Lonavala Chikki

I had first tasted the Lonavala chikki on Dadar Express to Bombay. We were spending part of our summer vacation with two of our uncles who were living in Bombay. That was when we were introduced to Mumbai's magical street food like the pani puri, pav bhaji, vada pav etc.

On our return journey we purchased these chikkis and enjoyed them.

I have Mallika Badrinath's recipe for various chikkis. Browsing the internet I found some recipes too.

This is my next entry to EC's WYF Speciality Food event.

Chikkis are prepared with any type of nuts, sesame seeds and a mix of different nuts.There are more options too. On a recent trip to Shirdi, I tasted coconut chikkis and sago chikkis too from a highway motel's shop.

I have combined cashew nuts and almonds in this recipe. Have used yellow sugar which is not as refined as white sugar to bring out the brown colour. I found this pack of Hulett's yellow sugar - tartarazine free. Since it is not refined the essence and flavours of the cane are retained bringing out richer colour in baking. I simply tried using it here and the colour was browner than usual with an extra shine!

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups mixed nuts, broken coarsely

1 cup yellow sugar (refined sugar is usually used)

1 pinch of bi carbonate of soda

2 table spoons ghee

Method:

Smear a heavy, shallow bottomed pan with some ghee and sprinkle the sugar over it. This makes the caramalising even.

Before putting this on fire, prepare the wooden board and the rolling pin. Grease them generously with ghee.

Place the pan on fire on a medium flame allow the sugar to melt and caramelise. When the sugar melts add the bicarbonate of soda.

Take care not to over burn the sugar. This may make the sugar bitter.

As the sugar reaches a golden brown colour switch the fire off. Drop the nuts and quickly give a brisk stir.

Immediately transfer the contents on to the greased board and press down with the rolling pin.

Allow to cool a bit and cut shape while still warm.

Once cooled fully, break the cut chikkis and store them.

Sunshinemom's Aviyal - Tried and Tasted

We have a few families here who meet every Saturday evening to chant few devotional hymns apart from Vedic Rudram, Chamakam, Namakam and the Vishnu Sahasranamam. More slokas and bhajans are recited and sung too. We spend three hours of religious chants followed by good food on most Saturday evenings.

The food has no pre-defined menu. It is potluck party, though each one carries what he or she cooks that evening. Also there is no regulation to the quantity. People just bring some 300 ml casserole to as large as 5 litres of prepared dish. Since most of us are from the South states the menu is widely South Indian with the exception of chappatis and related side dishes.

We have been attending this now for a few weeks. For one such meeting I decided to carry Aviyal. Though I cook aviyal, I was looking for a Palghat recipe. I decided to check Jayasree's and Aparna's. Then I stumbled upon this recipe from TONGUE TICKLERS by Sunshine mom.

I had to use the vegetables that were available in Ghana. Apart from that I've followed her recipe. We do not get elephant yam and ash gourd, so I cannot claim that the aviyal was fully authentic. But it sure tasted good.

I doubled the quantity of vegetables and also used baby potatoes whole. The coconut and the rest of the grinding ingredients, I just increased them, not exactly doubled.

My picture might tell you that it was well liked by the people who tasted it. So, have a look at my pictures and follow Harini's recipe for Aviyal from Palakkad here.

This aviyal goes to Tried and Tasted event initiated by Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen,

hosted this November by The Singing Chef featuring Sunshinemom of TONGUETICKLERS.

Lunch box -pictures only!

Divya of Dil se wants us all to show her what we pack our lunch boxes with. Prior to Ghana, my husband used to carry his lunch which I would have done in a hurry as he leaves as early as 5:30 AM. The dinner was a bit of an elaborate and relaxed meal. Here too he leaves early, but we have been given a driver by the company. He comes home once in the mid morning to collect the lunch for my husband. So I get to cook a proper meal everyday. Here are two pictures of his lunch boxes. Recipes may appear in my posts randomly. For now I'm happy to Show you my husband's Lunch Box.

salad, okra stir fry, madras onion sambhar rice and yoghurt.

Pudina rice, salad and raita.

Tirunelveli Halwa

The wheat halwa is my most favoured sweet. As I mentioned once earlier, I learnt this from my grandmother, my dad's mother. She was very good at making mouth-watering sweets. Her mysurpak, halwa and polis used to be delicious. My mother's mom used to make different sweets mostly jaggery based or something like chirotti, manoharam and such. So whenever amma made sweets for occasions, we had many varieties to enjoy.

The halwa making used to be an elaborate affair with hand grinding soaked wheat and extracting the milk thrice, allowing it to stand a few hours and then getting to cook it. Amma would want patti to be around to supervise and patti always wanted someone to assist to constantly stir the halwa while cooking. That is when I would enlist my services!

Every bhogi festival was with halwa as it was my choice sweet. I enjoyed doing it and in the process, have gained a photo memory to making halwa. I have done it many times over the years. It has become my daughter's favourite sweet too. This year around deepavali I had requested the grocer to bring whole wheat for making Halwa. As with delays in shipment and Customs, the man could procure it a bit later only. Nonetheless, I went ahead and stocked my pantry, hoping to make it for Niki when she comes home in December.

When EC of Simple Indian Food announced this month's WYF Speciality Food, this is all I thought of first. Then I recalled my first oppurtunity to taste the famous Iruttukadai halwa years ago. Later, two years ago, I went to Tirunelveli and walked all the way to the shop as the road was one-way to motorised traffic to buy 1/2 kilogram of this. Again last December, we took Niki to enjoy the architectural beauty of the temple standing tall on 14 acres of land and ended up buying more halwa making a huge tick mark against the to-dos.

I googled in to find this blogpost about Tirunelveli and the famous Iruttukkadai. The blogpost says it all!! This post has been put up from the rediff travel post.@ http://www.rediff.com/travel/1998/oct/24tirun.htm

I am not able to credit the original author as the rediff post does not mention one; hence I have mentioned both of where you might get a good read!

You may also please visit Sowmya's post @ Creative saga, step by step presentation of her grandmother's cooking the halwa. Our recipes vary in the sugar quantity only. So go ahead and try which ever suits your tastes!

With the Iruttukkadai recipe on hand along with my very own grandma's, Mallika Badrinath's and my S.Meenakshi ammal book I set out to make halwa!

This recipe is mostly my grandma's which almost matched iruttukadai's in ingredients. But tips on the cooking part were from all of the above four sources. I have managed to click pictures of most of the cooking stages, some with my left hand while the right was vigorously working otherwise :)

I shall give the measurements as per iruttukadai in metric and against that my cups' measurement equivalent to the weights.

I have made with 100 grams of whole wheat. The yield was an astounding 1 kilogram and 150 grams. I can very well relate to the volume of turnover mentioned in the travel post!

Ingredients:

100 grams whole wheat (one level measure of 150 ml cup)

450 grams sugar (three heaped measures cup of the above)

225 grams ghee ( a cup and a quarter of the above cup) (I needed few spoonsful more ghee than this quantity)

The following are as desired: ( I always use all of these)

blanched almonds

broken cashews roasted in ghee

cardamom powder

saffron strands immersed in milk

Method:

Soak the whole wheat after washing thoroughly overnight. By morning it will look very clumsy with some elastic thread like formation over the wheat.

Grind adding water in a blender. Strain the milk. Return the husk to the blender and grind again with water. Strain and repeat the process.

Having done thrice the husk will be dry and lost all the glutonous feel. Discard that and immediately wash off the strainer and soak the blades and jar of your blender in order to ease the cleaning process. The wheat particles would dry forming a hard crust making it hard to clean later.

Let this milk-like liquid stand for few hours. A thick precipitate will deposit on the lower part and the scum will float over the excess water that was added to aid grinding.

After about five hours, carefully scoop the scum out, filter the excess water and retain the thick milk alone.

To the thick milk add three cups of water and mix. This will be clean and white as milk, but thicker in consistency.

Keep the nuts, cardamom and saffron ready and handy.

Place sugar with some water in a heavy bottomed pan on fire. Boil this down to a thick syrup that forms a very strong thread while pressed and pulled apart between the thumb and forefinger.

Add the blanched almonds and the wheat milk. Stir constantly. The wheat will cook to a very transparent mass, blending with the sugar.

When the mass is thick and you feel pressure while stirring add the saffron, cardamom powder and cashews. Add the ghee in small quantities. The ghee will initially float and then mix well with the cooking mass.

All of these will get thicker and the stirring will get harder. The mass will resemble a sheet of glass falling in a neat ribbon if dropped from a small height. The gloss will be distinct. Add the rest of the ghee and give one last, firm and thorough mixing. Switch the fire off. Leave the utensil on the stove for sometime. The heat of the stove and the thickness of the utensil aid further thickening of the halwa.

Transfer to a bowl when cool and enjoy.

Note:

Contrary to popular notion that the Tirunelveli halwa is a thick wheat cake, the iruttukadai halwa is of scoop and eat texture only. While cold it is thick but not cake like. You may re-heat in microwave and have it warm.

The halwa has to be well cooked. The spoon you use will only be coated of ghee and not slightest film of halwa. If it does so, it is underdone and will stick to your palette too. The halwa has to slide down which is why notoriously in Tamil we refer to some act of cheating as 'giving halwa' to someone.

My sister partly does on stove top and transfers to the microwave rice cooker and completes the whole process without much strain to her arms and shoulders. I will check with her the recipe and update at some later date.

The cooking might take around an hour to an hour and a quarter while the preparation of milk is another long drawn process. I use my Indian Philips brand mixer to grind. However, you may grind in the grinder which is used for grinding idli/dosa batter.

There are specially made strainers available in Indian markets. I have used a big size fruit juice strainer.

In general the ratio of the wheat: sugar : ghee can be measured in any cup as 1(level):3 (heaped): 1& 1/4 and cooked to get halwa.

This is my entry to EC's WYF Speciality Food event hosted at Simple Indian Food thro' November

and to

Sanghi's FIL Ghee event which has been extended to the 10th of November @ Sanghi's Food Delights.

My dedication is to Niki, my daughter who loves this and to Raja, my husband who is the one eating all the health food as well as the junk food I cook and blog:)

Deepavali with Gulab Jamuns

Deepavali around,Srivalli intended that the members of the Indian Cooking Challenge try making gulab jamuns the traditional way. A sweet indulgence indeed befitting the season. Three choice recipes were found from other blogsites to try whichever suited you. To me, all three were enticing. But with deepavali and loads other 'must try this season/ must make every deepavali' on my list, I gave two of them a try and both were just as excellent, can't choose between the two.

I have tried this recipe from Alka of Sindhi rasoi, making the mawa at home, as posted earlier.

The next was from The Yum Blog where Lakshmi had posted her paati's Gulab(less) jamuns.

Both yielded 25 - 30 jamuns depending on the size of the balls I shaped.

They were PURE DIVINELY INDULGENCE!!!! I'm trying new adjectives to add to the already existing, delicious, yummy, succulent and more!

I have followed the recipes and their tips below just as in their posts...no side-tracking, none of my, otherwise altering recipes, style, but for frying the jamuns in ghee, as I was not happy to make sweets with the oil I buy here. You may find the making of khova in my earlier post.

Gulab Jamuns from THE YUM blog
Makes: around 25 jamuns

Ingredients:

Khova – 11/2 cups/ 1 recipe

Maida – 1 cup

Sugar – 3 cups (if you want excess syrup i.e floating jamuns increase by a cup)

Water – 1 cup (increase if you’re increasing sugar)

Cooking Soda – 3 pinches

Cardamom – 4 pods

Saffron leaves – a few

Oil – 1 cup (for deep frying)

Method:

1. Combine sugar and water in a flat bottomed broad pan and simmer on a low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cardamom powder and saffron leaves and remove from fire.

2. Knead khova, maida and soda and quickly shape into balls.

3. Heat oil on a medium flame. Fry the jamuns till golden brown over a low to medium flame, keeping oil temperature uniform. Oil should not smoke.

4. Drain the jamuns and soak in the warm sugar syrup.Serve the jamuns after half an hour.

Tips:

You will achieve correct consistency for jamun syrup when 3 cups of sugar dissolves 1 cup water over low heat.Only when the syrup is ready, mix the jamun dough. Since the dough has soda, if its kept aside the jamuns will disperse while frying and will not hold well.

Right temperature of oil of utmost importance to get soft jamuns.

Never refrigerate jamuns. Jamuns when refrigerated will shrink and become hard.

Jamuns will stay fresh for 4 days when stored in air tight containers.

If you like you can add two drops of rose essence to the syrup to make it Gulab jamun

GULAB JAMUN from ALKA of SINDHI RASOI
The recipe is divided in two parts, one is making the Jamuns and frying them.

The other is making sugar syrup.

For sugar syrup:

Ingredients:

Sugar - 500 gms (This can be reduced as per taste)

Water - 1 & 1/2 cup (bit more or less)

Cardamom - 2-3

One spoon of milk (optional)

Few threads of saffron (optional)

2-3 drops of rosewater (optional but highly recommended)

Method:

Mix about 500 gms of white sugar in one and half cup water and keep it for boiling.

Add a spoonful of milk to remove the impurities (impurities if any, will form a scum on surface)Add 2-3 green cardamoms also in syrup for strong flavor, and a tad of saffron strings (optional).

Boil until you get just a tad sticky syrup.

Gulab Jamun syrup is not very dense nor too dilute as in Rasgulla.

Strain the syrup, add rosewater when syrup is slightly cooled.

Always remember two things while using rose water, do not add it while syrup is bubbling hot or on fire, and be particular about the quantity mentioned in every recipe, since even few drops of excess rosewater could lend a bitter taste to the final product.

For Gulab Jamun:

Ingredients:

Unsweetened Maawa* - 250 gms (Boiling 6 cups/1&1/2 litres of milk and reducing it will yield 250grams of Maawa)

All purpose flour - 1 & 1/2 - 2 tsp

Cornflour - 1 tsp

Green cardamom - 1-2 crushed

Oil for shallow frying

* (khoya-the condensed milk thickened till it turns into moist dough, preferably made from cow’s milk, also known as Hariyali mawa)

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a wide mixing bowl until soft textured dough is obtained (keep mixing until it is really soft)

Make very small sized balls (bit larger than pebbles) as they swell up after frying and soaking in syrup.

Make sure that the surface of dough balls is really smooth without any cracks.

In case the cracks refuse to go away, slightly wet your palms with water and roll the flour till absolutely smooth.

Now take little oil for frying in preferably flat bottomed pan, and heat the oil.

But gulab jamuns are to be fried on LOW FLAME or else the surface will be browned while the core will remain uncooked.

Some prefer to place an unsalted pistachio in the center of every gulab jamun while making balls, that way the core of gulab jamun is not left uncooked.

Fry one or 2 gulab jamuns at a time and always remember to STIR THE OIL with slotted spoon AND NOT TO TOUCH GULABJAMUNS, which means keep swirling the oil without tossing or turning gulab jamun.

Fry till light brown in colour, remove on tissue paper and repeat the procedure with rest of dough.

Now soak these in COOL syrup for few hours.

They will surely swell up.

These can be stored in the same syrup till consumed.

If there are cracks in the balls before frying it will burst open while frying, in that case adding a bit of cornflour will surely help.

You can enjoy it hot or cold ,either way it is delicious.
Now that you have two recipes, I am sure you will enjoy making gulab jamuns from scratch at home.

I am told that when my husband was a kid, every deepavali my mother-in-law used to make gulab jamuns using store bought khova. She does not any longer owing to poor health. My husband was never tired of reminiscing this whenever I made gulab jamuns with GITS/MTR or whichever ready mix. I have a good workable recipe which my mother used. But was always putting it off for another time. Now that the challenge was posted and having given the recipes a try, with much success to point out, I am sure to try again and satisfy his cravings for his mom's cooking!

Spicy oat buns

During my pregnancy, I had terrible nausea right from forty odd days through my term. I would throw up every morsel of food and between my mother and her maid, they would clean up and feed me again only to repeat all over. On some odd occasions when I would retain food in my system it would be the kara bun bought from some bakery in Namakkal. The bun used to be spiced with pieces of chili and curry leaves in it. The size of an Indian pav bread, one bun was all I would eat. If I craved any food, I think the fear of throwing up had curbed it.

Many years later when I started baking bread at home, I've tried recipes for dinner rolls and buns from various recipe sources to capture the essence of the buns that sustained me through my pregnancy. There was one Russian potato bread which nearly matched the kara bun which I have not made in a long while.

This Monday morning, after a very lazy weekend, I wanted to try putting my own ingredients to bake my favourite kara bun. Inspired by Usha's oats pav, and Priya's Oatmeal banana bread, I powdered the quick cooking oats to combine with a fair quantity of whole wheat flour and a lesser quantity of all purpose flour.

The bun felt light when I removed from the baking tray. I had them with capsicum macroni soup and the meal was filling.

Ingredients: (for just six buns)

(the cup measure given is 175 ml -the stainless steel coffee tumbler found in south Indian homes)

1 cup powdered quick cooking oats

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour roasted slightly in a teaspoon of ghee

1 &1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast

2 green chilies

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons warm milk to raise the yeast or water

A fist full of chopped fresh coriander leaves

2 teaspoons sesame seeds

2 tablespoons cooking oil for the dough

1 tablespoon oil to grease the utensil

Warm water to knead a smooth dough

Method:

Add the sugar to the yeast in a bowl and the slightly warm milk. Cover and allow the yeast to grow.

Sift together the flours and salt. Do not discard the husk, add it back to the flour mix.

Rub in the oil and once the yeast has developed, incorporate it to the flour mix. Knead to a soft dough adding sufficient warm water. Knead well for about 15 minutes.

Grease a big utensil and place the dough in it allowing room for it to double. Cover the utensil.

I usually place the utensil in a plastic bag and tie the mouth and lift it upwards.

In about 2 hours the dough would have almost doubled.

Remove it from the utensil. Add to this the chopped chillies and coriander leaves.

Flour a board or your kitchen counter top and punch the dough down. Continue firmly punching for another 10 minutes.

Cover again and keep for another 20 minutes.

Remove and make six balls out of this. Place on a slightly greased baking tray well apart from each other.Sprinkle sesame seeds on top of each bun.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade.

The balls would have again developed on the tray. Place the tray in the oven and bake for 17 minutes. Take off the oven and cool on wired racks.

Serve with any soup or can be had just like that for a mid morning snack or tea time snack.

You may bake them without the spices and pack your kids' school snack boxes.

I would like to send these buns to EC's Light meal event

and to

Sharmi's CFK happening this month @Sireesha's KidzDelight with CFK Wheat

Saunfwale Aloo Baingan

This recipe is from Tarla Dalal's Swadisht Subzian cookbook. Sometime in 2005, I was so bored that internet was my only source of recreation in Port Said, Egypt apart from watching the convoy crossing the Suez canal from my balcony every morning and evening. My husband worked 12 hour shifts then and with having to cross the Suez on two ferries, he was away almost 15 hours.

I was hooked on to the internet and most of the music websites and cookery websites were in my favourites. I made a membership for Tarla Dalal.com then. I received two wonderful books free with the membership. This particular book deals with cuisines from most parts of India. She has a small note to each recipe which tempts you to try them.

I had first cooked this vegetable side dish following the book. Then I switched to the microwave cooking when I was sure that works well. So I am today posting the microwave version of a very delectable dish that goes well with rotis, dhal chawal and phulkas.

Ingredients:

1 cup potatoes peeled and cut in thick slices

1 cup brinjals cut in thick rounded slices

1/2 cup onions sliced thickly

2 teaspoons ginger-garlic paste/ alternatively grate both ginger and garlic

Salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

For tempering:

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

For garnish:

1 teaspoon fresh coriander leaves chopped finely

For the touch of North Indian flavour:

1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

Method:

Keep both the cut slices of vegetables separately in bowls of cold water until use.

In a flat micro proof dish, take the fennel seeds and microwave on high for 1 minute.

Similarly microwave the coriander seeds on high for 2 minutes and on medium for a further 30 seconds.

Cool both and powder them.

Heat cooking oil in a microwave bowl for 30 seconds on high. Add the cumin seeds and again allow it to crackle on high micropower for 1 minute.

To this add the ginger garlic paste or the grated ginger and garlic, turmeric powder and chili powder. Add the sliced onions, mixing well in the oil. Return to microwave cooking, uncovered on high power for 4 minutes allowing the onions to brown.

Once done, drain the potaoes and add them to the above. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon water. Cover and cook on high micropower for 4 minutes. Allow a standing time of further 4 minutes.

Take the bowl out and add drained brinjal. Return to microwave. Cook covered for 3 minutes.

Open and add the salt and the roasted powder. Give a toss to mix them. Put back in the microwave on medium power, cook without lid for 3 minutes.

You may increase the time if the brinjals are not tender. But do take care not to turn them too soft.

Remove and garnish with coriander leaves. A very flavoursome side dish is ready to be served hot.

This dish is being sent to Srivalli's MEC Event happening this month @ Suma's Veggie Platter with Fresh Produce

and to

Sunita's Think spice being hosted by Priya with Coriander seeds.