Chocolate crunch Barfi

Chocolate crunch Barfi -A lovely sweet made with chopped cashew nuts, almonds,pistachio nuts, cereal-corn flakes,rice crispies ,cocoa and golden syrup .Topped with delicious smooth milk chocolate. Simple and easy to make using basic ingredients.
Ingredients:

125 g rich tea biscuits
250 g digestive biscuits
50 g butter
1/2 bowl rice crispies
1/2 bowl cornflakes
50 g desiccated coconut
250 g mixed chopped nuts (almonds/ pista /cashews)
250 g golden syrup
3 tablespoons cocoa
300 g milk chocolate

Method:

1. Crush the biscuits and cereal and add chopped nuts and desiccated coconut. Mix
2. Melt the butter, cocoa powder and golden syrup in a pan.
3. Add to biscuit, nut and cereal mixture, and mix thoroughly till everything is coated.
4. Place mixture in a greased thali, press it to pack it tightly in the thali, smoothing it out and leave to set.
5. Melt the chocolate and pour over the set mixture.
6. Leave to set, once set cut in slices and enjoy.

You may like:
Eggless double Chocolate chip cake.

Boondi

Boondi -A royal dessert made from besan(chick pea flour) sugar syrup and garnished with chopped nuts.Delicately flavoured with saffron and cardamon.

Ingredients:

For batter:

1 cup Besan
1 tablespoon melted ghee for batter

1 tablespoon melted ghee for final garnish
½ cup water
Pinch orange food colouring

For chasne (sugar syrup)

1 cup Sugar ¾ cup water
1 pinch Kesar(saffron)

1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom powder

Oil for frying
15 almonds cut into slivers
10 almonds blanched and skin removed
2-3 drops red food colouring 2 cups

Oil for frying

Method:

For the chasne (sugar syrup)

1. In a pan add the 1 cup sugar and ½ cup water bring to boil.
2. Add the kesar, cardamon powder and pinch of food colouring.
3. Turn off heat when all the sugar is melted and chasne reaches ½ thread consistency (1/2 tar)


How to make boondi laddu:

1. Sieve the besan flour to remove lumps and add a pinch of food colouring.
2. Add 1 tablespoon of melted ghee and make a thick batter using the ½ cup water.
3. Keep aside

4. Heat the oil in a frying pan.
5. Hold the sieve about 2 inches from the oil. Take a ladle full of the batter and pour small amounts on to the sieve with small round holes.

6.Batter should drop to form small round pearl sized balls.(If you find batter is dropping too quickly forming long strings, batter is too runny add more flour to the batter, on the other hand if batter is not dropping than its too thick so add a little more water to batter.

7. Fry these pearl sized balls in small batches. As soon as they are crisp remove then from the oil and add to the chasne (sugar syrup)
8. Repeat the procedure till all the batter is used up.
9. To blanch the almonds add them to boiling water and leave for 5 mins
Remove from water and skin will slide off. Split the almonds in to halves and than quarters.
10. To the blanched almond quarters add 2-3 colours red food colouring ,toss to coat the almonds to colour them red. Place on kitchen paper to dry.

11. Mix the boondi into the sugar syrup, coating evenly and leave for ½-1 hour for the syrup to penetrate the boondis.

12. After 1 hour pour over the soaked boondi 1 tablespoon melted ghee,add the almond slivers and the coloured red almonds and mix.
13. Transfer to serving dish. Boondi is ready.

NB: For boondi ladoos, divide the mixture into 8 parts and make small golf ball sized ladoos from the boondi.

You may like: Gulab jamun.

Carrot cake

Carrot cake-A simple and easy cake made from carrots.Quick, simple and delicious with a cup of tea.

Ingredients:

1 small bowl self raising flour

1 small bowl sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 small bowl cooking oil

1/2 small bowl water

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 350F

2.Grease a cake tin 9x13 inches and keep aside

3. In a bowl sieve the flour and baking powder

4. Add the cinnamon and salt and sugar

5. Add the carrots and mix throughly

6. In a separate bowl add the oil, water ,eggs and vanilla and mix.

7. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold gently.Do not over mix.

8. Pour mixture into greased baking tin and bake for 45 minutes.

9. Leave to cool .

10.Once cooled you can add orange icing or just dust with icing sugar.

Cut into slices and serve with tea.

Masala Dosa

Masala Dosa-A traditionally South Indian dish.Crispy indian pancake filled with a delicious spicy potato filling served with chutneys and Sambhar.
Potato masala (There are many variations , this is just one of them.)

Ingredients.

4 medium potatoes finely diced
2 oz sweet corn kernels
4-5 green chillies finely chopped
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon white urad dall
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon whole jeera
3-4 curry leave
½ teaspoon clove powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon cooking boil
1 tablespoon fresh chopped coriander


Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the jeera, urad dall and curry leaves
2. Add the diced potatoes and sweet corn kernels
3. Add the salt and green chillies
4. Add the lemon juice
5. Cover and cook on low heat till potatoes tender
6. Add the clove and cinnamon powder and mix thoroughly
7. Add the chopped coriander .Mix keep aside.

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For Dosa.Ingredients:


3 cups idli rice
1 cup skinless split urad daal (skinless black gram)
3/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
Salt to tasteVegetable/ canola/ sunflower cooking oil for cooking dosas


Method:


1. Wash the rice and urad daal well. Add the fenugreek seeds to the mix and soak overnight.
2. The next morning, drain all the water from the rice and urad daal. Now put some in a food processor and grind - adding very little water if necessary - to a smooth paste .
3. When all the rice-daal mix is ground like this, put it into a large mixing bowl and add enough water to make a batter.
The consistency of the batter should be such that it thickly coats a spoon dipped in it.
4. Now add salt to taste and keep the dosa batter aside in a warm, dark spot, covered, for 6-8 hours.
After this fermentation, stir the batter well. It is now ready to make dosas.


Making the dosas:


1. Put some cooking oil in a small bowl and keep ready. You will also need a bowl of ice cold water, a large, flat non stick pan,
2 sheets of paper towel, a ladle, a spatula and a basting brush.
2. Fold one sheet of paper towel into a wad and dip lightly into the bowl of cooking oil. Squeeze out any excess and then rub the paper towel all over the surface of the pan to grease. The correct amount of oil is such that it is barely visible on the pan. Now turn on the heat/ flame at medium high.
3. Fill the ladle up to the 3/4 level with dosa batter.
4. Gently pour this batter onto the centre of the pan - just as you would for a pancake - till the ladle is empty.
5 .Now begin to spread the batter in sweeping circular motions to form a pancake of roughly 8" diameter.
6.As soon as you have finished spreading the batter out on the pan, dip the basting brush in cooking oil and drizzle the oil all over the surface of the dosa and also around its edges.
7. When the upper surface begins to look cooked (it will no longer look soft or runny), flip the dosa.
8. The surface that was underneath should be light golden in color. Allow to cook for 1 minute after flipping. The dosa is done.
9. Either serve the dosa with coconut chutney and sambhar or spread the potato masala on the dosa and fold in half.

NB before making the next dosa dip the second wad of kitchen paper in iced water and wipe clean the pan to cool it, repeat steps 2-8 again.

Chilli Paneer

Chilli paneer-An Indian and chinese fusion of flavours are excitingly used in this paneer (Indian cheese) dish made from whole milk. Succulent pieces of paneer grilled to give it a crunch on biting, marinaded and stir fried in a wonderful spicy hot chilli sauce accompanied by onions and capsicums.

Ingredients:

250 grams paneer (diced into small 1 cm cubes)

1 medium red onion (sliced thinly)

1 green capsicum (sliced in thin strips)

1 teaspoon garlic paste

1 teaspoon ginger paste

1/2 teaspoon salt

3-4 green chillies cut in to slits (seeds removed)

2 tablespoons soya sauce

2 tablespoons chilli sauce

2 tablespoons tomato ketchup

1 tablespoon sundried tomato paste or tomato puree

2 tablespoons olive oil

2-3 spring onions ,finely chopped

Method:

1.Place the paneer in a bowl and drizzle 1 tablespoon oil.Toss and coat the paneer cubes in oil.

2.Place the paneer on a baking try and grill ,turning occasionally to brown all sides.(Dont over cook , paneer just needs to take golden colour, otherwise paneer will go chewy)

3.Remove paneer cubes from grill and keep aside.

4.Heat 1 table spoon of oil in a pan add the garlic /ginger paste.

5.Add the onions and capsicums and sliced chillies, cook till slightly soft.

6.Add the soya sauce, chilli sauce, tomato ketchup and the sundried tomato paste.

7.Stir and add the salt and cook till a thick sauce forms.

8.Turn off heat and add the grilled paneer. Toss and coat all paneer pieces thoroughly with sauce.

9.Transfer to serving dish, garnish with finely chopped spring onion.

Serve warm.

You may like:

Stir fried noodles with baby corn and carrots.