Zundka

Remind people (of course those who know of it) of Zundka bhakri and their mouth will start watering. Here is a recipe I tried today. It made it for the first time but it turned out awesome. Navin and I liked it so much that it urged me to write down the recipe here. You can eat it with Chapati or Bhakri (perfect combo).

Ingredients - Serves 4 people
1 big onion - chopped
1 cup shredded coconut
6-8 peppercorns
4-5 cloves
4 garlic cloves
3/4 cup besan (gram flour)
3 tsp oil
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 inch ball of tamarind
1 tsp coriander
5-6 red chillies
1 1/2 inch Cinnamon sticks (I used powder)
Cut vegetables - you can use drumsticks, radish - I thought I had radish and realized I only had okra (lady finger; bhindi). So I used that and carrots. I cut okra length size in halves and carrots into tiny pieces
Salt to taste

Procedure:
Roast the gram flour till the raw smell goes away. Keep it aside.
Take 1/2 tsp of oil and fry coriander seeds and red chillies. Grind it to powder and keep aside.

Heat 1 tsp of oil and fry 1/2 cup onion, garlic cloves, pepper; until onion turns golden brown. Add the shredded coconut, cloves, turmeric and cinnamon to it. Fry till coconut turn light brown. Keep aside and let the mixture cool; then grind along with tamarind to fine paste.

Heat 2 tsp oil and fry rest of the onion, add the coconut paste to it. Add the coriander and chilly powder to it. Add 1 1/2 cup of water. Add salt.

Add the vegetables and let it cook for 10 minutes.

Add the gram flour 1-2 spoons at a time. Mix well until you add all the flour and the mixture becomes dry.
I added less flour; I am planning to pack it for lunch tomorrow and did not want to go too dry. 

Picture below - doesn't look too tempting but it was too good!

Dinkache (Edible Gum/Gondh) ladoo

Dink Ladoo! Any of you who know about these ladoos would know how TASTY they are. So here's the recipe.

Take a handful of gondh (edible gum). These look like tiny stones - you should get them in Indian stores. Many people refer to it as 'dink'. Suppose to be very good for lactating mothers and is usually added to their diet in some form or the other.

Deep fry the gum in ghee. The gum will almost double in size and look something like this.

Take 1 cup of dry fruits. You can use almonds, walnuts, cashew, raisins, apricot or any other type you can put your hands on. I in fact picked some from a trail mix I found at home. Grind the dry fruits to fine powder like this.

Take some khaskhas (poppy seeds) and fry them in ghee.

To that add 1 cup wheat flour. You can also use fine rava in place of wheat flour. Once you get the 'roasted' smell of the flour/rava, put aside the mixture to cool down.

Add 1 + 1/2 cup of jaggery to 1/2 cup of water. Let the water boil. Keep on stirring the jaggery.

This is the tricky part. Keep on stirring as the jaggery mixture thickens.

Keep looking for the consistency of the mixture. Once it is as thick as 'one string' when you take a drop between your thumbs (see in picture), you need to stop heating the mixture.

Add 1/2 cup dessicated coconut to the dry fruits and flour mixture.

Then add the mixture to the jaggery syrup and stir for some time.

Roll the mixture into ladoos. And there you are AWESOME ladoos to enjoy!

Ingredients

1 cup dry fruits

2 tbsp dink

1 1/2 cup jaggery

1/2 cup water (for jaggery syrup)

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

2 tbsp poppy seeds (khas khas)

2 tbsp ghee

Minor modification - Last week I went to help a seva group to make similar ladoos like these. Interestingly similar ingredients were used. No dink of course. But no jaggery syrup!. Instead dates were ground to fine paste and cooked in ghee and brown sugar. To that all the dry fruits powder was added. After making the ladoos out of the mixture, they were rolled over dessicated coconut. These ladoos were MIND BLOWING too!

Sabudana Halwa

Yum Yum Yum! is all I can say :) Do try this recipe, you will love it. It is simple and yet so delicious. No wonder my Mom used to make it sooooooo many times when I was little. Kisiko bachaa hua, sabudana halwa. kisika birthday hain, sabudana halwa. Koi ghar ayaa, sabudana halwa!!! So here is the recipe for everybody to try - in pictures. It seems more easier that way!

Take 1 cup of Sabudana. And soak them in 1 cup of water for approx 2 hours. I did that and then realized there is no ghee at home! So ended up soaking it overnight. But the water had dried up and did no harm. This is how it looked like in 2 hours. Take 2 tsp of ghee. I used 2 tb sp :) I am big hearted (and big tummy) person you see :)

Take 4-5 cloves and add to ghee Add the sabudana to the ghee Add dry fruits - I added raisins and almonds

You would need 2 cups (double the quantity of sabudana) of coconut juice. If you can extract from fresh coconut GREAT! If you cannot, its fine too. You can use the tin ones you get.

Add the coconut to the sabudana and cook for some time.

Add saffron to the mixture.

Add sugar - same quantity as the sabudana you started with (remember the sabudana will double in quantity when you soak in water)

How does it look? Pour it in a tray/dabba and let it settle for some time. Cool off and then refrigerate. Taste great cold and hot alike.

Ingredients

1 cup Tapioca/Sabudana

1 cup sugar

2 cup coconut milk

Saffron

Almonds and raisins

1 tsp ghee

Few cloves

Pineapple Firnee

Yesterday I tried my hands at Mom's favorite recipe Pineapple Firnee. And it turned out amazing! I recommend it to all my friends.

So here are the steps - In pictures for easy understanding :)

Take a fully ripe Pineapple

Cut it into 2 pieces - One that will later be used as the container for the firnee and other as the lid. So you can figure where to cut the pineapple.

Remove the flesh from the fruit.

This is how the skin will be left after you remove all the flesh.

Soak 1/2 cup rice and then fry in an open container as shown here.

Heat 1 spoon of ghee in a pan.

Fry 10-12 cashew nuts in the ghee for 2 minutes.

Add the rice to the cashew nuts and fry for a minute.

Now take the rice and cashew nuts off the stove and let it cool for some time.

Make a sugar syrup with the pineapple flesh. If you have 2 tb sp of pineapple, add 2 tb sp of sugar and 1 tb sp of water. (Basically same amount of sugar as the pineapple pieces and half the amount of water).

After some time the pineapple syrup will look like this.

Now grind the cashew nuts and rice that we kept for cooling off. Now take the powder, add 3 times the water and pressure cook. Add almonds and raisins while pressure cooking.

Yes, here's a picture of the pressure cooker for you. JLT. Cook for 2 whistles.

This is how the mixture in the cooker will look like.

Boil 1-2 cups of milk in a pot. Add 2-3 spoons of sugar. Add the cooked rice paste to the milk.

After a quick boil, add the pineapple paste. REMEMBER - You cannot add fresh pineapple to the milk directly. The milk will spoil and you will mess up the dish.

Add some pineapple essence to the firnee (This is optional. I did not have essence so skipped this step). Also add a pinch of kesar. Then cool the firnee in a refrigerator. Pour it in the pineapple shell we prepared in the beginning.

THEN ENJOY IT!

Ingredients -

1 Pineapple (you would use only 1/2 of it. That would serve 8-10 people)

1 tb sp ghee

10-12 cashew nuts

1/2 cup rice

1 cup milk

3/4 cup sugar

pineapple essence

kesar

Few raisins

Some almonds

So there you go people, have fun!

Thalipit - one kind of Indian Roti

My mom always made the thalipit with rice flour. Very easy to make - mix rice flour with some green chillies, coconut and onion, coriander leaves, some salt and make soft dough. And then THAAP (put a ball of dough on a frying pan with your hand and spread in shape of a roti). My Mom loves to eat these with loni (butter). Before putting it on the pan, put some oil and add some mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds start to burst, put the dough over them.
This adds a nice crunchy taste to the thalipit but it also makes the cooking range so messy with the mustard seeds everywhere.

The below recipe is slightly different. My colleague at work gave it to me.

Grate all vegetables in a vessel. You can use carrot, cauliflower, cabbage, capsicum, radish anything you like. The most interesting ingredient however was cucumber! And that brought a very different flavor. Don't forget to add finely chopped onions as well. Then add some garam masala, salt to taste. Some grated coconut if you like the taste of coconut. I know many who don't.

Add some finely cut green chillies and some coriander leaves. Add some water and then start adding rice flour to the mixture. I replaced rice flour with wheat flour. That brings a huge difference in taste but I prefer wheat over rice. Add enough flour to make very soft dough.

Make small balls out of the dough. Put 2-3 drops of oil on a frying pan. Take one ball of dough on the pan, then press them with your fingers to flatten it. You can soak your fingers in water as you press the dough such that the dough does not stick to your fingers. Cover it (I used a lid of a wider vessel) for sometime. This allows the other side of the roti to cook in the steam inside the lid. When one side is done, turn to fry the other side too.

You can also use the mustard seeds like the way explained for other version of the thalipit.

My sister shared a handy tip with me when I told her how I hurt my back standing for such a long time cooking these rotis.
She said, you can take a thin cloth, soak it in water. Then place the ball of dough inside the cloth. Press in form of thin roti. With a cloth it is easy and also the rotis become thinner. Open the cloth, place flattened dough side on the frying pan and gently remove the cloth. Its easier than how I managed to explain it here.

Enjoy these rotis with some green chutney or achar.

Paneer Butter Masala

We had a few friends over last weekend. How about Paneer Butter Masala! I looked up online and came across this web page for an excellent recipe.
It turned out really good. The web site has step by step instructions which made things so simple! Do give it a try. I am sure you would love it! I don't have a picture of the dish but here's some pictures of people who survived my cooked food and were also happy posing!

Baked Potato (fries?)

Do try this out! Easy and tasty potatoes baked with olive oil and bunch of spices and Parmesan cheese.

All you need is -
Potato - cut into thin vertical slices
Chilly flakes
Salt
Parmesan Cheese
Spices - I picked all I could put my hands on in the kitchen

Mix all the ingredients together. Cover baking tray with Aluminum foil and spray some olive oil. Lay the potatoes on the foil and bake at 400F for 25-35 minutes.

Tadaa! Enjoy the yummy treat.