Raagi/nanchne ( Finger millet ) Neeru (water) is a drink served at almost all homes in North Kanara during summer. It is supposed to be the best drink to beat the heat. Since the heat becomes unbearable in the coastal areas, people usually drink this after working for long hours under the sun.
The raagi powder is prepared fresh by frying the raagi(without oil) for a few minutes and then grinding it to a fine powder. But these days everybody uses the ready made raagi flour for this.
The black liquid jaggery usually found in North Kanara is used for this drink, but if it cannot be found, the normal jaggery can also be used.
These days, as any other traditional dish, this heavenly drink is substituted by more and more commercial drinks. But I bet this is the best to beat the heat compared to any other ready made juice or drinks that we get in market.
I remember my aayi used to give us the chilled nanchne udak when we came back from playing during sunny days. We preferred this to any other juice.
I will post the picture soon (once I find raagi here).
Ingredients: Raagi/nanchne powder 1/2 cup Jaggery 2 tbl spns Cardamom powder 1/2 tea spn Water 2 cups
Method: Mix all the ingredients and blend it for a few minutes. Chill. Before serving, mix once again with a spoon.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 5min
Pathrado is one of my all time favourite dishes. I remember writing ‘ pathrado ‘ in the ‘favourite food’ column of autograph books which were circulated during our college days (autograph books are little books having columns as name, address, phone number, favourite actor, favourite actress, favourite food etc etc. During my college days, everyone had a autograph book, those were circulated to all the friends during the final year. Those were funny).
Pathrado is usually prepared using colocasia leaves usually grown in the garden during Monsoon. Few of these leaves are very very itchy. So one should be very careful while using these leaves. I am yet to master the skill of picking up the right leaves from the garden, if you are buying them in the market, don’t worry about itchy leaves. The shop keepers/farmers would have selected the right ones :).
Pathrode , rice and ankre tambli is the tastiest and very healthy combination I have ever had. I took these pictures are my native when my aayi prepared these delicious pathrade using the fresh leaves from our garden.
Ingredinets: 5 colocasia/collard greens 3/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1/4 cup toor dal 1 tbl spn rice 1 tea spn urad dal 1/2 tea spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn jaggery 4-5 red chillies 1/2 tea spn tamarind A pinch asafoetida Oil Salt
Method: Soak toor dal in water for about half an hour. Heat oil and fry urad dal, asafoetida and coriander seeds. Grind them with coconut, rice, soaked dal , tamarind, jaggery, red chillies and salt without adding water (if required, add very little water).
Remove the thick veins of the leaves.
With the help of pestle, slightly crush all the veins(this makes rollong and cooking easier).
Apply a layer of masala on the leaf. Keep another leaf on te first leaf and repeat till all the leaves have a masala coating on them.
Roll them.
Cut with a sharp knife to thin rounds and arrange them in a vessel (preferably use the vessels that comes with cooker).
Steam them for around 15min. Leave cooker/steamer for another 10min before taking out the pathrado .
Serve with or without coconut oil.
Any left over pathrados are rolled in sooji/rava and fried on the tava (since they become a bit hard when refrigerated) before serving for the next meal, to make them soft and fresh.
Serves : 4 Preparation time : 50min
