Quick Dessert: Kesar Mawa

A sudden desire for something sweet, an unexpected spur from the sweet tooth, an equally unexpected visit from friends or relatives; kesar mawa can come to one's rescue. This recipe, best served chilled, requires preparation time of roughly 10 minutes. Cooling process may take an additional 30 minutes - so in less than an hour, one is ready to plate a delectable dessert. 

Ingredients: 

200g Khoya/Mawa (I use the Milky Mist brand available in Bangalore retail outlets; this one is unsweetened) 

About 100 g sugar (little less than 100g would also do) 

1 tsp cardamom powder

6-8 strands of saffron 

1 tbsp warm milk

A pinch of Kesar Yellow food color (strictly a pinch as excess color will spoil the look of the dessert) 

Chopped Pistachios (for garnish) 

Procedure: 

1. In a kadai, heat sugar in very little water, say for 100 g sugar used, about 3-4 tbsp will be required. 

2. Once the sugar dissolves, add milk and when the mixture is warm, add saffron strands to this. 

3. Mix well and add khoya, stir well avoiding lumps. Stir the mixture for a neat 5 minutes duration. 

4. Add kesar yellow and cardamom powder. Stir the contents well again for about a minute and turn off the stove. 

5. Transfer Kesar Mawa to a flat container and garnish with crushed/sliced pistachios. 

6. Let the dessert come to room temperature and then place it in refrigerator for chilling. 

7. Slice and serve once the dessert is semi solid and chilled. It will sure taste divine. 

An image of yummy Kesar Mawa

Some Crispy Snack as Dark Rain Clouds gather

Recipe for Mosaru Kodubale 

Its been really/tremendously long since I prepared some deep fried snacks at home; the long gap has left an intense craving and it culminated today in making some crispy, crunchy Mosaru Kodubale. 

Kodubale is a favorite snack; a big hit in most homes in Karnataka. These are crispy, crunchy rings made from a mixture of rice flour, grated coconut and roasted chana dal flour. This is usually prepared in large batches and stored for about 2 weeks. The version using Mosaru (curd in Kannada); recipe listed below is a yummier avatar which can be stored maximum for a day and is best when served and eaten hot, right out of wok. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup rice flour

1 cup sour curd - curd must be little thin and watery (if the curd is thick, dilute 1/2 cup thick curd with 1/2 cup water) 

2 finely chopped green chillies

1/2 inch ginger (finely chopped) 

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

Salt to taste 

Oil (while kneading/rolling and for deep frying) 

Water (to boil) 

Procedure:

1. In a big kadai, heat curd (watery and thin as mentioned above) and bring it to boil. Add green chillies, ginger and cumin seeds and salt to taste when boiling and give a mix. 

2. Now to this boiling curd, slowly add rice flour; stir well and leave on stove at low flame for 2-3 minutes to allow cooking. You can sprinkle little water if you find huge lumps while mixing in the flour. 

3. Even when lumps are formed, there is no need to worry. Let the contents of the kadai cool down and you can knead/roll the dough well, applying oil on your hands. I kneaded the soft rice flour dough on my kitchen slab itself. 

4. Now take small portions of this rice flour soft dough, roll out rod like structures using your fingers. You will need to grease your fingers with oil to roll the dough out. This process is much like our childhood/school times when we rolled out long snake like shapes with plasticine/clay. 

5. Join two ends of rolled out rods and make a circular loop. 

6. Make circular loops using all of the dough, line them all on a butter paper. 

7. Heat oil in kadai and deep fry these loops in moderate heat. If the oil is too hot, the loops may open up or cook badly/get dark brown. Ensure right temperature of oil. Fry till mild brown, drain and keep aside. 

8. The crunchy exterior of these Mosaru Kodubale rings; their soft interiors with nice flavor of curd will hook you to them completely. The snack would be super awesome with some spicy chutney, I needed nothing as an accompaniment, I started devouring them right away as they were super good stand alone. 

 A good load of Mosaru Kodubale rings in basket. 

A closer view of few rings on a plate

Reference Used and Many Thanks to: http://www.tasteofmysore.com/2009/12/mosaru-kodubale.html 

Malai Paneer Masala

Paneer dishes form an integral part of buffets in Indian restaurants, reception dinners during Indian weddings ranging from North to South of India and even in homes in all directions of the nation. Roughly two decades back, this ingredient remained restricted to masses in North India. Its nutritive value, taste and softness, and ability to soak flavors during marination process have allowed it to permeate all courses in an Indian meal - from entre dish to main course to desserts. Paneer figures in kebabs, dry tikkas, pakodas; blends well with veggies like tomato, onion, palak (spinach); also nuts (cashew and almonds) to make sumptuous side dishes and satiating taste buds as a dessert - say paneer burfi. I am always deeply satisfied when cooking with Paneer; after all it is a chief consolation prize for us vegetarians against the unimaginably vast spread of non vegetarian fare. 

Without further ado, I come to my recipe of Malai Paneer Masala (a light spice and little milky gravy). The ingredients listed below will make gravy for two and this gravy goes well with rotis and basmati rice based recipes. 

Ingredients

1 big tomato (roughly chopped) 

1 medium sized onion (sliced) 

200 g paneer (I tried out a new brand available in Bangalore stores - Punjabi Paneer; this was soft much like Milky mist brand paneer; make cubes out of paneer) 

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

6-7 full cashew

1 tsp Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves) 

2-3 cloves

1/2 inch piece of cinnamon

1/2 tsp shah jeera 

Broken Badi Elaichi (Black Cardamom) 

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp chilli powder 

1 tsp kashmiri mirch powder (for nice color of the dish) 

3 tsp oil 

1 tbsp butter 

2 -3 tsp fresh cream (I removed malai from milk boiled at home for this purpose) 

Water 

Salt to taste 

Method

1. In a saucepan, take little water, heat on stove; when warm - add cashews, cinnamon, cloves and shah jeera; then turn off the stove. Add kasuri methi too and allow this to rest for some time. 

2. In a kadai/fry pan, add oil, when warm - add chopped onions, add ginger garlic paste and saute well till brown. Add sugar to this; this allows browning of the onions. Add chopped tomatoes; then chilli powder and salt. Saute well till all the contents combine well and raw smell goes off. 

3. Take a mixer, transfer contents in the kadai. Also, drain contents (cashew and spices) from the saucepan. Do not throw the water in the saucepan after straining. Allow the contents to cool in mixer and grind well to get the gravy.

4. Warm this water (obtained upon straining) on stove for a minute, turn off the heat and then add cut paneer cubes to it. Allow this to rest well for 5-10 minutes. This process will soften the paneer well. Do not add paneer to boiling water with stove turned on, paneer will crumble and break apart. 

5. To the kadai, add butter, add gravy from mixer; cook well (adding little water to obtain volume if necessary). Cook gravy well till oil begins to separate from gravy. Now add kashmiri mirch powder, any salt for adjustment and mix well. Then, transfer the softened paneer cubes and allow simmering of contents of kadai for about 2-3 minutes. 

6. As the last step, add fresh cream and stir well, turn off the stove quickly after addition of cream - this really must be the last step and no additions or delays after this process for completion. 

Note: I could not upload a picture of the gravy as time to serve was infinitesimally small and there was no break to grab a picture. Will sure try to update this post with a relevant picture very soon. 

Bundle up Iron and Calcium!

Recipe for Palak Paneer

Palak, also known as Spinach is seriously a wonder green. Loaded with iron, it is said that 100g of spinach leaves can fulfill 25% of daily iron requirement. Palak is also loaded with vitamins - A, C and K primarily and there are amounts of folate and pyridoxine B vitamins too. 

It is quite ironical that I have written the above lines given that I used to run away from spinach and greens of all sorts when I was a kid. There's a traditional South Indian dish called Keerai Masiyal (a gravy made by grinding greens adorned with a tadka) from which I used to run away at super speeds. Basically, this dish changed the color of my snow white curd rice and I hated it for that. I hated beet root curry too for the same reason. 

But there is no more running !! I make palak parathas and am a big fan of Palak Paneer. 

Yes, this blog post is on a quick and simple recipe for Palak Paneer. 

Now, Paneer is another wonder ingredient, I tasted it for the first time in my class 7 when I went with my family, to eat out in Chennai. Eating out had not sunk in as a trend then as much as it is nowadays. A huge element of suspense was in store for me as I was about to relish Paneer Butter Masala with Naan at Sangeetha hotel, Mylapore, Chennai, back then. The exposure to Paneer was only minimal during school days and it got just as much a big routine during my college days at BITS, Pilani; there began a fondness for paneer which saw no abatement thereafter.

Paneer can be made at home by boiling milk, curdling it with lemon juice or vinegar, straining the curdled milk through a muslin cloth, squeezing excess water and leaving contents in muslin cloth undisturbed for say  an hour. The remains in muslin cloth gets solid and this is paneer, ready to be rinsed and used in gravies and dishes, also known as cottage cheese. Fresh paneer is available in most sweet shops and these have a shelf life of 1-2 days. Once opened, they should be stored in a bowl of water in refrigerator. Paneer is available in all stores under many brands, these have longer shelf life of 15-20 days; must be stored in cool case in refrigerator.

Paneer is a rich source of calcium and phosphorus. There is reasonable amount of cholesterol and fats in it, the usual stuff that tugs along with any dairy product. However, paneer is a very rich source of protein, matters a lot for pure vegetarians and should be included in one's diet in right preparations.   

Now after that brief introduction, let us get down to the recipe of Palak Paneer, a dish that kicks in enough calcium and iron into us in one go :) 

Ingredients (for two) 

Paneer 175 g cut into small cubes ( I used Milky Mist Paneer, available in most Bangalore retail stores, this one is super soft) 

Spinach/Palak leaves (2 medium bundles) 

1 medium sized tomato (roughly chopped) 

2 green chillies (roughly chopped) 

1 medium sized onion (finely chopped) 

1 garlic clove (finely chopped) 

1/2 inch ginger (finely chopped) 

Few sprigs of fresh coriander leaves (finely chopped for garnish) 

1 tsp turmeric powder

1-2 tsp red chilli powder (2 if you like it spicy) 

1/2  tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder 

1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds) 

1 tsp aamchur powder (used MDH brand, optional) 

1/2 tsp sugar 

salt to taste 

1/2 tsp garam masala powder (used home ground, pretty strong and so 1/2 tsp) 

2 tsp oil 

1 tsp ghee

Milk (5 tbsp) (along with it if you 1 tbsp cream , if you desire) 

Water required for gravy and grinding 

Method 

1. Saute the spinach leaves in a non stick pan after washing them thoroughly in tap water. 

2. Roughly chop tomato and green chillies and transfer (step 1 and step 2 stuff) them to a mixer. Grind using little water to nice gravy consistency

3. In the non stick pan, add oil and ghee, when warm , add jeera and let it splutter. 

4. Now add finely chopped onion, garlic and ginger and fry well with turmeric powder, chilli powder, cumin powder and coriander powder, salt and sugar. 

5. When fried well, transfer contents of the mixer, add little water and combine well. Let the gravy boil and begin to leave oil, reduce in volume. 

6. When the gravy shrinks, add paneer cubes and give a gentle mix. 

7. Add freshly chopped coriander, aamchur powder and garam masala and combine them well on strong flame. 

8. Now add milk and cream (no need for thick store bought cream, the one on top of boiled milk at home will suffice) and do not overheat as it leads to curdling and a sour taste to gravy. Combine well on medium flame and switch off the gas. Steps 7 and 8 are to be done on medium heat, totally towards the end of the process, should not take too long as masalas would lose flavor and curdling of milk/cream is not desired. 

Yummy Palak Paneer is ready to be served with phulkas or naans. 

Curry Leaves Thokku

It is not really uncommon to see people picking up curry leaves used in seasoning and keeping it aside. Sounds a very simple act, as if these curry leaves are meant for goats and other herbivores and not really for man :) 

However, if one knew the benefits of this simple, commonplace leaf used in seasoning, found in almost every dish in South Indian cuisine, the heavy cost of this act, one out of ignorance, can be realized. 

Curry leaves, a few of them, about 4-5, washed and eaten raw in the morning are said to reduce much unwanted abdominal fat. Curry leaves, soaked in warm water, laced with little honey is an age old remedy for constipation. Curry leaves churned along with butter milk not only enhance the flavor but help cure acidity and indigestion problems. Basically, these simple leaves, a rich source of iron and folic acid work wonders in small ways in every meal if we eat them religiously. 

Curry leaves rubbed and added to a ladle of coconut oil, heated lightly and applied onto scalp can promote healthy and jet black hair growth. I can stand a solid witness to this effect. 

Shanti Krishnakumar's Cook book is a blog which I have been following for over an year. Her recipes combine a mix of traditional Tamil recipes and many from the present, modern times. There are lots of useful tips that come in very handy. Please feel free to visit - http://shanthisthaligai.blogspot.in/ for any reference. 

So when Shanti Aunty listed out a recipe for curry leaves thokku in her blog space, I could not waste a minute and immediately set out to try it. The preparation time is about 20 minutes only and I loved the thokku very much. I mixed it with warm rice and a spoon of oil and relished it thoroughly. 

Here is the link to the recipe on Shanti Krishnakumar's Cook book - karuveppilai-thokku-curry-leaves-thokku

I am jotting down the ingredients and the method for any direct/future personal reference. I omitted the use of sundakkai or turkey berry prescribed in the original recipe as I did not have them at home when making the thokku. 

INGREDIENTS:
Curry leaves - 4 cups tightly packed
Tamarind - a lemon sized ball
Dry red chillies - 4 (I used 5)
Pepper - 1/4 tsp (I used a little over 1/4 tsp, may be 1/2)
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Ghee - 1 tsp.
Gingelly oil - 1 ladle
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp.
Hing - a pinch

Method: 

1. Soak the tamarind in little water to soften it. 

2. In a thick bottomed pan, add ghee and when warm, add to it pepper and red chillies and fry them well. Add them to the mixer. 

3. Add the softened tamarind as well to the hot pan and saute once, add to the mixer. 

4. Wash the curry leaves and drain all water, saute in the same pan till all moisture is lost, add little extra ghee if needed. Add this too to the mixer. 

5. When all contents in the mixer are cooled, grind well to a paste. 

6. In the same pan, add gingelly oil, when the oil is hot, add cumin seeds, mustard, hing and salt to taste, transfer the thick curry leaves paste from the mixer to this pan. Mix and stir well until oil begins to leave the sides. 

7. At this stage, transfer to an air tight container, clean and free from moisture, store for later use.  


Thanks to Shanti Aunty for sharing such a valuable recipe :) 

Eggless Mango Cake

Come summer and it rains mangoes :) The Senthuram variety has hit many juice junctions in Bangalore and people are guzzling mango milk shakes like never before, may me to a greater extent this year with the heat being unbearable. The Banganapalli variety has just begun to make a meek appearance in local markets. 

Last week, I managed to grab half a dozen Alphonso mangoes from a super market here. Alphonso mangoes are known for their rich orange-red, highly juicy pulp and fibrous texture. I used two of these mangoes, extracted pulp out of them and decided to bake a cake.It was worth trying as the idea was quite different from usual stuff like milk shake, jam and mango burfi fare made using mango pulp. 

There are many eggless cake recipes I have followed from multiple blogs, from all of them I drew cues for the ingredients and their measurements required and eventually constructed a recipe out of it all. Quite a daring challenge, I must say, given the hefty price of Alphonso mangoes. 

Here goes the list of ingredients and the quantity required: 

1 cup atta 

1 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 cup mango pulp (used two Alphonso mangoes) 

1/2 tsp cardomom powder

1/2 tsp vanilla essence 

2.5 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup oil 

1/3 cup milk 

a little over 1/2 cup castor sugar (little over can sum up to a heaped table spoon in addition) 

icing sugar for dusting 

Method: 

In a big bowl, add the mango pulp, cardomom powder, vanilla essence, sugar and mix well using a hand mixer at moderate speed for two minutes. 

Add milk to this mixture and baking powder and whisk again using the hand mixer for a minute. 

Now add oil too and give a thorough blend for less than a minute and keep this mixture aside.

To this, add the flour mixture and fold in well using a spatula. No need to use the hand mixer at this stage, just patiently fold in the flour into the wet ingredients avoiding lumps. 

Grease a tin and dust it with flour, alternatively you can line a tin with some parchment paper. I used a 8'' round tin. 

Preheat the oven to 180'C and pour in the cake batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 30-35 minutes till an inserted knife comes out clean, check the center of the cake specially. 

Cool , invert and dust icing sugar all over the top of the cake using a fine sieve. This cake came out little moist and dense with rich taste of mango pulp. Somehow, I found the cake tasting richer and better the day after baking. 

Below is a picture of the cake, a slice cut out from it-

Eggless Mango Cake 

Simple and Healthy: Wheat Dosa

I am sure many of us would have heard this, multiple times from doctors and friends - if you intend to lose weight, avoid high glycemic foods like Maida, Aloo and try to avoid Rice. Now if you are a South Indian, the avoidance of the last item might prove a Herculean task. How can one imagine breakfast without idli and dosa? In hot summers that parches one's throat, to eat rotis only during afternoon might seem next to impossible. Please give me curd and rice will be the appeal. While the ban on Maida should be taken a bit seriously and restraint be exercised on Aloo intake too, rice intake's damage can be controlled if the quantity of veggies and salad that go along with rice as accompaniments are just double the proportion of rice eaten itself.

To start with, all these restraints might feel too strenuous. But to make something a habit, it is widely accepted that all you need is stringent practice and upkeep of rules for a period of three weeks, then things no longer appears difficult.

Dosa is best made when one uses rice and urad dal. There is absolutely no match to this blend. But no need to forgo this completely. If you have restrictions try to insert this simple and healthy wheat dosa in your routine at times and believe me you even get a discount too while preparing this ;)

Ingredients
To make 4-5 dosas 
3/4 cup whole wheat atta flour 
1 big/heaped tablespoon of rice flour (this is the discount I was talking about for the rice lovers) 
1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds) 
Few curry leaves 
1 tsp hing 
Salt to taste 
Water and 2 table spoons of curd to make the batter using all of the above

Method
Make a batter using all of the above ingredients. The batter must be little thin and runny, little thinner than our normal dosa batter but not as runny as rava dosa batter also. Sounds confusing? 
Prepare the batter and keep aside for 10-15 minutes. 
If you want to make the process little complex, then add chopped onion and coriander too to the batter. If you are adding onion, you can remove hing. My mother in law says that where onion comes into play, hing is not required at all as it is rendered useless in taste. 
Heat the dosa tawa on flame, pour a ladle of the batter, spread into a circular dosa using the ladle. Cook on both sides and serve with idli chutney powder/dosa molagai podi. You can use any chutney as accompaniment. The hing added and curry leaves actually yield very tasty dosas and surely this recipe is worth a try. 

Big note of advise
I have used all brands of Atta - Aashirwad, Annapurna and Pillsbury; I feel somehow all these brands feign it (big time) when they say theirs is 100% atta and no maida added. 
For the last few months, I have started buying whole wheat grains and get them ground in the flour mill close to my house. This atta which is freshly ground, I must say, is pure and there is a lot of difference when I use them in the same recipes. 

Wheat dosa getting ready!

Nutty Minty Chutney

This is a yummy, little coarse chutney that goes well with dosas, bread sandwich and even rotis too. I learnt this from my mother. And I must say, this chutney works wonders with the main course - 100% 

Ingredients (these will yield chutney required for 2, may be accompaniment for about 10 dosas) 

1/2 cup groundnuts 

1 medium sized onion (chopped into chunks) 

1 big garlic pod 

1/2 inch long piece of tamarind 

1 tsp urad dal

4-5 long red chillies (long salem red chillies is the variety used, adjust according to level of spice, 4 would be apt) 

1 medium sized tomato (chopped into chunks) 

A handful of mint leaves (Pudina), you can add few more sprigs in addition if you love the freshness of Pudina

Coriander leaves (little less than the amount of mint leaves used) 

Turmeric powder

Oil 

Salt to taste 

1 tsp grated coconut (optional) 

Method

1. First in a dry kadai/pan, roast the groundnuts well, until the outer peel turns brown-little black. Add this to the mixer. 

2. In the same kadai, add 1 tsp of oil, fry in it - the red chillies, urad dal and transfer this to the mixer (when chillies and dal change color and give aroma) 

3. Add one more tsp of oil now, add onion chunks, garlic (chopped) , tamarind, tomato chunks, coriander leaves and pudina leaves, saute well adding turmeric powder and salt to taste. Saute well until the raw smell of all these veggies and greens go off. Transfer this all to the mixer now. 

4. As an option, adding little coarseness, add 1 tsp grated coconut to the mixer contents. 

5. Grind all the contents of the mixer adding very little water only (if required). The resultant chutney must not be thoroughly ground and must have a coarse texture. 

Yummy chutney READY :) 

Soft dosas served with chutney

Sugar and Spice and all things nice

It is customary to make kheer or payasam when there is a festival or special puja at home. The payasam or kheer would be made from rice if it was Tamil New year day, from jackfruit and coconut milk if it was Vishu, from rice pieces and coconut milk (Palada Pradhaman) if it was Onam and from moong dal and jaggery if it was Varalakshmi Vratham...many variations of a simple milk based dish to suit different occasions. 

I broke this convention recently on one such important occasion and prepared Atta Burfi; I must say it was a welcome change. My mother makes a certain sweet called 7 cup cake during Deepavali and the Atta Burfi  I prepared takes its cues from this sweet.

So here goes the recipe for this very simple and super delicious sweet which took me a preparation time of 15 minutes. The measure of ingredients can yield about 10-12 medium sized pieces of atta burfi. 

Atta Burfi

Ingredients

1/2 cup Atta (whole wheat) flour

1/4 cup milk powder 

Cardomom powder (3/4 tsp) 

Saffron (about 10-12 strands) 

Ghee (6-8 tablespoons, I used 6 and that was sufficient) 

Sugar (little less than 1/2 cup) 

Method

Prepare a one string consistency sugar syrup using sugar and little water in a non stick pan. When the sugar syrup is just beginning to thicken to the consistency required, add saffron strands and stir well. The syrup would turn yellow due to the saffron strands and leave a pleasant aroma; quite unparalleled. 

Now lower the flame, add atta and milk powder slowly to the sugar syrup. Stir well avoiding any lumps in the flour. 

Start adding ghee spoon by spoon to the mixture in the pan. Stir well to bring all of the contents in the pan together. When mixing with a ladle, the contents of the pan, at some point, will come together as a big clump or a mass. Ghee will begin to leave from this mass onto the sides of the pan. This is the stage when one adds the cardamom powder, gives one final, quick stir and turns off the stove.  

Before you set out on the whole process, prepare a well greased container into which you will transfer the hot sweet from the stove. The contents of the pan are transferred to the greased container and allowed to cool. 

If the sugar syrup was of the right consistency and if you had not turned off the stove in a hurry; the sweet will begin to solidify and set. 

While the greased container is still hot to touch, make lines/patterns on the sweet running a knife so that you can cut and serve the burfi when cold. Strike while the iron is hot :) 

Upon complete cooling, lift cut portions of atta burfi using the knife, serve on a plate. 

Atta Burfi, cooled and cut pieces in an air tight container

Chick peas Sundal 

The black chick peas variety is my favorite and I always make a sundal out of it for every puja or festival at home. After everything sweet and sugary, I really crave for some salt and spice intake. I am sure this is a very widely known recipe. However, I am listing it for the sake of completion. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup black chick peas (soaked in water for about 6-8 hours) 

1 tsp oil 

1/2 tsp mustard

Few curry leaves

Little (say 1 tsp) idly chutney powder (dosa molaga podi) 

Salt to taste
Pinch of turmeric powder

Method 

Pressure cook the black chick peas with water for about 3 full whistles. Add required salt, little turmeric powder while cooking in the pressure cooker. If you want the black chick peas to be cooked well and be really soft, add 1/2 tsp ghee along with salt and turmeric powder. 

When out of the cooker, drain excess water, take a pan, add oil, when the oil is hot, add mustard, curry leaves and transfer the boiled chick peas to the pan. Stir and fry well for few minutes. Add idly chutney powder to the chick peas, give a quick and thorough mix, turn off the stove and serve. 

One can add broken urad dal (1/2 tsp) along with mustard and sprinkle grated coconut (1 tsp) in the end to make the sundal more fanciful.

Chick peas sundal and Atta Burfi - Sugar and Spice and all things Nice :) 

Feasty Yeasty Experiments - 3

Whole Wheat Garlic Pull Apart Rolls 

I tried this recipe some time last week and I must say it yielded really tasty and soft rolls. This recipe is adapted from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking blog, please follow http://www.divyascookbook.com/2012/04/whole-wheat-garlic-pull-apart-rolls.html 

I am re writing the recipe - list of ingredients and method here for direct reference. 

Ingredients

Whole wheat Flour/Atta - 1 cup
All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup
Lukewarm Water - 1 cup
Active dry yeast - 1 tsp
Sugar - 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Olive Oil - 2 tsp

For the Garlic spread
Softened butter - 2 tbsp
Garlic cloves - 4-5,finely chopped
Green chilly - 1,finely chopped
Fresh Coriander leaves - 1 tbsp,finely chopped

Method  

There are many illustrations on Divya Kudua's blog for this recipe and they are highly explanatory and more than sufficient. 

1. Warm water, Sugar and Yeast are mixed together in a small bowl and stirred vigorously until frothing happens. Frothing depends on both the quality of yeast in use and the temperature of water - must not be boiling hot as it will kill yeast and not mildly warm as it may be inadequate to activate yeast. When warm water is touched with one's finger, the warmth must just be tolerable. So now this is where it all gets really subjective and that is precisely what makes working with yeast highly challenging. 

2. Add salt too to this yeast mixture and keep aside for 5-10 minutes. 

3. In a bigger bowl, with sufficient space to knead, add the flour mixture, yeast and olive oil and make a soft dough kneading well. Do not add all of the yeast with water mixture in one go, check for softness and stickiness of the dough and then add. Cover the dough after kneading with a moist cloth and keep aside in a warm place, undisturbed for an hour. 

4. Now for making the garlic spread - add all ingredients to warm butter in a pan, mix well. 

5. Divide the dough into two equal halves. From one portion, roll the dough into a rough rectangle using a pin, smearing sufficient flour on the kitchen slab/work space and apply the garlic spread well on to it. Roll the rectangle, cut into spirals. For this step, Divya Kudua's illustrations can be of immense help. Now she's a really patient blogger, I say. Repeat rolling, cutting into spirals with the remaining dough as well. 

6. Grease  a pan with olive oil and place the spirals in an arrangement. Allow these rolls to rest in the pan for about 30 minutes more.

7. Brush the top of rolls with little milk (helps better browning), preheat oven at 180'C and bake at this temperature for 30 minutes. 

8. Upon removing from the oven, cool the rolls, pull them apart, devour them with a cup of hot tea. 

Eggless Baking: Custard powder Cherry Cake

One more attempt at baking a cake and this time too I picked up a recipe for trial from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking blog. Please follow the link - Eggless custard powder snack cake for the original recipe.

I made some modifications to the recipe in the above link and I am glad these changes I made did not let me down. Without further ado, below is the list of ingredients I used and the method.

Ingredients

All Purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
Vanilla flavoured Custard Powder - 3/4 cup (I used Brown and Polson brand) 
Baking powder - 2 1/4 tsp
Sugar - 1 cup 
Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 1/2 cup 
Milk - 1 cup
Cherries (sweetened) - 50 g (cut into halves) 
The recipe I followed by Divya Kudua uses butter 150 g instead of oil and 3/4 cup sugar. 


Method


1.In a bowl, take milk, sugar and beat well using an electrical hand mixer at low speed for a minute. To this add, the baking powder and beat again, let the mixture rest for a while and ensure bubbles appear at the top. 


2.Add oil too to this mixture and beat well, again for a whole minute. 


3.Add vanilla essence and beat for a few seconds. 


4. Prior to performing steps 1-3, sift custard powder and flour together and keep aside. 


5. Prepare the tin for baking. I used an eight inch ring mould/bundt cake tin. I lined bottom and sides with oil, after greasing, placed cherries onto the bottom of the tin, sprinkled little flour on the sides and bottom. 


6.Preheat the oven to 180'C 


7. Fold in the flour and custard powder mixture to the wet ingredients in the bowl of step 3 , fold smoothly ensuring there are no lumps. 


8. Pour the cake batter prepared into the ring mould slowly. Bake at 180'C for 45 minutes, check for the knife coming out clean. 


9. Cool the cake on rack and invert, if baked well, the cake will come out as a whole with cherries engraved on top. 


I used oil instead of butter, used little extra sugar and the results were right for me. The cake was nice yellow in color due to addition of custard powder. The cherries on top added little richness to the otherwise simple, snack cake. 


Below are some pictures - 

Cake in the tin, waiting for it to cool - the apple perched on top of the tin is just for a minor special effect

Tin inverted, cake comes out clean, cherries seen on top of the cake

Eggless Baking: Chocolate Walnut Cake

My Microwave Convection oven is back after some repair work and I have been earnestly trying to make up for time lost not baking. The baking spree is also on to test if my oven has really got back to good working condition.... stress testing it :) 

This recipe is from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking - Eggless Chocolate Walnut cake. I am writing down the ingredients and procedure down here for any direct reference. There is a difference in temperature setting I used from the blog I referred to. 

Ingredients

Flour - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup (I used Cadbury's Cocoa powder) 

Instant coffee powder - 1 tsp (used BRU instant coffee powder) 

Thick curd(homemade) - 1 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup (this quantity yields sufficiently sweet cake, just perfect)

Baking powder - 1 1/4 tsp

Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Oil - 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp

Chopped Walnuts - 1/2 cup (tossed them in sugar)

Chocolate vermicelli - 2 tbsp (these are also like choco chips, but slender and rod shaped) 

Method

1. In a mixing bowl,beat together - sugar and curd till creamy. Mix in baking powder,baking soda and vanilla essence,beat well at low speed in electrical hand mixer. Let it rest for a couple of minutes till bubbles appear. 

2. Beat in oil into this at the same speed for a minute. 

3. Sift together flour,cocoa powder and coffee powder and keep aside. 

If the coffee powder is not powdery (happens that Bru gets sticky and solid quite fast), then beat it along with the other ingredients in step 1. 

4. Add the flour mix to beaten wet ingredients and fold in using a spatula to form a smooth batter  without any lumps. 
5. Prepare a tin, I used a 6 inch square tin, first rub on its sides and bottom little unsalted butter (softened) and once the greasing is done, dust little flour on sides and bottom. 

6. Pour the cake batter into the tin and top it with chopped walnuts and give a generous dash of chocolate vermicelli. 

7. Preheat the oven to 180'C and then bake the cake for 45 minutes (use a knife, check if it comes out clean to confirm end of baking) 

8. Cool the cake completely after baking, if baked well, you can invert it intact and I was lucky to get a perfect, well baked cake. The cake is one awesome thing to eat and relish and will surely vanish in a jiffy. 

A closer look at the cake 

Step 1 is very important for a fluffy cake, beat sugar and curd well along with baking powder and baking soda (I used my NOVA electric hand mixer at low speed for a minute) and let is rest for a while till bubbles appear. Step 4 is also important, take care to fold in the flour slowly using a spatula and check there are no lumps.



Not that I intended to bake this cake for any special reason, but Chennai Super Kings clinched a marvelous win that evening against Royal Challengers Bangalore, chasing the second highest total ever in IPL. Many thanks to Divya Kudua of Easy Cooking blog for sharing the recipe for such a delectable cake. 

Baigun Bhaja and Alu Bhaja - Lessons from East

The Khichadi prepared (please follow my blog post Khichadi) goes well with Baigun Bhaja (Brinjal fry) and Alu Bhaja (potato fry). Khichadi being little bland, blends perfectly well with these spicy, tawa fried vegetables. Khichadi along with these bhajas make a favorite dish for Bengalis.  

For Baigun Bhaja


Ingredients
1 big brinjal 
Turmeric powder
Salt to taste 
Pinch of sugar 
Red chilli powder
Oil for shallow frying 


Procedure
1. Cut the top and bottom portions of the big brinjal and discard. Make round slices (about 1 cm in thickness) from the rest of brinjal. 
2. On a plate, add about 2 tsp of turmeric, salt to taste, a pinch of sugar, 1 tsp red chilli powder (you can add one more tsp of this if you like the bhaja to be more spicy) and mix all these dry powders well. 
3. Coat the brinjal slices on both sides evenly with this mixture prepared in step 2. Take a brinjal slice and dab it on the mixture in plate. Keep these coated brinjal slices aside for 5 minutes. 
4. Take a fry pan and add about 2-3 tbsp of oil, heat the pan lightly so that the oil spreads to cover the surface of the pan. 
5. Place these brinjal slices on the heated oil, cover with lid and cook on medium flame. Open at times to ensure that the slices do not get charred. Turn over to cook the other side as well after one side becomes soft and mushy. 
6. There is no need to add more oil to cook the other side of brinjal slices, just sprinkle little water and ensure that there is enough moisture. The brinjal slices will cook well. 
7. The Baigun Bhaja is ready when both sides become soft, press the center of the slice with a ladle and ensure it is soft. Remove the Bhaja onto a plate. 

Brinjal to be used for Baigun Bhaja

Slices of Brinjal, ready to be coated with masalas

Masala coated brinjal slices getting shallow fried in tawa

How to make Alu Bhaja?

Ingredients

1/4 kg small alu (potatoes) 

Oil for frying 

Turmeric 

Chilli powder

Hing

Salt to taste

Rice flour

Procedure

1. Pressure cook the small potatoes for 3 whistles. Upon cooling, peel them and keep them aside. 

2. Prepare a masala mixture combining about 2 tsp of turmeric powder, 3 tsp chilli powder (if you like the alu spicy), salt to taste, generous shower of hing and 2 tsp rice flour. The last two ingredients of the mixture are additions from my side. I always like the flavor of hing and rice flour addition makes the alu crispy. 

3. Coat the boiled and peeled potatoes evenly using the mixture prepared in step 2. 

4. Take a fry pan, add little oil - about 2 tbsp and heat well so that oil spreads to cover the surface of the pan. Add the coated potatoes to this oil, cover and cook. Open the lid at times to check the potatoes do not get charred, shake the pan to ensure the potatoes are cooked on all sides. Sprinkle very little water and cover again with lid and cook, if there is any doubt. 

Alu bhaja

I have chosen small potatoes as shown in the picture above to prepare alu bhaja.You can use normal, medium sized potatoes for alu bhaja in which case, there is no need to pressure cook them. Peel the big potatoes, cut them into thick slices, coat the slices in masala mixture in step 2 and carry on with the frying process in the tawa. 

Khichadi - Lessons from East

A perfect blend of proteins and carbohydrates make this perfect dish - Khichadi. And the recipe below is of the Bengali style, coming from the East Indian heartland. Khichadi (as made using procedure stated below) can serve two people. It comprises of equal proportions of moong dal (yellow) and rice. The rice used in Bengal is a certain variety called Gobindobhog Chal. This rice has a characteristic aroma and softens so well, becomes mushy with moong dal to yield an easy to swallow and easy to digest khichadi. This rice variety is not available in South India, however one can substitute it with Ghee rice (a small grained variety), normally available in any general grocery stores in Bangalore.

How to prepare Khichadi


Ingredients
1/2 cup rice 
1/2 cup yellow moong dal
2 inch long ginger piece (cut into thin slices) 
3 green chillies (chopped finely)
1 medium sized tomato (chopped finely) 
2 tsp jeera
2 tsp black pepper
Water to cook well
3 tbsp Ghee for tadka 
1 tsp turmeric 
Salt to taste


Procedure


1. Dry roast rice in a thick kadai (no need for it change color), just to the extent that the rice becomes a little crisp in appearance. 
2. Dry roast moong dal with a pinch of turmeric in the same kadai. 
3. Add both to a thick bottomed pan/cooker vessel. You can even transfer it to a vessel and cook it in pressure cooker with 2 glasses full of water for 3 whistles. 
4. If cooking in an open pan, then this process will be slow and more glasses of water will be required to ensure that the rice is softly cooked and mashes completely well with the dal. 
5. When the rice dal mixture becomes soft and mushy, grind pepper and jeera (dry) in a mixer and add this to the khichadi. 
6. In the kadai, take ghee, heat it well, add cut pieces of ginger, tomato and green chillies and ensure that they are cooked well. Add required salt to this and transfer it all to the container with khicadi. 

This last step adds a little tanginess and spice to the otherwise bland khichadi. If you do not prefer this for any reason, then one can stop with addition of required salt and with step 5 itself. 


I cooked rice and dal with 2 glasses full of water in a vessel in my pressure cooker for 3 whistles. Then, upon cooling, I transferred the contents from pressure cooker to electric rice cooker (National Panasonic). In here, I added more water and kept cooking the khichadi, I added pepper-jeera ground mixture. Salt to taste and chillies/ginger/tomato fried in ghee were also added after few minutes to the khichadi in electric rice cooker.

You can prepare khichadi wholly in electric rice cooker itself without using a pressure cooker, just that the process will be slower and definitely it consumes power which comes so dear in Bangalore nowadays.


I would like to add that I learnt this recipe from my mother-in-law who spent about 26 years of her life in Calcutta, so the authenticity of the recipe is guaranteed :) Khichadi can be had along with Baigun Bhaja and Alu Bhaja, the recipes of which I am sharing on my blog at Baigun-bhaja-and-alu-bhaja

Paris Bakery-Mumbai

I always wanted to write about this place, a bakery, I visited in Mumbai and it has taken me over an year to do the needful. The address of this bakery is as below - Paris Bakery, 278, Dr.C.H. Street, Our Lady of Dolours Church Lane, Dhobi Talao, Mumbai - 400 002. Phone 2208 6619, 6423 3678 (Time: 9 am to 8 pm with lunch break from 2 to 5 pm, Mon - Sat). I visited this bakery in June 2011 and I must admit, though it is a small outlet with no facilities to sit and dine, the shopkeeper exhibited some of the top notch marketing strategies and impressed me. 

The shopkeeper at the bakery had a smiling face, was willing to answer our questions with just the right details, there were no curt replies like Indane/Bharat Gas agencies and no over mollycoddling like McDonalds and Pizza Hut, some examples that starkly hit my head. Paris bakery is famous for its Butter Khari (many layers of maida, thin and wafery, baked to precision, basically a mini puff sans filling) and when I browsed about Mumbai before my visit, I learnt people traveled far and wide to fetch a stock of their kharis.

At the shop, my husband and I would casually ask the shop keeper, pointing to a bottle of bread sticks - What is this? He would reply - Garlic Sticks, draw few of them out and make us taste them. He would then show more varieties of these garlic sticks, the ones that use less butter, ones with a lavish dose of butter, ones that go well with tea, ones prepared with a liberal dose of cheese. He would not only stop at that but ensure we tasted a small sample of each variety. We were little embarrassed by this shower of affection and decided not to ask any more questions in the fear we would finish quite a substantial portion of his shop in the name of tasting. But he would not relent. 

If we quizzed mutely over the biscuits in trays, he would politely point out the facts behind them all, again provide a small sample of each to taste. This treatment was not only meted out to us given that he figured we came from outside Mumbai but to every customer who visited his shop, regular or irregular or a first timer. There were superbly delicious shrewsberry biscuits, buttery and divine short bread biscuits, nutty and sugary kaju macroons, jam biscuits and fan biscuits. 

We were lucky for two reasons -

1) We visited the shop before they closed for lunch. We went to this bakery on our last day of Mumbai visit to take back some goodies to Bangalore. We would have missed out some excellent tasting baked goodies and such refreshing hospitality had we hit the place a little late in the afternoon. 

2) We reached the bakery at 1 pm and were planning to break for lunch thereafter, but our meal plan was almost taken care of by the shower of affection from the shop keeper. 

We left the shop with a sizable purchase - 3 packets of garlic sticks, 2 packets of cheese sticks, 1 each of shrewsberry and short Bread biscuits, 3 of kaju macroons. The supreme friendliness of the shopkeeper and his excellent marketing strategies of answering our questions patiently, providing us with required information of his bakery's products and more than enough goodies to taste and make a decision, bowled us over completely. Prima facie, it may appear the shop keeper will turn a pauper if he exhausted his supplies in name of providing the right to taste to his customer. But the warmth in his business dealings and the fine quality and taste of his products will sure win anyone's heart. None in my opinion will leave the shop without his/her share of bounty. A customer from Thane, alongside us, was in tears when he came to know that the shop exhausted its morning stock of kharis. He promised to return at 5 pm and get fresh evening stock before he headed back home that day. 

Other products that Paris bakery offers are - butter batasha, cheese batasha, cheese papri, nankhatai, mawa cake, fruit cake, sponge cake, buns, milk toast, melba toast, garlic toast and soya toast. I will always pay a visit to this bakery every time I am in Mumbai.

Some more information:  

We stayed in Gurgaon and traveled by the Western Line of Mumbai sub urban railway. We got down at Marine Lines station and from here any one can guide you to Paris Bakery or Lady of Dolours church. 

Paris Bakery is barely 10 minutes walk from the station. On the way to Paris bakery, there is a likelihood that you hit the Parsi Dairy branch in Dhobi Talao. Do not miss out the Malai Khaja and Mawa Khaja sweets here, they are truly out of the world. On all days of our stay in Mumbai, we commuted by the Mumbai western line trains which serve innumerable commuters at an unparalleled frequency. As a tourist, if you resort to road travel, then you will only kill time and all your energy; hissing and sighing in traffic.

This blog post is a cut short version of post on my other blog - Furore Scribendi - please follow link Paris Bakery in Mumbai. The original post provides some travel tips in Mumbai in addition to the content written above.

Weekend Ecstasy : Fruit n Nut cake, Rotis with Shahi Paneer

My microwave convection oven is back after minimal repair work. Heavy voltage fluctuations and whimsical power cuts took its toll on it. I am immensely happy that the oven is back at its place on my kitchen slab and Yippeee .. I can bake again!

I baked a fruit and nut cake using mashed ripe banana, some black currant and broken cashews. The recipe for this cake can be seen from my earlier blog post- Fruit n Nut Cake.

The pictures of this cake might appear different from that in the link above. This cake (shown below) is less dense in terms of fruit and nut content in that it is baked sans the lavish dose of seedless dates and chopped walnuts. Quantities of ingredients have also been adjusted  (for the cake in pic below) to yield a smaller cake.

Shahi Paneer with soft rotis made a perfect dinner for Sunday. I followed the recipe (no modifications) for Shahi Paneer from Divya Kudua's Shahi Paneer. The Shahi Paneer recipe followed as is yielded very yummy gravy and it was very simple, with minimal chopping and grinding work.

I am writing down the ingredients and the recipe here again (referring to the link above) for any direct references-


Ingredients Required (from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking Blog) Paneer - 200 gms
Cashewnuts - 12
Tomatoes - 2,chopped
Green chilly - 2,chopped
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece
Oil - 3 tbsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Asafoetida/Hing - a pinch
Bay leaf - 1
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Red chilly powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder/haldi - 1/4 tsp
Curd - 1/2 cup,beaten well
Sugar - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Garam masala - pinch
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsps, finely chopped
Kasoori Methi - 1 tsp,crushed


Method
1. Slice paneer into small cubes and shallow fry in a sauce pan with 1 tbsp oil till it starts turning golden brown. Turn them over and cook other side too.Keep aside.
2. Grind cashews to a fine powder, keep aside.
3. Grind chopped tomatoes,green chillies and ginger to a smooth paste, keep aside.
4. In the same pan,add remaining oil and when it turns hot,splutter jeera. Mix in hing and bay leaf and saute for a minute.
5. Add the tomato paste,coriander powder,red chilly powder and turmeric powder and mix well.Cook the mixture,stirring occasionally till it reduces in volume. This will take about 5-6 minutes on medium flame. 
6. Mix in sugar,cashew powder and curd.Cook for two minutes.
7. Add the fried paneer pieces, little water (maintaining gravy consistency) and salt to taste and let it boil.
8. Cover the pan and simmer for a few minutes till the gravy starts turning thick.
9. Add garam masala,chopped coriander leaves and kasoori methi and turn off the heat. Mix gently and keep it covered for a few minutes. Serve hot with phulkas/rotis. 

The last picture is taken using my mobile phone camera and the rest using Nikon digital camera.
I am still fiddling with different modes and menu features of Nikon DSC to grab better pictures, especially in poor light conditions and may be more presentable and cleaner pictures.