DIY – Homemade Tomato Ketchup / Tomato Sauce

These days tomatoes are really cheap in the market and vegetable sellers are flooded with tomatoes. This is the ideal time to make tomato ketchup / sauce. You can preserve this homemade for almost a year. It contains a preservative, sodium benzoate, which increases its shelf life.This homemade ketchup is made of tomatoes and only tomatoes. You can serve Springrolls, Kachori, Dhokla, Sandwich, Kothimbir Vadi, Burger and many other snacks.

Here we go,

Ingredients:

Tomatoes – 2 kg

Green Chillies – 5-6 (cut into pieces)

Garlic – 8-10 cloves

Cloves (Laung) – 3-4

Sugar – ½ cup

Salt – to taste

Black Pepper – ½ tsp

Sodium Benzoate – ¼ tsp

Method:

1. Rinse the tomatoes under running water and cut each tomato into four parts.
2. Cut green chillies and garlic into pieces.
3. Take a pressure cooker and add tomatoes, green chilli, garlic and cloves.
4. Pressure cook to two whistles.
5. Let it cool.
6. Blend the tomato mixture to a smooth puree and strain it through a strainer to a heavy bottom wok.
7. Keep the wok on a stove top. Add sugar, salt and black pepper.
8. Stir continuously on a medium flame till the pulp starts thickening and reaches ketchup like consistency. The pulp should fall from the spoon in lumps. It should not fall free flow.
9. Remove from the flame and allow it to cool.
10. Add sodium benzoate to the sauce and mix well.
11. Store it in a sterilized jar.

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Soft Idli / How to make soft Idli

Idli is one of my favorite dish from South Indian cuisine. The most important aspect of idli is its softness. The Idlis made this Sunday turned out very soft and fluffy. To make Idli soft, batter plays an important role. Idli can be served with Sambhar and Chutney. For morning breakfast, it can be served with chutney as well.

Check dosa batter and dosa making recipe here. You can also try Idli in microwave.

Here we go,

Ingredients:

• Par Boiled Rice – 1 cup (Soaked for 5hours)
• Rice – 1 cup (Soaked for 5hours)
• Urad Dal (without skin) – ½ cup (Soaked for 5hours)
• Poha – ¼ cup
• Fenugreek Seeds – ½ tsp (Soaked for 5hours)
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – to grease

Method:

1. If you wish to make Idli on Sunday, process should start on Saturday. Soak par boiled rice, poha and rice together for at least five hours.
2. Simultaneously, in another bowl soak urad dal and fenugreek seeds together for at least five hours.
3. Grind the soaked rice into fine and fluffy paste adding some water. I used almost one cup water while grinding.
4. Grind the soaked Urad Dal and fenugreek seeds into a fine and fluffy paste. Less water is required while grinding the dal. Total grinding of rice and dal took more than half hour.
5. Mix both the batter and mix well. Add salt.
6. Cover the batter and let it ferment for 10hours or overnight. After fermentation the batter will rise to double and bubble will appear on the batter.
7. Grease the idli moulds. Pour the batter in the moulds, steam the idlis in a steamer.
8. Steam for 10-12 mins or until the idlis are done. Insert a toothpick to check, if t comes out clean, its done.

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Vegetable Noodle Spring Roll

Spring Roll is an indo – Chinese recipe. It is crunchy mix vegetables and noodles rolled and deep fried in in all purpose flour wrappers. It crispy, crunchy, spicy snack wich can be served with Chinese sauces or simple tomato sauce. The wrappers used in spring roll are available in leading departmental stores. However I have made wrappers at home. Instead of deep frying the rolls, I have shallow fried. You can use any veggies of your choice.

You may also like, Manchurian and Fried rice.

The process is divided into three steps:

1. Making of wrappers
2. Cooking Veggies and noodles
3. Assembly of the roll

Let’s start,

Ingredients for wrappers:

• All purpose flour – 1 cup
• Water – 1 cup
• Salt – to taste

Method:

1. In a big bowl combine the plain flour, water and salt, and whisk well until well combined and there are no lumps. The batter should be of flowing consistency.
2. Heat and grease a nonstick pan with oil. Once the pan is hot, with heat on medium, pour a ladle of the batter into the pan spread around quickly(like we do for dosa) to make a thin circle.
3. Cook on medium heat until you see the sides are peeling. When the sides begin to peel off, turn the wrapper and cook on the other side for a few seconds.
4. Repeat with the remaining batter to make more wrappers.

Ingredients for Veggies and noodles:

• Cabbage – ½ cup shredded
• Carrot – 1 nos (thinely sliced)
• Capsicum – ½ nos (finely chopped)
• Onion – 1 nos (finely chopped)
• Noodles – ½ cup (boiled)
• Black pepper – 1tsp
• Salt – to taste
• Soya sauce – 2 tsp
• Chilli sauce – 1 tsp
• Oil

Method:

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a wok on high heat. Add in the cabbage, carrots, onions, capsicum.. Saute the vegetables on high heat. Do not overcook, the veggies should be crunchy.
2. Stir in the salt and black pepper. Add sauces and noodles. Saute for a minute and transfer to a another bowl. Allow the mixture to cool completely.

Assembly of the roll:

1. Place each square spring roll wrapper on a flat surface. Apply a little flour paste along the edges of the wrapper. Place a tablespoon of the filling on one corner/edge of the wrapper.
2. Fold in from the filled corner and begin rolling until you reach the center. When you reach the center, fold the ends arising from the sides of the wrapper. And roll till the end.Make sure the edges are sealed well. The flour paste is important as it helps to seal the spring rolls so they don’t open up when deep fried.
3. Repeat the process and make the rest of the spring rolls.
4. Heat the oil in a heavy bottom wok and add in a few rolls at a time and deep fry on medium heat until golden brown in color.

Serve the spring rolls with homemade tomato sauce.

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