Thengai Podi / Coconut Spice Mix

My mother-in-law prepares this wonderful spice blend with dessicated coconut from the garden. She recently sent a package of this spice blend for us, and I wanted to record the recipe before other things took over. This is my husband's favorite spice blend to mix with steamed rice!

Although this recipe calls for dessicated coconut, you can also use store bought coconut flakes (unsweetened) and roast them well. Shelf-life might be reduced a bit, but store in the fridge in an air-tight container to extend shelf life as much as possible. 

Cabbage Thuvayal / Thogayal

Cabbage thogayal / thuvayal is one of my mom's recent innovations in the kitchen. It is a coarser and more tart version of chutney. Shredded cabbage is ground with tamarind, chillies, ginger, and black gram to make a thuvayal that tastes different from the usual ones.

Sweet Corn & Mint Pulao

Summer is officially here! To kick start the summer, our group of friends got together for our annual barbecue/grill at a scenic locale overlooking a lake. It is a fun picnic with grilled and non-grilled food. Grilled corn on the cob with butter, lemon juice, chilli powder and salt is a staple at such grilling events. With the left over corn on the cob, I made this corn and mint pulao and it turned out pretty well. 

The sweet corn mingles with the delicate fragrance of mint and other whole spices to make a sweet and aromatic dish. This is a good substitute for peas pulao to update the usual menu a bit. The quantities below serve a big party of people, especially when accompanied with other dishes.

Chayote & Carrot Poricha Kuzhambu

One of my mom's specialty dishes is this simple and tasty lentil based stew. Chayote is called chow-chow in Tamil. It is a pear shaped gourd (or maybe squash) that goes really well with the mild sweetness of carrots. The cooked vegetables are simmered in lentils and flavored with cumin, pepper, coconut, and curry leaves for a wonderful dish. This stew is healthy with a mix of mild spice (from black pepper) and sweetness (from the carrots). 

I can never make this poricha kuzhambu as well as she does. This is one of her signature dishes that I was looking forward to recording in this space.

Seven Cup Cake / Indian Fudge-Cake

To celebrate my husband's marathon run, my mom made this Indian sweet. It is a soft and crumbly sweet flavored with saffron, cardamom, coconut, milk, ghee, and chickpea flour. This is another recipe that comes from my mother's aunt. She sent a box of this sweet for us, and it was divine! Handmade sweets prepared by seasoned cooks are far superior than any fancy store bought sweets!

This is an extremely easy "cake" that derives its name because of the total number of cups of ingredients required (1 cup chickpea flour + 1 cup coconut + 1 cup milk + 3 cups sugar + 1 cup ghee = 7 cups). However, I convinced my mom to "reduce" the quantity of ghee and sugar by a small margin. Of course, the more ghee that is added, the more softer, fragrant and tastier the burfi would be!