Raskadam

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Its been quite a few months since I had Raskadam one of my favourite sweet. So thought of giving this a shot. The recipe was adapted from 'Ruchira' a well known recipe book in Pune.


Ingredients
3.5 Cup Milk
1 Spoon Vinegar
1.5 Cup Sugar
1.5 Cup Powdered Sugar
4 Cup Khoya
A pinch of Saffron
1 Cup Grated Paneer

Method

• Warm couple spoon of milk and add the safron. Keep aside.
• Heat the remaining milk
• When the milk starts to boil add vinegar mixed with a spoon of water and stir continuously.
• When the milk cudles and water is separated out, throw out excess water and run it through the cold water
• Squeeze this mixture in a cotton cloth and drain out the water.
• Mix it thourghly and make the dough out of it.
• Prepare around 25 balls out it (small sized
• Mix the sugar with the 6 cup water in the cooker and boil it
• Add these small balls in it and let it boil for around 5 minutes
• Cover the cooker with lid and boil for another 5 minutes
• Remove the lid, add half cup of water and boil for another 5 min. Let the balls cool down. Take out these balls and spread them on the plate and keep aside
• In a nonstick pan on medium flame cook the grated paneer till golden in colour and keep aside to cool down
• Mix grated khoya, powdered sugar, safron-milk and make the dough out of it.
• By now the paneer would be cooled and crispy. Powder it in the mixie and spread it in a separate plate.
• Now is the time to assemble the raskadam. Cover the cooked ball with the khoya mixture by froming a cup shape around it and closing it after inserting a ball in it. Roll the ball in the powdered paneer

Notes
Be careful not to burn the paneer and stir it continuously while cooking, I did that so that it was easy to powder the paneer and the raw smell from it goes away.
The ball preparation for the raskadam is similar to the rasgulla except prepare small sized balls and quantity of sugar-water.
You can add orange or pink - red colour in the khoya mixture but i didnt have it and hence didnt use it.

Egg Slices

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Yesterday I tried this something different dry item from boiled eggs. Turned out quite nice and a good change from routine egg dishes.


Ingredients
4 Eggs
1 Onion
2 Green Chillies
1/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
A pinch of Black Pepper Powder
A pinch of Cinnamon Powder
Corriander Leaves to garnish
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Boil eggs in water, slice them and keep aside
• In a flat pan, heat oil and add finely sliced green chillies in it
• Add onion and cook till onion is translucent
• Add black pepper powder, corriander powder, cinnamon powder, sliced eggs and salt. Cook for 3-4 minutes with constant stirring.
• Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves and red chilli powder

Notes
I didnt want to use to many masalas and also the usual combination of masalas in it as I wanted to give it different taste. Cinammon was great choice as it did distinct it from other routine dishes.

Prawns Puff

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

When I was india I had done lot of R&d to prepare the Puff. I tried it couple of times but it didnt become fluffy. It was very messy too. So for a while I thought lets try to use the readily available Puff Pastry Sheets out here in the market. The outcome was amazing. But I would be happy the day I get this outcome when i can make those sheets too :)


Ingredients
2 Puff Pastry sheets
1 Cup Prawns
1 Tomato
2 Onions
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
A pinch of turmeric powder
1 Egg
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Take out the pastry sheets from the fridge and keep them aside to thaw.
• In the mean time, heat the oil and add finely chopped onion to it. Cook till onion is translucent
• Add finely chopped tomato in it and cook till tomato is almost done.
• Add prawns and garlic to it and cook for couple of minutes.
• Add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, jeera powder, black pepper powder and salt to taste. Cook till oil seprates out.
• Add corriander powder to it and again cook for a minute or two. Keep aside
• Pre-heat the oven to 400F
• Grease the baking tray.
• Cut each baking sheet into 3 vertical and 2 horizonal pieces to give you 6*2 = 12 pieces. On each piece of the sheet add in the prawns mixure and fold it and keep it on the baking tray.
• Beat the egg, dip a tissue in it and spread the egg over the puffs
• Bake in oven at 400F/200C for 15 minutes and your puffs should be ready to serve.

Notes
I used medium sized prawns so that I dont need to cut them and neither are they too small to recognise and loose their taste in the masala.
Also I used the egg to get the golden brown effect of the puff as mentioned on the puff pastry sheet box.

Melon Lassi

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Couple of weeks back I tried this unique experiment. I had one old melon sitting in the fridge so was curd, so thats what lead to this recipe.


Ingredients
1 Melon
6 Cup Curd
5 Spoon Sugar
A pinch of Vanilla Essence
Salt to taste

Method

• Chop the complete melon into small piece
• Keep aside few pieces for garnishing and grind rest of them in the mixie to make the juice.
• Strain the juice and add it to curd.
• Add sugar, salt, vanilla essence and again mix in the mixie
• Garnish with the melon pieces and serve chilled.

Notes
I used sweet thick curd, and didnt need to add any water because the melon juice was enough to lighten the curd to Lassi

Garden Salad

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This was salad that I did impromptu with all the ingredients I had at home. The result tasted good and lettuce too this time was quite good.


Ingredients
1 Cup chopped Lettuce
1/2 Cup Pineapple
1/2 Cup Mango
1 Boiled Potato
1 Tomato
1 Fresh Red Chilli
1/2 Spoon Oregano
1/4 Cup Pickled Cucumber
2 Spoon Vinegar
Salt to taste

Method

• Add chopped lettuce to the bowl
• Add chopped pineapple and mango in it.
• Add finely chopped tomato in it.
• Remove the cover from boiled potato and add the small cubes in the bowl
• Add finely sliced red chilli in it
• Cut the pickled cucumber into small pieces and add in it.
• Add Salt to taste, oregano and vinegar
• Mix well and serve.

Notes
I had cut all the stuff and added to the bowl and then around half an hour before dinner I mixed in oregano and stuff well. I thought otherwise all the flavors might get mixed in each other and wont taste as good as I would like :) and that proved right because the next day in lunch box it didn't taste as good as it was for dinner :)

Idli

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I have seen quite a few people buy the readymade dosa or idli batter. But I guess I dont like the taste. There is nothing as good as compared to home made stuff. And Idli is something very very easy to prepare. You just need to plan a day ahead thats all it takes. Rest is easy.


Ingredients
1 Cup Udid Daal
2 Cup Idli Rawa
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Soak Udid Daal and Idli Rawa for atleast 8 hours.
• Strain the water from the Udid Daal and grind it in the mixie to fine paste.
• Strain water from the idli rawa and grind it to fine paste too.
• Mix rawa paste and udid daal paste well and keep aside for atleast 8 hours
• In the morning, mix in salt really well
• Heat the water in a cooker - without lid
• Grease the idli pan and add the idli mixture in there.
• When the water in the cooker starts to boil put the idli stand into the cooker and cook for around 10-12 minutes on high flame with lid closed but no whistle.
• Open the cooker and let the idlis cool down a little. Separate idlis from the pan and serve with chutney/sambar

Notes
Here since everything is AC and we maintain low temperature, I did keep the mixture on top of hot water container at night. That works perfectly well.
Dont forget to remove the cooker lid immeidately after idli is done so that the vapour doesnt cool down inside the idli making it moist

Tofu Burger

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I was very inclined to prepare the burger at home but didnt want to try any meat burger. So thought of preparing paneer one. But then the indian grocerry store was little far from my place so thought to try it on tofu. The burger turned out quite well and the mildness of tofu vanished in the spcies and other things that I added.


Ingredients
4 Burger Buns
100g Tofu
2 Onions
1 Tomato
1 Fresh Red Chilli
4 Cheese Slices
1/2 Cup Lettuce
Ranch Dressing
Salt and Pepper
Oil

Method

• Cut the Tofu into cubes
• Heat oil and keep the flame on low.
• Add tofu pieces and cook till light brown in colour.
• Add onion slices, red chilli into it and cook till onions are slight brown in colour
• Add salt and pepper and stir well. Divide the mixture into 4 portions
• On each bun keep the cheese slice and add the portion of the cooked tofu mixture.
• Spread the lettuce, tomato Slice, couple of drops of tomato ketchup and one circle of the ranch dressing.
• Close with the upper portion of the bun and serve.

Notes
I cooked tofu on very light heat which helped me keep it soft. The Spicy Chilli, ranch dressing helped in supressing the mildness of Tofu.