Cooking from other blogs - Pineapple Pulissery (Pravs) and Mushroom Thoran (Sujo)

Blogging has opened up a whole new world for me. Cooking is my passion and I always loved trying out new recipes. Growing up in a punjabi family, I did not know much about the foods from the south. Growing up in Mumbai, the only foods available in resturants were idlis, dosas and uthapas. There were no ethinic or regional cuisine resturants where we could have tasted this wonderful cuisine. And all the cook books which i purchased also had only recipes for sambhar, rasams, avial, dosas etc. So we were very unaware of the satisfying and comforting food, kalaans, errisery, pulissery,thoran etc.

I am still confused about a lot of stuff, but slowly getting there. Infact i had named this recipe as pineapple errisery and then saw on Pravs blog that its Pulissery. These foods now form a part of our menu, even though I switch the names some times. Sorry for being an ignorant North Indian.

And I dedicate this post to Pravs, whose recipe i have followed for the errisery . We loved the sweet, tangy and spicy combination, and it tasted wonderful with rice.
Here is the link to her recipe http://simplyspicy.blogspot.com/2006/10/pineapple-pulissery.html

With the errisery, I made mushroom thoran. I got the recipe from Sujo's blog http://wwwkerala-india.blogspot.com/. My husband could not even guess what vegetable it was. It tasted so wonderful. Thank you Sujo.


Here is Sujo's recipe. I made some variations. Those are noted in brackets.

500 gms White button mushrooms finely chopped (i used baby bella)
3 shallots sliced
3 green chillies finely chopped
1/4 cup Grated fresh coconut (i used 1 tblsp)
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin powder (i used cumin seeds)
A few curry leaves (optional)
1 tblsp. oil for sauteing
1/2 tsp. mustard
Salt as per taste
Method:

Heat oil in a frying pan.
Splutter the mustard seeds in it.
Saute the onion until slightly brown.
Add curry leaves.
Add the chopped mushrooms, chillies and garlic and let it cook until all the water has evaporated.
Fresh grated coconut may be added after the water is evaporated along with the cumin and turmeric powders and mix. (i ground it with cumin seeds in the mixer).
Cover and cook on a low fire until done.