Bajji/Assorted Bajji/Vegetable Bajji

Bajji is a favourite South Indian fried teatime snack. The ingredients are very less and its easy to prepare with whatever veggie is available at home. I am a big fan of bajji and so are others in my family. My mom used to make small hot bajjis and I used to eat it without keeping count of it. In shops or restaurants we will not be able to eat more than 2 or 3. But at home, the number is infinite. When I talk about bajji, I should surely mention the bajjis available at Besant Nagar Elliots beach in Chennai. If you are not worried about the oil once in a while, the bajjis taste heavenly there. I too came to know of it only through my mom's boss and his family who took us there once especially for the bajji! Wow, it tasted awesome. Now, over to the recipe.

Ingredients

• Besan flour/channa dal flour - 1 cup
• Rice flour - 1 cup
• Assorted sliced vegetables - Potato/Raw banana/Onion/Capsicum/Brinjal
• Chilly powder - 2 to 3 tsp (adjust to your taste)
• Asafoetida powder - A pinch
• Ghee - 1/2 tsp (optional)
• Orange food colour (optional)
• Oil - As needed to fry
• Salt - As needed
• Water - As needed

 Method

•   Slice all the veggies thin and keep aside. I used potatoes and capsicum for the bajjis.

•  In a bowl, mix all the ingredients except the veggies and water.

• Now add water to the mix and make a pourable batter.

• You can keep this aside for about 10 minutes for the spiciness to get absorbed in the batter.
• Meanwhile heat a kadai with oil to fry.
• Then dip the sliced veggies one by one in the batter until the veggies get coated well with the batter. Immediately drop them in the hot oil and fry them one by one or in batches until golden brown. Turn the bajjis around with a ladle while frying.

• After frying, drain  them in a strainer vessel and a paper towel.
• Serve hot with tomato sauce or coconut chutney or even left over sambar from lunch.
• I always like to have it as such.

Wheat Halwa/ Tirunelveli Halwa

To begin with, I am posting the recipe of a sweet - the ever famous wheat halwa or Tirunelveli halwa. So, what's the difference between Bombay halwa and Tirunelveli halwa? Bombay halwa has the addition of gelatin to gain the stiffness it needs. Tirunelveli halwa just uses wheat and the rubbery texture to it is imparted by the gluten present in the wheat. I got this recipe from my perima; she made and brought this to me when I was pregnant. It was yummy! So, here we go to the recipe...

Ingredients

• Broken wheat/Samba wheat rava - 1 cup
• Sugar - 2 cups heaped + 1 level cup
• Water - 2 cups + as needed to soak
• Cardamom/elaichi powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Nutmeg powder - 1/4 teaspoon (optional)
• Kesari colour - A pinch
• Ghee - 4 to 5 tablespoons

Note: 1 cup mentioned here is 1 measure using any size of cup.

Method

•   Soak the broken wheat rava in water for 1 hour.

• Meanwhile, fry some cashews in some ghee and keep aside. Grease a tray with some ghee and keep aside.
• After 1 hour, drain the water from the soaked samba rava. Empty the soaked rava in a mixie and add 1 cup of water to it and grind till smooth. Strain the ground rava to get a milky substance (this is the main ingredient of the halwa).
• After straining, take the rava pulp, add the other 1 cup of water and grind it, and then strain it again in to the vessel. You discard the remaining pulp (which will not be much).
• In a pan (preferably nonstick) add the sugar and pour water until the sugar is immersed. Mix it in low flame until the sugar dissolves completely. There is no need to get any syrupy consistency.
• Now, pour the samba rava milk in to the dissolved sugar and mix. Add kesari colour at this stage.

• Mix well and add the cardamom, cashews and nutmeg powder at this stage.
• Keep mixing well; add ghee little by little while constantly mixing. In some time, the halwa will separate out from the pan and roll up together.

• Add a little more ghee and then switch off the flame when the halwa comes out clean and nonsticky.
• Pour it on to the greased tray and make pieces. Garnish with some more cashews if needed.
• For me, the pieces came out in good shape only the next day. But the taste was good enough.

About the Site

Hi,

I am Dhaarini Vinodh, an editor and a mother of a 1-year-old. Cooking is my passion, I should say right from childhood, as I remember always sneaking in to the kitchen when mom and granny were cooking and used to observe what they were doing. I would also enjoy the cookery shows along with them. In fact, I and my cousins would try out some new dishes without using the stove and give names to it when we were children! It used to be fun! As I grew up, I simply kept watching cookery shows when possible, but never tried anything much at home. I just tried making some rice varieties and side dishes at home. During my college days, me and my friends used to decide up on a meal recipe and would schedule a day at each of our homes and cook together. Wow! What fun it was! We would begin without knowing where to start with, but will end up making fa(u)ntastic dishes! Yumm they were. Whatever it is, I never used to try our own South Indian conventional cooking. After my marriage, I tried my hand in different types of cooking and learnt many conventional and unconventional dishes. Then I started to follow some food blogs also, which inspired me to start this one.

I should thank all elders at home for inspiring me in cooking and introducing me to new dishes. Credit must also go to my hubby for he was the one who introduced me to a lot of cuisines by taking me to some new restaurant every time.

This blog will feature only vegetarian dishes (as I am a vegan). Most of the recipes I should say are fusion, because those will be altered according my taste and availability of ingredients. Hence the name of this blog. Credits will surely be given to those from whom I got the recipe. More than the cooking and eating what we cook, the appreciation that we get from others is what really keeps us going. Don't you agree? Come on, let's relish!:)