Mutton Pulav: Kodava Style

Smitha Kuttayya Boppanda is based in Chennai and runs a home bakery called BAKED DELIGHTSS since 2007. She was involved in hosting a Kodava food festival at the Taj Fisherman Cove in 2006. Smitha also conducts workshops in cooking and baking which are very popular in Chennai.

She says: “My recipes are always a combination of recipes given to me by my grand-mother, aunts, cousins, relatives and anyone I consider a good cook. I feel cooking is more an instinct than having the ‘best’ or the ‘most authentic’ recipe. For that matter, wood-fire cooked food tastes better than any other. ‘But is it practical nowadays?’ So I have learnt to innovate within the boundaries of that cuisine and to suit the people I cook for.”

“This recipe for pulav is a combination of about 4 recipes I have. The basics are the same in almost all of them. This is the combination of ingredients and flavours that works best for me.”

Since the typical Chingri akki (a very special variety of small grained rice available in Coorg) is not readily available everywhere, I opted for the Jeera rice, which is more readily available. Since it is very delicate, it has to be handled very gently while frying and mixing.

Please go through the recipe fully before you start on it. It is not difficult if you keep the ingredients ready and have an idea of the sequence and process.

Ingredients:

Jeera rice: ½ kg

Mutton pieces (with bones as bones lend a lot of flavour to the dish): ¾ kg

Onions: 4 medium whole and peeled

Onions chopped: 2

Coconut grated: ½ cup

Garlic one whole,  peeled and cleaned

Ginger cleaned: 2 to 3 inches

Green chillies: 4-5

Cloves: 5-6

Cinnamon: 3”

Green Cardamom: 4 whole

Poppy seeds: 1 tsp

Coriander seeds: 2 tsp

Cumin seeds: 3tsp

Black pepper: 2 tsp

Turmeric powder: 1tsp

Chilli powder: 1 tsp

Salt   to taste

Ghee (clarified butter): 2 tbsp

Coriander leaves 1 bunch cleaned and finely chopped

Oil for frying and water for cooking.

Method:

1. 1.     Clean and wash the mutton, drain out all the water, add salt, turmeric, chilli powder and 4 or 5 pods of crushed garlic. Mix well and leave to marinate for about half an hour.
2. 2.     Wash the rice and put it to drain
3. 3.     Take some oil in a pressure cooker and fry one chopped onion, the crushed garlic, crushed ginger. Fry till the onions are golden. Now put in the mutton and stir till most of the water is dried up. Add half a cup of water and slightly cook the mutton (I cook for about one whistle).
4. 4.     Now take the ghee in a thick bottomed pan and heat it. Add 2 cloves, a small bit of cinnamon and about 4tbsp of the chopped onions and fry till golden. Add the washed and drained rice and fry. Be very careful while frying the rice as it will be brittle and can break easily.
5. 5.     While this is happening, put a whole peeled onions (one by one) on the flame of the gas burner directly and allow to burn on slow flame till the outer layers get tender and transparent.
6. 6.     Now fry the cumin, coriander, poppy seeds, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, green chillies and grated coconut with about 1 tbsp oil for about 5 minutes on high flame stirring continuously.
7. 7.     Put the fried coconut etc in the blender along with the whole onions. Blend. This need not be a smooth paste but coarse like a chutney.
8. 8.     Now drain out the water from the cooked mutton and measure it. Add more water to this measured quantity to make it a total on 2 cups. Bring these 2 cups of liquid to a boil and add it to the fried rice. Add the mutton and the ground masala to it. Carefully stir and add the chopped coriander.
9. 9.     When it starts boiling, turn the flame to minimum and close with a tight lid. Check in about 8 minutes. Slowly turn the rice and mutton so that the top and bottom layers get mixed. Close again and cook till done… about 20 minutes. (You can also put the vessel on a thava and allow to cook on even and low heat for 30 to 35 minutes)

If you are short on patience, you can skip steps 5, 6 and 7. Combine all the ingredients in these steps in the blender and use it in step 8. There is a difference in taste but both methods turn out a good Kodava style mutton pulav.

Serve this with cucumber raitha or sweet tamarind chutney.

Madanda Veena Arun Belliappa

PRAWN CURRY

Ingredients:

2 cups medium sized prawns (cleaned and de-veined)
¼ cup beaten curds
Salt to taste
½ tsp chilli powder
¼ tsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp of oil
1tsp of garam masala
2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
Grind 50 gms cashew nuts
25 gms sesame seeds
25 gms poppy seeds
6 green chillies.

Method:

Mix prawn into curds, salt, chilli powder and turmeric powder.
Set aside for ½-an-hour.
Heat oil and fry ground ingredients.
Add prawns with curds and stir till gravy becomes thick.
Add garam masala
Garnish with coriander leaves on the top.

Allapira Usha Kalappa, Bangalore

Parande Fry (Gizzard Fry)

Ingredients:

1kg parande (gizzard), spring onion, onion, green chilli, capsicum, ginger garlic, soya sauce, chilli sauce.

Method:

Take one kg of parande, soak it in red chilli powder, turmeric and salt mixture for 30 minutes and boil it for about 10 minutes in pressure cooker till it whistles twice. Cut onions, capsicum, green chillies and spring onions into fine pieces. Fry these in a pan of oil for about 5 minutes till it turns golden brown. And add ginger garlic paste to fried vegetables. Mix cooked parande with the fried vegetables. Add 1 tea spoon of soya sauce, 4 spoon of chilli sauce to your taste. Serve HOT !!!!!!!!!

Mrs NELLAMAKADA THULSI BOPANNA

Mrs NELLAMAKADA THULSI BOPANNA is a social worker of Mysore. Ravae Oondae (soji ball) is a popular teatime snack in Coorg homes.

RAVAE OONDAE

Ingredients:

[a] 2cups fine suji [ravae] ,
[b] 1cup sugar –powdered ,
[c] 1 cup grated coconut or copra ,
[d] 1/4 cup ghee ,
[e] 3/4 cup or a little less hot milk ,
[f] 1 tsp cardamom powder ,
[g] 20 cashew nuts broken into two and 40 raisins washed and dried ,

METHOD:

Roast suji [without ghee] in a pan till light brown. Put it into a large plate. Pour the ghee into the pan and fry cashew nuts and raisins. When they are done take them out. Put the suji into the ghee and fry for a few minutes. Take the suji and put back in the plate. Put coconut scrapings into the pan and fry till brown. Put the sugar powder and stir for 1/2 a minute. Mix everything together in the plate, add cardamom powder, sprinkle hot milk and mix everything together and make them into balls.

Palekanda Tara Bopaiah

Palekanda Tara Bopaiah is a well-known beautician of Mysore. She has also given a television programme on cookery.

Baale Kaamb Pajji (Banana Stem Chutney)

INGREDIENTS:

Banana stem 12” length: one piece ,
Coconut scrapings: one cup ,
Chopped onion: one medium size ,
Garlic: six cloves ,
Greenchillies: four ,
Jeera: one tsp ,
Lemon juice: one tbsp ,
Oil: two tbsp ,
Salt: To taste ,

FOR SEASONING:

Mustard: half tsp ,
Chopped onion: one small size ,
Chopped garlic: four cloves
Curry leaves: six to eight ,
Dry chillies: Two ,

METHOD:

Wash the banana stem and remove the hard outer layers. Cut the soft stem into round circles. While cutting the stem see that the thread like fibers are removed. These can be removed with a small stick. Now, chop the round stem into small pieces and soak them in water for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat one tbsp oil and fry chopped onions, chopped garlic, green chillies, jeera together for five minutes. Add strained chopped banana stem and fry for ten minutes on medium flame. Add coconut scrapings and roast until little brownish. Grind all these ingredients. Add salt to taste. Season the chutney paste and add lemon juice.

Baale Kaamb Chutney goes well with akki otti (rice roti) or chappathis.

Nirmala Srinivasan

Avocado Ice Cream

Nirmala Srinivasan is an education consultant. She is an ardent fan of television cooking and collects recipes from different parts of India. She is fond of Italian cooking.

Ingredients:

½ litre milk ,
1 tin condensed milk ,
1 small tin cream ,
2 tbsp corn flour ,
sugar to taste (2 to 4 tbsp) ,
1 ½ avocados ,

Method:

Boil milk with sugar. Mix corn flour in a little cold milk and add to the hot boiling milk. Stir till thick cool. Beat cream and condensed milk. Take the pulp out of 1 ½ avocados and beat it smooth. Add some of the condensed milk cream mixture to this and stir till the whole thing is incorporated in the milk uniformly.
Then add the whole lot to the cooled custard. Freeze. When half set, take out, beat it and set it again.
Serves 10.