Eggless Whole Wheat Thumbprint cookies

Background daemon threads running every now and then in the back of my mind - gotta use up the jams, gotta use up the whole wheat flour before it expires, expiry date of cream is nearing, expiry date of milk is nearing and so on. It is so difficult to live in a developed country where everything is sold in bulk. So what do I do with all the store bought jam? I now have 3 jars of homemade blueberry preserve (recipe coming soon - blame on laziness to edit the pictures) and so had to get rid of the store bought jam especially since we had stocked up on them during the "super deal of the week" at the supermarket. No, I don't want to be done with my own preserve, I want them to last as long as I possibly can but before they expire. I was too lazy to make these whole wheat pop tarts so I decide to take a short cut and try my version of the jim jam biscuits that I so loved from britannia.

Super easy and super fast. Not to forget the heady wafts of the butter as the cookies bake. Not only was I in seventh heaven while they baked but later too when Pras downed them one after another without allowing them to completely cool.

Ingredients (Makes 28 cookies of 2cm diameter each) :

1. Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
2. Chilled unsalted butter cut into cubes - 100g
3. Ice cold water - 1/4 cup
4. Salt - 1/4 tsp
5. Jam/Preserve - enough to fill all the cookies

How I made the thumbprint cookies:

1. In a food processor bowl, add the flour and salt.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degree C.
3. Add the chilled cubed butter.
4. Turn on the food processor and wait till the flour starts to form crumbs.
5. Now, start slowly pouring in the cold water. You may not need the entire amount. You need to add just enough to get the dough to come together in a lump. 
6. Stop the food processor. Split the dough into small balls of desired size.
7. Take each ball in your right hand and make a deep impression with your thumb. You may need to adjust the other sides which could get a bit thick. Place onto a baking sheet/tray. The cookies have enough butter so there is no need to grease the tray. Repeat for all other balls. 
8. Bake for 12 minutes in the oven.
9. Now take the cookies out of the oven. Don't turn off the oven yet. Put in the jam into each of the cookies. Don't overfill as it will ooze over. You may need to press the cookies a bit as the centres may have risen.
10. Bake for another 8-10 minutes.
11. Cool 

I am not sure how long they will stay as ours were over before I knew it. I am going to make it a point to make better use of the oven and bake in slightly larger quantities and that should not be a problem cause you can see how easy it is to make eggless wholewheat thumbprint cookies.

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Banana Cake with Coconut Cream frosting

So it was a perfect coincidence, the husband's birthday on Friday and having to make molten chocolate cake for my cooking course assignment. All the ingredients were hastily purchased on the way home but a sudden change in plan on seeing the sole ripe banana in the fruit basket. I succumbed to its beckoning.
I have made banana cake multiple times before and here is one of my older recipes. A colleague used to make it for her daughter and seeing how simple it was, I would make it every now and then. I remembered the banana cake slice that we were served after the HP Walkathon in 2012 and did some tweaking, adding some cinnamon. The result was really good and the cake was almost gone by the end of Friday. I am sure that had we not gone out for dinner, we would have licked the plate clean.

Now since I was
all set to make the molten chocolate cake, I did not have any cream and so used coconut cream for the frosting. Ironic that I used milk in the cake but a vegan frosting(duh!! Isn't life full of choices?). On a happy note, banana and coconut - perfect mallu combination for the perfectly mallu husband. (No, he won't accept it).

Now, from my cooking course, I do know that the shape/size of the baking tin do affect the results. Hence, I am sharing here the details of the tin that I used. Also please do read the tips below. A good friend did indicate this to me when we joined a online baking partners group but it did not answer all the questions and neither did I do much investigation back then.

Ingredients (For a 20 cm diameter circular cake): 

1. All purpose flour : 1/2 cup
2. Whole wheat flour : 1/2 cup
3. Baking powder - 1 tsp
4. Sugar - 1/2 cup
5. Salt - 1/8 tsp
6. Banana - 2 medium sized(15cm) ripe
7. Egg - 1 
8. Oil - 1/4 cup
9. Cinnamon stick - 2inch long, 0.7mm thick
10. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
11. Milk - 2 tbsp
12. Walnuts - 1/4 cup chopped(optional)

For the frosting :

1. Coconut cream - 1 tin
2. Sugar - 4 tbsp
3. Cocoa powder - for dusting

How I made it:

1. Preheat the oven to degree 180 degree C.
2. Prepare your baking tin by applying/spraying oil and then dusting lighting with some flour.
3. In a bowl, mix ingredients 1 to 5.
4. In a blender/mixie jar, blend ingredients 6 to 10.
5. Now mix the dry ingredients in 3 to the wet ingredients in 4. Mix to combine. Do not beat. Fold in the walnuts if using some.
6. If the batter is too thick, add milk till it comes to folding consistency. By folding consistency I mean that the batter should not fall in lumps when poured from the ladle. It should fall like a nice ribbon.
7. Quickly pour this into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes. Once I had poured the batter into the tin, it was about 1.5 inch in thickness.
8. Allow it to cool completely.
9. Now, take a piece of thread - enough to go around the whole cake.(double the length if required). Use this thread to cut the cake into halves. Take one end of the thread and hold in a position midway through the height of the cake. Take the other end around the cake trying to maintain the height and bring the two ends of the thread together.  Now pull the thread ends in opposite directions such that they pierce through the cake and become straight and taut in the middle of the cake, ensuring the cake is completely cut into two.Take the top layer aside and turn it upside down.
10. Beat the coconut cream till stiff peaks form.  Add sugar and mix well. 
11. Spread half of this coconut cream on the bottom half of the cake. Place the top half of the cake on top of the bottom half. Spread the remaining coconut cream and using a strainer, sprinkle cocoa powder.

Tips :

• Use the mentioned tin size or a suitable replacement in another shape. This is very important as the size of the tin decides how long the cake is to be baked as well as the temperature setting. A rough idea would be that heat penetrates at the rate of 0.0014cm per second through water. Now the cake is mostly water, so measure the thickness of your cake and accordingly bake. Also remember that the heat will diffuse from both directions if using a proper OTG. So that affects the cooking time as well. 
• If not using the frosting, you could increase the sugar to 3/4 cup but this could make the cake too sweet depending on the sweetness of the bananas used. So go with your inner gut feeling. The bananas I used were sweet without the frosting itself. The frosting is not very sweet as it is a few tablespoons of sugar.

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Radish/Mooli Paratha

Okay, never ever use bare hands to handle the radish in this recipe. Ever! I made this after so long that I forget and ended up having redness and itching on the back of my hand for about an hour. The itching has reduced, thanks to the coconut oil but the redness still persists. Anyways, getting back to the post.

Another one of my favorites. Parathas are generally loved but stuffed parathas make me feel like I am eating something healthier. Despite their foul smell, these parathas are so delicious that they can hardly be avoided.

Radish is an edible root vegetable. Baby  radish are used in salads raw. In South India, they are added to sambar and in North India, made into parathas. In Mexico, they have a special radish festival wherein carvings on radish are displayed at common spots.

Radish juice is considered to have cleansing powers and is good for the kidney. Some also believe that it helps fight cancer. Adding to all those benefits, this recipe ensures to make maximum use of this veggie, so do try it.

Preparation time : 40 minutes - depends on what method is chosen to extract the radish juice
Cooking time  : 2 minutes per paratha

Ingredients:
For the stuffing:

1. Radish - 2 medium sized
2. Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
3. Kasuri methi - 1 tsp
4. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
5. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
6. Amchoor/Dry Mango powder - 1/2 tsp
7. Oil - 1 tbsp
8. Salt to taste

For the dough:

1. Whole wheat flour - I usually take enough to make a smooth dough with the extracted radish juice. So start with a little and add as you go.
2. Salt to taste
3. Oil - 1 tbsp
4. Radish juice - extracted when making the above stuffing. You can use plain water as well.

How I made it :

1. Wash and scrape the radish.
2. Grate the radish. A medium sized grater will do.
3. Now, extract the juice from the grated radish. You could either use a muslin cloth or wear a food grade glove and squeeze handfuls of radish. Retain this juice. Remember that the more juice you remove, the better. The drier the filling/stuffing, the easier it will be to roll out the paratha.
4. In a pan, heat 1 tbsp oil.
5. Put in the cumin seeds.
6. Once they start to change colour, add the kasuri methi.
7. In 30 seconds, put in the red chilli powder. 
8. Before the red chilli powder starts to burn put in the turmeric powder, grated juiced radish and salt to taste.
9. Fry till the radish goes as dry and all the masalas are well mixed. 
10. Now add the mango powder. Mix well and let the stuffing cool. Taste and make adjustments to your taste. 
11. While the stuffing cools, made the whole wheat dough. Mix the flour, salt, oil and radish juice to make a nice smooth soft dough. The dough when pressed with a finger should kind of bounce back. Make sure it is not too watery/sticky as that will make it harder to roll out. Start with a little flour and keep adding as you go as it is not possible to give an exact measurement. The amount of radish juice will differ based on size, freshness and effectiveness of juicing method used. 
12. Now, split the dough into small balls.
13. Roll each ball out into a disc of about 5mm thick.
14. Place a sufficient amount of stuffing, proportional to the size of the disc in the centre.
15. Pull the ends together as can be seen in the collage above. 
16. Apply some dry flour and roll out into a thin disc. Don't worry if the dough comes apart. You can always patch it up with some dry flour. Just ensure that you have the filling spread evenly around and the thickness of the paratha/disc is uniform throughout. 
17. Repeat for all the balls made in step 12, provided there is enough filling. Else use this dough to make simple plain parathas.
18. Heat a tawa/flat pan. 
19. One at a time, place the rolled out parathas on the hot pan. Once you see that there are small air pockets forming, apply some oil/ghee and then turn. Lower the heat and let this cook for about a minute or until maillard reaction kicks in and there are enough brown spots. Apply pressure with the means of a flat ladle to help uniform cooking of all areas of the paratha. Turn, increase heat. Apply more oil/ghee if desired. Cook till maillard reactions cause brown spots- about 40 seconds.

Serve hot with curd/pickle/papad.

Tips:

• If you do get redness and itching from handling the radish, apply coconut oil and wave your hand up and about in the air, even if people think that you are crazy. Breathe! It will subside and all will be well.
• Make the stuffing as dry as possible to enable easy rolling.
• Make the chapati dough as smooth and non-sticky to enable easy rolling.

Trivia :

• Maillard reactions, named after a scientist, are those reactions which cause the browning of food. These occur at temperatures of 120 degree C. It is these maillard reactions that provide that awesome taste to food. Yes, some food have their own flavour but it is this which enhances that flavour as well as the aromas that our nose detect. It is basically a chemical reaction of carbohydrates and proteins in amino acids which releases many sub compounds. These sub compounds are very volatile and escape easily into the air. 

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Assorted eggless pull apart rolls

All of a sudden I was seeing a lot of pictures of eggless pull apart garlic rolls on all social networks and I thought that I should give them a try. If so many people could get it right, so could I. I shuddered at the thought of Pras's reaction as I remembered the failed attempts at baking bread in my combo microwave back in India. I decided to stick to the recipe and do as it says. I succeeded the first time and so the next time, I not only used half the quantity of whole wheat flour but also used my own fillings. An easy snack for those lazy weekends at home.

My first attempt

Second time around

Preparation Time : 5 minutes or nill depending on the filling that will be used
Cooking Time : 30 minutes for baking. An additional hour and a half for proofing the bread

Ingredients (8 rolls):
For the bread:

1. Whole wheat flour - 3/4 cup
2. All purpose flour/Maida - 3/4 cup1.5 cups With Whole wheat, they are harder if kept for the next day
3. Sugar - 1 tbsp
4. Salt - 1 tsp
5. Water - lukewarm - 1/2 cup+1tbsp
6. Olive oil - 1tbsp + 1tbsp
7. Yeast - fast action - 1/2 tbsp - I used Edmonds yeast and don't think I am going to look at any other yeast brand as long as I am in NZ.

For the filling :

• Garlic butter filling

1. 6 tbsp butter
2. 2 cloves of garlic
3. 2 tbsp chopped coriander or basil or oregano

• Caramelized onion chutney
• Dark chocolate chips and freshly grated coconut
• Peanut butter

How I made it :
Step 1 : Proofing the dough

1. In a bowl, warm the water such that it is lukewarm - about 40 degree C.
2. Dissolve in the sugar and salt. 
3. Add the yeast and set aside.
4. Mix in the two flours and add 1 tbsp of olive oil. 
5. Once the yeast mixture is nice and frothy/cloudy, add it in. 
6. Mix the dough which gets less sticky as you knead it. 
7. Once the dough comes together, apply oil on the outside. Cover with a damp cloth and set aside in a warm area for about an hour, till the dough doubles in size. I usually keep mine in direct sunlight

Step 2 : Assembling the roll and further proofing

1. Knock the dough down and then split it into 4 smaller balls. 
2. Roll out each into a long rectangular shape of about 1/2 inch thickness.
3. Spread the filling of your choice.
4. Roll from one end to another.
5. If they are too big, cut them into 2 inch long cylinders. 
6. Make them stand with the cut side facing up on a baking tray.
7. Apply some more oil on each of them. If making them with the garlic butter, you could use the remaining garlic butter instead of oil. 
8. Set aside for proofing for at least 20 minutes.

Step 3: Baking

1. Place the rolls in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C and bake for 30 minutes. 

Serve hot with a cup of tea or coffee. They disappear in no time so don't hesitate to make more.

 

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Panneer Potato Cutlets

Living in a developed country means "HUGE". Almost nothing is under a kilogram at most supermarkets. Further, this is how one feels one is getting the bang for the dollar being spent. Like I felt when I picked up milk 2 weeks ago. Yes, 2 weeks ago. Coming from India where the milk would not last more than a day, here milk lasts for weeks. It is on my to do list to find out what it is that they add to make the milk last this long.(A friend clarified that the milk sold here is boiled and packed and therefore lasts longer. Thanks) So, I knew we would not consume all of the milk before the "best by" date and so I made some home made panneer. I use my blog as my recipe journal as well, which means, I revisit my own blog to check the recipe of dishes I have tried. Mom's panneer fingers are not on this as it is a business secret for C-store. So obviously, I don't have any written record of the recipe. Being in different time zones from your mother doesn't help either especially when she is definitely going to be fast asleep at the time that you are cooking up your meal.

So I just put together things that would make a good cutlet and it was good. 

Ingredients (makes about 25 cutlets, each of about 1.5cm in diameter) :

For the panneer :

1. Milk (Full fat works best and avoid UHT/long life milk) - 1 .25 litres
2. Curd/Yoghurt - 4 tbsp
3. Vinegar - 1/2 tsp

For the cutlet :

1. Panneer - from the above or about 3/4 cup of shredded/grated/minced panneer
2. Potatoes - 1 large boiled, peeled and mashed
3. Green Chilly - 2 sliced thinly or chopped
4. Red chilly powder - 1/2 tsp
5. Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
6. Bread crumbs - about 1/4 cup + more for dusting - see tips
7. Salt to taste
8. Oil for frying

How I made it :

1. Pour the milk into a pan and bring to a boil.
2. Just as the milk boils lower the heat and put in the curd and vinegar. 
3. Mix well till you see the milk curdle and the fat separate. 
4. Turn of heat. Drain the water to get fresh soft homemade panneer. Squeeze out as much water as you can from the panneer. This water can be retained and stored to be added to dough to make softer rotis or make naan.
5. Now, add the panneer to the potato, green chillies, red chilly powder, garam masala powder. 
6. Adjust the salt. 
7. This may be a bit sticky so add the bread crumbs to make a dough that is not too sticky. Alternately, put into airtight container and leave in fridge overnight. 
8. Heat oil in a kadai - sufficient to deep fry.
9. Spread more bread crumbs on a paper or flat plate.
10. Make small discs out of the dough. Dunk in more bread crumbs and press in those bread crumbs. Keep aside.
11. Once oil is hot, deep fry the discs on both sides until golden brown.

Serve hot with pudina chutney or tomato sauce or mustard sauce

Tips :

• You can make bread crumbs from fresh bread. Just put it into a mixie jar and use the pulse option.
• If you want aired out bread crumbs, you could use dried toast or bread dried in the sun. These serve well to form that crust on the cutlets.

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Sindhi methi machchi curry

I thought I was done with my grocery shopping for the week. I had told myself that we were eating much more than we should be and soon weighty troubles would be knocking at the door. So I had to be careful. But how could I stop myself from picking up those bitter gourds or that bunch of fresh methi when we had to visit the Indian store for chapati flour? Methi - that flavoursome green which perks up any dish? Yes, the bunch was large.. but it was just 1.5NZD. The husband gave a nod of approval to put it into the basket.

Once home, we sat about picking the fresh leaves to put them into an airtight container so that they last. Awakening. There was way too much methi than the both of us needed before it would go bad. So we had to fight the deal that we had struck to try to remain vegetarian until mid March. Methi can be bitter so veggie dishes don't require too much of it and it had to be a non-veg dish that could help use up most of the methi.

After a 8km loop walk around the Orewa estuary, we stopped at the store to pick up some meat. All we could find were pieces of salmon. I picked them up remembering the methi fish curry that Pras gobbled up when we last visited Ooty. So here's how I made the methi fish curry. It is super easy to put together.

Preparation time : 15 minutes
Cooking time : 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves 6) :

1. Fish - with few bones - 750grams
2. Fresh methi/fenugreek leaves - 1 cup finely chopped and densely packed
3. Ginger - 2 inch piece
4. Garlic - 16 pods
5. Green chillies - 6
6. Tomatoes  - 3 medium sized
7. Jeera/cumin seeds - 1 tsp
8. Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
9. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
10. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
11. Garam masala - 1 tsp
12. Water - as per gravy requirement. I used 1 cup.
13. Oil - 1/4 cup
14. Salt to taste

How I made it :

1. Clean the fish. Cut into 2 inch cubes Salt it and keep it aside.
2. Make a puree of the tomatoes
3. Make a paste of the ginger, garlic and green chillies.
4. Wash the methi and finely chop them.
5. Now, wash the fish and keep on dry towel.
6. Heat oil in a wide bottom pan.
7. Throw in the fish and let them fry till they are half cooked on all sides.  About 2 minutes on each side.
8. Remove the fish pieces.
9. Throw in the jeera seeds.
10. Once they crackle, lower the flame and put in the ginger garlic green chilli paste.
11. Let that fry till the raw smell is gone. About 3 minutes. 
12. Next, throw in all the dry masala powders. Fry for a minute.
13. Now, put in the methi leaves and let them fry to reduce their bitterness. 
14. After about 4 minutes of frying, put in the tomato puree. 
15. Adjust the salt and let this fry till the fat separates. 
16. Add the water. Once it comes to the boil, add the fish pieces. 
17. Cover and let the fish cook on low flame Took about 10 minutes. 
18. Serve hot with chapatis.

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Quickie Breakfast : Rava Dosa

As a child I remember having competition with my elder brother as to who would eat more rava dosas. I just love rava dosas and relive those days each time I make rava dosa for breakfast.

This time my hubby topped it up with making a heart shaped dosa for me making this dish even more special.

Rawa Dosa is very simple to make and with a simple spicy coconut chutney, can transport you to seventh heaven.

Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 5 minutes or less

Ingredient (Serves 4) :

1. Rawa - 1/2 cup
2. Maida - 1/2 cup
3. Rice flour - 1/2 cup
4. 1 medium onion chopped
5. jeera/cumin seeds - 2 tbsp
6. black pepper corns - 1 tbsp
7. cashew bits or halves - 3-4 tbsp
8. Coriander leaves - chopped optional
9. Oil - 1 tbsp
10. Salt to taste
11. Water

How I made it:

1. Mix the rawa, maida and rice flour with sufficient water such that the water is about 1 inch above the solids. Don't worry you don't need to get this right at first go. You will see as you read through.
2. Leave that aside for an hour or so. The solids would settle at the bottom. Ensure now that the water level is at least 1 inch above that of the solids. This adjusts the thickness of the dosa. More water makes it a paper thin roast.
3. Add the chopped onions, green chillies, chopped coriander, pepper corns. If the cashew bits are roasted, add them as is, else add them in the next step.
4. Heat oil in a takda pan
5. Put the jeera and cashew bits. 
6. Once the jeera is crachling and cashew bits are light brown, add to the dosa batter mix. 
7. Adjust the salt.
8. Now, heat a flat pan or tawa.
9. Pour a ladleful of the dosa mix and swirl it around on the pan, taking care not to let it drop off the sides of the pan/tawa.
10. Cook on high heat till it starts to brown. 
11. Flip it over and cook for about 30 seconds.
12. Serve hot.

Make sure you serve these with a spicy chutney.

Tips :

• If the dosas are sticky, could be that the maida is more so reduce the maida and replace the reduced quantity with rice flour. 

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Carrot and Onion Paratha

So what do you do when both you and your better half wake up at 3am? Well, it is gonna be a nice and sunny day so we decided to go for a trek at Shakespeare Regional Park. The gates open at 7am so since I a little time on my hands, I decided to make these quickie parathas to take with us as trek grub.

Preparation time : 10-15 minutes
Cooking time : 4-5 minutes for each paratha

Ingredients (makes 6 parathas) :

1. 1 cup whole wheat flour
2. 1/3 cup chopped onion
3. 1/2 cup grated carrots
4. 1 tbsp jeera/cumin seeds
5. 1 tbsp kasuri methi
6. 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
7. 1 green chilly finely chopped
8. 3 tbsp oil
9. Salt to taste
10. Water to knead the dough

How I made it:

1. In a pan, heat up 3 tbsp oil.
2. Put in the jeera seeds.
3. Once they crackle, put in the kasuri methi
4. When the methi begins to get brown, don't let it burn, throw in the onions and green chillies.
5. Fry till onions start to become soft.
6. Throw in the carrots, red chilli powder and salt. 
7. Remember to add a little more salt as the wheat flour will also be added.  So when tasted, this mix should taste a little salty - not too salty.
8. When the carrots are turning soft, turn off heat and wait for the mix to cool.
9. When cool, add the flour to the mix and knead into a soft dough.
10. Separate the dough into 6 balls of uniform size.
11. Roll out each ball into a circle and for each circle repeat steps 13 onwards.
12. Heat a flat pan/tawa.
13. Place the circle. Cook for 30-40 seconds.
14. Lower heat to medium and turn the parata.
15. Add a few drops of oil to help the parata cook and remain soft.
16. After a minute or so, if there are enough brown spots on the paratha, turn the paratha and make the heat back to high. 
17. Add a little more oil and cook till there are enough brown spots on both sides. Take off heat.

Serve hot with raita or pickle or pack and carry on a trek. Can be eaten as is.

All packed and set to go.

Here's a pic of the beautiful place - a must visit. Do check out my review of the place which is coming up on the blog soon.

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Classic Combo : Rasam and Pepper Chicken

So a friend of ours is down sick with a cold and bad throat. We were headed towards his house to visit the #RBTGP and therefore decided to drop in on him and give him some rasam. For dinner, we added the pepper chicken to have a classic South Indian Combo : Rasam and Pepper Chicken served with rice. I once again remembered Sushila, albeit she used to serve Rasam with Mutton Chops.

I've come to realize that I use the terms heavenly food, comfort food for the stuff that is similar to what I have eaten as a kid. No matter how the day, a good bowl of comfort food, and all seems okay. May be it reminds one of the good ol' days. This is one of those meals.

For the rasam :
Cooking time : 15 minutes
Preparation time : 5 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 4) :

1. Tomato - 1 large quartered
2. Garlic - 2 pods crushed
3. Tamarind paste - 1 tsp
4. Water - 2 cups
5. Pepper powder - 1 tbsp
6. Jeera/Cumin powder - 1tsp
7. Oil/Ghee(preferred) - 1 tbsp
8. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
9. Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
10. Curry leaves - 1 sprig
11. Salt to taste

How I made it:

1. In a pressure cooker, heat up one cup of water. 
2. Add the tomato quartered. Cook on high till one whistle and turn of heat. 
3. While the pressure releases from the cooker, heat 1 tbsp ghee in another pan.
4. Add the mustard seeds and wait till they stop spluttering.
5. Add the jeera, crushed garlic and curry leaves.
6. When the garlic starts to brown at the edges, add the tamarind paste mixed with 1 cup of water.
7. Mash the tomato in the water that it was boiled in and add it to the pan.
8. Add the pepper powder, jeera powder and adjust the salt.
9. Turn off heat once it comes to a boil.
10. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or drink as a soup.

For the pepper chicken :
Cooking time : 30 minutes
Preparation time : 10 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 4) :

1. Chicken - 500g
2. Small/Pickling onion - 4
3. Red onion - 1 small
4. Garlic - 8 cloves
5. Ginger - 2 inch piece
6. Oil - 2 tbsp
7. Pepper powder - 4 tbsp
8. Salt to taste
9. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
10. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
11. Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
12. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
13. Water - 3/4 cup
14. Curry leaves - 1 sprig

How I made it :

1. Wash and marinate the chicken in salt, turmeric powder and 2 tbsp pepper.
2. Grind the small onions, ginger, garlic, red chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and 2 tbsp pepper powder to a paste with as little water as possible.
3. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wide pan.
4. Add the sliced red onions alongwith curry leaves and fry till light golden brown.
5. Add the paste and fry until it stops sticking to the botton - usually 7-8 minutes on low to medium heat.
6. Add the marinated chicken and fry till half cooked.
7. Add water. 
8. Adjust the salt. 
9. Cover and cook till completely cooked. 
10. If water remains, cover uncooked till water dries completely. We were too impatient to wait till the water dried and took it off heat in a semi gravy consistency.
11. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot with rice and rasam.

This can also be had with rotis.

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LIGHTing it up DOWN UNDER - err a bit late.

It's six months since I set foot in the land of the breathtakingly beautiful New Zealand. Time flies but the rollercoaster ride never ends. Well, things are mellowing down now but the initial settling phase was not as smooth as I had expected it to be. "Ignorance is bliss" is not something I used before but we all do learn and our eyes do eventually open up. No wonder we all look back at those times when we were most ignorant as the "best of times". Confused beings that we are, always wanting the good times but trying hard as ever to get ahead. Ha ha ha!

Six months and we move from my birthday to the birth of my nephew, exactly on Diwali. I smile when I think of the silence back at home on this otherwise unusually noisy day at my house. The hustle and bustle to decide who would go to distribute the sweets and if you had got all the people on the list of people to whom sweets need to be distributed, the packing of the sweets, the visits to the temple, the Lakshmi puja, the Saraswati puja, the Ganesha puja and the best drive around the town to get a glimpse of all the firecrackers for free. (wink)

Now, Diwali is known as the festival of lights but has many reasons for its significance. One is the return of the beloved Lord Ram from exile for which the lamps are lit and the night sky lit up with crackers to provide sufficient light for the returning lord, on a moon starved night. (Psst...Diwali usually falls on a new moon day). Another is to mark the end of another harvest season which brings us to the reason for this post. 

It is believed that as a sign of success and prosperity one must eat 7 vegetables on this joyful day and as this blog of mine focusses on recipes amongst other things, I made Sindhi Sai Bhaji with Bhuga Chawara. I ensured that I added as many veggies to the Sai Bhaji as possible. Fortunately for me, I got the quintessential ladies finger here in Auckland. Darn this place, you get a quarter of the veggies you get in India and even if you do get some, you have to buy them frozen. Grrr!!! (Ignorance is bliss until you move to a country only to realize what you have gotten yourself into.) Last year I had made Pav Bhaji with as many veggies.

Here's how we celebrated Diwali this year.

The quintessential start to my day - a cup of chai.

Bachpan ke din yaad dilaane waala lunch - sai bhaji and bhuga chawara - recipe below

Preparation Time : 5 minutes

Cooking Time : 12-15 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 2):

1. 1 large onion finely sliced
2. 1 cup of rice
3. 1 stick of cinnamon
4. 4 cloves
5. 1 bay leaf
6. 1/2 tsp red chilly powder
7. 4 tbsp oil
8. 2 cups of water
9. Salt to taste

How I made it :

1. Wash the rice and soak in water
2. In a pressure cooker, heat the oil
3. Add the whole garam masala - cinnamon, cloves and bay leaf
4. Once the aroma spreads, add the onions and fry on medium low heat till the onions caramelize into a nice dark brown colour. Do not burn and the colour is essential for the dish.
5. Add the red chilli powder and fry for a minute. 
6. Add 2 cups of water.
7. Add the rice once the water comes to a boil.
8. Adjust salt. 
9. Cover the pressure cooker and when the steam begins to rise, lower flame to minimum and leave for 8 minutes. 
10. Turn off heat and serve with sai bhaji or dal fry.

A visit to the Diwali Fest held by the Auckland Council - good food and company and some of the best fireworks I've seen thus far.

Gulab Jamoons as they were getting ready

Sandalwood scented tea light candles adorning the corners of my house

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

The course on haute cuisine that I have enroled in had the recipe of nestle tollhouse chocolate chip cookies and explains why you must stick to the recipe and try to exact the measurements specified. So, I decided to give it a try. The first time I made it with the exact directions and it turned out exactly like the cookies that I used to have at the Hilton in Roseville, California. I did feel really guilty eating those as they had loads of butter and sugar in them. I was happy that I had made a small batch of 15 cookies.

I was having two people, whom I am very fond of, visiting us this evening and so decided to make these cookies but decided to give them a little healthy twist. The result was different but good as well.

Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking Time : 11 minutes
Equipment Required : Oven, egg beater/hand mixer
Source : http://allrecipes.com/recipe/original-nestle-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies
Ingredients (Makes about 24-30 cookies depending on size):

1. Whole wheat flour - 1 cup + 2 tbsp
2. Salt  - 1/2 tsp
3. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
4. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
5. Chopped nuts - 1/4 cup
6. Chocolate chips - 1/4-1/2 cup
7. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
8. Unsalted butter - 1/4 cup melted
9. Granulated white sugar - 1/4 cup
10. Raw brown sugar - 1/4 cup
11. Egg - 1 large

How I made it :

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree C.
2. Prepare the baking tray. I covered a cooling tray with aluminium foil and spread some flour over it.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Beat the sugars, vanilla essence and butter for 2 minutes on high.
5. Add the egg and beat well till the mixture is creamy. I beat mine a bit too much such that the mix got quite thick. This gives it a more crumbly texture. 
6. Add the mix from step 3 and mix till well combined.
7. Shape into cookies, press in some nuts and chocolate chips. Now, if you had not beaten the egg stiff, you may have a moist dough. In that case, use a spoon to place spoonfuls on the baking tray and press in some chocolate chips and nuts.
8. Bake for 11 minutes. 
9. Cool for 30 minutes and store in airtight containers.

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Ladies finger and mutton curry

There are a zillion different reasons that you will hear from Pras when asked why he chose to move to NZ and ONE out of all of those is "to eat as much lamb and beef as I can as this country is known for it". Well, how can I deny him his meat then?

So I had some ladies finger leftover from the diwali sai bhaji cooking and decided to use that up along with the lamb pieces that I had bought from the supermarket. Perfect mix of veggies along with meat proteins.

Note : As I type out the draft for this one, the heavenly aromas of the curry fill the air and we just can't wait to dig in. We are waiting for the pressure to release.

We ate this yummy dish with bread but it would go well with poori, rotis, parathas and rice as well.

Preparation time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 45 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2):

1. Large Onions - 2
2. Mutton/Lamb - 500g
3. Ginger - 2inch piece
4. Garlic - 6 cloves medium sized
5. Red chilli powder - 3 tsp
6. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
7. Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
8. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
9. Black pepper powder  - 1/2 tsp
10. Coriander leaves  - 2 sprigs with stem
11. Mint leaves - from 1 sprig
12. Medium sized Tomatoes - 3-4
13. Ladies finger - 10-12
14. Thick coconut milk - 1/4 cup
15. Salt to taste
16. Water - 1 cup
17. Oil - 1/4 cup

How I made it :

1. Finely chop the onions.
2. Grind the ginger, garlic, dry powders, coriander and mint leaves together with as little water as possible.
3. Wash and chop the ladies finger into 1 inch pieces. Fry them in a pan with a tsp of oil.
4. In a pressure cooker, heat the oil
5. Add the onions and fry till light golden brown.
6. Add the mutton and fry till it turns colour and becomes lighter.
7. Add the paste from step 2 and fry for about 5 minutes. 
8. Add tomatoes and fry till they are soft and easily blend in.
9. Add about a cup of water, adjust the salt and give 4-5 whistles on high.
10. Once pressure releases, add the fried ladies finger and coconut milk.
11. Boil for 2-3 minutes and serve hot.

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