Soya Pulao

I have not cooked with soya chunks in a long long time. I remember that my husband and I used to like it. Not sure why I stopped using it. When I walked into the Indian store a couple of weeks ago, I saw this and picked it up. I did not give much thought to what I was going to make with it. I guess I assumed it was going into some curry.

We were very busy this morning and it was already around 12 and I was still not decided on what I was going to make. That is when this soya chunks kept starting at me from the pantry. So I decided to do something with it. Since I did not have the time to make curry and roti, i decided to make a rice.

When it comes to rice, I almost always make a gravy or masala with the ingredients. Cook rice separately and then mix it up at the end. I have always wanted to try cooking all the ingredients directly in the cooker itself for some time now. Have been seeing quite a few recipes lately. So decided to give it a shot. It does give the rice a steamed kind of taste. We liked it. I read this recipe a little while ago in tickling palates and have adapted from there.



Ingredients

Rice 2 cups
Soy Chunks 1/2 cups
Onion 1
Tomato 2
Peas 1/2 cup

Cinnamon 1 inch piece
Bayleaf 1
Star Anise 2
Clove 2
Jeera 1 tsp

Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Hing a little
Garam masala 1 tsp
Chilli Powder 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves
Ginger 1 inch piece chopped
Green chillies 2 chopped

Butter, Oil and Salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Heat some water in a small pot and when it boils add the soya chunks. Cook for 5 minutes. Drain and keep aside.

2. Heat oil and butter in the pressure cooker. Add Cinnamon, Bayleaf, Star Anise, Clove, Jeera, Turmeric, Hing, Curry leaves, Ginger, Green chillies

3. When it sizzles, add the chopped onions. 

4. When it turns pink, add the tomatoes and cook well.

5. Add the turmeric, hing, chilli powder and garam masala. Stir well.

6. Add the peas (add any vegetable of your choice), soy chunk and rice (you can soak the rice for sometime if you want). Mix well.

7. Add 4 cups of water and cook for 2 whistles. 

Yummy soy pulao is ready to be served with raita or side dish of your choice.

Pal Payasam

Growing up I was a big fan of Semiya payasam. Did not care much for pal payasam. Though my mom used to make tons of different payasams for different occations, she always made me my favourite - semiya for my birthday. Oh I miss my mom :-( I wish she was there with me to share this fun times.

Over the years, I have developed a love for Pal payasam. But every time I try to make it, it kind of resembles pal sadam. Not sure if you guys have eaten Pal Sadam as kids. Its nothing but, rice, milk and sugar mixed when it is all warm. So imagine how I feel when my payasam resembles pal sadam.

This time, I checked with my friend C. She mailed me the recipe. I did not have all the ingredients required. So I just worked with what I had. But it turned out good this time.




Ingredients

Rice 1/4 cup
Milk (2%) 5 cups
Condensed milk 3/4 cup
Ghee 2 tbsp
Cashews few
Raisins few
Chopped almonds few
Cardamamom Powder 1/2 tsp

Method of Preparation

1. Heat a pan and add the ghee to it. Add the cashews and fry till starts to brown. Take out and keep aside.

2. Add raisins to the same ghee and fry and add to the cashews.

3. Add some chopped almonds as well to the cashews. Keep them aside to use at the end.

4. In the same ghee, add the rice and fry till it is nice and pink.

5. Add milk to it and cook while stirring till the rice cooks well. I cooked till the rice was a little hard and not too mushy.

6. Add the cardamom powder and condensed milk.

7. Switch off and Add the cashews, raisins and almonds.

Pal Payasam/Rice Kheer is ready to be served.

New Book Blog

Hey Guys

I am thoroughly enjoying my cooking blog. It has definitely improved my cooking - i now cook so many new stuff now.

Reading has always been my passion. Its the most relaxing thing that I can do. So I have gone ahead and started a book blog. Please do take some time and check it out. If you are interested in books, please do go ahead and follow me so that I can know you as well.

http://roshnislibrary.blogspot.com/

There is a post about how it all stated. Do read it :-) Will post reviews soon.... Stay tuned!

Roshni. 

2 in 1 - Egg curry and Veg curry

My husband likes eating eggs. I used to eat egg before. But for some reason, it does not sit well in my stomach these days. So I rarely buy it at home. I had picked up a pack a couple of days ago for some recipe and it was sitting in the fridge. I did not want to waste it. But I did not want to make 2 curries as well. So I prepared the below recipe. You can do either one as well. Both tasted good.

The curry as you will notice will be prepared in the same steps till the last step. Then I will tell you the slight difference :-) I had my roti with veg curry and my husband enjoyed his egg curry!!





Ingredients

Onions 2 + 1
Tomato 1
Coconut 1/4 cup
Ginger 2 inch pieces
Garlic pods 4
Mustard 1/2 tsp
Jeera 1 tsp
Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Chilli powder 2 tsp
Garam Masala 1 tsp
Hot water 3 cups

Method of Preparation

1. Roughly chop 2 onions, tomato, ginger and garlic.

2. Heat oil in a pan and add the onions. Saute till it is translucent and then add the ginger, garlic and tomato. cook well.

3. Let it cool and then grind into a fine paste.

4. In the pan, add some oil and add some mustard.

5. When the mustard sputters, add jeera. let it sizzle and add the 3rd onion sliced.

6. Saute till it is slightly browned. The add the turmeric, chilli powder and garam masala.

7. Boil 3 cups of water and add to the above along with the paste. Add some salt as well.

8. Once it boils the gravy is ready.

When I made it, I split it into 2 bowls. If you are making just one (as a normal household will need), choose one and proceed.

For half of the above gravy (double the vegetables or egg if you are making just one version)

Veg curry
Steam 2 cups of mixed vegetables and mix into the gravy





Egg curry
1. Boil 4 eggs and keep ready

2. Slit the eggs and I roasted the eggs in a little oil. You can skip and cut the eggs and add if you want.



3. Add to the gravy.

Rumali Roti

I was looking for recipes for trying different rotis and saw the recipe for rumali roti  in Vah re Vah video in Youtube. I am becoming a big fan of this guy. He has the enthusiasm that is viral. You just feel like running to the kitchen and making the dish.

Rumali roti is my favourite roti. I always look for it in the menu. Outside India, it is usually hard to find in the menu and even if it is there, the chefs mess up the roti.

Vah chef has 2 versions. One the actual way and another the easy way. I, being the lazy person decided to choose the easy way. The roti came out super thin. It was not as soft as I would have liked it to be. Tasty nevertheless. Check out the video for detailed recipe and demonstation. I followed his recipe as is.



Ingredients

Wheat flour 1 cup
Maida/All Purpose flour 1 cup
Salt
Ghee for spreading
Rice flour and Wheat flour for dipping

Method of Preparation

1. Take wheat flour and maida in a mixing bowl with the salt.

2. Make a soft dough by adding enough water. Add water little at a time. Once that is all absorbed, add a little more and keep kneading. Since maida is there, it will absorb more water as you knead and will become super soft.

3. Keep aside for an hour.

4. Separate into 8 small balls.

5. Take 2 of them. Flatten a little.

6. Apply ghee on both. Dip the ghee applied side on rice flour.

7. Join the ghee/rice sides of both the doughs.

8. Roll into super thin rotis.

9. Heat a tawa till is very hot. Add the rolled roti to it. I have a super size tawa. So I was able to accommodate this big roti. If not, just take smaller roti dough balls to start with.

10. Cook on both side till it is done.

11. Separate the rotis and serve as 2 rumali rotis.

Enjoy with side dish of your choice.

Rava Pongal

Rava Pongal is kind of a fusion of Rava Upma and Pongal. I was just looking thru my Meenakshi Ammal book when I saw this recipe. It was a surprise to me when I saw the title. I have never heard of the dish before. I decided to go ahead with it as it sounded interesting.

If you want to visualize how it tasted - think rava upma. Add the taste of pepper, cumin and ginger to it. That kind of what it felt like to me.



Ingredients

Rava (semolina) 2 cups
Moong dal 1/2 cup
Cashews few
Jeera 1 tsp
Pepper 1 tsp
Ginger 1 inch piece
Ghee 4 tbsp

Method of Preparation

1. Heat a pan and add the moong dal to it. Dry roast it for a little bit and then add some water. Cook till it is cooked, but still has its shape and is a little hard. Drain water and keep aside.

2. Heat another pan, add 2 tbsp of ghee. Add the rava and fry a little. Keep aside.

3. Make a course powder of jeera and pepper.

4. In the same pan, add the rest of the ghee. Add the cashews.

5. When it is slightly fried, add the chopped ginger and cumin/pepper powder.

6. Add 2 cups of water and salt.

7. When the water boils, simmer and add the rava. Cook a little.

8. Add the moong dal and cook till all the water is absorbed.

When I made it, is had a kind of dry texture to it. It did not have the mushy texture of rice pongal. Not sure if that was what the author intended. Ofcourse, if I add more water, it will get a little more bound together. We enjoyed this new tiffin.

Rajma

This is just the basic rajma recipe. We enjoyed it with some warm rotis. You can change this recipe a little by adding some spinach or potato to it as well



Ingredients

Rajma 2 cups
Onions 2
Tomato 4
Rajma Masala 4 tsp
Ginger 1 inch piece
Garlic 3 pods
Green Chillies 2
Curry Leaves few

Star Anise 3
Cinnamon 1 inch piece
Clove 3
Cardamom 1
Bayleaf 1
Fennel seeds 1 tsp
Jeera 1 tsp

Oil and Salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Soak the rajma over night and cook in a pressure cooker till it is cooked well but has the shape. In my cooker, I needed 4 whistles.

2. In a pan, heat some oil. Add chopped Ginger, chopped Garlic, Green Chillies slit, Curry Leaves, Star Anise, Cinnamon, Clove, Cardamom, Bayleaf, Fennel seeds, Jeera to it.

3. When it sizzles, add the chopped onions.

4. When it browns a little, add the tomato and cook till it is well done and oil starts to ooze.

5. Add Rajma Masala and salt and mix well.

6. Drain water from the rajma (keep some water with you). Add the rajma to the pan. If required, add some of the cooking water back to the pan.

7. Simmer for a few minutes.

Rajma is ready to be served. Rajma and rice with a little mango pickle make an excellent combination. I also love Rajma as a side dish for curd rice. :-)

Vendakka Kichadi

Kichadi is a dish made in Kerala that is nothing but a kind of raita. Vendakka is okra or ladies finger. I will give a couple of kichadi recipes that I made recently.

Ingredients

Vendakka (okra) 1 cup

Coconut 1/4 cup

Green Chilli 1

Curry Leaves few

Jeera 1/2 tsp

Yogurt/Curd 1 cup

Mustard 1/2 tsp

Curry Leaves few

Red Chilli 1

Oil and salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the okra into thin circles. The thinner the better.

2. Heat oil (take a generous serving) in a pan and add the mustard.

3. When it sputters, add the curry leaves and red chilli.

4. When it sizzles, add the cut okra and fry it till it starts to brown. 

5. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool.

6. In the meanwhile, grind coconut, curry leaves, green chilli and jeera into a fine paste adding enough water. 

7. Pour this into the cooled okra. 

8. Add some salt and yogurt and mix well. 

Vendakka Kichadi (Okra raita) is ready to be served. Look out for beetroot kichadi coming soon.



Linking this to Kerala Kitchen Event this month hosted by Kaveri of Palakkad Chamayal

Potato Podimas

I think in most Indian homes, not a single week goes by where Potatoes are not cooked. Though I feel guilty using too many potatoes a week, you can never do anything much about it. We just love it. Rasam rice accompanied by Roasted baby potatoes with just chilli powder and salt is such a simple go to food.

Today I am going to present another simple potato recipe that goes great with rice. We enjoy this usually with Kalantha sadam (Mixed rice) like lemon rice, coconut rice, puliyodaria etc. It will go well with sambar and rasam as well. It is quite popular in Tamil Nadu.

Again stressing on the easiness of the recipe, once the potatoes are cooked it takes less than 10 minutes to prepare.



Ingredients

Potatoes 3 medium boiled
Mustard 1/2 tsp
Channa Dal 2 tsp
Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves few
Green Chillies 1 (or more as per taste)
Ginger 1 inch piece
Coconut 1/2 cup
Lime juice 2 tbsp

Oil and Salt to taste.

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the boiled potatoes into cubes and keep. Just roughly chop them. Podimas literaly means crumble curry. So no need for any perfection here.

2. Heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds.

3. When it sputters, add the channa dal and fry till  it starts to brown.

4. Add the turmeric, curry leaves, chopped chillies, ginger and let it sizzle.

5. Add the potatoes, coconut and salt and mix well. Let it cook for a minute or 2.

6. Switch off and add the lime juice and mix well.

Podimas is ready to serve!

Dil Khush - 100th post

I am so excited today. Today marks the 75th day of my blogging. And I am happy to present to you my 100th post. It was a fun journey so far. Many of my friends have given me feedback that they love seeing what i have posted and trying it out at home. I have made so many new friends in the blogging world. And have learnt quite  a few new recipes. I rarely repeat any dishes these days at home.

I was not sure if I was going to make anything special for this post. Many of you might have read my story about how I tried to bake something. If not, check the link. It is quite funny. I tried making something again a couple of days ago and it was ok. But not blog worthy. One of my friends advised me to start with a sponge cake and nothing too complicated. Seems like a sensible idea. Might do that. I will be a little busy for the next 2 months. So you may not see many posts from me. I will surely try and do some baking may be in April or May.

Anyways, with the fear of oven, I did not want to make anything in it. But when I saw 2 bloggers Julie and Smita make Dil Khush this week, I was drooling. Though it says in the internet that it is famous in Kerala, I have never tasted Dil Khush in Kerala. My only time eating it was at an aunt's place in Chennai, a distant relative of ours when I was little. My cousin went out and got all of us this warm bread based dessert from a bakery. Though I do not remember it too well, it lingered in the back of my mind. I am sure it looked a lot like how Julie has made it.

Now, as you know, I will not bake now. At least not another adventure. So I decided to make it with pastry sheets, keeping the filling the same. As luck would have it, I was buying pastry sheets in UK for the first time and came home with Filo sheets instead. They looked the same in the cover for me. When I got home, it was not what i expected to see. But I decided not to be deterred by it.

Now off to the recipe



Ingredients (Makes 4 pieces)

Filo Sheets 2
Coconut 1/4 cup
Fruit Mix (i used a mix of raisins, currants, orange peal, lemon peal etc - a dry fruit pack I got in store). Ideally it should be tutti fruity. 1/4 cup
Almonds 1 tsp
Cashews 1 tbsp
Sugar 2 tbsp
Butter melted 2 tbsp for brushing

Method of Preparation

1. Mix together the coconut, dry fruit mix, almonds, cashews and sugar in a bowl and keep aside.

2. Pre heat the oven to 175C/350F.

3. Cut each sheet into half and add 2 tbsp of the above mix. Fold into rectangles like a puffs. If it were pastry puffs, I would have just folded and sealed the edges.

4. Set into on a baking tray. Spread a little butter on the top with a pastry brush

5. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes till it is golden on the top.

Cool and serve. I was so excited yesterday when my husband came home, tasted it and said it was too good. We all really enjoyed it. Dil Khush!!!

Chakkara Pongal

Hope you all read my post about our pongal celebration. I know I am late in posting my Chakkara Pongal recipe. Thought its better late than never.

I am usually lazy and make it just in the cooker. This time, after seeing Radhika's post, I was inspired to try making it without cooker. I think it was worth the effort. It tasted heavenly.



Ingredients

Rice 1/2 cup
Moong Dal 1.5 tbsp
Jaggery 2 cups
Cardamom little
Cashews few
Raisins few
Ghee a few tbsp (as per taste)
Milk 3 cups
Water 3 cups

Method of Preparation

1. Dry roast the moong dal and keep aside.

2. Wash and soak the rice and roasted dal together for about 15-20 minutes.

3. In a big pot/pan, take the milk and water and bring it to a boil.

4. Add the rice and dal to it and cook in medium low flame stirring in between. Keep the pan covered. Initially the milk will boil over. So be careful. Keep stirring often.

5. In a separate pan, add the jaggery and a little water (around 1/4 to 1/2 cup) and melt it. Remove any dirt/dust from it and keep ready.

6. When the rice and dal is fully cooked and muched up, add the jaggery mix to it. Simmer for some more time till it all comes together.

7. Fry some cashews and raisins in ghee.

8. Add the cashews, raisins, cardamom and all the ghee to the pongal and mix well.

It solidified a little more after a few hours and tasted best the next day. 

Pongal Celebration

Hope you all had a great Pongal celebration. I just wanted to wind up our Pongal Celebration with a small post in the blog about our celebration. No recipes in this post.

We moved to UK from US 1.5 years ago. We ended up buying a house within a few months. That is the beginning of this wonderful journey. We have made some good friends with a few of our neighbours. My little one has friends of his age to play with. We do a potluck dinner atleast once a month. Mostly if there is a festival, we make our dinner based on the theme of the festival. In the last few months, we celebrated Navarathri, Deepavali, Halloween, Karthigai, New Year and Pongal together.

Navarathri we had Golu at our place. Deepavali we did a huge celebration with crackers, dinner at A's house, movie (Velayudham). Halloween our friend P decorated her house in spooky theme. Karthigai we did dinner with lamps and all at our place. New year was at A's house with 80s themed costumes.

Now coming to Pongal, we had a traditional south indian lunch at P's house. P's husband went all the way to London to get ourselves some Vazha Ilai and Karumbu. It was all worth it at the end.  Me and My friends P, A and H all made a few dishes each and look how beautifully it has all come together. Does it not too good when it is served on a Banana Leaf? Its been ages since I ate in a Banana Leaf. It adds a special taste to food.

It was cute seeing the kids sit on the floor and eat from the ilai. The adults also had lots of fun and a yummy meal. It was like a wedding gathering in India. The guys were dressed in Veshti and ladies were all in sarees. Even the kids were all in traditional Indian dresses.

Menu for the day: vendakka kichadi (thair pachadi), beetroot kichadi, manga sweet pachadi, avial, beans curry, carrot with moong dal curry, mango pickle, ulundu vadai, pathir pheni, paruppu, sambar, rasam, appalam, thair, venn pongal and chakkara pongal.

My friend P drew this Rangoli.

Vegetable Rava Upma with Spices

Rava upma is a tiffin I run to on a Saturday morning if I did not think thru the previous night. No soaking or prep is required. Plus it will be ready in less than 30 minutes. I ate this spice version somewhere a long time ago. I prepare this sometimes and it adds a nice aroma and taste to the upma. You can add the spices to the semiya upma as well.



Ingredients

Rava (Semolina) 1.5 cups
Vegetables 3 cups
Onion 1

Channa dal 1 tsp
Urad dal 1 tsp
Cashews few

Cinnamon 1 inch piece
Bayleaf 1
Star Anise 2
Clove 2
Jeera 1 tsp

Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Hing a little
Curry leaves
Ginger 1 inch piece chopped
Green chillies 2 chopped

Oil and Salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Heat a pan and dry roast the rava(semolina) and keep aside.

2. Heat the pan and add some oil. Add the mustard.

3. When it sputters, add Channa dal, Urad dal, and Cashews.

4. When they start to brown, add the Cinnamon, Bayleaf, Star Anise, Clove, Jeera, Turmeric, Hing, Curry leaves, Ginger, Green chillies

5. Saute a little till the aroma comes and they start to sizzle. Add the onions.

6. Saute till it starts to brown. Add the vegetables. If it is frozen, just heat for a few minutes. otherwise, let it cook.

7. Add water to it. Use 1:1.5 ratio for normal rava and 1:2 for wheat rava. Bring it to a boil.

8. Add the rava and salt. Stir well. The water will all get absorbed immediately. Don't worry. Do not add any more water. Just cook in low heat till the rava is cooked.

Garlic Coconut Chutney

I made a chutney with Garlic and Coconut to go with Dosa. It was a nice variation from the usual coconut chutney that I make.



Ingredients

Coconut 1 cup
Garlic 10-12 pods
Red Chillies 5
Tamarind paste 1/2 tsp (or less)
Mustard 1/2 tsp
Urad dal 1/2 tsp
Hing a little
Curry leaves few
Oil and Salt to taste



Method of Preparation

1. Heat a little oil in a small pan and add the pealed garlic. Mine were really big ones. So I cut them into 2 before frying. Fry them till they start to brown.

2. Add the red chillies and let it sizzle.

3. Add the coconut and fry for a couple of minutes.

4. Grind the above mix with tamarind and salt into a smooth paste by adding a little water.

5. For tempering, heat oil in a small pan and add the mustard. When it sputters, add the urad dal. When it starts to brown, add the curry leaves and hing. Add it to the chutney.

Serve with idli or dosa.

Vegetable Fried Rice

When I finished making my Gobi Manchurian, I knew I needed Fried Rice to go with it. Nothing can be a better combination for Manchurian than Fried Rice

Once the rice is cooked, it took me 5 minutes to cut the vegetables and 5 minutes to toss all of this together. I cannot stress on the easiness of the recipe




Ingredients

Basmati Rice 2 cups
Onion 1
Red Pepper 1
Yellow Pepper 1
Carrots 2
Spring Onions 3 tbsp
Garlic 1 pod
Peas Handful
Soy Sauce 1.5 tsp
Chilli Tomato Sauce 1 tbsp
Pepper powder 1 tsp

Salt and Oil to taste





Method of Preparation

1. Fry the rice in a little oil or butter and pressure cook. I used 1:1.5 water instead of the usual 1:2 so that it does not stick.

2. Transfer to a big bowl and cool a little and separate the grains.

3. Slice all the vegetables and keep ready.

4. In a pan, heat some oil. Keep the pan hot all the time. Add the onions and garlic. Saute for a minute.

5. Add the peppers, peas, carrots and spring onion. Saute for 4 minutes.

6. Add the say sauce and chilli sauce along with some salt and pepper. Toss well.

7. Add the rice and switch off. You can garnish with some spring onions.

Serve with side of your choice. We enjoyed it with Gobi Manchurian.





Linking this to Lets Cooks - Rice event hosted by Radhika

Gobi Manchurian

We are a big fan of Indo Chinese food in our house. When we were in Boston, we would hunt for restaurants that served this. It was not very common and those which served it did a sloppy job. When we go to Saravana Bhavan in London, we always order some. I have never tried making it though it has been in my list for quite sometime now.

The only downside is, I don't think it is anywhere close to being healthy :-( But I guess it will be better than eating in a restaurant.

I was looking for a good recipe for Manchurian and I saw this recipe in Sarah's Vazhayila. Though I have seen the recipe in many sites, this one looked perfect. Believe me it tasted perfect as well.

I followed her recipe and did not make much changes to it.



Ingredients


To make the Cauliflower
Cauliflower  1 medium size. I had an extra large. so used only 1/2 of it.
Maida  1/2 cup
Corn flour  3 tsp
Chilli powder  1 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

Onion 2 sliced
Capsicum 1 sliced
Ginger 1 inch piece thinly sliced
Garlic thinly sliced 3 cloves
Dried red chillies seeds 1 tsp
Spring Onion 3 tbsp
Soy Sauce 1.5  tbsp
Chili tomato sauce 1/4 cup (I used maggii hot and sweet chilli sauce)
Corn flour  1 tsp

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam it. I kept in microwave for 3 minutes.

2. In a bowl take maida, corn flour, chilli powder and salt. Mix with water to make a batter of bajji maavu consistency. 

3. Add the steamed cauliflower and mix well to coat the batter on the florets.

4. Heat oil and deep fry them. Keep them aside on a paper towel.

5. Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot and smoky, add the onions, ginger and garlic. Saute for a minute. 

6. Now add the capsicum and spring onions and saute for 3 minutes. 

7. Mix the corn flour in 1/4 th cup of water. Add the soy sauce, chilli sauce, corn flour mix and salt. 

8. Add the fried cauliflower and chilli flakes and mix well. Simmer for a couple more minutes.

Garnish with some spring onions and serve with Vegetable Fried Rice or some warm rotis.

Pathir Pheni

Happy Pongal to all of you. Chakkara Pongal (Sweet Pongal) recipe coming soon.. :-)

I am happy to be able to post a traditional sweet from Karnataka on this day. I signed up to participate in the Indian Cooking Challenge by Srivalli and this is my first month with the group. I have seen a couple of past events and was amazed by all the effort put by everyone to make traditional recipes. Looking forward to doing more Challenges with all of you



When I saw last month that the challenge was the make Pathir Peni, I was a little worried. It is one thing to try and make a difficult item and another thing to make an item which I have never tasted or seen before. I decided not to be deterred by that. In I get it right, it is well and good. If not, I will get feedback from other bloggers. Plus I will get to see how different bloggers have handled the challenge.

Since I did not have the fine semolina, I went and got myself a packet of that last week. I made it yesterday night. Will share it with friends today.

Now off to my experience and method of preparation

Ingredients

To make the dough
Fine Semolina 1 cup
Ghee 2 tsp
Salt a pinch
Water as required.

To make rice paste
Rice Flour 2 tsp
Ghee 2 tsp

For Sugar Syrup
Sugar 1.5 cups
Cardamom 1/2 tsp
Water 1 cup

Method of Preparation

1. Take the semolina in a bowl and add solid ghee to it. Crumble with hand to mix well.



2. Add the salt and make a dough with enough water. When I was making the dough, it was super soft and it kept absorbing the water.



3. Keep aside covered for atleast an hour. I left it for 4 hours as I was doing other things and could not get to it till later.

4. Separate into small poori sized balls. I made 10 out of this dough.



5. Flatten like you will for a poori.



6. Make a paste of rice flour and ghee and keep ready.





7. Apply the rice paste and stack the poori into 2 stacks of 5 each.



8. Roll into a log.by applying rice paste in between.



9. Cut into pieces. I make around 8 pieces each



10. Take 1 piece and place it vertically. Roll again. This was a step I probably did not do right. I rolled it into small poori size round. I now feel I should have just pressed it flat.

11. In a vessel, dissolve sugar with water and bring it into 1 string consistency. Add cardamom powder to it and mix well.

12. Heat oil in a kadai. Fry the flattened pooris and immediately dip in sugar syrup. When the next one is fried, put it in the syrup and remove the first one.

13. Drain into a plate. Once it is dried, serve.

I hope you all enjoyed this sweet like we did. Thank you Srivalli for this interesting recipe.



Linking it to Indian Cooking Challenge. You can see other bloggers at this location

Vada Pav

When I was looking for recipes to post for Blog Hop Wednesday, I came across this recipe in Vaishali's website. Though we make potato bonda all the time, we have never tasted it as this combination of Vada Pav. I used the idea and most of the ingredients and put together this dish. We really loved it.








Dry Garlic Chutney

Ingredients
Garlic 4 pods
Coconut 1/4 cup
Salt
Little oil
Chilli powder 2 tsp


Method of Preparation

1. Heat a little oil in pan. Add the garlic and coconut and saute for a few minutes. I changed this cause I did not feel like eating raw garlic.

2. Pulse in a mixie with chilli powder and salt.

Coriander Chutney

Ingredients
Coriander Handful
Coconut 1/4 cup
Green Chillies 2
Salt

Method of Preparation

1. Pulse all the above in a mixie with a little water.



Potato stuffing

Ingredients

Potato 1 big
Peas 1/4 cup
Chilli Powder 1 tsp
Hing
Turmeric 1/2 tsp
Salt

Method of Preparation

1. Boil or Microwave the potato. Peal and mash. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Mash the peas and add it to the bowl.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

4. Split into balls and flatten them.



For the batter (outer filling)

Ingredients

Besan 1/2 cup
Rice Flour 2 tbsp
Baking Soda 1/4 tsp
Chilli Powder 1/2 tsp
Turmeric 1/4 tsp
Hing
Salt

Mix all the above with a little water to make a thick batter.

To make the potato bonda

1. Heat oil in a pan. Dip the potato stuffing in the batter and put into the oil.

2. Fry it is golden brown on both sides.



To Put together.

1. Add butter to a pan and toast the pav bread on both sides

2. Set in a plate. Add garlic chutney on one side and coriander on the other.

3. Place the fried bonda on that and sandwich together.





Enjoy this spicy snack! It is now one of our favourite food. I made my sons's version without the chutneys. He also liked it a lot.

Coriander Parata

I am on a mission to try simple things to make my everyday roti special. This is yet another parata I tried from the Tarla Dalal book that I own. I cannot believe that I had this book for 5 years and I am making many of these things only now.

It was a big hit in the house. Couple of other roti/parata that I tried recently from that book are Ajwain Parata and Kashmiri roti. We loved all of these and the best part, it takes less than 5 min more from your regular roti to these special rotis.



Ingredients

Wheat Flour 1 cup
Salt
Little oil

For Stuffing
Corriander leaves 1 cup chopped (loosely packed)
Coriander powder 1 tsp
Cumin powder 1 tsp
Turmeric 1/4 tsp
Green Chillies finely chopped 3
Besan 1 tbsp

Method of Preparation

1. Mix the wheat flour, salt and a little oil. Make dough like you will for normal roti.

2. In a bowl mix all the ingredients for the stuffing. The recipe did not mention the next step. I did it to bring together the ingredients.

3. Pulse in a mixie and then divide into 4 portions.

4. Make 4 balls out of the dough. Spread one and apply a little oil on it.

5. In the centre spread one portion of the stuffing diagonally.

6. Roll like a cigar so that the stuffing is inside the cigar along its length.

7. Now roll the cigar like a rope.

8. Flatten and roll again. The circle will be smaller than usual roti.

9. Put in a tawa and cook by applying ghee on both sides.

Enjoy with side dish of your choice. We had it today with Paneer Kurma