Onam Feast

Recipes for the side dishes and main courses of the traditional Ona Sadhya, as recorded in my mother's recipe book. She used to do this entire meal, which was then served and eaten on banana leaves - a full day or more of effort.

As I am short on time and won't be able to add in all my mother's recipes before Onam, I'm going to provide links alongside each sadya item to other great recipes online.

Grilled Snapper in green chutney

Tried this out today - fresh red snapper fillets marinated with coriander chutney and cooked on a charcoal grill. Fresh flavor and juicy, good with rice or with a light tangy salad.

Chettinad Mutton

This recipe is inspired by the Chettinad chicken recipe. It's a variation for grilling mutton - I've added lime and raw papaya for the marinade to tenderize the mutton.

Kozhakotta (Steamed rice balls)

Kozhakotta is a kerala sweet made of steamed rice dumplings or balls stuffed with a sweet mix of jaggery, grated coconut and spices. Very similar to the 'modak' of Maharashtra.

Theeyal (Burnt dish)

Theeyal is a typical kerala curry - a little similar to sambhar (without the dal). It uses roasted/burnt coconut and tamarind, and becomes a dark rich colored curry which is eaten with rice. Sometimes served as as a curry in the Ona Sadhya.

Pakki Chicken Biryani (mummy's recipe)

This is my mother-in-law's recipe for pakki biryani. Here the chicken is cooked separately and then added to the rice and cooked together. This takes about an hour and a half from start to finish.

The Original Spaghetti Bolognese

Aditya's italian dish of choice
Serves four-6 people (or a few hungry teenage boys)

40 Mumbai foods we can't live without

Not recipes - but a great list of mumbai food! As posted on CNNgo by Sanjiv Khamgaokar.
Includes favorites like ragda pattis, akuri, sabudana vada... mouthwatering read.

Sannas

Spongy rice cakes - perfect accompaniment to the tangy spicy sorpatel or vindaloo, or even crab curry.

Sarpotel (Goan Pork)

The "killer" goan pork pickle curry - so spicy. Best if eaten a few days after it is made.

Coorg Mutton

Combined Ingredients and Instructions (I'm feeling lazy)

1. Soak mutton in salt and haldi for an hour
2. Heat oil , fry paste of  -
• 3-4 green chillies
• 3 medium onions
• 1" ginger
• 8-10 garlic cloves
• Dhaniya leaves
• 1 tbsp jeera
3. Add meat and fry

Hyderabadi Biryani (Ma's recipe)

This is my mother's recipe for kacchi biryani from Hyderabad - where the marinated meat and rice are cooked together on a slow flame, also known as "dum" biryani. This requires prep time of a couple of hours - the meat needs to be marinated. The cooking time is also long, between 50 mins to an hour and a half.

Goan Salt Meat

The First Trial: 1.8 kgs at start

My "Nagpore" grandmother's recipe - as handed down to her daughter who passed this on to her niece (me) who's husband makes this for his son. Wonderful flavor, best eaten cold and sliced thin.

Stick with the ingredients in the right proportion - we did one version "andaz-se" and it was WAY too salty. We usually avoid the salt petre (difficult to get, and nitrates aren't recommended in food).

Swan's Down (Chocolate Cake)

Extremely laborious in today's instant cake mix age, but well worth the effort if you have an appreciative audience who loves cake. This has traditionally been the birthday cake made for my sister and my birthdays, and for Aditya whenever my mom has been in town.

Spicy Chicken Roast A La Goa

A special occasion meal because of the time to prepare, the chicken roast was usually the chief guest at sit-down dinner which few of us could get up from easily. Accompanied by heavily buttered bread, and wine (for the adults), the meal finished off with caramel custard or the biscuit layered pudding.

Jeera Aloo

This is a dry dish which goes well with a simple yellow dal and rice or hot phulkas.


Ingredients:

• 2-3 large potatoes
• 1/2 inch ginger root
• 1 green chilly
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 small/medium tomatoes
• Large pinch of hing (asafoetida)
• Jeera powder
• Dhania powder
• Jeera seeds
• Oil
• Salt

Goa Prawn (OR Fish) Curry

Best accompanied with rice. Try to use pungent green chillies, the combination of that with the coconut milk is perfect.


Ingredients:

• 1 coconut  
• 1 kodumpulli torn into strips
• 1/2 kg fish or prawns (deveined and shelled)

Banana cake/bread with cream cheese frosting

Recipe got off Food.com, posted by Rhonda J - great reviews but haven't tried it out yet. Baking time may increase based on individual ovens... can vary by almost 40 mins to an hour

Chettinad Pepper Chicken

Peppery hot, this chicken dish smells of madras. Really good with noolputtu - or idiappams. If you prefer to have it drier, you can boil off the excess water and get a thicker gravy.

Simple Biryani

Another staple from my childhood - lightly flavored biryani which was consumed in huge quantities. It was more "soul" food in it's flavoring,  and not the heavily spiced, oily version you get in restaurants. This isn't the "kerala" biryani either (no rose water flavor or small grain rice), it owes it's ancestry to hyderabad.