Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Mantena's Special - Tomato Nuvvula Chutney
Today’s
special in Dr. Mantena’s Kitchen is ‘Tomato Nuvvula Chutney’. Often preparing
Dr. Mantena’s recipes consume lot of time but preparing Tomato Nuvvula Chutney
is very easy and time saving. It can be easily made within 5 minutes and served
with phulkas, vadas etc. If you are an ardent follower of Dr. Raju, then you
might have noticed him using sesame seeds quite often. Sesame seeds are the
richest source of Calcium required for the bones. It is also rich in insoluble
fiber which helps in cleansing the intestines better. So, let us now go into
the details of preparing it.
Ingredients:
1.
Sesame Seeds - 50 gms
2.
Tomatoes - 2 Nos.
3.
Green Chilies - 4 Nos.
4.
Lemon - 1 No.
5.
Coriander Leaves - 1 bunch
6.
Curry Leaves - 5 – 6 Nos.
7.
Turmeric - a pinch
Method:
1.
Take 50 grams of sesame seeds and roast
them in a pan till it turns brown. Care is to be taken not to over roast them
as it turns bitter and under roasting will not give proper taste and aroma.
2.
Grind the roasted sesame seeds in a mixer
grinder into fine powder.
3.
Chop 2 tomatoes, green chilies, coriander
leaves, curry leaves, a pinch of turmeric etc. and add it in the jar of sesame
seeds and grind it into a fine paste.
4.
Extract juice from 1 big size lemon and add
to the paste.
5.
The spicy tinge chutney is now ready to be
served with hot phulkas or vadas.
If
you are new to Dr. Mantena’s recipes, the tongue obviously look out for the
taste of the salt. However the lemony and spicy flavor of the chutney can help
you eat the phulkas and vadas without any trouble.
When
Dr. Raju first gave a call to abandon the use of salt in food, everyone thought
he was crazy as it was a new thing for many people. No one believed that one
can cook food without salt; more importantly eating food without salt was out
of imagination. Look at his followers now? His followers are in large numbers
not only in India but across the World. And this number is growing larger every
day.
Earlier,
the doctors used to ask the heart and BP patients to reduce salt in their food
for safety. But they were afraid to say how less the salt should be because
they don’t want to lose their patients. But these days even the big corporate
hospitals are advertising on mega hoardings asking people to consume salt not
more than 1 gm a day. Thanks to Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju for that. Is it
not the impact of Dr. Raju’s teachings that these people have come up to say
consumption of salt above 1 gm a day is harmful? Even if you believe these
doctors, you are not supposed to consume 1 gm salt per day. Are you consuming
salt anywhere near to this quantity? Just think! I don’t think even the doctors
who are advertising these hoardings will do either. It is because we are badly conditioned
to eat food cooked in salt. We have become slave to the salt which is taking
control all over our nervous system and internal organs and spoiling them
gradually over a period of time. By the time we realize it is too late.
The
only way to overcome this problem is to understand the harm that is doing to our
body and uncondition ourself from it. Being the Supreme of all beings, You must
be ruling the salt and not the salt rule you. You must grow to such an extent
that you add salt in food only when you want but not always in terms of the
salt. It is obviously difficult to sacrifice the salt immediately and
completely because we have been conditioned to have food with salt and huge amounts
of salt ever since we began eating our food. Therefore we need to gradually
train ourselves to overcome this unhealthy habit of eating salt by slowly
reducing the quantity of salt we use in our food.
Try
to cook and eat food without salt at least once a week to begin with and
gradually grow to such an extent that you avoid salt at least one meal a day
whether breakfast, lunch or dinner without salt. I think this itself is an
achievement. The things then change on its own after this.
I
hope you are going to declare a salt holiday at least one time a week and begin
your journey towards healthy living. Wish you all a very good luck and all the
best!
Keep
watching the space for more updates.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Mantena's Special - Sanaga Pappu Vada
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Today’s Mantena’s Special is ‘Sanaga Pappu Vada’. Vada
is a favorite evening snack of every Andhrite. In fact, it is the favorite
snack of all the south Indians. Usually vada’s are deep fried in oil which is
very harmful for health. Oil fried vadas are not only harmful for the liver and
heart but also for the stomach. On eating couple of vadas you feel a bloating
sensation in the stomach and sometimes it also leads to stomach ache. But Mantena’s
special vada is nutritious, healthy and completely harmless. You can eat as
many vadas as you can without any disturbance to your stomach as well. Let us
go into the details of preparation now.
Ingredients:
1. Chickpea Gram - 3 Cups
2. Raw Coconut - 1 No.
3. Cauliflower Stem - 15 to 20 Nos.
4. Tomato - 2 Nos.
5. Green Chilies - 10 Nos.
6. Lemon - 2 Nos.
7. Ginger - Small Piece
8. Cumin Seeds - 1 tbsp
9. Coriander leaves - 1 bunch
10. Cream - 3 tbsp
Procedure:
1.
Soak 3 cups of split chickpea grams over
8-12 hours in water. Rinse them well in water and grind it in a mixer grinder
making a thick batter. Don’t grind very thin but make sure that some pieces of
grams still exist. This makes the vadas crunchy in taste.
2.
Take a big sized raw coconut, chop into
pieces and grind it into paste. Don’t add any water to grind it.
3.
Take 20 to 25 Nos. of Cauliflower stem,
chop them into pieces, extract juice from a lemon and sauté it in a bowl and
keep it aside for 15 minutes and then grind it into paste in a mixer grinder. People
usually throw the stems of Cauliflower. It is the favorite food of goats. People
eat goats for strength where as goats eat these things. How strange! Isn’t it?
It is full of enzymes required for digestion and assimilation of nutrients in
the body. More importantly it is rich in Sodium which is why we are using it as
a substitute for salt. You can also use spinach in case the cauliflower stem is
not available.
4.
Take 2 tomatoes, grind and make a puree.
Tomatoes give a pleasant taste to the vadas.
5.
Finely chop 8-10 green chilies and sauté it
with lemon juice in a cup or bowl. We are using more chilies because we are
making the vadas without salt and the spice from green chilies and the sourness
from lemon gives some taste to the buds.
6.
Take a small piece of ginger for taste and
crush into paste. Spices are occasionally used in Dr. Mantena’s recipes.
Therefore ginger and cumin seeds are exceptions today.
7.
Roast the cumin seeds and grind it into
powder. Cumin seeds give a great aroma to the dish.
8.
Finely chop the coriander leaves and keep
it aside in a cup or bowl.
9.
Now add all ingredients into the chickpea
gram batter one by one and mix it well. Don’t add any water to the batter as it
already has plenty of water from soaked grams, coconut, cauliflower stems and
tomato puree. If the batter becomes thin then it becomes difficult to make the
vadas. Therefore keep the batter as thick as possible.
10. Now
put on the stove, keep a nonstick pan over it. Let it heat for some time and
then put some cream over it and spread all over the pan. Again cream is also occasionally
used. Make vadas with your hand and put it over the heated pan and let them
cook for some time. Once you find the vadas are cooked on one side, turn them
upside down and cook on the other side. Once
the vadas are cooked from both sides, serve them hot. You can serve these vadas
as breakfast, lunch or dinner with Nuvvula chutney or Gongura chutney again
made naturally in Dr. Mantena style. You can eat any number of these vadas
without any harm as they are free from salt, sugar, oil, ghee, red chili
powder, tamarind and spices. Every care is taken to replace these harmful
tastes with natural substitutes.
Earlier
people used to eat these kinds of food once in a while in a year. If you
observe the festivals in India, at every festival a different kind of sweet,
snack or food is prepared. Moreover, utmost care is taken to make it delicious
by adding ghee, sugar, oil and different varieties of masalas and spices.
People used to enjoy them and remain healthy as well. There are two reasons for
their health. First, people used to exert their bodies to earn bread and
secondly there used to be very few festivals like Sankranti, Dassera, Diwali
etc. Day by day people stopped exerting their bodies for earning bread as
machines replaced human labor from kitchen to the factories and the number of
festivals have increased to such an extent that you need a calendar to remember
them. Earlier they used to work hard throughout the year and enjoy the delicacies
not more than 10 times a year as the festivals were limited. Today every day is
a festival. Step out of the house and you find a sweet shop, Tiffin center,
fast food center, bakery and a snack point ready with different varieties of
snacks and tiffins at every corner of the street and roadsides. And if you
reach a market place or a center around the cross roads you find them competing
with one another in serving you the delicacies. Remember one thing; no hotel, Tiffin
center or snack corner thinks about your health while making food. Enjoy the delicacies
but don’t make it a habit or weakness.
Thanks
to Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju in researching and designing these recipes
for the aspirants of good health. He realized that if such delicacies are
provided at home without harmful salt, oil, ghee, sugar, red chili powder,
tamarind and masalas by substituting these tastes with natural ingredients then
you don’t feel a craving for junk foods available in the market. You can enjoy
the taste as well as remain healthy.
I
hope you enjoyed this update and keep watching the space for more.
Labels: Dr. Mantena's Kitchen, Dr. Manthena, Dr. MSR, Sanaga Pappu Vada, Vada
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Multi Vitamin Tropical Energy Drink
I am back again with yet another Summer Special drink
to beat the heat and to boost the energy levels lost due to burning Indian summer.
Today’s special in Dr. Mantena’s Kitchen is - Multi Vitamin Tropical Energy Drink.
This is a delicious way to combine your fruit with protein to energize you any
time of the day. It can be served as a morning breakfast, evening snack or
night dinner. I bet you don’t need any other food along with it. It keeps you
energetic throughout the day/night.
Preparation Time:
It is a very simple drink that takes less than 10
minutes of time to prepare.
Ingredients:
Papaya - 1 medium size
Pineapple - 1
medium size
Banana - 1 big size
Yogurt - 1
cup low fat
Honey - 4-6
spoons
Procedure:
1. Scrape the
skin of a pineapple and chop it into small cubes. Add those cubes into a mixe grinder and extract juice from it and keep aside in a glass or a bowl.
2. Choose a ripe papaya and scoop out the flesh from it
with a spoon and keep aside in a bowl.
3. Undress the banana and chop it into pieces and add
it to the bowl of papaya.
4. Put the papaya and the banana into a mixer grinder
and grind till it becomes a thick pulp.
5. Now add 1 to 2 cups of extracted pineapple juice, 1
cup of low fat yogurt and 4-6 spoons of honey into it and grind it well.
The drink is ready now. Add some
cold water from a mud pot into it and serve. Since we
are using ripe papaya and banana we might not need much sweetener. Therefore 4-6
spoons of honey will do. You can add a spoon or two more if you need more
sweetness.
Papaya and pineapple are readily available in the
market during summer. Banana is always available. So grab these ingredients and
enjoy the summer with this powerful multi-vitamin smoothie. You can substitute
banana with Sapotas for a change when you prepare it for the next time.
I hope you liked this update. Don’t forget give your
feedback and keep watching the space for more updates.
Labels: papaya, pineapple juice, Tropical drink
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Mantena's Special - Raw Mango Juice
Hello,
Namaste and welcome to all the followers of Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju’s
Natural way of Living and all the aspirants of good health to this very special
edition of Dr. Mantena’s Kitchen. I haven’t updated my blog for quite sometime
now due to busy work schedule. Never mind, I came up with a very delicious
recipe to beat the rising heat of the Indian summer. The special recipe in
today’s Mantena’s Kitchen is Raw Mango Juice. It is called Aam Panna in Hindi
which is quite a popular summer drink in northern parts of India. Raw Mango
juice is considered as an effective remedy for heat exhaustion and sunstroke.
Preparation Time:
It
is a very simple drink that any one can prepare at home within 10-15 minutes.
Ingredients:
1.
Raw Mango – 1 Medium or Big Size
2.
Honey – 1 Cup
3.
Chopped Mint Leaves
4.
Chopped Coriander leaves
5.
Roasted Cumin seeds – ½ tbs.
Procedure:
It
is actually prepared in 2 different methods and each has its own taste and flavor.
The entire process of preparation in both the methods is almost the same except
the first step where mango is treated differently and the rest is the same. You
can try any of these methods as per your convenience and interest.
Method 1:
Step
1: The main ingredient here is the raw mango. Rinse the raw mango and boil it in
water for 10 minutes or pressure cook it for 2 whistles. Leave it to cool for
some time and peel off the skin of a mango and mash the pulp in a processor or
by your hands, strain and set aside.
Method 2:
Step
1: Broil or Roast the mango over the gas burner or you can use the oven as
well. But I haven’t tried it on an oven and therefore do it on your own risk.
Roast it on all sides until the skin of the mango turns black. Then cool it to
a room temperature, peel off the skin, scoop the pulp and place it in a
processor or mash up with your hands, strain and keep it aside. Earlier
days in India and even today in villages of north India, women used to roast
the mango on the charcoal. That is believed to make the best raw mango juice as
it gives the lovely smoky flavor to it.
Step
2: Add a cup of honey, ½ tbs of roasted cumin seeds and 2 big glasses of water
and blend it well. Dr. Raju don’t usually recommend cumin seeds as it falls
under the category of masala but occasionally it can be an exception as it has
cooling effects to the body.
Step
3: Finally garnish the drink with chopped coriander and mint leaves and serve. People
usually use ice cubes and refrigerated cold water to drink but I prefer the
cold water from a mud pot which is harmless and healthy.
The
king of the fruits, the Mango is in its youth and is flooding the market. So
grab the one as and when you see a raw mango and make this deliciously nutritious,
pulpy and super cool drink to beat the heat of the rising Indian summer. I hope
you enjoyed this update, keep watching the space for more updates.
Labels: Aam Panna, Dr. Mantena's Kitchen, mantena, Raw Mango Juice
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