Spinach Roti

Hey girls!

I made some really healthy spinach roti today, thought i'd share the fun ;) .. I had found so many different recipes but I settled on one and made a few modifications to it.. Came out quite yummy!!

Spinach Roti
2 cups wheat flour
salt to taste

1 bunch spinach - chopped up
2-3 garlic cloves
small grating of ginger
2-3 green chillies
salt

I cooked down the spinach slightly along with the garlic, ginger, chillies n salt in a wee bit of oil. Once its lost almost all its water, I pureed it in the blender. I added this puree to the flour and used a bit more water to make the chapati dough. It came out stickier than usual and needed quite a bit of flour for the rolling out process but was worth it.. Quite nice, more for the health factor than taste even.. We just had it with plain yoghurt n some pickle (i mixed them both up) - was yummy :)

:)

Butter Paneer

Ingredients:

Paneer marinade:
~500g Paneer
1tsp Ginger garlic paste
2tsp Tandoori masala (or garam masala if u have that)
1tsp chilli powder
3tbsp yoghurt

Gravy ingredients:
1-2 Onions (sliced finely)
2tbsp tomato paste (this is a must, makes a big difference.. worse case you can just use puree)
1tsp ginger garlic paste
1tsp garam masala
some chilli powder
~500mLs heavy cream. If you need even more gravy, you can add more cream or half n half (to feel better)

Method:
Add all the marinade ingredients together and set aside for about an hour
At the end of an hour, either bake it at 350F/180C for about 30min or just shallow fry in a pan with a bit of butter.

For the gravy, fry the onions with the ginger garlic paste until translucent.
Add salt, chilli & garam masala and continue frying until almost golden.
Add the tomato paste/puree and fry until it doesn smell 'raw' anymore
Finally, add half of the cream and heat through (try not to let it boil)
Add the baked/friend paneer and the rest of the cream. Mix and heat through.

For a finishing touch, if u have it, you could fry a bit of dry methi leaves in a bit of butter n add it at the very end.. Gives a very nice touch of flavour.. Also, if u want, u could also add some almond slices/slivers before adding the cream for a nutty bite..


:)

Microwave self-saucing chocolate pudding

Hey girls.. I just re-discovered this awesome recipe that I used a few times when I was in NZ... it takes like 7 mins in the microwave and produces a yummy as chocolate cake with chocolate sauce on it!!! Very easy and quick dessert :) I've modified the recipe a bit from what I found online:

Microwave Self-saucing Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients (this makes around 4 servings)

Pudding:

• 1 cup self-raising flour (check if this has salt, if it does, omit salt from the recipe)
• 3/4 cup sugar (i like brown sugar better)
• pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons melted butter (i used unsalted but doesn really matter i guess)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence (i used to add a bit of orange essence when i had it and it gives the yummmmy jaffa taste)
• 1/2 cup milk (if the batter is too hard, u can add a bit more)

Sauce

• 1/2 cup sugar (brown is better again)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 1 1/2 cups boiling water

Need baking paper (wax paper)
I usually just mix/make this in a large glass bowl/measuring jug.

Directions

1. Mix/sift (actual recipe said sift, i just mixed) flour, cocoa, salt and sugar into a bowl
2. Stir in milk, melted butter and vanilla till mixture is just combined.
3. Combine brown sugar and cocoa and sprinkle it over the batter.
4. Now, very carefully, pour hot water over the batter (best is to run it along the side of the container so it forms a pool on top of the batter) and cover with a sheet of waxed paper. Press the wax paper down onto the water so that it 'sticks' to the water. Its fine to have some paper sticking on the sides of the container too.
   
5. Cook on high for 6 - 7 minutes.

Voila! We had it straight but it tastes amazing with some ice cream :)

Spinach Rice

Hey all!

I just experimented today .. wanted to make a single dish for lunch and tried spinach rice. I looked it up online and modified the recipe a lot just cos I can never follow a recipe straight (a weird prob of mine)..here's the final recipe that came out yummmmy

Ingredients
~ 1cup chopped spinach (i used frozen)
1.5 cups basmati rice
a small onion - sliced thin
3-4 green chillies slit lengthwise
salt
coriander powder
chilli powder (very little, remember the chillies)
ginger (a small piece chopped finely or *TIP* i usually just freeze ginger and scrape off a bit into the dish; this way, it comes out really fine so that u wont have the strong taste if u bite into a piece, not to mention u can store it forever)
Whole spices:
cardamon (1-2 pods)
bay leaves (1-2)
cloves (1-2)
cinnamon (1 long stick)
carraway seeds (1 tsp)

Method
We have to pressure cook this so the best way utensil to use for all the 'prep' is a pressure cooker. Alternatively, u could use the rice cooker container on the stove i guess..
Heat oil, add all the whole spices. Once aromatic, add the onions, chillies and ginger and fry till the onions are translucent. Now add the spinach, chilli pwd and coriander powder. Once the spinach is totally wilted and looks almost cooked, add the washed rice and fry for a few seconds. Now add salt to taste, and around 1.75 cups of water (this is what i used and the texture came out pretty good.. think 1.5 cups might give the perfect 'separate' rice texture) and pressure cook for 3 whistles.

We had it with raita & some leftover alu kurma.. Ram reckoned just the raita was best.

:)

Tamarind Rice

Yayyy! Thanks for the yoghurt rice Megs.. it is SO yummy! I'll try making it sometime , the recipe looks pretty easy too :)

Here's my 2 cents on the same note:

Tamarind Rice/Pulihara

You need:
Cooked rice - 1 cup
Tamarind paste - 1 teaspoon mixed with water (else about a tablespoon or two of tamarind pulp)
Peanuts/cashews - a handful
Green Chillies - 1-2 (depending on personal taste/hotness)
Ginger - a small piece or even ginger powder
Tumeric pwd - 1/2 tsp

Tadka:
Oil
Curry Leaves
Mustard Seeds

Start with the tadka, and add the peanuts, chillies, ginger into the tadka. Once everything is spluttery & the peanuts are well done, add the tamarind paste/pulp, tumeric and let it go for another 5-10 mins, till it condenses into a thick pulp. Mix this with the rice and voila.. ready!

I never was a big fan of this before but now quite like it.. the peanuts/cashews add a nice crunch to it so they are necessary in my opinion. In fact, u can actually even add a few chana dal to the tadka for an extra crunch. Have it with yoghurt and/or pickle and yum yum. You can also make the same thing with lemon juice, just do the same as above minus the tamarind. Add the mixture along with lemon juice to the rice (don't cook the lemon juice).

Enjoy :)

Spicy chicken curry + more pulusu ideas

I totally love the sour/tangy curry!!! it is really yummmy... and i recently realised too that the sugar/jaggery at the end is very imp... When i first made this curry without the sugar/jaggery, Ram's like 'its sour..' i was like 'well, that's the point isint it.' (the name in telugu means 'sour').. but that's when he said its supposed to be sweet :D I thought he was nuts and laughed at him. But then he added jaggery to it the next time i made it and it tasted so much better with the sweetness!!

If I may, can I add that you can do the same curry with any veggie really.. tastes best with raw banana (again, learnt from Ram), okra and tomato.. In the case of veggies, u add them right at the beginning - after the onions brown a bit, add the veggies n fry them till they stop smelling 'raw' :D after that, u continue with the tamarind etc. Megs.. do u know any other veggies that r good for this? i can only think of these..

I tried making a spicy chicken over the weekend.. looked up recipes and mixed up a couple and ended up with this whcih tasted awesome and blew our mouths away.

Spicy chicken curry

Grind together into a paste (with a small amt of water if needed):
Cumin - 1 tsp
Poppy seeds - 1 tsp
Corriander seeds - 1 tsp
Whole cloves - 3
Cardamom pod - 1 small one
Ginger - small piece
Garlic - 2 cloves

Other ingredients:
Chicken  - I used 2 boneless breasts
Onions - 2, chop up as big/small as u want
Green chillies - 3, slit into halves
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp (maybe add acc to taste)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Add the chilli pwd, tumeric pwd and a bit of salt to the chicken and keep aside for about 15-20mins. Meanwhile fry the onions in oil till brown, add the green chillies, chicken and the masala paste. Mix well and add a bit of water if u want gravy.. if u want it dry, dont add water. Cover and simmer till the chicken's done.

It turned out really yummy and very 'authentic' :D

:)

Praneeti's Savoury Tarts

BTW.. thought I might as well share with you all my random, easy-to-make recipe that I sent to someone else :) These are yummy as!!


Savoury Tarts
You need muffin trays to make this
Ingredients:
- puff pastry sheets,
- veggies/any leftover curry (tastes best with leftover curries),
- tomato & chilli (ideally sriracha sauce),
- mozzarella cheese

Method:
- cut out squares of the pastry sheets and line each muffin well with one sheet
- put in some sauce mix and spread it around
- put in the veggies/leftover curry
- spread some mozzarella cheese on top
- bake at 180degC for about 20-30 mins (or till done)

 

Idlis and Dosas - apparently not that hard!

Yaaay~ we're sooooo onto it man.. this is brilliant.. yep definately need to churn out that coffee table book for the continuity of the sisterhood :)

Idlis/dosas.. yep am making from scratch.. its pretty easy actually.. Gist of it is: u just soak stuff overnight and grind it to a paste the next day..

Idlis: 1 cup whole whole urad dal (pref without the green skin on top), 2 cups idli rava, 1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
Soak the urad dal & fenugreek seeds together and the rava separately in lots of water for atleast 5-6 hours.. then, using as little water as possible, grind the dal (+fenugreek seeds) using as little water as possible (if it is too runny, idlis will come out wet). Then mix in the rava (squeeze out all the water from the soaked rava before adding it to idly batter to minimize water). Leave this batter in a warm place overnight to ferment.. it'll, ideally, double in quantity when fermented enough. Add salt, mix and its ready to use.

Dosas: 1 cup whole urad dal (pref no green skin), 2 cups rice (now it can be any white rice (telugu style) or parboiled white rice (tamil style).. if u're using parboiled rice, u can soak 3 cups of it for every cup of urad dal and u can use this batter to make both idlis & dosas..
Soak the urad dal & fenugreek seeds together and the rice separately in lots of water for atleast 5-6 hours.. After this, grind them separately into a *very* smooth paste. mix and leave O/N to ferment. Add salt and check the consistency of the batter.. needs to be as runny as pancake batter before using.. For dosas, grinding the rice can be an arse if u dont have a wet grinder.. If you're using a mixie/blender, it can take a lonnng time.. so just be patient and have lots of entertainment on hand :D

On that note, like Megs said, maybe a food processor is good if u want to use it for everything.. although i'm not sure of batters..I've heard a lot about the magic bullet too and it sounds like a great option!!! I so wanted to get one but dont wanna fill my small cupboards up if i can help it :(  At home here, I have an indian mixie thingee that Ram's parents had when they were here.. and it is pretty awesome, it comes with 3 jars.. small one for dry pwders etc.. medium for wet/dry gravy/batters etc and a large one for wet batters.. the medium one especially is awesome and i'm able to use it for EVERYTHING actually.. but i"m not sure how much it'll cost.. so yeah.. Wet grinder is basically big and chunky and can be used for all batters requiring grinding.. like the idly/dosa batters.. you just chuk in the dal/rice and a bit of water, switch it on and it does the batter all by itself. Its a godsend if you plan on making dosas often esp (cos of the rice) and apparently u can use i to make dal and stuff on a larger scale (aunty was saying..i never tried).

The best chutney to go with idli/dosa.. well my fav is peanut chutney.. toast some peanuts, leave to cool. In a wee bit of oil, fry up some garlic cloves (say 3-4 for a cup of peanuts), a few green chillies (halved lengthwise) and some jeera.. Take these and peanuts together and grind it to a paste with a bit of tamarind water and some salt. You can add water to make it as runny as you want. It is yummy! Same applies (without the tamarind) to coconut too for a chutney.

:) :)

 

The third sister joins in! :)

hey sisters!!!
 
Brilliant ideas :) The name, the suggestions, the recipes, the plans, the LOT!!! :D Man, did we ever imagine we'd be doing this.. discussing cooking? well, actually , i think i did.. and come to think of it, i do remember discussing it with one of you guys last year or the year before too.. that soon, the future we'd be doing this ;)

I don't have any fancy recipes of mine.. I'm currently in the process of cooking so much indian food that I surprise myself with my dedication to our culture. Of course, that Ram's not a big fan of anything non-spicy is a factor too :P On that note, I'm a bit of a pro now at idlis n dosas so if u want any tips/recipes on that i can help :)

Pastas/rice: i used to eat red rice when i was at Vinthi's place.. it was really hard to eat at first but in a way guess that's good cos you eat less :P But once you get used to it, like Megha said, it is not that bad at all. Wholemeal pasta's yum, i actually think it tastes better almost than the white one.. what say you megha? We have the brown basmati at home, i haven't had the guts to try it yet though.. gotta try it sometime. Wonder if biryani tastes the same with it? Guess if it is meat biryani, shudn taste too different? Btw.. if u are making meat biryani, Shan Bombay Biryani Mix is the best one to try..

Along the same lines of swati's tip.. One of the most useful thing that mom told me is about adding spices when frying onions etc.. you have to add the spices when the onions are translucent.. rather than when they are golden brown or raw.. or like most ppl do, towards the end of the curry cooking process.. cos this way, the spices realllly get into the onions and they give the most awesome spice base.. :) 

ooh this is so exciting girls.. lets keep this up :) and eventually, i reckon, we should put up a 'book' or a blog together with all these... if not for others, for ourselves for future reference.. I've started writing all my best working/tasting recipes (that i collect from everywhere really) in a book.. dont have many as of now, but am gonna keep doing it.. we can do something like that collectively! :)

:)