Cucumber Pachadi

Ingredients:
1. Cucumber- 1 small sized
2. Coconut grated - 1/2 cup
3. Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
4. Green chilli - 1
5. Dried red chilli - 1
6. Curry leaves - few
7. Yogurt/Curd - 1 cup
8. Oil - 1 teaspoon
9. Salt to taste

Method:
1, Wash the cucumber, remove seeds and cut into small pieces. Transfer cucumber in a mixing bowl.

2. Grind coconut and green chilli into a fine paste. Roughly crush 1/2 teaspoon of mustard seeds. Add this coconut paste, crushed mustard, yogurt and salt to cucumber and mix thoroughly.

3. For seasoning, heat oil in a pan and splutter 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds. Add dried red chilli and curry leaves. Transfer this seasoning to pachadi and serve.

Kayappam | Undampori | Bonda

Kayappam is easy-to-make and one of the popular snacks in Kerala tea shops. It tastes best when  served with tea.

Ingredients:
1. Wheat flour - 2 cup
2. Banana - 1 medium or 3 small bananas
3. Jaggery - 1/2 cup
4. Cardamom powder - 1/2 teaspoon
5, Salt - 1 pinch
6. Baking soda - 1 pinch
7. Oil for deep frying

Method:
1. Melt jaggery with 1 cup of water. Strain the syrup to remove any impurities and allow to cool.

2. In a large mixing bowl, take wheat flour, cardamom powder, salt and baking soda and mix well.

3.  Peel and mash the bananas with a fork. Add the mashed banana to dry ingredients along with jaggery syrup. Combine well to form a very thick batter. It more or less should be like a sticky dough.

4. Allow the batter to ferment for 4-6 hours.

5. Heat oil in a frying pan on low-medium heat. Wet your hands by dipping in a bowl of water, take a lemon sized batter, roughly shape into rounds and drop in hot oil. Fry on low-medium heat until the outside turns dark golden color.

6. Drain excess oil in a tissue and serve with tea.

This can be stored in an airtight container for 2 days.

Check out the video of how to make kayappam in youtube.

Ribbon Pakoda | Ribbon Murukku | Pakkavada

Ingredients:
1. Rice flour - 1 cup
2. Besan/Gram flour - 1/2 cup
3. Asafoetida - 2 pinch
4. Carom seeds/Omam - 1/2 teaspoon
5. Sesame seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
6. Red chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon or as per your spice level
7. Salt to taste
8. Hot oil - 1 teaspoon
9. Butter melted - 1 teaspoon
10. Oil for deep frying

Method:
1. Take gram flour, rice flour, carom seeds, asafoetida, sesame seeds, red chilli powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of hot oil and heated butter to it and combine well with a spoon.

2. Add water little by little and combine to make a soft dough.

3. Heat oil for deep frying on medium heat. Put a handful of dough in a murukku press with thin slit disc(refer pic below). Press it directly into hot oil. Fry on both sides on medium heat until bubbling of oil stops.

4. Remove from oil and drain the excess oil on a kitchen tissue. Store in a airtight container after cooling.

Murukku Press with thin slit disc

Banana Berries Smoothie

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1. Banana - 1
2. Strawberries - 5
3. Raspberries - 5
4. Cold Milk - 1 cup
5. Honey - 2 tablespoon

Method:
Add all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

You can adjust the quantity of honey as per your taste.

Linking this recipe to "Shhh Cooking Secretly Challenge", a monthly event started by Priya. For the month of April, I paired up with Nirmala who gave me Strawberry and Raspberry as my ingredients.
Nirmala blogs at "Nirmala's Kitchen".