THIRUVAADIRAI - KALI & KAAVITHU

‘Thiruvaadirai’ is celebrated in Kerala / Tamil Nadu. It falls on the ‘Thiruvaadirai’ star day of ‘Dhanu’ month – (Dec 15 – 15 Jan).

On 'Thiruvaadirai' morning, ladies wake up at dawn, have an early bath and prepare ‘kali’ and ‘kaavithu curry’ and offer ‘neivedhyam’. The family goes to temple to offer prayers.

‘Kai kotti kali’ (a graceful dance form) is performed by the ladies on the occasion.

I am giving you my sister Hema Krishnan’s recipe for Kali – it is a tried and tested hit in the family. She is an expert at making ‘kaavithu’ too – I don’t make it because my family doesn’t like it! We have ‘kali’ with home-made white butter.

Ingredients

Raw rice – 1 cup

Yellow moong dal – 1 tbsp

Jaggery – 1 ½ cups

Salt – a small pinch

Water – 2 ½ cups

Ghee – 2 tbsps

Grated coconut – 3 tbsp

Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

Cashew nuts/ raisins (optional) - 1 tbsp each

Method

Soak rice in water for half an hour. Wash well and drain off the water.

Spread and leave for one hour.

Dry roast the rice in a kadhai till it turns a yellowish brown.

Cool and powder it coarsely (like rawa) in a dry grinder. Sieve to remove fine powder if any.

Dry roast the moong dal till light brown.

Add 2 ½ cups of water and 1 ½ cups of jaggery and reduce the heat to a minimum.

When the jaggery has dissolved, add a pinch of salt and the rice flour and stir well, making sure there are no lumps.

Turn off the heat.

Pour the mixture in a vessel and put it in the pressure cooker and cook like rice. (5 - 6 minutes after a whistle).

Heat ghee in a pan, and fry cashews and raisins separately till golden brown.

When the cooker has cooled, add ghee, grated coconut, cardamom powder and fried cashews and raisins to the kali and stir well.

After offering ‘naivedhyam’ serve to the waiting family along with butter / kaavithu.

KAAVITHU

Ingredients

Kaavithu kizhangu – 250 gms - cubed

Sweet potato – 125 gms – cubed

Pumpkin – 125 gms - cubed

Broad beans (avarakka) – 100 gms – 1 cm pieces

Green peas – 3 tbsps

Potato (optional) – 1 small – cubed

Grated coconut – 3-4 tbsp

Green chilli – 1-2 (crushed)

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Coconut oil – 1-2 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Urad dal – 1 tsp

Red chilli – 2 pieces

Curry leaves – 8-10

Salt to taste

Method

Put all the vegetables in a vessel, add enough water and add turmeric powder and salt and pressure cook till vegetables are cooked (nearly 5 minutes after a whistle).

Stir and gently mash the vegetables after the cooker cools.

Heat coconut oil in a kadhai and add mustard seeds, urad dal and red chillis, followed by curry leaves.

Add the mixed vegetables and grated coconut and crushed green chillis and stir.

Serve hot with kali.

Tips

This curry tastes good with chapathi too.

If ‘kaavithu’ is not available, you can use potatoes instead.

© Copyright 2011. Brinda Balasubramonian.

DIWALI - MUTHUSARAM & THENGOZHAL

MUTHUSARAM

'Muthusaram' is yet another member of the murukku family - a cousin of 'Thengozhal' and is made during functions like marriages, Janmashtami and Diwali.

The easiest way to get the powder is to mix 4 glasses of raw rice and 3/4 glass of yellow moong dal (dry roasted to a very light brown) and 1/4 glass of chana dal (dry roasted to a light brown). Get the mixture powdered finely in a flour mill, taking care to give instruction that it should not have any trace of wheat flour. Sieve through a fine sieve . If you get 1 kg of powder ground, you can store it for a couple of months and prepare 'muthusaram' whenever you feel like.

Ingredients -

Muthusaram powder – 2 1/2 glasses

Jeera – 2 tsps

White sesame seeds – 1 tsp

Hing – ¼ tsp

Butter – 5 tsp( about20 gms)

Water – 1 ¼ cup

Oil for frying

Method -

Mix well all ingredients except water. Add water little by little and blend well into a soft dough. (You should be able to squeeze it and make muthusaram with the 'naazhi' (chakli-maker) - without exertion. If it is too tight, loosen the dough with 1-2 tbsp of water.

Heat oil in a kadhai and make chaklis and fry both sides till golden.

Drain out on a tissue paper.

Cool and store in airtight jars. It will taste good for 3-4 weeks - but it won't last that long - it will be consumed in days!

Tips

If you live in a place where you get good rice flour, you can make the dal powder at home in your mixer - dry roast moong dal and chana dal separately till light brown. Mix them and powder in your mixer. Sieve to get fine powder and store it.

Use rice flour and dal flour in the ratio 2 1/2 : 1/4.

Whenever I'd visit my children in the US, I'd carry 1 kg of the 'muthusaram powder'. Later I started taking just the 'dal powder' as good rice flour is available at the Indian store there.

THENGOZHAL

For this recipe, check out the post on 'Janmashtami'.
If you are in the US / in Indian metros, you will get rice flour as well as urad dal powder, so making 'Thengozhal' is really easy - if you have the desire, that is! 

© Copyright 2011. Brinda Balasubramonian.