Best Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Jan 13, 2014 · 11 Comments

Best dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting with touch of sea salt is ulitmate of chcocolate lovers dream.

My kids are chocolate lovers; daughter always asks for chocolate chips cookies, and my son also wants cookies with chocolate. I tried and tested vanilla cupcakes, so decide to try chocolate cupcakes. This recipe turned to be my best dark chocolate cupcakes. I tried chocolate Ganche frosting to go with it.

This dark chocolate cupcake is adapted from this recipe, and when I checked my pantry I have only Hershey’s special dark cocoa powder in my hand, so decided to modified the recipe a little bit. I changed oil to butter, instead of ½ cup cocoa, I used ⅓ cup special dark cocoa, ¼ cup sour cream and ½ cup coffee made with ½ teaspoon instant coffee and ½ cup water. I was able to get 12 cupcakes with this recipe. They are delicious my kids started to eating as soon coming out the oven.

I made the chocolate ganache frosting to go with these dark chocolate cupcakes. It is easy to make I made with semi sweet chocolate bars and heavy cream.

You can use any dark chocolate cooca powder . Only thing is cupcake color will be less dark. Taste wise I don't it is going to be any difference.

If you don't have sourcream in hand use greek yougrut that will also make moist cupcakes.

Butter adds richness to the cupcakes you can substitute with oil if you don't want butter and sour cream together.

Adding coffee helps to bring out the chocolate flavor more in this cupcake.

You need to mix flour, salt, baking soda and cooca powder.

Then cream butter and sugar and add egg, vanilla extract and then add flour and coffee.

Do you like more chocolate cupcakes recipes?

Halloween cupcakes

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5 from 4 votes

Best Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Delicious dark chocolate cupcakes with chocoalte ganache frosting.

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Total Time25

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Chocolate cupcakes, cupcake recipes

Servings: servings

Calories: 315kcal

Equipment

Ingredients

Chocolate cupcakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup Hershey’s special dark cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon espresso powder
¼ cup Sour cream
¼ cup butter soft at room temperature
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup boiling water

Chocolate Ganache frosting

9 ounce 1 ¾ cup semi sweet baking chocolate
¾ cup heavy cream

Instructions

Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 F/ 176 C
Place silicone baking cups in muffin tin.
Mix ½ teaspoon of instant coffee powder in ½ cup boiling water and set aside.
Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
Add sour cream, butter, egg, sugar and vanilla cream well then add flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add coffee to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
Evenly distribute cake batter. Each cupcake liner should be about ⅔ths full.
Place in the oven and bake 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow the cupcakes to cool completely.

For the Chocolate Ganache Frosting:

Place 9 ounce of chocolate and heavy cream into microwave safe bowl and heat for about 30 seconds high, and mix very well. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes to thicken the chocolate a little bit so that it will easy for piping.
Transfer the entire content in the piping bag and pipe according your wish on the top of chocolate cupcakes.

Nutrition

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Jalapeño cheddar wheat buns

Jan 7, 2014 · 39 Comments

Sharp cheddar and fresh jalapenos makes simple burger buns into a Texas specialty.Delicious buns with spicy and cheesy kick .

If you are looking for delicious homemade hamburger buns, then here it is. This Jalapeño cheddar wheat buns are one of the out the world. Delicious my almost 2 year old son asking for it, they are best when they comes out the oven. Of the baking expeditions last week, this one gave me immense satisfaction after disastrous failure of Jalapeño cheddar cornmeal whoopee pie and pina colada cupcakes. I don’t know eggless bakes are not favoring me. I never, able to get a smooth eggless cake, cupcakes right, so now I drop the idea of going eggless, it will save lot of money.

One more reason to try this recipe, because according to Texas monthly , these jalapeno cheddar buns are 3^rd best buns for hamburger and it is served in Alamo springs Café, Fredericksburg. Jalapeno and cheddar cheese is a favorite Tex- Mex combo .

Our next family trip will be to Frederickburg, Texas as hubby told me it is one of the beautiful and interesting places.

I bought some jalapenos for making jalapeno poppers and also jalapeno cheddar cornmeal whoopie pie. However, I couldn’t find enough time to make poppers. Also when I tried whoopie pie it turned out to be not edible. So I decide to use Jalapenos in bread.

While searching for the recipe, I found this one. Since I had cheddar cheese in my hand, I immediately went about to make it. Nowadays I am health conscious except for eating occasional desserts.

I changed the recipe, as it was made entirely with All-purpose flour, to 2 cup of whole white wheat flour and one cup of All-purpose flour, and also reduce the sugar by ½ tablespoon. I had only 5 oz of cheddar cheese in hand,

so used that one entirely. Skipped egg by adding potato flour as potato makes bread moist and keeps them fresh for few days. If you don’t have potato flour, use ¾ cup of mashed potato. Make sure to adjust the water content as mashed potato has water in it.

Afternoon after serving lunch and milk to kids, as they take nap at that time, started making the bread, first rise took about 90 minutes. Then shaped them into 9 medium and 1 small buns and left aside for second rise which took about 30 minutes.

The rolls were baked at 350 ⁰F for about 25 minutes; while baking cheese and jalapenos made an intoxicating smell. It is delicious; you can top it with any favorite topping. They make great sandwich buns, hamburger buns, you name it.

If you lazy then try this combo of my daughter, she liked these buns with her favorite tomato ketchup. Don’t substitute any chili or cheese, this combo is ultimate.

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Jalapeño cheddar wheat buns

Sharp cheddar and fresh jalapenos makes simple burger buns into a Texas specialty.

Prep Time2

Cook Time25

Total Time2 25

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: #everday mulitgrain rye sourdough bread

Servings: -9 buns

Calories: 130kcal

Ingredients

2 ¼ tsp/7g of instant yeast
1 ¼ cup/283g lukewarm water
2 tablespoon oil vegetable, canola, or olive plus more for greasing bowl
¼ cup/ 55g potato flour substitute with ¾ cup mashed potato
2 ½ tablespoon sugar
2 cup/260g of white whole wheat flour
1 cup/125g of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
5.1 oz /145g sharp cheddar shredded
3 large /112g jalapenos seeded and chopped
1 egg for egg wash

Instructions

In a kitchen aid stand mixer bowl, add both flours, potato flour, salt, sugar, oil, yeast and water to form a soft supple dough.
Add, cheese, and peppers and mix on medium-low speed with the hook until the dough holds together, about 2 minutes. The dough should clean the sides of the bowl.
Increase speed to medium and knead the dough for 5 minutes.
Transfer the dough to a large bowl that has been lightly greased with oil.
Cover it with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1-1 ½ hours.
Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface.
Divide the dough into 8 medium sized rounds as well as 1 small round. Roll into rounds and flatten with the palm of your hand onto the baking sheet; placing buns about ½-1 inch apart.
Cover with a damp towel and let them rise for 30 minutes. By the end of second rise preheat the oven to 350F
Whisk the egg with 1 tablespoon water.
Brush the buns with the egg wash and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
Store leftovers in zip-lock bag at room temperature. They freeze well, too.

Notes

This recipe is inspired from here, Foodie bride .

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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Are you looking for more Jalapeno cheddar combo recipes

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Jalapeno Cheddar Sourdough bread

Karimbu Juice: Sugarcane Juice

Jan 5, 2014 · 26 Comments

Delicious homemade sugarcane juice with ginger and lemon. You can make this Sugar Cane Juice with Blender.

During summer months in Kerala my hometown there are various fruit juices that are available to beat the heat. Most common is tender coconut water, watermelon juice and sugarcane juice. Then there is Pineapple juice, Nonku (Ice apple, Palmyra palm fruits or toddy palm fruits). Appa used to buy this karimbu juice/Sugarcane juice for us. Since I don’t have a particular machine to extract the juice of Sugarcane in my home, I used my trusted blender to make this juice.

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When I was shopping for ingredients to make Ponche naviendo/Mexican Christmas fruit punch, I found my local Fiesta store was selling large sugarcane sticks. I bought one big one, I needed only 4 inch piece for punch, and with the rest I made this delicious juice. Sugarcane is pressed to make sugarcane juice. It is consumed as beverage in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America and Brazil.

In my home town, sugarcane juice is extracted along with that of small pieces of ginger and lemon or lime. According to Wikipedia, sugar cane juice often added ingredients like a squeeze of lemon or lime (in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, India), pineapple (Brazil), passionfruit, ginger ( Zanzibar, India) or ice. Some time sugarcane juice is also served with black salt or mint.

This sugarcane juice is mainly sold by street vendors. Due to its high sugar content, it is rich in calories.Sugarcane, or Sugar cane, is a tall perennial true grasses of the genus Saccharum, tribe Andropogoneae, native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia. Brazil is the largest producer of Sugarcane, followed by India, China, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico.

When raw, sugarcane is a naturally low - cholesterol, low-sodium food that contains no saturated fats.. Sugarcane juice is the part of the plant that is actually consumed or sucked out, as whole sugarcane is very fibrous. Sugarcane juice has a glycemic index of 43, which, according to the American Diabetes Association, makes sugarcane a low-glycemic food. Sugarcane -- whether in sugar, syrup or juice form -- is a good substitute for refined white sugar, although sugarcane should still be eaten sparingly. The reason sugarcane has a low glycemic index is because sugars derived from plants are processed in your liver, not your small intestine.

This means that the sugars from sugarcane -- fructose and glucose -- are more slowly absorbed than sucrose, thus reducing the likelihood of blood sugar level spikes. Read more from here. Sugar cane juice contains only 15% of sugar and the rest is water with vitamins and minerals. Sugarcane is rich in calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium and zinc.

It also contains iron and vitamins A, C, B1, B2, B3, B5, and B6, plus a high concentration of phytonutrients (including chlorophyll), antioxidants, proteins, soluble fiber and numerous other health supportive compounds. Working synergistic, these nutrients provide a supremely health-promoting food which as it helps in fighting cancer, stabilizing blood sugar levels in diabetics, assisting in weight loss, reducing fevers, clearing the kidneys, preventing tooth decay, and a host of other health benefits. Here is the video shows about how extract sugarcane juice using a machine.

Since I don’t have one at home, I try to cut them into small pieces then removed all the thick skin and then extracted juice with addition of little water, ginger and lemon juice. Then finally drain them and served with ice. If you can get hold of these delicious natures treat and make this. You will love it. I can assure that. Here comes the recipe.

Points to remember while making Sugar cane Juice.

Peel the skin with knife, as peeler won't work
Cut out the stick between two joints
Cut it into small pieces so that Vitamix, Kitchenaid Mixer or Indian Mixer will work
Add water so that it process really well
If you want you can double strain them.

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4.93 from 27 votes

Karimbu Juice: Sugarcane Juice

Delicious homemade sugarcane juice with ginger and lemon

Prep Time5

Cook Time3

Total Time8

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Homemade sugarcanejuice, Howtomakesugarcanejuice

Servings: serving

Calories: 4kcal

Ingredients

1 Big pieces of Sugar cane
½ of one lemon
½ inch ginger
¼ cup water

Instructions

First cut the big pieces of sugar cane into small pieces, then peel the thick skin along the nodes.
Then cut again into small pieces again.
In a blender add this small pieces along with ginger, lemon juice and water. Then blend everything well for 3 minutes.
Using a strainer strain the sugar cane juice, squeeze well to get entire juice.
Enjoy with or without ice.

Video

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Banana Sour Cream Pecan Cranberry Bread: A Tale of Two Cities

Jan 2, 2014 · 22 Comments

I wish all my readers and friends a Happy and Prosperous New Year. May 2014 brings all the love, happiness and warmth you look forward to. We had fun holidays this time. After promising for7 years my hubby finally took us to San Antonio, River walks. The boat ride is worth it. We also got a chance to stay in a typical beautiful city in Texas, New Braunfels. Also for the first time we ate fresh pecans plucked from the tree. After coming back when I opened Sunday Edition of Houston Chronicle, it had an article about pecan production and this banana sour cream pecan cranberry bread recipe. Since I had bought some fresh pecan from farmers market in New Braunfels I decided to use it for this bread.

We had visited San Antonio, Texas in 2006 after moving to Texas in 2005 December, but at that time we had gone to see a doctor. So we were in no mood to see the river walk. Then I got my princess, and prince and the year passed and still we haven’t made a trip there. Finally this holidays we planned two day trip to San Antonio.

The San Antonio River Walk (also known as Paseo del Río) is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. Even though San Antonio River Walk is only 3 hours of drive from our house, we thought driving back on the same day will not be good idea with 4 and half year old and 23 month old kids. We reached San Antonio around 1.30 P.M, and there was a light rain so the boat ride was suspended. We started walking around the sides of river and actually did a river walk.

By that time rain stopped and sun came out, and we found out that they were planning to start the boat ride. So we got back to River Center Mall and bought the ticket for boat ride. And after a short wait we were able to get the fourth boat .It was really a fun ride for around 30 minutes you can see lot of tall buildings, an old Theater, old buildings , and a very old tree, and in the night as it is Christmas time were there lot of Christmas tree lights. There was also a band playing some good music, and we did enjoy a few good tunes. One thing we found is that parking is big problem there; and we parked in River Center Mall.

After the boat ride it got dark, we had our dinner, and started our trip to New Braunfels.

New Braunfels is a beautiful city about 30 minutes drive from San Antonio, and we decided to stay there we couldn’t find place to stay in San Antonio meeting our requirement of having a refrigerator and microwave at a reasonable price. New Braunfels is a city in Comal and Guadalupe counties in the U.S. state of Texas. Braunfels means "brown rock" in German; the city is named for Braunfels, in Germany. We stayed at Hilton Garden Inn for the night, and it really is very nice hotel with all amenities. Next morning, after having our breakfast we started to explore the city of New Braunfels, it is beautiful place if you like antiques, you must visit there. While walking around the downtown, we found a farmers market, free railway museum etc.

Then on chatting with people in railway museum, we came to know that there is park called Landa park ,a must place to visit if you have kids. There is also a toy train ride; we had got two free tickets for that from a nice lady at the rail museum.

So bought another two and had a fun train ride which goes through the beautiful park with beautiful old trees and also a river flowing through it. After that we decide to visit another historic town Gruene . Texas. However when we reached there it was almost 2.30 P.M, and there was not a single parking spot at a reasonable walking distance; and with two sleepy kids it was hard to walk a lot. So we get back into the car and drove back to our home. We will definitely visit Gruene some other time.

From Farmers Market in New Braunfels, we bought fresh pecans, a husband and wife team selling it. It was so fresh, she cracked open one and gave to us for taste testing. It is so delicious, even my 23 month old was happily munching it. They told me in order to keep them fresh we have freeze pecans.

If you don’t know pecans they are buttery tasting nuts. I believe it is tastier than walnuts. Texas is second largest state in producing pecans after Georgia. After coming back when hubby opened Sunday’s newspaper he saw an article on pecans about this year crop. Along with few recipes, hubby showed me this banana sour cream pecan cranberry bread recipe. It is a reader’s recipe who gives this bread away as a homemade gift. Only change I made to recipe is I used small bananas, also reduced two tablespoon of sugar. Delicious bread, we are banana bread lovers, so when we say delicious, it is true. Give it try if you can get hold of fresh pecans, it gives nice crunchy touch. You can also try with walnuts. Here comes the recipe.

Hope you will continue to support and encourage me in 2014 and coming years too. If you wish to see any recipes please e-mail me I will try to include.

Banana Sour cream Pecan Cranberry Bread: A Tale of Two Cities

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 60 minutes

Yield: 2 large loaf, or 5 small loaves

Delicious and moist banana bread with pecans for nuts and cranberries for festive touch

Ingredients

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1½ cups (about 6 small bananas, if you are using medium bananas then 4-5) very ripe bananas, peeled, sliced and mashed
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
1 heaping cup chopped pecans
1 heaping cup chopped dried cranberries

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using five 3-inch-by-5½-inch loaf pans, grease with unsalted butter and lightly dust with flour. Place loaf pans on a large cookie sheet. The small loaves are ideal for gift giving. If you want larger loaves, use two regular-size loaf pans, about 8 inches by 4 inches. I used 2 small and 1 regular size loaf pans.
In a large mixing bowl, of kitchen aid stand, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add then add sour cream, eggs and vanilla and beat well.
Sift all dry ingredients and add mix with wet ingredients in two batches. Add nuts and cranberries and mix well. Finally fold in mashed banana.

Pour into greased and floured loaf pans, about ¾ full, and bake for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted comes out relatively clean. You want this bread to be moist, so don't over bake.

Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove from pans and allow loaves to cool completely

Notes

Favorite recipes: Fusion Food.

Jan 1, 2014 · 2 Comments

This month Favorite recipes event is taking palace at Shreez Kitchen . She has great blog and amazing recipes as well as traditional Indian recipes.
Last month favorite recieps where hosted here at Zesty South Indian Kitchen. I will visit every body's blog and I am going to pin all the entries in pinterest.
This month we are going to make some fusion food , so don your apron and make some tasty and delicious curry to go with any meal, once you done, please link it. Hope over to for the rules Shree's Shreez Kitchen .

If you want to contact me please e-mail at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com.

2014

January    ShreeZ                      Fusion food    On going
February  Esho-Bosho-Aahare        Starter or Snacks
March     Ma Niche                        Easter and Holi recipes
April       MyKitchenodyssey       snack and sweets/Appetizers and desserts
May             Open

Julekake:Norwegian Christmas Bread

Dec 25, 2013 · 17 Comments

Delicious traditional Norwegian Christmas Bread; Julekake made with raisins, candied citron and cardamom. Excellent breakfast bread.

This is traditional Norwegian Christmas Bread made with lot of cardamom, raisins, sugar, egg and milk.

Every year for Christmas I will try to make plum cake, Kerala style rosette cookies/Acchappam and rice flour canoli/Kuzhalappam. Along with bread from other countries, last year I made Swedish Limpa bread.

I made plum cake this time.

How to make Julekake?

Traditionally it is made with All purpose flour alone.

This recipe is made with combo of white whole wheat flour and all purpose flour .

I also reduced the amount of sugar, but retained the amount of raisins. I used golden raisins. This recipe is adapted from this Norwegian blog, translated with Google translator.

Normally it is served during Christmas breakfast with Brunost: (or geitost) Norwegian brown cheese.

Traditionally it is made from the whey of goat’s milk which is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated and the sugars in the whey have caramelized, giving the cheese its distinctive brown color.

Nowadays the whey is also likely to have been supplemented with goat or cow milk and cream.

This ‘cheese’ is then packed into rectangular blocks, refrigerated and consumed straight away with no maturing.

Since we are not able to get hold of brunost, we can use with any kind of Jam or as butter toast. It is really delicious.

While baking this bread, you can really feel the aroma of cardamom my favorite spice in this world.

If you love sweet breads then give it try, you will like it. You can also add candied citron if you have in your hand.

First make the dough

Once you made the dough after second proof bake the bread.

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5 from 6 votes

Julekake/Norwegian Christmas Bread

Delicious Traditional Norwegian Christmas Bread.

Prep Time3

Cook Time45

Total Time3 45

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Norwegian

Keyword: Christmas bread recipes, Julekake, Norwegian Christmas bread

Servings: servings

Calories: 146kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

1 ½ cup whole milk
2 tablespoon /30gof sugar
4.5 tablespoons/65g butter cut into dice
¼ teaspoon salt
2 ¼ teaspoons/7g Instant yeast
1 jumbo egg divided
3 cup /350g white whole wheat flour
1 ¼ cup/156.25g all purpose flour set aside ¼ cup for later use
¾ teaspoon freshly-ground cardamom
¾ cup/129g raisins I used golden raisins
¼ cup candied citron see David Lebovitz’s recipe, or use store-bought ( I didn’t have it in my hand)

Instructions

In a bowl microwave the milk for about 1 minute high. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.
In a large mixing bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer, add white whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, (set aside ¼ cup of flour) salt, sugar, cardamom and yeast. Then add milk, butter and eggs and mix well form smooth dough.
In a small bowl heat ½ cup water in microwave for 2 minutes and then add raisin and set aside for 3 minutes so that will plums up. Then drain the raisins and set aside. Add raisins and citron (if using) to dough and knead again with rest of all purpose flour to form smooth dough. Let rest, covered with a towel, about ten minutes.
For the first rise: Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes, and then transfer to a large, lightly-greased bowl. Turn it so that the oil coats the entire ball of dough. Cover with a towel and set in a warm place, about 85 degrees F, to rise until it’s doubled in bulk. This took about 90 minutes
For the second rise: Punch down the dough form the dough into a round ball. Cover them for ten minutes, and prepare baking sheets by lightly greasing them. Place a round loaf onto the baking sheets and let rise again in a warm spot, covered with towels, until they’ve doubled in bulk, another 45 minutes.
Toward the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. When ready to bake, beat the remaining egg in a small bowl then gently brush it over loaf, taking care not to press down on the dough too much. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the bread is deep golden brown and it registers internal temperature of 195F. Immediately transfer to wire racks and cool.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from Here

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Ponche Navideño- Mexican Christmas Fruit Punch

Dec 21, 2013 · 13 Comments

Christmas is going to be here in 5 days, and probably everybody have a menu for Christmas day. I haven’t decided one yet. I and my kids are sick with a bad cough, fever and headache. My son is taking antibiotics and my daughter is taking prescription strength medication for her cough, and I am on antibiotics too for bronchitis. According to Indian folk medicine that I know some homemade drinks could help in reducing its effect of common cold. So when I saw this Ponche Navideño – Mexican Christmas fruit punch recipe in a book My Sweet Mexico by Fany Gerson borrowed from library I got excited and decide to give it try, as it has cinnamon and cloves in it.
Like any other traditional recipe, it requires few ingredients must, like tejocotes (Crataegus Mexicana) is a species of hawthorn and other names are manzanita, tejocotera and Mexican hawthorn. I found them in Fiesta store; and it was for $ 6.49 a pound, so bought only 12 of them.

Then you need guava, my hubby loves guava so when I am buying it he was happy.

Then there is fresh sugarcane, I bought a large sugarcane stick at the store also. I made fresh sugarcane juice with 90 percent of the stick and with rest I made this hot ponche. I also used Mexican cinnamon and Mexican brown sugar Piloncillo, (which taste similar to our Indian jaggery). I also used fruits like apple, pear and orange, along with dried fruits raisins and prunes. In the recipe for the tanginess you can add either tamarind or hibiscus flower. I had bought some fresh tamarind pod for making margarita some time ago.

I think you need to let it few hours infuse the flavor may be overnight. When we tasted just after boiling everything with fruits and spices, it was delicious only with touch of alcohol. But on second day it taste really delicious without any booze. Indian friends will be reminded of the taste of panagam with slight tangy taste. If you are adventurous, just like me, try it. You don’t need to worry much about the recipe, just fruits and spices boiled together with some brown sugar.
This traditional drink served in Mexican homes during Christmas time as well as New Year eve. Here comes the recipe. You can serve as hot or cold. I like it hot though.

Ponche Navideño- Mexican Christmas Fruit Punch

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Total Time: 65 minutes

Yield: 6 serving

Traditional Mexican Christmas fruit punch with lot of fruit and spices

Ingredients

Ingredients:
5 cup water
1 cinnamon sticks (Canella)
6 whole cloves
2long tamarind pods, husk removed, and seeded or boil the entire pod to make removing easier
6 tejocotes or crab apples, left whole
2 large guavas, peeled and cut into large bite-size chunks
1 red apples (of your choice), peeled, cored, and cut into small bite-size chunks
1 pear (of your choice), peeled, cored, and cut into small bite-size chunks
1 (4-inch) sugarcane sticks, peeled and cut into small chunks
4 pitted prunes
⅛ cup dark raisins
1 orange, sliced
1 .25 ounce of piloncillo, chopped or 2 tablespoon of dark brown sugar
1 ounce brandy or tequila per cup (optional)

Instructions

In a large pot, over high heat, boil water, cinnamon stick, cloves, tamarind, and tejocotes. After it starts to boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 25minutes until the tejocotes are soft.

Remove the tejocotes from the heat, peel, remove hard ends, cut in half, and deseed. Return them to the pot.

Add guavas, apples, pears, sugar cane, prunes, orange slices, and piloncillo.
Simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring gently in between every 10 minutes.
Ladle into cups, making sure each cup gets some chunks of fruit. I think you will get full flavored tasty drink only after set aside for overnight to sweep the flavors into the drink.
Add brandy or tequila to each cup (optional).

Notes

This recipe is adapted from My Sweet Mexico

Bûche de Noël: Traditional Christmas Yule Log

Dec 16, 2013 · 43 Comments

Delicious Bûche de Noël a traditional yule cake made with vanilla sponge cake and chocolate whipped cream filling with chocolate frosting

As it is Christmas time, we Baking Partners decide to bake a Yule log cake for this month challenge. Tanusree of Ma Niche suggested this month’s theme. First I decide to do a Chocolate Yule Log or 'bûche de Noël' for that I made chocolate sponge cake first, however the recipe was far from perfect, and it failed miserably. So next day I spend entire day on researching the recipe finally I selected one from French recipe site with video in it.
Burning of Yule log is a tradition which is connected to ancient winter solstice festival of ancient Celtic tradition which was started in 12th century, they used burn large Yule log in the fire place in the belief that it will protect the house from lightning as well as against evils of devil.

This was also a way to celebrate the rebirth of the sun as well as give thanks for the warmth and life it would bring with it. The Celts believed that certain trees, specifically oak, beech, elm, and cherry trees, had certain mystical powers. This custom varies from various region of Europe. They used heat the log with last year burnt piece of wood. If you want read more about history of burning Yule log please read from here.
However during the Napoleon era, he stopped burning the wood thinking that air gets polluted through the chimneys and it is result of sickness happening around.

This result no way of burning Yule log in home, as result a Persian baker decides to make a symbolic cake in the form of Yule log. Another explanation was that the Yule log needs to burn for 12 hours, and newer built house could not hold that much Yule log, hence they invented the cake.

Also it was in the 19th century when it became the fashion to serve similar thinly rolled sponge cakes with jam or cream filling and covered with butter cream. However the first written document of buche de noel cake was in a cookbook called Le Mèmorial Historique et Gèographique de la Pâtisserie by a Parisian pastry chef, Pierre Lacam, published in 1898. The recipe he gives is for biscuit (what they called the sponge cake) rolled with either chocolate or coffee buttercream. However, closest recipe that resemble modern version of Bûche de Noël recipes was by Joseph Fabre in 1905. It was published in the second edition of his book Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique.

The cake used is a Génoise sponge cake (cake made eggs and sugar heated at low flame and then beat well to add rest of the ingredients), or other moist, rich yellow cake. Then it is baked in a flat jellyroll pan and frosted with ganache or buttercream. Then whole cake with filling inside is rolled into a cylinder, covered in chocolate frosting or butter cream, and textured either with a fork, serrated knife, or piping bag to resemble tree bark. Another way to make the cake is with multiple pieces of Génoise. The layers are spread with filling and placed one on top of the other and carved into the shape of a log. Smaller pieces of cake are stuck onto the main roll and covered in icing to represent trimmed branches.
I didn’t use the recipe suggested by Tanusree, as it has leavening in it. When I read more about Yule cake I came to know that it doesn’t have any leavening. First I tried to make chocolate genoise using Alice Medrich recipe from cooking with Julia TV show. However my cake turned to thin crispy brittle. So discarded that and used this recipe from this French recipe site, where there is video also, however it French. Since food has only one language I was able to figure out what he is doing and also translated the recipe using Google translator.
I made a vanilla sponge cake with all purpose flour and corn flour/cornstarch with 3 eggs, vanilla extract and sugar. You need to beat egg yolk and white separately. Then it is brushed with simple syrup and filled with chocolate whipped cream and finally frosted the cake with rich chocolate frosting. Trust me it worth all the effort, it is delicious cake. I used three recipes to make this excellent cake. If you want something fancier in your Christmas dinner table give it try. You are going to get compliments I can assure that.

First you need to make Sponge cake

Filling

Sponge Cake filled with Choocalte whipped cream

Cover with Chocolate Frosting

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5 from 19 votes

Bûche de Noël: Traditional Christmas Yule Log

Delicious traditional yule cake made with vanilla sponge cake filled with chocolate whipped cream and frosted with rich chocolate frosting.

Prep Time1

Cook Time12

Total Time13 10

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Keyword: Buche de Noel, Christmas Yule Log

Servings:

Calories: 506kcal

Ingredients

For the biscuit /Sponge cake

60 g /1/2 cup All purpose flour
40 g /1/4cup corn starch/cornflour
3 jumbo eggs
125 g /1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon of sugar divided
50 g/4 tablespoon of unsalted butter

For the Chocolate whipped cream filling

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons 35grams granulated white sugar, or to taste
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder regular or Dutch processed
1 cup 240 ml cold heavy whipping cream

For Simple syrup

35 g/ 3 tablespoon of sugar
3 tablespoon of water

Rich Chocolate Frosting

½ cup whipping cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 6 oz
1 tablespoon corn syrup
¼ teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

Prepare the Cake

Preheat oven to 350F and grease and line 9 x 13 inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper and again grease well on the top.
In a kitchen aid bowl add 3 egg whites and half of sugar and beat well until it is very stiff and set aside.
In another bowl, beat3egg yolks with 63g sugar until it become pale and creamy mixture. Then add the flour, cornstarch/corn flour, vanilla extract and melted butter. To this gradually fold in beaten egg whites in two additions with a spatula. Make sure not to break too much air bubble.
Pour the batter into the prepared jelly roll pan, bake for 12 minutes at 350F (preheated oven) or until the cake springs back when touched in the center. If necessary, run knife around edges of pan to loosen cake. Turn cake upside down onto clean kitchen towel sprinkled with 1 tablespoon powdered sugar; carefully remove parchment paper. While hot, carefully roll up cake and towel from narrow end. Cool completely on cooling rack, about 1hour

Simple syrup

While cake is cooling make simple syrup with equal amount of sugar and water and set aside.

Chocolate whipped cream filling

Place your mixing bowl and wire whisk in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes. Place the vanilla extract, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and cocoa powder in the cold bowl. Stir in about 2 tablespoons of the cream to form a thick paste (this will dissolve the cocoa powder). Then add the rest of the cream and beat just until stiff peaks form. If not using immediately, cover and refrigerate. This recipe makes about 2 cups (480 ml) whipped cream frosting

Rich chocolate frosting

In medium microwavable bowl, microwave whipping cream uncovered on High 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds or until it just starts to boil. Stir in chocolate chips and corn syrup; let stand 3 minutes. Beat gently with wire whisk until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Refrigerate about 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes, until spreading consistency.
Assembly of cake
Unroll cake carefully, and remove towel. Brush the simple syrup over the cake. Then spread chocolate whipped frosting evenly over cake; roll up cake. Refrigerate the cake for at least 2-3 hours or overnight.
Next morning place cooling rack on sheet of waxed paper. Take cake roll from refrigerator and place it on cooling rack; frost cake. Using fork, drag tines through frosting to look like log. Let stand 15 minutes. Transfer cake to serving platter.
Store loosely covered in refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes before serving.

Notes

Sponge cake is adapted from Here.
Chocolate whipped cream is adapted from Here.
Rich chocolate frosting is adapted from Here.

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

I am linking this to Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here, also favorite recipes: Christmas recipes hosted here

Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake

Dec 9, 2013 · 34 Comments

Delicious Cranberry Vanilla coffee cake, layered with fresh cranberries in between in a vanilla cake. Perfect balance of tart berries in cake

Last week I bought some fresh cranberries to make some sweet chutney. But changed my mind and made this wonderful cranberry vanilla coffee cake. With our Sunday newspaper I sometimes get a small booklet of recipes from our local grocery store HEB. I saw the recipe of this cranberry vanilla coffee cake with a beautiful picture. After consulting with Google I found that this recipe is inspired from December 2008 issue of Gourmet where fresh vanilla bean is used, where as in HEB’s recipe Vanilla extract is used. Earlier I had made blueberry oatmeal streusel coffee cake. I knew berries are good in coffee cakes, but was not sure about cranberries in coffee cake.

I am happy to say this also that on last Thursday my daughter had a Christmas program at her school. It was “How penguins saved Christmas”. I have to admire her music teacher whom she loves dearly. Every day when it is time to come home she would waits in front of music teacher’s office to say bye. She did a wonderful job of getting the 4 ½ -6 year olds to sing wonderfully. My daughter was so excited and was singing at her high volume.

Coming to the recipe, I was at first skeptical about fresh cranberries as they have sour taste like Averrhoa bilimbi commonly known as bilimbi (Irumban pulli/ Pulingikaya in Malayalam). As school kids we used to eat with little salt or some time make it spicy pickle with them. However cranberries are little bitter too, whereas bilimbi is only sour taste so thought of making spicy pickle first, then changed my mind and made cranberry vanilla coffee cake with 1 cup cranberries and with rest of 2 cups of cranberries I made spicy pickle. So stay tuned for that recipe.

This coffee cake is one of best recipe I have tried. Delicious every bit, vanilla sugar goes to filling, batter and even in streusel. I think even without streusel they are delicious. First you need to make vanilla sugar with sugar and vanilla extract. If you have vanilla bean in your hand, make use of it now. Then add ¼ cup sugar into the fresh or frozen. I used fresh cranberries and then pulse to get chopped cranberries. Then cream butter and sugar and make sure to set-aside a 1 tablespoon sugar for streusel if you are using. Then add egg, milk and flour-salt-baking powder mixture make batter. Then add half of prepared batter into the pan then add cranberry filling and then rest of batter top with streusel and bake at 375 for 45 minutes. You coffee cake is ready. You can make ahead a day or two before serving. Delicious that is only word I can say. Give it try this recipe will go to stick around your kitchen for long time. Here comes the recipe.

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5 from 1 vote

Cranberry Vanilla Coffeecake

Delicious Cranberry Vanilla coffee cake, contains with layered fresh cranberries in between in a vanilla cake.

Prep Time20

Cook Time45

Total Time1 25

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Cakes recipes, coffe cakes

Servings: serving

Calories: 76kcal

Ingredients

½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾+ ⅛ cups sugar
1 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries 6 oz
1 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour divided
1 teaspoons baking powder
¼+1/8 teaspoon + salt
½ stick plus ½ tablespoon unsalted butter softened, divided
1 jumbo eggs
¼ cup 2% milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Generously butter a 6inch round cake pan. Line bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter parchment.
In a bowl mix sugar and vanilla extract and set aside
Pulse cranberries with ¼ cup vanilla sugar in processor until coarsely chopped (do not purée).
Whisk together 1 cups flour, baking powder, and salt.
Beat together ½ stick butter and ½ cup vanilla sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg beating well after each addition. Scrape down side and bottom of bowl. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour, until just combined.
Spread half of batter in pan, then spoon cranberries over it, leaving a ½-inch border around edge. Top with remaining batter and smooth top.
Blend remaining ⅛ cup vanilla sugar with remaining tablespoon each of butter and flour using your fingertips. Crumble over top of cake.
Bake until a wooden pick inserted into cake (not into cranberry filling) comes out clean and side begins to pull away from pan, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 30 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely, serve.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from Gourmet December 2008

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

I am linking this to Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here, also favorite recipes: Christmas recipes hosted here.

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How to make Candied Citrus Peels

Dec 3, 2013 · 29 Comments

Delicious and homemade candied citrus peels, excellent to add it your baked goods.

<img src=candied lemon peels.jpg" alt="Candied lemon peels in a bowl">

In preparation for Christmas, my daughter has program in her school this Thursday, and there will be some musicals (related to Christmas) performed by the kids in her school. She is participating. I update how it turned out. As for Christmas baking, I am planning to make some cookies, breads and cake along with my usual Christmas specials from my home town. For all those Christmas baking, I would like to have some candied lemon and orange peel in hand. So decide to make some candied citrus peel, which I can use it in my bakes.

In our backward we have lemon tree, which after 7 years has started bearing lemons. Even though the lemons are not as big as store bought ones but it is really juicy. The outer covering is very thin and is full of juice. You only need two small lemons to make enough drink for 4 people. During one harsh winter it even died, hubby want to remove it, I told him to wait until summer, and it came back with full force. I have stopped buying lemon from the store for the last two months, and I made candied lemon peel with these lemons. So it is extra special as it is homegrown. I know what we added is fresh made with just plucked lemons.

The candied orange peel were made with navel oranges, they are store bought. We have an orange tree too in the backyard, and it oranges that stay green, and not ripening. I don’t know what happened to them. Now winter is coming so getting ripe oranges will be long lost dream. During grocery shopping hubby brought five navel oranges and with 4 of them, I made candied orange peel. I found only little difference in making lemon and orange peel. My lemon has very thin peel and I need blanch them only for 2 minutes whereas for orange I need to blanch them for 5 minutes. After blanching both peels three times, and drain the water you used for blanching every time, and also rinse them with water.

Finally boil sugar and water; add blanched peel and let it simmer for about 90 minutes with occasional stirring in between. Finally when sugar syrup thickens and peels become transparent, remove from the heat and dry first for few minutes and then dredge in sugar so that it can get its classy look and also it won’t stick each other.

You can enjoy them as such by dipping in the chocolate, or morning smoothie or oatmeal or add to baked goods. It use is endless, try it only you need peel, water and sugar. Worth all the efforts, you can make sure they are superior in quality then any store bought peel.

Candied orange peel is ready.

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How to make Candied Citrus Peels

Home made fresh lemon and orange peel, you can make any citrus fruit peel like this way.

Prep Time15

Cook Time1 30

Total Time1 45

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: candied

Servings:

Calories: 211kcal

Ingredients

For Candied lemon peel

6 lemons I used small lemon, if it medium use 4
2 cup sugar+ 3 tablespoon

For candied orange peel

4 navel oranges
1 ½ cup sugar + 3 tablespoon
4 cup water for making sugar syrup

Instructions

Slice the lemons( oranges) into four quarters lengthwise.
Peel the lemon/orange flesh away from the peels. Reserve for another use.
With a small, sharp-edged spoon or melon scoop to scrape the tough fibrous parts off of the inner peel, leaving a thin layer of white left behind on the peel.
Slice the peels into thin strips.
Alternatively, for thinner and daintier decorative peels, you can use a serrated peeler to scrape yellow strips from the exterior of the lemon peel. Cut those peels into thin slices.
Place the peels into a saucepan and cover with water. Bring the water to a boil for 2 minutes.
Drain the peels in a colander.
Cover with water again. Bring to a boil for another 2 minutes then drain again in a colander. The boil and drain process helps to cook out any bitter flavor from the peels. You can boil and drain up to three times
When you're finished boiling and draining, in a sauce pan add 3cups of water along with 2 cups of sugar. Stir with a whisk while the water heats, till all of the sugar is dissolved.
Add peels to the saucepan and bring to a rolling boil.
Reduce heat to a low simmer. Let the peels simmer for 90 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Different sized peels will take different amounts of time to cook. The peels are ready when they're transparent and easy to bite through.
Drain the peels. If you want to, you can strain the peels through a mesh strainer, letting the liquid stream into a jar. The leftover lemon/orange flavored simple syrup can be used to flavor drinks and cocktails. It will be thick syrup, and sugar crystals may collect in the jar over time. You can reconstitute the syrup by adding water and stirring over moderate heat if the syrup becomes overly thick.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the peels out in an even layer on the parchment. Let the peels cool for about 3 minutes till tacky to the touch.
In small bowl add 3 tablespoon of sugar. Dip the peels into the sugar till coated. Sugar coating the peels will add sweetness and help to keep them from sticking together.
Alternatively, you may let the peels dry as-is for a deeper yellow /orangecolor and a gel-like texture.
Place the peels back on the parchment. Let them dry for 2-3 hours longer if they are sugar coated and overnight if they are not.
Enjoy by dipping them into chocolate or in bakes.
For candied orange peel
All the steps are same except blanching is done for 5 minutes intervals.
Also amount of water used for sugar syrup for cooking orange peel is 4 cups and used only 11/2cup sugar to make candied orange peels from 4 navel oranges.

Notes

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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Candied Lemon peels

I am linking this recipe to to Favorite recipes event: Christmas recipes. hosted here.

If you are making any Christmas dishes please link it to Favorite recipes Event: Christmas Recipes.

Favorite Recipes: Christmas Recipes 2013

Dec 1, 2013 · 20 Comments

December is the month of celebration of Christmas, and most homes will make lot of goodies both traditional and innovative for your Christmas dinner table. So please bring and share it to here for the Favorite Recipes at Zesty South Indian Kitchen.

Thanks Shruti rasoi for hosting last month’s favorite recipes: Street Food event .

I have grown up with lot of Christmas goodies, some of which were shared by friends and I had made a few too. So please share your favorite also well mom and grandma’s recipe

If you already blogged about favorite dishes, then revisit it and add a fresh twist to it by tweaking recipe or changing ingredients etc.

A linky will be open from 1^stof the month to month end. Now it is from December 1st to December 31th 2013.

No Archived post. Recipe should be posted in your blog from 1^stto month end.

Recipe can be with or without egg and also gluten or vegan free.

You have to link this announcement post in the recipes; using logo is welcome but not mandatory.

Non-bloggers can also welcome, send me full recipe with a photograph to this e-mail.

If you want to contact me please e-mail at favoriterecipes12(at)gmail(dot)com

I will be personally visiting to your blog space also will pin it,

I will appreciate if you follow me in my

Facebook page, google plus and pinterest board. I will also follow yours if you leave the link for that. This is not mandatory, you can do it if you interested otherwise also fine.

If you are interested in hosting please contact me

2014

January    ShreeZ                      Fusion food
February  Esho-Bosho-Aahare        Starter or Snacks
March     Open

Madhura seva/ Sweetened chickpea flour noodles: A traditional snack Thiruvanthapuram style

Nov 30, 2013 · 42 Comments

We had a wonderful thanksgiving yesterday. As usual we didn’t venture out for black Friday shopping. Hubby always tells me it will be really crazy. The store will keep only few items that are at heavy discount and we are fighting for it. We too do our black Friday shopping but only after 1 .00 P.M on Friday, so those bargain hunters already finished their shopping and gone home by that time. I already got a new dishwasher, so only some small baking items will be in my Christmas shopping list. This week hubby and daughter is having their vacation, so for evening tea I need some snack to go with it. So I made this Madhura seva/ Sweetened chickpea flour noodles. It is one of snacks we used to get it in bakeries in my home town, Kerala, South India.
Madhura seva means sweet noodles in Malayalam. You can see them in bakeries, kept in glass jars. It was one of Amma’s favorite sweet, so appa used to buy every time he went shopping. This dish is also closest cousin to Manoharam , one of traditional sweet, a must for Tamil Iyer marriages. Manoharam is also a sweetened noodles, however difference between madhura seva and manoharam is that madhura seva is sweetened with sugar where as manoharam is made with jaggery. For marriage we fill this manoharam into a cone, later it is covered with glitter paper and other decorations and we call them Kalyana Parippu Thengai , and usually for a marriage only two is made and given to bridegroom family, and not distributed to others. You will see this manoharam kept infront until entire marriage or any other function is over. Since I don’t have any parippu thengai picture in my hand, I asked my friend Sandhya of “My Cooking Journey”. She immediately agreed and sent me whole album of a birthday celebration and told me to choose whatever I want. I am really happy to find such a good friend.

Parippu Thengai cone: Photo courtesy; Sandhya

Even though both looks same and method of making is same there some difference in between especially in the ingredients.
Madhura Seva: Noodles are made with chickpea flour/besan flour dough and then fried and later coated with sugar syrup. This will be white in color due to sugar and dusting of powdered sugar.
Manoharam: Noodles are made with rice flour and urad dal flour (ratio will be 8: 1) or moong bean flour( 2: 1 ration to rice and bean flour) will be and then fried and later coated with Jaggery /brown sugar syrup. This one will be looks brown in color due to jaggery’s color. Since two sweeteners are different the taste also different.
I was planning to make both delicious sweet treat for long time. However, I got the chance to make this Madhura seva only now. First you need to make noodles with chickpea flour/besan, for that you need to make dough and then fried well. Cut it into small pieces of 2-3 inches long and then it soaked in sugar syrup of soft ball consistency. Then finally it is dusted with powdered sugar to give its classic look.
So if you get some time give it a try it very nice as only slightly coated sugar. Here comes the recipe.

Madhura seva/ Sweetened chickpea flour noodles: A traditional snack Thiruvanthapuram style

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Yield: 6 serving

Delicious slightly sweetened crispy snack for any tea time.

Ingredients

To make the Seva

2cup Chickpea flour/Besan/Kadala Mavu
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ cup water
4cups canola oil for frying

To make the Sugar Syrup

¾ cup sugar
¼cup water
2 pods of caradamom

Others

1 Powdered Sugar for dusting in the end
2 Idiyappam Maker with big hole attachment
3 A candy thermometer if you have in hand.

Instructions

Mix Besan/ Kadalamavu with Salt and water to make a soft dough. Start with ⅓ cup and use more as needed.
Heat 4 cups of canola oil in a frying pan on medium high heat.
Fill the Idiyappam maker, fitted with the big hole attachment, with the Besan dough.

Into the hot oil press the dough into the hot oil, until it covers the entire oil. Fry both sides filp few times. This will not take much time and when fried, the sizzling will reduce tremendously.

Drain the excess Oil on a paper towel and gently crush it into small pieces with your hands; keep it aside till ready to be used.
Melt Sugar in ¼ cup of water and boil it till it reaches a one thread consistency or 230?F/110?C consistency on a Candy Thermometer.

Add the fried Sev into the Syrup and mix thoroughly until the Sev is evenly coated with the Syrup.
Once the syrup is all absorbed switch off the stove; let it cool down a bit and dust the powdered sugar on top. Gently mix to incorporate.
Store in air tight containers and serve at room temperature.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from A tasty Challenge
Copyright ©2013 Zesty South Indian Kitchen by Swathi( Ambujom Saraswathy) All Rights Reserved

I am linking this favorite recipes: Street Food event hosted at Shruti's Rasoi

Lisa & Susan's MLLA:65 of hosted at OhTaste n see ,

Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Honey and Spices: Thanksgiving Side dish

Nov 26, 2013 · 59 Comments

Thanksgiving is just 2 days away, and I believe everybody in USA has started preparing the menu for Thanksgiving dinner or lunch. Brining the huge bird and later roasting it, and making the awesome sides and wonderful dinner rolls, and delicious pie to finish the dinner is a huge task. But it is worth the efforts for the chance to enjoy the wonderful meal together with family and friends. This year due to the massive winter storm to on the east coast, travel is hazardous, and hope everybody has a safe trip. Once you finish the dinner, it is time for the crazy black Friday shopping for holidays.
I decided to make sweet potato this week as it is one of the side dish for Thanksgiving. And if you haven’t decided to add a sweet potato side then goes ahead with this delicious roasted sweet potato with honey and spices. I am planning for Thanks giving lunch with vegetable biriyani, a fry, roast and sides. My daughter wants a pumpkin pie. So I will make that one too.
Last week when we are shopping at Sam clubs, there were lots of samples of food to be try. I tried a potato sauté in one of the stands. I liked it, and the asked the lady what spice mix she was using, she told me it is Rosemary garlic seasoning by Tone’s. It has rosemary, salt, pepper, red bell pepper, garlic and lemon peel. I fell in love with it. I am strong believer of making seasoning from scratch, but this one I liked very much, grabbed one from Sam’s clubs itself. I love the fact that is kosher and no MSG.

You need two sweet potato chopped into 1 inch cubes and then it is covered with a marinade made of rosemary garlic seasoning, red chili pepper , honey, olive oil and cumin powder. Make sure not to add salt as it is contained in the seasoning itself and bake it 375 ⁰F for about 30 minutes. Then when it ready to serve, sprinkle little olive oil and enjoy. We loved it. You can feel free to increase the amount of honey and also skip adding red chili powder. I don’t recommend skipping the cumin powder.
Here comes the recipe, you need to do only preparation for this dish about 5 minutes, rest of cooking will be done by your oven.
It is great addition to your thanksgiving dinner table.

Here is few thanksgiving recipes from my kitchen

Dinner rolls

1) Turkey shaped Dinner rolls

2) Various type shaped dinner rolls

3) Pumpkin loaf bread

4) Roasted Sweet potatoes with garam masala

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5 from 54 votes

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey and Spices: Thanksgiving Side dish

Roasted sweet potatoes with honey and spices

Prep Time5

Cook Time30

Total Time35

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: sweet potato side dish

Servings:

Calories: 301kcal

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes (Approximately 4 cups chopped)
2 ½ tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling potatoes after cooked
1 tablespoon honey
1½ tablespoon Tone’s Rosemary garlic seasoning
¼ teaspoon red chili
½ teaspoon cumin powder

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Lay the sweet potatoes out in a single layer on a roasting tray. In bowl mix in oil, honey, rosemary garlic seasoning, cumin and red chili powder and coat over the potatoes. Roast for 30 minutes in oven or until tender.
Take sweet potatoes out of the oven and transfer them to a serving platter. Drizzle with more extra-virgin olive oil.

Nutrition

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Turkey Shaped Dinner Rolls

Nov 22, 2013 · 49 Comments

Delicious and simple turkey shaped simple soft dinner rolls you can make it for Thanksgiving dinner table.

As Thanksgiving is on next week, my daughter’s school has lots of activity with turkey. They also sent out a cut of turkey as a family project. I hard to try hard to get some coloring done, and now I understand why my daughter doesn’t want to do coloring. Finally I also did color in a hat and bow tie for the turkey and gave it to her school. Today they had Thanksgiving feast at her school; and she did a turkey tango at her school. Then I thought why we don’t make a turkey shaped dinner rolls at home, as my daughter will get excited.

I was first debating on whether to do a brioche or dinner roll turkey bread. Problem with brioche is that it should be eaten fresh and needs to finish within a day. Second day it will become stale. Also since it is rich dough, I would need to finish the entire thing, as hubby is not going to help me, and kids are also not a help at times. So decide to make turkey bread with this golden pull apart butter buns recipe from King Arthur flour. I got inspiration to make turkey shape from Sweet happy life which in turn was inspired from Nourishing notes.

Yesterday afternoon, when I started making the dough, I found that I need to adjust the amount of water. I end up reducing the amount of water and also increased the amount of flour. About 4 ¼ cups of All purpose flour is needed to make this bread.

I didn’t use any egg in the dough; however I did does a egg wash to get the color of finished bread. If you want eggless version all together, you can brush it with melted butter.

For making turkey shape weigh the dough after its first rising. Then divide into 4 equal parts, take one part as it body, make it slightly oblong and place in parchment paper. Then divide the second part into two and use one part for its head. With rest of the dough make around 37 pieces. Make a smooth round and place it around the body of the turkey.

With bits of dough make tongue as well as two feet and stick to head and body. Set aside for second rise of about 45 minutes and then make two slit for eyes. I used black currants for eye.

You can also use black raisin if you have in hand. Finally when to you ready to bake, make an egg wash and bake at 350 ⁰F for about 30 minutes or until it become golden brown in color.

I was afraid that whether my creation was going to look like a turkey, but after baking, I was happy that it looks like a cute turkey. My princess and prince got excited. As usual mama told them you have to wait for photography session to eat them.

We had them with my hubby’s famous pav bhaji. I think he cooks the best one in the world. If you have some extra time, give it try, it will really cute in your thanksgiving dinner table.

Enjoy, here comes the recipe.

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5 from 86 votes

Turkey Shaped Dinner Rolls

Delicious and cute dinner rolls for your thanksgiving table.

Prep Time3 30

Cook Time30

Total Time4

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: #dinnerrolls, Turkey shaped dinner rolls

Servings: servings

Calories: 263kcal

Ingredients

41/4 cups /595g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 ¼ teaspoons/7g instant yeast
2 tablespoons/26g potato flour *
3 tablespoons/23g Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons /27gsugar
1 ½ teaspoons/9g salt
4 tablespoons /54g soft butter
½ cup lukewarm water
½ cup lukewarm milk
Topping
Egg wash If you want eggless do with 2 tablespoon melted butter
*if you don’t have potato flour use a mashed potato, then adjust amount of water accordingly.

Instructions

Combine all of the dough ingredients in a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer attached with dough hook, to make soft, smooth dough.
Place the dough in a lightly greased container — an 8-cup measure works well here. Cover the container, and allow the dough to rise for 60 minutes, until it's just about doubled in bulk.
Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly dusted work surface with all purpose flour.
Divide the dough (1087 g) into 4 pieces, then with 272 pieces make oblong body and with 92 g piece make head, then with rest of dough approximately 20 g pieces makes about 37 dough pieces
In a pizza pan lined with parchment paper place slightly oblong shaped body and then it is followed by head piece. Then make smooth round pieces of dough and feathers around the body and head.
Cover the pans, and allow the buns to rise till they're crowded against one another and quite puffy, about 60 minutes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F. When you are ready to bake make two slit on the headpiece for eyes and stick two black currants. If you want you can stick black raisins too.
After an egg wash and bake them for 30 minutes, until they're golden brown on top and the edges of the center bun spring back lightly when you touch it. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the middle of the center bun should register at least 190°F.
After a couple of minutes, turn them out of the pan onto a cooling rack.
Serve warm. Store leftovers well-wrapped, at room temperature.
Enjoy as much you want.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour, Shapes inspired from
Sweet happy life andNoursing Notes

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Kara kuzhambu/Hotel style Kara kuzhambu: Vegetables cooked in spicy tangy coconut gravy

Nov 20, 2013 · 30 Comments

Even the thought of going to Indian restaurant here hits my nerve very badly. The first thing, they won’t serve enough with the main course for each and every side they will charge money. But in India going to some of the restaurants is pure joy, and you get tasty food which a family can enjoy in a budget. There also you have to watch out for bad restaurant. I tried this Kara kuzhambu for Sunday lunch.
Last week, I got a new Facebook friend who told she likes my blog and love to see some additional recipes. She wanted a Saravana Bhavan hotel style Kara Kuzhambu, so in order to come up with a recipe for this dish, I wanted to try this Kara kuzhambu for Sunday lunch.
I searched the internet with help of Google; as usual it has lot recipes. However I found that in the all recipes one thing is common and that involves adding coconut and fennel seeds. I love coconut based curries. But most of the recipes that I found used only 2 teaspoon –tablespoon of coconut. I think my taste bud won’t agree to that quantity, we Keralites, love to add more coconut. Amma would start with one fresh coconut and would use ¾th of it to make a curry and rest she makes stirfry.
I trust Mullai’s Spiceindiaonline as my go to blog for trying all these kinds of curries. Her recipe is almost perfect recipe; only thing sometime I reduce is the spice amount as kids can’t eat if it is too spicy. This one too I reduced little heat. This is uniqueness of this recipe is that first we need to fry the veggies with green chili and garlic and seasoned with mustard seeds and curry leaves. Then it is spiced up with spices and then cooked once again with tamarind pulp and salt. When it is finally done add ground coconut paste with fennel and finally simmer it for few more minutes.
It is delicious and goes well with rice or any dosa (crepe or pancake). Beauty of this dish is that you can use any vegetables of your choice and also you can adjust the amount of coconut. If you are lover like mine add what I add, or if you are okay coconut lover then add less.
Here comes the recipe.

Kara kuzhambu/Hotel style Kara kuzhambu: Vegetables cooked in spicy tangy coconut gravy

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Yield: 4

Ingredients

For curry

1 potato chopped into cubes
1 carrot chopped into cubes
1 cucumber chopped into cubes
¼ onion Chopped into cubes
¼th of capsicum chopped into cubes
1 green chili
1 garlic clove
Lemon sized ball of tamarind
3 cup water
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon sambhar powder
⅛ teaspoon asafetodia
¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

Grinding

¾ cup grated coconut
½ teaspoon Fennel seeds
½ cup

For seasoning

1 teaspoon oil (use coconut or olive oil)
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 sprig of curry leaves

Instructions

In a microwave safe bowl add ½ cup of water and lemon sized tamarind and microwave high for 15 seconds. Extract the juice and set aside.
In small skillet heat 1 teaspoon oil, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and asafeotida and when mustard seeds starts to pop add chopped vegetables ( around 3cups), garlic clove and green chili and fry for 5-6 minutes. Then add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, sambhar podi and salt and fry for 2-3 minutes. Then add ½ cup water and cook for 6 minutes or vegetables until done. To this add extracted tamarind juice with ½ cup water and boil for another 5 minutes

Add grated coconut with fennel seeds and grind into a fine paste with 1cup water. Check water if you need more adjust accordingly
Then add the ground coconut paste along with vegetables and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Enjoy with warm rice or dosa.

Notes

Always add tamarind juice only after cooking the veggies.
Increase spices if you want spicier.
Reduce the amount of coconut to ½ cup if you don’t want too much coconut.
This recipe is adapted from Spice India Online.

Pataqueta; Valencia’ Orchard traditional bread for November Baking Partners challenge

Nov 16, 2013 · 32 Comments

I love breads and love to experiment a lot trying to create breads that pamper our taste buds. So when Marisa my friend and a “Baking Partner” asked me if we can try Pataqueta bread, I thought it was a great idea. I thought since it is Thanksgiving month it will be good idea for us to try this bread.

Marisa of Thermofan is a teacher by profession, and thus lot of enthusiasm and drive, she put in a lot of time and efforts to learn this bread from a local baker who makes this occasionally. This bread belongs to ancient European bread, with thick crust and thin crumbs inside. This is one of the ancient and traditional seventeenth century bread from Valencia. The Pataqueta, diminutive for "pataca" has the shape of a crescent Moon. This is the bread the inhabitants of the Valencia’s Orchard used to eat when they went to work. It was firstly baked in the Moorish oven they have in their Barraca and then in wood

Nowadays, it is not frequently baked and people book it in advance to get one. “Pataquetas” are usually baked for the important festival, “Fallas”. Most of Valencia’s bakers are asked to bake “pataquetas” every year in March.

However modern day Valencia region is famous for its Horchata and Farton, Paella,Tapas etc.

It is really simple bread without any added fat, only flour, yeast, salt and bit of sugar. First day you need to make starter and store them in refrigerator to do cold fermentation and next day, make the bread with starter. The original recipe to make with bread required bread flour; however I was short of bread flour so made this bread with white whole wheat bread. It is tasty hardy bread you need dig in with soup or curry, so I made spicy egg curry to go with it. We enjoyed this bread for our dinner. The speciality of bread is its crescent shape.Usually a pataqueta served with a grilled tenderloin and cheese on one side and other side with minced garlic, parsley and olive oil and tomato with oil and salt. It is sandwich bread. I think they may be distant cousin of Italian Ciabatta.

If you like thick crusted European style breads, then try it, as it has lot historical importance attached to it.

Please visit rest of baking partners blog to see how they created this traditional bread.

If you wish to join us next month baking please shoot an e-mail.

Pataqueta; Valencia’ Orchard traditional bread for November Baking Partners challenge

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 10 hours

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 10 hours, 30 minutes

Yield: 6 no

Ingredients

For the ferment

100 ml water
50 g /1/3 cup white flour
12.5 g fresh yeast/5g or1 ½ teaspoon Instant yeast/6.25g or 2tsp active dry yeast
½ teaspoon sugar

For the dough

450 g/3 cup strong bread flour (substitute with all purpose flour/Maida) I used 2 cup of white whole wheat flour and 1 cup bread flour
200 ml tepid water
10 g/1 ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
all the ferment
a little flour for dusting the work surface and the bread.

Instructions

Ferment
Day before you baking bread in the evening, in a container, mix all purpose flour, sugar, year and water and cover well and keep in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or overnight. You can store this up to 48 hours.

On the day of baking in a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer add white whole wheat flour, bread flour, all the ferment and water mix very well once it is combined well. Then add salt and mix once again into very smooth dough

Set aside in a lightly greased plastic container for doubling in volume. Cover with plastic film and a damp towel. When it is double in volume that is after 60 minutes of fermentation weigh the dough( 871g) and divide into 150g pieces you will get around 6 pieces, of which 5 pieces are of 150g pieces and a small piece of about 121 g.

Make dough pieces into smooth round balls.
Then with a sharp knife or baker scraper make a cut in for about 1 ½ inch and cut open from the outside. Flatten the ball and mark the cut above.
Place them on a baking tray and cover them again with a kitchen cloth dusted with flower.
Leave to rest until them double in size, for about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 400F/200 C
Slightly score the top of the bread and dust with some flour using sieve or strainer before making. - Bake the bread by keep a pan with hot water on the bottom rack, this will create steam and make crust crusty. 30 minutes 400F

Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy as sandwich or with any spicy curry or hardy soup.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from Entre Cacerolas'Pataquetas

If you wish to join us next month baking please shoot an e-mail.

I am linking this yeast spotting

Seasoned Yellow eyed peas sundal and World Diabetes Day Creating Awareness By Food

Nov 14, 2013 · 37 Comments

Ideally you don’t want to be linked with any of the diseases in the world, and especially deadly disease like Diabetes. I am not that lucky, diabetes has been part of my life for some time now, it took away my mom. When I am pregnant with my princess I got gestational diabetes. And now it is haunting me all the time, as my hubby is diabetic. Earlier I believed in the myth that diabetes only happens if you are overweight body type, now I have come to know that diabetes has no difference if you are lean or overweight person, my hubby is lean, his mom is lean still they have diabetes. One thing sure, if you have high cholesterol values then you are vulnerable to diabetes, increased levels of LDL ( bad chlorestol ) and triglycerides play an important role in both heart disease and diabetes.

I was stunned reading this statistics about world diabetes, 366 million people worldwide had diabetes in 2011; by 2030 this will rise to 552 million.In the world just as in population baton, China ranks first in diabetes then it is followed by India, USA is third in the rank. If you want to know about American diabetes statistics, read from here. So we all need to watch out for this, especially if you have family history likes mine. Every time when I gave sweets of my little ones, my heart beats at high rates, still they are little ones it is hard. With my husband’s diabetes I learned a lesson, everything in moderation is fine, take meals in portion, very little or no sweets, if you still have carving for sweets, adjust the fruits, or use sugar substitute. If he ask me can I take one large piece of sweet or cake (just like anybody would do), if I say yes, next day his sugar level will be high. So I have to learn to say just take a very small portion. Still hard, I haven’t learned that lesson.

There are two type of diabetes, Type one and Type 2. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. Only 5% of people with diabetes have this form of the disease.

Type 2 Diabetes causes blood glucose (sugar) levels to rise higher than normal. This is also called hyperglycemia. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. If you have type 2 diabetes your body does not use insulin properly. This is called insulin resistance. At first, your pancreas makes extra insulin to make up for it. But, over time it isn't able to keep up and can't make enough insulin to keep your blood glucose at normal levels.

During 24 week of pregnancy, pregnant woman can develop gestational diabetes. Even though reason for this is still unknown, scientists have a theory. The placenta supports the baby as it grows. Hormones from the placenta help the baby develop. But these hormones also block the action of the mother's insulin in her body. This problem is called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance makes it hard for the mother's body to use insulin. She may need up to three times as much insulin. Gestational diabetes starts when your body is not able to make and use all the insulin it needs for pregnancy. Without enough insulin, glucose cannot leave the blood and be changed to energy. Glucose builds up in the blood to high levels. This is called hyperglycemia.

Now with my husband’s diabetes and my gestational diabetes, I came to know more about disease if I know little of this earlier, I could have helped my mom. If you have diabetes, then diet and exercise is most important. With diet, everything you should take in small portions as much as possible. Fruits are good, according American diabetes association, the best choices of fruit are any that are fresh, frozen or canned without added sugars.Dried fruit and fruit juice are also nutritious choices, but the portion sizes must be small so they may not be as filling as other choices.

As food is the main controlling factor next to medicine in diabetes, I asked few friends (both food bloggers and non bloggers) to share a recipe of dish which is diabetic friendly and also to share their personal stories of diabetes that touched their lives. I was surprised to know that there are several people with story of diabetes in their family. I am happy that they are joining me in creating awareness about this deadly disease. They are going to make all sorts of dishes starting from appetizer, snack, soup, sides or a full meal you name it.

For me I tried to make this easy breezy salad/sundal. I came to know that lentils are considered as one of super foods recommended by American diabetic association; they even suggest incorporating lentils/beans in diets at least a few times in a week. Here is the list of diabetic super foods recommended by American diabetic association.

I also decided to make dishes with lentils to help my hubby, and this was made easier with the 6 pack of Lentils I won from Hurst beans from Lisa & Susan’s Legume Love Affair hosted by Spicy Food. Yes I came to know about yellow eyed peas for the first time after receiving packages of lentils. Yellow eyed peas look similar to cow peas/lobia but slightly bigger, and tastes almost similar. Instead of making sundal in my usual way with the addition of mustard seeds and urad dal (Spilt black gram), I decided to add a carrot and onion along with it, little cumin powder and chili powder too. I took only ¾ cup of peas; I have some left with and would like to try this recipe

This is delicious as snack or side; give it a try when you can get hold of it. Here comes the recipe.

Seasoned Yellow eyed pea sundal and World Diabetes Day Creating Awareness By Food

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 8 hours, 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours, 30 minutes

Yield: 3

Ingredients

¾ Cup Yellow eyed peas
1 carrot chopped (approximately ⅓ cup)
¼ cup onion chopped
2 Cup Water
1 teaspoon Urad dal/ Split black gr
¼ teaspoon mustard seeds
11/2 tablespoon of grated coconut
1 teaspoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon cumin powder
¼ teaspoon red chili powder
1 Red chili
¼ teaspoon salt or to taste

Instructions

Soak the yellow eyed pea overnight and next day pressures cook them with 2 cup of water. Until 4 -5 whistle or 25 minutes. Drain the excess water using a colander and set aside

In a small skillet, heat olive oil, mustard seeds, urad dal, halved red chilies. When mustard seeds start popping add onion and carrot and cook for 2 minutes. Then add cooked yellow eyed peas, grated coconut and cumin, chili powder and salt. Mix everything and serve warm.

Delicious and healthy protein packed snack.

Notes

Other food enthusiastic who joined with me. I will update lists as soon as I get.

Papaya Pineapple Carrot Juice With Touch of Cardamom: Super Energy Drink

Nov 11, 2013 · 24 Comments

Delicious papaya, pineapple, carrot juice with touch of cardamom a super homemade energy drink made with natural ingredients.

Last week, things were far from optimal in my household as my both kids has tummy virus. On Tuesday and Wednesday, my daughter threw up her morning milk. I called the doctor and he told me it could be tummy virus to give her a bland diet. Then on Friday, my son started having diarrhea, and again his doctor asked me to give him a very bland starchy diet without any juice, soda and only Gatorade, Pedialite etc. Now they both are better. So I was not in a mood to cook any dishes, and made this delicious papaya pineapple carrot juice.

Inspiration for this recipe came from a TV show in Malayalam (my mother tongue) see here. This episode was about making a mango shake with the addition of carrots. I bought two mangoes for that it turned out be bad, and had to throw it in garbage bin. I had also bought papaya for making a fruit salad, so grabbed that one and made this delicious juice. No sugar was added, but did add a pinch of ground ginger powder and cardamom powder; we Keralites, love to add ground ginger powder and cardamoms powder in our sweet pudding /payasam. So give it try when you make any juice or smoothie with tropical fruits.

Earlier I had tried milk shake with papaya so wanted to try something different for a change, and also wanted to skip milk as my hubby says his blood sugar levels are fluctuating heavily. Star ingredients in this juice are papaya, pineapple and carrot with ground ginger and cardamom. You need to blend everything and need to use a strainer to get a clear juice. You can enjoy this juice with or without ice. You may want to add any sweetener to increase the sweetness of the juice.

Do you know Papaya is called ‘Fruit of Angles’ by Christopher Columbus? Yes it is a soft delicious treat. In my hometown lots of home have a Papaya plant in their backyard; and we make curries when they are young and raw. It is eaten as a fruit when ripe, it seeds looks like covered in gel like substance. I also watched an episode of Dr oz show, where he suggested that if you feel lethargic even after a full meal, then try to drink glass of papaya juice. He even advises to drink papaya juice to start the day. Why it is called super energy drink is because papaya juice contains a special enzyme called papain, a well-known dietary supplement used to promote healthy digestion. Papain actually helps you retain more energy from food, and so it lowers the chances of feeling tired after a meal.

Another health benefit of papaya is that it helps in heart health as it is rich in vitamin E and vitamin C, and also is rich in fiber. If you include papaya in your diet, then you will boost your immunity too, recurrent ear infections, cold etc will be reduced. It also helps to reduce Rheumatoid arthritis and macular degeneration. Papaya and green tea work well as combo to prevent prostate cancer. Read more from here.

Pineapple is another super fruits as it contains a digestive enzyme bromelain, which is known to have digestive and anti-inflammatory properties. Also you can cut and chill pineapple for 6 days and it won’t lose any nutrients, which is really wonderful. Read more about from here .

Why wait, when you can buy papaya, and add pineapple and carrot with a pinch of ground ginger and cardamom to make this delicious juice. It is a healthy energy drink from your kitchen without spending too much money.

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Papaya pineapple carrot juice with touch of cardamom: Super Energy Drink

Delicious papaya, pineapple, carrot juice with touch of cardamom a super homemade energy drink made with fresh fruit and spices

Prep Time5

Total Time5

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Healthy Drinks, Healthy Smoothie

Servings: servings

Calories: 115kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

2 cups of chopped papaya
1 cup of chopped pineapple
1 small carrot
¼ teaspoon cardamom
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
21/2 cup water

Instructions

Wash and peel the skin of papaya, pineapple and carrot chopp them into cubes.
Blend everything with spices and water in a blender. Make sure to blend the carrot well. Strain it and enjoy with or without ice.
If you want you can sugar or sweetener of your choice.

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Pin it for later

Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nov 5, 2013 · 38 Comments

Delicious spiced pumpkin chocolate chip cookies made with pumpkin puree, chocolate chips and spices. Excellent cakey cookies on every bite.

If you are looking for simple pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookeis here it is . It is made with pumpkin puree, spices, chocolate chips. This is more like cakey coookies because of the softenes of the pumpkin puree.

After making pumpkin bread, I had some pumpkin puree left, and decided to make use of it. When I was looking for recipe idea on internet, I found this recipe; however debated a lot over making a pumpkin pie, I asked dear hubby will you even do a taste test.

How to make Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

Pumpkin puree: You need to use pumpkin puree not the pumpkin pie filling. If you don't have canned pumpkin puree in hand use homemade pupmikn puree .

Flour: I used all purpose flour, you can use also use a mix of whole wheat flour and all purpose flour

Egg: I used ½ of one large eggs, you can skip that too if you don't want it .

Sweetner: Both granulated sugar and brown sugar is used in the recipe. granulated sugar gives sweetness and brown sugar bring out flavors when it combine with pumpkin puree.

Leaveners : This recipe has both baking soda and baking powder which give lift to the cookie while baking.

Spices: I used Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, all spice and cloves.

Vanilla extact: This cookies is also flavored with little vanilla extarct

Chocoalte chips : I used semi sweet chocoalte chips. you can either use min chocolate chips too.

How I made Spiced pumpkin Chocolate chip Cookies ?

First add softend butter and cream with sugar, then add egg, vanilla extact and pumpkin puree. Then add flour spice mix and finally fold in Chococlate Chips.

If you are planning to make small cookies then go for 1 tablespoon dough

The Cookies came out really soft with cake like texture, and flavored with the taste of spices and chocolate chips it is wonderful. My kids loved it; they skipped their lunch to eat these cookies. Pumpkin puree did an awesome job of making them into soft cake like cookies. I was amazed to see that there is no overpowering pumpkin taste and it was subtle in the background.

If you want you can glaze the cookie with either creamcheese sugar frosting or simple frosting made with confectioners sugar and milk.

Try it you will like it, they are really tasty and yummy.

Here comes the recipe.

Print Recipe

5 from 17 votes

Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Delicious spiced pumpkin chocolate chip cookies made with pumpkin puree, chocolate chips and spices. Excellent cakey cookies on every bite.

Prep Time1

Cook Time18

Total Time1 18

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: spiced pumpkin cookies

Servings: servings

Calories: 83kcal

Ingredients

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon all spice
⅛ th teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup butter ½ stick, softened
½ cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
½ of one large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup heaped chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, all spice, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually mix in flour mixture.
Finally fold in the chocolate chips and refrigerate for 30 minutes. When you are ready for baking drop rounded tablespoon of cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets. Slightly press to flatten little bit.
Bake cookies for about 18 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from here

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Sabudana and Semiya Payasam/ Tapioca pearls and Vermicelli Milk Pudding

Oct 30, 2013 · 33 Comments

My blog baby is 4 year old yesterday, and that’s a cause for celebration with some sweets. I had started this blog to keep a record of my recipes for my kids if they ever want to try later on in life. I never got a chance to learn from my mother, as she would say you have lots to study, and don’t want to spend your time in cooking. She was an amazing cook who did everything by her own without any fancy gadgets or maid. She always would ask what we want for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you ask her I want to eat something, if doesn’t she does not have anything in hand, she will say wait a few minutes I will make it for you.

My husband is driving force behind the blog; he helps and encourages me in every way. And then my two little kids who patiently wait for mama to take pictures before they get to do the taste test.

Then YOU the readers, without you I won’t have the interest to continue to blog every week. I always respect the valuable time you spend to hang around and read the recipes as well as my personnel ramblings. You are my unknown friends who keep up with my daily routine. When you try the recipe and get back with feedback that moment will be an Oscar winning moment for me. Also those who like and share recipes in Facebook or pin it in Pinterest, it is like adding feathers in my cap. I have made a few good friends through my blog, and they are always with me in every step.

I don’t believe in numbers (just to put out a blog to increase the number of recipes), but do believe in quality. I have seen a small fast food stand in my hometown and he make only one dish, but it is tasty and makes a living out of it. There one quiet interesting thing happened yesterday, while opening the Facebook, I got a message from Ammini Chechi( Ammini Ramachandran, Cook book writer) that she had seen an article in a newspaper that may be of interest to me. It was an article in Hindu (Indian Newspaper) about the food and home cooking in my hometown, Trivandrum, India. I really like the part the she thought about me while reading the article, and that I am curious about learning new recipes and cuisine and culture.

I want to explore all cuisine if possible without leaving comfort of home. I want to continue my food journey this year too with your help. So please stick around and continue to encourage me through you comments, mail and messages. As a token of gratitude I am giving away a little present, that giveaway is running currently in my blog. So please accept and continue to shower your encouragement on me. I also need to arrange my recipe index, it another herculean task for me.

Coming to this recipe, Sabudana and semiya payasm, I made this a side with my boli/Sweet stuffed lentil flat bread. With Sabudana you need to take good care while cooking, otherwise they like you so much that entire thing will get into mushy and custard like you won’t see them separately. I like their transparent round shape, so want to keep that in payasam. When they are dry, tapioca peals are opaque once they cooked well they are transparent. First we need to soak them for about 20 minutes in water and then wash thoroughly until you remove the entire starchy particle that floating in it. Then it is cooked with water for another 20 minutes, and they form into transparent beautiful balls. Again wash these cooked tapioca pearls and drain them using a colander. While water is draining, cook semiya by first frying them in ghee and then add water and cook until it is done. Once semiya is cooked add milk, sugar and sabudana, and cook for 10 minutes or until the milk is reduced in it a bit. Finally add cardamom powder and ghee roasted cashew nuts and raisins.

It is delicious and beautiful too with small balls and tender thin vermicelli. My daughter said she like this milk pasta. So give it try, it is delicious.

Here comes the recipe.

Sabudana and Semiya Payasam/ Tapioca pearls and Vermicelli Milk Pudding

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 8 minutes

Yield: 4

Ingredients

¼ cup sabudana/Tapioca pearls
¼ cup Semiya/Vermicelli
4 ½ cup water
1 cup Milk( I used 2%)
¼ cup sugar
1 tablespoon ghee
2 no cardamom pods
8 no cashew
15 raisins

Instructions

First soak the sabudana for 20 minutes with1 cup water and then wash well and remove all the starchy particles. Then cook the sabudana for another 20 minutes with 1 ½ cup of water until it becomes transparent. Wash once again with water and drain it in a colander.

Heat 1 teaspoon ghee in sauce pot and add semiya and roast until they become golden color it takes about 2 minutes. To this add water and cook them for 15 minutes or until they are done. To this add milk, cooked sabudana and sugar and cook for another 10 minutes.

In small sauce pot heat ghee and add cashew and raisins. Fry them till raisins become plums up and cashews become golden color. It takes about 1 minute in medium flame. Remove them and set aside.

Add crushed cardamom and fried cashews and raisins. Enjoy warm or chill. I prefer to enjoy as warm.

Notes

I am linking this delicious payasam to Favorite recipes: Payasam/Kheer at The Big sweet tooth

Diwali /Deepavali and its Sweet and Savory Recipes

Oct 28, 2013 · 27 Comments

One more Diwali/Deepavali is coming and knocking on our doors. Yes this festival of lights is coming on this Novermber 2nd 2013. It is celebrated as triumph of good over evil, light over darkness and even the illumination of the soul and attainment of higher knowledge. Legend is that Lord Rama defeated the 10 head demon King Ravana and also brings back his wife Seetha who was kidnapped by Ravana to his kingdom Ayodhya after 14 years of exile. People welcomed them with lot lights lit on their way. According to another legend, this festival is a celebration of the victory of Lord Krishna over Narakasura and bring back joy to people who suffered under the rule of Narakasura.

Diwali /deepavali is celebrated with lots of fun and enthusiasm not only India, but also in Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore, Caribbean and Fiji. Diwali not only celebrated by Hindu, but also to Jain and Sikh people with a different perspective. Even though in my home state of Kerala, Deepavali is not a big celebration, but because of my Tamil roots we always celebrated with lot of fun. New dress, fire crackers, sweets, savory and grand breakfast was a must. Appa will buy new dresses and fire crackers, where as mom would cooks sweets and savories. Mysorepak, Okkarai, mixture and pakoda were a must in our house, some time we will also have Boli. Early morning that is around 4 A.M mom will wake us and there will be an oil bath (meaning we apply oil in our hair, before bath). After bath we wear new clothes and lit fire crackers. Then we will have a breakfast with idly, mulagapodi and all the goodies, amma made for diwali. Once the breakfast is over we will go to temple and do prayers.

Also during Deepavali days there will be new movies that are released, and there are a lot of programs on TV if you want to celebrate Deepavali at home without going out. Basically enjoy the whole day with food and fun.Deepavali is celebrated all over in India in different ways,in villages the rangolis are drawn on top of fresh cow dung. Also lighting the oil lamps is tradition during diwali. The purpose of the rangoli and oil lamps is to welcome guests and to encourage the Goddess Lakshmi inside. During Diwali it is common to set off fire crackers as the noise is believed to hearald the defeat of evil and to catch the attention of the Gods.

In Northern India, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and the surrounding areas huge dummy of Ravana are burned symbolizing Lord Rama's victory the demon king along with fire crackers, sweets, savories and lights.

In Eastern India, oil lamps, candles and lanterns are lit and placed in rows around individual homes. Crackers are burst, sparklers lighted and gifts and sweetmeats distributed by people across the state. Most of the houses are brightly lit and the doors and windows kept open to welcome Goddess Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) , who is supposed to visit every home during this time and ignores all places that are kept dark and abandoned.

In West Bengal, they worship Goddess Kali during the Deepavali, and it is unique one. In Western India diwali is a four-day festival, the preparations for which begin at least 15 days in advance read from here . In Southern India, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Deepavali is celebrated with great enthusiasm, with rangoli and kolu bommai. In Karnataka it is celebrated as a three day affair with the belief that King Bali visit everybody’s home during that them Read from here

Here is my collection of sweet and savory recipes.

Thattai

Mullu Murkku

Pakku vada/Ribbon Pakkoda

Parippu vada/ Lentil fritters

Deepavali Sweets

Mysore pak: Chickpea flour fudge

Athirsam

Rava laddo/ Sweet Semolina balls

Peda/Milk Sweet

Okkari/ Chanadal and Jaggery Sweet

Plantain Halwa/Plantain fudge

Maladdu/ Roasted chanadal sweet

Nan khatai

Besan Laddu

Shankar pali/Sweet Fired cookies

Boli/Sweet lentil stuffed flatbread

Enjoy

Boli /Sugar poli/ Poli: Sweet Lentil Flatbread Thiruvanthapuram Style

Oct 26, 2013 · 38 Comments

Delicious traditional sweet lentil stuffed flatbread made with chanadal and sugar . Usually served with palpayasam.

It will be hard to think about a marriage feast in the Thiruvananthapuram region of Kerala (my home state in India) without boli and payasam. It is a must to have 3-4 payasam/Sweet pudding, like Ada pradathaman, Palpayasam and kadala parippu payasam, which are most common of payasam. Boli will usually be accompanied by palpaysam. They are like husband and wife combo. Among the tamil Brahmin communities this boli or sweet stuffed lentil flatbread is most common during festivals like Deepavali, Avaniavittam etc. You can find them in bakeries too, and Appa used to buy it for us.

This week I got a sudden carving for boli. It was like movie flashback, eating them on friends marriage or on a deepavali day in house. Here in US you can’t find them even in Indian store. If you want it you have no choice you need to make it. My hubby was on business trip for last 3 days, so on Tuesday I need to cook for only 3 of us. Usually when I cook rice in pressure cooker, I would make 2 cups of rice in two pans.

However on this day I made only one pan of rice and on the second pan I added chana dal/split chickpeas for cooking. This happened on morning for our lunch. Then I drained the chanadal and wash with running water and set aside to make boli. However that day my daughter had a field trip to Drewberry farm, and she came back only after 3 .00 PM. So my boli making extended for long time, finally I made them in the night after feeding the little ones and let them play and make mess while I am cooking.

In other parts of India, especially in Maharashtra they make a similar stuffed lentil flatbread called Puran Poli. In Karnataka it named as Holige or Obbattu, In Andhra Pradesh it is named as Bobbattu, where as it become poli in Tamil Nadu. My hubby is from Mumbai, and every time we visit, my mother in law makes sure that she makes puran poli for us. To make puran poli, first cook the chana dal then it is again cooked jaggery and until it becomes soft. Then they are made into small balls later used as stuffing/puran. Then an outer covering is made with all purpose flour, milk and ghee into smooth dough. Then equal number of small balls is made out from both stuffing as well as covering. The puran is stuffed inside the dough and then rolled out flat using a rolling pin. The poli /flat bread is then cooked on a hot griddle and served with ghee.

Also the type of lentil used varies, in Gujarat , Karnataka and Tamil Nadu they use Toor dal/split pigeon peas to make this sweet flat bread. In Andhra Pradesh, they use chana dal or moong beans to make this one. Where in Maharashtra it is made with chanadal, In Kerala boli is made with chanadal/ spilt chick peas. The main sweetening agent used is jaggery or sugar. Spices used also vary from state to state. In coastal areas like Kerala, Goa, Gujarat, nutmeg is used along with cardamom where as in rest of part only cardamom is used.

Comparison between Boli and Puran Poli[table id=1 /]The Brahmins from the Mangalore region migrated to Kerala, and brought their traditional recipe of Mangalore holiage/ Mangalore Puran Poli to Trivandrum region. As it was passed from generation to generation the method of making changed a bit compared to the traditional version. I also found similarities between boli and mangalore puran poli in the making of outer cover and stuffing, and also the final brushing of ghee in the cooked boli.

Here is an you tube video of making boli

In boli, the dough for the outer cover is made first with all-purpose flour, food color, salt and water and covered with gingerly oil for 30 minutes at least. When the dough is soaking in oil, you can prepare the filling.

Cook the chana dal in pressure cooker, and once it is cooked well wash it with running water and allow draining the water, later it is cooked again with sugar. Once the dal becomes thick, grind it into a fine paste while it is warm make balls out of both stuffing and cover and fill the stuffing on each cover and spread it into very thin flat bread. While spreading the flat bread you need to use rice flour liberally, to prevent from sticking to the board. Also try to make it as thin as possible. Then on a hot griddle cook flatbread until it has brown spots on both sides. Use low-medium flame. Once they cooked on sides, brush with melted ghee, enjoy with semiya sabudana payasam recipe coming next.

Here comes the recipe

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5 from 2 votes

Boli /Sugar poli/ Poli: Sweet Lentil Flatbread Thiruvanthapuram Style

Delicious traditional sweet lentil stuffed flatbread made with chanadal and sugar

Prep Time1

Cook Time30

Total Time1 30

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Boli

Servings:

Calories: 343kcal

Ingredients

For the filling

1 ¼ cup Chana dal/Split chick peas/Kadala parippu
11/4 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon Nutmeg powder
¼ teaspoon cardamom powder 3 no of pods
Few pinch of yellow food color if using, I didn’t

For Outer cover

1 ½ cup all purpose flour/Maida
3-4 drops of yellow food color
¼ cup gingerly oil / Nalla Enna
¼ cup water
⅛ teaspoon salt

For making boli

¼ cup rice flour
2 tablespoon ghee

Instructions

To make the Filling

Wash Chana Dal/split chick peas with running water and cook it with 3 cups of Water in a pressure cooker. (Cook on high till one whistle; then lower the heat and cook for 5 minutes and then crank up the heat till one whistle.)
Once the pressure is gone, drain the excess water in the dal and wash with running water once again drain it in colander.
In medium saucepot cook the dal together with the Sugar ( and food color if using) on medium heat .First sugar melts and it become watery .But with continued cooking it will form a thick mass
Add Nutmeg Powder and Cardamom Powder; mix well and switch off the heat.
Grind them into fine paste still it is warm, as it cools it get thickens.
Divide them into 13 lemon sized balls and set aside.

To make the dough for the covering

Mix together Flour, Salt and Yellow Food Color and make soft dough using enough Water. (The dough should be really soft; softer than a Poori dough)
Keep it in a bowl and cover it with Oil .The dough should be covered completely with the Oil. Let it rest for 30 minutes at least.
Pinch out 13 balls from this dough and set aside.

To make the Bolis

Divide the filling into 13 equal lemon sized balls.
Take a small portion (the size of a marble) of the dough; flatten it in your palm; place a Dal filling in the middle and cover it with the dough.
Flatten the balls and keep it aside on Rice flour and repeat with all the other portions.
Roll out each Dal filled dough into 7 inch circles with the help of Rice flour to avoid sticking.
Heat a tawa/ griddle on medium heat and cook the Boli on both sides till it starts to change the color here and there. When both sides are cooked brush with ghee, that will help to remove the flour and increase the flavor.
Serve with Palpayasam.

Notes

While Pressure cooking Dal it not is mashed, it should retain its shape. Water gets absorbs more when it mashed.
The prepared dough should be covered in Oil. This together with the resting time gives elasticity to the dough which is very essential.
Try to make it thin as possible, traditional bolis are paper thin and melt in mouth.
This Boli is only very lightly sweetened and when it combines with sweet Palpayasam, so they go well together.
You can store the boli at room temperature for 4 days. If you want you can also freeze them.

Nutrition

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Heart Healthy and Cleansing Beet Juice

Oct 24, 2013 · 37 Comments

Delicious Heart Healthy and cleansing juice made with fresh beet, carrot with citrus and ginger.

This weekend while back from Indian store my hubby told me can you make beet juice, because he saw a one packet of beet and carrot juice? I like beet however not sure about its earthy taste when it comes to juice. So told him I will try some combo. Then on Sunday I decide to give it try. As I have seen recipe of beet and carrot and apple in Dr OZ show.

My kids like beet root stir fry and also daughter likes to eat carrot as such than cooked one. Hubby even eats raw beets, which I can’t. I don’t have any fancy Juicer to do that job. Decide to trust my own blender; they are Indian Make which is tolerable to grind even rice and coconut. After routine breakfast I decide to make the juice. First peeled the skin of beet and carrot and blend them well with water in a blender then added apple and ginger. When comes to apple for baking or juicing, I like to use granny smith apple. Their tartness marries well with other ingredients in the dish. Then finally added lime juice and orange juice. You need to strain the juice well so that you get a clear liquid.

After started trying various veggies in juice, I came to revelation that you don’t need any sugar to make juice tasty. What you need is some perfect combo.

I was amazed to see the health benefits of this juice combo. Do you Know Beets are called Nature’s Viagra .It has discovered by Ancient Romans, it has high amount of boron which increase the production human sex hormones. Also it is very rich vitamins and minerals like, Potassium, magnesium, fiber, phosphorus, iron; vitamins A, B & C; beta-carotene, beta-cyanine; folic acid. Beet also good cleanser, blood purifier, Liver tonic also can prevent cancer. It also known to improve mental health, also used as stomach acid tester. Beets are in low in calories and rich sugar. If you want read more then read from here.

Then next veggie carrot, which is known to help to reduce the cardiovascular diseases .In a 10 year study of Yellow and orange vegetables found that they contain Vitamin C as well as several antioxidants such as carotenoids and bioflavonoids. These vegetables have been shown to help maintain a healthy heart and eyes. Carotenoids may slow the progression of arthritis as well as reduce specific types of cancer including lung, stomach, bladder, and breast. Bioflavonoids and Vitamin C work together to increase immune function, read more from here and here

Orange and lime are rich in vitamin C and also help prevent heart disease also reduce diabetics, peptic ulcer, arthritis, weight loss please read more from here

Then there is Ginger, I like zing that ginger gives in everything. It is also has lot of health benefits like boosting immune function. Also helps to reduce indigestion. Read from here

While making this juice I didn’t know that there is recipe of beet carrot apple and ginger juice in Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s all Good book. So I can say that it is inspired from that recipe. However this recipe has extra add-ons like lime and orange juice. Trust it is delicious juice, you don’t feel any earthy taste of beets or carrot. Even 4 year old and 22 month old approved and they are ready going for another sip even without a pinch of sugar.

If you are detox plan, you can try this juice. Or if you are looking for healthy tasty juice to start your morning then this is the one.

Here comes the recipe.

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5 from 5 votes

Heart Healthy and Cleansing Juice: Beet Carrot Apple Lime Orange Ginger Juice

Delicious Heart Healthy and Cleansing juice made with fresh beets and carrots and fruits.

Prep Time5

Cook Time5

Total Time10

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Heart Healthy Juice

Servings:

Calories: 52kcal

Ingredients

2 cup water - use this only if you're using a blender to make this juice if you're using a juicer, then omit this ingredient
1 large or 2 medium beets peeled, ends removed and cut into wedges
1 large carrots washed, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large granny smith apple cut into wedges (core removed)
a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger peeled
Juice of one lime or lemon
Juice of one orange

Instructions

I don’t have juicer so used my blender to juice this,
Peel and chop both ends of the beet and then cut them into chunks.
Peel your ginger. To peel your ginger, just use the back of a spoon.
Wash and chop apple into chunks make sure to remove the core in the center, peel and chop up carrots, cut your lemon/lime in half and extract the juice. Extract juice from the orange also.
If you have a juicer, then please juice away. If you don't have a juicer, then follow along with me.

Notes

Nutrition

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Menthyam Molaga Arachuvitta kozhambu/Thenga Aaracha Kozhambu/Spicy Coconut Curry with Vegetables

Oct 19, 2013 · 25 Comments

Delicious Menthyam Molaga Arachuvitta kozhambu Vegetable curry made with fresh coconut and mildly spiced with fenugreek, coconut and chilies.

Weekend is coming and we are going to attend the birthday party of my hubby’s friend’s son. My hubby and his friend are friends from his school days; they studied in same school, college. And when his friend came to do Ph.d here in US, my hubby followed too. So it is a very long friendship. I have lost in touch with most of my friends, and only few are still in contact. Hope my son and daughter will enjoy the birthday party tomorrow.

Day before yesterday, Martha Stewart made an awkward comment that food bloggers are not experts in one of her interview with Bloomberg TV. I don’t know what expert she is? Does doing a cooking show or knitting show make you an authority to blame food bloggers? Sorry Martha, you are not expert in any sense.

We as food blogger, do everything including shopping, cooking, photographing, cleaning and also pushing to taste test on poor hubby and children.

We don’t have any cleaning crew, food photographing crew or food stylist.

Yes we adapt recipes from others, and that don’t means we are simply whipping up everything just sitting in front of computer.

I love cooking also love to discover the taste of other cuisine in my little kitchen. I am going boycott all products that have her name on it.

Comes to this recipe, it is one of traditional recipes of Tamil Iyer cuisine. Also one of mom’s favorite curry.

She would make very often sambhar, pulissery and parippu urundai kuzhambu

I wanted to try this recipe for long time, and since mom is not around anymore, I asked dad about this recipe, and he gave me a vague description. However the amount of Fenugreek and chili used was not very clear.

Finally searching in Google for a while I got this recipe. First time, while taste testing I found that I need to add some tomato paste to balance the bitterness of fenugreek.

The next time I increased the amount of coconut and also used two tomatoes. Trust me it reminds be my mom’s cooking. You can call them sister to sambhar, another spicy gravy but without coconut.

This curry goes well rice or dosa (south Indian pancake) and feels free to adjust the chili amount to be tolerable to your heat level. I won’t suggest that you to reduce the amount of fenugreek, as it isthe star of this recipe. For making this curry you can use any vegetables, but since I had only potato, onion, and carrot are in my hand I used those. It gels well with any vegetables. If you are person who use coconut in teaspoon and tablespoon then this won’t suit you. It requires a half of fresh coconut or 1 ½ cup grated coconut.

I am a coconut lover who loves to dump coconut as much as possible in all the recipes. Try it if you like coconut curries.

Here comes the recipe.

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5 from 3 votes

Menthyam Molaga Arachuvitta kozhambu /Thengai Aracha kuzhambu / Spicy tangy coconut curry with vegetables

Delicious spiced coconut curry made with vegetables .

Prep Time10

Cook Time25

Total Time35

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: South Indian

Keyword: Coconut based curries, curries

Servings: servings

Calories: 169kcal

Ingredients

For Roasting and grinding

2 teaspoon Urad dal/ Spilt black gram
1 teaspoon Menthayam/Methi/ Fenugreek seeds
2-3 Red chili Reduce or increase depending upon your spice level
1 ½ cup freshly grated coconut or half of fresh coconut
1 teaspoon oil use coconut or olive oil

For curry

1 potato chopped into cubes
1 carrot chopped into cubes
2 to tomatoes chopped into cubes
1 onion Chopped into cubes
¼ th of capsicum chopped into cubes
Lemon sized ball of tamarind
3 cup water
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

For seasoning

1 teaspoon oil use coconut or olive oil
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
1 sprig of curry leaves
1 red chili

Instructions

In a microwave safe bowl add ½ cup of water and lemon sized tamarind and microwave high for 15 seconds. Extract the juice and set aside.
In a small skillet heat 1 teaspoon oil and add urad dal, fenugreek seeds and red chili and fry until it release aroma. Make sure not to burn the fenugreek seeds as it can result in the bitterness of curry. Add grated coconut to this and grind into a fine paste with ¼ cup water.
Cook the chopped vegetables with 2 cup water with turmeric and salt until it is done well.
To this add extracted tamarind juice and boil for another 2 minutes
Then add the ground coconut chili fenugreek paste and cook for another 3 minutes.
In a small skillet heat 1 teaspoon of oil and add mustard seeds and red chili and curry leaves, when mustard seeds starts spluttering switch off and add this to prepared curry.
Enjoy with warm rice or dosa

Notes

This recipe is inspired from Here

Nutrition

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Multigrain Pumpkin cranberry Bread for Baking Partners challenge: 16

Oct 15, 2013 · 32 Comments

Delicious multigrain pumpkin cranberry bread made with rye, wholewheat flour, Pumpkin puree and cranberries add little sweetness to hearty healthy bread.

Since it is a Halloween month Pumpkin is a star vegetable. While chatting with Tamy of 3 Sides Crazy last month, she asked me if I had decided on a recipe for Baking Partners Challenge. I told her I had nothing in mind, but that we needed a recipe with pumpkin as it is Halloween month. She immediately selected two recipes, one is loaf recipe and other one is yeasted pumpkin bread recipe from King Arthur flour.
Last year we went to visit a pumpkin patch in a church lot, and the kids had lots of fun. However this year we didn’t get the time, may be before this Halloween we can visit a pumpkin patch. My hubby already told me not to buy any small pumpkins if we visit, as I will buy them for using as my food props until they finally go bad. Yesterday I bought a few Halloween cookie cutters from Michael’s as they were on sale.
I also wanted to taste pumpkin spice latte from McDonalds, and during my outing last Sunday, bought a medium glass. I couldn’t enjoy the taste as it is too sugary, and it ended up in garbage. So I am search for my favorite version of pumpkin latte, hope I will find it soon. I also have a little amount of pumpkin puree left, and need to try some more pumpkin recipes. If you know any perfect pumpkin latte recipe let me know.

Coming back to the recipes from Tammy, I decide to try pumpkin bread recipe, as I love good yeast bread. However King Arthur flour recipe uses only all-purpose flour, however my family likes rye flour, or whole wheat bread. So I mixed bread, rye and white whole wheat flour to make this bread. First I thought of adding nuts, but my kids won’t touch them. Thus I added cranberries to the bread. I also thought of making homemade pumpkin puree, last minute I changed my mind and bought a Libby’s canned pumpkin. When I looked at price of big and small can, I found that buying big can is cheaper so ended up with the big one. I made some pumpkin cookies, now I am looking forward to make a pumpkin latte.

This pumpkin cranberry bread reminds me of my favorite raisin bread. It also remains moist at room temperature for more than 4 days. It is also great as toasting bread. So give it try, it doesn’t have any overpowering taste of pumpkin.
Please look at the creations of other Baking Partners too, some have opted for yeast bread, while others have chosen the non-yeast version, there is also some vegan versions.

Here comes the recipe.

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5 from 1 vote

Multigrain Pumpkin cranberry Bread for Baking Partners challenge

Delicious multigrain pumpkin cranberry bread made with rye, whole wheat flour, Pumpkin puree and cranberries add little sweetness to hearty healthy bread

Prep Time15

Cook Time4

Total Time4 15

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: #pumpkin, Bread Recipes

Servings: servings

Calories: 17kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

1 cup/ 160g bread flour
½ cup/79g rye flour
2 cup/300g white whole wheat flour
11/4 teaspoon/6g instant yeast
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 ½ teaspoon /10g salt
1 cup Canned pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon/15g brown sugar
2 tablespoon/17g olive oil
½ cup/77g sweetened cranberries
½ cup butter milk you can make your own by adding ½ tablespoon vinegar in ½ cup milk and stand for 5 minutes
2 tablespoon water

Instructions

In the bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer attached with paddle attachment add yeast, rye, bread and white whole wheat flour mixture, buttermilk, pumpkin, sugar, salt and rest of ingredients and mix everything for 3 minutes. Then add cranberries and mix very well to incorporate into the dough. Then change to dough hook and knead the dough for about 8 minutes or until the dough starts leaves from the sides and form a ball. Then transfer the dough to well floured area and knead for another 5 minutes or until they become shiny, supple, non sticky dough. The dough should pass the window pane test and register 77 to 81 F. If you are kneading by hand it takes about 15 minutes of kneading.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow it to rise till it’s expanded and looks somewhat puffy, about 90 minutes.
Lightly grease a 9 x 4 x 3, 1.5 lb. commercial loaf pan Transfer the dough into a board and gently shape the dough into a smooth log, and settle it into the pan, smooth side up.
Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the loaf to rise till it’s crowned over the rim of the pan by about ¾th, about 90 minutes. Don’t let it rise too high; it’ll continue to rise as it bakes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F. When you are ready for baking the score the bread and lightly apply the egg wash on the loaf so that you get shiny color after baking.
Bake the bread for 60 minutes. Lightly tent it with aluminum foil, and bake for an additional15 minutes, or until the center registers 200F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove it from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack.
Slice and serve when the bread cools down to room temperature.
Enjoy with your favorite spread.

Notes

This recipe is inspired from King Arthur Flour

Nutrition

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Yeast spotting

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Edible Spider Sandwich and Witch finger cookies: Spooky treats for Halloween

Oct 12, 2013 · 34 Comments

When I had made Nan Khatai , I had a little dough left and I thought I can make some spooky treats for my daughter. She was excited when I told her that I am going to make cookies, she was really helpful while making them and sat quietly watching me make it. However when the finished product was shown to her, she told me fingers are keep bleeding, so she doesn’t want it.

You will be wondering what is keep bleeding, it is keep bleeding in love song by Leona Lewis. She loves it and would play it in Ipad, every chance she gets. She can only say keep bleeding from that song, so she always singing around that. She is also fan of Alde, and her favorite song is Rumor has it. She likes to sing it on her way to school as it is played in car from radio station along with Wheels in the bus goes round and round. However her brother is a fan of POM POM POM song from tamil movie Desingu Raja. Trust me he wants to play it in the Ipad almost 5 times a day. Just for fun I tweeted about this to music director of this Song Imman ,that you have a 22 month old fan who loves to play this song for 5 times day. I got immediate reply from him also. My daughter also had to undergo a few extraction and crowns, and had a 90 min work under general anesthetic. She did well and went right back to school the next day enough though she was visibly tired.

At first I made witch finger, and used about tablespoon of dough, but then fingers expanded t a large size after baking, it was more like monster finger than a witch finger. So next time I made with ½ tablespoon dough, as Nan khatai dough has a little leavening agent. If you are using any other recipe try to use it about teaspoon of dough as they may have leavening in it. Since it is Nankhatai dough, Witch Fingers came out very delicate, you need to be careful handling them. Otherwise it will break into pieces. I also used blanched almonds for nails. After I finished baking I painted the finger nails with red gel food color. That is why my princess told me it is keep bleeding and she doesn’t want to eat it, however my boy was fine with it. He was happy to eat the witch fingers. May be once he grows up, and he realizes that it is spooky he may not eat it. It is really tasty though, if you are looking for a tasty melt in your mouth witch fingers try this recipe.

After the fingers, I was looking for an edible spooky sandwich and I found this very cute recipe for these spiders. For ingredients you need whole wheat multigrain bread, jam or peanut butter or cream cheese, and carrot or celery or pretzel sticks, you are good to go. For eyes you need raisins or currants, even black olives might work well. Since my daughter doesn’t want to touch witch fingers, I made her favorite strawberry cream cheese, carrot and whole wheat bread. This is easy if you have biscuit cutters, use it to cut out small rounds of 2 ½ inch and then apply cream cheese on one side of each slice and then between the slices stick thinly sliced carrots on both sides. My kids loved it.

So if you are planning for Halloween parties go ahead and try this one. Kids will enjoy it for sure.

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5 from 2 votes

Edible Spider Sandwich and Witch finger cookies: Spooky treats for Halloween

Prep Time30

Total Time30

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American, Indian

Servings: sandwiches, 9 Cookies

Ingredients

For Spiders

8 slices whole wheat multigrain sandwich bread
½ cup strawberry cream cheese spread
32 thin carrot strips
8 black currants

For Witch Fingers

Nan Khatai dough: ⅓ portion recipeRecipe Here
Blanched almonds: 10 no
Red food gel

Instructions

For Spiders

Cut out the spider bodies using a 2 ½-inch cookie cutter to cut a circle from each slice of bread. Place the circles on a cutting board.
Spread the cream cheese on one side the bread circles using a table knife.
Place the cheese spread side on one each other and stick well so that bread will stay in one place.
Place eight carrot sticks on the side of the bread circles for the spider legs. Place the remaining bread circles on top. Press two currants into each circle to be the eyes.
If you wish you can draw a web on a paper plate with a black marker and place the spiders on the plate to serve. You can also serve the spiders on a round wire rack to resemble the spider web.
This recipe adapted from Junior Leagues’ Kids in the Kitchen

For witch Fingers

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Remove dough from refrigerator in small amounts. Scoop about ½ tablespoon of at a time onto a piece of waxed paper. Use the waxed paper to roll the dough into a log of 6 inch length and ¾ inch wide, and then shape it into thin finger-shaped cookie. Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail. Squeeze cookie near the tip and again near the center of each to give the impression of knuckles. You can also cut into the dough with a fork at the same points to help give a more finger-like appearance. Arrange the shaped cookies on the baking sheets.
Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are slightly golden in color, 25 minutes.
Remove the almond from the end of each cookie; squeeze a small amount of red decorating gel into the cavity; replace the almond to cause the gel to ooze out around the tip of the cookie.

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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My Legume Love Affair#63 Roundup and Giveaway Winner Annoucement

Oct 11, 2013 · 9 Comments

Here is the Roundup of My Legume Love Affair#63 hosted last month here in Zesty South Indian Kitchen

Thanks for Lisa and to Susan for this wonderful opportunity to guest host the event.

I got some awesome entries. and are

1) Taruna, Mumbai

Handvo (Gluten free Savory Rice & Lentil Cake)

2) Shaheen,Wales, UK

Beetroot-red onion and Puy lentil

3) Aimee ,UK

Spicy lentil soup

4)Siri, Hyderabad, India

Brown Rice and Black Lentil Bagel Burgers

5 &6) Mireille, NewYork

Jaisalmer Chana

Nigella Seed Dal

7) Janet, Houston , Texas

Cucumber Hummus Dip (Hummus-Tzatziki Fusion)

8) Lisa, Canada

Indian style Samosa Potpie

9) Aparna, Goa, India

Sabudhana Khichdi

10) Linsy Patel, New Jersey, US

Authentic Falafel

11) Swathi ( Me)

Teriyaki tofu with vegetables
And the winner is Linsy Patel, Please contact me with your e-mail address, your gift will be mailed soon.

Nankhatai: Eggless Shortbread Cookies: Indian style

Oct 9, 2013 · 43 Comments

Delicious Indian shortbread cookies Nankhatai with touch of cardamom and nuts

After going back and forth the idea for few months I took a bold decision to change my blog platform and moved from Blogger to Word Press. The move was smooth as Laura my designer at pixelmedesigns helped me a lot. Still it requires some improvement. I am learning to use word press also. I am happy that I can add some personal touch to my blog now. I made this Nankhatai, Indian style shortbread cookies.

Coming to this recipe it is famous shortbread cookies available in Indian bakeries. My mom liked this one a lot; and she would always buy it for us when we made our trips to local bakeries. I still remember those images like a flash back of movies. I wanted to make these cookies for long time, but when I think about the amount of ghee /clarified butter that goes to make them, it scared the hell out of me. Finally last week I decide to try it.

As usual I was able to find zillion versions of Nankhatai recipe, some use all purpose flour, butter and sugar and some add semolina, all purpose flour, besan/chickpea flour, ghee and powdered sugar. I thought that second version to be closer to traditional as it has ghee, besan /chickpea flour and semolina. While searching for Nankhatai, I found this interesting article about its history. Some people think history is not important when it comes to food, but I love to learn the history of food. Did you know Nankhatai means a cake made of six ingredients? It originated in the city of Surat in Gujarat which was the main port of entry for Dutch during 16^th century. They love to eat bread, so they created a bakery to make the bread. When they decide to leave, they gave the bakery to an employee. He started making bread, but in India nobody wants to eat bread, so he converted it into dry and crispy version which poor people liked to eat by dunking it in chai/Tea. He also converted Dutch short bread cookies to Nankhatai which similar to European short bread cookies. As both have no leaving agent, however in the modern day Nankhatai there is a pinch of baking powder.

If you ask me how this cookies tastes, I will tell you it has crispy crunch from semolina, nutty besan/chickpea and flour and aroma of ghee makes delicate, crumbly melt in mouth cookies. To make it special I added saffron, cardamom and nutmeg. It has freshness of homemade ghee. Normally crushed pistachios is topped with cookies, however I don’t have pistachio in my hand, so used some blanched almond. It is best tea or coffee time cookies. If you are interest in egg less butter cookies, then give it try.

With little cookie dough I made few Halloween special cookies that I will post later. I used regular granulated sugar powdered, rather than store bought powdered sugar as it contain cornstarch and will alter the structure of cookies. I have seen using butter in the recipe, but if you want traditional touch go for ghee that is more flavorful.

Other cookies made with nuts check here

Rose Cardamom Pistachio Shortbread

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Nankahatai: Eggless Shortbread Cookies: Indian style

Delicious eggless traditional Indian shortbread melt mouth in cookies

Prep Time15

Cook Time25

Total Time1 5

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Indian shortbread cookies,, Nankahatai

Servings: cookies

Calories: 59kcal

Ingredients

1 cup/140g all purpose flour/maida
¾ cup/83g besan/chickpea flour
¼ cup /47g fine semolina/rava/sooji pulse 2-3 times in blender
¾ cup ghee softened but not melted (substitute with unsalted butter)
1 cup/200g granulated sugar or castor sugar, do not use confectioner’s sugar
¼ teaspoon saffron threads
½ teaspoon cardamom powder 3-4 pods of cardamom
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon milk
Sliced almonds pistachio or any nuts of your choice ( I used blanched almonds)

Instructions

In a blender pulse semolina/rava /sooji into fine powder and set aside.
In the same blender add sugar, nutmeg and cardamom and pulse it into fine powder and set aside.
Heat the milk in a microwave and add saffron and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream ghee and powdered sugar to this mix in the saffron in milk and cardamom powder. Set aside.
In another bowl sift, flour, besan/chickpea flour, fine semolina and salt. Add the sifted flours to the ghee-sugar mix in parts stirring continuously till you get soft dough. The dough will be sticky and loose. Wrap up the dough in a cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Take out the refrigerated dough. Scoop about 1 tablespoon of dough and make it into a small ball. Line the balls on the cookie sheet with at least 2 " space between them. Lightly press some sliced almonds on top of each ball.
Preheat oven to 300F.
Bake on the middle rack for 25 minutes watching closely. The cookies should not change color. When you see that the bottoms begin to brown lightly, remove from the oven and let cool on the sheet itself for 5 minutes. Transfer to a rack later and let cool completely.
Store it in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks if it last.

Notes

This recipe is loosely adapted from Sinfullyspicy

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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Navarathri/ Navaratri and Recipes

Oct 6, 2013 · 29 Comments

Navarathri/Navratri is celebrated with full of enthusiasm all over India. Just like its diverse language and culture, this festival is celebrated differently in each state. Navarathri means “nine nights’ and this year it is from October 5^th to October 14^th. West Bengal celebrate Navarathri as Durga pooja, Kerala like to celebrate it as Vijayadashami and Vidyarambam means a child starts learning from the auspicious day of Vjayadashmi (i.e. from the last day of Navarathri). Karnataka like to celebrate as Dasara. While North India like to celebrate as Dussehra. One thing unique in this festival is that everybody worships Goddess Shakti/Devi. First, in the form of Goddess worshipped as Durga/Kali or as Goddess Lakshmi or as Goddess of Wealth and finally as Saraswathi/ Goddess of wisdom.

In my hometown, Trivandrum, Navarathi celebrations have its own ritual and stories attached to it. Every year the idol of goddess Saraswathi is brought from Padmanabhapuram palace to the Navarathri mandapam situated at the eastern entrance of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.This ritual is done as part of promise made by a Chera King centuries ago. The sage Kambar gave an idol of Goddess Saraswathi to a Chera King, who promised that the Goddess would be worshiped and the Navarathri Festival was held in her honor every year.

When Maharaja Swati Tirunal shifted the capital from Padmanabhapuram to Thiruvananthapuram in the 19th century, he made arrangements to bring the Devi to his new capital every year and built the Navaratri Mandapam adjoining his royal palace. It is situated near Sreepadnabha Swami temple. Even in this 21^st century that ritual has continued. For the rest of the year, Devi blesses devotees from Her Thevarakkettu at Padmanabhapuram Palace. It is the ‘Moola Vigraham,/Main idol’ and is brought to Thiruvananthapuram leaving a lighted lamp in the sanctum.

Saraswathy Devi in Elephant: photo courtesy Sugeeth Krishna

During the visit, Saraswathi Devi is accompanied by Lord Kumaraswamy on a silver horse (from Kumara Kovil)and Goddess Munnoothinangai (from Sucheendram) on a palanquin. When the procession reaches Navaratri Mandapam, it is received by the head of the royal family of Travancore. The Saraswati Devi is taken inside the Nalukettu and to the sanctum in the Chokita Mandapam the next morning.

Saraswathy Devi, Photo Credit: Sugeeth Krishna

Velayuda Perumal proceeds to the Aryasala Temple and Munnutu Nangamma to Chenthitha Temple. Finally, after Vidyarambham, Saraswati Devi is taken to the Nalukettu from the sanctum for `Nalliirupu,' where it is believed that the Goddess is resting for two days. On the third day, Velayutha Perumal and Munnutu Nangamma are taken to the Poojapura Mandapam for celebrations where they await the arrival of Saraswati Devi. On the morning of the 12th day, Saraswati Amman is escorted back elephants to the Poojapura mandapam and together with Velayutha Perumal and Munnutu Nangamma they are taken in a procession to their respective temples.

Kumara Swamy in Sliver horse Photo credit; Sugeeth Krishna

During my childhood days, appa would take us to see all these Gods at respective temples. We have to wait to see Saraswathi Devi as there will be musicians singing traditional music for a particular period of time.

Munnoothinangai Photo credit: Sugeeth Krishna

In our house, mom used to keep Gollu/ kolu/Tier of dolls. When people each other’s house to see the Kolu, usually they are given prasad (the offering given to God that day), kumkum and a small bag of gifts. These are only given to girls and married women. In the evenings, a "kuthuvilakku" (small lamp) is lit, in the middle of a decorated "kolam"(Rangoli), before the Kolu and devotional hymns and shlokas are chanted. After performing the pujas, the food items that have been prepared are offered to the goddesses.

As kids we are more interested in the prasadam/offering. We like to go to the houses that makes sweet version of sundals than the savory version. I used to go to neighbors’ house and invite them saying like this “Mami Atathile kollu vachirukka, Vettalai pakku vanga varungo” Means we kept kolu/ tier of dolls in our house, please come to see and have offerings.

I will go to Meenakshi Amman temple in Pearland, where they keep huge kolu and do special poojas. All these pictures are from that kolu. I will make sundals for the 9 days and on the 10^th day I will make payasam with rice and jaggery and coconut and Uzhunuv ada as mom does during the vijayadashmi day.

Here are few sundal recipes tried and tested in my kitchen. Sundals are mainly cooked lentils with coconut and few seasoning. It is really healthy and delicious treat you can ever imagine. You are free to use any kind of lentils, legumes or beans of your choice. If you learn to cook one you can follow that method to other one, only lentils change, but the step stays pretty much the same. If you are a sweet loving person, make sweet sundal by adding cooked lentils to jaggery or brown sugar, and condition it with coconut and a touch of cardamom. Kids love it. That was my favorite sundal in childhood days. Now due to health consciences, I am making only savory sundals.

During Navarthri, people from northern and western part of India do fasting and at that time they won’t eat any wheat , and prefer gluten free grains like Rajgira/Amaranth grains which are normally cooked with potato, they make puri, (fired flat bread) roti etc. They call it vrat ka khana meaning eaten during fasting. They also don’t use any lentils rice, wheat and even regular salt etc.

Again everybody have their own mom and grandma’s recipe. If you want to try something different take a look at here.

Kadalaparippu Sundal

Pattani sundal

Karamani Sundal

Rajgiria Roti/Amaranth flour flat bread

Payasam and uzhunnu vada

Beet Root kichadi/ Beet Root in Yogurt Gravy

Oct 1, 2013 · 46 Comments

Hope everybody had wonderful weekend. Yes we too have, but Texans failed miserably on Sunday’s NFL football game. They are good team, but last the last quarter, they played like they forgot to play the game.

Beet root is a vegetable that has high appreciation in my house after carrot and red bell pepper. If beetroot stir fry is there, then rice will be going into the mouth without any added fuss in the case of my daughter. My son too likes beet root stir-fry just like his sister. So the weekend shopping will not be complete without the beet root in the grocery bag. My daughter like beet root chips from the Whole foods. First tried baking the chips, it failed, and then try to fry them in the oil also failed. So making beet root chips at home is stopped for the time being. I don’t know when I will try it again. If you have any tips let me know that may help in my future adventure.

Beet Root kichadi is one of the recipe we make for our feast Sadya. Since beet root gives bright color to everything, this dish is very appealing. There are few curries we taste in a small amount; these are called Thodu curries, mainly pachadi and kichadi. In southern Kerala from where I am, Pachadi is sweet based made with fruits like Plantain, mango, and pineapple cooked jaggery and a paste of coconut, cumin seeds and green chilies. Where Kichadi is usually made with vegetables like Cucumber, okra, bitter gourd etc are cooked with yogurt and a paste made with coconut, mustard and green chilies.

I wanted to try new kichadi recipe, as I have tried cucumber kichadi, okra kichadi and bitter gourd kichdi earlier. With the cucumber you need to cook without frying whereas the rest of them you need to fry the veggies and then cook. When I saw this recipe in onam edition of Vanitha (Malayalam Magazine) I decide to try it. I tried few of non traditional recipes, but they are not good as I wished. So Hubby said strict no to trying Pradhaman/ Payasam/ Pudding which are not traditional. At first I was so afraid that I am going to spoil the dish. Decide to give it try to find out its taste. One main difference between this recipe and traditional kichadi recipe is that no mustard seeds are grind along with coconut and green chili.

Don’t be mistaken with Kichadi recipe of northern India. Actually it is more like risotto made with rice and lentils and spices.

I like beetroot taste however the color mess all over the counter top it makes is not being my favorite. Still if you are having ardent fans in your house you have no choice.

For this recipe you need to cook the beetroot first and then grate and add coconut paste and yogurt and then season with mustard, red chilies and curry leaves. It is easy recipe which tastes very good. You can’t serve this curry alone with rice, but along with some sides to go with rice it is great.

Here comes the recipe.

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Beetroot Kichadi/ Beetroot cooked in Yogurt gravy

Delicious Beet root curry made with yogurt and mildly spiced

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Beetroot curry, Beetroot kichadi

Servings:

Calories: 175kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

1 big 2 small Beetroot
1 cup Fresh grated coconut
2-3 green chili if you want more spicy add one more chili
¾ teaspoon salt or to taste
1 ½ cup yogurt/curd I used homemade
1 tablespoon coconut oil
¾ teaspoon mustard seeds
2 no red chili
1 sprig curry leaves

Instructions

Peel the skin of beet root and chop into big chunks and cook with 2-3 cups of water until it is cooked well or become very soft.
Once it is cool enough to touch, grate them finely and set aside.
In the mean time grind the coconut with green chilies into fine paste.
In a skillet add grated cooked beet, salt, yogurt and ground coconut chili paste and mix everything, in low flame. You can do this step without heating also.
In another pan heat oil and add mustard seeds , red chili and curry leaves, when mustard seeds starts splutters remove from the fire and add it to beetroot yogurt mixture.
Enjoy with rice.
Recipe adapted from Vanitha Magzine September 2013.

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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Favorite Recipes Event: Kheer/ Payasam

Oct 1, 2013 · 2 Comments

This month Favorite recipes event is taking palace at The Big Sweet Tooth .She has great blog and amazing recipes as well as traditional Indian recipes.
Thanks Srimathi's Few minutes Wonder's for guest hosting last month's Curries and Gravies in a plate. I was amazed by the various delicious Curries and gravies. I am going to pin all the entries in pinterest.
This month we are going to make some gravy or curry, so don your apron and make some tasty and delicious curry to go with any meal, once you done, please link it. Hope over to for the rules Rafeeda's The Big Sweet Tooth

If you want to contact me please e-mail at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com.

Host list
2013 :

January Zesty South Indian Kitchen Favorite Lentils/Legume

February Ghar Ka Khana Favorite Non-Indian Food Recipe Round up
March Merry Tummy Favorite Mela/Carnival Food

April : Cook Eat Burrp Favorite Bookmarked Recipes
May : Zesty south Indian Kitchen Favorite recipes drinks

June: Nivedhanams Eggless baking

July:        My Cooking Journey              One pot meal
August: Tasty Food Recipes         Curries/gravies on dinner plate
September Few minutes wonders      Lunch box ideas
October:   The Big Sweet Tooth :         Payasam/Kheer On going

November Shruti Rasoi Street Foods
December Twisted Chef Favorite Winter Recipes

2014

January    ShreeZ                      Fusion food
February  Esho-Bosho-Aahare        Starter or Snacks
March     Open

Herbed Bread Sticks Bones for Halloween

Sep 28, 2013 · 29 Comments

I had bookmarked this bread stick bones recipes on my do to list for last Halloween. However last year I didn’t get enough time as my baby was around 9 ½ month old, and constantly demanding my attention. So this time I thought I will make bread stick bones. Fun part of Halloween is dressing and going for trick & treat. My kids are going to dress up but I am not taking them to trick treat. They will be handing over chocolates as trick-treaters come by. Further Halloween is coming on working day.

Halloween means spooky movies, trick treat and costumes. However both I and my hubby are not horror movie fans. I can’t watch them, if I watch I couldn’t sleep for entire night. Somebody needed to accompany me, if have to go to use the restroom in the night. If I am watching Indian Ghost movies, then even the ghost will start singing and dancing to songs. With its white sari and untied hair, I think I horror in that cases feels like a comedy.
Last post I mentioned about my experience towards bad bread sticks from PappaJohn’s. However I greatly enjoy the bread sticks from Pizza Hut. I even try tocreate their breadsticks at home and succeeded to an extent. I won’t say I beat them, still it tasted great. So when I decided to make bread stick bones, I don’t want to use the same recipe, and was finally inspired with this taste of home’s recipe for soft garlic bread sticks. I did not want to use entirely bread flour, as they tend to make the breads little chewy to our taste buds, and used a combination of bread flour and All Purpose flour. In the bread stick dough I used Parmesan cheese, dried parsley, marjoram, thyme, black pepper, rosemary along with fresh basil. My basil plant is growing really well, and I always think that I am going to make basil pesto, but that day has not yet come. So I decided to use it in my bread stick. I also used garlic and onion powder, and trust me I used every herbs and spices available in pantry to make it really herbed bread sticks.
I had to change the recipe as the original one is using bread machine, and I don’t have one in my hand. I made the dough with Kitchen Aid stand mixer and allowed it to ferment for 60 minutes to double. Then divided into two pieces and tried two different shaped bones. First one is adapted from serious eats and second shape is from here. I know it is not that spooky, but I tried my best to bring out my artist for making this bone shapes, it turned out be okay still needs lot of room for improvement Trust me they are delicious bread sticks even my son love to eat with marinara.
So if you are planning for a Halloween party in your backyard, you can try this. It is delicious not doubt about that. May be you can make them little more spooky by adding some marinara in the bones itself.
I am planning to make few spookier treat, so stay tuned for that. Here comes the recipe, you can also make them into normal shape as they are delicious.

Other tried and tested bread stick recipe Bread Stick Pizza hut style

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5 from 1 vote

Herbed Bread Sticks Bones for Halloween

Here is simple and delicious herbed bread stick bones goes well with marinara sauce. Easy to put together

Prep Time30

Cook Time20

Total Time50

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Breadsticks

Servings:

Calories: 83kcal

Author: Swathi ( Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

Ingredients
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water 70° to 80°
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoons of onion powder
1-½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon minced fresh basil or ¼ teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon dried parsley
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon dried rosemary
¼ teaspoon dried marjoram
½ teaspoon black pepper or 3-4 pepper corns
2 cups /280g bread flour
1 cup/ all purpose flour
21/4 teaspoons instant yeast/if using active dry yeast make sure to proof
1 tablespoon butter melted

Instructions

In a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer add all the ingredients except water and melted butter and with dough hook attachment, slowly add water to form soft pliable dough. (In a coffee blender add all the herbs including basil and grind well so that herbs won’t remain as big pieces)
Transfer to a well greased bowl cover with plastic wrap and damp towel and set aside for 1 hour or double in size. Once it is doubled transfer the dough to work table and spread it into 10 inch wide and 12 inch rectangle. Then cut it in the center to create two pieces.
Then with one half, cut into 10 inch long and 1 ½ inch wide pieces. For the bread sticks shaped as serious eats article roll each piece into a single rope and tie knot at each end. Transfer to baking sheet lined with parchment paper and set aside for doubling for another 30 minutes.
Then with second part of dough cut it into 10 inch long and 1 ½ inch wide pieces. Then at the each end make a cut at 1 inch deep (I think making ½ inch is enough mine was little longer) so that you can make a small twist on each ends. Set aside for proofing for another 30 minutes.
By the end of the second proofing, preheat oven to 350F. Brush the sticks with melted before going into oven. Bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and again brush them once again with melted butter.
Set aside for cooling in the pan for about 5 minutes and then transfer to wire rack.
Serve with marinara while they are warm.

Notes

Delicious This recipe is adapted form taste of home’s recipe for soft garlic bread sticks

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

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Tamatar Wangun (Tamatar baingan) Eggplant cooked in tomato gravy: Kashmiri Style

Sep 24, 2013 · 47 Comments

I have always wanted to visit Jammu &Kashmir, one of the most beautiful states of India. Jammu & Kashmir mostly consists ofHimalayanmountain ranges and shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south. Jammu and Kashmir has an international border with the People's Republic of China in the north and east while Line of Control separates it from Pakistani controlled territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit–Baltistan in the west and northwest respectively. Srinagar is summer capital and Jammu is its winter capital. Ladakh is also one of the parts of this state. Its natural beauty is breathtaking. I have only able to see through the pictures, however one day I hope I am able to visit this state.

Jammu and Kashmir is also famous for its Saffron, apples, barley, cherries, corn, millet, oranges, rice, peaches, pears, saffron, sorghum, and wheat, while manufactured exports include handicrafts, rugs, and shawls.

Just like any other Indian state it has its own cuisine, Kashmir also has both Kashmiri pandit cuisine as well as Kashmiri Muslim cuisine. Pandits in rest of the part of India won’t eat meat, however Kashmiri pandit’s eat meat especially mutton (sheep/Goat/ lamb). They also eat veggies cooked without onion and garlic. Then there is multicourse meal Wazwan (around 36 courses). Its preparation is considered an art, and almost all the dishes are meat-based (lamb, chicken, fish). It is usually made by a head chef with several chefs in training. You can see a Youtube Video by Bizzare food Andrew Zimmern. Kashmiri Muslim people use garlic and onion in their cooking.

Some of the main ingredients of Kashmiri Pandit cuisine are Kashmiri chili powder, aniseed (saunf powder), saffron, asafoetida (hing), dry ginger powder, pure ghee or mustard oil and Yogurt and most of the preparations are cooked using the slow simmering technique; it often takes five to six hours for a single dish. I read from here that older generation of Kashmiri pandit won’t use onion, garlic, chicken, eggs etc. Here is a nice article about Kashimri pandit wedding recipes,

You will surprise with all these introductions, what the heck I am going to do. Yes I am going to make Kashmiri pandit style curry recipe with eggplant and tomato. First I saw this recipe in a Malayalam magazine, Vanitha. When I looked through the recipe, it sounded really easy with only few ingredients that I needed and good with chapathi or any bread. As I had eggplant in refrigerator, I decided to give it a try. I also researched little bit about the recipe, most of them the articles that I found were about Kashmiri Chok Wangun (Spicy Sour Eggplant) or one with yogurt. However I did find these two using eggplant and tomato alone here and here . So my creation is turned out be fusion of all the three recipes. At first I was little reluctant that how it would taste. Trust me they taste great, and go extremely well with any bread. First you need to fry the eggplant then make gravy of tomato and spices and then cook it for few minutes. I found most unique use of spices like dry ginger powder in the spice mixtures. Usually in Kerala, it is used in sweet dishes like pradhaman. Next my adventure will be to taste Kahwah as well as their Noon chai or pink tea. So stay tuned for that.

Here comes the recipe.

Tamatar Wangun (Tamatar baingan) Eggplant cooked in tomato gravy: Kashmiri Style

Preparation time: 45 minutes

Yield: 4 serving

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Ingredients

780g/1.72 lb eggplant cut it into big pieces ( Baingan/ Kathrikai)

⅓ cup canola oil for frying

1 tablespoon olive oil ( If you want authentic version use mustard oil)

¼ teaspoon asafetoida ( Perum Kayam)

4 no of tomatoes (about 344g/0.758lb)

½ teaspoon kashmiri chili powder ( if you want more heat increase upto1 teaspoon)

½ teaspoon dry ginger powder ( Chukku)

½ teaspoon fennel powder ( Perum jeerakam/Sombu)

¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

1teaspoon cumin seeds

1 cup water

1 tablespoon finely chopped Coriander leaves/Cilantro leaves

Directions

Heat 2 tablespoon oil in skillet and add eggplant pieces without crowding from each other and fry both until it become golden brown color on both sides. Remove to a plate and continue to fry the entire pieces with addition of oil in each step. When you flipping the other sides add oil as oil gets absorbed. It takes about 10 minutes for a single batch. Entire pieces will be fried in 3 batches.

In the same pan add olive oil and asafetodia and cumin seeds, when cumin seeds start crackle add tomato pieces and continue to cook until it becomes soft and mushy. Then add chili powder, fennel powder and ground ginger powder and salt and add water. Let it boil for 5 minutes.

Then add fried eggplant pieces into the gravy and continue cook for another 5 minutes. Switch off and garnish with coriander leaves/cilantro if you wish.

Serve with chapathi or any other bread of your choice.

Notes

If you want you can either deep fry egg plant pieces? Also you can try baking them at 400F for 30 minutes in well greased pan until it becomes golden brown in color.

If you are using small eggplants, you use entire one.

This recipe is adapted from Vanitha October 2011 1-15, Kashmiri Foodand Spice roots

I am linking this delicious recipe Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted here.

Teriyaki Tofu with Vegetables

Sep 19, 2013 · 39 Comments

Delicous Teriyaki Tofu with vegetables stirfry made with simple homemade teriyaki sauce vegetables. excellent side dish with a bowl of rice

If you go to Jack in the Box restaurant, you can get Chicken teriyaki bowl. It tastes okay, but it is not comparable to the original Japanese dish. The heart of this dish is the Teriyaki sauce, and I have been lucky to have been able to taste original teriyaki style cooking having lived in Japan for a few years. It is a Japanese style of cooking where fish or steak or some time chicken is first basted in a marinade of soy sauce, mirin , sake and brown sugar then it is broiledor grilled , you can read more from here. The marinade is made by reducing soy sauce, mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine), sake( Japanese rice wine) and brown sugar and later some minced ginger is added and broiled or grilled then garnish green onions. Here is article on serious eats about basic teriyaki sauce.

Since I don’t have mirinand sake in my hand I was searching for a recipe which makes use of the rest of ingredients. I wanted to use it in my tofu. A tofu packet was reaching its expiration dates, and had to be urgently used. Usually when I buy 12 oz packet, I will use half at first thinking that I will make something with rest of them, it never happens, and always second half ends in garbage bin, to avoid that I want to make use of entire packet of Tofu. I searched for recipes and finally got this recipe and tried it. I served the dish with a bowl of rice; it was really delicious and very tasty on first day. I even fell in love with tofu this way. Also add some veggies such as broccoli, capsicum and red bell pepper along with cashew nuts.

If you can get hold of mirin and sake, use them to make a sauce; otherwise you can follow this recipe, it is simple delicious great one pot meal. They are best as soon you mix in with veggies and tofu. So make sauce ahead and marinate the tofu as much you want, give at least 30 minutes for best infusion of flavors. Then stir in the sauce with veggies and cashew nuts. Serve in bowl with rice.

Here comes the recipe.

Tofu getting marinated with Mirin and Soy sauce

Teriyaki Sauce is getting prepared

Stirfry

For more Tofu Recipes

Fiery Tofu Stir Fry

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5 from 5 votes

Teriyaki Tofu with Vegetables

Delicious Teriyaki tofu with vegetables made with homemade sauce.

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Total Time25

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Asian

Keyword: Teriyaki Tofu with Vegetables, Tofu recipes

Servings: servings

Calories: 301kcal

Ingredients

Tofu
12 oz 350 g firm or extra firm tofu, cubed ½-3/4 inch thick
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoon rice wine vinegar
Teriyaki Sauce
⅓ cup low sodium soy sauce
¼ cup water
½ tablespoon of honey or agave nectar if you want more sweetness use about 3 ½ tablespoon
1 ½ tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon black strap molasses
4 medium cloves garlic minced
2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon Arrow root powder/ Cornstarch
Stir-Fry
2 tablespoon oil
4 ½-5 cups broccoli florets and stalks, chopped (about ½ lb/225 g)
2 teaspoon water
½ medium large red bell pepper diced
½ medium green bell pepper diced.
¼ cup raw cashews
¼ cup green onions sliced ( I didn’t used it)
1 carrot sliced into thin strips

Instructions

In a shallow dish, add tofu. Pour soy sauce and vinegar over tofu and marinate for 10 minutes or longer. I marinated for about 30 minutes. (Flip tofu at least once while marinating).
While tofu marinating in a large bowl, whisk all ingredients for teriyaki sauce until arrowroot powder is dissolved (or put it in a blender to puree). Heat the sauce and until the mixture get thickened little bit.
In a large frying pan or wok on high, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Add tofu and sauté for 4-5 minutes, and then turn over to sauté for another 3-4 minutes, until lightly brown on each side. Remove from pan and set aside. Reduce heat to medium, add 1 tablespoon oil to wok, and add broccoli, carrot, bell pepper and water. Toss, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes, until broccoli turns bright green. Add teriyaki sauce and increase heat to high. Toss to coat, and let sauce come to a slow boil. As soon as sauce has reached a slow boil and has thickened, add tofu, cashews and green onions (if using), and toss to combine. Remove pan from heat and serve immediately.

Notes

Adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Crouukronut: Newest pastry in the Block for Baking Partners challenge 15

Sep 16, 2013 · 38 Comments

Hope everybody is having a wonderful weekend, this weekend is tuned out be really busy weekend for me, as Onam, our harvest festival is on 16^th. I am planning to make feast along with other routine tasks such as cleaning and grocery shopping. It is also on the 15^th of this month, reveal date of baking partners challenge. For this month challenge I selected the Crouukronut actually it is Kronut, the newest craze in the pastry world. I was chatting with my friend Reeni of Cinnamon Spice and everything niceas told her I tried Crouukronut in home also sent her picture of this final dish I made. I asked whether we can try it as this month challenge, also told her that baking doesn’t work well, so we need to stick to frying as original. She told me yes, occasional frying is not bad let’s try it. Thus this month challenge idea was born; Reeni also shared a list glaze and cream that goes into the Crouukronut.

You will be wondering why we are naming Kronut into Crouukronut, because as the creator of dish has trademarked the name. I got enthusiastic to try this as it is a cross between doughnuts and croissants. It was created by Dominique Ansel bakery owner in New York If you want to know what is crouu-doughnuts/Kronut here is link from original bakery who created this Cronut 101 and from Wikipedia. People in New York stand in long line to get these delicious treat. I read somewhere that in E-bay one Kronut even got $50. Bakers all over the world are trying to recreate this dish in various methods; I thought why we don’t can take it as challenge. Further in Houston, I don’t where they are selling Kronut. So I decided to make it in home. Yes doughnuts and croissants are my family favorite, I won’t buy doughnuts as much as hubby is diabetic, but croissants’ and I have a long lasting friendship.

On searching the internet, I came across this recipe, first time I religiously followed the recipe which I normally don’t do and according to the recipe when fried on the second day, it turned out to be mess. I also baked a portion that turned out be another mess. So decide to improve the recipe by extending the frying part by one more day. Yes that trick worked. I was able to fry the beautiful crouukronut on the third day.

If you look at the process, it is three day mega project but end result is really worth it. First day you make the doughnuts dough, second day incorporate butter into the dough and third day the fry and glaze it as you wish. I tried both cinnamon sugar and chocolate glaze for topping, but has not tried any filling. I thought that going to be too rich.

If you ask me how it tastes, outer is slightly crispy and inside is slightly chewy if you add filling it get soft and going to be melt in mouth. I found that cinnamon sugared one is tastier to me; however for my hubby and daughter it turned out to be chocolate glazed one. Also if you eat as soon as those out from the hot oil it is not fully flavored while those who sit outside for some time with the glaze or topping will be tastier. One more thing, you have to finish it ASAP. I think they are best for one day. So we need to make it fresh. It is easy as the dough is freezer friendly. I have tried a few after freezing for one week. They turned out to be very good.

So try to make a big batch and fry it as it needed. If you have a three day to spare and little adventurous to make puff pastry at home, and then go for it.

Please take a look at other baking partners creations also as it is newest pastry in block. If you want to join us from next month please shoot a mail at this address in the favoriterecipes12(at)gmail(dot)com.

Here comes star of the challenge.

First day: Doughnut dough making

Then refrigerate the dough for overnight

Second day: Butter incorporated into the dough

First and second turn

Repeat this process after refrigeration for 45 minutes for each step for 3-4th turn and also after 4th turn refrigerate for over night.

3rd ; Day of Frying

Chocolate glaze is done like this

CrouuKronut

Preparation time: 3 days

Makes around 16 nos
Print This

Ingredients

For dough

510g/3.75 cups all purpose flour more for dusting the work table

7g/1teaspoon salt

100g/1/2cup sugar

150g/1/2 cup+2 tablespoon milk (I used 2% milk)

1 packet quick rise yeast/ active dry yeast/ instant yeast/ 2 ¼ teaspoon

2 jumbo eggs (If you are using large eggs use 3)

50g/ 3.5 tablespoon unsalted butter

For butter layer

295g/1 ¼cup+½ tablespoon (2 sticks and little more than a ½ stick) unsalted butter (if you can find European style butter like plugra that will be good)

For frying

Canola oil: 2-4 cup

Water: 200 g for brushing on the top

Cinnamon sugar (400g sugar and 100 g cinnamon)

Directions

First day makes dough

Second day incorporate butter into the dough

Third day fry the dough

First day start working on the evening makes dough

30 minutes before dough preparation, take 50 g butter and eggs out of the refrigerator allowing each to reach room temperature. If using fresh yeast, mix with room temperature milk beforehand to activate yeast.

Combine the dry ingredients —flour, salt, sugar, instant yeast (if using) — in the bowl of a stand mixer.

IF USING ACTIVE YEAST, heat half milk to Luke warm (around 110F , 43C) and add yeast set aside for 5-7 minutes to proof..

Otherwise heat milk to microwave for high for 30 seconds and add butter that way butter melts well.

Then to the dry mixture add butter milk mixture and eggs. Mix on low speed for 3 minutes, or until everything is incorporated. Mix on higher speed for another 8 minutes. Mix on higher speed for another 8 minutes. If you kneading with your hand make sure to knead well for about 10-15 minutes or until you get smooth shiny dough.

Remove the dough and tuck under edges to form a ball. Coat a bowl with PAM or any oil of your choice and place the dough in it with seams down. Use a knife to cut a cross into top surface (this will help the dough relax). Cover tightly with clear plastic wrap, making sure it is in not contact with the dough.

Place dough in a warm area and allow it to double in size. This should take 60 minutes. Once dough has “poofed, or double in size ” transfer to refrigerator to overnight.

Next day start incorporating the butter to the dough.

The next day, cut the cold butter 295g lengthwise into ½-inch-thick slabs. Arrange the pieces on a piece of parchment or waxed paper to form a 5- to 6-inch square, cutting the butter crosswise as necessary to fit. Top with another piece of parchment or waxed paper. With a rolling pin, pound the butter with light, even strokes. As the pieces begin to adhere, use more force. Pound the butter until it’s about 4 x 6 inches square and then trim the edges of the butter. Put the trimmings on top of the square and pound them in lightly with the rolling pin. Place in refrigerator to cool for at least 2 hours.

Laminate the dough

Unwrap and lay the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Roll into a 10-½-inch square. Brush excess flour off the dough. Remove the butter from the refrigerator. If not, refrigerate a bit longer. Unwrap and place the butter on the dough so that the points of the butter square are centered along the sides of the dough. Fold one flap of dough over the butter toward you, stretching it slightly so that the point just reaches the center of the butter. Repeat with the other flaps. Then press the edges together to completely seal the butter inside the dough. (A complete seal ensures butter won’t escape.).

1st Turn. Lightly flour the top and bottom of the dough. With the rolling pin, firmly press the dough to elongate it slightly and then begin rolling instead of pressing, focusing on lengthening rather than widening the dough and keeping the edges straight. Turn the dough so that a shorter end faces you. Roll to expand the length of the dough, making sure that the dough doesn’t stick to the table. Add flour if needed. When you have a rectangle about 21 x 9 inches, fold the top third of the rectangle down and fold the bottom third up to cover it. Turn the dough 90 degrees so that the opening resembles a book.

2nd Turn. Try to do this turn right away, but if the dough is too warm, wrap in film and place in the refrigerator until it cools. Repeat rolling, just like the first turn, then turn 90 degrees and gently press two fingers into the lower right corner to mark the number of turns. (Marking the dough allows you to track your progress, and ensure that the orientation of the dough is correct when you remove it from the refrigerator.) Cover the dough in a parchment paper and then again with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

3rd Turn. The dough will be hard, so gently pound the dough to warm the butter. If it is too cold the butter will separate and not spread as it should. Repeat the previous steps, and turn again, marking the corner with three fingerprints. Cover dough with parchment paper and plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

4th Turn. Make the final turn, repeating the steps from turns 1-3. Refrigerate overnight

3^rd crouu-doughnuts/ kronuts frying day

Rolling out the Dough. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll out the dough to approximately the size of a sheet pan, ½ inch thick. Make sure the dough stays cold, without sticking to the surface. If it starts to stick, place in the refrigerator and roll again when cool. Transfer to a sheet pan with parchment paper, film and chill before use.

2. Punching out cronuts. Prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper, sprayed with PAM or oil . Remove dough from fridge and take two ring molds, approximately outer molds should be 3 ½ inch and inner should be 1 ½ inch. ( use you peanut butter bottle cap for outer mold and prescription medication bottle for inner ones) Only start punching if the dough is very cold. Otherwise, your Kronut won’t fry straight.

Transfer half of the punched kronuts to the sheet pan, leaving room for kronuts to “poof.”

Brush tops of the Kronut with water and set aside. Place Kronut holes on the same sheet tray, leaving enough space for them to poof without sticking to each other. Leave in a warm area until they have proofed, about 30 min.

Once it is proofed keep it in the refrigerator for 1 hour or in the freezer for 15 minutes before frying.

Frying cronuts. Heat canola oil in a pot, about 3 inches high. Test oil with a pinch of flour: if flour foams it is ready for deep frying. Turn heat to low and place Kronuts in oil, 1-2 at a time, in order to avoid overcrowding the pot. Turn and flip Kronuts often so that they brown evenly.

Once golden brown throughout, test one to see if it is cooked all the way through. Remove and place on paper towels.

Now is a good time to prepare the Glaze

Once it is no longer shiny transfer to a container with sugar and cinnamon and toss.

Enjoy

Important points to Remember

Don’t over work with dough with too much kneading,

Don’t over work with butter, if butter starts to leaking, try to put it back in the refrigerator.

Flour the area well so that dough won’t stick

Heat oil in medium temperature and fry the Kronut in low temperature otherwise outside become too dark soon and inside won’t cook properly.

Filling and glaze you make your favorite

Glaze from King Arthur Flour

Chocolate Glaze

85g /1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

28g /2 tablespoon butter

25g/1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon light corn syrup

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1) To make chocolate glaze: Melt the ingredients together over low heat or in the microwave, stirring often. Add extra corn syrup if needed to make a smooth, shiny glaze. Yield: about ½ cup glaze.

Recipe adapted from BootLeg cronut

Chocolate glaze adapted from King Arthur Flour

.Here is video where Chef Dominique Ansel fills the Kronut

I am linking this delicious treat to Hearth and Soul blog Hop hosted here.

Sending to Yeast Spotting

രുചിയുടെ ഓണം Onam Recipes

Sep 12, 2013 · 33 Comments

                                                     നിലവിളകിന്റെ പരിശുദ്ധിയും
                                             തുമ്പ പൂവിന്റെ നൈർമല്യവുമായ്
                                              വരുന്ന പൊന്നിൻ ചിങ്ങ മാസത്തിലെ പൊന്നോണം
                                               വരവേൽകാൻ നിറഞ്ഞ സ്നേഹത്തോടെ
                                                എന്റെ ഓണാശംസകൾ

Wishing you all Happy and Prosperous Onam

Another onam is coming to knock on our door; yes this year’s onam is visiting us on 16^th of September. Onam is famous harvest festival celebrated in my home town Kerala, South India. In olden days it was 10 days festival, now it is celebrated mainly on thriuovonam day that is second onam which is the big day. Some will still celebrate, day before onam, onnam onam/first day of onam or uthradam. Second day is thrivonam, and then moonam onam/3^rdday onam and finally Nalam onam or4^th day of onam.

Onam also got lot of modernization, as I was reading people dress like Maveli (According to legend, King Mahabali comes from visits Kerala on Thriuvonam day to see his disciples on earth from pathala) in front of textile shop and jewelry shops. Also lots of them are coming in TV channels. Tradition of making atthapookalm also got modern version and modern design with color powders etc. Traditionally atthapookalam/floral carpet is made with flowers only and around 10 layers will be there. Each layers representing Hindu Gods, First step is Ganesha, second is Shiva and Shakti, third is Shiva, fourth is Brahma, fifth is Pancha Boothangal/land, water, sky, air and Fire , sixth is for Shanmughan or Muruga, seventh step is for Guru, eighth step is for ashta digpalakar, ninth is for Indra and tenth is for Lord Vishnu. At the center of the floral decoration, the clay idol of Vamana, known as Thrikkakkarayappan, is placed. There is also a belief that the floral carpet symbolically represents the fight between Asuras (demons) and Devas (Demi gods) and flowers used to decorate also vary depending upon the locally available during that time. Nowadays, people are more concentrated on design part and not worrying about layers. While I was talking to Suja my friend she told me we can even get a readymade pookalam just like our plastic Christmas tree from the market now.

Okay my favorite part of onam after new clothes and fun is the feast, yes delicious vegetarian feast of about 20 items in various tastes. Each will give your taste buds different tastes. Since lunch is going to be heavy, breakfast is always smaller version, like pazham nurukku or poovada which is offering to the God on Thiruvonam day. Even though Onam is celebrated all over the Kerala, tastes differ from north to south and also differ in central part of Kerala. According to famous cook Pazhayidam Mohanan Namboothiri, each dish has its own purpose. In order to prevent the sourness of kalan, the olan a mildly spiced curry is served. After tasting each curry if you taste olan you will able to detect the taste of next curry easily. You can taste puliinji before starting everything as it helps to increase your appetite. In order to serve the food also there is some traditional way, first you need to eat rice, parippu and sambhar, then rasam, then Payasam, then Moru/ Yougurt.

You will be amazed to see the variation of same dishes in throughout Kerala; spiciest curries will be served in Kozhikode, Northern Kerala. Also sambar is cooked with grated coconut in northern part of Kerala. Payasam is made with palada and parippu pradhaman. Whereas in Southern part of Kerala, there a pineapple pachadi and vadakootu curry is must. We also like to serve parippu curry and Pradhaman especially Ada Pradhaman (made with thickened rice noodles) and also instead of kalan we like to serve pulissery. In the middle region of Kerala, they like to serve with Kurukku kalan and Palada Pradhaman, where as in northern part, Kootu curry, sambhar made with coconut and Aviyal made with yogurt is the norm, sometimes Pazham kalan (kalan made with fruits) will be in the menu. Among the pickles, Vadukapuli Naranga achar (Wild lemon pickle) is famous for Onam along with pulinji( ginger pickle) and Mango pickle.

Furthermore every part of Kerala seems to have certain rules of how dishes are served on the banana leaf. The food is first served on the extreme tip end of each banana leaves (as we call it Nakila), usually they start serving from left to right, in top part of leaves, starting with , salt, pickles, thoran, aviyal, olan,aviyal, kichadi, pachadi and Erissery. Bottom part, from left to right, is small banana, chips, pappadam and rice into the rice add, ghee, parippu curry. Once you finished parippu curry add sambhar, rasam, kalan and Pradhaman, finally sambhar or water down yogurt. A good food enthusiastic banana leaves only have some leftovers on the curry leaves after he or she finish their lunch.

This year I am planning to make Onam sadya on Uthradam day as Thiruvonam comes on working day, however I will make a Payasam /pudding on that day to offer it to God.

Here are the list of tried and trusted recipes from my kitchen from my mom and grandma. I know everybody have their own mom and grandma’s recipes.

Choru/ Plain rice

Parippu curry/ Lentil curry

Sambar / Lentil tamarind gravy with mixed vegetables

Rasam / Tamarind tomato spicy

Aviyal /Mixed vegetables with coconut.

Yogurt Based curries
Moru curry /Yogurt Gravy

Mambazha pulissery/ Ripe mango in yogurt gravy

Ethapazha pulissery/Ripe plantain in yogurt gravy

Krukku Kalan/ Yogurt based raw banana coconut gravy

Uurulakizhangu pappas/ Potato stew

Vada Kootu curry

Mathanga Erissery/Pumpkin in coconut sauce

Olan

Vendakka Kichadi

Ethapazha Pachadi

Kaithachakka pachadi/Pineapple pachadi

CCB thoran/CCB stirfry

Cabbage Thoran/Uppeari

Yard long beans Carrot stir fry

Vendakka thoran/ Okra stir fry

Ethakka chakkakuru Mezhukupuratti/Plantain Jackfruit seeds Stir fry

Pickles (Achar)

Manga achar/Mango pickle

Nelliaka achar/Indian gooseberry pickle

Naranga achar/ Lemon pickle

Pradhaman/ Sweet pudding

Palada Pradhaman

Kadala parippu prathaman/chana dal jaggery pudding

Semiya payasam/Vermiceli pudding

Chakka Pradhaman/chakka payasam/ Jackfruit preserve pudding

Ada pradhaman/ Rice flakes sweet pudding

Palpayasam: Milk rice pudding

Forbidden rice/Black rice pudding

Aval Payasam/ Flattened rice flake pudding

Pazham Padhaman/ Apple banana pudding

Banana Chips/Plantain Chips/Ethakka upperi chips

Karingali Vellam/ChukkuVellam/Dahashamani/Herbal Water

Other Onam posts
Onam 2012
Onam 2011
Onam 2010

Sheera: Semolina Pudding

Sep 10, 2013 · 30 Comments

Yesterday was Vinayaka Charthuthi; Hindus all over the world celebrates this festival. Lord Ganesh is considered to be the God you first pray before you start anything, as he protects you and removes all the obstacles on the way. He is son of God Shiva and Goddess parvathi, legend is that goddess made a sand idol of little boy and gave life to him and asked little boy to guard the door while she was bathing. During that time Lord Shiva came to see Parvathi, but the little boy was admant that he won’t even let him in. As result Lord Shiva gets angry and cut the head off the little boy, and when Parvathi came back and saw that her son is dead, she got upset. Then Lord Shiva told her that he will give the boy life again and find a suitable face in the north direction, and in his search for a new head for the boy, devas(other gods) comes across a dead elephant, and gets that elephant’s head for the boy. Thus Lord Ganesh has a elephant face. If you want to read more from here.

My daughter is not feeling well , she got some fever in the morning and she has runny nose too, and hence had to wait until the evening to some Prasad for Vinayaka Charthuthi celebration. He is my favorite God; just like my mom I worship him along with other Gods. I have little collection of Vinayaka idols in my home. I think he is my best friend, I can talk to him everything, and he will always guide me through all important events in my life. Amma usually makes modak for Vinayaka charthurthi, and I decide to make it this time along with this sheera.

Vinakya charthuthi is celebrated all over the India, however for the real fun and enthusiasm you have to be in Mumbai during that time. During my last visit to India, it was Ganapathi time, people brings Ganesh idols home and worship for 3,5, 7 and10 days depending upon their economic status, and after the days of Pooja they will immerse this idol in any water bodies with chanting that GANPATI BAPPA MORYA, AGLE BARAS TU JALDI AA (Oh Lord Ganpati, return soon next year).Also there will pandal (canopied tents) in various apartment communities. When I was there, both I and my mother-in-law used to travel around to visit all these pandal on our outings. It was really a great feeling, once they kept Ganesh idol in pandal, they will do Pooja arthi in the morning and evening and also somebody will be sitting there all through the day and night, as they don’t let Ganapati to stay alone. After evening arthi, we used to get this delicious sheera (semolina sweet) as Prasad/offering. It is slightly warm and really delicious.

In my home town semolina sweet/sheera is made almost similar way which we call rava kesari. We don’t offer this to God, it is only served as sweet dish in marriages and other functions and also if unexpected guest showed up and you need a sudden sweet, they will make it. My elder aunt( Father’s sister) was very good in making this rava kesari, and she would makes it in less than 30 mins, whenever we visited her in Rameswaram; she would also adds a little orange color to it. Actually it is rich dessert with sugar, ghee and cashew and raisins etc.

I was searching for an authentic Maharashtraian sheera recipe in the internet and finally got this one. I added some fried cashew and raisins and also reduce the amount of sugar, I found that for 1 cup of semolina about 1 cup of sugar will be too sweet, so reduce the sugar to ¾th. I first fried the semolina/rava in ghee until it gets roasted. Then cooked in equal amount milk and water mixture until it thickened along with added sugar and ghee fried cashews and raisins along with some cardamom.

My hubby told me I recreated the yummy sheera he used to gets from Pooja pandals of Ganapthi, I was really happy.

Hope everybody made lots of festive goodies to Lord Ganesha, I made this sheera and modak also did a small Pooja at home.

Sheera/ Semolina Pudding

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Yield: 3-4 serving

Print Recipe

Ingredients

¾cup Semolina/Rava

½ cup Sugar

¾ cup Milk

¾ cup Water

2 tablespoon Ghee+ 1 teaspoon ghee

12 no Cashew nuts

10 no Raisins

2 no cardamom (powdered)

Directions

Heat 2 tablespoon of ghee in a skillet and add semolina/rava and fry until it gets roasted and nice aroma comes.

In the mean time heat water and milk in a saucepan when it starts boiling add the roasted semolina/rava along with sugar and cook until everything gets thickened well.

In another small pan heat 1teaspoon of ghee and add cashew nuts and raisins and fry until cashew become golden color and raisins becomes plump up.

Finally add this roasted cashew nuts and raisins along with cardamom powder into the cooked semolina mixtures and mix everything well.

Enjoy when it is warm.

I am linking to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted Here.

Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread

Sep 8, 2013 · 16 Comments

Delicious Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread made multigrain flours include rye. Sweetened with molasses and moistened by buttermilk.

Iceland

It is a beautiful Nordic island country marking the juncture between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge formed as result of volcanic action. Capital city Reykjavík, highest populated area in whole Iceland .

It is almost the size of Kentucky and ⅔^rd of population stays in its capital city Reykjavik. If you are in Britain, you can catch flight to Reykjavik on Friday evening and spent the weekend there in Iceland and come back before week day’s start.

During the Midnight Sun is in sort of a permanent state of sunset. The sun never fully sets and travels horizontally across the horizon throughout the night.

While in Arctic summer, sunset was at midnight and sunrise was at 3am.

The Arctic summer sun provided 24 hours a day of light, with as much as 6 hours daily of "Golden light". Once the sun had set it wouldn't even get dark enough for the stars to come out, and they don't start to reappear until August.

I know if sun treats you like this during summer, then he will play hide and seek during winter months making you depressed, bored etc.

Icelandic Foods

Just like it scenic beauty, Iceland has its own food culture, they eat plenty of sea food thanks to its island, and also eat lamb as they are abundant and busy grazing the grasses of the plains and valley.

Hardy vegetables such as cabbage, turnip, rutabaga, and potato are grown in green houses.
And the remaining vegetables and fruits are imported into the country. The winters are long and harsh, and fruits and vegetables are grown only for few months in a year .

Most sturdy grain rye is prominent in their breads, pancakes etc.

According to an article in serious eats about Iceland, when in Iceland you will be asked these questions.

Did you eat Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread/ hot spring bread? Did you eat Skyr?

Their cheese which looks like yogurt, they love to add it in everything, dip, dessert etc. I try to find one here, and I got one version from Whole foods, and it is more like a sour cream.

Their hotdogs are usually made with lamb meat. Also read that their smoked salmon is best.

Icelanders like to snack dried fish, especially haddock with butter on the top.

They also tend to eat birds, whale and even fermented shark. After eating fermented shark they drink their national drink Brennivín.

Nicknamed "black death," the caraway-flavored schnapps is reminiscent of Aquavit . I also read they make very thin pancake, very see through version. pönnukökur, which is rolled up with sugar, jam etc. Iceland has its own cookies most famous is Air cookies While searching for a recipe to try,

What is Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread ?

I found that Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread is the most commonly tried recipe, there are other recipes that you can find here . I am a bread loving person, so decide to try this bread.

Brought Skyr from the store, even though recipe I adapted says it is sweet bread, I reduce the amount of molasses and used rye flour, bread flour and white whole wheat flour along with butter milk, yeast and salt.

I read that this bread is baked in hot springs for long hours. First I thought I will try with pressure cooker without putting weight on; but then I decided to bake it in steam filled oven with a water bath.

I baked this bread for 1 hour and 30 minutes until it registered internal temperature of 200 °F. It is brown color bread taste delicious.My husband told me he likes the bread as such not with skyr.

I too find the same way. My kids enjoyed this bread also. Traditional way to serving is to well-butter on the side with soðning (plain boiled fish), or with cold pickled herring on top.

Eat it with sliced ham or spread it with cream cheese, and if there is anything left, use it to make bread soup.

If you like rye bread, then give it a try, I think it taste more like Boston brown bread .This bread has long shelf life; you can store it for month. I don’t think it going to last that long.

Ingredients to make this delicious bread?

White whole wheat flour

Bread flour

Rye flour

Molasses

Buttermilk

Yeast

salt

Instructions to make Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread

In a kitchen aid bowl mix all the ingredients first and form a soft supple dough.

After the dough reaches the rim of loaf pan bake the bread.

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread

Delicious Rúgbrauð: Icelandic thunder bread made multigrain flours include rye. Sweetened with molasses and moistened by buttermilk.

Prep Time20

Cook Time1 30

Fermentation time1

Total Time2 50

Course: Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine: Icelandic

Keyword: Bread Recipes, Icelandic Thunder bread, Rugbrauo

Servings: servings

Calories: 251kcal

Equipment

Loaf pan

Ingredients

1.6 cup 167g rye flour
1 cup 150g White whole wheat flour
1 cup 160g Bread flour
11/2 teaspoon 6g Instant yeast if you are using active dry yeast, you must proof the yeast with 1 teaspoon sugar and ¼ cup luke warm water
1 teaspoon 6g salt
1 teaspoon 6gbaking soda
⅓ cup molasses
2 cup 460g buttermilk

Instructions

In a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer, add flours, salt, baking soda, yeast. Blend together molasses and buttermilk and add to flour yeast mixture with gradual mixing.
Mixture will be fairly thin, more like a cake batter than bread dough.
Transfer the batter into a lightly greased pan ( I used 9x13 inch loaf tin) and smooth the top. Set aside for 60 minutes covered with plastic wrap and a damp towel. You may or may not see any yeast activity at this time.
By the end of 60 minutes, preheat oven to 360F. In the lower rack of your oven place a roasting pan filled with hot water for about half while the oven is preheating. This will create a hot steamy oven.
Bake, uncovered, for about an hour and half or it register an internal temperature of 200F or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Run a knife around the edges to loosen, let sit for just a couple minutes, and then turn over onto a cooling rack.
Once it is cooled completely cut the pieces and brush with warm butter and enjoy.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from this blog Iceland bound which in turn an adapted from Almar Grímsson’s recipe and also from Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir’s Icelandic Food and Cookery

If you are using active dry yeast make sure to proof the yeast before making to the dough.
You can also bake this bread in crock pot, I haven’t done this

Make sure to fill the roasting pan with half full of water so that steam will retain through the entire baking. If you find water is low add more hot water.

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Bon appetite / Verði þér að góðu

Chinese Spiral Moon Cake (Teochew style mooncakes) with Savory Mung Bean Filling

Sep 3, 2013 · 40 Comments

Chinese Spiral Moon Cake (Teochew style mooncakes) is a pastry-style mooncake made with outer flaky crust and inside the pastry with savory filling.

Chinese Spiral Moon Cake (Teochew style mooncakes) with Savory Moong Bean Filling

I have already tried Chinese scallion pancake, and wonton soup with mushroom and I am in love with them, and do it once in a while. So decide to try this spiral moon cake. However original recipe for the moon cake was to make sweet potato filling. Nowadays if say I sweet, hubby will run from the kitchen in split of seconds, still when I make sweets he would try it in a small portion. So I decide to make it savory filling with moong/mung bean so that he can also enjoy guilt free.

On researching a little bit about spiral moon cake, I came to know that this is a regional variety, but not the traditional Chinese moon cake that is eaten during autumn moon festival. This year it is on September 19^th 2013. There are two different kinds of moon cakes, one is chewy that is traditional and other one is flaky. Chaoshan(Teochew-style mooncake)s a flaky crust variety, and is larger in size than the Suzhou variety. It is close in diameter to the Cantonese style, but thinner. A variety of fillings are used, but the aroma of lard after roasting is dominant. Suzhou-style mooncake is the oldest version of moon cakes which has sweet and savory filling, and is also known for its flaky dough and generous allotment of sugar and lard. Within this regional type, there are more than a dozen variations. It is also smaller than most other regional varieties. You are interested in reading about moon cakes read from here and here.

I saw this blog post and was amazed by the layers she got. I did not want to use lard, and the next choice was to use shortening, so I tried with vegetable shortening, and since it has no taste of its own, I also used a little butter to make the pastry flaky. However it is not as flaky as I wished. For the filling, I used yellow split peas/moong beans, green onion, onion and chili flakes, I added little cumin too. My daughter likes blue color, so I used blue color to make this moon cake. Outer covering is made with two kinds of dough, water dough which consists of flour, water, butter and shortening and oil dough which consists of cake flour, shortening and butter. Later two of them get mixed together and warp in a particular pattern to get flaky layers. Instead of frying as traditional one opted for baking, I was able to get layers After 35-40 minutes of baking at 350 °F they turned out to be crispy on outer and filling made flavorful. They are at their prime when they come out from the oven. As they sit outside they lose their charm and by next day they become rancid.

If you are very curious to know the taste only try it, otherwise you can skip it and look for one any Chinese bakeries for the traditional version.

Make filling

Then fold the dough like this and filled with stuffing

Print Recipe

5 from 11 votes

Chinese Spiral Moon Cake (Teochew style mooncakes) with Savory Moong Bean Filling

Chinese Spiral Moon Cake (Teochew style mooncakes) is a pastry-style mooncake made with outer flaky crust and inside the pastry with savory filling.

Prep Time45

Cook Time40

Total Time1 25

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Chinese

Keyword: Chinese Spiral Moon Cake, Tecochew Style Moon Cakes

Servings: servings

Calories: 218kcal

Ingredients

Ingredients
Water dough
75 g /1/2 cup all purpose flour
13 g/1 tablespoon shortening
7 g/1/2tablespoon butter
10 g /3/4 tablespoon sugar
35 g /2 ½ tablespoon of water + 2-3 drops white vinegar
Oil Dough
65 g/ ½ cup Cake flour
26 g/ 2 tablespoon shortening
1 tablespoon + 1teaspoon canola oil
Few drops of blue coloring.
Savory Filling
¼ cup Split Moong bean/Yellow split peas
¼ cup chopped onion
¼ cup chopped green onion
½ teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon oil
¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon crushed red chili
1 teaspoon soya sauce I haven’t added

Instructions

Water dough
In a medium bowl, mix in flour, sugar, shortening and butter.
Rub shortening with flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add in water mix together to form smooth dough. Cover and rest for 30 mins.
Divide dough into 2 pieces.
Oil Dough
In another bowl add cake flour, shortening and oil . Rub shortening gradually into the cake flour to form soft dough. Add few drops of gel food coloring while making the dough. Cover to rest for 30 minutes.
Divide dough into 2 pieces.
Spread the water dough ball into circle and place the oil dough ball inside. Wrap oil dough into water dough and flatten.
Roll out into a longish flat thin piece. Roll up like a Swiss roll.
Turn 90deg and spread it into flat thin piece and again roll up into a Swiss roll.
Cut each roll into 3 equal pieces with a sharp knife.
With the spiral side( cut side) facing down, flatten and roll. Wrap with savory moon bean filling.
Savory moong bean filling
Directions
Soak the moong beans for 2 hours, wash until water run clear, and cook with 2-3 cups of water in dutch oven for about 45 minutes or until beans cooked very well and soft. Mash them with masher.
Heat oil and cumin seeds in skillet and add onions and green onion and fry for few minutes, then add mashed beans and stir fry till dry
Season with salt continue frying for 5 minutes with low fire. Add in crushed red chili peppers and combine well.
Once it cools enough to touch make 6 small balls.

Notes

1. When rolling into a round, roll the edges of the dough thinner to make it easier to seal.
2. If your shortening is hard, soften it in the microwave before using.
When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F and bake the spiral moon cakes for about 35-40 minutes or until they puffs well crust gets crispy.
Enjoy on the same day. Left over’s don’t taste good.
You use the color of your choice.
For the Chinese pastry I adapted from here and here, for filling I adapted from here.

Nutrition

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

For the Chinese pastry I adapted from hereand here, for filling I adapted from here.

My Legume Love Affair #63 is coming to Zesty South Indian Kitchen and Giveaway

Sep 1, 2013 · 6 Comments

(Logo curtsey: Susan)

Lentils and beans are a part and parcel of Indian cooking; if you are vegetarian, legumes are the major source of protein contributing ingredients in your diet. If you are savory person, lentils make curries, stew, soup, salad. On the other hand if you are sweet person, they can be transformed into sweet treats like puddings etc. I always admired My Legume Love Affair (MLLA) event founded by Susan, and now conducted by Lisa. When I got opportunity and contribute to his event I grabbed and thus MLLA is coming here in Zesty South Indian Kitchen.

Coming to the rules of MLLA#63

Cook any legume/lentils/beans based dish; make sure legumes are star ingredient. You can cook any lentils, any fresh or dried beans, soy beans and their derivatives like tofu, garbanzo beans / chickpeas and their derivatives like besan, tamarind, fenugreek, carob and peanuts etc.

Only Vegetarian and Vegan entries are accepted. (No Eggs are allowed). Only one entry per blogger/participant.

Use of the below MLLA logo is appreciated as it spreads the word about this event, but is not mandatory.

Your MLLA post should include "My Legume Love Affair #63" and contain links to this announcement post, Lisa's MLLA information page and to Susan’s MLLA page as well.

Send your details - Name, Recipe URL, Location (A MUST) and Photo (any size)with a subject line of 'MLLA' to favoriterecipes12(at)gmail(dot)com.

Non-bloggers can also participate by sending in their recipes with the details mentioned above to the same email address. Such entries too are qualified to win the random drawing.

The deadline for entries is September 30th, 2013. The round-up will be posted in the first week of October.

Now coming to give away with this event,

Hurst Beans is sponsoring all US residents to have a chance to win a 6-pack assortment of products by the N.K. Hurst Company.

Susan is graciously sponsoring a prize to be given to one participant (from all over the world) by a drawing, as she has been doing, at her own expense. She is offering a copy of Tiny Food Party!: Bite-Size Recipes for Miniature Meals.

So why wait, let us start cooking!!!!