My Cooking Experiments

Cabbage Broccoli Kabab

2012-01-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

You may notice that the last recipe I posted used Cabbage too.. Its because, this is left over from the last week's Cabbage :) I had lot of left over Broccoli too.. So last evening I decided to make a mix vegetable out of it but it was only when I actually started making it I thought this would make great Kababs. They are really tasty and very easy and quick to make. I made them in half an hour.

Ingredients
2 Cups Cabbage
3 Cups Broccoli
1 Tomato
1 Spoon Oregano
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Mustard
1 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Lemon
1 Spoon Coriander Leaves
1 Spoon Pudina Leaves
2 Spoon Maida
1 Spoon Rice Powder
A Pinch of Asafoetida
1/4 Cup Cashews
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Heat half spoon of oil and add in tomato puree.
Add in oregano and red chilli powder and cook till completely done. Keep aside.
In a pan, heat another spoon of oil and let mustard, jeera splutter. Add in Asafoetida.
Add in Broccoli chopped into small pieces and cook with constant stirring till broccoli is almost done
Add in finely chopped cabbage, pudina leaves, coriander leaves and cook till cabbage turns light brown.
Add in earlier cooked tomato paste, lemon juice and salt to taste and cook for another minute. Take off heat and let it cool down.
Add in maida, rice powder and chaat masala. Mix well. Make balls with these mixture and press them between palms with a cashew.
Heat pan and add 2 spoons of oil and cook on both sides till they are brown.

Notes
I even had tomato paste ready for I had made it for Rice Bowl last week. I had made double quantity and had used half of it. Its a great item to store in fridge for quick flavoring

Bread Dahi Wada

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

As you know with New Years and my jetlag my unofficial resolution of the year is to eat anything but simple bread butter or cornflakes in breakfast :) So when Ajoy got bread with groceries I came up with this :)

Ingredients
8 Bread Slices
2.5 Cup Curd
2 Green Chillies
4 Garlic Cloves
3 Spoon Sugar
1/4 Spoon Black Pepper
A Pinch of Red Chilli Powder
A Pinch of Chaat Masala
Handful of Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Soak Bread slices in water and immediately press them in your palms to remove the water.
In a plate add this bread, finely chopped green chillies, garlic, ground pepper an salt to taste. Knead really well and make the lemon sized balls.
Fry these balls in hot oil till brown.
In a bowl mix curd, sugar, red chilli powder, chaat masala and salt to taste
In plates serve the fried bread mixture balls, covered with curd and garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves

Notes
If you are not going to eat all the wadas at a time, then keep the bread dough and fry it later, otherwise fried and stored wadas get little rubbery.

Cabbage Pattice

2012-01-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone. With parents around, then our vacation, in last few months, I had to hardly anytime make breakfast. So given the long break from cooking breakfast and Jetlag which makes me wake up really early in the morning, i was set to try out something different for breakfast. So here comes the new entry.

Ingredients
2 Cup Cabbage
2 Potatoes
2 Spoon Corn Flour
1/4 Cup Rava
1/2 Spoon Jeera
2-3 Garlic Cloves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Pressure cook potatoes and keep aside till they are cold enough to handle
Heat a pan and add few drops of oil.
Let the Jeera splutter in it.
Add in finely chopped garlic and cabbage and cook till cabbage is brown.
Grate the potato and add the corn flour, salt to paste
Knead it well, put couple of drops of oil and finish the kneading.
Make lemon sized potato balls and press them to make a cup shape.
Add in half spoon of mixture in each cup and close them. Press each ball lightly to make Pattice
Roll each Pattice in the rava and cook them on tawa sprinkling drops of oil couple of times.

Notes
I didn't want to make the cabbage very spicy instead i wanted to give it flavor of garlic and Jeera hence i didn't use any other spices in this at all. Its really upto you to decide the spices you want and can vary the flavor each time you make this.

Chocolate Ganache

2011-11-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I made this ganache for yummy eggless chocolate cake. This is the easiest way to create this sophisticating and professional looking ganache.

Ingredients
2 Cup Semisweet Chocochips
1 Cup Cream
1 Spoon Butter

Method

In a bowl add in 1 cup semisweet chocochips and butter. Microwave for 1 minute.
Add in remaining 1 cup chocochips and 1/2 cup cream. Mix well.
Microwave for another 30 seconds
Add in remaining 1/2 cup cream and stir till mixed thoroughly and is glossy and shiny.

Notes
Instead of microwaving, one can always use double boiler to melt chocolate and butter but microwave is easiest and clean way to melt chocolate.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

2011-11-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Atul's mom had asked me for egg-less cake recipe almost 6 months back but every time something or the other came up and I didn't get chance to try out anything. Today that we are going to his place for snacks I thought that it would be perfect time to try out and see how she likes it. The cake looks, tastes awesome. It is perfectly moist and fluffy, i think i like it better than this chocolate cake with the eggs or this birthday chocolate cake again with the eggs.

Ingredients
4.5 Cup Maida
1 Cup Coco Powder
3 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Oil
1 Spoon Baking Soda
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1 Spoon Salt

Method

Preheat oven to 350F/175C
Sieve together maida and coco powder in a bowl.
Add in baking soda and salt and mix well.
In another bigger bowl, add in oil, 3 cups of water, Vanilla Essence and beat it together until frothy.
Add in sugar and blend again.
Sieve in the maida-coco mixture into it and beat till mixed well.
Grease the baking pan and pour the mixture in it.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes on 350F/180C, turning it after 35minutes.

Notes
I drizzled it with Chocolate Ganache and decorated it with the saved white chocolate cream cheese frosting.
If you are going to decorate on top of Ganache then let it set down for 3-4 hours because i didn't and the decoration kept sliding off the place i intended it to stay.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

2011-10-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I have started liking the taste of cream cheese. I have used it in past with carrot cake and mixed indian spices to create floral taste for the icing. This time I decided to use the chocolate flavour given that i was making Red Velvet Cup Cakes which use the tinge of coco powder for chocolaty taste.

Ingredients
225gm Cream Cheese
225gm White Chocolate
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Icing Sugar

Method

In a bowl microwave half of the white chocolate for 1 minute.
Add in remaining white chocolate and mix well. Microwave for 15 seconds
Stir the chocolate well till it is smooth and completely melted. Keep aside
In another bowl beat the cream cheese till soft and smooth.
Add in the melted chocolate and beat again till smooth
Add in butter and beat again
Add in icing sugar and beat till soft, smooth and fluffy

Notes
When adding the chocolate, it should have cooled off, if not wait till it cools down. Don't pour warm chocolate in the cheese.

Red Velvet Cup Cakes

2011-10-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had made these when mom dad were around but they weren't perfect especially they were little on drier side. So this time I made little bit change in quantities and they come out perfect. I frosted them with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.

Ingredients
2.5 Cup Maida
1/4 Spoon Coca Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
1/4 Spoon Salt
1.5 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1.5 Cup Oil
2 Spoon Curd
1 Spoon Liquid Red Food Color
1/4 Spoon Vinegar
1/4 Spoon Vanilla Essence

Method

Preheat oven to 350F/175C
Sieve Maida and Coca Powder in a bowl
Mix in baking soda, salt and sugar in it
In separate bowl add in egg, oil, red food color, vanilla essence and vinegar.
In a cup add in the curd and fill it with water. Mix well with the fork and add it to the wet mixture (oil-egg mixture)
Beat the mixture on low speed till smooth
Add in sieved dry mixture of maida-coca powder a cup at a time and beat slowly till it accommodates in the mixture.
Line the cupcake pan with the paper cups. Divide the mixture in 12 cups.
Bake the cake on 350F/175C for 22 minutes

Notes
I normally turn around the cupcakes after 70% of baking time in this case around 15 minutes. It helps in even baking of the cakes.

Spice Paratha

2011-10-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I made these simple spice parathas today for dinner. They are very easy to make and taste yum.

Ingredients
2.5 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Maida
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

In a plate mix in maida, wheat flour, jeera, jeera powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt to taste.
Add in 2 spoon of oil and mix well.
Add water and knead the dough. Sprinkle 1 spoon of oil and knead again. Keep aside for at-least 30 minutes.
Make lemon sized balls and roll the 3 fold parathas and cook them on the tawa, sprinkling oil.

Notes
The turmeric gives them awesome yellowish tinge and they look awesome. I also cooked them with very few drops of oil and that helped in retaining the yellow tinge
Maida helps getting crisp parathas.

French Fries

2011-10-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Ajoy likes to eat french fries once in a while. We get those frozen ones and fry them as and when needed all the time. But i had been thinking of making them at home given that they are so simple. Always read about freezing them and keeping them cool before actually frying adding to the preparation time which off course i never had, given a sudden demand of french fries :) So last Saturday i decided to try them without refrigeration and all and worked out fine. So here is the quickest french fries recipe.

Ingredients
2 Potatoes
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Peel of the potatoes and cut them in small rectangular pieces.
Keep them under running water and wash them thoroughly till the water is clear.
Keep them in cold water for 5-10 minutes.
Take it out of water and spread them on kitchen towel so that they are dry.
Heat oil and fry them till light golden in color. Spread on kitchen towel
Just before eating, fry the fries again till golden brown in color.
Spread on kitchen towel, sprinkle salt and serve.

Notes
If you are making them for party, you could fry the fries for the first time and then store them in refrigerator. Fry them second time just before serving.
Two times frying is necessary as it helps in taking out moisture, cooking the potato and then making it crisp.

Mung Daal with peel Aappe

2011-08-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Mom had made these yummy aappe few times and we all liked it a lot. So this time i told her to show me the recipe. The aappe are easy to make and really healthy and tasty.

Ingredients
1.5 Cup Mung Daal with peel
2-3 Green Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1/4 Spoon Ginger piece
1/4 Onion
Two pinch Garam Masala
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Soak mung daal in water overnight.
In the morning take out all the water from the daal and add it in the mixer.
Add in green chillies, garlic and ginger. Grind to fine paste
Add in finely chopped coriander leaves and onion
Add in salt and garam masala and mix well.
Heat Aappe Pan and grease it well. Add in spoonful of mixture in each, sprinkle drop of oil on each aappe and cook covered for 2 minutes on medium flame till the sides separate from the pan.
Flip the aappes and cook without cover for another 2-3 minutes till the other side is done too. Serve while warm.

Notes
The daal can be soaked for couple of hours as well, so if making it for evening snack you need not have to soak it in the morning itself and these can be made on few hours notice.

Veg Manchurian

2011-08-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I like Indian style Chinese a lot and I make it very regularly. But after loosing Kitchen to Mom :), it was while since we had Chinese. So on Friday, I decided to take the kitchen in control and make Chinese menu for dinner. I have made Veg Machurian so many times but every time I had trouble with photo, so this time since the photo also came out okayish, here is the recipe.

Ingredients
2 Cup Cabbage
2 Cup Carrots
2 Cup Beans
1 Bell Pepper
1 Green Chilli
3 Spoon Corn Flour
5 Spoon Maida
1 Spoon Garlic Paste
2 Garlic Cloves
3 Stems of Spring Onions
1/4 Cup Sweet Chilli Sauce
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
2 Spoon Hot Chilli Sauce
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Chop cabbage, carrots, green chillies, beans and pepper into fine pieces.
Add in salt to taste and mix well.
Add in garlic paste, 4 spoon of Maida and 2 spoon of corn flour. Knead well to make the dough
Make small balls from this dough and roll each of them into the remaining Maida and fry in the medium hot oil till golden in color. Keep aside.
Heat oil in pan and add in finely chopped garlic cloves, spring onion's white part and fry till light brown in color.
Add in sweet chilli sauce, hot chilli sauce, soy sauce and mix well.
Take 3 cups of water and mix in 1 spoon of corn starch. Add it to the sauce that is boiling in the pan. Mix well
Add in the Manchurian balls made earlier and cook for couple of minutes. Garnish with spring onion's green part and serve.

Notes
Normally I add in salt and keep aside the mixture of finely chopped vegetables aside so that i don't need to add extra water nor do the dough loosens after a while because of all the water that salt would come from the vegetables.
Instead of using sweet chilli and and hot chilli sauces, I have also used 3 spoon chilli flakes, 1/4 Cup Vinegar and 2 spoon sugar instead.

Pachadi

2011-08-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Now that mom is here, she made this awesome pachadi two days back. I loved it so much that I asked her to show me how to make it the very next day when we were actually going to eat Paani Puri for the dinner :) Nevertheless we had this pachadi after eating paani puri with excuse that something healthy after something chatpata :)

Ingredients
2 Cup Cabbage
1 Cup Carrot
1 Tomato
3/4 Cup Onion
1 Spoon Groundnut Powder
1 Spoon Sugar
1 Green Chilli
Handful of Coriander Leaves
1 Lemon
1/4 Spoon Mustard Seeds
A pinch of Asafoetida
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Finely chop cabbage and add it to the bowl
Add finely chopped tomato
Add finely chopped onion
Add in finely chopped coriander leaves and green chilli
Add in grated carrots
Add in groundnut powder, sugar and salt to taste
Squeez lemon juice in it and mix well.
Heat a spoon of oil in the small pan and add in mustard seeds and Asafoetida and let the mustard splutter.
Add it to the mixture and mix well.

Notes
If you are going to serve it to guests, you could finely chop all the veggies and then at the last moment just before serving, mix in sugar, salt and add in heated oil-mustard. It would be much more fresh and would taste better than the complete procedure done in advance.

Eggplant Bhaji

2011-06-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Pakoda - Bhaji is quite famous in Maharashtra. All weddings must have these, when guests are invited, you have to have this item. Its been quite long time since we had bhaji so i decided to make them on Monday but decided to give it a twist. Given that eggplant is so easily available here i thought why not use it. The experiment was quite successful so here is the recipe.

Ingredients
2 Cup diced Eggplant
1 Onion
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Cup Besan
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Mix in diced eggplant, diced onion, chilli powder, besan, turmeric powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, finely chopped coriander leaves and salt to taste. Add in some water to make the paste.
Heat oil. Add couple of spoon of oil to the paste and mix well.
Take a small lemon sized ball from the paste and flatten it a bit
Fry on medium heat till done on both sides. Serve immediately

Notes
Normally i would wait around 5 minutes after mixing all ingredients but before adding water. The salt with all the veggies secrets water so if you wait your paste doesn't end up loosing consistency later on while you are in the middle of frying.

Vanilla Icecream

2011-06-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is Ajoy's favorite flavor in ice-cream which i finally made last Saturday. This is so easy and tasty flavor that i wonder why i didn't make it earlier. The texture of the ice-cream came out so well, so much better than the store bought ice-cream.

Ingredients
1 liter Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Vanilla Extract

Method

In a mixie blend sugar and 1/2 liter of milk together till sugar completely till it dissolves.
In a bowl mix the milk-sugar mixture, cream and vanilla extract and whisk with fork till everything is combined.
Set the mixture in ice-cream bowl according to the ice-cream maker's instructions.

Notes
I used heavy whipping cream instead of light whipping cream so if using light whipping cream, you may need to use 4.5 cups of cream instead for the smooth flavor.

Payesh

2011-06-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had made this earlier too but today i thought i would make this for milind and ajoy. Its one of ajoy's favorite sweet dish and so easy to make.

Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
3/4 Cup Rice
1.25 cup Jaggery

Method

Boil the milk and reduce to 3/4th.
Wash rice and and add it to the boiling milk. Let it cook completely.
Take off the heat once the rice is cooked completely. Add in grated jaggery
Mix well and let it dissolve completely. Chill and serve.

Notes
Cook the milk and rice over medium heat with constant stirring so as to avoid burning.

Cashew Pistachio Cookies dipped in Chocolate

2011-05-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I made this for taking with us to trip tomorrow for memorial day weekend. Perfect snacks for travel. Its inspired by the short bread Ajoy got from Costco couple of times.

Ingredients
3 Cup Maida
2 Cup Butter
1.25 Cup Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/2 Cup Pistachios
1 Cup Semi-sweet Choco Chips
1/4 Cup White Choco Chips
5 Spoon Shortening

Method

In a bowl cream butter and sugar together till fluffy.
Add in egg yolk and vanilla essence and cream again
Grind the cashews to fine powder and add it to the above mixture
Sift in maida and mix together till nice stiff dough is formed.
Form the lemon sized balls and store them in fridge for around 1 hour
Preheat oven to 375F/190C
Chop the pistachios
Press each dough ball using palms to thick discs. Sprinkle the pistachios on half portion of each cookie disc and press lightly to secure the pistachios in the cookie
Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and grease it. Transfer the discs on to the baking pan keeping an inch of distance between each of them
Bake at 375F/190C for 12 minutes
Let the cookies cool for 5-10 minutes.
In a bowl mix in semi sweet chocochips and 4 spoon of shortening and microwave for 1 minutes stirring once after 30 minutes. Mix till nice glossy.
Line the baking sheet with fresh parchment paper. Dip each cookie's part which isn't covered by pistachios in the chocolate and set it on parchment paper.
Mix white choco chips and remaining 1 spoon of shortening for 30 seconds and stir in till smooth and glossy. Fill it in a piping bag and make zig zag lines over the semi sweet chocolate on the cookie. Let the chocolate set for an hour.

Notes
If you dont have microwave you can heat chocolate and shortening in a bowl set over the boiling water. Stir till the mixture is smooth and dont let the chocolate burn. Microwave is really easy method and one doesnt need to worry much except to check it every 30 seconds so I prefer to temper the chocolate in microwave.

Lychee Icecream

2011-05-26T02:24:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Here almost all stores sell the canned lychees but never the fresh ones. Last month I decided to give it a try especially for ice-cream. It turns out that if you use the syrup you get pretty good flavor from one can

Ingredients
1 Can of Seedless Lychee
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
1 Lemon

Method

Take out lychees from the syrup and put the syrup in the mixie.
Add in sugar and milk and blend it till the sugar is disolved.
Mix in cream and lemon juice and whisk a bit.
Add it in ice-cream maker and let it set.
Fine chop the lychees and mix that in the ice-cream around 3-4 minutes before the setting is complete.

Notes
If using fresh lychees just use around 30 lychees. Puree around 15 of them with 2 cups of water and use that instead of lychee syrup and finely chop remaining lychees. You might need to use probably 2/3 cup of sugar.
The lemon helps in bringing out the taste from the lychee.

Tandoori Gobi

2011-05-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today before meeting everyone were discussing about the barbeque and since then i couldn't stop thinking of making tandoori something. With gobi in the fridge i decided to go for it. The dinner was yummy just because of it.

Ingredients
1 Cauliflower
1 Cup Curd
1.5 Spoon Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Chaat Masala
2 Green Chillies
2 Spoon Ginger
10 Garlic Cloves
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Cut the cauliflower into medium sized florets and add it in water. Add salt and microwave for 7 minutes. Separate out from water and keep aside.
In a mixer add in ginger, garlic, ginger and 2 spoon of curd. Make fine paste.
In a bowl add the above made paste, remaining curd, chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste. Mix well.
Add in the cauliflower florets in it and mix well. Keep in fridge for atleast 2 hours
Heat the pan and add in oil. Spread out cauliflower florets and cook on medium heat till one side is completely done. Flip and cook the other side. Cook from all sides possible and then take out.
Garnish with chaat masala and serve with mint chutney, onions and lemon

Notes
I had cooked cauliflower for 5 minutes but i think 7 minutes would be perfect to make it nice and soft.
You can grill the cauliflower on barbeque, if doing use skewer to pierce through 3-4 cauliflowers.

Sugar Free Date Almond Laadu

2011-04-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Yesterday I was going to prepare Chocolate Macaroons for which I had to powder the almonds but when i made the almond powder it was little moist and not a fine powder that i needed for the macaroons. That is when I sent Ajoy to get more almonds and i made these laadus. They are very yummy and sugar free is bonus :)

Ingredients
2 Cup Almonds
1 Cup Dates
3-4 Spoon Raisins

Method

Powder the almonds.
Divide it in two batches. In each batch add 1/2 cup dates and make a thick paste in mixer.
Knead the mixture. Make small round balls inserting couple of raisins in each of them. Serve.

Notes
I decided to use sweetness of raisins and dates to complement Almonds instead of adding sugar or jaggery which really worked for me as I don't like items too sweet. You can add couple of spoon sugar in case you feel it lacking sweetness.

Paneer

2011-03-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

These days the paneer quality that we are getting here isnt that great. It almost makes the paneer as my non liked item which is not the case. Ajoy and me both like paneer a lot so that is unacceptable.. Its not like i never made paneer, I had been making this for sweets regularly but didnt make it for vegetable for the good quality paneer was always available.. But since now that is not the case I decided to make this for adding it to the vegetables too. Turns out i was missing so much for last few years that I didn't make it at home.

Ingredients
2 Liter Whole Milk
3 Spoon Vinegar

Method

Bring milk to boil.
When it almost comes to boil add in vinegar mixed with cup of cold water and stir well.
Milk will cuddle and separate from whey.
Pour this into the cheese or muslin cloth and let water drain out.
Run in cold water through it to let it come to room temperature. Tie the muslin cloth tightly.
Fill in the cooker fully with water and keep it on top of the paneer. Let it rest overnight.

Notes
Lot of people use lemon juice but i like to use vinegar as it is easy to remove the sour taste that it brings in and paneer gets its own taste.
Don't use half and half for this, the paneer would be too creamy and wont give you the texture you need in the paneer. Whole milk or reduced fat milk would be perfect for this.

Fig Gelato

2011-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Since childhood my favourite fruit was Fig more than even mango.. With known love i share for mango it would be hard to believe but its true :) Whenever i had to choose something while playing i would always pick fig.. Then as i grew up i was introduced to Sujata's (the famous ice-cream parlour in pune) fir ice-cream... Even till date whenever I go to pune i have atleast a tub of fig ice-cream.. So now you might wonder how come i waited so long to make this ice-cream then, but the thing is it was so hard to find dried figs here that I had to get them from India :) So now that I have it I couldnt wait but make this awesome gelato..

Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
250g Dried Fig
3/4 Cup Honey
1 Spoon Lemon Juice

Method

Soak the figs in two cup of milk. Keep aside for atleast two hours
In a mixie grind the soaked fig to paste, keeping aside 4-5 figs.
Add in lemon juice and honey and blend again.
Add this paste to remaning milk and stir well.
Set the ice-cream as per ice-cream maker instructions.
Dice the remaining figs and mix it in the set ice-cream.

Notes
I dont like to wait after i start making ice-cream, so I use chilled milk. Also while soaking figs, i keep them in fridge that way they chill too and i dont need to wait for the mixture to chill before i put it in ice-cream maker.

Tandoori Prawns

2011-03-02T00:58:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Its been a while since Seattle saw sun barring couple of days last week so having barbeques in patio is long gone time. But this is my effort to feel like those beautiful sunny evenings.. I came up with recipe on my own as I started adding spices but the taste was so good that i cant wait to fry remaining prawns tomorrow night.

Ingredients
3/4 Kg Prawns
1 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Cup Thick Curd
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Clean the prawns shells and marinate it with salt.
Add in ginger paste, chilli powder, corriander powder, jeera powder, garam masala, turmeric powder and mix well. Keep aside for atleast half an hour.
Add oil to a pan and heat it really well.
In the earlier marinated prawns, add in tandoori masala and curd. Mix well. Add this mixture onto the heated pan.
Let the prawns cook on medium heat without flipping or stirring them till the side is completely done. Then flip them and cook the otherside too. Take of the heat and serve.

Notes
Cooking on medium heat and not flipping the prawns serves as great trick to get that tandoori-charred-smoky flavour that any authentic tandoori dishes have.

Kadboli

2011-03-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Kadboli is Maharashtrian faral dish. You might wonder why am i posting this after so many months of diwali. But given that world cup has started in full swing, i thought it would be good to have some crunchy home made snack instead of just plain chips. So late on sunday I decided to make them whole lot of kadbolis and soon realised that it is too much of work to shape them. Thats when I came up with the idea of using chakali gun with this disc to shape them instead. With these they are bite size and make perfect snack for movies or games :)

Ingredients
4 Cup Rice Powder
3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Mix rice powder with butter and salt really well
Add in milk and make the dough
Take a small lemon sized balls and roll them with hand and make a long rope shape. Give it in a shape of circle. Fry in medium hot oil till pink in color
Alternately, put in the dough in the chakali gun and press the circular shapes in the medium hot oil and fry till pink in color

Notes
Dont fry till brown in color as the color darkens a bit after a while.

Corn Coriander Paratha

2011-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

To all the blogger readers Happy New year. After rejuvenating holidays this is my first post of the new year. Well I had made these parathas the day Ajoy came from India but its today I finally get to post the recipe. The parathas are very simple easy, using whatever I had in fridge but the end product was very tasty.

Ingredients
2 Cup Corn
2 Cup Wheat Flour
Handful of Coriander Leaves
5 Garlic Cloves
2 Green Chillies
1/2 Lemon
Chaat Masala
Salt to taste
Ghee
Oil

Method

Add in a spoon of oil in the wheat flour. Add water and knead the soft dough. Keep it aside.
Microwave the corn for two minutes.
In a mixie add in garlic, coriander, green chillies, corn, lemon juice and salt and make a smooth paste.
Make lemon sized dough balls and roll two rotis.
On one roti, spread the corn-coriander paste, roll over the second roti and close the sides.
On hot tawa, cook it over medium flame with ghee and oil.
Sprinkle a pinch of chaat masala on top and serve with pickle and cold curd

Notes
I microwaved the corns instead of boiling them as its quick and easy but if you don't have microwave you can always boil them with water and then let the water drain out.

Strawberry Crepes

2010-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had made them almost a month back but had forgotten about them. It was yesterday I realized that I have forgotten to post this recipe. Then I looked around and realized that since I didn't have laptop that time because of battery issue I had forgotten images on Ajoy's laptop and that was the root cause I missed posting this recipe on time. But here it is, one of the quickest and delicious breakfast.

Ingredients
3 Cup Strawberries
1/2 Cup Maida
1.5 cup Milk
1/2 Spoon Melted Butter
2 Eggs
1/4 Spoon Vanilla Essence
2 Spoon Sugar
Salt to taste

Method

In a bowl, mix in finely diced strawberries and 1 spoon sugar and keep aside.
In another bowl mix in maida, milk, remaining 1 spoon sugar, butter, vanilla essence, eggs and salt to taste. Blend together using hand mixer to form a uniform batter.
Heat the tawa and spread a cup of batter on the tawa each time, tilt tawa each time to get thin crepes.
Cook both sides on medium heat till light brown and take out on the plate.
Spread couple of spoon of strawberry sugar mixture on top of the crepe and fold to make a roll. Sprinkle some powdered sugar if you like and serve.

Notes
I used nonstick tawa so that I didn't need to grease the pan, the butter in the batter was good enough

Watermelon Splash

2010-10-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today after dinner I wanted to try out something new with watermelon and here is the chatpata juice i came up with.

Ingredients
1/2 Watermelon
2 Big Lemons
4 Spoon Sugar
6-7 Pudina Leaves
1/4 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
Pinch of Black Pepper Powder
Salt to taste

Method

Dice the watermelon and add it to the mixer bowl.
Add in lemon juice, sugar, pudina leaves, salt, chaat masala, jeera powder.
Using the crushing blade let the mixture blend together in a mixie
Pour it in glasses and sprinkle black pepper powder on top. Chill
Garnish with small pudina leaves and small scoops of watermelon.

Notes
Since I was so waiting to drink this, to chill it faster, i kept it in fridger for 10 minutes :) Alternatively you can also use already chilled watermelon so that you dont need to wait even 10 minutes :)

Chocolate Cake

2010-10-29T01:24:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This week I had to bake two cakes one for fondant decoration class and one for flowers decoration class. So this is the cake i made for flowers decoration class. I wanted to decorate it with white flowers which would have tinge of pink/yellow but I ended up with bad icing.. Thats when I decorated with whatever flowers I had made over last month in the class. So here is yet another simple cake recipe that came out so well.

Ingredients
1.5 Cup Maida
1 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1 Spoon Coca Powder
1 Spoon Baking Powder
3 Eggs

Method

Preheat oven to 325F/160C
Sieve through maida, coca powder and baking powder in a bowl
Add in melted butter, sugar and eggs and mix well till the mixture is uniform
Grease the cake pan and add in the batter
Bake at 325F/160C for 30 minutes
Let the cake cool down the cake for 5 minutes and then take it out and cooling grid. Let it cool completely. Serve

Notes
I made two batches of this cake in a 8 inch loaf tin and them i used melted chocolate between them to make a tall rectangular cake. Covered with chocolate flavored butter icing and decorated with royal icing flowers

Plain Cake

2010-10-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I made this simple cake for my Fondant decoration class.. It tasted awesome with and without icing :)

Ingredients
5 cup Maida
2.5 Cup Butter
2.5 Cup Castor Sugar
2 Spoon Baking Powder
1.5 Spoon Lemon Juice
4 Eggs

Method

Preheat oven to 325F/160C
Sieve through baking powder and maida in a bowl
Add in sugar, melted butter, lemon juice and eggs and mix thoroughly till the mixture is glossy
Prepare a cake pan ready by greasing it. Add the batter into the pan
Bake the cake on 325F/160C for 1 hour
Take out of the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes and then take it out on cooling grid and let it cool completely. Decorate or serve as it is.

Notes
The cake was really ok as it is but when i decorated it, it was little extra sweet. May be next time i should reduce the sugar quantity if i am going to decorate it.

Stuffed Bhendi

2010-10-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had got this recipe from mom like 10 months back but finally gave this a shot today. It turned out as good as mom makes. Its one of my fav preparation of bhendi and am sharing it here.

Ingredients
1/2 Kg Okra
1.5 Cup Grated Coconut
1/2 Spoon Saunf
1/4 Spoon Mustard
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1 Cup Curd
A Pinch of Asafoetida
A Pinch of Sugar
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Wash okra and slice it vertically into halves.
In a bowl mix curd, grated coconut, 1/4 spoon of saunf, red chilli powder and garam masala
Heat oil in a pan and add in mustard seeds and remaining 1/4 spoon of saunf. Let them splutter
Add in Asafoetida, sliced okra and earlier made coconut-curd-masala mixture in it. Stir well
Cover the pan and add water on the lid. With few stirring in between let it cook till almost done.
Add in sugar and salt and stir again. Cover the lid and cook till completely done.

Notes
This vegetable is best when the Okras are fresh and tender. The hard ones are difficult to cook and not as tasty either.

Ras Malai

2010-10-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Ajoy wanted me to make this for Dasara but ended up getting the raw material (aka milk) quite late on sunday. So I made it yesterday. It has turned fabulous and the sweetness is perfect not too sweet not too bland..

Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
2 Spoon Vinegar
1 Pinch of Saffron
1/4 Spoon Cardamom Powder
1/4 Cup Almonds
1/4 Cup Pistachios
3 Cup Sugar

Method

Boil 1 liter of milk in a pan.
Mix vinegar in half cup water and add it gradually to the boiling milk.
When the whey separates from milk fat strain it on cheese or muslin cloth. Run through cold water and let it hang for an hour or two so that water is drained completely out from the paneer
Start boiling remaining 1 liter of milk in a wide pan, stir continuously and let it reduce to half.
Add in safron and 1/2 cup sugar in it and let it simmer for another couple of minutes. Keep aside.
Mix in remaining 2.5 cup of sugar with 1.5 liter of water in a cooker or wider pan. Bring it to boil
Mean while knead the paneer really well till its smooth. Make small flat discs and drop them in the boiling sugar water. Cover with the lid (if in cooker don't put the whistle on) and let it cook for 10 minutes on high.
Let it sit covered for another 5 minutes and then uncover the pan and keep the discs in syrup and let it come to warm temperature. At this point the discs would have doubled in size.
Take each disc in your palm and press lightly to remove the syrup from it, then drop these discs in a bowl.
In earlier prepared milk add in cardamom powder and finely chopped almonds and pistachios. Pour this milk over the discs in the bowl. Chill and serve.

Notes
I soak the almonds in water for couple of hours so that you can very easily chop them.
You can also use half liter of half and half instead of using 1 liter milk to make ras of the ras malai. Just let it simmer and add in saffron.
I didnt have big vessel to accomodate all the discs in one go for cooking, so i cooked the half of discs as mentioned, then added 2 cups of water to the syrup and cooked rest of the discs. Keeping sugar syrup thin is key to make those discs soft. Dont overcrowd the disc so that they have space to double in size

Nutty Butterscotch Chocolate Cake

2010-09-16T03:02:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Yesterday I was looking for cake recipe so that I can bake a cake to take into my cake decoration class. First I thought I will bake some simple quick cake and get done with it, but as I approached kitchen I couldn't resist but look into my recipe book for some instant reference to cook something different. I liked a peanut butter recipe in there but because I didn't have peanut butter I decided to give it twist and make my own version of cake. It was delicious and even smelling so good that it was huge hit in my decoration class as well.

Ingredients
4 Cup Maida
2.5 Cup Butter
1 Cup Hazelnuts
1 Cup Almonds
1.5 Cup Sugar
3 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
2 Cup Butterscotch Chocochips
2 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Grind hazelnuts and almonds to fine powder and keep it aside.
Cream butter and sugar together till fluffy.
Add in hazelnut-almonds powder and whisk again.
Add in each egg one at a time and beat well after each addition
Sieve maida and baking powder couple of times. Add salt to taste.
Add maida-baking powder mixture alternating with milk slowly into the egg-butter-sugar mixture and fold in carefully.
Microwave chocochips for 1 minutes and stir well to get molten chocolate. Fold it in the batter lightly
Grease the pan and line it with parchment paper. Grease the paper as well. Pour the batter in the cake till half full.
Bake the cake in oven on 350F/180C for 40 minutes
Decorate with icing or serve as it is.

Notes
I used two 8 inch round tins to bake the cake but after baking I thought I should have used one 8 inch and one 6 inch instead to get perfect rise in both the cakes.
I iced one cake with butter icing as part of my cake decorating classes and we ate another cake as it is. Both taste awesome, but I would use dark chocolate or less sugar if I am going to ice the cake next time.
Recently I came to know that preheating oven at least 15 minutes in advance helps to get oven to heat uniformly even hot so I tried this time and results were superb, the cake rose from all sides and there was literally no bump.

Sandwich

2010-09-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is my favorite bengali sweet. So when I was making Ajoy's favorite mishti dohi i decided to pamper myself with these. Turned out very delicious.

Ingredients
2 liter Milk
4 Spoon Vinegar
1 Spoon Rawa
2 Cups Khoya
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
2.5 Cup Sugar
Silver leaf
Pistachio Powder
A pinch of Baking Powder
Couple Pinch of Saffron

Method

Keep 1/4 cup milk aside and bring remaining milk to boil and add in vinegar mixed with two spoon of water.
Stir till the whey separates out and milk cuddles.
Strain it through sieve and run through cold water. Let it sit there for 5 minutes so that water drains out completely.
Mix sugar with 6 cups of water in a cooker and bring it to boil.
Take out this paneer from the sieve and knead till very soft dough forms.
Add in rawa and baking powder and knead again.
Make thin flat squares and add half of them into the sugar syrup boiling in cooker
Close the cooker lid and let out one whistle. Lower the heat and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Let it cool
Takeout the cooked paneer and add another 2 cups of water in the cooker. Bring it to boil and add remaining paneer pieces to cook just like the earlier ones.
When the second batch is cooled down store all paneer pieces with the syrup in the fridge overnight
In the morning grate the khoya and add in powdered sugar in it.
Warm the remaining 1/4 cup of milk and add in the Saffron in it. Add it to the khoya and knead till smooth.
Take out the cooked paneer pieces from the fridge and cut each into triangle shape
Make sandwiches by adding a layer of khoya paste we made between two triangles. Also sprinkle some pistachio powder on the khoya layer as well as on top of the sandwich
Garnish with the silver leaf and serve chilled.

Notes
Instead of making thick pieces and cutting it through i made thin slices to begin with. So i could use single piece as it is.

Dry Fruit Chocolate

2010-09-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

One day while watching Foodnetwork channel I saw this recipe and liked it at that very moment, for it is so simple yet so elegant. Dont remember exact measures and all but here is my own version of the same.

Ingredients
350g White chocolate
120g Dark Chocolate
1 Cup Walnuts
1/2 Cup Apricot
1/2 Cup Cranberries

Method

Heat oven to 350F/180C and bake walnuts in it for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool down.
In a bowl microwave white chocolate for 1.5 minutes stirring it every 30 sec. It should be smooth soft molten chocolate.
In another bowl microwave dark chocolate for 1.5 minute stirring it every 30sec.
Line a plate/tray with parchment paper and pour the white chocolate in the center. Spread it over the plate to get smooth layer
Pour dark chocolate on four corners and with a fork mix it in with white chocolate creating patterns
Dice apricots and walnuts, sprinkle them along with cranberries on top of the chocolate.
Let mixture come down to room temperature and then transfer it to fridge to set it hard.

Notes
The recipe that I had watched only used white chocolate, but I didnt use white chocolate completely as it would make it very sweet. So instead used dark chocolate to balance out the sweetness. Earlier once I had used semi sweet chocochips instead but that too was sweet to my tooth so this time i used dark chocolate. One can use mix of dark and semi sweet chocochips as well.

Mishti Dohi

2010-09-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is one of Ajoy's favorite sweet, which is simple to make, yet I had trouble making it given that its so difficult to set curd out here. I tried so many times, so many different ways and it did work few times but results weren't consistent. But now that I have learned the exact trick that works here, I made this perfect sweet.

Ingredients
1.5 Liter Milk
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Curd

Method

Bring milk to boil.
Add 1/4 cup of sugar and keep the milk boiling till it reduces to around 1 liter in volume. Stir continuously to avoid burning
At this moment keep reducing milk, but also in another bowl add in remaining 3/4cup of sugar with 1/4 cup of water and let it boil
When the sugar water turns dark golden in color, reduce the heat of boiling milk and add the sugar mixture into the milk.
Boil the milk for another 5 minutes and let it sit till it is warm to touch
In a bowl add curd and add a cup of earlier made browned and sweetened milk. Mix well.
Add in remaining milk, mix well and cover with the lid and let it set overnight
Let it chill in fridge for couple of hours. Serve cold

Notes
Here to make the right quality curd, I keep the curd pot inside the casserole (the one which keep items hot) and then keep the casserole into the oven with the light on. Note that i dont preheat oven nor it is on whole night. Just the light is on, the casserole helps in maintaining the temperature while light keeps giving enough warmness to sustain it.
While adding the caramelized - brown colored sugar syrup be careful and add it slowly as the temperature differences make it suddenly splutter out and might burn your hands.
You can also set it in individual bowls and serve each bowl directly.
Try to use whole milk for better results. To make my life easier I used 1 liter of Half and Half. I didnt have to reduce the milk quantity that way.

Dhokar Dalna

2010-09-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been meaning to cook it ever since I had it in Kolkata at relative's place. I wasnt feeling all that great that day so couldnt enjoy it to fullest but whatever I had was sure good enough to motivate me to make it. So finally after almost an year I get chance to make this.

Ingredients
2 Cup Harbara Daal
2 Tomato
2 Green Chillies
2 Spoon Ginger
5 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
Oil
Ghee
Salt

Method

Soak the daal overnight and keep aside.
In a mixie, grind the daal to smooth paste. Keep aside
In a pan, add in couple spoon of oil and let jeera splutter in it.
Add in 1 spoon of grated ginger, turmeric powder, salt and daal paste we made earlier. Cook till daal separates from sides of the pan.
Grease a plate and pour the daal mixture over it and spread uniformly. Let it cool.
Cut the diamond shaped pieces of this daal and shallow fry them in oil. Keep aside.
In a mixie, grind tomato, green chillies, remaining 1 spoon of ginger, garlic cloves to fine paste.
Heat a pan with spoonful of oil and add the above ground tomato paste in it. Cook till mixture is cooked.
Add in jeera powder, coriander powder, salt and 3 cups of water. Let it boil.
Add in earlier fried daal dhokas in it and let the mixture simmer till dhokas start absorbing the gravy.
Garnish with spoonful of ghee and serve.

Notes
I didnt make the gravy too spicy and hence didnt make use of garam masala. Instead I kept it light and let the dhoka taste through the gravy. Worked out quite well.

Veg Biryaani

2010-09-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been making this for a while now, but its only yesterday that I actually managed to click the photos. So here I am posting this recipe, esp for all my vegetarian friends who are craving for Biryaani.

Ingredients
3 Cup Rice
350g Bhendi
250g Small Eggplants
250g Carrots
2 Raw Bananas
4 Potatoes
4 Onion
3 Tomato
2 Spoon Pudina Leaves
10 Garlic Cloves
2 Spoon Grated Ginger
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Almonds
1 Spoon Dry Coconut
1/2 Spoon Poppy Seeds
2 Dried Red Chillies
1/4 Spoon Saunf
1/4 Spoon Black Pepper
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Corriander Seeds
3/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Cardamom
2 Cloves
3 Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Milk
A Pinch Of Saffron
Salt to taste
Ghee
Oil

Method

Pressure cook 2 potatoes
Soak rice in warm water for half an hour.
Soak poppy seeds and keep aside
Fry the whole egg plants, bhendi, peeled and diced bananas, 2 potatoes, and carrots and keep aside.
Boil a pot full of water and add in the soaked rice. Cook till almost done Let the extra water drain completely through sieve.
Heat a spoon of ghee and add in cardamoms, a cinnamon stick, cloves and salt. Add it to the rice and keep it aside.
Heat oil and add in finely chopped 2 onions. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
In same pan heat another spoon of oil and add in jeera, red chillies, coriander seeds, black pepper, saunf, dried coconut, cinnamon, 1/4 cup cashews and almonds.
Add in garam masala, red chili powder, poppy seeds, pudina leaves and earlier fried onions. Cook till spices start spreading aroma.
Let the mixture cool down and then adding the chopped tomatoes grind it to fine paste.
Heat the ghee and add in the ground mixture. Fry till oil separates
Add in all fried vegetables and salt to taste and cook for couple of minutes. Keep aside.
Warm the milk with safron and keep aside.
Deep fry the thin sliced onions and cashews till they are crisp and light brown in color. Keep aside
In a greased cooker layer the sliced boiled potatoes, then 1/3rd of rice, 1/2 of vegetable, again 1/3rd portion of rice, remaining half of the vegetable and remaining portion of the rice.
With big spatula make through and through wholes in the layer and sprinkle the safron milk.
Let the cooker sit on low heat till the pressure builds up. Garnish with the earlier fried crisp onions and cashews. Serve hot with raita.

Notes
Instead of cooking vegetables in gravy i added fried vegetables to the gravy. The taste was awesome and i could make sure that none of the vegetables are underdone or overdone.
I also wished I had those baby potatoes instead and could use them whole deep fried instead of diced ones.

Paneer Pattice

2010-08-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today morning Ajoy demanded something fancy and new for breakfast. After thinking for a while I came up with this :) It was tasty and we had it as brunch instead :)

Ingredients
4 Cup Finely diced Paneer
4 Potatoes
3 Spoon Corn Flour
1 Spoon Ginger
3 Green Chillies
5 Garlic Cloves
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Cook the potatoes in pressure cooker.
In a mixie grind ginger, garlic and green chillies with 1/4 cup of water to fine paste.
Heat oil in a pan and turmeric powder and the paste in it and saute for couple of minutes
Add the diced paneer and salt it in it and cook till paneer is done well. Keep aside
Peel off the potatoes and mash them to fine paste.
Add in corn flour and salt to taste and knead to nice dough
Make lemon sized balls and press down to make cups.
Fill these cups with spoonful of paneer we made earlier and add close and flatten it
Heat oil really well and fry till brown on all sides. Serve hot with ketchup

Notes
While frying the pattice, the oil should be really hot otherwise the potato coating will stick to the bottom.

Chicken Rolls

2010-08-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Its been a while since I made any chicken dish.. It was always Ajoy who ended up cooking chicken or mutton which obviously is exactly of one type. Gravy remains same and chicken or mutton changes :) So today I thought probably i can make some chicken dish to surprise him. What would have been better than his favorite roll.

Ingredients
500g Boneless Chicken
2 Cup Maida
1/2 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Big Onion
1 Cup Broccoli
1 Cup finely diced Tomato
1/2 Cup Tomato Ketchup
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Grated Ginger
8 Garlic Cloves
Salt
Oil

Method

Mix in maida, wheat flour, salt and couple of spoon of oil and add in water and knead the dough well. Keep aside.
Dice the chicken into small cubes.
Heat oil in a pan and add in the chicken cubes. Cook stirring it occasionally
When chicken turns white in color, add in grated ginger, turmeric powder, red chili powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, garam masala and pepper powder and cook till masalas start to leave aroma
Add in tomato ketch up and cook further for 5 more minutes.
Add in diced tomatoes and salt and cook till chicken is done completely stirring occasionally. Keep aside
Heat a shallow pan with a spoonfull of oil and add in sliced onions, diced garlic and brocoli and cook till they are completely done. Add in salt and a pinch of pepper powder and stir well. Keep aside
Beat the egg and put it in wide pan.
Make a small lemon sized balls of the dough and roll thin roti
Dunk the roti into the egg only on one side and then put it on the hot tawa with the non egg washed side down
Sprinkle few drops of oil on to top of the roti and flip it and cook till both the sides are done. Put it on a plate
Spread couple spoon of chicken we made earlier in the middle as one line. Add in half spoon of onion-brocolli mixture on it.
Fold the roti from the bottom and then folding the left side on top of the mixture and roll tightly to cover the mixture completely. Serve hot with ketchup or just like that.

Notes
I wanted to keep the rotis light so instead of putting a complete egg on top of each roti i chose to egg wash one side and that worked well. rotis were light and the taste of chicken came out really well.

Lemon Date Cupcakes

2010-08-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Recently i started watching food network and some programs are really good.. One of them is Cup cake wars.. I was amazed at how people come up with their own recipe and create those beautiful cupcakes. So here i my share of mix and match inspired cup cake.

Ingredients
4 Cup Maida
3 Cup Dates
2 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Cream
1 Cup Icing Sugar
1.5 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Lemons
1 Spoon Baking Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
Salt to taste

Method

Grind a cup of dates in with the milk to form smooth paste. Keep aside.
Whip sugar and butter using hand mixer till mixture is smooth and fluffy
Add eggs and blend well to get smooth mixture.
Sieve Maida, Baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
Add it to the butter, sugar - egg mixture in portions alternating with milk-date mixture, beating well with each addition.
Add in remaining 2 cups of dates - chopped and a lemon's peel grated and as well as its juice. Mix lightly till combined.
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Line the cupcake pan with the cupcake paper cups and fill each of them to 2/3rd with the cake batter
Bake the cakes at 350F/180C for 25 minutes. Keep aside to cool down completely.
Add cream in a bowl and mix it with the icing sugar.
Whip it using hand mixer on low speed till the cream becomes fluffy and stiff
Scoop it on each cup cake or decorate using piping bag. Garnish with grated lemon peels.

Notes
I created a cone that i made from the parchment paper and piped the icing on top of few cakes and scooped the icing on others. So making cone is alternate to using piping bag :)
While whipping the cream its better to use hand mixer as its easy, fast and reliable. :)

Okra Fry

2010-08-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

The Inchin bamboo garden here serves this dish and its Ajoy's favorite. Of course it was Milind who introduced us to this dish given his liking for Okra. I wanted to try this out when he was staying with us but somehow it just remained a wish. Today finally I try this and I am glad I did. The dish turned out very nice. Worth making it multiple times.

Ingredients
5 Cups Okra
4 Spoon Maida
4 Spoon Corn Flour
1 Onion
1 Green Chili
3 Dried Red Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
2.5 Spoon Soy Sauce
1/2 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/4 Spoon Garlic Paste
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Mix in Maida, corn flour, red chili powder, garlic paste and salt to taste toegether.
Add in water and make a running consistency batter for pakodas.
Add in handful of okras in the batter and take them out into hot oil.
Heat couple spoon of oil and add thinly sliced onion, green chili and garlic cloves. Saute till it turns light brown in color
Add in dried red chillies crushing them by hand, soya sauce and saute.
Add in fried okras and stir. Serve immediately

Notes
If you are going to serve this to guests, it would be good idea to keep fried okra ready but saute them in the sauce only just before serving that would help in keeping the crunchy, crispiness of the okra.

Crabs Pulav

2010-08-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Recently we started getting the crabs from Costco. The first thing I made was this Pulav, an impromptu attempt to make something quick yet tasty. It turned out such a hit that we craved for more for days.. So this dish these days makes appearances in our meal quite regularly.

Ingredients
1.5 Cup Rice
300g Crabs Meat
1 Cup Curd
1/2 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/2 Cup Black Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
A pinch of Cinnamon Powder
A pinch of Cloves Powder
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

Mix in curd with red chilli powder, black pepper powder, coriander powder, jeera powder, Cinnamon powder, cloves powder and salt to taste.
Add in the crab meat to the mixture and keep aside for hour or two.
Soak rice for half an hour.
Boil water and add in rice. Cook till rice is almost done. Keep aside.
Heat ghee and add the crabs-curd-spices mixture and on medium heat cook till the crabs are done and the mixture separates from the ghee.
Add in the cooked rice and mix lightly. Sprinkle salt to taste.
Cook for a minute or two. Serve with raita.

Notes
Here we get big crabs, we got around 1.5lb = 0.7Kg and then after washing removed the meat from the shell and used the meat. If the shell is too hard or crabs or small try with shell.
To get the crab meat out from shell, we cut the shell with sharp knife and take the meat carefully out.

Craisin Pan Cake

2010-08-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been making these type of pancakes quite often lately.. Each time with different fruit. But today when I made it with dried cranberries (craisins) it was like this batter is meant for it. So here i am posting it.

Ingredients
2 Cup Maida
1 Spoon Sugar
1.5 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Melted Butter
2.5 Cup Milk
1 Egg
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1 Cup Craisins
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Beat the egg with sugar till foamy
Add in milk, melted butter and blend in well.
Add in vanilla essence, sifted maida, baking powder and salt to taste and blend it well
Heat the pan on low heat.
Sprinkle some oil and then drop half up of batter at a time on the pan.
Thrown in some craisins evenly around and cook till the bottom side is light brown.
Sprinkle couple of drops of oil on top of the pan cakes and then flip them. Cook till the bottom turns light brown.
Stack them and serve with the maple syrup

Notes
I have tried using apricots, blueberries, raisins and many more other fruits instead of craisins but as I said we liked craisins the best in these pan cakes.

Prawns in Garlic Butter Salad

2010-08-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I have started to enjoy salads so much that every week i almost crave for one if i dont eat one. So here is a simple butter garlic garden salad with prawns that i made that tasted awesome.

Ingredients
8 Large Prawns
2 Cup Broccoli
2 Cup Green Beans
1 Cup Sweet Corn
1 Avocado
3 Cup Iceburg Lettuce
1 Onion
1 Cup Sweet Bell Pepper Sliced
1/4 Cup Cherry Tomatoes
6 Garlic Cloves
1/4 Spoon Oregano
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powdered
1 Lemon
Mozzarella Cheese for garnishing
Salt to taste
Butter

Method

Heat pan and add in broccoli and green beans with some butter. Cook till they are smoky in color. Mix in salt to taste and keep aside.
In same pan add in sweet bell pepper and some more butter and cook it for a while.
When pepper seems almost done add in sliced onion, salt to taste and cook till onions turn light brown.
Mix it with green beans and broccoli and keep aside.
In same pan add in prawns and garlic diced coarsely and some butter and cook them turning often on low-medium heat till prawns are done. Mix in salt and keep aside
Microwave sweet corn for two minutes and keep aside
Divide the lettuce into two bowls.
Add in half mixture of green beans, brocolli, pepper and onions in each bowl.
Add in diced avocado half in each bowl.
Add in prawns and garlic dividing half in each
Add in cherry tomatoes and corn half in each bowl.
Sprinkle lemon juice, black pepper powder and oregano half in quantity on each bowls contents evenly.
Garnish it with shredded mozzarella cheese

Notes
I used Lemon as the dressing instead of ranch or anything else. If you like you can add ranch or other dressing that you like. But i thought the salad tasted awesome just with natural flavours from lemon.
Except prawns i cooked everything else on high flame giving it a crunchy texture. For prawns i added them on high heat and then reduced the heat so that i could give them smoky taste and color yet cook them nicely.

Guacamole

2010-08-01T14:39:00.001-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

The first time i ate guacamole at Chipotle, i fell in love with it.. Then i searched for recipes and came up with this perfect one. Tasted awesome and finished in few minutes :)

Ingredients
3 Avocados
2 Spoon finely chopped Onion
1 Spoon finely chopped Tomato
1/4 Spoon finely chopped Green Chili
1 Garlic Clove
Handful of Coriander Leaves
1 big Lemon
Salt to taste

Method

Scoop out avocado and dice them in the bowl.
Add in onion, tomato, green chili
Add in finely chopped garlic clove and coriander leaves.
Add in Lemon juice and salt to taste.
Mix well, smashing it a bit and serve

Notes
I didn't smash the avocados completely so that i could get pieces of it while eating.
Consume quickly as otherwise avocados would turn brown as they are high in iron contents.

Strawberry Sorbet

2010-07-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

When I got Ice-cream maker recently, i was confused whether to make sorbets first or fresh mango ice-cream.. Both being my equally favorite icy treats.. Well mango won the battle since i had the ingredients easily available. But today when I went to Costco, i made sure to buy lots of strawberries to make this one. I am glad I did.. Its tasting yummy and definitely helping in beating this heat..

Ingredients
600g Strawberries
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup Corn Syrup

Method

Dice the strawberries into four pieces or more if bigger in size and add in the bowl.
Add in sugar and lemon juice and mix well.
Keep in refrigerator overnight
Next morning, add in corn syrup and pulse the mixture in the mixie.
Add the mixture to the ice-cream maker and start the machine
After around 30 minutes, take out and store in container for 2-3 hours. Serve as it is or with mint leaves.

Notes
I didnt grind the mixture but instead pulse it so that when eating the sorbet i could have smaller pieces once in a while in the mouth. It did wonders.
You could chill the mixture for an hour or two as well instead of overnight.

Molten Lava Cake

2010-07-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Its been a while since I learnt about this cake and was so much facinated by the concept.. I also researched that this is the easiest and quickest dessert to make.. The only issue I had was I didnt have Ramekins to bake this in and neither did I have the paper cups to go in cup cake pan. Finally today I made up my mind to buy ramekins and make this. I am glad I did.. Totally worth it..

Ingredients
1 Cup Maida
1.25 Cup Semi Sweet Choco-chips
1 Cup Butter
5 Spoon Coco Powder
3 Eggs
3 Egg Yolks
2 Cup Sugar

Method

Grease the ramekins liberally and keep aside.
Preheat oven to 450F/230C
Microwave butter and chocochips together for one minute.
Stir well to get nicely blended choco-butter mixture. Keep aside
Whisk eggs, egg yolks together till blended well within
Add in sugar and whisk till creamy, fluffy and thick mixture forms.
Add in the melted chocolate-butter mixture to it and whisk.
Sieve in maida and coco-powder. Fold lightly till everything accomodates.
Divide the mixture into 6 ramekins
Put ramekins in a baking tray and bake in oven at 450F/230C for 13 minutes so that the sides are cooked.
Immediately after taking out from oven flip the cakes into plate and serve.

Notes
Alternate method is to use the paper cups inside the cup cake pan - little extra in height so that you can pull it out and flip it in the plate.
To flip the cake into the plate put the ramekin on a plate. Flip another plate on top of it. Holding both the plates flip the ramekin into the just placed plate. This helps since ramekins would be really hot when you take out the cakes into the plates.

Dabeli Style Aalu Paratha

2010-07-07T23:14:00.001-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

The day I got dabeli masala from India, i had been meaning to try something like this.. I thought it might be nice change to normal aalu paratha or aalu sabji. Finally today when i had no other vegetable at home i decided to try this one.. Came out really well.

Ingredients
10 Spoon Wheat Flour
1 Potato
1/2 Spoon Kachhi Dabeli Masala
1/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Tamarind
1 Spoon Peanut Powder
1/2 Spoon Raisins
Handful of Corriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Mix in wheat flour, salt and a spoon of oil.
Mix water and knead dough for paratha. Keep aside
Pressure cook the potato and let it cool down
Soak tamarind in 2 spoon of water.
Grate the potato and mix it with dabeli masala, red chilli powder, peanut powder, tamarind water and salt to taste
Add in chopped corriander leaves and raisins.
Make 5 balls out of wheat dough and 5 balls from the potato mixture.
Make a cup shape from wheat ball and stuff in potato ball. Close the wheat cover completely.
Roll the parathas and cook on tawa til well done on both sides.

Notes
Make sure to cook potatoes really well so that they are soft and can be mashed to the paste.

Hariyali Mango Paneer

2010-06-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today we were to meet Kapil and Shrinkhla for dinner but by the time we reached home everybody was almost full. So we decided to eat something at home instead. Thats when my mind started working on what I should make. I had a mango (raw) from mayuri that i had got last week. I cut it and saw that it was too sour so thought of making salad from it and started making hariyali paneer side by side. But as time progressed on the spot i changed my mind and made hariyali mango paneer instead. Turned out very nice.

Ingredients
3 Cup Coriander Leaves
1/2 Cup Pudina Leaves
1 Raw Mango
1 Onion
2 Cup Paneer Pieces
1 Green Chili
1 Spoon Garlic Cloves
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Add a cup of water to coriander leaves, pudina leaves and green chili and grind in mixie.
In hot oil, fry paneer pieces to light brown edges and keep aside
In same oil, add chopped onion pieces, garlic and fry till light brown
Add in mango pieces and ground coriander-pudina-green chillies mixture and cook till the water evaporates and gravy thickens.
Add in turmeric powder, garam masala, red chili powder, jeera powder and coriander powder and stir.
Add in fried paneer pieces and salt to taste and cook for couple of more minutes.

Notes
The mango that I used wasn't too raw not too ripe. So it worked perfectly giving the light sourness. If using raw sour mango make sure to reduce the quantity of mango pieces accordingly.

Petite Palmiers

2010-06-24T01:04:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

We had this for the first time at sush's place when Tejal had gone to work and we three were looking out for something interesting to eat. Ajoy had liked it instantly. I had wondered that it might be easy to make it using puff pastry sheet then. We came to know that costco here doesnt bake these, so I got all the more reason to make them at home. I quickly confirmed my theory and baked them today.

Ingredients
1 Puff Pastry Sheet
1 Cup Sugar
Butter

Method

Unfold the puff pastry on a sugar dusted kitchen top.
Sprinkle sugar on top of the pastry sheet. Roll it lightly till the sugar sticks to the pastry sheet
Fold both sides of the pastry sheet till mid ways and then fold it in middle.
Keep it in refrigerater for 30-40 minutes
Preheat oven to 400F/200C, grease the baking tawas
Cut the pastry sheets into smaller slices if the rolled pastry perpendicular to folds.
Dip each slice's cut sides into the sugar and arrange it on baking tawa with cut side facing up.
Bake in oven over 400F/200C for 18 minutes and then take it out.

Notes
Thaw the puff pastry sheet for 35-40 minutes but not more because otherwise it might become unmanageable.
I wanted to put the parchment paper on the tawas so that my tawas dont get messy after taking out the palmiers but i didn't have one. But using it would be better on tawas i think.

Pineapple Fried Rice

2010-06-24T00:50:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

These days Thai is one of my preferred cuisines when eating out. Fried rice is must and if it has pineapple then its like sone pe suhaaga :) But its been while i cooked thai at home, so today I decided to make this rice instead of normal pulav.

Ingredients
3 Cup Rice
3 Cup Broccoli
2 Cup Pineapple
1 Cup Carrot
1 Cup Celery
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Onion
2 Green Chillies
1/4 Cup Soya Sauce
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Soak rice in water for half an hour
Bring water to boil and add rice to it. Cook till its almost done. Strain and keep aside
Heat a pan and add onions, green chillies, carrots, celery, broccoli, bell pepper. Stir well and cook till the raw smell of vegetables go away and they seem to be half cooked.
Add in pineapple, soya sauce and salt to taste. Stir for a minute.
Add the cooked rice and stir well. Fry for 2-3 minutes and rice is ready

Notes
Soya Sauce does give the salty taste to the rice, so while adding salt be careful to consider that.

Quick Mango Icecream

2010-06-22T22:39:00.001-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Since my childhood, we had been making ice-creams at home. It was one of my favorite activity back then. Sometimes to make it all by myself reading the recipe that mom had written or sometimes helping her. But we had huge share of homemade ice-creams back then. In fact we didn't even have ice-cream maker that time. We use to freeze, grind it in mixer, freeze, beat, freeze and so on. The recipe needed quite some work to make it soft. So when I came here, I really wanted to buy an ice-cream maker so that I can get rid of at least that process. Sunday when the day turned out cloudy and rainy, i decided to go for shopping and that's when I found this great deal on ice-cream maker. Instantly, I grabbed it, mailed mom for the same recipe. But to my disappointment, it turned out that not all ingredients were available here. I didn't have patience for getting information about the alternatives. So instead I did some research and came up with this alternative - quick recipe. The recipe is so simple and quick that I think I am going to serve this to lot of people in next few days :) Happy to eat delicious homemade Alphonso mango ice-cream

Ingredients
1 Liter Half and Half
5 Cup Sweetened Mango Pulp
2 Cup Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Corn Syrup
1 Cup Sugar

Method

In a bowl mix in mango pulp and sugar. Let sugar dissolve completely.
Add Corn Syrup and half and half in it and stir well.
Add in whipping cream and stir lightly till the mixture is well blended together.
Add this mixture to the ice-cream maker bowl and start the machine.
In 25-30 minutes the ice-cream would be ready. Scoop out and serve.

Notes
I chilled all the items except corn syrup and sugar ;-) before the processing itself, but if you like you can make the mixture ready and then chill it for and hour at least. The mixture can also be stored in glass container for future use later.(that's what I have done)
I used half and half so that i dont have to boil the milk to half and then chill it. So in case you don't have half and half you can boil the milk until halve and let it cool.
You need to freeze the ice-cream maker bowl a day in advance as per the instructions of the machine.

Malpua

2010-05-14T10:10:00.001-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Every weekend Ajoy asks me if I can put oil in his hair (he does it for me). So my reply is always same : I can cook whatever you ask but doing the oil massage every weekend just for those short hair and that too for one hour - doesn't work :) :) probably once in couple of months is ok :) :) So when last weekend I replied with the same answer, he mentioned that he wants to eat malpuas. I searched on net for quick recipes, every recipe was quite different so I had to make up my own after lot of research and here I am sharing this.

Ingredients
1 Cup Maida
1/2 Cup Rawa
2.5 cup Milk
1 Spoon Saunf
1.5 Cup Sugar
A pinch of Saffron
Almonds, Pistachios for garnishing

Method

Mix in maida, rawa, saunf and milk and keep aside for 4 hours
Boil Sugar with 1.5 cup of water to form 1 threaded sugar syrup.
Add in safron and keep aside.
Heat oil in a pan and add 1/4 cup batter each time to form the malpuas
Fry to golden brown on both sides and then dip them in the sugar syrup for couple of minutes.
Take out of the syrup, garnish with almonds and pistachios and serve.

Notes
Actually lot many videos had asked for frying the malpuas, but i am going to try shallow frying instead next time.
Also I had used 1 cup sugar, water each for the syrup and last few malpuas didnt have enough syrup to soak in.
I have never eaten malpuas earlier except once when badi ma had gotten it to hyderabad. So next time I am also going to ask my mom-in-law for her recipe and see how different it turns out.

Almonds Topped Chocochip Muffins

2010-05-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

These days its been raining so much that I had to drive to and from work. Most of the days I end up getting stuck in traffic and by the time I reach home I dont feel like adventuring into anything other than meals.. Yesterday I decided to beat the traffic by leaving early instead and glad it did almost work (got stuck in traffic for just 5 minutes that's an achievement :)). When I reached home I realized that my laptop had succumbed to death just last night and I had to revive it before I can continue my work from home. So while my laptop was getting its life I decided to bake these ones especially with almonds because these days I have become little forgetful. They say almonds help improve memory :D now is the time to see if they can :) Thankfully my laptop has become as good as new and working even better than what it was like when it was new. I give credit to win7 and also to the fact that I kept it light unlike those whole bunch of installs that came from Dell. Now I am looking forward to see if my memory can come back after this almond's dose :) So here I am sharing this extremely simple recipe of these delicious cakes I made.

Ingredients
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Sugar
4 Cup Maida
2 Cup Choco-chips
3/4 Cup Almonds
1 Cup Milk
4 Spoon Brown Sugar
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1 Spoon Baking Soda
1/2 Spoon Baking Powder
2 Eggs
Salt to taste

Method

In a bowl beat sugar and butter till its fluffy.
Add in eggs and beat again.
Add in vanilla essence, milk and beat till creamy, fluffy mixture is formed.
Add in maida, baking soda, baking powder and salt to taste and mix in with light hands till everything is nicely accommodated in the egg-butter-sugar mixture.
Add in 1.5 cups of choco-chips and mix lightly. Keep aside
Chop almonds to coarse pieces and mix them with brown sugar and remaining 1/2 cup choco-chips. Keep aside
Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
Grease muffin pans and fill them in with the batter to 2/3rd level each.
Sprinkle the almond-chocochip-sugar mixture on all these muffins equally.
Bake the muffins at 350F/180C for 25 minutes.

Notes
I used raw almonds and sprinkled them on top instead of mixing it in the batter. The almonds were roasted amazingly while the cake baked.
I also mixed in brown sugar and chocochips with the almonds because I thought it would give nice sweetness to the cake while taking a bite. And guess what it really worked :)

Kokam Sarbat

2010-05-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

One of the most refreshing and healthy drink that my mom makes. I had been making this for a while but today got chance to click some snaps and hence posting the recipe.

Ingredients
10-12 Kokam
3 Spoon Sugar
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Salt to taste

Method

Soak kokam in 1/2 cup of water for an hour
Add it to the mixie. Add 3.5 cups of water, sugar, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt to taste.
Pulse the mixture till kokams are very fine.
Strain through and serve.

Notes
You can serve it on ice, but then use 1/2 cup less water so that the taste of the sarbat itsn't diluted.

Muttor Kachori

2010-04-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Ma's specialty and one thing we always demand when we go to Pune. :) Its been a while since I took this recipe from her, infact I had made it earlier too but it hadn't come out as nice as she makes. This time it was quite close and I thought it would be perfect time to post it.

Ingredients
2 Cup Maida
1 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Potato
3 Cup Muttor
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Mix in maida, wheat flour, salt to taste and 1/2 cup oil.
Add in water and make dough. Keep aside.
Cook potato in the pressure cooker and keep it to cook.
Cook muttor with some water for 2 minutes in microwave.
Drain the water from the muttor and grind it in mixie
Once the potato cools down, grate it.
In a pan heat 1 spoon of oil and add jeera. Let it splutter
Add in grated potato, muttor paste, red chilli powder and salt to taste.
Cook till the paste dries up and becomes a dry ball. Let it cool down
Take a lemon sized ball of the dough made and press it to make a cup shape. Add in the half sized muttor-potato ball and seal it.
Roll it just like puris and fry in hot oil. Serve with pickle.

Notes
The trick is to make the dough of right consitency - not too hard not too soft and the perfect to seal it after the feeling.
Also roll the balls to the puri's thickness - just a bit thicker to get the best results.

Dates Peacan Chocolaty Brownies

2010-04-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Just few weeks back I had got lots of choco-chips and Peacans from the costco. Thinking I could bake some cakes, muffins. So today when payesh that I made last week was getting over, I thought it would be nice to make these brownies for dessert hoping they would last for week.. But frankly, they have turned out so well, I wonder if they are going to last even till monday :) We already have had 2 pieces each :)

Ingredients
80g Dark Chocolate bar
1.5 Cup semi sweet choco-chips
3 Cup Powdered Sugar
1.5 Cup Maida
1 Cup Butter
1 Cup Dates
1 Cup Peacans
3 Eggs
1 Spoon Vanilla Essence
Salt to taste

Method

In a glass bowl, add dark chocolate, 1/2 cup semi sweet choco-chips and butter and microwave for 1 minute. Stir well.
Microwave for 30 more seconds and stir well. Keep aside.
Sieve maida couple of times and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375F/190C
In a big bowl add eggs, powdered sugar, vanilla essence. Beat for 5 minutes.
Add in above made chocolate paste, maida and salt to taste. Mix lightly, just enough to make it consistent paste.
Add in remaining 1 cup of chocochips, dates and peacans chopped. Again mix it lightly.
Grease a pan and pour in batter into it. Bake the brownies at 375F/190C for 35 minutes.
Serve with ice-cream, topped with chocolate sauce and some nuts chopped finely.

Notes
I normally microwave chocolate to melt it - works wonders :D, but if you don't have microwave, you can boil water in a pan and keep a bigger bowl on top of it with chocolate and melt it over low heat. Be careful not to over heat the chocolate or it would spoil the taste and feel of the chocolate.

Whole Spices Veggie Pulav

2010-04-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I like black pepper a lot. Not powdered one but whole ones or the crunchy ones, like in papad. Since we moved here, I have been having only garlic papad instead of the spicy one that I normally like. Blame it to Ajoy ;-) for he likes that one or on me that I am bored to serve two different varieties to both of us. But then yesterday I said - that's about it. I have to have those black pepper by hook and crook and that's how this recipe came up :) It was huge hit and I am going to make it again sometime soon.

Ingredients
2.5 Cup Rice
2 Cup Cauliflower florets
2 Raw Bananas
1 Medium sized Eggplant
1 Potato
1 Cup Mutter
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper
1/2 Spoon Jeera
4-5 Cloves
4-5 Cardamom
A pinch of Saffron
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

In a pan bring water to boil and add rice. Cook the rice over high flame, with constant stirring till its done.
Strain remaining water from the rice and keep the rice aside.
In another pan, heat oil and fry cauliflower florets, egg plant pieces and raw banana slices. Keep aside.
Fry mutter for a second and keep them aside too.
Grate potato and fry them making in chunks to get crispy hash brown like chunks. Keep them aside too.
In another pan, heat ghee, add cloves, cardamoms, black pepper, jeera and let them splutter.
Add rice, fried cauliflower, eggplant and banana slices. Stir it and let is cook for couple of minutes.
Heat a spoon and add saffron crushing it a bit. After it starts sending nice aroma, mix in rice lightly.
Add in salt and stir for another minute. Serve by garnishing it with fried muttor and crispy potatoes.

NotesI wanted rice to be white and yet give that saffron filled rich aroma and hence I didnt put it while making rice but added it at last minute.I used black pepper in abundance as you already know the reason about it too :) but i didnt use much of cardmom or cloves, because I do add it to some of the vegetables or chicken/mutton dishes and also because I dont like them as much as black pepper :) So adjust spices according to your taste. The above portions worked wonders for me and right now enjoying even during lunch while writing this. yummy.

Rava Dosa

2010-04-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Rava dosa made into my favorite list the day I ate it opposite my college back in pune. The crispiness of the dosa along with the cashews spread on it made it so much more enjoyable. So when I saw my mom preparing it when I was in India in December and learnt that its so quick and simple, I had been meaning to make it like a long time. Today on Sunday I thought it would be a perfect way to make a tasty brunch that requires minimal efforts.

Ingredients
1 Cup Rava
1 Cup Rice Powder
1/4 Cup Maida
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Asafoetida
Finely chopped Roasted Cashews
2 Green Chillies
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

Mix rava, rice powder, maida, finely chopped green chillies, jeera, asafoetida with salt.
Add in lots of water to make a thin batter.
Keep aside for 20 minutes
Add in more water so that it is thin consistency
Heat tawa on medium flame
Grease tawa with Ghee and pour the 1/2 cup batter at a time spreading it over the tawa.
Let it cook till the dosa gets light brown color.
Sprinkle couple of drops of ghee and flip the dosa and let the other side be cooked
Sprinkle some cashews and fold on either side and serve.

Notes
When I tried making it I didnt let the batter sit for those 20 minutes, because of which the batter kept on thickening - blaming it to the Rava. It made first two dosas thick and soggy. So I strongly suggest letting the batter sit for 20-30 minutes.
To spread the batter on the tawa I dropped the batter on tawa from a bit of distance and slowly over areas that didnt have batter, letting it form the mesh and yet avoiding forming layers, hence keeping it thin.

Dates and Chocochips Pan Cakes

2010-03-06T11:07:00.001-08:00

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been making pan cakes for quite some time. One of the easiest and tasty breakfast. I had made it with cranberries, mangoes, blue berries earlier. Today I didn't have any of the fruits that would go in it. So I decided to make it with what I had plenty - Dates and Chocochips. The pan cakes came out really nice and we had hearty breakfast on such a lovely bright day.

Ingredients
1/2 Cup Dates
1/4 Cup Choco Chips
1/2 Cup Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Maida
3/4 Cup Curd
1 Egg
3/4 Spoon Sugar
1/2 Spoon Vanilla Essense
1/4 Spoon Baking Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
2.5 Spoon Melted Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Deseed the Dates and chop them into small pieces. Keep aside.
Sieve together wheat flour and maida
Add Sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix well
Add egg, curd, melted butter and vanilla essence. Mix well.
Add 1/2 cup warm water and mix well to flowing consistency.
Heat a nonstick pan over medium flame.
Pour the pan cake batter 1/2 cup at a time on the non stick pan and top it with some choco-chips and dates
Over medium-low heat, cook the pan cakes till golden brown in color and bubbles up the top side. Flip and golden the other side too. Serve with honey and or maple syrup

Notes
The batter is so non sticky that I didnt have to grease the pan at all.
Ajoy felt that the sweetness from Dates was little too much, I guess using Dark choco chips might be good idea to balance the sweetness. I didnt have dark choco chips sot used semi sweet chips.

Prawns Burrito Bowl

2010-02-25T00:09:00.000-08:00

Chipotle is Ajoy's favorite joint and he does keep insisting on going to it once in a while. We like the chicken burrito bowl there. So after seeing them prepare the bowl for few times, I decided to try this out at home. Since I had prawns at home and didn't have boneless chicken, I made it with prawns. Turns out it was quite nice.

Ingredients
400g Cleaned Prawns
1.5 Cup Rice
5 Tomatoes
1 Lemon
3 Cup Sweetcorn
3 Spoon Curd
3 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Oregano
1/2 Spoon Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/2 Cup Grated Cheese
1/4 Cup Ranch Dressing
1/2 Cup Corriander Leaves
4 Spoon Butter
Lettuce
Salt to taste
Olive Oil

Method

Mix in curd, 1 spoon of red chilli powder, corriander powder, garam masala and salt.
Add in prawns and mix well. Keep aside.
In a pressure cooker cook the rice with 2.5 cups of water and keep aside.
Heat 1/4 spoon of oil and add the corriander leaves to lightly cook them.
Add the oil-corriander leaves mixture, lemon juice and salt to the rice and mix well. Keep aside
In a pan, add a spoon of oil and heat it.
Add in 3 mashed tomato, remaining 2 spoons of red chilli powder, pepper powder, oregano and salt. Mix well.
Cook till mixture thickens. Keep aside to cool down
In another pan heat butter and fry in the marinated prawns till they are done and dark brown in color.
Now in three big bowls make the burritos by adding a layer of rice dividing equally in them.
Add prawns, finely chopped remaining 2 tomatoes, grated cheese.
Microwave sweet corn for 3 minutes and add it to the burrito bowl.
Add the tomato-chilli sauce, ranch dressing and lettuce. Serve it immediately.

Notes
I microwaved the corn for quick cooking. You can alternately boil them in water and drain out the excess water.
The tomato-chilli sauce would turn quite spicy. I had used another spoon and it was little extra spicy hence while writing this recipe I have suggested 1 spoon less compared to what I used.
Used ranch dressing because I didn't want to buy or make sour cream just for this.
Since I had jumbo prawns I cut it into 2-3 pieces after frying them in butter.

Fried Chicken

2010-02-22T23:46:00.003-08:00

When we were in Bangalore, KFC was our favorite joint. We also have couple of stories that took place in the KFC :) So quite a lot of memories. But since we came here, we haven't been to KFC once, though MacD is regular joint instead. But the fried chicken is something that went missing from our meal since then. So today I knew what I wanted to cook. I was earlier thinking of frying boiled chicken but then decided against it after a second thought. Bing just confirmed my thoughts :)

Ingredients
5 Chicken Leg Pieces
1 Egg
3/4 Cup Maida
5 Spoon Bread Crumbs
1 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/4 Spoon Oregano
1/4 Spoon Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Garlic Paste
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

With a sharp knife, give slits to the chicken pieces
In a warm bowl of water, add 1/2 spoon red chili powder, oregano and pepper powder with salt.
Add the chicken pieces and soak them in it for an hour.
In a bowl, beat egg with garlic paste, remaining half spoon red chili powder, coriander powder and salt.
In another plate mix maida with bread crumbs and salt.
Take out the chicken pieces out of water and drain the water.
Dip each leg piece in egg mixture to coat it completely and then in maida mixture to cover it with maida coating.
Heat oil to medium high.
Add each leg piece and fry till golden brown in color.

Notes
Soaking the chicken in water, tenderizes it a bit adding to the taste. I used mild spices to soak them in instead of dipping it in plain water.
I fried chicken on medium high heat instead of very high or very low. That helped me get the chicken that wasn't too dark in color and yet it was completely cooked.
I made extra bread crumbs while making Paneerbhara Kabab and stored them in air tight container. You can refer to it for how to make bread crumbs.

Ginger Corn Flower

2010-02-22T23:46:00.001-08:00

Ajoy loves cauliflower so we end up eating it every week at least once. So I keep trying variety of preparations instead of sticking to the usual one. So today I decided to make a gingery flower. To reduce the spiciness and pungent taste of the ginger I decided to use sweet corn. The recipe came out pretty well and here it is.

Ingredients
1 Cauliflower
2 Cup Corn
1 Spoon Grated Ginger
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder
Salt
Oil

Method

Heat oil to high and fry the medium sized flower florets in it till light brown. Keep aside
In a pan heat spoon full of oil and add onion. Fry till translucent.
Add grated ginger and fry for another minute
Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and fry for a minute or two.
Add mashed tomato in it. Cook for couple of minutes.
Add sweet corn, salt to taste and cook for 5-6 minutes till mixture dries up a little.
Add fried flower florets and mix up gently so that masala coats the flower
Cook for 2-3 minutes and serve.

Notes
Dont wait for the florets to be dark in color, after taking out from the oil they darken up a little.

Plums Cake

2010-02-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

We had got lot of plums from Costco but they weren't ripe ones. So I had been thinking of making a cake using them for quite a few days. Finally today I got some time to experiment with it thought the plums were ripe now. I made it in heart shape in honor of today's Valentines day.

Ingredients
1 Cup Butter
1.5 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Maida
1 Cup Hazelnuts
1 Cup Walnuts
1 Cup Groundnuts
3 Eggs
1/2 Spoon Baking Powder
6 Plums
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
4 Spoon Powdered Sugar
2 Spoon Almonds

Method

Grind hazelnuts to powder
In a bowl, beat in sugar and butter till light and fluffy.
Add a egg to the butter and beat well
Then add in 1/3rd of hazelnut powder and beat well.
Continue adding remaining eggs one at a time alternating with hazelnut powder and beat well
Add in walnuts and peanuts and mix well.
Sieve maida and baking powder together and add in to the above mixture. Mix well.
Grease a pan and add in the batter
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Bake the cake at 350F/180C for 45 minutes
Take out the cake out of oven and arrange in halved plums(without seeds) over the top
Bake again at 350F/180C for 10 minutes. Take out and let it cool down
In a small pan mix lemon juice with powdered sugar and let it simmer till thickened
Pour it over the cake, garnish with finely chopped almonds.

Notes
Alternately you can use marmalade jam if you have. I wanted to use that for the glazing but since I didn't have it I made lemon, sugar mixture.

Lauki Kofta

2010-02-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ajoy just loves lauki kofta so much so that he asks ma to make it every time we go to pune. Till last year, that did work out especially since we visited pune atleast each month. But after coming to Redmond, one thing I am sure Ajoy and me too missed was Ma's special Kofta. So this time when we were in india we did ask her to make it quite frequently but the recipe is so good that eating it once in a year doesn't satisfy the taste buds. So after I got the recipe from her, today I made it on valentine's day. Guess my gift to Ajoy :)

Ingredients
3 Cup Bottle Gourd
1 Cup Carrot
1.5 Cup Besan
3 Spoon Corn Flour
2 Onion
2 Tomato
2 Cup Curd
4 Spoon Sugar
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1 Green Chilli
1/4 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Raisins
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Grate bottle gourd and carrot and mix well
Heat oil and add in jeera. Let it sputter
Add in grated bottle gourd and carrot and mix well.
Cook well stirring occasionally till the mixture dries up completely. Keep aside to cool down.
Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
In a mixie add tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt. Grind well.
Add in cooked onion and grind to smooth paste. Keep aside
In the bottle gourd and carrot mixture, add besan, corn flour make soft dough
Prepare small balls with cashews, raisins and green chilli pieces in the center of them.
Fry the koftas in oil to brown color and keep aside.
In a pan add the grinded paste, 3 cups of water and let it simmer for 5-6 minutes till gravy attains consistency.
Add in koftas and simmer for another few minutes. Take of the heat
In a bowl, mix in curd, sugar and chaat masala.
While serving koftas, add in the kofta with the gravy, add curd and then garnish with grated carrot and some cashew pieces and raisins

Notes
Instead of carrot you can use raw banana as well.

Paneerbhara Kabab

2010-02-09T22:53:00.000-08:00

Today when I opened fridge, found that I have around 2 liters of milk and it is getting expired tomorrow. Gave a lot of thought on what I should be using it before I loose it. Last few times I had been making sweets but this time I wanted to make something spicy and that is when I came up this.

Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
5 Spoon Vinegar
1 Cup Corriander Leaves
2 Spoon Pudina Leaves
5-6 Green Chillies
2 Bread Slices
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
Salt
Oil

Method

Boil Milk in a thick pan
Mix a cup of water with vinegar and add it to the milk to separate whey from it.
Strain it and wash it with cold water.
Hang it in a dry cloth for around half an hour to remove as much as water as possible
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Bake bread slices for 5 minutes at 350F/180C, Flip the sides and bake for another 5 minutes
In a mixie, grind the bread to breadcrums. Save aside
Grind corriander leaves, pudina leaves and green chillies to fine paste without using water.
In a plate mix the paneer that was hanging, the above green paste and salt
Make small lemon sized balls and roll them in bread crums
Heat oil and fry the balls in it over medium-high heat.
Sprinkle chaat masala and serve with ketchup

Notes
If you want you can make it with grated paneer instead, but it tasted awesome with this fresh made paneer and the softness inside the crispy covering was delicious.
For the corriander-pudina-green chillies paste I didnt use any water. The water that was on leaves after washing them was good enough.

Vegetables Stir Fry

2010-02-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

I had been having lots of vegetables in the freeze for quite some time. So today when we planned for quick lunch before heading out to cycling, how to quick something nice and yet something quick. Indo-chinese being my favorite cuisine I came up with this.

Ingredients
Handful of Ladies Fingers
Handful of Eggplant pieces
Handful of Cabbage
1 Cup Beans
1 Onion
1 Pepper
2 Spring-onions
6 Garlic Cloves
1 Spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Lemon
5 Spoon Soya Sauce
1 Spoon Ketchup
2 Spoon Corn Flour
Salt
Oil

Method

Fry Ladies fingers in the oil and keep aside
In a pan heat oil and add onions. Fry them till translucent
Add in garlic cloves, chopped to fine pieces, eggplant pieces, beans, Pepper chopped, cabbage and cook them with constant stirring till the vegetables are cooked well.
Add in fried ladies fingers, garlic and ginger paste and Lemon juice and stir again
Add ketchup and soya sauce and stir for couple of minutes
Mix corn flour with 6 cup of water and add in the vegetables. Cook till gravy thickens
Add in salt and spring onions and stir for a minute. Serve with rice or noodles

Notes
To give it a little tangy taste, I used lemon but if you are not big on tangerines then you can just skip it. You cna also substitute lemon by a spoonful of Vinegar if you don't have lemon in stock.
I also wished I had some baby-corns and brocollies to add the taste, but never mind, there is always next time :)

Dry Fruits And Rose Milk Shake

2010-02-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

I got 'gulkand' from pune this time, thinking that it might help me cool down a bit when needed. Today wasnt that high temperature day, yet seeing the ice-cream box in the freezer and the gulkand sitting on the shelf, I decided to make this one. What a wonderful friday evening sipping in rose milkshake.

Ingredients
6 Cup Milk
2 Cup Vanilla Ice-cream
1/3 Cup Cashews
1/3 Cup Almonds
1/3 Cup Pistachios
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 Spoon Gulkand
A Pinch of Red Color

Method

Add Cashews, Almonds, pistachios in the mixer and grind to rough powder
Add in gulkand, ice-cream and grind again.
Add milk, sugar and red color and mix till smooth consistency

Notes
I kept few dry fruits half ground into pieces so that we could get them in mouth while having the milkshake. I think that gave the milkshake amazing taste and feel.
For more decoration, I mixed a pinch of red color with couple of drops of water and dipping the back of spoon in it decorated the top of the milkshake with some simple designs, current ones based on valentine theme :)

Mung Daal Wada

2010-02-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

After a long time, I thought of trying out something from my so called 'bible' - a cookery book gifted to me during wedding :) This recipe though not exactly similar but is inspired from there. It is easy to digest yet spicy enough to enjoy, making it a good breakfast.

Ingredients
1 Cup Mung Daal
2 Spoon Besan
6 Garlic Cloves
1 Inch Ginger
2 Green Chillies
1 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A Pinch of Eating Soda
Salt
Oil

Method

Soak Mung Daal in water for 5-6 hours
After the mung daal is soaked, add garlic cloves, ginger, green chilies and jeera to the mixer with couple spoon of water and grind to rough paste
Add mung daal without water in it and grind the paste
To this paste add in besan, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and eating soda and mix well
Heat oil in pan and fry small quantites of the paste we preapred earlier to get crispy wadas

Notes
Recipe had some more items like coconut, onions, curry leaves etc to be added but I think I liked this way better. It went really well with the coconut chutney

Zebra Cake

2010-01-24T23:52:00.000-08:00

I remember around a year back I had received a mail from a colleague here about tasting the check box cake. She had described a lot about its procedure so when I was looking for something similar yet something where I wont need those card boards etc to make those check box texture. Then I came across the very famous concept of zebra cake. So today I gave it a shot and result was very impressive :)

Ingredients
3 Cup Maida
2 Cup Sugar
4 Eggs
2 Cup Milk
2 cup Oil
1 Spoon Vanilla Essence
8 Spoon Coca Powder
4 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

In a bowl add eggs and sugar and blend them together till the mixture is fluffy.
Add in Milk and Oil keeping two spoons of each aside. Blend well
Sieve in maida gradually in the mixture. Blend well for a smooth batter
Blend in vanilla essence and baking powder.
Separate 4.5 cup of batter into other bowl and add in sieved coca powder in the separated batter. Blend well
In the coca batter, add the remaining milk and oil (2 spoons each) into the batter and blend again
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Grease the baking pan
Add 1/4 cup of white batter in the center alternating with half cup of coca batter. Keep adding till the pan fills in half in quantity. Repeat same for other pan. The batter would spread on its own in layers
Bake the cakes in oven at 350F/180C for 40 minutes

Notes
If you are going to make the cake in single big baking pan, then instead of adding 1/4 cup of mixture, add in 1/2 cup to make the correct sized strips. I noticed that if the layers are too thin then after baking they wouldn't be too clear to mark out the layering clearly.

Peanut Sauce

2010-01-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

A must have dip for Chicken Satay, I had to make this. Especially for Ajoy as he is such a fan of this sauce that he sometimes asks for it in Chinese restaurant too :) forgetting that he is in Chinese restaurant instead of Thai :)

Ingredients
1 Cup Peanuts
2 Spoon Brown Sugar
1/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
2 Spoon Soya Sauce
1 Spoon Oil
1 Garlic Clove
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
Salt to taste

Method

Dry roast the peanuts and let them cool
Add peanuts, brown sugar, red chilli powder, soya sauce, oil, garlic clove, lemon juice and salt in a mixie and grind to sticky powder
Add half cup of water and grind again till smooth paste

Notes
I had used double quantity of red chilli powder but it had become little extra hot so I have suggested only 1/4 spoon for red chilli. If you feel it is too mild for you try adding some more chilli while grinding

Chicken Satay

2010-01-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

Chicken Satay is one of our favorite stater in Thai cuisine. So this time when we got the chicken from costco, I decided to give this a try. I had made this earlier but it was over even before I could click photo :) So now this time I made sure we click photos before making the strike.

Ingredients
400g Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 Spoon Brown Sugar
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
2 Spoon Oil
2 Spoon Soya Sauce
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup Milk
Salt to taste

Method

Make thin and rectangular slices of the chicken
Add brown sugar, garlic cloves, corriander powder, jeera powder, turmeric powder, black pepper powder, oil, soya sauce, lemon juice and salt and mix well. Keep aside in refrigerator for 4 hours
After 4 hours, attach the strips of chicken on to scewer sticks, 2 pieces on one stick.
Bast the chicken with the milk.
Heat a non stick pan and cook the chicken with scewers on medium flame by flipping them over continuously every 2-3 minutes till done.

Notes
I read in lot many recipes to add fish sauce to the marination, but I investigated a bit and found that it is some what salty liquid and usually used instead of salt. Hence instead of going to asian shop for fish sauce I used normal table salt instead.

Chilli Prawns

2010-01-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

I was looking to make something quick yet something different from the normal preparation (Prawns Masala) and then I came up with this.

Ingredients
300g Cleaned Prawns
1 Spoon Garlic Paste
1 Onion
4 Green Chillies
4 Spoon Dark Soya Sauce
2 Spoon Tomato Ketchup
2 Spoon Corn Flour
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Marinate the prawns with garlic paste and salt.
Deep fry them in oil few at a time for a minute
In same oil, add halved green chillies, onion and cook them with constant stirring
Add soya sauce, ketchup and again cook for couple of minute
Add prawns and stir for another minute
Mix corn flour in two cups of water and add it to the cooking prawns
Cook for 3-4 minutes till gravy thickens and prawns become tender

Notes
Well I didn't have spring onions to garnish otherwise I might have added it a bit for garnishing.

Gurer Sandesh

2010-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

On the eve of upcoming Saraswati puja I decided to give this a try especially with gur because Ajoy loves that version.. It came out really well and the best part was it was not the tedious process unlike Kalakand which he keeps demanding. So now if he asks for sweet and I am tired I have something quick yet brownie point winner for my help :)

Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
3/4 Cup Jaggery
2 Spoon Vinegar
1/4 Spoon Pistachio Powder

Method

In a thick pan boil the milk
Mix vinegar with 2 spoon of water and add it slowly to the boiling milk
When the milk cudles completely, take it off the heat and strain it out
Wash it under running cold water
Put it in the muslin cloth and drain the water. Keep it aside for 5 minutes so that it drains out water completely
In a plate knead the chena formed till its is soft and consistent in the texture.
Mix in grated jaggery and transfer it to the thick pan
Cook the mixture over medium heat till it leaves the sides and is able to hold together.
Make the small balls and press them against the chenar moulds, and if you dont have them just shape them into balls
Sprinkle the pistachio powder for garnishing

Notes
I used the Patali Gur since I had got it from Kolkatta when I had been there last month. But you can also try it with the normal Jaggery. I also feel that Patali Gur is more of the Date + Jaggery taste. So if I try with jaggery version I am going to try adding paste of Date or something like that. Will update when I try that though.
While separating whey from the milk make sure to remove it off it immediately when you see the clear green water separated from the chena. Extra cooking can make the mixture stiff.
Key to shaping the sandesh is that you shape them while its hot. As it starts cooling down it becomes difficult to shape them up. I warmed the mixture after it came to room temperature so that I can shape the remaining ones.

Stuffed Spinach Paratha

2010-01-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

Yet another attempt to make Ajoy eat Spinach without making faces ;-) Well to be honest though he doesn't like it he doesn't make faces, its me who does that :) :) Here I tried to combine his well known affinity towards paratha yet trying to be different by making it as stuffing.

Ingredients
3 Cups Wheat Flour
6 Cup Spinach Leaves
2 Potatoes
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Mustard Seeds
A Pinch of Asafoetida
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

In a plate, mix wheat flour, a spoonful of oil and salt.
Add water and knead a soft dough. Keep aside for 30-40 minutes
Pressure cook the potatoes and keep them aside
In a pan heat a spoonful of oil and let jeera and mustard splutter in it.
Add Asafoetida and then spinach
Keep stirring and after it leaves water from it add red chilli powder, garam masala and salt to taste
Cook with constant stirring till water evaporates. Keep aside for cooling
In a mixie, grind the spinach and then mix it with the grated potatoes.
Prepare the balls of small lemon size out of this mixture
Make same size balls from the dough and prepare the cup shape.
Stuff the spinach ball in the cup shape dough and close the ball. Roll the paratha
On medium flame, heat the tawa and cook the paratha from both sides till brown. Spread few drops of oil while its cooking.
When completely done apply few drops of ghee and serve with pickle and/or curd

Notes
I didnt want to use lots of masalas or corriander(my another trick to make ajoy like the disk;-)) so that I can still retain a bit of spinach taste. Instead I used potatoes that helped in reducing the intensity of the spinach taste :)

Cold Coffee

2010-01-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

I first started making this using the instant powder and I remember how it was such a hit with my sister. She loved it to the core. So since then cold coffee always reminds me of my sister - Seema, her affinity and some memorable stories around them (I am sure me and my family can immediately recollect them with just name of cold coffee :D) When we moved to redmond, we made ourselves familiar to the well known starbuck's cold coffee bottles. Costco's membership and deal coupons once in a while meant we consumed them a lot. But as days passed I started missing that fresh cold coffee, thick froth and here I came up with this recipe. I wanted to make this in India for Seema but then flu, cough, cold prevented me from that. Here I am going to share my recipe hoping she would try it sometime and remember those golden days when we consumed cold coffee like freak.

Ingredients
4 cup Milk
2 cup Vanilla Icecream
1.5 Spoon Coffee Powder
5 Spoon Sugar

Method

Boil a cup of water mixing sugar in it
Add coffee and dissolve it. Keep aside for cooling.
In a mixie, add ice cream, coffee, and milk.
Blend well till the icecream is completely blended.

Notes
Normally I dont keep coffee in freeze after blending it. Its at perfect temparature after the blend.

Veggie Pizza

2010-01-11T22:21:00.001-08:00

I had been meaning to make this pizza for a while now. Veggie is something that I don't prefer outside in pizza hut or any other pizza place but I wanted to make this at home so that I can use Indian veggies and make it to my taste. I completely took liberty here with veggies that I used and the outcome was really interesting.

Ingredients
4 Cup Wheat Flour
2 Cup Maida
2 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Butter
1/2 Spoon Sugar
2.25 Spoon Active Dry Yeast
3 Tomatoes
2 Spoon Garlic Paste
2 Spoon Basil Leaves
1/2 Spoon Black pepper powder
2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
3 Spoon Ketchup
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese
2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese
1 cup of Small Paneer Pieces
1.5 cup Eggplant Pieces
8 Ladiesfinger
1 Cup Sweet Corn
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Mix sugar and active yeast with a cup of luke warm water. Keep covered by clinging film for 10 minutes to bubble up the water which means yeast is activated
In a plate, mix wheat flour, maida, salt, olive oil and melted butter.
Add in activated yeast mixture and milk and knead a soft dough. Keep aside in a big bowl covered by the clinging film for around 2 hours to double it up.
Heat oil and add garlic paste in it. Roast it till it spreads nice aroma
Add in basil leaves, pepper powder, red chilli powder and salt. Cook for couple of minutes
Puree tomatoes and add them along with the ketchup to the above mixture. Cook till the water that separates out is evaporated and mixture is in single consistency paste. Keep aside.
In oil fry ladies finger(whole), paneer pieces, eggplant pieces each for a minute. Remove the head of the ladies finger and cut it into half. Sprinkle salt and keep aside
When the dough doubles up, divide it into two portions and spread it on two Pizza Pans
Spread in tomato gravy made above equally on each one of the pizza.
Spread in Parmesan Cheese, fried veggies(paneer, ladies finger, eggplant) and sweet corn.
Cover it up with the mozzarella cheese.
Heat the oven to 400F/200C
Cook the pizza in the oven at 400F/200C for 25 minutes

Notes
While frying ladies finger(bhendi) i fried it whole and then cut it into half instead of other way round so as to avoid its seeds being flowing out of it.
All veggies I just browned them a bit so as to give it a richer taste. I didnt cook them completely by any means otherwise it might burn out or melt away while in the oven.

Prawns Grilled Sandwitch

2010-01-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone :) Mine was quiet one as I was/am jetlaged a way lot to stay awake even till 9pm :) Guess this recipe would be special because I started working on this last year and the final dish was ready this year ;-) This was kind of impromptu one on demand of special breakfast by Ajoy

Ingredients
14-16 Bread Slices
400g Cleaned Prawns
1/2 Cup pickled cucumber
4 Spoon Curd
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Cup Butter
Salt to taste

Method

Mix curd, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, black pepper powder, jeera powder, garam masala, chaat masala and salt
Slice the prawns into smaller pieces and add them into above curd mixure, mix well and store them in fridge for 4-6 hours.
Heat a flat pan and add 1/4 cup butter and marinated prawns
Cook on high flame with constant stirring till the masala turns dark brown in color and dry out. Keep aside.
Make sandwitches by spreading pickled cucumber and prawns cooked earlier between two slices of breads
Grill them with remaining butter and serve hot

Notes
Chopping prawns into smaller pieces would help in avoiding it being pulled in a single bite :)

25 Random Things About Me

2009-11-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Amruth and Naveen for writing the 25 random things about me. Well I gave it a thought and slept over it :) *remembers a dialog from last episode of Grey's Anatomy* And here is my list:

I am in absolute love with Abhi-Niki from Dill Mill Gayye so much so that I make video mixes, write fictional scenes on these characters. I am loving this creative side of mine :)
I like doing something creative after office may it be cooking something new, painting a glass or pot or knitting. Though I end up picking first option most of the time because it is like one arrow 2 birds :)
I am a Lost fan and cant wait for the finale season and the topping to it is I would be watching it live in HD :)
I love hiking and when it comes to hiking I can never find it enough :) Dil always maange more.
Discovered love for cycling after coming to Redmond. Absolutely love coming back from work by cycle (Again 1 arrow 2 birds:)) or cycling on weekends on Sammamish River Trail
I prefer having lunch by desk while browsing some cooking recipes, reading blogs, long mails and fiction updates. I finish lunch quickly and yet feel rejuvenated for post lunch work :)
When it comes to following rules I would want to do it with absolute precision esp driving rules. I hate when people speed, drive rash and make mistakes. Well once in a while I too make a mistake and I cant forget that mistake easily :)
I miss Hussain Sagar Drive very badly especially after late night movie.
I am a music freak but then I can tolerate only certain type of songs which includes old hindi and few new ones which have some meaningful lyrics and soft music.
When I am listening to music, I start of singing along without even realizing. So its absolute torture for people around me when I am listening to songs
I love playing antakshari and the best ones have to be with Milind during our Niagara-NY and Florida drives in 2002.
I hate playing dumbsheras and I am bad at it. :)
I am afraid of dogs (well is that an understatement)
I believe Indian railways should award me for being their loyal customer for years. I have record of traveling Hyderabad -> Pune -> Hyderabad over every weekend for almost 3-4 months continuously.
I never tried English music as a teen and now I adore my music collection so much so that I don't feel like giving it a chance.
I can eat chaat items or anything chat pat items at any time of the day. :) Everyday stuff including rice-chapati-bhaji kind of takes low priority over the chatpat items
The best paani puri I have had till now is from a person who use to sit next to then newly opened MK Ahmad on CMH Road, Bangalore.
I am scared of dentists and nurses who give injections. Probably thats one reason I am totally for homeopathy.
I dont know since when but as long as I can remember I hate hot Tea and cant drink even a sip. But was introduced to Ice Tea by Kushal and you can say as much as I hate hot tea I love the Ice Tea.
Ever since I started watching english dramas I cant watch hindi ones without fast forwarding through them :) The current favourites are Castle, Grey's Anatomy and Flashforward. Also planning to give a chance to V which premiers tonight.
I am FRIENDS fan. Each character was unique and they maintained the traits, behaviors and habits for them throughout 10 seasons. The fun with friends was never been so close to real. Have already watched it twice in order. The random episodes if are airing I can watch any number of times. Wish they could create same magic again.
I have started playing Farmville on Facebook or you can say I started using Facebook for playing Farmville :) I liked that game so much so that I play on Ajoy's behalf too :)
I love rains and the drizzling rain is the topmost favorite. I like hiking, cycling or just taking a walk in drizzling rain :) Foggy weather is another favorite one and it gives heavenly feel to this otherwise earthy world.
I love playing fussball.. I havent played it much but I really enjoy it a lot. Our own fuss ball table is on its way and cant wait to play late night cames on fridays
I am more of listening person than talking one :) I can listen to absolutely anyone anytime than talk and when it comes to stage talk or group talking I am the worst case of shy attitude. Though I can be little better with close friends and family. So don't be surprised if I prefer write/mails/blogs over phone calls or social meetings :)

The rules for the above tagging buisness is:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. If I tagged you, its because I want to know more about you.

So even though I do not have so many people to tag but I would tag:
Ajit, Ajoy, Atul, Michy, Milind, Nandy, Nitin, Piyush, Prashant, Sameer, Vaidehi, Vishvesh

Kalakand

2009-10-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Today morning when I was just thinking about making some sweet, suddenly thought of Kalakand I had when Mehul had taken us to temple for his new car's puja. I searched a little bit for the recipe and found that its very easy one. Oh but when I actually made it, I knew though the recipe is simple, it does take a long time to get to the final product. Especially boiling the milk to half and then drying it completely.

Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
1 Cup Sugar
3 Spoon Vinegar
1 Spoon Pistachio
A drop of Kewada Essence
A Silver Leaf

Method

Boil half of the milk.
Mix Vinegar with 3 spoon water and add it to the boiling milk.
When the whey separates completely remove it from the stove and strain it
Wash it through running cold water
Put it in the muslin cloth and drain the water. Keep it aside under the heavy pan
Boil remaining milk till half in quantity
Add in the curdled milk stored aside in it and cook over medium flame till the mixture thickens
Add in sugar and kewada essence. Cook till the mixture thickens completely.
Spread the mixture on the plate, apply the silver leaf and garnish with chopped pistachios
Let the mixture cool. Cut it into cubes and serve

Notes
I tried using non stick pan to boil the milk to half but it didn't work well. So I transferred it to the aluminum pan. It works best for making the sweet.
While boiling down the milk, you need to stir it constantly and vigourously so that it doesnt stick to bottom or sides of the pan.
05Nov: I tried using 2 galons of milk instead of 2 litre today which is approximately 8 liter and I had terrible time boiling down the milk to half and even after adding paneer. I totally missed the fact that since its boiling of the milk the time taken would be increasing and wont be a marginal increase. So be aware if you are making it in bulk. Its too much of work. And it made approximately 16 pieces of sweets with 2 liter and we finished it so fast that I had to make it again :) and thats how I thought of making it in bulk so that we can give it to few others too :)

Berry Nutty Chocochip Cake

2009-10-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

Well this time around in Cosco I found fresh cranberries and since I love cranberry juice I thought of buying that packet and trying it out.. The first bite of cranberry and I was sure that I cant have it as it is and have to make something out of it. And then after searching for lot many recipes, none were appealing enough to try out. That is when I decided to try my own one from the few ones I read.

Ingredients
2 Cup Maida
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Cranberries
1 Cup Choco Chips
1 Cup Mixed Nuts
1 Cup Grapes
1/2 Cup Melted Butter
1.5 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Spoon Baking Soda
1 Egg
4 Spoon Chocolate Sauce
Salt to taste

Method

Chop the mixed nuts, cranberries and mix them with choco chips and keep aside.
Sift through Maida, Baking Powder, Baking Soda and Salt couple of times.
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Grease the loaf pan/any other baking pan with butter
In a large bowl, take this sift through mixture, add in sugar and mix well
Add in melted butter and mix with hands to form a crumbly mixture
Grind grapes in the mixie to get its juice. Add in the mixture in bowl
Add egg and nuts-berry=chocochip mixture. Mix well.
Pour the batter in the previously greased pan and bake it in the oven over 350F/180C for 45 minutes.
Let the cake cool down and then sprinkle the chocolate sauce over its top and serve.

Notes
Dont worry if the batter isn't of flowing consistency, its normal. The batter in this case is more of a moist thick mixture.
I already had the mixed nuts bottle at home so I used that one, but you can combine any kind of nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts.

Thick Poha Chivada

2009-10-12T00:52:00.001-07:00

Chivada (Mixture) in general is weak point for all most everyone i guess :) This one is very common preparation we end up preparing. Even more than one with thin poha (though i like that one too).

Ingredients
2 Cup Thick Poha
2.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Sesame Seeds
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Cup Peanuts
1/4 Cup Pootane Daal(Chanaa Daal)
1.5 Spoon Sugar
7-8 Curry Leaves
4 Spoon Cashews
4 Spoon Raisins
1/4 Spoon Mustard
A pinch of Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Roast jeera and sesame seeds over low flame for around 3-4 minutes
Dry grind jeera, sesame seeds and sugar to form fine powder
In a big pan, mix the above powder, 2 spoon of red chilli powder, cashews, raisins and salt to taste. Mix well
In a pan heat oil over medium flame
Fry pohas in small batches by adding them in another strainer (steel or aluminium one) which is dipped in the hot oil
Drain them on the kitchen towel and keep adding them to the above masala mixture when 2-3 batches are on towel. Mix well
When pohas are fried completely, strain out the remaining oil and heat it in a pan (around 2-3 spoon)
Fry groundnut till they turn reddish in it. Keep them aside.
In same oil, add mustard and let it splutter.
Add Asafoetida, curry leaves and futaane daal(chanaa daal) and roast it for around 2 minutes.
Add in fried groundnuts and remaining 1/2 spoon of red chilli powder and add this mixture to the chivada mixture prepared earlier. Mix well.

Notes
Use litte oil at a time and add some more oil when half way though. The oil turns black after frying poha, so it would help in reducing the remaining quantity that we need to throw away.
Using strainer helps in taking out pohas easily after they are fried.
I drained the fried pohas over kitchen towel so that it can soak out oil, but one must make sure to transfer them to masala mixture when it is warm and before it cools down

Chakali

2009-10-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

This time for Diwali I decided to prepare some faraal - snack items prepared especially for Diwali. So the preparation started with getting recipes from mom. When I looked at recipe for chakali, I just couldn't believe it is going to be so easy to make it and yet so quick. I had fun preparing this one and it tasted awesome. Item that is my and ajoy's favorite.

Ingredients
2 Cup Rice Powder
1 Spoon Maida
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Sesame Seeds
1/4 Spoon Carom Seeds
1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

Mix rice powder, maida, sesame seeds, carom seeds, red chilli powder, salt in a plate
Add in the butter and mix well.
Make a soft dough ball (not too tight, not too loose but soft consistency) by adding water to it and kneading it well
Knead half portion of it and put it in chakali maker.
Heat oil on high
Turn the heat to medium, make chakalis from the maker on a plate and transfer them to the oil.
Fry from both sides till light red in color
Repeat for remaining ones, making sure oil is hot enough before adding chakalis to the oil.
Let it drain the oil on the kitchen towel, cool it and store it in air tight container

Notes
If you are using homemade butter, then wash it with cold water before use.
The chakalis should be taken out before they turn completely reddish as the color darkens after removing and cooling it down.

Tandoori Chicken

2009-10-12T00:23:00.001-07:00

One of the best starters we both love. In hyderabad I use to prepare this with Everest Chicken Tandoori Masala but this time I made it with my mix of masalas. It tasted awesome.

Ingredients
6 Chicken Leg Pieces
3/4 Cup Curd
2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Spoon Ginger Paste
2 Spoon Garlic Paste
4 Spoon Lemon Juice
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
2 Spoon Oil
1/2 Cup Butter
Salt to taste

Method

Make horizontal cuts on the chicken pieces
Apply 2 spoon lemon juice and 1 spoon red chilli powder to it and keep aside for 30 minutes
In a bowl mix curd, garlic paste, ginger paste, 1 spoon red chilli powder, 2 spoon lemon juice, garam masala, oil and salt
Apply the above marination to chicken and store in fridge for 4-5 hours
Preheat oven to 395F(200C)
Melt the butter and sprinkle some on the chicken and bake it for 15 minutes
Turn the chicken to face other side and sprinkle more butter on both sides. Bake for another 15 minutes
Again turn the chicken and sprinkle remaining butter and bake for another 10 minutes
Sprinkle chaat masala and serve with onions rings and lemon wedges

Notes
Instead of leg pieces you can use 700g mixed pieces as well.
In restaurants, they use color to make it look reddish but I didnt have it neither did I intended to use it.
I baked it over this bakeware set. It helps in dropping off extra marination, butter in the tray.

Set Dosa

2009-09-28T11:55:00.001-07:00

My love for set dosa started the very first day i ate it in bangalore. I just love this fluffy thick dosa served in set of three medium sized ones. Finally I did some research for recipe. Most of them were using soda which i didnt want to use. Also found out that they use poha in it. So adapted those ingredients to the my dosa recipe. Outcome was awesome :) Infact I made it like 2 weeks back and before I could click photos, they were over :) And already been asked for repeat. So this week I prepared it again and first thing I did was click the snap :)

Ingredients
2 Cup Rice
1 Cup Idly Rawa
3/4 Cup Udid Daal
1 Cup Poha
1 Spoon Methi Seeds
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Soak Rice, Idly rawa, udid daal and methi seeds seperately in the morning.
In the evening soak poha for an hour
Grind the rice to fine paste.
Mix udid daal and Methi seeds and grind it to fine paste.
Grind the idly rawa to form fine paste
Grind Poha as well to the paste.
Mix all these pastes really well and keep in warm place overnight
Next day morning, add salt and water enough to make free flowing consistency. Mix well.
Heat tawa on low-medium flame.
Sprinkle few drops of oil and pour a cup of batter.
When the one side is one, sprinkle couple of drops on top of the dosa and flip it to cook the other side.
When the other side too turns light brown, take it out and serve.

Notes
This dosa is normally served with mixed vegetable, but i dont like it at all so instead i served it with peanut-curd chutney without using optional items. It went well.

Khatkhate

2009-09-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

I loved this dish a lot since my childhood. Probably then I didn't realise it was the healthiest dish that I loved :D Just like the name says it uses almost everything that's in your fridge :)

Ingredients
1 Cup Beans
1/2 Cup Mutter
2 Drum Sticks
2 Corn Cobs
1 Potato
1 Sweet Potato
1 Raw Banana
1.5 Spoon Tamarind
1/4 Cup Jaggery
1/2 Cup Coconut
1/4 Spoon Corriander Seeds
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
A pinch of Asafoetida
2 Spoon Ghee
Salt to taste

Method

In a half cup of water add the tamarind and keep aside.
In a pan, add beans and 4 cups of water and cook over high flame for 5 minutes
Cut each corn cob into 3 pieces and add the corn cob pieces and another 2 cups of water, Cook for another 5 minutes
Add drum sticks - cut into pieces, potato cubes, raw banana pieces, pieces of sweet potato and another 2 cups of water. Cook till they are almost done
Mean time grate coconut, tamarind (with its water that was it soaked in) and corriander seeds adding half cup of water.
Add it and mutters to the almost done vegetables.
Add turmeric powder, jaggery, red chilli powder and salt and simmer it.
In another small pan, add ghee and let the mustard splutter in it.
Add asafoetida and mix the tadaka with the vegetable.

Notes
You can optionally add 1 cup of pumpkin pieces too, but I couldn't as it wasn't available in the store here.

Mangana

2009-09-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite sweet dish, so much so that every Saturday mom use to make this for lunch and i always looked forward to it. Finally I decided to make it on my own, off course with the recipe help from mom. I modified it a little bit though.

Ingredients
1 Cup Harbara Daal
3/4 Cup Jaggery
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/2 Cup Raisins
3 Cup Milk
A pinch of Cardamom Powder
Salt to taste

Method

Pressure cook the harbara daal by adding 1.5 cup water over 4-5 whistles.
Add jaggery, cashews, raisins, cardamom powder and salt and cook over medium flame for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool down
Add milk to the cooled mixture and serve

Notes
Isnt it simplest sweet dish ever :) The taste is amazing esp because of jaggery, daal and dry fruits.
You can use coconut milk instead of normal milk but since mom uses milk I used same.

Paneer Biryaani

2009-09-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Last week I made this but didn't get time to post it. Long time ago Anuja had asked me about preparing the biryaani with something veg. I remember she mentioned that she doesn't want it with paneer but I just couldn't help but make it with paneer. So sorry for fulfilling your wish only half way through but this recipe is just for you. Hope you get to try it and like it :) It turned out a simple affair and yet very delicious. This one is inspired by Spicy Biryaani recipe but I modified it little bit so as to take Paneer taste into account.

Ingredients
3 Cup Rice
400g Paneer
4 Tomatoes
3 Onions
2 Potatoes
1 Cup Cashews
1/2 Cup Almonds
8 Cinnamon
15 Cloves
15 Cardamons
1/2 Spoon Poppy Seeds
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper
1 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Saunf
1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 Cup Curd
1/2 Cup Milk
2 Pinch Saffron
8 Spoon ghee
4 Spoon Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Cut the paneer into cubic pieces
In a bowl, mix turmeric powder, red chilli powder, ginger paste, garlic paste, curd and salt to taste.
Add cubed paneer pieces in it and mix well so that the marrination is completely covering the pieces. Keep it in dry, cool place for around couple of hours.
Soak rice in warm water and keep aside
In a pan add butter and shallow fry the paneer pieces to light brown tinge over medium heat. Keep them aside
In same pan, in same butter, add 4 cinamon, 5 cloves, black pepper, poppy seeds, jeera, sauf, corriander powder, almonds and 1/2 cup cashews and roast it over low-medium flame till light aroma feels the air. The masalas would be light brown by now.
Add one diced onion and cook till onion turns light brown. Let the mixture cool down.
In a mixie grind 3 tomatoes and keep aside.
Grind the above cooked masala with remaining tomato to form fine paste.
In a pan, add 2 spoon of ghee and this masala and roast for a while.
Add tomato puree and salt to taste in it and cook till the gravy thickens
Add paneer pieces and cook till the gravy dries completely. Keep aside.
Pressure cook potatoes, cut them into slices after removing their cover and keep aside.
Warm Milk, add saffron and keep aside.
In a pan, boil water and add the soaked rice. Cook till almost done.
Drain remaining water and run it through cold water.
In a small pan, heat 4 spoon of ghee and add 4 cinamons, 10 cloves, 15 cardmom and salt to taste. Roast for couple of minutes and add it to the rice. Mix well and keep aside.
Cut the remaining 2 onions into thin slices.
In a Pan, add little oil and fry the onions onto medium-high flame till they are light brown in color. Keep aside.
In same oil, fry the remaining 1/2 cup cashews and keep aside.
Grease the cooker with 2 spoon of ghee and layer biryaani. Spread the potato slices to cover the cooker bottom first. Spread 1/3 of rice, then spread a layer of half of paneer masala, sprinkle some cashews, and browned onions.
Do the same layering again (Rice, masala, cashews and onions) and then cover it with remaining 1/3 portion of rice.
Sprinkle Some more cashews and onions, keeping aside a few for decoration.
Make few through and through holes through the layered biryaani with the back of spatula.
Spread the saffron milk in them.
Cover with the lid and pressure cook over low heat for 25- 30 minutes.
Garnish with left cashews and onions and serve.

Notes
I used 1 layer of rice 1/2 paneer and then again another layer of rice with rice from just 2 cups of raw rice. Also used half quantity of cashews, onions and garnishing spices. Stored the remaining half portion of paneer masala for later use this week. I just had to do the rice and onion portion again and could quickly make the dinner. Helped on the hectic day a lot. :) And it tasted even much better as well because of storing masala for few days :)
I always use the potato layering to cover up cooker so that the biryaani doesnt get burnt while pressure cooking it. I am speechless for that idea, helps a lot.
Also stored the marrinated paneer in fridge since it was quite hot here. But i think even in other time thats a better way so that it dries even further and the marrination sticks to paneer.

Tandoori Paneer Pizza

2009-08-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

My favorite dish :) esp paneer flavor.. and I so miss it here. Well there is a food chain which has paneer pizza available here but then I really didn't like the flavor. So i had been meaning to prepare this since ages and finally made it yesterday. It turned out quite nice. I also did little r&d and found out how to do wheat base rather than all maida base - little healthier version :)

Ingredients
4 Cup Wheat Flour
2 Cup Maida
400g Paneer
2.5 Cup Mozarella Cheese
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1.5 Cup Milk
5 Spoon Curd
2.25 Spoon Active Dry Yeast
1/2 Onion
1/4 Cup Dried Tomatoes
4 Sweet Bell peppers
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
2 Spoon Butter
1/2 Spoon Sugar
2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1 Spoon Basil Leaves
Salt to taste

Method

Warm a cup of water, add sugar and active dry yeast. Still well, wrap up with the clinging film and keep aside for 10 minutes to let yeast activate
In a plate mix wheat flour, maida, olive oil, melted butter, activated yeast and salt to taste
Add milk and knead the soft dough. Keep it in a large bowl covered with clinging film for around 2 hours to double in size.
In a bowl, mix curd, garlic paste, ginger paste, jeera powder, corriander powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste.
Marrinate the cubed paneer with this curd mixture and refrigerate it till the time pizza dough is doubling up
When the dough is doubled up, divide it into two portions and spread it on pizza pans
Spread parmesan cheese, grated mozarella cheese on top of the pizza base
Spread the cubed paneer pieces, bell pepper slices, onion slices and dried tomato evenly on top of it
Sprinkle basil leaves
Preheat oven to 400F/200C
Bake the pizza at 400F/200C for 25 minutes

Notes
While activating yeast, the water should be luke warm - just warm to touch otherwise if too hot the yeast would burn up. To know if yeast is activated you need to see if foam is present in the yeast-water-sugar mixture.
When I baked pizza i found that one of the pizza was really risen well and other one was also rised but not as much as the other one. So I binged ;-) a bit and found that the while baking pizza we should be baking only on upper shelve the middle shelf doesnt have enough heat and hence the pizza doesnt rise well in that section. Well tip for me for next time.

Tri Colored Rice

2009-08-05T12:05:00.001-07:00

Well, I know its been long since I posted here but I was on a little break from cooking for few weeks. I was busy with work and tired to cook everyday. When I was in India, I use to get this rest when I use to go to pune almost everymonth. Both my mom and mother in law were sweet enough to feed me without doing anything at all :) God.. I miss those days.. Now I had to take this break and rely on MacD/Subway/TacoBell/Husband's cooking once in a while. But now I feel fresh and motivated for cooking again and foremost bored with all the above items.. So here is the new dish that I tried. The recipe is something that I just thought of giving shot and kept on adding ingredients as I felt like. But I am stunned at the outcome. So easy, nutritious and yet good looking dish.

Ingredients
9 Cup Almost cooked Rice
2 Tomatoes
Handful of Corriander Leaves
3 Handsful of Spinach
1 Green Chilli
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoom Garam Masala
Roasted Cashews for garnishing
Ghee
Salt to taste

Method

Add salt in the rice, divide into three parts and keep aside.
In a mixie grind tomatoes to form the puree. Keep aside
Grind spinach, corriander leaves and green chilli adding minimal water in it. Keep aside
Boil the Spinach-corriander leaves puree and let it cook till almost dry and thick enough
Add corriander powder and 1 part of the rice in it and let it cook and dry completely.
Add couple of spoons of ghee and mix and cook for another minute. Keep aside.
Boil tomato puree
When the puree starts to thicken, add red chilli powder, garam masala and 1 part of the rice.
When the rice is done and dry sprinkle couple of spoon of ghee and keep aside
Arranage the rice parts in the rice dish and garnish with the cashews

Notes
When grinding spinach i added little water and only 1/3 of spinach at first. When it was pureed I added another part of spinach and pureed it. That saved me with using extra water and while cooking the spinach wasnt over cooked and didnt have to wait too long for it to thicken.
I boiled rice and when it was almost done, just removed the excess water and ran through cold tap water so that each grain separates out from each other.

Tawa Paneer

2009-06-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

I had been so bored eating same type of gravies and all I thought that I have to try something different with paneer this time. Would have loved to make palak paneer but then I didnt have spinach and i was too tired with cycling and too engrossed in DMG - Abhi - Nikki Scenes that I decided to make my own tawa paneer recipe. Well I didnt even look on net for recipes nor did i check in some of the books I have. Just went through adding whatever I felt like. Result was awesome :) So here I am sharing with you my own Tawa Paneer

Ingredients
200g Paneer Block
1 Onion
2 Tomato
4-5 Sweet Peppers
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Aamchur Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Cut the paneer into squared pieces, onions and tomatoes into the medium sized pieces
Slice the sweet peppers
On a tawa add some oil and shallow fry paneer pieces on high heat but till light brown in colour. Keep aside
In same oil add chopped onion and cook till light brown in colour. Separate from oil and keep aside
Cook sweet peppers in same oil and keep aside
In same oil, add tomato pieces and cook till almost done.
Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and Aamchur Powder and saute for 2-3 minutes
Add paneer pieces, onion, sweet peppers and salt to taste.
Mix well and cook for another 4-5 minutes and serve warm

Notes
I didnt want to add any fancy items in there nor i wanted to add more spices etc to make sure it is not too spicy. Well I loved the taste as it was it had perfect combination of mild spices with the soft paneer.
I used nonstick tawa with sides to it - that helped me in managing it while mixing well :)

Brinjal Paratha

2009-06-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

These days I end up making parathas too often. Simple reason being, then you dont need to cook other 3-4 items and also ajoy loves parathas. So its good for me too and for him too.. especially on busy weekdays. So here is something I came up with Brinjal. I had tried this lot of times but I think yesterday was the best one with perfect combinations :) Hence its finally making its way out here :)

Ingredients
1 Medium Sized Brinjal
2 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
2-3 Spoon Corriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Broil the brinjal in the oven at 500F for 25minutes. Let it cool down
Remove the cover and smash the brinjal.
Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, finely chopped corriander leaves and salt to taste.
Add wheat flour and make the dough out of it.
Apply a spoon of oil and knead well and keep aside for 20-30 minutes.
Make lemon sized balls and roll the 3 fold parathas and cook them on the tawa.
Serve hot with curd and pickle

Notes
You can roast the brinjal the way we do it for Bharata on the stove. Or you can bake them in the oven but I found that broiling functionality in ovens here is much better than baking when you need the item to be cooked without it oozing out its juices. The last few times I baked the brinjal it oozed lot of juice and then I had to add too much of wheat flour and the parathas lacked the brinjal taste in them.

Pumpkin Almond Cup Cakes

2009-05-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Few days back I made 'Khatakhata' - a special mixed vegetable dish from konkani cuisine. It needs pumpkin and I looked for it through all grocery stores, super markets, indian stores but every one said its out of season. But Wholes food had canned pumpkin and I thought of giving it a try. But when I opened the can I found that it was mashed one and not cubed ones. So I couldnt use that in the khatkhata. (Yes recipe will come for it when I cook it next time as this time I forgot to take pics). Then I was looking for all pumpkin recipes that can use puree of Pumpkin and found that cupcakes use them. So finally after reading lot I came up with this my version. Once it started baking it spread so much of aroma that I just couldnt wait for them to get ready. What a nice way to eat Pumpkin :)

Ingredients
2 cup Pumpkin Puree
3 Cup Maida
1 Cup Butter
1.5 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Castor Sugar
2 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Spoon Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Spoon Cinnamon Powder
1/2 Spoon Cloves Powder
1/2 Spoon Nutmeg Powder
1/4 Cup Almond Sliced
1/2 Spoon Pistachio Essence
2 Eggs

Method

Sieve through Maida, baking powder, baking soda few times.
Mix Nutmeg powder, cinnamon powder and cloves powder. Keep aside
In a bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and castor sugar together untill mixture is fluffy and sugar is completely mixed
Add in each egg at a time and beat them into the mixture.
Now add the sieved maida-bakingpowder mixture little at a time till completely accomodated. Stir with a spatula and dont use blender here.
Add milk and mix well. Mixture will thin down a little
Add pumkin puree and pistacheo essence and mix gently using the spatula
Mix in the almonds except few to decorate in the batter.
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
Grease the cup cake trays and fill in the mixture upto 3/4th level in each cup
Garnish with remaining almonds
Bake in the oven on 350F/180C for 20 minutes. Knife inserted should come out clean.

Notes
If you are using fresh pumkin, just steam the pumkin and then mash it in mixie. I guess that should work too.
Made around 16 medium sized cup cakes

Carrot Paratha

2009-05-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about something new yet simple for dinner yesterday. I thought of parathas as ajoy loves it.. But then I didnt want to cook something that we always eat.. So came up with this idea. Turned quite nice.

Ingredients
1.5 Potato
2 Cup Grated Carrots
2.5 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
3/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Carom Seeds
1/2 Lemon
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

Mix wheat flour, salt to taste and 2 spoons of oil.
Add water to it and make the dough. It shouldnt be too loose or too tight.
Add another couple of spoon of oil and knead well and keep aside for half an hour atleast.
Cook potatoes in the pressure cooker and let them cool
Mash the potatoes and mix with carrots
Add red chilli powder, salt, corriander powder, carom seeds and lemon juice. Mix well.
Prepare the balls of small lemon size out of this mixture
Make same size balls from the dough and prepare the cup shape.
Stuff the carrot ball in the cup shape dough and close the ball. Roll the paratha
On medium flame, heat the tawa and cook the paratha from both sides till brown. Spread few drops of oil while its cooking.
When completely done apply few drops of ghee and serve with pickle and/or curd

Notes
I prefer to use only few drops of ghee at the end of cooking of paratha but if you like you can fry them in ghee itself.

Very Berry Cake

2009-05-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

Right now we get so many variety of berries out here that I thought it would be a good idea to try out this cake.

Ingredients
3 Cups Maida
4 Spoon Baking Powder
2 Eggs
1 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Milk
2 Cup Rasberry
2 Cup Blue Berry
3/4 Cup Black Berry
6-8 Strawberries
Salt to taste

Method

Mix the butter and sugar with the handheld mixer.
Add Egg and mix again till thick and smooth paste
Sieve the maida, baking powder and salt together.
Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Add the maida-baking powder mixture in to the egg-butter-sugar mixture with constant mixing using handheld mixer
When the complete maida and baking powder mixture is mixed it would be quite thick. Add milk and mix well
Add all the berries (used whole berries except for stawberries which i chopped in to four pieces as they were big ones) and mix with a spatula
Grease the baking pan and pour in the mixture.
Bake for 35 minutes at 350F/180C

Notes
I used powdered sugar so that it can dissolve in quickly.
Also I used the fresh fruits directly from fridge so that they dont over cook.
You can also use frozen berries available in the market. I might try freezing the fresh berries and using them unthawed next time.
Also I used salted butter and added salt to so it tasted little extra salt. So if you are using salted butter dont use salt or vice-a-versa.

Corn Sikh Kabab

2009-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

We get lots of corn out here and I think its good source of fiber and roughage :) So we eat in abundance. But its normally after roasting it and sprinkling salt and lemon. This time I decided to try something different with it and here is the recipe I came up with.

Ingredients
4 Cobs with the corn
2 Potatoes
4 Spoon Corn Flour
6 Cloves of Garlic
2 Green Chillies
1 Onion
1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Butter or Ghee

Method

Add water to corn and cook over medium flame for around 25 minutes or till the corn is cooked. Keep aside to cool down
Pressure cook potato in the cooker and keep aside to cool down
In a mixie grind garlic, green chillie and onion to smooth paste
Grate the corns, Mash the potatoes and mix them
Add the grinded mixture, finely chopped corriander leaves, corn flour and salt to taste.
Make the elongated kababs from this mixture.
Preheat oven to 400F/200C
Grease the baking tray with butter/ghee and spread the kababs
Bake at 400F/200C for 15 minutes
Flip the sides of the kabab and bake for another 15 minutes. Server with tomato ketchup

Notes
While making the mixture I tried to use less spicess as possible so that i can retain the taste of the corn and it worked well with hint of onion-garlic-chilli paste. But if you like you can add other masalas as well.
Just for completeness, the given quantity of corn flour worked best for my kabab mixture to be firm. You can add more or use less according to the consitency of the mixture.
You can also cook the kababs over tawa on medium to low heat but oven cooking worked best as i could manage other work while it was getting cooked :)

Pineapple Muramba

2009-05-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Almost a month back I got the big pineapple from costco. I just remembered mom's pineapple muramba and thought of giving it a shot. Called up mom and asked for recipe.. And it turned out that it was quite easy to make it and hence prepared that night immediately :)

Ingredients
5 Cups Fresh cut Pineapple
3 Cup Water
1.5 Cup Sugar

Method

Mix pineapple pieces with water such that it barely submerges pineapple
Cook the mixture over medium flame keeping a lid till pineapple are cooked.
Strain the mixture and separate out pineapple and water
In same water mix the sugar and bring to boil
With constant stirring keep heating water over medium flame till it becomes 1 string consistency syrup
Now add pineapple pieces and boil once again
Let it cool down and refrigerate in the fridge

Notes
The muramba needs to be stored in fridge and it would stay for few months.
Good side dish to eat with chappati/paratha
I dont like too much of sugar syrup and hence the above recipe gives very less sugar syrup mixed pineapple muramba.. If you like you can add another cup of water + 1/2 cup of sugar to get traditional version which has more liquid

Aalu Gobi

2009-05-04T11:09:00.001-07:00

Ajoy loves gobi so we always have it at home. This time I thought of trying something different that the usual preparations and end up preparing this dish

Ingredients
2 Potatoes
1 Gobi
1/2 Spoon Mustard
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Powdered Sugar
Corriander Leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

Peel the potatoes and cut them in cubic shapes
Separate out the florets of medium size from the gobi
Heat oil in a pan and let the mustard and Jeera splutter in the oil.
Add potato pieces and gobi florets in the oil and cook on medium flame with constant stirring.
After 5 minutes add turmeric powder and keep cooking
When the potato and gobi is almost done, add corriander powder, jeera powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, powdered sugar and salt. Mix well and cook till completely done
Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves

Notes
This simple dish gives different flavour than the tomato gravy kind of gobi preparation. The vegetable is quite dry and goes well with phulkas or parathas.

Crisp Indianised Hash Brown

2009-05-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

I had prepared this couple of weeks back but got the chance to post now.. The item was amazingly crispy and tasty :) Yet a quick prepartions :)

Ingredients
2 Potatoes
1 Green Chilli
1/4 Cup Cucumber Pickles
A pinch of Black Pepper Powder
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

Grate the potatoes and wash them with lots of water to remove all starch.
Drain all the water from the grated potatoes and let them dry on a paper towel
Mix the grated potatoes with finely chopped green chillies, picled cucumbers, black pepper powder and salt.
Heat the tawa and spread ghee to coat it.
Spread the potato mixture on the tawa to form a thin layer
Cook on medium flame on both sides till the colour turns to brown

Notes
I used the medium sized grater for this so that the pototo pieces arent too thin/thick. Thicker version will not give as much crisp as this one did.
The green chillies gave it nice firy - spicy touch

Bhel

2009-05-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Bhel being one of my favourite snacks we end up preparing it often. I also prefer it during outings :) Preparing it at some nice picnic spot is the best, easiest and tastiest food :)

Ingredients
6 Cup Churmura
2 Cup All in One Mixture
1 Cup Shev
1 Cup Boondi
1 Cup Navaratna Mix
1.5 Cup Tamarind
2 Cup Jaggery
2 Green Chillies
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
4-5 Dates
2 Onions
2 Tomatoes
1/2 Cup Corriander Leaves
Salt to taste

Method

Soak the tamarind and dates in water for an hour or so
Grind the mixture with jaggery, red chilli powder, green chilli, jeera powder and salt
Strain the mixture and keep it aside
In a big pan mix churmura(puffed rice), navaratna mix, all in one, shev, finely chopped onion, tomatoes and corriander leaves. Mix well
Add the tamarind mixture prepared earlier and Mix well
Garnish with boondi and serve immediately

Notes
Garnish it with Raw Mango pieces during mango season. It would be more fun :)
Its good idea to make the bhel in batches so that it doesnt become soggy while serving it.
I normally prefer to keep some tamarind mixture aside instead of mixing the full quantity. That helps giving the personal touch :) The taste depends on what one likes.
Very good item for picnics and parties. You can keep everything ready and mix all of the items just before eating

Raskadam

2009-04-10T01:59:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a few months since I had Raskadam one of my favourite sweet. So thought of giving this a shot. The recipe was adapted from 'Ruchira' a well known recipe book in Pune.

Ingredients
3.5 Cup Milk
1 Spoon Vinegar
1.5 Cup Sugar
1.5 Cup Powdered Sugar
4 Cup Khoya
A pinch of Saffron
1 Cup Grated Paneer

Method

Warm couple spoon of milk and add the safron. Keep aside.
Heat the remaining milk
When the milk starts to boil add vinegar mixed with a spoon of water and stir continuously.
When the milk cudles and water is separated out, throw out excess water and run it through the cold water
Squeeze this mixture in a cotton cloth and drain out the water.
Mix it thourghly and make the dough out of it.
Prepare around 25 balls out it (small sized
Mix the sugar with the 6 cup water in the cooker and boil it
Add these small balls in it and let it boil for around 5 minutes
Cover the cooker with lid and boil for another 5 minutes
Remove the lid, add half cup of water and boil for another 5 min. Let the balls cool down. Take out these balls and spread them on the plate and keep aside
In a nonstick pan on medium flame cook the grated paneer till golden in colour and keep aside to cool down
Mix grated khoya, powdered sugar, safron-milk and make the dough out of it.
By now the paneer would be cooled and crispy. Powder it in the mixie and spread it in a separate plate.
Now is the time to assemble the raskadam. Cover the cooked ball with the khoya mixture by froming a cup shape around it and closing it after inserting a ball in it. Roll the ball in the powdered paneer

Notes
Be careful not to burn the paneer and stir it continuously while cooking, I did that so that it was easy to powder the paneer and the raw smell from it goes away.
The ball preparation for the raskadam is similar to the rasgulla except prepare small sized balls and quantity of sugar-water.
You can add orange or pink - red colour in the khoya mixture but i didnt have it and hence didnt use it.