Fruit custard is a recipe that is a true delight to taste. It is a dessert that is relished after you have had your meals. It is made of milk, dry fruits and fruits so it is very rich in taste and also gives you some nutrition.

Your guests can be served with this dessert and for sure they will never forget the finger licking taste of fruit custard. It is not specific to any region in India and is commonly found in every part of country. You can prepare the recipe within a couple of minutes and eat it instantly.

Ingredients

• 4 cups of milk (full cream)
• 2 cups of sugar
• 2 tablespoon custard powder
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 pear
• 1 peach
• 1 guava
• ½ bowl strawberries
• ½ bowl dry fruits including cashew, almonds, apricots, pistachio, raisins
• ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
• ½ teaspoon rose water

Method

Take a bowl and mix custard powder with ½ cup of milk and stir it well. Keep it aside. Now heat milk in a pan. Bring it to boil and then lower the flame. Now add the milk mixed with custard powder that you have kept aside and continuously stir it for five minutes to avoid lumps. Now add sugar to it and stir it again for five minutes. Cook it for another five minutes and after that put the gas off. Let it cool down on room temperature.

In the meantime, cut fruits of your choices in small pieces and the dry fruits are to be cut (whichever possible). When your custard cools down add rose water and vanilla essence to it and mix it well. Now add fruits and dry fruits to it and refrigerate it for at least an hour. Your custard is ready to relish now. Serve it chilled.

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Bolognese originates in the Italian region of Bologna, and is traditionally eaten with fresh spaghetti pasta. Of course, you don’t need to do this as such a wide variety of good dried pasta is available. If you are feeling adventurous though, try making your own. It is divine! This Spaghetti Bolognese recipe serves 4 people comfortably, just mess with the quantities until you have something right for your family.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

• 500g lean minced steak
• 1 large onion
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 carrot
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 glass of red wine (apply the good enough to drink rule here!)
• 2 tsp. tomato puree
• 8 torn basil leaves
• Salt and pepper
• 400g spaghetti
• Olive oil

Method of Preparation:

Wash, peel and finely chop the onion, carrot, and celery into even-sized pieces.

Try and chop them as finely as possible.

Cover your saucepan with the olive oil and use this mixture. Season with salt and pepper and cook for about ten minutes until the vegetables are translucent.

Add in about half of the wine and cook for a further minute before adding the minced beef.

Break the beef up with a spoon and make sure it is not in big bits, as it will end up being tough and not taste very nice.

Add in some more seasoning if needed.

Cook this mixture for a quarter of an hour to get the beef started.

Add in the tomato puree, and the tin of chopped tomatoes.

Add in the rest of the wine and cook all of this for around 30 minutes.

Ten minutes before the end of cooking time, get ready to cook your spaghetti. Boil a kettle full of water (this helps quicken the process). Pour this into a separate saucepan and bring back to the boil. Add in a good handful of salt to season.

Drop in the spaghetti and the spaghetti and sauce should be finished at roughly the same time.

Drain the spaghetti, once cooked, and you could serve with a drizzle of olive oil on the top.

Add the Bolognese sauce on top of the spaghetti and serve with a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Egg is rich source of protein. Egg curry is thus a nutritious recipe that ensures a great taste and nutrition as well. What all you need to make this mouth watering dish is just eggs. Yes, of course as the rest of the ingredients are always present in your home, you do not need to go in search of any material to the market. It can be made in just a couple of minutes. You can have it in your dinner with chapatti. Check out this egg recipe for more.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs boiled
• 1 onion
• 1 green chilly
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon Kashmiri mirch powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon black pepper powder
• ½ teaspoon garam masala powder
• 2 Tej Patta (Bay Leaf)
• 2 cloves
• 1 badi Ilaichi (brown cardamom)
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 2 cups water
• Green coriander leaves to garnish

Method

Boil the eggs in a pan and peel them. You can divide the whole egg by cutting it into two pieces vertically or horizontally. Make a fine paste of onions. Make tomato puree by blending in the blender of your mixer. Now heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds, chopped green chilly and fry it.

Add bay leaf, cloves and brown cardamom and fry it for 2 minutes. Now put the onion paste and fry till it turns golden brown. Later add ginger garlic paste and fry for 2 minutes. When it leaves oil on surface, add coriander powder, chilly powder, turmeric powder and salt and fry for one minute. Now add yoghurt to the thick paste of spices in the pan and fry for another two minutes. The curry is ready now. You can now add eggs to it with water and cook it for ten minutes covered with a lid. Garnish it with fine chopped green coriander leaves and garam masala. Serve it hot.

Servings per Recipe: 3 – 4
Preparation time: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 large white onions
• 4 big garlic cloves
• 250g of tomato puree
• 1 tin of diced tomatoes. Try a tin with herbs or garlic or chilli added.
• 400g of lentils
• 300g cabbage
• 300g carrot
• 3 fresh tomatoes
• 1 red pepper
• Half of a butternut squash
• Few handfuls of fresh spinach
• 300g peas
• Good pinch of cracked black pepper
• Large handful of basil
• 4 tbsp. of mixed Italian dried herbs (oregano, bay leaves, dill, rosemary) use your taste.

Directions:

Get the lentils soaking in water for a good few hours before you use them.

Finely chop the onions into as small a pieces as you can. Mince the garlic cloves.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a pan and warm the onions and garlic together very gently for about 7 minutes.

Add in the tinned tomato, tomato paste, and dried herbs. Stir together and heat together for a little longer.

Finely chop the red pepper and make sure it is deseeded. You could chargrill it on the hob and remove the skin and use it this way, or just chop it and add it to the mix.

Finely chop the cabbage. Add this in and chop the squash as small as possible, adding this. Grate the carrot finely, add the carrot, and give everything a good mix. Cook this for a few minutes.

Chop the fresh tomatoes and add these.

Cook for 5 minutes or so on a high heat so the liquid is reduced.

Add in the lentils, peas, and basil.

Stir well and cook for another twenty minutes or so or until the lentils are tender and not hard.

You could serve this with pasta or eat it as is. It is also delicious with thick home-made potato wedges to dip. Try this easy recipe for them: chop a potato into wedge shapes and put in boiling water for around ten minutes. Take them out and drain them. Drizzle with olive oil, minced garlic, a pinch of paprika and salt and pepper. Put in the oven at 220C and cook for forty minutes. Serve!

Try a little bit of garlic, too. To make this enchilada recipe even easier, try putting out all of your ingredients beforehand in small bowls and set out on the side. It makes things much easier as you can then just throw everything together without worrying about what you have left.

Ingredients:

• 200g pre-prepared chicken
• 200g sweet-corn
• 200g cheese
• 300g tortillas
• Dash of vegetable oil
• 1 large white onion
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika
• Packet of Passata
• 1 tsp. cocoa powder

Method of Preparation:

Pop your oven on to heat up at 200C. Wrap the tortillas in foil and warm in the oven for around ten minutes.

Finely chop the onion. Heat some of the oil in a frying pan and add a knob of butter. Tip the onion in and cook very slowly for about ten minutes. Mince the garlic and add in, but don’t cook this for too long as garlic can have a tendency to burn.

Add in the paprika and the cocoa powder and cook out for a few more minutes.

Tip in the Passata.

Cook for around ten minutes.

By this stage, the sauce should be thick and smoky tasting.

Now, it’s time to assemble the enchiladas. Lay a tortilla out flat and down the centre of each, add some shredded chicken. Add about the same amount of sweet-corn and a handful of cheese.

Roll up the enchiladas and fold the ends over. Put them in an oven tray so the ends are face down in the tray.

Continue this until you are completely finished with the tortillas.

Pour the enchilada sauce over the top of the tortillas.

Add another handful of cheese to the top.

Cook for around fifteen minutes.

Variations:

You can use shredded gammon for a more rolled pizza taste to your enchilada. Try serving it with soured cream and some chopped chives over the top, or add a spicy salsa to give it even more of a kick. Finish with a squeeze of lemon.

This can also be done with beef or lamb if you don’t like poultry, but if you’re really brave, you could try it with a meaty fish such as cod or plaice. These isn’t strictly the Chinese way of doing things, but believe me, it tastes delicious!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 skinless and boneless chicken breasts
• 1 large thinly sliced onion
• 1 large thinly sliced carrots
• Broccoli floret cut into flowers
• 1 large green chilli
• 3 fat garlic cloves
• Thumb-sized piece of ginger
• Handful on spring onions
• 2 tbsp. corn-flour
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 2 or 3 star anise’s
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• Sprinkle of brown sugar
• 500ml chicken stock
• Rice to serve
• Olive oil

Method of Preparation:

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces or thin strips.

Coat with the corn-flour, and a pinch of salt and a few pinches of cracked black pepper. Make sure all the chicken is completely coated.

Heat up some oil in the wok or heavy-bottomed saucepan until hot. Put the chicken in and make sure it is sealed on all sides.

Mince the cloves of garlic. Mince the ginger too, and add to the oil that you’ve just cooked the chicken in. Chop the chilli in half, and using the back of the knife, scrape out the seeds. Chop off either end. Finely chop. Add the onion, carrots, and broccoli. Stir-fry everything in the oil for a few minutes to let all the flavours combine.

After a few minutes, add the chicken stock. Next, add the turmeric, curry powder, star anise, and brown sugar. Stir it all together and cook out for around ten minutes.

Add the chicken back into the pan.

Add the corn-flour mixed with a little bit of water into this. Cook out for thirty minutes and this corn-flour mixture will thicken up the sauce.

Sprinkle with chopped spring onion and a tiny sprinkle of curry powder for a bit of bite. You could also serve with chopped chilli on top.

After these have soaked, give them a good squeeze and get rid of most of the liquid, leaving about 2 tbsp. for use in the sauce afterwards. Make sure that the noodles are soaked too because they’ll be too dry otherwise. Finely chop both the mushrooms and the prawns so they’re of equal size – it’s nicer to get smaller bursts of flavour than large chewy pieces of food.

Ingredients:

• 400g fine egg noodles
• Handful of Chinese mushrooms – use dried if you can or use thinly sliced chestnut
• 4 tbsp. dried shrimps – use fresh if not
• 2 large onions
• 6 rashers of bacon
• 3 or 4 large garlic cloves
• 3 or 4 tsp. of minced ginger
• 1 tbsp. curry powder.
• 100g chicken
• 100g pork
• 100g prawns
• Approx. 10 spring onions
• Good dash of thick soy sauce
• Good dash of dry sherry

Method of Preparation:

Heat up the oil in the wok or the heavy-bottomed saucepan and add ginger and garlic. Finely chop the two large onions as small as you can or blend it in a food blender.

Chop up the bacon as small as you can, removing the fat, chop up the shrimps and chop the mushrooms. Throw all this into the pan and let it all sizzle. Be careful not to let the garlic burn, because burnt garlic isn’t very nice. Slowly cook this for about fifteen minutes and let all the flavours come out.

Once you’ve done this, add the curry powder and a good pinch of salt.

Drain the noodles and add the chicken, pork and prawns to the cooked ingredients.

Finely slice the spring onions on the diagonal and add these into the pan.

Give everything a good mix so the flavours are properly spread throughout the dish.

Mix the soy sauce, sherry, and a bit of the drained mushroom water together so they are properly combined.

Add this into the pan with the noodles and cook for a few minutes so the sauce thickens.

You can try this with fruit such as apricots or raisins added to it thirty minutes before the end, but I prefer this dish as it is served with either sticky coconut rice or spicy potato wedges. For the rice, just cook in coconut milk instead of water, but be careful it doesn’t curdle. The fat content in the milk gives the rice its sticky texture.

Ingredients:

• 1kg or lamb. The nicest cut to use for this is lamb shanks, which probably equals to about 4 shanks
• Sprinkle of plain flour
• Good pinches of both salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• 2-3 chopped onions
• 3 or 4 fat garlic cloves
• 2 tsp. each of ground cumin, coriander, ginger and paprika (use ground powders)
• 2 tsp. chopped red chilli
• 2 tbsp. muscavado sugar
• Two tins of chopped tomatoes
• 750ml warm lamb or beef stock
• Pinch of saffron strands (if you have any)
• Chopped fresh coriander
• Pinch of lemon zest

Method of Preparation:

Season the lamb with salt and black pepper. Make sure it is chopped into decent sized pieces. If it is too small then if it is cooked to long the lamb will break down too much. The larger the lamb, the better it will retain its shape.

Dust with the flour and shake off the excess.

In a pan, heat up the olive oil. Seal the lamb on all sides in the oil and then set to one side.

Chop the onion up into rings, and then in half. You could also dice it finely if you want to. Cook in the oil you’ve just cooked the lamb in.

Mince or finely chop the garlic and add this to the onion.

Add all of the powdered spices and the chopped chilli and cook this for a little longer.

Add the tomatoes, stock, lemon and sugar and cook for about an hour.

Put the saffron to soak with a little warm water.

Add the saffron into the mixture and simmer everything for another for another half an hour.

Finely chop the coriander and sprinkle over the top to serve.

Author is an expert article writer contributes for Free Indian Recipes and other recipes.

Chop up a few bananas into thin slices, sprinkle in some sugar and some cinnamon, add a few tablespoons of rum and pop it all into a saucepan. Cook for a few minutes until the bananas are softened, then tip the saucepan so it catches the gas flame and sets alight. Wait until the flame goes out in the bananas, then serve. It sounds scary, but it is really delicious. The chilli added to the dish gives it a real Mexican kick.

Ingredients:

COCOA CHILLI MIX

• 2 tsp. cocoa powder
• ½ tsp. chilli powder
• ¼ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
• Pinch of salt

REMAINDER

• 8 flour tortillas
• 2 tbsp. softened unsalted butter
• 125g good quality white vanilla chocolate
• 125g good quality dark chocolate
• 3 tsp. cocoa chilli powder
• 4 scoops ice cream, try vanilla or a clotted cream flavour. A delicious way to serve is with a honeycomb ice cream. You could try and make your own.
• A good squeeze of dark chocolate sauce. Make this with 125g dark chocolate and 40ml milk. Warm them together in a saucepan and wait for everything to melt. Keep warm, but do not boil because you will lose the flavour.
• 50g roasted hazelnuts or almonds. Toast them in a pan first.

Method of Preparation:

Sieve the ingredients together for the chilli cocoa powder mix. Put in a small container and set to one side. This can then be used in the future for a Mexican take on a hot chocolate.

Heat the pan on a medium heat. Spread the butter over each side of the tortillas and cook gently for a few minutes on each side.

Spread half of them over the base of the pan. Break up the chocolate into a random pattern over the tortillas. Sprinkle with the cocoa chilli powder. Put the rest of the tortillas on the top, and cook until they melt together and you can flip them over. You will be left with a chocolate sandwich. You can either put in the nuts with the chocolate, or you can sprinkle them on top of the ice cream you serve it with.

This is a recipe for a simply cheesecake, but you can of course use gelatine and setting agents and do things differently. If you experiment with the amount of lemon curd in this then the more or less you put in, compensate for with the double cream you use. Too little liquid and this won’t be easy to slice, too much liquid and your cheesecake will go soggy and the liquids will separate.

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp. thick Greek yoghurt
• 6 tbsp. lemon curd
• 1 fresh lemon, freshly squeezed juice
• 125ml double cream
• 70g digestive biscuits
• 50g butter (unsalted)
• Handful of blueberries
• Sprinkle of caster sugar
• Sprigs of fresh mint
• Dusting of icing sugar

Method of Preparation:

Put the digestive biscuits into a plastic sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin until the biscuits resemble small crumbs. If you have a blender, stick them in there and blitz together.

Melt the butter in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave.

Mix together with the biscuit base. If you mix with a spoon, it will take a while to come together but persevere!

If you mix in a blender, pour the butter through the opening at the top.

Press into your serving dish or bowl. Make sure you press it together hard to that the biscuit compresses, so when you put the liquid mix on the top in won’t seep through.

Chill this in the fridge as soon as you are finished whilst making the liquid part.

Mix the yoghurt, lemon curd, and lemon juice together in a bowl until smooth.

Whip the cream quite vigorously until it forms peaks. Any further than this and you will cause it to curdle.

Mix 2 tablespoons of the cream into the yoghurt and lemon mixture until creamy. Add the rest of the cream mixture and mix with a metal spoon.

Spoon this mix over the top of your biscuit base.

Add the blueberries to the top. You could serve the blueberries as a coulis, by heating them in a pan with a dash of water and a sprinkle of caster sugar. Cook it until the blueberries are still holding their shape but are soft.

Spoon over the top, add the mint sprigs, and dust with icing sugar.

Author is an expert article writer contributes for Free Indian Recipes and other recipes.