Pakodam

3 cups Rice Powder
1 cup besan (chick-peas powder)
1 stick melted butter ( or use hot oil)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder or to taste
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida (hing)
1 1/2 cup water or as needed

Mix rice powder and besan well, remove the lumps add butter (or hot oil as needed carefully), salt, chili powder asafoetida and mix.  Slowly add water to make a pliable dough.  The dough needs to be pressed through a sieve so it should be pliable not watery. 

To a fry pan add enough oil for frying.  Heat it and let it get hot.  Use a dough press with ribbon pakoda disc.  Take some dough and press it into the hot oil spreading it around.  When it turns reddish turn it over and let it cook on the other side.  Cook until it is reddish on both sides.  Remove it and put it on a platter lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil.  Let it cool to room temperature and serve.

Thuvaiyal

1 cup Tuvar dal
1/4 cup shredded coconut
4 red chilies or to taste
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate ( or one marble size ball of tamarind soak and extract the juice)
1 teaspoon salt
A little water as needed

Seasoning:
3 teaspoon sesame oil(til oil)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 teaspoon urad dal
2 teaspoon channa dal
2 red chilies

Wash the tuvar dal and roast it in a little oil until it is light brown.  Let it cool, add the coconut and grind it with red chilies, salt and tamarind.  Add a little water as needed during grinding.  The mixture needs to be thick.

For seasoning:
Heat oil, add mustard seeds, urad dal, tuvar dal, red chilies.  Wait for the mustard seeds to pop, when it does, turn the heat off, add a pinch of asafoetida and add it to the thuvaiyal mixture.

Pedas, Almond and Milk Peda

1 1/4 cup whole almonds pour hot water into it let it soak overnight and remove the skin
1 can evaporated milk
Grind almond and evaporated milk together

2 lbs paneer made from 1 gallon milk (4 cups or 650 grams)
1 1/2 stick butter
3 1/2 cup sugar
2 1/3 cups of good quality milk powder
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Cook paneer, ground almond and sugar mixture for 1 hour in butter

Add nutmeg, cardamom dry milk powder, cook for 5 minutes remove the lumps formed by adding the milk powder  Turn heat off when cool roll into balls on granulated sugar when in dish.  
Makes 100 pedas

Rava Laddu or Sooji Laddu

2 cups rava (sooji or semolina)
2 cup sugar
1/2 cup grated coconut
1/2 cup milk (add slowly as needed)
5 tablespoon ghee
1/4 cup cashew broken
1/4 cup raisins
1 teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds
A few drops of rose essence

In a frying pan heat the ghee add the cashew and raisins to it and fry till it starts to turn light brown add rava to it and roast it constantly till it is golden brown.  Add sugar and coconut, slowly add the milk until the mixture comes together, turn the heat of add crushed cardamom seeds and rose essence.   When it is cool to touch shape them into balls and serve.
Makes 24 to 30 laddus

This is a very nice dish to take to a friends house.