Special lunch/Puthandu special/Simple Southindian thali

"Puthandu" is a tamil word for new year .Its very special to everybody in tamilnadu and for tamilians who live in all parts of world .In new year we visit temple and wear new clothes and wish our neighbours and friends a very good year ahead.First month of new year is "chitirai".This is the starting of festival season and holiday season too .So enjoy this holiday and new year and wish everybody the same .
Another speciality is we share the new year with our neighbour state kerela which is  called gods own country.Full of greenaries and abundance of coconut trees makes this state get its name i guess.While i was working i stayed really close to one iyyapan temple where they celebrate vishu and onam in a grand manner .I love their saree,food ,santhanam a lot .

This lunch we did it for our sunday brunch and enjoyed a lot .Have a  food  feast on this new year .I will do seperate post on potato masala afterwards .

• Lemon rasam
• fenugreekleaves sambhar
• Papad
• Potato masala
• RawBanana fry(valaikai podimas)
• Rice 
• Curd
• Phulkha

Valaikai podimas :

Cooking time:25 min
Serves:2-3

Ingredients:

• 2 banana
• 2 green chilies
• salt as per taste

To temper:

• 2 tsp oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp urad dal

Method:

• Wash and cut each of the banana in to two .

• Boil the bananas by immersing in  water with 1/2 tsp salt until it becomes tender(takes about 10 minutes).

• Peel the skin of the banana and cut them.

• Temper the oil with urad dal ,mustard seeds,green chilies and curry leaves.
• Wait for the mustard seeds to splutter.

• Add the chopped bananas and little salt water(already we added salt so little less salt do good) 

• Cover it with lid and let it cook for 10 minutes .
• Serve it with sambhar rice,rasam rice.

Note:

• You can add some grated coconut at the end (i didnt add it)
• You can peel the skin of the banana if its cooked thoroughly .
• If you cannot peel the skin then you have to cook them again.
• You have to cook the sliced bananas second time as i mentioned otherwise  it will be very dry .
• You can grate the bananas instead of cutting them in that case just finish off with some water added, no need to cook for 10 more minutes again .

Lemon rasam:

Cooking time:15+15 min
Serves:2-3

Ingredients :

• 3 -4 tbsp toor dal/tuvaram paruppu (pressure cooked)
• rasam powder (1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 small tomato
• 1 garlic
• 1 red chili
• turmeric
• salt as per taste
• 1 tsp oil for tempering
• 1 /2 lemon (around 1 tbsp)

To temper:

• pinch of hing
• curry leaves few 
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds/kadugu
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds/jeera/jeeragam

To garnish:

• Few corinader leaves/kothamalli

Method:

• Pressure cook the toor dal with turmeric ,garlic until mushy along with sliced tomatoes 
• Add rasam powder and required salt .
• Heat the tava and temper it with mustard and cumin seeds.
• Add curry leaves and hing.
• Add the rasam water mix to it .
• Cook it in low flame until it boils (takes around 10 minutes)
• Garnish it with coriander leaves.
• Keep it covered until you serve .

Note:

• For instant rasam powder: dry roast 1 red chili ,1/2 tsp black pepper.1/2 tsp corainder seeds,1/2 tsp cumin seeds and grind it .
• You can omit the toor dal if you are in a hurry but adjust the heat and sourness accordingly .
• Rasam always needs  a little kick of salt but this lemon rasam requires less salt compared to other rasams according to me .
• You can skip curry leaves and coriander leaves if you dont have it .But adding them will give a wonderful aroma and nice flavour to the rasam.

linking this to Gayathri's WTML event and prachis 


Linking this to parisevent and shruti