Vellarikka Pachadi

Ingredients 

• Cucumber cut into small cubes- 1 cup
• Shallots - 4-5
• Mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
• Cumin Seeds powder - a pinch
• Garlic- 2 cloves
• Curd - 1 cup
• Coconut grating - 1/2 cup
• Salt
• Oil
• Curry leaves

Method of Making pachadi with pictures

1. Cut cucumbers into small cubes and add them to a pan

2. Add one chilly, small amount of salt and a bit of water. Close the lid of the pan and cook in slow flame.

3. In a mixer jar, add coconut gratings, musturd seeds (1/4tsp), cumin seed powder (jeera-a pinch), shallots (kochulli - 4 no) and garlic cloves (2nos). Run the mixer and to get a loose consistency, you may add a bit of water.

4. Now add the ground coconut mix to the cooked cucumber pieces

5. Mix the curd well with the cooked cucumber pieces. You may add water. Add salt and make sure you do not add too much of salt. Cook for 2 min in slow flame. Do not allow to boil.

6. Open the lid of the pan 

 7. Now add 1/2 a cup curd to the cooked cucumbers and check salt.

8. Garnish with curry leaves and serve with rice and other vegetable curries.

Garam Masala

Garam Masala gives the spicy touch to any non-vegetarian or vegetarian dish. To make garam masala powder, you need to spend some amount of your quality time, to get the right spices and prepare them the proper manner to spice up any Indian dish.

Ingredients

• Fennel Seeds - 500 gm
• Cinnamon or Karuga Patta - 50gm
• Cloves - 15 nos
• Star Anise- 2
• Mace of Nutmeg- 5 no
• Nutmeg- 1/4
• Poppy seeds- 250 gm

Method

• Heat a pan
• Add fennel seeds, cloves, star anise, mace of nutmeg and nutmeg and dry roast well
• Remove the roasted spices
• To the same pan, add cinnamon and roast separately for 5 min
• Remove from flame
• Now you may roast the poppy seeds in the same manner and keep aside
• When the spices cool down, add them to a mixer jar and grind them to powder
• Store in an air tight container
• You may even roast the spices in microwave. But care should be taken not to roast them too much.