Yam Fry

Love making this Yam  fry again and again, as its easy and with very less oil
Here is the procedure

Ingredients
Yam as needed
Salt as required
Oil 2-3 Tbsp
Red chili powder 1/2 Tsp

Method
Clean and peel the yam, wash it thoroughly Roughly chop the yam in to small cubes and Wash the yam 2-3 times in clean water to remove the starch. Heat Oil to smoking point and add the yam.When the Yam pieces shrunk a little as shown in the below picture add salt.

Keep on frying in a medium flame until Yam is cooked (it takes around 10-15 min) or until the yam pieces no longer sticks to the pan. Turn the flame in to maximum level and fry for 2-3 minutes to get a slight brown and crispy yam pieces. Turn off the flame and sprinkle chili powder

Remove and serve hot with rice or as it is

Note
These yam fry does not require much salt add very little at the beginning if you find it less you can always add at the end

Don't use very fresh Yam for these fries, because it causes a itching throat if you are using fresh yam.

Sweet Somas

Sweet Somas also known as Karjikaayi in Kannada and Gujjiya in Hindi. Somas is a mildly sweet deep fried delicacy. 

This sweet dish is mainly made during Ganesha Chathurthi you can often see garlands made with Karjikaayi and offered to lord Ganesha as neivedhyam. Sweet somas is also kept in "thattu varisai" (Row of plates containing fruits, sweets etc kept during functions in Tamil nadu) during seemandham(Baby shower) and child's ear piercing ceremony along with all other sweet and savoury delicacies like murukku and ladoos.

Nowadays you can find these sweet somas in shops but in my opinion its not that good when compared to home made. I know its a long and difficult procedure but once you start doing it you will enjoy doing the same. My suggestion is please try not to do it on a festival day as its a time consuming process you can always prepare it one or two day before and store it in a air tight container.

The stuffing I have used is dry coconut+sugar+fried gram but there are n number of choices for stuffing. 
Some of the other stuffing ideas I have come across are Khoya/dry fruits/fresh coconut/sesame seeds/jaggery.

The outer covering(outer pastry) is generally made with maida but one can use wheat flour also to make it a little healthy.

Ingredients

For Outer Covering

Maida/All purpose flour 1Cup

Rava/Semolina 1Tbsp

Hot oil 1Tbsp

Water 1/4 Cup

For Stuffing

Sugar 1/4 Cup

Fried Gram 1/4 Cup

Dry coconut (grated) 1/4 Cup

Method

Combine flour, oil and semolina in a wide bowl, Add 1/4 cup of water and make it in to a tight dough. Keep aside for 2-3 hours close it with a damp cloth to retain the moisture.

  

Grind Sugar and Fried gram separately in to a fine powder and keep aside, combine both with the grated coconut your stuffing is ready.                                                                            

Take little dough and flatten it like chapati and cut using a small bowl which is having sharp edge.

If you are making a very big chapati you will get around 3 rounds as shown here. 

Put 1 Tbsp of mixture on each of the circle as shown below. Gather the stuffing neatly so that it wont break the   outer cover while folding. 

Apply little water on the opposite side of the somas stuffing as marked, fold to form a semicircle as shown Press and seal nicely and cut the edges using a pizzacutter or zig zag spoon cutter or   just seal it with a fork(Like how do for ravioli)

Keep all the somas ready for frying. Heat oil in a medium flame and once oil gets heated gently drop these somas.Fry until a light   golden brown. Remove from oil, once it gets cooled store it in a air tightcontainer.

Notes

l Salt may be added for outer covering dough but it makes the outer covering a bit on the darker side when deep frying.

l Very little water is required to make the outer covering(1/4 cup of water for 1 cup maida)

l Hot oil used while preparing outer cover gives crispy somas please don't omit that.

l Keep the dough, stuffed somas(before frying) always covered to retain moisture or else you will end up a very dry somas.

l Since we are using very less water to knead the dough its a bit difficult to make chapatis out of it.

Mysore Rasam

I have tasted this rasam many times in marriages and other functions in Bangalore and its quiet different from the regular rasam what we prepare at home... recently we had ordered food in large quantity from anjappar for our house warming ceremony and I found lot of green chillies and coconut in it(which we never use it while making rasam).

On browsing i found out that it is called "Mysore rasam" and everything is made fresh from the scratch.I dint browse much for the recipe as I found it here very easily and also it was recently posted in that blog. First time I made it it was more on the spicier side so I have modified a little bit to get the tanginess of the rasam. 
So here is the recipe with a very little modification.




















Ingredients
Toor dal 4 tbsp
Tamarind 1 big lemon sized
Tomato 2 medium sized
Sambar powder 1 tsp
Green chillies 1 slit in to half
Grated jaggery 1 tsp(I dint add)
Salt as required 
turmeric powder 1/2 Tsp

Oil 1Tsp


Roast
Urad dal 1/2 tsp
Chana dal 1/2 tsp
Dhania/Coriander seeds 1Tsp
Red chili 1
Pepper corns 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds/Jeeragam 1/2 tsp
Dry Grated coconut/Copra 1tbsp

To temper
Oil 1 tsp
Mustard seeds 1/2 tsp
Jeera
Hing 1/2 Tsp

Coriander leaves to garnish

Preparation

In a bowl soak tamarind for few minutes and extract 1-2 cups of water and keep aside. Puree Tomato and keep aside.Cook and mash the toor dhall well and keep aside Roast all the ingredients given under roast in 1Tsp oil(in the order mentioned), once it gets cool grind it along with 3-4 Tsp of water in to a smooth paste and keep aside.

METHOD
1.In a vessel add toor dhall, tamarind extract, green chillies, sambar powder, 
salt and turmeric powder and let it boil for 3-5 minutes.
2.Add the ground paste to the rasam and let it boil for few more minutes(5-10 minutes)
3.Add coriander and turn off the flame and transfer to a serving dish.
4.Heat oil and temper with mustard, jeera and hing and pour over the rasam.

5.Serve with Hot rice.

Note
*Ghee is used for tempering in the original recipe but I used oil.
*You can increase and decrease the quantity of ingredients as per your taste and requirement.