Monday, November 16, 2015
Dr. Mantena's Diwali Special - Kobbari Laddu
Hello
friends I am back with yet another healthy and nutritious Diwali dessert.
Diwali is a festival of lights and sweets. One cannot imagine celebrating
Diwali without any of these two things. Different varieties of sweets and
desserts are prepared during Diwali all over India. Sweets and desserts are symbol
of the taste for celebrating life. But the same taste has become a threat to life these days.
Earlier sweets were made in every household, where
taste and the health of family members would also taken care off. But now sweet
making has become a big market for business and these budding sweet making
houses have become a threat to the health of millions of people.
These desserts were made and consumed only during important festivals in the past. As they
are now readily available all the time at sweet houses, people stopped making them
at home and are consuming without restrain.
Let me remind you my dear friends,
no business man will think about your health while making sweets. His
whole aim would be to make tastier sweets and make more business. In order to
make desserts better and tastier more and more quantity of oil, ghee, vanaspati,
sugar etc are used. Today entire Nation is suffering from dangerous diseases
and disorders like Diabetes, High blood pressure, Heart and Liver disorders etc
due to over consumption of these items.
This
blog is a small attempt to educate and encourage people to make easy and healthy
recipes at home. This Diwali we made this wonderful dessert at home and
believe me it came up really well and everyone enjoyed it. So, today's special
in Dr. Mantena's Kitchen is - "Diwali Special Kobbari Laddu."
Making time : 20 - 25 minutes
Serving : 10-12
laddus
Ingredients:
Coconut - 1 big size
Dates - 1 cup
Cardamom - 5 nos.
Cashew - 10 - 12 nos
Raisins - 1/4 cup
Honey - 1 small cup
Look
at the ingredients there, all of these ingredients are rich in nutrition and
there is no harmful item in it. And don't worry about the taste at all. These Laddu's are going to taste amazing.
Method:
1.
Breakdown the raw coconut and scrape into small pieces as shown in the picture
below.
2.
Dry roast the scraped coconut in a non-stick pan until the moisture evaporates and turns slightly
brown as shown in the picture below.
3.
Remove the seeds from the dates and grind them into paste along with raisins and
dry roasted cashews. The sweetness of dates, tanginess of raisins and the
classic taste of cashew make the laddus richer.
4.
Now add roasted coconut, grounded cardamom and honey into the paste and mix
well. Coconut makes the laddu crunchy, cardamom provides great flavor and aroma
and honey gives mouth watering taste.
5.Then
take small quantity of mix in your hand and squeeze them into round balls of
your desired size. So, the yummy and delicious Kobbari Laddus are ready.
You
can make this kind of healthy laddus and store them for couple of weeks and
serve them to your children on regular basis. In this way your children remain
healthy and enjoy the dessert also.
Keep
watching the space for more updates.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Dr. Mantena's Hyderabadi Special - Mirchi ka Salan
Hello friends, Dr. Mantena's kitchen is back with yet
another Hyderabadi Recipe "Mirchi Ka Salan." Over a period of time I
am trying to publish some of the famous Hyderabadi recipes as some of my Muslim
friends wrote me asking to bring traditional Hyderabadi recipes with healthy
twist in Dr. Mantena style. Hyderabad being a cosmopolitan city has vast verities
of food. Today's 'Dr. Mantena's Special - Mirchi ka Salan' is one of the very
popular recipes of Hyderabad. It is popularly served in Muslim festivals,
weddings and other special occasions. It is a very delicious and spicy thick
gravy best for serving with Biryani, Rice and Roti.
Usually this recipe is cooked with plenty of oil and
masalas which is harmful to the body. It might lead to high cholesterol, high
blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, gastritis, ulcers etc.
I tried to customize this wonderful recipe to make it healthy
and harmless at the same time maintain the original flavor, texture and aroma
of the recipe alive. So without wasting any time lets go into the details of
preparation.
Cooking Time : 30-
40 minutes
Serving : 4 people
Ingredients:
Sliced Dry Coconut - 1 cup
Peanuts - 3/4 cup
Sesame seeds - 1
cup
Cumin Seeds - 1
tbs
Black seeds or Kalonji - 1/4 ts
Onions - 2
medium size
Green hot chili peppers - 10 nos.
Yogurt - 2 cups
Curry Leaves -
10 Nos.
Coriander Leaves - 1/4
cup
Lemon - 1
big size
Preparation:
1. Dry roast sliced coconut, peanuts and sesame seeds on
a pan separately and keep them aside.
2. Chop the onions and dry roast the onions in a
non-stick pan till it turns brown as shown in the picture below.
3. Allow all these ingredients to cool down and blend
them into a fine paste as shown in the picture below.
4. Now slit hot chili peppers with a knife and keep
them a side. These are long sized peppers used for making curries popularly
known as Bajji mirapakayalu in Telugu.
5. Dry roast these peppers in a non stick pan occasionally
turning them around for 2 minutes. Make sure the seeds don't spill out and not
to overcook. Keep them aside after cooking.
6. Now dry roast the cumin seeds, kalonji and curry
leaves in the same pan and add the blended paste into it. Cumin seeds and
Kalonji are off course masala items but eliminating these two ingredients from
this recipe will lose its aroma and texture. Therefore using them occasionally
while making this kind of special dishes are exempted.
7. Add some water and let it cook for 15 minutes
closing the lid as the paste tends to splutter. Make sure to stir the paste occasionally
lifting the lid.
8. Now add 2 cups of sour yogurt and let it cook for
another 5 minutes.
9. Finally add the dry roasted green peppers into the
paste and let it cook for 15 minutes on a low flame.
10. Add juice of one big sized lemon or two. This gives
great sour taste to the dish.
11. Now remove the pan and add chopped coriander leaves
over it and serve hot with Biryani, Rice or Roti.
You can eat any quantity of this dish without any gas
trouble, IBS and not need worry about cholesterol and high blood pressure at
all. Further it has peanuts, sesame seeds, coconut that are rich in nutrition.
Do send me your feedback and keep watching the space
for more updates.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Dr. Mantena's Ramzan Special Dahi Vada
Friends, last year during the month of Ramzan, I
published a recipe on Dahi Vadi which went viral. Again this year we tried to
make the same recipe improvising from what we did last year. Instead of
roasting the vadas on a pan without oil, we tried to steam the vadas and
believe me my dear friends it came up really well.
So today’s update in Dr. Mantena’s Kitchen is “Ramzan
Special - Dahi Vada” with a twist. The regular dahi vada is prepared with urad
dal in most parts of the country. But this Ramzan special dahi vada is made
with chana flour (chick pea flour). If you are a Hyderabadi, then you are
familiar with this recipe. “Ramzan mein kaun bade? Dahi Vade…!” I think every
Hyderabadi is familiar with this popular slogan on Dahi Vada. Such is the
popularity of this dish in Hyderabad. This is especially prepared during the
month of Ramzan for breaking the day long fast by Mohemmadan brothers. It is so
popular during Ramzan that it is sold in every Irani hotel, haleem and tea
points in the evening. Hyderabad is not only famous for Biryani but also for haleem
during Ramzan season. Whether it is Hindu or Mohemmadan or Christian everyone
cherish these dishes. Dahi Vada is the next popular Hyderabadi dish after
Biryani and Haleem that is loved by one and all including the vegetarians.
The regular dahi vada available in the market or
prepared at home by many is deeply fried in oil which is really harmful to the health.
This dahi vada is really nutritious, healthy and delicious as well. We haven’t
used any harmful taste such as salt, sugar, ghee, oil, tamarind, red chili
powder etc. which Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju considers as 7 poisons that
take our life slowly. So without wasting much time let us go into the details
of making it.
Cooking Time:
35-40 mins
Serving:
4 people
Ingredients:
1. Chick pea flour - 300
2. Yogurt - 800
3. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
4. Turmeric - ¼ tsp
5. Green chilies - 5 nos.
6. Curry Leaves - 5 nos.
7. Coriander Leaves - 1 bunch
8. Mint Leaves - 5 – 8 nos.
9. Onion - 1 medium size
10. Lemon - 1
11. black lentils - 1 tsp
Preparation:
We prepared this recipe in three steps:
Step 1: Making of
Vada:
1. Take around 300 gm or 2 cups of chick pea flour in
a pan add 200 ml of yogurt (preferably sour) and mix the flour with a spoon. Then
stir the flour with a spoon adding water till fine batter as shown in the
picture. Make sure that lumps dissolve completely.
2. After making a fine batter cover the pan with a lid
and let it ferment for 6-8 hours preferably let it ferment overnight. After fermenting
the batter puffs up as shown in the picture. The batter now turns sour which
gives great taste to our vada.
3. Finely chop onion, coriander leaves, green chilies
and add it to the fermented batter; squeeze a lemon and mix them well in the
batter with a spoon as shown in the picture below. The fermented batter gives
great tangy taste and onion, coriander, green chili add spicy zing to your
tongue after cooking.
4. Take a idli maker, and cover up the idli plates with
a thin cloth as shown in the picture below. Then fill the idli cups with the
batter and cover it up with a cloth as shown below.
5. Fill the idli cooker/steamer 1 or 1½ inch with water
and place the idli plates over it and cover the lid as shown in the picture
below. It is always better to measure the height of the idli plates and pour
water accordingly. Sometimes if there is more water it may overflow on the
plates and spoil the vada. If the water is less then it might not steam
properly.
6. Put on the stove, place the steamer over it and let
it cook on a low or medium flame for about 35 to 40 minutes. Make sure the
flame is low or medium because high flame can spoil the vadas as the water
might overflow over the plates.
7. After 30 minutes remove the lid and insert a knife
of fork into the vadas and remove. If you find the knife or fork comes clean
without any batter that means it is fully cooked and ready. If the batter comes
along with it then it still needs to be cooked. You don’t have to see every
layer of the cooker as checking the top layer would do.
8. Once the vadas are cooked keep them aside to cool
down. If the vadas are hot they stick to the cloth. Now remove the vadas and
keep it in a bowl. Look at those beautiful and mouth watering vadas. Aren’t
they tempting your tongue? Wait… wait the work is half done. W need to do some
finishing work. We still have to do some tampering and make yogurt salad. So
without wasting any time lets go on to it.
Step 2: Tampering:
1. Roast cumin
seeds, black lentils and coriander leaves in a pan till brown. Then add half
glass of water into it and cook for few minutes.
2. Once the water
starts boiling pour into the pan of vadas and let it soak for few minutes as
shown in the picture below.
Step 3: Making of
Yogurt Salad:
Now we are into the final step of making a yogurt
salad.
1. Take 600 gm of yogurt in a bowl, add few chopped onions,
green chilies, coriander leaves, mint and coriander leaves into it and mix it
well.
2. Now pour this yogurt salad into the vadas and now
your yummy delicious salad is ready. Serve and enjoy. We made all the hard work to make healthy, nutritious and tasty vadas and the hard work doesn’t go in vain.
Making dahi vada in this manner is though time consuming and needs little hard work but its worthy. Try it! Keep watching the space for more updates.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Dr. Mantena's Hyderabadi Special - Khubani ka Meetha
Last year during Ramadan month I brought before you a
very famous Hyderabadi recipe “Dahi Vada” Dr. Mantena style. This year I
decided to bring another Hyderabadi delight and today’s Mantena’s special is
“Khubani ka Meetha”. A Hyderabadi needs no introduction to this world famous
dessert.
Khubani ka Meetha is served in every Mohammedan
marriage and other function and is available at most of the restaurants in
Hyderabad. It is often served after food with ice cream and custard which is
not good for health. Keeping the health as a prime motive I tried to moderate
the recipe slightly in Dr. Mantena style without missing the flavor and taste
of the dessert.
Khubani means Apricot. Khubani ka Meetha is actually
made with dry apricots that are usually found in dry fruit shops. These days
golden apricots are available in almost every super market. But we need the
traditional Indian apricots that are dry as shown in the picture below.
Apricots are rich in Vitamin C, A, copper, fiber and
potassium that helps in protecting the body from free radicals, protects your
eye sight, skin from inflammation and helps in digestion and free bowel
movements.
So without wasting much time lets go into preparation
details.
Ingredients:
Khubani (Dry Apricots ) - 250 gms
Honey - ½ cup
Water - 750 ml
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serving: 6
Procedure:
The process of making khubani ka meetha is quite
simple. You only have to follow some of these simple steps.
1. Soak the
apricots for 6 – 8 hours, preferably soak over night for better results.
2. Once soaked, stain the water in another vessel and
keep aside.
3. Now press the apricots with your hands and remove
the nuts as shown below and keep them aside in a bowl. These nuts can later be
used for dressing the dessert.
4. Now put the apricots in a cooking pan and add the
water used for soaking as shown in the picture below.
5. Put the pan on the stove and cook the apricots on a
medium flame for about 20 minutes. Cover the lid of the pan.
6. 20 minutes later take half cup honey and put into
the pan and saute it well and let it cook for another 5 minutes.
7. By now the apricots are almost cooked. Now take half
bowl of apricots from the pan and mash them into a fine batter in a blender as
shown in the picture below.
8. Now add this batter into the pan and mix it well and
keep mashing the remaining apricots into small pieces with a ladle as shown in
the picture below. This will make the concentrate thicker. You will enjoy both
paste and pieces of the apricots together. It gives a great taste to the
tongue. Cook for another 5 minutes and remove it.
9. Finally break the nutshells of the apricot and you
will find apricot almonds in it which are very tasty. Roast them for a while
and remove the skin of the nuts and season the delicious Khubani ka Meetha
along with a cashew on top of it.
Believe me my dear friends, it turned out to be really
delicious dessert matching neck to neck with the dessert prepared by any
professional. But remember the difference we have not used any harmful taste
like others. I would like to advise you to serve this hot for better results. I
found yummier when it is served absolutely hot or when it is chilled in a
refrigerator. I hope you would like to make and enjoy this Hyderabadi delight.
Keep watching the space for more updates.
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