What do you need:

• Plantain - 1 (Skin peeled and cut into 4mm slices)
• Channa besan (Bengalgram flour) - 2 cups
• Rice flour 3 tsp
• Sujji Rawa 2 tsp
• Chilly powder to taste
• Salt to taste
• Hing (Asafetida) 1/8 tsp
• Baking soda 1/8 tsp (Optional)

How to make Balekhai Bajji:
* Mix all the dry ingredients and add water slowly to form a thick paste.
* Heat oil at medium-high and verify it has heated up by putting a small drop of the mixture that you just made
* Dip the vegetable in the paste and deep fry turning once to fry the other side. Once done, place the bajjias on a paper towel to remove excess oil.
*Bajji is ready! Serve hot with chutney or ketchup.

Gongura (Roselle) - 1 bunch - about 5 stems.
Red Chilies - 1 cup - 8 to 10 Red chilies.
Garlic - 4 cloves.
Turmeric.
Jaggary(brown sugar).
Salt to taste
For seasoning: Oil/Ghee, Mustard, Methi, Urad Dhal and Hing (Asafetida).

How to make Gongura Chutney:
a Separate gongura leaves from the stems and wash the leaves throughly. Spread the leaves on towel for removing the moisture off the leaves.
a Heat a pan on low heat, fry gongura leaves with very little oil or ghee. Remove into a food processor. In the same pan roast the garlic cloves and red chilies. (Optional: If you want extra spicy or want to add green chilies instead of red chilies, Green chilies needs to be dry fried too).

a Add chilies, garlic, salt, turmeric and a small amount of jaggary (say a size of peanut) with the gongura leaves and grind into a fine paste.

a Season the chutney with Mustard, Methi, Urad Dhal and Hing (Asafetida) in hot oil or ghee.

a Serve gongura chutney with Rice - topped with Ghee.

Haaa! Roasted corn.. who can resist it? Especially when it is raining :)
It is nice if you have a BBQ grill - for an Indian style charcoal roasted corn... but since I don't have one, I had to improvise... on electric burner (You can see in the last picture of this post).

What you need:
Corn - white ones taste better then the yellow ones.
Chili sauce (or Red chili powder).
Lemon Juice.
Salt.

What to do:* Remove the husks off the corn. Discard the outer husks, which are usually bad. The rest of husks can be used for serving and to make brush to apply the spice on the corn.
* Mix Chili sauce (or Red chili powder), Lemon Juice and Salt in a small bowl and keep aside. If you are serving children omit Chili sauce or Chili powder.


* If the corn is directly over the coils of the burner, obviously the burner will have to be replaced very soon. So, you can keep a phulka maker frame over the burner, or do what I did - took a metal coaster bent its 3 legs and made sure the coaster does not touch the burner. Place the corn over the coaster and it at medium high. Repetitively turning the corn so that all the sides are roasted evenly.
* Remove corn from the burner, apply the mixture evenly with a brush. Roast the corn again for few more minutes. Yummm Spicy roasted corn is ready to enjoy.

Balekhai Fry: Wash and peel the skin of the Plantain. ( apply oil to your hands and on a knife to help in washing plantain stains) Cut plantains into 5mm thin slices. Add fry masala and let it marinate for 5 minutes.






Put a flat griddle/tawa on low fire. Apply oil to the tawa. In a plate take Sujji Rawa for dipping. Take a piece of marinated plantain, make sure all the sides are covered with masala, after dipping the plantain pieces in Sujji rawa, place it on the tawa. Repeat the same with rest of plantain peices and arrange them side by side on the tawa. Turn the burner to medium.
Cover the tawa and cook for 8 minutes. Then apply little oil and flip the plantain pieces over to cook the other side. Cook for 5 more minutes or until done.

Serve as appetizer or side dish along with hot rice and rasam.

Variations: Instead of plantain, use Potato slices or Cauliflower. For Cauliflower, after mixing the flowerets with masala, add Sujji rawa and mix and spread on tawa for cooking.

Even fish can be fried in the same way. Here in the picture I prepared Salmon. Since slices are bit thick the burner should be set to medium low. For fish, Ghee can be used instead of oil for better taste and reducing fish smell.

What you need:
Kokum (muragalu huli)- 1/2 cup (say 6 to 7 pieces)
Tomato - 1 diced (Optional)
Garlic cloves - 6 crushed *
* (Take each garlic clove at a time, place the side of the knife flat over the clove and hit it with your fist. The garlic gets crushed and the skin peels out easily)
Haldi (turmeric powder)- 1/2 tsp.
Roasted Geera(cumin) powder - 2 tsp.
Black pepper powder - 1/2 tsp.
Sarin Puddi/Rasam powder - 2 tbsp
Jaggary - size of an almond
Salt to taste
Coriander a small bunch
For seasoning: Ghee/oil - 2 tsp; Mustard seeds; Curry leaves; Hing.
In a sauce pan take little ghee/oil, add crushed garlic and saute for a minute (Optional: add diced tomato and let it cook for 3 minutes). Add 2 cups water and Kokum to it. Bring it boil.
At this point you will have dark Pinkish liquid. Add 3 more cups water, haldi, roasted geera powder, Sarin puddi/Rasam powder, black pepper powder, jaggary and salt. Bring it to boil. Add lots of chopped Cilantro (coriander) leaves .
For seasoning: in a metal small kadai add 2 spoons of ghee/oil and heat on low flame, add mustard seeds to it. Once the seeds starts to pop add curry leaves and Hing. Pour the whole season into the Sar/Rasam and cover the Sar immediately so that the flavor and aroma is locked in. :)
Serve hot with Rice.

Mustard - 2 tbsp
Cumin seeds - 1 cup
Coriander seeds - 2 cups
Fenugreek seeds - 2 tsp
Black Pepper - 1 tsp
Asafetida - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves - 1/2 cup
Urad Dhal - 1 1/2 cup
Whole Red chili - 3 cups
Cinnamon - 2 stick
Turmeric - 2 tsp

Dry roast all the ingredients separately. Grind all together in a food processor to powder. Transfer in to wide bowl or a plate allow the powder to cool down before storing in air tight container.

This is my mom's recipe.