August 26, 2014

Khara Pera - Easy no cook milk pedas

Something which is very easy to make and undoubtedly tasty and sweet :) 

Most of you must be already knowing this recipe but I was delighted to discover it today , better late than never I say :) 

This book has been one of my recent purchases and is soaking in the this book forever since then. Since I have the ingredients required I just gave it a try. The results were good and took hardly 15 mins to put it together and get it ready.



The recipe is as follows

Butter ( unsalted) - 1/2 cup at room temperature
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Dry milk powder - 1 3/4 cups
Milk - 1 tspn as necessary
few drops of esence or nuts ( optional)

Method
Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light a fluffy. Using your hands work in the milk powder and milk to make a medium soft dough. Flavour with essence, nuts if desired.
Wash and dry your hands and then take small portions of the dough and roll out smooth and flatten.
Store in the refrigerator well sealed and will stay goo upto 4 days.

Isnt it an easy recipe? I was delighted to make it ..hopefully so do you :)

Thanks !

August 23, 2014

My black beauties - Tips and tricks to handle and season cast iron utensils

My black beauties

This post is not about any dish or recipe but about something more precious than that, yes asyou guessed its about my cooking utensils. I have always been inclined to the traditional vessels which has been used by our mothers and grandmothers. When I got married and started ruling my own kitchen I started working on my love for cooking and the lifeless utensils too :) ( Oh I love them a lot)



The story takes me back to that time when I went to my native place for the delivery of my first child. Whenever my husband comes to visit me I observed he has no luggage to carry,, :P that's when I thought of  packing his bag with one utensil each time he return. Yes, now I realise I was so intelligent to do that then.. ha ha.. because as many of you now once the baby comes you cant think of carrying anything much extra.

Anyway all the tough job starts when you want to season the utensils.

Among the above collection except for the big kadai which my mom gave the rest of it was bought and seasoned by me. Among that the big dosa tava was the first among the lot.




Few pointers to season the pan

  1. You can smear oil well inside out of the pan leave it for some time before you start using it.
  2. Use sesame oil to rub the pan when you want to cook in it
  3. Also use a half onion to rub the pan with oil.


These rules applies for the dosa tava and the appam chatti strictly.
I have used the above two methods for quite a long time .

Few other tips are
Rub the pan with little salt
If you use eggs, break an egg before start making dosas.
the above two are what I have heard dint use these tips much.

You have to be really persistent and patient enough to stick on to these rules to get your tava seasoned. By no means you should take out your nonstick tava :) Hope you get me ;)

When you using kadais it is  easier .. please don't think that you have to use a ladle full of oil. Trust me you don't have to .. Initially use the kadai to season and then add the vegs/ other ingredients and cook those dishes which need water in the second stage of cooking.

Warning : the dish will trun a little dark due to the iron content.

So you need to empty the dish as soon as you finish cooking and not leave the food in the vessel.
Once you keep doing this one day you will realise the food doesn't turn dark anymore ..may be then you can leave thefood in the kadai if you choose that way.

If you think why so much of hard work when you get stuffs of a non stick tava or kadai in a breeze.

These are few of my reasons
Research have showed that
Nonstick tava/pan emits toxins when heated after a certain point, it is hazardous to the person who inhales it.
Nonstick tava/pan has a coating which is not healthy as well.

Even if you ignore the above two points the most interesting factor for me in the taste .. Yes trust me .. the dosas made in the iron tava is much tastier than the one made in non stick . The texture is also very different from the one made in nonstick ins what I feel. And if you think I use a lot of oil, absolutely no .. Just one drop of oil is enough for one dosa.

Few other tips and tricks 
If you have observed how they make dosas in the restaurants .. they sprinkle water and adjust the temperature of the tava.. I do the same thing. My family is now used to the 'hus bus' I create when I make dosa.. I put the oil and then sprinkle the water and then pour the batter and spread it think or thick whichever way I want.

Maintenance of cast iron utensils

Please for God sake don't scrub the pans and remove each molecule of oil in it.. Once you finish cooking just wash it with a little of dish washer liquid and scrub lightly. You never have to keep it squeaky clean. that little bit of oil helps the vessels not getting rusted and eventually it gets seasoned better.

Sourcing of utensils

And before I finish my unusually long post I will write some pointers about the sourcing of such utensils


  • Get into the local markets of your area. Please don't visit malls , they might have it but may be 5x the price of it.
  • I have also seen in some supermarkets where again its priced very steep.
  • Instead whenever you visit any villages or smaller cities take a walk into their local city markets.
  • Even if you are in bigger cities you will certainly find it you do a small research about the local markets of that place.
  • And then some online sites abroad also provides cast iron pans which are already seasoned .. So just look around if you adamant and persistent enough to find it you will definitely find it :) I know optimism works !! 
So folks get on to  hunting, shopping, seasoning and cooking yummy authentic dishes !!

Please get back for any queries and doubts 
Thank you :)

August 13, 2014

Whole wheat double chocolate chip cookies



A cookie which is  made a little less sinful by using whole wheat flour :)





Been long  I have baked something rich with a lot of cocoa and chocolate, but have baked this cookies a couple of times and really loved the recipe and the cookies are really yum

I love baking cookies as the method is very simple and you see the result also very soon :) and ofcourse there is numerous variations you can do with these cute little ones.


Ingredients

Whole wheat Flour - 1.5 cups
Cocoa - 1/3 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup ( powdered)
Butter - half cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tspn
Baking soda - 1/2 tspn
Egg - one 
Chocolate chips / bits - 125 gms
Vanilla essence - few drops
Milk - 1/3 - 1/2 cup

Method 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Throw in all the ingredients except milk and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix gently with the fingers, once all the ingredients comes together if you feel the dough is not soft enough  add milk using a spoon and gently mix again. Add more milk if required. Gently add the chocolate chips and incorporate in the dough. Once the soft dough is formed scoop out spoonful of dough and place it on a greased baking tray and bake for about 15- 17 mins until you see the cookies puffed up and of course you get a nice aroma of the chocolate, butter and vanilla ..reminds me to write something .. when my kids walked in after school my daughter said  .. chocolate as it was told in the movie  'Frozen' :) . So I hope you get the hint :)

And yea back to the recipe, remove the cookies from the tray to the wore rack and let it to cool. Store it in an airtight container and enjoy eating it too :)

Original recipe source is here , made few alterations of using wheat flour and addition of milk :) 

Bake and enjoy :)

August 4, 2014

Whole green gram and oats dosa recipe

Whole green gram and oats dosa recipe : Something quick, easy and healthy !



As I have mentioned in many of my previous posts I mostly miss to soak rice or pulses for the traditional dosas and idlis in the south Indian kitchen , another reason being my little girl has an aversion towards urad dal except when its made to vadas.. tricky I know! .. But dare any mother challenge little kids with any breakfast thing which is not of their taste or choice early in the morning. No , don't worry not junk or cereals either.. I just can never bring myselves feeding cereals for breakfast for growing up kids so far!
Having said about it , I just soaked some green gram and went to sleep at night. Morning put together moong with oats and made some crispy dosas , mom and kids both happy :)

Ingredients
Whole moong dal - 1/2 cup
Oats - 1 cup
Salt - as required
Water - sufficient 

Method
Soak the whole moong overnight and grind in the morning along with one cup of oats.
Add water to bring the batter to the required consistency.
Keep the tava on flame and heat it.
Sprinkle water if the tava happens to be too hot and then smear the tawa with sesame oil and make dosas as usual. You can really spread thin dosas with this batter.
Enjoy with coconut chutney, tomato chutney or podi.

I usually make dosas in the traditional cast iron tava, the more you use it the more it get seasoned. I have been using it for years for the reason that I detest using nonstick vessels. We just need few drops of oil and the dosas comes out tadty and crispy in this tava.

I made a simply chutney griding coconut, onions and green chilies toegther seasoning with a poinch of salt., simple and goes well with this dosa.

Enjoy :)


PLEASE NOTE : This batter needs no fermentation. 

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