Desi Fiesta

Tamilnadu recipes

Thalai Vazhai Illai Virundhu | Tamil Nadu Meals Recipes

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I am so excited to share this vazhai illai virudhu which I thoroughly enjoyed cooking. We love vazhai illai saapadu a lot, hailing from Chennai we never used to miss having meals in banana leaf when we were in India. Recently My mom and masi pulled out Tamil saapadu for 20 people at my mom’s place and I was only one missing. My hubby was highly tempted just by hearing about the saapadu and so I had to make this Special virudhu for him. Nowadays even in a marwadi wedding, we have started to include a function for Tamil saapadu . In my last visit for my bro’s marriage, we made Tamil saapadu function at home, when we wore pattu saree and men wore pattu vestti pattu sattai and fully south Indian attire. It was so much fun dressing up and enjoying the saapadu with Family. Ok now coming to the Virundhu I made, This is not the first time am making a banana leaf platter as you all know. I need to tell the story behind the green banana leaf I got from a restaurant nearby. A restaurant nearby gets their banana leaf from India which was so fresh and shameless went and asked if I can have one banana leaf please, The chef laughed and enquired why I needed 😛 I then had to tell him and then he gave me the banana leaf with so much excitement,  it feels so good to find fresh banana leaf in foreign country . Thanks to the chef who had a big heart to give me a banana leaf.

It took me 3 hours to plan and cook this saapadu. I had few more in my list but hubby came and stopped me 😛 idhuve podhum ma (in tamil). I never plan my thali recipes ahead It is a day before night or early morning, the first thing I do is go and check the fridge and plan my meal accordingly with whatever veggies are available. If I have plans for making thali I do stock my fridge with most important veggies beforehand. So for this Virudhu, I asked hubby what he wanted me to include and I included some from my end. I made a list of the menu and started with my cooking nonstop.Remembering my home science days were we used to get 3 hours deadline to make a full course meal starting from a soup to dessert, our teacher would start telling us to wind up before half an hour and start with the cleaning. So it was 2 1/2 hour of cooking full course meal, Plating, garnishing gourmet way ( at least try to plate clean :P) and cleaning up our dishes and kitchen counter in half hour. Though I was very slow back then, I used to complete somehow.I will stop my ramblings here and start with the menu.

Today’s thali or Banana leaf platter is called as Thalai vazhai illai ( means banana leaf) Virudhu ( means feast) or saapadu ( means meals). Hope I have served it right as there is some traditional way to serve.

Menu 

  1. Starting with salt (uppu)
  2. Pickle ( urukkai)
  3. Masala Vadai
  4. Potato Bonda ( Urulai Bonda)
  5. Yam Fry ( Senai fry)
  6. Raw Banana Stir fry ( Vazhaikai poriyal)
  7. Potato Roast ( Urulai Roast)
  8. Cabbage Kootu ( Kosu Kootu)
  9. Cluster beans paruppu usli ( Kotharanga paruppu usli)
  10. Beans Carrot Stir fry( Beans Carrot Poriyal)
  11. Paruppu
  12. Sambhar
  13. Snake gourd Kozhambu
  14. Urundai Kuzhambu
  15. Rasam
  16. Poosnikai Mor Kuzhambu
  17. Rava Kesari
  18. Rice
  19. Appalum
  20. Banana

Senai Kizhangu Fry

My Mom makes yummy Senai fry and I learned to make this from her. The recipe is very simple and it is easy to make as well. Me and my brother as kids used to fight for Senai kizhangu fry , my mom used to measure and serve so that we get equal amount 😛 See how crazy we were. My daughter has become a fan of Senai fry after me, this is getting hereditary now.


Hope you enjoyed reading this Thalai vazha illai saapadu or virudhu post.. Do leave your valuable comments.
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Thirunelveli Halwa – Virtual party for Nalini

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I love to celebrate my dear friends b’days , when it comes to virtual world though the treat we make for our friend can’t taste our delights specially made for them , it is the love we show and It gives us so much of happiness that we able to treat them virtually . Today is another special day – Birthday of another special friend whom i met in this virtual world an year back , she is an wonderful person with lots knowledge treasured , A fantastic photographer, energetic blogger and her blog is filled with lots of traditional south indian recipes which brings out the  authenticity of our Indian food. 

I hope you might have got it , yes its Nalini suresh of Nalini’s Kitchen. We met in face book and just had our casual talks but today we are so close and like to share our deeds and daily routines . She is such an down to earth person and always loves to share and help us . Am feeling so happy to celebrate her birthday and I got some surprise treats for her 🙂 .. We friends decided to surprise her by cooking some tamil nadu spl recipes from her blog as its Nalini’s forte and she is an expert in cooking traditional recipe .So I thought to make some recipe , I thought of making collection of recipes to a thali but didn’t get proper time for it so did wat ever I could .. So for our lunch menu I had planned to make kozhambu , rasam, sambhar rice , poriyal and a sweet . Rasam might be missing bcoz I made it later . So this is my Treat from Nalini’s space – Pottukadali sambhar, Murungakkai thakkali kozhambu , Sepankilangu Fry, Thirunelveli halwa. Hope you will like it nalini , Wishing you a many more happy returns , enjoy !!!

Thirunelveli halwa is my all time fav , as a kid i used to love the jelly like transparent halwa which my friends used to share with me at school . Thirunelveli halwa is a famous halwa from thirunelveli, tamil nadu . The one shop which sells this famous halwa with perfect texture and taste is Iruttu kadai . This halwa is generally made with wheat berries with is soaked over night and the next day the milk from it is extracted . The extracted milk is then cooked in sugar syrup and ghee till they are transparent and leaves the sides of the pan. This halwa when you make in large quantity needs a lot of muscle to stir them continuously but here as we made in small quantity it is a bit less hard work needed. This glossy looking halwa just melts in our mouth bursting all the delicious sweet taste and this one is very healthy for growing kids . Adults might watch out for the calories but you can enjoy them some days .we taotally enjoyed all the yummy recipes I made from nalini’s collection and My fav was thirunelvelli halwa and Murungakai thakali kozhambu 🙂 I will post the rest of the recipes soon 🙂 Thanks to nalini for sharing such delicious recipe and Hope you like this yummy treat Nalini 🙂

Recipe Source : Nalini’s Kitchen

 Ingredients

Broken Wheat/ Gothumai Rava -1 cup
Sugar-21/4 cups
Ghee – 11/4 cup
Cashews -2-3 tbs(broken)
Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp
Water-11/2 cups
Red color – few drops ( Optional)

Method

  • Soak the broken wheat in water for 6 hours or over night.
  • In a blender grind broken wheat with enough water to a fine paste to extract the wheat milk.
  • Strain the milk and grind the leftover broken wheat one with some more water strain it again.
  • Discard the scum if any .
  • Keep the wheat milk on the counter top without disturbing for an hour.
  • Discard the clear liquid formed on the top.
  • Add 11/2 cups of water to the thick wheat milk and stir them well .
  • In a pan put 2 cups of sugar 1/2 cup of water and allow it to boil it reaches single string consistency.
  • When the sugar is boiling in one side meanwhile add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a separate pan with 2 tbsp of ghee and heat it.
  • Stir it and caramelize the sugar and keep it aside.Now add the wheat milk to the sugar syrup and mix it well.
  • The milk will thicken and becomes transparent, add the caramelized sugar to the mixture and few drops of red color ( optional ).
  • Add ghee in regular intervals and stir the halwa continuously.
  • Add ghee till it reaches the consistency where it leaves the sides of the pan.
  • Roast the cashews in ghee till it turn slight brown. 
  • Add the fried cashews and cardamom powder the halwa and mix it well. Enjoy them warm.