Nutty Crunch Maalaadu with Preethi Turbo Chop

I went to a Blog- Jam hosted by Preethi. Preethi introduced their Iconic Table Top Wet Grinder. The Iconic Table Top Wet Grinder simulates traditional stone (Attukkallu) grinding process so that you get exactly the same quality of Idlis our elders used to make. Preethi also showcased their Turbo Chop Kitchen Appliance.

Preethi Turbo Chop: The Kitchen Appliance for today’s Nuclear family

Kitchen Appliances too evolve with the times and needs of the people. Today's families are mostly nuclear family with two kids or just one kid, Double Income No Kids families etc. In Today's households, Ladies are also harried whether they are housewives or working women. Hence the quality time for cooking is shrinking year by year. To address this need of families, today Innovative food companies are coming up with ready-mixes for every main dish from idli, dosa to rasam etc. The next important step to simplify regular cooking is simplifying making side-dishes. Indian (and South Indian in specific) Side dishes like chutneys and pooriyals have to prepared fresh and cannot be pre-packaged like tomato-sauces of the west. 

In today's regular cooking, the chopping of vegetables for these side dishes is the most time-taking and laborious activity. Though some enterprising entrepreneurs have come up with chopped vegetables packed in special sealed packages, either they are very costly or not fresh. There is also a worry about added preservatives. There are some very important drawbacks in current mixie models in the model. For example, it is not very easy to clean as removing blades from earlier mixie models is difficult and fungus would form if we do not clean it properly. Also, older appliances like mixies, grinders are not suited for cooking for just one, two or three people only.

Preethi Turbo Chop is an innovative combination of Chopper and Mini-Mixie. You can chop the ingredients in the jar through a simple-to-use push button on the top. You have to just keep pressing till you want to chop and remove when you are done. It is very safe that even kids can do it. Turbo Chop is ideal for preparing all types of chutneys, purees and chopped vegetables for poriyal ie all key side dishes of regular cooking today. Turbo Chop can also be used to prepare all types of poodi items for monthly or long term use. It can also used for crushing nuts and preparing ingredients for festival sweets. 

As Turbo Chop is very less weight, you can easily carry it while travelling also. For example, you can take it to hospitals to prepare juices. Similarly, you can take even during tours and travels to prepare chutneys, juices on the fly and avoid hotel foods.

Preethi Turbo Chop is digital kitchen Swiss-army knife in the kitchen. With Preethi Turbo Chop you have a very well researched innovation that addresses the need of today's women of all segments - always on the run Working women in IT and other Industries, cost-conscious housewives, college-goers, bachelors, elderly people etc. 

Preethi Turbo Chop is just the type of innovation that solves a nagging -issue in cooking instead of meaningless marketing gimmick innovations which flood that market all the time. Kudos to Preethi for coming up with Turbo Chop.

Preethi Turbo Chop Technical Specifications:

1. 450 W Powerful Motor

2. Stainless Steel Blade

3. 0.7 L Bowl

4. One Press Chopper

5. Easy to use and clean

Turbo Chop Mini Mixer-Grinder is a 450W compact kitchen appliance with laser sharp blades that can grind, mix, chop, and blend within seconds. This Mini Mixie is, therefore, the perfect kitchen companion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkBlp8ClK1w

http://www.preethi.in/turbo-chop/turbo-chop

More About Preeti Blog jam: 

Unlike other Blogger-Meets, Preethi arranged for two great talks, one by Archana of ArchanaKitchen.com on how to take our blogs to the next level. The other talk was on improving food photography skills by Chef.Umasankar Dhanapal, Winner of IKA / Culinary Olympics (http://www.knifeandimpressions.com/). Both the speakers gave very good tips for improving our blogging and photography capabilities.

Nutty Crunch Maalaadu with Preethi Turbo Chop:

Festival Season has already started. Easy to make sweet recipes are in demand for both beginners making their first sweet and well-versed people planning their additional sweet. Maalaadu is a simple sweet but it is not liked by many because it is sticky. Nutty Crunch Maaladu is a variant of Maalaadu which makes it non-sticky and crunchy so that kids and adults also would relish it.

Ingredients:

Roasted Gram / Pottukadalai	1 cup
Badam	1/3 cup
Cashew Nuts	10
Ghee	¼ cup
Cardamom Powder	¼ tsp
Sugar	¼ cup
Nattu Sarkkarai / Brown Sugar	¼ cup

                                                              

Procedure:

1. Dry roast the roasted-gram (pottukadalai) till they become hot. Don’t over roast it. Keep it aside.

2. Dry roast the badam for 2 mins or till they become hot.

3. Grind the roasted gram into fine powder without any lumps using the dry mixie jar. Keep it aside.

4. Grind the badam into small granules. Don’t grind them into fine powder.

5. Chop the cashew nuts into small pieces.

6. Heat one tbsp of ghee in a pan. Fry the chopped cashew nuts till they turn into brown in color. Switch off the flame.

7. Grind the white sugar and brown sugar into a fine powder using the same jar separately.

7. In a wide bowl, add powdered roasted gram, badam granules, powdered sugar, and powdered brown sugar, roasted cashew nuts with ghee and cardamom powder. Mix them gently with ladle or with your fingers.

8. Now heat the remaining ghee in a pan, add the hot ghee little by little in the above mixture.

9. Mix them immediately with the ladle. When you can hold the mixture to make balls, stop to adding ghee.

10. Grease your hand with oil and immediately make gooseberry size balls from the mixture and keep it aside. Allow it to cool down completely.

     Now nutty and crunchy Maladoo is ready to serve!

Note:

1. Roasting badam and roasted-gram (pottukadalai) is optional.

2. You can microwave them for 2 mins instead of roasting.

3. You can grind the badam into fine powder also.

4. The given amount of ghee is enough for this recipe. You can add if you needed.

 5. If you find that the ghee is more add more powdered roasted-gram (pottukadalai).

6. Adjust the sugar level according to your taste.

7. You can use ½ cup of white sugar or ½ cup of brown sugar instead of 50-50.

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Pongal - Bhogi Cleaning with LAL HIT and Thengai / Coconut Poli

     Pongal/Shankranti is first and foremost important festival for South India, especially Tamil Nadu. For the farming community, Pongal is like Thanksgiving festival which celebrates the Seeds and Cows, which are the sources of life itself. A day before the actual festival is a day of cleaning called Bhogi. Our Elders have subtly emphasized the old adage that Cleanliness is next to Godliness through Bhogi by emphasizing cleanliness before celebration. In Villages, everyone would remove all the unwanted stuff in their house, clean it and also white-wash it so have clean and happy ambiance for Pongal.  Even though most of us have moved more towards an urban lifestyle, Pongal is still relevant because it can help us make cleaning a habit. We can use Pongal as an occasion to bring in new products and approaches for maintaining cleanliness such as LAL HIT and #SayNoToFoodPoisoning 

In cities where most of us are living now, we cannot of course, white-wash our flats every year. But we can definitely put the effort to have a thorough cleaning of our flats, remove old junk and create cleaner spaces. While cleaning, we should take special care of cleaning wash areas, sinks and other hidden corners of our houses where germs tend to accumulate. Even though we have harried lifestyle nowadays, we should always make regular house cleaning a habit which is part and parcel of our life. By associating cleanliness chores with festival, Pongal Bhogi makes house cleaning a part of fun and celebration and encourages us not to think cleaning chores to be tiresome activity.

Get Rid off the  disease spreading Cockroaches:

     There are many good side effects of regular house cleaning such as getting rid of Cockroaches. Cockroaches bother most people. Most kids and even ladies get scared of them. Cockroaches are more than social embarrassments.  In reality, they are carriers of many diseases. As Cockroaches crawl into your kitchen, they bring   dangerous germs and bacteria from dirty drain, and become carriers for these germs which are known to spread diseases like Food Poisoning, Typhoid, Cholera, Diarrhea, Dysentery and many stomach diseases.

     Fortunately Godrej has come up with a very good specialist cockroach killer product called LAL HIT. All you have to do is apply the chemical into deep corners and cracks of your kitchen as part of your monthly kitchen cleaning process. You can have a weekly schedule at key areas. The unique features of the LAL HIT is its Deep Reach Nozzle which can ensure that the product can be inserted into cracks and holes and ensure that the spray reaches even those cockroaches which typically hides deep in the cracks of the buildings where cockroaches tend to hide and escape from otherwise regular cleaning steps LAL HIT is the only solution that can eliminate even the hidden cockroaches and keep the family safe from diseases like Food Poisoning.

Make Bhogi to form the Cleanliness habit:

      Pongal Bhogi should also be used as an occasion for involving kids and teenagers in household cleaning. This will also help us educate them and make cleanliness habitual for them. What better way can there be other than Pongal to introduce LAL HIT into our households to make our houses health and clean? We also have to remember that products like LAL HIT have to be used periodically and not occasionally during festival seasons.

Bhogi Special Recipe:  Coconut / Thengai Poli

In Villages, people make Poli sweets as part of the Pongal celebrations.  Poli is quite easy and quick to make and needs only readily available ingredients.  Try and make Poli at home to make Pongal all the more special.

Recipe Cuisine : South Indian | Recipe Category: Sweets

Preparation Time: 15 mins  | Cooking Time: 5 mins | Yields: 10 nos.

Ingredients:

For the dough:
Maida	1 ½  cup (1 cup = 200 ml)
Oil or Ghee	2 tbsp
Salt	¼ tsp
Water	Required
For Stuffing:
Grated Coconut	3 cups
Jaggery	2 cups
Ghee	2 tbsp
Cardamom	3
For Making Poli:
Oil	Required

Procedure:

For Dough:

1. In a wide bowl, add maida, salt and oil/ghee. Mix them well with your fingers.

2. Then add water little by little and knead into very soft dough. Cover the dough and keep it aside for an hour.

For Stuffing:

3. Heat the ghee in a pan, add grated coconut and fry for 2 mins.

4. Then add the crushed cardamom and grated jaggery. Keep the flame at simmer.

5. Jaggery starts to melts, so that the stuffing becomes watery.

6. Then slowly the stuffing becomes thick. Stir occasionally to avoid to sticking at the bottom of the pan.

7. Remove from the heat once the stuffing reached the thick consistency. Allow it to cool down completely.

Make Poli:

8. Divide the dough into big lemon size balls.

9. Divide the stuffing into equal number of dough balls.

10. Apply oil on the clean plastic sheet. Keep the dough ball on the sheet.

11. Press the ball using the fingers to make small circle.

12. Now keep the stuffing ball at the center of the circle and close the stuffing with the dough.

13. Now close the ball with plastic sheet and make a thin circle using your fingers or with rolling pin.

14. Heat the tawa, place this poli over the tawa and pour oil or ghee. Cook both sides till it some dark spots comes.

  Tasty and mouth watering coconut / thengai poli is ready to serve.

Note:

1. Adjust the sweet level according to your taste.

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