Tuesday bakings and All Flour Pancake

Tried baking the Irish Soda Bread again. This time, I'd looked up a couple of videos on how to make this properly, so used the techniques from there. Also, baked it using a different setting in my microwave. And it finally turned out really 'soft' and nice. The last time around, it'd turned a bit hard after cooling, though still edible..
Took 1/2 cup maida, 1/2 cup atta, 1/2 cup buttermilk, some salt, sugar and 1/3 tsp baking soda.
Mixed it all with a spoon first, and then kneaded it on a floured surface for 2-3 mins. Tried to do it the way they did it in the videos! Then baked it in a pre heated oven.

Next I tried the All Flour Pancake from Simple Indian Cooking , a bit modified..
Here's a pic, took while eating!!

You need:
1/2 cup Rice Flour
1/2 cup wheat Flour
2 tbsps of Gram Flour
I added 2 tbsps of Ragi / Nachni flour
1/2 tsp Jeera/cumin seeds powder
1 small onion finely cut(This is optional if you don't eat onion just skip it)
Salt as per taste

Mix all the flours together and then add the finely cut onion. Add salt and mix it well. Add enough water to get dosa consistency.
Make it like regular dosas, but a little . Cover and cook till one side is brown. Then turn and cook the other side as well.

Makes a healthy breakfast!
-Naina

Monday Adventures!! (and Paneer Pasanda)

Reached home a bit earlier from office.. So, made a couple of things.. :)
Tried Akki's Neer Dosa, Kanchan's Mast Mushrooms


and Simple Indian Food's Paneer Manpasand
Here's Paneer Pasanda - made some changes to the original recipe, to suit my taste


Ingredients
250 gms chopped paneer pieces
1/2 tsp ginger - garlic paste
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp coriander powder

Grind to smooth paste-
1 big onion (paste 1)
8-10 cup roasted peanuts (paste 2)
1 medium tomato (paste 2)
2 tbsp grated dry coconut (paste 2)

Heat oil, add cumin seeds. When it splutters add the paste 1 (- onion) and cook till brown. Add the paste 2, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, coriander powder, ginger garlic paste and salt and water as required for gravy. Allow it to boil for few minutes.
Add the paneeer pieces and simmer for 5 minutes.
Garnish with coriander leaves.
Enjoy!!
-Naina

We made Nachni cake too...

Naina-
I made it too!! Turned out well.. followed Akki's recipe, but I don't like choclate and I'm trying to eat healthy.. so used less sugar, and no dairy milk pieces.. its quite good and of course healthy!!



~ Kanchan - [Sorry no picture taken!]
Yes, even I made it .. it was a wonderful adventure for me to search my oven at Mom's place and then search for adequate aluminum small pan to make a little one only. Since it was my first baking experience. It was amazing! Was so excited that gave a small piece to everyone that came my way. Will make it again some day at Mom’s place and will get it for my friends. I did add almost all the ingredients with my own andaz. And it turned out well :) It was Yummy!! Many thanks to Akki :)

Instant Pizza

Wanted to make something different over the weekend.. So tried Pizza, but without any preparation or proper ingredients! This one's inspired from Aayi's Recipes, but couldn't follow the recipe, as I didn't have anything like olives, corns, mushrooms..


For the base: My yeast just doesn't activate, so made a dough (with 1.5 cups atta / wheat flour) like we do for chapati, and added baking soda to it. Then rolled it like chapati, but thick. Poked it with fork all over, and baked it each a preheated (to 150 deg C) oven for 3-5 mins, till semi done
Toppings: Then chopped onion, tomatoes and capsicum and cooked it in a little olive oil, salt and oregano (I had that!!). Also, grated some cheese and kept aside
Sauce: Took tomato ketchup, added some hot sauce and ginger garlic paste to it.

Then, took a base, put the sauce, the toppings, cheese, and baked it for 3 mins in the oven, till the cheese melted..
but beware... home made soda wheat base is not that tasty.. best had fresh, as it tends to dry up or get a bit chewy without maida!
And the best part was that it was quite good, light, healthy.. and no horrible heavy feeling like we get with the take away / restaurant ones!
-Naina

Brown Rice Dumplings

This one's inspired from Gita's Kitchen. Its a great and healthy breakfast..

I'm trying to get into better food, so bought brown rice.. Its so bad to cook, and so bad to eat.. I was wondering what to do with it, and landed up on the recipe. Modified it to suit our taste..

Took a cup of brown rice, soaked it for 3-4 hours. Made a paste along with required salt in a mixie.
Then started cooking it in a vessel, while stirring continuously. In a seperate vessel for tempering (bagharia), heated some oil, added musturd seeds, curry leaves, some chopped chillies, and ginger garlic paste.
Added the tempering to the cooking rice paste and mixed well. When the rice was cooked to a dough like consistency, to be able to make balls of, turned off the gas and allowed the dough to cool. As it was still to hot, and it was getting late for breakfast, I didn't make balls of it as per the original recipe (but will do next time). Then put the dough in a steamer and steamed for 15 mins. Then cut it into desired shape and serve with chutney.
-Naina

Shahi Murg Pakora

This is a recipie that i got from a cookery website. Tried it and trust me guys it was yum! A little fattening though...just keep it for the grand functions (where you can eat oily stuff..once in a while)
Ingredients:
Chicken breasts 500gm
Saffron (kesar) few strands
1tbls Milk
2-3 cloves garlic
2tbls lemon juice
1tspn chilly powder
2 tspn cumin powder (jeera)
salt
Batter:
6tbls Besan
1tbls Rice flour
1tspn Shahi jeera
salt
1/2tspn Garam masala powder
1/2tspn turmeric powder
1/4 tspn soda bicarb
oil
Procedure:
Clean and cut the chicken breasts into two inch sized pieces. Heat milk, and soak saffron in it. crush garlic and mix it with lemon juice. Place chicken pieces in a bowl and add milk with saffron, chilli powder, jeera powder and salt. Marinate it for half an hour and turn the pieces after 15 mins. Add the lemon juice mixed with garlic and marinate it for an hour.

Sieve besan and rice flour in a bowl and shahi jeera, salt, garam masala powder, turmeric, and soda bicarb. Add water slowly and make a thick paste (like the besan paste for pakoda). Allow the batter to stand for around 20-30 mins mix before you use it.
Take a pan add oil and shallow fry it (you can even deep fry them) cover the pan and let it cook.Turn it one or twice in between. Fry untill golden brown.

Guten Appetit,
Monica

Prawns Biryani!!! (Long awaited)

Posting a recipe after reallyy long time. This one is my family and friends all time favorite. My friends say that the biryani tastes better than Lucky's..( a huge compliment).
I first make the gravy and rice separately and then layer it.

Ingredients for the Gravy:
4-5 medium finely chopped onions
2 medium potatoes chopped
Prawns (1-2 portions approx 200gms)(if the prawns are little less but cant resist making the biryani just increase the onion quantity)
1-2teasp Chilly powder
½ teasp Turmeric powder
2 teasp Garam masala powder(meat masala also would taste good)
2-3 tomatoes
Coriander leaves
1 green chilly (less spicy)
2-3 teasp dhana jeera powder
1tabls oil
4-5 Trifala
5-6 kokam
4-5 pods of garlic

Procedure:

Heat the oil in a vessel, add Trifala (if you don’t have..dont panic..you can skip this, but its good for digestion and it aids removal of undesirable fat in the body) let it crackle and add chopped onion and potatoes. Sauté them till golden. Add turmeric and chilly powder and kokam. Grind tomatoes with garlic, coriander leaves, and green chilly. Add this mixture in the vessel and let it cook till oil appears on the surface. Add prawns ( we put the prawns towards the end so that they remain soft and tender or otherwise they turn really hard as they get cooked really fast) and gram masala powder as well as dhana jeera powder. After all the ingredients have been properly mixed add water (depending on the consistency that you want) cover and cook till done.

Ingredients for the rice:

5-6 cups of basmati rice
Coriander leaves
4-5 pods of garlic
½ inch ginger
1 green chilly
Kada masala like bay leaves, cloves, full pepper, full cardimum, kaaju (optional)
2 medium onions sliced
1 lemon juice

Procedure:

Wash the rice and drain all the water add lemon juice and keep it aside.Heat the oil in a big vessel ( the layering of the biryani has to be done in this)
Add all the khada masala excluding kaaju. After it starts cracling add onion and fry till golden brown. Grind coriander, ginger garlic and green chilly together and add it, fry it a little add kaaju. Add rice and hot water according to the quantity.

Layering

After the rice is cooked, remove almost ¾ rice in a plate. Place a layer of the prawns gravy . Put a layer of rice so on till all the rice and gravy is done with.
For seasoning you can also fry the onions golden brown and add it after the last layer is placed.

For veggies:
You can make a very delicious mix veg gravy and layer it with the masala rice.

Guten Appetit!
Monica