Vaishali - A hotel on FC Road in Pune is very famous for this dish.. And ajoy being fequent visitor there i had additional pressure to make it as tastier as they make it.. And I was somewhat successful in it.. So here is the recipy.


Ingredients
7 Papadi style Puris
1 spoon Tamarind Chutney
3/4 spoon Green Spicy Chutney
1 medium sized Potato
1/2 cup Curd
4 spoon Shev
1/2 spoon Corriander leaves
1/2 spoon Corriander powder
1/2 spoon Cumin powder
1/2 spoon Chaat masala
2 spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Cook potatoes in the cooker
• Mix curd with sugar and a pinch of salt and keep aside
• Remove the cover of the potato chop it into fine pieces
• Mix salt, corriander powder, cumin powder, chaat masala with these pieces
• Arrange 7 puris on a plate and add these finely chopped potato pieces on top of it
• Sprinkle green spicy chutney, then curd and then tamarind chutney on it
• Spread shev on top of it and garnish with corriander leaves

Notes
This is an ideal item for the party where in you can keep everything ready and just prepare the dishes while serving

I prepare this chutney especially for chaat items. But it can be taken as a side dish during main course especially with parathas.


Ingredients
1/4 cup pudina leaves
1.5 cup corriander leaves
4-5 green chillies
1/2 tea spoon sugar
Salt

Method

• Add pudina leaves, corriander leaves, green chillies and couple of spoon of water to the mixie and grind
• Add sugar and salt to it and grind again for a while

Notes
In this chutney you can add little chaat masala and amchur powder, if you are going to serve it with parathas, it would taste delicious

Fish rava fry is special delicacy from Goa and north karnataka.. Any body would get instant liking towards this dish.. And you will soon come to know its lot easy to prepare as well..


Ingredients
4-5 Fish Pieces
2 spoon Red Chilly Powder
1 spoon turmeric powder
2 spoon Rava
Salt
Oil

Method

• Marinate the fish pieces with salt and keep aside for 5-10 minutes
• Now marriante the fish pieces with the turmeric powder and chilly powder. Keep aside for another 5-10 minutes
• Heat the tawa, add little oil
• Roll the marinated fish pieces in the rawa and fry them on the tawa on medium heat till rawa is golden brown and fish is well cooked

Notes
You can try this on any fish, even prawns. Recipy remains same taste changes with the taste of fish.

When I got bananas for fruit salad i decided to try this recipy i had read in one of the book mom gave.. It turned out quite filling and different kind of recipy.. Must try if you are obsessed by variations in food :)


Ingredients
3 small Bananas
1/2 cup Castor Sugar
Wheat flour
Oil

Method

• Mash the bananas
• Add sugar and mix it well with the bananas till it dissolves completely
• Add the wheat flour to get dough, coat with oil
• Roll out puris out of this dough and fry them on medium flame

Notes
While i was rolling the puris i thought i should have mixed the bananas and castor sugar together using blender to get really sooth paste. i am going to try this next time.
Don't keep the dough for too long as it might become greyish/blackish because of bananas after a while

Since childhood i just loved fruits and fruit salad too.. So today when i went to market and saw so many fruits, i just couldn't resist preparing this for dessert.. It was yummy...


Ingredients
1 Apple
2 Sapota
2 Sweet lime
2 Oranges
1/2 cup grapes
2 Bananas
1/2 pomegranate
5-6 Strawberries
1 packet of Custard Powder
2 packets of Jelly Mix
1/2 liter Milk
2 spoon sugar

Method

• Boil 900ml of water and mix it with the both jelly mix
• Set the jelly in the mould and keep aside
• Mix custard powder in little milk
• Boil rest of the milk adding sugar to it
• When milk is boiled, add the custard pate and cook for about 3-4 minutes with constant stirring. Keep aside
• Refrigerate jelly and custard
• Cut apple, sapotas, bananas, sweet limes, oranges into small pieces, removing their covers, seeds etc
• Mix them grapes
• While serving add a layer of fruits in a bowl
• Cut jelly into cubes and add a layer of jelly pieces on top of fruits
• Add custard on top of it and put a cut strawberry and pomegranates on it

Notes
I used Weikfield Jelly and Custard Powder to get prepare the jelly and custard, if you use different brand the recipe for jelly and custard might be different.
You can also try two different flavours of jelly mix. I used Rasberry and Banana flavour of jelly and lemon flavour of custard.
On top of this custard you can add a scoop of vanilla or your choice of ice-cream and make a more grand dessert.
You can add pinapple as well in the fruit salad or omit the fruits that are not available.. This would taste even nice with only with a single fruit say like lychee

I actually wanted to prepared egg pattice from boiled egg, but since there was no maida stock was over from my place as well as from the store where i buy the grocery, i decided to try something different and here is the result


Ingredients
1 cup wheat flour
3 hard boiled eggs
2 green chillies
Handfull of corriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Preapare the dough from wheat flour the way one prepares for rotis and keep aside
• Grate the boiled eggs
• Mix grated eggs, finely chopped chillies, finely chopped corriander leaves and salt
• Roll the roti from the dough and use the egg mixture to get different shapes
• For Roll shape: Spread the egg mixture on top of the roti and then make the roll out of it and close all sides with water
• For Karanji Shape : Put the egg mixture on top of the roti and fold to get half round karanji shape. Close all sides using water
• Deep fry in oil

Notes
When I tried this, the dough was little loser and hence when i made the roll shapes i heated the roti from both side for a second on tawa so that it is not too sticky and thin.
You can also try other shapes eg, like samosa, which i didn't have patience for, with sticky dough

This type of bharata is my faviourite and it is so easy and fast to cook that most of the time i end up preparing it this way only :)


Ingredients
1 Big Brinjal
1/2 Onion
4 spoon Curd
2 Green Chillies
Handful of Corriander leaves
Salt to taste

Method

• Roast the brinjal
• Remove the cover from the brinjal
• Mash the brinjal and add finely chopped chillies, curd and salt to taste
• Mix well and garnish with corriander leaves

Notes
You can also add one finely chopped onion to this if you like

Since we were kids, we all in our family loved this dish. And i can't believe that i didn't try it earlier.. But today when I tried it, it turned out as good as mom's mainly because i telephoned almost three four times to mom to ask all the details :)

Aappe


Ingredients
1/2 cup Udid daal
1/2 spoon harbar daal
3 cup idli rawa
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix harbara daal and udid daal and soak it for 12 hours
• Also soak idli rawa separately for 12 hours
• After 12 hours grind daal in a mixie removing water from it to get fine paste
• To this paste add idli rawa and again grind to get fine paste
• Keep aside this paste for 12 hours
• In the morning heat the aappe pan and add this mixture in it
• Cook both sides of the aappe on medium flame and serve hot with the coconut chutney

Notes
During winter days, it takes time for batter to be ferment in 12 hours, so boil water in a pot and keep pot containing the grinded paste on top of this pot.
Use non-stick aappe pot for better results, it doesn't even need oil. Other aappe pots needs oil and batter might stick to the pot resulting in a little mess.

Coconut Chutney


Ingredients
1/2 Coconut
Handfull of corriander leaves
4 spoon of chana
1 green chilli
1 tea spoon sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• In a mixie, add grated cocounut, corriander leaves, chana, green chilli, sugar and salt and grind it
• Add little water if required while grinding to get chutney

Notes
In this chutney, chana daal(without cover) is optional but it gives nice taste to the chutney

I just love prawns, any recipy.. But this one ma's(mother-in-law) style is most faviourite one.. even better than fried one :) I just love it.


Ingredients
400 gm Prawns
2 onions
2 tomatoes
1/2 spoon ginger paste
1/2 spoon garlic paste
1 spoon red chilli powder
1 spoon turmeric powder
Grated coconut for garnishing
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Heat little oil in the pan
• Fry the prawns in the oil for a minute of so and keep aside
• In the same oil add finely chopped onion
• Once onion is translucent, add garlic paste, ginger paste, red chilli powder, turmeric powder
• After a while add finely chopped tomato and cook for 2-3 minutes
• Add a cup of water and cook with covering pan by a lid
• Keep aside for cooling
• In a mixie grind to get the uniform paste
• In a pan add this grinded gravy, a cup of water, fried prawns and cook till gravy gets desired thickness
• Add grated coconut and salt and cook for a minute

Notes
Actually ma doesnot grind the gravy in a mixie instead she lets cook the tomato till it completly dissolves, but i prefer it to grind that way even onions give the gravy a nice taste

Last few weeks we had been getting lots of pomegranate at home mainly because we had been having cold too often and sour fruits are completely no no.. Yesterday when I took out pomegranate from fridge, I thought of making its juice but which will have little sourness in it so that we get some vitamin c contents and also it has chatpata taste. So here is my own experiment with the pomegranate.


Ingredients
2 pomogranate
2 lemon
1/2 green chilli
3 spoon sugar
1.5 glass water
A pinch of ginger paste

Method

• Separate pomegranate seeds along with its juicy cover
• In a mixie, grind these pomegranate seeds, sugar, ginger paste to make fine paste
• Add water, and lemon juice to it and grind again
• Filter out the juice to remove seeds

Notes
You can serve it with ice and chilled but since we have cold problem we took it at normal temparature and it tasted well

This recipe is ajoy's faviourite one.. Wherever we go ajoy wants to it khima muttor.. Yesterday when i asked him to get pomplet and he didn't get it, he got Khima.. So here is the recipe


Ingredients
1/4 Kg Khima
1.5 cup muttor
3 Tomatoes
3 Onions
1/2 spoon garlic paste
1/2 spoon ginger paste
2 spoon red chilli powder
2 spoon garam masala
1/2 spoon turmeric powder
1/2 spoon jeera powder
1/4 spoon corriander powder
2-3 spoon corriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Cook khima in cooker by adding around a cup of water
• Add 2-3 spoons of oil in a pan and heat it
• Add finely chopped onions to it and cook till onions are translucent
• Add garlic and ginger paste and cook for a while
• Add finely chopped tomatoes in it and cook till they are completely done and almost smashed
• Add tuermeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, corriander powder and jeera powder
• Let the miture cook for a while and then keep aside for cooling
• Grind this mixture in a mixie to get fine paste, add little water if required
• Now, heat a spoon of oil in a pan and then add this grinded mixture to the pan
• After a while, add cooked khima along with the water it was cooked in, muttor and a cup of water more
• Cook on high flame with constant stiring till the mixture is thick enough
• Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves

Notes
Khima tastes better with fresh khima than those frozen stuff we get in market. Earlier I had tried with frozen one but it didn't taste as good as this one.
I had prepared mutton khima, but chicken khima can be prepared in same way

Today when I returned from goa, i wanted to prepare something very easy and still tasty for breakfast.. We had been on hotel food for quite a few days so something traditional yet tasty and differnt would be ideal and here is the recipy i came up with..


Ingredients
1 cup rawa
1.5 cup mango pulp
1 cup milk
1.5 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
4-5 Almonds
Pinch of Safron
Ghee

Method

• Add ghee in a pan and heat it
• Add rawa to it and fry on low flame till its slightly brown
• In another pan mix water and milk and boil it
• Add it to the brownish rawa
• Let the rawa cook for some time (Till mixture becomes thick)
• Add sugar and mango pulp and cook again for a while
• Garnish with almond pieces and safron and serve hot

Notes
I used only half cup of sugar as mango pulp also contained sugar.
I also used the mango pulp with few slices of mangoes to get better taste

After paratha, this is the next dish with another papaya sitting in our fruit basket..


Ingredients
1 raw papaya
1 spoon ginger paste
1 spoon red chilli powder
1 spoon sugar
4 spoon bason
4 spoon corn flour
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grate papaya and add it in a pan
• Add water till papaya is covered and cook on medium heat till papaya is cooked
• Add sugar and cook again, let water dry completely
• In another pan heat oil, add ginger paste, red chilli powder and cook it for a while till ginger paste is completely done
• Add it to the cooked papaya, add salt and mix well
• Let mixture cool down and then add bason and corn flour
• Refrigerate overnight to get the thick and nonsticky batter
• In the morning, take the mixture out of refrigerator and make tikkis - flat round shaped
• Shallow fry on the tawa and serve with the sause

Notes
You can also fry the tikki after covering it with fine rawa or bread crums

When I was small, I had seen something called gobi tura recipe on DD marathi.. And this recipe is inspired by that recipe.. I have made it more chatpata according to my taste.. And believe me you just can't control yourself from eating it while cooking itself :)


Ingredients
4 cups of gobi pieces
1/2 spoon turmertic powder
1/2 spoon red chilli powder
1/2 lemon
Salt
Oil

Method

• Mix 2 cups of gobi pieces, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, lemon's juice and salt together and keep aside
• Mix remaining gobi pieces and salt separately and keep aside
• Heat oil and first fry salted gobi pieces and then masala gobi pieces
• While serving mix both these gobi pieces and serve

Notes
You can sprinkle little chat masala while serving.
Fry salted gobi first so that their colour is not spoilt because of masala that gets left over in the oil

Just realised that with the last recipe post, My Cooking Experiments contains 50 recipies.. Looks quite an achievement, especially with these hectic working schedules.. Feels great to have reached till here.. I do plan to take it further and post many more recipes :) so stay tuned :)

Ajoy bought 2 papayas the other day for eating.. They looked little unripped to him but even after 5-6 days when it didn't ripe i decided to try some cooking experiments on it. So this one is the result of experiment on one of them. Another one is yet waiting for its turn :)


Ingredients
1 raw papaya
3 spoon sugar
1 spoon red chilli powder
10 spoon heaps of wheat flour
A handfull of corriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Peel off the papaya and grate it
• Heat little oil in a pan and add grated papaya
• Cook for around 6-7 minutes and then add sugar and chilli powder
• Cook for some more time till papaya is done
• Let the mixture cool down
• Add wheat flour and finely chopped corriander leaves and form the dough for paratha
• Keep aside for half an hour
• Roll parathas and cook on tawa with oil or ghee

Notes
These parathas are sweet parathas and red chilli powder is just to give little flavour

This was the dish, we liked in Gokul, CMH Road , Bangalore.. We were mad about this vegetable in Gokul.. I had been preparing this vegetable since long time now.. But after marriage we hardly prepared this.. And when we realised that yesterday, it was the item for dinner..


Ingredients
200g Paneer
2 Onions
3 Tomatoes
1/2 spoon garlic paste
1/2 spoon ginger paste
1/2 spoon turmeric powder
1 spoon red chilli powder
1/2 spoon garam masala
1 spoon jeera powder
1 spoon corriander powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grate the paneer, Chop onions and tomatoes
• Heat little oil in a pan and add finely chopped onions
• Once onions turn slightly reddish, add ginger paste and garlic paste
• After a while add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, jeera powder, corriander powder to it and stir well
• Add tomatoes and cook them well
• Take the mixture off the stove and let the mixture cool down
• Grind the mixture in the mixie
• Again heat a pan and add this mixture with little water
• Add the grated paneer and salt and let it cook for some time till paneer is cooked well and gravy has enough thickness

Notes
You can add little capsicum to the vegetable, but since we both don't like capsicum we avoid it :)

I had never prepared chicken biryani before so when i decided to cook it i did search a lot on internet. Also asked our maid for it so that i get to know how they cook it. And then i came up with this one which is outcome of my research.

Chicken Biryani


Ingredients
1/2 kg chicken
4 cups of rice
1 cup milk
1 cup curd
2 onions
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 tea spoon ginger paste
1/2 tea spoon garlic paste
3 spoon turmeric powder
3 spoon garam masala
3 spoon red chilli powder
2 spoon corriander powder
1 spoon cumin powder
1 spoon green cardamom powder
A pinch of Safron
Salt to taste
Oil
Method

• Heat oil in a pan and add finely chopped onion to it
• Once onion is reddish add tomato puree to it and cook well
• Add garlic paste, ginger paste, 1 spoon garam masala, 1 spoon turmertic powder, 1 spoon red chilli powder, 1 spoon corriander powder and 1/2 spoon cumin powder to it and stir well.
• Add curd and salt to it and cook for a while
• Add chicken pieces to this mixture and cook till gravy dries completely and oil separates out. Keep aside
• Mix 4 cups of rice, milk and safron and cook it
• In a heat little oil/ghee and add green cardamom powder to it
• Add remaining turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, corriander powder and cumin powder
• Mix cooked rice and salt and stir well
• In a cooker pot add a layer of this above prepared rice then cooked chicken pieaces and then remaining rice
• Let it cook on vapour for a minute or two
• Serve hot with the groundnut gravy and raita

Notes
I had been told to fry uncooked rice on ghee, add other masala items and then cook the rice but I prefered to it otherway that is to add masala after cooking rice as it gives nice aroma and taste to the rice.

Groundnut Gravy


Ingredients
1/2 cup Groundnut powder
2 Tomatoes
1 spoon garam masala
1 spoon turmeric powder
1 spoon red chilli powder
1 spoon corriander powder
1/2 spoon cumin powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Heat oil in a pan and add finely chopped tomato to it
• After tomatoes are cooked well(it becomes paste), add red chilli powder, corriander powder, cumin powder and garam masala
• Add groundnut powder and salt to it
• The miture will be like a dry chutney ball, let it cook for a while
• Add water to it and boil it to get the thick gravy

Notes
The above gravy is not too hot as I didn't have enough curd for raita, you can make it hot as per your taste

This is one of the tastiest egg dish I came across. I read this recipe in a book and thought of giving it a shot.. Had tried it earlier but it wasn't that successful.. So today i modified the way i cooked it and result was awesome :)


Ingredients
3 eggs
1 big onion finely chopped
2 tomatoes finely chopped
1 tea spoon red chilli powder
1/2 tea spoon garam masala
1 tea spoon ginger garlic paste
2 spoon corriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Heat little oil in a pan
• Add finely chopped onion and stir well
• Add ginger garlic paste, red chilli powder and garam masala and still well
• Add finely chopped tomatoes and cook well till oil separates from the mixture and take down from flame
• Heat the tawa and coat it with litte oil
• Add the above mixture and spread it across to form thin layer of masala
• Break the eggs one by one and spread it on the masala without disturbing their yolks
• Cover with lid and cook on lowest possible flame till the egg sets
• Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves

Notes
As the masala is already cooked there are high chances of it burning and sticking to tawa, Use the nonstick tawa for setting the egg that too on lowest possible flame.
It can be served with the bread and also with fulkas/parathas instead of other gravies

When we had gone to pune this time, Ma had cooked nice muttor stuffed puris, I thought of preparing them, but it looks little delicate affair for a weekday so i thought of preparing muttor paratha first :) But I am surely going to try muttor stuffed puris one day :)


Ingredients
2 cup muttor
1/2 spoon garlic paste
1/2 spoon ginger paste
5 green chillies
6 spoon heaps of Wheat flour
Salt to taste
Oil/Ghee

Method

• Grind the mutor in a mixie without adding water in it to get a coarse mixture
• Heat little oil in a pan
• Add finely chopped chillies, ginger paste, garlic paste and cook for a while
• Add the coarse mixture of the muttor and salt and cook it for some time
• Keep aside this miture for it to cool down
• Make dough of wheat flour adding a spoon of oil and keep aside for half an hour
• Make small ball of dough and press it with both hands to form a cup shape
• Add the muttor mixture to it and close the cup to form a ball
• Roll paratha out of this ball
• Cook it on tawa on medium heat with oil and little ghee

Notes
You can optionally add little maida to the wheat flour

When Mom had come here, she had got couple of recipe magazines with her.. So I read this recipe from it and thought of trying it out today..


Ingredients
2 cup thin pohas
2 potatoes
1/2 spoon ginger paste
4-5 green chillies
1/2 cup curd
1-2 spoon Sugar
Salt to taste
Mustard seeds
A pinch of turmeric powder
1 spoon tamarind chutney
Oil

Method

• Cook potatoes well in cooker and keep it aside to cool down
• Sprinkle little water on pohas so that they become little soft
• Mix crushed potato, ginger paste, finely chopped green chillies and salt to taste
• Form small patties out of this mixture
• Fry the patties by sprinkling little oil on a tawa
• Mix curd with sugar well
• Heat oil and let mustard seeds splutter in it
• Add turmeric powder to it
• Add this oil to the curd and mix well
• Serve the patties of poha-potatoes topped with the prepared curd mixture and garnished with little tamarind chutney

Notes
You can optionally fry the patties by putting a small coat of breadcrums
I also thought of adding thinner yellow coloured 'shev' on this, but since i didn't have them today i am going to try it out next time

Tamarind chutney you can prepare and store for 2-3 weeks, so that you can use it on some chaat items, somosas etc.


Ingredients
3 spoon tamarind
8 spoon water
4 spoon jaggery
1 spoon red chilli powder
Salt to taste

Method

• Soak tamarind with water for few hours
• Grind tamarind, jaggery, red chilli powder, salt in a mixie to get thich chutney

Notes
I sometimes add 1 date piece to the tamarind while soaking to get richer taste

This one is the another item we had from the bottle gourd we had got. The parathas were amazing and tasted good..


Ingredients
2 cups grated Bottle Gourd
Wheat flour(around 6-7 spoon heaps)
1 cup corriander leaves
2 spoon fresh cream (malai)
1 spoon garlic ginger paste
1 spoon turmeric powder
2 spoon red chilli powder
Salt
Oil

Method

• Cook grated bottole gourd in cooker without mixing water with it
• Grind cooked bottle gourd, ginger garlic paste and turmeric powder
• Mix finely chopped corriander leaves, red chilli powder, salt to taste, fresh cream and a spoon of oil
• Add wheat flour that the mixture can take to form the dough for parathas
• Keep aside the dough for around half an hour
• Roll parathas and heat on tawa on medium heat

Notes
You can optionally add around half cup of finely chopped methi leaves as well