Badam Kheer

I am here with yet another post and a resolve to be regular to read posts and to share mine. The past few months (read several) just went in a whirl. Days dawned and before I realised it was nightfall, so to say. Now even before you thought the year began, we have counted out sixty one days of 2011.

Today's post is one rich kheer. Every Indian home makes this if not often, on special occasions. The almonds and whole milk make it truly rich and nutritious for those who do not need to watch calories.

You just need three ingredients apart from garnish and some precious minutes of care while cooking.

The below recipe serves four and is slightly thick. If desired to have as a drink, you make add boiled and cooled milk which has been slightly sweetened to balance the addition.

Ingredients:

Almonds about 80 grams

Sugar 150 grams

Milk 500 ml + 100ml for grinding

Garnish:

Chopped mixed nuts slightly roasted

Few strands of saffron soaked in a few teaspoons of milk

Method:

Bring the milk to boil and allow to simmer for few minutes. Add to this the soaked saffron. Keep aside.

Soak the almonds in warm water for a few minutes and blanche them.

Grind the almonds to a fine paste adding milk. Rinse the jar of the blender and add the residue to the ground mixture.

Add two cups of water to the paste and place it in a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Cook over a moderate flame for about 20-25 minutes stirring at regular intervals, until the paste is rid of raw taste.

Add some of the above boiled milk if the paste thickens in a hurry.

Add the boiled milk and the sugar. Allow the sugar to dissolve and the mixture to blend well.

Remove from the stove. Add the garnish.

It is best served chilled.

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and have this Party Punch

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and festive cheers. Hope all of you are looking forward to get done with the year 2010 and surging with full energy into 2011. Hope there is much entertaining going on and there are cakes and cookies being baked and shared.

I have not baked anything for a while now. So I can share with you only my Party Punch.

Living in a tropical country, there seems to be no so called 'off season for mangoes' in Ghana and now in Nigeria also. We get excellent bananas and I am feasting my morning breakfast on papayas many days.

Having read the above, you may have guessed what fruits I have blended into this punch. To give it the citrus burst, I squeezed an orange and added some home-made pineapple juice too.

The pineapples had to be blended separately and strained.

Here is one musumbi that had beach ball like skin :)

For myself I can have without sugar and for my husband who wants the juice sweet, I could go really low on added sugar. Top it with rose syrup and add crushed ice, you have one delicious drink to serve.

Those who like, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the place of crushed ice, and you might have people asking for repeat helpings.

Have a fantastic Chirstmas friends and let me take an annouced break until the end of January 2011. I am spending some weeks with my daughter, parents and more members of the extended family too.

I might simply squeeze yet another post to wish you all a Happy new year 2011! If not, here's wishing all of you a wonderful start to the new year.

Signing off....
So long.....

Saying hello with some Thayir vadai

Hello everybody, it has been a real long two months that I have attended to this little space of mine. Neither have I been regular with my visits to other posts that you may have been sharing with all of us. As many of you might already know, we recently relocated. That has been keeping me away and otherwise busy.

So quickly, we have completed few days short of two calendar months in this new country. I have realised that I can cook survival food and not complain. No deep fries, no grinding spices.....and I missed all the fun yet tiresome cooking that accompanies every festival, three months in a row.

I hope all will be settled with the advent of the new year, by which time I will travel to see family back home and meet few blog buddies.

This thayir vadai was made few months ago as part of neivedhyam for some pooja. I flicked through one of my old cookbooks and came across this recipe. Though I did not entirely follow the recipe given in the book 'சமையற்கலை' by Smt. Ku. Pa. Sethu Ammal, it is a definite adaption from there.

I made the vadai and on a whim dunked them in spiced yoghurt.

Ingredients:

For the vadai:

1/3 rd cup karamani/ thattai payaru/ red chawli beans

1 table spoon urad dhal
1 teaspoon raw rice
Few green chillis according to spice requirement and heat

1/2" piece of ginger finely chopped

Few curry leaves

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

For the yoghurt:

1 cup of yoghurt, whisked smooth and brought to medium thickness

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh coconut grated very finely or run in the spice grinder to fine with little water

For tempering:

1 teaspoon oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

For Garnish:

Fresh coriander leaves chopped

Method:

Soak the red chawli beans overnight.

Drain and add the rice and urad dhal. Soak in fresh water for another 2o minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the yoghurt.

Drain the soaked ingredients and grind adding the chillis, ginger and salt to a very coarse paste.

Chop the curry leaves and add to the mix.

Heat oil in a pan and deep fry small flattened portions of the dough.

Remove with slotted ladle once done on both sides and drain on absorbent tissue just to remove excess oil.

While still warm, drop them into the prepared yoghurt.

When the entire dough has been used up and the vadais have been soaked, add the tempering.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

Serve as you wish. You may add some boondhis for the topping. Grated carrots can make colourful topping too.

Punjabi Kadhi - Indian Cooking challenge

I have been undergoing a 'blogger-idle syndrome', lately. With the impending move and related overload of work, I have not tried reading any blogs; neither have I tried posting in mine. However, the Indian Cooking Challenge is something I thought I should mark my attendance to.

This time it was chosen to try a regular, but authentic recipe. It is very simple to cook up, yet doing it just as the people do traditionally held a charm.

Srivalli took the opportunity to challenge us with Punjabi Kadhi, a recipe shared by Simran who blogs @ Bombay foodie. In Simran's words, it is a recipe that her mother makes often and you can keep leftovers to go with rotis and such after having this with hot steamed rice for your lunch. I did just the same.

As I said earlier, I am running short of time. Hence have copied the recipe Srivalli posted to us, just editing at places....now that might make it nearly in my words, would it not?

I have enjoyed the recipe and relished the flavours. I recommend you do so too.

Ingredients:
For Pakoras:
Gram flour - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1 medium
Salt to taste
Red Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Water
Oil for Deep frying

For Kadhi :

Yoghurt - 1 cup
Gram flour/ chickpea flour - 1/3 cup ( I reduced this to 1/4 cup)
Water - 3 to 4 cups
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds- 1 tsp
Ajwain/ Carom Seeds/ Omam- 1 tsp
Methi seeds/ Fenugreek seeds- 1 tsp
Onion -1 large
Turmeric powder just a bit
Salt to taste
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1/2 tsp
Amchur/ Dried Mango powder - 1 tsp

Method:
For the Pakoras :
Chop the onion in big pieces. Keep reserve.

Take flour, salt and red chili powder in a bowl.

Add water and make a batter that is slightly thick.
Heat oil in a pan. When it is hot, dip onions in the batter and gently drop into the hot oil.

Deep fry until the pakoras are done evenly crisp.
Remove from oil and drain on absorbent paper.
Keep aside for futher use.

For the kadhi:
Slice the onion in long strips.

Mix yoghurt and gram flour to a smooth lump free paste initially, then add water to achieve a very thin batter.
Heat one tablespoon of oil. Add a teaspoon each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, carom seeds and methi. Allow a few seconds for them to crackle.
Add onion slices, fry till they turn light brown.
Pour in the ready mixed batter, and add to this turmeric powder, salt and red chilli powder.
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for at least half an hour.
Keep stirring occasionally.
When it thickens fairly enough, add the reserved pakoras.

Again bring the mixture to a boil.

Add garam masala and amchur powder to the gravy just before removing from stove.
I reserved some Kashmiri chilli powder just to garnish.

The kadhi has to be fairly thick. The thin, watery kadhi is the Gujarati version. For a hearty Punjabi one,make it thick.

Serve the Kadhi with hot steamed rice or with rotis and chappathis. I loved it when the Kadhi had cooled down a bit and the flavours soaked withtin and the pakoras absorbing some of the liquid and puffing up.

Coconut laddoo

Festival season around there is lot of visiting friends and being visited by friends happening. I try to keep stock of some goodies to entertain. With loads of activities in line with Navarathri, making elaborate preparations and time consuming sweets is a task in itself. I look for quick cooking sweets and desserts.

Having found this recipe for microwave coconut burfi that uses Khoya, I replaced the khoya with condensed milk, left out the sugar and rolled out these delicious coconut laddoos. I halved the coconut quantity given in the recipe and substituted ground almond powder.

You could cook just about two minutes longer and roll out like khatlis too. I have tried this with a very small quantity, hence could not click a photograph on the trial run.

These laddoos were just as quickly consumed as I cooked them. I remember that the Nestle leaflets did have a coconut ladoo recipe in that too. Thus this recipe is an adaption from two sources namely the Nestle India's leaflet with Milkmaid recipes and the LG microwave cookbook.

Ingredients:

1 cup freshly scrapped coconut (the finer the scrape the better)

1 cup ground almond powder ( I used store bought)

1/2 tin of sweetened condensed milk ~190 grams

1 pinch of powdered cardamom

1 tablespoon ghee

Method:

Reserve a small portion of the grated coconut to roll the laddoos in at the last stage.

Take ghee in a microwave proof bowl. I suggest you use a fairly large bowl to avoid over boiling of the milk.

Add first the condensed milk and heat it on 100% power without lid on, for 3 minutes.

The milk would have become a bit thinner with the boiling. Add the rest of the coconut and the almond powder.

Put the bowl in the microwave and cook without lid, on highest power for 7 minutes.

Stir occasionally. Check the consistency at the end of the set time. Give a brisk stir and cook again on 60% power for a further 3 minutes. Check at every 1 minute interval as the mixture might cook fully even before this time. It took me 3 minutes. Add 1 or 2 minutes depending on the output of your machine.

Remove the bowl from the microwave. Add the cardamom powder.

Allow the mixture to cool down to bearable warmth ( should still be moderately hot).

Grease your palms and roll small size laddoos of the mixture. Roll them in the reserved coconut and serve.

These laddoos, having been cooked during festival season are being sent to Smitha @ Smitha's Spicy Flavours hosting the alltime popular Microwave Easy Cooking with Festive Dishes.

It is time to cook it up with Chef In You

Priya hosts this month's Tried and Tasted, an event, the brainchild of Zlamushka currently taken over by Lakshmi. Priya has chosen one of our favourite recipe site, Divya Karthik's (known to most as DK) Chef In You. When I went through Priya's announcement post this morning I found so many comments there and am sure that readers are going to be spoilt for choices.

Last month it was Ria hosting Tried and Tasted with Alka's Sindhi Rasoi. I had cooked on an everyday basis from Sindhi Rasoi and yet failed to post even one entry. You may find random posts appearing in future which have tried from Alka's spot.

Coming back to this month, I am sure I might get caught up in other mundane tasks in the next few days and will certainly not be able to attend to my blog. Hence let me share this recipe just to show my appreciation of the wonderful blogger that Divya is!

The rajma parathas filled with grated paneer and coarsely mashed rajma make a wholesome dinner coupled with simple onion and tomato masal.

Soak and pressure cook rajma beans until tender. Mash coarsely cooked rajma beans. Cook it with salt and spices of your choice. Mix with the grated paneer to make the filling.

Make a dough with wheat flour adding salt and a bit of oil to the flour. Knead to a smooth pliable dough adding enough water.

Roll out small discs with portions of the dough and place the filling in the centre. Roll in a ball and flatten as discs taking care not to spill the filling.

Cook until both sides are done well on a hot girdle.

Serve hot with a lighter side dish.

Enjoy the wholeness of nutrients that have been cooked in one delectable dish.