Although generally thoran is a Kerala preparation (pretty much any vegetable can be made into thoran using grated coconut, shallots, cumin, and green/red chillies), I am led to believe this is a Reddiar recipe that first originated in Thirunelveli when the Reddiar community was concentrated there. Maybe they decided to call it thoran after moving to Kerala and being introduced to the concept. Either ways, this is a delicious chicken recipe and very easy to make even for beginner cooks....

Now onto the corn-peas-tomato salad . Serves 2 (on the side) Ingredients: Boiled Corn kernels - 1 cup Boiled peas - ½ cup Finely chopped onions - ½ cup Finely chopped tomatoes - ½ cup Minced garlic - ¼ teaspoon (1-2 cloves) Pepper powder - ½ teaspoon (I used white) Lime juice - 1 tablespoon (or to taste) Salt - to taste How I Made It: Mix the salt, garlic and pepper with the lime juice....

Here’s an updated recipe for jeera rice which I make in rice cooker these days. It’s much quicker and simpler. You may also wish to try my vegetable pulao recipe for a quick meal. Jeera Pakhala / Oriyan Jeera Rice This recipe is very similar to the normal jeera rice. I slightly modified it and added sliced onions and chilly powder. Ingredients: Basmati rice - one glass/1.5 cups Thinly sliced onion - 1 small Jeera seeds - 2 tbsp Jeera powder - 1 tsp Bay leaves - 1 Chilly powder - 1 tsp Vegetable oil - 1 tbsp Salt - to taste...

Kadala curry is not just a dish in Kerala, it’s part of the culture and rich diversity of the food that comes from the tiny Southern state I was lucky to grow up in. A well-made kadala curry sets the tone for the whole day since it is usually served for breakfast with puttu, appam, idiyappam, or dosa. Protein and fibre-rich with added coconut, because that’s a good Kerala dish without the quintessential coconut included....

The criss-cross design on the buns make it super adorable and I chose to make them into smaller, almost two-bite-sized buns. While they are best eaten fresh and preferably warm out of the oven, you can warm them slightly before serving if keeping them for the next day. I don’t recommend storing these buns beyond 2 days. If you are looking for more simple bakes, check out these eggless garlic rolls , Indian pav , or just browse all bread recipes so you can pick for yourself....

Mushroom Biryani is a great recipe to stray away from the usual vegetable biryani or egg biryani we all know and love. Learn how to make this delicious and easy mushroom biryani using very simple ingredients. With all that talk of non vegetarian biryani yesterday, I simply had to share the Mushroom Biryani Recipe I tried a couple of weekends back. I usually follow a pretty standard recipe when I make biryani but I opted to make this one a bit more spicy and sour (with tomatoes) than usual....

This recipe using Pacha payar (known as pesara pappu in Telugu and payatham paruppu in Tamil) and coconut is something mom used to make as an accompaniment to breakfast. We used to eat it as is mostly and my dad loves it! Its ridiculously simple to make and though I call it thoran, it uses just 3-4 ingredients and doesn’t follow the usual recipe for thoran . Its also very healthy since it uses very little oil and no spices....

Right! My MIL made Poricha Kuzhambu with peas the last time she was here and I loved it. She mentioned then that the most popular vegetable that goes into poricha kuzhambu is podalanga / snake gourd so I tried it with that and loved it! Since I like my kuzhambu a bit on the spicier side, I added a tad more of pepper and red chillies but you can adjust it to your liking....

Until a week back, I had the powder from the batch she sent with me when we moved to Singapore. Last week I made this on my own. She does this in bulk and takes it to a dry mill but I used powders and gave it a twist in my mixer. While I have had decent lunch with sambar powder brands that I buy, rasam powder is always more of a miss than a hit....

I don’t think I need to talk again about how much we love eggplant or brinjal. I buy it every week and end up adding this vegetable to one thing or the other - sometimes to sambar, or a simple brinjal palya , or a quick Vangi Bhath , or if I have time, Bagara Baingan , which is our favourite. I don’t think I need to talk again about how much we love eggplant or brinjal....

A quick and easy fried rice recipe with tofu, vegetables, and egg. This is a very ad-hoc recipe that I concocted one night. I had some tofu in hand that needed to be used up and I was in no mood to cook a rice or roti, then a side-dish, etc. This post actually has 3 recipes, in a way. You can stop at two other stages on the way to making the tofu vegetable fried rice or go all the way and make it a one-pot meal....

Tomato capsicum dal recipe: learn how to make dal with tomatoes and capsicum. The capsicum lends a lovely flavour to the dal which is perfect to be served with dal or roti. Tomato dal or tomato pappu is one of my favourite ways to cook dal. Although there are thousands of ways to make dal in India, the simple dal recipe with tomatoes has my heart, closely followed by any type of kootu recipe since it includes coconut....

Vanilla panna cotta with blueberry coulis, a fancy sounding delicious dessert that’s super easy to make. See below for step by step recipe. You know what? I always thought panna cotta was this incredibly difficult thing to make. I even thought it would be something like doing the inverted dog position and staying there for 5 mins without moving. Yeah, yoga taught me how tough it is to stay in one position doing nothing....

Pin Aloo beans recipe or potato beans recipe: I’ll tell you what or who this recipe is perfect for - you’re not feeling very inspired on what to cook for lunch or dinner, you like/love aloo potatoes, you have some beans lying around and you just want to make a one pot recipe with it. This is an adaption of the popular cooking technique One Pot One Shot or OPOS, a term coined by RK and popularised through his Facebook group United by Food....

Spicy Andhra fish curry recipe with tamarind, a ground curry paste, and fish steaks. A lovely South Indian style fish curry that goes great with rice and any vegetable of your choice. Pin Andhra Fish Curry Recipe Ingredients Instructions Notes Every now and then, I crave a good fish curry. It’s just what I grew up on and often, I find myself wanting to go back to my childhood days and forget the “healthy” tag and just have a bowl of white rice with a good fish curry....

Pin This recipe doesn’t call for beating the egg too much cuz since I don’t have an electric beater, I go for such recipes mostly. Basic Vanilla Cupcakes - Vanilla Sponge Cupcakes Recipe What I Used: (Makes about 16 cupcakes) Butter - ½ cup, at room temperature All purpose flour / maida - 1 ¾ cups Powdered sugar 1 cup (measure after powdering) Egg - 1 Milk - ¾ cup, at room temperature Baking powder - 1 tsp Vanilla essence - 1 tsp...

Cabbage kootu is a simple South Indian recipe with cabbage, dal, and some roasted spices and coconut that’s blended and cooked with the rest of the ingredients. Since cabbage has a stronger flavour than other vegetables typically used to make kootu - like chow chow kootu - the coconut paste has some roasted ingredients which adds a lovely flavour to the final dish. Cabbage Kootu Recipe Ingredients Instructions Notes Step by Step Images for Cabbage Kootu Recipe My only gripe with this cabbage kootu recipe is that it does require 3-4 pans to make it....

Crispy fried bitter gourd salad or karawila sambol is a Sri Lankan salad recipe with fried bitter gourd, onion, tomatoes, green chilli, etc. A wonderful concoction of a few ordinary things and hey, we have a really tasty dish to serve with rice and curry. Pin Crispy fried bitter gourd salad (karawila sambol) Ingredients Instructions Alright folks, raise your hand if you don’t like bitter gourd. Yep, me neither. I mean, it’s bitter....

Easy basic chocolate brownie recipe, a recipe for simple chocolate brownies using basic ingredients already in your pantry. I love using chocolate bars while baking and definitely feel like the taste and texture is significantly better when I do. The only thing that I don’t look forward to is the melting of the chocolate, especially if it involves a double-boiler set up.{Check out more brownie recipes here like the eggless biscuit brownies , whole wheat brownies , and twix brownies }...