Vazhakai varuval - A simple plantain curry

Hope you guys had a lovely weekend and are looking fresh and energetic for this week. My weekend was pretty fine, had been to a friend's place for dinner on Saturday and was pretty much at home on Sunday. I had been playing around with blog templates and every time I uploaded a new HTML, my blog looked pathetic. I ain't a computer geek and HTML codes were going over my head. On Friday afternoon, I lost my original template after I uploaded a new one. Literally I was on tears as I was lost on how to go about correcting it. It was so clumsy that I hardly could tolerate the look of it :-(

My mind was racing to catch a right person to help me and it was 4.00 PM. Everyone will be at work. Immediately, I remembered that my BIL,a software professional living in Kansas and it would be 6.00 PM there. I caught him when he entered his home and made him sit in front of the computer to sort this. He was kind enough to spend more than an hour to sort my blog. He suggested to download "Firebug" and gave me a quick tour on how to write HTML and it sounded pretty straight forward but later, I had trouble in writing one :-( Then somehow we got back my original template and added few widgets to get a look similar to my previous one. I had written queries on online forum and on other blogs to help me with changing the blog format. Aneesh of Blogger Widgets helped me in changing my blog look. You can have a look at his blog and can contact him for any guidance/assistance about new widgets and blog templates.

Here is my new blog look and do tell me whether you guys liked it or not? I would be glad to hear your feed backs. I know my header picture is blurred and so unprofessional, I am in the process of learning how to correct it :-) (smiles) So please pardon me for that!

Note : Friends, always remember to save your preferred template in a note pad or create a test blog before you start experimenting your blog look.

The post for today isn't as complicated as my template-changing-story, its a simple yet crispy and tasty plantain curry which can be cooked in no time. This dish is so quick to make and tastes absolutely heavenly with rice served in hot rasam or an ordinary yogurt. Crispy plantain curry is sure to make you crave for more. This can also be eaten as a munch during TV sessions. It will be a sure hit among kids :-)


Ingredients

• 2 raw banana/plantains - peeled and diced
• 5 curry leaves
• 1tsp mustard
• 1tsp urad dhal
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1-2 tsp chilli powder
• 2-3 tsp coriander powder
• 1 garlic - minced
• 1 tbs oil
• Salt to taste
• 1/2- 1 cup water

Method

• Peel and dice the bananas into small chunks. Leave it in water and keep aside.
• Heat about 1/2 tbs oil in the kadai. Once the oil is heated up, add the mustard and let it splutter. Then add the urad dhal, garlic and curry leaves.Saute for a min.
  
• Add the plantain chunks into the tempered oil and saute for couple of mins. Sprinkle in turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder and salt over the plantains and saute till the raw smell disappears. Pour in the water and leave the lid closed for 3-5 min. Cook on medium flame. After the cooking time, check them by poking with a fork in its center . Pour in the remaining oil and let it cook for 3-5 min on high flame. Crispy yummy curry is ready.

Serve hot with rice and sambar/rasam/yogurt