Quinoa Padutthum Paadu - Recipe # 3

Thank you twitter makkale for your overwhelming response and interest to participate in this contest. But you see, this season 1 is open only for the Master Chefs of Madras . When I have season 2 inviting Tabulouehehehe type recipes, I shall surely keep all of you in mind.

For those wondering what this is all about, it is  Quinoa popularly called Koina based contest announced last week. Read post here. Read ? Now go to @prabhuferrari's first recipe that was posted here . Then came @mdeii and his exotic recipe here .

Our third and final contestant - @lordlabak

 

Lordlabak is a nadamaadum Bollywood dictionary. From knowing the bio-data of every kuppai actor (Imran Kaan ;-) ) to analyzing Karan Jogar's shows, lordlabak has Bollywood in her viral nuni. From being an ardent fan of Chitti serial , Neengal ketta padal type sun tv shows, I suspect this transformation to being Bollywood lover has something to do with cooking Koina and the poshness. Lordlabak aims to have 10000 plus followers on twitter which I told her will be possible only if she starts writing columns about Cilantro chutneys, Cathay pacific seat belts and Cows' names in DNA, Minnttu Lounge papers. Lordlabak blogs here .

 

Over to her recipe

 

@lordlabak's Quinoa Pongal or Quinoa Khichdi for Amits

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa soaked for 2-3 hours in water
• 1/2 cup moong dal
• Mix the above with salt and turmeric powder and pressure cook until you hear 4-5 whistles.
• If you see sprouts or strings coming out of quinoa you know it's cooked well.
•  Add cashew and cumin seeds in ghee and sauté until cashews turn light brown. Add it to the cooked quinoa Pongal to give it a little flavor.

Disclaimer
 Super healthy hence may not taste well. If you don't like it, reuse it as glue for household projects. But make sure you evaporate excess water and make it pasty.

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When @lordlabak sent me this recipe, she mentioned her family was semmaya toongifying after eating her Quinoa Pongal. I did have a word with her husband later who said it was not tookkam but mayakkam. Poor guy had to almost ezhudivechify his car & veedu to the doctor for the treatment , he added. Thanks to Kadavul krubai they are all ok now. Quinoa is now added into the list of ketta varrthai that is now allowed in the house it seems. Praise the Lord!

 

So makkale, you have read Thalaivar @prabhuferrari, Annan @mdeii & Akka @lordlabak 's Koina recipes. Voh My gaad! Now I cannot wait to reveal the name of the Mega Master Chef of Madras who will jedge the three entries and announce prize of minjipoana Quinoa packet and a book of their choice, to the winner. Stay tuned, people.

 

Quinoa Padutthum Paadu - Recipe # 2

One Koina based contest was announced in this post last week.You must've read about a lot of kadai adaippi, tadi-adi, kaikalappu last week.Those were the other Master Chefs of Madras who were denied an opportunity to participate in this Koina contest, protesting the aniyayam and akramam.

In fact, before the first recipe went up on the blog, we had to give A to Z category security to contestant # 1 @prabhuferrari after rumours of fellow Master Chefs of Madras planning an attack into his kitchen to steal the exotic Koina recipe which he shared on the blog. Read the first recipe here .

Our second contestant - Master Chef    @mdeii

@mdeii a.k.a Thennagathu Daisy Irani runs a mobile Dabba chetty kadai where he carries a big dabba with headphones, mike and all. You can see him in the lanes of Mylapore, bylanes of Mint street selling soodana kaapi , tea . He still doesn't have an answer when I asked him on why he carries mike and all to aathify kaapi. @mdeii can cook Puliyorai,  Moar FTW,Paanagam-elaneer, Ellu saadam, Anjaneyar Kovil vadai, Ramar kovil Chakkara pongal apart from cooking all oorvana , nadappana etc.. Sorry. @mdeii blogged here once upon a time .

Over to his "exotic" recipe.

@mdeii's Quinoa Aglio olio

Simple modification of the pasta aglio olio.

Cook quinoa according to package instructions. My packet has quino bulgur meal, so it is starchier. This is useful because the cooking water needs to be retained for garlic sauce.After cooking the quinoa, drain and retain the water.

Sauce:

1. Heat olive oil in a pan (dont use extra virgin).

2. Then add thinly chopped pieces of garlic to the oil.

3. While is lightly browns, add chilli flakes (not power) and quickly turn down the heat as olive oil can burn.

4. Add starchy water from quinoa cooking and reduce to sauce consistency.

5. Turn off stove. Add salt to taste. 

Method

7. To this garlic sauce, add the cooked quinoa.

Voila! Quinoa aglio olio done. Very simple recipe

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I had wanted a picture to go with the recipe. @mdeii shared this adding that after throwing the above in the bin, all he was left was with the packet here.

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Enna neyargale, read the two recipes of @prabhuferrari and @mdeii ? My last Master Chef contestant's post will be up tomorrow.

Our Mega Master Chef of Madras will jedge the 3 entries and declare the winner towards the end of this week. Vaazhga Koina naamam!

Quinoa Padutthum Paadu - Recipe # 1

Before reading this post, you'll have to read the earlier one , compulsory-a. 

In this entire week, we'll have three best of the best of the Master Chefs of Madras sharing their Koina recipes on this blog. Our Mega Master Chef will jedge them and give 1/2 packet Minjipona Koina and one book parisu to the winner.

Presenting our first contestant - Master Chef    @prabhuferrari

Prabhu is the President of Kala mashter fan club of India, Chief Executive Officer of Agila Ulaga Gaptun Narpani mandram and a mega fan of Koina.  Prabhu takes over the karandi-aduppu management only after calling Police, Ambulance etc to put them on standby. He loves to cook Peas pulao and can cook Peas Pulao and .. er.. and ... Peas pulao. Over to Prabhu and his recipe. Prabhu (seldom) blogs here . 

@Prabhuferrari's Quinoa paste

 Quinoa. What an exotic name for a seed. According to trusted sources Quinoa is the favourite of film director Bharathriaja and other earthy directors from TN. In fact Bharathiraja initially wanted to name his movie Quinoa pogum rayil and changed it to kizhakke pogum rayil. In fact if you closely look at the village ladies in Bharathiraja movies you can't make out if they are singing lulululu or quinoa quinoa quinoa.

Now that we have established the relationship between Quinoa and Tamil nation lets look at making something out of Quinoa. I don't know who benefited the maximum out of globalisation, but the cooks are the ones who are outspoken about it. Even punnakku vyabari punyakoti is a mint columnist now on how to make a nutritious punnakku rasam for erumai maadu. With this perpective, I am flabbergasted how come there is no recipe yet on say Quinoa rasam, Quinoa kozhambu, Quinoa kootu etc. As some one popular said be the chilrai err change you want to be, I decided to come up with recipes on my own.

Since Quinoa is a seed I cross checked with fellow chefs, Sevvapettai seenu, aminjikarai Arumugam. They were of the opinion, one can make Quinoa paste and use that as a base. For instance you can make Quinoa red paste to use a base for few items, and Quinoa green paste to use a base for some other.

Quinoa paste

Ingredients
200 gms of quinoa seeds
Red or green chilli 50 gms
Tomato purée in case of red paste
Cut lemon
Omam water
Pattai sarakku cha pattai lavangam
P.S. in addition to normal vessels, a thiruvodu is must for Quinoa paste.

Step 1.

Pour the seeds of Quinoa on a thiruvodu and get on a treadmill. You should keep tossing the seeds of quinoa on air and catch with thiruvoadu. All this while you are working out on a thiruvoadu. Quinoa seeds are oddly shaped and it needs to be brought into a circular shape. That's why this step on a treadmill. And thiruvoadu is the perfect vessel for tossing things on air.

Step 2.

Once you are done bringing the seeds to shape, pour a glass of water on the thiruvoadu containing quinoa. (If you get dhuddu from mineral water companies for promoting their product, take photo of you with that bottle and quinoa thiruvoadu). Leave this for around 30 minutes.

Step 3.

In a small frying pan heat castor oil(Yes velakennai) and later pour the quinoa seeds on it. Then add red or green chilli and saute it for sometime. Once the seeds are deep fried, add tomato puree if needed, green chilli or red chilli paste. Keep stirring till it becomes a thick paste. And then later, add some water, omam water and fresh lemon juice. Keep a lid on and in frequent intervals keep stirring and adding water. Once the consistency is there, you can turn the flame off and let the paste cool down.

Now that the paste is there, what can we do with it? Oops sorry I forgot the most important step. You need to take a photo of the paste, and if possible you with a thiruvoadu. Later instagram it and tweet/facebook it. Quinoa has magical telepathy power and it wont settle down as a paste unless you instagram it.

Ok, now coming back to Quinoa paste usage

1. Recently in Sun TV they have started the epic serial mahabharatham. Pretty soon you will have ratchasans and ratchasis occupying your LED screens. To make a normal person look like a ratchasan, they can apply quinoa paste on their body. And in chennai summer heat anyone applying quinoa paste made of chilli will automatically become a ratchasan and the scenes will be realistic. One stone 2 quinoa. Cha, 2 maanga

2. If you are a car lover like me you will be frustrated when dogs pee on your car tyres or when rats get in the bonnet and bite away the wires. If you apply quinoa paste on your tires and underbody of the car, naai kooda kitta varaadhu (Even a dog won't come near)

3. In olden days they used to spread cow dung and water in front of your house and put rangoli on it. With apartments there is no space for cow dung. Instead you can take a thin cardboard plate and apply quinoa paste (green one) on it evenly. And sell it as Quini(inspired from saani). You never know Gramarajan might be impressed and get sing like this  . And to popularize it in social media you can conduct a quini quiz. Later you can give money to some josiyar to appear on TV and say that if people put Rangoli on Quini there will be no power cut during Vani Rani or Saravanan Meenatchi.

4. In Airtel supersinger you can ask them to do a quini vaaram with contestants wearing Quini dress and shouting songs. You can get Gobinath to do a saaniya quiniya in Neeya Naana.

Like this you can do many things with help of Quinoa paste and also earn money.But please remember even by mistake don't consume quinoa paste. Else 'Quinoa Quinoa vayathukulla vambu pannudhu'

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Okay so that was our first MasterChef contestant @prabhuferrari . Our next two contestants will be posting such "exotic" recipes similarly. If you have read this, you have no other go but to RT, Share on fb, email and parappify the pugazh of Koina. Watch this space for the next two recipes tomorrow and the day after.

Quinoa Padutthum Paadu

Way back in the 80s and 90s, things like Nadhiya Kammal, Geethanjali / Idhayathai thirudade Salwar-Kurta-Bandini duppatta, Roti (useless) maker were a rage. Whether it suited them / useful or not, makkal went and bought it only to bandha adichify.These days makkal have truck loads of money. To make a call, we buy 40000 Rubees worth smart phone because namma pakkathu veetu Ponnamma and Edirtha veetu Ekambaram have ishhmart phones. 

One such pisthu item that has made it to this Bandha list is Quinoa. It is some grain like crop like seed like item that grows in South America and gets imported for heppu makkal to eat it as a substitute to Rice, Roti, Mor kozhambu, Vazhakka Bajji, Paneer Butter masala, Tirupathi Laddu etc.

This Quinoa comes into the conversation on any topic be it Food habits, Diet , Coal scam, Rail scam or Saravanan Meenatchi episode 400. You are considered unhep / unposshhh / pisatthu / vettuvetthu if you don't discuss and haven't had Quinoa. "I ate Quinoa" has become very common like we used to say "I had Anjaneyar Kovil vadai" .

Having bought all of the above (in the first para) from Nadhiya kammal to unsmart phones, we also bought Quinoa. For practical pronunciation purposes, let me call it Koina. It is so difficult to think 'Keenwah' and write Quonia. So it is Koina and will be Koina for me.At this supermarket where we go to buy our salt, sugar and paruppu,  was this lady who insisted we buy one packet of Koina. Since everybody was raving and ya let me admit we also wanted to be heppu , we bought Koina. In the 'we' I'm adding the paavappatta Purusan who didn't taste this bleddy thing when I tried to make it. Only at the billing counter did we realize we had been talailakattufyed this horribly expensive vasthu. Our dal, salt, masala powders combined was some 500 Rubees na this Koina itself was some 500 rubees+ for a packet that would fit into a shirt pocket. 

This Koina packet was lying idle for almost 6 months. Not wanting to waste the hard-earned money spent on Koina, made some salad type thing boiling it, adding onion, tomato and all. Vaaila vekka mudila. I tried to have one half of what I made and left the other in the fridge which was consumed after 2 days, adding the same to Thayir saadam. Kodumai.  Uvveck.

The sad part was only 1/4 of the packet was used in Koina salad. What to do with the rest? As I was trying to think keeping the packet in hand, it slipped and more than 1/2 fell on the ground. " Haiiyaa Jaali ! Ozhindadu Koina!", I told myself. The rest- one tiny bit was left in the packet. So I've come up with this brilliant idea of gifting the minjina packet to the one who sends me a brilliant Koina recipe for a contest on this blog.

But I'm sorry folks, this contest is not open to all silly cooks like you. Only the best of the best of the Master Chefs of Madras will be participating in this contest. And a Mega Master Chef will judge the entries. Going by their twitter / facebook posts and my personal interaction with the Master Chef of Madras, I've already short listed three esteemed Chefs who will be sharing their Koina recipes that will be posted on the blog next week.

The best of the three will win my coveted Minjina packet of Koina and (ponaapogattum) a book of their choice. As mentioned earlier, the winner will be chosen by our Mega Master Chef (surprise!!!!!) along with me. To know who these elitist contestants are, please come back next week. Till then, enjoy a picture of the Minjina packet of Koina.

Kollywood Kisnan - 6

Doctor 's payyan , doctor. A Lawyer's ponnu may , may not become a lawyer.. a vaadhyar's pillai is a makku .. An actor's ponnu / payyan most often becomes an actor or ends up being a director/ producer / cinematographer / costume designer etc. 

In Kollywood we have three generations of actors viz. Sivaji-Prabhu-Vikram Prabhu, Muthuraman-Karthik-Gautham Karthik etc.

This Kapoor family in Bollywood is termed as the first family of Indian cinema. Prithviraj Kapoor, his sons Raj kapoor, Shashi, Shammi kapoor, their sons Randhir, Rishi, 'Bombay dyeing' Kapoor, Chintu, Chikki-mukki Kapoors and the fourth generation Kapoors of Ranbir, Kareena-Karisma Kapoors are all actors / directors/ producers. 

But you know , even before the fourth generation (Karishma) Kapoor made her debut in '91, in namma Kollywood we had a fourth generation actress who made her debut in 1990?

Aishwarya Bhaskar has this privilege of being the fourth generation actor in Kollywood. She made her debut in '90. Her mother is the famous Lakshmi who won the best actress National award for Sila nerangaLil sila manidargal. Lakshmi's mother Rukmini acted in a lot of pazhaya movies including Sri Valli where she played the title role. Watch a clip from the movie here.

Rukmini's mother was Nungambakkam Janaki who was a dancer in Tamil films. Do read the article about her here. If you have a video clip of hers, do share it in the comments space.

As Indian cinema celebrates its 100th year, if any of your Amit friends try and put pult talking about Bachchan / Kapoor / Khan being the first family of Indian cinema etc. you put double pult and show them this post I say! Kollywood Kisnan is proud to say the first family of Indian cinema is from namma Kollywood.

Edited to add on 7th May '13

Sarang tweeted to say the first family of Indian cinema could be from Bollywood. Not Kapoors, Khans.. it's the Kajol family. Kajol's mom Tanuja's mother was popular actress Shobhna Samarth . Shobhna Samarth's mother Rattan Bai made her debut in 1933 has acted in 12 films. Though Kajol's debut was in '92 few years after Aishwarya (Lakshmi's daughter) made her debut, her cousin Mohnish Behl (Shobhna Samarth's daughter Nutan's son) made his debut in 1983 making him the fourth generation actor in Indian cinema.

Thank you Sarang for the tweet and the link. So namma Lakshmi, Aishwarya and family go back to being the first family of Kollywood. Will come back and update this post whenever Aishwarya's daughter makes her debut.