the journey continues…

Whenever we travel from Bangalore to Coimbatore , after salem usually we find small shops on road side with green tube lights (!!!). These green lights indicate that they are selling food there.They will do idly,dosa but usually everybody would like to have parathas here which are very famous. I always ate North indian style parota like aloo parota,gobi parota..but these parathas are very different from that.Kerala paratas are very crispy and thin and they prepare it in a different way.

My hubby likes it so much so one day I tried it at home.It takes time but once in a while you can do something which is different and delicious.

Ingredients:
Maida – 1 cup
Oil- 8-9 spoons
salt

Add water and make a dough.Add little oil while making dough so that dough is not sticky.Cover the dough with wet cloth [so that it should not get dry] and keep it aside for 1 hour.

Paratha

First make small balls of the dough.Then spread it on the roti/chapati stone and make a very thin layer.You should use your hands.[Sprinkling little oil makes the job easy].Then fold it like sari pallus Fold and make a ball out of it as shown in the picture and again flatten it on the roti/chapati stone.

Paratha

Now you get a layered paratha..just bake it like chapati.

Paratha

Appam is a traditional kerala and tamilnadu style food. In karnataka they dont prepare this.So this is a new dish I learned from mom-in-law after marriage.Appam is one of my favorite dish as it is easy to prepare and good for health also.
For appam you need special tava called Appam tava which we will get in all the stores.

Ingredients:
Idly rice – 1 cup
Raw rice – 1 1/2 cup
Urad dal – 1/4 cup
Methi seeds / fenugreek – 2 spoons
Salt -to taste

Soak all these for 5 hours and grind it to a nice paste.Add salt.Keep the batter for 10-12 hours for fermentation.

Putting appam is little tricky.Take the appam tava, put a spoon of oil.Put one small cup of batter in the center,take the tava in hands and rotate the tava in circular motion so that the batter spreads equally.

Cover the tava with lid for 2 minutes.Its ready

Best combination for appam is Vegetable stew.
Ingredients :

Finely chopped vegetables like beans,carrot,gobi,aloo and peas.
Tomato – 1
Onions – 2
Green chillies – 3
Garam masala powder – 2 tbsp
Coconut milk – 2 cups

Oil
Turmeric powder
Mustard seeds
Urad dal
Chana dal
Curry leaves

First of all boil the vegetables with salt.Heat oil in kadai, add the above ingredients and fry onion,green chillies,Add vegetables to it.Add 2 cups of coconut milk .Add garam masala powder and salt and boil it.

When ever we go to Mantralaya, we will try to visit Hampi also.Its around 150kms from Mantralaya.
You would need complete 3 days to visit whole Hampi.There are good accommodations available in hospet which is around 12km form hampi.Summers would be very bad here. August – January is the best time to visit Hampi.
Hampi, the capital city of Vijayanagara Empire, was founded by two brothers Harihara and Bukkaraya (more popularly known as Hakka and Bukka), under the guidance of their Guru Vidyaranya. The markets in Hampi were always crowded with merchants from all over the world to barter their goods in exchange of spices and cotton, grown abundantly in the area. Rubies, diamonds and all precious stones were sold on the streets in the scale of seers.

As the saying goes, everything that goes up must come down. It was true in case of Hampi also. After seeing its golden period, Hampi fell down to the attacks of the five Sultans of Deccan – Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar and Berar . The city was looted for a period of 6 months. The temples were destroyed and the markets were plundered. The golden empire had come to an end.

Virupaksha Temple,Hampi

Virupaksha temple is the oldest and the principal temple in Hampi.This is the only one temple which has been survived from the attacks of Muslim kings.The reason is that Royal Emblem of Vijayanagara Kings has a pig in that and it has been carved in the entrance of the temple.Pigs are considered to be auspicious for muslims and they stepped back from here.So every temple/structure has been destroyed by Muslim Kings in Hampi except this.

Royal Emblem of Vijayanagara Kings

Below picture is shows a bull/nandi which had 3 heads.

3 headed nandi in Virupaksha Temple,Hampi

Can you figure out the pig in the royal emblem?

Royal emblem

Mantapam inside the temple

Apart from many architectural places, Hampi is also famous for Ramayan History.
We can see a small hill where Sugreeva used to stay during the period of Ramayan.Also there is a small river which is called Chakrateertha.

Chitrakoota,Hampi

Chakra teertha,Hampi

There are 2 main temples to visit here.One is Kodandarama temple and the other one is Yantroddharaka Anjaneya Temple.My mom is a great devotee of Yantroddharaka Anjaneya and we will never miss a visit to this temple.The temple has a very interesting story behind its origin which you can find in this link.

http://ashwini.logukrishnan.net/2010/05/24/yantrodharaka-hanumantahampi

Kodandarama Temple,Hampi

Yantrdharaka Hanumanta Temple,Hampi

Kadale kalu Ganesha,Hampi

Akka Tangi Kallu,Hampi

Ugra Narasimha,Hampi

Badavi Linga,Hampi

Lotus Mahal,Hampi

Elephants Stable,Hampi

Mahanavami Dibba,Hampi

Vijaya vittal temple is one of the key attaractions in Hampi.Its built by KrishnaDevaraya.
The temple has around 56 musical pillars. When tapped gently, these pillars produce musical sounds. These pillars are popularly known as Musical Pillars or SaReGaMa pillars.
Inside the vijaya vittal temple we can find the stone chariot.We can find only 2 stone chariots in India one is in Hampi and the in Konark Sun Temple,Bhuvaneshwar.

Vijaya vittala Temple,Hampi

Musical Pillars,Hampi

StoneCart,Hampi

Stepped Tank,Hampi

There are several useful links about Hampi where you can get all the information.
http://www.hampionline.com/
http://www.hampi.in

MekeDatu, a weekend gateway ,is around 100km from Bangalore.You need to take the Kanakapura road from Bangalore.At Kanakpura, you can see a Sign board indicating that Mekedatu is 35 Kms from there. Clear directions are provided from Kanakpura to reach Mekedatu.

First we visited the chuchi falls which comes on the way to Mekedatu.
Its a small waterfall sorrounded by rocks.

Chunchi Falls

Near Chunchi Falls

Carvings made by river cauvery

Next stop is Sangam.Sangam is the confluence of Rivers Cauvery, Arkavathi and another mythical river which is no longer visible.When we went, water levels were very low.We had nice time in the water playing and taking bath.You need to take a bus from Sangam to Mekedatu which is app. 6km from here.

Sangama

Meke means Goat in kannada and Datu means Cross…There is very narrow channel through which river cauvery flows and even a goat can cross it..so its called Mekedatu .

MekeDatu

River Cauvery

Whole trip takes a entire day so if you want spend time leisurely you should start early from Bangalore.There is no arrangement for food anywhere so you need to pack the food in advance.
Best time to visit is from august to december.