25 Random Things About Me And Kalakand

25 Random Things About Me

I was tagged by Amruth and Naveen for writing the 25 random things about me. Well I gave it a thought and slept over it :) *remembers a dialog from last episode of Grey's Anatomy* And here is my list:

1.     I am in absolute love with Abhi-Niki from Dill Mill Gayye so much so that I make video mixes, write fictional scenes on these characters. I am loving this creative side of mine :)

2.     I like doing something creative after office may it be cooking something new, painting a glass or pot or knitting. Though I end up picking first option most of the time because it is like one arrow 2 birds :)

3.     I am a Lost fan and cant wait for the finale season and the topping to it is I would be watching it live in HD :)

4.     I love hiking and when it comes to hiking I can never find it enough :) Dil always maange more.

5.     Discovered love for cycling after coming to Redmond. Absolutely love coming back from work by cycle (Again 1 arrow 2 birds:)) or cycling on weekends on Sammamish River Trail

6.     I prefer having lunch by desk while browsing some cooking recipes, reading blogs, long mails and fiction updates. I finish lunch quickly and yet feel rejuvenated for post lunch work :)

7.     When it comes to following rules I would want to do it with absolute precision esp driving rules. I hate when people speed, drive rash and make mistakes. Well once in a while I too make a mistake and I cant forget that mistake easily :)

8.     I miss Hussain Sagar Drive very badly especially after late night movie.

9.     I am a music freak but then I can tolerate only certain type of songs which includes old hindi and few new ones which have some meaningful lyrics and soft music.

10. When I am listening to music, I start of singing along without even realizing. So its absolute torture for people around me when I am listening to songs

11. I love playing antakshari and the best ones have to be with Milind during our Niagara-NY and Florida drives in 2002.

12. I hate playing dumbsheras and I am bad at it. :)

13. I am afraid of dogs (well is that an understatement)

14. I believe Indian railways should award me for being their loyal customer for years. I have record of traveling Hyderabad -> Pune -> Hyderabad over every weekend for almost 3-4 months continuously.

15. I never tried English music as a teen and now I adore my music collection so much so that I don't feel like giving it a chance.

16. I can eat chaat items or anything chat pat items at any time of the day. :) Everyday stuff including rice-chapati-bhaji kind of takes low priority over the chatpat items

17. The best paani puri I have had till now is from a person who use to sit next to then newly opened MK Ahmad on CMH Road, Bangalore.

18. I am scared of dentists and nurses who give injections. Probably thats one reason I am totally for homeopathy.

19. I dont know since when but as long as I can remember I hate hot Tea and cant drink even a sip. But was introduced to Ice Tea by Kushal and you can say as much as I hate hot tea I love the Ice Tea.

20. Ever since I started watching english dramas I cant watch hindi ones without fast forwarding through them :) The current favourites are Castle, Grey's Anatomy and Flashforward. Also planning to give a chance to V which premiers tonight.

21. I am FRIENDS fan. Each character was unique and they maintained the traits, behaviors and habits for them throughout 10 seasons. The fun with friends was never been so close to real. Have already watched it twice in order. The random episodes if are airing I can watch any number of times. Wish they could create same magic again.

22. I have started playing Farmville on Facebook or you can say I started using Facebook for playing Farmville :) I liked that game so much so that I play on Ajoy's behalf too :)

23. I love rains and the drizzling rain is the topmost favorite. I like hiking, cycling or just taking a walk in drizzling rain :) Foggy weather is another favorite one and it gives heavenly feel to this otherwise earthy world.

24. I love playing fussball.. I havent played it much but I really enjoy it a lot. Our own fuss ball table is on its way and cant wait to play late night cames on fridays

25. I am more of listening person than talking one :) I can listen to absolutely anyone anytime than talk and when it comes to stage talk or group talking I am the worst case of shy attitude. Though I can be little better with close friends and family. So don't be surprised if I prefer write/mails/blogs over phone calls or social meetings :)

The rules for the above tagging buisness is:

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. If I tagged you, its because I want to know more about you.

So even though I do not have so many people to tag but I would tag:

Kalakand

Today morning when I was just thinking about making some sweet, suddenly thought of Kalakand I had when Mehul had taken us to temple for his new car's puja. I searched a little bit for the recipe and found that its very easy one. Oh but when I actually made it, I knew though the recipe is simple, it does take a long time to get to the final product. Especially boiling the milk to half and then drying it completely.

Ingredients

2 Liter Milk

1 Cup Sugar

3 Spoon Vinegar

1 Spoon Pistachio

A drop of Kewada Essence

A Silver Leaf

Method

• Boil half of the milk.
• Mix Vinegar with 3 spoon water and add it to the boiling milk.
• When the whey separates completely remove it from the stove and strain it
• Wash it through running cold water
• Put it in the muslin cloth and drain the water. Keep it aside under the heavy pan
• Boil remaining milk till half in quantity
• Add in the curdled milk stored aside in it and cook over medium flame till the mixture thickens
• Add in sugar and kewada essence. Cook till the mixture thickens completely.
• Spread the mixture on the plate, apply the silver leaf and garnish with chopped pistachios
• Let the mixture cool. Cut it into cubes and serve

Notes

I tried using non stick pan to boil the milk to half but it didn't work well. So I transferred it to the aluminum pan. It works best for making the sweet.

While boiling down the milk, you need to stir it constantly and vigourously so that it doesnt stick to bottom or sides of the pan.

05Nov: I tried using 2 galons of milk instead of 2 litre today which is approximately 8 liter and I had terrible time boiling down the milk to half and even after adding paneer. I totally missed the fact that since its boiling of the milk the time taken would be increasing and wont be a marginal increase. So be aware if you are making it in bulk. Its too much of work. And it made approximately 16 pieces of sweets with 2 liter and we finished it so fast that I had to make it again :) and thats how I thought of making it in bulk so that we can give it to few others too :)

Sandwich

This is my favorite bengali sweet. So when I was making Ajoy's favorite mishti dohi i decided to pamper myself with these. Turned out very delicious.


Ingredients
2 liter Milk
4 Spoon Vinegar
1 Spoon Rawa
2 Cups Khoya
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
2.5 Cup Sugar
Silver leaf
Pistachio Powder
A pinch of Baking Powder
Couple Pinch of Saffron

Method

• Keep 1/4 cup milk aside and bring remaining milk to boil and add in vinegar mixed with two spoon of water.
• Stir till the whey separates out and milk cuddles.
• Strain it through sieve and run through cold water. Let it sit there for 5 minutes so that water drains out completely.
• Mix sugar with 6 cups of water in a cooker and bring it to boil.
• Take out this paneer from the sieve and knead till very soft dough forms.
• Add in rawa and baking powder and knead again.
• Make thin flat squares and add half of them into the sugar syrup boiling in cooker
• Close the cooker lid and let out one whistle. Lower the heat and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Let it cool
• Takeout the cooked paneer and add another 2 cups of water in the cooker. Bring it to boil and add remaining paneer pieces to cook just like the earlier ones.
• When the second batch is cooled down store all paneer pieces with the syrup in the fridge overnight
• In the morning grate the khoya and add in powdered sugar in it.
• Warm the remaining 1/4 cup of milk and add in the Saffron in it. Add it to the khoya and knead till smooth.
• Take out the cooked paneer pieces from the fridge and cut each into triangle shape
• Make sandwiches by adding a layer of khoya paste we made between two triangles. Also sprinkle some pistachio powder on the khoya layer as well as on top of the sandwich
• Garnish with the silver leaf and serve chilled.

Notes
Instead of making thick pieces and cutting it through i made thin slices to begin with. So i could use single piece as it is.

Kaju Katli

Kaju Katli

I had been wanting to try this for a while now. I made this almost two years ago for Diwali when mom dad were here. After that it just slipped out of radar so this time when Ajoy asked me to make these I was not sure if I will remember what I had done and the learning's from the last time. But thankfully I had rough notes from then that I had sent to mom. So it was pretty easy to recollect. This time it came out perfectly and I did big photo session of them :) so I cannot find any excuse to not post this. This recipe has to be easiest to make and something that will get you lot of appreciation in return.

Ingredients

6 Cup Cashews

1 Cup Milk Powder

2 Cup Sugar

Pinch of Cardamom Powder

Silver Leaf

Method

• Grind cashews into fine powder in the mixer
• Mix the cashew powder and milk powder together
• Heat tawa till very hot and then take off the heat
• Add the cashew and milk powder mixture into the tawa and keep stirring till the mixture is warm to touch. Keep aside in a bowl
• Heat 1.5 cup water with sugar to make 2 string syrup.
• Add in the cardamom powder and the sugar syrup in the cashew mixture and mix well. Knead to get the soft dough.
• On a baking pan or any big plate, lay out butter paper and put the dough and press it hard and spread the mixture.
• Apply the silver leaf and let the mixture cool for atleast couple of hours.
• Cut the kaju katlis and serve.

Notes

Getting the sugar syrup right and kneading well is one key for the success.

Also when spreading the mixture into a plate, pressing it hard and then smoothing it with butter paper will get you correctly set katli.