Ingredients:

1. Apply oil on your hand, cutting board and knife. Also a good idea to spread a newspaper for easy cleanup. As when fruit is pruned, the inner part (core) secretes a sticky, milky liquid, which can hardly be removed from the skin, even with soap and water. Applying oil ahead helps the clean-up. 

2. Separate each firm yellowish aril (seed coat, flesh), which has an intense sweet taste.



3. Slit open each aril and reach in to pull out the seed and its coat - thin, waxy, parchment-like and easily removable testa (husk) and a brownish, membranous tegmen.

1. In a blender or food processing grind the Jackfruit pods/aril to a smooth paste.
2. In a deep bowl, add the ground Jackfruit paste. 

3. Add coconut, jaggery and cardamom powder Jackfruit paste, and mix it all together. Optional ingredients other than the baking powder may be mixed together at this stage.



4. Start adding the wheat flour little by little and see how much you need. ( If baking powder is used, add it along with the flour)  The consistency should be of thick cake or pakoda batter. If it is too runny, add more wheat flour. If it is too hard, add bit of milk or water and mix.



5. Pour oil into a frying pan and place our medium-high flame. Once the oil is hot enough, take out small portion of dough and slowly place them in hot oil. If you are not comfortable with hand, use a table spoon to carefully put the dough in the oil.  Don't worry about the shape of the mulkas. Fry them in small batches and keeping the flame in medium-low.  Use a slotted spoon to turn the mulkas so that they cook evenly on all sides. They are ready after 2-3 minutes or as soon as they have a rich, dark golden color. Take them out from oil. Place them on kitchen paper tissue to drain excess oil.
6. Mulkas are ready to eat. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Hello, welcome to one more of my blog-post. This recipe I came up with by accident ..say about 15 years ago. A new small Mediterranean grocery store opened next to the craft-store I usually visit.  I just dropped by to check out what they had. Besides all the dry-fruits, there were many interesting things I had never seen before. Since, there were no other customers, I asked plenty of questions for the storekeeper who was more than happy to answer me. I walked out with lots of dry-fruits, a bottle honey, box of baklava, some veggies and a pack of Lavash bread.  The bread was in huge rectangle shape, I cut them into smaller pieces and warmed them on tawa to have for dinner with curry. But as I warmed it, the bread turned crispy and brittle like papad. Hmm! this is not good. Well I had to come up with something to use the bread. 15 years ago, internet was not filled with information or recipes as it is now. Did not find much online. So I came up with idea of making roles. Of course, now, when you search up on internet you will see so many recipes using Lavash bread, most commonly Lavash bread warps. So here is what I came up with.... an healthy alternative for Vegetable Puff you get in Indian bakery.

Enjoy Crispy Lavash Rolls with your family. This is also a good option for kids meal and  for their lunch box

Pathrode or Pathravade or Patra  is vegetarian dish from India. It is made from Colocasia leaves (chevu in Tulu, taro, kesuve or kachu or arbi) stuffed with rice flour and flavorings such as spices, tamarind, and jaggery(Wikipedia). Patram in Sanskrit and Patha in Hindi means leaf, Vade means fritters. Both combined makes the word Pathrode or Pathravade.

Patrode is my father's one of the favorite dish. So naturally, he makes sure we had good supply of Colocasia leaves in our terrace garden. He has 'Green thumb' and grows them in pots (picture below). The plant gives a nice green tropical touch to garden too. In fact, it is  everyone's favorite snack in our house. We all pitch-in to help prepare this dish and eat as well ;)  I should say, it does get messy during preparation, but  who cares, it is so delicious and has an unique taste, once you taste it you would want more. Usually made in the afternoon to have it for evening snack and side-dish for dinner. Here I am sharing my mother's Pathrode recipe.

 - Now place another leaf (face-down) over the first one and apply the masala. 

- Due to the masala on the first leaf, the next leaf will stick to it and stay put.

- Repeat the steps with couple of more leaves.

- Now folder over the two sides to give an even edge. 

- Now fold-in bottom 1/4 section and apply masala

- Do the same with the top 1/4 section.

- Now fold-over the half to form a nice evenly shaped rectangle.
- Note: you may want to shape your Pathrode so it fits in your steam-cooker.  If you have a small cooker use less leaves to form small bundled shape. It just needs lot of layers to give that flaky texture. 

Tie it with a (thick) cotton yarn/thread to help hold the shape.

- Repeat the steps with rest of the leaves to make more bundles.

- Now Pathrode is ready to be cooked.

-On a steam cooker stand or idli stand place the bundled Pathrode as shown in the picture

-Add water to the bottom section of the steam cooker (or pressure cooker)

- Bring the water to boil

- Place the stand and rest of the Pathrode bundles.

- Cover and steam cook on medium flame for about 25 to 30 minutes until done

- If using pressure cooker, don't place the weight (just like cooking idli)

- Once cooked and flame is turned off, let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes.

- Cut off the thread and cut the Pathrode into 2 cms roles.

- On a flat tawa, shallow roast on both sides applying coconut oil. This step is optional but it gives that extra bit of crunchiness on the outer layer. 

Serve hot as a snack or as a side dish. 

Enjoy one of the unique and exotic vegetarian dish from Coastal South India.

Bottle gourd is one of vegetable I stay away from, not a big fan of it when used in curry. But do love the halwa made out of it. The halwa just melts in your mouth. Nobody can guess halwa is made out of Bottle gourd.  Due to its cooling nature, this halwa can be included for the Jaundice patient's diet - keep in mind to use Jaggery instead of sugar and no nuts, raisins are ok.
Halwa recipes: Carrot halwa, Falooda and China grass halwa, Duddi Halwa, Suji Pineapple halwa and Kashi Halwa.

My daughter had some free time during her winter-break, so she pulled out all my beading supplies to work on some beading project. She also found my silk embroidery thread collection and voila, she made some pendents and earrings. Some to keep and some to gift. 

Also, scroll down to see earrings she made for me from seashells she found during one of our trips to the beach. Enjoy!

Mixed vegetable sagu (Saagu) is a Karnataka dish. In Karnataka, most of the local restaurants, when you order Poori (Puri), it comes with mixed vegetable sagu unlike in North India, where they would serve Aloo bhaji(potato curry) or chana (chickpeas) masala. It will be even listed as Poori Sagu on the menu, and in some restaurants there is the option of ordering poori bhaji too. It is also served with chapati and dosa along with chutney and/or sambar.  There are many variations of sagu recipes. Some don't use onion and some even add garlic. I am sharing the recipe the way I make. Hope you like it.

Sago is usually served with breakfast bread like poori, dosa or chapathi. It is a very simple and easy to make dish, but delicious. If you ignore the poori, sagu on its own is very healthy. In other words, you can feel less guilty eating the fried poori :P

In my opinion, using Chayote makes the Sagu taste better. They are very rich in nutrition. Chayote has many names, depending on which part of the world you are, you will have to learn a new name. I grew-up knowing it as Seeme Badanekaayi in Kannada, and Chou Chou in Tamil.