Amateur Perceptions

Wishing You All Merry Christmas with a glass of wine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-12-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

Ingredients:

Black Seedless grapes --   ½ kg
Sugar                                  --   5 cup sugar
Egg White                         --   ½ of a large egg
Yeast                                  --   1 tsp
Wheat kernels                --   ¾ cup
Water                                 --   6 - 8 cups
Cloves                                --   3 - 4
Cinnamon                        --   1 small stick
Cardamom                      --   1 - 2

Preparation of Wine:

Boil the water in a clean vessel. Let it cool completely.

In another cup of luke warm water,add yeast and set it aside for 15 - 20 min.

Clean and dry the grapes. Crush the grapes well. I used a mortar,but your hands should also do a wonderful job.Make sure it is clean.

Take a clean dry jar, preferably a dark colour one with a tight lid. The jar should have the capacity to fill in double the quantity of the above ingredients.

Now add the crushed grapes,sugar, wheat kernels, spices, yeast, beaten egg white and water. Cover the mouth of the jar with a clean cloth and tie tightly. Close with the tight lid.

Keep this in a dark corner for 21 days. I was using a glass jar and hence covered it with foil paper to make it dark. Stir this with a clean and dry wooden spoon every day.

On the 21st day, strain the mix with a muslin cloth / cheese cloth into a clean and dry glass jar. Keep this for minimum of 21 days, removing the sediments every 3 - 4 days until you get a clear water. Use dark colour jars/ bottles to store the wine to preserve its colour.

Unniappam

2011-12-19T23:04:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:

Rice Flour             --   1 cup
Ripe bananas      --   2 small ones/cherupazham - If using yellow robesta, use 1 ripe banana.
Jaggery                 --   250 gm
Maida / APF        --   2 tbsp
Baking Soda         --   ¼ tsp
Sesame seeds      -- 1 tbsp
Coconut bits        -- 1 tbsp (I used cashew nuts in bite size)
Ghee                        -- 2 tbsp
Oil                            -- As required for deep frying - preferably coconut oil or ghee

Preparation of unniappams:

Melt jaggery with ¼ cup of water. Strain to remove any impurities and keep aside.Let it cool to a slight warm temperature.

Meanwhile mash the bananas and keep aside.

Heat 1 tbsp of ghee in a pan and fry the coconut pieces/nuts until slight brown. Add the sesame seeds and switch off the flame. Sesame seeds gets fried in the hot pan. Keep it aside.





Add the flours and baking soda to the warm jaggery syrup and mix well without any lumps. Hand works better here in place of ladles and spoons.Add the mashed banana and mix well. Add the remaining 1 tbsp of ghee and the fried coconut/nuts and the sesame seeds.

The batter should be in the consistency of dosa batter or condensed milk. You should be able to continuously pour it without breaking the line.

Add water / milk to adjust the batter to reach the above consistency. It is always better to add water / milk little by little to make sure you do not over do.

Keep it aside for 1 hour (optional). This helps to make the appams softer.

Place the unniappam pan on the stove and pour coconut oil into each rounds until they are half full. Heat the oil on a high flame and then reduce it to medium before you pour the batter.



Pour batter in a round until it is ¾ full. Remember, the batter should flow into one round without any breaks in between. Take a break and go to the next round.

Let it cook on one side and once the appams are firm turn around with the a metal/wooden skewer to cook the other side to a golden colour. Once it gets browned on both the sides remove it from the pan using a fork / skewer / spoon.



Here comes my moms trick to drain the oil. Keep a steel plate in a slanting position and place the appams on the higher part when removed from the pan. You can see oil flowing down. Once they are cool, transfer it on to a kitched towel to drain completely. When preparing in large junks, my mom reuses the oil flowing down the unniappams.

Pour oil in the rounds whenever you feel necessary.

Snack anytime - be it breakfast or evening tea or let it be a dessert after a great lunch / dinner :). It stays good for 2 - 3 days @ room temperature and for a week or more in the refrigerator. If you store in the refrigerator, heat in a microwave for few seconds before you serve to get the soft unniappams.

Paneer Butter Masala

2011-11-28T21:28:00.001-05:00

Ingredients (Serves 4 - 5):

Paneer                                     --   1 packet/250mg
Chilly powder                      --   ½ tsp
Coriander powder             --   1 tsp
Garam masala powder   --   ¼ tsp
Dried Kastoori methi leaves (crushed) - ¼ tsp
Tomato sauce                      --   1 tsp
Milk                                          --   1 cup
Cream                                     --   ½ cup + 1 tbsp for garnish
Water                                      --   ½ cup
Butter                                      --   1½ tbsp
Oil                                             --   1 tsp
Onion                                      --   1 chopped finely
Ginger garlic paste           --   1 tsp
Tomato                                  --   2 medium sized - to puree (comes to 1 cup)
Salt                                          --   to taste

Preparation:

Boil 2 cups of water and immerse the tomatoes in it. The skin of the tomatoes breaks up and now you can easily peel it off. Make a puree out of it and keep aside.

Add chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala powder, dried kasoori methi leaves, tomato sauce and milk into a mixing bowl and whisk until they are well combined.

Chop paneer into cubes. Heat a tsp of oil in a pan and fry it until the sides are slightly golden brown. Drain it. I like the non-fried ones and hence do not fry them usually. In that case, just make sure you do not break them in the gravy.

Add butter into the same pan. Once the butter is melted, add the ginger garlic paste and saute until the raw smell goes off. Now add the finely chopped onions and fry them until golden brown.

Now add the tomato puree and saute until the raw smell goes off and you get a slightly thick gravy. Simmer the flame and add the milk & spices mixture and water. Mix well and keep it for 5 - 6 minutes stirring in-between until the gravy is thick again.

Now add the cream little by little. Make sure you stir continuously when you add the cream to prevent it from curdling, even though cream doesn't curdle as quick as milk. You can also replace the cream with whole milk to reduce the fat & calories.

Simmer again until it reaches the required consistency. This should have a semi-thick gravy. Now add the fried paneer cubes and mix well - carefully to make sure that the paneer cubes retain its shape. Switch off the flame and let it remain on the stove for at least 5 min.

Garnish with cream. You can omit this too, if u want to avoid the extra calories.

Serve hot with rotis or naan.

Courtesy : Vahrehvah

Triangle Cake

2011-11-15T17:51:00.001-05:00

I was inspired by Ria to make this wonderful cake.Thank you Ria. It sounded so exciting to read through her post for this triangle cake with vertical layers of chocolate. Mr.AJ being a chocolate fan, I did not have to wait for an occasion to try this out.

Thanks a lot to Peggy Weaver too, who did a very good explanation of how to bring up this design.

It was fun doing this one. I was planning for days(even though it doesn't require much), looking at the procedure again and again to make sure that I do not go wrong. And since I could not get the continuous appointment of Mr.Time, it took me 5 days to complete the whole cake.

Day 1: Baked the pound cake. Let it cool. Wrapped in foil. Off to Fridge.
Day 2: Prepared the ganache. Placed the cake on the cake board and made 66666 layers out of it. Layered each one with ganache. Into my cake box and back to fridge.
Day 3: Cut the cake diagonally and made it into a triangle. Ohh.. I could see only horizontal layers.. weep.. weep.. weep.. Planned to throw it into the bin. Then decided to finish it anyhow so that I could learn to create the swirls on the cake. Tried to spread the ganache on top.. Ohh.. my ganache was over.. I need more whipping cream & chocolate.. Somebody take me to Wal-Mart. Weep.. weep.. weep..
Day 4: Bought the cream & chocolate. Made ganache and started spreading over. The face side of the triangle was not even because of the browned sides of the cake. Decided to cut a thin layer to make it even. ohhh... wow... my layers.. are vertical :P :P :P. Showed it to AJ and the look he gave me - priceless ;)
Day 5: Photo sessions

Now I know that this one is easy and less prone to mistakes :)

Ingredients (Serves 10 to 12 Chocolate lovers):

Cake:

All purpose flour                      --   1½ cup
Baking Powder                         --   2 tsp
Salt                                                 --   ¼ tsp
Butter                                            --   1½ cup
Granulated Sugar                    --   ¾ cup
Large Eggs                                  --   2
Vanilla extract                          --   1 tsp
Sour cream or plain yogurt --   ¼ cup
Milk                                                 --   ½ cup

Ganache:

Heavy cream -- 1½ cup
Semisweet chocolate -- 375 gms

Preparation of the cake:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and place rack in the center of the oven. Butter and lightly flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder and salt.

In a small bowl whisk the sour cream with the milk, and the vanilla extract.

Beat the butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and sour cream/milk mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake in preheated oven for about 50 - 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Cool completely.

Courtesy: Joy of Baking

Preparation of the ganache:

Roughly chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a heat proof bowl. Bring the heavy cream to a boil and pour over the chopped chocolate. Stir until combined. Let it cool for 20 - 30 minutes.

You can also prepare the ganache and store in the refrigerator. Lightly heat it to bring it back to the spreadable consistency. If the ganache is too runny, let it cool and if it is too thick, lightly heat it.

Assembling:

Cut the cake into thin horizontal layers. I made it into 6 layers. Spread a dab of ganache between each layers and stick them back. Cut the cake diagonally through the face of the rectangle.Now stick together the top of the top layer and the bottom of the bottom layer with a dab of ganache. For a better understanding visit Peggy's site . This forms a triangle with vertical lines in front. If your cake is too much browned and if you have some crumbs after cutting the cake into layers, you might not be able to see the vertical lines as me. If you need to even the face of the cake, cut a thin layer and there you see the beautiful vertical lines.

Cover the cake with the left over ganache. You can decorate it as per your wish. I just made some swirls over it as Ria did. Next time, I am think about decorating it with some icing flowers.

Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream J

Varutharacha kallumma kaaya / Mussels in fried coconut gravy:

2011-11-02T23:05:00.001-04:00

Ingredients (Serves 4 to 5):

Kallummakaaya / Kadukka / Mussels --    ¼ kg shelled / 50-70 small sized
Potato                                    --   1 medium size
Finely Chopped Onions --   1 medium size
Ginger                                    --   1 tbsp, chopped finely
Garlic                                     --   1 tbsp, chopped finely
Green chillies                      --   2 - 3, adjust according to your spice level. My chillies were really hot.The spice level mainly depends upon the chillies as we add only a little chilly powder.
Tomato                                 --   1 medium size
Turmeric powder             --   ½ tsp
Coriander seeds                --   1 tbsp (You can also use 1 tbsp coriander powder)
Whole Red Chilly              --   2 - 3 (You can replace this by ½ tsp chilly powder) + 2 for garnishing
Garam Masala powder --   ½ tsp
Coconut                                --   ¼ of medium size
Mustard seeds                   --   ½ tsp
Curry leaves                       --   2 - 3 springs
Coriander leaves              --   2 - 3 springs
Small onions (Shallots) --   2
Ghee / Oil                            --   1 tbsp
Salt                                         --   to taste

Preparation of curry:

The mussels I got here from Costco was the small ones with the shell - Around 50 - 60 nos. Roughly clean the shell using a brush and then steam/heat them in a large vessel without the lid on a low flame. DO NOT add water. Water comes out of the mussels. I used a pressure cooker without the lid.

The shells open wide when they are heated. Toss the vessel in-between to ensure that they are evenly heated and open. When all of them are open, switch off the flame and let it cool.

Now you can just pull out the flesh out of the shells. Few of them would have already fallen off. Instead of steaming the mussels, you can also open the shell by running your knife through the wedges and peel of the flesh from it.I usually do this only for big ones. Doing it this way is a pain for small ones.

Pour the water that came out of the mussels into another small bowl and let it rest for a while. The impurities/particles in the water will sediment and now use that water to clean the mussels. DO NOT use plain water as this mussels will lose it sourness if washed.

If you get larger ones devein them.

It would be much easier to get the peeled ones :) Now that the mussels are ready to be cooked, lets go ahead with the curry. There are different ways I prepare this curry.

Step 1:

Fry the shredded coconut with coriander seeds and whole chillies until coconut is brown in colour. Make sure you do this on a low flame and keep saute-ing as we need the coconut to be evenly fried and browned. Also make sure that you do not burn the coconut. Remove it from the stove as soon as it is done as there are chances that the coconut burns in the pan. If using coriander and chilly powders, add them a minute before switching off the flame and mix it well with the coconut. This gives a fried taste to the powders. Let it cool and grind it to a fine paste/liquid form.

Step 2:

Keep the mussels in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the chopped onions, tomatoes, potato, slit green chillies, ginger,garlic, curry leaves, turmeric powder, garam masala powder and salt to the mussels and mix well. Keep aside for 15 - 20 minutes. OR Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan, Saute the onions, slit green chillies, ginger,garlic, curry leaves until the onions are pink and soft. Add the tomatoes and saute until they are squishy. Then add the turmeric powder and garam masala and saute until the raw smell goes off. Add the potatoes and fry for few minutes and then add the mussels.

Step 3:

Cook the mussels on a medium low flame. Add water as required.

Once the mussels & potatoes are 90% cooked, mix the ground coconut and let it boil. Add required amount of water if you need more gravy and let it boil. Add the chopped coriander leaves, switch off the flame and close the pan with the lid. This helps the flavor to induce into the curry.

Splutter the mustard seeds and fry the chopped shallots and red chillies in ghee and garnish the curry. Serve hot with rice.

Chicken Samosa

2011-10-04T23:49:00.001-04:00

Ingredients - Wrapper:

Wheat flour                         --   1 ½ cup
All purpose flour               --   ½ cup
Salt                                          --   to taste
Oil                                            --   2 tsp + To deep fry

Ingredients - Filling:

Chicken                                 --   ½ kg
Ginger                                   --   ½ inch piece
Garlic                                    --   3 cloves
Turmeric powder            --   1/4 tsp
Coriander powder          --   1 tbsp
Red chili powder             --   1 tsp
Black pepper powder    --   ½ tsp
Fennel powder                 --   ½ tsp
Salt                                        --   to taste
Onions                                 --   2 medium ones
Green chilies                     --   4 (depending upon your taste buds. The chillies I get here are really hot.)
Curry leaves                     --   2 - 3 springs
Oil                                          --   2 tbsp

Preparation of the samosa:

Clean and cut the chicken into small pieces. Grind ginger and garlic into a paste. Marinate the chicken with all the masala powders and the ground ginger garlic paste.Keep it aside for 10-15 minutes and then cook until done, without adding water. If using a pressure cooker, close the cooker only after water comes out of the meat else, there are chances that it burns. If there are any excess water, keep on a low flame and let it evaporate, so that the whole masala clings onto the chicken. Let it cool and then shred the chicken.

Chop the onions, green chilies and curry leaves into very fine pieces.

Heat the oil, and sauté the chopped onions, green chilies and curry leaves until the onion turns slightly brown. Add the shredded chicken and stir until it is well mixed and there is no water content.

Mix the flour, oil and salt. Boil a cup of water and add half a cup into the mixture. Stir it with a spoon and let it cool to a temperature to which you are able to touch it. Make a smooth and hard dough adding more water if required. It is actually hard to measure the exact amount of water required.

Keep it aside for 15 minutes. Divide into equal lemon sized balls.

Roll it into an evenly thick round - same as you do for a paratha - as shown below. Cut it into 4 pieces as shown.

Keep the filling in the center of one piece. Fold is as shown into a triangle. Dip your finger in water and spread it on one corner before sticking it on to the other side. This helps to seal it.

Heat oil in a wok (cheenachatti). When it is really hot, reduce the flame to medium. Add the samosas 2 or 3 or more depending on the size of the pan. Turn it over as soon as you add it to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Fry it until golden brown.

Serve hot with some tomato sauce or green chutney.

Kerala Poratta with Beef Varattiyathu

2011-09-25T23:37:00.001-04:00

Porattas are the most unhealthy food that you get in any restaurant in Kerala. Still it is hard to find someone who doesn't like this soft, fluffy, layered bread. I am pretty sure that anyone would have had this the most from the college canteens – Don't you guys agree? Be it for breakfast, lunch, evening snack or dinner, it doesn’t matter what the curry is; this is always welcome.

In restaurants they use dalda instead of oil to get well layered fluffy parottas. I did not have that in my pantry and went with a mixture of ghee and canola oil. You need lots of energy to knead the dough as it really matters when it comes to the softness. Also in order to stretch the dough to the maximum during people kind of wave it in air on to the board(veeshi adikkuka). I did not have practice and did not know to do that, so used my rolling pin to stretch. You can see videos in youtube and try practicing it.

Ingredients – Parotta (Yields – 10 - 12 small parottas):

Maida/All Purpose Flour --   4 cups
Egg                     --   1 large
Milk                    --   1 cup
Salt                     --   To taste
Oil                       --   ¾ cup (¼ + ½) – I used equal amounts of ghee and canola oil.

Preparation of the parotta:

Take the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add salt. Mix the egg and milk and beat well.

Make a small hole in the center of the flour and pour in the egg - milk mix.

Mix softly to get crumbles.Make sure almost all the flour is wet. Now add the ¼ cup oil in divided portions and knead the dough well. It is easy to knead on a clean flat surface. The dough needs to be kneaded well, say for around 10 - 15 minutes with maximum pressure to get a smooth and soft dough.

Cover and keep the dough with a wet cloth, and let it stand for 4 -5 hrs.

Grease your palms well and knead the dough once again for a minute or two. Make equal size balls out of it.

Apply oil liberally on a board and now roll the balls into its maximum stretch. Make sure not to tear a lot. Small holes are bound to appear and is acceptable for beginners like me.

Take 1 tsp of oil and apply it on the flattened dough. Make pleats as shown and then coil. This is done to make layers.

Roll it again into small circles using your palm, greased well(needs lots of pressure) OR you can use the rolling pin.

Fry it on a tawa on medium flame, applying oil on both sides. Once cooked keep it on a dry towel. When 3 -4 are done, pile it up, cover the parottas with the towel an beat from the sides. This helps to separate the layers.

Enjoy with the beef varattiyathu. I love to have this with chicken curry or beef roast or vegetable kurma or kadala curry or green peas... the list is never ending J

Ingredients – Beef (Yields – 2 –3 servings):

Beef                                --    ½ kg
Ginger                           --   2 tbsp minced/finely chopped
Garlic                            --   3 tbsp minced/finely chopped
Green Chillies            --   4
Red/Pearl Onions   --    1 cup, finely chopped
Coconut slices/Thengakothu -- ½ cup
Curry Leaves            --   2 springs
Turmeric Powder   --   ½ tsp
Chilly Powder          --   1½ tsp
Coriander Powder --   2 tbsp
Salt                               --   to taste
Coconut oil               --   2 tbsp

For Masala powder: (Can be substituted with 2 - 2½ tbsp of Eastern Meat Masala)

Fennel Seeds           --   1½ tbsp
Whole Pepper         --   ½ tbsp
Cinnamon Sticks   --   2 to 3 - 1 inch sticks
Cardamom              --   2
Cloves                        -- 2
Mace                          -- 1 – I omitted this as I did not have it in stock; but try not to :)

Preparation of Beef Varattiyathu:

Grind the ingredients for the masala into fine powder. Keep ½ tsp of masala aside.

Cut and clean the beef, preferably wash it 6 – 7 times. I also use a tsp of vinegar during my 3rd or 4th wash and then rinse it thoroughly.

Make a marinade with the rest of the masala, 1 tbsp of ginger, 2 tbsp of garlic, ¼ tsp turmeric powder and salt. Apply it thoroughly on the cleaned beef and keep it aside for half an hour. Pressure cook without adding any water until the beef is completely cooked. It takes around 4 – 5 whistles in my pressure cooker.

Heat oil in a pan and add the slit green chillies, remaining ginger and garlic and saute until the raw smell starts leaving. Add the finely chopped pearl onions and saute until they turn slightly golden, on a medium- low flame. Add the remaining turmeric powder, chilly powder and coriander powder and let the raw smell go off. Make sure you do not burn the powders.

Now add the curry leaves and the coconut pieces and fry well. Then add the cooked beef and mix well with the onion masala. Let it boil and the water in the meat dry slightly.

When the gravy/onions start sticking on to the meat, add the reserved ½tsp of masala and fry well until you get a dark brown colour. Make sure you keep on sautéing the beef at this stage.

Add more curry leaves for a good aroma and flavor and mix well. Switch off the flame and close the pan with a lid to lock the aroma. Serve hot with the parottas. This goes well with appam, puttu, any Indian breads or even with simply steamed rice.

Does this really pair with a black label ??? I have never tried – But so says my sweet heart !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pierre Herme’s Vienesse Chocolate Sables – Chocolate cookies

2011-09-15T09:10:00.001-04:00

This is again inspired by Shirley. I just spend some time her blog and finally decided to bookmark the whole site and not the recipes one by one ;)

Ingredients(Yields around 50 cookies):

All purpose flour           --   2 cups
Unsalted Butter             --   1 cup
Salt                                      -- a pinch - Original recipe calls for Fleur de Sel
Dutch processed cocoa powder   --    ¼ cup
Powdered Sugar           --   ¾ cup sifted
Egg White                        --   2 eggs

Preparation of the cookies:

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix the flour and cocoa powder and keep aside.

Whisk the butter(at room temperature) and salt until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and beat sugar mix well and the mixture is creamy.Add egg white; as Shirley said,the mixture may curdle a little but it will smoothen out after flour is added.

Now add the flour-cocoa mix and whisk until well blended.

Scoop batter into a piping bag with a star tip. Pipe into "W" or "M" shaped cookies.

Bake for 10 -12 mins.Cool down and store in air tight container. Take care as the cookies would be delicate.

Pierre Herme’s Sable Viennois – Danish Butter cookies

2011-08-30T16:55:00.001-04:00

I saw these beautiful cookies in Nisha’s blog and then navigated to Shirley’s from there. Loved these beautiful looking easily made cookies and gave a shot. Believe me it was a super hit here.

These beautiful cookies reminded me of the blue colour cookie box from Dubai. The taste was not that perfect as that, but yeah they were yummy.

Here comes that wonderful recipe.

Ingredients(Yields around 40 cookies):

All purpose flour           -- 1 cup
Unsalted Butter              -- 7 tbsp
Salt                                       -- a pinch - Original recipe calls for Fleur de Sel
Vanilla essence              -- 1 tsp
Powdered Sugar            -- 1/3 cup
Egg White                         -- 1

Preparation of cookies:

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350F.

Whisk the butter and salt until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and beat sugar mix well and the mixture is creamy.

Add egg white followed by vanilla essence; as Shirley said,the mixture may curdle a little but it will smoothen out after flour is added. Now add the flour and mix until well blended.

Scoop batter into a piping bag with a star tip. Pipe circles on to the prepared tray.

Bake for 10 -12 mins or until golden brown.

Cool down and store in air tight container.

Sharkkara upperi (Banana chips coated with jaggery n spices)

2011-08-22T23:04:00.002-04:00

Back home, my father gets this only for onam and vishu and I would be first one to finish it… Always served with sadhya. And whenever we go for a marriage lunch, I loot these from my mom’s plate (ela – banana leaf in which the sadhya is served.)

Ingredients:

Raw Banana                 --   2 big
Jaggery syrup             --   ¾ cup(Might need around 7 -8 blocks)
Dry ginger powder    --   ½ tsp
Cumin powder             --   ½ tsp
Sugar                               --   3 tsp
Rice                                  --   5 tbsp
Cardamom powder --   made from 3
Oil                                     --   To deep fry

Preparation of chips:

Peel the banana and cut it into half – length wise. Now cut them into ¼ inch thick pieces. Transfer them into a bowl of water to soak them as and when you cut it. Apply oil on your hands / wear a gloves while cutting the banana to avoid stains. Once you are ready to fry, drain the water completely.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. The oil should be really hot before you fry. Test by dropping in a piece of banana. It should sizzle and come up. Reduce the flame to medium and add the first batch. Make sure that it is not overcrowded.Fry until golden brown.

Drain it into a colander kept on plate to collect the excess oil. Transfer this onto a paper towel and let it cool.

Dry roast the rice until it pops. Let it cool and then grind it into a fine powder along with sugar.

Meanwhile prepare the jaggery syrup by adding quarter cup of water to the jaggery. When the jaggery is completely melted, strain into another vessel to remove any impurities. Now boil the syrup by adding the ginger powder, cumin powder and powdered cardamom. Let it reach a sticky consistency. Switch of the flame and add the fried banana into it. Stir well so that the jaggery is coated on all the pieces.

Now add the rice & sugar powder and mix well until the chips are coated. This helps to the chips not to stick on each other.

Let it cool. Store in an air tight container. This stays good for almost a month.

Varutha Upperi / Banana Chips

2011-07-31T00:05:00.000-04:00

The Kerala special banana chips; anyone would be ready to munch it anytime. I have never seen anyone at my home making this chips. We always get it from the store – Kumaran chips – shop located below the over bridge.

Last time when we prepared the sadhya, I felt that varutha upperi and sharkara upperi (fried banana chips dipped in jaggery syrup and garnished with spice powders – recipe coming soon) was missing and wanted to give a try. Yeah – that was a success.

Ingredients:

Raw Banana             --   2 big
Turmeric powder   --   ¼ tsp
Oil                                  --   To deep fry
Salt                                --   To taste
Water                           --   1 cup

Preparation of chips:

Peel the banana and cut it into four – length wise. Now cut them into small not so thin and not so thick pieces. Transfer them into a bowl of water mixed with the turmeric powder, to soak them as and when you cut it. Apply oil on your hands / wear a gloves while cutting the banana to avoid stains.

Once you are ready to fry, drain the water completely. Make salt water by adding required amount of salt in a cup of water and keep aside.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. The oil should be really hot before you fry. Test by dropping in a piece of banana. It should sizzle and come up. Reduce the flame to medium and add the first batch. Make sure that it is not overcrowded.

When the chips are almost done, ie the oil stops bubbling; reduce the flame to low and sprinkle the salt water carefully. Make sure that you do not burn yourself with the splashing oil. You can keep the pan covered until the oil is calm.

Stir once and drain it into a colander kept on plate to collect the excess oil. Transfer this onto a paper towel and let it cool.

Store in an air tight container. This stays good for almost a month.

NB:

The oil should be really hot before you add the bananas and then simmer to medium once you add them. So you need to switch between high and medium through all the batches.

Reduce the amount of salt water sprinkled for the next batches as the oil should already be having salt in it.

Chocolate Macarons

2011-07-24T23:12:00.001-04:00

I was always perplexed seeing these beautiful macarons everywhere. And now I am able to make some not-so-bad (look wise) macarons. Long way to improve – Need to learn the basics in piping and drawing circles of same size.

Ingredients:

Macaron Batter :

Powdered Sugar             --   1 cup
Powdered almonds       --   ½ cup
Unsweetened powder --   3 tbsp
Large egg whites            -- 2
Granulated sugar           --   5 tbsp

Chocolate Filling:

Heavy cream                  -- ½ cup
Light corn syrup           -- 2 tsp
Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate -- 4 ounces
Butter                                 --   1 tbsp

Preparation of macarons:

Line two baking sheets with parchment/foil paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip ready.

Grind the powdered sugar with the almond powder and cocoa so there are no lumps. If you have whole almonds, grind it along with granulated sugar, so that you get fine powder. If you try to grind almonds separately, it releases oil and becomes a paste. So take care.

Beat the egg whites until they begin to rise and hold peaks. Add the granulated sugar and beat until very stiff and firm, about 2 minutes.

Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in two batches, into the beaten egg whites. When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white,scrape the batter into the pastry bag/zip loc.

Pipe the batter on the lined baking sheets in 1-inch (3 cm) circles (about 1 tablespoon each of batter), evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart. I was not able to make all in the same size and hence had to adjust it while sandwiching. Tap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top and let it rest for 15 - 20 minutes. This helps to flatten the macarons and develop the foot.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 350º F .Bake the macaroons for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

To make the chocolate filling:

Heat the cream in a small saucepan. When the cream just begins to boil at the edges, remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let sit one minute, then stir until smooth. Stir in the pieces of butter. Let cool completely before using. I did not have enough chocolate in hand and hence the consistency of the filling was a lightly thin. You can see in the clicks that the sandwiched macaroons are sliding down. :)

Assembly:

Spread a bit of batter on the inside of the macarons then sandwich them together.

Let them stand at least one day before serving, to meld the flavors.

Store in an airtight container.

Recipe Courtesy: http://www.davidlebovitz.com

Beetroot Thoran / Stir Fry

2011-07-18T18:31:00.001-04:00

My space here is filled in non-vegetarian recipes. Being from Kerala, where a meal is not complete without a thoran / stir fry, I thought I need to have some of those here too.

The main reason why I do not have any such varieties is that I always cook for just two of us and never prepare as much as to fill in a bowl and click a picture – You know AJ was not a big fan of veggies; yeah I meant - “WAS” .

But nowadays I cook for 1 – 2 days at once and hence my veggie dishes also gets a chance to pose J

Ingredients(Serves 2 - 3):

Beetroot                      --   1 large
Green chillies            --   3 - 4
Shallots                       --   1 - 2
Turmeric powder   --   ¼ tsp
Shredded Coconut --   ¼ cup
Mustard seeds          --   1 tsp
Red chillies                --   1 - 2
Curry leaves              --   8 - 10 leaves
Oil                                   --   1 tbsp
Salt                                --   To taste

Preparation of thoran:

Cut the beetroot into small pieces. You can also use a grater but I feel grating makes it sweeter and so I do cut them usually. Cut the shallots into thin slices and slit the green chillies.

Mix the beetroot,shallots,green chillies,shredded coconut,turmeric powder,salt and curry leaves. Rub them thoroughly with your hands.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add the red chillies and fry for few seconds. Now add the beet mixture and close the pan with the lid.

Let it cook on a very low flame. Stir in between to make sure that it does not burn.

Serve hot with rice.

Chocolate cake in a mug

2011-07-03T07:48:00.000-04:00

This is another recipe that I ve always bookmarked. And the day I saw @ Collaborative Curry; I decided not to bookmark it again but try it out at that moment. Yeah I made this long back and it now that my cake got a chance to take a place here. Thanks for the wonder recipe Nami..

Ingredients:

All purpose flour         --   5 tbsp
Granulated sugar       --   5 tbsp
Cocoa                               --   2 tbsp
Salt                                    --   a pinch
Baking powder            --   1/2 tsp
Egg                                    --   1 large
Milk                                   --   4 tbsp
Vegetable oil                 --   4 tbsp
Pure vanilla extract   --   1 tsp

Preparation of the cake:

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat the eggs in a another bowl. Add other wet ingredients and mix it well until they are blended together. Now add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Pour the batter into 2 tall microwave safe coffee mugs,half - filled. If you have short mugs you can use 3. I had one tall mug in which it came out perfect and the other was a bit short and the cake overflowed :), as you can see.

Microwave the mugs,one at a time for a minute. If it does not get done in a minute, keep for another 20-30 seconds. Make sure you do not overcook. Mine came out in 1 min and 10 sec. Let it cool and then enjoy.

Chocolate fudge

2011-06-26T23:14:00.001-04:00

I always used to drool over the chocolate fudge in all my friends’ blog. I was a bit conscious on the calories and the extra pounds I would gain J. But that could not stop me from preparing this. My sweet chocolaty tooth and my calorie consciousness came to a compromise. So I halved the below quantity. Also I kind of did a mix and match from a couple of recipes as I did not have all the ingredients from one recipe. But after all its all chocolate and this was yummy too…

Ingredients(Yields 16 decent size pieces):

Semisweet chocolate chips --   1 cup
White chocolate chips            --   1 cup
Bittersweet chocolate            --   4 oz (a baking bar)
Condensed milk                         --   14 oz (1 tin)
Any nuts of your choice        --   1 cup - I used a mix of walnuts, brazil nuts,almonds and cashews.
Unsalted butter                         --   2 tbsp
Vanilla Extract                          --   1 tsp

Preparation of chocolate fudge:

First line the bottom and sides of a pan with parchment/al foil. If you are preparing with the above quantity use an 8 x 8 x 2 inch pan. I used a 4 x 8 x 2 pan (My lunch box).

Melt all the chocolates in a pan on a low flame, stirring constantly. Make sure you do not burn the chocolate. You can also opt to use a double boiler to be on a safer side. I was lazy to do so and did it directly on the stove.

Once the chocolate melts and is smooth, switch off the flame, and add the condensed milk, butter and vanilla essence. Let the pan still be on the hot stove. Mix well until smooth.

Stir in the chopped nuts.

Spread the fudge into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a spatula.

Let it cool and then refrigerate. Cut into pieces and enjoy...... yummmm......

Fish Curry

2011-06-21T23:48:00.001-04:00

Ingredients(Serves 4):

Fish                              --    ½ kg
Onions/Shallots     --    ½ cup chopped(I always prefer shallots)
Garlic                          --    3 - 4 big pods / ¼ cup chopped
Ginger                         --    1 big piece / ¼ cup chopped
Green chillies           --    2 - 3
Tomato                       --    1 medium
Turmeric powder   --    ¼ tsp + a pinch
Chilly powder          --    2 tsp
Tamarind                   --    a small ball (size as that of a walnut)
Ground coconut      --    ¼ cup
Mustard seed & curry leaves     --   For garnishing
Oil                                  --    3 tbsp (Preferably coconut oil)
Salt                               --    to taste

Preparation of Fish Curry:

Soak the tamarind ball in 2 cups of water. Clean the fish, cut into small pieces and keep it aside.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add the finely chopped ginger,garlic and green chillies. Saute until the raw smell goes off and add the chopped onions.Saute until they are translucent and then add the chopped tomatoes. Saute until the tomatoes are squishy.

Meanwhile squeeze out the pulp/juice from the tamarind. Add more water, around half a cup, to squeeze out the juice, if required. Also grind the coconut with a pinch of turmeric powder. You should grind it into a smooth paste.

Add salt,turmeric powder and chilly powder to the onion-tomato mix and saute for a minute. Add the strained tamarind juice and let it boil. You can add more water depending upon the gravy required.

Add the fish and let the fish cook on a low flame. When the fish is half cooked add the ground coconut. Mix carefully making sure that you do not break the fish pieces. To be on a safer side, you can add the ground coconut before adding the fish. I do it both the ways depending upon the fish.

Fry the mustard seeds and the curry leaves in another pan and add it to the curry once the fish is completely cooked. Serve hot with rice.

This goes well with dosa/idly too.

Green Peas Curry

2011-06-19T23:33:00.001-04:00

It’s been a while since I wrote something here other than the recipes. Nowadays I hardly find time to post the recipes and do some blog hopping. Work & Home Management… ufffff .. tiring… All working ladies, I admire and respect you now.. And all husbands who have set a “Lakshman Rekha” to the cooking & cleaning activities – Its time to wake up and help your better half. (Of course, Yes, AJ helps me a lot J)

Now this curry makes me really nostalgic. This was always a part of my lunch box, either with pathiri or idyappam or chapathi or even bread. I could have this 3 times a day and when I moved to hostel, this was the major dish I missed there. I am sure anyone would love this curry…

Ingredients(Serves 4 - 5):

Green peas                    --    1 cup
Carrot                             --    ½ of a medium size one(optional - I add this at times).
Turmeric powder      --    ½ tsp
Coriander powder    --    2 tsp
Onion                              --    1 medium onion
Garlic                              --    2 medium pods
Ginger                            --    ½ inch piece
Green chillies              --    3 -4
Tomato                          --    1 medium size
Shredded Coconut    --   ½ cup
Coriander leaves      --   ½ cup chopped, loosely packed
Water                            --    1 cup
Oil                                   --    2 tbsp
Salt                                --   to taste

Preparation of Green peas Curry:

Soak the Green peas in water overnight.

Extract both thick and thin milk from the shredded coconut. If using ready made coconut milk/coconut milk powder, adjust water to get the thin & thick consistency.

Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add the chopped ginger, garlic and green chillies. Saute for a minute. Add the onions and saute until they are translucent and then add the chopped tomatoes. Saute until they are slightly mushy. Now add the masalas and fry until the raw smell goes off.

Add the soaked green peas and chopped carrot(if using). Add water and mix well. Pressure cook for around 2 to 3 whistles or until done depending upon your pressure cooker. Let it cool and then open the cooker.

Add salt and the thin coconut milk and let it boil until the gravy thickens. Add the thick coconut milk and remove from fire as soon as it starts boiling. Garnish with the chopped coriander leaves.

Channa Masala

2011-06-15T19:04:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

White Chick peas /Channa --   2 cups
Onion                                           --   1½ medium size or 1 large

Tomato                                      --   2 medium size
Ginger                                         --   1 tsp
Garlic                                          --   1 tsp
Turmeric powder                  --   ¼ tsp
Red chilli powder                  --   1 tsp
Channa Masala powder     --   2 tsp
Coriander leaves                   --   ½ a cup, chopped
Lemon Juice                            --   2 tsp
Oil                                                 --   1 ½ tbsp
Salt                                              --   to taste
Cloves                                        --   2
Cinnamon                               --   ½ inch piece
Fennel seeds                           --   1 tsp

Preparation of Channa Masala:

Soak the channa overnight and pressure cook until done. Keep aside, do not drain of the water.

Let it cool. Grind ½ cup of cooked channa and keep aside.

Add oil in a pan, when hot, add hole spices and then add ginger and garlic and fry until the raw smell goes off. Then add the chopped onions and salt and fry until they are transparent. Add the tomatoes and fry until they are mushy.

Add turmeric powder, chilly powder and channa masala powder and fry until the raw smell goes off.

Now add the ground paste and saute in low flame for few minutes. Add the cooked channa, with the cooked water depending on the amount of gravy required. Mix well and let it cook on a low flame for 5 minutes.

Stir occasionally to make sure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.Switch off the flame when the gravy is of the required consistency.

Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and lemon juice and Keep the pan closed for a while. Serve with hot poori or battoora.

Mango Pudding

2011-06-11T16:01:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

Philadelphia cream cheese --   200gm
Mango puree                              --   1 can (3 ¼ cups)
Heavy Whipping cream        --    1 cup
Milk                                                --    1 cup
Sugar                                             --   1 cup
Powdered gelatin                    --   3 Tbsp(3 envelopes)

Preparation of pudding:

Sprinkle gelatin over milk and mix well. Heat it in a double boiler until all the gelatin granules melt. Don't boil the gelatin for long. Strain the gelatin and milk mixture to remove any lumps. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks.

Add in cheese, mango puree(you can use fresh mango puree or store bought ones. I ve used both.), sugar and mix well until well combined. I used an egg beater.

Add the cooled (make sure it is not hot and not cold, because gelatin sets as it starts to get cold) gelatin-milk mixture to this and mix well until well combined.

Pour in a large dish that can hold almost 2 liters of liquid and chill in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or until set. Serve cold. This can also be served in individual serving dishes.

Plaited Bread -- Sweet & Savory filling

2011-05-24T23:54:00.001-04:00

After looking at this beautiful bread in a couple of blogs, I wanted to try one on my own. And here comes my version – Mix and match from a couple of recipes.

The coconut filling one reminded me of the coconut bun/dilkush which we get in the local bakery in Kerala, Though I missed the tutty fruitys.

Ingredients: Serves – 12 to 14

Bread:

All purpose flour     --   3 cups or more as required.
Active dry yeast     --   1 tbsp
Lukewarm water   --   ¼ cup
Lukewarm milk      --   ¼ cup
Sugar                          --   1 tbsp
Salt                              --   ½ tsp
Egg                              --   1
Butter                         --   ¼ cup, at room temperature
Egg                              --   1 for glaze

Chicken Filling:

Chicken                    --   250gm
Onion                        --   ½ of a medium size
Green Chillies        --   2 - 3
Ginger                      --   ½ inch piece
Garlic                        --   2 - 3
Turmeric Powder   --   ½ tsp
Chilly Powder       --   ½ tsp
Garam/Chicken Masala --   ½ tsp, I used eastern chicken masala
Coriander Leaves --   1 cup chopped.
Oil                              --   1 tbsp
Salt                           --   to taste

Coconut Filling:

Coconut                 --   ½ cup
Sugar                      --   2 tbsp, or according to your taste
Mixed nuts            --   ½ cup, ground; I used walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts.
Cashew nuts        --   ¼ cup, chopped
Cardamom           --   2

Preparation:
Bread:

Combine the yeast, sugar and water. Stir and leave for sometime to dissolve and rise.
Mix the milk, salt, egg and butter in a big bowl. Gradually stir in the flour to obtain a soft and smooth dough.Keep the dough in a clean bowl, cover and let it rise. It might take around 1.5 to 2 hrs.

Chicken Filling:

Marinate chicken with ¼tsp turmeric powder and salt. Cook until done and shred the chicken pieces and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the finely chopped ginger, garlic and green chillies. Saute until the raw smell goes off. Add the finely chopped onions,sauté until they are translucent.Add the spice powders and salt and fry until the raw smell goes off. Add the shredded chicken and quarter cup of water. Mix well and let the water evaporate completely until you get a dry masala. Add the chopped coriander leaves,mix well and keep aside.

Coconut Filling:

Powder the cardamom with 1 tsp of sugar. Adding sugar while grinding helps to powder the cardamom well. Mix together all the ingredients and Keep aside.

Assemble:

Grease a large baking tray. Knead the dough, transfer it to a floured surface and then roll into a rectangle. I rolled the dough in an Aluminium foil, so it was easy to transfer to the baking tray. Also I managed to roll it without flouring the surface.

Spread the filling in the centre of the rolled dough. With a knife, cut equal number of strips on either side of the filling. To make a plaited pattern, fold the strip from each side to the other, so that they form the below pattern.Repeat until all the strips are folded over. Leave it aside to rise until almost doubled in volume.

I filled the chicken for 2/3 rd of the dough and coconut in the 1/3rd.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Beat the egg until fluffy. Brush the plaited bread with the egg glaze.

Bake until the crust is brown,for about 30 minutes. If the crust is get dark too soon, lightly cover the pan with an aluminium foil.

Transfer it to a cooling rack. Enjoy with tea.

You can preserve this in the fridge for 2 –3 days. Microwave in a closed container before serving. Ieven took a slice for lunch on the next day J

Egg Fried Rice & Goan Shrimp Balchao

2011-05-18T20:59:00.001-04:00

Here comes the century.... yay!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to post something special for the 100th post and have been waiting for a while.. Either I dont find the dish as special or I am not satisfied with the clicks. Finally I decided to post whatever I cook today(in fact yesterday) never mind what it is and how the clicks be.

While hopping through the blogs I came across the shrimp recipe @yummyoyummy and decided to try that out with a few tweaks. I checked Maya if it would pair well with fried rice and she gave a 'Go' to it.

And I really do not remember where I picked the fried rice recipe from. I did not bookmark it, but had it written down in a textpad. That was great too and my thanks to the real owner of the recipe.

Egg Fried Rice:

Ingredients(Serves – 3 to 4):

Basmati Rice          --   2 cups
Water                        --   4 cups
Any cooking oil    --   1 tbsp
Salt                             --   to Taste

Ginger                       --   1 tbsp, finely chopped
Garlic                        --   1 tbsp, finely chopped

Carrot                       --   2 medium sized
Beans                         -- 10 - 12
Bell peppers/capsicum -- half of a medium sized one
Celery                        --   1 cup, chopped
Cabbage                   --   1 cup, chopped
Spring onion           --   2 - 3

Large eggs -- 3

Soy sauce                 --    ½ tbsp
Green chilly sauce -- ½ tbsp
Rice vinegar          --   ½ tbsp
Ketchup                   --   ½ tbsp
Black pepper         --    1 tsp , freshly ground

Vegetable oil -- 2 -3 tbsp
Salt -- to taste

Preparation of Egg Fried Rice:

Wash and drain the rice. Boil water with salt and oil in a heavy bottom vessel. Taste the water to check the salt. Add rice and bring it to a boil again and then reduce the flame to medium - low and cook covered until rice is fully done and water is absorbed. Transfer the rice to a larger plate or tray and gently separate the rice using a fork. Let the rice cool completely before mixing with the vegetables, else it would be mushy.

It is best to use left over rice, I did actually cook the rice previous day and left it in the fridge.

Chop the vegetables and keep aside. Keep the white bulbs and stalks of the spring onions separate. We use them separately.

Heat up 1 tbsp oil, in a large wok or any large vessel. Add chopped ginger and garlic and fry till it turn transparent.Now add the white bulb of the spring onions, bell peppers, carrots,beans, celery and stir fry, for 1 -2 minutes in high heat. High heat helps to keep the vegetables crunchy even when cooked. But be carful not to burn the vegetables. Now add the chopped cabbage, half of the green stalks of spring onion and salt.The sauces might have salt in it. So be careful while adding the salt. Mix everything together and transfer to a plate.

Add some more oil, and break the eggs, directly into the pan. Add salt and pepper quickly and stir the egg continuously to get fine scrambled egg and transfer to the plate

Heat rest of the oil, add the cooked and cooled rice and stir well, in medium-high heat. When the rice well separated, add the cooked vegetables and the scrambled egg and mix well. Then sprinkle the sauces,vinegar and ground pepper one by one and mix well. The quantity of sauces can be adjusted to personal taste. The given quantity will give a mild flavor. Check the salt and sprinkle if required.

Switch off the flame and add the remaining spring onion, mix well. Garnish with some. Keep it closed for 10 - 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Goan Shrimp Balchao:

Ingredients (Serves 4)

Shrimp                        --   1 lb / ½ kg
Turmeric powder   --   2 pinches, optional
Onion                           --   1 medium, finely chopped
Garlic                           --   3 cloves, minced
Tomato                       --   1 large, finely chopped
Curry leaves             -- 10 , I added more
Whole dried chillies -- 4
Sugar                           -- ½ tsp
Butter/Coconut oil -- 1 tbsp, I used coconut oil.
Canola oil                  -- 1 tbsp
Salt                               -- To taste

For the spice paste :

Chilly powder         --   1 tsp
Garam masala       --    ½ tsp
Ginger                       --   1 inch
Garlic                         --   3 cloves
Vinegar                    --   2 tsp, I used white vinegar

Preparation of Shrimp

Marinate the shrimp with a little salt and turmeric powder.The original recipe does not use turmeric powder,so you can omit it too.Let it stand so for at least 15 - 20 minutes.

Grind the ingredients for the spice paste and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan. Fry the dry red chillies until brown on medium heat. Add the chopped ginger,garlic and curry leaves. Fry for around a minute and add onions, little salt and saute until brown. Add the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are squishy.

Add the ground spice paste. Cook until their raw smell is gone and oil starts separating.

Meanwhile fry the shrimp in the butter/coconut oil until firm and pink. If you are using fresh shrimp, let the shrimp take round shape and also let the water coming out of the shrimp completely evaporate.

Add the fried shrimp to the sauce and mix well. Cook for 1 - 2 minutes. Switch off. I added 2-3 chopped curry leaves and drizzled half a tsp of coconut oil on top of it. Kept it closed for about 5 - 10 minutes and served with Egg fried rice.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

2011-05-10T20:28:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

                         Whole almonds          --   3/4 cup
                         Granulated white sugar --   2/3 cup
                         Eggs                                 --   2 large
                        Pure vanilla extract   --   1 tsp
                        Baking powder            --   1 tsp
                        Salt                                   --   1/4 tsp
                       All-purpose flour        --   1 3/4 cups
                       Semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate --   4 ounces (chips or chop into small pieces)

Preparation of Biscotti:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Toast almonds for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and then chop coarsely. Set aside.

Line a baking sheet with parchment/foil paper. Set aside.

Beat the sugar and eggs on high speed until thick and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the egg mixture and beat until combined. Fold in the chopped almonds and chocolate.

Transfer the dough to your parchment lined baking sheet and form into a log. You may have to dampen your hands to form the log or fold the foil/parchment paper, as the dough is quite sticky. Bake for 25 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Transfer the log to a cutting board and cut into 3/4 inch (2 cm) slices, on the diagonal. Place the biscotti, cut side down, on the baking sheet.

Bake for about 10 minutes, turn slices over, and bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 16 biscotti.

Recipe source: Joy of Baking

Puli Inji

2011-05-04T22:59:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

Tamarind                    -- a small lemon size ball
Water                            -- 1 cup
Ginger                           -- Around half a cup of chopped ginger
Garlic                            -- 3 pods
Shallots                        -- 2 medium size
Green Chillies            -- 4 - 5
Turmeric powder    --   1/4 tsp
Chilly powder           --   1/2 tsp
Fenugreek                  -- 1/2 tsp
Rice                               -- 1 tsp
Jaggery                       -- 2 small blocks/cylinders
Mustard seeds          -- 1 tsp
Curry leaves             -- 1 twig
Red Chillies               -- 1 - 2
Salt                               -- as required
Oil                                 -- 2 - 3 tbsp

Preparation of Puli Inji:

Soak the tamarind in water for 10 - 15 min.Squeeze the pulp of the tamarind in the water. Strain it and keep aside.

Roughly chop the ginger, garlic, shallots and green chillies. Fry them in oil until they are half cooked. Let it cool and then grind it into a coarse paste.

Add the salt,turmeric and chilly powder to the tamarind water and let it boil. Add the ground paste and jaggery and mix well. You can also melt the jaggery before and add the liquid to this mix. I am usually lazy to melt is before and hence add the whole block into this boiling water mix.

Do not close the pan and keep stirring too.

Meanwhile dry roast the fenugreek and rice and then grind them into fine powder.Add this powder to the tamarind mix, when it is about to reach the required consistency. Switch off the flame. This thickens as it cools.

Heat oil in a shallow pan. Splutter the mustard seeds, add the red chillies and curry leaves. Pour this on to the puli inji along with the oil left in the pan.

The balance between the tamarind & jaggery and the required consistency depends upon personal taste. So do accordingly. I love it to be really thick and hence I do let it dry as show in the picture.

This can be stored in the refrigerator for a long time. The above measure yields me a 200gm Bru bottle.This can be served with sadya or with biriyani. I know people who love to have this with idly too.

Mango Pickle

2011-04-29T23:54:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

               Raw mango/pacha manga    --   1 medium
               Red chilly powder                       --   4 tbsp
               Salt                                                     --   as needed
               Gingelly oil                                     --   ½ cup
               Mustard seeds                              --   ¾ tsp
               Curry leaves                                  --   2-3 sprigs
               Ginger                                              --   1 inch piece
               Garlic                                               --   5 - 6 pods
               Asafoetida powder                    --   ¼ tsp
               Fenugreek powder                     --   ¼ tsp
               Vinegar                                           --   ¼ cup

Preparation of the pickle:

Cut the mango into small cubes. Add red chilly powder and salt and mix well. Set aside for atleast 2 - 3 hours.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the chopped ginger & garlic. Saute until the raw smell goes off. Switch off the flame; Add the mango pieces and mix well. Add asafoetida and fenugreek powder. Continue mixing until the raw smell from the powders is gone. Add vinegar and mix well.

Store in an airtight container.

Tiramisu

2011-04-22T23:37:00.001-04:00

Wish you all a Happy Easter !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As an Easter treat, Presenting you the dessert which really tests your patience, while you prepare. But believe me… its all worth your effort.

I prepared this dessert around 5 –6 months back for a get together. And since the process was so lengthy, it took all these months for me to draft this post JJJ . And Yeah.. I did manage to click most of the pics too JJJ

I checked a number of sites for this recipe. Everyone had their own versions. And I did absorb parts from many of them. So not sure about which is the authentic recipe. Whether the authentic one or not, I just know that this was yummy…

We need to prepare different items, which we finally assemble as the great Tiramisu. So here I start with the first one.

Mascarpone cheese :

Ingredients:

            Heavy whipping cream --   3 cups
            Fresh Lemon Juice --   2 tbsp

Preparation of Cheese:

Adopted from Baking Obsession.

Boil water in a double boiler or a wide pan. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the water is barely simmering. Pour the cream into a medium heat-resistant bowl, and place the bowl into the pan. I used a pressure cooker into which I inserted a sauce pan. Heat the cream, stirring often. It will take about 15 minutes of delicate heating. Add the lemon juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. Do not expect the same action as you see during paneer making. All that the whipping cream will do is become thicker. It will cover a back of your wooden spoon thickly. You will see just a very few clear whey streaks when you stir. Remove the bowl from the water and let cool for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, line a sieve with four layers of dampened cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Transfer the mixture into the lined sieve. Do not squeeze the cheese in the cheesecloth or press on its surface (be patient, it will firm up after refrigeration time). Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (in the sieve) overnight or up to 24 hours.

The author said "The first time I made mascarpone I had all doubts if it’d been cooked enough or if I had poured enough lemon juice, because of its custard-like texture. Have no fear, it will firm up beautifully in the fridge, and will yet remain lusciously creamy.". Even after reading this, I had the same doubt, and in fact I wanted to add more lemon juice, which I restricted myself not to do.

Sponge fingers/Savioardi/lady's fingers (36 nos):

Ingredients:

    Cake flour    --   1 cup (I used 3/4 cup of all purpose flour + 2 tbsp of corn flour)
    Vanilla essence --   1 tsp
    Large eggs      --   6 separated
    Sugar           --   12 tbsp
    Powdered sugar --   to sprinkle.

Preparation of Savioardi:

    In a clean bowl - grease free and free of any moisture, add the egg whites. Whip until it holds peak. Add 6 tbsp of sugar little by little and beat well until it is thick, glossy and stiff.



    Beat the egg yolks with remaining 6 tbsp of sugar at high speed until pale yellow and thick.Pour in vanilla and beat again until incorporated.



    Just sift the flour mix on the egg yolk mixture. Slowly add the egg whites, in 3 or 4 stages, folding carefully to the mixture just until incorporated and take care not to over mix.

    Preheat the oven to 350 F.Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Fill the mixture in a plastic bag, piping bag or Ziploc bag with ½ inch wide hole. Hold the bag at 45 degrees and pipe out the mixture into 3 inch long sponge fingers leaving a space of 1 inch between each piping. After piping out all the cookies, add the powdered sugar in a wire strainer and lightly sift over the sponges.



    Bake it until just firm and barely golden for about 10-14 minutes depending on the oven temperature.Let it cool for sometime, remove and place on a wire rack for further cooling.

    For lazy ones like me, who do not want to pipe it out, here is the alternative. Line your pan with parchment paper or aluminium foil. Grease it with oil/butter. Pour the mix into the baking pan and bake until they are golden brown in colour. Repeat this 2 or 3 times as per your wish. The above quantity gives me 3 cakes in a 8x8 pan and 2 in a 13x8 pan.

    Its all up to you to decide which is easier. Fingers would be complete in one batch, if you have big baking sheet and the cake would require 2 -3 batches. The taste doesn't differ. One more reason why I like to bake the cake is that, while assembling, you get an even surface to work on. But the fingers are the authentic way of making tiramisu J

Zabaglione (Pronounced as Sabayon, Courtesy --> Shabs, I would have never thought about how to pronounce this J)

Ingredients:

    Large eggs yolks --   6 (Reserve the egg whites for assembling)
    Sugar --   6 tbsp
    Vanilla Essence -- ½ tsp
    Marsala wine/coffee --   ½ cup

Preparation of Zabaglione:

In a heat-proof bowl , beat the egg yolks,sugar,vanilla and wine/coffee until you get creamy and pale yellow mixture(zabaglione). Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place the bowl with the mixture on the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water. Do not let the water boil, but let it be simmering hot.Whisk the zabaglione well for around ten minutes until it gets thick. Add vanilla essence to this and keep it aside to cool.

There are chances of the egg yolk getting curdled if the water boils/the bowl touches the hot water/bowl gets too hot. So make sure that these do not happen.

When it cools to room temperature, refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Vanilla pastry cream:

I have not seen addition of the pastry cream in many recipes. But I loved the taste. You can ignore as per you liking. But let me tell you.. Taste this atleast once.

Ingredients:

    Whole milk --   3/4 cup
    Sugar      -- 1/4 cup
    All purpose flour   -- 1 tbsp
    Vanilla Essence     -- ½ tsp
    Large eggs yolk     --   1
    Lemon zest           --   ½ tsp

Preparation of pastry cream:

Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth.

Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling. Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 10 - 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)

Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Whipped Cream:

Ingredients:

    Chilled heavy cream -- 2 cups
    Sugar -- ½ cup
    Vanilla Essence -- ½ tsp

Preparation of whipped cream:

Chill the bowl to whip the cream in the refrigerator for about an hour. Add the cream sugar and vanilla and whip until they form peaks. Set aside

Tiramisu:

Mascarpone cheese -- 500 gms (Made out of 3 cups of cream)
Whipped cream -- 2 cups
Savioardi -- 36 (or 2 - 3 layers of cake)
Zabaglione -- Prepared from 4 egg yolks
Vanilla pastry cream -- Prepared as per the above measurements.
Strong coffee powder -- 2 tbsp
Water -- 2 cups
Sugar -- 4 tbsp
Large egg whites -- 4 (you will have the ones left over from the zabaglione)
Vanilla essence -- 2 tsp
Cocoa powder -- 2 - 3 tbsp

Assembling the Tiramisu:

The recipes for all the ingredients are given here.Let me now tell you the order in which or when you have to prepare these. Making a tiramisu from scratch takes atleast 2 - 3 days of planning.

Mascarpone cheese -- a day before you assemble the tiramisu.
Savioardi -- Can be prepared any time before assembling. But to make it easy, I did it the same day as that of the cheese. You can even preserve them in an airtight container for 2 -3 weeks.
Zabaglione -- 4 hours to one day before assembling the tiramisu.
Vanilla pastry cream -- 4 hours to one day before assembling the tiramisu.

If you have all these ready, then lets start assembling it :)

Prepare 2 cups of coffee by adding boiling water to coffee and add sugar. Keep it aside to cool.

Whip the cream as mentioned. Mix the mascarpone cheese in the whipped cream and mix well until no lumps appear. Add the cooled zabaglione to this and mix well. Then add the cooled pastry cream to this and mix well.

Whip the egg whites until peaks form and fold into the cheese and cream mixture to keep it light and airy. Do not over mix it..

Now in a large clear glass dish (I took a 13x8 pyrex dish), just dip the sponge fingers in the coffee and layer them side by side until you cover the bottom of the dish with the sponge fingers dipped in coffee. Don’t keep the sponge fingers in coffee for long time since they tend to absorb liquid too quickly. Just dip each side for a second.

Pour half of the cheese cream mixture over this lady’s fingers and again layer another layer of savoiardi dipped in coffee over this cream mixture and tip over the rest of cream mixture.

Cover carefully with a plastic wrap and Refrigerate for minimum of 12 hours and if possible for 24 hours to get the tiramisu set completely.

To serve, carefully remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle cocoa powder on the tiramisu using a fine-mesh strainer or decorate as you please. Cut into individual portions and serve.

Chakka Pradhaman / Jackfruit Kheer

2011-04-16T17:26:00.001-04:00

Here comes my Vishu Special….

Ingredients:

Chakka varatti/Jack fruit halwa    -   1 cup packed
Jaggery                                                      -   4 - 5 blocks (this depends on how sweet the chakka varatti is. So adjust accordingly.)
Water                                                           -   1 cup
Thin Coconut milk                                  -   2 cup
Thick Coconut milk                                -   1 cup
Cardamom                                                -   4 no ( crushed into fine powder)
Dry ginger powder(chukku podi)   -   ¼ teaspoon
Coconut pieces                                        -   ¼ cup
Cashew nuts                                             -   15 - 20 no
Ghee/clarified butter                           -   1 tablespoon
Rice flour                                                   -   1 tablespoon (optional)

Preparation of Chakka Pradhaman:

In a thick bottom pan add jaggery and ½ cup water. Let it boil and let the jaggery melt completely. Strain the melted jaggery into another pan. Mix the chakka varatti and strained jaggery and keep on low flame, so the chakka varatti loosens and becomes jam consistency.

Add the thin coconut milk to the mixture and let is cook for about 8 - 10 minutes, Until it reaches a slightly thicker consistency. Add dry ginger and cardamom powder.

Meanwhile, in a small pan heat ghee and first roast the cashew nuts till they become golden brown and set aside. In the same pan add coconut pieces and fry them until they brown in color and set aside.

Then add thick coconut milk along and cook for another 3 - 5 minutes and switch of the flame.

If you feel that the consistency of the payasam is still thin, take 2 tbsp of the payasam, mix rice flour into it and make a paste out of it. Add this paste into the payasam and cook for 2 minutes.

To this add roasted cashew nuts, coconut pieces. Serve hot / cold. I love to have chilled payasams :)

And here is my Vishu Kani…

Caramel Custard Pudding

2011-03-27T13:22:00.003-04:00

How did I be so irresponsible?? I forgot my dear blog’s bday… L How did I miss to celebrate it?? Not able to accept this myself…. Am I really getting that busy to forget the events at my own space??
Okies.. let me put things in another way… My mom did forget my birthday once and so did everyone at home… And then my mom & grandmother told me that “Its good to forget birthdays… That shows prosperity to the birthday girl…”. Now let me believe in their words and hope to have more prosperity around here JJJJJ
Here goes some sweet for the late celebration... Caramel Custard / Crème Brule / Flan , whatever you call it, I see that it is almost the same ingredients and taste. This is/was something my mom prepares very often, whenever there is some extra milk at home. Easy to prepare and yummy too..

Ingredients:
          Milk                                  --   4 cups
         Eggs -- 6
         Sugar                                --   ¾ - 1 cup (As to taste)
         Sugar to Caramelize   --   4 tbsp
        Vanilla Essence             --   ½ tsp
OR
            Milk                                  --   2 cups
         Egg                                    --   4
         Condensed Milk           --   1 tin
         Sugar to Caramelize   --   4 tbsp
        Vanilla Essence             --   ½ tsp
Serves 8 – 10 people.
Preparation of caramel custard pudding:
Beat the eggs well until it is smooth. Heat milk with ¾ cup sugar and let it cool. Mix the egg and vanilla essence to the milk mixture.
If using condensed milk, thoroughly mix the condensed milk with eggs and add them to boiled and cooled milk.
Either way make sure that the milk is completely cool, else the eggs will get scrambled.

Mix the left over sugar with water and heat in a pan until it turns brown. Pour the caramel in the dessert tray or ramekins and let it cool. Pour the pudding mix on to the caramel.

Double boil the mixture on low flame for 20 min, if you have a pressure cooker or a double boiler. This is how my mom does it. Here since I do not have a double boiler or a perfect to dish to use my pressure cooker for double boiling, I do it in the oven.
Prepare a hot water bath. i.e. pour boiling water into a large oven safe tray. Let it be 1/3 ^rd full. Place the ramekins/dessert tray in the water bath. Bake it for 30 – 40 min @ 350 F or until a skewer comes out clean.

Let it cool to room temperature. Cover it with a foil/plastic wrap and refrigerate until they are chill.
Use a knife to separate the pudding from the sides of the tray and turn it upside down into your serving dish.

Peanut Butter Cookies

2011-02-27T21:45:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:
                     All purpose flour       --    1 ¼ cup
                     Peanut Butter             --    ½ cup
                     Butter                             --    ½ cup, room temperature
                     Brown sugar               --    ½ cup
                     Sugar                             --    ½ cup
                     Baking soda                --    ¾ tsp
                    Baking powder           --    ½ tsp
                    Egg                                   --    1
                   Vanilla extract            --    1 tsp
                    Salt                                  --    ½ tsp

Preparation of Cookies:

Sift together the all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl combine peanut butter, brown sugar, sugar and butter. Mix them together until fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and beat until everything is mixed well. Refrigerate it for 2-3 hrs.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the baking tray with foil paper/ parchment paper.

Now roll the dough into small balls and arrange them on the baking sheet 2-3 inches apart. Flatten the balls with a fork or make any pattern your wish.

Bake for 9 - 11 mts. Let it cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 mts and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an air tight container and enjoy…

Something Spicy for Valentines Day !!!!!!!! - Fish Cutlets

2011-02-14T01:51:00.001-05:00

I got a set of heart shaped cookie cutters and had plans to prepare something sweet.. cookies/cakes.. And finally ended up in cutlets JJJ

Wish you all a Happy Valentines Day !!!!!!!

Ingredients:

                Canned Tuna/any fish      --   2 cans (0.5 kg)
                Potato                                      --   2 medium size
                Onions                                      --   2 medium size
                Green chilies                          --   4-6
                Garlic                                        --   2 cloves
                Ginger                                      --   1/2 inch piece
                Black pepper                         --   2 tsp
                Garam masala                     --   1 tsp
                Coriander leaves                --   1 stalk
                Egg white                              --   1
                Bread crumbs                      --   1 cup
                Oil                                             --   as required to fry
                Salt                                           --   to taste

Yields :– 15 – 17 cutlets.

Preparation of the cutlet:

If you are using canned fish, open the can, drain the liquid and keep it aside. If using fresh fish, cook the fish with salt and a pinch of turmeric and pepper. Remove the skin and bones, flake the flesh and keep aside.

Peel the potatoes and pressure cook them for about 3 –4 whistles and let it cool. Finely chop the onions, garlic,ginger and green chillies into small pieces. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan and add the chopped items. Saute until the onions are translucent.Add salt and garam masala and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the fish and fry for another 5 – 8 minutes. Switch off the flame and add pepper and mix well.

Mash the potatoes well, with no lumps and add to the fish mixture. Also add the chopped coriander leaves. Mix well. Check for salt & pepper and adjust according to your taste.

Beat the egg white and keep aside. Also have the bread crumbs in a plate.

Make lemon size balls out of the fish mixture and make it into desired shape. Dip this in the egg white mix and then coat it with bread crumbs.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Fry the cutlets in medium hot oil.

Serve hot with a cup of tea.

Tip: If the mix is watery (this depends on the type and water content in the onions and mashed potatoes), you can add in required amount of bread crumbs into it until you get it in the required consistency. If it is not of the right consistency, it might get shredded in the oil.

Fish Biriyani

2011-02-05T04:24:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:

Marinade:

Fish                                  --   ½ kg
Turmeric powder      --   ½ tsp
Chilly powder             --   1½ tsp
Biriyani masala         --   1 tsp
Oil                                    --   to fry
Lemon juice                --   1 tsp
Salt                                  --   to taste

For the Gravy:

      Yogurt                         --    1 cup
      Biriyani masala       --    2 tsp
      Mint leaves                --    a bunch
     Coriander leaves      --   a bunch
     Dhill leaves                 --   2-3 stalks
     Ginger Garlic paste --   2 tsp
     Green chillies             --   3 -4 depending upon the
     Lemon juice                -- ½ a medium lemon
     Fried onions               --   1 onion

For the Rice:

      Basmati Rice              --    2 cups
      Whole spices             --    2 cardamoms, 2 cloves, 1inch piece of cinnamon, 2 bay leaves,few whole pepper corns
      Ghee/Oil                      --    3 tsp
      Salt                                --   to taste

Preparation of Fish Biriyani:

Mix the ingredients in the marinade and marinate the fish. Keep it for 15 – 20 minutes. Wash and soak the rice for 20 minutes.

Chop the onion into thin slices. Heat a heavy bottomed pan, add oil and fry the onions until golden brown. Drain the oil and keep the onions aside.

Add more oil and fry the fish. Be careful not to break the fish as it would be very tender. Once done, switch off the flame, drain the fish from oil and keep it aside.

Into the same pan with the left over oil of fried fish, add all the ingredients, except half of the fried onions, for the gravy.

Boil 3 – 4 cups of water. When boiled, add the drained rice and condiments. Cook until it is 80% cooked. Drain the excess water. While draining, preserve half a cup of rice water. Add this into the gravy and bring to a full boil.

Pour half of the gravy on to the fried fish and ‘kind of ‘ soak it in the gravy. Let the rest of the gravy remain in the pan itself and let it be on a low flame. Add the hot rice into the pan on top of the gravy. Spread it evenly. Spread the fried onions kept aside on top of the rice. Arrange the fish pieces with the gravy on top of the rice. Close the pan with a tight lid and let it cook on very low for 8 – 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the fish into a separate dish. Mix the rice with the gravy & serve hot.

Mutta Marichathu (Egg-Plantain cake)

2011-01-22T17:27:00.001-05:00

This is an easy and delicious dish from the Malabar area, North of Kerala. I’ve had this from my friends’ and neighbor's place, usually during the Ramadan days.

This is a very easy one to prepare, especially when you have unexpected guests. A good combination with evening tea….

Kids will love this and this special cake with high protein is an easy one for the parents too.

Ingredients:

       Ripe plantains          --   2 medium
       Extra large eggs      --   6 large
       Sugar                            -- 12 tbsp
       Cardamom                 -- 4-5 crushed
       Ghee                              -- 1 tbsp
       Cashew nuts             --   10-12 crushed

Preparation:

Cut the plantain lengthwise into four pieces. Slice the pieces into medium thin slices.

Heat a saucepan,add ghee and plantains and saute on medium heat until the plantains get cooked and turn slightly golden in colour. Keep aside. Fry the broken cashews and keep aside.

Meanwhile in another dish, break eggs, add sugar and cardamom powder to it and beat lightly for a couple of minutes.

Add the cooked plantains and fried cashews in the egg and sugar mixture and stir well until uniformly distributed. Pour it back to the same pan.

Cover and Cook it over very low flame until the top part is set.It should take 10-20 minutes depending on the saucepan used.

Carefully transfer this to a plate and cut into small squares and serve with tea.

Swing Sets

2011-01-22T12:57:00.001-05:00

Spring is approaching and the market is full of great swing sets for your little ones to eventually play on. CSN Stores has a great website where you can find all the best backyard gear from a variety of well known manufacturers. If you have shopped with them before on one of their other sites, then you know what a great experience it is to buy from one of their many stores. I have placed many orders and have always been satisfied with their service and wide selection of products. So take a peek and see the swing set there !!!

Chocolate Profiteroles

2011-01-09T13:22:00.001-05:00

Hello friends….. Happy New Year to All… Wish you all a great year ahead !!!!!!!!!!! I know I am late.. But better late than never… right ?? JJJ So how are your new year resolutions going on? One of my resolutions is to peek into my friend’s blogs, and of course mine too, atleast once in a fortnight. Hope I can keep it for the whole of 2011 and later too.

Ingredients:

              All purpose flour            --   ¾ cup
              Salt                                       --   ¼ tsp
              Grated nutmeg                --   a pinch
              Unsalted butter               --   6 tbsp
              Eggs                                      --   3
             Semi sweet chocolates --   ½ cup
            Vanilla ice cream             --   4 cups

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease and prepare a baking sheet.

Sift together the flour , salt and nutmeg. In a medium sauce pan, add the butter and ¾ cup water and bring to boil.

Remove from the heat and add the dry ingredients. Mix well with a wooden spoon for about a minute , until well blended and the mixture starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Now keep the pan over low heat and cook the mixture for about a couple of minutes stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat. Add the eggs, one at a time to the flour mixture, beating well, until the dough is smooth and shiny.

Pipe the dough onto a baking sheet. You can also drop the dough onto the baking sheet, using a tablespoon. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the pastry is well risen and browned .Turn off the oven and the let the puffs cool with the oven door open.

Split the Profiteroles in half and put a small scoop of ice cream in each. Serve with melted chocolate.

Christmas Cake

2010-12-21T23:39:00.001-05:00

Hello Friends….. How are you all doing?? Am so busy here :( that I dont get time to look into any of your blogs :( But I wanted to prepare something for this Holiday Season. Somehow found some time over the weekend, got all accessories to prepare the cake and yeah.. I am back to baking after a while…. Yeahh…. I am trying to bring a “Blog-Work” balance :) which I hope to achieve very soon…

Wish you all a Merry Christmas & a Happy and Prosperous New Year !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last and not least let me thank my friend, who help me do this post this with his great photographic skills..

Ingredients:

           Dry Fruits & Nuts Mix --   2 cups
           Rum                                  --   ¼ cup
           All Purpose Flour       --   1 cup
           Baking Powder            --   1 tsp
           Granulated Sugar       --   1 cup
           Butter                               --   ½ cup
           Eggs                                  --   3
           Vanilla Essence           --   1 tsp
           Cinnamon Powder     --   ¼ tsp
           Cardamom Powder   --   ¼ tsp
           Nutmeg powder          --   ¼ tsp
           Cloves Powder             --   ¼ tsp
           Dry Ginger Powder    --   ¼ tsp
           Salt                                    --   ¼ tsp

For the caramel:

Granulated Sugar -- ½ cup
Boiling water -- ½ cup

Preparation of the Cake:

Soak the dry fruit and nut mix (I used chopped cashews,almonds,walnuts,raisins,cranberries and dates) in rum for minimum of 24 hours – 3 weeks or more. The more they are soaked the better.

Heat a heavy bottom pan on medium flame. Add the sugar to caramelize along with a teaspoon of water. Do not stir, but rotate your pan to prevent sticking. The sugar will melt first and then turn brown, to a thick syrup. When the syrup turns dark brown, pour in the boiling water. Be careful while handling as the caramel syrup is really hot. Stir well until it is well combined and then let it cool. You will have about three-fourth a cup of caramel.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour an 8x8 pan and keep aside.

Sift together the all purpose flour and baking powder at least 2-3 times. Now stir in the powdered spices and the drained soaked fruits to the flour. Mix well with a spatula and keep aside.

Beat butter @ room temperature and powdered sugar, until light and fluffy. I managed to do it with a wooden spatula.

Add the eggs, one at a time to this beaten butter-sugar mixture. Mix well. Add a teaspoon of flour after adding each egg, in case the batter looks too watery while mixing.

Drain the fruits and nuts. Stir them into the flour along with the spice powders.

Add this to the butter mixture, alternating with caramel syrup.

Stir in just to combine. Do not over mix. Finally add the vanilla essence.

Pour it into the prepared pan and bake for about an hour or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Mine took 55 min.

Enjoy your cake….

Fish Curry

2010-12-06T01:26:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:

           Fish                                -- ½ kg ( I used tilapia fillets)
           Shallots                        -- ½ cup
           Tomatoes                    -- 1 small
           Turmeric powder    -- ½ tsp
           Whole red chilly       -- 5-7
           Cumin Seeds               -- ½ tsp
           Pepper corns              -- ½ tsp
           Fennel seeds               -- ½ tsp
           Coriander seeds        -- 1 tsp
           Ginger                           -- 1 inch
           Garlic pods                -- 4-5
           Tamarind                    -- small ball
           Mustard seeds           -- ½ tsp
           Curry leaves               -- 2 springs
           Coconut milk              -- 1 cup
           Oil                                    -- 2 tbsp
           Salt                                  -- to taste

Preparation Of Fish Curry:

Soak the tamarind in water for 15 minutes and extract the juice out of it.

Grind the red chillies, cumin seeds,pepper corns,fennel seeds,coriander seeds,ginger and garlic with tamarind juice and keep aside.

Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add chopped onions and curry leaves and saute till onions are translucent. Add the finely chopped tomatoes and fry until they are mashed up.

Pour in the grounded paste, turmeric, and salt and let it boil.Stir in coconut milk and bring it to simmer. Gently slide in the fish pieces and cook till done with the pan closed.

Serve hot with rice.

Idly Manjurian

2010-11-14T23:06:00.001-05:00

Hello friends… I know all of you wished me good luck for what I was looking for. And Yes that happened. It was regarding a job opportunity. The long awaited one… Fortunately, I got through it and now I am at Portland, Oregon.

I am happy that I am back to my career again. But I am now far away from AJ L Hopefully I ll be back with him very soon…

Now that I ll be a bit busy with my work and so I am not sure how frequent I can visit all your wonderful posts. Also since we do not have much of cooking here, I am not sure how much I can try out your recipes. Fortunately, I have a few posts in my drafts and I shall keep updating my blog during weekends. I ll definitely try my level best to visit each and every post of all my friends too..

Now coming to the post for today – Idly manjurian. This is always a wonderful item with left over idlys. I usually prepare a few more idlys for breakfast and prepare this for the evening tea. We love idlys in this form much more than for breakfast..

Ingredients:

            Idly                                 --   6 – 8 nos
            Onion                             --   1 small / ½ of a medium one
            Ginger Garlic Paste --   1 tsp
            Capsicum                     --   ½ of a medium one
            Tomato Sauce           --   2 tsp
            Soya sauce                  --   1 tsp
            Chilly Sauce                --   1 tsp
            Coriander leaves      --   ½ cup chopped
            Oil                                   --   2 tsp / for deep frying
            Salt                                --   as required

Preparation of Idly Manjurian:

Cut the idly into bite size pieces. Preferably keep the idly in the fridge before preparation. I usually use left over idlys. Deep fry the idly pieces. To avoid too much oil, I did grill it in the oven.

Thinly slice the onions and chop the capsicum into small pieces. Heat oil in a pan and add the chopped onions and ginger garlic paste. Add salt and saute until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped capsicum and let it fry well.

Now add the fried idly pieces. Add the sauces and let the masala and the sauces coat the idly pieces well. Add the chopped coriander leaves and mix well. Turn off fire.

Serve hot with tea or even well suited as a lunch box item.

Lemon Cake

2010-11-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

The yummy and flavorful cake… I did not have an idea how this would be until I made this. Me being someone who does not prefer tanginess, the only motivation was that I could click beautiful pics decorating lemon pieces. Does that sound weird??? But I was the one who completed almost three-fourth of the cake :)

Now it is not the Spider Solitare that keeps me away from blogging. It is something else. I am waiting for something and the tension – not really tensed, but just the thoughts about it, does not even allow me to log onto blogger, browse through FB & orkut. The only thing I do on my system is refresh my mails. Hope I get the results very soon. Friends…You know the next.. Please wish me good luck.

Now coming back to lemon cake. I had seen few beautiful clicks from my fellow bloggers and wanted to try this out. All my hope was on AJ who has a great love for all sour tastes and I was sure that I am not going to have more that a piece to taste. But things were not as expected, I really loved the sweetness of honey and sourness of lemon and especially the nice aroma of the cake. And poor AJ couldn’t accept the idea of sourness in a cake which was supposed to be sweet. Still he managed to have it with tea for a couple of days (Secret – I did not prepare anything else, so his hunger would accept anything).

Here it goes…

Ingredients:

            All purpose Flour     --   1 ½ cups
            Baking Powder          --   ¼ tsp
            Baking Soda                --   ¼ tsp
           Granulated Sugar      --   1 cup
           Honey                             --   4 tbsp
           Unsalted Butter          --   4 tbsp
           Medium Eggs               --   3
           Grated Lemon zest    --   1 tbsp
           Fresh Lemon juice     --   5 tbsp
           Yogurt                            --   4 tbsp
           Milk                                  --   2 tbsp
           Water                              --   1 tbsp
           Vanilla essence          --   ½ tsp
            Salt                                 --   ½ tsp

Preparation of the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease one 8x4 inch loaf pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Keep aside

Cream the butter, 3/4 cup granulated sugar and honey in a bowl until light and fluffy. Now, add the eggs, one at a time, and then the lemon zest.

In another bowl, combine 2 tbsp of lemon juice, yogurt,milk and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour.

Pour the batter into the pan, smooth the top, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Combine ¼ cup granulated sugar with the remaining 3 TBSP lemon juice and 1 Tbsp water in a small saucepan and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves and makes a syrup. When the cake is done, let it cool for 10 minutes, then invert them onto a rack set over a tray. Prick the cake all over with a skewer and spoon the lemon syrup over the cake. Allow the cake to cool completely.Serve.

You can decorate as per your wish.

Chocolate cupcakes

2010-10-27T00:30:00.002-04:00

It’s about a week, am away from blogger. Was I busy? Hmm… NO !!! I was addicted.. Yeah.. addicted to ‘Spider Solitare’ and Still I am. J J J J J Now my days starts and ends winning a game. I patiently wait to win a game before breakfast and the same before I go to bed. I believe you understand that I win only 1 out of 10 - 15 games. Am I going crazy?? Hope not !!!!!!!!!!!!

And now I thought of updating my space with an easy recipe, with less work on pics. Here I have the recipe of chocolate cupcakes from Collaborative curry. Nami had this in her drafts when I checked with her for the recipe and posted it very soon. Thanks Nami J .

I lost the step by step pics from my system. I deleted them accidently. So friends, I ll be updating those when I prepare this next time.

Friends…. .Sorry that I did not visit most of your posts and did not leave any comments. I will be back soon with all lost enthusiasm.

Ingredients:
         Flour                                     --   1 ½ cup
         Baking powder                 --   1 ½ tsp
         Cocoa Powder                  --   ½ cup
         Boiling wate r                   --   1 cup
         Salted Butter                     --   ½ cup
         Eggs                                      --   2
         Pure Vanilla Extract      --   2 tsp
   Sugar -- 1 cup

Preparation of cup cakes:
Whisk the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Preheat the oven at 375 degree F.Grease muffin pans with butter or line with paper liners.
Mix the boiling water and cocoa, mix well till there is no lumps.Let it cool.
Beat the butter and sugar until smooth.Add the eggs ,one at a time and beat well to mix in. Add the vanilla extract and mix.
Now beat in cooled cocoa mix into this and mix everything.Fold in the flour mixture into this and spoon out into the muffin pan.
Bake for about 15-16 minutes or until atoothpick inserted comes out clean.This yields about 18 – 20 cupcakes.

Gulab Jamun

2010-10-20T14:35:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

             Milk powder          --   1 cup
             All purpose flour --   ½ cup
             Baking soda          --   ¼ tsp
             Ghee                         --   2-3 tsp
             Milk                          --   as required to make the dough
             Oil                             --   to fry

             Sugar                      --   1 cup
             Water                     --   2 cup
             Cardamom           --   2 – 3
             Vanilla essence --   1 tsp

Preparation of Gulab Jamun:

For the sugar syrup:
Mix sugar and water in a large vessel and keep on a low flame. Once the sugar is completely melted add the cardamom powder and vanilla essence and keep on a low flame. Prepare this after you roll the jamun balls and leave this on a low flame until all the balls are fried.

For the balls:
Mix milk powder, all purpose flour and baking soda. Make a dough by gradually adding milk. Knead to get a smooth dough. Make sure you do not knead it very hard, in that case the jamuns will be hard in the center.

Grease your hands with ghee and make small lemon sized balls from the dough. The ball will increase in size while frying. Avoid any cracks on the balls.

Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot enough, fry the balls in the oil. Make sure you fry the oil in medium heat because if the oil is too hot, the jamuns get browned easily and will not be cooked inside. At right temperature, the ball will rest in the bottom for 5 mts and slowly will rise up.

When the balls turn brown, transfer it on to a kitchen towel. Add these into the sugar syrup when they are cool. There are chances of breaking the balls if you add them into the syrup when still hot. Let it remain on the stove at a low flame for 10-15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and leave the gulab jamun balls in the sugar syrup and refrigerate it when cool. I love cool jamuns :)

Triple Chocolate Brownie

2010-10-18T20:46:00.001-04:00

This fudgy brownies are for real chocolate lovers – a piece of brownie with a dollop of vanilla icecream….. really delicious you know... And this one is from the Cusinart Recipe Booklet – The credit goes to them.

Ingredients:

         All purpose flour                 --   ¾ cup
         Baking soda                           --   1 tsp
         Unsalted Butter                    --   1 cup
         Unsweetened Chocolate --   6 oz
         Bittersweet Chocolate       --   2 oz
         Cocoa Powder                      --   1 tbsp
         Large Eggs                             --   4
         Egg Yolk                                  --   1
         Granulated Sugar                --   2 cups
         Brown Sugar                          --   1 cup packed
         Instant Expresso Powder --   2 tsp
         Vanilla Extract                      --   2 tsp
         Table salt                                 --   1 tsp
         Bittersweet Chocolate chips --   ¾ cup
        Chopped Almonds                 --   ½ cup

Preparation of the brownie:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat a 13x9 inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray/butter. Line with parchment paper/Aluminum foil. Reserve.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Add the butter and chocolates (other than the choco chips & cocoa powder)to a heat proof bowl and place over a pot of simmering water.

Once both are completely melted, stir in the cocoa powder and set aside to cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and the yolk for about 30 sec. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat until light and thickened. Add instant expresso and vanilla; beat until well combined.

Stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. Add the chocolate/flour mixture to the egg/sugars mixture and mix until they are just incorporated.

Fold in the chocolate chips and chopped almonds.

Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for about 45 – 50 minutes or until the edges are dry.

Lemon Rice

2010-10-14T23:41:00.001-04:00

This is another flavorful – easy to prepare – yummy rice. You can make this either with the left over rice or cook rice for this as such. This is one of my quick lunch box items / lunch for weekends.

Ingredients:

         Rice                             --   1 ½ cups (I used Sona Masoori)
         Turmeric powder --   ½ tsp
         Mustard seeds       --   ½ tsp
         Urad dal                   --   1 tbsp
         Dried red chili        --   2 – 3
         Peanuts                     --   ½ cup
         Asafetida                 --   a pinch
         Curry leaves           --   1 spring
        Ginger                        --   1 tsp
        Green Chillies          --   2 – 3
        Lemon juice             --   3 tbsp
        Oil                                 --   2 tbsp
        Salt                              --   to taste

Preparation of Lemon Rice:

Wash and soak the rice for about half an hour. Drain the water and cook the rice with salt and turmeric powder. Keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds, when its starts to splutter, add asafetida, red chillies and fry them for a minute.Add the urad dal and saute for few seconds till they turn light brown. If using left over rice, add the turmeric powder in the oil along with asafetida. This helps to give an even yellow colour while mixing the rice.

Toss in the peanuts and curry leaves. Stir fry for few seconds.

Now add the cooked rice and mix well with the spices. Add lemon juice and toss the rice again.

Vegetable Biriyani

2010-10-13T22:32:00.004-04:00

This is an easy version of the vegetable biriyani. I prepare this in the rice cooker when I am lazy or short of time, otherwise in a wide vessel. This is one way to include a bunch of veggies in our meal.

Ingredients:

Rice:
         Basmati Rice              --   2 cups
         Water                            --   3 cups
         Ghee                               --   1 tbsp
         Cinnamon Stick         --   1
         Cloves                           --   2 – 3
         Cardamom                  --   1 – 2
         Whole pepper            --   4 – 5
         Cumin Seeds               --   1 tsp
         Bay leaves                   --   1
         Salt                                 --   To taste
         Fried Onions               --   ½ cup onions fried

Gravy:
         Onions                           --   1 medium size
         Tomato                         --   1 medium size
         Green Chillies             --   2 – 3
         Ginger garlic paste --   1 ½ tsp
         Potatoes                       --   1 cup cubed
         Carrot                            --   ½ cup sliced
         Beans                             --   ½ cup sliced
         Soya chunks               --   ½ cup
         Turmeric Powder    --    ½ tsp
         Chilly Powder           --    1 tsp
         Garam Masala          --    1 tsp
         Mint leaves                 --   1 cup chopped
        Coriander leaves       --   1 cup chopped
        Oil                                     --   2 tbsp
Garnish:
         Cashews                       --   ¼ cup
         Raisins                          --   ¼ cup

Preparation of Biriyani:

Heat oil in a pan. Add the chopped onions, green chillies, ginger garlic paste and salt. Saute until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry well. Then add the masalas and fry until the raw smell goes off.

Add the veggies (you can use any veggies as per your wish.) and fry for some time. Add required water to cook the veggies to 60%. Add the mint leaves and the coriander leaves and cook until the water is evaporated. Keep aside.

Wash and soak the rice for half an hour. Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan and fry the chopped onions. Remove it into another vessel when done. Then fry the condiments for the rice in the left over oil for few minutes.

If using a rice cooker, add the fried items, salt and drained rice into the cooker. Also add the prepared gravy and let it cook until done.

If preparing in a wide vessel, add the drained rice to the fried condiments and fry for few minutes say 3 –5 minutes. Meanwhile boil 3 cups of water along with salt in another vessel. When the water starts boiling, add the prepared gravy to the rice and mix well. Add the boiling water and the fried onions to the rice and water. Let it cook until done. Stir in between to make sure even cooking.

Garnish with fried cashews and raisins. Serve Hot.

Submitting this to Food palette series Orange hosted by Akheela.

Mushroom Masala with Soya chunks

2010-10-12T14:58:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

         Mushroom                   --   200gm
         Soya chunks               --   15 - 20 chunks
         Onion                             --   1 medium size
         Green Chillies             --   2 –3
         Tomato                         --   1 medium size
         Ginger                           --   1 inch piece
         Garlic                            --   3 -4 pods
         Turmeric Powder    --   1/4 tsp
         Chilly Powder            --   1 tsp
         Coriander Powder   --   2 tsp
         Garam Masala          --   1 tsp
         Shredded coconut   --   1 cup
         Curry leaves              --   1 spring
         Coriander leaves     --   few
         Shallots                        --   1 small
         Red chillies                 --   1 –2
         Mustard seeds           --   1 tsp
        Oil                                    --   2 tbsp
        Salt                                  --   to taste

Preparation of Mushroom masala:

Boil a cup of water and leave the soya chunks in the boiling water for 10 – 15 minutes. Once it cools, squeeze it well and clean until it stops foaming. Cut the chunks into small pieces. Clean and cut the mushrooms into small pieces.

Fry the coconut until brown and grind it into a fine paste.

Add chopped onions, slit green chillies, chopped tomatoes, minced ginger, minced garlic, turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala and curry leaves to the mushrooms and soya chunks. Marinate and keep it aside for 10 – 15 minutes.

Cook this on a low flame and add water as required for the gravy. Remember that water comes out of mushroom while cooking. When the mushrooms are almost cooked, add the ground coconut paste. Let it boil and then garnish with coriander leaves.

Heat oil in a small pan. Splutter the mustard seeds, add the red chillies and fry the chopped shallots. Add this to the cooked curry.

Serve hot.