Ajoy loves puri and amrakhand so when I found out about the place where i buy mango pulp I decided to try this one. It turned out quite good :)


Ingredients
1 ltr Milk
1.5 cup Sugar
1 cup Mango Pulp
1 spoon Curd

Method

• Warm the milk
• Mix it with the curd properly and keep it in warm place for 6-8 hours so that it forms sweet curd
• Take a thin cotton cloth and put the curd in it and hang it so that water is drained completely
• After 8-10 hours the curd will not have remains of water and you can untie the cloth and take the material(we call it chakka) into a vessel
• Mix it with sugar and keep for atleast two hours
• Mix the mango pulp with it and strain through Puran Yantra

Notes
The quantity for sugar need to be adjusted according to the sweetness of mango pulp. The pulp that I bought wasn't too sweet. But if pulp is already sweetened then accordingly decrease the sugar quantity.
Keeping the sugar mixed with chakka for couple of hours lets it mix properly. Otherwide the curd might get sour and separate out from sugar.

This is a refreshing drink made from the raw mango. Its the first one of this season :) as its just now we have started getting raw mangoes.


Ingredients
3 Raw Mangoes
2.5 cup Jaggery
Salt to taste

Method

• Peel off the skin from the raw mango and cut it into medium sized pieces
• Cook the pieces into cooker by adding enough water
• When the mangoes cool down, grind them in a mixter and strain the mixture
• Mix the jaggery and salt in it and let it dissolve completely.
• Add more water to get the thinner panha

Notes
You need to change the amount of jaggery depending on the sourness of the mango

Yesterday I thought of preparing mung daal halwa but then ended up cooking mung daal vadi.


Ingredients
1 Cup Mung Daal
3/4 Cup Ghee
1/4 kg Khoya
2 Cup Sugar
2 Cup Milk
Almonds to garnish

Method

• Soak the daal in water for 4-5 hours
• Grind the daal in a mixer to form fine paste
• Heat ghee in a pan and fry the mung daal paste on low flame
• Once the daal turns golden brown, add the milk and cook till the mixture becomes thick
• Add the khoya and cook for a while
• Add te sugar and cook on low flame till mixture is thick and sticky
• Grease the plate and put the mixture on it. Spread it evenly and garnish with almond pieces
• Cut into rectangular pieces and serve

Notes
Frying the mung daal on low flame is important, as mungdaal will get burnt quite quickly.

As summer starts, mango makes the space in our meals.. This one is maharashtrian dish and is normally served as snack during 'Haldi Kunku'.


Ingredients
1 Raw Mango
1 cup Harbara Daal
2 Green Chillies
1/4 spoon Sugar
1/4 spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 spoon Mustard seeds
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Soak the harbara Daal in water for 5-6 hours
• Grind the daal and green chillies in a mixer
• Grate the raw mango and mix with this grinded mixture
• Add sugar and salt to it and mix well
• Heat oil and add mustard seeds
• Once the seeds sputter, add the turmeric powder and add this oil mixture into the grinded mixture. Mix well and sever

Notes
One can add the fried red chilli into the oil while mustard seeds sputter.

I really love methi malai muttor. Since long time I was trying to get the exact taste which i like of this vegetable.. Then I talked to Shrinkhla and she gave her authentic punjabi recipe of methi malai muttor. And it worked out amazing for me. So here is the recipe :)


Ingredients
2 Bunches Methi leaves
1 Cup Fresh Cream
2 Cup Muttor
1/4 spoon Jeera
A pinch of Asafoetida
A pinch of Cardamom Powder
A pinch of Cinnamon Powder
A pinch of Cloves Powder
1 Onion
1/2 spoon Khus Khus (poppy seeds)
1.5 spoon Sugar
5-6 spoon Curd
15-20 Cashews
1 Green Chilli
1/4 spoon Ginger paste
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

• Boil 4-5 cups of water with salt
• Add the finely chopped methi leaves in this hot water and keep for 5 minutes
• Remove the Methi from water and also remove the excess water and keep aside the methi.
• Boil the muttor and keep aside
• Grind the onion, khus khus, sugar, curd, cashews, green chillie and ginger paste together
• In a bowl beat the cream to smooth consistency
• Heat ghee in a pan, add jeera and let it sputter. Add asafoetida
• Add the grinded paste in this ghee and cook on low flame till the ghee separates out
• Add the beaten cream, methi, muttor and salt to taste
• Cook till gravy takes desired consistency

Notes
Squiz out the water from methi as much as possible, otherwise the gravy becomes little greenish(thats what happened to the one I cooked)
I think soaking cashes and khus khus for some time before grinding it would help in making fine paste. (thats how i do it for other recipies) I am going to try this one.
If the gravy is too thin, then mix 1/4 spoon of corn flour with water and add it to gravy to get the desired thickness. If the gravy is too thick you can add little milk to make it thinner.

Ajoy had been asking me to prepare vada paav or batata wada since long time.. And I thought there is no better day to prepare this than his bday :) So here is what we had for our breakfast today morning.

Vada Paav


Ingredients
2 Potatoes
6 Paav
1/2 cup bason
1/2 Lemon
4 Green Chillies
1/4 spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 spoon Ginger Paste
A pinch of Eating Soda
1/4 spoon Mustard
1/2 spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 spoon Red Chilli Powder
Salt
Oil

Method

• Boil the potatoes
• Grind the green chillies, garlic paste, ginger paste to form fine paste
• Cut the potatoes into small pieces.
• Add the ground paste, lemon juice to it and mix well
• Heat little oil, add the mustard, let them sputter and then add the half of the turnmeric powder
• Add this oil to the potato mixture and mix well.
• Prepare 6 round and little flat balls out of this mixture.
• In a small vessel, mix bason, red chilli powder, remaining turmeric powder, eating soda and prepare thin batter
• Heat oil in a pan, add 2 spoon of heated oil to the batter
• Dip the potato ball in the batter and fry it in oil
• Cut the pav in half, put the garlic chutney and wada in it and serve hot

Notes
The batter coating on the potato vada shouldn't be thick otherwise the wada won't taste good. Mix more water if its too thick.
We are adding heated oil to the bason because that will make vada less oily.. Making use of soda instead of oil will make it very very oily.
Potato Vada can be served separately with sauce as well. (Without paav)

Garlic Chutney


Ingredients
1/2 Dried Coconut
10-12 pieces of Garlic
4 spoon Red Chilli powder
1-2 pieces of Tamarind
1/2 spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

• Grate the coconut
• Heat a pan and fry the grated coconut till golden brown in colour
• In a mixer, first grind garlic pieces, red chilli powder, sugar, salt
• Add the tamarind and grind again
• Now add the coconut and grind to fine powder

Notes
You can save this chutney for few days. It tastes nice with bhakari as well.

For Ajoy's Bday I planned to prepare Pineapple Pastry.. Earlier since I had 'not so good' experience with the cream I did quite a lot of R&D before preparing this one. And the end result turned out quite good :)


Ingredients
1.5 cup Maida
2 spoon Baking powder
1/2 spoon Eating Soda
1 cup spoon powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
2 spoon butter
4 Eggs
1/2 spoon Pineapple Essence
1 cup Fresh Cream
1 cup tinned Pineapple
2 spoon Pineaaple syrup
1/4 cup tinner Cherries
Icing Sugar
A pinch of Salt

Method

• Sieve maida, baking powder, eating soda and salt together around 8-10 times to form properly mixed flour
• Heat milk in a pot, when it boils mix butter with it and keep aside
• Prepare the pan for baking the cake by coating it with butter, puting a butter paper of the size of the bottom of the vessel on it and applying butter again to the paper
• Heat the oven to 200C
• Now separate the egg white and yellows
• Beat the egg white till it thickens
• In a egg yolk, mix powdered sugar a spoon at a time till sugar is completely mixed with the yolk
• Now mix the maida flour sieved earlier with this egg yolk mixture, spoon by spoon
• Add the pineapple essence to the mixture and mix well
• Add egg white and mix well
• Add milk and butter mixture to this and mix well
• Add this mixture to the pan that was earlier prepared for baking
• Bake the cake in microwave + convection mode at 180W and 180C for 15 minutes
• Keep aside for cooling
• Whip the cream well, first slowly and then increase the speed.
• When the cream becomes about double the original size, mix icing sugar and whip well
• Cut the cake into half to get the 2 round cakes of half the thickness of the original cake
• Spread the syrup on both the halves
• Spread half of the cream and half of pineapple pieces (finely chopped)on one portion of the cake
• Keep the other portion of the cake on top of it and spread remaining cream all over the cake including its sides. You can form texture on the cake or keep it plain. I made texture using fork.
• Spread the pineapple pieces and cherries on top of the cake to decorate it

Notes
While mixing the egg white and milk in the cake mixture, mix it slowly and with care.
Cover the cakes with moist tissue paper or moist cloths so that the cake remains moist.
Also I found that the Amul Cream I had used earlier wasn't good enough for preparing the cream. It has very low contents of fat. I got the cream from the mithai shop this time and it was quite thick. One needs thick cream for whipping the cream. The cream is available in local mithai shops or dairies.

We bought Mulis for the first time at our house in hyderabad :) We both don't like muli at all.. So there was no way we could take it as vegetable.. So I ended up cooking parathas :)


Ingredients
2 Mulis
7 Spoonful Heaps of Wheat Flour
3-4 Green Chillies
1 spoon Ginger Garlic paste
A pinch of Red Chilli powder
1 spoon Corriander powder
Handfull of Corriander leaves
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

• Add a little oil in wheat flour and knead well to prepare the dough. Keep aside for half an hour
• Grate the mulis
• Heat little oil in a pan
• Add the ginger garlic paste, green chillies (finely chopped), corriander powder, red chilli powder to it
• Add the grated mulis and fry till mixture is golden brown
• Add finely chopped corriander leaves and salt to taste and keep aside.
• Make small balls out of this muli mixture
• From the kneaded dough, take the dough that one normally takes for roti, roll it to puri size.
• Add the muli ball on top of it and fold all sides of the puri to make a square shape
• Roll the parathas delicately maintaining the square shape and fry with ghee on tawa

Notes
Add very very little oil while frying muli mixture as otherwise the mixture will turn out too oily.
Also just for a change i prepared the parathas of square shape. one can always stuff the ball of muli inside dough and prepare the parathas like one prepares aalu paratha

Whenever I want to prepare something quickly the first choice that comes to my mind is Parathas.. Its easy and quick to prepare and yet tastes so delicious.. Moreover ajoy loves parathas.. So when i had to cook a quick dinner yesterday and when i had nothing but only aalu left for paratha I prepared this one.


Ingredients
2 Potatoes
7 Spoon Heaps of Wheat Flour
1/4 spoon garlic paste
3-4 Green Chillies
A pinch of Jeera Powder
1 spoon Amachur Powder
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

• Add a little oil in wheat flour and knead well to prepare the dough. Keep aside for half an hour
• Cook the potatoes in a cooker
• Peel off the skin from potatoes and grate them
• Grind green chillies, garlic paste in a mixer to fine paste
• Mix the grinded paste, amchur powder, jeera powder and salt to taste with the gratetd potatoes
• Make small balls out of this potato mixture
• From the kneaded dough, make small balls, press them and stuff the potato ball inside them and make big balls
• Roll the parathas delicately and fry with ghee on tawa

Notes
While grating potato, apply little oil to grater so that potatoes don't stick to the grater

Around 5 years back I was staying away from home for the first time because of a new job in bangalore. I use to stay with roomies - Amita, Vinaya and Anumeha.. One fine day we thought of preparing dahi vada. It was just after some 2-3 months after we had moved into a flat. We hardly had any cooking experience and required utensils. We used MTR's Instant Vada mix for preparing wada and fried it in a small pot (we didn't have pan :D). The best part was I mentioned them quite a few times that I know how to preapre 'good dahi vada' :) Since childhood it was my faviourite dish and I had seen mom preparing it :) thats the reason I knew of the tricks for getting good dahi wada :D So here in this recipe i share it :) Off course now I don't use instant mix for preparing wada and i do have a pan to fry the vadas :)


Ingredients
1 cup Udid Daal
1 Green Chilli
1/4 spoon Ginger paste
1/2 ltr Curd
2-3 spoon Sugar
Salt
Oil

Method

• Soak the udid daal overnight
• In the morning, separate the water from the daal
• Grind the daal by adding around 4-5 spoons of water
• Add green chilli, ginger paste and grind further to get fine paste
• Get the mixture in a pot, add salt to taste and mix well
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the small vadas
• Mean while in a pot mix water and little salt and keep aside
• Mix 2-3 spoons of curd with around a cup of water and keep it in plate and keep aside
• When vada is fried well, remove it from oil and add it to the salty water prepared earlier
• Fry next set of vadas
• When they are ready remove the earlier batch of vadas from water, press them to remove the water and them in the plate with curd water
• Repeat for all wadas
• Mix the curd, sugar, little salt to taste and keep ready
• While serving, serve the wada from the curd water and cover it with the sweet curd we preapred earlier.

Notes
When you fry the vada, it should float in the oil, if not mix the batter well.
Also when the vada is dipped in salty water, it should float, if not vada is half cooked.
You can garnish the vada with red chilli powder, tamarind chutney if you like.

Ajoy hates spinach. So i have to be innovative with spinach to make him eat that. And here is the interesting and yummier item I came up with.


Ingredients
1 Spinach
2 Green Chillies
1/2 spoon Garlic Paste
1 spoon Jeera
5 spoon Heaps of Wheat flour
1 spoon Bason
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grind Spinach leaves, green chillies and jeera by adding little water to fine paste
• Mix wheat flour, bason and salt
• Add around a spoon of hot oil in it
• Add the spinach paste to it and make the dough. Add water if required.
• Keep aside for around half an our
• Roll the small puris out of dough and fry them

Notes
The puris are so tasty that you don't even need, vegetable with it or can be eaten with tomato ketchup. Nice item for quick breakfast as well.

This time when we went out for vegetable shopping, we got hold of raw jackfruit. So this was the vegetable i tried out.


Ingredients
1 Raw Jack fruit
4 spoon Groundnut powder
1/2 Coconut
2 Green Chillies
1/2 spoon Red chilli powder
1/2 spoon Turmeric powder
1 spoon Jaggery
1 spoon Mustard
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Remove the cover of the jack fruit and the innermost portion which is thick and solid.
• Cut remaining portion with seeds into fine pieces
• Heat little oil in a pan and add mustard. Let the seeds sputter
• Add turmeric powder, green chillies and mix well
• Add the finely chopped jack fruit pieces to it and stir well. Cook for around 3-4 minutes
• Add around 2 cups of water and cook with lid till the jackfruit cooks well. If required add more water in between
• Once the vegetable is done, add jaggery, red chilli powder, salt, groundnut powder, grated coconut and mix well

Notes
Apply oil to hands and to knife before cutting jackfruit as it has lot of sticky material.

I love Suralichi Wadi, and always thought it would be very difficult to prepare this. But when I tried this I found it quite easy and quick.


Ingredients
1 cup Bason
1 spoon Maida
1 cup Coriander leaves
1/2 Coconut
1/2 spoon Ginger paste
2-3 Green Chillies
1 spoon Turmeric powder
1 spoon Mustard seeds
3/4 cup sour Butter milk
2 cup Water
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Grind ginger paste, chillies and salt to fine paste by adding very little water
• Mix the bason, maida, grinded paste, turmeric powder(only 1/2 spoon), butter milk, and water well
• Strain it through the strainer that is used for straining flours
• In a pan heat this mixture with constant stirring
• When this mixture thickens, cook for a while by putting a lid
• Take 3 dry plates and divide this mixture in three parts and spread it on 3 plates to form very thin layer
• In a small pan heat around 2-3 spoons of oil, add mustard seeds and let them sputter
• Add the remaining turmeric powder to it and keep aside
• Grate the coconut and chop the corriander leaves finely.
• On three plates sprinkle the oil with mustard and turmeric powder, spread the grated coconut and finely chopped corriander leaves
• Cut the mixture on each plate into 5 vertical strips
• Make a roll out of each strip and garnish with the remaining coconut, oil and corriander

Notes
Straining the mixture removes the coarse particles of chillies, ginger and gives you smooth batter.
My mom also suggested of cooking the mixture in a cooker(1 whistle) for easy cooking of the mixture. I am going to try it next time
One need to spread the mixture on the plate very quickly. The layer should be as thin as possible. It was my first time and i was not sure how thin it should be so i ended up using only 2 big plates instead of 3, but recomended is 3 :) and I am going to try it next time. But yes take it easy for the first time, you can spread it to your convinient thickness, but don't keep it too thick too :) so 1 plate is not at all acceptable.

When I was staying in bangalore, there use to be a person near MK Ahemad On CMH Road who use to serve the delicious paani puri. I always dreamed of preaparing the paani puri the way he use to make. Last week when I gave it a shot, it indeed turned out the same taste :) He also use to give one suka chatpata puri after a round of paani puri. So here is the recipe. Try it out, i bet it will keep on appearing on your menu quite frequently.

Paani Puri


Ingredients
25 small Puris
3 Potatoes
2.5 spoon Chaat Masala
2.5 spoon Aamchur powder
1/2 spoon + a pinch of Jeera powder
1/2 spoon + a pinch of Corriander powder
A pinch of Asafoetida
1 cup Corriander leaves
2 spoon Pudina leaves
2 Green Chillies
1 Lemon
6 cup water
Salt to taste

Method

• Boil the potatoes
• Mean time grind corriander leaves, pudina leaves, green chillies, 2 spoon Chaat masala, 2 spoon Aamchur powder, 1/2 spoon jeera powder, 1/2 spoon corriander powder and asafoetida with water
• Strain this mixture through strainer
• Mix the lemon juice and salt with it
• Mash the boiled potatoes
• Mix remaining jeera powder, corriander powder, chaat masala and aamchur powder with it
• Add 3-4 crushed puris to this mixture
• Add around 4 spoon of the water prepared earlier to this and smash again
• Now add this mixture to the puri one by one, add the water prepared earlier to this and serve immediately

Notes
You can add little sweetened tamarind chutney (by adding little extra jaggery) if you want little sweeter taste.

Suka Puri


Ingredients
6 Puris
2 Potatoes
1/2 spoon red chilli powder
1/2 Lemon
A pinch of Jeera powder
A pinch of Corriander powder
A pinch of Aamchur powder
Salt to taste

Method

• Boil the potatoes
• Smash the boiled potatoes after removing their cover
• Mix red chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, aamchur powder, salt to with it
• Add this mixture to the puris
• Add couple of drops of lemon juice on each puri and serve

Notes
You might want to add a pinch of chaat masala to the mixture if you plan to prepare only suka puri, but since suka puri is normally eaten after paani puri I avoid the chaat masala to have different taste than paani puri

When I was small mom use to cook this on all fasting days and I use to be waiting for such days as I just loved this amazing taste of rice with groundnut curry. Today when i heard from so many people that its shivraatri i couldn't resist fasting and eating this.

Samak Rice


Ingredients
1 cup Samak (Varyacha tandul)
2 cup Water
1/2 spoon Jeera
2 spoon Ghee
Salt to taste

Method

• Heat ghee in a pan
• Add jeera and let it sputter
• Add samak in it and fry till its pinkish
• Mix water, salt and cook on medium flame

Notes
You can add little ground nut powder as well while frying the rice. That will give nice taste and then no need to prepare groundnut curry. But i like groundnut curry so i didn't add it :)

Groundnut Curry


Ingredients
1 cup Groundnut
3 cup Water
2 spoon Jaggery
3-4 Green Chillies
3-4 Kokam
1/2 spoon Jeera
Salt to taste
1 spoon Ghee

Method

• Roast the groundnuts and remove the cover
• Grind the groundnuts by mixing water
• In a pan heat this grinded mixture
• Add jaggery, crushed green chillies, kokam and salt to it and boil
• In another pan heat the ghee, add jeera to it and let it sputter
• Mix this heated ghee and jeera with the boiling curry

Notes
One must grind the groundnuts to very fine paste otherwise water won't mix well with the curry and curry will have the groudnut paste at bottom and watery curry on top which doesn't taste nice at all