My Food Journey

This is the recipe for Tomato Pappu, Andhra’s version of tomato dal. This tomato dal or Tomato Pappu is a comfort food from Andhra Pradesh (State in South India) that has more than one type and makes for a perfect accompaniment with steaming hot rice with ghee. Dal is called Pappu in Telugu language & there are many variations of this dal. Emil (My husband) is a big fan of Andhra Cuisine and always loved it. He keeps telling me to make dishes inspired from the Andhra Cuisine. While reading about the dish and after speaking to few Telugu friends, I got to know that there's more than one type of pappu, like the spinach with dal & tomatoes. And also they are cooked slightly different in each household as well.  While usually most homes use tamarind for this dal along with tomatoes, I made a simpler version of this and avoided the tamarind. Instead I have used more tomatoes along with shallots.  The basic recipe was shared to us by my husband's colleague, and I also have a...

Making paneer at home is very easy. Its definitely has better taste and freshness than the store bought ones.  I always used to buy paneer from outside since I used to think that's the easy way. Well I do buy even now sometimes when I need them urgently, but the homemade soft malai paneer is the one I prefer over store bought  With just two ingredients you get this soft fresh cheese which is made by curdling milk using am acidic food ingredient. In brief - milk is boiled, then curdled with an acidic ingredient. This curdled milk solids are then drained onto a cheese cloth, and then pressed with a heavy object to set (this is optional)  Ingredients : Full fat milk - 4 cups or 1 liter Lemon juice - 3 tbsp approx.  Method:  First add the milk in a sauce pan. Keep it on a medium low flame and bring it to boil.  In the meantime , keep the colander  lined with cheese cloth and the lemon juice ready.  Once the milk starts to boil, turn off the heat ...

  This simple curry is one of my go to when I am not in mood for cooking and also when I really don't have lot of veggies in hand. This is my version of making this simple curry, but there are many other variations as well. Moloshyam is a simple comfort curry that goes well with bowl of rice. It's usually made with ash gourd, dal and tomatoes. But you can use other veggies as well like snake gourd, cucumber or like I have used small brinjal. In short its a delicious simple less spicy curry made with lentil, one veggie and touch of coconut oil. Let's see how its done. Step wise pics are given below.  Ingredients:  1 cup dal  1/2 cup brinjal or any other veggie (quick cooking) 1 cup tomato chopped  3-4 Green chillies slit  Water for cooking Salt to taste  1/2 tsp turmeric powder 2 tsp coconut oil  Handful curry leaves Method:  Wash, clean the dal and cook it with some water in a pressure cooker for 3-4 whistles or until cooked well While the da...