Hi Everybody!

March 16, 2009 at 10:58 am (Uncategorized)

Apologies for the delay in posting the recipes!For my first post, I would like to share Sweet Potato Soup.Not only is it less in calories, but also great for health.I am sure you’ll will really enjoy and relish the soup.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1. Sweet Potato- 1 medium
2. Garlic cloves – 1 peeled
3. Cinnamon stick – 1 small piece
4. Vegetable stock – 500 ml
5. Butter – 1/2 tsp
6. Single Cream – 2 tsp
7. Milk – 100ml (optional)
8. Olive oil – 1/4 tsp
9. Bay leaf -1
10.Mildly Dry fried Almond slivers – 16
11. Salt and Pepper to taste
12.Coriander/Parsley/Basil/Mint – Few sprigs

Method:
1. Peel the sweet potato and wash well.Chop it into chunks.Boil it in enough water in either the microwave( takes about 20 minutes) or on the stove till soft.Mash 3/4th of it well with a spoon and leave the rest of it as chunks.
2. Take a deep bottomed vessel.Add the olive oil.Let it heat well and add the cinnamon stick and the finley chopped garlic clove.
3. Add the vegetable stock.Let it boil well.Now add the sweet potato and milk.Reduce the flame and let it boil for 10 minutes.
4.Now add the bay leaf, salt, pepper and butter.Let it boil for 5 to 10 more minutes.
5. Serve the soup in bowls.Decorate it with just a small twirl of cream, with few almond slivers and a sprig of the herbs in-between.

This soup can be served either as a starter or if accompanied by a small bread roll, can be had as a main meal as well.

Did you know: One cup of cooked sweet potato provides 30 milligrams (50,000 IU) of beta-carotene. (It would take 23 cups of broccoli to provide the same amount). One medium sweet potato contains 135 to 155 calories.

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Tadka daal

March 11, 2009 at 8:15 am (Curry, Daals/lentils/Soups, Uncategorized)

Quick and easy ..this one was done in less than 10 minutes. Well, I generaly boil different kinds of pulses and lentis at one go and put them in seperate freezer bags and freeze them. This helps my daily consumption of pulses and lentils by cutting down the preparation time. Well, what I do as a routine most days is pull out one of the frozen pulses or lentil and season them differently and have it with hot rice and some vegetables. Sometimes I end up having lentil soup and bread rolls.


For Tadka daal

1. I pulled out Toor Daal packet from the freezer, Note that the daal was boiled with turmeric and lightly salted.

2. half an onion chopped, 1 large tomato chopped and 3 green chillies slit.

3. Took a small pan , added a Tablespoon of oil.

4. As the oil got hot, added some mustard seeds and while they were spluttering, added curry leaves and a pinch of asoefitida, when the oil picks up the aroma of this seasoning, I added onions and fried them till transparent.

5. Now added the green chillies and stirred for a couple of minutes and added tomatoes.

6. Finally comes the magic potion .. now add a table spoon of pav bhaaji masala/ channa masala/ chaat masala .. to the seasoning mixture and cook them all together for a couple of minutes.

7. Add the boiled Toor daal to this seasoning and let it all boil for a couple of minutes. Add as much water as the consistency of the daal you require. Add some chopped coriander leaves before turning off the stove.

It is really tasty with hot rice and ghee. If you accompanied this with Bhindi fry .. it is sheer BLISS!

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Somebody stop me ….I’m on a roll! – sabudana patties

March 8, 2009 at 9:05 am (Snack, chaat)
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Last night was yet another surprise! I made sabudana Pattice ( Thanks to Swetha the chapmpion Chef! :D ) and served them like chaat.

Here’s what I did for Sabudana Pattice :

1. Soaked sabo overnight until the grains were transparent and soft.
2. mixed the soaked sabo with boiled potatoes, green chillies, coriander leaves, salt, dhania powder and garama masala – all the spices to taste.
3. Actually mashed all the contents well and made round pattice and deep fried them in hot oil. Crispy golden brown pattice were ready!!!

For the Chaat:

1. Pulled out frozen vegetables pack – it had cauli flower florets, carrots, peas, beans
2. Microwaved the veggies for 3 mins and then ran them through the blender to make a thick vegetable puree
3. Chopped onions and capsicum really fine!
4. In a pan with a 2 tablespoons of oil , I added the chopped onions and ginger garlic paste and cooked them well untill oil was oozing out on the edges. Added the finely chopped capsicum and stir fried until they were cooked.
5. Now added 2 TBS of Pav bhaji masala and let the spice blend well with the rest of the ingredients for the next couple of mins
6. Finally poured the vegetable puree and gave a good stir and let them all cook for about 5 mins.

This turns out like thick Chaat Gravy!

For Serving:

I placed 2 – 3 pattice on the plate, poured the chaat gravy all over the pattice, garnished it with chopped onions, coriander leaves and a pinch of lemon …Yummmmmmmmm HEAVEN!

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Last night’s delicacy!

March 7, 2009 at 8:03 am (Curry, Uncategorized)
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Last night’s meal was a huge surprise for both kamal and me. We were late from work and very hungry .. and we were too bored to eat the quick-fix meals we make generally. We looked up VahRehVah for some quick recipe.. decided on paneer butter masala.. and here’s what we had for our meal. Flavoured rice (not the usual) and panner butter masala. Will first write down the proedure for paneer butter masala and follow it up with the Flavoured rice.

What you need ?

1. Paneer cubes – 200 gms
2. Two large onions finely chopped
3. 2 large tomatoes finely chopped/ cooked in the microwave and then crushed to make a paste
4. Tomato Ketchup – 1 TableSpoon.
5. Ginger+Garlic Paste – 1 TableSpoon
6. Spices – Red chilli powder (1/2 TBS), Dhania Powder (1&1/2 TBS), Cumin Powder(1/2 TBS), Garama masala (1/2 TBS)
7. Chopped green chillies (optional)
8. Coriander leaves.
9. 30-50 Grams of butter
10. Milk – 500 ml


How do you do it?

1. Take a mixing bowl, add all your dry spices, add the tomato paste, ketchup and add 250 ml of milk and stir with a stirrer. Make sure all the spices, tomatoe paste and ketchup blend well in the milk.

2. Take a thick bottomed pan and melt the butter. Add the finely chopped onions and the ginger garlic paste. Fry for a minute, add salt and cover the lid in medium flame. After a couple of minutes, you’ll find the onion well cooked and transparent. Try and mash them a bit with your spatula.

3. Add green chillies -This is optional to increase the spice level

4. Now add the milk+spice mixture into the pan and cook until you see traces of butter oozing out at the edges. Now cover the lid and let the masala cook for about 6-7 mins , still in medium flame and stir occassionally.

5. After 6-7 minutes , you should see a thick gravy, so add another 200 ml of milk to make the gravy thin, make sure you add the milk slowly while stirring the masala ( else it may curdle).

6. Now add the paneer pieces and let all of it cook for another 3-5 mins.

7. Finally garnish with chopped coriander leaves and take the pan off the stove.

All of this took just about 30 mins.

For the Flavoured Rice:

You need:

1. Basmati Rice – 300 grams
2. Spices – 1 cinnomon stick, 2 elaichi, two cloves of Laung, one bay leaf, a pinch of cinnomon powder
3. Split green chillies -3 and ginger garliv paste – 1/2 a teaspoon ( just for flavouring)
4. Zeera for seasoning.

How did I do it?

1. Took a cooker pan, addedd 2 Table Spoon of oil and added zeera when the oil was hot.
2. Added all the whole spices (1 cinnomon stick, 2 elaichi, two cloves of Laung, one bay leaf, a pinch of cinnomon powder
)
3. Stir fried for a minute until the oil catches the aroma and then added ginger garlic paste and the slit green chillies. Stirred for a minute.
4. Added the rice and mixed all the contents well before adding 1:2 amount of water and salt.
5. Closed the lid of the cooker and let the cooker blow for 2 whistle before I turned off the stove.

Actually I did the rice while the panner butter masala was being cooked. So both the dishes were sone in about 45 mins. We quickly washed up and had a great meal!
Sorry … we were so hungry .. I forgot to take a picture.

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Everybody loves vegetable curry, but fanta loves it more ;)

February 22, 2009 at 7:43 pm (Curry)

This is a quick  recipe for yogurt based vegetable curry which goes great with chapatis. I’ve never actually written a recipe , so please expect glitches and you are welcome to contribute variations of this recipe.. Here I go

What you need?

1. A good mix of vegetables ( all chpped to bite size or small cubes) – commonly potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, cauli flower etc., beware if you are using capsicum, it will dominate the flavour of the curry. So use it when you want the capsicum flavour and skip it other times.

2. Yogurt – a few teaspoons ( lets say 3-4)

3. Spices – Actually you can try different combination of spices each time you prepare this dish, that way you’ll have a different taste each time.

Some combinations I’ve tried are:

a. Red chilli powder, coriander powder, Garam masala powder, cumin powder – Not more than 1/2 a tablespoon each

b. Pav bhaji masala, red chilli powder and coriander powder – Again not more than 1/2 a tablepoon of each

c. Sambar Powder, Vangi bhath powder and coriander powder – 1/2 to 1  tablespoon each

Fatma, you could stick to option a. because its hard for you to get hold of the other ingredients.

4. Onions, tomatoes, ginger,garlic, green chillies – finely chopped

5. For Seasoning and Garnish- zeera, methi seeds, curry leaves, coriaander leaves

6. Misc – Oil, salt and cashew (optinal)

How do you prepare?

1. Take a thick bottomed pan and let two spoons of oil heat

2. Add zeera, methi seeds and curry leaves and let fry them exactly for a minute or less

3. Add chopped onions, ginger, garlic green chillies( you can skip the chillies if you want, as you are going to add dry spices). Add a pinch of salt to speed up the cooking of onions.

4. Once the onions are cooked and transparent, add all the dry spices and fry for about 2 mins or until the raw flavour of the spices leave and then add the chopped tomatoes.

5. When the tomatoes turn soft, add the yogurt and whisk all the ingredients well and leave in low flame until you see the oil seperate and the yogurt is blended well with the rest of the ingredients

6. Make sure you have boiled all the vegetables in the microwave prior to the cooking,  add them to the above mixture and add some warm water based on how thick or thin you want your curry. Let it all boil for about 5 minutes before you turn off the gas.

7. You can garnish with chopped coriander leaves . Optionally , you can fry some cashew nuts and curry leaves in some ghee and add it to the curry

My mouth is watering ..seriously .. never thought writing a recipe down can be so delightful ..

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Everybody loves Raymond and these brownies

February 20, 2009 at 9:33 am (Deserts)

Ahh for a long time I have been wanting to post the recipe for the best brownies that I ever had and surprisingly the easiest to make ;)  

Just to be a good academic, I will acknowledge the source of this recipe and that is my friend Sara Gowdet.

And here it goes:

Ingredients (make sure you strictly follow the ingredients):

  • 4 oz butter (110 g)
  • 2 oz American unsweetened chocolate (available at specialized food shops) or plain dessert chocolate(50 g)   (my advice is green and blacks organiz chocolate that is 85% dark)  
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 8 oz granulated sugar (225 g)
  • 2 oz plain flour (50 g), sifted
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  •  teaspoon salt  
  • 4 oz chopped nuts (110 g) – these can be walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts or Brazils or a mixture

Recipe:

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).

A baking tin measuring 7×11 inches (18 x 28 cm), well-greased and lined with greaseproof paper. Bring the paper up a good 2 inches (5 cm) above the rim of the tin.

First of all melt the butter and the chocolate (broken up into small. pieces) together in the top of a double saucepan (or else place in a basin fitted over simmering water on a very low heat). Away from the heat. stir all the other ingredients into the butter and chocolate mixture” thoroughly, then spread all this in the lined tin.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes (it takes more around 40 minutes with me), until the mixture shows signs :c shrinking away from the side of the tin, and the centre feels springy. A knife inserted in the centre should come out cleanly (but don’t overcook* – it will firm up as it cools). Then leave the mixture in the tin to cool for 10 minutes before dividing into approximately fifteen squares and transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

 

ENJOY :)

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Finally!

February 16, 2009 at 6:18 pm (Uncategorized)

Guys (Gopi, Shiv and Bharat) and Gals (Chitra, Swetha, Fatma and Kamal).

This is our place to flaunt our culinary adventures .. I shall begin my first post with mixed vegetable curry …. this is top priority because the whole of EGYPT is waiting to be impressed by one Miss Fatma! so why delay!!!

pic11

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