Khasta Kachoris

Back to blogging after couple of weeks of hibernation...


Ingredients

For dough

• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Salt - to taste
• Cold Water

For stuffing

• Yellow Moong dal - 1/4 cup soaked for 1/2 hr
• Fennel seeds - 1tsp
• Coriander seeds - 1tsp
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Ginger - 1/2 tsp, chopped
• Dry red chilly - 2

Oil for frying

Directions

• Mix well the flour, oil and salt. Add cold water little by little to make a soft dough. Keep covered for 1/2 hr.
• Dry roast fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and dry red chillies and grind to a coarse powder
• Drain all the water from the dal. Use a tissue cloth to completely remove all water from the dal. Grind it to a coarse powder. Mix this dal powder along with the crushed spice powder from the previous step and salt.
• Heat a tsp of oil in a pan. Add chopped ginger and fry for couple of seconds. Then add the dal and spice powder mix and fry for about 5 mins. Let it cool. This forms the stuffing for the kachoris.
• Divide the dough and stuffing into equal number of portions.
• Take one portion of the dough and roll into a small poori. Put the stuffing inside, bring the edges together and press and seal to form a ball. Flatten this ball using your palm to get a circular shape. Be sure not to press too hard, otherwise the stuffing gets stuck to the base of the kachori. Let this sit for 5 mins.
• Deep fry the kachoris in oil over a medium flame till they brown on both sides (The oil should not be too hot. The kachoris, when dropped in the oil, should slowly rise to the top and swell up).

Serve in a dish with boiled potatoes, coriander chutney and yogurt mixed with chat masala.

Vazhuthananga / Baby Brinjals Pulingari

This is a spicy, tangy dish which serves as a good gravy for rice.

Ingredients

• Baby brinjals/eggplant - 4 to 5
• Coconut - 4 tbsp
• Tomato - 1
• Coriander powder - 11/2 tbsp
• Chilly powder - 1 tsp or to taste
• Tamarind - a small lemon sized ball
• Garlic - 1 large clove
• Fenugreek seeds - some (8 - 10 seeds)
• Curry leaves
• Oil
• Salt and turmeric

Directions

• Cut the stems and slice the brinjals leaving the top part in tact. The ones I had were a little bigger than usual, so I sliced them completely into 4 separate pieces.
• Fry them in a tsp of oil with some salt and turmeric until they are soft
• Soak the tamarind in warm water.
• Crush/chop the garlic into small pieces. Also, chop the tomato into small pieces.
• Grind the coconut along with coriander and chilly powder into a smooth paste.
• In a separate pan, heat some oil and add the garlic followed by the fenugreek seeds. When the garlic starts to brown, add the fried brinjal and the coconut paste and some salt. When the mixture starts to boil, add the tomatoes and cook for 5 mins or so. Then add the tamarind juice and stir well. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and cover and cook for some more time.
• When the gravy gets a good consistency, add the curry leaves and remove from heat.

Shahi Tukda

A very rich, delicious dessert!

Ingredients

• Bread - 4 slices
• Milk - 4 cups
• Condensed milk - 2 tbsp or to taste
• Sugar - to taste
• Ghee - 2 tsp
• Cardamom powder - a pinch

Directions

• Cut the edges off the bread and cut them into triangles or any desired shape
• Toast them in a tawa with some ghee till both sides are golden brown
• In a pan, boil the milk till it reduces to almost half its original quantity. Add the condensed milk and cardamom powder. If required, add sugar too.
• Lay out the bread slices in a dish and pour the milk mixture on them. Garnish with almonds and set it in the refrigerator. Serve chilled.

French Toast

This is an easy and very quick breakfast.

Ingredients

• Bread - 4 slices
• Eggs - 2
• Milk - 1 Tbsp
• Sugar - 1 tbsp or to taste
• Cinnamon powder - a pinch
• Oil

Directions

• Mix the eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon to form an even batter
• Cut the bread slices into triangular shapes
• Heat a skillet/tawa with a little bit of oil
• Dip each of the bread pieces in the egg batter and toast.

For the sweet tooth - Besan Laddoos

Easy to prepare, besan laddoos are ideal whenever one wants to satiate the sweet tooth. I know my photography really sucks but the laddoos do taste good. I guess that's the beauty of desserts...its difficult to go wrong and end up with something un-palatable.



Ingredients

• Besan (Gram Flour) - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1/3 cup or to taste
• Ghee - 3 Tbsp
• Cardamom Powder - a pinch

Directions

• Fry the besan in ghee on medium heat till it turns a brown shade and the ghee starts separating off from the sides.
• Add cardamom and sugar towards the end (Powder the sugar or use fine sugar) and stir for 2 mins to let the sugar blend in
• Remove from heat and allow to cool. Make laddoos when its cool enough to handle and set in refrigerator.

Curry leaves Coriander leaves Bajji

This was an on-the-fly preparation. Lately I seem to be doing a lot of on-the-fly spontaneous cooking. Really should cut down on the fried stuff. Both myself and hubby dear are showing all the symptoms of a laterally expanding waist line.
I started doing this when little Ani was asleep. He woke up in the middle in a bad mood. If you are wondering why I am writing about that here, its because I am trying to make an excuse for some of the bajjis being over-fried and some getting stuck together. But, the taste came out very good.

Ingredients

• 2 cups Gram Flour (Besan)
• 11/2 tsp Chilly Powder
• 1/2 tsp Cumin Powder
• Salt
• Water
• Curry Leaves
• Coriander Leaves
• Oil for frying

Directions

• Add water to the besan to form a thick batter. Add chilly powder, cumin powder and salt
• Chop the curry leaves and coriander leaves
• Add them to the batter
• Heat oil in a kadhai. When hot, drop the batter into the oil in the form of small strings. I stuffed the batter into a ziploc bag and cut the end to squeeze out the batter in thin strings.

It's green BUT is it red too?

This month's FIC event by Neha and Harini has green and red as it's colors. As a new blogger and as someone who is relatively new to the world of independent cooking, I am enthusiastic to participate but, at the same time, I am at a loss as to what dish can I make that would display both these colors vividly.
Green brings into mind capsicum. I decided to make something with it hoping the stuffing inside would be red enough. Here's what I did:

Stuffed Capsicum Rolls

Ingredients

• 1 large capsicum
• 1 tbsp urad dal
• 1 tbsp coconut
• 2 long red chillies
• 1 medium sized potato
• 1/2 tsp Chilly powder (optional)
• Salt
  
• Oil

Directions:

• In a microwave, cook the capsicum until soft. Then, cut into 2 halves and de-seed it.
• In a pan, heat very little oil and fry the urad dal. When it starts to change color, add the coconut and fry until the coconut is golden. Grind this along with the whole red chillies into a coarse powder.
• Cook the potato in the microwave and mash it. Mix this with the ground powder along with salt and chilly powder if required.
• Stuff this into the capsicum halves. Bring together the edges and press to seal. Then cut them into small rolls and fry it on a tawa with some oil