Bottle Gourd Pudding/ Lauki ka Halwa

Thursdays are days when I generally make some sweet as an offering to God. I usually go by the easiest and quickest sweet dish – Semiya Payasam. However, today I thought of making something else. With fresh bottle gourds sitting in my fridge, Bottle gourd pudding/ Lauki ka Halwa seemed to be perfect.

Putting up this recipe on the blog wasn’t really my plan. But hubby’s comment or rather compliment, made me do it. He said “mmm, it tastes as if a professional has made it.” I was like “WOW, this ought to be out there on the blog..!” And besides with Diwali just around the corner, it made total sense to give my viewers a visual treat (well, I hope it is).

Ingredients

Lauki – 1 Cup, grated

Ghee – 1 tsp.

Milk – 1 Cup

Sugar – 6 to 7 tsp. (Can be adjusted as per taste)

Cardamom Powder – ¼ tsp.

Dry Fruits (Cashews/ Sliced almonds/ Pistachios/ Raisins) – 1 to 2 tbsp.

Note: I used just cashews and almonds

Serves 2

Method

1. While grating the bottle gourd, make sure you remove all the seeds.

Note: Don’t worry about the water it retains.

2. Take a saucepan and heat the ghee. Put in the grated bottle gourd and sauté for about 5 minutes.

3. Now add sugar and milk. Keep stirring the mixture until it loses all the water and starts sticking together.

4. In the meanwhile, roast the dry fruits (broken in to halves) by placing them in the microwave for 45 – 50 seconds.

5. Add these nuts and cardamom powder in to the lauki mixture.

6. Mix well and serve hot.

7. Alternatively, after the pudding cools down completely, place it in the fridge on a flat plate for about and hour or two (till it sets) and cut it in to square pieces. That gives you lauki ki barfi.

Taro Root Fry/ Arbi Fry

Arbi fry is one of my favorites. I generally shallow fry them/ sautee. But every time I felt something was missing. So this particular time I decided to deep fry them and bingo! It turned out to be very very delicious.

The recipe is adapted from “vahrehvah.com”.

Ingredients

Taro Roots/ Arbi – 3 cups, boiled and cut in to round pieces

Curry Leaves – 12 to 15 leaves

Green Chilies – 6 to 7, slit vertically

Red Chili Powder – 1 tsp.

Oil – enough for deep frying

Salt – to taste

Serves 3 - 4

Method

1. Heat enough oil for deep frying in a sauce pan.

2. Put in the taro root/ arbi pieces in to the oil (in batches) and fry until they become golden brown in color.

3. After all the pieces are done, deep fry the curry leaves and green chilies.

4. Place the fried taro roots in a big container. Sprinkle salt and red chili powder on them and also put in the fried curry leaves and green chilies.

5. Toss the pieces for a few seconds (until all the ingredients mix well) and serve hot with Sambar/ Rasam and rice.

Chickpea Flour Coated Eggplant/ Brinjal Sautee

My husband doesn't prefer brinjal/ eggplant, whereas on the other hand, I LOVE eggplant. On one of the trips to shop veggies, I made sure I bought brinjals. And there I was with beautiful fresh brinjals. I wanted to make something different out of them and it kept me thinking. Finally I came up with the following recipe. My husband loves it and so does my mom. :)

Ingredients

Brinjals – 4 medium sized/ 2 cups, diced in to cubes

Besan/ Gram Flour – 3 tbsp.

Chili powder – ½ tsp.

Dahnya and Jeera powder – ½ tsp.

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp.

Salt – to taste

Oil – 3 tbsp.

Method

1. Take a bowl and mix all the ingredients (oil – 1 tbsp.). Brinjal pieces should be properly coated with all the masalas.

2. Keep aside for about 10 – 15 minutes.

3. Take a wok, add 2 tbsp. of oil. Once it gets heated add the brinjal - masala mixture and cook covered until the pieces are done.

4. Enjoy this easy to prepare dish with rice and rasam/ sambar.

Marble Cake

We had a few friends coming over for dinner and I thought I’d bake a cake for dessert. First thing that came to my mind was ‘Brownies’. But then somehow I was reminded of Marble cake and how I never tried it. Besides, ‘Navratri’ was going on and I didn’t want to use any eggs. So I looked up a few recipes and stuck to the following one (adapted from ‘Sharmis Passions’).

Ingredients

All Purpose Flour/ Maida – 1 ¼ cups

Milk Powder – 3 tbsp.

Unsalted Butter – ½ cup/ 1 stick

Baking Soda – ¾ tsp.

Sugar – 1 cup

Milk – 1 cup

Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp.

Cocoa Powder – 2 tbsp.

Hot Water – 2 tbsp.

Salt – A pinch (if using unsalted butter)

Yield – 26 – 28 medium sized pieces

Method

1. In a large bowl, mix together butter (melted/ at room temp), sugar and beat until the mixture becomes fluffy and creamy.

2. Add in milk, milk powder and vanilla essence and mix the ingredients properly.

                                       

3. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking soda.

4. Mix in dry ingredients with wet ingredients and beat until the mixture becomes nice creamy and smooth.

5. Take a small portion of the batter (about 1/4^th) and mix it with cocoa powder and hot powder in a separate bowl.

6. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F/ 175 degrees C.

7. In the meanwhile, take a cake pan and grease it with butter and dust it with flour.

8. Pour in the creamy batter on to the cake pan. Now pour in the chocolate batter in small portions (circular spots) over the creamy batter.

9. With the help of a fork, mix in both the batters slightly. The pattern should look like that of ripples’.

10. Place the cake pan in to the oven and bake for about 20 – 22 minutes or until a toothpick pricked in comes out clean.

11. Let the cake cool down completely and cut it in to desired shape and number of pieces. 

Lentil Crepes/ Adai

There was this day when I was badly craving for some dosa. I felt quite helpless because making white dosas (urad dal and rice) is such a big process. I kept on thinking as to what to do and this thought came to mind – “Can I make dosas out of our regular chana dal/ toor dal?” I looked up the internet to see if anything like that exists. And Voila..! It does. I checked quite a few recipes and came up with the following one. My husband loves “Adai” and so do I. It’s perfect for breakfast or a light and delicious dinner.

Ingredients

To Soak:

Toor Dal – ½ cup

Chana Dal – ¾ cup

Fenugreek Seeds – 1/8 tsp.

For Grinding:

Dried Red Chilies – 4 to 5, whole

Coriander/ Cilantro – ½ cup, chopped

Mint Leaves – 7 to 8

Curry Leaves – 12 to 13

Garlic – 2 pods, cut in to large pieces

Black pepper Corns – 1 tsp.

Salt – to taste

Water – ¾ cup to 1 cup/ as per the required consistency

Ghee/ Oil – for frying the adai

Yield – 7 to 8

Method

1. Soak chana dal and toor dal along with fenugreek seeds for 3 – 4 hours.

                            

2. In a grinder, put all the ingredients except for oil and grind until a paste is formed. The batter need not be completely smooth. The adai tastes very good if the batter is a little coarse (not too much though).

Note: Be careful of the amount of water you add. Add water in installments until you get the desired consistency.

3. Heat a skillet and drizzle little oil/ghee on it. Take a laddle full of the batter, pour it in the center of the skillet and spread it in circular motion and make dosas. Add some more oil/ ghee to fry the dosa/ adai if required.

4. Flip the dosa and let it cook for a few seconds. Take it off the pan and place it on a plate.

5. Serve these mouthwatering hot dosas/ adais/ crepes right out of the pan with coconut chutney or tomato chutney.

Aloo Samosa

Well, there’s not much story to it. I just felt like making samosas and I did. Hot hot samosas on a rainy day with a cup of tea/ coffee, is a deadly combo. Try out this easy and delicious recipe and make your loved ones feel special.

Ingredients

For the stuffing:

Potato/ Aloo – 1 ½ cups, peeled and cut in to small cubes

Onion – 1 cup, cut in to thin long pieces

Mustard and cumin seeds – ¼ tsp.

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp.

Red chili powder – ½ tsp.

Dhanya jeera powder – ½ tsp.

Garam masala powder – ¼ tsp.

Fennel seeds powder/ Saunf powder – ¼ tsp., coarsely crushed

Salt – to taste

Oil – 2 tbsp.

For the outer layer:

All-purpose flour/ Maida – 2 cups

Wheat flour – ½ cup

Carom seeds/ Ajwain – ¼ tsp.

Black Pepper powder – ¼ tsp., coarsely ground

Chat masala – ½ tsp.

Ghee – 1 tsp.

Oil – for deep frying

Salt – to taste

Water – enough to knead the dough

Yield – 25 – 30 mini samosas

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients mentioned in the outer layer section (except oil) and make dough. Keep it aside for about 20 – 30 minutes.

2. In the meanwhile, to make the stuffing, take a pan, heat the oil (2 tbsp.) and add mustard and cumin seeds. Once they start spluttering, add the onion pieces and saute till they become transparent.

3. Add the potato pieces along with all the other ingredients (mentioned in the stuffing section). Mix thoroughly and cook until the potato pieces are done.

4. Now, take the dough and knead it again for about 3 – 4 minutes. Divide it in to very small equal sized balls.

5. Roll out each ball in to a circle and then cut it in to half. There should be 2 semi circles.

6. Take the semi circularly rolled out dough and make a cone. Fill in the cone with potato/ aloo masala and seal the open edge by pressing it.

7. Repeat the above step for all the balls.

8. In a sauce pan, heat the oil. Once the oil is ready, put in the samosas (4 – 5) and fry them in medium flame until they become golden brown in color. Repeat this step for all the samosas.

9. Place the samosas on a paper towel so that it soaks away the extra oil.

10. Serve the samosas with tomato ketchup or mint-coriander chutney.

Masala Mathri

Homemade fried snacks are usually out of my radar. Not that I don’t like them but all I can see is the no. of calories in them. :-|

However, there was this day when I craved for something fried. Was tired of the same old potato chips and I thought, ‘Mathri’ it is.

These mathris are mouthwatering and I bet ‘No one can eat just one’. :)

Ingredients

All-purpose flour/ Maida – 1 cup

Wheat flour – ¼ cup

Carom seeds/ Ajwain – ¼ tsp.

Fennel seeds powder/ saunf – ¼ tsp., crushed coarsely

Black Pepper powder – ¾ tsp., coarsely ground

Chat masala – ½ tsp.

Chili powder – ¼ tsp.

Ghee – 2 tsp.

Oil – for deep frying

Salt – to taste

Water – enough to knead the dough

Yield - 25 bite sized mathris

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients above (except oil) and make dough.

2.  Keep the dough aside for 15 – 20 minutes.

3.  Divide the dough in to equal parts and roll them in to small thick puris.

4.  Prick both sides of the puris with a fork (so that they don’t puff up while frying).

5.  Place the puris on a plate greased with ghee/ oil/ butter. I used ghee.

6.  In a pan, heat the oil. Once the oil is ready, put in the puris and fry them in medium flame until they become golden brown in color. Repeat this step for all the puris.

7.  Once all the mathris (fried puris) are done, transfer them in to a big bowl and sprinkle a little chili powder on the top.

8.  Toss the mathris for a second or two and let them cool. Enjoy the mathris with a cup of tea. :)