Kanda(Onion) Pohe,Cherry And Cashew Cup Cakes

Kanda(Onion) Pohe

Lot of friends had been asking for easy breakfast recipies.. I mean some simple yet tasty day today breakfast recipies. So here I am posting recipe for simple yet delicious maharashtrian breakfast/snacks.. This item is so common that whenever people get unexpected guest or there is "Ladaki Dikhana" program at ones place this is must :)

Ingredients

2 Cup Pohe

1/2 Cup Muttor

1 Onion

A pinch of Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Mustard

1/4 Spoon Jeera

4 Green Chillies

4 Spoon Grated fresh Coconut

4 Spoon Corriander leaves

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Wash the pohes and drain out excess water. Keep aside.
• Heat oil and let mustard and jeera splutter in it
• Add chopped green chillies and fry for a minute
• Add onions and cook them till they are translucent
• Add turmeric powder and cook for a minute
• Add washed poha and muttor in it adn mix well.
• Cover it and cook for couple of minute
• Open the lid, mix well, add salt to taste and again cover and cook covered for 3-4 minutes on low flame.
• Garnish with grated coconut and finely chopped corriander leaves and serve

Notes
Washing pohes and keep aside at first is important. It gives enough time for pohas to soak in the washed water to become soft. If you find your pohas are not enough soft just sprinkly little water before covering and cooking. But I never needed this if I washed them at first place. Dont forget to remove excess water. Washed water is just enough for them to be perfect soft.
Instead of muttor you can add groundnuts in the oil before adding pohas and fry them well. These are also tastier and ajoy's favourite. But authentic pohas are with muttor :) and I love them that way.
You can also add 1/2 cup potato cubes in oil and cook them before adding Pohas to it to get Kanda(Onion) Batata(Potato) Pohe :)

Cherry And Cashew Cup Cakes

I had been thinking of preparing cup cakes since I prepared muffins. But its only today I actually materialised the thoughts into the action :) :) So here is cherry - cashew cup cake recipy for you all.


Ingredients
2 Cup Canned Cherries
1 Cup Canned Cherry Syroup
1 Cup Castor Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Butter
2 Cup Maida
2.25 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Cashews

Method

• Blend butter, castor sugar and eggs well.
• Sieve Maida and Baking Powder together
• Add it to the sugar-egg-butter mixture and blend it till it just folds in
• Remove the seeds from the cherries
• Add deseeded cherries, cherry syroup and milk to the mixture and blend till mixture folds in well and cherries are half crushed
• Add Cashew pieces
• Prehead Oven at 200C
• Grease the Cup Cake Pans
• Fill in the cups with batter about 2/3rd
• Bake it at 200C for about 20 minutes

Notes
Cherry Syroup and Blended Cherry gives it amazing Taste of fresh cherries :) You can add Almonds or Walnuts as well apart from cashews. I wanted to add them but didnt have them available that time hence added just cashews
Also I used Salted butter hence didnt mix salt with the maida, if you are using unsalted butter, add salt to taste to the maida while sieving

Palak (Spinach) Pakoda and Egg Roll

Palak (Spinach) Pakoda

It been more than a month since I prepared this but due to all sort of logistic issues in moving out of hyderabad I got little busy and couldnt post the recipe even though I had clicked the photos. So today I am going to post all 5 recipes that were pending. New ones will come as and when I try them :)

Ingredients

1 Bunch of Palak

1/2 Cup Bason

1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

A Pinch of Jeera Powder

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Wash Palak leaves and keep aside.
• Mix bason, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and salt to taste with water to form a paste
• Heat oil in a pan
• When its slightly warm, add a spoon of oil into the bason paste.
• When oil is hot, dip the two palak leaves at a time in the bason paste and add it into the pan and fry the pakoda on the golden colour
• Repeat for remaining leaves

Notes

I used smalled leaves of palak and the pakodas turned out amazing. Especially the palak was crisp and tasty because of its freshness and tenderness.

Also I dipped two palak leaves at a time so that the pakoda has its taste and still not too much of spinach which wont get crisp.

Egg Roll

I never imagined that egg roll can mean so much to bengalis :) Recently when I went to Puja Pandals, I saw most people at roll stand than in pandals :) Earlier ajoy use to ask me for egg roll and I use to thing he would love parathas more than egg roll. Probably you can say I didnt understand the roll importance :) But after attending puja this year, the first thing I had made my mind to surprise some day with rolls. So today for breakfast when I had almost nothing left at home I prepared this and he indeed was pleasantly surprised :)

Ingredients

3 Spoon Heaps of Maida

1 Spoon Heaps of Wheat Flour

3 Eggs

1 Onion

2 Green Chillies

Hot and sweet Tomato Ketchup

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Mix maida and wheat flour with salt to taste and little oil and knead the dough. Keep aside for atleast half an hour
• In a small pan, add little oil around half spoon or little less and heat it.
• Add sliced onions and green chillies to it and cook them till onions lose their rawness and look light brown. Keep aside
• Make 3 balls out of the dough and roll them thin one by one.
• Heat tawa and transfer the rolled roti on to the tawa. Put little oil from sides
• When one side is almost done flip the roti and let the other side cook for a while.
• Break the egg directly onto the cooking roti and spread it all over the roti and let it cook for a minute or so.
• Flip it, add oil from sides and cook from the egged side till egg is cooked completely.
• On a plate keep a kitchen towel such that it covers the 2/3rd of the plate.
• Transfer the cooked egg roti on to this plate. Egg side on top.
• Spread the 1/3rd mixture of cooked onion and chilli in the middle as one line. Add single ketchup line to taste.
• Now roll the egg roti into the egg roll with the kitchen towel and close the napkin from the bottom.
• Repeat same process for remaining two rolls.

Notes

I didnt use complete wheat flour for roti as otherwise you tend to get wheat flour taste in the roll which I dont like in the roll. I didnt use complete maida because otherwise after cooking the rotis tend to get too hard. Hence this combination.

While rolling the roti, the best way to get perfect roll is to first put one side over the other such that mixture is covered and is tightly filled in from one side. and then roll it into the roll from same side.

Raskadam and Egg Slices

Raskadam 

Its been quite a few months since I had Raskadam one of my favourite sweet. So thought of giving this a shot. The recipe was adapted from 'Ruchira' a well known recipe book in Pune.

Ingredients

3.5 Cup Milk

1 Spoon Vinegar

1.5 Cup Sugar

1.5 Cup Powdered Sugar

4 Cup Khoya

A pinch of Saffron

1 Cup Grated Paneer

Method

• Warm couple spoon of milk and add the safron. Keep aside.
• Heat the remaining milk
• When the milk starts to boil add vinegar mixed with a spoon of water and stir continuously.
• When the milk cudles and water is separated out, throw out excess water and run it through the cold water
• Squeeze this mixture in a cotton cloth and drain out the water.
• Mix it thourghly and make the dough out of it.
• Prepare around 25 balls out it (small sized
• Mix the sugar with the 6 cup water in the cooker and boil it
• Add these small balls in it and let it boil for around 5 minutes
• Cover the cooker with lid and boil for another 5 minutes
• Remove the lid, add half cup of water and boil for another 5 min. Let the balls cool down. Take out these balls and spread them on the plate and keep aside
• In a nonstick pan on medium flame cook the grated paneer till golden in colour and keep aside to cool down
• Mix grated khoya, powdered sugar, safron-milk and make the dough out of it.
• By now the paneer would be cooled and crispy. Powder it in the mixie and spread it in a separate plate.
• Now is the time to assemble the raskadam. Cover the cooked ball with the khoya mixture by froming a cup shape around it and closing it after inserting a ball in it. Roll the ball in the powdered paneer

Notes

Be careful not to burn the paneer and stir it continuously while cooking, I did that so that it was easy to powder the paneer and the raw smell from it goes away.

The ball preparation for the raskadam is similar to the rasgulla except prepare small sized balls and quantity of sugar-water.

You can add orange or pink - red colour in the khoya mixture but i didnt have it and hence didnt use it.

Egg Slices

Yesterday I tried this something different dry item from boiled eggs. Turned out quite nice and a good change from routine egg dishes.

Ingredients

4 Eggs

1 Onion

2 Green Chillies

1/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder

A pinch of Black Pepper Powder

A pinch of Cinnamon Powder

Corriander Leaves to garnish

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Boil eggs in water, slice them and keep aside
• In a flat pan, heat oil and add finely sliced green chillies in it
• Add onion and cook till onion is translucent
• Add black pepper powder, corriander powder, cinnamon powder, sliced eggs and salt. Cook for 3-4 minutes with constant stirring.
• Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves and red chilli powder

Notes

I didnt want to use to many masalas and also the usual combination of masalas in it as I wanted to give it different taste. Cinammon was great choice as it did distinct it from other routine dishes.

Mung Daal Wada And Zebra Cake

Mung Daal

After a long time, I thought of trying out something from my so called 'bible' - a cookery book gifted to me during wedding :) This recipe though not exactly similar but is inspired from there. It is easy to digest yet spicy enough to enjoy, making it a good breakfast.

Ingredients

1 Cup Mung Daal

2 Spoon Besan

6 Garlic Cloves

1 Inch Ginger

2 Green Chillies

1 Spoon Jeera

1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

A Pinch of Eating Soda

Salt

Oil

Method

• Soak Mung Daal in water for 5-6 hours
• After the mung daal is soaked, add garlic cloves, ginger, green chilies and jeera to the mixer with couple spoon of water and grind to rough paste
• Add mung daal without water in it and grind the paste
• To this paste add in besan, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and eating soda and mix well
• Heat oil in pan and fry small quantites of the paste we preapred earlier to get crispy wadas

Notes
Recipe had some more items like coconut, onions, curry leaves etc to be added but I think I liked this way better. It went really well with the coconut chutney

Zebra Cake

I remember around a year back I had received a mail from a colleague here about tasting the check box cake. She had described a lot about its procedure so when I was looking for something similar yet something where I wont need those card boards etc to make those check box texture. Then I came across the very famous concept of zebra cake. So today I gave it a shot and result was very impressive :)


Ingredients
3 Cup Maida
2 Cup Sugar
4 Eggs
2 Cup Milk
2 cup Oil
1 Spoon Vanilla Essence
8 Spoon Coca Powder
4 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

• In a bowl add eggs and sugar and blend them together till the mixture is fluffy.
• Add in Milk and Oil keeping two spoons of each aside. Blend well
• Sieve in maida gradually in the mixture. Blend well for a smooth batter
• Blend in vanilla essence and baking powder.
• Separate 4.5 cup of batter into other bowl and add in sieved coca powder in the separated batter. Blend well
• In the coca batter, add the remaining milk and oil (2 spoons each) into the batter and blend again
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the baking pan
• Add 1/4 cup of white batter in the center alternating with half cup of coca batter. Keep adding till the pan fills in half in quantity. Repeat same for other pan. The batter would spread on its own in layers
• Bake the cakes in oven at 350F/180C for 40 minutes

Notes
If you are going to make the cake in single big baking pan, then instead of adding 1/4 cup of mixture, add in 1/2 cup to make the correct sized strips. I noticed that if the layers are too thin then after baking they wouldn't be too clear to mark out the layering clearly.

Ginger Corn Flower And Plums Cake

Ginger Corn Flower

Ajoy loves cauliflower so we end up eating it every week at least once. So I keep trying variety of preparations instead of sticking to the usual one. So today I decided to make a gingery flower. To reduce the spiciness and pungent taste of the ginger I decided to use sweet corn. The recipe came out pretty well and here it is.

Ingredients

1 Cauliflower

2 Cup Corn

1 Spoon Grated Ginger

2 Tomatoes

1 Onion

3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder

Salt

Oil

Method

• Heat oil to high and fry the medium sized flower florets in it till light brown. Keep aside
• In a pan heat spoon full of oil and add onion. Fry till translucent.
• Add grated ginger and fry for another minute
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and fry for a minute or two.
• Add mashed tomato in it. Cook for couple of minutes.
• Add sweet corn, salt to taste and cook for 5-6 minutes till mixture dries up a little.
• Add fried flower florets and mix up gently so that masala coats the flower
• Cook for 2-3 minutes and serve.

Notes
Dont wait for the florets to be dark in color, after taking out from the oil they darken up a little.

Ajoy loves cauliflower so we end up eating it every week at least once. So I keep trying variety of preparations instead of sticking to the usual one. So today I decided to make a gingery flower. To reduce the spiciness and pungent taste of the ginger I decided to use sweet corn. The recipe came out pretty well and here it is.

Ingredients

1 Cauliflower

2 Cup Corn

1 Spoon Grated Ginger

2 Tomatoes

1 Onion

3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder

Salt

Oil

Method

• Heat oil to high and fry the medium sized flower florets in it till light brown. Keep aside
• In a pan heat spoon full of oil and add onion. Fry till translucent.
• Add grated ginger and fry for another minute
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and fry for a minute or two.
• Add mashed tomato in it. Cook for couple of minutes.
• Add sweet corn, salt to taste and cook for 5-6 minutes till mixture dries up a little.
• Add fried flower florets and mix up gently so that masala coats the flower
• Cook for 2-3 minutes and serve.

Notes
Dont wait for the florets to be dark in color, after taking out from the oil they darken up a little.

Plums Cake
We had got lot of plums from Costco but they weren't ripe ones. So I had been thinking of making a cake using them for quite a few days. Finally today I got some time to experiment with it thought the plums were ripe now. I made it in heart shape in honor of today's Valentines day.


Ingredients
1 Cup Butter
1.5 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Maida
1 Cup Hazelnuts
1 Cup Walnuts
1 Cup Groundnuts
3 Eggs
1/2 Spoon Baking Powder
6 Plums
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
4 Spoon Powdered Sugar
2 Spoon Almonds

Method

• Grind hazelnuts to powder
• In a bowl, beat in sugar and butter till light and fluffy.
• Add a egg to the butter and beat well
• Then add in 1/3rd of hazelnut powder and beat well.
• Continue adding remaining eggs one at a time alternating with hazelnut powder and beat well
• Add in walnuts and peanuts and mix well.
• Sieve maida and baking powder together and add in to the above mixture. Mix well.
• Grease a pan and add in the batter
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Bake the cake at 350F/180C for 45 minutes
• Take out the cake out of oven and arrange in halved plums(without seeds) over the top
• Bake again at 350F/180C for 10 minutes. Take out and let it cool down
• In a small pan mix lemon juice with powdered sugar and let it simmer till thickened
• Pour it over the cake, garnish with finely chopped almonds.

Notes
Alternately you can use marmalade jam if you have. I wanted to use that for the glazing but since I didn't have it I made lemon, sugar mixture.

Prawns Burrito Bowl And Fried Chicken

Prawns Burrito Bowl

Chipotle is Ajoy's favorite joint and he does keep insisting on going to it once in a while. We like the chicken burrito bowl there. So after seeing them prepare the bowl for few times, I decided to try this out at home. Since I had prawns at home and didn't have boneless chicken, I made it with prawns. Turns out it was quite nice.

Ingredients

400g Cleaned Prawns

1.5 Cup Rice

5 Tomatoes

1 Lemon

3 Cup Sweetcorn

3 Spoon Curd

3 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/2 Spoon Oregano

1/2 Spoon Pepper Powder

1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Garam Masala

1/2 Cup Grated Cheese

1/4 Cup Ranch Dressing

1/2 Cup Corriander Leaves

4 Spoon Butter

Lettuce

Salt to taste

Olive Oil

Method

• Mix in curd, 1 spoon of red chilli powder, corriander powder, garam masala and salt.
• Add in prawns and mix well. Keep aside.
• In a pressure cooker cook the rice with 2.5 cups of water and keep aside.
• Heat 1/4 spoon of oil and add the corriander leaves to lightly cook them.
• Add the oil-corriander leaves mixture, lemon juice and salt to the rice and mix well. Keep aside
• In a pan, add a spoon of oil and heat it.
• Add in 3 mashed tomato, remaining 2 spoons of red chilli powder, pepper powder, oregano and salt. Mix well.
• Cook till mixture thickens. Keep aside to cool down
• In another pan heat butter and fry in the marinated prawns till they are done and dark brown in color.
• Now in three big bowls make the burritos by adding a layer of rice dividing equally in them.
• Add prawns, finely chopped remaining 2 tomatoes, grated cheese.
• Microwave sweet corn for 3 minutes and add it to the burrito bowl.
• Add the tomato-chilli sauce, ranch dressing and lettuce. Serve it immediately.

Notes
I microwaved the corn for quick cooking. You can alternately boil them in water and drain out the excess water.
The tomato-chilli sauce would turn quite spicy. I had used another spoon and it was little extra spicy hence while writing this recipe I have suggested 1 spoon less compared to what I used.
Used ranch dressing because I didn't want to buy or make sour cream just for this.
Since I had jumbo prawns I cut it into 2-3 pieces after frying them in butter.

Fried Chicken
When we were in Bangalore, KFC was our favorite joint. We also have couple of stories that took place in the KFC :) So quite a lot of memories. But since we came here, we haven't been to KFC once, though MacD is regular joint instead. But the fried chicken is something that went missing from our meal since then. So today I knew what I wanted to cook. I was earlier thinking of frying boiled chicken but then decided against it after a second thought. Bing just confirmed my thoughts :)


Ingredients
5 Chicken Leg Pieces
1 Egg
3/4 Cup Maida
5 Spoon Bread Crumbs
1 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1/4 Spoon Oregano
1/4 Spoon Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Garlic Paste
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• With a sharp knife, give slits to the chicken pieces
• In a warm bowl of water, add 1/2 spoon red chili powder, oregano and pepper powder with salt.
• Add the chicken pieces and soak them in it for an hour.
• In a bowl, beat egg with garlic paste, remaining half spoon red chili powder, coriander powder and salt.
• In another plate mix maida with bread crumbs and salt.
• Take out the chicken pieces out of water and drain the water.
• Dip each leg piece in egg mixture to coat it completely and then in maida mixture to cover it with maida coating.
• Heat oil to medium high.
• Add each leg piece and fry till golden brown in color.

Notes
Soaking the chicken in water, tenderizes it a bit adding to the taste. I used mild spices to soak them in instead of dipping it in plain water.
I fried chicken on medium high heat instead of very high or very low. That helped me get the chicken that wasn't too dark in color and yet it was completely cooked.
I made extra bread crumbs while making Paneerbhara Kabab and stored them in air tight container. You can refer to it for how to make bread crumbs.

Rava Dosa And Dates and Chocochips Pan Cakes

Rava Dosa

Rava dosa made into my favorite list the day I ate it opposite my college back in pune. The crispiness of the dosa along with the cashews spread on it made it so much more enjoyable. So when I saw my mom preparing it when I was in India in December and learnt that its so quick and simple, I had been meaning to make it like a long time. Today on Sunday I thought it would be a perfect way to make a tasty brunch that requires minimal efforts.

Ingredients

1 Cup Rava

1 Cup Rice Powder

1/4 Cup Maida

1/2 Spoon Jeera

1/4 Spoon Asafoetida

Finely chopped Roasted Cashews

2 Green Chillies

Salt to taste

Ghee

Method

• Mix rava, rice powder, maida, finely chopped green chillies, jeera, asafoetida with salt.
• Add in lots of water to make a thin batter.
• Keep aside for 20 minutes
• Add in more water so that it is thin consistency
• Heat tawa on medium flame
• Grease tawa with Ghee and pour the 1/2 cup batter at a time spreading it over the tawa.
• Let it cook till the dosa gets light brown color.
• Sprinkle couple of drops of ghee and flip the dosa and let the other side be cooked
• Sprinkle some cashews and fold on either side and serve.

Notes

When I tried making it I didnt let the batter sit for those 20 minutes, because of which the batter kept on thickening - blaming it to the Rava. It made first two dosas thick and soggy. So I strongly suggest letting the batter sit for 20-30 minutes.

To spread the batter on the tawa I dropped the batter on tawa from a bit of distance and slowly over areas that didnt have batter, letting it form the mesh and yet avoiding forming layers, hence keeping it thin.

Chocochips Pan Cakes

I had been making pan cakes for quite some time. One of the easiest and tasty breakfast. I had made it with cranberries, mangoes, blue berries earlier. Today I didn't have any of the fruits that would go in it. So I decided to make it with what I had plenty - Dates and Chocochips. The pan cakes came out really nice and we had hearty breakfast on such a lovely bright day.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Dates

1/4 Cup Choco Chips

1/2 Cup Wheat Flour

1/2 Cup Maida

3/4 Cup Curd

1 Egg

3/4 Spoon Sugar

1/2 Spoon Vanilla Essense

1/4 Spoon Baking Powder

1/4 Spoon Baking Soda

2.5 Spoon Melted Butter

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Deseed the Dates and chop them into small pieces. Keep aside.
• Sieve together wheat flour and maida
• Add Sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix well
• Add egg, curd, melted butter and vanilla essence. Mix well.
• Add 1/2 cup warm water and mix well to flowing consistency.
• Heat a nonstick pan over medium flame.
• Pour the pan cake batter 1/2 cup at a time on the non stick pan and top it with some choco-chips and dates
• Over medium-low heat, cook the pan cakes till golden brown in color and bubbles up the top side. Flip and golden the other side too. Serve with honey and or maple syrup

Notes

The batter is so non sticky that I didnt have to grease the pan at all.

Ajoy felt that the sweetness from Dates was little too much, I guess using Dark choco chips might be good idea to balance the sweetness. I didnt have dark choco chips sot used semi sweet chips.