Stuffed Bhendi

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had got this recipe from mom like 10 months back but finally gave this a shot today. It turned out as good as mom makes. Its one of my fav preparation of bhendi and am sharing it here.


Ingredients
1/2 Kg Okra
1.5 Cup Grated Coconut
1/2 Spoon Saunf
1/4 Spoon Mustard
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder
1 Cup Curd
A Pinch of Asafoetida
A Pinch of Sugar
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Wash okra and slice it vertically into halves.
• In a bowl mix curd, grated coconut, 1/4 spoon of saunf, red chilli powder and garam masala
• Heat oil in a pan and add in mustard seeds and remaining 1/4 spoon of saunf. Let them splutter
• Add in Asafoetida, sliced okra and earlier made coconut-curd-masala mixture in it. Stir well
• Cover the pan and add water on the lid. With few stirring in between let it cook till almost done.
• Add in sugar and salt and stir again. Cover the lid and cook till completely done.

Notes
This vegetable is best when the Okras are fresh and tender. The hard ones are difficult to cook and not as tasty either.

Ras Malai

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Ajoy wanted me to make this for Dasara but ended up getting the raw material (aka milk) quite late on sunday. So I made it yesterday. It has turned fabulous and the sweetness is perfect not too sweet not too bland..


Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
2 Spoon Vinegar
1 Pinch of Saffron
1/4 Spoon Cardamom Powder
1/4 Cup Almonds
1/4 Cup Pistachios
3 Cup Sugar

Method

• Boil 1 liter of milk in a pan.
• Mix vinegar in half cup water and add it gradually to the boiling milk.
• When the whey separates from milk fat strain it on cheese or muslin cloth. Run through cold water and let it hang for an hour or two so that water is drained completely out from the paneer
• Start boiling remaining 1 liter of milk in a wide pan, stir continuously and let it reduce to half.
• Add in safron and 1/2 cup sugar in it and let it simmer for another couple of minutes. Keep aside.
• Mix in remaining 2.5 cup of sugar with 1.5 liter of water in a cooker or wider pan. Bring it to boil
• Mean while knead the paneer really well till its smooth. Make small flat discs and drop them in the boiling sugar water. Cover with the lid (if in cooker don't put the whistle on) and let it cook for 10 minutes on high.
• Let it sit covered for another 5 minutes and then uncover the pan and keep the discs in syrup and let it come to warm temperature. At this point the discs would have doubled in size.
• Take each disc in your palm and press lightly to remove the syrup from it, then drop these discs in a bowl.
• In earlier prepared milk add in cardamom powder and finely chopped almonds and pistachios. Pour this milk over the discs in the bowl. Chill and serve.

Notes
I soak the almonds in water for couple of hours so that you can very easily chop them.
You can also use half liter of half and half instead of using 1 liter milk to make ras of the ras malai. Just let it simmer and add in saffron.
I didnt have big vessel to accomodate all the discs in one go for cooking, so i cooked the half of discs as mentioned, then added 2 cups of water to the syrup and cooked rest of the discs. Keeping sugar syrup thin is key to make those discs soft. Dont overcrowd the disc so that they have space to double in size

Nutty Butterscotch Chocolate Cake

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Yesterday I was looking for cake recipe so that I can bake a cake to take into my cake decoration class. First I thought I will bake some simple quick cake and get done with it, but as I approached kitchen I couldn't resist but look into my recipe book for some instant reference to cook something different. I liked a peanut butter recipe in there but because I didn't have peanut butter I decided to give it twist and make my own version of cake. It was delicious and even smelling so good that it was huge hit in my decoration class as well.


Ingredients
4 Cup Maida
2.5 Cup Butter
1 Cup Hazelnuts
1 Cup Almonds
1.5 Cup Sugar
3 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
2 Cup Butterscotch Chocochips
2 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grind hazelnuts and almonds to fine powder and keep it aside.
• Cream butter and sugar together till fluffy.
• Add in hazelnut-almonds powder and whisk again.
• Add in each egg one at a time and beat well after each addition
• Sieve maida and baking powder couple of times. Add salt to taste.
• Add maida-baking powder mixture alternating with milk slowly into the egg-butter-sugar mixture and fold in carefully.
• Microwave chocochips for 1 minutes and stir well to get molten chocolate. Fold it in the batter lightly
• Grease the pan and line it with parchment paper. Grease the paper as well. Pour the batter in the cake till half full.
• Bake the cake in oven on 350F/180C for 40 minutes
• Decorate with icing or serve as it is.

Notes
I used two 8 inch round tins to bake the cake but after baking I thought I should have used one 8 inch and one 6 inch instead to get perfect rise in both the cakes.
I iced one cake with butter icing as part of my cake decorating classes and we ate another cake as it is. Both taste awesome, but I would use dark chocolate or less sugar if I am going to ice the cake next time.
Recently I came to know that preheating oven at least 15 minutes in advance helps to get oven to heat uniformly even hot so I tried this time and results were superb, the cake rose from all sides and there was literally no bump.

Sandwich

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is my favorite bengali sweet. So when I was making Ajoy's favorite mishti dohi i decided to pamper myself with these. Turned out very delicious.


Ingredients
2 liter Milk
4 Spoon Vinegar
1 Spoon Rawa
2 Cups Khoya
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
2.5 Cup Sugar
Silver leaf
Pistachio Powder
A pinch of Baking Powder
Couple Pinch of Saffron

Method

• Keep 1/4 cup milk aside and bring remaining milk to boil and add in vinegar mixed with two spoon of water.
• Stir till the whey separates out and milk cuddles.
• Strain it through sieve and run through cold water. Let it sit there for 5 minutes so that water drains out completely.
• Mix sugar with 6 cups of water in a cooker and bring it to boil.
• Take out this paneer from the sieve and knead till very soft dough forms.
• Add in rawa and baking powder and knead again.
• Make thin flat squares and add half of them into the sugar syrup boiling in cooker
• Close the cooker lid and let out one whistle. Lower the heat and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Let it cool
• Takeout the cooked paneer and add another 2 cups of water in the cooker. Bring it to boil and add remaining paneer pieces to cook just like the earlier ones.
• When the second batch is cooled down store all paneer pieces with the syrup in the fridge overnight
• In the morning grate the khoya and add in powdered sugar in it.
• Warm the remaining 1/4 cup of milk and add in the Saffron in it. Add it to the khoya and knead till smooth.
• Take out the cooked paneer pieces from the fridge and cut each into triangle shape
• Make sandwiches by adding a layer of khoya paste we made between two triangles. Also sprinkle some pistachio powder on the khoya layer as well as on top of the sandwich
• Garnish with the silver leaf and serve chilled.

Notes
Instead of making thick pieces and cutting it through i made thin slices to begin with. So i could use single piece as it is.

Dry Fruit Chocolate

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

One day while watching Foodnetwork channel I saw this recipe and liked it at that very moment, for it is so simple yet so elegant. Dont remember exact measures and all but here is my own version of the same.


Ingredients
350g White chocolate
120g Dark Chocolate
1 Cup Walnuts
1/2 Cup Apricot
1/2 Cup Cranberries

Method

• Heat oven to 350F/180C and bake walnuts in it for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool down.
• In a bowl microwave white chocolate for 1.5 minutes stirring it every 30 sec. It should be smooth soft molten chocolate.
• In another bowl microwave dark chocolate for 1.5 minute stirring it every 30sec.
• Line a plate/tray with parchment paper and pour the white chocolate in the center. Spread it over the plate to get smooth layer
• Pour dark chocolate on four corners and with a fork mix it in with white chocolate creating patterns
• Dice apricots and walnuts, sprinkle them along with cranberries on top of the chocolate.
• Let mixture come down to room temperature and then transfer it to fridge to set it hard.

Notes
The recipe that I had watched only used white chocolate, but I didnt use white chocolate completely as it would make it very sweet. So instead used dark chocolate to balance out the sweetness. Earlier once I had used semi sweet chocochips instead but that too was sweet to my tooth so this time i used dark chocolate. One can use mix of dark and semi sweet chocochips as well.

Mishti Dohi

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is one of Ajoy's favorite sweet, which is simple to make, yet I had trouble making it given that its so difficult to set curd out here. I tried so many times, so many different ways and it did work few times but results weren't consistent. But now that I have learned the exact trick that works here, I made this perfect sweet.


Ingredients
1.5 Liter Milk
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Curd

Method

• Bring milk to boil.
• Add 1/4 cup of sugar and keep the milk boiling till it reduces to around 1 liter in volume. Stir continuously to avoid burning
• At this moment keep reducing milk, but also in another bowl add in remaining 3/4cup of sugar with 1/4 cup of water and let it boil
• When the sugar water turns dark golden in color, reduce the heat of boiling milk and add the sugar mixture into the milk.
• Boil the milk for another 5 minutes and let it sit till it is warm to touch
• In a bowl add curd and add a cup of earlier made browned and sweetened milk. Mix well.
• Add in remaining milk, mix well and cover with the lid and let it set overnight
• Let it chill in fridge for couple of hours. Serve cold

Notes
Here to make the right quality curd, I keep the curd pot inside the casserole (the one which keep items hot) and then keep the casserole into the oven with the light on. Note that i dont preheat oven nor it is on whole night. Just the light is on, the casserole helps in maintaining the temperature while light keeps giving enough warmness to sustain it.
While adding the caramelized - brown colored sugar syrup be careful and add it slowly as the temperature differences make it suddenly splutter out and might burn your hands.
You can also set it in individual bowls and serve each bowl directly.
Try to use whole milk for better results. To make my life easier I used 1 liter of Half and Half. I didnt have to reduce the milk quantity that way.

Dhokar Dalna

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been meaning to cook it ever since I had it in Kolkata at relative's place. I wasnt feeling all that great that day so couldnt enjoy it to fullest but whatever I had was sure good enough to motivate me to make it. So finally after almost an year I get chance to make this.


Ingredients
2 Cup Harbara Daal
2 Tomato
2 Green Chillies
2 Spoon Ginger
5 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
Oil
Ghee
Salt

Method

• Soak the daal overnight and keep aside.
• In a mixie, grind the daal to smooth paste. Keep aside
• In a pan, add in couple spoon of oil and let jeera splutter in it.
• Add in 1 spoon of grated ginger, turmeric powder, salt and daal paste we made earlier. Cook till daal separates from sides of the pan.
• Grease a plate and pour the daal mixture over it and spread uniformly. Let it cool.
• Cut the diamond shaped pieces of this daal and shallow fry them in oil. Keep aside.
• In a mixie, grind tomato, green chillies, remaining 1 spoon of ginger, garlic cloves to fine paste.
• Heat a pan with spoonful of oil and add the above ground tomato paste in it. Cook till mixture is cooked.
• Add in jeera powder, coriander powder, salt and 3 cups of water. Let it boil.
• Add in earlier fried daal dhokas in it and let the mixture simmer till dhokas start absorbing the gravy.
• Garnish with spoonful of ghee and serve.

Notes
I didnt make the gravy too spicy and hence didnt make use of garam masala. Instead I kept it light and let the dhoka taste through the gravy. Worked out quite well.