Cooking Class # 1

I had such a great time taking cooking classes in Thekkady! The classes were held at the home of a local family that consisted of Sheril and his wife Asha, Sheril's parents Jaya and Sukumaran, his sister Sherin and their son Anishik. Anishik had such a great time posing for my camera! I took 3 classes and each class cost 350 rupees which is about $8.50 Canadian. The classes were about 3 hours long and after a fabulous evening of preparing the food, we got to enjoy the delicious food! I will do my best to record the recipes for the dishes we created.
Okra curry
-heat coconut oil in pot
-add mustard seeds and a small handful of fresh curry leaves (stand back as these explode when they hit the hot oil!)
-add finely sliced red onion, salt, and one sliced green chili
-cut off tips of okra, cut in 3 or 4 pieces and then quarter each of these lengthwise
Add to pot and stirfry!
Beans curry
-same process as above in adding mustard seeds and curry leaves to hot oil
-make a paste on a stone using onion, 1 chile, grated coconut, cumin seeds, and garlic; add turmeric and salt to paste
-cut 1 kg. green beans into small 1 cm. pieces and add them, sliced onions and one glass of water to the pot and cook for about 10 minutes
-add paste and cook a bit more
Chicken Curry
-same process as above in adding mustard seeds and curry leaves to hot oil, then add fresh coriander leaves, sliced onions and salt
-make a ginger and garlic paste on stone and cook for 10 minutes
-combine red chili powder (1/2 tsp), coriander powder (1/2 tsp), turmeric (1/2 tsp), and chicken masala powder (3 tsp) and making centre in pot, add oil, heat, and add spice mixture to pot and roast 3 minutes
-add pieces of one chicken (with bones) and salt mixing 5 minutes
-add water to top level of chicken mixture and cook 20 minutes
-add 1/2 coconut mixed with water (or coconut milk)and cook for 3 minutes
Pineapple Curry
-same process of mustard seeds and curry leaves in hot coconut oil
-add sliced red onions and with finely diced pineapple and one glass of water, fry
-make paste of one green chile, 1/2 coconut, cumin seeds, garlic and 1/2 tsp of turmeric and add to mixture
Porotta (okay this is a hard one!)
-add 1 spoon of salt, 1 spoon of sugar and 3 cups of water to 1 kg of flour (hollow centre of flour and gradually add liquid to centre and fold in flour)
-pound the heck out of it for a long time!
-make balls of dough, throw down on counter
-add oil to counter, roll balls in oil and flatten edges of ball to make pancake shape (but not the centre)
-flip and pull pancakes until it is a huge disc shape (the size of a pizza, yes, this is the difficult part)
-pick up and make long stretch of dough (see photo), twist, gather and tuck last part of dough under it, again, throw on counter, then grill in pan. Good luck!
Alu (Potatoes)
-slice potatoes in thin slices, then cut across to make matchstick potatoes
-add salt, chicken masala powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, and anise seed
-mix spice mixture with potatoes and sit for 30 minutes (drain water from potatoes)
-fry in sunflower oil

ENJOY!