Malabari Chicken Curry

Nothing more to say about this recipe. Its a yummy nadan kozhi curry...

Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Chicken	3/4 kg
Big Onion	1(medium)
Tomato	1(medium)
Ginger	2 tbl spoon
Green chilly	3 (medium)
Coconut milk(1st extract/Onnam pal)	1/2 cup
Coconut milk(2nd extract/Randam pal)	1 cup
Chilly powder	1 tspoon
Coriander powder	3/4 tspoon
Turmeric Powder	1/2 tspoon
Whole Garam masala(cardamom,cloves,bay leaves,cinnamon)	2,2,1,2 inch
Cashew nuts	15
Salt	to taste
Oil	1 tbl spoon
Vinegar	1/4 tspoon
Curry leaves	2 sprig

Preparation:

(1) Wash and clean the chicken. Chop into medium slices. Keep it aside. Chop onion and tomato into small cube shapes. Also chop ginger and green chilly. Keep it aside.

(2) Soak cashew nuts in water. Grind it in a mixer and make a fine paste. Also prepare coconut milk extracts. After that mix the ground cashew paste with the 1st extract of coconut milk (You can do this step in between doing the 3rd and 4th step, so that you can save time :) ) .
(3) Heat oil in a vessel and add whole garam masalas one by one. Add chopped ginger and saute for some seconds. To this add chopped green chilly and curry leaves. Mix once and add onion slices with little salt. Saute till color of onion turns brownish.

(4) Add chilly powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder. Saute till the raw smell goes off. Add chicken slices. Mix well so that masala coats well with the chicken.

(5) Now pour the second extract of coconut milk and vinegar. Add little salt. Mix once and close the vessel with a lid. Allow it to boil for another 12 minutes (Chicken will cook in coconut milk and its water).

(6) After 12 minutes chilken will be half cooked. Now open the lid and add tomato cubes to it. Mix once and again close the vessel with lid. Continue to boil for another 10 minutes. Now pour the combined cashew paste and coconut milk to it. Make a salt test.

(7) Let it heat for another 5 minutes. Garnish with curry leaves. Switch off the flame. Your malabari chicken curry is now ready.

Have it with chapathi/dosa/idly/appam/rice/naan... 

You can see my little one's interruption between the click :)

Tips:

• Addition of chilly powder/green chilly depends on your tolerance level.
• You can either prepare coconut milk from grated coconut or use store bought coconut milk.

Elayappam/Ela Ada

Elayappam is a popular snack in my family. For me elayappam comes with many fond memories. My grandma, mom and her sisters used to gather in grandma's kitchen, sit together and do the process of spreading appam to ela. We liittle ones hardly join them for watching and yeah we were busy in playing right. Ohhhh i miss those days and my dear ones. Ok enough of my nostalgic momemts right? :) .

Coming back, we were in an indian store and my hubby noticed frozen ela ada/elayappam there. He wants to buy it. I always try to avoid frozen foods and so promised to do it at home with our traditional recipe. So this is for my dear hubby. The taste was yummy and got thumbs up from him and our friends. Double happy :) .Here comes the recipe for you all. Happy cooking .

Preparation Time:30 minutes
Cooking Time:20 minutes
Serves:3

Ingredients:

Raw rice	1 cup
Jaggery	2&1/2 cup
Grated Coconut	1&1/4 cup
Water	1/4 cup(appx)
Banana leaf	as needed

Preparation:

(1) Soak raw rice in water for about 15 minutes. Drain the excess water and spread rice over a newspaper so that excess water will be drained off. Grind raw rice in a mixer and make a very fine powder. Sieve it to make sure it is finely powdered. Mean while mash jaggery too into fine powder

(2) Now take 3/4 cup of jaggery in a bowl and add 2 tspoon of water to it. Mix well using hand to ensure jaggery is finely powdered. To this add rice powder and mix well using hand.

(3) Combine jaggery and rice powder. Now you have to make it a thick dough. Sprinkle water little by little and mix well using hand ( Don't add more water. The dough should not be loose or too tight.). Make a medium thick dough.

(4) Now heat the banana leaves over the flame of stove and keep it aside. Take one leaf and add around two tspoon of dough to the centre of leaf (adjust the quantity depending on the size of leaf) Spread it using the fingers and make a circular shape (refer the picture). Spread the dough so lightly so that the leaf should be transparent.

(5) Above that sprinkle around 2 tspoon of coconut and jaggery one above the other as shown in the picture (you can increase or decrease the amount of jaggery/coconut as per your taste).

(6) Fold over the leaf. Now seal the edges. For that first fold the two edges and finally cover it with the third fold. Repeat it with other leaves. I made 8 such packs.

(7) Steam it using a steamer. I used idly cooker to cook. It will be ready in some 20 to 30 minutes.  (When you open the leaf one part of dough will be stitched to other half. This is the correct stage. If you add more water while mixing it will be seen as squishy)

Your elayappam/ela ada is now ready.

Tips and variations:

• You can also add boiled green gram/payaru with this. Sprinkle 2 tspoon each as the third layer over the coconut.
• Be careful while adding water. Adding more water will make appam squishy.