This is one of the most popular munchies for Indians. We call it tikshe(spicy) kare(sev). The recipe was requested by one of my reader. I have no idea what these are called in any other languages (I think they are called ‘Janthikalu’ in Telgu). This is usually(but not always) prepared to make use of the oil after preparing chaklis, chips or any other munchies . It gets ready in no time due to very simple method and also very simple ingredients available at home....

In Object Oriented Programming word, whenever there is clash between names, programmers prefix it with another name to make whole phrase unique. If there is a clash between function names, prefixing with object names them unique in that space. If there is clash between different objects of different classes, concept of namespaces comes to rescue. Prefixing with namespace resolves clashes when it comes to compiling. We do see this at many places in real life too....

Read some great lunchbox ideas here . According to Hindu calender, today is Karthika Shuddha Dwadashi or Uthan Dwadashi . This day is celebrated as “Tulsi pooja” or “Tulsi Vivah(Tulsi wedding)” . Almost all the Konkanis have a structure called as “Tulsi katte” in front of home which has a Tulsi (Holy basil) plant in it. A lamp is lit in front of this daily and worshiped. The “Tulsi katte” at my native looks like follows....

Hope all the readers from US had a relaxing Thanksgiving holidays. I was working from home most of the time. Next few weeks will be very busy too. I had couple of apples that needed immediate attention. I kept on thinking about different things to make with them. But finally I decided to go with this simple bread/cake. I made it on Thursday when we were finding it very hard to step out of home because of cold....

Puran polis and Sukrundes need a very dry stuffing. The water from cooking the chana dal is not used for these preparations. So instead of wasting this nutritious water, it is used to make some delicious dishes. Everyone has their own version of recipe to use up this water. Here is the version I usually make at home. It is very simple and delicious. Check here for another recipe for this saru....

Menthe hittu (Kannada) – fenugreek powder, is a spicy powder prepared by grinding a variety of spices and lentils. This is served with hot rice and a spoonful of ghee . The Marathi version of this is called Metkoot . Menthe hittu saves a lot of time many times, when you want to serve something very fast and have no time to cook some gravies/curries. Since it is a powder, it is also good for travel....

This recipe is sent to me by Sheetal. Before any of the people who know this dish bash me for picture of entirely different dish than the authentic “Caldinha” , I request to read my introduction . Some background of Caldinha in Sheetal’s words – “There is a Goan fish curry which is mostly made by Christians as it is something that came from Portuguese influence. It is called Fish Caldinha pronounced Kaldeen ....

Mooga Khichdi This green moong sweetdish – Mooga Khichdi is a traditional Konkani dish specifically prepared for the festival of Sankranti . Mooga Khichdi is also called Moog Shijayile, literally means cooked moong. Mooga Khichdi is prepared during Sankranti and a little of it kept on the window for the birds to eat. It is believed that Sankrant Purush(God of this festival) comes in the form of a crow to eat the food....

Many of the readers requested for this recipe. So finally here it is. Though I love paneer, I use it very rarely in my cooking. Recently I bought it to make ‘butter paneer masala’ for a small get together at home. The next day, I made this mater paneer – green peas with paneer, with naan . I have noticed that, frying paneer for few minutes before adding it to any gravy, makes it very tasty....

This is a traditional recipe. I got it from my cousin Usha. These days we share a lot of recipes while chatting. She has got tremendous interest in cooking.I am getting a feel that here in US there are lot of people like me who love cooking. When I was in Bangalore, my colleagues hardly used to get any time for cooking. It may be because there the working hours(I mean working and traveling hours!...

Few days back, I saw a request in my recipe request page from Rochin. He said, “Recently I attended a south indian wedding. There I ate a kind of payasam made up of sabudana /tapioca and moong daal . It was very testy and delicious. Could you please post a recipe for it? I will definitely try it out”. Whenever I get any request for recipe, I start searching for it....

Maskasangi Ambat It has been a while since I posted something new here. A lot of things are going on and somehow the blogging took a back seat. But I do update my instagram page regularly(which is much easier and less time consuming!). So please do checkout my page . Link at the top. This moringa gravy or maskasangi ambat was on my list to post for a very long time....

This is ‘the most wanted recipe’ of aayisrecipes, because many people had asked me to post this. For no reason I kept it on hold till now. Finally today I thought its the time to post it. Now let me write something about this dish. This can be either prepared with spring onion or the normal onion. When I was a kid my aayi prepared this with spring onion, which I loved to grow in our garden....

(Thanks Aruna for the suggestion to post this video here today). While growing up, Independence day and republic day of India were big occasions for all kids. There used to be preparations for the parade weeks before these days. On the big day, there used to be flag hoisting in our school early in the morning. Then our teachers would take us in a procession to a old fort in a nearby village called ‘Mirjan’....

I mentioned about yellow rice in my chicken gravy post. This is a hit combination at our home. The normal white rice does not go well with the gravy, so aayi always makes the flavored rice. We call this rice as ‘fried rice’. This rice does not have anything which makes it spicy, but has a flavor due to cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and onions. Aayi had to make chapathi for my brother and this rice for me whenever she prepared the chicken gravy at home....

Many Konkanis who live in the coastal areas are seafood lovers. This goes to such an extent that, some people call all seafood as “vegetarian” :)). I have seen some people who eat fish 6 days a week. One day -usually Saturday or Monday, are purely vegetarian. Some have started eating chicken from the last one generation, but still seafood wins hands down. I think it is mainly because we get very fresh river as well as sea fish as we live on the coast....

It’s an ultimate feast for the eyes, and a hungry pet (stomach). Eversince the inception of Aayi’s Recipes, I wanted to post a traditional Konkani thali here. But somehow could not manage to post it. First of all, whenever I cook, I try to make only 2-3 items as it is almost impossible for me to finish off leftovers. So I had to wait till I got back to India to do this....

Sapaath is the traditional prasad(offering for god) prepared for Satyanarayan pooja. Sooji is cooked in ghee and milk, then bananas are added to make this very aromatic, tasty sweetdish. While growing up, this was one of the reasons we kids attended the pooja. We moved into our new house last year. I wanted to have Satyanaran pooja at home but I wanted to have family here for the pooja. I was trying to convince my parents to visit, but things were not working out....

Now that’s a funny name!!!. Sud-sud (or sad-sad as some people say) in Konkani means loose and it looks very weird when I am writing it in English :). Sukke is a dry dish which usually has coconut. Kalva, Tisre, Khubbe are 3 different types of clams. There are some people in your life, with whom you get attached/attracted very fast. One such person whom I totally adore is V’s maternal grandmother....

All these days I was including coriander leaves in coconut chutney and call it ‘coriander chutney ‘. But I knew I was missing something. I always loved the chutney that my friend Poornima prepares with masala dosa . But out of sheer laziness, I always skipped it whenever I prepared her version of masala dosa . I took the recipe of her chutney long back, but never tried it. This time I made sure to prepare this and the combination tasted divine....