Shab's Cuisine

Saffron and Cardamom infused Almond Milk

2012-02-10T13:07:00.000Z

The temperature has been hitting minus constantly for the past couple of weeks and nothing could be better than sipping on something hot to mellow down the bitterness of the icy cold weather. Here is a fantastic recipe of a refreshing drink that has simple, clean flavour with a whiff of Saffron and cardamom. Saffron adds a royal touch and a warm yellow hue to this drink and cardamom imparts a pleasant warm aroma . Almond milk brings in me fond memories of none other than my mom. She used to prepare this for us when we were little kids. She prepares it slightly differently than my preparation and it was simple, yet delightful. She soaks her almonds, peel them off and then blend them along with sugar and cold milk. As the almonds were blended along with milk, it would still be coarse and grainy which gave me an uncomfortable feeling as the drink passed down the throat. It was still delicious even though the coarse grainy feeling of almonds was not very soothing, at least for me. Later after my wedding she also passed on the almond milk serving tradition to serve her son in law. She doesn’t add saffron and cardamom in her almond drink; neither does she cook the milk. I have read somewhere that cooking the almond milk take away that grainy feeling of ground almonds.

I was introduced to the saffron flavoured almond milk in one of London’s popular Indian eat outs- The Chennai Dosai, the place where they sold cheap and delicious south Indian meals. Chilled Saffron infused almond milk was the drink that we regularly ordered. So I just recreated that lingering taste at home when I got a craving for it out of nowhere!

Saffron and Cardamom infused Almond Milk

Serves 4

Ingredients:

60g ground almonds

2-5 tbsp sugar or to sweeten

¼ - 1/3 cup milk

3 ¾ cups milk (Full fat milk gives that rich creamy taste, but semi skimmed milk works well too)

Good pinch of saffron

2 green cardamoms (optional, omit if youdislike the cardamom flavour)

Preparations:

1.In a grinder, add ground almonds, sugar and ¼ - 1/3 cup of milk to grind the almond to fine paste without any grainy feeling.

2. Heat a saucepan, pour in milk, add in the almond paste, cardamoms and saffron. Stir continuously to break up the almond paste and to prevent the milk from sticking to pan. Once the milk comes to boil, lower the heat, cook for couple of minutes and turn off the heat.

3. Serve it in individual tall glasses and garnish with few saffron strands and chopped nuts and have it hot. Else once the drink has cooled down, cover it and chill it and serve chilled. It’s delicious either cold or hot.

Chocolate Cupcakes

2012-02-04T17:36:00.001Z

I have been making several types of chocolate cupcakes for a while now and I realise I haven’t even posted one of them. Like brownie, I tend to try lot of chocolate cup cakes so as to satiate our chocolate craving. Cupcakes are small and mighty and I also easily halve the recipe so as to make a small batch. Usually recipe works fine without any major taste difference at all. Each chocolate cup cake I tried was different in texture, taste, depth of chocolate flavour and different method too. This particular cupcake has mild chocolate flavour, was spongy and soft. I dint ice these as it was sweet enough to eat them without icing. Plus whenever I ice my cakes, my sons just licks all the frosting and have few nibbles off the cake. To avoid that I left the cake un-iced and he had them as it is.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Adapted from Fairy Cakes by Nancy Lambert

Ingredients: (For 6-7 medium cup cakes)

30g dark chocolate

75mls water

1 medium egg (58g)

75g soft brown sugar

45g slightly salted softened butter (Add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter)

65g self raising flour

20g ground almonds

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Ingredients: (For 12-14 cupcakes)

60g dark chocolate

150mls water

2 medium egg (116g)

150g soft brown sugar

90g slightly salted softened butter (Add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter)

125g self raising flour

30g ground almonds

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Preparations:

1.Preheat the oven to 180 º Celcius/gasmark 4/350 º F. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with muffin cases.

2. Place chocolate and water into a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until chocolate is melted and is smooth. Reserve.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar using a wooden spoon or electric whisk until soft and fluffy.

4. Add eggs one at a time and beat until incorporated.

5. In another bowl, mix flour, cocoa, almond powder and mix well using a whisk or sieve the ingredients once.

6. Into the wet mixture, add the dry mixture, followed by the chocolate mixture and using a wire whisk, mix till smooth.

7. Using a tablespoon transfer equal amounts of batter into the muffin cases, filling 2/3^rd of the case. Bake the cupcakes for about 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean without any crumbs sticking to it.

Kofta Pulao

2012-01-30T11:35:00.001Z

I am a rice fanatic and would try anything that has something to do with rice that I find appealing. Like wheat, rice too is versatile in its own way, making one of the best non gluten substitutes. Back home we make innumerable amount of preparation using rice and have them throughout the day right from morning through to dinner in different forms such as pathiris, neypathal, simple rice etc. While some dishes require less skill, some others require laborate and long process and a better hand on experience. My favourite among rice platters have always been Biryanis and pulaos. The amount of flavours packed in them is just magical. Even though preparing them take up quite a big chunk of time, it is worth every effort and time. Making rice to its perfection is quite an art; it is one of the simplest things to make, yet something that needs the knack to get it right. In spite of making rice for several years now, I still screw it up at times.

I would try any rice dish that sound and look appealing. That was when I came across Soma’s Zafrani kofta pulao. She presents her dish beautifully to begin and with all the writings and explanation, you are just ready to eat that platter. My recipe here is not very different; it is very much inspired and adapted from Soma and the outcome was better than I expected. My expectations are always very high and not less than perfect!? I just tweaked a bit to add my personal touch and to adjust with some of the ingredients that are not a regular ingredient in my pantry, like the saffron. I also prepared rice as our humble ghee rice, because that’s one way that never fail to get right and one that I make often. But it took me quite some time to prepare this pulao as some steps in the making takes very long time like frying onions to brown. But Soma mentions that kofta and onions can be prepared ahead of time, which divides the intensity of labour and time you stand at the hob. She also mentions that koftas could be used as starters, filling up pitta pockets along with some salad leaves, some mint chutney, yogurt etc which I regularly do with my Moroccan meatballs (yet to shoot, type and blog!).

Delicious Kofta Pulao

Serves 6

Ingredients:

For fried onions:

5 medium onions sliced into half moon shapes/5 cups

¼ cup oil

a pinch of salt

For Koftas:

500g lamb mince/beef mince

1/3 cups finley chopped onion

1 tbsp minced ginger

1 tbsp minced garlic

2 tbsp chopped mint leaves

2 tsp garam masala powder

1 ½ - 2 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder

3 ½ tbsp corn flour

½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 tsp coriander powder

¾ -1 tsp salt

3 tbsp double cream

2 tbsp or more vegetable oil to fry the koftas

For Rice:

3 cups basmati rice, washed in several changes of water and soaked to 20 minutes before cooking

4 ½ cups boiling water

salt to taste

¼ cup ghee (clarified butter)

2 black cardamoms

4 green cardamoms

4 cloves

½ tsp black pepper corns

2 tbsp raisins

2 tbsp almonds

2 bay leaves

3 teaspoons rose water

1-1 ½ teaspoons garam masala powder

½ cup chopped mint leaves

Preparation:

For fried onions:

1.Rub salt in to the sliced onion using fingers or just sprinkle salt onto onions and toss it with a large spoon. Heat oil in a large wok or frying pan. When hot, throw in onions and fry them in 1-2 batches until brown. Make sure the pan is on medium heat and stir occasionally to avoid charring and onions sticking to the pan. once brown, fish them out and drain on kitchen paper. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of garam masala all over the fried onions and mix it with spoon. Keep it covered for later use.

For Koftas:

1.Combine all the ingredients for koftas except oil using a wooden spoon. I feel mixing it with hand blends and distribute the ingredients better. Divide the mixture into 25-30 portions and roll it into smooth balls.

2. Heat oil in a non stick pan and fry these koftas until golden on medium heat, flipping sides gently. I used lamb here and it took me around 12-15 minutes per batch of meat balls. Don’t get tempted to increase the heat assuming the meat to cook faster. It would brown the meat from outside leaving the inside uncooked. So keep the heat to medium or lower. You can also bake these Koftas for 20-25 minutes until golden in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celcius, stirring once or twice in between. Once done, keep them aside.

For rice:

1. Place a wide, non-stick saucepan on low-medium heat and add ghee. When ghee has melted and is hot, add whole spices and almonds and sauté for a minute or two until it is fragrant. Lastly add raisins and stir just until they puff up.

2. Add 1/3^rd of fried onions and mix well.

3. Add drained rice to this spiced ghee and sauté for further 4-5 minutes or until the rice is glistened with oil and onions are equally distributed.

4. Add boiling water and required amount of salt and stir well. At this point of time, it is important to turn the heat up to high. Keep the pan open and cook until you see NO visible water in the bottom of the pan when you part rice with a ladle. At this point, when water is all evaporated, reduce the heat to minimum, cover the pan with a tight fitting lid to hold in all steam and cook on very low heat for 8-10 minutes minutes or until rice is perfectly cooked. Once it is completely done, toss rice with a spatula once or twice to avoid rice grains sticking to each other.

Final assembly of the pulao:

1.Divide the koftas into 2 part and rice into 3 parts OR take away two parts of rice from the non stick pan in which the rice was cooked and keep one part of rice in the pan to do the layering.

2. That is going to be the first layer of rice. Sprinkle on it, some spiced fried onions, some chopped mint and a teaspoon of rose water. Then, distribute one part of koftas on top of this.

3. Scatter the second part of rice over these koftas,onions etc. Again, sprinkle some spiced fried onions, chopped mint leaves and a teaspoon of rose water all over and distribute the second part of koftas on top.

4. Scatter the last part of rice to cover up the underlying koftas and sprinkle rest of onions, mint leaves and rose water and a good pinch of garam masala. Cover the pan tight, and place it on the lowest heat for about 10 -15 minutes to infuse the flavour.

5. Open the pan, gently toss the rice over with a spatula to mix and serve hot with any pickle, raita, pappadam and some salad.

Slada Hummus (Warm Chickpea Salad with Onions and Paprika)

2012-01-20T17:16:00.000Z

I love chickpeas; May it be just plain boiled ones, in salads, soups or anything else. This is one simple salad recipe that I adapted from the Moroccan cook book which I borrowed from the library a while ago. It’s simple, easy, healthy and delicious! I loved the combination of flavours. In the book, it is said that chickpeas, beans and lentils are consumed daily in the rural areas of Morocco, particularly where the meat is scarce and expensive. They are cooked in stews, added to couscous and find their way to salads. This dish is particularly good served warm topped with crumbled goat’s cheese from the village.

Slada Hummus (Warm Chickpea Salad with Onions and Paprika)

Recipe adapted from: Flavours of Morocco by Ghillie Basan

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup dry chickpeas, soaked in plenty of cold water overnight

1 small red onion cut into half lengthwise, then in half crosswise and then sliced with grain

4 garlic cloves, very finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2-3 teaspoon paprika

¼ cup olive oil

Freshly squeezed juice of a lemon

a Handful of parsley, chopped coarsely

125 g feta cheese crumbled (optional)

sea salt and freshly ground pepper – as needed

Bread to serve

Preparation:

1.Drain chickpeas, pressure cook them with salt for about 20 minutes or until the chick peas are tender but not mushy. If using a regular saucepan, pour boiling water over the chickpeas, cover and cook for around 40-50 minutes.

2. Drain the chickpeas and remove the loose skins by rubbing them in a clean tea tower or between fingers.

3. Tip the warm chickpea into a bowl, add chopped onion, garlic, cumin, paprika, lemon juice and olive oil whilst the chickpeas are still warm making sure they are well coated. Toss well and season with salt and pepper and mix in herbs.

4. Crumble goats cheese if using and serve warm alongside any crusty bread.

Macarons with Bitter Chocolate Ganache

2012-01-10T18:27:00.004Z

Hi Friends, Hope you all had a Great X’mas and a Lovely New year. I am quite late here to wish you both, yet, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. I really got caught up for the past few weeks, shopping, baking, cooking, roaming around and with the boy’s school off for nearly 3 weeks, everything was going at a very slow pace! Cleaning the house, cooking and clearing his toys itself tire me up, let alone shooting pictures and typing. So some posts which were intended to post for Xmas and New Year had to be postponed for sometime later. Today’s post was something that I have been longing to post for a long time now – Macarons. Loads to type, lot of links and tips to share got my post further delayed. I am not yet the perfect Macaron maker, but so far I have successfully managed to get ‘feet’. Now that I have already made it more than half a dozen times, I thought I’ll start sharing them one by one.

I don’t really fancy cookies as such and so macarons dint appeal to me when it first started appearing on blogs. I know it’s an eye candy, but somehow it dint appeal to me initially. I don’t know if it was the bright colours that put me off, but now, I had to revert that statement completely. The hype that was going on around the blogs and social networks, the screaming and excitement of getting to see the so called ‘feet’ really put me into thoughts. That wave of excitement, at some point hit me too and I also thought of giving it a go just to feel that bliss. That was it. Macaron bug then hit me too! My oven then saw around 7 successful batches of macarons since then. Making them are addictive, I warn you, and so are eating them. I was warned by many bloggers about its addictive characteristics, but I couldn’t resist making them. I have taken few batches for a party and some to gift friends. Even though bloggers are quite acquainted with these delights; I don’t really think many people know about macarons. When I took them over to friend’s place, only a couple had it and they got it gifted from a family friend who bought them from Harrods!

I am not intimated with complicated recipes and so I try anything and everything that I would want to try and taste. I take the complicated recipes as a challenge and am very pleased when I get it right. I don’t always expect the best of outcome, but make sure that it would be edible enough not to go to bin. Yet, I was anxious about making macarons as I have come across many macaron mishaps with many great bloggers as well. So I was all prepared for the worst when I first piped out my macarons. Piped them crap, without any shapes, with least of hopes and yet I sat down next to my oven door impatiently while the macarons were baking and to my surprise when I saw the ‘feet’ forming, I was so excited, over the moon! I went through what other bloggers were going through.

So, what are these Macarons??They are one of the most notorious and finicky French cookies made of ground almonds, icing sugar, caster sugar and aged egg whites-four simple ingredients, yet not so simple to get it perfect. Macarons are characterised by their dome shaped shiny top and a ruffled base called the ‘foot’ or ‘feet’. These are chewy little delicate meringue shells sandwiched using any filling of your choice. The shells and filling can have myriad of flavours and colours and are really an eye candy to look at and a delight to bite into. These are not to be confused with the coconutty ‘macaroons’ which are made of egg whites and desiccated coconut. Once I got my first successful batch of macarons, I have been on the roll making them with different flavours; chocolate, coffee, rosewater and cardamoms to name a few. Macaron shells are quite sweet so you might want to compliment it with a less sweet filling even though nutella and jam that I tried was quite great.

Macaron making would just seem to be a simple process of whipping some egg whites and mixing it with almond meal. Hell no! Unlike other cookies, macaron success is the result of the mixing technique rather than following a recipe as it is. Same recipe can yield entirely different yield depending on your mixing. Before I made my own batch of macarons, I have had thorough read on many articles and went through many videos to get myself acquainted with the method and consistency of macaron batter as right as possible. Before you head with your macaron adventure, it would be very helpful to have a good read on these articles in the link given below. You will be able to pick many points and avoid the mistakes that others have done in their making.

Check these sites and blogs for tips and troubleshooting of macarons, some interesting recipes, videos and so on:

* One of the best Macaron making tutorials and the one that I followed for my macaron making; Helen (Tartelette) shares her macaron tutorial named ‘Demystifying Macarons’ here: Demystifying Macarons.

* Check out Finla's collection of macarons here. Finla, Thank you for clearing all my silly doubts and support.

* Don’t forget to check out dear Mowie’s blog for wonderful Mac flavours and great video links. Mowielicious

*Notsohumble blog have loads of troubleshooting ways to, erm, troubleshoot your macarons, ofcourse. I love it!Link: Notsohumblepie

*Check out David Lebovitz’s site for his chocolate macaron recipe plus all the links related to macaron:Ckeck it out Here .

*Talented Meeta of Whatslunchforhoney has great Macaron flavours and her tips are great. Check out this link Here.

*Sweet Rose of magpies shares her macaron making experience during her macaron baking class. Magpiesrecipes .

*Check out Nisha’s hilarious post and her first time experience on macarons. Loved it.Mykitchenantics.

Plain Macarons with Bitter Chocolate Ganache

Makes around 25 sandwiched cookies.

Ingredients:

For shells: (Recipe adapted and halved from Mowie and Meeta)

55g Almond (slivers, blanched or powder)

100g Icing sugar

15g caster sugar

45g Egg whites

Recipe 2:

65g Almond (slivers, blanched or powder)

100g Icing sugar

12g caster sugar

45g Egg whites

Bitter chocolate Ganache:

100g bitter sweet (dark) chocolate

100mls double cream

¼ tsp vanilla essence

Preparation (Mac Shells):

1.Place egg whites in a clean bowl. Cover it loosely with a cling film and poke few holes in the film. Keep it in your kitchen counter for 24-48 hours or in fridge for up to 5 days.

2. Powder almonds and icing sugar in a food processor or a grinder into very flour-like fine powder. Transfer them to a large bowl and sieve 2-3 times to break up the lumps. Discard the large grains of almonds if any. Transfer them to a large mixing bowl and keep aside while you work with meringue.

3. For making meringue, whisk egg whites in a squeaky clean bowl on high until it starts to form soft peaks, using an electric blender. Add in caster sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. It should be like a smooth, glossy shaving cream like form and don’t whip to dry. If adding any liquid or gel colour, add once stiff peaks are formed and then beat again to bring back to peaks incorporating the food colouring. ( Make sure it is not over beaten and dry, which would result in dry shells).

4. Add meringue to the dry mixture in 2-3 portions and start folding it in quick strokes until everything is just combined and no more of dry mixture could be seen. Use a flexible spatula or a wooden spoon for this and mix until you get a smooth, shiny batter that ruggedly drips down the spoon once you lift it. DO NOT over mix once you have reached that thick batter stage. For testing, place a teaspoon of batter in a plate and you see it spreading flat, then the batter should be ready to go. If it has a peak on top, give couple more folds and check again.

5. Line your baking sheet with baking paper or silpat. For piping out perfect rounds, you can use the macaron template. Take few copies of the template and slide it beneath the baking paper(Do not forget to taken them out before baking). Fit your piping bag with a round tip nozzle and pipe small rounds of about 2 cm diameter on your baking paper leaving about 2 inch in between. The macaron batter will spread and then join hands with the next one if they are piped too close, so make sure leave at least 2 inches. Rap the baking sheet few times on a table to remove any bubbles trapped in the batter.

6. Let the macarons sit to dry for as long as it forms a skin on top or is dry enough that it leaves no indentation once touched. It depends from place to place depending on the weather and humidity, it takes up to 2 hours for me here, it might need just half hour to 1 hour in other places.

7. Preheat the oven to 140 degress Celcius. Bake the macaron for 10-13 minutes. Do not open the oven until they are completely done. Take them out and let them cool down for half an hour or so. Peel them out gently and fill them with your favourite fillings. For filling, place a teaspoon of your filling on the flat side of one shell and place another macaron shell and gently twist the top shell instead of pressing it to evenly distribute the filling. I usually fill them with ganache, jam, Cream cheese sweetened with confectioners’ sugar etc. But there are many fancy fillings around the web and other blogs.

8.Leave the filled cookie to mature in the fridge for a day or two for the flavours of the fillings to mingle with the shell and to get the best results. Macarons are best eaten after a day or 2 of filling them. You freeze the unfilled shells. I Even froze the filled cookie;let it thaw in room temperature before serving.

Bitter Chocolate Ganache:

Preparation:

Bring double cream to simmering point in a heavy base pan or in microwave. Once you start seeing small bubbles appearing along the sides, turn the heat off and add chopped chocolates into it. Leave it for couple of minutes, add vanilla essence and then stir well until combined. Leave aside until it firms enough to pipe. You can also pop it into fridge once warm and then take it out once firm enough to pipe.

I had no patience, left my Ganache in fridge to set, then forgot about it. It got firmer than I could pipe, and instead of warming it up, I spooned it as it is onto shells. So I dint get those neat filling in as my Ganache was stiff.

Tips and notes:

1.Measuring out the ingredients precisely is very crucial. So, I have given them in metric terms rather than volumes because that is what I followed. Investing on a good digital scale will be very helpful here. Sorry, I won’t be able to give volume measures here as it’s quite difficult to measure them.

2. While grinding almonds grind it along with icing sugar. You can use whole almonds, powdered or almonds slivers. Powdered almonds we get here are still grainy, so I grind them again along with icing sugar to fine dust. If almond is ground by itself, it will start releasing its oil and you will get sticky almond paste rather than powder. Also make sure you sift the dry ingredients to breakup all the lumps at least twice before mixing with egg whites.

3. Ageing of egg whites:

This is one vital thing in making these finicky cookies. As fresh egg whites contain more moisture content, it will yield fragile shells. Aged egg whites helps in stabilizing the shells to an extend. For ageing, place the egg whites in a squeaky clean, loosely covered bowl for 24-48 hours in room temperature on your kitchen counter or up to 5 days in refrigerator. For separating eggs, it is always easy to separate cold eggs. Crack open the eggs using a knife and make sure there is no yolk bits in the egg whites. If yolks happen to trap in the whites, remove them using the egg shell itself else use it to make a good Old Omelette and use another egg. I hate taking petty risks as these, so if yolks happen to get into egg whites I would use another egg. Some also add egg white powder to stabilize the meringue which I am yet to use.

4. For whipping egg whites use a clean metal or glass bowl instead of plastic bowl. Make sure they are void of grease, grime, fat and are dry.

5. Macaronnage: This is the intimidating part of macaron making. A few extra folds and you can end up with absolutely feetless macarons. Remember not to under fold or over fold. I usually fold just until I get the batter to a consistency that when a spoonful of batter is dropped onto a plate it flattens without a peak on top. Do not over fold too. The more you fold, it will make your macaron batter thin and result in a subsequent feetless macarons. Your batter should fall ruggedly off the spatula when lifted. I have read it many blogs and sites that the macaron batter should have the consistency of lava, but how many of us know what lava consistency is?! A video of macaron making will really help here.

6. Drying the piped macarons: Drying the piped macarons again helps in the feet-forming. Dry them until they form a hard film on top or leaves no mark when gently pressed.

7. Bake one sheet at a time. Temperature in oven can vary and some oven can have hotspots too. I realized that while baking macarons, the left side macarons gets baked faster than right side ones. So I turn my pan towards that last couple of minutes so that I get evenly baked ones. You can also use two pans on top of each other for baking macarons as that will help even heat distribution.

8. Macarons are chewy and tends to stick to the baking paper if undercooked. To remove the cookies easily off the baking paper, Let the cookies cool completely. Then spray the underside of the baking paper with water and then gently peel the shells off.

Last, but not the least, one of my favourite bloggers, Deeba has founded a blog dedicated to macarons along with Jamie – ‘Mactweets’ for all the Mac obsessed people out there. I could easily relate Mac making to an addiction, when you are in it is so hard to get out of it. And that’s one reason that you not just see one macaron, but many in every blog. I am sending these little devils over to ‘Mactweets’ for their MacAttack challenge. I am sure, I am going to be one regular contributor there for a while.

Have a nice day!

Harissa (A North African Dried Chilli Sauce)

2011-12-20T11:25:00.000Z

This fiery paste, harissa, is known thoughout North Africa for its fiery and pungent taste and has well crossed its borders. It is served as a condiment, marinade or a dip for warm crusty bread. This is a basic harissa recipe, you can add your choice of spices and herbs such as fennel seeds, fresh coriander, mint and parsley leaves. Instead of using all fiery chillies I have substituted red bell pepper to mellow down the heat considerably. When I prepared harissa for the first time, I used all chillies with no bell pepper and it was so hot that I could hardly use a blob of it in any of my dishes. It gave so much of heat and with such a less amount not much flavour was locked in any of the dishes. So going through some recipes on net, I decided to make a paste using a mixture of red pepper and hot dried chillies. Fabulous, I would say. You can simply stir them in salads, use them to flavour meat, fish, prawns and even soups. It can also be stirred into tagines and couscous to impart a distinctive chilli taste. Harissa paste is now easily available in African and Middle Eastern stores as well some supermarkets and delicatessens. But this is so easy to make, tastes so fresh, why would you want to get one that is processed – My thought.

Harissa

Preparation time : 10 minutes

Yields about 1/2 cup

Ingredients:

6-8 hot red chillies, whole (Horn or New Mexico variety, but you can use any dried chilli you have in hand. I used the mild Indian Kashmiri chilli).
1 red pepper
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
3 garlic cloves minced
½ tsp salt
½ teaspoon paprika (optional)
¼ cup olive oil

Preparation:

1. Soak dried chillies in warm water for about an hour to soften them. Drain a squeeze out any excess water. (I seed them and soak if the chillies are really spicy).

2. While the chillies are soaking, Place the red pepper in a baking tray. Grill/bake the capsicum until skin is all blistered, blackened and wrinkled. Peel them under running tap water, seed them, drain and set aside.

3. Warm a dry frying pan until it’s just beginning to show wisps of smoke, then throw in the caraway, coriander and cumin seeds. Remove the pan from the heat immediately, give it a shake and set aside. This helps unlock the flavour of the spice. Pound the seeds using a pestle and mortar or a coffee grinder and set aside.

4. Place, soaked chillies, peeled capsicum, garlic in a blender and blend till smooth or coarse as per your liking adding little oil if necessary. (If you like your harissa paste to be chunky, you can use pestle and mortar instead of using a grinder). Tip it into a bowl and add paprika, pound spices and salt and mix well. Add in olive oil and mix.

Notes:

Store the harisaa paste in a sealed jar in refrigerator and making sure there is a thin layer of oil on top all the time. This increases the shelf-life of harissa paste. It keeps well over a month and can be frozen.

Caraway seeds are quite similar to cumin seeds, but they are slightly longer than cumin seeds and a bit thinner, have a sweet aroma and is very much different from cumin seeds.

Florentines

2011-12-15T22:47:00.003Z

I love the Christmas season in the UK. It is the most celebrated festival here where the preparations start as early as October. Everything around is in the X’mas spirit now and there is lot of things going on at Richu’s school too. There was a Xmas party this week and I baked loads of cupcakes as part of my contribution. Rishan is also quite excited about all the Christmassy things happening at school and neighbourhood. His teacher also mentioned that he wrote a lovely letter to Santa which I reckon I heard her right, as he just started reading few words apart from the alphabets.

Here, Xmas is celebrated with lot of hype with all shops and malls putting up their Xmas decorations, Xmas trees and selling Xmas goodies and gifts as early as October. Shops are loaded with Xmas goodies and stuffs and it will bring you in Xmas mood and spirit from then on. Even though it’s quite serene on Xmas day, until then all malls are jam packed and chaotic with people shopping in frenzy as if there is no day tomorrow.

Not to forget, there is this so called ‘Boxing Day’, that falls on 26^th December, which is a bank holiday here in the UK. Basically, it is a national holiday and that is the time when shops have massive sale with dramatic reduction in their prices. Many shops open as early as 5 am, and can you believe people queuing outside the shops as early as 4 am?!!It is a bit strange, but true. I am thinking of going quite early this year amnd that is if my better half wakes up. He hates being in that shoulder to shoulder crowd and mostly prefer not to shop on that day. And by the time we go, all the good ones would have taken way to someone’s bag.

Here is a real good cookie that best suits the celebratory mood and a great gift to offer your friends and relatives - Florentines. You may serve them as dessert or a cuppa tea. I am kind of creamy, luscious dessert loving person rather than a dessert with crunch. I would prefer a tiramisu to an apple crumble, if you know what I mean. It was one of my dearest friends Dhanya Lakshmanan who seduced me into making these which otherwise I wouldn’t have really tried. I reckon I should be a pound heavier than I was a week ago! I had almost all of it. It was quite good, I should say.

Florentines are a festive treat that uses all the luxurious fruits and nuts to suit any festive occasion. These are jewelled with glace cherries, raisins, flaked almonds, and mixed seeds and a breeze to make. You can use whatever you have in hand, like just nuts of any kind, dried cranberries, apricots, figs, crystallised ginger, candied peels, seeds so on. Options are endless. Florentines are gorgeous to look at and a pleasure to bite into. It can be chewy or crunchy depending on the time you cook. You may undercook and get it chewy or cook it a bit further to get it crunchy. I like it slightly crunchy so cooked it for about 12 minutes at 170 degrees Celcius. Make sure you don’t cook it for too long as it may burn and taste bitter.

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Recipe: Florentines

Adapted from The Italian Cook book

Makes about 30 cookies

Preparation time:20 minutes

Baking time:20 minutes

Ingredients:

75g unsalted butter
75g/ 1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tsp plain flour
2 tbsp cream
100g/ 1 cup flaked almonds
25g/2 tbsp sunflower seeds or any seeds of choice
25g/2 tbsp raisins
100g/ ½ cup glace cherries
175g good quality dark chocolate

Preparation:

1.Preheat the oven to 170C.

2. Heat the butter, sugar and flour in a pan over a medium heat, stirring continuously, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.

3. Gradually add in the cream, stirring continuously until well combined. Don’t let the cream boil. Turn the heat off.

4. Throw in the almonds slivers, seeds, raisins, cherries and mix well until combined.

5. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and place a dessertspoon of the florentine mixture onto it. Allow plenty of space for the cookie to spread while cooking so that they don't merge together when heated.

6. Transfer the florentines to the oven and bake for 8-13 minutes, or until golden and bubbly. The cookies will be really soft at this stage and will harden in a matter of 3-5 minutes, so don’t worry about it not being hard when they are just out of the oven. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool on the tray, then transfer the florentines to a cooling rack.

Note: The Florentines won’t have perfect round shape when they come out of oven. But if u want them to be perfect rounds, place a cookie cutter or any transparent glass around florentines and slowly tap the uneven edges or all around to make a neat circle. You can avoid this step as it doesn’t alter the taste, just the shape. If you are doing this, you should do as soon as it comes out of oven as it starts setting in a minute’s time and once it sets, it will start cracking.

7. To melt chocolate, bring water to a simmer in a pan. Place a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the chocolate pieces and stir until smooth and melted.

8. Turn the florentines so that the flat base is facing upwards. Spread the melted chocolate over the florentine bases and set aside. Use a fork to make wavy lines across the chocolate and leave aside to cool completely.

Instead of spreading the chocolate and setting, you can also dunk the cookies halfway through in a bowl of melted chocolate and leave to set. You can use milk, white or dark chocolate for this.

I am sending couple of pictures of this post to a photography contest held at Beloved Star. Please check her beautiful blog out there.

Egg Kebab

2011-12-12T17:56:00.001Z

I recently started observing that every time I go to India, I come across many innovative and great range of food that is prepared using new techniques and new flavours yet retaining that rich Malabar whiff. Whenever I visit my relatives, the food they serve never stopped to surprise me. They are nothing of the sort that I used to have while I was young. It has all taken a new twist. I can’t stop praising and admiring one of my husband’s cousin’s mother in law who makes great variety of finger licking food in no time. She is the best cook I have met and come across. Every time we visit her, no matter how late we give her notice, she lays the table with at least four dishes of her own, most of which I have never had before. They may not be the authentic trademark dishes, but something with previously acquainted flavours and a new outlook. Her dishes are very appealing and the tantalizing flavours will leave a lingering taste making you crave them forever. The amount of stuff she makes is just unbelievable. She is so innovative and talented. If I ever get a chance, I would love to take lessons from her, seriously! She is that damn good. I so wish she makes a book of her own, I would be obliged to be her first customer. I did ask her the recipes and bits and pieces of them remains in mind, but I don’t think I can ever create those great masterpieces. She gave me approximate measures that you usually get when you ask elderly people about recipes including our moms. Not really helpful for amateurs like me. Especially when it comes to elaborate cooking.

Anyhow, here is a snack that I tried quite recently. It is a sensational recipe that is perfect for picnics, Iftar or as an evening snack. In egg Kebabs, the boiled and shelled eggs are encased in seasoned meat mixture and then deep fried until golden brown. It is always preferred to use lamb or beef mince as chicken mince is quite tasteless no matter how much ever you season it! These are similar to Scotch eggs we get here. This can be had with ketchup or mayonnaise.

Egg Kebab

Makes 10-12 Kebabs

Ingredients:

5-6 eggs, boiled, shelled and halved

½-1 egg

½ kilo minced meat (chicken, mutton or beef)

1 tsp coriander powder

1-1½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

½ tsp turmeric powder

4-5 slices of bread, 120g, ground

2 green chillies

2 ” piece, 30g ginger

30g, a good handful or coriander leaves

1 Tbsp lime juice

¼ tsp garam masala powder

5 cloves

2” piece of cinnamon sticks

salt as required

Oil- to deep fry

Preparations:

1. Cook minced meat along with salt, turmeric, chilli powder and coriander powder until cooked and void of any moisture.

2. Place chillies, ginger, cinnamon sticks, cloves in processor and crush them all. Add cooked minced meat and coriander leaves to this and mince fine.

3. Tip the whole mixture to a bowl, add in the bread crumbs, lime juice and garam masala and mix well. Add egg little. You may not need a full egg. Just add enough egg to combine the mixture.

4. Divide the mixture into 10-12 portions, depending on the number of eggs and shape each of them into a ball.

5. Flatten each of these minced meat mixture in your palm, place an egg halve into it and cover the egg with the mixture. Place them in a greased place and do the same with rest of th egg and minced meat mixture.

6. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry these stuffed eggs on low-medium flame until golden brown all over. Do not fry on high heat as it gets burnt quite fast. Everything is pre-cooked, so you don’t have to worry about inside being uncooked. It will take just couple of minutes frying.

Tip: While boiling eggs, add ½ a teaspoon of salt and it will be very easy to peel your eggs. Similarly, add eggs to tap water and bring to boil rather than adding it to boiling water and cooking. This will prevent eggs cracking when you add them to water. Eggs, especially the ones kept it fridge crack open when they are plunged into boiling water immediately.

Apricot and Almond Cake

2011-12-04T23:52:00.000Z

Even though it is winter and apricot has nothing to do with winter, this cake is so good to have at anytime of the year. Canned apricots are readily available throughout the year and this cake is just can be made in no time. This is one of the simplest cakes I baked recently; packed with flavour, delicious with its nuttiness and fruity goodness. I got this recipe from Asda magazine, which is a one of the popular supermarket range in here. I pick up these supermarket magazines religiously every time I come across them and save them just for some recipes. I have been collecting them for few years now and I should tell you, they really have some fantastic recipes all of which are seasonal using seasonal fruits and veggies. I they also contain festive treats and other aspects of everyday life including latest trends, fashion and health. I am sure you can replace the apricots with other fruits like apple or pear.

Apricot and Almond Cake

Serves 8

Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients:

125 unsalted butter, softened

125caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 orange /lime rind

few drops of almond essence

½ tsp vanilla essence

100g Self raising flour

75g ground almonds

a pinch of salt

3 tablespoon milk

1*450 can sliced/halved peaches

30g Almond slivers, a small handful

Icing sugar to dust

Ingredients:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease and line a 23cm/9 inch shallow cake tin or a pie tin.

2. Beat butter and sugar for about 3-4 minutes until it is light and creamy. Add in the almond extract and vanilla essence and mix well again.

3. Beat in eggs, one at a time adding a spoonful of flour with the second one.

4. Add rest of the flour, almond flour, salt and lemon/orange rind and fold gently adding milk in between.

5.Transfer the mixture into the cake tin and level the top.

6. Arrange the rained apricots on top and scatter flaked almonds in between them.

7. Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the cake springs back when gently touched in the middle. If the cake starts browning, cover it loosely with aluminium foil.

8. Let is cool down. Dust it with icing sugar and serve it plain or with whipped cream or crème fraiche. Best served warm.

Beghrir (Semolina Pancakes with Honey)

2011-11-30T23:54:00.001Z

I have always been fascinated by Arabic food. I like its simplicity, diversity and varied flavours. I assume most of them do. They are mild, full of flavour and require less manual labour compared to Indian cooking. Dint I tell you about the book that I borrowed from the Library, the Moroccan one? I am so in love with that book and I hope to cook some dishes from that book apart from flipping the pages every now and then. Some of the recipes I wanted to prepare require spices and pastes which need to be pre-made at home or rather bought from super market, which is slowing me down in trying most of the recipes. Once they are sorted, I am hoping to share you some nice tagines on buttery couscous, kemia, salads, pickles and sweets. But for the time being I will offer you this easy peacy airy pancakes called Beghrir. Long back when I was little we used to live in the Arab neighbourhood and my mother had learned this pancake recipe from one of the neighbours. But she used wheat flour and plain flour instead of semolina. Those pancakes had similar taste too, apart from the difference in the texture.

As per the book, these are great favourite for breakfast or a sweet snack. Bubbly and airy on one side and smooth on the other, they melt deliciously in the mouth with a drizzle of honey, lashings of butter or a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon. I just slather it with butter or desi ghee (clarified butter) and sprinkle some sugar on top, just fold in half and enjoy. I guess these are best eaten with honey whilst warm.

Beghrir (Semolina Pancakes with Honey)

Serves 3

Ingredients:

113 g/ ½ cup plus 1 ½ tbsp fine semolina/farina/sooji

125g /3/4 cup plus 2tbsp plain flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt
1 large egg

¼ cup warm milk

1 ½ tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 ¼ - 1 ½ cups of water

Butter to baste on the beghrir

Honey to serve

Preparations:

1.Mix yeast in warm milk and sugar and leave it aside until it dissolves and becomes frothy.

2. sift semolina, flour, salt and baking powder in a medium sized bowl.

3.Make a well in the centre.Whist the eggs slightly and add it in, along with yeast mixture and water and using wooden sponn start drawing flour from sides of the bowl. Beat in the mixture for about 5 minutes, until light and smooth. You need to have a thick pouring consistency batter. Add more water if need be. Cover and leave to prove in a warm place for4-6 hours or until its frothy.

4.To make Beghrir, heat a non stick frying pan, wipe it with little oil. Pour a small ladleful of batter and swirl the pan to make a thin pancake of about 8-10 cm in diameter. Let it cook on one side until the surface looks dry and is perforated with bubbles. Gently rub with melted butter; lift it out of pan and transfer to a heated plate. Cover to keep it warm until you cook the rest of pancakes.

5. Heat the honey gently and serve the pan cakes immediately with the honey drizzled on. You can use caster sugar instead, flavoured with cinnamon powder.

NB: This is halved measurement of the original recipe. You can double the amount and make as required.

Balti Chicken Pasanda

2011-11-26T00:10:00.000Z

Last week I had gone to the local library to pick some books. I then borrowed some cookery books and others. I was quite bored of all what I prepare on regular basis and wanted to try something completely new, nothing of that I cook or even that taste like my regular food. Even the best of foods eaten on regular basis can feel tasteless and boring. Doesn’t it?! Do you all get bored with your own cooking, at least once in a while? I do, and that’s when we resort to some takeaways or eat out. Or I skim through blogs over blogs for recipes and sink myself in them without really cooking anything.

So, last week I dragged myself and my son to library, and brought so many cookery books and photography books for me and some story books for him as well. Unlike usual, our local library had some good collections this time. So I picked quite a few of which I thought were good which includes Moroccan and Lebanese cuisines along with an Indian cookery book which is real good. I tried three recipes from this Indian book and so far all were really appetizing. I would recommend this book if you are looking for some good meat and curry dishes,;North Indian. The book is called Indian Food & Cooking by Shehzad Hussain and Rafi Fernandez. The book contains 170 classic dishes ranging from the basic Tadka dhal to elaborate Biryani dishes. The book also has step by step illustrations, which makes it easier for the beginners. The curry below is very easy to prepare and it tasted great with the fruity pulao I prepared. Recipe is modified slightly with the amount of chicken I had. Original recipe used 675g of chicken.

Balti Chicken Pasanda
Minimally adapted from Indian Food & Cooking

Serves 5

Ingredients:

800g chicken, cut into 2 ” pieces

2 large onions, 330g chopped

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2-3 tbsp chopped coriander

¾ cup- 1 cup milk (Or single cream)

Marinade:

1/3 cup/ 5Tbsp Greek yogurt

1 tsp chilli powder

2tsp minced garlic

2 tsp minced ginger

2 tsp garam masala

1 ½ tbsp ground almonds

5 cardamoms

2 small pieces of cinnamon sticks

¼ tsp pepper corns

½ tsp black cumin seeds

Salt to taste

Preparation:

1.Mix yogurt, cumin seeds, cardamoms, pepper corns, cinnamon stick, ground almonds, garlic, ginger, chilli powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Add chicken pieces and leave to marinate for a minimum of 2 hours, covered in a refrigerator.

2. Heat oil in a large Karahi or sauce pan. Throw in the onions and sauté until it is golden.

3. Pour in the chicken mixture and stir well until it is well blended with the onions. Add little water (around ¼-1/2 cup if it looks dry)

4. Cook over a medium heat for about 20-25 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

5. Add green chillies and chopped coriander leaves. Pour in the cream or milk and bring to boil. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve along with any pulao of your choice.S

Notes: If chicken is washed and drained prior to cooking, there will be less water in the curry. If it is not drained, there will be more liquid in the gravy. You can adjust the water level and milk/cream level according to the water content in the curry.

Chocolate Glaced Doughnuts

2011-11-19T02:27:00.001Z

Someone at home has gone crazy on doughnuts, and it’s none other than my little picky eater! What surprises me is that he prefers the homemade ones and doesn’t like the shop bought ones. How much he trusts his mom, LOL. I have made doughnuts several times before, but I wasn’t really happy with the texture. Either it was chewy, or crispy and never do-nutty. Always had trouble getting it right and that’s when I thought, these are real tricky ones to get soft and right.

I have been trying few recipes one after the other and it was Ria’s recipe that was best of the lot. I followed the recipe to dot apart from using milk instead of water and the outcome was brilliant. I just had to leave my dough for few hours extra to rise. Inspite of using new yeast, my yeast had trouble proofing. I also used a chocolate glace rather than a ganache. I am looking forward to make a baked version of doughnuts next time my son ‘demands’ me for some doughnuts. I am not sure how well the baked doughnuts are going to turn out, but it will be healthier than the fried ones for sure.

Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts
Recipes source: Institute Of Baking and Cake Art via Ria Mathew
Makes 10-12

Ingredients: 250 g plain flour +2-3 tablespoons of flour
1 1/2 tsp yeast
100 ml warm milk
3/4 tsp salt
60 g granulated sugar
1 tsp milk powder
40 g chilled butter
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 large egg,beaten
Oil for deep frying

Preparation:

1.Mix yeast, warm milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar and leave aside for until it develops bubbly froth on top. Add in remaining sugar and stir till it dissolves. (It normally takes around 15-20 minutes for the yeast to proof anfd to get a frothy solution. But mine took around 40 minutes. If your yeast dint proof , don’t continue baking, discard the solution and proof again. You can read more on proofing here.

2. Sieve flour, salt, baking powder and milk powder together.

3. Cut and mix fat with flour. Mix well till fingertips till it resembles breadcrumbs.

4. Make a well in the centre & add yeast mix and beaten egg. Mix till well incorporated and you get a soft dough that is not sticky. If you feel the dough is sticky at this point, just sprinkle more flour & mix till it is not sticky anymore and knead well. Let it rest for and hour or till doubled in size(in a warm place). Again mine took around 3 hours to rise!

5. Once it is doubled, punch down the dough with your knuckles. Roll out into 1/2 inch thick and cut out shapes using a doughnut cutter or using 2 cookie cutters/bottle caps. Let it rest for another 40minutes- and hour so that it rises again. This resting time is very important for yielding soft donuts. The resting time will let the dough rise creating bubbles inside which makes the doughnuts softer.

6. Add oil in a pan about oil around 3-4 inch high and place it on a low- medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, add doughnuts and fry on both sides until golden. Before frying, test the heat of oil by adding a small piece of dough in to the oil. If it rises immediately, the oil is too hot. The doughnut will get browned too quickly, without the centre being cooked.

7. Drain on kitchen towel and serve as is or with a chocolate coating or a simple glace.

For Chocolate Glaze:

½ cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)

1 ½ Tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tbsp Milk/Water

Few drops of Vanilla Essence

Preparation:
1. Sift together the powdered sugar and cocoa powder to avoid any lumps.

2. Add in the milk/water and vanilla extract and mix to form a glaze.

3.This glaze will thicken quite soon. In that case, add in few drops of milk to loosen it.

4. Place the glaze in a deep bowl and dip the doughnuts halfway through in the glaze and allow it to set for 10 mins. Incase you don’t like chocolate frosting, you can just roll them in caster sugar or icing sugar or make a thin glaze with icing sugar and milk and dip the doughnuts in them. Th edounut tastes best on the day it is made, I warmed it up in microwave for few seconds when I had it the next day.

Tip:

1. It is best to store yeast in the freezer for its best effectiveness. Do not use yeast that has past its expiry date. It might have dead and will not yield good result. Please check the expiry date before using it in the recipe.

Vendakka pachadi (Fried Okra in Coocnut and Yogurt Based Sauce)

2011-11-16T01:35:00.000Z

Pachadi is a usually a coconut and yogurt based dish which is served along side plain boiled rice and other curries. It’s so easy to prepare, and can just whip it up in a jiffy. I normally prepare this to compliment any spicy curries that I serve along with rice just as my Malabar fish curry. If you aren’t coconut fan, you can omit the coconut here and follow the recipe without using it.

Vendakka pachadi

serves 3-4

Ingredients:

150g okra sliced into ½ cms, around 1 3/5 cups

1 ¼ cups thick creamy yogurt

½ cup water (appx.)

½ cup grated coconut

Ginger – a very small piece (optional)

Garlic – 1clove (optional)

1- 3 green chillies

Vegetable/coconut oil – to fry okras

Tempering:

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 dried red chillies

½ teaspoon black mustard seeds

2 twigs curry leaves

Preparation:

1.Grind coconut, green chillies, ginger and garlic (if using) adding 3-4 tablespoon of water if required.

2. Mix this coconut mixture with curd and set aside.

3. Slice okra into ½ cm thickness and deep fry until light golden. Drain excess oil in a kitchen towel.

4. Mix fried okra in the yogurt coconut mixture and set aside.

5. Heat oil in a small pan or karahi and splutter mustard seeds followed by curry leaves and red chillies. Add this tempered oil to pachadi and let it sit for few minutes before serving. You may need to add few tablespoons of water if mixture is thick. Adjust salt and serve alongside rice.

Boondi Laddu

2011-11-12T23:37:00.000Z

Hi friends, Hope you all had a great Diwali and Eid. I prepared these laddus just in time for diwali and planned to post on Diwali, but just got delayed. As wiLaddus need no special Introduction. It is one of India’s most popular festive sweets. These are seen all around Indian shops and bakeries and are served on festive and religious occasions . Apart from that laddus are also served along with evening tea and to offer guests. Boondi laddus are very popular with kids as well as adults alike. These are made of Chickpea flour and sugar.

Chickpea flour really does wonders, you know. Many delicious Indian sweets like Mysore Pak, besan Laddoo, Mohan tal, boondi laddu etc are all made of chickpea flour and sugar with flavourings and such.For making Boondi laddus, chick pea flour is mixed with water to make a batter and then fried in oil by passing through a perforated ladle or Boondi Karandi. These fried globules of batter are boondis, which then is soaked in a syrup of half-string consistency and then shaped into laddus. The trick lies in the batter consistency and the syrup consistency. For reference, please check out Hetal and Anuja’s video of preparing Laddu here:

Boondi Laddu

Makes 8-10

Ingredients:

For Boondis:

1 cup Besan /chick pea flour

½ cup water

Few drops of yellow colour

For sugar syrup:

1 cup sugar

½- 3/4 cup water

Others:

Vegetable oil for frying boondis- as required

½ tsp cardamom powder

1 tablespoon chopped nuts (optional)

1 tablespoon raisins (optional)

Preparation:

1.Sieve Besan/chickpea flour to breakdown the lumps. Mix it with half a cup of water to a smooth batter. Add in few drops of yellow food colour and mix.

2. Mix the water and sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and heat on a medium flame.The syrup should be of half thread consistency.

3. While the sugar syrup is cooking, heat oil in a deep pan/Karahi on medium high flame. Test the temperature of oil by dropping few drops of batter. If it pops up immediately the oil is ready for making boondis .

4. Hold a Boondi Karandi or a perforated ladle 2 inches above the oil. Pour few tablespoons of batter and tap the ladle by moving the ladle all around the pan. If you don’t move the ladle and hold it just in place, boondis will clutter on top of each other.

5. Fry till the spluttering sound stops. Drain and put them on kitchen towel to drain extra bits of oil and then add to hot syrup. Stir boondis in syrup. Increase the heat to medium before you make next batch of boondis. Make boondis until all batter is used up and keep mixing when you add them in syrup.

6. Fry cashew nuts, raisins and add to the boondis. Add cardamom powder and mix well. Crush them slightly in processor, just for couple of seconds. (You need some crushed boondis and some whole, that will make easier to shape laddus. Dont pulse them until you get a paste.This step is just optional. But I found making laddus easier by crushind a bit.) Let the mixture be warm enough to handle with hand, and then shape them into laddus. Let them rest for 3-4 hours to set and store in a airtight container.

Notes and Tips:

1. For making laddus, consistency of batter and sugar syrup is very important. For boondis don’t make the batter too thin as the boondis will form trails and not rounds. And don’t make it too thick too. Don’t fry the boondis till crisp; when you press them, it shud feel soft. If boondis are crispy, it will not absorb syrup well. Fry them just until it stop spluttering. Don’t fry till golden.

2. For sugar syrup, just boil the syrup until it is half thread. If sugar syrup goes beyond this stage, it will start crystallizing when you make laddus. If it goes beyond half thread consistency, pour few tablespoons of water and simmer until you get the right consistency. For testing the half thread consistency, dip the spoon in the syrup, and let it get cool enough to touch with hands. Touch it with your pointing finger and press it against the thumb and lift the finger slowly. If the syrup forms a string between the fingers and break in between, it is half string consistency. If you get a longer string of syrup, it is one string consistency.

3. Towards the end, if you find it difficult to shape laddus, heat the mixture gently until it is warm enough to touch and continue making laddus.

Aloo Paratta (Indian Potato Stuffed Bread)

2011-11-01T14:43:00.001Z

Aloo parattas are one of the most popular Indian flat breads served for breakfast or dinner along with condiments like curd or pickle to go with. It is easy to make, with less flaws however you make it. I should accept the fact that it is a bit time consuming with all the kneading, rolling and making the filling to go along. If you find the process lengthy, you can prepare the filling a day ahead and then continue rest of the cooking th enext day. The taste is worth all the effort.

For the dough:

3 cups wheat flour (Aatta) (You can use plain flour or a mixture of both)

1 ½ cup warm water

2-3 tablespoon vegetable oil

Salt – as required, around ½ Tbsp

Stuffing:

600 g potatoes, 3 large ones, skinned and boiled

1 small onion, finely chopped

3 large cloves of garlic grated

1-2 green chilli finely chopped

¼ cup Coriander leaves, washed and finely chopped

1 teaspoon grated ginger

½ tsp coriander powder

¼ - ½ tsp cumin powder

½ teaspoon Red chilli powder

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

Salt to taste

Extra ghee or vegetable oil if required, while cooking

Preparations:

For the Dough:

1.Add salt to the flour and mix well. Add water and knead it for around 8-10 minutes until you get a soft and pliable dough. Apply oil on top and leave it to rest for ½ hour to 2 hours. This resting time will make the dough softer yielding softer chapattis. Set it aside while you make the filling.

For filling:
1.Grate the potatoes using a grater. Grating potatoes is important to avoid lumps which are otherwise formed while mashing potatoes and result in bruised chappatis.

2. Place a pan on medium heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Thrown in chopped onions and saute until onion go soft.

3. Add grated ginger,garlic, chillies and sauté till onion starts to take golden colour. Add chopped coriander leaves and sauté for a minute.

4. Add spice powders, sauté for a minute. Add few splashes of water if it sticks to the pan. Add lime juice, followed by grated potatoes. Mix well and add salt of required. Once everything is well combined, turn off the heat. Let it cool down and then divide the stuffing into 10-12 balls.

For preparing the parattas:

1. Roll each dough little with a rolling pin, just enough to wrap a ball of the filling inside. Place a portion of potato mixture in the centre, bring all the edges together and twist it so that the filling doesn’t squirt while cooking the parattas. Repeat with all the dough and filling until both are all used up.

2. Flour the work surface with plain flour or wheat flour and flatten each stuffed dough to about 7-8 inch diameter. Heat a hot tawa and add a splash of ghee/vegetable oil. Place the parattas on hot tawa and cook for couple of minutes on both sides until you see brown spots all over. Serve it along with plain curd, pickle and salad or any non veg dry curries or fries.

Note: I sometimes use half plain flour and half wheat flour for making dough.

Spicy Beef Masala

2011-10-25T23:07:00.000+01:00

Before I start, let me mention that this post is written specially for a fellow blogger, Neelu. She too hails from Kannur and these days it somehow happens that all Kannur-ians that I meet are somehow connected. After few chats with her, I realized that we are distant relatives and neighbours back home! We even went to same school in the same bus, and let me mention that was more than 2 decades ago - Coincidence. You can check out the same post at Neelu’s space here.

Even though, officially winter starts in December, I feel it is already at the doorstep. Freezing breeze and chilly mornings, early sunset and late sunrise, bright blue sky to grey cloudy sky all ring a bell about onset of winter. It’s been really sunny and warm couple of weeks back and within a week it dropped from 21 degrees to 6 degrees Celsius! Ahh! After all, that is what UK is notorious for- its unsettled and unpredictable weather. Hence, that wasn’t a surprise, in fact, very much expected. Here we get to feel and see all the four seasons, with all the obvious seasonal changes. We also get different varieties of seasonal fruits and veggies, at low cost when they are in season. Although I don’t really make use of the seasonal fruit and veggies in cooking and baking, I try to eat them raw. It is autumn now with beautiful colours of fall foliage around, yet the chilly weather just keeps u wrapped up in the comfort of home.

I am a beef lover and I prefer it to chicken. Or am I getting too bored of taking chicken all the time? I don’t really know. Even though beef is my favourite, I don’t prepare it on regular basis as my men are not great fans of it and its high cholesterol content. But nothing would taste better than some spicy, hot meal or a soup during these cold days. Snug yourself on the sofa, covered up in a blanket, with a plate of these beef fry with some chappatis or rice is a means of simple pleasure for me. That’s what I did the next afternoon I cooked this! So delicious!

A bit of cooking, little bit of photography and a lot more of chit-chat; that’s pretty much all I do these days apart from taking some initiative on my career side. As my little one started his school full time, I got lot more of spare time in hand. But my blogging is still creeping slower than ever. Anyways, this is a very simple recipe that requires just less than 45 minutes to prepare, really! This preparation of beef is one of my favourites. You can serve them along with rice, chappatis, pooris, parattas etc.

Spicy Beef Masala
Preparation Time:10 minutes
Cooking time: 30-35 minutes

Ingredients:

½ a kilo beef, cut into 1 inch cubes

Marinade:

2 teaspoon red chilli powder (Mild)

1 ½ teaspoons Coriander powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

5 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 inch piece of fresh ginger, minced

Salt - as required

Others:

110g, 1 large tomato,

230g, 1 large onion

A handful of curry leaves

½ teaspoon pepper powder

¼ teaspoon garam masala

3 tablespoon coconut oil

Salt, as required

1-4 green chillies slit (Add as per your preference. If you like it mild, add them whole without slitting. )

¼ cup water or more if required.

Preparations:

1. Wash and drain the meat in a colander. Once drained, marinate with all the ingredients under marinade and leave it in fridge for a couple of hours of longer if you have time. You may cook it instantly if you are out of time.

2. Heat a pressure cooker, add meat along with chopped tomato and water and cook on low-medium heat until beef is 3/4^th cooked with the pressure lid on.

3. Take off the lid and cook the meat slowly until the water is all evaporated and the meat is smothered in spices.

4. Heat another pan, add oil. Throw in sliced onions, slit green chillies and curry leaves and sauté till onion becomes golden.

5. Add meat along with the spices and cook slowly until it is dry and brown. Add pepper powder and garam masala and cook for 3-4 minutes.

The longer you cook, the darker the colour you get. Slow cooking usually brings darker coloured gravy. You can also cook this without pressure cooker which takes real long time, but always taste better than the pressure cooked one.

If you prefer, you can also throw in a handful of sliced coconut along with onions.

American Super-light Pancakes

2011-10-11T01:04:00.000+01:00

Some foods can be so simple and easy to make yet taste great. One such food is these superlight American pancakes. I know pancakes are not something so great to blog and brag about, but this one worth a post. There are number of ways to make pancakes and they vary from region to region, and countries to countries. These pancakes appear on our breakfast table most weekends and we just love it.

This is one of the simplest breakfasts you can make; instant and doesn’t require any fermenting or any waiting. These are not thin like French crepes, but soft, wonderfully fluffy, thick and sweet pancakes; literally speaking, cakes made in a pan! Other day, I added two handfuls of fresh handpicked blackberries, crushed into the very same batter and made some blackberry pancakes. They were awesome with all the goodness and sweetness from the berries. This is one recipe where you can rechristen it the way you would fancy, like adding few sliced bananas, raisins or apples into the batter. I also tried adding some orange rinds along with half a teaspoon of vanilla in the batter and it was great with a hint of orangey flavour.

You can serve with you own choice of berries, honey, maple syrup, clotted cream or toasted bananas. I always almost serve it along with maple syrup and toasted bananas, which are favourites so far. For toasting bananas, once you are done with pancakes, in the same pan add a knob of butter. Slit a banana into two and place it on the hot pan. Let it get cooked on one side for a minute until it gets slightly caramelized, and then flip over and cook on the other side for another minute or two. You really enhance the flavour of banana by cooking it. Try it. If you want to make caramelized bananas, add some sugar to pan. When it caramelize and take an amber colour, add slit bananas and then cook on both sides until covered all over with caramel.

Ingredients:

175g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

125g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence or 1 pod of vanilla bean scraped

250 mls milk, whole or semi-skimmed

A pinch of salt

Softened butter or vegetable oil for cooking

Preparations:

1.Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar.

2. In another bowl, break eggs and gently whisk to break them up. Gradually add in milk and mix well. Add vanilla essence and mix again.

3. Make a well in the dry mixture. Gradually add this milk mixture in the flour; drawing the dry ingredients in as you whisk. Eventually you should have a slightly lumpy batter. Don’t over mix the batter or it will make the pancakes heavy.

4. Heat a heavy non-stick frying pan until you feel a good heat rising. Add a small knob of butter and/or trickle a little oil along with butter, this will avoid burning of butter. Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the batter into the pan. (If you want nice neat edges with perfect round shape, stand a 8 ½ cm (3 ¼”) round metal cutter in the pan to contain the batter. The resulting pancakes will resemble crumpets).

5. Cook until bubbles rise to the surface and the batter started getting firm. Loosen from the bottom of the pan and flip over for a few seconds to brown on the other side.

6. Repeat with the remaining batter, stacking the hot pancakes under clean towel until ready to serve.

200th post; A recipe and a glimpse through Kerala's serene Beauty!

2011-10-03T01:34:00.000+01:00

Hi friends,

Hope you all had a great Ramadan, Eid and Onam. After a long gap of more than 2 decades, I was lucky enough to celebrate Eid and spend Holy Ramadan in India with my relatives. This post is going to be my 200^th recipe post; a long awaited one, yet had to come late as I was confused on what and how to post and sheer laziness. I always get the so called bloggers block anytime I get a long break or holiday. Posting becomes fewer than before. I have been getting lot of messages and mails asking me to start blogging and to post new recipes. Thanks to all for checking on me and th elovely messages you send me. They mean alot to me. Thanks to all for the continuous support and encouragement. Here, I came back from India with lots of good memories to keep and some pictures and stories to share with you.

It was Monsoon in India then with lots of rain and less heat to bear, nice weather to sit cosy at home with a cup of tea or coffee and a newspaper in hand to watch the downpour. Probably not a good weather to go on a house boat as the rain and currants can get precarious, but we did that too and that’s what I am going to share with you today.

We had planned a family trip to Kumarakom and Kochi couple of days after our arrival to Kerala. Even before we could overcome the jetlag and fatigue, we set off to Kumarakom, a popular tourist destination located 16 kms from the city of Kottayam. It is famous for its beautiful backwaters, houseboats, natural beauty, wide variety of flora and fauna and is set in the backdrop of the great Vembanad kaayal /Lake which is the largest lake in Kerala and the longest one in India. It was a two day tour package which included a day in the house boat, resort and the third day we spent roaming in the outskirts of Kochi and Alappuzha. Easiest means of transport from Kannur to Kumarakom was by train. It took us 7 hours overnight journey to Kottayam from where we freshened up ourselves in a small hotel and then left for houseboat .

Houseboat was one great experience, a heart throbbing one to cherish and treasure forever. It is unable to convey through words, but the pictures may speak a little if not all. The first day we spent cruising on the houseboat which took us in and around the serene beauty of the famous backwaters, paddy fields, and the mighty Vembanad Lake. Our houseboat was a massive one, with 4 air conditioned bedrooms, each with attached baths, a long walkway, a hall and a kitchen to top it all. It had a deck upstairs with some chairs and settees arranged to breathe in the freshness of nature. Scrumptious meals were prepared by the crews in the boat for breakfast lunch and dinner. As the boat moved slowly, I went on clicking anything that came my way and fascinated me. The lake, other houseboats that ornamented the backwater, the moss that were floating in the lake, paddy fields, small boats/thoni, the rain etc. In between, our boat stopped at a place where there were small shops selling daily essentials and seafood from where we bought Tender coconuts and huge prawns that was cooked as part of our meal that night.

By evening our house boat was disembarked near a vast paddy field, in the back waters. We spent our evening cracking jokes, watching telly and of course running behind kids. Had a fabulous dinner which included the lobsters that were bought from the shop that afternoon. They were prepared by the crews on board again and the next day we set off to our resort. It was based in Kumarakom and was overlooking the Vembanad lake, a resort that could make a dream holiday destination. The resort was built in the traditional Kerala fashion and was well equipped with Gym, pool, water sports centre, cycling facilities, sunset cruise, multi cuisine restaurants etc. The resort also had indoor games like chess, table tennis, caroms etc to keep you busy in case the weather goes bad. After spending some time there we set out to Aleppy on a small boat across the backwaters and Vembanad Lake. The weather then started getting real bad with wind that the boat started wavering much to freak all of us out. We then returned back halfway through without making it to Aleppy. We were told that Aleppy is the prime destination for houseboats with over 800 houseboats where as Kumarakom has only as few as 50 houseboats. It is in aleppy that the major event Vallam kali (Boat race) takes place. We spent the night playing caroms and table tennis.

On our third day, we roamed in and around the city of Cochin, visited the Marine Drive, Dutch palace and Oberon Mall. But by then I was already down with viral fever and I was just dragging myself along with gang as I dint want to miss anything and to let them have their fun time. Much photoes were not taken on the third day as all what I wanted to was to lie down and have some rest. I really missed taking pictures that day as there were great things that could be shot and I couldnt. But I have already taken more than 800 pictures in two days, so my camera too would have yearned for a break.

*********************************************************

IL diplomatico

Okay, For today’s recipe, here is a dessert that I tried a while ago, and have been lying in my drafts for months now. The name of this dessert is a new one and I found it in one of my cake books. The picture always left me drooling and I was just waiting for an occasion to make it. I think it is basically a chocolate Tiramisu, with a diplomatic name! A pretty straight forward recipe with an awesome result. Actually, the recipe in the book doesnt have eggs added to it and may be even an easier one to make. But sometimes I have the habit of making simple things complicated just like this one. So please bear with me . If anyone wants the egg-free recipe of Diplomatico as in the book, please feel free to ask, I can type it out for you. I havent tried that method though, so cant guarantee the outcome. But it looks reliable.

Il Diplomatico

Serves 10

Ingredients:

2 large eggs, separated

200gm dark chocolate – 50% cocoa mass

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder

250g mascarpone cheese

1 cup, 250 ml double cream/whipping cream

8-10 tablespoons Icing sugar or depending on one’s preference

2-3 tablespoons caster sugar

1 cup boiling water

1 tablespoon coffee

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

200g saviordi biscuits, around 30 of them. (If you don’t get them, just use regular sponge cakes or Madeira cakes)

Cocoa powder – to garnish

250 mls whipping cream (optional) to garnish.

Preparation:

1. Melt chocolate plus 1 teaspoon coffee powder in a double boiler. Let it cool completely.

2. Mix 1 tablespoon of coffee and 1 tablespoon of caster sugar to boiling water and mix well. Set aside to cool.

3. In a squeaky clean bowl, beat egg whites till it forms soft peaks. Add 4 tablespoon of icing sugar, and beat till stiff.

4. In another bowl, lightly whip cream to soft peaks. Add vanilla essence, 4-6 tablespoon of icing sugar and beat for few seconds until combined.

5. Add caster sugar to egg yolks and beat with a wire whisk to mix. Once the chocolate is completely cooled, add egg yolks and just mix using a wooden spoon.

6. Add this chocolate mixture to the cream mixture and beat until well combined.

7. Mix 1/3 of whipped egg whites to this cream and chocolate mixture to loosen it slightly and then fold rest of the egg whites in.

To assemble:

1. Spray a 1 Kilo loaf tin with non stick spray or just brush it with oil and line it with clingfilm and let them hang them on all sides so that you can pull it out.

2. Dip sponge fingers lightly in the coffee and make a layer of them.

3. Pour half of chocolate-mascarpone mixture in and level with spatula.

4. Layer another layer of coffee dipped saviordi and pour in rest of the chocolate-mascarpone mixture.

6. Then cover the chocolate-mascarpone mixture with another layer of coffee dipped saviordi.

7. Chill for about 4 hours or overnight to set.

8. To serve: Invert the loaf pan on to serving plate and slide the loaf pan out. Take off the cling film and dust generously with cocoa powder or ice completely with whipped cream. Serve thick slices with coffee.

N.B: Please add sugar as per your taste. Mine is usually on the higher side, so I tend to add more sugar. You may add less, if you like your dessert less sweet.

Off to India!

2011-07-07T08:45:00.000+01:00

Hi friends,

Hope you are all doing great out there. This is no food post but just to let you all know that I am going to India tomorrow for a long holiday of 2 months and will be back only by september. I thought I could squeeze in another recipe but I was so pressed for time. I just got the hang of blogging after the previous holiday and here comes the next. It always takes me a while to get to that blogging spirit after a long holiday. I realise blogging is quite time consuming and stressful at times and not blogging gives you lot of time in hand for everything else. Styling food for pictures, choosing back grounds, dishes, props, taking lots of pictures at different angles, short listing them for posting (in my case I shortlist twice), water marking them, typing out the recipe all takes really lot of time. As I don’t do any post processing of my pictures, that saves plenty of time. Anyways, I am looking forward to a nice holiday, loads of pictures, buying few cookery books, some props if possible and eating some good homely Kerala meal. I have never blogged while I was away on Holiday, so I will see you all once I get back.

Lots of Love,

Shabs.

Kums (Cardamom Flavoured Sponge Cake)

2011-06-30T11:02:00.000+01:00

Kums/Kumsi in nothing but simple sponge cake flavoured with cardamoms. Kums/Kumsi is a famous snack/cake in Malabar areas and is served at tea time. It is not iced or frosted, but is eaten by dunking in Milk tea. Traditionally, in the olden times, the batter is churned for a prolonged time with a wooden hand held whisk called ‘manthu’. It is then baked on ancient hob made of stones, arranged in a specific style to hold the dish on top. Dry wood and coconut husk is lit underneath the vessel, between the stones as source of heat. Some husk is also lit on top of the vessel to give brown colour on top of teh cake. Lot of work goes into making sponge cakes in the olden times when electric mixers were not so popular and I guess it tasted better too. That’s the little I know about how we make Kums back home when I was a little kid.

The cake is soft, spongy and light and uses no fat or raising agents. It has subtle cardamom flavour that takes away any odd eggy smell off and makes it different from regular sponge cakes. The volume is obtained by beating the eggs and sugar until it is tripled in volume, on high speed. If you want to make regular sponge, just substitute vanilla essence for cardamoms.

Kums (Cardamom Flavoured Sponge Cake)

Preparation time:15 minutes

Baking time: 30-35 minutes

serves 6-8 people

Ingredients:

5 large eggs (335g)

¾ cup caster sugar

7-8 green cardamoms, ground to fine powder

1 cup plain flour

Preparations:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celcius. Grease and line 9 inch pan.

2. In a bowl whisk the eggs sugar and on high speed for about 10 minutes until thick and pale and leaves a thick trail when the beaters are lifted.

3. Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, being careful not to knock out much air. Pour into the prepared tin. Bake for about 30 minutes or when a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn the cake on the wire rack, peel the parchment paper and leave to cool completely. Serve along with tea or coffee.

N.B: As the cake doesn’t use any fat, it doesn’t keep very well. You can store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. If you want to make regular sponge cake, you can substitute cardamoms with a teaspoon of vanilla essence, orange rind or lemon rind.

This post goes off to Kerala Kitchen Event hosted By Magpies Recipes .

Kerala style Baked Chicken

2011-06-24T05:50:00.000+01:00

Here is an easy and simple baked chicken for you to try over the weekend. A chicken that is bursting with flavours ; heat from the spices and tang from the lime. It’s a perfect non-veggie deal to compliment any vegetarian meal. I normally prepare this when I cook Dal curry with any un-leaved bread like chapatti, puris etc. Left-over chicken can be used in salads, wraps or sandwiches and makes a good brunch. I start checking for doneness after 45 minutes as chicken tends to get dry if it is over baked. Read this interesting article at Collaborative Curry on how to get juicy baked or grilled chicken. I saw the article after I baked this chicken, else I would have definitely given it a go.

This chicken bake also goes off to Kerala Kitchen event started by Rose of Magpiesrecipes.

Kerala style Baked Chicken

Serves 4-6

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Baking time: 50min – 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cleaned and skinned whole chicken – 1 kg

2-3 Tbsp vegetable oil

Vegetables of your choice like onions, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, whole garlic etc

For marinade:

1 ½ Tbsp minced ginger

1 ½ Tbsp minced garlic

1 ½ Tbsp Mild Red chilli powder like Kashmiri Chilli powder

½ tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice

2 tsp Coriander powder

2 – 2 ½ Tbsp water

Salt to taste

Preparations:

1. Wash chicken well; make 2-3 shallow gashes on thick parts like breast, thighs and legs.

2. Make a thick marinade by mixing all the ingredients under marinade.

3. Marinate the chicken in and out with this marinade. Cover the bowl with a cling film and refrigerate overnight for maximum flavour or a minimum of 2 hours.

4. Bring the chicken to room temperature prior to baking.

5. Preheat the oven to 190 Degree Celcius and place the chicken on a baking tray. Spread the vegetables to be baked around the chicken. Drizzle the oil all over chicken and bake it for about 50min -1 hr, turning once or twice in between. You can squeeze extra lime juice on top if preferred while serving. Serve it alongside any dal dish and roti or rice.

N.B: I start checking my chicken around 45 minutes by poking thighs and breast part with a skewer. If clear juice oozes out from the poked area, Chicken should be done. But if you bake it further, there are chances of it drying.

Creamy Broccoli and Mushroom Soup

2011-06-19T11:13:00.000+01:00

It's officially summer here and it is the best time you can have in the UK. It’s bright, days are longer, warmer and lots of colours around you. Fruits, birds and not forget, creepy insects are also in plenty during this time of the year. It is also one time of the year where you get to see lots of children playing outside, chitchatting, racing and all the fun. My son is really enjoying the change, weather, his newly acquainted friends and so am I. He spends lot of time in the nearby park, with the neighbourhood kids and yet is full of energy. It’s just me who gets exhausted and drained by the end of day running behind him as he als started crying for every little silly things! He’s never been like that before, and I assume it’s all part of attention seeking drama. Even though I am quite aware of his ploy, I get fooled every single time. Sigh!

About the soup, I came across this Mushroom and Broccoli soup prepared by my friend Shami. To talk about shami, she is a great cook and a fantastic baker and she owns her own Empire in Facebook. She claims I was her inspiration, but looks like she is on a marathon and I can’t be any way close to her. She is fast! She cooks on regular basis, post it on FB and all I couldd do is sit and watch her cook and grow! I had some good amount of mushrooms sitting in the fridge on the edge of decaying, and so I planned to make shami’s soup. The dinner was fixed and I knew it was going to be easy; it is a mushroom and broccoli soup. I knew I was going to modify it my own way and that is just the way I am. I can’t follow a recipe religiously even though I had failed miserably many a times making changes that are not really required. Here, I added potato, cheese , nutmeg and stock cubes. Simple to make (apart from chopping broccoli and slicing mushrooms) and it was so delicious with my high expectations. I am not a great fan of the earthy flavour of mushrooms, but something has wrapped that taste up and it was just so perfect for me – Creamy, rich-tasting, yet light, busting with flavours and simply satisfying!

Creamy Broccoli and Mushroom Soup

Serves 10 -12 as Starter
Preparation time: 10-15 mins
Cooking time: 20 - 25mins

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped broccoli, 320 g

4 cups sliced mushrooms, 300g (I used closed cup mushrooms, u can easily use button mushrooms)

1 large onion chopped, 1 cup, 135g

6 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 medium potato,140g, cut into 1 cm cubes, almost a cup

2 ½ cubes of Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes (Stock cubes)

3 cups of semi skimmed milk or whole milk

2-3 cups hot water

A good pinch of grated nutmeg, around 1/8 th of a nutmeg

½ cup grated mild cheddar cheese

6 tbsp soft butter

A dash of olive oil

1/3 cup plain flour

Salt and freshly crushed pepper to taste

Preparation:

1.Heat 2 tbsp butter in a large frying pan or saucepan. Throw in chopped onion, garlic and potatoes and 1 vegetable bouillon cube. Sauté till onions go soft and potatoes are half cooked, for about 7 minutes.

2. Add in chopped broccoli and sliced mushroom, stir, cover it and let it cook on gentle heat until broccoli is cooked through, yet slightly crunch, for another 6-7 minutes.

3. Tip the cooked vegetable into a bowl. Rinse the saucepan and then heat rest of butter until melted. Add in the flour and keep stirring for a minute. Turn off the heat. Let it cool down for a minute, then add in milk. Stir it well with a wire whisk to breakdown all lumps of dough. Return it back to heat, crumble in the rest of vegetable stock cubes, and simmer by stirring occasionally until it boils.

4. Add in boiling water and bring it to boil again. Simmer for 2 minutes and then add in all the cokked vegetables. Simmer for a further couple of minutes to bring in the flavour of teh vegetables to the milk.

5. Grate in nutmeg, stir well. Turn off the heat and then add grated cheddar and just mix in. Adjust the seasoning if need be and serve hot with lot of crushed black pepper alongside any rustic bread like ciabatta, baguette or garlic bread.

N.B:. I haven't added any salt here as the Bouillon cubes are really salty.

Chicken Donuts

2011-06-15T13:27:00.001+01:00

Chicken donut is one of snacks that sounded unique to me and I was quite fascinated by the whole idea of making it. As Ramadan is soon approaching, it would be great to try out new recipes before the holy Month begins. Did I tell you, I am going to spend my Ramadan and Eid in India for the first time, this year? Well, not really the first time, but the last time I fasted in India was when I was in 3rd grade, well over 2 decades and not much memory of that is in me. And I just managed to fast for a couple of days then as it was summer and was too hot. I am so looking forward to this Ramadan back home and I can’t tell you how much I am going to love it. Blogging and photo shooting will not work as much I do now or may be not at all. It would be perfect being away from UK this Ramadan and possibly few years of Ramadan as fasting hours are getting longer and it’s already 18 hours in the beginning of Ramadan, this year. It is going to be even longer next year and few years after that. I have been mourning ever since the last Ramadan about fasting this time of the year and the years to come when my parents suddenly planned to visit for a couple of months time. And I also planned to stick around, as usual.

Well, about these donuts, they are hassle free, and I sjust the matter of mixing up all ingredients and frying them. I know deep frying can put some off, but you can try this one with half the measurement. I tried these in a couple of days after I saw them at nimi’s space. Nimi is one of my childhood friends way back back in UAE and we got connected again few years back. She is a Cookbook author and her recipes are simple, unique and tastes great. These chicken donuts resemble alot like our Humble Uzhunnu Vada, aka Lentil Donuts. Dont get fooled byt its looks, it is quite varied in taste, texture and feel too. It’s just the shape, that is similar and we totally loved it, hot.

Chicken Doughnuts

Makes around 20 -24

Recipe adapted from : Nimi

Ingredients:

1/2 kg chicken mince, cooked with touch of salt and a pinch of tumeric

4-6 green chillies chopped

1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs

1 cup of all purpose flour

1-2 tbsp chickpea flour

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste

1 ½ teaspoon garam masala powder

1 small onion, 60g, grated – ¼ cup

¼ cup chopped mint leaves

1/8 cup chopped curry leaves

¼ cup chopped coriander leaves

1 tsp black pepper powder

½ tsp baking powder

2 medium sized potatoes, 220g boiled and mashed

2 large eggs, 140g (lightly whisked)

salt to taste

Preparation:

1. Mix all the above ingredients with the minced chicken to make a dough.

2. Flour/ oil the work surface and flatten the dough with fingers to a thickness of 1 cm.

3. Cut out shapes with a donut cutter. Alternatively you can also flatten the dough in hand and using your finger, make a hole in the centre to get the donut shape. I made mine in hand, about 1 cm in width and 3 inches in diameter.

4. Heat oil about 3 inches high in a deep pan/Karahi.

5. Deep fry these chicken donuts in medium heat till golden brown. You would have to flip in between to brown both sides and it takes about 3-5 minutes per donut depending on heat.

N.B: Never turn the heat very high, as it would get your donuts charred outside and leaving the inner part uncooked. You can fry as many as th epan can hold, depending on the size of the pan you are using. Drain them on kitchen towel and serve hot along with ketchup, mayonnaise etc. This can be frozen and then reheated in microwave for later use.

This Chicken Donuts goes off to Kerala Kitchen event started by Rose of Magpiesrecipes.