Short Break

I will  be away  for a short break.

Latha

Puran Poli/ Obattu

This is one of the best sweet delicacy which most of them love to have. Today I am posting 2 types of polis, keeping in mind the  health point of view I have used  a mix of wheat flour + APF and the other one with just APF. For the stuffing I used  gram and jaggery for both the  polis. This is served with hot ghee. 

The below is made with version (2) outer cover ingredients

 The below is made with version (1) outer cover ingredients

 

Paneer Tawa Masala

Paneer in any form is welcome for all, I luv this spicy version of the tawa masala. It’s a thick gravy and goes well with any Indian breads.  I made simple  chapathi and served this dish with salad and kimchi (a pickled vegetable), I love this so much J  

Serves : 4 pax

Time : 45 minutes

Recipe Source : Tarla Dalal

Ingredients

Paneer cubed – 1 ½ cups
Onion chopped roughly -  1 large
Tomato puree  - ½  cup
Oil - 4 tbsp
Fresh cream  - 1 tbsp
Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Green chilies chopped fine – 2 tsp
Turmeric powder  - ¼  tsp
Cumin seeds ½  tsp
Kasoori methi dried -  1 tbsp * crush it with your hands and use
Coriander powder  - 1 tsp
Chili powder  -  ½  tsp
Punjabi garam masala – ½  tsp *
Chaat masala 1 tsp
Coriander leaves – 2 sprigs

I made the  Punjabi garam masala from  here

Baking Partners: A new Baking Group

A group of home bakers helping each other to achieve perfection.

Baking a home made Baking a homemade bread, cake or cookies will give the best outcome. However in order to achieve the best results, a perfect recipe and right techniques are required.

We are a small group of home baker friends, who love and want to learn more about the nook and corners of baking.  We are planning to try out recipes from books/magazines and cooking shows.  Every member gets a chance to present their choice of recipe and share important points with the rest of the group.

Main purpose of this group is to learn the techniques, critic the procedure if there are ways to improve, and to eat a delicious food.

Rules are simple, we will choose one recipe and send it out to the group by 16th of every month and the reveal date will be 15th of the next month. On that day we will blog about it. A linky tool will be open during that time and each member can link their post.

First month we are going to do a recipe, 2nd and 3rd month will be a theme and the 4th month we will be back at a recipe. By doing in between recipes, we will able to learn more.

All enthusiastic bloggers interested in baking are welcome, please email Swathi  of Zesty South Indian Kitchen  at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com. 

We will appreciate the use of logo or worded link that will help to spread the word.  A bunch of thanks to Tina for designing this beautiful logo

If you   want to make it a gluten or vegan free diet, you can do those modifications also.

Tandoori Chicken Burger

Favorites of many  the JUNK food  which is loved by kids and 

equally by the adults. Sometime we can make them healthy by 

making with the ingredients  at home and  for a change this 

kind of burgers are really  good treat for all.

I have made the mince using my processor and added  all the ingredients and before I added tandoori masala  I kept some plain  aside  so that I could make some plain chicken burger fillets.

You can even use some soya meal to make it more healthy. I have not added here.  I am not a big fan of mayo  nor cheese so I have not added it in my bruger.

Infact I have made all the fillets and have  kept them in the freezer so that I can use them handy when need arises.

For the french fries, I used regular potatoes  and have made them at home, it tastes so nice and crisp.

I picked up some nice sesame burger from the bakery. So lets go ahead and make.

Sakkarai Pongal & Ven Pongal

Wish you and your family a very happy Pongal.

Pongal  is celebrated for four days. On, the first day, Bhogi, the old clothes and materials are thrown away and fired, marking the beginning of a new life. The second day, the Pongal day, is celebrated by boiling fresh milk early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel - a tradition that is the literal translation for Pongal. People also prepare savories and sweets, visit each other's homes, and exchange greetings. The third day, Mattu Pongal, is meant to offer thanks to the cows and buffaloes, as they are used to plough the lands. On the last day, Kanum Pongal, people go out to picnic. 

 

During my childhood days  the first Bhogi, we would collect all the clothes, materials and even get some cash from the community and assemble this in a huge empty land we would burn them up in the night and dance in that born fire like. The third day Mattu pongal would be the most wonderful time we have had. My neighbor had  many cows and we would paint their horns and tie all the colourful  garlands with flowers and savories on the cows neck as they were decked up for the jallikattu and races that they had.  I cannot forget those days.

 

Kadai Chicken With Romali Roti

Its long time I posted any chicken recipe, here comes one of  our favorite spicy kadai chicken with a small variation from the original recipe of  Sanjeev Kapoor.  I served this with Rumali roti and the recipe source is from Tarla Dalal.

Cooking time : 30 minutes                  Serves : 4 pax.

 Ingredients

            

Chicken small pieces - 500gms Coriander seeds - 1 tsp Cumin seeds – 1 tsp Black pepper – 4 nos. Ginger – 1 inch Garlic – 6 nos. Whole red chilli  - 3nos Oil – 1 tbsp Onion – 1 medium fine chopped Tomatoes chopped fine – 2 nos Salt Fresh cream – 1 tbsp Coriander leaves for garnish

Tutti fruity Orange Loaf (Eggless)

I had several times baked the eggless Orange cake  as we all at home love it. I had one whole pack of the tutti fruit left  out, hence I thought of just adding to this loaf. 

It turned out to be a great  tea time snack.

Ingredients

APF – 1 ¼ cup

Condensed milk – ¾ cup

Orange juice – ¼ cup

Baking soda – ½ tsp

Baking powder – 1 ½ tsp

Butter at room temperature – 4 tbsp

Orange zest – 1 tsp

Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

Tutti fruity – as much as you want  in the batter and then on top for garnishing. *

*Tutti fruity that you are planning to mix in the  batter should be mixed with  a tsp of flour.

Rajasthani Mini Ghevar With Rabdi - SNC 4

Ghevar a typical Rajasthani sweet, prepared in different sizes and in varieties of plain, mava, paneer or many more. It is sweetened with sugar syrup. This month  South Vs North Challenge (SNC), Manjula of  Desifiesta  of the North Indian team challenged the South Indian Team to make Mini ghevar  with rabdi, whilst the North Indian team are busy making Vadakari challenged by South Indian Team Ramya of lemonkurry

To make a delicious ghevar, the ingredients needed are flour,  butter, sugar, almonds, pistachios, saffron, cardamom powder. For making the batter, flour is mixed with water and clarified butter. The batter is put in a cylinder with heated clarified butter. The process is repeated and a round cake is made which is called ghevar. Sweet sugar syrup is made and ghevar is dipped in it. Soaked saffron is put on it and it is garnished with chopped almonds and pistachios.

Also, for the preparation of ghevar, a special skittle is required. It should be flat surfaced with 8-9 inches of breadth and 12 inches of height. It is tough to prepare this dish in an ordinary skittle and this one is the only recommended.

I felt this was such a tricky  recipe and the key ingredient to make this is just the  patience J. When I started to make the ghevar, my first ghevar went for a flop as I burnt it completely L then I tried the 2^nd one came out  a bit better and was not happy.  The third one was good, once you get  the correct temperature for oil and  batter pouring method correct and  they started coming out well.  Sugar syrup and rabdi was not a big task to make.

I am not at all a sweet lover, I never fancy eating them too. Give me any amount of spicy food I  will enjoy it till the last bit of it.  I am one among the person who has never had a ghevar earlier,  so my anxiety was  much to try this sweet.

When I ate this first mouth,  OMG the ghevar topped with sweet and rabdi together was heavenly. Worth all the hardship that I went through in making and we all at home enjoyed it so much.

Thanks to SNC  for coming up with this challenge, if not for this  I would not have made this sweet  nor would have tasted this and would have missed out on something. I have learnt one more dish and thanks to Manjula and Divya for this wonderful event.

I am from the South Indian Team.

 Ingredients:

Maida - 1  ½  cup
Ghee/ clarified- 2 Tbsp
Milk -  ¼  cup room temperature
Water – ¾  cup if required you can add more to make a thin batter
Cardamom a pinch  

For frying :

Ghee or refined oil

For syrup:

Sugar :  1½  cup
Water:  1 cup
Saffron strands few

Ingredients for Kesar Rabdi

Whole milk - 3 cups
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
Cardamom powder -  ½  tsp
Pistachios - 2 tsp, crushed
Saffron strands -  ½  tsp

For garnishing

Chopped pistachios
Saffron strands few

Kozkatta Kanji or Indian rice dumplings

This dish takes me back to my childhood days spent with my grandmom. My aunt used to make this for us as we would love to have this for breakfast. The rice  used in this dish is so fresh  that when the harvest takes place, the new rice is used in making this. Fresh coconut from our own yard was the added.  These two together makes this dish so yummy. Even today that taste remains in my tongue.  

Have you all noticed the coconut water what we get in Kerala has such a fizzy taste and so sweet too. I never get that here. When I go to Kerala I enjoy drinking coconut water and lime soda with salt (the bottled soda). Its summer time when I visit Kerala and that these two are my thirst quenchers.

I have used the boiled red rice what we get here in Dubai.  Still it almost tastes similar to what we have back home.  You don’t need any accompaniment to have this. All you have to do is have it very hot as its prepared.  Its very filling and  keeps your hunger away  for long hours.

Mongolian stir fry vegetable or meat barbecue

Absolutely zero oil  recipe everyone will love it. Don’t go by the name. We love this as  you can make this with vegetables and  even with meat or seafood. I have had this several times at Hotel Renaissance,  Dubai and believe me I fell in love this Mongolian dish . I learnt this from the chef there he was so kind enough  to show me how he made it at the live  station.

You can pick up any amount of vegetables and meat to make this dish. There is no specific measurements.  I used to pick up lots of onions, mushrooms, baby corns, tender flat carrots, beans, sprouts, broccoli. You can add thin slices of the chicken, beef or prawns. It tastes heavenly with  lobster. This lobster is cooked alone without any vegetables with the ingredients closed and cooked with a lid.  They taste so yum and nice to have with steamed rice.

This meat and vegetables are cooked in a large, round, solid iron griddles which has temperature of upto 300⁰ C. Since I don’t have a Mongolian griddle like the restaurant (ref the below pic.), I used a non stick wok to make this.

Palak and Beetroot Poori

Its so boring all the time same type of pooris. Just a small change and it makes a different kind of breakfast.  

 I used to send this for my daughters school snack box and she would love it as I would use different cutters and make it appealing for here to enjoy the snacks. 

When you are making the  palak poori's you can spice it up with green chillies. Beetroot you can spice with pepper.

Thenkuzhal Murukku

Happy New Year! Hope this new brings everyone peace, happiness and good health J

My first post and thought of starting of this lovely thenkuzhal, a lovely snack for tea time. I have used urud dal and moong also here with  butter. Start munching and never fell like stopping they are so  irrisistble.