Avalakki Huggi - simpler, lighter and quicker version

I haven't talked to you all in a couple of weeks now, so here is a belated New Year wishes and an 'after the fact' Happy Sankranthi. I actually posted my new Year post when we were holidaying with family. Thank you to all of you who wished Sattvaa on its birthday and also for the new year wishes. We had taken a week off from work at the end of the year and went away to immerse ourselves in the imaginary world of Disney characters :-). It was fun to relive the fantasy for a few days, DD had perfect company with her cousin and it was great to relax and enjoy the holidays with extended family.

We also went to a celebration of a rare occasion and mingled with more family before heading home to start the new year. BH's uncle is 80+ and the family decided to celebrate in a very traditional way. This special birthday is called 'sahasra chandra darshana' (person who has witnessed 1000 full moons in his or her life time). A very intimate and personal celebration where the elderly couple were such great sports made it all the more special. Grand kids were so happy to see the grand parents redo their wedding ceremonies. Wishing Atta & Mavayyagaru continued happiness and togetherness. It was a great ending to 2015. DD is back at school and we are getting back to the routine of work, home and other activities until the next break!

Hope you all had a good weekend to taper off the festivities of Sankranthi :-). May the festival of harvest extend throught the year and spread prosperity all over. In some parts of India, the festival is celebrated over 3 days. Since we are back to being the empty-nesters this week, and also with 15th being a week day, my offering was the mandatory (self imposed though) ellu bella which the family loves and a khara pongal on Friday. I made the ellu-bella last weekend so DD could carry some with her, it was a test of mettle not to eat it until the offering was done :-). As we had a lot of rice (and lot more stuff) over the last couple of weeks and holidays, I switched gears to make this easier, simpler and tastier version with avalakki (beaten rice) and I am presenting the recipe of avalakki huggi here today :-)

At home, we call this dish 'Huggi'. Pongal is a word used in restaurants. . I always feel that Huggi is a more succulent version of pongal. There is something in that word too that describes the dish better, well, I accept I am just being partial :-). It is not watery but the consistency is richer than pongal and beaten rice makes it stay that way even after the dish cools down. This makes it a perfect lunch box option. Nammamma made this for breakfast or for dinner on the days when rice was not preferred due to religious reasons. When made during Sankranthi, huggi inevitably had the seasonal field beans or avarekalu added to it, I didn't have time to go scouting the grocery stores this time, so skipped it. If you have it on it, go ahead and add a handful of cooked avarekalu to the dish.

What do you need to make Avalakki huggi? 
2  cups avalakki/beaten rice - thick variety
1 cup moong dal
1 Tsp black pepper corn
1 Tsp cumin
1 Tsp mustard
2 Tsp oil
1 Tsp ghee
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
6-8 curry leaves
cashews
1/8 Tsp turmeric
3 Tbsp coconut
3-4 green chilies
1 inch piece ginger

How do you make Avalakki huggi?

• Wash, pick any dirt and cook moong dal with 2 cups water until it is soft but holds shape. You can do this in pressure cooker, switch off after 1 whistle or cook in an open vessel, take care not to burn it. 
• Wash avalakki in running water and add enough water so it comes on top of the avalakki in a vessel and let it soak for 15-20 minutes. 
• Coarsely grind black pepper and cumin seeds using a blender or mortar and pestle. Keep aside
• Grind coconut, green chilies, ginger and 1Tbsp cilanto into a smooth paste, use 1/4 water if needed. 
• Heat a big, heavy bottom pan on medium heat, add oil into it. 
• Add mustard and let it pop, add crushed pepper and cumin, roughly torn curry leaves and roast for 30 secs. 

• Add cooked moong dal along with its water, salt, turmeric and let it come to a gentle boil. 
• Add soaked avalakki into this along with ground coconut paste. 

• Mix well, test for taste and adjust as needed. 
• Add ghee in drops all over the pan, give a good mix and let it all cook on low heat for 4-5 minutes. Avalakki needs to lose its raw smell and get mixed with the spices. 

• Switch off and garnish with remaining cilantro and roasted cashews.   

Notes:

• Use thicker variety of avalakki so it stands the heat while it cooks with the rest of the ingredients. The thinner ones tend to become powdery and mushy. 
• Use of ghee enhances the flavor in the dish, strongly recommended not to skip it. 

Rave(a) Pongal - Expect a 'twist' in the recipe and taste

It has moong dal (standard Pongal/khichdi ingredient) and Rava (also pretty standard), so how different can it be from a regular pongal? Try this recipe out and I am sure you will fall in love with the strong moong dal flavor. If you are looking for a change from the usual pongal but still want that warm & cozy feeling, make this dish.

When nammamma was visiting us last time, she taught me this recipe she had seen in one of the Kannada magazines. Since I don't have the details of the source, I would imagine it was either Sudha or Taranga which she read regularly. She wasn't cooking regularly here as it was an unfamiliar kitchen and when she visited us, I either wanted to pamper her by cooking for her or show off my cooking skills and didn't let her cook every day meals except for the SIL's favorite dishes. When it came to Mysore Pak, Kodubale or Vangi bhath all that the SIL had to do was just open his mouth and say, "it has been a long time since I ate it" and the next minute I would have my mother literally on my back pestering me to give her the ingredients and clear out of the kitchen :-). If I insisted on hanging around on the pretext of watching her technique, she would make sure she had complete control of the spatula (nothing works without it, right?) and sat by the stove and delegated me to my rightful role of a sous chef 'grind this in the mixie' or 'chop this vegetable' kind of menial tasks while she donned her chef cap. This pongal/khichdi was one of the few dishes she made all by herself as she didn't think I was ready to cook it well so the Moong dal cooked thoroughly :-). What I wouldn't give to have those days back again..

Last week during Sankranthi habba, I was thinking of amma more than I usually do, it happens sometimes.. given the physical distance that separates us, the inability to run and sit by her every time I want to makes it harder. I made the ellu bella, shared it with a few friends here and brother who lives nearby and on the day of Sankranthi, I couldn't think of anything to make. Finally I ended up with two dishes with strong ties to nammamma and enjoyed eating them while thinking of her.

What do you need to make Rave Pongal?
1/2 cup Moong dal/Hesaru Bele/Pesara pappu
3/4 cup upma rava
1 inch piece ginger
2-3 green chilies (adjust to taste)
10-12 curry leaves
1 Tsp cumin
1 Tsp mustard
1/2 Tsp black pepper
5-7 cups water - depends on the consistency you want
2 Tblsp dry coconut/kobbari grated
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp ghee
2 Tsp oil
6-8 cashews

How do you make Rave Pongal? 

• Soak moong dal in water for 45 mins to an hour
• Roast upma rava on medium flame until it turns light pink (3-5 mins)
• Wash, drain the soaked moong dal.
• Grind moong dal, green chilies, ginger and salt with 1 cup of water. 
• Heat a big pan, add the grated dry coconut and roast for a minute or so until it turns light pink and gives out the aroma. Keep aside. 
• Add ghee + oil and let it heat up.
• Add mustard, when it splutters, add cashews and let roast for a minute. 
• Add coarsely crushed pepper and cumin, roast for 15 seconds.
• Add curry leaves.
• Add the ground moong dal paste to the pan stirring continuously.

• Add 2 more cups of water, reduce the heat to low and continue stirring for 4-5 minutes until moong dal turns into a soft pulp and loses the raw smell.
• Add the remaining water, mix it and let it come to a gentle boil.
• Add the roasted rava in a steady stream continuosuly stirring.
• Cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 minutes until rava absorbs the water and cooks fluffy.
• Sprinkle roasted coconut on top and serve warm with a chutney, sambar or raita. 

Notes: 

• Unlike regular pongals or khichdi, Moong dal is not pre cooked here but that is what gives it the distinct taste. Make sure you cook it on slow flame until the raw smell is gone. 
• Take care to not let lumps form when you add the upma rava, reduce heat to low before streaming the roasted rava. 
• I added part of the seasoning on top for photos :-), you can either do that or follow the recipe above and start with the seasoning.

Payasa of the sabbakki-shavige variety (Kheer with Tapioca & Vermicelli) - a sweet offering on occasion of Sankranthi

Once again Happy Makara Sankranthi (belated this time)!. I know I messed up on my Sankranthi posts this week, things have been busy and I didn't time my blog posts though I cooked and ate a lot. The regular fare of ellu bella had been in the making for the last 2 weeks. BH had a brilliant idea and put the plates with chopped jaggery, dry coconut etc under the bright light we have for the indoor plants so they crisped up by that heat (just like Nammamma makes by putting them out in the Sun for a day or so) and taste delicious. I also made a pongal (totally different way, recipe will show up soon here) and this payasa (Kannada), payasam (Telugu), Kheer (Hindi) or sweet porridge (English) as part of the festival cooking. Very simple and quick if you plan a little ahead, this is a favorite at home.

DD has always been in love with payasa and that would be the only alternative to her all time favorite Gulab jamoon for her birthdays. So the tradition of payasa on her birthdays was on regularly until a couple of years back when I burnt the payasa, though I quickly transferred the contents to another pan the scalded smell had already permeated all of our new home and definitely the nostrils of my over sensitive child. Not only did she refuse to eat the sweet that day, she made me promise that I will not make payasa again for her birthday. So the birthday sweet changed to the next favored dish and since I have not messed it up, she is happy.

There are several different varieties of payasa and this is just the tip of the ice burg or the crown of the group. I learnt to enjoy eating payasa from nammamma and learnt to make a perfect, creamy payasam(paramannam) from amma. For as long as I remember, payasa was Nammamma's favorite dish to make on a birthday, so we would without fail have this dish on 6 ocassions in the year in addition to other days. She makes it mainly with semia/sevia (roasted vermicelli - this is a processed wheat product and not the rice vermicelli I talk about here) but I add Sabudana (also called Sago, sabbakki, saggubiyyam or Tapioca) to it as DD loves those pearly white additions.

Flip to amma's kitchen, payasam and peruggarilu are 2 dishes I have seen her patiently standing over the stove and make, she is not a very enthusiastic cook for the most part and is usually on the lookout to get out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. However these two are her signature dishes, I don't think she has the confidence to hand those over to me yet and I am happy to lay back and enjoy :-) when she makes it. But in the absence of both my ammas this time around, and also to serve the self interest of blogging a delicious dish on the blog, I decided to make this delicious sweet for Sankranthi and was very careful to not let milk become too cozy and adhesive to the pan.

For the uninitiated, payasa is a sweet dish with a consistency thinner than jello. The creaminess comes from milk (usually whole milk but I cheat) or cream. Traditional payasa is made thicker by slowly reducing milk on low heat which also imparts a wonderful aroma to the dish.

What do you need to make Sago-Semia payasa?
1/2 cup sago (soaked for 30 mins to 2 hours)
1/2 cup roasted vermicelli
4 cups milk (I used 2 cups of 2% and 2 cups of fat free)
3/4 - 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 as we dont like 'too sweet on the tongue' payasa)
1.5 cups water
2 green cardamoms
2 cloves
5-6 strands saffron
Garnish:
1 tsp ghee
cashews
raisins

How do you make Sago-Semia payasa?

• Wash and soak sago in water for about an hour. This is optional but reduces the cooking time drastically.
• Rinse off the water, wash the pearls under running water once more. 
• Cook sago in 1.5 cups of water for 45 minutes or until it is transparent. Keep stirring every 5 minutes or so to avoid burning. 
• Once Sago is cooked (to test: hold a pearl between 2 fingers and press, it should give in easily without any hard touch at the core).

• Add the roasted vermicelli (I used pre roasted, thin versmicelli - MTR brand). If you do not have pre roasted vermicelli, dry roast it on medium flame constantly stirring until it turns light pink in color. 
• Mix and add 2 cups of milk (2% at this stage) and let it cook on medium heat, stirring frequently until vermicelli turns soft. 

• Add sugar, saffron strands (crushed a little between palms) and the remaining 2 cups of milk and let it cook and boil gently until the consistency thickens.
• Powder cardamom and cloves, add it to the payasa and switch off. 
• Heat ghee on low heat, add cashews and raisins and roast until cashews turn golden brown and crisp. Add it to the payasa. 
• Payasa can be served warm or refrigerator cold, both taste delicious. 

Notes: 

• Get medium sized sago for this dish, very tiny ones will kind of dissolve and not hold shape while the large ones make a 'un-dainty' appearance:-)
• You can cook sago in pressure cooker for 2-3 whistles - cooking time varies with pressure cookers. I personally like the open cooking as I know when to stop cooking the sago and there is no cooling/waiting time needed. 
• Keep stirring the sago occasionally so it doesn't form the sticky layer on top or get stuck to the bottom.
• Cooking both sago and semia to perfection is the only trick in this divine offering.
• Instead of crushing saffron and adding it directly to the pan, you can soak the strands in a spoon of milk for 15 minutes and add it. 
• Do not use condensed milk or dry milk, reducing fresh milk to the desired consistency is what gives an authentic and yummy taste to this dish. The time you spend at the stove for making this dish is totally worth the taste.  

Healthy diet series - Khara Pongal (not the regular fare)

If you are a hard core South Indian who loves white rice 3 times a day like me, I am sure you would empathize with me when I  self imposed a restriction on my rice intake. Prevention is better than cure right? especially if you can also feel good about making positive changes without your physician breathing down your neck. I would say that is the fringe benefits of staying ahead in the game.

Here is how it all began.. I am a generally healthy, active (not sporty though) person, thanks to my parents for the genes and the healthy life style we just assumed as part of life. I like to eat and the kind of job I do for living hardly encourages me to move around. Life happens and as I slowly got wiser in years, I kind of filled up :-). One day while rummaging through my closet, I saw this old jeans (my first pair) and very longingly remembered the good old days and something that was going on in the back of the mind for a while took shape and I started a game of sorts to encourage myself to lose a few pounds and get fitter, those pair of jeans was the carrot at the end of the stick. I made a resolution to adapt a healthier life style much before the new year started and my partner in crime BH started a little unwillingly at first but seems to like the changes now.

As I mentioned already, the mainstay in meals at home used to be unpolished rice which is a substantial contributor to the waist line. So in chasing that elusive jeans, I made some changes to my daily diet and started looking for rice replacements and am happy to have found grains we have really grown to love. Some are known and available in India like the Millets while others like Quinoa are from far away lands.  Cooking these grains is a breeze and the substitutes offer a whole range of health benefits. Mixed with the regular side dishes at home from sambar to gojju to chutneys, I can blissfully overlook the fact that I haven't eaten my rice, I am still far away from my dream jeans but honestly I don't care too much about the body image :-)

Any new entrant into my kitchen is usually tamed the South Indian way first before I start experimenting with them. This lets me know their range, capacity and any hidden odors or flavors :-).

Foxtail Millet (Navane in Kannada, Korra in Telugu, Kangni in Hindi) is a nutritional power house just like other grains from the millet family, it is non glutinous, releases lesser percentage of glucose into the system over longer period compared to white rice and hence morphs into diabetic friendly diet. It is also high in iron & potassium. And most of all, it is a big team player and blends very well in a variety of recipes.

When we came back from the trip last week,  I dished out a yummy, healthy foxtail millet pongal with Hunise saaru (tamarind rasam - will post the recipe soon) for a home made comfort food after 30 hours of air travel and the boxed food.

What do you need to make Foxtail millet pongal? 
1 cup foxtail millet/navane/korra
3/4 cup moong dal/hesaru bele/pesara pappu
1 inch piece of fresh ginger root
2-3 green chilies
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
7-8 cups of water (adjust to get the consistency of your choice)

For vaggarane/seasoning/tadka:
1 Tsp Ghee/clarified butter
1 Tsp black pepper corns
1 Tsp cumin seeds
1 Tsp mustard seeds (optional)
4-5 curry leaves
6-8 cashews broken into small pieces (optional)

How do you make Foxtail millet pongal? 

• Dry roast the millet and moong dal until moong dal turns light pink and gives out a nice aroma. I do this in my pressure pan so I can continue to cook in the same vessel.
• Pound the ginger root and green chilies in a mortar & pestle or make a paste in your chopper. 
• Add the ginger-green chili paste and salt to the roasted millet & dal mixture. 
• Add water, close the lid, put the weight and cook for 3-4 whistles, switch off. 
• Heat ghee in a small pan, add ingredients under seasoning to it, let the mustard crackle and pepper corns pop, switch off and add curry leaves.
• Once the cooker has cooled, open the lid, pour the seasoning on top, give it a stir to mix everything in. 
• Serve it with any spicy chutney or tangy rasams and papads for a wholesome meal. 

Even if you are not into healthy diets or rice substitutes, try this recipe for a super yummy pongal. 

Variations:

• Try adding vegetables such as beans, carrots, onions and cinnamon for a khichdi variation. 
• You can soak the millet and moong dal in water for 30 minutes before cooking them, I sometimes make pongal this way without roasting the ingredients.
• Coarsely crush pepper for a stronger flavor. 

Tips: 

• We like our pongal soft, I add almost 4 cups water for every cup of millet+dal mixture, adjust the water to suit your palate.
• The exact time to cook the pongal is dependent on your kitchen gadgets, so adjust to get a soft, lumpy pongal for best taste.
• If your local Indian grocery doesn't carry the foxtail millet, try an Asian/Chinese store, that is where I found mine.