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Sunday, January 8, 2012

Laal Maas

Red meat or Laal Maas is a cuisine from Rajasthan. The original recipe has loads and loads of red chilly, I've modified the recipe a bit to suite my pallet.


Ingredients:
For the marinade -
Mutton - 500 gms
Raw papaya paste - 2 tbsp
Whole red chilly - 10
While Kashmiri chilly - 6
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
Curd - 1 cup, beaten

For the gravy -
Oil - 3 tbsp
Onion - 4 medium, finely sliced
Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Pepper corns - 10
Cinnamon - 1 ½ inch
Cloves - 4
Bay leaf - 1
Green cardamon - 6
Black cardamon - 2
Salt to taste

Tempering & garnish -
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Whole red chilly - 2
Coriander leaves - ½ cup

Method:
Dry roast and wet grind red chilly, kashmiri chilly, cumin and coriander seeds. Mix the ground paste with curd, papaya paste and marinate the mutton in it for 2-3 hours.

In a cooker, heat some oil, add the dry masala (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf, black and green cardamon), saute for 2-3 minutes. Now add the onion and fry till golden brown, add garlic. Now add the mutton, saute for around 4-5 minutes, pressure cook for 4 whistles or till the mutton is tender. Temper with ghee & red chilly and garnish with fresh coriander leaves. Serve with hot puris or rotis

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Chocolate Sponge Cake

What a nice way to kick off the new year with a delicious chocolate cake topped with two layers of icing.

Ingredients:
For the cake -
Refined flour (maida) - 2 cups
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Cocoa powder - ¼ cup
Milk - ½ cup
Butter (Unsalted) - 100 gms softened @ room temperature
Powdered Sugar - 1 ¼ cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Eggs - 3, seperate the egg white and yolk

Butter icing -
Butter - 45 gms softened @ room temperature
Icing sugar - 1 cup
Vanilla essence - ½ tsp

Royal icing -
Egg white - 1
Icing sugar - ¾ cup
Lemon juice - few drops

Method:
Take butter in a mixing bowl. With the help of a hand mixer (use egg beater attachment) start blending the powdered sugar into the butter on medium speed (put the powdered sugar slowly into the butter). Blend the sugar nicely into the butter to form a creamy texture. Now add the egg yolks one by one (keep mixing) into the mixture. Add vanilla essence and blend for another ½ a minute.

At this point you can pre-heat the oven to 180º C. Grease and line a 10-11 inch round cake tin with butter paper.
In another bowl sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder (I prefer to use Cadbury cocoa powder, the aroma is irresistable) and nicely mix them together.

Now add the dry flour mixture into the butter mixture slowly (keep blending on a low speed). Add milk. Once the flour is nicely blended into the butter mixture, keep it aside.

In a dry bowl, take the egg whites and beat it with the help of a beater (if you are using the same hand mixer, make sure you clean and dry the before using). You could use a whisk instead. Incorporate as much air as possible into the egg whites so that they form a foamy firm texture.

Add the foam into the wet cake mixture. The trick here is not to mix the egg white with the cake mixture quickly, but to fold the egg whites into the mixture in slow circular movements. Once all the egg blends into the cake mixture, pour it into the cake tin and bake for 40 mins @ 180º C.

When done take it out of the oven and let it cool. Once cooled, take it out of the tin and turn it upside down and apply a layer of butter icing. Once the icing is set, pour the royal icing mixture and spread it evenly with the help of a palette knife or a spatula.
For the butter icing - Take butter in a bowl, with the help of the hand mixer blend the icing sugar into the butter to form a creamy texture. Add vanilla essence and mix it nicely. Butter icing is ready.

For the royal icing - In a bowl, take the egg white and beat it so that it turns into firm foamy texture. Now gradually add icing sugar and continue beating on high speed to form a white and creamy texture. Add few drops of lemon juice to retain the whiteness.

Mutton Biryani (Thalassery Style)

Here's a different style of preparing biryani that is native to my home town Thalaserry in Kerala. Cooked this for my family on new year's eve. I'm sure you will like the simplicity of this recipe.


Ingredients:
Masala-
Mutton - 1 kg
Tomato - 6 medium sized (sliced)
Ginger paste - 25 gms
Garlic paste - 25 gms
Green chilly - 25 gms ground
Mint leaves - 1 cup
Coriander leaves - 1 cup
Garam masala - 1 tbsp
Lemon - 2
Salt to taste

Rice-
Basmati rice - 3 cups (Thalaserry Biryani uses short rice called "kayama". But I've used basmati here)
Water - 5 ¼ cups
Cinnamon - 1 inch x 2
Cardamon - 3
Cloves - 4
Ghee - 130 gms luke warm
Salt to taste

Garnish & flavouring-
Rose water - 1 tsp in 2 tsp water
Raisins (kishmish) - 50 gms
Cashew-nuts - 50 gms
Saffron - Two pinch soaked in ½ cup warm milk

Fried onion-
Onion - 6 medium sized (finely sliced)
Oil


Atta Seal-
Atta dough to seal the biryani vessel

Method:
Heat some oil in a kadhai and deep fry the finely sliced onions. Fry the onions till golden brown and crisp, be careful not to turn them into black mass else it will spoil the entire biryani.

Heat a pressure cooker, add tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes till they are nicely cooked and you get a pulpy texture. In case the tomato pulp becomes too dry, add may be 1/8 cup of water. To this, add ginger paste, garlic paste and ground green chilly. Stir nicely and cook for around 3 minutes or till the raw flavour of ginger, garlic is completely gone. Now add mutton, add salt to taste, mix thoroughly. Add ¾ of the mint leaves. Put the lid on the cooker and pressure cook till 2 whistles. I haven't added any water since mutton would anyways give away water in the cooker. But in case you feel you can add, may be around ¼ cup of water. Once done open the lid, keep the flame to medium, add ¾ of the fried onion, mix and leave for 2 minutes. Now add garam masala, lemon juice (2 lemons), ¾ of the coriander leaves. Mix thoroughly and cook for another 2 minutes. Take it off the heat.

Heat a big vessel, add water, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and bring it to a boil. Now add ghee and salt. Add rice, bring to a boil. Once the rice starts boiling, lower the flame and cover the vessel. Keep stirring in between, make sure you don't mash the rice. Once the water evaporates, switch off the heat. Separate the rice with the help of a fork.

Take a large biryani vessel (thick bottom), empty the cooker into this. Level the mutton mixture, add the remaining mint and coriander leaves. Add half of the cooked rice. Sprinkle rose water. Top it with kishmish and cashew-nuts. Add rest of the rice, spread the balance fried onions on top of this. Sprinkle the saffron milk. Seal rim of the vessel with the atta dough and cover the lid. Put on the heat, cook on high flame for 5 minutes and then 10 minutes on low flame.

The fragrance of rose water and ghee is definitely a crowd puller. Enjoy the mouth watering biryani with onion raita. Please do leave in your comments and tell me how the recipe turned out for you.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Chholey


Ingredients:
Chickpeas - 1 ½ cup
Onion - 3 medium sized, chopped
Purée of 3 ripe tomatoes
Green chillies - 4, slit
Chana masala - 1 ½ tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Chat masala - ½ tsp
Kasuri methi - ½ tsp
Sugar - a pinch
Oil - 4 tbsp
Salt to taste
Teabag - 1

Method:
Soak the chickpeas in water for overnight. Drain the water and place it in cooker with 5 cups of water. Drop in the teabag along with the chickpeas. Cook under pressure for 6 to 7 whistles or until chickpeas are nicely cooked and soft.

Drain the chickpeas, retain the water separately and discard the tea bag. In a pan, heat oil and sauté onion and green chillies. Cook till the onions are lightly brown. Add chana masala, coriander powder, chilly powder to the onion and sauté for 2 minutes. To this, add tomato purée and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Add the boiled chickpeas and salt and nicely mix till the chickpeas gets coated with the tomato-onion masala, cook for 5-6 minutes. Add may be around ½ cup of the retained water to the chickpeas, cook for 3 more minutes. Add chat masala, kasuri methi (crush and powder kasuri methi on your palm) and sugar, cook for a minute.

Garnish chholey with some chopped onions (onion in chholey gives out a fantastic flavour...mouth watering mmmm), drizzle lemon juice lightly and enjoy with hot bhatura.

Khandvi - Gujarati Snack

For quite sometime I have been thinking of trying Gujarati snacks Dhokla and Khandvi. Here I present you with the very popular and traditional snack, Khandvi. Tasty and takes very less time to make.

Ingredients:
Gram flour (besan) - ½ cup
Green chilly - 2
Ginger - ½ inch
Turmeric - ½ tsp
Curd - ½ cup
Water - 1 ½ cup
Salt to taste

For the tempering:
Asafoetida - a pinch
Curry leaves - 1 stalk
Mustard seeds - ½ tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Coriander leaves - ¼ cup
Grated coconut - ¼ cup

Method:
Thoroughly blend curd and water together with a whisk. To this add turmeric and salt. Grind ginger and chilly into a nice paste. In a bowl take gram flour add the the curd-water-turmeric mixture and ginger-chilly paste.
Grease back of Mix thoroughly, use a whisk if you would like, make sure there are no lumps formed. Heat a pan, pour the mixture into it, cook on a medium flame. Keep stirring continuously. While it cooks, lightly grease back of 2-3 plates with oil. When the gram flour thickens (still creamy, make sure its not hard, say about 7 mins of cooking).
Quickly with the help of a flat spoon, spread the hot mixture on the greased plates, covering the entire back, make the layer as thin as possible (back of the plate should not be visible). Spread rest of the plates as well before the mixture cools. Let the layer cool down for some time.
With the help of a knife cut the layer length wise in strips of around 1 inch width. Gently lift one edge of the the cut strip with the knife and then roll the entire strip to form a 1 inch wide cylinder (refer the photograph above).
For tempering, heat oil, splutter mustard seeds, add asafoetida, curry leaves. Arrange the khandvi on a plate, pour the tempered oil over the khandvi. Garnish with grated coconut and coriander leaves.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Kalmi Kabab

Well, here I go with another recipe before the year ends. I guess the pre-new year resolution thing is working. This is a very simple and easy to make kabab. Follow the recipe and you should do just fine.


Ingredients:
Chicken thigh - 4
Garam Masala - 2 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
Green Cardamom - 4
Nutmeg - of whole nutmeg
Cinnamon - 1 inch
Pepper corn - 5 to 6
Chilly Powder - 1½ tsp
Lemon - ½ of medium sized lemon
Hung Curd - ½ cup (Make sure you drain as much water as possible)
Ginger Garlic Paste - 2 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Butter

Method:
Dry grind cinnamon and cardamom together. Powder the pepper corns and nutmeg separately. I prefer to grind these spices separately so that their aroma don't mess with each other. Also so that these spice tastes distinctly in the marinade.  Mix all the ingredients (except butter) together in a bowl.
With a knife, make one or two very light cuts on the thighs (helps the flavours to penetrate through), prick the chicken thighs with a fork and then nicely massage the marinade on the thighs and into the slits one by one in the bowl. Cover the bowl and leave it in the refrigerator overnight.
Cook the chicken in an oven (preheat oven to 200º C) @ 200º C for about 30 mins. Around 4 mins before the cooking ends, brush the chicken with some butter and continue cooking.
Serve with onion rings with lightly drizzled lemon juice. Kalmi kabab just melts in your mouth...Enjoy!!!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Honey Wheat Bread

I didn't want this year to end without posting any recipe on this blog and bring bad luck. Before the new year begins and I go back to making new year resolutions like all the previous years (which by the way don't even last a week) I have decided to do a Pre-New Year resolution - to be more active with the blog and post more and more of my delicious encounters in the culinary world.

Here's a simple and healthy wheat bread recipe that I enjoyed making. Its quite easy and needs no special skills.


Ingredients:
Wheat (Atta) - 3 ½ cup
Active Yeast - 1 ½ tsp
Honey - ¼ cup
Milk - cup
Salt - 1 ¼ tsp
Oil - ¼ cup
Water (luke warm) - 1 cup

Method:
Take a large mixing bowl. Add water and the yeast, mix thoroughly. To this, add honey, mix again and leave it for around 15-20 mins. Now add, oil, milk and salt, mix thoroughly with a whisk. Add atta to the mixture and knead it well to form a dough. Dust a flat surface with atta and then knead the dough thoroughly on the surface to incorporate some air into the dough. Do this for around 10 minutes. Leave the dough in a bowl, cover it with a wet cloth for 3 - 4 hours (depending on the weather; yeast requires warm and humid environment to do its thing and rise the dough). Your dough would have now doubled (or even more) in size. Roll the dough with your hands, form a cylinder roughly the lenght of your bread tray. Lightly grease the tray before putting the dough. Cover the tray with cling wrap and leave it to further rise for around 2 hours. The dough would have nicely risen by now.

Bake the bread in the oven (pre heated to 180º C) @ 180º C for 40 mins (After the first 20 mins of cooking, loosely cover the tray with aluminium foil and cook for the rest 20 mins). Once done, take it out of the oven, lightly brush the top of the bread with oil to avoid hard crust top. Allow the bread to cool.

Enjoy your home made honey wheat bread. Please try the recipe. Do leave your comments  and tell me how it turned out for you.

Also some inspiration for me to continue blogging :)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Spicy Ragi Dosa

I know a lot of people who rush to office with just bread-omelette for breakfast as they don't find time to make anything else. For those who want a change from their regular choice of breakfast, I would like to share my wife's recipe that is quick, delicious and healthy.

Ingredients:
Ragi - 2 Cups
Curd - 1/2 - 1 Cup - Preferably sour
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1 Large - Finely chopped
Green Chilly - 4 medium spicy - Chopped
Ginger - 1" Finely Chopped
Curry Leaves - 2 springs - Finely Chopped
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

Method:
Heat a small kadhai, add oil, splutter mustard seeds, add curry leaves, onion, ginger and green chillies. Sauté till onion is translucent, switch off and allow to cool.
In a vessel, add ragi, curd, salt, mix thoroughly. Add water to attain slightly flowing consistency (thinner than regular dosa batter). Check salt and adjust if required. To this add onion mixture and mix thoroughly.
Heat dosa tava on high flame, pour the ragi dosa batter starting from the outer edge towards the center in a circular fashion (do not spread the batter like you do with regular dosa) to attain dosa shape (like in the picture above). Cook on reduced flame. Flip the dosa to cook on both sides. You may add a little oil to the dosa to make it crisp. Enjoy this quick, easy and healthy ragi dosa as is or with coconut chutney.

Dum Murgh Ki Kachchi Biryani

My wife has been trying various biryani recipes. Over time she has trialed (unfortunately on me) these to come up with the perfect recipe for biryani. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I love savouring this delicious and rich biryani. I have not used ghee in this recipe, this is purely optional. The flavors in this recipe arise from the fresh ingredients used and grease from chicken fat and curd. Moreover I prefer rice-bran oil over others in all my recipes'.

Ingredients:
Chicken - 1 Kg
Onions - 3 Large ones sliced (for frying)
Green Chillies - 3 to 4 Chopped
Coriander Leaves - ½ Bunch
Lemon - 1 Medium sized
Saffron - ½ tsp (Optional) soaked in 2-3 tbsp of warm milk
Oil - 2 to 3 tbsp

For the Marination
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Red Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Curd - 2 cups
Salt to taste

Biryani Masala
Bay Leaf - 1
Cloves - 4
Cinnamon - 1" Long
Green Cardamom - 2
Black Cardamom - 1
Cumin Seeds - ½ tsp
Grind the above into powder.
For the Rice
Basmati Rice - ½ Kg
Green Cardamom - 1
Cinnamon Stick - ½"
Cloves - 2
Bay Leaf - 1
Whole Black Pepper - ½ tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste
Seal for Dum
Atta Dough to seal biriyani vessel

Method:
In a vessel add in all the ingredients for marination along with biryani masala and chicken. Mix thoroughly and leave it for 2 hours.
Soak basmati rice in water for 1/2 an hour and drain thereafter.
In a kadhai, take some oil and deep fry onions till crispy brown (Make sure you don't burn the onions). Add the fried onions to the marinated chicken. Mix thoroughly and leave it for another ½ an hour.

In a vessel take enough water (since we are going to par-boil the rice and drain excess water) to cook the rice. To this add bay leaf, cardamom, whole pepper, cloves and cinamon. Bring to a boil, add salt, add rice. Boil till the rice is half cooked (The rice is said to be half cooked when the grain breaks into tiny pieces when smashed between your fingers). Drain excess water with the help of a strainer.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a kadhai, add the marinated chicken mix thoroughly for 3 minutes on high flame (intention here is not to cook the chicken).
In a thick bottom vessel firstly layer the chicken, press slightly and pack it well. Now spread chopped corriander leaves, chopped green chillies, squeeze a lemon. On top of this spread the half boiled rice, evenly. Sprinkle the saffron on top of this. Seal the vessel tight with the atta dough.

Cook for 5 minutes on high flame, then 15 minutes on medium flame and finally 10 minutes on low flame. Switch off the flame. Let it stand for some time. Mix the biryani well while serving. Enjoy this delicious mouth-watering biryani with onion raita.
Note. If you do not have a thick bottom vessel, you can also cook the biriyani in a regular vessel over a thick tava. Optionally you can add, fried rasins and cashewnuts on top of the rice.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Aloo Paratha

I just love parathas, the good thing about making parathas is that, once you learn to make any kind of paratha, it becomes that much easier for you to choose your stuffing and make your own unique paratha. Here I would like to share one such recipe. Unlike my previous recipe postings, this one is much more simpler and requires the least amount of ingredients.

Ingredients:For Aloo stuffing -
Potato (Aloo) - 4 large
Green Chillies - 4 medium spicy
Coriander Leaves - small bunch
Cumin Seeds - ½ tsp
Salt to taste

For the dough -
Wheat Flour - 4 cup
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - ½ tsp
Water

Method:
Sieve flour and salt together in a vessel, add oil and mix well. Slowly add water and knead it to soft yet firm dough. Leave the dough to stand for about half an hour.

Slice the potato into two halves, cook them in a pressure cooker with little salt, first on high flame until whistle and then simmer for 10 minutes. Allow to cool and then de-skin & smash the potatoes (be careful not to make a paste out of it). To this, add cumin seeds, finely chopped green chillies, finely chopped coriander leaves. Add salt to taste. Mix thoroughly with the help of a spoon and divide the mixture into balls as shown in the picture below.


Make balls out of the dough and then roll it into small circle around 8cms diameter, leaving the centre portion thicker than the edges. Now place the potato stuffing in it, bring together the cover from all the sides to the center, seal tightly and roll the parathas. You may use wheat flour to dust and keep the paratha from sticking. Cook on a hot tava, use a little oil or ghee, and cook until both sides are golden brown.
Serve these hot, mouth watering parathas with some curd and tomato/mango pickle.