the picture, then hunger tends to be of specific kinds - like hunger for potato chips, thirst for soda/juice and so on. 

Whenever we travel, I try to pack some home made snacks that we can munch on whenever we feel like it. One of the recent snacks that I tried making in a relatively oil free and healthy manner is this masala peanut which was well received by the kid and the rest of the family.

What you need:

Shelled Peanuts - 1 cup

Chick pea flour/besan/gram flour - 1 tbsp.

Rice flour - 2 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Oil - 1 tsp

Water

In a bowl, mix the flours, chilli powder and salt. Add water, a little at a time, to make a thick paste. Add the oil to this and mix well. Add in the peanuts and mix well, making sure that the peanuts are coated well with the masala mixture.

Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees farenheit. 

Arrange the peanuts in a single layer, separating them out as much as possible in the fryer basket. Air fry for 4 minutes. Stir the peanuts and heat for a further two minutes. 

Remove and let cool. The peanuts will become more crisp as they cool.

Once completely cooled, store in an air tight container. These will stay good for 3-4 days at room temperature.

This is my entry to Blogging Marathon under the theme Kids' delight - Travel food.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#86.

This also goes to  Srivalli's Kids' Delight event guest hosted this month, by me, on the theme Travel Food.

Poha cutlet - an air fryer recipe

The air fryer, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, is the latest addition to my kitchen. Ever since we bought it, we've been trying out various dishes in it. In most cases, we've been able to replicate the taste of the non-air fryer version of the dish and are overall, quite satisfied with the purchase. These cutlets are something that I've never tried before buying the air fryer and so, I do not have anything to compare it with. However, the air fryer version turned out nicely browned and crisp and tasted really good. It is kid approved as well and quite a few were polished off by the kid, despite the fact that she doesn't usually like poha.

What you need:
Rice flakes/poha/aval - 1 cup
Gram flour/Besan - 1/3 cup
Green chilli - 2, minced
Ginger - a small piece, julienned
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1/2 tsp
Curd - as required
Salt
Coriander - 1 tbsp, chopped fine
Groundnuts - 1/4 cup, coarsely ground

Take the rice flakes in a fine mesh colander and run cold water over it. Leave this aside to drain. I used thin poha, which only needed to be washed. If you use thick poha you may need to soak it for a few minutes and then drain it.
In a pan, dry roast the gram flour over a low flame until it turns aromatic.
Mix all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Add curd, a teaspoon at a time and mix, until you have a stiff dough. Make small balls out of this dough and flatten them using your hands to shape. I used a round cookie cutter to get even cutlets.
Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for  5 minutes. Brush some oil over the cutlets and place them in a single layer in the air fryer. Fry for five minutes, then turn them over, brush some more oil and fry for another five minutes. Remove from the air fryer when they are brown and crisp. Timing may vary depending on your appliance. Do keep watch afterthe eight minute mark.
Serve hot with ketchup or chutney.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM
This also goes to  Valli's Kid’s Delight event, guest hosted by PJ themed on Quick / Innovative Breakfast

 

Crisp murukku

The hostel I stayed has this rule wherein all students stay in a common room for the first few months. Common rooms are allotted based on the batch, year and course of study. So the 7 girls who joined the course I enrolled for got to share a room. Kerala is notorious for its power cuts. Even before the rest of the country woke up to the reality of power cuts, we were used to having no power twice a day for half an hour each. Joining a new course, sharing a room with no fans(or was there one fan?) with seven other girls, trying to read a book in the dim glow of the yellow bulb in low voltage - all this might not seem very appealing, but believe me, when I think back, I hardly remember the lack of creature comforts. What I remember is making 2 minute Maggi for an hour in a kettle that took forever to boil water because of the low voltage, using an iron box to roast papads(trust me....it works.....though I would recommend cleaning the iron really well before using it on your clothes again), eating your friend's dates pickle with bread at midnight because you just felt like it, staying out well past midnight on days there was a fest in the university and days when there weren't any, eating at thattukadas(roadside eateries on wheels) and drinking tea at all times of the day. Though our hostel food was nothing to write home about, all seven of us piled our plates high with rice, helped ourselves to the watery brown thing that passed off for sambar, the vegetable that was usually decent and then, we added our secret ingredient which we hoarded and ate a little of every day - something that was packed with love from home. It could be dates pickle one day, beetroot pickle the next, Vathal kozhambu mix, paruppu podi or curry leaves powder another day - and it is these little parcels of food from home that ensured that our taste buds didn't die a slow death brought on by the sourest yoghurt that mankind ever saw. I got into the habit of eating murukku or ribbon pakoda with rice during my years in the hostel. There were days when bread, jam and murukku translated into a tasty breakfast. This murukku that I am sharing with you today is tasty, crisp and keeps well for a long time if stored in an air tight box.


What you need: (Recipe source : 100 murukkus and mixtures - Mallika Badrinath)
Rice flour - 1 cup
Bengal gram flour/besan - 1 cup
Roasted gram flour/pottukadala maavu - 1 cup
Salt - to taste
Red chilli powder - to taste
Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp
Vegetable shortening/vanaspati - 1.5 tbsp
Water
Oil - for deep frying(I used Fortune Rice Bran Health oil which I have reviewed here)

Take all the flours in a large mixing bowl.  Add the vegetable shortening and blend well with your finger tips until the flour is crumbly.

 A test to know if you have added enough shortening is to shape the flour into a ball after mixing the shortening well. If it holds its shape you have added enough fat.
 
Add sesame seeds, salt and red chilli powder. Mix well.
 












Now add water little by little and knead to thick dough.

Using the three star shaped disc, prepare small murukkus on a polythene sheet.

Once you have four or five, deep fry them in hot oil.

Drain off excess oil and once completely cool, store in an airtight container.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#26
This post is a part of Healthy & Tasty Recipe Contest with Fortune Rice Bran Health Oil & BlogAdda.com 
This goes to Kamalika who is hosting Kids' Delight, brain child of Srivalli, themed on Back to Hostel Food.

Seven cup cake - An easy Diwali sweet

 Seven cup cake is one of the sweets that my mother whips up with ease whenever there are guests or even when there aren't. Despite the name, this sweet is neither a cake nor a cup cake. It is in fact, more like a burfi - a very soft and addictive one at that. 

I have always been am scared to try my hand at making Indian sweets - in this case, because, turning out a perfect barfi that will hold its shape, and be not too soft(that will make it a halwa) or too hard (that will ensure that the dentist has a very happy Diwali) requires knowing the precise moment at which the heat is to be switched off.
With this recipe, chances of going wrong are very less(note that I didn't say nil) because it doesn't involve complicated steps like letting the sugar syrup reach a certain consistency or  hours and hours of stirring to get a glossy sheen. On the face of it, the recipe is pretty simple - you mix all the ingredients together, and stir them. The only catch is that you need to know when to take it off the stove. It is all very easy to say when the mixture starts leaving the sides of the pan......but without practice, you won't know when the sides are just boiling and bubbling and when they start to sort of curl in to indicate that you can switch off the heat.
This is the first sweet that I have made for this Diwali and I can't help but gloat over the fact that I was able to slice it neatly into pieces and it just melts in the mouth.

What you need:
Besan/Gram flour - 1 cup
Ghee - 1 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Grated coconut - 1 cup
Sugar - 3 cups

Take all the ingredients in a large, thick bottomed kadai. Mix well.

Cook on medium heat. I have pictorially tried to show you the various stages that the mixture will pass through.

When the mixture starts thickening and leaving the sides of the pan, pour on to a greased plate.

When warm, score with a sharp knife into square or diamond shapes.

Once cool, cut into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Sindhi curry

What is it that makes people spit out of their vehicle windows, while waiting for the traffic light to turn green? Is there some kind of saliva reflex that kicks in as soon as they see a red light? People traveling by bus are the worst....they have no concern for the poor bike rider who may be waiting at an unlucky spot just outside their window. Trains are no better...if you happen to sit near an open window, and the breeze is blowing in your direction, there's no telling what you might be coated with by the time you get off the train. Today, I saw a person spit out paan no less than three times while waiting at a signal. If that statement made you go Ewwwww....I don't blame you. Why is it that our people who can't stop exclaiming how clean Singapore is, seem to develop 'dog-sees-tree-and-lifts-its leg' instincts as soon as they see a bare wall? Will things ever change?
I have a little notebook at home where I jot down recipes from TV shows, library books and any other thing that catches my fancy. This curry is from that little notebook and there's a little note on it to tell me that it is from a TV show. It is called Sindhi curry....though I have no idea if it is of Sindhi origin. It is probably like "Indian" curry powder that is sold abroad. However, it is extremely simple to make and tastes quite good. It is quite healthy too, considering that only a tsp of oil is used, and lots of veggies go into it.

What you need:
Ladies finger - 6-8, chopped into longish pieces
Carrot - 2, diced
Potato - 1, peeled and diced
Tamarind - a lemon sized amount soaked in warm water
Oil - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds/jeera - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida/hing - 1/4 tsp
Besan/gram flour - 4 heaped tsp
Water - 3-4 cups
Salt
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Green chilli - 1
Ginger - a fairly large piece, peeled and cut fine
Curry leaves - a few
Red chilli powder - as required

Cook carrot and potatoes and keep aside. Cook ladies finger in thick tamarind extract until soft.
Heat a tsp of oil. Add cumin seeds and asafoetida. When the seeds sputter, add the besan, reduce the heat and stir fry until it starts turning brown and gives out a good smell. Slowly add water, stirring all the while so that no lumps are formed. If you do see lumps, break them by pressing against the side of the pan using your ladle. Add the green chilli, ginger, curry leaves, turmeric powder and salt and let this boil for 3-4 minutes. If needed, add some red chilli powder. Add the cooked vegetables and let it boil until the curry thickens.
I had this for lunch with rotis and then again for dinner, with wheat rava idli.