Mango coconut Jelly

Today was a tiring day with spring cleaning the bed rooms.  It had been quite sometime that I had cleaned the rooms imagine moving the furniture all around to remove the dust that is stuck very easily underneath. Pulling the vaccum cleaner from one end to the other, trying to make all the joints touch ough.. no i still have to bent out to clean all the remaining which i just can’t reach with my vaccum. Usually Gana helps with the vaccum and i do the rest of the cleaning, but today he had to meet my daughters school teacher., so ended up i doing al the cleaning. I dunno how you guys manage with cleaning the carpets in cold countries. oh only if we had a magic wand to clean all the dust choo mantar… So half the morning i am done, just check my fridge to cook for lunch. Lunch was a comfort dish with tave, tambli, soppina palya and badnekai/brinjal bajji will post this recipe sometime. After lunch I had to keep up my promise with my daughter to bake pizza….evening was a pizza session unlinke i wanted to make some chat. Finally comes the dessert, I had half mango puree left after cooking AFAM so thought of trying jelly which my kids love.

All you need: water – 600 ml, saffron threads – 10, coconut milk thick – 100 ml, sugar – 180 gms, whipping cream - 100 ml, ice cream vanilla or mango - 4 tbsp, agar agar – 1 packet, mango fruits cut into small pieces.

Method: Heat sugar, agar agar and water according to instructions. Let it cool for 10-15 mins. mix ice cream, whipping cream well  in a seperate bowl until no lumps. The agar- agar mixture should be warm. Mix in all the other ingredients one by one mixing well. Pour into moulds and serve chilled. Enjoy the delicious jellys. It makes atleast around 15 pieces.

Note: The quantity of liquid may vary according to instruction of the agar agar packet. I used 12 gm packet which is meant for 1 litre. Mine was little less than 1 litre so i guess you can add any one of the ingredient more to obtain more less firmer jelly.

ಮೈಸೂರ್ ಪಾಕ್/Mysore Pak

Sunday we had a great time with our cousins family. My cousin makes wonderful ever tasty divine Mysore paks I have tasted at anyones home. I wanted to make sure this time we had ample time to learn this big pak…Me and My H got to work busy preparing for lunch and awaiting the arrival of our cousin . All planned well…. at 1 hr to lunch time my H got a call from his office he had to go … oh no I thought. I was very dissappointed to see him go but no choice, fortunately the vege pulav was ready I packed it for him and started working on the other chores. I tried feeding my little son with some sambhar rice, but he was so excited that his favorite uncle and aunt with kids coming over he refused to eat well. i let him go and started to prepare the last item puris and finally fried a few they were here. My cousin lent her helping hand as ever to fry the rest of them. We all had a jolly time, kids had lunch with no fuss and me and my cousin chatted over lunch…..Kids were making big hungama, After lunch i checked on my son wheather he was sleepy to make him sleep for a while so that we had nice free time to make the mysore pak but he was so playfull refused to come over. We decided let him play he will not distrub us. Nidhi and Rajath were busy playing chess, while Anku and Shreyas (7) were playing with the tricycle and small gadi. I finally started to get ready with the ingredients as my cousin Sitakka directed.

All you need:
Gram flour sieved: 1 Cup
Sugar: 2 cups ( i used fine sugar)
Ghee : 1.5 cups (liquid)
Corn oil: 1 cup (use Veecorn or Golden drop)
water : 1 cup (1/2 the measure of Sugar)
Greased plate with Ghee
Greased knife
Sugar(coarse better for sprinkling on the sweet)

Method:
An hour before Starting soak the sugar in water and keep aside so that the sugar dissolves
Seive gram flour and fry the Gram Flour in a kadai( aluminium is better) somehow my non stick tends to stick the flour until raw smell disappears
Liquidify ghee and measure the ghee and oil using the same measuring glass as for gramflour
Pour the ghee-oil to a copper bottom vessel and keep the flame on low heat to keep it warm(i heard a cry and triffle, checked on our sons, my son was angry for some reason. telling ni hoggu, ni beda and sitting in one corner. actually i shd have taken a snap of that too :0. Called him, he refused ……ow ow askedn my dad to try his luck… we continued….
Check if sugar has dissolved completely if not on low flame heat the sugar-water until the sugar dissolves
Add the gram flour and mix well to avoid any lumps ( Again another squeak now what was that, he agreed to have some milk but wanted amma’s lap oh dear what to do….? again pacify him agreed to sit with his grandpa and drink milk.) Meanwhile Sitakka was stiring ….
Once the gram flour is blended well keep on stiring on medium flame adding the hot gheeoil side by side ( the oil-ghee must be warm to check the warmth, when you add it to the gramflour paste you must be able to see bubble formation)
Continue stirring and adding, now the paste has reached a foaming stage.
Continue….reaches to a pulpy stage looks like mango pulps
continue and carefull…. oil start to leave and float, continue until lightly browned ( you might feel the ghee getting into your tummy feeling uneasy of the fat not to worry half the oil-ghee is left out after the formation of the sweet)
Cooking this on a Aluminium kadai will give a a soft lump while the oil leaves, while as in non stick we did not get that state but was more like the mass was spread like you can look at the slide.
Pour to a greased plate along with the ghee. sprinkle sugar granules. allow to sit for 5 mins
Cut into desired shapes. Let it cool fully now pour the remaing Ghee out.
After cooling you can see different layered in the sweet which is slightly browish inside with soft crust.
Enjoy the divine mysore paks……..

 

I am sending this for the Trupti’s Event Spring Fling 2007
Thanks Sittakka for the delicious sweet.Note: The color of the pak may differ from the different variety of flours available. Some flours might not give the right texture. The flour i used was Rajadhani. As we fried the flour S did state the flavour is not so good as fresh flour and when mixing the flour was little lumpy also but we still continued and we did not find any difference in taste though the color was on the little darker side.

Sweets- MBP

The ever changing weather in Singapore. Again this weekend is a wet weather, take  a look at the view from my house

This is my chilli plant growing hapily at the window sill

Halwas has a special place in our home. We all are lovers of halwas carrot, beets, kashi halwa.  When Suma from Veggie platter blogged her halwa recipe i had bookmarked it to be tried. My mother in law makes burfis the same way but never knew it could taste excellent as halwa, suma made me realise it was just excellent. Thanks Suma for the wonderfull recipe.

Basically i followed Sumas recipe. I used 2 big milk Gourds which yielded basically 7 bowls of grated gourd. i used 2 cups of sugar. You can find the recipe here. 

Here is the wonderfull Badusha that i tried from Lata from La Gourmets blog and from Manekas recipe at Pachakam. Thanks to both of you for the success of the Badusha. I used measurement from Maneka’s recipe

flour – 2 cups

yogurt – 1 cup or more

baking soda – 1 tsp

saffron threads – 10

sugar syrup

sugar – 3 cups

water – 1 1/2 cup

One variation is i used dalda for mixing with flour, soda and salt until crumble stage then add yogurt to form a soft dough. Shaped into flattened balls covered with wet muslin cloth and refrigerate for 1/2 an hour. Deep fried in low flame in corn oil. soak in sugar syrup of nearing 2 stage consistency for 12 minutes. Remove from syrup and let it dry before serving. The longer it is left the taste enhances. Like the next day it was more tasty.

Note: Try to make like jalebis or jahangirs or rava laddus on the same day to make full utilisation of the syrup left over.

 

This is my entry for Coffee’s  MBP -sweets

Hyderabadi Bhagara Baingan

The first recipe I could think of when Andhra cuisine was anounced was the various chutneys and pickles. Even other south Indian do make pickles like me too being a south indian but with Andhra it is very unique. Due to the introduction of the blogosphere  I came to be aware of various cuisines andhra is one such which i was highly influenced by various blogs. Now I regularly make patoli/kura, gongura chutney, even pulusu which is similar to our majjige hulli. 

Coming to the recipe, this is a very delicious hyderabadi baingan masala….basically I was out of ideas of what to prepare when RCI for andhra was anounced. Checking the Tarla Dalal recipe book, I got hold of this recipe. I never tried this until today as I was happy with what I prepared for baingan masala which can be found here. The masala turned very delicious though I did not get the right color. You can make the masala gravy more thin, I wanted it to go along with parotas so I made the gravy a little thick.

This is my entry for Lakshmi’s RCI hosted by Latha from Masala Magic

All you need: Brinjals small purple – 15 slit with a plus with the stalks intact

for masala: sesame seeds – 2 tbsp, groundnuts – 2 tbsp, coriander powder – 1 tbsp, jeera powder – 1 tsp, chilli powder – 2-4 tsp, turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp, onions – 1/2 cup, garlic – chopped, ginger – chopped along with grated coconut – 1/2 cup, tamarind – 1 tsp, salt to taste.

tempering:  mustard seeds – 2 tsp, methi seeds – 1/2 tsp, curry leaves – 10, 2 green chillies slit, oil for frying.

method: Fry the ingredients for masala leaving the tamarind paste and salt until nice and fragrant. I opted to fry the groundnuts first until half done. Add sesame seeds fry for another few secs add the remaining ingredients along with grated coconut and fry. Let it cool for few minutes now make a paste with a little water along with tamarind paste and salt. I added a little jaggery  also as I cannot think of cooking without it .This is optional .

Take a kadai/ pressure pan. heat oil add the tempering ingredients and fry brinjals for a few minutes until the skin becomes fried. yumm.. this smell spreads the whole house and you are opt to find all of them go hungry…….. Once fried remove the brinjals keep aside. In the same oil fry the masala paste until oil leaves the side( mine did not leave any oil may be less oil) i fried until fragrant. Now add the baingans and potato(for my daughter) mix well add a cup of water. The consistency should be like little thick sambhar. Check for salt now if you are patient enough you can steam and stir now and then until the baingans are soft. u..gh i am not, so i steam in my prestige handi for one whistle. There you are the delicious Baingan masala, the brinjals remain firm and stalk intact. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice/chapati/parotas.

 

Celebration with Mango cookies on Mother’s day

At last the weekend comes when my daughter’s first term exams have finished. A great relief for us parents and happy relaxing weekend for kids. Nidhi was very optimistic to help me on this special day, had promised her she could come and help me in the kitchen. Of course i wanted some easy way for her to help me  baking was the only way i found other then making sandwiches.  So what to bake?? thought cookie or cake or pizza?? then we thought why not try some mango cookies  you know why right i need something for a event and a sweet to celebrate too! So we googled for some recipe there i found one at cooks.com. I have modified a little according to our taste. This would be my entry for AFAM hosted by Deepa from RecipesNMore .

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderfull Mom’s who have made a difference to the wonderfull ways of brightening our lives.

Memories of my mom always live with me, my Aunts, my Grandma and of all My mother in law have been wonderfull mothers to me. Thanks and love to all of them .

 

All you need: 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar,1 egg,1 tsp baking soda,1 cup mango puree, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence,2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, 1/2 cup almonds coarse powder, 1/2 cup dessicated coconut, sa;t.

method: Mix dry ingredients together

sieve dry ingredients and keep aside

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat egg, add mango puree, vanilla essence and mix

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture along with almonds and desicatted coconut

Drop the cookies on a greased butter paper and bake for 15mins until done. Nidhi was little fussy for dropping the cookies as she wanted shaped cookies made using the mould presser.I could not use it because of the nuts which would of course get stucked which made her little off. After the first round was baked she felt the cookies are not bad ma its indeed delicious lent a hand  to arrrange them  for the next bake :). This yields around 50 cookies for measure of 250gms of flour. The cookies were very crisp and delicious the flavour of cloves and cinnamon with mangoes were excellent.  Basically i have left only around 10 cookies.

note: I felt it was a bit  sweet for me and  i have used granulated sugar. May be the the mixture could hold more flour. i was not sure whether these should be made into a dough like for nan katai or like butter biscuits i maintained the dough to be semi solid state.  Next time i will try eggless version.

ಪತ್ರೊಡೆ/Pathrode(patra)

P for Patra/Patrode 

Patra/patrode can be made in different variations as some were already listed in JFI greens too. Eating colocasia leaves  sometimes you may land up with itchy tongue.I am not sure what causes the itchyness but there is way out soaking these leaves in tamarind leaves removes these itchy feeling. The leaves i get here are small leaves and easy to handle and no intchyness. Back in my hometown,  we grow these leaves in our backyard is very handy to use in case we are short of veges. We make chutney, tokku or we can call it masial(tamil) with garlic tempering. The chutney is similar to preparing of Beetroot gojju which i have posted it and you can find it here. This goes to Nupur’s A-Z of Indian Vegetables

All you need:

colocasia leaves -10

Masala

grated coconut – 1/2 cup
soak channa dhall – 1 cup for 2-3 hrs,
rice flour -2 tbsp
coriander seeds  1tbsp
jeera seeds – 1 tsp
ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp(optional)
dry chillies – 10
cinamon- 1 inch
cloves – 5
Black cardamom big – 1
seseme seeds – 1 tbsp
nutmeg – 2 flakes
salt, jaggery, tamarind paste as required

Tempering

mustard seeds – 1 tsp
seseme seeds – 1 tsp
hing – 1/4 tsp
curry leaves – 1 sprig
onions -1 (optional)

method:

• Make a  slightly coarse paste of the masala and keep aside
• Wash the leaves remove stems and thick viens from the leaves without breaking the leaves, dry the leaves
• Keep a large leaf on the base upside down spread the paste as spreading for sanwiches
• Take another leaf place it over the paste applied leaf, continue for around 3-4 leaves with applying paste after each leaf
• Now roll the leaf carefully like a swiss roll applying paste in between as needed but make the circumference small to get a nice roll
• Steam the rolls in pressure cooker for 2 whistles. let it cool
• Cut the rolls into circular rounds

There are two ways to serve

• Prepare the tempering using mustard seeds, seseme seeds, hing, and curry leaves to the circular rolls and serve

or

• Cut the rolls into strips , heat oil add the above tempering add and fry sliced onions until translucent
• Add the cut strips and fry until it turns slightly golden brown color and serve hot

I prefer the second method and love it, hence serve the same way.

note: You can skip soaking by using gram flour also would have the same result.

Freeze these rolls  in zip lock bags would be handy snack on a rainy day.

Pulav series, Chutney and Bean Sprouts Pakoda

After long i remembered mung(green gram) sprouts Pulav, which was some years ago one of out favorite pulav’s not so even now but just some how i forgot about it until lately i saw Asha’s post on matki pulav i recollected the recipe. i have used green mung bean sprouts you can use matki beans or Green chana.Heres information of mung bean

All you need:

green bean sprouts – 1 cup ( soaked for 1 day and leave to sprout for 2 days)

basmati rice – 2 cups soaked for half an hour

masala: coconut grated – 1/2 cup, green chillies – 4,coriander leaves – 1 cup, garlic pods – 6, ginger – 1″

tempering: cinamon – 1 stick, cloves – 5, badi elachi – 1, bay leaves- 2, onion - 1 big sliced, ghee/oil for frying

Garnish: coriander leaves and lemon juice

method

• Make a paste of the masala keep aside
• Heat oil/ghee in pressure pan , add the tempering fry onions until slightly browned
• Add masala paste, turmeric powder and fry until good aroma
• Add rice and fry for 2 minutes
• Add sprouts, vegetables(optional), water, salt and pressure cook for 2 whistles
• mix lemon juice, garnish with coriander leaves and serve with cucumber raita

Lauki/Milk gourd peel chutney

This chutney can be made with tender peels of bottle gourd/milk gourd/cucumber. The use of skin olden times were very precious unlike now we are at haste and little do we make use of them. 

All you need

sorekayi/lauki skin – 1 cup, cumin seeds – 1tsp, fenugreek seeds – 1/4 tsp,

coconut grated – 1 cup, dry chillies – 5, salt and tamarind to taste

Tempering: mustard seeds -1 tsp, hing – a pinch, curry leaves and oil required

Method: Fry all the ingrediants seperately except coconut show in the picture. Grind it with salt and tamarind paste. Prepare the tempering and serve

 

 

 

Bean Sprouts Pakoda

This is a little similar to the kanda bhaji that we prepare using onions. Using sprouts leads to very crisp pakodas. I came upon this when one of our guest would not like onions here is the type of sprouts used

 

All you need: bean spouts – 2 cups cut into halves, spring onion stalks- 1 bunch cut finely, onion- 1 big cut into thin long strips, gram flour -4 tbsp, rice flour – 1 tbsp, corn flour – 1 tbsp, salt and sugar – 1/2 tsp, chilli powder – 2 tsp, mint and coriander leaves – 2 tbsp

method: mix bean sprouts, onions, spring onions stalks, salt and and sugar keep aside for 5 mins. Salt and sugar with onions release water now add remaining ingrediants and mix well. mix the flours as required using the water released from veges. Deep fry in oil until crisp.

ಸಬ್ಬಕ್ಕಿ ವಡೆ/Dill Sabudana Vada

It was quite long since we had some fried snacks. Last weekend it was breezy and raining heavily , the wheather was so tempting to have some hot crispy snacks. Sabudana vada it has been many years since i prepared this crispy snack so thought the day is fine for it and started off.

 Ingrediants:

Sabudana soaked – 1 cup for 2-3 hrs, potatoes boiled  mashed – 2, peanuts -1/2 cup coarsely powdered, dill leaves – 1/2 cup cut finely,salt, chillies and ginger cut finely, chilli powder(optional), lemon juice (1-2 tsp), cumin seeds – 1 tsp, oil for frying

 Take a collader and strain all water from sabudana, mix all ingrediants without any water except oil.

Shape into medium sized patties, for some patties i did add some onions to see the how it turns but onions charred by the time sabudana fries as onions take less time to get fried .

Deep fry the patties until golden brown color. We liked the hard and crisp version rather than the soft version so fried for longer time

Saturday Menu

Saturday morning i was busy with some work clearing medical examinations, so it was my hubby’s day in the kitchen. Heres what he prepared for us.We all just the relished the dishes

From the left clockwise we have Arvi Raita, cabagge Asparagus palya, moon-dhall Brinjal sambhar, and vegetable lemon rice

Closer look

Arvi/Taro Potato Raita:

Ingrediants: Arvi -3 patato -1 boiled and cut into small pieces, onion-1 cut finely, curds – 1 cup, grated coconut 1/2 cup, green chillies – 1

Tempering: oil -1 tsp, mustard- 1 tsp, hing – a pinch curry leaves too, dry chillies – 1

method: Grind coconut and green chillies. Add the paste to the boiled arvi and potato, mix in onions, salt and curds. Temper with the above and serve with rice.

                        Cabbage Asparagus Palya:

 

Ingrediants: cabbage shredded – 1 , onions sliced – 1, asparagus – 6 stems cut into medium pieces. coriander leaves – 2 tsp

tempering : Oil, mustard seeds – 1 tsp, channa dhall – 1 tsp, curry leaves – 1 sprig, hing a pinch, ginger – 1inch cut finely, green chillies – cut finely

Prepare the tempering fry onions until translucent, add cabbage, asparagus, salt and fry until done or can be simmered in slow fire for softness.Garnish with coriander leaves.