Chilli Garlic Noodles

If you are a garlic lover then you will love this simple and  very delicious noodles. You wont find any vegetables in this stir fried noodles because they are meant to accompany a sauce based main dish.

Very few ingredients in this noodle yet very yummy. Drizzle the soy sauce from the sides of the wok, so that the aroma will be released and enhances the flavor into the needles. Increase or decrease in the chilli flakes to your level of taste.

This is one of my daughters favorite noodles.

Serves : 3 pax                                                                               Time : 30 minutes                                                                    Recipe source : Nita Mehta’s cook book

Ingredients

Noodles – 200gms
Oil – 3 tbsp *
Crushed garlic – 2 tsp
Whole red chillies broken into bits – 3 nos
Red chilli flakes – ½ tsp
Sesame seeds – 1 tbsp                                                                  
Soya Sauce – 1 tsp

*I used sesame oil

Chana Dal Halwa - SNC Challenge 6

This month at the SNC Challenge Chana Dal Halwa/Barfi,  the North team challenged us to make this sweet, thanks to    Kirti for explain so well and  explaining well this recipe, we at home loved this so much.

From the South  Swasthi challenged the North team to make this delicious biryani. SNC is the brain child of Divya Pramil. I proud to be a member of this  challenge.

I am part of the South Team

INGREDIENTS

1 Cup Chana Dal(Chickpea
¾  Cup Ghee
½  Cup Sugar
2 ½  Cup Whole Milk

1 tsp  Cardamom powder
6 Almonds (chopped)



Method

Wash and Soak dal in 2 Cup water for 4 hours.

Boil the soaked dal in 1 Cup of water until its just done, keep extra water if any let it cool down.

Mash the boiled dal with back of spoon to make grainy paste.

Heat ghee in heavy bottom pan. Add mashed dal and fry on medium heat 15 minutes by this time raw smell will vanish and nutty aroma will spread around. Also you will able to see ghee at edges separating  with dal.

Now add 1/2 Cup milk and fry on high heat till it get dry. Again add ½  cup milk and fry.

Repeat this until all milk is used.

Finally mix in cardamom powder, sugar with chopped almonds and fry on high heat for another 5 minutes.

Serve hot or cold.

Latha

Sending this :

http://cooking-unplugged.blogspot.in/2013/03/chickpea-halwabarfi-snc-challenge.html

http://youtoocancookindianfood.blogspot.in/2012/09/south-vs-north-challenge-learn-excel.html

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownie

How time flew by.   Today is a joyous occasion in our life. Let me share this with  all  my co-bloggers and my well wishers.  This is  my daughter  (Sanjna).

It’s a milestone celebrations and yes she is 18 today. Looking back the past few years, I find myself trying to conjure up memories of  her  first steps, first words, first day of school and now in the university  and every year has been so special with such  wonderful memories.

White Bread & Dilpasand - Eggless

We had a wonderful challenge set by Swathi Iyer for Baking Partners challenge 8. Baking fresh  breads at home. Thank you Swathi for this wonderful challenge. 

I chose to use the  Asian method of Tangzhong  method to bake the bread and dilpasand.  I have added some raisins you can omit that if you want, if you like all you have to do his just soak the raisins in hot water for 10 minutes and then remove them from water when dry roll them in a tbsp. of flour and then use this in the final stage of rolling.

We are given two methods of bread making one is Asian method Tangzhong and other is Scandinavian method of Scald flour. 

Dalia or Broken Wheat Upma

Ingredients

Broken wheat dalia  - 1 cup

Mixed vegetables – ½ cup (small cubes of carrots, beans, peas, potatoes)

Oil – 2 tbsp

Onion finely chopped - medium 1 no

Green chillies fine chopped – 4 nos.

Curry and coriander leaves – 2 sprigs each

Chopped  small tomato – 1 no

Mustard – ¼ tsp

Peanuts – 1 tbsp

Channa dal – 1 tsp

Ginger – 1 small  piece chopped

Salt to your level of taste

Tahini and Hummus

Tahini  is more  used in many  Middle Eastern dishes. Tahini or sesame seed paste is   more nutritious and enhances the flavor when added to  any dishes. I personally love adding a dash of  tahini  to hot soups, sandwiches on toasted bread etc.  The texture may also be slightly coarse than store bought tahni, but it has the same delicious flavor, and may be far fresh and tastier.

We had a cafeteria near by my  house, where in the evening they make fresh falafels, shawarmas. The chef  who used to make this was so friendly that he gave me the recipe and very often I make this at home as we love this so much. He even taught me to make falafel, shawarmas too. I will be sharing  that recipes here soon.

Sesame seeds are rich in minerals such as calcium, zinc and manganese. They also contain useful quantities of some B group vitamins including thiamin and B6, and are a useful source of vegetable protein.

Please excuse me I forgot to capture the  picture of the tahini before using it. I will put a better pic next time I make my stock.

Ingredients

¼ cup olive oil  (you can use more if needed)                                   1 cup sesame seeds

Homemade Pita Breads

I have never posted  more recipe from the middle eastern cuisine,  I made two types of pita one I used completely with all purpose flour and the second type I made was using half of the whole wheat flour and  all purpose flour to make it more healthy. Both were extremely soft and fluffy.

I felt more comfortable to use the stove top method to bake the pita as handling it was much easy.

Makes  : 8 to 10

Time taken: 2hrs

Ingredients

Warm water – 1 cup (not boiling hot)

Active or instant yeast – 2 tsp

All purpose flour – 2 ½ to 3 cups

Salt – 2 tsp

Olive oil  - 2 tsp

Method

Mix water, yeast together and let it sit for about 10 minutes until the yeast is well dissolved and bubbles are formed.

In a big bowl add the flour (2 ½ cup and the rest you can add whilst kneading), salt, 1tsp olive oil and mix well.  Now add the yeast mixture and  knead the dough well, keep adding the extra flour on the work area and kneed for about 10 minutes until smooth dough is formed. If the flour is left out never mind we can use it at the later stage.

In a clean bowl  brush the dough with olive oil and cover it with a wet cloth or cling film and now let this rise double the size (probably 1 or 2 hours or even more depending on your climate).

Gently deflate the dough on a lightly  floured   work area. Divide into 8 balls and flatten each balls into thick disc and cover the disc with a kitchen towel until you are ready to roll them.

Use a rolling pin and make nice small  circles of the each disc about ¼ inch thick. If you are not able to roll the dough and if its starts to spring back whilst you are rolling which means it needs some more time of resting.  After a while start rolling them back.

You can bake them at 450 deg on a baking sheet for about 3 minutes as it puffs up like  a balloon  you can get it out. You can put as many as your sheet can accommodate.

You can even make it on the stove top on a skillet. Place a rolled pita on the hot skillet and  when you see the small bubbles flip to the other side for another 2 minutes, you will get nice puffed up balloon like pita.  If it does not puff then you just press the pita gently with a clean towel  and it will puff.  Cover the cooked pitas with a clean dishtowel whilst cooking the rest of them.

Pitas are stored in an airtight bag or the best is to have it hot as they are made.

Latha


Sending this to:

http://seduceyourtastebuds.blogspot.ae/2013/03/celebrating-womens-day-with-event.html


http://h4hemh4help.blogspot.in/2013/03/wtml-march-2013.html

http://gayathriscookspot.blogspot.in/2013/03/walk-through-memory-lane-february.html


http://foodssrilanka.blogspot.ae/2013/03/cook-like-celebrity-chef-5.html




http://www.en-iniyaillam.com/2013/02/announcing-passion-on-plate-giveaway.html


http://www.simplysensationalfood.com/2013/03/announcing-event-lets-cook-for-kids.html

Grilled Pineapple with nutty yogurt

Lots of  pineapples in the market these days. Recently when I was in the supermarket, I saw the guy there cleaning the pineapples and arranging them in boxes ready to use.  Normally  I hate cleaning the pineapple as it’s a task to clean the thick skin and eyes. Hence when I saw  some cleaned and ready to eat pineapples  and nothing stopped me picking up a  box.

A pineapple  is ripe to eat when a leaf is easily pulled  from the top. The bromelain in pineapples is an effective meat tenderizer – use a few spoonful of juice and add to meat stews and curried . A special compound found within pineapples can help ease the pain of arthritis and may help to prevent strokes.

This is a nice warm dessert you can enjoy with this  nutty dip

Makes : 4 – 6 pax

Time  taken : 15 minutes

Recipe source : 100 Best health  foods

Ingredients

Pineapple – 1 fresh cleaned and cut in  ¾ inches thick rounds
Honey – 4 tbsp *
Cooking oil or butter – 2 tbsp (I have used oil)
Hung yogurt – 150ml
Hazelnuts, skinned and roughly crushed or chopped- 115gms

*Used  only if the pineapple is not sweet