Koonthal/Squid Roast

My parents are here and they had never eaten the squid. My husband is very fond of this dish , but i am not a big fan of this. I decided to try on this dish and fortunately it came out well. Hubby always search for nadan kudampuli (Fish Tamarind) in all dishes, so i purposely put 1 piece of tamarind in addition to the tomatoes. It should be avoided , I didnt feel much sourness , but as usual hubby's face was not lit to 100%  :( .. Amma liked it , but pappa didnt even touch..He is very peculiar in his dishes now a days, not even giving a try at least to taste a new dish.I felt he hate the looks of squid, even me hates that ..I dont feel calling this a fish, a fish with no good looking head and tail ..some other species or aliens, with  whatever techniques - inki , pinki, & pongi :) While i was cleaning this, i just wondered how God created this much wide variety of species in the world. What all new techniques HE is experimenting on different species, right.Anyways thank God, he did implemented other good looking fishes too ;)

Though i never tried & tasted squid dishes much, i just followed my regular recipe for other roast, didnt even get time to search blogs this time. Anyways somethings should be done by our own instincts too and in my personal opinion, most cases won when we put our own instincts rather than just copying someone else's recipes blindly.

Ingredients

Method

Squid Onion Ginger Garlic Tomatoes Chilli powder Coriander Powder Turmeric Powder Garam Masala

Clean squid removing the head, scale, inks etc until you reach a full white sheet like structure and then cut it into small pieces.. Heat oil in a pan and saute onion, ginger, garlic, curry leaves till it reaches brown. Add tomatoes and saute it well. Mix all powders in some water to make it a paste,add it  and saute until the oil seperates. Throw in the squid pieces and add some water if needed. Water will come out of squid so no need to add much water here. Cook well for sometime.

Aval Poha

   This is the end product  inspired from Sig's Aval Poha. I am really a fan of Sig and her blog , really gets surprised at the charm and beauty of different dishes and pictures, most of them am not familiar at all.. While going through her dishes / restaurant reviews i dream of a day when i can also do like that or at least taste those dishes, but i don't think i will ever reach there. No, not because of any financial/cultural/geographical difference, just because of something which i couldn't trace out till now.

Recently, i went to a Mall here and as expected my daughter became hungry as soon as we reach the food court. She is always very tired and cannot walk a bit more - only when we reaches the food court, not before or after.. I just looked through various boards-KFC, Burger King, McDonalds etc etc and soon my eye got a catch of a restaurant.I got an advertisement paper of this restaurant which resembled some things in Sig's blog and i was so excited.Ah, now i am going to write the restaurant review of  this with some enchanting pictures of dishes , like Sig and i will defintely send her my blog link too.. With all these calculations in mind, i led or dragged the other two not at all interested figures. Cool, everything set, got the menu card and i stared at the pictures..hmm Buffalo strips, Jalappeno Peppers, cheese bla bla ., am familiar with all these names from various blogs, but am not getting a courage to place any order, i am not sure whether i will eat some, i don't like cheese , buffalo - does it taste like kerala beef? I just looked up to see a chilly red face of B, and to the side to see a horrifying face of kid , She's worried on the glance of a green color, may be Spinach Dip or something like that.. phew, my whole interests dipped, Both of them won't even taste a dish they dislike and i am also not sure , how extend i can taste some dishes which make me feel not properly cooked.I just looked around to find some dish which has a slight similarity with any Indian/kerala recipes, but that too failed. Slowly and very much embarassed , we walked out of the restaurant. Hmm, this is the perfect scenario to remind the proverb ,"Kakka kulichal Kokkavilla".

Anyways Sig has a wide variety of kerala dishes itself ,so let me try to be a master in that section. I had a packet of Aval , which i bought long back and i had a packet of raw peanuts(kappalandi) too. So one evening, when i was craving for some mixture, i tried this recipe.. It was good, and both B and M ate it whole heartedly. Recently i made it again for my parents and they also liked it. So now this entered into my list of good snacks, i guess this is much healthy too. Thanks Sig.

Ingredients	Method
Aval Peanut Mustard Chilly powder	Fry aval , sprinking very little hot water.If water is more , we can make aval payasam :). Fry peanut also. Heat a little oil and add mustard seeds, curry leaves and then put some chilly powder, add the fried peanuts and aval. Serve hot.  For good recipe, please visit Sig's Aval Poha.