While there are different ways of making capsicum curries, this way of making capsicum/bell pepper curry is my all-time favorite. For starters the pungent capsicum is cooked in a coconut masala which has a balanced combination of the essential 4 S sweet, spicy, salty and sour. So, when the bell pepper gets cooked in this masala it forms an enticing combination. This Capsicum Masala is easy to put together: while the onion, capsicums are cooking in a pan, I grind the coconut masala and add it to the cooked veggies. Since everything cooks fast, this dish gets done in a…
Tomato Rasam
Even though I grew up in Bangalore, the home town of the famous restaurant MTR, I was never familiar with the MTR masalas, powders and spices then. The main reason being that my Mom is a wonderful cook and she made all the powders for sambhar, rasam, vaangi bhaat, pulliyogere etc from scratch at home. Fast forward some years when I got married and came to the United States, I found myself as a clueless cook shouldering the responsibility of cooking. I used to crave for comfort food like rasam, sambhar etc food that I grew up with and that…
Lemon Rice Recipe(Chitranna)
Lemon Rice also called Chitranna in Kannada is an easy to prepare yet flavorful rice dish. This is also a good way to use the left over rice or maybe a quick dish idea when unexpected guests arrive. The flavor of this depends on the strong seasoning (Tadka) that is prepared before the cooked rice is added. Even though the seasoning is prepared using simple and readily available ingredients like curry leaves, asafetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, daals they combine together to form an aromatic, sapid base to accommodate the rice. Peanuts add a nice crunch while the coconut balances…