JFI Attempt: Mirchi Ka Salan

I have been longing to make mirchi ka salan for quite some time now (read 4 years). JFI July (Chilli) seemed to be the perfect occasion, but did not have time to post and mirchi ka salan was a common entry into the event (duh~!) Anyways, I did make it and man! we loved it.
This picture lists out all you need for the reciepe.
















I slit the chillies and took out the 'heat' part, and sauted them for a little bit. Roasted the peanuts and sesame with some jeera and curry leaves. when the sesame gave out a nice aroma added coconut flakes and took the mixture off the flame. In little oil, added jeera, ginger and onions and sauted them till the onions were done. On cooling, blended the peanut-sesane misture with the onion-ginger mixture by adding some tamarind juice. In very little oil added the smooth paste, remaining tamarind juice and the fried chillies and let them cook for 10 minutes. Add coriander, salt, mirchi powder and whisked yogurt and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Done Done Done!
I made Mixed Vegetable Biryani to eat with our salan.




PS: I wish i took pictures of the container after we ate it :P

Online Food Events: JFI (Jhiva for ingredients)

New job - Again! yes! Job in CS means, walking to work with kaushik, lunch with kaushik, coffee breaks with kaushik and dinner with kaushik: Things I missed the most in the past 2 years.
So now that I am not spending most of my weekend-time driving, I can restart my hobbies or shall we say experiments. So I decided to take part in online food events. I have read about many such events across the food-blogosphere, but found one that interests me on my most-frequently-visited food blog Mahanandi; JFI (Jihva for Ingredients). Ingredient for July was 'Chilli'. I thought of many things to make: Stuffed Capsicum, Mirchi Ka Salan and Curd Chillies. And, made them. But found out/read that others have sent the same recipes, so I just kept them for us. The stuffed capsicum was again quite filling and the mirchi ka salan was simply tasty! (i never thought i could make it!) But the dahi mirchi was a flop show! thanks to the untimely sand storm. (i have no clue where in CS do we have so much sand...oh wait a min.. must be from the new biomed building construction site across the street...huh!)


So I patiently waited for August and the ingredient chosen was 'peanuts'.. yay! i was all up to make peanut brittle/palli patti/chikki. I soon found out/read that the host made it for the event..so i didn't make palli patti, but did make many many many ... ok 6 new pindivantalu for varalakshmi vratham.

Food Adventures - XIV: Apple Custard

'Jobless' days are almost over and I realized I might not be continuing with my food adventures anymore, as I start my new job on April 1st (YA!) And then it dawned on me that I didn't try making what Kaushik likes the most - Custard! So bought the 'bird' brand of custard from local desi store and followed the instructions. Result: pretty decent! I was so amazed by the change in state from powder to liquid-ish to semi-solid. I am just amazed!