Ras Malai for ICC and Akshaya Tritiya

First of all I want to say sorry to Srivalli for making this so late.  I made Ras Malai for ICC and for Akshaya Tritiya.  That's the reason I am posting it late.  Since I have already posted Rasmalai recipe in my way, I have pasted the same way it was given by Srivalli in Indian Cooking challenge.

Ingredients:

Milk - 3 litres (2 litres for making paneer and 1 litre for making Rasa/Milk syrup.)
Vinegar- 3 tbsps
Water-5 cup's
Sugar- 16 tbsp (8 for Sugar Syrup and 8 for Rasa/Milk Syrup)
Saffron- 8 pieces
Pista-10 finely chopped
Maida flour- 1 tsp
Cardamon-2 (crushed)

Method:
Preparation of Whey Water:
Boil Two Litres of milk and let it cool. Refrigerate the milk for 12 hours. The next day or after 12 hours, remove the thick layer of skin/ paal adai/meegada formed over the milk. Now boil the milk, when the milk boils, add vinegar. wait for a minute or two. the paneer will start floating on top and the whey water will stay on the bottom of the vessel. Now with a muslin or a cotton cloth, filter the paneer and pour 2 cups of water on it, to remove the sourness of vinegar and then tie it well and let it hang on for one hour, till the whey water drops out.
II. Preparation of Paneer:
As we have tied and hanged the paneer in muslin cloth to let out the whey water, wait for an hour and squeeze them well. remove from the cloth and shift to a broad vessel. Now just prepare the paneer, as we knead the dough for chapathi/roti, in the same way knead the paneer, for 5 minutes atleast, till you feel it dont have much moisture content in it. now add a spoon of maida flour to the paneer and make it as small small ball's remember the balls will become double in size after putting it and boiling it in sugar syrup. so make a medium size paneer ball's. with 2 litres of milk you can prepare 12 or 13 paneer ball's.
III. Preparation of Sugar Syrup:
In a wide-bottomed pressure cooker, add three cups of water and eight table spoons of sugar. let it boil. Now when it boils, add the paneer ball's one by one on to it. dont afraid of the ball's getting broken. if you have kneaded the paneer well, it wont get broked. let it get pressure cooked for 10 minutes in slow flame or for 2 whistles.
Now let the steam get out and open the cooker and see the double-sized paneer ball's. slightly press each and evry ball to emit the excess sugar syrup.
IV. Preparation of Milk Syrup/Rasa:
When you are starting to prepare sugar syrup. start making milk syrup/rasa side by side. Have one litre of milk in a wide bottomed vessel and let it boil and get reduced into half of the quantity. add eight table spoons of sugar and mix well. add saffron and crushe cardoman to it and mix well. put the paneer ball's into the rasa/milk syrup. cool it down and refregirate it.
Serve with chopped pistachios on top.

My Ras Malai was really melting in mouth.  The paneer disks were super soft. and breaking, may be I added little less maida.

Mung Daal Halwa for ICC

When I saw this month's ICC, I was excited.  Because I have never tasted Mung Daal halwa ever in my life.  But then we went on vacations I totally forgot about it.  Suddenly on the day of Bhogi, a day before Makar sankranti or Pongal, I wanted to prepare something sweet.  I remembered about this month's indian cooking challenge.  Immediately, I decided to prepare this mung daal halwa.  And when we tasted it was my right choice on the cold winter day.  Thanks to Srivalli for starting such an event ICC.

Ingredients Needed:

1 cup Moong dal
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Clarified Butter / Ghee
1/2 cup Khoya
Cashew nuts and raisins for garnish

Method to prepare:
Lightly roast the 1 cup of moong dal, wash, soak overnight and ground to a fine paste adding very little water.
Take a thick bottom pan, heat 1/2 cup ghee and fry the moong dal paste till it turns brownish and releases the ghee. Add sugar and khoya.
Stir fry until both the sugar and khoya are well absorbed. Turn off the heat, then mix in cashew nuts and raisins.  I could not use the raising because I was out of it.

Tip: You can make any quantity with this as long as you keep this ratio constant : equal amounts of dal and sugar, half the ghee and khoya.

Sheera/Sooji Halwa/Rava Kesari for New Year

Hi everybody, In the year 2010, this is my first entry.  I was missing for so many days because of other obligations.  Thanks to all those who enquired about me.  Thanks for caring.  We all are well and doing good.  I am still not out of the vacations we had this winter to Hawaii. 

On the new year day I made this simple halwa since I was still not in the mood of any elaborate cooking.  This is my elder son's most favorite dish.  Anyways, here is the recipe of sooji halwa.

Ingredients:
1 cup upma rava/sooji
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup Ghee/clarified butter
A pinch of cardamom powder
1 tbsp Raisins
few broken cashewnuts and almonds(Optional)

Method:
In a kadhai, heat ghee and roast the rava/sooji and the nuts if using on the medium low flame.
At the same time on other gas or in microwave keep the milk for boiling. 
Roast the rava till pink.  Add raisins.
Add the milk in rava keep stirring.  Add the sugar, raisins and the nuts.
Give a big stir and cover the kadhai.  Keep on low flame for 5 minutes.  Switch off the gas. 
Serve hot.

Tips:
Always use boiling milk for sooji halwa or else you will find lumps in the halwa.
Add nuts to the kadhai with rava so that no need to roast them seperately.
Add raisins before adding milk.

No-Egg, No Butter Carrot Cake

Today I wanted to make something very simple, and was in the mood to bake.  I had some carrots and bananas which I wanted to finish.  Decided to make this cake from here. 

What I used :

2 Cups Maida/All Purpose Flour
2 Cups carrots finely chopped/grated
1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup dessicated dry coconut unsweetened

1/2 cup golden raisins

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cardamom powder

2 ripe bananas peeled and mashed

1/2 cup oil

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

What I did:
Instead of grating the carrots I used mini food processor and chopped the carrots.  I chopped 5 carrots for the 2 cups of gratings.  I pulsed the walnuts before chopping the carrots.  In a big bowl, sieve the all purpose flour and the baking soda.  Mix together the carrots, coconut, walnuts raisin and the flour.

In another bowl, mash and beat the banana till fluffy.  Add 1 cup Sugar, 1/2 cup oil, cardamom powder and mix with a hand mixie.  Add the flour mixture to this mix and run the hand mixie on the speed of 1.  Add the milk and run the mixie. 

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees.  I poured the batter in a 8x8 tray and a 1 quart pyrex glass bowl.  Bake it for 25-30 minutes and a delicious with no egg or butter cake is ready to serve.   Since today's baking was unplanned I could  not do any kind of  toppings but surely next time I am going to do it.

One more picture view from top:

Gulab Jamun for October challenge

For several days I was avoiding to make the Gulab Jamun because of all the efforts of making khova and all that.  But when Srivalli put it as Indian Cooking challenge I decided to make it and believe me its worth the efforts.  The gulab jamuns of home made khova are really heavenly and worth the efforts.  Actually, I wanted to take the step-by-step pictures, but my camera decided not to co-operate.

I followed the recipe from The Yum blog.

Ingredients

Milk – 8 cups

Maida – 1 cup

Sugar – 3 cups (if you want excess syrup i.e floating jamuns increase by a cup)
Water – 1 cup (increase if you’re increasing sugar)
Bakind Soda – 3 pinches
Cardamom – 4 pods
Saffron leaves – a few
Oil – 1 cup (for deep frying)

Method

Bring the milk to boil in the deep non stick pan. Reduce the flame to between low to medium and continue to heat the milk.  Stir occasionally in regular intervals until the milk completely thickens to form the khova.

8cups milk makes 1 & 1/2 cups of khova.

Combine sugar and water in a flat bottomed broad pan and simmer on a low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cardamom powder and saffron leaves and remove from fire.

Knead khova, maida and soda and quickly shape into balls.  Heat oil on a medium flame. Fry the jamuns till golden brown over a low to medium flame, keeping oil temperature uniform. Oil should not smoke.  Drain the jamuns and soak in the warm sugar syrup. 

I make gulab jamun a day before I want to serve.  While serving I just heat them a little in micro for 20-30 seconds.

These Gulab Jamuns are going to the Indian Cooking Challenge of Srivalli.

Ras Malai

I remember the golden olden days when every sunday we used to go to Jhama in the evenings.  Our fixed order will be Samosas, Pani puri and Ras malai.  After coming here we could not enjoy that.  Then I started buying the ras malai mix, but miserably failed all the attempts.  Then started buying ready to eat, but were expensive and getting only limited quantity.  So one fine day I thought of making my own Ras malai from scratch.  And voila, my first attempt gave me the desired result.  DH had the same happiness which I had seen in Jhama.

The procedure is a bit lengthy, but the end product is really worth of it.

Things you need:
4 cups Milk ( For discs)

Juice from one lemon almost 2tbsp

3 cups water
1 & 1/2 cups Sugar (for making syrup)

2 cups Milk (for Ras)
1/2 cup Heavy whipping cream(Optional)
1/2-3/4 cup Sugar (for Ras)
2 tbsp unsalted Pistachios coarsely ground
2 tsp Almonds sliced thinly
1 tsp cardamom powder
Few saffron strands

Preparing paneer:

Boil the milk ( I used whole milk but you can use 2% if you want low fat) in a heavy bottomed vessel about 8 minutes by stirring constantly and when it comes to boil add 2 tbsp of lemon juice slowly.  Now the milk gets seperated in the protein and whey water ( stir it slowly).  Now strain the curdled milk using a fine muslin cloth.  Add some cold water in the strainer so it takes out the flavor of lemon from the paneer.  Allow it drain completely for half an hour.  After that squeeze the muslin cloth in which paneer is strained so as much water in it comes out make sure there is no water in the paneer.  Then remove it and knead to a smooth dough if  you want to make sure if the paneer is ready just take a little bit in your palm and rub it using your thumb for few seconds and you should be able to make a small smooth ball.  Make a key lime size balls and flatten slightly. 

Boil water with two cups of sugar and when it comes to boil add the paneer balls in to it and pressure cook it for about 7-10 minutes.  Be sure not to make a crowd because they are going to expand.  When you pressure cook, the paneer balls will expand and it becomes double the size. Keep it aside.

For preparing malai boil milk with heavy cream.  The milk should get reduced in to 3 cups so the boiling will take about 20 minutes.

Now remove the pressure cooked paneer balls from the sugar syrup and press it gently to remove the water . keep it aside.  Once the milk is reduced add sugar and cardamom powder.  Add the paneer balls one by one slowly in to the boiling malai so the paneer balls absorb the milk and let it stand in the medium heat for about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Garnish it with ground pistachios, almond slices and saffron strands.

 

Serve chilled and enjoy the happiness.

Shankarpaali or Shakkarpaari

I made them for diwali.  I don't know from where this thing has got it's name "Shankarpaali" in Marathi, but let's not discuss about the name part.  Diwali won't be diwali if I don't make them.  Both my sons love them.  Even if its not diwali I keep making them since its a good finger food.  Kids and adults both equally love them.  Try them and let me know.  This is my Diwali platter.  Oops, I forgot to keep murukku.  I know, I know I am late but due to family sickness I could not do it.

From left corner clockwise : Kaju Katli, Chivda, Besal Laadoo, Rava Laadoo, Shankarpaali, Nankhatai.

Ingredients

1 Cup Ghee/Clarified butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Milk/Water

6-7 Cups Maida/All Purpose Flour

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix together the ghee, sugar and the milk/water.  I prefer to use milk.  Keep stirring till it turns creamy.  Keep adding maida little by little till the mixture turns out like chapati dough.  Soft but pliable.  Divide in tennis size balls.  Roll into a chapati.  Cut the chapati in squares or diamond shape of 1 inch.  Heat oil and fry on medium high heat.  Fry till they turn light brown.  Remove on paper towel.  Once cool store in the airtight container.  Serve with hot tea or coffee.  Tastes great.

Easy breezy Naarali Bhat

This is one of my simple recipe for Naarali Bhat.  Yes, accepted that its not the traditional way but can be prepared in jiffy without any hassle.

This is what I used:

1 cup Rice

2 cups water

1 cup Sugar

1 cup grated coconut

2 tbsp Ghee, sorry no butter or oil

5-7 Cloves

1 tbsp cashew pieces

1 tbsp golden raisins

Few saffron strands dissolved in 1 tbsp of warm milk
A pinch of Orange food colour (Optional)

This is what I did with the ingredients:

Cook the rice in 2 cups of water like we do normally.  The rice should not be too soft but fully cooked and grain seperated.  Reduce/increase the water quantity accrodingly.  I used 2 cups water.  When it is fully cooled add the sugar and the coconut.  Mix together.  Now the rice, sugar and coconut mixture will start leaving water.

In a kadhai or wok, heat the ghee.  Add the cloves in the ghee and fry till the colour is changed.  Then add the cashewnuts and then raisins, when the cashews turn light brown, add the rice mixture alongwith the water.

Pour the saffron milk and the food colour if using.  Mix everything together and put lid on the kadhai.  After all the water dries up, remove from heat.  Serve.

This rice can be sered hot or cold.  No restrictions.  Even it can be made a day or two in advance for parties.  Tastes great.

  

Pedhe

This is a very simple recipe. It's one such sweet everybody likes. I make this whenever I want something sweet to eat.

Makes about 35 pedhas of medium size.

This is what I used:

1 tin sweetened Condensed milk

2 cups Carnation Milk Powder

8 tbsp unsalted Butter

1 tbsp Almonds, roasted.

1-2 strands Saffron

1 tsp Milk.

This is what I did:

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter for 1 minute. Add the milk powder and condensed milk. Mix everything together.

Dilute the saffron strands in the milk and mix it with the above mixture.

Microwave for 2 minutes. Take out & stir. Again microwave for 2 minutes. Take care it may overflow. Stir.

Roast the almonds in micro for 1 minutes so that they become crunchy & halve them.

Grease hands with butter or ghee and make pedhas while the mixture is still warm. Take care not to burn your hand. Stick the almond halve to decorate.

Pedhas are ready.

Modak for Ganesh Chaturthi

This is my first entry in Indian Cooking Challange. Modak is most favourite food for Lord Ganesha. My mom is expert in making modak. This is how I made them.

Ingredients:

For Stuffing:

2 Cups scrapped fresh/frozen Coconut

1.5 cup Jaggery

1 Tbsp dry roasted poppy seeds/Khaskhas

A pinch of Cardamom Powder

Few raisins(Optional)

For Covering:

1 Cup Rice flour

1 & 1/4 cup Water

1 tsp Oil

A pinch of Salt

Preparation of Stuffing:

Grate jaggery. Mix the jaggery with coconut gratings & keep aside. Roast the Khaskhas seeds & powder. In a heavy bottomed kadhai, transfer the coconut-jaggery mixture add the khaskhas powder & heat till the mixture is heated through & dries up. Add the cardamom powder & raisins if using. Remove from fire. Let it cool.

Preparation of outer shell:

Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed pan take the water add the salt & oil. Let the water come to rolling boil. Once the water is boiled slowly add the rice flour stir & close the lid. Let the dough cook for 2-5 mintes. After a big steam, take the pan away from gas. Take out the dough in another bowl/plate. When it is warm enough to handle start kneading the dough. There should be no lumps in the dough. It should be soft & smooth like play dough.

Final stage:

Start boiling water in a large vessel that can fit a steamer. The water should not touch the steamer. Oil the steamer and set it aside. Make about 20 balls of the dough and 20 parts of the stuffing. Start making small bowl with the dough ball with oiled hands & fingers this really needs skill. Once the bowl is ready keep one part of stuffing in the bowl. Now make pleats around the bowl. Then collect all the pleats in the center of the bowl on the top. Alternatively, Start making small puri with the dough ball on a oiled paper/aluminum foil. Keep one part of stuffing in the middle of the puri and gather the puri gently to make shape like modak. You will have to handle the dough very gently. Follow the step to make remaining modaks. Now dip each modak in cold water and put it in the steamer. Put the steamer on boiling water and cover it. Let the modaks steam for 15-20 minutes on medium to high heat. Take the steamer off the vessel and let it sit for 5 minutes before removing modaks from steamer.

Serve the modak hot with ghee/sweetened coconut milk.

I had also prepared the Sesame seeds laadoo on the same day.

I roasted 100 gms of Sesame seeds. After the seeds are cool enough to handle, I added 3.5 - 4 tbsp of Jaggery to the seeds & ran everything in mixie.

Due to the oil in the sesame seeds you can make the laadoo. It also stays in the shape.

It is really simple & tasty recipe for sesame laadoos. It took only 5 minutes for me. Isn't it easy?

I followed Srivalli's recipe to make boorelu. This was first time I made them so I made a small batch. Everybody liked them, now I can make more also.

Ingredients:

For the cover :Black gram dal/ Urad dal - 50 gms

For the Stuffing :

Bengal gram/Channa dal - 1 cup

Grated Jaggery - 1 cup

Fresh/frozen grated Coconut - 1/4 cup (opt)

Cardamom powder - 3/4 tsp

salt to taste

oil for deep frying

Method: Wash and soak Urad dal. Drain water from the Urad dal and grind to fine paste adding very little water. The batter should be like the dosa batter before adding water or like the batter to dip batata wada. Add salt and leave it aside covered.

For the stuffing, pressure cook the channa dal with just enough water to cover it. Cook the jaggary to remove any scum. Then once the dal is well cooked, drain and cook it along with the jaggary. It should become very soft enough for you to mash well. You can either grind it to a smooth paste or mash it to fine consistency with a masher. If you find the puran is very loose, you can cook this in sim to get a thick paste. Add Cardamom powder and grated coconut. You will know its done when the dal starts to leave the sides. Remove and cool. Divide them into equal balls.

Heat a thick bottom kadai for frying. Once the oil is hot, turn to sim. Then dip each ball in the Urad dal batter. Make sure its coated on all sides. Then drop them into the hot oil. Keep turning to cook on all sides. Once couple of batches are done, strain the oil to remove the scum. It takes only 2-3 mins to get cooked. Drain them on to a kitchen towel. Serve hot.

Godache Aappey

Wish you all a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi.
May the Vighnaharta remove all the obstacles from our life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a very simple recipe from my mom. I made these yesterday for naivedya for lord Ganesha. I am keeping Ganapati Bappa for 5 days and everyday I am making one sweet dish. For Sunday I made Modak & Sesame Laddu & today I made Appam & coconut milk. Today I will be making Naarali Bhat. I will post the recipe later. Now here is the recipe for Gode Aappey.


What you need:

1 Cup fresh/frozen Coconut,
1 Cup Jaggery
1.5 cups Coarse Rava/Sooji/Bombay Rava
1 Tbsp Roasted Peanuts
Ghee for frying


What to do:

Lightly dry roast rava. In a mixing bowl, take coconut & grated jaggery. Mash both of them together. Add the peanuts & rava. Soak everything together. If you feel this is of not dropping consistency add little milk to the mixture. Keep this aside for 3-4 hours.


After 3-4 hours, heat the appey patra and half fill the cavities with ghee. When the ghee is hot, add a spoonful of the above mixture and cover.

After 2-3 minutes remove the lid, if you see the sides of the appey has turned brown, turn them upside down with a knitting needle or a chopstick. Let the appey cook on the other side.


Once done remove from the patra & serve. You can keep these appey for 3-4 days also.

Lapsi - A healthy sweet dish

This friday was the last friday of Aadi & even kirthikai of aadi maasam. I wanted to make some sweet dish for naivedya at the same time feeling lazy to go to the kitchen. I was not in the mood to go & cook anything. Thought a lot to make something very simple yet healthy & quick recipe. I opened the pantry & found some lapsi rava. Immediately idea clicked in my mind to make Lapsi.

Ingredients :

1 Cup Lapsi Rava/Wheat rava/Fada/finely Broken wheat

1/3 Cup Ghee

1 Cup Brown Sugar

3 cups water/milk & water in 1:2 measure

10-15 broken Cashew,

5-6 Almonds/Badam,

1 Tbsp Raisins,

1 Tbsp dry/fresh grated coconut (Optional).

Method:

In a heavy bottomed kadhai/pan heat ghee. Add the lapsi rava & roast till it becomes aromatic or till it becomes 1 shade darker. Add the cashew, badam, raisins and water or the mixture of milk & water. Add sugar. Break all the lumps if any, add coconut if using fresh. Put the lid on the pan/kadhai. Let cook for min. 5 minutes of medium flame. Add coconut if using dry coconut at this stage. Serve hot.

Fruit Custard

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL OF U.

My Mother's day special is Fruit Custard. Here is the simple recipe:

Ingredients:
1 Apple,
12 grapes each colour, green, red & black,
5 Strawberries
1 cup papaya & pineapple chunks,
4 cups Milk,
6 tsp Custard Powder,
Mango Pulp (Optional)
4 tbsp Sugar


Method:

Wash & cut all the fruits.
Prepare the custard according to the package directions.
Once the custard is cooled pour it on the fruits.
Refrigerate & serve chilled.

Note :
U can add jelly chunks also in the on the fruit custard.
If u like u can add mango pulp also in the custard once it is cold.