Kamis, 26 Mei 2011

Lychee Icecream


Here almost all stores sell the canned lychees but never the fresh ones. Last month I decided to give it a try especially for ice-cream. It turns out that if you use the syrup you get pretty good flavor from one can

Lychee Icecream
Ingredients
1 Can of Seedless Lychee
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
1 Lemon

Method
  • Take out lychees from the syrup and put the syrup in the mixie.
  • Add in sugar and milk and blend it till the sugar is disolved.
  • Mix in cream and lemon juice and whisk a bit.
  • Add it in ice-cream maker and let it set.
  • Fine chop the lychees and mix that in the ice-cream around 3-4 minutes before the setting is complete.

Notes
If using fresh lychees just use around 30 lychees. Puree around 15 of them with 2 cups of water and use that instead of lychee syrup and finely chop remaining lychees. You might need to use probably 2/3 cup of sugar.
The lemon helps in bringing out the taste from the lychee.

Tandoori Gobi


Today before meeting everyone were discussing about the barbeque and since then i couldn't stop thinking of making tandoori something. With gobi in the fridge i decided to go for it. The dinner was yummy just because of it.

Tandoori Gobi
Ingredients
1 Cauliflower
1 Cup Curd
1.5 Spoon Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Chaat Masala
2 Green Chillies
2 Spoon Ginger
10 Garlic Cloves
Oil
Salt to taste

Method
  • Cut the cauliflower into medium sized florets and add it in water. Add salt and microwave for 7 minutes. Separate out from water and keep aside.
  • In a mixer add in ginger, garlic, ginger and 2 spoon of curd. Make fine paste.
  • In a bowl add the above made paste, remaining curd, chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste. Mix well.
  • Add in the cauliflower florets in it and mix well. Keep in fridge for atleast 2 hours
  • Heat the pan and add in oil. Spread out cauliflower florets and cook on medium heat till one side is completely done. Flip and cook the other side. Cook from all sides possible and then take out.
  • Garnish with chaat masala and serve with mint chutney, onions and lemon

Notes
I had cooked cauliflower for 5 minutes but i think 7 minutes would be perfect to make it nice and soft.
You can grill the cauliflower on barbeque, if doing use skewer to pierce through 3-4 cauliflowers.

Kamis, 14 April 2011

Sugar Free Date Almond Laadu


Yesterday I was going to prepare Chocolate Macaroons for which I had to powder the almonds but when i made the almond powder it was little moist and not a fine powder that i needed for the macaroons. That is when I sent Ajoy to get more almonds and i made these laadus. They are very yummy and sugar free is bonus :)

Sugar Free Date Almond Laadu
Ingredients
2 Cup Almonds
1 Cup Dates
3-4 Spoon Raisins

Method
  • Powder the almonds.
  • Divide it in two batches. In each batch add 1/2 cup dates and make a thick paste in mixer.
  • Knead the mixture. Make small round balls inserting couple of raisins in each of them. Serve.

Notes
I decided to use sweetness of raisins and dates to complement Almonds instead of adding sugar or jaggery which really worked for me as I don't like items too sweet. You can add couple of spoon sugar in case you feel it lacking sweetness.

Kamis, 03 Maret 2011

Paneer


These days the paneer quality that we are getting here isnt that great. It almost makes the paneer as my non liked item which is not the case. Ajoy and me both like paneer a lot so that is unacceptable.. Its not like i never made paneer, I had been making this for sweets regularly but didnt make it for vegetable for the good quality paneer was always available.. But since now that is not the case I decided to make this for adding it to the vegetables too. Turns out i was missing so much for last few years that I didn't make it at home.

Paneer
Ingredients
2 Liter Whole Milk
3 Spoon Vinegar

Method
  • Bring milk to boil.
  • When it almost comes to boil add in vinegar mixed with cup of cold water and stir well.
  • Milk will cuddle and separate from whey.
  • Pour this into the cheese or muslin cloth and let water drain out.
  • Run in cold water through it to let it come to room temperature. Tie the muslin cloth tightly.
  • Fill in the cooker fully with water and keep it on top of the paneer. Let it rest overnight.

Notes
Lot of people use lemon juice but i like to use vinegar as it is easy to remove the sour taste that it brings in and paneer gets its own taste.
Don't use half and half for this, the paneer would be too creamy and wont give you the texture you need in the paneer. Whole milk or reduced fat milk would be perfect for this.

Fig Gelato


Since childhood my favourite fruit was Fig more than even mango.. With known love i share for mango it would be hard to believe but its true :) Whenever i had to choose something while playing i would always pick fig.. Then as i grew up i was introduced to Sujata's (the famous ice-cream parlour in pune) fir ice-cream... Even till date whenever I go to pune i have atleast a tub of fig ice-cream.. So now you might wonder how come i waited so long to make this ice-cream then, but the thing is it was so hard to find dried figs here that I had to get them from India :) So now that I have it I couldnt wait but make this awesome gelato..

Fig Gelato
Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
250g Dried Fig
3/4 Cup Honey
1 Spoon Lemon Juice

Method
  • Soak the figs in two cup of milk. Keep aside for atleast two hours
  • In a mixie grind the soaked fig to paste, keeping aside 4-5 figs.
  • Add in lemon juice and honey and blend again.
  • Add this paste to remaning milk and stir well.
  • Set the ice-cream as per ice-cream maker instructions.
  • Dice the remaining figs and mix it in the set ice-cream.

Notes
I dont like to wait after i start making ice-cream, so I use chilled milk. Also while soaking figs, i keep them in fridge that way they chill too and i dont need to wait for the mixture to chill before i put it in ice-cream maker.

Rabu, 02 Maret 2011

Tandoori Prawns


Its been a while since Seattle saw sun barring couple of days last week so having barbeques in patio is long gone time. But this is my effort to feel like those beautiful sunny evenings.. I came up with recipe on my own as I started adding spices but the taste was so good that i cant wait to fry remaining prawns tomorrow night.

Tandoori Prawns
Ingredients
3/4 Kg Prawns
1 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Cup Thick Curd
Salt to taste
Oil

Method
  • Clean the prawns shells and marinate it with salt.
  • Add in ginger paste, chilli powder, corriander powder, jeera powder, garam masala, turmeric powder and mix well. Keep aside for atleast half an hour.
  • Add oil to a pan and heat it really well.
  • In the earlier marinated prawns, add in tandoori masala and curd. Mix well. Add this mixture onto the heated pan.
  • Let the prawns cook on medium heat without flipping or stirring them till the side is completely done. Then flip them and cook the otherside too. Take of the heat and serve.

Notes
Cooking on medium heat and not flipping the prawns serves as great trick to get that tandoori-charred-smoky flavour that any authentic tandoori dishes have.

Selasa, 01 Maret 2011

Kadboli


Kadboli is Maharashtrian faral dish. You might wonder why am i posting this after so many months of diwali. But given that world cup has started in full swing, i thought it would be good to have some crunchy home made snack instead of just plain chips. So late on sunday I decided to make them whole lot of kadbolis and soon realised that it is too much of work to shape them. Thats when I came up with the idea of using chakali gun with this disc to shape them instead. With these they are bite size and make perfect snack for movies or games :)

Kadboli
Ingredients
4 Cup Rice Powder
3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method
  • Mix rice powder with butter and salt really well
  • Add in milk and make the dough
  • Take a small lemon sized balls and roll them with hand and make a long rope shape. Give it in a shape of circle. Fry in medium hot oil till pink in color
  • Alternately, put in the dough in the chakali gun and press the circular shapes in the medium hot oil and fry till pink in color

Notes
Dont fry till brown in color as the color darkens a bit after a while.