South Indian Traditional Simple Meal Platter

Recipe Cooked, Photographed and Written by Praveena

PrepTime:20 mins CookTime:40 mins Cuisine:Indian

As the festive season kicks off in all the Indian households, here I’m sharing a simple festive meal platter from South Indian cuisine. Its a traditional No Onion – No Garlic bhojanam / thali which has 3 courses. The main point here is, I have used stove top,Instant Pot & air-fryer. I made this over the weekend & the flower style plating was done my elder daughter. 🙂

South Indian Traditional Simple Meal Platter

This Thali has:

Salad: 1) Carrot Slices Starter: 1) Pesarapappu Vada / Moong Dal Nuggets Sides: 1) Gutti Vankaya Podi Koora / Stuffed Brinjal Dry Curry 2) Tomato Dal / Pappu (Andhra style) Main: 1) Steamed White rice / Vedi Annam topped with homemade ghee / neyyi Condiment: 1) Spicy Tomato Thokku / Tomato Pickle Drink: 1) Masala Lassi / Spiced Buttermilk Dessert: Semiya Halwa / Vermicelli Pudding (No Milk)

My Daily thali / platters⇒ Bhojanam / Thali / Meal Platter

My Festive Thali(s) / Platter(s)⇒ Vindhu Bhojanam / Festive Lunch

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Click each link below for its details, recipes with step wise pics & tips

Click each link below for its details, recipes with step wise pics & tips

Tips & Plan to follow:

For this platter, the main work needed is soaking the Yellow Moong Dal / Pesarapappu for the vada. It needs at least 2 hrs of soaking. I did this well before I started the cooking.

Being a full length platter, it took me nearly 1 hr for prepping & cooking. I made the Tomato Dal in the Instant Pot. Which took just 5-6 mins, from start to finish. Stuffed Eggplant / Gutti Vankaya on stove-top within 12 mins.

At first after keeping the rice for cooking in the electric rice cooker (1:2 ratio for rice:water), then I chopped the tomatoes and kept the dal in Instant Pot.

Next, started the stuffed eggplant dry curry. Prepared the stuffing within 2 mins, stuffed the eggplants within 5 mins. While they were getting cooked on stove top, I started the Semiya Halwa / Vermicelli Pudding, simultaneously.

The Tomato pickle was a storage friendly type, which I made few weeks back.

And the main tip to remember with moong dal vada, is to fry the vada immediately after grinding the batter. So I grind the batter & air-fried these vada(s) only at the end. While the vada(s) were being air-fried I prepared the lassi within 5 mins. And even did the plating too.

All items made simultaneously but attentively. Multi-tasking and using all gadgets available is the key.

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DETAILS of ‘South Indian Traditional Simple Meal Platter’:

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