Caramel pudding

I don’t love sweets very much but it does not mean that I don’t indulge in sweets once in a while. I do occasionally eat sweets but only selected varieties or basically those which are not too sweet as it is not acceptable to my taste buds (I know it sounds funny but it’s the truth). On the contrary, my brother and dad have a sweet tooth and only the mention of the word sweets is enough for them to start drooling. I did not know to prepare sweet delicacies as I have never personally prepared any sweet dishes so far in my short tenure in the kitchen and my credentials are restricted to only seeing my mom preparing wonderful south Indian sweet dishes which is prepared mainly with milk like Kheer, Payasam etc on numerous festive occasions.

For this Valentine Day I wanted to surprise (or shock if the dish goes terribly wrong) my hubby by preparing a sweet dish as in my 2 years of marriage I had never prepared any sweets. This was the first time I was going to venture in that direction (unexplored virgin area for me) and God willing I hoped everything would turn out fine. I wanted to prepare a sweet dish with eggs as the core ingredient as I had some eggs lying in my refrigerator.

200 ml milkmaid

300 ml milk

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

¼ cup sugar for caramel

Method

1.    Beat egg white, when it is done add the yolk and beat well again

2.    Then add milk, milkmaid and vanilla essence and mix well

3.    Caramelize the sugar (take about ¼ cup sugar in a dry pan. Heat in a high flame till it becomes brown and melts completely. When it becomes golden brown add little water and stir gently till you get honey consistency then cool it and keep it in the refrigerator)

4.    Then pour the mixture in the pudding bowl and close the lid and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes in pressure cooker without the whistle

5.    Once it is done, cool it and enjoy it chilled.

Indian Pasta Penne Style

Pasta! When I heard the word for the first time when I was small it sounded interesting but I never really got the opportunity to taste the dish at that point of time. I was busy with my studies and my Mom was not well verse or acquainted with cooking Italian cuisine. The primary reason was that there was no Italian restaurant in the locality where I was born and brought up (in a small quaint town called Ponda in Goa). If this was not the case then I would have surely eaten it much earlier as we as a family liked trying out different kinds of cuisines at various joints.

My hubby was not too fond of pasta and always tried to escape it some way or another.  The simplest escape trick being he used to say “I will just taste it”. In other words he will just have a spoon and I have to finish the entire dish on my own (short and simple). We also never ordered the dish in the restaurant as when we read the ingredients plus sauces in the preparations of various kinds of Pasta it did not sound very appealing.

Once it so happened that we landed up at Vijay’s aunt’s (Kala Mave’s) place to give her a surprise and she happened to prepare pasta on that occasion. We both liked it so much that we became a regular fan of it. I am putting down the recipe borrowed from her. The credit goes to her. This pasta has an Indo-Italian taste, style and flavor to it and will suit our palate.

Ingredients

4 -5 tbsp oil

5 onions finely chopped

3 tomatoes finely chopped

8 garlic pieces

1 tsp of ginger paste

1 ½ tsp red chili powder

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp Garam masala powder

250g boiled pasta

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil and onions, garlic and ginger. Fry till onions become translucent.
2. Add red chili powder, fry for a minute and then add tomatoes and fry for 2 to 3 min till little oil leaves and then add Garam Masala and mix well.
3. Add paste, salt and tomato ketchup and mix well.
4. Garnish with coriander.

Spicy baby potatoes

Whenever I go to the market for vegetable shopping, I am tempted to buy Baby Potatoes. Especially in Mumbai market we get good baby Potatoes. What I mean to say is that we really get very small potatoes which are unheard of in Ponda and Pune. Both of us like it very much so I always end up in buying it. But end up preparing the same age old recipe thought by my mom i.e. with red chili powder (Dum Aloo). I always wanted to prepare baby potatoes with a little bit of gravy. So I started searching on the net for some recipes. After going through many recipes and customizing as per our taste buds I ended up with the following recipe (custom made ………..and we both loved it)

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil

½ kg baby potatoes

Cumin seeds 1 ts

½ tsp Asafetida

2 green chilies finely chopped

1 tsp ginger

1 tbsp Coriander powder

½ tsp haldi powder 

1 tsp of red chili powder

½ cup of tomato puree

½ tsp pepper powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp of kasturi methi

½ tsp of lemon juice

Method

1. Wash, boil and peel potatoes.
2. Heat oil, add cumin seeds  when it starts cracking add asafetida, green chills and ginger fry for few sec and then add potatoes fry for 2 min.
3. Add salt, coriander powder, haldi powder, red chili powder and tomato puree. Mix well and fry for a while.
4. Add remaining masala and then mix well.

Cooked Rice Dosa

If you are expecting some guests at your place and they do not turn-up at the last minute for whatever reasons and you have cooked a lot of rice which is left over then this Dosa is a very good option for that rice (vilavar korcha sitache). It is a very simple dish to make and is also very tasty and delicious at the same time. This is another option other than Sita Phanna which is normally prepared out of leftover rice. This recipe will add another dimension to your culinary skills and will keep you in good stead.

Ingredients

1 cup cooked rice

1 cup raw rice

Method:

1.       Soak raw rice for about 2 to 3 hr

2.       Grind soaked rice along with cooked rice to a smooth past does not add too much of water

3.       You need to get the consistency of Dosa batter (not too thin like neer Dosa nor to thick)

4.       Then keep for overnight fermentation.

5.       Next day add salt and ½ tsp of soda powder about ½ hr before removing Dosa

6.       Heat the tava, add little oil and spred it over

7.       Put about a ladleful of batter onto it and spread with the back of ladle (not very thin)

Poached coconut Egg curry

I was always enchanted by the wonderful aroma of an omelet and wanted to try it out at least once in my lifetime. Even though my family members did not eat eggs, they never restricted me in trying out the eggs for myself but I never got the opportunity until I got married. The opportunity was presented to me by itself after marriage as my better half was a vegetarian and an eggitarian (but not a non vegetarian). Anyways I thanked my lucky stars that he was only an eggitarian and I could at last fulfill one of my lives unfulfilled wish.

My husband had prepared the omelet for the first time and he asked me to taste it. I thought it was my lucky day and I put a morsel in my mouth. When I ate the omelet instead of it being yummy it was yucky to my sensory buds. I thought that I will cease to eat it again in my lifetime.  Then I was told by my granny that the reason the omelet did not smell or taste good was because my hubby had not beaten the eggs well (the first and the last time I was the guinea pig and there was a role reversal henceforth). Even though I got to try out the real flavor of the omelet prepared by my granny, l personally didn’t enjoy the omelet as much as he (my husband) enjoys it. But I really loved the smell and the flavor of the egg curry prepared by my aunt and she passed on the recipe to me. I enjoy poached egg curry more than the boiled egg curry.  

When I prepared it for the first time I was successful in getting the taste to perfection which took me by surprise as I did not expect to get it right in the first attempt. But I will give the credit to the person who taught me this recipe namely Vijay’s aunt.

Ingredients

6 eggs

4 onions cut long

5 red chilies

2 green chilies

12 garlic

¼ coconut or about 1 cup

1 tsp ginger

Handful of coriander leaves

1 tsp gram masala powder

Method

-        Grind red chilies, green chilies, coconut, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves when it becomes smooth paste add gram masala and grind it once

-        In a deep kadai, heat 3 tbs of oil and about 1 ½  tbs of ghee

-        Add chopped onions and fry till the onions turn golden brown color and then add grinded paste

-        add about 2 – 2 ½ cup of water and bring it to a boil. Turn heat to low

-        Break in the eggs one by one carefully so that the yolk remains intact (just like making a poach). don't stir it at all, let it cook on it's own.

Schezuan Rice

We both (I and my hubby) are lovers of authentic Indian Chinese food (Let me clarify that there is no mistake and I was perfectly in my senses when I wrote that we love Indian Chinese food which is a variation to suit the Indian taste buds. Authentic Chinese food is very bland and we don’t like it as we both love spicy food) .My husband’s all time favorite Indian Chinese food involves schezuan sauce. Any Chinese preparation made out of schezuan sauce he enjoys it like there is no tomorrow ( just to emphasize his love for schezuan food). Both of us have been lucky to try out the Indian Chinese food at various places in the city. It occurred to me that why not prepare the Authentic Indian Chinese food at home as both of us enjoy this cuisine? The first step was learning to prepare the schezuan sauce. So I searched the recipe for it online and I got numerous recipes. I, being a smart alec (or a lazy bum you can choose the terminology) chose the recipe with the least ingredients and tried it out and in the haste of preparing it I ended up boiling the red chilies more than required(instructed) resulting in the red chilies losing all of its spicy flavor and retaining only its colour.

That was not the end of the disaster for the day.  The rice was also not up to the mark as it was also a bit over boiled. To sum it up, it was a total flop (mild term for want of a better term for the disaster). I thought of giving the recipe one more try. This time I did not cut corners and browsed through 3 – 4 online schezuan recipes and chose the good bits of each recipe for the schezuan sauce which I felt would be able to deliver the required flavor by preparing a customized recipe as per our requirements and palate. (Best of both the worlds or in this case best of 4 worlds). This time the end result was more or less similar to the taste of the schezuan sauce available in the restaurants.

This time around I preferred to follow the old school method and prepared the Chinese rice the way my mom taught me and it turned out to be great………….. Hats off to her……….

Schezuan sauce

Ingredients

·         1 cup or about 25 no. red chilies

·         4 tbspoon oil

·         1 ½ tbspoon finely chopped garlic

·         1 Tbspoon  ginger paste

·         1 onion finely chopped

·         1 tbspoon  soy sauces

·         1 tbspoon chill sauces

·         1 tb spoon vineger

·         3 tb spoon Tomato ketchup

·         1 tb spoon sugar

·         1 ts spoon black pepper powder

·         1 ts corn flour

·         ½ cup water

·         Salt

1.       Boil about 2 cups of water.

2.       Once the water starts boiling add red chilies and then boil it for about 50 seconds     to a minute.

3.       Drain out the water. Cool it. Grind into a smooth paste in a blender using a little water.

4.       Heat about 3 tbspoon oil in a wok or non-stick pan and sauté garlic, onions and ginger for a minute  or till the onions become a bit soft.

5.       Add the Chili paste and sauté for about a minute or 2.

6.       Add 1 tbspoon of oil again and mix well.

7.       Add vinegar, all the sauces, sugar and salt and mix well.

8.       Dissolve the corn flour in the water ( about 30 ml water) and add to it.

9.       Add water and mix well and bring it to boil.

10.   Add pepper powder and mix well.

This sauce becomes a thick paste. You can store it in the refrigerator for nearly a month

Chinese rice

Ingredients

·         2 tb spoon oil

·         ½ cup onion and spring onion white

·         1 cup rice

·         1 ¾ cup water

1.        Heat oil and fry onions and white of spring onion.

2.       Add rice and fry and then add hot water. Mix well and then keep it on low flame till the rice is done

Schezuan rice

  

1.      Heat oil in a pan add about 2 tb spoon of oil

2.      Add about 1/4 cup of Schezuan sauce and also add about 1/4 cup of water so as to get the consistency like any other sauce (as the sauce prepared is bit thick). fry for about 1 min

3.      Add the rice and mix well and garnish with spring onion green

4.      Toss for a few second till it is mixed well

Sandwich green chutney

When I first heard the recipe for this chutney I was baffled and was taken by surprise. How can chutney be made without the most important ingredient i.e. coconut?  Being a south Indian I couldn’t imagine making chutney without the core ingredient coconut which we tend to use in almost 90% of the dishes…..correction make it almost 99 % of all our dishes. We tend to put it in upma, poha, nuchi, ghashi, upkaris etc in ample quantities ……. and there is this never ending list. When I first tried this recipe a year back, it did not taste right and it had a lot of shortcomings. It did not look good, which is one of the most important attributes of food as if something is not visibly good you will not feel like tasting it at all. The proportion of the various ingredients was not proper.  In my haste of making it quickly I ended up putting excess water which resulted in the end product (chutney) being more watery which made it difficult to use it as a spread on the bread ……….but my sweet and co-operative little hubby (pun intended) said that the “taste is good and the next time I should put a bit less water and it would be just perfect”. It’s been almost a year since that comment and now after numerous hits and misses I have at long last got the hang of this recipe and am able to balance all the ingredients in the right proportion which I would like to share with you.

Sandwich green chutney

Ingredients

2 cup Coriander leaves

1/4 cup groundnut

1tsp jeera

1 inch ginger

½  tsp sugar

4 to 5 green chills (depends on the spice)

1 tsp lime juice

 Salt to taste

Put little water grind this all together, add water as per requirement to make it into smooth paste ………..and yummy chutney is ready.

A New Beginning. . . . .

While doing my post graduation course, we had to do a lot of project work and once it so happened that I had to do a project work relating to food industry which was a blessing in disguise for me. To my astonishment that was the first time when I stumbled across many online recipes and blogs. It was a very nascent stage for me at that time and I was not very well verse with the concept of a blog, what it means, how to create it and so on. There were many questions which were left unanswered at that point of time as I did not make any efforts nor was curious enough to find out the answers or go in search of the truth/fact.  

I believed it was a great concept /idea to have recipes online as anyone can easily access it from anywhere and at anytime at the convenience of their home at the press of a button….but that Good Samaritan thought ended along with my project into oblivion. I just forgot about it completely as I was indulged in numerous other activities and did not put my mind to it or think about it for that matter until now. So now when I browse online and come across numerous different blogs it just struck me like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere that it was a good idea …..Sorry make that a great idea to have a cooking blog of my own but then the million dollar question which I had to answer was whether I was good enough to create a food blog of my own? I am neither a good cook nor a good writer. I thought that in a worst case scenario it can be used as a good food diary.

After doing a lot of research relating to blogs and understanding it in its true spirit and form I took the plunge to start a cooking blog of my own but for some reason or another I kept postponing the inevitable. New Year seemed to be the best time to start one and so I finally made a New Year resolution to start a blog of my own and created it successfully without much fanfare.

I am creating a blog for the first time and I require your full support and co-operation in making it a successful one at that.  It will be a gradual learning process for me. Also as far as my cooking is concerned it is also a Work in process for me. Cooking is an art and it can be developed over a period of time. The most important attributes required are hard work, dedication, sincerity, imagination, creativity and a never say die attitude. Nothing is Impossible.

I have a very supportive guinea pig at home namely my hubby on whom I can carry out my experiments (relating to cooking/kitchen to clarify and avoid any other wild thoughts which might have entered your mind) without any repercussions whatsoever. God willing hopefully my learning curve will improve over a period of time. It is my humble request to you to try out my recipes for yourselves if you find them interesting. Your comments, suggestions or critical review is always welcome and will be deeply appreciated.

Ahoy and Welcome Aboard!