Saturday, November 29, 2008

Kurle ghashi

This dish like many others varies at every konkani kitchen. Some add roasted ingredients along with basic coconut masala (masolu: coconut, roasted red chillies, tamarind & salt), some just use masolu with the addition of roasted onions. Many many experiments later, I stuck with this keeper dish. A perfect blend of heat from chillies & spices that goes great with the sweetness of crab meat, also let me not forget to mention the mesmerizing aroma of this ghashi is appetizimg in itself that invites crab lovers to the table.












Ingredients:
Alaskan king Crabs about 3 lbs
1 medium sized Onion, thinly diced
1/2 cup Coconut
2 tsp coriander seeds
15 seeds methi
Red chillies 7-9
Tamarind paste 1/4tsp
Oil 2 tsp
Salt


Method
Heat 1 tsn of oil and fry coriander and methi seeds. Grind them with red chillies, coconut and tamarind to a smooth paste.
Heat remaining oil and fry onions till they are slightly brown. Add ground masala, salt and cook for a couple of mins. Now add the crabs, stir, cover & cook for around 20 Min's.
Great dish with white rice .

tips:
Since I usually buy cooked crabs and it is refrigerated, I add about 2 cups of water in a biggest pan I have, place the crabs in a colander and steam the crabs for 20 mins without letting the water touch the crabs , so it is heated well throughout. Then steamed crabs are then added to the masala and brought to a rolling boil.

G's note: Traditionally, this dish has no turmeric in it, I tweaked a teaspoon of it just to brighten my dish. I'm not a rule follower anyway! :P

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Kalakand

Ingredients:
1 Tub ricotta cheese (14ounces)
1/2 Tin condensed milk
1/4 Cardamom powder

For Garnishing:
2 Tblsp almond chopped finely
2 Tblsp pistachios chopped finely

Method:
Heat the ricotta cheese in a heavy pan till it gets dry and all the water evapourates.
Add half a tin condensed milk and again stir it on medium heat till it gets dried up.
To this add powdered cardamom and stir till it becomes very thick.
Grease a dish with butter and pour the mixture.
Garnish it with chopped pistachios & almonds.
Cut it into small squares.

Jeera Meeri khadi

Ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut,
1 tsp cumin
10 peppercorns
2 dry red chillies
7-8 garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 tsp tamarind paste
salt to taste
2 tsp oil

Method:
Heat half a teaspoon of oil in a pan. Fry the cumin, peppercorns and chillies until well toasted and aromatic. Let cool, then grind with coconut, tamarind and 2 cloves of garlic into a fine paste
Transfer to a sauce pan, add a cup of water and simmer over moderate heat.
Season to taste.
crush 4-5 cloves of garlic.
Temper with the remaining oil and garlic cloves and place on heat . Pour the tempering over khadi and serve hot.

My Sunday lunch


Pictured here is Rice with Dalithoy,Masoor sarupkari, beans upkari ani sungta pannaupkari. It was as Yummy as it looked.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Malai kulfi











Ingredients:
8 oz mango pulp
Coconut Milk -1 can
everest masala( dry fruits mix)- 3 tbsp
cool whip- 1 tub
condensed milk -6 oz
dry nuts-pistachio,almond,cashew nuts
saffron strands- about 2 pinches.


Method:
Mix all except cool whip to a well blended mixture.Fold in the cool whip,
prepare the bowl by sprinkling a little dry nut powders and saffron strands as a garnish, then pour malai into kulfi molds or into individual ramekins.
while serving, invert the kulfi into a plate to have the bottom of the ramekin as the top to beautify your creation.

Variation:
Mango pulp can be substituted with chikoo.
Coconut milk can be substituted with evaporated milk.
There are no rules when u make this recipe as this is a no fail recipe.

In the past when I made these, I have divided the malai into 3 and added mango to one part, pistachio to another and just saffron to the third to make it tri coloured and poured it into layers into a loaf pan.Just to achievethe look of the ice cream slabs we used to eat at "Ideals" in India.
Pictured above.......mango,raspberry and pistachio kulfi.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Onion Bhaji

Ingredients:
2 medium onions, finely sliced
1 cup besan
chopped cilantro
6 minced green chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds,crushed
1 tsp coriander seeds,crushed
1tsp fennel seeds(saunf),crushed
salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Method:
Mix salt into the onions.Add the rest of the ingredients into the onions and sprinkle a little water to make a thick batter.
Heat the oil and add teaspoons of batter into the oil, fry till bhajjis are golden. Drain on paper towels. serve with ketchup and coriander chutney.

Tomato Rasam


Kamath Maayi made this especially for me this morning and I loved this Rasam with a twist.Here's the recipe.

Tomato-4
Jeera -2 tbsp
pepper -2 tbsp
garlic -10cloves
turmeric-1/4 tsp
red chillies-4
curry leaves
cilantro
salt
oil


Boil tomatoes in 3 cups of water and mash it.
Add salt.
Crush jeera and pepper in coffee grinder and set it aside.
Peel and crush garlic.
Heat oil for tempering.Add mustard seeds, redchillies,garlic,jeera pepper pwd,turmeric and curry leaves.Saute for a couple min's and add this to the rasam. Finally,add cilantro.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Banh Khoai Mi

A dear friend of mine Nuong, shared her dessert with me one afternoon and I absolutely loved this. It wasn't as sweet to be called a dessert but this is as sweet as they eat in Vietnam.

These slices of goodness was flavorful and were a perfect medley of coconut and Yucca............which are my favourite by the way. .....sort of reminded me my childhood since I remember eating something similar during the little time I spent my summer's at our farm house by the Coast.
MY memory of eating this is vague but I do remember eating this steamed and not baked................maybe it's a dream !
Either way, my friend got me a big dish of this rich goody cake and I wanted to post this before I forget. Now let me go enjoy my Banh Khoai Mi.



2 packages of frozen khoai mi (grated cassava)--found in the frozen section at most Asian markets
1 package of frozen shredded young coconut (found next to the frozen cassava)
1 can of condensed milk
2 Tablespoon of white flour

Preheat oven to 400. Combine all the above ingredients, and pour onto 2 square baking pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Don't overbake as the Banh Khoai Mi may become too dry. To serve, cut into square bars.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Surnoli

It's way early to be up on a Sunday but I have been thinking about posting this for a while and it's a good time for me to put my thoughts here when the house is creepily quiet. Maybe that's the reason I cant sleep in.This recipe should have been posted here for a while in fact this should have been my first post for my blog since I get great feedback's whenever I make this for my family and my extended family.
This is one recipe that I have done more than a 100 times in a hope to get it right. My V and M loved it so much that I was on a mission to master this and I feel confident in saying that I did.
Whenever we have our cousins and amchi families get-together this is one of the recipe that I frequently make since I am very sure of the outcome. I don't have to worry if the proportions are right or if the batter will ferment on time, I dont have to put a lot of thought into breakfast eats when it comes to idli, dosa's and surnoli's. My cousins can vouch for that.


Rice – 4 cups
coconut 1 cup
poha 1 cup
methi 2 tsp
Turmeric powder 2 tsp
Yogurt 3 tbsp
1 slice of white bread....yes u read it right !
Jaggery
Salt to taste

Method
Soak the rice and the methi seeds for 3 to 4 hours.

In a separate bowl, wash and soak the beaten rice , 15 minutes before u start grinding with warm water. Drain in a colander.Soak bread in warm water too.

Now grind together the beaten rice, bread slice and coconut to a fine paste with no water . Add rice and methi. The batter should be of thick consistency.

To this batter add yogurt, jaggery, turmeric, and salt to taste.

Leave the batter overnight in the summer and atleast 24 hrs in the winter. Make thick dosas The dosas will turn out very fluffy. Serve hot with ghee or butter.

Tips
I usually have buttermilk powder ( found in baking isle at most grocery stores) on hand for this purpose to use on the days I don't have yogurt. Use 2 tbsp while u add turmeric.




Saturday, November 1, 2008

Mushti polo

There's something about this soft, spongy goodness that hits the spot. This is one among my 3 favourite kinds of dosa's that I can eat any given day............the other 2 are pannpolo and surnoli...Yum

2 cups rice
1/2 cup Urad dal
1 cup poha
1/2tsp methi seeds
1/2 cup coconut
1 fistful cooked rice
Oil
Salt

Method:
Soak rice and daals in water for around 3hrs. Grind it with coconut. Add soaked poha and cooked rice and grind to a very smooth paste. Mix salt and keep it overnight for fermentation.

I sometimes use one musti(fistful) leftover rice since that's what makes it musti polo. I remember Mauma using ukudo tandla sheath for the musti and you cant mimic the taste with surai tandulache sheath.
This dosa is supposed to be thick , not spread around too much and also not needed to turn over.

Serve hot with any chutney.
My favourite chutney is either kotombari chutney or hing chutney.

Hing-ah-chutney

This is a great accompaniment to any dosa and I especially love this with musti polo.

ingridients
1 cup shredded coconut
6 dry red chillies
1/4 tsp tamarind paste
1/2 tsp hing powder
1/4 tsp urad dal

for seasoning
mustard
2 red chillies
curry leaves
a pinch of hing


Heat a tsp of oil and roast red chillies and urad dal in it. Take it off of heat and add hing powder. Grind coconut,urad dal, tamarind, hing and red chillies into a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl.

Make a seasoning of mustard , red chillies, hing and curry leaves and garnish the chutney.

Pann polo

I always loved this dosa and couldnt decide if it was the flavour or if it is the smell that comes to my memory first.
My Mauma was so good at this and I remember seeing her sprinkling the batter on the iron griddle instead of pouring it and wondered how she got it to exactly land every droplet in the griddle. When I followed her technique at first.......Oh boy............there was more cleanup than panpolo on my plate........lol.



cup white rice
2 tbsp coconut,
salt

Soak rice in enough water for 3-4 hrs . Wash and rinse rice, grind together with coconut and water to a very smooth paste. Add salt and water to make a thin batter.

Splash a serving spoon full of batter on a hot griddle. Cover and cook on one side till the top surface is cooked. You may leave it a minute or two so that edges get crispy.

Serve it with chutney.


My M I L makes godda soi with this and in my Mom's house the preffered side is Batate Song or alambe song .
My kid's love this as is. Well, as for me............I'm in my happy place just with the polo.

Sannapolo

Mauma used to make this sannpolo whenever there was tender Karela seeds ( white spongy insides which have not formed seeds yet)or paddole seeds. I loved this roasted dosas and havent had sannapolo's as good as Mauma made since I was alittle girl.

Ingredients

1/2 cup karela/snakegourd seeds, roughly chopped
1/2 cup rice , soaked
2 tbsp coconut
7-8 red chillies
2 pinches hing
salt to taste

Method
Grind coarsely the rice ,red chillies,coconut and salt.
Add chopped seeds and hing.
Pat on a hot griddle. Poke bout 5 holes. Add few drops of oil in those holes. Cover and let it cook on a low flame.
Flip and cook till you see brown spots on both the sides.
Serve hot with DaliThoy & rice.

After posting this recipe..........a friend mentioned the use of coconut and lack thereof in my post...........lol.
After a emergency India call, had to make the correction and add the most important ingridient so here's to u my friend........2 TBS COCONUT.

Peda

I helped my friend make this on Navrathri since she planned to make sweets for all the families she knew around our town. The recipe looked easy...too easy to taste good. I was skeptical at first but it's not my place to ruin her excitement or to judge her culinary expertise. So I went ahead being the extra sets of hands with the peda making. We made 3 batches that gave atleast 150 pedas and in the meantime had a great time catching up on our lives. Peda was so-so. A runner up for the store brought( read carefully,not bakery ones)
The only alteration I would make would be to roast the milk powder in a khadai after the microwave process. It sure did need the roasty khova flavor which u don't get in the microwave.


Microwave Pedha - makes about 24

Ingredients
3/4 stick sweet cream, unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup milk powder
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/8 tsp nutmeg powder
5 cardamoms, peeled, crushed
few strands of saffron

Garnish
charoli or almond slivers

Method
1. Melt the butter by placing it in a microwave safe container. Microwave for 30 seconds or more till butter is melted.
2. Add dry milk powder, sweetened condensed milk, nutmeg, cardamom powders and saffron.
3. Microwave for 3 minutes.
4. Take out. Mix well. Microwave for 1 minute
5. Take out. Mix well. Microwave again for 1 minute.
6. Take out. Mix. Let it cool down. Pretty repetative but atlest we are not slogging at the stove.
7. Knead with your hands when it is warm to touch, not HOT.
8. Roll into pedhas of desired sizes. Flatten the pedhas.
9. Garnish with charoli or almonds on top.

Note -
1. Microwave cooking time varies for each microwave. Please use your own judgement.
2. Make sure that microwave container is deep as the condensed milk mixture tends to boil.