Panchmel Darbari Dal/ Creamy Five Lentils Stew

Aug 30, 2013 · 36 Comments

I am not a dal person, but my hubby is, and nowadays he eats chapathi/Roti for his dinner and I need to find some side dishes to go with it. My babies on the other hand are pasta lovers and don’t care about chapathi, but will take a bite if it is dosa, otherwise strict no from both. So I don’t have much choice in their case.

Usually when I make spicy potato curry/potato masala my hubby’s usual comment would be “please no potato it will increase my blood sugar”. Thus the first day I made spicy egg curry and the next day he made his famous cauliflower peas masala. On the third day the baton was handed over to me and I thought I can make dal. I know hubby won’t like my usual dal preparation, as he makes a very tasty one. I can’t beat him in normal dal curry, so after searching a lot, I found a recipe in Taradalal site, called darbari dal means those served in royal kitchens. It has unique preparation of adding yogurt/curd and cream to the recipe. Since I had some heavy cream left in the refrigerator, I decided to give it a shot.

However she used only two different lentils, but I decided to make by adding five different types of dal. However I did follow her spices and addition of yogurt and cream in the recipe. Soaked dal/lentils for 1 hours and pressure cook until it is completely cook. About 3-4 whistles when dals are almost mashed consistency. I added onion to the recipes which is not the original one. This dish is cooked in ghee which makes it more tasty, however I reduced the amount of ghee; and made little change in final seasoning, I added whole cumin seeds and kastoori methi instead of just kastoori methi ( dried fenugreek leaves) in the original recipe. In spite of all these changes from my side, dal is delicious and perfect for roti/chapathi.

This dal has the tanginess from tomato and yogurt and creaminess from the heavy cream but still is not tangy enough to my taste buds, so the next time I will add some sour cream to make this dal, . Try it you are dal fan and want to try various different version of dal. You can also make this as stew, which would go well with any bread. You can also substitute cilantro with your favorite herbs. I will add this lentil preparation to my lentil recipe collections. My hunt for various dal recipes will continuous as long as I am going to make dal for dinner.

Here comes the recipe.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Panchmel Darbari Dal/ Creamy Five Lentil Stew

Protein rich creamy five lentil stew made with split chickpea, red lentils, green lentils, toor dal etc. Goes well with chapati or rice.

Prep Time10

Cook Time30

Total Time40

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Panchamel Darbari Dal

Servings: servings

Calories: 257kcal

Author: Swathi ( Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

3 tablespoon toovar arhar dal/ sambar parippu/Thuvarapparup/Split pigeon peas
3 tablespoon masoor dal /Mysore parippu split red lentil
3 tablespoon chana dal/kadala parippu split chickpeas
3 tablespoon matar dal spilt green lentils
3 tablespoon moong chilka/cheruparippu/pasiparippu yellow split peas
1 tablespoon+ 1 teaspoon ghee
2 teaspoon ginger-garlic adrak-lehsun paste
1 finely chopped green chili
¾ cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon garam masala
¾ teaspoon coriander dhania powder
½ teaspoon cumin seeds jeera powder
¾ teaspoon chili powder I used Kashmiri chili powder
¾ teaspoon salt or to taste
3 tablespoon Yogurt/curd dahi
3 tablespoon Heavy whipping cream/ fresh cream
a pinch sugar
2 tablespoon finely chopped coriander leaves/Cilantro dhania
1 teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves kasuri methi , lightly roasted and crushed
½ teaspoon cumin seeds

Instructions

Clean, wash and soak all dals/ lentils for 1 hour.
Add 2 cups of water and salt and pressure cook for 3 to 4 whistles till the dal are cooked.
Allow the steam to escape before opening the lid. Keep aside.
Heat the 1 tablespoon of ghee in a deep pan and add chopped onion and green chilies and fry 4 minutes and then add the ginger-garlic paste and sauté for 2 more minutes.
Add the tomatoes, garam masala, coriander powder, cumin seeds powder, chili powder and salt and sauté till the ghee leaves the masala.
Then add boiled dal, yogurt, cream, sugar and coriander leaves and mix well. Bring it to simmer not boil as cream is added.
For the tempering, heat 1 teaspoon of ghee in a pan and add the dried fenugreek leaves and cumin seeds and sauté for 30 seconds.
Pour this tempering over the dal and mix well.
Serve immediately.
Enjoy with roti or bread of your choice.

Notes

This recipe is inspired from Taradalal site, darbari dal

Nutrition

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

Pin it for later

Looking for similar Lentil recipes
Dal Tadka/ Seasoned Indian Style lentil soup
Parippu Curry/ Lentil Curry
Gongurapappu/ Lentil stew with Roselle Leaves
Keerai Sambar/ Spinach lentil curry
Panchmel dal /Five lentil spicy stew

Mango Ice Cream With Touch of Cardamom

Aug 27, 2013 · 37 Comments

Delicious egg free mango ice cream with touch of caradamom made with fresh mango, lime juice and milk and heavy cream.

This is simple mango ice cream you can made with goodness of fresh mango. You need only few ingredients to make this delicous ice cream.

My kids are crazy for ice creams; now my 19 month old too comes near the freezer and asks for ice cream and says “open me”. It means you have to open the freezer and give him the ice cream that he wants. They were happy to finish the entire bowl that I had made within a few days. I was looking to buy an ice cream maker for a long time. I had not bought it, because my hubby would always ask “will you make ice creams or you want to make it to be another kitchen ornament”.

But when my friend Suja of Kitchen Corner Try It told me that she had bought one and made homemade peach ice cream. I also wanted to get one and try my own creations. On my trip to Kohl’s I told my hubby that I wanted to buy an ice cream maker. He asked me are you serious? Yes I am, I replied. Then we bought a Cuisinart ice cream maker.

My daughter got excited and told me, she wants a purple ice cream and also a blue one. Her favorite color is blue. I told yes I will make it for you. After coming home I found that I had 3 fully ripe mangos that needed my immediate attention. I thought why I don’t make mango ice cream. I had made mango ice cream earlier without an ice cream maker, and it was more like ice crystals than ice cream.

I want to use a trusted recipe for my first ice cream recipe. While googling I found my friend and fellow baking partner, Cristina of Pinay in Texas Cooking Corner has a wonderful mango ice cream recipe. I decide to give it try. I trust her recipes which always come out with great taste. I didn’t have lemon in my hand, so used lime.

Lime is supposed to brings out the flavor and retain the color. I also slightly increased the quantity of mango pulp and kept the amount of sugar, heavy cream and milk same as original recipe. Then I spiced up the mango ice cream with cardamom. I know mango and cardamom can’t go wrong. Trust me my kids starts devouring it even before I put the mix into the ice cream maker, it is indeed one of the delicious ice cream I have tasted.

You can make it without an ice cream maker too; you have to make sure to whisk it well. First make mango puree then mix it with milk, heavy cream, vanilla extract and sugar. If you are using ice cream maker just mix the ingredients with wooden spoon to combine everything and let ice cream maker do the job.

If you don’t have ice cream maker you can try this method, which read from internet, beat the heavy cream well and gradually incorporate mango puree with milk and sugar and freeze and after every 40 minutes take out freezer and beat well everything and freeze it for 24 hours with intermittent beating of every 40 minutes until you get desired creamy structure.

Here comes my first homemade ice cream.

Print Recipe

5 from 16 votes

Mango Ice cream with touch of cardamom

Delicious eggless mango ice cream made with heavy cream and milk.

Prep Time5

Cook Time10

chilling time2

Total Time2 15

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: homemadeicecream, mango ice cream, Mango recipes

Servings: servings

Calories: 148kcal

Ingredients

2 large mangoes peeled, seed removed and cubed (approximately 3 cups chopped fruit and 2 ½ cup puree)
¾ cup sugar
Juice of one lime freshly squeezed - approximately 1 ½ tablespoon (Lime is used to bring out the flavor of mango and other fruits)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 pods of cardamom
¾ cup milk I used 2% milk

Instructions

In a blender puree the mango, ¼ cup sugar, cardamom and lemon juice until very smooth.
In a large bowl, combine cream and milk with the remaining ½ cup sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Stir in the pureed mango. Do not beat. Just stir gently to mix in.
Chill the mixture for 2 hours.

Mango Ice cream with Ice cream maker

Transfer the mango-milk cream mixture to ice cream maker and churn. Mix about 25-30 minutes or according to manufacturer's instructions.

Mango Ice Cream without Ice cream Maker

If you don't have an ice cream maker, pour the ice cream mixture into a wide, airtight container and put in refrigerator for at least 1 hour then place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Beat ice cream mixture with an electric mixer until smooth. Put it back in the freezer for 40 minutes - then beat with an electric mixer. Repeat "40 minute freeze-then-beat cycle" 3 times. You can either beat ice cream mixture every 40 minutes until frozen or let ice cream mixture freeze on its own.
Serve as much you wish.

Nutrition

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

Banana Walnut Bundt Cake

Aug 23, 2013 · 46 Comments

When Jennifer of Pastry Chef Online suggested a Peoplehood travelling swirly pan idea, where we bake bundt cake with a single nordic ware heritage bundt pan, I loved the idea and asked her whether I can be a part of it. She immediately said yes. Then I have to wait my turn to get the pan ( Dorthy & Toto),

and currently she is travelling in Texas. Two weeks ago Bobby handed the pan over to me. She took a long drive to come to my house and to personally give me the pan, and I was finally able to bake cake with pan last weekend.

In the meantime I had borrowed a book from library David Lebovitz Ready for dessert My best Recipes book, thinking that I will make an ice-cream recipes from the book. But last week I got a bounty of banana from my banana plant, which I thought I can just eat. However it turned out be too much for us. Further it is a burro banana/Monthan kaya, which is best when we use them as raw green vegetable. We people from Kerala, India like to use them as raw green banana in our curries or as batter fried version. We rarely eat it ripe. When I called my dad and told him that it is monthan kaya, appa told me to make baji/ batter fried fritters.However it is not possible as it started getting over ripe. As usual my hubby requested me to bake banana bread. I told him I need to use the bundt pan, so I will make banana cake.

Finally I made banana cake with 12 of the small bananas. I changed the recipe by adding ½ cup whole wheat flour to mask it as healthy by my consciousness. I also reduced half of the butter and substituted it with canola oil. Original recipe was made in regular 9 inch pan; however I made it into bundt pan. I also used some crushed roasted walnut. I also wanted to drizzle chocolate frosting over the cake, and I did it, however it was not as pretty as I wanted. I shared half of the cake with my friend and neighbor Yolanda. My hubby had agreed to this baking session only if keep half of the cake in the home and half to share.

Usually when I make a cake and try to pull it out from bundt pan, it will stick. To prevent the stickiness, I read in the internet that using 1 stick of butter has to be smeared to the pan that scared hell out of me. Then I found a excellent tip to remove the cakes easily from tube pan and bundt pan from this book, The Modern Baker: Time-Saving Techniques for Breads, Tarts, Pies, Cakes and Co by Nick Malgieri. First to butter the pan I used 2 tablespoons of butter, and then dusted it with finely grind bread crumbs (I used panko) and then spray with PAM. I was afraid of distorting my cake, but with just pressure from my knife down on the sides, the cake came out easily and beautifully.

The cake turned out to be delicious, my daughter was happy as it has chocolate on it. Hubby was happy as it remained his banana bread combo. Son was happy as he can munch little bit from everybody. Even I got very good verdict from my friend. So if you have some ripe bananas in your kitchen counter, gave it a try it won’t disappoint you.

Here comes the recipe.

Banana Walnut Bundt Cake

Yield: Serves 12 to 16

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 60-65 minutes

Ingredients:

cake:
2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour

½ cup (75g) White Whole Wheat flour
1 ½ tsp(4g) ground cinnamon
1 ½ tsp(7g) baking powder
¾ tsp(3g) baking soda
½ teaspoon (3g)salt
½ cup (4ounces/115 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½cup canola oil

1 ½ cups (300 g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon instant espresso or coffee powder
2 Jumbo eggs, at room temperature
½ cup(140g) sour cream (regular), at room temperature
2 cups (50 ml) banana purée (12 no small burro bananas, if you are using regular banana used 3-4nos)
1 ¼ cups (125 g) walnuts, toasted and crushed

Chocolate frosting
3 .5 ounces (98 g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
¼cup (62.5 ml) strong brewed coffee or espresso (you can replace this with water or decaffeinated coffee)
3 tablespoon (42g) unsalted or salted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature

Directions:

Cake

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
Butter( 2 tablespoon) the bundt pan then sprinkle the pan with 2 tablespoon fine bread crumbs( I used panko) and then spray with PAM .
In a medium bowl, combine flours, cinnamon, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk to combine.
In a stand mixer bowl (or large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer or spoon) beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. It should take about 3 to 5 minutes. Incorporate the vanilla, oil and espresso powder into the lightly beaten eggs and add at two times to completely mixed in. Add half of the flour then the buttermilk and banana purée. Add the remaining flour then stir in the nuts until combined, but don't over mix.
Transfer the batter into prepared bundt pan and bake until golden and toothpick comes out clean, about 60-65 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes and slight run the knife through the sides and turn the cake upside down and cool completely in wire racks.

Frosting:

If using double boiler,

Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Combine chocolate and coffee or espresso in the bowl and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.
Remove bowl from the heat and add butter. Whisk until combined well and smooth.

If using microwave

In a microwave safe bowl heat high for 1 minutes chocolate, butter and coffee until it melted completely and become smooth. Transfer to squeeze bottle and drizzle through the indentation on the cake.

Cake will keep up to 3 days, covered, at room temperature.

10 Delicious Smoothie with Veggies

Aug 22, 2013 · 19 Comments

After trying veggies in my smoothie I got addicted and started looking for various tasty combinations for smoothie with veggies. If you are veggie lover or hater, these smoothies going to be wonderful experience.

Veggies in Smoothies from my fellow food bloggers friends.

Sweet Green Goddess from Blend

Lemon and Kale Ice from Livlifetoo

Beet smoothie from Ricki Heller

Carrot cake Smoothie from Ricki Heller

Grrovy Green Smoothie from Ricki Heller

Apple Pie Smoothie from Ricki Heller

Coconut Mango Carrot Smoothie from Noble pig

Berry spinach Protein Smoothie from the Lemon bowl

Two Green Smoothie from Mom on time out

Green Goddess Juice: Healthy Detox/ Diabetic friendly

Aug 21, 2013 · 35 Comments

I came to know how much I am depending on internet last week, when all of a sudden last Saturday evening around 5 PM, my internet connection went down. We tried to reset the connection several times but to no avail. I even spent an hour on phone with AT&T to get back to connection. First we didn’t know whom to call, as we don’t have a home phone number through which we got connection in 2007. At that time I had set up some password security code which asked who my favorite actor was: the code was Tom Hanks; now my taste has change to Mark Wallberg. So when the customer service guy asked about favorite actor I told him Mark Wallberg. He told me it is not the right answer, but after a good delay he was able to pull up our file and told us that your service tech is going to come back only on Tuesday morning. At first I thought I am going to be miserable, without it. Then realize that there is no choice, I have to accept the fact that my internet is not there.

I don’t know if this was coincidence, as my hubby’s grandma passed away this Monday around 8 P.M. Indian time. She was 93 years old; the last few years she was battling Alzheimer’s and had also broken her shoulder bone a few weeks ago after a fall. Doctors told that her body won’t able to handle any surgery she is so week. Then this Saturday she lost her consciousness and remained so until Monday. I have spent a few days with her, when my hubby took me to his ancestral house in Wadakanchery, Kerala, India. She was waiting for our taxi cab to reach the house, and she even arranged a pulluvan pattu on that day. It is ritual of singing songs to serpent Gods as they are believed to be protectors of the land. If you want to read more read from here and you can see you tube video here. She gave them Paddy, rice, oil, cloths & coins in traditional way. We stayed there for 5 days. She made sure that her grandkid (my hubby) got dishes that he loves every time. I think now we have to celebrate her life, as she did lots of things for us. We are going to miss her presence a lot.

Okay coming back to the recipe. I have heard lot about kale, bitter green, but never made use in any of my recipe. During my trip to Wal-Mart, I spotted organic kale selling for 99 cents a bunch; and I bought it thinking of making a salad. Then I realized that my kids may not like it, more over the salad fan in our house that my daughter has a bad tooth ache. So I decided to make a smoothie, then realized adding milk will be very bad idea. I thought then of making it with yogurt, however I did not have enough yogurt to make smoothie. So gave it try for juice.

When I read about the difference between cleansing and detoxifying diet, I came to know that detoxification is body’s natural process of elimination or neutralization of toxic materials from cells, tissues, organs and the bloodstream. It acts to remove toxins from the blood stream, various organs of the body, skin and also the liver and kidneys. A liver or kidney detox is generally accompanied by cleansing procedures to ensure better results. Detox can be incorporated in your day to day life simply by choosing to eat fruits, vegetables and high fiber foods. Avoid eating processed and/or packaged food; chips, cereals, prepared frozen diet meals, etc. Then what is cleansing it targets the digestive tract (the organ from the mouth to the anus) and does a typical colon cleansing job. Cleansing uses a particular program or component for the procedure i.e. teas, fiber supplements, etc. It targets waste matter, fungi (like Candida), parasites and harmful bacteria inside your bowels. Both detox and cleanse have several similar advantages. Cleansing is a helps keeping the digestive tract and colon healthy and body free from disease. Read more from here.

I already mentioned health benefits, of celery, green apple, pear and cucumber in this post. When I read about the lime’s health benefits, not only it is rich in vitamin C, it also, helps in reducing Scurvy, diabetes, constipation due to its high amount of soluble fibers. It also helps prevent heart disease, peptic ulcer, skin care, respiratory disorder, eye care, Arthritis etc you name it. If you want read more read fromhere .

Then comes Kale, it is known as ‘Queen of Greens’ and also the new beef, because it is rich in fiber, Calcium iron, vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin K. Also it is great detox and full of powerful antioxidants. It also helps in preventing cardiovascular disease and diabetics by reducing Cholesterol levels. If you want to read more read from here.

I added two bunches of kale, two celery stalk, green apple, ½ avocados, lime, pear, cucumber, salt and coarse black pepper and a pinch of chat masala. If you don’t have chat masala that is fine you can add little cumin powder.

Even my little ones tried this juice without any fuss which indicates this is great recipe. If you are looking for a healthy diet, make this juice for your morning breakfast or as snack.

Green Goddess Juice: Healthy Detox/ Diabetic friendly

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 Pear

2 Celery Stalks

2 Kale stalks ( remove the midrib and use only leaves)

½ of Avocado

1 Green apple

1 ½ cup Water

Juice of 1 lime

1 cucumber ( I peeled the skin and removed the seeds)

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

⅛ teaspoon chaat masala/ cumin powder

Directions:

In a blender combine everything blend together to form a smooth consistency and strain through the strainer and set aside.

Enjoy with ice.

I am enclosing this delicious Juice to Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here.

Double chocolate and pistachio biscotti for Baking Partners Challenge 13

Aug 15, 2013 · 42 Comments

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Indian friends!!

My daughter is having really bad tooth ache, she needs to gets some dental work. She is in another dose of antibiotics. I don’t like pumping antibiotics but now I have no choice, within a month time she is on third round of antibiotics. Hope once she gets this dental work done it will be fine. Poor girl can’t enjoy mama’s cooking. She is gone back to rice and soup. She was able to try few pieces of biscotti. I told her I will make it again for her once her tooth is fine.

As it is 15^th of month, we are going to reveal this month’s baking partners challenge, this month we try to make cookies from various parts of world. Since world is so big it is not easy to finish it in one challenge, so this time we did choose, Speculoos from Dutch, Kourabeithes from Greece, Biscotti from Italy, Chinese almond cookies from China. Sowmya of Nivedhanam blog suggested Speculoos and Kourabeithes. Biscotti recipe was suggested by Sandhya of My cooking Journey. And finally Chinese Almond cookies were suggested by Suja of Kitchencorner try it. Since I tried GevuldeSpeculaas and Mexican wedding cookies earlier which are similar to Speculoos and Kourabeithes. I tried double Chocolate biscotti. Biscotti is in my do list for long time. I didn’t get the time to do. Finally through this baking partner challenge I was able to get an opportunity to do the biscotti. I wanted to try Chinese almond cookies too, but not got much time to finish it. So I have reserved it for next time.

In Italy, biscotti is the name for all cookies, if you really want a biscotti what we are talking about, you need to ask them for biscotti di Prato (English: Prato biscuits), also known as cantuccini(English: coffee bread) or biscotti. They are twice-baked biscuits/cookies originating in the Italian city of Prato. Biscotti are made with the cookie dough rolled into logs and baked once. They are then sliced diagonally by hand and baked once again to make them firm and crunchy. Traditional version is made with anise and almond, however you will able to find other version too like chocolate, cherry etc.

According to history, biscotti were carried by sailors on their long voyages. As it is twice baked it is resistant to mold, and you can store them for 1-2 months without spoiling. It is usually eaten by dipping in coffee or cappuccino, or in a special Italian wine known as Vin Santo read more from here. It has a long history, and first originated in the Roman times, and then it was re-inventedin basic almond recipe of Tuscany, flavors later expanded to anisette, amaretto and lemon-flavored dough; to other spices; to biscotti with raisins and other dried fruits; to biscotti studded with chocolate morsels and with other varieties of nuts.

Nowadays, the flavorings are only limited to the imagination of the bakers and you can incorporate your favorite flavors to make this treat.

Since my kids are lovers of chocolate and chocolate cookies, I decided to make chocolate biscotti; I used the recipe of Dorie Greenspan’s baking from my home to yours. First thought of doing substitution, then my hubby told me try it first without modifications and to stick to the original recipe and see how it turns out, if it is good then add your innovations. However chef in me made little changes, by substituting pistachio and white chocolate chips. If you have flour, butter, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, nuts of your choice, sugar and egg then you are good to go. You can make this delicious treat for your coffee. Mine turned out be delicious. Trust me if you love chocolate cookies, then give it try it won’t disappointment you.

Here comes the recipe.

Please make sure to take your little time to see the creations of rest of baking partners, as each one has its own delicious stories and end results. If you also an enthusiastic baker, who love baked goodies, and willing to bake with us shoot me an e-mail favoriterecipes12 (at)gmail(dot)com. Come and join and have fun.

Double Chocolate and Pistachio Biscotti

Preparation time: 60 minutes

Yield: 40 biscotti
Print This

Ingredients

2 cups/250g all-purpose flour
½ cup/60g unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp/10g instant coffee or instant espresso powder
¾ tsp/2g baking soda
½ tsp/3g baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tbsp/3/4 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
2 Jumbo eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup chopped pistachio
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat.
In a bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, coffee powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a bowl of kitcheaid stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs and vanilla; beat for another 2 minutes. Decrease the speed to low and mix in the dry ingredients in 3 additions, mixing only until a dough forms. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in the chopped nuts and chocolate chips.
Turn the dough (around 929g) out onto a well floured work surface and divide in half of around 464.5g pieces. Knead each portion a few times to pull the dough together into a ball, then shape each portion into a 12 x 2 inch log. Place each log on the baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove the sheet from the oven and let it cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Then, slice the logs diagonally into ¾-inch thick slices and leave the slices standing up on the baking sheet. Return to the oven for another 10 minutes of baking on one side and remove from the oven and flip and bake the other side another 10 minutes.
Transfer biscotti to a rack to cool completely. Store it in an air tight container for 1-2 months.

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunrise Smoothie: A diabetic Friendly Smoothie

Aug 13, 2013 · 64 Comments

If a 4 year old and 18 month old tells you that they like this smoothie. It is great smoothie per any standards we have to admit that. My kids are stringent food critics compared to my hubby. Poor hubby thinks that if he says not tasty it will hurt me so he will always say very good but don’t make it again. But my little ones are innocent they don’t know about any feeling thing. So they tell in up front by refusing to take a next bite. My daughter will say “I don’t like it” clearly.

I am in quest to learn what is healthy sugar, as my hubby is diabetic even a small portion of dessert can change his morning blood sugar. Nowadays even eating rice in the evening can affect his blood sugar. I always seen people saying if you substitute, dates, maple, honey is healthy it is good for diabetics. So I decide to take a look at all the sugars through my own eyes. Sugar can be existed as such or in disguise means other form like high fructose corn syrup.

Around 15 types of common sugars you can find in the market. First one is Glucose/ simple sugar which are commercially available as glucose drinks and dextrose tablets. It is not good for diabetics as it quickly raise the blood sugar levels. It has Glycemic Index of 100. Second is the Table Sugar (Granulated Sugar, White Refined Sugar, Cane Sugar, and Beet Sugar), it is common white sugar available and it’s derived from sugarcane and sugar beets. It is sucrose means a combination of glucose and fructose if you want to learn about read from here. It has glycemic index of 65. Brown sugar is also sucrose, it is mainly table sugar added with some molasses. “Natural” Brown Sugars (Turbinado, Demerara, Muscovado) are still sucrose even though it claims natural, raw etc. Maple syrup is also sucrose similar to tablesugar however it has some natural phenol which is healthy. So take it in moderations.

Is it good for your health? In a study, where a normal person, or even a "type 2 diabetic," is given a large dose of sugar, there is a suppression of lipolysis, and the concentration of free fatty acids in the bloodstream decreases, though the suppression is weaker in the diabetics.

Then comes fructose/fruit sugar found in honey and fruits etc. Fructose has lower glycemic index, so it won’t raise the blood sugar levels as high as other starch based food. However it is not good for diabetics as it can cause of advanced glycation endproducts, and cause cataracts. Furthermore One teaspoon of table sugar has 16 calories, while one teaspoon of honey has 22 calories. Honey also contains about 38.2% fructose and 31.3% glucose. So it can be healthy if you use in limited quantities. Similarly Agave nectar has 92% fructose, so I don’t think it is also a healthy choice. Choose the one with less fructose.

Invert sugar or sugar syrup is a combo of glucose and fructose and is similar to the caramel made by boiling sugar with water and lemon juice.

Molasses especially blackstrap molasseshas medium glycemic index; however it is also a combo of glucose and fructose. We can’t use it as sugar substitute as a result of it taste.

Barley malt consists of only maltose however it is not good for diabetics as it has glycemic index of 105.

Brown rice syrup has no fructose at all, and however it is about 45% maltose. So it is also not healthy

Then come Coconut palm sugar/ Karipetti, which Indians use in coffee and sweets, however, I have not tried to use it in baking. It has some retained minerals and vitamins because of less processing compared to table sugar. Inulin, a compound in coconut sugar may slow glucose absorption and as a result coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index than regular table sugar. According to this site it has glycemic index of about 35. However its fructose content is in question it is about 38% to 48% which is slightly less than table sugar and in the same boat as of honey.

Then I came to check about Jaggery/ fellow Indian bloggersclaims that it is the healthiest sugar since it is produced from raw date, sugar cane juice or palm sap without removing molasses and crystals.

However there also I found naked truth that it contains according this site. The jaggery contains approximately 60-85% sucrose, 5-15% glucose and fructose. Along with 0.4% of protein, 0.1 g of fat and 0.6 to 1.0 g of minerals (8 mg of calcium, 4 mg of phosphorus, and 11.4 mg of iron). It is also found to contain traces of vitamins and amino acids. 100 g of jaggery gives 383 kcal of energy. Then it has a fructose content of about 42.5%-47.5%.

So What I learn from they are more similar to honey and not bad as table sugar. However none of them are healthy as they claim to be. So if you are diabetic, better to consume sugars in form of fruit rather than going for alternatives. I haven’t compared any artificial sweeteners that may be a next post.

Okay coming back to the recipe. I made this delicious smoothie; as I got hooked when I saw diabetic friendly recipes in Dr OZ website. I am a fan of his show. Since I had mango, banana in my hand decide to give it try. I made smoothie with mango, banana and half avocado, used homemade yogurt and 2% skim milk. I didn’t add any sugar to my cup. While little ones had with teaspoon of sugar. Add a teaspoon of flax seed meal to make it healthier.
So enjoy this rich and creamy delicious smoothie, better alternative to your regular breakfast.

Here comes the recipe.

Sunrise Smoothie: A diabetic Friendly Smoothie

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Yield: 2 cup

Ingredients

1 ripe Mango (peel the skin and pitted)

1 small banana

½ avocado

½ cup yogurt (homemade from 2% milk)

¼ cup 2% milk

½cup water

1 cardamom pod

1 teaspoon flax seed meal

Few ice cubes

Sugar/Sweetener (Optional)

Directions

In a blender/ juicer blend everything well to thick creamy consistency add more milk or water to get extract consistency you look for.

Serve with chopped mango cubes on the top.

Notes

If you want you can add sugar or sweetener of your choice.

This recipe is inspired from Dr Oz Show on Diabetic Friendly Recipes

Arisi Vathal/Koozh Vathal/ Fryums / Vadaam / Odiyalu /Akki sandige/Sun Dried Rice Fritters

Aug 10, 2013 · 38 Comments

This week here in Houston, there is a heat advisory, with the temperatures around 100°F, but you can feel it like 105-108F because of humidity. I thought why I don’t can make use of that heat to make a long lost dish from my child hood. My grandma and my aunt who passed away last week used to make this. I love to watch them making it. Now they will be watching from otherworld, that their little kid is making this fritters. I have only a vague image of them making this. I remember they used to grind the rice the first day, early in the morning the following day, they would use a huge pot they will cook the ground rice and made it into thick porridge consistency.

Before the sun gets hot they would spread the porridge into thin round disc in a cheese cloth/Dhoti. By the afternoon of the second day they would sprinkle water on the back side and peel the rice discs from the cloth and again dry them out in the sun for 2-3 days to a state where it is completely dry. It is stored in an air tight container. These sun dried rice disc/chips are fried in the oil and use as side along with rice and curries. The first tasting of the batch was usually done by me. My grandma would also make it in big batches, so that she can give it to her daughters and sons and even sell some to outsiders. Usually her business of rice vathal happened during Onam, as lot of people working in UAE countries would come home for festivities, and would buy from my grandma as they are returning to the Gulf. In India, from Kerala lot of people goes for work in Gulf countries compared to rest of Indian states. During my stay in Sweden, I also used to travel through Gulf so that I can avoid the port of entry in Mumbai or Delhi. Further I get better connection flights to Kerala my home state. Flights from Kuwait, even announce in Malayalam language after English and their language.

We even have even lot of movies about young guys who want to go to Gulf. Most famous one is Nadodikattu, in that two guys, Dasan and Vijayan wanted to go the Gulf with help of Gafoorkka another guy who take them in boat to gulf but funnily ends up only in Chennai capital of our neighboring state Tamil Nadu. That movie touched hearts of lot of people. This is the poster of movie: Courtesy from Wikipedia

Okay that is my gulf story.

Coming to the recipe, when I checked with my dad, I came to know that I need parboiled rice to make this. I don’t have good connection with grinding the parboiled rice. One time I even burnt my blender/mixer while grinding them for Murukku recipe. Parboiled rice becomes too thick so fast you need tons of water to make it grinding. While looking at the recipe in Meenakashi Ammal’s Samaithupar I found that I can add about 16 cups of water. I was happy and grinded the parboiled rice with green chilies to get them ground well. Then allow the batter to rest for overnight, next morning added salt and cumin seeds and added some extra water to make it pancake batter. Then cooked the batter in low heat to thick porridge consistency with constant stirring, this will prevent lumps forming in the batter. Once it got it into a thick porridge consistency removes them from heat. About a tablespoon of batter is poured into cheesecloth leaving about 1 inch space between them. I even try to use aluminum foil, but they turned out to bad. Let it dry in the sun for about 2 days when it is completely dried, turn the cloth upside down and sprinkle water on the back side of batter side. This will enable the easy removal of the small disc of batter easily from the cloth. Once you removed the entire discs let the dry it in the sun for 3 more days to make it completely dry.

Heat oil in the small pan and fry these chips for a minute or two you will get tasty chips/fritters. It tastes great with rice and curries. I was happy that I was able to finish a project which I loved at the core but only had a vague memories. There are few other varieties of koozh vathal are there and are with rice, sabudana/Sago pearls, whole wheat, finger millet etc. My next try will be one with Sago Pearls. Process will be same only ingredients and cooking way changes. I am dedicating this post to my grandma and aunt who passionately make this without any complaints and give to others with loads of love. If you want to little adventures, try this. Sure you are going to like this.

Once dried completely fry it in oil like this.

Arisi Vathal/Koozh Vathal/ Fryums / Vadaam / Odiyalu /Sun Dried Rice Fritters

Preparation time: 50 minutes+2 hours soaking time

Sundry: 4 days

Yield: 6 cups

Ingredients

2 cups Par Boiled Rice ( Soaked for 2 hours)

3 no of Thai Green chilies (Increase amount of green chili if you want more heat)

1 teaspoon Salt or to taste

½ tablespoon cumin seeds:

10 cups Water (You can increase up to 12 cups)

For frying

½ cup oil

Directions

Soak parboiled rice for about 2 hours and then grind with green chilies with 8 cups of water to a fine paste. Allow to rest for overnight or 8 hours.
Next morning in a Dutch oven or thick bottomed pan, heat the rice batter with salt and cumin seeds. Continue to cook in a low heat with constant stirring for about 25-30 minutes or until you get thick porridge consistency. Make sure to stir continuously to prevent formation of any lumps.
Line a table with cheese cloth and place it sun. Drop 1 tablespoon of cooked batter into the cheese cloth, placing 1 inch between them. Allow to sundry for about 1- 2 days. When it is completely dried, turn upside down and sprinkle water on the non-batter side, set aside for 5 minutes. Then gradually peel the rice disc and transfer to a plate. Allow to further dry in the sun for about 2 more days.
When it is completely dried transfer to airtight container and stores it for about a year.
When you are ready to use, heat ½ cup of oil in a pan and fry this sun dried rice disc for a minute or two. It will be great sides for rice and curries.

Enjoy

Beet and Pistachio Loaf Cake

Aug 6, 2013 · 38 Comments

My son and daughter loves beet root, and without doubt is among the vegetables she loves a lot. Nowadays she also tells me what menu she wants? She loves only one menu a rasam(Spicy tamarind soup), beet root stir-fry with coconut and rice. Occasionally she loves to eat Sambar as well as Ethapazha pulissery (Plantain in spicy coconut sauce). She call it as banana, I can give pulissery two times if more it comes in the menu the third time she will say “no banana” . However Soupa(Rasam) can show her face as much times. I think they got my gene in that part; I am hardcore fan of Rasam which I would make once in week even I stayed alone. I also love Beetroot. I too love them, but hate the job of chopping it to small pieces. Last week shopping we spotted a mega beetroot in a specialty store. I bought 2 of them, they are so big, and each one is equal to 3 normal sized beetroots, but it did make a tasty stir-fry.

So with the second one my hubby told me try to use only half for the stir fry and make use of rest in something else. In the mean time I borrowed this book from the library Eric Lanlard’s Cake Boy ; I got intrigued by the beetroot hazelnut cake. However I didn’t have hazelnut in my hand. So decide to substitute hazelnut with pistachio as it was calling my name in pantry. Suddenly I got health conscious; and decided to use whole wheat flour, reduced sugar, and also reduced the amount of eggs, added some extra species and made this delicious cake. Now you know star ingredient in this recipe is beetroot, it given a marvelous marble effect. I took pain to grate the beet root with my hand, without injuring my fingers.

If you want a tea or coffee time or breakfast cake, go ahead a give it a try, earthy beetroot makes wonders in this bread, at first I was little reluctant about the taste of this veggie in the cake. Even though I heard about their use in red velvet cake, it showed me its charm that I am very good in dessert too. If you are quick bread fan, and don’t want to use your kitchen mixer and then this cake is for you. Yes you need a grater also.

Here comes the recipe.

Beet and Pistachio Loaf Cake

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: 60 minutes

Serves: 6-8, 1 9x5 inch loaf

Ingredients

1 cup All purpose flour

½ cup Whole Wheat flour

¾ cup Sugar (Increase the amount of sugar to 1 cup)

1 cup Beets (freshly grated)

½ cup oil

3 tablespoon milk

11/4 teaspoon cinnamon (You can also reduce the amount)

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup roasted pistachios

¼ teaspoon salt ( if you want use kosher salt increase to ½ teaspoon)

2 Jumbo eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

Wash and peel and grate the beetroot, roast the pistachios in a baking sheet at 350F for 10 minutes or until it slightly change the color. Pulse or chop it into small pieces and set aside.
Preheat the oven at 350F, grease and line 9 x5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper and set aside.
In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients, flours, salt, spices and baking powder.
In another bowl add sugar and oil and mix very well, and then add eggs and mix well to combine everything.
Then gradually incorporate the dry ingredients in two batches, then add beets and milk and mix well with whisk and finally fold in pistachios. Keep aside few about 1 tablespoon to decorate on the top of the loaf.
Transfer the batter to prepared pan and top with rest of pistachios. Bake at 350F for about 60 minutes or until the toothpick/cake tester comes out clean.
Allow to the rest the cake in pan for about 10 minutes and remove and cool it in a cooling rack until its cools down completely.
If you wish you can also use any glaze of your choice.
Slice it and enjoy with or without butter.

This recipe adapted from Beet and Hazelnut cake by Eric Lanlard’s Cake Boy

Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers

Aug 3, 2013 · 30 Comments

Delicious Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers, filled with veggies and spices and cheese goes well any soup.

This is perfect alternative to sweeter version of Kugelhopf/ Gugelhupf / Gugelhopf is a southern German, Austrian , Swiss and Alsatian bundt cake. This Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers is excellent Savory version of kugelhopf is loaded with cheddar cheese, apples and green and red bell peppers.

And at first I got upset, but then decided not to worry much. Then again yesterday I got a call from my Dad in India that my aunt (Parvathi Aathai/ dad’s sister) has passed away. She was his last surviving sister; she too has left this world.

Perhaps going to India and meeting my relatives once in a while would have been great. Going to India as often as I would like is not possible as hubby does not much a lot of vacation time, and we need to get my son a passport and PIO card. It will take some time. My aunt was the most beautiful among my dad’s sisters.

She would always take care of me when I was young. In my mind it was like a flashback going the scene in between childhood. She was also an excellent cook too.

I am going to miss her. In the last few years she had diabetes and was bedridden, and not keeping well for some time. She will be more peaceful in otherworld. Dad was really upset, but at same time he said to me that suffering is over for her.

I made this bread on Wednesday however was not in mood to write about it yesterday. Today I want to come out of my nest. I am lagging behind in the “We Knead to Bake” challenges for two month.

I needed to finish baked doughnuts and savory kugelhopf. I tried doughnuts using my new mini donut pan, and it came out like hard bread rather doughnut, so dropped that idea. Then I tried this savory Kugelhopf. Since it savory, hubby agreed to do a taste test, as his blood sugars levels are shooting up nowadays.

According to Wikipedia, Kugelhopf/ Gugelhupf / Gugelhopf is a southern German, Austrian , Swiss and Alsatian bundt cake. It is cross between cake and bread as it made in a special pan and also contains Yeast.

I think it is closer to our yeasted coffee cake. Normally it is made as sweeter version with raisins, almond and cherry brandy. The recipe chosen for this challenge was savory.

Earlier I had tried a combo of cheddar and green onion in this bread and fell in love with it. So I decide to keep that combo of cheddar and green onion in my version of Kugelhopf too and also wanted to add red and green bell peppers.

In order to lure my daughter to eat this bread, I decide to add green apple. I didn’t want to add any nuts so skipped that part. Used one Jumbo egg instead of two eggs mentioned in the recipe.

I also made use of my new bundt pan to make this bread.

The first fermentation of the dough was done using only flour, milk, butter, egg and yeast, and after the first rise I incorporated veggies, apple and cheese. I used red star yeast quick rise yeast.

I skipped the cooking of veggies as I wanted to retain the crunchiness of bell peppers. I also increased the amount of cheddar cheese in the recipes to replace nuts, and my substitution worked very well I was able to get a delicious bread that goes well with any soup or curry.

Even my hubby told me that it is really good. If you like savory bread give it a try and it won’t disappoint you. It also would be great with any soup or make a mini version and it would be good as party appetizer.

Here comes the recipe.

Dough prepared like this

Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers in making

Cheese and Veggies are prepared like this

Before final fermenation

Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers in making

After Baking

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar scallion green apple and bell peppers

Delicious Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar, Scallion, Green apple and Bell Peppers, goes well any soup or curry.

Prep Time30

Cook Time45

Total Time3 15

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Austrian

Keyword: savory Kugelhopf

Servings: servings

Calories: 166kcal

Author: Swathi

Ingredients

3 cups + 2 tablespoon/ 407g all-purpose flour
2 tsp/6g Red star quick rise instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
5.3 tablespoon/75gm butter at room temperature
¾ cup/180g 2% milk
1 Jumbo egg beaten lightly
1 teaspoon oil for greasing
⅓ cup/54g chopped red bell peppers
⅓ cup /50 g chopped green bell peppers
⅓ cup+ 1 tablespoon/40g chopped green onions
1 /101 g chopped green apple
1 cup /4.15 oz/118g grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 ½ teaspoon/3g coarsely crushed black pepper
1 tsp/2g dried thyme
½ tablespoon/49g cumin seeds

Instructions

In a small microwave safe bowl add milk and butter and heat for about 1 minute or until butter melt, still milk is luke warm.
In a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer fitted with dough hook attachment, add flour, yeast, milk, egg and butter and mix everything to form smooth dough and transfer to greased pan to double in size. Cover the pan with shower cap. It took about 90 minutes double in size.
In the meanwhile chop green bell pepper, red bell pepper, and green onion and set aside. Grate the cheese and set aside. When you are ready to incorporate with dough that is after the first rise. Chop green apple and mix everything with salt, black pepper, cumin seeds and thyme.
Grease an 8” kugelhopf mold or bundt pan well especially around the center (or whatever pan/ tin you plan to use). Place little cheese, green onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and green apple at the bottom of the mould.
Once the dough has risen, deflate it and incorporate the vegetables, fruit, cumin and thyme into the dough. The best way to do this is to flatten the dough out and spread all this over the surface, fold the dough over and then knead it. This will ensure a more uniform incorporation of the “filling”. The dough will be a bit sticky, so use a scraper to help you with the kneading. Do not add more flour!
Roll the dough into a longish log, long enough to fit into the mould comfortably. Lift the “log” of dough and place it in the mold in a circular fashion and pinch the two ends together to close the “circle” of dough. Cover and let the dough rise for about an hour or so, until it reaches the edge/ rim of the mould. While it end of the second rise, preheat oven to 400F.
Bake the Kugelhopf at 400F for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and sounds hollow when it is tapped or it register an internal temperature of about 200F.
Unmold the Kugelhopf and let it completely cool on a rack. Slice and serve.
It is really good with any soup.

Nutrition

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

Do you like this recipe with cheddar cheese try this too

Jalapeno Cheddar Wheat Buns

Favorite Recipes Event: Curries &Gravies on a plate

Aug 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

This month Favorite recipes event is taking palace at Tasty Food Recipes .She has great blog and amazing recipes as well as traditional Indian recipes.
Thanks Sandhya of My Cooking Journey's for guest hosting last month's One Pot Meal recipes. I was amazed by the various delicious One Pot Meal.
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 Arthy's Tasty Food Recipes for the rules.

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 Ongoing
September Few minutes wonders      Lunch box ideas
October:   The Big Sweet Tooth :         Payasam/Kheer

November Shruti Rasoi Street Foods
December Twisted Chef Favorite Winter Recipes

2014

January    Open
February  Esho-Bosho-Aahare        Starter or Snacks
March     Open

Please contact me at favoriterecipes12 (at)gmail(dot)com

Pulihora/Puliyodharai/Tamarind Rice

Jul 31, 2013 · 33 Comments

Delicious traditional Pulihora/Puliyodarai/Tamarind Rice spicy tangy rice made with tamarind, spices. This is offered to God in Temples.

Coming back to recipe, I have enjoyed this puliyodharai or tamarind rice only during the pathinettamperuku, adi perku festival time, when amma used to prepare varieties of rice dishes. Other occasion of making this was when my aunt/Athai (father’s sister) who travelled to back to her home, in Tamil Nadu after visiting us. She would make a pack of this rice for her family for their train journey. I have also tasted this rice at temples in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh during our visits. I came to make this myself only when I started living in Japan and later in Sweden, as I need some varieties in my lunch box. For that purpose mom would send me packet of ready made mix from MTR. I would mix that with already cooked rice and job done in 5 minutes. Never thought of making this dish from the scratch, but this month I need to find a one pot meal for my “Favorite Recipes Event” which was guest hosted by My Cooking Journey. So decide to try and made it our lunch yesterday.

Since my mom is not available anymore to guide me through the recipe, I searched Google and as usual was flooded with tons of recipes. Then I finally settled with these two recipes one from Priya of Akshayapaatramand Mullai of Spice India Online, I used the pulikachil and spice powder from Akshyapathram and cooking of rice from Spice India Online. I added a little jaggery /brown sugar to balance the sourness of tamarind.

One of my childhood friends had a huge tamarind tree in their yard. We used to play underneath it, and would pick ripe tamarind when it is in peak season. Trust me it is delicious, just pick and remove the shell and eat with little salt. Balance of sour and salt is awesome. Tastiest one will be those fruit dried in the sun for few days. Last time when we visited Kerala, my husband’s aunt gave us some homegrown tamarind. It was really good. However those I get from Indian store is at times really like a rock hard one, you need to soak more than hour to get some juice out of it. So nowadays I buy only wet tamarind from Thailand, they are soft and easy to extract juice. I microwave little tamarind balls with ½ cup of water for 15 seconds and extract the juice. I have seen fresh tamarind in stores selling Latin-American stuffs. However it is too expensive, I will buy some to make some tamarind candy some time.

I have to try few recipes with tamarind that are in my mind a margarita, a Thai tamarind soup or Ponche navidades let me see how fast I can reaching my goals.

As a south Indian my life started with tamarind, which was an essential part of kitchen pantry while growing up. After coming to US, I came to know that tamarindis not only used in India but also all over the world in its cuisines. While checking I got some interesting fact about tamarind, it is native of Africa; especially Sudan largest consumers of present day are South Asia and Mexico.

Tamarind is known to have health benefits too, especially the fruit pulp is known to have antibacterial properties, reduce cholesterol and increase heart health by preventing plaque formation. It also known to reduce blood sugar and to help in weight reduction, if you want read more please take a look at here. It is also rich in vitamins and minerals read from here.

For making this tamarind rice, I used sona masori rice as it is traditionally used to make this rice. I cooked rice with turmeric and salt separately. Made sauce /pulikachal with tamarind, dals and red chilies, also made a spice powder to go with by roasting red chili, lentils, fenugreek, coriander and sesame seeds. Used gingerly/Indian sesame oil for make it traditionally, and adjusted the sourness with little jaggery. I finally mixed sauce, spice powder with cooked rice, and I would if you set some aside for the next day to infuse flavors, it is even more tasty. Try it you are a fan of sour taste or little adventurous like my son.

Here comes the recipe.

Rice is made like this

Pulikachal/ Sauce is made like this

Spice powder is made like this

Assembly of Rice is done this way

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Pulihora/Puliyodarai/Tamarind Rice: Temple Style

Delicious traditional Pulihora/Puliyodarai/Tamarind Rice spicy tangy rice made with tamarind, spices. This is offered to God in Temples.

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Servings:

Calories: 403kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

Pulikachal/Gojju/Tamarind Sauce
3 tablespoon Sesame Gingelly/Nallayennai Oil
12 cashew nuts
¼ cup Peanuts raw
½ teaspoon Mustard Seeds
11/2 tablespoon Channa Dal/split chickpeas I soaked dal for 30 minutes
1 teaspoon Urad Dal/Split black gram
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 dried Red chilies adjust to taste, more chilies are added in the roasted powder
2 sprig Curry Leaves washed & patted dry and roughly torn into pieces
½ teaspoon Turmeric Powder
⅛ teaspoon Asafoetida/hing/inguva
A golf ball sized chunk of raw Tamarind pulp – soaked in ½ cup warm water for 10mins
11/2 teaspoon of Salt or to taste
1 teaspoon jaggery/ brown sugar
Spice powder/Roasted powder:
Yield around ¼ cup you need only 1 to 2 tablespoon for rice if not spicy
½ teaspoon Sesame oil
1 ½ tablespoon Channa Dal/Split chickpeas
1 tablespoon Urad dal/Split black gram
½ tablespoon Coriander Seeds/Malli
3 dried Red Chilies
½ teaspoon Fenugreek Seeds/Menthayam
1 tablespoon black Sesame seeds
Rice
2 cups Sona Masoori
4 cup Water
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cook Rice
In a Dutch oven or thick bottom pan Cook 2 cups of rice 4 cups of water, salt and turmeric powder. Ratio to water and rice should be 1: 2. It took about 30 minutes or until the rice holds its shape. Remove from the oven and spread it into a thin layer and sprinkle ½ tablespoon of sesame seed oil/ gingerly oil and set aside.
Pulikachal/Gojju/Tamarind Sauce
In a microwave safe bowl heat a bowl of lemon sized tamarind pulp using your hands squeeze out the thick tamarind pulp and discard the seeds and fiber.
Heat oil in a sauce pan on medium-low heat and add the cashew nuts and fry until golden and take it out. Then add peanuts and roast until they start to turn a slight reddish orange color. Add the mustard, cumin seeds and dal next and continue to roast them until they get an even brown color.
Add the curry leaves, red chilies, turmeric powder and asafoetida and stir for 30 secs more. Carefully pour in the tamarind extract, a little salt , jaggery and cook for 10-15mins until the pulikachal/gojju comes together as a thick mass and the oil begins to separates and collect around the edges and set aside.
Spice Powder
In the meantime, in a shallow pan, dry roast the urad dal, chana dal, sesame seeds, fenugreek and coriander seeds separately and set aside. Then add ½ teaspoon oil and add red chilies and roast until it changes color. The fenugreek and sesame seeds tend to burn quickly so watch while roasting them. Take off the heat and cool for a few minutes before grinding them to a fine powder.
Assembly of Rice
Drizzle a little sesame oil on top and add a few tablespoons of the Pulikachal/gojju and spice powder . Mix lightly without breaking the rice grains. Add salt and more gojju or rice according to taste.
As a final garnish sprinkle the roasted powder on top and mix it in. Cover the pulihora/Puliyodharai and let it rest for at least 30mins before serving.
Notes
Don’t add all the salt to the tamarind extract in the beginning of the cooking process. Since the gojju reduces and thickens towards the end.
If you like your tamarind rice to be a nice glowing yellow, slightly warm up a spoon of sesame oil with a pinch of turmeric and drizzle it on the warm rice before adding the gojju. If the rice is warm enough, you can skip heating the oil.
If you want you can make double the quantity of gojju /pulikachal and store the leftovers in the fridge, it’ll keep well for weeks in an airtight container.

Nutrition

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

Idiyappam/Noolappam/Rice String Hoppers with Egg Curry: Kerala Style Gluten free

Jul 27, 2013 · 36 Comments

Idiyappam/Noolappam/Rice string Hoppers is one of the breakfast recipes which amma used to make during the weekend. It requires elaborate process of soaking the rice, and then pounding it in a powder, making dough and pressing the dough through the mould and finally cooking it in a steamer. She would make potato stew or ishtu to go with it. If you ask me I am lazy when it comes to make some dishes, while for some other dishes I will go all the way create them. My hubby says I am doing it for blog, maybe it is true to an extent.

There is another variety of string hopper popular in Tamil Brahmin household called sevai, they look like idiyappam/ rice string hopper, but I will say cousin to it. These are very tedious to make. This dish has lots of nostalgic memories for me. My grandma would always make it for me. To make it, she would grind parboiled rice/Doppi rice into a smooth paste using a mortar and pestle type we call it attukal you can take look at here and here and cook the paste into thick dough. Then again that dough is made into ball which is steamed or cooked in boiling water. And finally the dough balls is added to a mould called Sevanazhi when it is ultra hot and squeezed out to get string hoppers. However operating the Sevanazhi is not always easy, and can put stress on your hands, as parboiled rice gets dense once it is cooked. So my uncles or dad used to help her part of pressing. My grandama would also makes awesome pulissery and appalam ( Indian urad dal wafer/chips) to go with Sevai. Trust me sevai tastes even better when it become a day old. She would mixes the sevai and pulissery together. Next morning she will serve it for our breakfast. I always watch whole thing as interesting TV serial. Nowadays you can get modern day version of sevai nazhi like this

photo credits goes to this Hindu article.
On searching for picture of seva nazhi through google I found an interesting blog ,she is an excellent story teller.
With all these troubles I am not going to make sevai in my life time. So I made this idiyappam, they are lookalike with former ones are smooth and soft compared to idiyappam. Also differ each other in the rice used to make, sevai is made with parboiled rice, where as idiyappam is made with raw rice powder. And taste wise too they differ. I bought one packet of idiyappam rice powder from Indian store. Since I have mould in hand,

one evening decide to make idiyappam for our dinner. Hubby agreed immediately. Since I not in a mood to make potato stew, I made spicy egg curry to go with it.

Idiyappm is popular dish in South Indian states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and coastal towns of Karnataka. It is also popularin neighboring Srilanka. However each differs in its own way. In Kerala we love to add grated coconut in the the idiyappam in between and in top. Whereas rest of the version only contains plain rice and salt. Also in Kerala we like to consume these rice string hoppers with spicy curry. For kids it is sometime served with coconut milk. It is also an important dish in the breakfast dish menu at many small restaurants in Kerala. I. If you want to take a looks at teashop cabinet which is full of goodies accompany with tea or coffee are here
I made idiyappam like this.

Spicy egg curry to go with idiyappam is made this way.

Idiyappam/Noolappam/Rice String Hoppers with Egg Curry

Preparation time: 45 minutes

Yield: 4 serving

Ingredients
2cups Fine Rice flour (I used Double Horse brand)
2 cups Water

1 teaspoon salt ¼cup grated Coconut:
(Also you can prepare the rice flour at home. Wash and soak raw rice(Pachari) for few hours. Drain well and allow it to dry completely. Grind it to a fine powder and dry roast it.)

Accessories Needed

Idiyappam Press
Idli Mould/Steamer

Directions

In a medium sauce pot boil water in with salt. Once water is boiled pour the boiled water little by little to the rice flour, stirring in between, until it is ready to make into smooth dough.
Allow it to cool to touch. When it is half cooled, knead it with your hand into smooth dough. Lightly grease the idiyappam press/mould and the idli mould with oil to prevent the dough from sticking.
Spoon some dough into the idiyappam press, close the lid and squeeze the dough onto the idli plates in a circular motion. About a half way add some coconut and continue to cover the coconut with dough as it gets covered. Top idiyappam with some more grated coconut.
Place the idli plates in a steamer and steam for about 5 minutes or until done. Allow it to cool for a while and carefully remove the Idiyappam to a serving bowl
Serve with spicy egg curry.

Mutta Masala/ Spicy Egg curry

Ingredients

5 no hardboiled Egg

1 ½ medium Onion

1 sprig curry leaves

1 green chili

½ teaspoon mustard

½teaspoon cumin seeds

¼teaspoon Fennel seeds

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon garlic

½ teaspoon red chili powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon garam masala

3 cup water

2 tomatoes

Directions

Boil the eggs in the 2 cup water with salt for 7 minutes. Then once it cools enough to touch wash in the running water, slightly make a crack and remove the shell. And make few slit on the boiled eggs so that spices get into the egg.
Heat oil in the pan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and fennel seeds. Once mustard seeds start spluttering add onion, green chilies, and curry leaves and fry for about 6 minutes. Then add ginger garlic paste and fry for another 3 minutes to remove the raw smell. Then add chopped tomato and spices, coriander, garam masala, chili powder and turmeric powder and fry for about 3 minutes. Once tomato gets soft and mushy add boiled eggs and salt and 1 cup water and continue to cook for about 5 minutes or until gravy comes to consistency you want.
Enjoy with warm Idiyappam

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea

Jul 23, 2013 · 36 Comments

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea simple infusion made with dried hibiscus flowers and water .Healthy drink and excellent thirst quencher.

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea is simple tea made with dried hibiscus flowers.

If you been to Starbucks, Panera bread, or any Mexican restaurant you may encounter this delicious drink. Agua fresca in Spanish means water. Agua fresca can be made with sweet fruits as well as citrus, tamarind and also with seeds or flowers. If you want to read more take a look over here.

While writing my post on cooking with Gongura/ Roselle/ Florida Cranberry/Indian sorrel leaves and lentils, I researched a little bit of the gongura plant. Thus I came to know about the interesting factor that, leaves are consumed mainly in India and Burma.

Rest of the world is happy to consume its calyx, flower bud cover to make an infusion and use as tea. Flower bud cover/Calyx of gongura is dried and called flor de Jamaica. In the streets of Mexico you can see street vendors selling huge jars of Hibiscus tea.

Even though it is called Hibiscus tea, it is not made from our common Hibiscus plant, but it is made from calyx of Gongura/Roselle/Indian sorrel/Jamaican sorrel plant which is also a Hibiscus plant belongs to another species. It is called Hibiscus sabdariffa .

Health benefits of Hibiscus tea are known to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, and to reduce blood sugar in type two diabetics. Also it has high concentration of organic acids (15-30%).

The three organic acids that have been identified are citric, malic, and tartaric. These have been known to give an overall boost to the immune system.

However, this not is good for women how are pregnant or trying to get pregnant as it known to cause miscarriage, read more here and here. It also known help to weight loss and depression.

On my trip of Fiesta I found a packet of flor de Jamaica, bought it, and after coming home goggling yielded a tons of recipes for making hibiscus tea. Some are asking for keep the infusion overnight.

Others say about keeping for few hours of infusion. I like the overnight version. Most of them make it into sugary version. Both I and husband liked the sugarless version. It has tart flavor like cranberry juice, beautiful color.

I think once you add sugar or any other sweeteners it will change the taste of tea. However if you can’t stand in front the tartness of hibiscus tea, try with sweetener.

My 4 year old got attracted to color of the drink, but she doesn’t like taste. We both husband and wife loved it. You can flavor this drink with ginger, cinnamon, all spice etc. I like without any add on. Try it is excellent drink compared to any bottled drink. In Jamaica, they like to add rum along with hibiscus tea.

I made Hibiscus tea like this:

Wash the dried calyx in running water for 1 minute to remove dirt. Then boil in1 cup of water about ¼ cup dried flower calyx for 3 minutes and let sweep in flavor for overnight. Next morning drain the flower and 2 cup of water to make two drinks. You can also make tea with fresh calyx too.

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea is simple and delicious thrist quencher made with dried hibiscus flower.

Prep Time5

overnight infusion time8

Total Time8 5

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Mexican

Keyword: Hibiscus tea

Servings: servings

Calories: 57kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

¼ cup dried flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus flower
3 cup Water
2 tablespoon Sugar /Sweeteners like splenda of your choice I didn’t use
Ice cubes.

Instructions

Place the dried flower in running water to remove the dirt for a 1 minute In a medium sauce pot add washed flower as well as 1 cup water, bring it to boil for 3 minutes.
Transfer the both flower and water to bottle and chill it for 3 hours or overnight for better infusion. If you are using sugar, add to the infusion now.
When you are ready to serve, strain the flower and squeeze the juice well and dilute with water enjoy with ice.

Notes

You can flavor this drink with ginger, allspice, and cinnamon whiles you chilling the infusion.
You also increase the sugar /or any sweetener if you want to use. I used without any sugar.
I don’t advise to add any tea flavors as it will spoil the flavor to Hibiscus.
You also make simple syrup to sweeten the drink.

Nutrition

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

Other sorrel leaves recipes are

Gongura pappu/ Pulicha keerai kootu/ Lentil stew with Roselle

Gongura pappu/ Pulicha keerai kootu/ Lentil stew with Roselle /Florida cranberry /Indian Sorrel leaves

Jul 19, 2013 · 31 Comments

Last week was really bad one for me; as my daughter got high fever and the first time in her 4 years she told me, my tooth is aching. Poor girl could not sleep even with two doses of Tylenol. On the top of it my mobile won’t work in the morning. It said no service. I fell in love with AT&T for their world class service? Dropping my calls and also not providing the service when it is most needed. Since my phone doesn’t want to work, I had to go to my neighbor and friend Yolanda’s house to get a phone. When I started dialing the nearest dentist office since it is Friday they were not open, and I have to wait till Monday to see the doctor. I know tooth ache is most horrible pain one can think off, so I decide to take her to another dentist in 45 minutes drive. Finally after reaching there I came to know she has 3 bad teeth in front and few molar has cavity. I asked the doctor when the front set of tooth come back after these milk teeth are gone. He told me around 5-6 years and molar comes back on 6-12 years. So they decided to extract decayed tooth. She was prescribed with antibiotics. After few dos of antibiotics, they extracted her two front teeth yesterday; poor girl was still smiling and told me that she is fine. Again I got shocking news that she more decayed teeth and they would want to work on it and it going to cost me $4000. Also want to do IV sedation, that part scares hell out of me.

I am fine with spending money, still in my mind is the question why I am torturing her with this cavity filling for a tooth that going to comes out eventually, so I am planning to get a second opinion with another dentist. Let me see how it goes.

I remember my picture of toothless smile around 6 years in my uncle’s wedding. I was so proud to show off my smile than not to worry about the beauty at that time. That is innocence of that age.

Thanks to all of you for asking my little boy’s penny adventure, he is fine running around, eating, and pooping.

Okay coming back to the dish of the day, it is from Andhra Pradesh. Among the south Indian states, Andhra is largest one, and also the 4th largest state in Indian sub continent. Just like any other regional cuisine, it has its own trade mark dishes, they are major rice and chili producer in the southern states, obliviously their food is spiciest among the south. Do you want to know spiciest cuisine in Asia, mean’s hottest, take a look at this article in Time Magazine, Korean comes first, and Assamese (( land of Naga Bhut Jolokia/spiciest chili pepper) comes 4^th? Okay you will be wondering why I am talking about spices and Andhra, just like chilies, this Gongura, or Roselle, Indian sorrel leaves, is another essential part of Andhra cuisine.

I read that you get the best variety of gongura from Guntur city of Andhra Pradesh. They make Gongura pachadi, Gongura mutton, Gongura Pickle etc. In Andhra, it is difficult consider food without gongura.

Gongura comes in two varieties, red stemmed one and green stemmed one. Red stemmed ones are called Roselle and they are sourer than green stemmed variety. Gongura /Roselle/Florida Cranberry/Jamaican sorrel/Indian Sorrel (Hibiscus sabdariffa) is red stemmed variety. It is native of India to Malaysia found in West Indies, Central America, in India and Burma leaves are used mainly; rest of the world (Thailand, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago , Africa) its calyx the outer covering of the flower buds is used to make drinks and in food coloring. Roselle/ gongura buds are used to make jam and jelly. If you want to read take a look at here. The stems are fiber rich and it is substituted for jute. Gongura is pulicha keerai in tamil, Ambadi in Marathi and Pitwaa in hindi, Pandi/pundi in Kannada, if you want to rest local Indian names take look at here

Health benefits include its diuretic, cholerectic, febrifugal and hypotensive, decreasing the viscosity of the blood and stimulating intestinal peristalsis. And also it is rich in vitamin C and other minerals.

Green stemmed variety is the garden sorrel/ spinach dock (Rumex acetosa), often simply called sorrel, is cultivated as a garden herb or leaf vegetable (pot herb). It is commonly used in East European cuisine and there is a milder variety called French sorrel (Rumex scutatus (French or “round-leafed” sorrel) used in French cuisine. Young leaves are used to make salad and is cooked to make stew or soup. If you want read more from here. The presence of oxalic acid produces acidic and tart or sour notes that are not so prominent in young leaves, which are preferred for harvesting. Sorrel is available year-round, but it is at its youngest and mildest in spring. It is high in vitamin A and contains some calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and vitamin C. Once you cook the sorrel leaves amount of oxalic acid content gets reduced.

On a trip Indian store I spotted a fresh bunch of Gongura/Roselle, however I was reluctant to buy them as I don’t know how to cook them. Then one lady came to aisle and started picking one bunch, I asked her how do you cook it, she told you can just pressure cook them with dal and make it as a stew. I decide to try them. She even told me to try to pick young leaves as they are tastier than old ones. I bought a bunch and made this stew with toor dal/ split pigeon’s peas. I try to make it authentic as possible, so pressure cooked the dal and cooked gongura separately and added crushed garlic, green chilies and cumin seeds. I think the tanginess the gongura is amazing. You need to try this delicious dish which goes well with rice. My friend Suja told me that I need to season them with little ghee and asafetodia at the end of cooking. Next time I will try that.

I bought the dried calyx of Gongura/Roselle which sells as Hibiscus flower/Flor de Jamaica to make Hibiscus tea. Next post is going to that one. Please stay tuned for that.

By the way how you cook gongura ? Do you have any family recipe let me know?

Here comes the recipe of gongura pappu

Gongura pappu/ Pulicha keerai kootu/ Lentil stew with Roselle /Florida cranberry /Indian Sorrel leaves

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 serving

Ingredients

2 cups chopped Gongura/ Indian Sorrel /Roselle leaves
½ cup Cooked Toor dal/Split Pigeon peas
1 tablespoon urad dal/ split black gram
11/2cup water+ extra for cooking the Toor dal
2 no of chopped green chilies
2 no of Red chili halved
¾cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon Cumin seeds
½ teaspoon Mustard seeds
2 no of garlic cloves crushed
1 teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Turmeric powder
1 sprig of Curry leaves: 1 sprig
Coriander leaves: 1 tablespoon
Oil: 2 tablespoon (I used olive oil)

Directions

Pluck and clean the Gongura/Roselle/Indian sorrel leaves, remove stem, wash them in running water and chop into fine pieces and set aside.
In pressure cooker cook the toor dal with 1 ½ cup water for 3 whistles (it takes about 15-20 minutes) and set aside.
In a medium sauce pan heat 1 ½ tablespoon of oil and add , mustard, cumin seeds and crushed garlic and halved red chilies once they starts splutters add chopped onion, green chilies and curry leaves fry them until they become translucent or change color it takes about 6 minutes.
To this add cleaned gongura leaves and cook until they are wilted it takes about 7 minutes.
Once they are well done add cooked toor dal and turmeric and let it boil for another 9 minutes with stirring in between. Adjust salt if needed. Add water if needed to make desired consistency.
Enjoy with rice.

Notes

To make it authentic add little ghee and asafetodia while you remove from the fire.
Make sure to wash gongura leaves before storing them for long time. Use it immediately as they tend to lose their charm on refrigeration.

Now You can Save and Print recipes from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

Jul 17, 2013 · 8 Comments

If you are looking for a way to save and print your favorite recipes from Zesty South Indian Kitchen I have happy news to announce. Now you can do that with a click of a button. I have partnered with ZipList, which is great online recipe resource and you can save your entire favorite recipe from this site. ZipList is also a great tool for finding out our neighborhood groceries store deals. As every dollar counts, it is always best to know about deals beforehand.

You can also use ZipList to save recipes from sites you love like epicurious, Washington post etc as well as from favorite food bloggers.

If you want to know how it works, go to menu bar of zestysouthindiankitchen, you’ll see a “recipe box” link.

Give a click; it will take you to the ZipList site where you can find the offers.

Make sure to set up an account with them, if you already do not have one, and then start saving recipes from your favorite sites, as well as add them to your shopping list or meal planner. Is it great?

If you like to save it in your mobile device, that’s also possible.

If you an app fan, here is the apps for that too.

I have this feature only in my new recipes at this time, but as I get time I will try to add ZipList to the older recipes as much as possible. In the mean time you can enjoy the new recipes as well recipes from the other sites too in Ziplist.

Medovik/Medovink/Russian Honey Cake for Baking Partners Challenge 12

Jul 15, 2013 · 42 Comments

Almost one year ago in July 26^th few friends decide to start a group home baker’s group. We baked our first cake and revealed on 15^th August. Every month we get expose to new recipes or new techniques. It really fun, we were able to bake difficult macrons, pillowy cotton cheese cake, melt in mouth chocolate cream cheesecookies, spongy bread with tangzhong method etc are few. I was able to make few great friends. I was also happy that we are small group but always try to bake challenge recipes on time. Number doesn’t matter what matters is the quality that we have. It is also coincidence that this month we baked cake.

This month challenge recipe was suggested by Humi of Gheza-e-shiriin suggested Medovik/Medovink/ Russian Honey cake/Honey bread and Saraswathi of Sara’s kitchenshared this Lemon Glow Chiffon cake. I was familiar with chiffon cake, as it is easily available in bakeries. So decide to try that later, for this month challenge I want to try Medovik/Russian honey cake as I never heard of them. After reading I came to know that it is one of the most popular cakes in Russia. It is also popular in central, north and Eastern Europe. It has 6 cookie type layers which are combined with a sour cream type of cream or Dulce de leche. Rest of countries love to decorate their cake with nuts and scraps of baked cookies, where as in Slovakia and Czech people like to decorate their cake with a beautiful folk art. Take a look at here to read more about its history. It is more a cookie than cake stuffed with filling. Finished product will looks more like a crepe cake covered with filling.

Since challenge recipe has two versions on with sour cream and other with Dulce de leche. I bought both. Then carefully look at the recipe, I came to know that there is both honey and sugar in cookie and also in frosting. So I decide to reduce 1 cup of sugar to 1 tablespoon in the cookie and in the filling I didn’t add any extra sugar. I use two kind of filling, one is with sour cream, and strawberry cream cheese spread and whipped cream. Second one is dulce de leche and whipped cream. I found that these filling slightly runny and in order to make it medium consistency you need to use cream cheese instead of cream cheese spread or powder sugar.

On the day of baking you can’t enjoy this delicious treat, you need to weight overnight to get the filling gets soaked into the cookies and mingle with it. I baked a 6 layer cookie and then filled with sourcream cream cheese filling and ducle de leche whipped cream then topped with pistachios and powdered leftovers of cookie. It is delicious my prince enjoyed as such, while my daughter is fond of only filling. Hubby did a small taste test. I enjoyed the whole.

If you like sandwich cookies, then try this, it has unique flavor of honey and sugar well balanced with caramel ducle de leche and tangy sour cream –cream cheese spread. Yummy that is the only word I can say. My version is not overly sweet, if you want more sweet dessert then increase sugar in cookie and also filling.

If you want to know what other baking partners are baked, please visit each one of them as they tell each individual stories.

If you want to bake with us from next month, and be part of baking partners then shoot me e-mail.

Here comes the recipe

Dough is made like this

Cookie layer is made like this

After baking

Fillings

Assembly of cake

Medovik/Medovink/Russian Honey Cake

Preparation time: 1 hour

Baking time: 20 minutes

Yield 6 inch cake with 6 cookie layer

For the Dough
2 eggs( 120g)
1 tablespoon(12g) sugar
2 tablespoons(40g) honey
3 .5 tablespoons (50 g) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon (5g) baking soda
2 cup (280g) all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons of pistachios

Filling

Sour cream-cream cheese whipped cream

½ cup sour cream

¾ cup whipped cream

8.oz Strawberry cream cheese spread( Use cream cheese for better consistency)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

A pinch of salt

Dulce de leche whipped cream*

½ cup dulce de leche

1 cup whipped cream

*Add 2 tablespoon of powdered sugar to make filling to thicken

Directions

In a heat proof mixing bowl add egg and sugar and lightly mix.
In a microwave safe bowl add honey and butter and microwave at 30 seconds for high.
In a double boiler, cook the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly with a spoon or a balloon whisk, until the ingredients are well blended and the mixture is smooth, about 3 minutes.
Add the baking soda, and cook, stirring constantly, for another half a minute. The mixture will somewhat whiten and increase in bulk. Remove the bowl from the heat.
Gradually add 2 cups of the flour to the mixture, mixing with a spoon with each addition, until you obtain dough that is somewhat sticky and has consistency of play dough. If the dough thickens add little hot water to make pliable dough.
Do not be tempted to add more flour as the dough will harden as it cools off.
Divide the dough into 6 parts and about 79g, shape each part into a ball.

Bake the cookies

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper.
Now, take one dough ball and put it in the middle of your tortilla maker of cutting board. With your fingers or roller, press onto the dough and flatten it into a thin 5 ½ inch circle using a bowl as a mould. Trim of the sides to make a perfect circle. If the dough sticks to your hands, dip your fingers in flour before pressing onto the dough. The flattened dough may appear somewhat transparent in some places - it is OK. But take care not to tear it and patch with a piece of dough if you do.
Bake each cookie on the middle rack of the oven for 5 minutes, until it is light golden on top. The dough will slightly puff up, but don’t expect it to rise as a sponge cake. Do not over bake.
Remove from the oven, gently run a spatula underneath the cookie to loosen it, and then remove from the baking sheet.
Repeat the process for all 6 layers. You will be able to bake all the cookies in two turns.
Reserve the scraps as you need crumb to top and sides of the cake. It will take 10 minutes to bake the scraps.

Assemble the cake

Spread a generous amount of sour cream-cream cheese whipped cream onto one cookie, then top with another. Then fill with dulce de leche whipped cream. Then top with another cookie Continue in this manner - stacking the layers on top of one another and spreading some cream in-between. Cover the sides and top of the cake with cream as well.
Finely grind the baked trim-offs with pistachios. Sprinkle the crumbs generously on top of the cake and lightly press some around it.
At this point, the cake will be hard. Leave the cake aside to soften, refrigerate overnight. The cookies will have absorbed the cream and the cake will be soft and ready.

This is recipe is adapted from Coolnarika and azcookbook

Red White and Blue Cupcakes

Jul 9, 2013 · 63 Comments

Delicious Red white and blue cupcakes with patriotic theme made with vanilla cupcakes colored in red , white and blue. Perfect for the celebrations.

If you are looking for simple and fun filled desserts for this July 4th then here is it. Simple Red white and blue cupcakes made vanilla extract layered with different colors, I used food color to create red white and blue. These are easy to put together and ready within 30 minutes.

What we are looking in simple vanilla cupcakes is it should be moist, and taste perfect and sweetness needs to balanced well with frosting and cupcakes.

Vanilla cakes and I do not have a good connection until now. Means I have tried a lot of vanilla cakes, however most of them turned out to be brick dry, some are okay. None of them satisfied my taste buds. If you ask me about vanilla cake it is simple just mix flour, eggs and vanilla, then why is it so hard to get the right taste? You are right, but recipes I tried are not good. I look for moist crumb which was lacking in most of the recipes. I tried an eggless vanilla cake recipe; it turned out to be good. I will blog about that in the near future. Eggless cake doesn’t hold the frosting as I wished for, so again I was in hunt for a perfect vanilla cake recipe for my kid’s birthdays. I am planning on baking on my own creation.

After numerous searches again Google helped me to find this recipe. Uniqueness of this recipe is it has cake flour and All-purpose flour. I used butter and egg with vanilla the star ingredient. Since my daughter wants a blue cupcake, I thought I will make one for this July 4^th. I made this fire cracker cupcake with red, white and blue color. The Inspiration I took it from this recipe.

Frosting I used is from my Wilton class by substituting half of frosting with butter as teacher told us for butter cream frosting, you need some shortening to hold the shape, butter alone can’t do that job perfectly.

I think I end my search for perfect vanilla cake. Now I need to find a perfect chocolate cake. I will do that in the meantime.

Here comes the recipe, try it, I can give you assurance it won’t let fail you.

butter cream

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Red White and Blue Cupcakes

Delicious patriotic cupcakes made with vanilla cupcakes colored in red , white and blue. Perfect for the celebrations.

Prep Time15

Cook Time22

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: #patriotic cupcakes, #redwhiteand blue cupcakes

Servings: servings

Calories: 1005kcal

Ingredients

½ cup cake flour
¼ cup all purpose flour
½ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter room temperature, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 eggs
¼ cup+3 tablespoon milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
Red blue icing color(gel color)
For butter cream
¼ cup solid vegetable shortening
¼ cup ½ stick butter or margarine softened
½ teaspoon clear vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar approximately ½ lb.
1 tablespoons milk
Makes:
About 1 ½ cups of icing.

Instructions

Directions for cake
Preheat oven to 350° F and line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
In bowl of stand mixer add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and stir together using paddle attachment for about a minute. Enough to get them nice and combined.
With mixer on low, drop in butter, a few cubes at a time continuing until all butter is in and mixer resembles coarse sand.
In a small bowl mix milk, egg and vanilla.
With mixer still on low slowly pour in milk, egg and vanilla. Turn mixer to medium and beat for 2 minutes until batter is smooth, scraping sides of bowl as needed.
Divide batter into three equal parts; add one portion with red and other with blue icing color. Leave the third one colorless. Mix well so that colors gets combined well.
Fill liners ⅔ full, with heaping 1 tablespoon red color first and then white color and finally add blue color batter and bake for 22 minutes until centers are set and toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool completely before frosting.
Directions for Vanilla butter cream frosting
In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.
For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using

Notes

Recipe of cake adapted from here which in turn adapted from Back in the Day Bakery

Recipe of butter cream adapted from here

Nutrition

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

Fore more cupcakes recipes check here

Strawberry monster cupcakes

Red White and Blue Fruit Salad with Spices (Chaat)

Jul 3, 2013 · 40 Comments

While growing up, fruit salad meant cutting all kinds of available fruits in the house and addition of custard milk to it and to make it into a creamy stuff. It is more like custard than fruit salad. Mom used to make it every other week for us. She would include all the seasonal fruit available there. There is also a version of eating fruits In India and Pakistan, wherein they make fruit chaat with seasonal fruits and off course it has spices, mainly chaat masala.

My daughter loves to eat salad in her lunch box; her salad must have carrot, red bell pepper and apple or pear with dill pickle and raspberry vinaigrette. One time I bought accidently some other vinaigrette. She doesn’t even want to touch it. Raspberry vinaigrette should be made by Ken’s Steak House dressing. No other company’s vinaigrette t appeals to my 4 year old. I don’t know how come she knows about the brand. When I was kid I didn’t care about the brands. May be it is the taste of this particular vinaigrette? Do your kids have any preferences?

Nidhi likes strawberry banana in smoothie which her evening snack. She calls it as strawberry juice. I blend strawberry, banana, milk and sugar to a creamy consistency and gave it to her. She will drink it in her special orange cup with straw. My prince also loves it.

In her school they are teaching her about making patriotic cake with play dough. I thought I will make some red white and blue salad instead of smoothie for her evening snack. I thought for a change I will make fruit chaat with strawberries, banana, apple and blueberries. I added lime juice, salt, chaat masala, black salt. If you want it spicy add pepper or red chili powder. Since I want to feed to my little one I didn’t add any chili or pepper powder. My hubby loves to takes his guava, mango with pinch of salt and red chili powder.

Chaat masala is unique spice blend of cumin seeds, fennel seeds, dry mango powder, black salt, Carom seeds, powdered ginger, mint etc. If you want to make it homemade here is the recipe

So give it try when you need some change in your usual salad. You can also add boiled potato or sweet potato. However I skipped that.

Hope everybody is busy with 4th of July celebration, fire up the grill and enjoy the parade and fireworks.

Red white and Blue Fruit Salad with Spices

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Yield: 2 serving

Ingredients

1 small banana

6 no strawberries

1 Apple

¼ cup blueberries

¼ teaspoon of roasted cumin powder

¼ teaspoon chaat masala (I used store bought)

⅛ teaspoon of salt

¼ teaspoon black salt

1 teaspoon lime juice

Directions

In a bowl, chop banana and strawberries, apple and then add blueberries. When you are ready to serve add lime juice, salt and spice powders. Enjoy

Chinnappam/Fried Savory Rice Cookies

Jul 2, 2013 · 27 Comments

Please pray for the 19 firefighter’s who lost their life in the line of duty in the Arizona fire. Firefighter’s always do awesome jobs by putting their life in danger to save life and property of others.

I hadn’t heard about this cookie until my friend, Suja of Kitchen Corner Try It sent me a mail with few recipes from the book Fresh flavors of India by Das Sreedharan, she borrowed from the library. Actually we were discussing on the phone about Jewish food in Kerala after reading an article in New York Times. We both are two food enthusiasts who love to research and discover the different dishes of Kerala, South India.

I have always dreamed about going to go to each and every country and take a culinary tour and learn dishes from the way it has been cooked. May be dream job like Antony Boudrain Parts Unknown. I am dreaming too much isn’t it? Since it is dream, everything is possible in dream.

It has been really hot over here. I felt sad for scorching wildfire that destroying the life and property in Yarnell, in Central Arizona. Looks like nature is furious in her way, here it is scorching sun, in India it was floods that killing people, in an YouTube video, I have seen a family wiped out by running water, they were crossing the stretch of river with hardly any water, and all of a sudden it turns into a gush of running water coming very fast, and few persons who are stranded in between trying to hold themselves, but finally one man falls down and that giveaway and finally the entire family of 5 is doomed and float away. In the news it has been reported that no of causalities may not ever be known. Killer floods happened in the famous Hindu pilgrim sites in India, Kedarnath, Badarinath in the state of Uttarakhand. When I called my aunt in Trivandrum, Kerala, she told me it has been raining heavily, and as a result the schools are closed. My cousin‘s son was enjoying his unexpected holiday.

Coming back to the recipe, this snack is made with rice flour. To this add ground shallots, coconut and cumin seeds, and salt with water. Finally add this ground mixture, black sesame seeds to the rice flour to make thick dough. Then pinch out small balls of dough and flattened it into a small disc of 11/2-2 inch diameter with ⅛ inch thickness. Prick the disc with fork in both sides to prevent the disc from puffing while frying in the oil. This is my addition of step to the recipe, as it is not mentioned in the original recipe. Taste wise it is closer to the famous Kerala snacks like Murruku and Kzhulappam. May be we can call them cousins. However it differs from both because of addition of coconut. You need to fry them until it is crisp otherwise it won’t taste great. First batch was slightly under done, after taste testing hubby doesn’t liked it. Next batch onwards I made sure that it should comes out from the oil very crisp.

If you liked some crispy snacks for with your tea or coffee, you can try this. I don’t know the exact history of this dish; whether it is a discovery of chef Das Sreedhran’s or it is an existed as snack in northern or central Kerala. I haven’t heard or seen in southern part of Kerala, from I am. I would love to hear the stories if your mother or aunt or grandma makes this kind of snack or what you call them?

Here comes the recipe.

Chinnappam/Fried Savory Rice Cookies

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Yield: 40 no.

Ingredients

2cups/400g rice flour
75g/3oz shallots, peeled
50g/2oz freshly grated coconut or desiccated
1 ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoon black sesame seeds
4 cups canola oil for frying

1cup water
¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

Directions:

In a large dry frying pan or wok, toast the rice flour over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly, until the flour turns golden. Remove from the heat and allow cooling.
In a Grinder or blender add shallots, coconut and cumin seeds and add water and process the mixture for 2-3 minutes or until smooth and everything gets combined.
Transfer the toasted rice flour to a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add the coconut mixture and, using a wooden spoon, work the liquid into the flour until you have thick, dough. Add more
water if necessary.
Take small amounts of the dough and shape them into balls the size of a large marble. Place it in a Ziploc bag and press it into a 11/2 -2 inch circle. Prick both sides with fork that will prevent them from puffing up in the oil.
Heat some oil in a deep-fryer, wok or large, heavy saucepan (the oil should be ½ inch or so deep). When oil is hot or 350F, fry few chinnapam at a time for 4-5 minutes or until it becomes golden brown. Remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper.
Allow to cool before serving. Store it in an airtight container; it will remain crispy for a week.

Recipe adapted from the Fresh flavors of India by Das Sreedharan

I am Linking this delicious cookies to Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here.

If you like this post please follow this blog

Favorite Recipes Event: One Pot Meal

Jul 2, 2013 · 11 Comments

This month Favorite recipes event is taking palace at My Cooking Journey .She has great blog and amazing recipes as well as traditional Indian recipes.
Thanks Sowmya of Nivedhanams for guest hosting last month's egg less recipes. I was amazed by the various eggless bakes.
One pot meal is a real help when it comes to lunch or dinner. So don your apron and make some tasty and delicious one pot meal, whether it is a sweet or savory you can link it. Hope over to Sandhya of My Cooking Journey for the rules.

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   Ongoing
August: Tasty Food Recipes: '         Curries/gravies on dinner plate
September Few minutes wonders      Lunch box ideas
October:   The Big Sweet Tooth :         Payasam/Kheer

November Shruti Rasoi Street Foods
December Twisted Chef Favorite Winter Recipes

2014

January    Open
February  Esho-Bosho-Aahare        Starter or Snacks
March     Open

Please contact me at favoriterecipes12 (at)gmail(dot)com

Chocolate Caramel With Sea Salt Tart/ Tartlets

Jun 29, 2013 · 35 Comments

Mother Nature nurtures every living thing in different way. Yes we came to experience her way of treating the life of her kiths and kin yesterday. On our way to public library, there is an apartment complex with shallow pond and water fountains. Pond has lot of inhabitants including, fish and turtles and duck. In between the apartments and a small road, even there is a sign saying that watch out for ducks as they are crossing.

My daughter likes to feed them. So mostly in the evening we will visit that pond, so that Nidhi can feed them. Last time she was brave and ended up getting bitten while feeding the ducks by her hand. So this time she was more cautious, she started giving one or two pop corn to duck, as she was giving several ducks started coming towards her for food.

First there were lot male ducks/Drake trying to get more food from Nidhi, then there is female duck/hen came to get the food. While she was feeding them with her pop corn bag, we a saw a mother duck and her 12 ducklings, come and wait few distance away from all the other ducks. I told my daughter to feed her and her kids, too. Mother duck was still afraid but she wants to taste the popcorn, when Nidhi gave her, she had few bites. Then her cute ducklings started coming in line and following each other in a queue.

All of a sudden few villain ducks started attacking those ducklings, one even got severe bitten. That one turned upside down. We felt so sad, so hubby went there and carried the injured duckling in his hand. After few minutes, duckling started to lift his/her head, so hubby left him /her with mom. Mom came and inspected and told something in her language and started to move on. Other ducklings followed her, while this injured one also started following mother; all of a sudden he/she fell in the water and even made lot of noise to get attention of mother. However, the mother duck moved on to other part of pond with her 11 duckling. This one struggled and swam for few minutes after that I was not able to find her or him.
Nidhi, hubby and I got upset, hubby told me, and we have to come tomorrow to see if he or she survived. I told him, if there are 12 ducklings, then it survived otherwise it has died. Nidhi was asking me while returning home, why mommy duck is not taking care of the injured one? I told her I don’t know. But in the mind I thought she has to take this drastic step. May be mommy duck want to protect the rest of her brood, so that she won’t lose any more. Next day we went back again, mommy duck has only 11 ducklings, the one who got injured the day before had died. That is Mother Nature; even mother duck can’t save her duckling.

Okay coming back to food, I made this delicious chocolate tart for this month Daring Baker’s challenge. Chocolate has always weakness for me, now my daughter and son love it too. Earlier I was a fan of white chocolate, but now I like dark chocolate. My kids love dark chocolate too than the white one. When I ask her which cake you want. Her answer will be immediately chocolate cup cakes. There are a few other recipes of pie and tart for this month challenge, however I choose this chocolate tart. I want to try cracked pie; however our hostess Rachaelfrom pizzarossa mentioned that it is deadly sweet. If I made that sweet, hubby who is diabetic can’t even come nearby. So I decide on this chocolate caramel tart in mini tartlet. I also learned how to make caramel with heavy cream. Usually I make caramel with sugar and then dilute them with water. I think adding heavy cream to dilute the caramelized sugar make it more flavorful.

I made only 4 inch mini tartlet, since the challenge recipe given for making 10 inch tart crust, I used this recipe of mini tartlet recipe from William –Sonoma and skipped the egg and reduced the sugar to make all butter shell. For caramel and filling I used the recipe suggested for the challenge. Since I used not so hot heavy cream my caramel is not runny as it supposed to be. At first I was in quite dilemma thinking of making the tart eggless. Then when it comes to chocolate mousse part, making eggless is difficult; I need some agent to thickening the chocolate mousse. I don’t like the taste of cornstarch in the recipe. Further happening of tart making is done around 9.00 P.M. in the night, hubby rushing over to finish everything and let my daughter to make to sleep. So I tried with one egg, it created delicious chocolate mousse. Then after finished the baking I stored the tart in the refrigerator for overnight, when ready to serve sprinkled with some coarse sea salt.

Trust me each bite is taking me to tasty paradise. Try this it is a keeper recipe,

Chocolate and Caramel Tart

Active time: 1 hour altogether

Baking time: 35 minutes altogether

Cooling time: approx. 2 hours altogether

Yield: 3 -4 inch tartlet

Ingredients

For Tart

1 Tablespoon very cold water
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½cup+ ⅛cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Half of 1⁄3 cup sugar
1⁄8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoon (½ stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into
1⁄4-inch cubes

Directions:

In a small bowl, stir together the water and vanilla; set aside.

To make the dough by hand, in a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the texture resembles coarse cornmeal, with butter pieces no larger than small peas. Add the water-vanilla mixture and mix with a fork just until the dough pulls together.

To make the dough in a stand mixer fitted with the flat beater, stir together the flour, sugar and salt in the mixer bowl. Add the butter and beat on medium-low speed until the texture resembles coarse cornmeal, with butter pieces no larger than small peas. Add the water-vanilla mixture and beat just until the dough pulls together.

Transfer the dough to a work surface, pat into a ball and flatten into a disk. Use the dough immediately, or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, about 30 minutes.

To roll out the dough, on a lightly floured board, flatten the disk with 6 to 8 gentle taps of the rolling pin. Lift the dough and give it a quarter turn. Lightly dust the top of the dough or the rolling pin with flour as needed, and then roll out until the dough is about ⅛ inch thick. Use a small, sharp knife to cut out a round or rounds 2 inches greater in diameter than your tart or larger tartlet pans. Use a small, sharp knife or a cookie cutter to cut out rounds ½ to 1 inch greater in diameter than your miniature tartlet pans. This recipe makes three 4 inch tartlets.

Nut Dough Variation: Add 2 Tbs. ground toasted pecans, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts to the flour mixture and proceed as directed.

Make-Ahead Tip: The tart dough may be made ahead and frozen for up to 1 month. To freeze, place the dough round on a 12-inch cardboard circle and wrap it well with plastic wrap. Alternatively, use the round to line a tart pan and wrap well.

Blind baking

Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4. Lightly grease three 4 inch tartlet pan, ideally a fluted metal one with a removable bottom

Line the tart pan with baking paper and fill with dry beans or pie weights and bake until set, around 9 minutes. Remove pie weights and paper and bake another 6 minutes, until dry.

Remove the pastry from the oven and allow cooling in the pan. Leave the oven on.

Filling

For the caramel

3 ½ tablespoons (52.5 ml) (50 gm) (1.75oz) granulated sugar

3 ½ tablespoons (50ml) whole cream, hot

For the chocolate mousse

1 Jumbo egg

3 ½ tablespoons (50ml) whole milk

2 tablespoon powdered sugar

7 tablespoons whole cream

4 oz dark chocolate, broken into pieces

Coarse sea salt

For the caramel

1. Spread the sugar evenly across the bottom of a small, heavy-based, non-coated saucepan (it needs to be metallic so you can see the color). Heat over a medium-low heat without stirring until the sugar starts to melt and becomes liquid around the edges. Once about a quarter of it has melted, gently stir continuously with a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula until it turns a deep amber color, a few minutes depending on how high the heat is.

2. Remove from heat and very slowly and carefully pour all (100ml) of the hot cream into the caramel, stirring continuously - it will splutter and steam so be very careful as it is extremely hot. The cream needs to hot and poured very slowly, otherwise the caramel will seize. Keep stirring until it stops bubbling and is well combined then set aside to cool. I couldn't take a lot of pictures of this process because I needed both my hands!

For the chocolate mousse

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg together with the milk (and powdered sugar, if using).

2. In a small heavy-based saucepan, bring all of the cream to a boil.

3. Remove cream from heat and add the broken chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted completely and the mixture is smooth. Let cool a few minutes.

4. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg and milk mixture and stir gently with a spatula to obtain a smooth cream.

5. Spread the cooled caramel in the bottom of the cooked tart shell.

6. Gently pour the chocolate cream over the caramel so you don't disturb it.

7. Place the tart into the hot oven and bake for 35 minutes, until the filling has set but is still wobbly in the center.

8. Remove the tart from the oven and allow cooling to room temperature. If using a tart pan with removable bottom, unmold before serving. Just before serving sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Pastry adapted from mini tartlet recipe from William –Sonoma and filling adapted from Valéry Drouet’s “Chocolat“

Vazhai poo Vadai/Koombu vada/ Banana Blossom Lentil Fritters

Jun 25, 2013 · 52 Comments

I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my readers and friends for encouraging me to keep blogging through these years.For making this little blog to one in a million once in a life time with stories, happening, tidbits from my life and also about some food.

Our house has a small backyard but not much of a front yard. Both hubby and I are avid gardening enthusiasts. We have planted almost whatever space we can use in the yard, but left a little space with the grass for my kids to play. They too help us with our gardening; my son helps by pulling out every plant we have. Whereas daughter will help in watering the plants by making sure that she gets wet herself at end of watering business.

In my hometown Kerala, a typical house would have few plants and trees in their front and backyard. Usually plants like Hibiscus (chembarathi) , holly basil (Thulasi), Ixora (Thetti poov) and Roses . Backyard should have yard beans, curry leaves, Banana plant, Jackfruit, Mango, and Coconut tree. In my grandma’s house, fence is either covered with bougainvillea or pineapple. So when I got my first backyard, I planted, Hibiscus (chembarathi) , holly basil( Thulasi), Ixora (Thetti poov) ,Arabian Jasmine( Kodamulla), Orange marmalade(kanakambaram), bougainvillea and roses. However I removed roses two years ago as my daughter would get injured by rose thorn. I have curry leaves and yard beans plant. Few years ago on a Lowe’s trip, we bought a small banana plant, however it turned out be ornamental one. So my dream of banana plant died soon. Then I told my friend and neighbor Andrea that I am badly looking for banana plant. She told me I have few in my backyard I will give you small plant. She bought two small plants, which we planted in the backyard. Andrea left the Houston after one month. However plant which she gave survived a few winters and now this March it started giving flower and fruit. My hubby called Andrea, and even told her that banana plant started flowering. Andrea, did lot of help for us, especially with my baby girl. She was there with every doctor’s appointment from 34 weeks and during delivery, after delivery she helped us with shopping. She was present during birthday parties until 2^nd birthday of my princess.

So when that banana plant starred bearing fruit, I was too ecstatic, however, it give only 4 sets of fruit, and I know mom used to make bananablossom stir-fry, so asked my hubby to get the blossom from plant, and I was eager to update the picture of recipe, however my banana blossom turned out to be very small, it is not enough for stir fry, so decide to try this fritters.

When I was searching for the recipes in Google, I found lot of recipes with chana dal; I don’t like using only one lentil. So I used my own parippu vada recipe and added banana blossom there. Added some extra spices, like cumin and fennel seed, garlic, curry leaves and cilantro/coriander leaves. Adding banana blossom made it slightly bitter in taste. When I asked hubby about the bitter taste, he told me “fried ones are always tasty’. Sometime fried ones makes your coffee/tea time delectable. This one holds that title.

This recipe is important to me is because banana blossom is homegrown and harvested from my back yard. If you are a fan of banana blossom, try this. You will like it here go the recipe.

Vazhai poo Vadai/Koombu vada/ Banana Blossom Lentil Fritters

Preparation time: Soaking time 3hours
Grinding time: 5 minutes
cooking time: 1 hour

Yield: 14 no

Ingredients

½ cup Toor dal/pigeon peas
¼cup Chana dal/Split chick peas
2 tablespoon Split urad dal/ split black gram
1 cup Banana blossom ( Vazhai koombu) chopped
¾ cup Onion ( chopped finely)
1 clove Garlic chopped finely
1 no Serrano pepper/Green chili (chopped finely)
1 inch Ginger chopped
⅛ teaspoon Asafetodia
2 Red chilies
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
¼teaspoon Fennel seeds
¾ teaspoon Salt or to taste
1 sprig of curry leaves
1 tablespoon coriander/cilantro leaves
Oil: 4 cup( I used canola oil)

Directions:

Soak Toor dal and chana dal along with red chilies separately for about 3 hours. Wash and drain the dals /lentils in a colander and keep aside for 5 minutes.
Grind half of the mixture of dal with red chilies into a fine paste where as there ½ of rest into coarse paste and remaining ½ into slightly broken pieces or just two pulses in a food processor or grinder. Then pulse the banana blossom for 3-4 times.
Add finely chopped onions and ginger, garlic, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, curry leaves, coriander leaves, (if using) along with salt, asafetodia into the ground mixture of dal and banana blossom mix until everything incorporated well.
Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan until it becomes smoking hot or around 360 F.
Make small dal patties similar to large oatmeal cookie (about 2 ½ inch round) using your palm or plastic film (I found using palm is more comfortable) with rubbing you palm with water. Gradually slide the patties into the hot oil. Fry about 4-5 patties at a time. Flip in between so that all sides get browned evenly. About 8 minutes is required to get one batch done in medium flame.
Enjoy with chutney or ketchup, it taste best with ketchup.

I am linking this delicious

If you like this post please follow this blog

Thai Yellow Curry with vegetables/kaeng kari (Vegetarian Version)

Jun 22, 2013 · 35 Comments

I love Thai cuisine that everybody knows by now. My hubby too started asking me to make Thai curries. Last week he had lunch with one of his friends Patricia and her hubbyat a Thai restaurant. And for a change he ordered Thai yellow curry with some sides and rice from the menu. He fell in love with it and come home and told me, do you know yellow curry. You should make it is really tasty. I told him will you take me to Hong Kong Market. He immediately nodded his head and asked me what you want. I told him I need lemon grass and galangal, we get it fresh there.

After reaching there, I bought lot of stuffs, shallots, lemon grass, galangal, watercress, bok choy, Gai lan(Chinese broccoli), Jackfruit, lychee. Then soy sauce, curry pastes, agar flakes etc. Finally hubby told me you came to the store to buy only lemon grass and galangal, but ended up buying lot of stuff. I don’t know I am like a lost child in toy store when reach that store. You say something and do other. I smiled at him. Yesterday I made soup with bok choy, but didn’t get to take photographs though; I will make it once again and click it.

Today hubby is coming for lunch; I thought I will surprise him with his favorite yellow curry. I wanted to make the curry paste from the scratch. Even after buying lot of stuff from Hong Kong Market, I forgot to buy fresh turmeric, so used turmeric powder. I also need to find cilantro root, which is indispensible in Thai cooking, along with galangal, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, coriander roots, Kaffir lime rind/leaves and shrimp paste. I read this blog and if you want a veggie or vegan option you can use Vegemite and Marmite. As usual I looked around internet to find the curry paste recipes. I liked this one and this one. So my sauce is adapted from both. However I didn’t add shrimp paste or fish sauce. Please add it if you want to replicate extract restaurant version otherwise, it is pretty close.

This yellow curry and Massaman curry (which is named as king of curries) is originated as part of Thai –Muslim culture, it also has strong influence of Indian cooking. Interestingly I found lot of similarities with my home town cooking. People in Kerala heavily use coconut oil, coconut and coconut milk.

Kerala curry	Thai Yellow curry
Spices like, Red chili, Coriander seeds, cumin seeds, Fennel seeds, Cardamom Mace, Cinnamon Ginger, garlic. Shallots, coriander leaves/ cilantro leaves. Black pepper, turmeric and coconut milk	All the species, coconut milk. Except ginger, it uses galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime rind, shrimp paste, coriander root and white pepper

I made the curry like this: first made the paste, while making the paste I cooked the vegetables to shorten the time. Then in a pan sautéed the paste with coconut oil, and once the raw smell was gone, I added veggies along with cooked water (I didn’t add vegetable stock). I added coconut milk, salt, sugar and top of lemon grass that I had kept aside while cutting it to enhance the flavor. If you want you can added shrimp paste/ or vegemite at this time. Just bring to boil and switch off. Enjoy with rice you want. You can even enjoy with your Appam, dosa or any flat bread. It is Yummy.

If you want you can add chicken, shrimp or any other protein of your choices to this curry.

Thai Yellow Curry with vegetables/kaeng kari (Vegetarian Version)

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

Yellow Curry Paste (This recipes makes about 6 tablespoon paste, you need only 3 tablespoons for making a curry of 4 serving)

3 dried long red chili pods
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon white peppercorns
¼ teaspoon mace
2 cardamom pods
3 one inch sticks of cinnamon
1 /4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons red shallots, minced ( around 2 shallots)
1 tablespoons garlic, minced ( around 2 garlic cloves)
1 tablespoon galangal
2 tablespoons lemongrass (discards the hard part and use only soft fleshy part, Keep the shoot aside and you can add it into curry it will give more flavor)
2 cilantro/coriander roots (you find it is frozen section of Asian market, or fresh from farmers market)* I used shoot of cilantro/coriander leaves as I couldn’t find the roots.
11/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
¼ cup water

For curry

1 cup coconut milk ( I used Thai Kitchen brand)
1-3 cups vegetable stock (recipe here) or you can use vegetables cooked water
1 tablespoon shaved palm sugar or brown sugar
1 potato (chopped into cubes)
1 tablespoon Coconut oil
3 tablespoons Shrimp paste
1 onion (chopped into cubes)
6 Yard long beans cut into 2 inch pieces
2 Carrot cut into 2 inch pieces
1 tablespoon Fresh cilantro leaves, minced (optional)( I didn’t add)
1 Bay leaf
1 teaspoon of salt or to taste
3 cup water

Directions:

Prepare Curry Paste Ingredients
Chili Pods: Soak in hot water for 15 minutes or until soft. Drain (reserve a few tablespoons of water) and chop.
Coriander Seed, Cumin Seed, Fennel, Mace, Cardamom and Cinnamon Stick: Dry roast until fragrant.
Galangal & Turmeric: Peel (sometimes the edge of a spoon works well for this) and chop.
Lemongrass: Remove the outer, very fibrous layers. Strike with a meat tenderizer or heave pan. Chop.
Cilantro/Coriander Roots: If using clean well water and add baking soda in the final washing step and chop into small pieces.
Make the Curry Paste
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor /blender/mortar and pestle and pulse until a smooth paste. Add reserved chili soaking water if necessary.
Curry
Cook vegetables with 2 cups of water until it becomes soft, don’t drain the water.
In a pan heat the coconut oil and add 3 tablespoon of curry paste , fry for few minutes or until raw smell goes. Then add, remaining coconut milk, cooked vegetables with water, palm sugar, shrimp paste( if using) and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Add extra water or seasoning if necessary.

Pain De Mie Complet: A White Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Jun 18, 2013 · 36 Comments

Hope every dad had a wonderful father’s day. My hubby too had an awesome one. His day started with kiss from both prince and princess. He told me that it is the most wonderful gift he got in his life. And he made his famous dal /lentil stew for lunch along with his favorite chapathi from my side. Then rest of the day was gone with shopping, home cleaning and the usual stuff. I called my dad in India and also told him how much I miss him.

In my life I met quite a few wonderful dads. They all amaze me in how much they love and protect their daughters and sons. My dad sacrificed his career to stay in the Trivandrum city to ensure that both I and my sister got the best education possible. After work he always would bring us munchies, and till he retired, we would search his bag to see any goodies were available. Now search is joined along with granddaughters, grandson and daughter. Next is my hubby who doesn’t want to see his princess or prince crying, he is always on soft side, whereas I am strict? He always tells me kids are wonderful gift he got from God. My friend Joy, who is in Stockholm, always updates me with his two kid’s pictures in spite of his busy schedule. Yes for every dad, daughters and sons are special.

I love breads so whenever I visit the library I come home with bread baking books. I have quite a few books in personal collection; however buying every book is not possible. So I borrow book from library. This week borrowed this Book, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread baking by French culinary Institute. I found this book has few interesting recipes which I want to try. While looking for daily breakfast bread, I found this Pain de Mie Complet recipe. Pain de Mie is a type of sliced, packaged bread, usually made in Pullman pan, and I don’t own one so I can’t make it for long time. However this recipe doesn’t need that pan, still you can make toast bread.

This bread has powdered milk, butter and heavy cream. Recipe mentioned in the book has 50% whole wheat flour. We are whole wheat bread loving family so increased the amount of whole wheat to make it slightly healthier. I also used 1 tablespoon of sugar which is not in original recipe. First rise took about 3 hours and the second rise took about 90 minutes. May be my kitchen is cool; so adjust timing according to your kitchen temperature. Also amount of yeast used is less compared to other recipes.

This bread had beautiful way of scoring on the top, I loved that. My scoring technique is still in its infancy. Give an egg wash and bake the bread for about 55 minutes and remove from the oven when the bread registers an internal temperature of 200 °F. If you have a meat thermometer in your hand, you can use that. Cool the bread in the rack for minimum 2 hours. Enjoy the bread as sandwich or as toast with your favorite jelly or jam. Peanut butter and jam will be wonderful choice. We had it with strawberry jam.

If you want to make an eggless version, try brushing the bread with butter or milk. However it won’t have as beautiful a shine as an egg wash.

Here comes the recipe.

Pain De Mie Complet: A White Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Prep Time 20 minutes

First rise: 3 hours

Second rise: 90 minutes

Baking time: 55 minutes

Serves 1 loaf

Ingredients

3cup (300g) King Arthur White Wheat Flour
1 cup (1600g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread flour
1teaspoon(3g) Instant yeast

¼cup (22g) Powdered milk Powder

1 ½ tablespoon (17g) Heavy cream

1 ¼ teaspoon (9g) salt
⅔ cup water
1 tablespoon (15g) Sugar

Directions:

In a microwave safe bowl heat cream and butter for 5 minutes or until the butter melts.
In large bowl or bowl of stand mixer, add flours, salt, sugar, milk powder and yeast. Mix with water and cream butter mixture until everything combines well a sticky but smooth dough.
Knead dough in stand-up mixer with dough hook for about 15 minutes also so that dough should pass window pane test.

Put small amount of oil in clean bowl and add dough, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place dough in warm place to rise until doubled in size, for about 3 hours (placing dough in closed turned-off oven next to large pan of just-boiled water works well).
Oil 9 by 5-inch loaf pan or coat with nonstick spray. Gently turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Press ball of dough into rectangle, about length of pan. Fold rectangle in thirds, as if folding letter. Fold in half again lengthwise, pinching edges and ends together firmly until sealed.
Place dough seam-side-down in pan. Cover loosely with wrap and let rise until about 1 inch above top of pan, about 90 minutes. Toward end of rising time, preheat oven to 350°F.
When you are ready to bake, score the bread with a sharp knife and does an egg wash. Bake for 55 minutes longer or until bottom of loaf sounds hollow when tapped or instant-read thermometer registers 190-200°F when inserted in center. Remove loaf from pan and let cool completely on wire rack.
Enjoy they are great delicious toast.

This recipe is adapted from The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread baking by French culinary Institute.

I am linking delicious bread to Yeast Spotting.

If you like this post please follow this blog

Pepper Jack Gougeres: Pepper Jack Cream puffs: Baking Partner's Challenge12

Jun 15, 2013 · 34 Comments

I am fascinated with French cuisine, especially their pastries makes me want to catch a flight to visit Paris within a day. However travelling to Paris is out of question for the time being at least, with two crying babies, and busy working husband with less vacation time I don’t even bother to have a dream about visits to Paris. My solution to this problem is bake or cooks your favorite French dishes at home. I tried pate choux earlier, I loved it. I tried, profiteroles, croquembouches, Swans etc. I need to try Paris-New York, Éclairs and Gougeres.

For this month baking partners challenge, I selected Pate choux pastries with Éclairs and Gougeres. Moreover I borrowed Thomas Keller Buchon Bakery Book from Library, which is full of breathtaking photographs of pastries. The beautiful pastries are really hard to resist, but I don’t have any access to Bouchon bakery here? I have to don my apron and try the recipes. When I asked my hubby about Éclairs and Gougeres, he immediately nodded head towards a savory pastry. As he is diabetic, sugar is really villain to him.

Then comes the hunt of Gruyère cheese, I found it in Target with a price of $ 10 for a 4 ounce piece, so drop the idea of buying it. Then I went to Wal-Mart and bought Pepper Jack cheese. Among the soft cheese we like pepper jack a lot. Spicy kick from Jalapenos is wonderful. I like Thomas Keller’s book, but don’t like his way of measuring the eggs, as we buy Jumbo egg and each egg is around 60g. I don’t want to waste extra egg, so used only 2 eggs, it turned out be fine.

Gougeres are small cream puff with cheese and usually served as appetizers. According to Wikipedia, these come from Burgundy, Yonne, specifically Tonnerre. They can be really small or served with some filling like mushrooms, beef or harm. They are really cute. If you master the technique of pate choux pastry making, this is really easy to make.

Ingredients needs are only flour, water, butter, egg and cheese. Skipped the pepper from the recipe as the cheese I used was Pepper Jack cheese. You can make these with Gruyère, Comté, or Emmentaler cheese, if you can’t find them use cheddar, pepper jack or any other cheese of your choice. I didn’t use my trusted Kitchen Aid to prevent extra washing step and I used a wooden spoon and hand mixed it to make this. Added cheese in the pate choux pastry and also topped with little cheese before baking. I tried piping the pastries as mentioned the recipes and also used a 1 tablespoon scoop to transfer the dough. I was really ecstatic when they start to puff up in the oven. It took about 35 minutes in my oven to get golden gougeres. They are utterly delicious when they are warm.

If you like cream puffs and cheese this is best appetizer you can think about for any party. In the book, it is mentioned that you can even freeze the shaped Gougeres. When you ready to bake thaw and bake it. Goes well with any wine, my hubby fell in love them so much he even took some to office to munch on. My daughter loved it.

I am glad that through our Baking Partners Challenge we are able to study lots of different baking techniques. Please make sure to take a look at fellow baking partner’s creations. Some members even veganzied the recipe. If you want to join with us for next month bakes, please shoot an e-mail.

Here comes the recipe.

Pepper Jack Gougeres: Pepper Jack Cream puffs

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Baking time: 35 minutes

Yield: 26 bite sized Gougeres

Ingredients

½ cup + 1 ½ tablespoon/144g water

2.2 ounces/63 unsalted butter
¼ teaspoon/1g salt

½ cup + 2 ½ tablespoon/90g all purpose flour
2 no of Jumbo eggs( around 120g)
¾cup/ Grated Pepper Jack Cheese( I used Kraft)

Directions:

Combine the water, butter, salt, pepper in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat and stir until butter is melted. Once the butter has melted, increase heat to medium-high and then bring to a simmer, then remove pan from the heat, with a wooden spoon, stir in all the flour.
Continue to stir for 1 ½ minutes until the mixture has a paste-like consistency, then place over medium-high heat and stir rapidly for 1 minute, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and the bottom of the pan is clean. The dough should be glossy and smooth but not dry.
If you want to use hand then set aside for 5 minutes and then gradually add one egg at a time using a wooden spoon mix everything well so that it gets combined. Then add about ¾^th of the cheese and mix once again to combine.
Or want to proceed with your kitchen aid stand mixer. Immediately transfer the dough to a mixer bowl and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to release some of the moisture. Slowly begin to add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each addition is completely absorbed before adding the next one. Continue adding the eggs, mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl pulled with the paddle but immediately grabs back on again.
Increase speed to medium for 15 seconds to ensure that all the eggs are incorporated. Stop the mixer. When the dough is lifted, it should form a bird's peak- it should hold its shape and turn down on itself but not break off. Add the cheese and pulse to incorporate. (If you don't have a pulse on pour the entire batter into blender and pressed pulse so that the cheese actually got pulsed in.)
Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment pepper or silpat.
Transfer the batter into pastry bag. At this point, you can pipe the batter into mold, if you don’t have mold, piped little free form balls, slightly less than 1 inch in diameter .Piped them onto a baking sheet, spread about 1 ½ inches apart. After piping, use finger tip with little water to push down and get rid of the little tip that is left on top of each one from the piping.( I have used a ½ tablespoon ice cream scoop to make small balls)
If you want you can freeze the gougeres for about four hours until firm. Or you can bake them right away. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 35 minutes or until it become golden brown if you are baking immediately.
If you are baking the frozen one, preheat the oven to 375F. Line the baking sheet with frozen gougeres, leaving about 1 inch between them. Spray lightly with water. Place in the oven, immediately lower temperature to 350F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm.

This recipe is adapted from Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel’s Buchon Bakery Book

Avocado Pineapple lime Smoothie: A diabetic Friendly Smoothie, Gluten and Vegan Free

Jun 11, 2013 · 49 Comments

A delicious diabetic friendly smoothie with fresh avocado, pineapple and lime, simple and easy to put together.

Delicious avocado pineapple lime smoothie with avocado in background

During grocery shopping I was able to find 4 avocado for 1 dollar; they were small still I bought it thinking that I will make some Mexican avocado soup. But didn’t get a chance to make it, so decide to use them before they want to leave me to go to garbage bin. Finally end up making this delicious smoothie with it.

Do you know Avocado are called most perfect fruit of the world, not only it can help up to survive but also helps to prevent and control major disease like Alzheimer’s due to its high concentration of vitamin E, heart disease because of its healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (such as omega-3 fatty acids), and diabetes due to rich fiber content. Also it has anti inflammatory and anti cancer benefits. Read more from here and here.

I don’t know what to call them, smoothie or juice as avocados is the star ingredient and it is really thick. It is really scoop able with a spoon than a drink. I also had a pineapple in hand that I need to use too. So decide to add in smoothie, I have seen a recipe of avocado and pineapple smoothie here in the avocados’ from Mexico site. I know avocado and lime goes well so decide to add some lime to my version of smoothie.

While I was in India, I haven’t seen avocado, I came to know that it is called butter fruit/ Makhanphal in Hindi, available in September to February months. It is mainly grown in Karnataka and also a few other South Indian states. It is not popular as other fruits in India.

My first encounter with avocado was in the form of guacamole I had in Mexican restaurant in West Virginia. I loved it. Now when I buy avocado’s, I usually eat them as such or sometimes try to make a smoothie with banana. I prefer avocado in non diary smoothie, as it is in itself has a rich creamy taste. I think if we add milk or yogurt it will reduce the taste of avocado. I love to make salsa may be next time I will try grilled avocado.

I made this smoothie using a ripe avocado, half of lime and 1 cup of pineapple. I have made sugarless for me and hubby and added some sugar for my daughter and son. My daughter loved her drink very much. She like the color blue and green, so this green drink turned out is one of her favorite one.

If you can find an avocado, grab it and add some lime or lemon and pineapple and your great breakfast smoothie within few minutes.

Here is the recipe.

Blend everything with water, if using add sugar.

Other Avocado smoothie Recipes

Sunrise smoothie

Print Recipe

5 from 5 votes

Avocado Pineapple lime Smoothie: A diabetic friendly Smoothie. Gluten and Vegan free

A delicious diabetic friendly smoothie with fresh avocado, pineapple and lime, simple and easy to put together.

Prep Time5

Total Time5

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: avocado pineapple lime smoothie

Servings:

Calories: 207kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado
½ of one lime
1 cup Chopped pineapple
½ cup water decrease or increase depending upon consistency of your choice

Instructions

Add all ingredients into a blender along with water. Blend it well for about 5 minutes or until you get a thick juice. Enjoy with or without sugar.

Notes

If you want sweetness add 1 tablespoon sugar or ½ tablespoon splenda.

Nutrition

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

Bialys: Chewy Bread rolls

Jun 4, 2013 · 41 Comments

Bialys/ Chewy Bread rolls similar in size and shape to a bagel, filled with sautéed onions, poppyseeds, and fresh bread crumbs.

Bialys/ Chewy Bread rolls Filled with Onion Poppy seed Filling

It is another contribution of Eastern European cuisine to New York, famous like Bagels. I love bagels, just slit open and toasted and slather with cream cheese. They are delicious

What is a bialy?

A bialy is a type of bread, similar in size and shape to a bagel, which is filled with sautéed onions, poppyseeds, and fresh bread crumbs in the center.

Bialys originate from Bialystok, Poland and are a traditional dish of the Polish Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. While they are often likened to bagels, they taste more like a roll. They’re not as chewy and are much lighter in texture than a bagel.

What is difference between a Bialys and Bagles ?

Bialys and bagels breakfast bread rolls are non-related, both are chewy . However bialys don’t require boiling and baking like bagels, and are easier to make.

Bialy is a Yiddish word short for bialystoker kuchen, from Białystok, a city in Poland, and is a small roll that is a traditional dish in Polish Ashkenazi cuisine.

Bialys differ from bagels by having a depression rather than a hole in the middle like bagels.

Before baking, this depression is filled with diced onions and other ingredients, including (depending on the recipe) garlic, poppy seeds, or bread crumbs.

Bilay Eaters a book written by Mimi Sheraton, and got to know quite a few tidbits about it. Getting bialys here is not easy task as only a few bakeries sell them. So you can make it at home.

There are two kinds of bialys that are available in New York. One is with a depression in the center and other one is flat centered.

How to make a perfect Bialys

1) Use bread flour for making bialys if you don't have Sir Lancelot flour in hand.

2) Add poppy seeds along with red chili powder and garam masala, as it is really hard for me to leave my onion filling without any spices. You can skip this step if you want.

3) It is easy to make mix in yeast and flour and water, and let it rest for 2 hours or until it doubles in volume .

Then shape them into individual balls. This is the time you need to make your filling and set it aside.

4) You need about 1cup+2 tablespoons of onions for filling; you can play with poppy seeds depending upon your taste. Make that filling and set aside for cooling.

5) Fill the individual balls with ½ tablespoon filling, and don’t use 1 tablespoon of filling as mentioned in the recipe, then you will end up with lot of onion filling.

Set it aside for few minutes to let the yeast to do little more work.

Bake them in 450 °F hot oven with a water bath in the bottom to create beautiful crust.

After 16 minutes you will get beautiful and tasty bialys.

Bialys tend to taste great when then just come out of oven.

So serve it warm.

Enjoy with slathered cream cheese.

I tried with both blueberry flavored cream cheese as well as Strawberry flavored one. They are just pieces of bready love that you want to indulge more and more.

Here comes the recipe.

I made filling like this

Assembly of dough and filling

If you like this Bialys try this

Sourdoguh bagels
bagels with yeast

If you tried this recipe please tag me @nidhinikhil on instagram and @zestysouthindianktichen in facebook. I would love to see your creations.

Print Recipe

5 from 25 votes

Bialys

Bialys is small breakfast treat similar to bagel but filled with sautéed onions, poppyseeds, and fresh bread crumbs.

Prep Time25

Cook Time16

3 45

Total Time4 26

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: #bialys, #breakfast dishes

Servings: pieces

Calories: 26kcal

Ingredients

2 ¼ cup/350g Bread flour I used King Arthur flour Unbleached
¾ cup 2 tablespoon/200ml Water
11/4 teaspoon/5g active dry yeast I used Red Star Yeast
1 teaspoon/7g salt
For filling
½ tablespoon Olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon poppy seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon red chili powder
¼ teaspoon garam masala

Instructions

In a bowl mix yeast and warm water and set aside for 5 minutes.
In a kitchen aid, stand mixer bowl add flour, salt, water, yeast and mix and knead for about 7 minutes, until you get smooth, fairly stiff dough.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or other rising container, cover it, and allow it to rise for about 3 hours, till it's just about doubled in bulk.
While the dough is rising, make the filling. Fry the chopped onion, poppy seeds, in the oil over medium high heat; it'll brown very quickly, so stir often. Fry till it's a dark golden brown, with even darker charred bits. Sprinkle with the salt, spices and stir to combine, and fry for about 1 minute and remove from the heat. Transfer to a small bowl to cool.
Pre -heat the oven to 450°F.
Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 6 pieces (about 93g). Shape the dough into small ball and set aside for 30 minutes covered with plastic wrap and a towel. After 30 minutes take each ball and press it into 4" to 4.5" circles, each with a small rim. (Keep the remaining pieces of dough covered.)
Place the shaped circles on a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Prick the center of the circle with a fork and a sharp knife or pair of scissors to snip a 1" hole in the bottom of each bialy.
Evenly spread the heaping 1//2 tablespoon of filling into the center of each bialy, the part defined by the rimmed edge. Set aside for another 20 minutes.
Bake the bialys for 16 minutes. Keep a bowl of hot water in the bottom tray of oven, so that it will create steam and help to develop nice crust.
Once bialys are golden brown remove from the oven, and cool on a rack.
Serve warm with dollop of cream cheese.
Enjoy.

Nutrition

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

Favorite Recipes Event: Eggless bakes:Sweet and Savory

Jun 4, 2013 · 5 Comments

This month Favorite recipes event is taking palace at Nivedhanams .She has great blog and amazing eggless recipes as well as traditional Indian recipes.
Last month I got lot wonderful and refreshing drink recipes from my various blogger and non-blogger friends. Here is the entries of last month event.

I am going to pin the delicious juice recipes as I get the time.

So don your apron and bake some tasty and delicious Eggless recipes,whether it is a sweet or savory you can link it. Hope over to Sowmya of Nivedhanams for the rules.

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

If you are interested in guest hosting,
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
October:   The Big Sweet Tooth :         Payasam/Kheer

November Shruti Rasoi Street Foods
December Twisted Chef Favorite Winter Recipes

2014

January Yummy foods; Priya's virundhu
February Esho-Bosho-Aahare Starter or Snacks
March Open

Please contact me at favoriterecipes12 (at)gmail(dot)com

Muthira Thoran/ Horse Gram/ Indian Brown Lentils Stir-fry

Jun 1, 2013 · 29 Comments

While growing up I didn’t care much about Muthira//Kollu / Kanam/ horse gram/Indian brown lentils. When mom cooked it, both mom and dad would enjoy the dish, both I and sister will go for only sweets. Now after reading its health benefits, and trying to find low carbohydrate food to include in the menu, I am using these long lost good lentils.

You can only find this brown lentils/Horse gram in Indian store. Horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorum) belongs to legume family found only in the tropics and subtropics, grown mostly under dry-land agriculture. It is native of India. It is also used as fodder to horses. Horse gram is excellent source of iron and molybdenum. Only drawback is that it requires longer cooking time, but you can solve that problem by use of pressure cooker. I soaked them overnight and the next morning I pressure cooked until 5 whistles. After cooling and draining the water, I used it to make stir fry.

Even though this lentils is lesser know to western world, it is commonly used in Indian cooking, and in my home state there is even a proverb “"Kanam Vittum Onam Unnanam" which means "We should have the Thiruvonam lunch even if we have to sell all horse gram" which shows the importance of the grand lunch on the Thiruvonam day.” we needs to celebrate Onam (famous harvest festival). In other parts of country, it is used to make curries, sweets, and also eaten with boiled rice during wedding. It is a major pulse crop in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

According to Ayurveda (traditional Indian Natural medicine), this grain used to treat cough, breathing trouble, ulcers and worm infection and excessive sweating. It is also helpful in reducing kidney stones, rheumatism and hypertension, bowl hemorrhage and piles. It is also know to have antioxidant and diuretic effect. Read more from here and here. It is known to help in weight loss. However it is not good for pregnant women.

If you ask me about the taste, I will say it is slightly strong, bitter, legume/lentil which requires acquired taste. If you roast them, and cook them with spices they will be taste great. Without spices it may be bland. You can try it as your favorite lentil salad however adds some extra spices of your choice.

This stir-fry is easy to make: first soak overnight, and cook it the next morning. Then with touch of coconut oil, garlic, spices and fresh coconut mix in the cooked lentils. My hubby told me it is even nice to eat just like as such. But I prefer to serve as sides.

If you are little adventurous, and looking to try something new, healthy and also delicious, grab a bag of Horse gram from Indian store and try it. Next time I am planning to make chutney and rasam (a kind of soup) with it. So tune in for more recipes with Muthira/Horse gram.

Here comes the recipe.

Print Recipe from here

Muthira/Kollu/Kanam/Horse Gram/Indian Brown lentils Stir-fry with Coconut and Spices

Preparation time:5 minutes, + overnight soaking time

Cook time : 40 minutes

Yield: 4 serving

Ingredients

¾ cup Muthira/Kollu/Kanam/Horse Gram/Indian Brown lentils

½ Cup Onion ( chopped finely)

½ cup Coconut

½ tablespoon garlic

½ teaspoon Red chili powder

½ teaspoon Cumin Powder

¾ teaspoon Salt or to taste

½ teaspoon Mustard seeds

1 tablespoon Urad dal/ split black gram

2 no Red chilies

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 tablespoon Coconut oil

3 cup water

2 sprig curry leaves.

How I made

Wash and soak the horse gram for overnight, next morning, cook them with 3 cups of water in a pressure cooker for about 4-5 whistles and set aside.
Heat coconut oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, urad dal and halved red chilies, when mustard seeds start splutter add chopped onion, garlic and green chili and fry for about 4-5 minutes. Then add cooked horse gram/brown lentils.
To this add turmeric powder, salt and cook for about 2-3 minutes.
Then add coconut, cumin powder and red chili powder and mix once and cook for another 2 minutes.
Remove from the heat and enjoy with rice and gravy.

Thai Pineapple Fried Rice/Khao op sapparot

May 28, 2013 · 41 Comments

We had a quiet Memorial Day weekend, which included regular shopping and house cleaning. Also I made this Thai pineapple fried rice (Khao op sapparot in Thai). This version of Thai fried rice is from the southern part Thailand, where its cuisine had influence from India and Malaysia. This pineapple fried rice was in to my do to list for a long time. I also find similarities in the style of cooking as it uses curry powder like Indian cooking. This recipe requires day old cooked Thai Jasmine rice. So I cooked jasmine rice yesterday, since I did not know the time and amount of water required to cook the jasmine rice, I used my Dutch oven and cooked on stove top. After 20 minutes of meticulous cooking I didn’t get the jasmine rice for this recipe, instead got a risotto. I end up throwing it into the garbage, as we not a fan of polished rice. We love our rosematta /red rice with any curry. The second time I cooked Jasmine rice in a rice cooker, as my patience had run out after a stove top cooking experiment. It came out perfectly.

If anybody tells you they have a fool proof way to cook any rice, just because they are rice eaters, don’t trust them. All rice varieties have own cooking time and water requirement. Basmati takes only 10 minutes of active cooking time, red rice takes about 45 minutes in a pressure cooker. I found that Thai Jasmine rice requires about 20 minutes. However for 2 cup of rice, it requires only 3 cup of water using pressure cooker, for basmati it about 2 ¼ cup water for a 1 cup of rice in the stove top. Each rice has its own identity, it cooks and behaves differently.

I have seen this rice served in a pineapple carved in the shape of boat. As you know me and carving are two way street. Last time I tried to make pineapple boat, it end up with broken pineapple boat and tried to pin with tooth pick. Still it crashed down without any notice. So this time, I made sure that I had two pineapples in hand and made the boat with the first one with instructions from here. I was able to make it this time without any accident. And made pineapple juice with scooped pineapple flesh, and with second one I cut 1 inch pieces of pineapple for the fried rice. If you wish you can add currants or raisins with this pineapple rice. I didn’t add it as it would become too sweet for our taste. Then I would need to add more red chili, which my kids won’t like it.

If you have a wok in your hand, take it out and use it, you can use any vegetable oil or canola oil to make this dish. My initial idea was to use coconut oil, but while making I changed it to canola oil as it has no smell, I can entirely get the flavor and aroma of pineapple in this rice. First fried garlic, ginger and shallots and onion, then added one egg. Then added peas and carrot along with spicy stir fry sauce. Traditional sir fry sauce recipe uses fish sauce, since I don’t have it my hand, I used, Soy sauce, Worchester sauce and oyster sauce, and to this added cumin powder, coriander powder, and turmeric and red chili powder and made my stir fry sauce with 3 tablespoon of vegetable stock. If you want to make it completely vegetarian, you can skip the egg, Worchester sauce and oyster sauce. I added cashews and coriander leaves, and it turned out be delicious. Try it you can enjoy a bowl of Thai pineapple fried rice at home, this will make your lunch or dinner exotic. You can serve with Thai chili sauce, but we enjoyed it with our spicy Indian style pickle.

Yes it is done

Serve it in a pineapple shell.

Print Recipe from here

Thai Pineapple Fried Rice/Khao op sapparot

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Active cooking time: 7-8 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 cup chopped pineapple

1 ½ cup one day old cooked jasmine rice

3-4 tbsp. Vegetable stock

7 shallots, thinly sliced

¼ cup onion chopped thinly

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 inch ginger finely chopped

2 tablespoon canola oil/ vegetable oil

1 egg

¾ cup frozen peas and carrots

⅓ cup Cashews

¼ teaspoon salt or to taste.

3 tablespoon fresh coriander (cilantro)

Stir fry sauce

½ tablespoon soy sauce

¼ teaspoon worchester sauce

¼ teaspoon oyster sauce

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder*

¼ teaspoon chili powder*

¼ teaspoon coriander powder*

¼ teaspoon cumin powder*

* if you don’t have turmeric, chili, cumin and coriander powder use curry powder.

Procedure:

Cut pineapple in half, Scoop out the flesh and cut into 1 inch dice.

Mix 1 Tbsp. oil with the one old rice, using your fingers to separate any chunks into grains. Set aside.

In a cup, stir the Soy sauce, Worchester sauce and oyster sauce, to this added cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric and red chili powder with 3 tablespoon of vegetable stock.

Add a tablespoon of oil in a wok/large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots, garlic, ginger and onion, stir-frying until fragrant (1 minute). Whenever the wok/pan becomes dry, add a little sauce (½ Tbsp. at a time to keep the pan sizzling).

Crack the egg into wok and stir quickly to cook (like making scrambled eggs). Add the peas, carrot and cashews. Stir-fry 1 minute in the same way. Then add entire sauce and rice gently stir-fry to combine over medium-high to high heat until the rice “dances” (begins to make popping sounds) – about 3 minutes.

Remove from heat. Do a taste-test for saltiness, adding a few shakes of salt.

Then top with chopped cilantro/ coriander leaves.

To serve, scoop rice onto a serving platter or serve into the pineapple shell, hollowed out.

I am linking this delicious rice to Flavors of Cuisine: Thailand hosted here.

Also to Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here.

Chakka varatti/ ChakkaVarattiyathu/Jackfruit Preserve

May 24, 2013 · 32 Comments

This weekend, we went to our grocery shop which specializes in selling South Indian stuff especially from my home state, Kerala. At the entrance he had kept some jackfruit that was cut open to sell. I fell in love with it instantly and asked hubby can we buy one. He agreed immediately. While searching for other items to buy, we spotted a couple, wife is from Kerala and hubby is from Tamil Nadu. Both were showing interest in buying the Jack fruit. The guy asked Paul the owner of the shop to cut a jack fruit that he wanted to purchase, Paul immediately took a Jack fruit and cut it and gave one fruit to taste, after tasting the wife left the aisle without saying anything, hubby did the taste test, and told the shop owner, the fruit is not crunchy? Then again asked Paul to cut another jackfruit, he did that too and gave him to taste test, again his comment was fruit is not crunchy? Third time, Paul showed him about ripe Jackfruit, and told him if you buy only I will cut the fruit. He told him, he can’t buy until he does the taste test. Finally their, buying and selling ends there. My hubby was joking, and asked me if I can tell them to fry the jackfruit it is going to crunchy. I told him, don’t tell, if you tell this to him. He may not like it. Then we went there and did a taste test, yes it was really a sweet fruit, I loved it and bought it. This Jackfruit is mixture of Koozha and Varikka. There are two varieties of Jackfruit available, one is Varikkahas slightly hard inner flesh when ripe, while the other inner flesh of the ripe koozha fruit is very soft and almost dissolving.

We bought around 20 pound of Jackfruit, it is about half of one Jackfruit. It cost us $20. Yes it is expensive, but you want to eat it you have to pay for it? After coming home, I cleaned jackfruit ((for how to clean the jackfruit take a look here) and kept some for eating and with rest I thought I will make some chakka varatti/Jackfruit preserve. I got tempted by my friend Kaveri of the Palakad chamyal’s this post. My hubby asked me do you know how to make chakka varatti, I told him; I have seen it while grandma making it. But not tried by myself. He nodded his head to go ahead. Kaveri used about equal amount of sugar to jackfruit however I reduce the amount as I have seen my grandma makes with less amount of sugar.

Making chakka varatti/ Jackfruit preserve is a tedious job, if you are lazy don’t ever try to do it. I have seen my grandma to start early in the morning and finish by the late night. Start from peeling the skin of jackfruit cleaning and cutting into finely chopped pieces. That process is done by my grandma, aunt and a neighbor, and usually it a mega kitchen project. She would start plucking the fruit when crows start biting the ripe fruit on the Jack fruit tree. She will say” Chakka pazhuthaychu ennu thonarathu” Means jackfruit is getting ripe we need to pluck rest of them. This chakka varatti is one way of persevering the abundant supply of fruit available during the season.

The chopped pieces and cooked with water and finally smashed with spoon to make a uniform paste. Then this cooked jackfruit mixtures is again bring to boil with jaggery ( unrefined sugar). Then the fun part begins, to continuously stir and cooking the mixture until the entire water is evaporated and when it starts to thicken and stick to the bottom of pan, she will add ghee and cook until a thick paste is formed. If you continue the stirring and cooking the entire chakka varatti can be made it into a ball. Finally grandma would store it into a thick china pot with tight lid, and keeps it in storage. The other way of storing them is in wilted banana leaf, brush with little ghee and keep this ball shaped chakka varatti and cover them tightly and store it in an air tight container. These types of storing methods are done when there was no refrigerator available.

Now I have refrigerator, I will freeze them. I also did a short cut way of cooking the jackfruit in pressure cook and pureeing them using a blender. I don’t have traditional vessel which grandma used to make chakka varatti, so I used my new favorite Dutch oven to make this. I took about 3.15 hours to make this delicious nostalgic treat. My princess did a taste test and told me yes it taste great.

I am planning to make some traditional sweets like chakkaPayasam/ Jackfruit pudding, Chakka appam / Steamed jackfruit parcel etc with this delicious preserve, so keep tuned in. Here comes the recipe.

Print recipe fromhere

Chakka Varatti/Varattiyathu/ Jackfruit Preserve: Kerala Style

Recipe by Zesty South Indian Kitchen

Jack fruit persevere using jaggery, Kerala style

5 stars

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 3.30 hours
Total time: 4 hours
Yield: 1 ½ cup
Ingredients

4 cups/878 g Ripe jackfruit pulps chopped fine
1 ½cups/270g Jaggery
2 tablespoon Ghee
1 cup Water

Cooking Directions

Pressure cook jackfruit pulps till soft by adding ½ cup of water for about 3 whistles and set aside for cooling.Then grind it to a smooth paste in a blender into a fine paste.
Take jaggery in another pan and melt it by adding ½ cup water. Strain and remove any impurities from the jaggery liquid.
Heat the jackfruit pulp and jaggery in a thick bottom pan, I used dutch oven..Allow the mixture to cook on low flame till the water is reduced.
Remember to stir continuously and not to increase the heat,to prevent it from sticking to the vessel.Add 1 teaspoon of ghee,whenever it starts to stick,probably in every 30 minutes. .Continue the process,until you get a dark brown colored,thick and tight preserve. It took about 3 .5 hours for me.Allow it to cool naturally and keep it in a dry airtight container.
If you want to store it for long time, freeze it. When you are ready to use it thaw well and use it.

Strawberry Lassi

May 21, 2013 · 36 Comments

Please pray for the innocent victims of today's killer tornado at Moore, Oklahoma. Hope God will help us to get over through this difficult time.

Last week was really crazy week for me, I couldn’t even do enough posting as I wish and also blog hopping as I dream about it. But for my princess it was really fun weekend, as we had a trip to Galveston beach, it is about 45 miles drive from our house. We started around 2 .30 and reached there around 4.00 as we getting to traffic. She loves to play in water and she played for around 2 hours and it was really hard to make her get out of water. On the other hand, my prince doesn’t want to be in the water, but just want to play with soil. He too had his share of fun. Then we took a ferry trip to cross to Bolivar peninsula and came back on the same ferry. We were able to see some dolphins also. So it was fun trip.

Yesterday, while talking to my dad who is India, told me that it is getting really hot there. Around 113 ⁰ F (45 ⁰C) , he saying if you sit in front of the cooler your front part of body feels nice, while back part is getting wet from sweat. Too hot, he always tries to take a few body baths in a day to keep him cool. All over India it is getting hotter. This time, if you visit India, you can see lots of street vendors selling cool drinks, ice cream along sides of the roads. People stop by and enjoy the drinks made of yogurt or fruits to cool down a little and also escape from harshness of sun. So when I had a box of strawberry in the refrigerator, I thought why I don’t make lassi with it. If you are not familiar with lassi, it is a popular and traditional yogurt-based drink which originated in the Punjabregion. Traditionally it is made by blending yogurt with water and spices. Sometimes it is made with fruit too. Especially mango lassi is the most famous both in India and outside. I have a mango lassi recipe in my blog.

I used 16 oz box of strawberries (around 25 no), 1 cup of 2 % homemade yogurt, 2 tablespoon of sugar and 1 cup of water. It is mildly sweet; and if you want increase the sugar adds 4 tablespoons. I spiced them with green cardamom, and this recipe makes around 3 cups of lassi, good enough for 2 serving. My family enjoyed this lassi a lot. Even my prince wants to drink lassi; and he makes a big noise if dad was slow in giving him the next spoonful. It is really funny, every time he drinks fast and waiting for next spoon if dad becomes slow in serving him, he makes “na” “na” with his little finger pointing towards the glass.

Nowadays, sweet strawberries are available in market, grab a 16 oz box and use plain yogurt. In my opinion don’t use vanilla yogurt if you use green cardamom as both give different aroma and flavor. Further green cardamom gives the Indian touch. So try it yourself, it is also really good to start a day as a breakfast drink. On a quick run on calorie counter, I found that this drink is around 189 calories.

If you skip sugar and use agave nectar you can reduce the calories (170) and also using fat free yogurt will also reduce the calories. Try it you will love it.

Here comes the recipe.

Print recipe from here

Strawberry Lassi

This fresh and healthy yogurt based drink made with fresh strawberries, which is traditional to state of Punjab, India.
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Total time: 10 minute
Serves 2
Ingredients:
16.oz chopped fresh strawberries,
1 cup 2% yogurt,
1 cup water,
½ teaspoon cardamom ,
2 tablespoon Sugar .
Instructions: Hull the strawberries and cut it into big chunks, add yogurt, sugar, water and a teaspoon of cardamom in a blender Jar. Blend well for about 5 minutes or until everything mixed to the consistency you want. Enjoy with or without few fresh strawberries.

I am linking this Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted here

Favorite Recipes: Drinks recipes hosted here.

If you like this post please follow this blog

Thin Crust Vegetable Pizza: Best Pizza I ever made: Baking Partners challenge 10

May 15, 2013 · 55 Comments

Pizza is everybody’s favorite including my princess. If you ask her what you want for dinner, her answer will be pizza or pasta. Until my marriage I used to eat only frozen pizzas. After marriage I found a pizza loving hubby, and when we are staying in Utah there was a 5 dollar pizza joint, hubby buy pizza from every alternate weekend. Once we moved to Houston, we have lot of pizza places nearby, our neighbor is “Pappa John’s, and if I take a 2 minute drive I will reach Pizza hut, then there is Cicis pizza, Dominos pizza etc.

If you ask me which pizza do you like the best I will vote for “Papa john’s followed by Cicis’s cheese pizza. I found Pizza hut’s pizza salty to my taste buds. I haven’t tried Domino’s pizza yet. Hubby tells me it is okay. I will try one day and let you know. My order of pizza is always a veggie pizza with tomato, onion, capsicum, mushroom and black olive substituted with pineapple. For my princess birthday we had cheese pizza, pepperoni and veggie, and among the adults pepperoni was a hit. Of course I did not make it, but Papa John did it. So for this month baking partner challenge, we decide to try pizza. Pam of Living Rancho Deluxe, Archana of Tangy Minds and Priya of Ennveetu Kitchen suggested three recipes of New York style Thin crust Pizza.

You will be amazed to see the regional variation of pizza available in US, around 30 varieties; you want to take a look at it peek here. Traditional New York style is thin crust pizza with few toppings, however I didn’t followed that rule, I added few of my favorite ingredients. I got lucky with my creation the third time, first time instead of thin pizza I made thick pizza, more like Chicago style. Second time I got thin pizza however it was on the crispy side. Then I started researching what went wrong with my pizza. In the mean time I got this book Flour Water Salt Yeast by from Ken Forkish and trust me it has excellent pizza section in the book. Which explain how to get a homemade oven to work best for making the pizza? I tried his oven techniques, and the pizza that turned out is best. First two times I tried Pam’s suggest pizza recipe. Third time I tried Archana’s suggested recipe . While trying I learnt lot of nuke and corner of pizza making. Still I didn’t figure it yet. One day I will be going to try the flipping of pizza dough in the air (may be in dream). Third time I also bought a steel pizza pan from Wal-Mart. I baked my pizza on pizza stone with this pan on it as I don’t have pizza peeler in hand, and was afraid of losing all my topping without peel. I found bread flour tasted really great compared to all purpose flour pizza. Traditionally pizza’s is baked with Caputo 00 flour, however it is not available in the local grocery store; and you need to mail order them. I may buy it next time and try.

Next task in this challenge was to make a homemade pizza sauce, for first two pizza trials I used fresh tomatoes to make the sauce, they tasted okay but lacked the characteristic red color. So for the third attempt I used canned whole tomato which gave me red colored sauce. I also added few spices in pizza sauce. So my preference for making homemade pizza sauce is to go for canned tomatoes, which will also help you from blanching and peeling the skin of tomatoes.

There is a You Tube video link on the first recipe about how to stretch the pizza dough, and I tried the technique, and unfortunately I was able to cover only 15% of what he shown in the video. He does it very flawlessly. But I couldn’t finish that. I also read that to increase the flavor you can brush the pizza dough with olive oil before brushing with tomato sauce. I used both freshly grated mozzarella as well as shredded mozzarella cheese as suggested in the Flour water Salt Yeast book. I sprinkled the top of pizza with little parmesan cheese. You can’t make this pizza same day as it require slow fermentation, best will be make the dough today and bake it after 72 hours.

I made the pizza dough on Friday evening and baked the pizza on the Sunday evening, taste tester number one my princess who approved it immediately. Then my hubby who said it is delicious. It may look laborious but you will get delicious pizza in the end. Wait is always worth it.

I made Pizza dough like this

I made pizza like this

Pizza after baking looks like this

Do you want a slice

Print recipe from here

Thin Crust Vegetable Pizza: Best Pizza I Ever Made

Preparation time: 74 hours resting time + 10 minutes baking time

Yield: 1 14 inch pizza

Recipe adapted from Recipe adapted from (Serious Eats)

Ingredients for the thin crust:

· 11 ounces /2 ¼ cup/339g bread flour, plus more for dusting

· ¾ tablespoons /14g sugar

· .10 ounces /1 ½ teaspoon/9g salt

· 1 teaspoons /3g instant yeast

· 1 ½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

· 7.5ounces/1 cup/ 21g lukewarm water

Ingredients for making its NY Style pizza sauce

· 1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes or Fresh Tomatoes.

· 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

· 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

· 2 medium cloves garlic, grated

· 1 teaspoon dried oregano

· ½ teaspoon pizza seasoning

· ¼ teaspoon marjoram

· ¼ teaspoon red chili powder

· ¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

· 2 six-inch sprigs fresh basil with leaves attached

· 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and split in half( about 1 ½ cup chopped)

· 1 teaspoon sugar

Toppings:

· Any sliced or chopped veggies of your choice such as capsicum, sliced onions, mushroom, also you can add paneer or sliced jalapenos or even fruit such as pineapple.

· Any Meat as you like. Preferable pre-cooked Chicken pieces if you want. It is optional.

· 1 to 2 cups depends on the size of the pizza - Parmesan or Mozzarella Cheese grated as you like to choose.

Procedure:

For Making the sauce:

1. Pulse the tomatoes and their juice in food processor / Blender until pureed, or puree with hand blender. Puree should not be completely smooth, but should have no chunks larger than 1/16 of an inch. Set tomatoes aside.

2. Puree the onion and garlic and set aside.

2. Combine butter and oil in medium saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Add onion puree and oregano, marjoram, pizza seasoning, and large pinch salt and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, basil sprigs and sugar. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to lowest setting (bubbles should barely be breaking the surface), and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by ½, about 1 hour. Add salt to taste. Allow to cool and store in covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

For Making the thin crust pizza:

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in bowl of food processor or in a bowl. Pulse 3 to 4 times until incorporated if you have food processor. Otherwise mix well together with the help of the whisk. Add olive oil and water. Run food processor until mixture forms ball that rides around the bowl above the blade, about 15 seconds. Continue processing 15 seconds longer. You can mix the dough with hand or in stand mixer to form soft dough.

2. Transfer dough ball to lightly floured surface and knead once or twice by hand until smooth ball is formed. Place the dough in a plastic container and keep it in refrigerator and allow to rise at least one day, and up to 5. I rest the dough for about 72 hours.

3. At least two hours before baking, remove dough from refrigerator and shape into balls by gathering dough towards bottom and pinching shut. Flour well and place each one in a separate medium mixing bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow rising at warm room temperature until roughly doubled in volume.

4. Preheat oven to 525°F for 30 minutes with pizza stone inside.

5. Turn the dough ball out onto lightly flour surface. Gently press out dough into rough 8-inch circle, leaving outer 1-inch higher than the rest. Gently stretch dough by draping over knuckles into a 12 to 14-inch circle about ¼-inch thick. Transfer to pizza pan.

5. Spread approximately ⅔ cup of sauce evenly over surface of crust, leaving ½ to 1-inch border along edge. Add toppings of your choice evenly and spread ⅓ of cheese over sauce evenly

6. Change the oven setting to broil for about 5 minutes.

7. Switch the oven back to bake at 525F.

8. Load the pizza into the oven and bake for about 5 minutes.

9. Switch oven to broil and bake for 2 to 3 minutes, keeping a close eye on it, until the pizza is done. (It took 5 minutes in oven) .

10. Transfer to cutting board, slice, and serve immediately.

Please take a look at what other baking partners are cooked up. If you are interested to join the group, you can e-mail me at favoriterecieps12 (at) gmail (dot)com

I am linking this delicious pizza Hearth and Soul blog hop hosted here

If you like this post please follow this blog

Besan Ladoo/ Laddu/Sweetened chickpea/ Garbanzo flour balls

May 12, 2013 · 39 Comments

Delicious besan ladoo, sweetness chickpea flour balls made with besan, sugar and spices like cardamon and saffron.

Mother’s day is around the corner, what is your preparation for this day. I don’t think I have any; if I can get 8 hour of continuous sleep that will be a wonderful mother’s day present. May be a dinner or lunch prepared by hubby could be wonderful. I am not sure, what I will get, I will update after mother’s day. Even in grocery store ad there is mention that don’t forget flowers for mothers. In spite of lack of sleep and all tiredness, I am happy to be a mother, as I have something look forward to everyday.

This Wednesday I started Wliton’s cake decorating class, as my princess always ask for blue cupcake or blue cake. First day of class we did some cookie decorations and learned how to make good butter cream icing, and also got several tips for piping. Next class is going to be cake; my princess has already demanded a blue cake, so I will try to make one. For the butter cream icing I need to use 1 lb sugar, and my hubby has already told me I am not going to touch it, and I said it is okay. I think I will give some to my neighbor and rest both mom and daughter will finish it.

I wanted to celebrate mother’s day with little sweet. So I made Besan laddu/Sweetened chickpea/ Garbanzo flour balls. When I was a young, I was mostly carefree, didn’t worry about anything. Now as a mom, I am always afraid for my kids, if my princess or prince touches something that hurt them, or what if they fell down it will hurt them. Playing with water will make them sick. Playing in grass will have allergy. Now every word my mom uttered to me comes back and ringing in my ear.

Yesterday we were watching a (2010) Hindi movie “Thanks Maa” (meaning Thanks mom), it is about a 12 year old orphan boy( Petty theif) who happened to save a two day old new born from vicious attack of a street dog and his quest to find mom of the baby. Finally he finds the mother, but the circumstances have changed and not what he had thought would be the best for the child. He finally leaves the infant in orphanage with the message that he will comeback one day to take care of him. Really touching movie and if possible watch it, it discusses one of the most important social issue of child abandonment in India.

My first encounter with besan laddu was when my sister-in-law told me that she makes this sweet for Ganesh chathurthi and Deepavali. I too make a sweet dish with chickpea flour and it more like fudge and it is called Mysore Pak. I haven’t tried any beasn laddu at home. Then I happened to watch a YouTube video by a chef in Malayalam cookery channel, she used butter instead of Ghee to make it. I was inspired by this change and bought a special type of laddu beasan flour, which is coarse chickpea flour than normal besan which is fine. I discussed this recipe with my friend Suja she told me it is always better to use ghee as it can withstand higher temperature. I used the reduced amount of ghee (if you want you can increase it to three tablespoons to ¼ cup) and also reduced the amount of sugar. This recipe makes sweet laddoo, but if you like a sweeter version adds more sugar. Normal ratio of laddu besan flour: ghee: sugar is 2: 1: 1. I used 1 ½ cup Besan /chickpea flour/Garbanzo flour for laddu, ⅓ cup ghee and ¾ cup sugar. This is a traditional sweet you can find for every occasion in Northern part of India, whether it is marriage, birthday or festivals.

On googling I found two version of besan ladoo making, the first one is making it with sugar syrup and other is making it in ghee and slowly roasting the besan/ chickpea/garbanzo flour to thicken it and then add powdered sugar. I followed second method, by roasting the flour in ghee for about 12-14 minutes and then into the warm besan/chickpea/garbanzo flour, I added powder sugar (not the Icing sugar) and crushed pistachio. Finally after mixing everything well I made small balls. Since this recipe has reduced amount of ghee, you have to make balls tightly and then once again press balls second time to make a smooth outer surface. It is a delicious treat. So try it yourself and let me know.

" width="1600" height="1063">

At least for the all the work without pay, mom do need a Thank You in a form of little sweet? Hope you agree with me.

I made like this

If you like this ladoo, then try this besan ladoo which is made with extra addtion of coconut and semolina/rava.
Besan Coconut Ladoo

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Besan Laddu/ Ladoo/ Sweetened Chickpea/Garbanzo Flour Balls

Delicious besan ladoo, sweetness chickpea flour balls made with besan, sugar and spices like cardamon and saffron.

Prep Time5

Cook Time20

Total Time25

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: ladoo

Servings: numbers

Calories: 103kcal

Ingredients

1 ½ cup Besan/ Chickpea/ Garbanzo Flour
¾ cup Granulated Sugar
⅓ cup Home made Ghee
⅓ cup Pistachio Roasted and crushed
5 no Saffron
4 no Cardamom

Instructions

First roast the pistachio for about 3 minutes and crushed into coarse powder and set aside
Powder the sugar with saffron and cardamom and set aside.
Heat ghee in skillet and add besan/chickpea/garbanzo flour and fry first 2 minutes in medium flame and then reduce the flame to low and fry for about 13 minutes until raw smell of besan leaves and nice aroma of roasted flour develops.
Switch off the flame and add powder sugar, crushed pistachio and mix well when the flour is still warm.
Set aside for 3 minutes and once it is warm enough to touch make balls, with approximately 2 tablespoons of flour mixture. Try to make balls, even though it is little hot, otherwise it won’t be the right shape
Finish making balls with entire flour. Retouch the balls you made earlier once again to get smooth surface.
Enjoy, you can keep it in an airtight container for about 1 week at room temperature.

Nutrition

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

Cucumber, Celery, Pear and Lemon Juice: A Green Detox

May 7, 2013 · 52 Comments

Delicious Cucumber, Celery, Pear and Lemon Juice:green detox made with cucumber, celery, pear and lemon juice No sugar added, vegan with just touch of black pepper.

If you are looking for a simple and delicious detox smoothie to start your detox diet, then try this Cucumber, Celery, Pear and Lemon Juice:A green detox.

I thought I will start this week with a healthy juice. I have seen on Dr OZ show that there is even a 3 day weekend detox diet, for which you have to drink 5 juices a day and eat one meal that has only fruit and vegetables.

I wish I could do that, but afraid to start a complete detox diet, so wanted to start with only morning juice. In future I will try to do a detox diet. I need to get rid of some baby fat that I still have. While growing up I always thought that vegetables are only eaten after it is cooked and eat as curries are that there are not any other ways.

Then I came to know they can be consumed as salad, which helped during pregnancy as I had developed gestational diabetics when pregnant with my daughter. Then I came to know a combination of juice with cucumber and celery is good. Frankly speaking I was not a fan of celery at first; I would buy them only to make vegetable broth and jamabalaya or chili. Now after trying a few times and also reading the healthy benefits of Celery, I have started to love celery. So they appear in my juice.

Celery consists of 95% water, and is very alkaline, and rich with fiber. According to this article it is consider to be power food and should be consumed daily. Further it has blood pressure reducing properties, as it has active phthalides, which relax the muscles of arteries and thus regulate the blood pressure. Due to high fiber content it is good candidate of weight loss, also it is negative calorie food. . Celery leaves are a source of flavonoid antioxidants zeaxanthin, lutein and beta-carotene, which have antioxidant, cancer-protective, and immune-boosting functions. Even in Ayurveda(Indian natural medicine) the use of celery seed is well known for colds, arthritis and diseases of liver and spleen.

Even in my home state Kerala, people have started trying to add vegetables in their drinks, and also to make smoothie. I have seen a YouTube video wherein a juice shop guy is making a vegetable smoothie with lots of vegetables and yogurt.

If you want to start a strict detox fruit diet, you have to eat only one fruit for 3- 7 days, and first come white grapes as it is a great detox fruit then next come apple and pear. If you want to read more read from here and also fromhere.

Cucumber, Celery, Pear and Lemon Juice: A Green Detox making

Do you know the health benefits of Pear, snacking one pear can meet you your daily requirements of fiber as it has about 25-30 grams of fiber, according to this source and an adult daily fiber requirements is about 35 grams. It also helps to reduce your cholesterol levels, reduce risk of breast cancer. Further it contains a fair amount of vitamins A, C, K, B2, B3, and B6 and minerals.

It is also good for food sensitivity people as it is hypo-allergenic fruit. Quercetin is an antioxidant found in the skin of pears. It helps prevent cancer and reduce artery damage that can lead to heart problems, and also pears may help us to prevent from getting Alzheimer’s disease.

Another ingredient, cucumber is also just like celery and is 95% water, and helps in rehydration of the body, and is good source of vitamin B. If you want to know about further health benefits of cucumber read from here. Lemon is full of vitamin C and makes everything tasty. Why wait, just go and grab all these ingredients and make juice out of it.

Cucumber, Celery, Pear and Lemon Juice: A Green Detox

To increase taste I added ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon of pepper powder. I used normal salt, if you want you can use rock salt as it is more healthy. If don’t like to add it in your juice skip that. It is delicious juice you can start a day with it.

If you like this recipe then try this delicious detox smoothie too

Pomegranate Pineapple Lemon Juice: A Tasty Detox
Green Goddess Juice ; Healthy Detox/Diabetic Friendly

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Cucumber, Celery, Pear, Lemon Juice: A Green Detox

Delicious green detox made with cucumber, celery, pear and lemon juice

Prep Time5

Total Time5

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Cucumber, Celery, Pear, Lemon Juice: A Green Detox

Servings:

Calories: 70kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

1 Pear
2 Celery Stalks
1 cup Water
Juice of ½ lemon
1 cucumber I peeled the skin and removed the seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Instructions

In a blender combine everything blend together to form a smooth consistency and strain through the strainer and set aside.
Enjoy with ice.

Nutrition

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

Princess You Are Four Today

May 4, 2013 · 42 Comments

She came into my life exactly 4 years ago on a Monday afternoon. When I saw her for the first time, I forgot all the pain I had gone though to get her. She made me an extremely important person, for each and everything she will call, mama this, that. Then her brother was born about 15 months ago, and at first she thought her baby brother is her doll, she can play with it, and now she has became his teacher, teaching everything she know. He would eat anything without any question if she gave him. And would do just the opposite if mama gave him something to eat, he will be nodding his head no after eating just two tablespoons.

He follows her everywhere, and the moment she wakes up in the morning, my princess would enquire about baby (her brother), and then about papa. If she is in a good mood she is willing to help mama to fold the clothes and to keep them in the Chester. She love Cinderella, calling her, blue princess. She wants everything blue, blue cupcake and for a change her chocolate chip cookies and Payasam. She loves to do gardening; it is her way to get wet and play with water in the name of watering the plant. We have an 8year old pothos/ money plant in one pot, now both sister and brother are taking all the soil out from the pot, making the plant to show is roots. Every time I would try to replenish it with fresh soil and they would go back and remove the soil at the first opportunity. When she was alone, she didn’t discover the root system of that plant, now in the company of her brother she does that.

She is very excited about her birthday, and it is indeed an important event in her life, and she has already told everybody she met this week about the upcoming event, starting with grocery store clerks, doctor’s office staff, nurse, doctor, and everybody. Today I had a visit to doctor’s office as I have a bad cold and cough. In a store a lady taught her how to show her age using fingers and she practicing that for the whole week, and now she even show the sign that she is 4 year old. She cooks in her toy kitchen and makes soup, coffee, rice and curry and ask mama do you want soup? Do you want coffee? If you nod your head she is ready with her plate to feed you. She loves to help mama when mama is baking, she knows how to check window pane test in a bread dough, how to scoop cookie dough and spread chapathi/ Indian flat bread. She also checks mama’s health by her toy stethoscope, also checking blood pressure and the ear.

In her school, she likes to do puzzle and coloring with great fun, and has made friends, some of whom she even remembers their name even in sleep. She loves dogs, and keeps asking dad when you are going to buy one for me. She wants to pet them. She loves to talk to grand dad (my father) and grandma (my mother-in –law) in the phone, and would be upset if they end the call without saying bye to her.

Thus my little princess is growing and makes me proud with all the things she accomplishes, angry with all the mess she creates, and she gave me happiness, and teaches me patience, and something new to look forward every day of my life.

Dear Princess Happy Birthday to you. Wishing many more happiness in every steps of your life and also praying to the God to protect you and to guide you to become a wonderful and caring human being.

Mexican Grilled Street Corn

May 1, 2013 · 41 Comments

Delicious Mexican Grilled Street Corn with touch of creamy mayo sauce with salty cojita cheese and spices great with touch of lime.

May is here at my door step. The month of May brings lot of happiness to me, as my princess birthday falls in the first week, and she wants to celebrate her birthday with great fun, and for last one month that is the most important thing for her. Then at the end of May she starts her summer holidays. My hands are going to be full as I am not going to get the few extra hours of time she spent in her school. My little boy has started walking freely, so he is in an adventure mode, walking all around and discovering every corners of house by his own. They will be playing together; still I have to keep an eye on them as at any moment, play can turn into fight.

I usually buy corn when it is 3 for a dollar as it was this week, and the last week when I saw in the grocery store, corn looked very skinny, not much there after you graciously peeling the skin. But this weekend, I was able to find some moderately chubby corn, so I bought it. Usually I make either corn potage or just grill the corn, and if I am too lazy I boil them. Along with Sunday newspaper I got March-April issue of my local grocery store HEB’s living magazine, and there I found a recipe of Mexican street corn, and I fell in love with it immediately.

For that recipe I need some Mexican Cotija cheeseand mayonnaise, I was first afraid of mayonnaise and finally I bought Kraft Mayo with olive oil which have less fat and calories. Cotija cheese is hard cow milk cheese, which is considered to be Mexican Parmesan. Cotija comes in two primary versions. El queso Cotija de Montaña or "grain cheese" is dry and firm; with little taste other than saltiness (the cheese is usually several times saltier than typical cheese, traditionally for preservative reasons). "Tajo" cheese is a moister, fattier, and less salty version that holds its shape when cut, with a flavor similar to Italian Parmesanand Greek feta. I think I bought the first version of Cotija cheese. It is really salty not holds it shapes and drier one.

While gathering the ingredients for grilled street corn, I included salt, but after taste test of cotija cheese I thought I can skip salt from the recipe. In India, I have seen people just grill the corn and add just salt and chill powder and eat just like that. I have seen street vendor sell like this. I have visited Matamoras, the Mexican border town, across the border from Brownsville in Texas and I have seen guys selling this street corn, but never got a chance to taste, as we didn’t how to ask them in Spanish and also had no Mexican money in hand at that time.

So I decide to make the street corn, in my kitchen. This recipe requires few steps, you need grill the corn, then brush with mayo-yogurt –cumin- mixtures, then sprinkle cotija cheese and chili powder, and cilantro/coriander leaves and finally when you ready to grab them just squeeze lemon or lime juice. Trust me you are going to be in wonderland, sweet corn, tangy yogurt and lime, creamy mayo, salty cheese with spicy red chili and herbs make it delicious every bite. I never enjoyed a corn like this, so if you can get hold of cotija cheese, grab it and make this recipe. If you are a grilled corn lover, you are going to enjoy this recipe; I have no doubt about that.

Furthermore this May 5^th is Cinco De Mayo a festival of American Mexican communities celebrated as Mexican heritage and pride in US. In Mexico, in the town of Puebla, it is celebrated as remembrance of battle of Puebla,Mexican victory over French inversion. Enjoy this corn with glass of margarita.

Here comes the recipe.

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Mexican Grilled Street Corn

Delicious Mexican Grilled Street Corn with touch of cojita and spices

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: Mexican

Keyword: Mexican grilled corn

Servings:

Calories: 209kcal

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

4 ears of Fresh Corn
¼ cup Mayo I used Kraft Mayo with olive oil
3 Tbsp. plain yogurt I used homemade
¼ tsp. ground cumin
1 cup grated cotija cheese
½ tsp. chili powder or cayenne powder for added heat
1 lime cut in 6 wedges
2 tablespoon of chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions

Preheat grill over medium heat. Carefully pull down husks and remove silks. Replace most of the husks and grill 5 minutes per side, or until kernels are charred.If you have gas stove you can grill it using stove top
In a small mixing bowl, combine mayo, yogurt and cumin and set aside.
Once cooked, brush each ear with mayo mixture and roll in cheese; give a sprinkle of chili powder to taste. Add chopped coriander leaves over the corn.
Squeeze lime over the corn just before eating.

Nutrition

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

Favorite Recipes Event: Drinks

May 1, 2013 · 22 Comments

This month Favorite recipes are coming to Zesty South Indian Kitchen. Thanks Pallavi of Cook Eat and Burp to host last month favorite recipes event

As summer is approaching, sun is going to at his prime; we can make some delicious juices/drinks to cool down our body. Whether it is a cold coffee, lassi, Juice, smoothie, or any drink you like it. Whatever tasty drink you choose to make for you and your family to enjoy, link it here. I would like to know why that particular drink has become one of your favorite, if it has story like, mom made it or grandma made it, add that.

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

· A linky will be open from 1^ndMay to May 31^th 2012.

· You can link only two recipes to linky.

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

· Bloggers and Non bloggers can participate in this event; .Bloggers can link their recipes using the linky tool. Bloggers that find it difficult or find some problem to link can also send &Non-bloggers can send in their recipes to my mail with the following details-
Your Name-
Recipe Name-
Recipe Details-
Pic of the Dish

· Send in any number of entries. You can link in two old or archived posts. No need to repost the post just adds the link & logo.
Usage of logo is appreciated for all entries as it would help spread the word

If you are interested in guest hosting,
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 :

June: Nivedhanams Eggless baking

November Shruti Rasoi Street Foods
December Twisted Chef Favorite Winter Recipes

Please contact me at favoriterecipes12 (at)gmail(dot)com

Here is the Recipes from Non-blogger Friends,

Name: Bini Basheer, Recipe: Sharjah shake

For Recipe please click this link

If you like this post please follow this blog

Flavors of Cuisine: Thai Event coming at Zesty South Indian Kitchen

May 1, 2013 · 8 Comments

This month I am guest hosting the Flavors of Cuisine event started by Julie of Erivum Puliyumm. We are going to explore the delicious dishes of Thailand. I would love to visit Thailand and enjoy its cuisine. Until I can make that trip, I can enjoy its cuisine by trying it in my kitchen. So I am welcoming all of you to join me in this culinary journey. Bring all your delicious Thai dishes.

The event rules are as follows-
1.The event runs for the period of one month (1st of May to 31^st of May)
2. It can vary from starter, main dish, side dish, soup, dessert or any other recipes, sweet or savory anything but strictly from that particular cuisine with the same ingredients & spices. No modifications or fusions or alterations are accepted.
3. Bloggers and Non bloggers can participate. Bloggers can link their recipes using the linky tool. Bloggers who find it difficult or find some problem to link can also send &Non-bloggers can send in their recipes to my mail with the following details-
Your Name-
Recipe Name-
Recipe Details-
Pic of the Dish
4.Recipe must be linked to this page and to Julie's Announcement .
5. You can link both Vegetarian & Non vegetarian recipes.
6. Send in any number of entries. You can link in two old or archived posts. No need to repost the post just adds the link & logo.
7. Usage of logo is appreciated for all entries as it would help spread the word.

I would like to give the following awards to the eligible participants-Participation Award to all, Best Non vegetarian Recipe award (based on the authenticity, health effectiveness & presentation), Best Vegetarian Recipe award (based on the authenticity, health effectiveness & presentation) & Top Contributor Award.

Looking forward your delicious entries.

If you like this post please follow this blog

Panchmel Darbari Dal/ Creamy Five Lentils Stew

Panchmel Darbari Dal/ Creamy Five Lentil Stew

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

Mango Ice cream with touch of cardamom

Ingredients

Instructions

Mango Ice cream with Ice cream maker

Mango Ice Cream without Ice cream Maker

Nutrition

Green Goddess Juice: Healthy Detox/ Diabetic friendly

Savory Kugelhopf with Cheddar scallion green apple and bell peppers

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Pulihora/Puliyodarai/Tamarind Rice: Temple Style

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Agua Flor de Jamaica/Agua Fresca flor de Jamaica/Hibiscus Tea

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

Red White and Blue Cupcakes

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

Avocado Pineapple lime Smoothie: A diabetic friendly Smoothie. Gluten and Vegan free

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

What is a bialy?

What is difference between a Bialys and Bagles ?

How to make a perfect Bialys

Bialys

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Besan Laddu/ Ladoo/ Sweetened Chickpea/Garbanzo Flour Balls

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Cucumber, Celery, Pear, Lemon Juice: A Green Detox

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Mexican Grilled Street Corn

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

Footer

Featured on

Subscribe