Mutton Biryani and Palak Pakoda Kadhi(Spinach Pakoda Curry)

Mutton Biryani

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Its been long time since ajoy had been asking me to prepare mutton biryani. But mutton is not my liking and hence I had been conviniently ignoring it. Then it was that fine day that I wished his grant :) and prepared it. It turned out quite well.

Ingredients

3 Cup Rice

1/2 Kg Mutton Pieces

7 Onions

2 Tomatoes

2 Potatoes

1/2 Cup Curd

1/4 Cup Milk

A Handful of Cashews

5 Almonds

1 Ginger Stick

10-15 Garlic Cloves

1 Spoon Garam Masala

2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

A Pinch of Turmeric Powder

1 Spoon Corriander Seeds

1 Spoon Poppy Seeds

1.5 Spoon Black Pepper

1/2 Spoon Jeera

1 Spoon Saunf

1 Spoon Dry Coconut

8 Cloves

5 Cinnamon

2 Bay Leaves

5-6 Cardamom

A Pinch of Saffron

1/2 Cup Ghee

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Grind ginger and garlic to paste and keep aside.
• Wash mutton and add curd, turmeric powder, 1 spoon of red chilli powder, half of garlic ginger paste. Mix well and store it in the fridge for atleast 8 hours
• Next Day, Wash the rice and keep it in warm water for half an hour. Remove the excess water and keep aside
• Boil potatoes side by side, cut them in circular pieces and keep aside.
• Warm the milk and mix safron in it and keep aside.
• Chop around 3 onions into fine pieces and keep aside.
• In a pan heat around a spoon of oil and add the chopped onions. Cook till golden brown and keep aside.
• In same pan, heat another spoon of oil and add Jeera, 3 sticks of cinnamon, 5 cloves, 1 spoon of black pepper, corriander seeds, dry coconut, saunf, poppy seeds and remaining spoon of red chilli powder.
• Once the aroma starts coming out of this mixture, add the chopped golden brown mixture of onions in it.
• Add remaining ginger garlic paste to it and mix well and keep aside.
• Grind almonds, the cashews(8-10) that were kept aside and the above fried masala with little water to form paste. Keep aside
• Cut the 4 onions into thin slices and fry it in the ghee and keep aside.
• Keep aside around 8-10 cashews and fry remaining and keep aside.
• Keep aside around a spoon of ghee and transfer remaining ghee to the pressure cooker
• Add the masala paste that we kept aside to this ghee and fry till ghee separates from the paste.
• Add mutton pieces that were kept for marination in this with the marination leftover as well. Cook till ghee separates.
• Puree the tomato in the mixer and add it to this cooking mutton.
• Add around 1/4 cup of water and salt to taste and then cook the mixture on pressure.
• When complete pressure builds up, turn the flame to minimum flame and cook for another 10 minutes. And then remove the pressure cooker from the flame and keep aside to cool down.
• In the mean time, Boil around 10 cups of water and add salt to taste, rice and cook till rice is almost done.
• Remove the excess water from the rice and spread it in the plate to let it cool down.
• In a small pan heat a spoon of ghee(that was kept aside) and add remaining 3 cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 1/2 spoon black pepper, bay leaves, cardamom. Fry till aroma comes and mix it with the rice and keep aside.
• Now transfer the cooked mutton from pressure cooker to the pan and cook on high flame till it is dry.
• Transfer the excess ghee from this cooked mixture that is now separated into small cup and keep aside.
• Take a pressure cooker(which has good height), Grease it with ghee and arrange the potato discs onto the bottom to cover the bottom completely
• Spread a layer of 1/3 of rice followed by 1/2 of cooked mutton, 1/3 of fried onions, 1/3 of fried cashews.
• Then add next layer of 1/3 rice, followed by another layer of remaining cooked mutton, 1/3 of fried onions, 1/3 of fried cashews
• Layer remaining rice on the top, followed by remaining onions and cashews.
• With the back side of the cooking spoon make 5-6 wholes in this layer biryani till bottom
• Spread the ghee separated out from cooked mutton stored earlier evenly over here. Also spread the milk-safron mixture evenly.
• Close the cooker with the lid, heat tawa and put this cooker on top of it. Cook on low flame for 15 minutes
• Serve hot :)

Notes

While serving, insert the spoon till bottom and get all layers in each servings to get the best taste for the serving :)

Palak Pakoda Kadhi(Spinach Pakoda Curry)

Since I was small, My Dad always tells mom that in his company canteen he gets amazing Kadhi Bhaji(Curry Pakoda). And there use to always an attempt from mom to get the same taste and even then dad would be more inclined towards his canteen bhaji. So as kids we normally had this item almost twice a week or so giving another reason that this type of curry wont give cough unlike butter milk. So when I thought of preparing this, I decided to use Green vegetable for pakodas for more nutrition value of the curry. And here I got amazing item in my favourite list.

Ingredients

3 Cup Palak Pakodas

6 Cup Butter Milk

A Pinch of Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon of Mustard

A Pinch of Asafoetida

3 Spoon Sugar

1 Spoon Ghee

Salt to taste

Method

• In the butter milk, mix sugar and salt to taste and keep aside.
• Heat the ghee in a small pan and let the mustard splutter in it.
• Add Asafoetida, turmeric powder and take off from the flame
• In the buttermilk add this ghee mixture and mix well.
• While serving, add the pakodas to the above curry and serve.

Notes

You can additionally add Curry leaves in the ghee to give it that flavour but I perferred not to so that I can relish palak and the curry taste rather than the curry taste only.

Bday Chocolate Cake And Garam Masala

Bday Chocolate Cake

I was always fascinated by chocolate icings these bakers have. I always fancied to become as good with it as they are.. And my impression about this was its some art. But actually if you have little patience and know a knack it can be very easy too :) and that's what I found out when I tried this cake. Check this out.

PS: Now I had written this in January when I baked this for my mom but due to busy schedule with moving etc I just couldn't post it. So here it comes.. More on their way :)

 

Ingredients

7 Spoon Butter

1 Cup Castor Sugar

3 Eggs

Salt to taste

1/2 Cup Maida

300g Chocolate

8 Spoon Coco Powder

Method

• Boil water in a small pot and keep a glass bowl over it. Add 100g of chocolate and melt it completely. Add 4 Spoon coco powder and keep aside
• In another bowl mix 6 spoon butter and 1/2 cup of castor sugar till its fluffy
• Add the melted chocolate and beat.
• Separate the egg whites and egg yolks
• Add egg yolks one at a time into the choco-butter mixture and beat well.
• Sieve Maida and keep aside
• Beat the egg whites with salt to taste separately till it is stiff
• In earlier choco mixture add a spoonful for egg white and spoonful of maida, fold in well. Repeat till all maida and egg whites are accommodated in the choco mixture.
• Preheat oven at 180C/350F
• Grease the cake tin and pour the above mixture into it
• Bake the cake at 180C/350F for 45 min
• Keep aside for cooling overnight
• Next day, Heat water in a pot and keep a glass bowl over it. Melt remaining butter and chocolate together in it and keep aside.
• In a pan, add remaining sugar and 1/2 cup of water and bring it to boil.
• Bring the heat to lowest possible and mix in the chocolate-butter mixture as well as remaining coco powder and cook.
• Take out a drop of mixture and test if it thickens after cooling. If so icing is ready
• Pour the chocolate icing in the center of the cake and spread it across the cake to cover it fully.
• Decorate with white butter icing and choco chips/flakes

Notes

Yes you read it right this doesn't need baking soda or powder :)

I had my mom by my side when I tried this so with her patience and suggestions I needed 4 spoon of coca for 200gm chocolate so I guess that should help but if you still seem to run into issues like the mixture isn't thickening then add some more coca or if it thickens too fast and is too hard add little more warm water. The mixture after cooling should be of icing consistency and should not flow or thicken more than that.

Garam Masala

First of all this is not my experiment but its my mom's expertee. When everybody asks me about garam masala I use to tell that its my mom's speciality. So now that I am in pune I actually got the chance to see how this is prepared and wrote the recipe. Obviously this needs more patience than what one thinks of and quite lengthy process but the result i guarantee to be awesome :) So here is the recipe for for all interested parties :)

Ingredients

500g Corriander Seeds

50g Cumin Seeds

50g Fennel Seeds or Saunf

40g Poppy Seeds

20g Bay Leaves

10g Star Anise

10g Black Cardamom

10g Mace or Jayapatri

10g Naak Kesar

10g Cinnamon

10g Black Pepper

10g Cloves

5g Turmeric Stick

1/2 Nutmeg

1cm Asafoetida Block

20g Stone Flower or Dagad Phool

20g Caraway Seeds or Shahi Jeera

Oil

Method

• Heat Pan and add 1/2 Spoon of oil. Roast Jayapatri in this oil on low flame till reddish in color. Transfer to the mixie.
• In same pan add 2 drops of oil and Naak Kesar. Roast it for around 3 min on low flame till it becomes little bigger. Transfer to mixie.
• In same pan add 2 drops of oil and roast Stone Flower in it on low flame for around 3 minutes. Transfer it to the mixie
• Add 2 drops on oil in the same pan and roast Cloves on low flame for 3-4 minutes till they get little bigger. Transfer to the mixie.
• Add 2 drops of oil in same pan and roast black pepper on low flame for around 4 minutes. Transfer to the mixie
• In same pan add 2 more drops of oil and roast cinnamons on low flame till they turn dark brown in colour. Transfer to the mixie
• Add 2 drops of oil and roast Saunf on low flame till it becomes light brown in color. Transfer to the mixie.
• Break nutmeg into small pieces and roast it on low flame for 2 minutes in same pan with 1 drop of oil. Transfer it to the mixie
• Break Asafoetida block into small pieces and roast it on low flame in the same pan with 1 drop of oil till it turns white in color. Transfer it to the mixie
• Break Turmeric stick into the small pieces and roast it on low flame in 1 drop of oil till reddish in color. Transfer to the mixie.
• In same pan roast the bay leaves on low flame in 2 drop oil for 3 minutes. Transfer the contents to the mixie
• Roast Star Anise on low flame with 2 drop of oil for 2 minutes and transfer to the mixie.
• Roast Black Cardamom with 2 drop of oil on low flame till it turns little bigger and dark brown in color. Transfer to the mixe.
• In same pan roast the Jeera with 1 drop of oil on medium flame till it turns brown in color. Transfer the contents to the mixie.
• Roast Shahi Jeera on low flame with 1 drop of oil for around 2 minutes. Transfer it to the mixie
• Roast the Poppy Seeds with 1 drop of oil for 1 minute on low flame. Transfer to the mixie
• Grind all the contents transferred till now to fine powder.
• Sieve the powder and transfer the non so fine powder to the mixie
• Grind again and sieve the contents. transfer the contents which didnot pass through sieve into mixie.
• Roast half of the Corriander seeds with 2 spoon of oil on medium flame. When the seeds start spluttering turn the flame to low and roast for another minute. Transfer the half of them to mixie and Grind
• Sieve the masala again and transfer the not so fine contents to the mixie.
• Add remaining of roasted corriander seeds to mixie and again grind.
• Sieve the contents through and again grind the not so fine contents. Sieve again. Transfer the contents that did not get sieved into the mixie
• Roast remaining corriander seeds in 2 drops of oil on medium flame till they splutter. Turn the flame to low and roast for another minute. Transfer half of them to the mixie and Grind.
• Sieve the masala again and transfer the not so fine contents to the mixie.
• Add remaining of roasted corriander seeds to mixie and again grind.
• Sieve the contents through and again grind the not so fine contents. Sieve again.
• Mix well all the sieved contents and masala is ready.

Notes

Use exact given qunatities of oil for the best results as if you exceed oil quantity it becomes difficult to grind the spices.

Also Fry the spices in same order for the best results as this is the oder that maximises the aroma and will retain it in the masala.

You can use the Not sieved through contents in the non veg gravies or when you would be grinding masala with wet contents.

The above ingredients make around 3/4Kg of masala

Berry Nutty Chocochip Cake And Thick Poha Chivada

Berry Nutty Chocochip Cake

Well this time around in Cosco I found fresh cranberries and since I love cranberry juice I thought of buying that packet and trying it out.. The first bite of cranberry and I was sure that I cant have it as it is and have to make something out of it. And then after searching for lot many recipes, none were appealing enough to try out. That is when I decided to try my own one from the few ones I read.

Ingredients

2 Cup Maida

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Cranberries

1 Cup Choco Chips

1 Cup Mixed Nuts

1 Cup Grapes

1/2 Cup Melted Butter

1.5 Spoon Baking Powder

1/2 Spoon Baking Soda

1 Egg

4 Spoon Chocolate Sauce

Salt to taste

Method

• Chop the mixed nuts, cranberries and mix them with choco chips and keep aside.
• Sift through Maida, Baking Powder, Baking Soda and Salt couple of times.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the loaf pan/any other baking pan with butter
• In a large bowl, take this sift through mixture, add in sugar and mix well
• Add in melted butter and mix with hands to form a crumbly mixture
• Grind grapes in the mixie to get its juice. Add in the mixture in bowl
• Add egg and nuts-berry=chocochip mixture. Mix well.
• Pour the batter in the previously greased pan and bake it in the oven over 350F/180C for 45 minutes.
• Let the cake cool down and then sprinkle the chocolate sauce over its top and serve.

Notes
Dont worry if the batter isn't of flowing consistency, its normal. The batter in this case is more of a moist thick mixture.
I already had the mixed nuts bottle at home so I used that one, but you can combine any kind of nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts.

Thick Poha Chivada
Chivada (Mixture) in general is weak point for all most everyone i guess :) This one is very common preparation we end up preparing. Even more than one with thin poha (though i like that one too).


Ingredients
2 Cup Thick Poha
2.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Sesame Seeds
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Cup Peanuts
1/4 Cup Pootane Daal(Chanaa Daal)
1.5 Spoon Sugar
7-8 Curry Leaves
4 Spoon Cashews
4 Spoon Raisins
1/4 Spoon Mustard
A pinch of Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Roast jeera and sesame seeds over low flame for around 3-4 minutes
• Dry grind jeera, sesame seeds and sugar to form fine powder
• In a big pan, mix the above powder, 2 spoon of red chilli powder, cashews, raisins and salt to taste. Mix well
• In a pan heat oil over medium flame
• Fry pohas in small batches by adding them in another strainer (steel or aluminium one) which is dipped in the hot oil
• Drain them on the kitchen towel and keep adding them to the above masala mixture when 2-3 batches are on towel. Mix well
• When pohas are fried completely, strain out the remaining oil and heat it in a pan (around 2-3 spoon)
• Fry groundnut till they turn reddish in it. Keep them aside.
• In same oil, add mustard and let it splutter.
• Add Asafoetida, curry leaves and futaane daal(chanaa daal) and roast it for around 2 minutes.
• Add in fried groundnuts and remaining 1/2 spoon of red chilli powder and add this mixture to the chivada mixture prepared earlier. Mix well.

Notes
Use litte oil at a time and add some more oil when half way though. The oil turns black after frying poha, so it would help in reducing the remaining quantity that we need to throw away.
Using strainer helps in taking out pohas easily after they are fried.
I drained the fried pohas over kitchen towel so that it can soak out oil, but one must make sure to transfer them to masala mixture when it is warm and before it cools down

Kadboli

Kadboli is Maharashtrian faral dish. You might wonder why am i posting this after so many months of diwali. But given that world cup has started in full swing, i thought it would be good to have some crunchy home made snack instead of just plain chips. So late on sunday I decided to make them whole lot of kadbolis and soon realised that it is too much of work to shape them. Thats when I came up with the idea of using chakali gun with this disc to shape them instead. With these they are bite size and make perfect snack for movies or games :)

Ingredients

4 Cup Rice Powder

3 Cup Milk

1 Cup Butter

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Mix rice powder with butter and salt really well
• Add in milk and make the dough
• Take a small lemon sized balls and roll them with hand and make a long rope shape. Give it in a shape of circle. Fry in medium hot oil till pink in color
• Alternately, put in the dough in the chakali gun and press the circular shapes in the medium hot oil and fry till pink in color

Notes

Dont fry till brown in color as the color darkens a bit after a while.

Eggplant Bhaji

Pakoda - Bhaji is quite famous in Maharashtra. All weddings must have these, when guests are invited, you have to have this item. Its been quite long time since we had bhaji so i decided to make them on Monday but decided to give it a twist. Given that eggplant is so easily available here i thought why not use it. The experiment was quite successful so here is the recipe.

Ingredients

2 Cup diced Eggplant

1 Onion

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/2 Spoon Coriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

1/2 Cup Besan

Handful Coriander Leaves

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Mix in diced eggplant, diced onion, chilli powder, besan, turmeric powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, finely chopped coriander leaves and salt to taste. Add in some water to make the paste.
• Heat oil. Add couple of spoon of oil to the paste and mix well.
• Take a small lemon sized ball from the paste and flatten it a bit
• Fry on medium heat till done on both sides. Serve immediately

Notes

Normally i would wait around 5 minutes after mixing all ingredients but before adding water. The salt with all the veggies secrets water so if you wait your paste doesn't end up loosing consistency later on while you are in the middle of frying.

Pachadi Food

Now that mom is here, she made this awesome pachadi two days back. I loved it so much that I asked her to show me how to make it the very next day when we were actually going to eat Paani Puri for the dinner :) Nevertheless we had this pachadi after eating paani puri with excuse that something healthy after something chatpata :)

Ingredients

2 Cup Cabbage

1 Cup Carrot

1 Tomato

3/4 Cup Onion

1 Spoon Groundnut Powder

1 Spoon Sugar

1 Green Chilli

Handful of Coriander Leaves

1 Lemon

1/4 Spoon Mustard Seeds

A pinch of Asafoetida

Oil

Salt to taste

Method

• Finely chop cabbage and add it to the bowl


• Add finely chopped tomato


• Add finely chopped onion


• Add in finely chopped coriander leaves and green chilli


• Add in grated carrots


• Add in groundnut powder, sugar and salt to taste


• Squeez lemon juice in it and mix well.


• Heat a spoon of oil in the small pan and add in mustard seeds and Asafoetida and let the mustard splutter.


• Add it to the mixture and mix well.

Notes

If you are going to serve it to guests, you could finely chop all the veggies and then at the last moment just before serving, mix in sugar, salt and add in heated oil-mustard. It would be much more fresh and would taste better than the complete procedure done in advance.

Puri for SPDP (Shev Batata Dahi Puri)

Since we came here, we weren't able to get the puris for making SPDP - Shev Batata Dahi Puri which is among favorite chaat items for Ajoy. Using paani puri's puri for SPDP doesn't seem right and I am sure it wouldn't taste as good either. So I decided to give try making these puris. Tried few times and now I think I have got the recipe right which gets best results, and is certified by many friends who had chance to taste :)

Ingredients

1 Cup Maida

2 Spoon Rawa

1/4 Cup Melted Butter

Oil

Salt

Method

• Mix Maida, Rawa and salt together.
• Add in melted butter and mix well.
• Add in 1/4 cup water and knead soft dough.
• Grease the dough with 1/4 spoon oil and cover and keep aside for an hour.
• Make round balls and roll them thin and big. Cut using cup or cookie cutter into small round shapes.
• Heat oil and fry the puris on both sides over medium flame till light brown on both sides. Take out on kitchen towel and let it soak oil from puris.
• Heat oven to 350F/175C and bake the puris in it for 10 minutes.

Notes

I have noticed that if you roll the puris thin then they wont bubble up and that's how you want them for SPDP.

Also I baked the puris again because that make them crispier, that is any rawness and moisture left after frying goes away and puris.

Sabudana Poha Chiwada

This chiwada is so easy to make and a sure shot success recipe :) Even when I was small i loved this chiwada the most, for it was light and tasty. Now i love it even more for it is so easy to make too :) I am going to be making this regularly :)

Ingredients

100g Sabudana Poha

1 Cup Peanuts

2.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1 Spoon Jeera Powder

1 Spoon Sugar

1 Spoon Salt

Oil

Method

• In a mixie add in red chilli powder, sugar, salt, jeera powder and grind till fine powder. Add this to a big bowl
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the peanuts till light brown. Add them to the spice mixture in bowl and stir
• In the same oil fry sabudana poha, few at a time. After each batch is fried add it immediately to the spice mixture an give it a stir.

Notes

Add in pohe immediately to the spice mixture after you take out of oil, otherwise the spice wont stick to the poha and it wouldn't get the taste.

Pineapple Muramba

Almost a month back I got the big pineapple from costco. I just remembered mom's pineapple muramba and thought of giving it a shot. Called up mom and asked for recipe.. And it turned out that it was quite easy to make it and hence prepared that night immediately :)


Ingredients
5 Cups Fresh cut Pineapple
3 Cup Water
1.5 Cup Sugar

Method

• Mix pineapple pieces with water such that it barely submerges pineapple
• Cook the mixture over medium flame keeping a lid till pineapple are cooked.
• Strain the mixture and separate out pineapple and water
• In same water mix the sugar and bring to boil
• With constant stirring keep heating water over medium flame till it becomes 1 string consistency syrup
• Now add pineapple pieces and boil once again
• Let it cool down and refrigerate in the fridge

Notes
The muramba needs to be stored in fridge and it would stay for few months.
Good side dish to eat with chappati/paratha
I dont like too much of sugar syrup and hence the above recipe gives very less sugar syrup mixed pineapple muramba.. If you like you can add another cup of water + 1/2 cup of sugar to get traditional version which has more liquid