My Christmas special eggless moist chocololate cake

This festive season of christmas & new year ahead is just feels like incomplete without home-made cakes , is not it ? The aroma of the fruit cakes, cookies in the house these days is just awesome & lifts up your mood. I am always very very fond of cakes and I cant sit eating just one piece of it. This time though little late , I baked a tea time  eggless chocolate cake on Christmas, 25th being a Thursday this time I went the eggless way. It was super moist and every one at home just loved it.


Ingredients:
Flour/Maida: 1 & 1/2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Vinegar/Lemon: 1/2 tsp/1-2 drops
A pinch of salt
Cold milk: 1 cup
Vegetable oil: 1/4 cup
vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Oil & some flour to grease and dust the cake tin

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.

In a mixing bowl, beat well the oil, sugar, milk, vanilla essence. Now add the vinegar and beat again. Remember the milk used should be really cold so that it wont get curdle as soon as you add the vinegar.

In another bowl, sift flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and fold this mixture into  the wet mixture above. Always follow the cut and fold method to mix the mixture while preparing for cake. Over mixing or over beating would release the air pockets that forms and cake wont rise up and wont get fluffy.

Grease and dust the baking tin with oil & flour. I used my loaf tin , you can use your round or other shaped cake tins as well.  Pour in the mixture and tap the tin a little. Bake this in the preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. Baking time depends on the  types of ovens we use. So do keep an eye while its under baking process. Mine took exactly 40 minutes.

Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. Slice it and enjoy with your hot cup of tea or coffee. Kids too love this chocolate cake with their hot glass of milk. I baked this cake without any fruit/dry fruits as my kid loves her chocolate cake this way. You can add as per your choice. Just dust the dry fruits you are using with some flour before mixing in the batter.

Enjoy !!

 

Mutton Curry my style

For me mutton is THE most tastiest meat of all if you cook it with strong spices, lot of oil and in a slow cooking process. Be it mutton keema , curry or even a mutton chop tastes heaven. Though we don't eat this meat more often due to health reasons, this sunday we decided to cook mutton curry almost after 5 years. And we realised we still love to eat this meat a lot. House was smelling great with the aroma of all spices and the curry tasted just finger-licking  with the awesome colour. Once in a month or two this kind of indulgence is definitely allowed irrespective of my health issue ;)

I am definitely very happy today to share my recipe of mutton curry with all of you dear friends.

Ingredients:

Mutton: 500 gms evenly cut pieces cleaned and washed properly
Onion: 5 medium sized roughly chopped
Garlic: 1 whole medium sized
Ginger: 1 pc medium sized
Dry chillies: 2-3
Bay leaf: 3
Cinnamon stick, Cardamom & clove:: 4-5 of each pitted a bit
Turmeric powder: 2 tsp
Red chilli powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Cumin Powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Coriander powder: 1 heap tsp
MEat Masala : 3 tsp
Garam masala powder: 1 heap tsp
Salt to taste
Mustard oil: 1 tbsp. for marination & 4 tbsp. for the curry
Fresh coriander leaf: add as much as you like once it is ready. I was out of stock that day :)

Method:

In a bowl take the washed mutton pieces and marinate with 1 tbsp. mustard oil, salt & 1 tsp turmeric and keep aside for about half an hour.

Grind the onion, garlic, ginger in a grinder . Don't make a runny paste.

Heat a deep bottomed kadhai/pan. Put the marinated mutton in it and mix well and keep it on medium flame stirring in between until and unless all the water from the meat dries out and  the mutton gets dry & take a dark brown colour. Once done keep this in a bowl.

In the same kadhai/pan, heat the mustard oil. Add dry chillies, bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and allow them to splutter. Now add the onion  & ginger-garlic mixture into this. Fry  them until they become brown in colour. Don't skip this step please. Start adding the dry masalas - turmeric, coriander, cumin, red chilli powder and mix all well. Fry them till they release oil. Now add the marinated mutton, combine all well keeping the flame from low-medium. Cover with lid and let it cook slowly. Keep checking & stirring in between so that the mutton doesn't get stick to the bottom of the pan. This will really take a lot of time so you need to have patience at this stage, so don't add water to fasten the cooking process. After some time add the meat masala and mix all well. This will take you about say 15-18 minutes. This slow cooking process will help all the masala to go inside the meat and also slowly gives that colour to it.

Add about 1 & 1/2 cup of water, stir and cover with the lid. Bring it to boil, add the garam masala , salt, mix and keep on medium flame for about another 7-10 minutes. Now transfer this to the pressure cooker . Add some water again if you find it dry or thickened up. This will require around 7-8 whistles in the cooker depending on the quality of the mutton. Mine took exactly 10 . First I allowed it to whistle 6 times. As it was not cooked properly I put it back on the flame again for another 4 numbers of whistles.  Once done, allow the pressure to release on its own. Now if you want to thicken your gravy more, then transfer it to the pan/kadhai and keep on flame, keep stirring in between till you get the desired thickness of the gravy. We like it as curry only so I didn't thicken it. 

Serve this delicious mutton curry hot with rice or chapati and enjoy.

Eggless Moist Chocolate Cake with chocolate ganache

It was a very dear friend/neighbour's wedding anniversary and I got to know about it that very morning when we went to drop our children at the bus stop. Though I had very little time in my hand still thought what is better than baking a cake for such a beautiful couple to share our love and affection. Only challenge was they are vegetarian so obviously I cant use eggs. Normally when I decide to bake an eggless cake I use curd/banana as egg replacer but that day nothing was available in the pantry. So I searched in net and found that in few cake recipes people uses milk as well, so I went the milk way  this time :) .. Trust me it came out well with the sponginess, soft, and risen perfectly as well. Next challenge was the icing/frosting part as I did not want to give them a plain chocolate cake. So decided the easy and fool-proof way of using chocolate ganache as icing and sprinkling some grated/finely chopped white chocolate. Arranged the stuff quickly through home delivery option that we have available in every locality in Mumbai. And finally I finished preparing the cake just on time. I am so happy that they liked it very much. What else I could have asked for being a beginner at icing / frosting cakes. Their appreciation was so encouraging for me that now I really want to excel in this.
As I was left with a small portion of the batter so I made two cupcakes  with that. I & my kid quite liked the taste.

So here is the recipe of the cake for you all. Do try and send your feedback too.

Ingredients:

For the cake
Flour/Maida: 1 & 1/2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Vinegar/Lemon: 1/2 tsp/1-2 drops
A pinch of salt
Cold milk: 1 cup
Vegetable oil: 1/4 cup
vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Oil & some flour to grease and dust the cake tin

For the chocolate ganache
Dark Chocolate: 1 cup chopped
Heavy cream: 1/2 cup
Sugar: 2-3 tbsp.
Butter: 2 tbsp.

For decorating the cake:
Grated or chopped white chocolate: 1/2 cup
Black grapes: 5 numbers I used

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.

In a mixing bowl, beat well the oil, sugar, milk, vanilla essence. Now add the vinegar and beat again. Remember the milk used should be really cold so that it wont get curdle as soon as you add the vinegar.

In another bowl, sift flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and fold this mixture into  the wet mixture above. Always follow the cut and fold method to mix the mixture while preparing for cake. Over mixing or over beating would release the air pockets that forms and cake wont rise up and wont get fluffy.

Grease and dust the baking tin with oil & flour. Pour in the mixture and tap the tin a little. Bake this in the preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. Baking time depends on the  types of ovens we use. So do keep an eye while its under baking process.

Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack.

In the mean time, prepare the chocolate ganache. Take the cream in a sauce pan and put it to boil. In a mixing bowl take the chopped chocolate. Now pour the hot cream onto the chocolate and let it remain like this for about 4-5 minutes. Then beat this so that everything mixes well, add the sugar and butter and beat again so that no lumps remain. Once ready keep it in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes before using for frosting.

Assembling the cake:

Take the cake on a cake stand. If you don't have a stand, invert any bigger sized bowl and keep a dish on it & place the cake on the dish for icing/frosting. What I do is I cover the dish with aluminium foil from all sides, then keep four pieces of paper to make a square structure above which I place the cake and remove them by pulling out once the icing/frosting is done. This is to get a clean end product after frosting the cake :). I saw this in a video in youtube. With a flat spatula spread evenly the icing on the top & cover the cake from all its sides. Apply a generous coat of icing. Once it is done keep it in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes.


I put 5 numbers of black grapes on the centre of the cake and spread the chopped/grated white chocolate on the border of the cake making a circle as you can see in the picture. Then dust some icing sugar on the whole cake with the help of a strainer. Keep it once again in the refrigerator for about half an hour.

Now slice a real big piece and take it on a dish, grab a fork and prepare to experience this chocolaty heaven & enjoy !!




 

Popular Indian sweet Peda

Peda needs no introduction when it comes to popular sweets of India, served during festivals mostly and otherwise as well and loved by all. We all in the family are so fond of this sweet. In Assam there is a place called Bokhakhat which is actually famous for their awesome melt in mouth pedas. People buy kilos and kilos of pedas whenever they visit that place. I miss them so much here and never tasted any peda like the ones of Bokakhat. You ask any one from Assam about this place and you will get to know how famous their pedas are !
Pedas are made from milk by cooking it till it thickens. But I wanted a recipe which is easy and less time taking. So when I saw one of my friend in US preparing this sweet during Diwali and posted few pictures , I asked her to share the recipe. She then sent me this link for this easy microwave pedas of Show me the curry http://showmethecurry.com/desserts/peda-indian-sweet.html. Tried and tested this in my kitchen and a sure shot hit recipe it is. Though only variation I did is the measurement as per my number of servings. You can follow the exact measurements as given in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

Dry Milk Powder: 1 cup
Sweetend condensed milk:1/2 cup
Butter: 50 gms
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp
Chopped Pistachios: for garnishing

Procedure:

In  a microwave safe dish melt the butter and keep aside. Add the milk powder, condensed milk and mix well with the help of a spoon. Now cook this mixture in the microwave for 3 minutes (for beginners for a better understanding microwave for 3 minutes means you have to cook the mixture in microwave mode  ). Stir the mixture after every one minute by putting the microwave off , taking out the dish, stir and putting it back in the microwave and cook. again 

After cooking for 3 minutes, take this out and mix it once again and keep aside to cool down enough so that you can mix with you hands. Once the mixture is cooled down, sprinkle the cardamom powder and mix with your hands nicely.  Now divide this mixture into small equal sized portions and make balls and flatten the balls in the center by pressing gently with your finger and arrange them on a dish. Garnish with chopped pistachios in the centre of the pedas as shown in the pictures. Keep them aside to set and cool down. Serve them , enjoy them whenever you get the craving for these delicious sweets ..

You can also give different shapes to this sweet by rolling out the mixture and cut with different cookie cutters and also by serving in beautiful decorative cup cake liners.

Til aru maasor anja - fish cooked with black sesame

Here is an absolute authentic Assamese dish Til aru massor anja - fish with black sesame paste curry. I too have learnt to prepare this awesome dish very recently. Thought I should share with you all as its very easy to cook and tastes delicious.

Ingredients:

Rohu Fish: 2-3 pieces (you can take any other fish)
Black sesame seed: 2tbsp
Coriander seeds, Cumin seeds, black pepper: 2 tsp of them mixed
Paanch Phuron: 1 tsp
Onion: 1 small roughly cut
Ginger: 1 small piece
Garlic: 3-4 cloves
Dry red chilli: 1-2 numbers
Bay leaf: 1-2
Black pepper powder: 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp
Salt  to taste
Mustard oil: 1 tbsp. for the gravy & 3-4 tbsp. for frying the fishes
Fresh coriander leaves for the gravy: about 2tbsp roughly chopped
& few for garnishing

Process:

Clean and wash the fish pieces properly and rub salt & turmeric on them and keep aside for about 5 minutes. Fry these pieces in hot oil and keep aside.


Heat a pan and dry roast the sesame , coriander seeds, cumin seeds, pepper till the aroma of the spices comes out. Once done, let them cool.

In a mixer, take the above roasted masala, onion, ginger garlic, a handful of coriander leave, dry chilli  and few spoons of water and make a paste out of it.

Now heat oil in pan, add panch phuron, bay leaf and allow them to splutter. Pour the above paste into the pan. Keep stirring in low to medium flame and let the sesame gets cooked. After 1-2 minutes, add a cup of water and mix well. Cover with the lid in medium flame and bring it to boil, keep on checking in between. Add the fried fish pieces , combine everything well and once again cover with the lid in low to medium flame. Do keep your eye on it to avoid burning . In another 2-3 minutes , the gravy will start thickening. Immediately put the flame off. Your fish cooked with black sesame is now ready to be served.

Transfer it to a serving bowl, garnish with coriander leaves or a coriander twig and serve hot with rice.

Our favorite snack Samosas

"The most popular"  snack of India is definitely samosa and also considers as oily/unhealthy too. But ofcourse that does not stop us from eating samosas. I still remember when I was living in delhi with my husband , we used to have lot of samosas. Every evening while returning back from office I used to buy four samosas , two for each , to have with our late evening tea. And the result obviously started showing on us with increase in weight, some unnecessary health issues etc etc. And then we stopped eating samosas totally.  Recently I saw a home-made samosa post of a friend in an online food forum where I am a member also, I just could not stop my temptation. Made almost 3 batches of samosas. The husband and my girl loved it a lot. Home-made samosas are definitely higher in rank of health and hygiene. I made few with potato onion stuffing , few with peas/matar stuffing and few with chocolate stuffing. CHocolate stuffing ones were the girl's top favourite. That was actually an idea I got from Chef Shipra's show in foodfood channel. Undoubtedly a great one. Moreover that was a baked version so no guilt of having excessive oil etc

Try these samosas in your kitchen to have as your evening snacks or as breakfast too.

Below ingredients measurements should give you approx. 12-14 samosa. So out of this I made samosas with the three different stuffing as mentioned.

Ingredients:

Maida/All purpose flour: 1/2cup
Whole wheat flour: 1/2 cup
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Baking powder : A pinch
Black cumin seed/shahi jeera: 1/2 tsp
Refined oil/ghee: 1 tbsp
Sufficient water to make a soft dough

For the filling:

Potato filling
Potato: 1 medium sized peeled, boiled and mashed roughly
Onion: 1 small sized chopped
Green chillies: 1-2 chopped
Coriander powder: 1/2 tsp
Chat Masala: 1 tsp
Cumin powder: 1/2 tsp
salt to taste

 

For the peas filling ,
Peas (store bought pack): 1/2 cup soak the peas overnight and pressure cook till soft
Onion: 1 small sized chopped
Green chillies: 1-2 chopped
Coriander powder: 1/2 tsp
Chat Masala: 1 tsp
Cumin powder: 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste

Chocolate filling:

Any dark chocolate of your choice: 1/2 cup roughly chopped
Sufficient quantity of honey for the glaze
Pistachio: 3-4 chopped finely to garnish

Refined oil : 2 tbsp. for preparing the stuffings and required amount of oil for deep frying the samosas

Method:

Make a soft dough with the APF, whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder, shahi jeera, oil/ghee and sufficient amount of water and let the dough to rest for 5-10 minutes.

for the potato stuffing:
In a kadhai/pan, heat oil . Add the onion and fry till translucent. add the chopped green chillies, salt of the dry masala and the mashed potatoes. Combine them well and fry for about a minute or two and put off the flame and allow this to cool.

For peas stuffing: same method as used for the potato filling above.

With the prepared dough, take out small portions and make balls out of them. Roll these balls to small sized round pooris and cut with a knife through the center of the rolled out poori.

 

with a brush or with your finger tips, on the straight edge of the sliced poori, apply some water and give the basic shape of the samosa as shown in the picture below. Now join the two ends bringing the watered edge on top of the plain edge as shown in pic below. Press the edges well, so that they get sealed. It will now look like a cone. Make sure that the edges should be joined very well so that the stuffing does not come out while frying

.

Now stuff the prepared samosa cone with your fillings of either potato/peas or the chocolate. Seal the edges by pressing with your fingers . I gave a detailing by pressing the edges with a fork. Repeat the same method for rest of the balls.

Heat oil in a deep kadhai/pan . Fry the samosas on both the sides till its golden brown in colour in low flame. Remove from oil and keep them in a tissue paper so that the extra oil can be soaked up.


For the baked version:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius. Grease the baking tray with some oil/ghee. Place the samosas on the baking tray and brush some oil on the samosas. Now bake them at 180 degree Celsius for about 15-20 minutes or till you get a brown crust on the samosas. Take them out of the oven and allow them to cool down on the cooling rack. Arrange them in a plate. Take some honey in a small bowl, dip a brush into the honey and apply that on the samosas. Now sprinkle the chopped pistachios on top of them and they are ready to be served. Don't miss the sight of melting chocolates coming out of the samosa.

Serve hot with tomato ketchup/tamarind chutney/coriander chutney and enjoy with your evening tea. Chocolate stuff samosas you can have with your tea/coffee. Your kids will definitely going to love this sweet version of samosas.

 

My first ever experience with gorgeous Red velvet cupcake with cream frosting

How beautiful the red velvet cake is !! I love the rich chocolate-flavour, sponginess  of the cake & its distinctive reddish colour. . As the husband's birthday is coming so this time I don't want to order a cake from outside. So tried this last night on a trial basis hence went for 5 cupcakes instead of a whole cake. It came out pretty well as expected. Baking is super fun for me and specially with  the frosting /icing stuff.. just love doing that.  This time with the cup cakes I could not do the layering with frosting part which of course a basic original red velvet cake should have but planning to do  that for his birthday cake.

This one is not my recipe of course. I referred this link http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/southern-red-velvet-cake-recipe.html. but had made some minor variations in case of quantities of ingredients. One more thing I dropped is the cream cheese. Some how I find the cream cheese very heavy and don't like the taste. So I used only cream for the frosting part.

Ingredients:
For the cake:

All purpose flour/Maida: 1 cup
Powdered sugar: 1/2 cup
Eggs: 2
Baking powder: 1/2 tsp
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
pinch of salt
Cocoa powder: 1 tsp
Buttermilk: 3-4 tbsp.
Vegetable oil: 5-6 tbsp.
Vanilla Essence: 1 tsp
White vinegar: 1/2 tsp
Red food colour: 1/2 tsp (I used powdered one)

For Cream frosting:

Fresh Cream: 100 ml (I used amul cream only as I did not find any heavy cream nearby. But for frosting it is always better to use heavy cream)
Powdered sugar: 4 tbsp.
Butter: 2 tbsp. melted in room temperature
Vanilla Essence: 1 tsp

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.

Sift the APF/maida, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the egg and mix oil, buttermilk, vanilla essence, vinegar, food colour very well. Now into this fold the dry mixture of APF/maida until everything combines well and make a smooth batter.

Now pour the batter into the cup cake moulds. (I used silicon moulds hence no greasing was required). Keep the moulds on a baking tray and bake them at 180 degree Celsius for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick/fork comes out clean while inserted.

Let them cool in a wire rack and de-mould.

For the frosting:

In a bowl ,take the cream. Add sugar, butter  & vanilla essence . With the help of a balloon beater , mix them well with medium to high speed until they reach a little fluffy texture. This would take you about 10-12 minutes or so. I know its quite a task with the balloon beater, so if you have an electric blender/beater, nothing like that. Once it is ready, keep in the refrigerator till it is bit stiff.

Now put the cream in the piping bag and decorate your cup cakes with the frosting with different nozzles of the piping bag, top it with a cherry and enjoy.

If you are going for a whole cake, you can slice  the cake horizontally with a sharp knife into two halves and spread evenly the cream frosting on top of one half and place the other half above it. Again cover the top with the remaining cream frosting. Keep in the refrigerator for some time and then take out, slice and enjoy.

 

Healthy Bread Dahi Vada

I love dahi vada like many of you do. A popular Indian chat, prepared by soaking fried vadas in thick dahi. And whenever I get a chance to eat this delicious chaat, I never refuse to . But the hard-work required for making the vadas by soaking the dal overnight and then making the batter for the vadas is what makes me re-think every time I thought of making them at home. Then I saw this version of dahi vada made of bread first on a food channel and I found it super easy and super healthy too as there was no deep oil frying required here. Tried and tested in my kitchen yesterday when I wanted to have something spicy but keeping the calories in mind. Do check this very easy to assemble recipe and also try in your kitchen as evening snacks.

Ingredients:

Bread: 4 slices (I use brown bread. you can use white bread as well and quantity as per your servings)
Curd: 4-5 tbsp. add few drops of water and beat it. Add salt, cumin powder and mix
Tamarind chutney: 1 tbsp. (mine was home-made, you can always use store bought)
salt to taste
Chilli powder: 1/2 tsp (depends on your taste. I used 1/2 tsp as my home-made tamarind chutney was already spicy enough)
Cumin Powder: 1 tsp
Chat-Masala: 1 tsp
Fresh chopped coriander as required
Sufficient water to soak the bread slices

Direction:

Take water in a bowl and soak one bread and press them with your hands to squeeze the water and give ball shape out of it. If you want you can flatten the balls between the palms of your hands to give a circle shape or vada like shape. Repeat the same for rest of the slices.

Now arrange the vadas in a serving bowl and top with the beaten curd. Garnish with chilli powder, tamarind chutney, chat masala & chopped coriander.  Keep in the refrigerator and serve chill.

Is not  that so easy ? Yes it is this simple. Do give your feedback if you try this recipe.

Kathali Chapa or kordoi - a snack popular in Assam

A popular snack of Assam , this kathali chapa (looks like the flower champa) or kordoi pitha is a delicious one for sure . We prepare this specially during our festival bihu. Easy to prepare, crunchy , crispy snack to have with your hot cup of evening tea. This pitha/sweetmeat or snack is also called as kordoi pitha as it is made exactly like a star fruit , which in Assam is called kordoi.


Ingredients:

Flour/Maida: 1/2 cup
pinch of salt
Refine oil: 2 tbsp
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp.
water to make the dough
Refine oil for deep frying as required

Method:

Make a very soft dough with the flour, salt, refine oil, baking soda. Rest the dough for about 10 minutes.

Now divide the dough into equal portions and make small balls and roll out the with the rolling pin like we make pooris.

With a pointed knife make long slits as shown in the above picture. Take the puri and press the top and bottom with your fingers.

DO it for rest of the portions.

Heat oil in a kadhai/pan. Deep fry the kathali chapas/kordoi pithas 2-3 at a time till they turn out golden brown on both sides on low-medium flame. Repeat the same process for the rest and keep them on a tissue paper.

Your delicious & beautiful kathali chapa/kordoi pithas are ready to be served. This can be stored in air-tight containers for several days.

 

Eggless & Yeast-free doughnuts

 It was an Eureka moment for me!! Tried my hands to prepare doughnuts at home for the very first time. That too on a Thursday when we people do not eat non-veg so I could not even use eggs which made me a little scared. And also I did not want to go through the yeast fermentation process etc today out of excitement & curiosity.

So this is an Eggless, yeast-free, doughnut shape cutterless fresh DOUGHNUTS from my kitchen. I have always been wanting to make doughnuts at home. Somehow I got the courage today to try my hands for the very first time. Soft from inside and crusty upper just perfect. The little had one full even after she finished her dinner. Also asking to pack in her tiffin box tomorrow . And I know if my daughter is asking for more it has to be the tasty one.

Doughnut is a type of fried dough confectionary or dessert food, is popular in many countries as breakfast or sweet snack. They are usually deep-fried from a flour dough, and typically either ring-shaped or without a hole and often filled. You can give many variations to your doughnut glaze with maple syrup, milkmaid, honey glaze, chocolate  sauce/or by using different food colours.


Ingredients:

Plain Flour/maida: 1 1/2 cups
Sugar: 4 tbs superfine (you can increase the amount of sugar as per your taste)
Milk: 1/2 cup
Butter: 50 gms.
Vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder: 1/2 tsp
Baking soda: 1tsp
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Refined oil: for deep frying


For the glaze

Milk: 1 cup
Condensed milk: 1/2 cup
Cocoa powder: 3-4 tbsp. for chocolate sauce
Store bought Chocolate sauce: 1-2 tbsp. for chocolate sauce
Green food colour: 1 pinch is enough to get the colour
Castor sugar: 1 tbsp. or as required to sprinkle over the doughnuts

Method:

In a bowl, add the melted butter and sugar and beat well until they combine well. Add the milk and mix them well and keep aside.

In another bowl, sieve the flour, baking soda, baking powder. Now pour in the above mixture slowly to this dry mixture. Combine all well and knead until you get a dough like consistency. In case the dough is sticky and very moist, you can add some dry flour also. Keep the dough covered to rest for about half an hour.

Divide equal medium sized portions from the dough and make balls, flatten it with palm of your hand You can roll out the balls with a rolling pin also (while flattening the balls or rolling out dust some dry flour). I kept the balls size medium as this would double up while frying. Now with the help of a doughnut cutter (if you have), cut out approx. 3-inch-diameter rounds with 1-inch-diameter holes. I do not have doughnut cutter ,so I used the cap of my mustard oil bottle (little weird, but no other options available with me. But that worked just perfect for me). Repeat the same process for the rest and arrange them in a dish.

Heat oil in a deep bottomed pan/kadhai.  Deep fry the doughnuts one or two at a time for about 1-2 minutes or till golden brown on both sides and keep aside.

For the sauce:

Make the glaze by heating a pan , add the milk, condensed milk and stir continuously till it gets thicken. At this point I divided this sauce into two portions. In one portion, I added the cocoa powder and the chocolate sauce. Mix them well till everything combines well. In the remaining portion, I added the green food colour and combine all well. You can use any food colour of your choice or you can make only chocolate sauce dipped doughnut.

Place all the fried doughnuts on a cooling /wire rack and let them cool for a minute or two. Do not forget to keep a dish under the rack. Now pour in the chocolate & green coloured sauce on the doughnuts and let it set for about 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle the castor sugar on the doughnuts with the help of a tea strainer.

Now enjoy your soft doughnuts with your cuppa.

You can make this doughnut healthier by baking it instead of deep frying.
 

Our very own Rasgulla

Rasgulla is a syrupy dessert very popular in India and we all love to eat rasgullas. A commonly seen dessert in weddings/parties. I have seen my mother making rasgullas when I was a kid. And I somehow exactly remember how she used to make it. And I exactly follow the recipe whenever I make my rasgullas. I have seen many people complaining about the chenna not binding properly or the rasgullas not becoming soft & fluffy. But thanks to god & my mom's recipe that as of now , my rasgullas have always been a success. While making rasgulla, a good quality milk plays the crucial part. I have made them with both Tetra pack milk and packaged milk as well and never disappointed. After making the chenna from milk, process of kneading the chenna should be perfect. You just can not ignore this step , in short there is no short cut for this step. Lastly the time required for the rasgullas to get cooked in sugar syrup. I cook them in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Some cook the same in pressure cooker as well.

Ingredients:

Milk: 1 ltr
White vinegar: 2 tsp
Maida: 2 tsp

for the sugar syrup

Water: 2 cups
Sugar: 4 tbsp.
Cardamom powder: 1/2 tsp
Kesar: few strands

 Method:

In a saucepan boil the milk. After the first boil, add the vinegar and put the flame off. Keep it undisturbed for about 5 minutes so that the milk curdles.  

Through a colander lined with a muslin cloth strain the paneer/chenna that formed and wash under cold tape water very nicely so that the sourness due to the vinegar is removed. Drain off water by squeezing and tie a knot in the muslin cloth and  leave the paneer hanging for about half an hour.

 

After half an hour, take out the paneer/chenna which will be crumbly and dry with little moisture. Now the major part of making rasgulla is to knead the paneer/chenna well with your fingers and palms of your hands. At this stage I added the maida (if you donot feel like, you can avoid it). Mix them well and knead till it forms a dough. This whole process would take about 10 minutes.
Now divide the dough into equal sized portions and make balls without any crack on them , not very big sized as the rasgullas will double up while on boiling.

While making the balls, boil water in a heavy bottom saucepan. Put the rasgullas in the boiling water in batches so that they get enough space to double up and sinks well in water and cover with lid for about 10 minutes or so. After 10 minutes you will see the rasgullas becoming double their original size. Now its very important to know whether the rasgullas are cooked well.

I took the idea of a dear sister Garima, a blogger (her blog's name is Café Garima) having magical hands in the field of cooking, experimenting..that if you want to check whether your rasgullas are cooked, take plain cold water in a glass and drop the rasgulla. If it sinks, it is done. If it floats, boil for a couple of minutes and check again. And yes it works fantastically. Thanks dear sister. :)

Make the sugar syrup by boiling the mentioned quantity of water and sugar in a big heavy bottomed saucepan. Now add cardamom powder & saffron strands. Squeeze out the rasgullas from the water and drop in the sugar syrup. I keep it in boiling mode for about another 5-7 minutes. Put the flame off and let it cool down and serve.


Cooking in Pressure cooker:

Once your chenna balls are ready, boil water and sugar in the cooker and make the syrup a bit thick. This will take about 2 minutes or so. Then add the rasgullas carefully in the syrup. Close the lid and , keep the flame in low and pressure cook for at least 10-12 minutes. Put the flame off. Don't wait for the pressure to release on its own. Place the pressure cooker under running water or on a water bath so that the pressure releases immediately. Open the lid an transfer the rasgullas with the syrup to a bowl.

Serve hot if you like that way or keep in refrigerator to enjoy it chilled.

 

Paneer/cottage cheese in a gravy of Cashewnut & almond

Though I am not a big fan of matar paneer/palak paneer/kadhai paneer etc but I love this paneer preparation ..all white white . Whenever I have guests at home over dinner, I certainly prefer to make this dish when it comes to a vegetarian preparation . Always happy with the outcome . You may call it a shahi paneer or nawabi paneer as the ingredients required are almost same. The very first time I tried to make this dish was when I had a family over dinner and unfortunately or fortunately the husband was vegetarian. I was in a confused state of mind while thinking of paneer , whether to make with matar/peas or paneer butter masala or palak paneer. But then I thought these are something that I actually do not enjoy cooking (donot like to eat as well). Finally the idea for this white gravy came to my mind. And as obvious I did a mess with it. Do not know how come I thought of peanuts instead of almonds. And when I was grinding the roasted peanuts then only I realised that I should have used almonds not peanuts. As I was running short of time, I quickly put some almonds along with the peanuts and made  the paste with some water. Yes it was white !! It tasted good as well with the richness of dry fruits. With time passing by I started preparing this dish by adding /subtracting ingredients and I found this cashew nut & almond paste taste just awesome with paneer. Do check the rich delicious recipe and try it in your kitchen. You will love it its a promise :)

Ingredients:

Paneer: 200 gms cut into equal sized cubes
Onion: 1 large size
Ginger garlic paste: 2 tbsp.
Green Chillies: 1-2
Cashew nut & almond: 1/2 cup
Chopped coconut: a handful (you can replace this with coconut milk as well)
Bay leaf: 2
Dry red chilli: 1
Mace: 1-2
Cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick: 2-3 of each slightly pitted
Fresh cream: 2-3 tbsp
Refined oil: 3-4 tbsp
Salt to taste
Garam Masala: 1 tsp
Saffron/kesar: few strands soaked in half small bowl of hot milk

Method:

Soak the cashewnuts, almonds and chopped coconut in water for about 5-10 minutes. Then make a paste out of it in a mixer and keep aside.

Make a paste of onion and green chillies and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the dry red chilli, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, mace and allow them to crackle. Add the onion paste and saute for about a minute . Now add the ginger garlic paste and saute for a minute or so. Add the cashew, almond & coconut paste , mix with the masala and fry for about 2 minutes in low flame. Add 1 cup of water to it , stir and cover with a lid in medium-high flame. Cook this for about 2-3 minutes, checking in between. Now add the paneer cubes, garam masala, salt and combine everything well and simmer for another 5-7 minutes or till the gravy thickens. If you see the gravy dries up, you can add some more water. Finally add the fresh cream and the saffron along with the milk in which saffron was soaked in, give the gravy a nice stir and put the flame off. Now the paneer in white gravy is ready.

Serve hot with rice or roti.