Easy Homemade Naan without Yeast

Her's an easy and simple recipe for naan. I saw several recipes that call for yeast, but this just uses curd or yogurt and the result is a really soft and tasty naan. I prefer the homemade one to the frozen naan that we get in stores.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour/Maida - 2 Cups
Baking Powder + Baking Soda - 3/4 Tsp each
Salt - to taste
Sugar - 2 tsp
Yogurt - 1/2 Cup
Milk - 1/2 Cup
Oil/Butter - 2 Tbsp

For Toppings:
Sesame Seeds, Crushed Garlic, Cilantro, Melted Butter

Mix all the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and mix well. The mixture will be a bit sticky. Cover and set aside for 3 to 4 hours. Make tennis ball sized balls and roll into triangle or circles.
Top with Sesame Seeds, Garlic on one side. Turn and apply water on the other side and place this side on a pan and press gently. Place on a medium flame on the stove top for a minute. Now turn the pan so that the naan is directly on the flame and move it around so all the parts get the flame.

When it starts to char and there are air pockets, remove the naan. Top with melted butter and Cilantro and serve with a gravy of your choice.

Oats Pancakes/Uthappam

This is a special request from my mom. She has been asking me to make these for a while now and we are not  big on breakfast. As always, this was a light brunch for us on a Saturday morning and it's quick and easy. Nutritious and filled with vegetables.

Ingredients:
Oats - 1 Cup
Sooji/Semolina - 1/2 Cup
Yogurt/Curd - 1/2 Cup
Salt - to taste
Green Chilis - 2
Ginger - 1 inch
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tbsp
Onion - 1/2 to 2
Carrot grated - 1
Curry leaves and Cilantro - A few

Grind the oats into a coarse powder. Mix with Sooji and yogurt and add water. It will clump up as the sooji absorbs the liquid. Chop all the vegetables finely and add to the batter. Mix and add salt and water as required. 

Heat a pan and add one heaping ladle of the batter and make thick pancakes or oothappam. Fry on one side, filp and cook on the other side. I had a mini oothappam pan and I made these in that pan.  

Serve hot with Chutney or Sambar of your choice.

Kottu Parotta

This is my favorite dish to order in a restaurant in Chennai. I love the way they break up (kottu) the parathas in the roadside eateries using the iron spatulas. I skipped the egg in this recipe, as I did not have any on hand. Scrambling an egg in the end would make this more authentic. Typically kottu parotta is made with salna, a spicy sauce cooked using chicken or mutton. This can be substituted with a couple table spoons of any chicken or mutton gravy on hand. I am sure that this will taste good even without this.

Parottas - 3
Onion- 1
Green chilis - 4
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Capsicum - 1
Tomato - 1
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Salna or chicken/mutton gravy - 1/4 cup
Salt - to taste

Seasoning:
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Oil - 1 tbsp

Cook the parathas and tear them to bite sized pieces after they cool down. I used frozen kawan parottas for this.
In a flat bottom pan, heat the oil and splutter the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Add the curry leaves and slit green chilis.
Add the sliced onion and capsicum. Fry till soft and add the tomato and ginger garlic paste. Fry till the tomato is wilted. Add the salt, coriander and cumin powers and soy sauce. Add about a 1/4 cup of water. Cook till the water evaporates and add the gravy. I had left over chicken gravy, and I used that here.
Add the torn parotta pieces, mix well and check for seasonings. Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately with raita.

Instant Rawa Idli

Sooji/Rawa - 2 cups
Curd/Yogurt - 1.5 cups
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Green chilis - 2
Red chilis - 2
Cilantro - 3 to 4 sprigs (leaves only)
Ginger - 1/2 inch
Cashews - 3 to 4
Chana daal - 1 tbsp
Carrot - 1
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Heat oil in a pan. Splutter the mustard seeds. Add the chana daal, broken cashews and red chilis. Fry till golden brown. Add the chopped green chilis, curry leaves, chopped ginger and the rawa. Fry till it's fragrant and turns a light golden brown color. Remove and cool in a bowl. Peel and grate the carrot and add to the rawa. Add the chopped cilantro, salt and the curd. Mix well and set aside. The rawa will absorb all the moisture. Add water to the batter, to get it to the consistency or an idli batter. Set aside for 15 min.

Grease idli moulds and fill them with the batter. Steam in an idli steamer or a cooker for about 8 min. Remove and serve with chutney and sambar.

Yields about 16 idlis.

Note: I did not add baking soda during the process, but some recipes call for 1/3 tsp baking soda to yield softer idlis.

Recipe for Tomato chutney:  http://yumm-o.blogspot.com/2011/04/tangy-tomato-chutney.html

Aloo Gobi Paratha - Simplified

The best part of a paratha is the filling. So, the more filling the better. Right? The problem with excess filling is, when we try to roll the parathas, it starts to come out and it becomes very hard to roll them. Also gets messy. I tried this different method, where instead of rolling the parathas before they go on the tawa, I used a flat bottomed spatula to spread the parathas right on the tawa. This ensured that there was a lot of filling in each of the parathas, and also saved me the trouble of having to roll them. I am making these a lot more, now that I found this simple technique.

Potatoes - 2 medium
Cauliflower - 1/2 small
Onion - 1/2 Red chopped fine
Ginger grated - 1 tsp
Green chili - 2 chopped fine
Citantro - few sprigs chopped
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Garam masala - 1 tsp
Amchur powder - 1 tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Shajeera - 1 tsp
Regular roti dough

Boil the potatoes until soft, peel and mash. Chop the cauliflower into small pieces.
In a pan, heat 1 tbsp oil, add shajeera, and the onions. Cook till soft, add the cauliflower and cook till soft, and it falls apart. Mix the rest of the masalas, salt and the potatoes. Add the cilantro and cool.
Take some dough, roll into a ball, and make with your hands, make it into a small bowl and fill with the filling. Close the ends and seal the ball. Make the rest of the balls this way.
With your hands, flatten the dough ball with the filling.

Heat a tawa and place the flattened dough ball with the stuffing on the tawa. Spray the back of a flat spatula with some non-stick spray or add a few drops of oil and spread it well. Press the spatula on the dough, and press until it expands. Continue to do this until it forms into a paratha. This is a very simple step, and gets done in seconds.






Cook on one side, turn and cook till the other side is lightly brown. Drizzle some oil at this point if you wish.
Remove and serve with pickle and yogurt.

Whole wheat Naan

 I buy fresh whole wheat pizza dough, thinking of making a pizza. But it so happens that I either run out of some of the necessary ingredients, or am just not in the mood to have pizza. Since it is fresh dough, it would not last more than 3 or 4 days. Making naan is a good way to use up the dough, and it also feels like we put in a lot of effort into making them.

Whole wheat pizza dough
Finely chopped garlic - 2 cloves
Jalapenos - 2
Cilantro - few sprigs
Butter/Ghee - 1 tbsp (Optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Make softball sized portions of the dough and flatten into a triangle. Sprinkle with the crushed garlic, sliced jalapenos and cilantro leaves. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes, or until the naan starts crisping at the edges. Remove and brush with butter/ghee. Serve hot with a side of your choice.

Multi bean and grain Adai

This adai/dosa is really rich in protein and tastes good too. I used Usal mix from the Indian store. Any kind of a bean mix can be used here.



Usal Mix - 1 cup
Boiled Rice - 1 cup
Urad daal - 1/2 cup
Chana daal - 1/4 cup
Toor daal - 1/4 cup
Red chilis - 8
Salt - to taste
Ginger - 1 1/2 inch
Cumin seeds - 2 tbsp
Cilantro - 1 handful

Soak the daals, beans and rice for 3 to 4 hrs. Grind with the rest of the ingredients and water. The consistency should look like a thick dosa batter.
Adai takes a little longer to cook than a regular dosa.

Instant Rawa Dosa

We love dosas, but sometimes when we crave them, there is no batter at home to make them. This instant rawa dosa comes to my rescue everytime. The funny thing about the batter is, it seems to never end. After making a few of them, the batter gets thick, and I add water to dilute it. We almost get twice the amount of dosas with the same amount of the regular dosa batter.

Roasted Sooji/Rawa - 1 cup
Rice Flour - 1 cup
All Purpose Flour - 1/3 cup
Grated Carrots - 2
Black Pepper - 1 tsp
Chopped Green Chilis - 3
Salt - to taste
Chopped Cilantro - few sprigs
Chopped Ginger - 1 inch

Mix all the ingredients with water. The batter consistency should be thinner than the regular dosa batter. Almost like buttermilk.
Heat a tawa and sprinkle the batter on the pan, covering the pan and forming a round.
The rawa dosa batter will not spread like a regular batter.
There will be holes in the dosa and will take longer to cook. Add oil around the dosa if you desire.
When the dosa is crisp around the edges, turn and cook on the other side.
Mix well and add water if the batter looks think, before making the next dosa.
Serve with chutney of your choice.

Pancakes

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 1 cup

Baking powder - 2 tsp
Sugar - 3 tbsp
Salt  - a pinch

Eggs - 2
Milk - 1 1/2 cups
Melted butter - 2 tbsp

Sliced Bananas - 2

Frozen mixed berries - 1 bag

Maple syrup - to drizzle

Mix all the dry ingredients together. In a bowl, whisk the wet ingredients and slowly mix in the dry mix.

Mix till its a smooth batter. On a griddle, pour a ladle full of batter and cook till light brown and fluffy.

Serve with bananas and thawed berries. Drizzle with maple syrup.

Oats dosa

Oats dosa is a simple instant meal packed with nutrition. Here's how I make mine:

Oats - 1 cup (ground coarse)
Rice Flour - 1/2 cup
Sooji rawa - 1/4 cup
Ginger - 1 tsp grated
Green chillies -2 chopped fine
Spinach leaves - 1/2 cup chopped
Salt - to taste
Water

Mix all the ingredients with water, to the consistency of a dosa batter.
Heat up a girdle and make thick dosas and serve with the chutney or sambar of your choice.

Gobi Paratha

I remember having Aloo, gobi and methi parathas made by my mum when we were in Madhya Pradesh. I love to have my parathas with yogurt and lime pickle. And the more filling in them, the better they taste. Although it gets harder to roll them out. Here's the recipe for the phool gobi, or the cauliflower paratha. I know a lot of people who dislike the taste of cauliflower. But this is one recipe that everybody will love. 

For the filling:

Cauliflower grated - 1 small

Onion - 1/2 Red chopped fine

Ginger grated - 1 tsp

Green chili - 2 chopped fine

Citantro  - few sprigs chopped

Cumin powder - 1 tsp

Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste 

Garam masala - 1 tsp

Amchur powder - 1 tsp

Regular roti dough 

Squeeze the water out of the grated cauliflower.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Roll out a thick roti with your hands and place some filling in the center.

Seal th ends and make it into a ball again, and then roll out.

Cook on a girdle with some oil and serve hot.

If you dislike the smell of raw cauliflower, you can cook the mixture in a pan till the raw smell disappears and then continue with the recipe.

Spinach and carrot dosa

Most of us no longer have the privilege of feasting on dosas and idlis for breakfast except on weekends. Naturally they have moved into the dinner league. Although we have dosa with almost any curry that's at home, sometimes there is none. I feel really guilty when we have them with chutney, and skip on the veggies for dinner. This spinach dosa is a great way to sneak in some veggies. It tastes so good, that my toddler does not mind the funny green color. He actually likes the funky green dosas. Here's how I make them:

Dosa batter
Spinach - 2 cups
Carrot -1

Microwave the spinach with 1/2 cup water for 5 min.
Chop the carrot into small pieces.
When the spinach cools, grind it along with the carrot and add to the batter.
Make the dosas the usual way.