Monday, September 24, 2007

MW Basic, Entry II @ Avial and Weekend Lunch

My second entry to the MW Basic event.....the making of a typical kerala vegetable side-dish, "Avial". It basically consists of all sorts of vegetables, steamed and mixed with a coconut paste/chutney and cooked for a couple of minutes.


While preparing Avial (0r any dish which involves different vegetables that require diffrent levels of cooking time) in a MW, the only thing which we need to keep in mind is the arrangement of the veggies.




As shown in the picture above, arrange the "tough" veggies - yam, potatoes, raw banana, drumsticks, radish, ....all around the outer edge of the MW safe bowl, and the "less tougher" ones like okra (lady's finger), tomato, pumpkin, beans, brinjal, cucumber, ivy gourd, green chillie...all to the centre of the bowl for even cooking. No need to add water. They will cook by itself!

Power: 70-75 %
Time : 4-5 minutes. (Keep for some more time if they are not tender yet. Do not change the power setting.)

For the coconut paste, grind together..coconut scraping, garlic, ginger, cumin and baby onions coarsely in the grinder with just a couple of teaspoons of water.

Add the paste to the cooked vegetables, salt to taste, and keep back in the below setting.

Power: 70-75 %
Time : 2-3 minutes.

Give about 5 minutes standing time . Mix 1 tbs of cooking oil. Avial is done!
A portion of the coconut paste was left behind...didn't have the mind to throw it off..and hence used it to make this tomato-curry...which was my "all time favourite", right from childhood..as its is not hot or spicy, at all. This was done on the stove, simultaneously as the avial was taking form in the MW.

Boil few tomatoes, onions(sliced the way you like...I prefer to cut both as thin circles) in water along with some green chillie, salt and turmeric powder.

Add half a cup of yougurt to the coconut paste, give one run in the mixer to blend it properly, and add to the cooked tomato and bring till boil, or infact, just till bubbles start to form. Do not over boil, lest the coconut and yougurt gets churned.
Pop mustard seeds in oil along with red chillie flakes and curry leaves (a few), and pour over the tomato charu-curry, and mix well. That's it!
just go ahead and have it striaght hot with rice.

That's how I presented the weekend lunch for Santho (hubby), who comes home from work to have lunch. No, not that I dont go for work, of course I do!!..but, I get the luxury of a 2 day weekend (friday and saturday), while he, likle most other private company staffs, gets just one day and a half.

So, last saturday lunch platter was so laid in front of him with rice to be taken along with Avial, Tomato-charu-curry, carrot thoran (just similar to my previous post on Spinach(Palak) thoran, and hence not taking the pain to type the making once again) and cucumber salad.

But guess what...all I got from him was a " Hummm, oookkk" !!

"Whattt, I had prepared all these, fresh and served straight from the pan..and not a single word of appreciation!!!!!...Mmmyy!!..

"Ooh, well....I know how to cheer him up.....

......push the rice aside a bit, and lay this yummy thing just next to it !!!

******

***********

****************

*********************

****************************

That is all what's needed to make his day !!!...happy lunch, deary!

2 comments:

  1. AFAM Tomato? I missed that post!!:D
    Avial MWed looks great.Charu of course is easily MWable!:))

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks for stopping by my blog.Those dishes oh...look yummy. With the fish as a side dishes - I love fish. I also see how you like to design your photo become more interesting. Good job!

    ReplyDelete

Monday, September 24, 2007

MW Basic, Entry II @ Avial and Weekend Lunch

My second entry to the MW Basic event.....the making of a typical kerala vegetable side-dish, "Avial". It basically consists of all sorts of vegetables, steamed and mixed with a coconut paste/chutney and cooked for a couple of minutes.


While preparing Avial (0r any dish which involves different vegetables that require diffrent levels of cooking time) in a MW, the only thing which we need to keep in mind is the arrangement of the veggies.




As shown in the picture above, arrange the "tough" veggies - yam, potatoes, raw banana, drumsticks, radish, ....all around the outer edge of the MW safe bowl, and the "less tougher" ones like okra (lady's finger), tomato, pumpkin, beans, brinjal, cucumber, ivy gourd, green chillie...all to the centre of the bowl for even cooking. No need to add water. They will cook by itself!

Power: 70-75 %
Time : 4-5 minutes. (Keep for some more time if they are not tender yet. Do not change the power setting.)

For the coconut paste, grind together..coconut scraping, garlic, ginger, cumin and baby onions coarsely in the grinder with just a couple of teaspoons of water.

Add the paste to the cooked vegetables, salt to taste, and keep back in the below setting.

Power: 70-75 %
Time : 2-3 minutes.

Give about 5 minutes standing time . Mix 1 tbs of cooking oil. Avial is done!
A portion of the coconut paste was left behind...didn't have the mind to throw it off..and hence used it to make this tomato-curry...which was my "all time favourite", right from childhood..as its is not hot or spicy, at all. This was done on the stove, simultaneously as the avial was taking form in the MW.

Boil few tomatoes, onions(sliced the way you like...I prefer to cut both as thin circles) in water along with some green chillie, salt and turmeric powder.

Add half a cup of yougurt to the coconut paste, give one run in the mixer to blend it properly, and add to the cooked tomato and bring till boil, or infact, just till bubbles start to form. Do not over boil, lest the coconut and yougurt gets churned.
Pop mustard seeds in oil along with red chillie flakes and curry leaves (a few), and pour over the tomato charu-curry, and mix well. That's it!
just go ahead and have it striaght hot with rice.

That's how I presented the weekend lunch for Santho (hubby), who comes home from work to have lunch. No, not that I dont go for work, of course I do!!..but, I get the luxury of a 2 day weekend (friday and saturday), while he, likle most other private company staffs, gets just one day and a half.

So, last saturday lunch platter was so laid in front of him with rice to be taken along with Avial, Tomato-charu-curry, carrot thoran (just similar to my previous post on Spinach(Palak) thoran, and hence not taking the pain to type the making once again) and cucumber salad.

But guess what...all I got from him was a " Hummm, oookkk" !!

"Whattt, I had prepared all these, fresh and served straight from the pan..and not a single word of appreciation!!!!!...Mmmyy!!..

"Ooh, well....I know how to cheer him up.....

......push the rice aside a bit, and lay this yummy thing just next to it !!!

******

***********

****************

*********************

****************************

That is all what's needed to make his day !!!...happy lunch, deary!

2 comments:

  1. AFAM Tomato? I missed that post!!:D
    Avial MWed looks great.Charu of course is easily MWable!:))

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks for stopping by my blog.Those dishes oh...look yummy. With the fish as a side dishes - I love fish. I also see how you like to design your photo become more interesting. Good job!

    ReplyDelete