Dried Fruit Achar

Gather as many kinds of preserved dried fruits as you can: prunes, olives, peaches, plums, raisins, etc.

In some oil, add a pinch of cumin and fennel seeds (seeragam & perunjeeragam). 
Add finely chopped onions and fry over low flame.
Add a spoon of ginger-garlic paste next.
Add pepper powder next, followed by a few spoons of sugar. Add a little water and cook over slow fire till sugar melts.
Add all the dried fruits and continue cooking.

Final product should be like below:
Serve at room temperature and keep remainder in fridge.
Goes very well with Briyani, as in main pic.

Yin Yang of Indian Food

Chilly Potato

Cut potato into small cubes. Season with salt and chilly powder and let rest.
Deep fry and set aside.
In a little oil, fry sliced onion, curry leaves, chopped ginger, sliced chilly and chopped tomato.
Once cooked, add a little water and chilly powder and let the chilly powder cook. Add salt if necessary.
Finally add fried potatoes and give a nice stir.

Serve HOT.

Pudalangai Pachadi

Half pudalangai (snake gourd/labu ular) and cut into small slices.
Deep fry until light brown. Leave it to chill in fridge.

In a little oil, fry sliced onion, curry leaves, and sliced chilly. Do not overcook.

Add this thaalippu into the fried pudalngai and season with salt. Return to fridge.
Before serving, add generous amount of thick thayiru (curd).

Serve COLD

Home made Chilly Sauce

Grind fresh chilly with garlic - 1 pip garlic for 1 chilly. 

Add salt and a little vinegar - serve after resting for an hour.

Great with nasi lemak. Once tasted, you will want it again and again. 

Of course it's mum's recipe. :)

Will keep for a long time because of the vinegar content.

Keep refrigerated - do not heat - just let it return to room temperature.

Murungakaai (drumsticks) with potato

Cook cut potatoes and murungai in coconut milk (the secret ingredient). Add salt straightaway. Once cooked, set aside.

In a little oil, fry the following in this sequence: kadugu (mustard seeds), sliced onion, curry leaves, ginger strips, chilly strips, tomato pieces. 

Once they are cooked, add some chilly powder, stir and add the potatoes and murungai.
Stir nicely and then its ready to serve.

Goes well with white rice and chapathi.

Mutton Meal for RM5 in KL?

Mutton Meal for RM5 in KL?

Where in KL would you get a mutton meal, with three vegetables for just mere RM5?!!!

Here is the trick - Go to Mathai's in Money Corner, Brickfields before 12.00pm.
Ask them to pack your food separately - ie rice seperate, vegetables separate and curry separate.
A mutton/fish meal is RM10 and is enough to feed two!
What you see in the photo above is just half of the portion given!!!!
Both my daughter and I ate and we couldn't even finish the whole meal!
Bon Apetit!

Perfect Chapathi

Perfect Chapathi

Do you want to make super soft chapathi?
You need a secret ingredient to make it tissue soft!

The secret ingredient is Olive Oil based spread - 

Simply mix pure aatta flour with some of the spread above and make a soft dough with hot water.

Remember, no more than two times of flipping, when cooking.

So soft, even when kept in the fridge!

Chicken Kurma

Chicken Kurma

Heat some oil and fry cinnamon (karuvaapattai) till it turns black. Add star anise (laungapoo) to the oil and once its roasted add cloves and cardamom. 

Immediately add sliced onions and curry leaves and continue frying. 

Add ginger-garlic paste next and give it a quick stir. 

Add chicken pieces and stir till coated nicely. Cover and let it cook in its own juices, in a slow flame. 

In 5-10 mins, add 2nd coconut milk.

Let chicken cook nicely.

Then add the following one after another - tomato, potato, red chilly, coriander leaves and more sliced onions. 

Bring to boil and then cover to continue cooking. 

When chicken and potatoes are half cooked, add some kurmapowder (Babas, if you can get). Add hot water at this stage if you want more curry. Stir nicely and continue cooking. Add salt to taste.

Add first coconut milk and bring to boil. Add ground almond (secret ingredient) at last, stir and switch off flame. The almond will make your kurma thick,creamy and tasty - just about 8-10 pcs for one chicken)

Chicken Briyani Set

Chicken Briyani 

First buy the best Basmati rice you can buy. 

Wash and soak at least an hour. Drain completely and fry dry in a pan with some ghee. Put aside. 

Put a large amount of ghee in pan, fry chopped onions, chopped tomato, sliced red chilly until tender. Add Briyani masala and fry till fragrant. 

Add chicken or mutton pieces, stir nicely and let it cook in slow heat under cover. 

Add some water if its too dry. Once meat is nearly cooked, add the rice and coriander & mint leaves and coat liberally. 

Transfer to rice cooker, add required water and let it cook. 

Stir only once while its halfway cooking.

Japanese Tofu 

Cut Tofu into smaller circles and deep fry. Set aside. 

Fry onion, garlic & chilly, one by one in some oil. 

Add cleaned prawns & mixed vege with some water and let them cook.

 Remove from pan (put in same container as tofu) 

In the same pan, add some oil and add beaten, egg. Scramble it and once nearly cooked, add all the above. 

Add a dash of soya sauce and pepper powder, before removing from stove. 

Sweet/sour Tauhu with Potato 

Cube potato and boil till half cooked.

Then deep fry. Also fry the tauhu but not till fully fried.

In a little oil, fry onion slices, add garlic slices and finally chilly slices. 

Bring down the heat and add chilly sauce and quite a bit of plum sauce. Add a little water and bring to boil. Add soy sauce and the fried potato and tauhu. 

Stir nicely so that all us coated with the sauce. 

Serve hot.

Dhalcha Rice Set

Dalcha rice, Chicken Curry, Broccoli

Dalcha Rice

Heat some ghee and fry cinnamon (karuvaapattai) till it turns black. Add star anise (laungapoo) to the ghee and once its roasted add cloves and cardamom.

Immediately add sliced onions and continue frying. At this stage, add pandan leaves. 

Add ginger-garlic paste next. Add chopped tomatoes and sliced red chilly (cut lengthwise). Once tomato is mushy, switch off the stove. 

Now add this to the Basmati rice and add coconut milk (ratio: 1.5 liquid to 1 rice) and salt. Cook in rice cooker. Whilst it's cooking do not stir more than once.

Chicken Curry, Malaysian Indian style 

Heat some oil and fry cinnamon (karuvaapattai) till it turns black. Add star anise (laungapoo) to the ghee and once its roasted add cloves and cardamom. 

Immediately add sliced onions and curry leaves and continue frying. 

Add ginger-garlic paste next and give it a quick stir. 

Add chicken pieces and stir till coated nicely. Cover and let it cook in its own juices, in a slow flame. 

In 5-10 mins, add water. 

Then add the following one after another - tomato, potato, red chilly, coriander leaves and more sliced onions. 

Bring to boil and then cover to continue cooking. 

When chicken and potatoes are half cooked, add some turmeric powder, chilly powder and chicken masala powder (Babas, if you can get). Add hot water at this stage if you want more curry. Stir nicely and continue cooking.

Finally add salt to taste. 

Broccoli Fry

I use the same method as for mixed vege earlier, with just garlic, onion, red chilly slices and salt. 

We prefer vegetables to be under-cooked so that they retain their crunchiness and obviously, healthier too. 

Tip 1 - use plenty of garlic slices. Do not burn the garlic or it will taste bitter.

Tip 2 - add a little sugar if you want the vegetables to retain their color. 

Tip 3- Use only little water. Use a cover and let the vegetable cook in their own steam.

Home cooked vegetarian meal

Clockwise from left: turnip fritters, yam perattal, mixed vege, pok choy (chinese green vege), milk kesari, cucumber salad, tauhu curry

Tauhu curry

Cube tauhu and deep fry them for a while (not until they become crispy) In a little hot oil add thaalippu (kadugu & ulundhu), sliced onion, curry leaves, sliced garlic, sliced chilly - one by one - and fry till fragrant. 

Add chilly powder and curry powder with water and bring to boil. 

Add cubed potatoes and sliced tomato and cover, leaving it to cook. 

When cooked, add salt and fried tauhu and dish out.

 Note, if you need to add more water during cooking, make sure its hot.

Yam perattal 

Cut yam into small cubes and cook in coconut milk. 

Splatter some mustard seeds (kadugu) in hot oil, add sliced onion, curry leaves, green chilly and fry till fragrant. 

Add cooked yam and give good stir.

 You can eat with rice, chapati or even make a sandwich with bread.

Turnip/Yam Bean (thanneeervittaan kizhangu in Tamil, sengkuang in Malay) Fritters 

Cut turnip into small cubes. In a bowl mix turnip, sliced onion, green chilly and salt with wheat flour. 

Batter must have bubbles when left to rest, otherwise its too thick. 

Drop spoonfuls into hot oil and fry till golden brown. 

Milk Kesari 

Paal kesari is nothing but normal kesari made with milk instead of water. 

Use lots of toasted almond strips for crunchy feel. 

Dissolve sugar in one cup of milk. When the syrup becomes one patham (runs as a string when lifted and poured back) add roasted ravaa. 

Add yellow colouring and rose essence/pannir. 

As the ravaa gets cooked, add liberal amounts of ghee. 

Once it becomes one big lump, add toasted almond strips and fried raisins, and place on flat container. 

Slice when cool.

Vegetarian Nasi Lemak set

With nasi lemak, tauhu sambal, mixed vege, chilly potato, yam fritters, cucumber slices, dhall keropok & peanuts.

Nasi Lemak - Rice cooked in coconut milk 

Cook rice with coconut milk, ginger, salt and pandan leaves. There are more complex methods, but this is how I make.

Tauhu sambal (vegetarian) 

Tauhu - Deep fry but not completely brown and hard. Just for a while in hot oil would do. 

Pound some garlic and fry in a little oil, add liberal amount of sliced onion. 

Cook till you get the fragrance. 

Add ground dried chilly (no short cuts on this please. Soak dried chilly in warm water and grind.) and cook over low flame. Remember that the longer you cook, the longer it will last.

Once the smell of raw chilly is gone, add cut tomato & onion rings. Continue cooking. 

Add a little coconut milk and a little sugar. Add salt last. 

Bring to boil before adding the fried tauhu.

Chilli Potato 

Boil cut potatoes before deep frying them lightly. No salt need to be added at this stage. 

Fry ginger-garlic paste and sliced onion. Add the cooked potatoes. 

Add chilly powder and salt. Coat nicely. 

Sprinkle water now and then. Cook until the chilly powder is cooked.

Mixed Vegetables 

There are so many ways of doing this. 

Tip 1 - use plenty of garlic slices. Do not burn the garlic or it will taste bitter. 

Tip 2 - add a little sugar if you want the vegetables to retain their color. 

Tip 3- Use only little water. Use a cover and let the vegetable cook in their own steam.

.

Yam Fritters

I mix white wheat and rice flours so that it will be crispy. Just using wheat flour will be tastier but bulkier. 

Add a spoon or two of corn oil to the batter and beat nicely. 

Don't forget the salt.

Have fun trying and eating! :)

I have suddenly found back my passion for cooking after a few years.
I was posting photos of my cooking on my Facebook and started getting queries on recipes. This blog is to keep everything in one place.
Most of my cooking is influenced by my mother, therefore expect a lot of Malaysianised Indian food as well as other fusion food.
Thank you for visiting.