Anchovy fish fry/Natholi porichathu-Easy Recipe

Natholi/Anchovy is one of my favorite sea food. It is quite available in my home town- a small village adjoining trivandrum. Now in US the situation is different. I couldn't find it on any fish market. Luckily we visited a new fish market last week and i saw something similar to anchovy/natholi. Hurrraayyyy. It is called as "smelt fish". Of course its a member from anchovy family but not exactly the same. The size will be some what bigger than natholi. I was planning to make curry but due to shortage of some needy things i ended with fry and here is my recipe. Its a simple and easy recipe. NATHOLI ORU CHERIYA MEENALLA :)

Updated:Click Netholi Fry-Kerala Style

Ingredients:

Anchovy fish/Smelt fish	40
Red chilly powder	4 tspoon
Small Onion	4
Turmeric Powder	1/4 tspoon
Salt	to taste
Oil	to fry

Preparation:

(1) Wash and clean the fish. I removed the head and tail part using hand. Also there will be a thin coating(skin) over the body of smelt fish (it will not be there on anchovies). You can easily remove it using hand. Knife is not necessary for cleaning anchovies or smelt fish. I prefer cleaning the entire fish. It can be cooked without removal too. Handle as per your convenience.
(2) Now peel the skin of onion and grind it in a mixer. Add chilly powder and turmeric powder to it. Grind it again and make a fine paste by sprinkling 1 tspoon of water to it.

(3) Take the paste in a bowl. Add salt to it. Add one tspoon of water to it and make thick masala. Don't add too much of water . Now add the cleaned fish to it and mix well so that the masala will coat well with the fish. If you have time leave it for marination about 30 minutes. You can also cook without marinating.

(4) Heat oil in a pan and add fish to it. Let it fry for 2 minutes. Now turn over the sideand cook for another 3 minutes. Your yummy and crispy fish fry is now ready.

Enjoy...

Tips:

• The whole fish is edible. You can have its bone too.
• Since anchovy is a small fish,  it tends to break easily while mixing and cooking. Handle with care.

Raw Mango Chutney/Pacha Manga Chammanthi

Manga chammanthi is a nadan side dish that is very popular in my home town and my personal favorite too. It is usually served with kanji/payar kanji. I will have some extra amount of rice with this spicy and yummy chutney without any other side dish. Really slurrppp. So those who are looking for "thani nadan" taste, this is for you :)

Ingredients:

Raw mango	1/2 of a big one
Grated Coconut	3/4 cup
Green chilly	3 (medium)
Dry red chilly	2
Ginger	3 inch piece
Curry leaves	3 to 4 leaves
Salt	to taste
Small onion	3

Preparation:

(1) Chop mango into small cube shapes. No need to peel its skin. I got some 20 cubes from half of a      mango.

(2) Grind coconut, green chilly, dry red chilly, ginger, curry leaves and small onion in  a mixer and make a mixture. To this add chopped mango slices and salt. Grind it again (Grinding in two batches will incorporate everything).

(3) Grind till you get a fine mixture. Don't add water. Replace the mixture in a bowl. Using your hand make a big ball shape. Your mango chutney is now ready. Use as your need. .

Have it with your choru(rice)/kanji/Payar kanji/Kappa Puzhunghiyathu/Dosa/Idly…..

Tips:

• Don't add water while grinding. The moisture from mango and coconut is more enough.
• Adjust spiciness according to your tolerance level. Add or reduce dry red chilly/green chilly.

Masala Dosa

Masala dosa was my childhood favorite. I Still remember the taste of it from a restaurant near by my native place. Combined with vada the taste of hot masala dosa was slurpppp. Now i used to prepare occasionally. When i prepared on last day, thought to share the recipe with you all and took all the shots :) .

Serves-2 to 3

Click Here for the preparation of dosa.

Ingredients:

Potato	2 (big)
Carrot(optional)	1 (medium)
Big Onion	1(medium)
Ginger	2&1/2 tbl spoon
Green chilly	4 (medium)
Turmeric Powder	1/2 tspoon
Salt	to taste

To temper (kaduvarukkal):

Oil	1 tbl spoon
Urad dal	1 tspoon
Channa dal	1 tspoon
Dry red chilly	3
Mustard	1 tspoon
Cashew nuts	5
Curry leaves	1 sprig

Preparation:

(1) Peel the skin of potato and chop into small cubic shapes. Pressure cook the pieces for 3 whistles by adding 1 cup of water with little salt . Once the pressure is released drain any excess water and mash the pieces. Keep it aside.

(2) Chop the needed ingredients like onion, green chilly, ginger and carrot. Grate the carrot or chop it into very thin and tiny pieces so that it will cook in a minute.

(3) Heat oil in a pan and add the ingredients shown under "to temper" heading. Saute till casewnuts turns brownish. Add ginger and green chillies. Saute for some seconds. Now add chopped onion slices with little salt. Saute till it changes light brown. Now add grated carrot. Stir for 1 minute.

(4) Now add turmeric powder with 2 tbl spoon to 1/4 cup of water. Mix once and add mashed potato. Mix well. Make a salt test here. Let it heat for another 5 minutes so that the water will dries off and potato mix well with the masala. Your potato masala is now ready.

(5) Heat dosa making tawa and prepare dosa. Pour 1 tspoon of oil/ghee above the dosa. When one side is cooked take a ladle of prepared masala and spread it on the centre of dosa.

(6) Cover it by folding the two sides of dosa as shown in the picture. keep it for few more seconds. No need to flip the dosa. Your masala dosa is now ready.

Tips and variations:

• Topping with ghee over the dosa than oil gives an extra flavor but avoid it if you are health conscious.
• Addition of carrot is optional.
• You can also top 1/2 tspoon of DOSA PODI followed by ghee/oil over the dosa.
• Don't make the dosa too crispy because you can't fold it properly.

Vegetable Biryani-Layered Style

Happy new year to all. May your dreams come true in this season :)

For me the month of december was a "biryani month" because of varieties of biryanis. I prepared mutton, chicken, fish and vegetable biryani on December and so the name "biryani month". Due to various reasons i couldn't take any snaps and finally with vegetable biryani, i didn't give up and took those shots to share with my readers…

For the below recipe, i referred vahchef and one of my cookbook.

Ingredients:

Carrot	1(medium,chopped lengthwise)
Beans	10(chopped lengthwise)
Potato	1(small,chopped lengthwise)
Green peas(frozen)	1/4 cup
Cauliflower	1/2 cup(flower shaped florets)
Big Onion	2(big, chopped lengthwise)
Mint leaves	1/4 cup+1/2 cup
Coriander leaves	1/4 cup+1/2 cup
Yogurt	1/4 cup +3/4 cup
Cashewnuts	10(sauteed in ghee)
Ginger garlic paste	1 tbl spoon
Green chillies	5(medium,chopped lengthwise)
Biryani masala	2 tbl spoon
Chilly powder	1 tbl spoon
Pepper powder	1 tbl spoon
Turmeric powder	1 tspoon
Salt	to taste
Ghee	1 tspoon+2 tbl spoon

To Cook Rice:

Basmathi Rice	2 cup
Oil	2 tbl spoon
Bay leaves	2
Cardamom	2
Cloves	2
Cinnamon	1inch stick
Cumin seed	1 tspoon
Salt	1 tspoon

To Temper:

Oil	2 tbl spoon
Bay leaves	2
Cardamom	2
Cloves	3
Cinnamon	1inch stick

Preparation:

(1) Soak rice in water for about 30 minutes or more. Drain the water. Now in a cooking vessel add water and allow to boil. When water starts boiling add oil, whole garam masalas, salt and cumin seeds. Now add the soaked rice into it (refer the picture). Cook till the rice is 80% done (This will be done in some 5 to 7 minutes since we soaked the rice already). Drain the water completely( you can cook the rice in your own way till 80% done). Keep it aside.

(2) Mean while chop all the vegetables. The vegetables should be chopped lengthwise in medium thickness so that it won't shrinks much when you saute it in oil. Keep it aside.

(3) Heat ghee in a pan and add the cashews. Saute it till golden color. Keep it aside. In the same pan heat 1 tbl spoon of oil and add the chopped onion slices. Add little salt to it. Saute till the color of onion changes brownish. Remove from the pan and keep it aside.

(4) In the same pan add 2 tbl spoon of oil and heat it. Now add the whole garam masalas shown under "to temper" heading. When the flavor emanates add ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes off. Now add the chopped potato, beans and carrot. Saute it for 5 minutes.  To this add cauliflower and green peas along with green chillies, little salt and turmeric powder. Saute it till all the veggies are 80% cooked.

(5) To this add chilly powder, pepper powder and biryani masala. Mix well so that the raw smell of masalas will goes off and it will coat with the vegetables. Finally add 1/4 cup of yogurt and mix well so that it coats well with the masalas and veggies (Make a salt test). Now add mint leaves and coriander leaves. Saute once and switch off the flame. Keep it aside.

(6) Now you have to cook the biryani in layered style.Since we follow dum style, the bottom part of biryani won't get burnt. For this take a wide bottomed pan than the cooking vessel. Pour little water to the wide pan and heat the vessel in the stove. Keep the biryani cooking vessel above it (you can also use a dosa tawa instead of a wide pan) . Add ghee to the cooking vessel. Spread half of the cooked veggies to it. Add yogurt and salt to it and mix once.

(7) Spread fried cashews above it. To the top add half of the cooked onion.

(8) Above it spread the half of the cooked rice. Spread some mint leaves and coriander leaves above it. Now repeat with veggies.

 (9) Again top with onion, rice, mint leaves and coriander leaves one above the other.

(10) Close the vessel with  a lid. The lid should be perfect fit to the cooking vessel so that it won't let the steam out while cooking (You can keep some weight like rice pack over the lid, if the lid is not perfect :) ). Allow to cook in medium flame for about 20 minutes. Shake the vessel in between.

You can garnish with cashewnuts/fried bread pieces. Have it with Raita/Pickle/Pappadam..

Tips and Variations:

• You can use store bought fried onion instead of onion.
• You can add paneer if you want. Add towards the end of vegetables.
• Use orange food color for additional color.