Recipes

Here is the list of all the recipes that I have penned down and a lot more to come. I have categorized the recipes as per the meals and courses. If you are looking for something specific try doing a Control F on the page.

Breads

Chili Cheese Cornbread

Focaccia Caprese

Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia

Garlic Butter Naan

Masala Focaccia

The Perfect White Loaf

Breakfast/Snacks

American Pancakes

Eggless Pancakes

Garlicky Potato Wedges

Pohe (flattened rice)

Stuffed Baked Potato Baskets

Tandoori Cauliflower and Okhra

Tandoori Chicken

Main Course

Butter Chicken

Cheese, Mushrooms and Baked Rice Casserole

Chicken Biryani

Pasta with mushroom and spinach

Pizza Pie (Deep Dish Pizza)

Tacos with Vegetable Salsa and Baked Beans

Tomato Basil Cheese Calzone

Vegetable Pizza with Homemade Dough

Vegetable Pulao (Tahri)

Wholewheat Pita with Baba Ghanoush, Yogurt Cucumber dip and Spinach & Corn Kebabs

Curries 

Baingan Bharta (Eggplant Mash)

Chicken Curry

Jeer mirya kadi (Cumin Peppercorn Curry)

Kerela Style Drumstick Fry

Sev tamta nu shaak (Sev tamatar ki sabji)

Dessert

Bread Pudding

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Eggless Carrot Cake

Lemon Syrupy Cake

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Cake

Utterly Butterly Delicious Chocolate Cake

Wholewheat Pumpkin Walnut Almond Streusel Cake

Jams and Marmalades

Orange (Kinnow) Marmalade

Lemon Syrupy cake

Its time to bake some cake. I haven't been able to bake this cake for a while as we had a lot of other sweets at home. Homemade Gulab Jamun was obviously one of them ;). So as soon as the sweet stock went down a little I jumped in the kitchen and turned on my oven. You don't need any excuse to bake a cake, you may need one for not baking it though :).

This was a very soft, moist and lemony preparation. I have been planning to try the sweet and sour combination for a while. Well, my sister loved it and I did too. I ate like two big pieces of it and skipped dinner. Phew!!

Lemony Syrupy cake
Makes 6 big pieces (10x4 inch tin)
Recipe Source: Lemon Syrupy cake

Ingredients:
1. 125 g butter
2. 3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3. 2 whole eggs
4. 1 lemon zest
5. 3/4 cup all purpose flour
6. 2 tsp baking powder
7. 4 tbsp milk (direct from refrigerator or at room temperature)
8. 4 tbsp lemon juice (about 1 1/2 medium size lemon)
9. 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Place the butter in a bowl and keep it inside the oven (warm mode) for 30 seconds so that the butter can melt a bit. Now pour in the granulated sugar and whisk the butter and sugar together. Keep whisking till you feel that the sugar has almost melted and the mixture has become fluffy. You may need to keep the bowl in the oven for 30 seconds or so every now and then to heat up the butter a bit. This would help in dissolving the sugar faster. Let the mixture sit for about 2 minutes so that the sugar dissolves properly. I was whisking continuously, eagerly waiting for the sugar to melt. When I rested the mixture for a while (I was actually resting my arm ), I realized the sugar has melted.

Now add the eggs one by one and beat well. Put in the lemon zest. Mix the flour and baking powder in a separate container and pour them in this bowl. Whisk the contents of the bowl till the mixture has taken the form of a fine paste. Now add the milk. Milk would give liquidity to the mixture. I always use milk as a safety weapon when I am in trouble and it has never failed me. So when you are baking a cake or making some brownies and you feel that the batter has thickened up/doesn't look right or the sugar-butter mixture looks overheated, pour in some milk and see the results.

 I baked the cake in an Oven Toaster Grill (otg). Pre heat the otg at 180 degrees. Grease a tin of size about 10x4 inches. Pour the mixture in the tin and keep inside the otg for 10 minutes or till you get a nice golden crispy top. While the cake is cooking make a syrup of the sugar powder and lemon juice in a pan on a low heat. Let it cool. Check the cake if it is done using the usual "toothpick coming out clean" method.  Now when the cake is ready, poke holes all over the cake and pour over the cooled syrup evenly. Let the cake sit for a while.

The wait would be difficult as the whole house will be full of a beautiful lemony and buttery flavor. Actually we started eating the cake right from the tin itself  :-). It was simply wow!! The sweet and sour combination worked out really well for my tastes.

Have fun baking and eating guys. :)

American Pancakes

My niece wanted pancakes for dinner. Though pancakes are mainly known as a breakfast item but one can eat pancakes anytime. I have been following Jamie Oliver a lot these days. So I looked around and tried one of his versions of pancakes. The result was beautiful and tasty.


American Pancakes
Adapted from Jamie Oliver
Makes 4

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup all purpose flour
2. 1 cup whole cream milk
3. 1 whole egg
4. 1 tsp baking powder
5. butter
6. a pinch of salt
7. honey

First whisk the flour, milk, egg, baking powder and the salt in a bowl till it all blends together. Now heat (keep medium heat) a pan or skillet and add some butter to it. Pour about 3 table spoons of the mixture on the heated pan or skillet. Tilt the pan to spread the batter evenly. Let the pancake turn golden brown which will take about 3-4 minutes. Add butter on the top and flip the pancake. Cook till it is golden brown on the other side as well.
Serve hot with honey, maple syrup or chocolate sauce. I served with honey on top and some bananas with chocolate sauce poured over the banana.
Pancakes tasted delicious and they had an eggy aroma with a very smooth texture. I used all purpose flour with baking powder, you can use self raising flour instead of all purpose flour and you won't need the baking powder then.

This recipe is definitely the one which you will always use for making pancakes after you have made them once. I kept the batter for about two days in the fridge and it was fine. The only change that I would bring upon next time is I will make them a little thicker.

Have fun eating pancakes. :)

Vegetable Pizza with homemade dough

Oh we had to eat pizzas yesterday. Something from inside spoke I guess. "The Voice" was loud and clear from within all of us, specially from me and my sister. Originally we were planning for egg mushroom rolls but I guess the rolls are not having the best of their times (If you read previous post you will realize this is not their first rejection ;) ). Pizza is more popular amongst us and we have been planning to have pizza with homemade dough for a while. For me making every component of a dish myself is very important. So I started with the dough, moved on to the sauce, chopped some veggies and finally baked the pizza. It was a delicious thin crust pizza, well balanced with sauce, toppings and cheese. Dough recipe is a simple and fast recipe and is the best that I have seen so far. Why wouldn't it be, after all its a Jamie Oliver recipe :).

Lets bake some Pizza.

Vegetarian Pizza
3 medium and 1 regular size pizza

Ingredients:
For Dough:
1. 266 grams all purpose flour
2. 66 grams very fine semolina
3. 1 1/2 tsp dry yeast
4. 1/3 tbsp caster sugar (I have also used 1 tsp granulated sugar and it works fine)
5. 1 tsp salt
6. 1 tbsp olive oil
7. 216 ml lukewarm water

Jamie Oliver rightly mentions on his site about this dough recipe "Once you have tried this easy pizza dough recipe, you'll never look back (trust me)".  He is absolutely right. I will never look for another pizza dough recipe after this. This is the easiest and fastest dough recipe and made perfect pizzas.

For preparing the dough mix the sugar, oil and yeast in the lukewarm water and let it rest for like 5-7 minutes. Mix the flour, semolina and salt in a big bowl. Now create a well in the flour. Pour the water inside this well. Now using a fork push the flour from the walls inside the well. Dust your hands well with flour (I missed doing this and it got a little messy). Now start kneading the dough. Knead it on a surface well dusted with flour while dusting your hands with flour every now and then. Knead till it becomes soft and smooth. Dust the bowl with flour in which you started kneading the dough and keep the dough in it. Cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for around an hour or till it gets double in size.

You can roll out the pizzas about 10-15 minutes before you want to bake them. If you have extra dough you can wrap it in a cling film and save it in the fridge or freezer for later use. To make the pizza base, dust the surface with flour and using a rolling pin roll out a ball of dough. If you like thin crust pizza, roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/2 cm or even less.

For Sauce:
1. 5-6 chopped garlic cloves
2. 1 fine chopped red onion
3. tomato seeds and pulp of 4 tomatoes
4. 2-3 tomatoes with seeds removed (use the ones from which you have taken out the seeds)
5. 1/2 tsp dry oregano
6. 1/4 tsp black pepper
7. 1+1 tbsp olive oil
8. red chilli flakes (as per taste)
9. salt to taste

Put the garlic, onion, chopped tomato, salt in a mixer and blend. Now in a pan heat 1 tbsp olive oil and add the blended mixture to it. Cook it for a few minutes till it starts drying and then add the tomato seeds/pulp, oregano, pepper, chilli flakes and 1 tbsp olive oil. Cook for another minute and keep it aside.

For Topping:
1. 1/2 Zucchini
2. 2 medium sized red onion
3. 1 Cubanelle pepper
4. 200 g button mushrooms
5.  1/2 green capsicum ( I had a large one so halved it)
6. 1-2 tomato (use the ones from which you took out the seeds for sauce)
7. 8 -10 french beans
8. Grated and cubed cheese

Cut out thin stripes of zucchini lengthwise while maintaining its width. Slice up the button mushrooms (you can also chop them in chunks). Keep the zucchini and mushrooms on a foil and keep them in the oven on the grilling plate for a while. Spray a little olive oil before keeping them inside. Let them grill for a while till the zucchinis get little brown marks on them and the mushrooms also browns up. Simultaneously cut the french beans, tomato, capsicum, onion and cubanelle pepper. Now take the vegetables out of the oven. You may choose any kind of vegetables chopped up in different shapes and in amounts as per your liking. Grill them, saute them or use them raw. Just make sure that the vegetables are not too dried up and do maintain their crunch. And always half cook them as they are going to get baked with the pizza.

Grate any kind of cheese you like. I used grated Amul Cheese along with grated and cubed Britannia Cheese cubes (chilli pepper flavor).

Assembling the pizza:
Dust a tin foil with flour. Now keep the rolled out pizza base on it. Apply a thin layer of sauce. Sprinkle salt and black pepper. Now arrange some portion of all the vegetables on the sauce. Sprinkle salt, black pepper and oregano. Now top it off with grated and cubed cheese. Let it bake in the oven. I baked the pizza at 250 degree Celsius for about 7 minutes and for around the same time at a lower temperature (160 degree Celsius). I baked at a lower temperature so that the base can cook properly.

Serve hot. You can sprinkle with oregano and chilli flakes on the top.

Pizza was delicious and was cooked well. The sauce turned out to be really good and the sides of the pizza had that crunch. The toppings were really tasty. This was a yummy pizza which finished soon and I didn't get time to take enough pictures. I am sure I will make pizzas soon. Next time I will make the pizza with soft mozeralla and shiny parmesan.

So go ahead and make a delicious pizza for dinner tonight. Enjoy the rest of the sunday guys. :)

Sev-tamta-nu-shaak (Sev Tamatar ki Sabji) with Thepla

My brother in law (jiju) had been asking for sev ki sabji (Sev Curry). I had initially planned to make egg mushroom rolls for dinner but then changed my plan. My sister was more inclined towards the rolls but she thought let jiju's wishes be given some importance once in a while ;) . If I was making sev tamatar ki sabji then it made perfect sense to serve it with theplas. So I went ahead and made a Gujarati dinner. Gujarati food has always been fascinating me. I love gujarati kadhi, dhokla, thepla and a lot more. And their food always reminds me of that scene in the bollywood movie 3 idiots in which Kareena Kapur describes Gujaratis as cute and their food dangerous :).

Sev tamatar ki sabji is very famous amongst Gujaratis and is a very crucial part of their cuisine. Sev is popularly used in Indian snack food and is easily available in the market. Sev tamatar ki sabji is a sweet and sour preparation.

Sev-tamta-nu-shaak
Serves 3
Recipe Source: Archana's Kitchen

Ingredients:
1. 4 cup chopped tomatoes (cut the tomatoes in chunks)
2. 1 tsp chopped ginger
3. 1/4 tsp cumin powder
4. 4-5 curry leaves
5. 1 1/2 tsp sugar
6. 1/4 tsp asafoetida
7. 1/2 tsp red chilli powder (as per taste, a little lesser would do)
8. 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
9. 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
10. 1/2 tsp turmeric
11. 1 1/2 cup sev
12. 1 tbsp oil for frying
13. salt to taste

Heat a wok and put the oil in it. Now add the curry leaves, cumin seeds and mustard seeds to the oil. Let the seeds pop and then add the asafoetida. Put the chopped ginger, red chilli powder, turmeric and roast the spices for about 10 seconds. Now add the tomatoes, cumin powder, sugar and salt to the wok. Add about 1/2 a cup of water to this and let it cook. Cook till the tomatoes become soft. Just before serving add the sev and serve hot.

Thepla
Serves 3
Recipe Source: Archana's kitchen

Ingredients:
1. 4 cup whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup chopped Fenugreek leaves
3. 1 cup yoghurt
4. 1 tsp half crushed cumin seeds
5. 1 tsp asafoetida
6. 1 tsp Turmeric
7. 4 tbsp oil
8. 1 tsp salt

Mix the whole wheat flour, salt, turmeric, fenugreek leaves, crushed cumin seeds, asafoetida powder and oil. Now start making the dough by adding the yoghurt. Mix and knead till you get a soft and smooth dough. You can use water if required. Cover and keep for 15 minutes.

Now make small balls out of the dough and start rolling the bowl one by one. Roll out the theplas by applying oil instead of flour to give them a cleaner texture. I made smaller theplas of about 4 inch diameter. You can roll out thin theplas of about 5-6 inch diameter (depends on how many you need to make). Heat an iron skillet and place the thepla on it. Turn the thepla when little air pockets start appearing. In about a minute apply oil and cook the thepla with a flat spatula while turning it around.

The combination of the methi (fenugreek) thepla with the sweet and sour tomato sabji is amazing. Not everyone likes the sweet taste in a sabji and I am one of them but this one tasted really good. The sweetness was complimenting the other flavors. Theplas were so yummy that my niece ate like 3-4 small ones. You can also serve the thepla with just pickle or curd.

Go ahead and make yourself a tasty Gujarati meal. Have fun :).

Kerela style Drumstick Fry

This is a follow up post of the last recipe for Jeer Mirya Kadi (Cumin Pepper Curry). I made the curry & drumsticks fry and served with rice.

Kerela style Drumstick Fry
Serves 3
Recipe Source: Drumsticks Fry

Ingredients:
1. 2 Drumsticks
2. 2 Red Onion
3. 5 Red Chillies
4. 7 garlic cloves chopped
5. Olive oil to fry (you can use coconut oil as in the original recipe)
6. 1/ 4 tsp turmeric
7. Salt to taste

Fry the chopped garlic and chopped red chillies in olive oil in a wok. Now add the chopped onions and fry till translucent. Put the turmeric powder and fry for 10 seconds. Now add the drumsticks and add salt as per your taste. Now add some water and cover the wok. Let it cook for around 20 minutes. Now remove the lid and let it sit on the high heat for another 2 minutes or so till most of the water is dried up.

The drumstick tasted nice and was succulent. It went well with the cumin pepper curry. The lack of the tamarind which I felt in the drumsticks was balanced with the tamarind from the curry. I would add a little tamarind to this preparation when I make it the next time.

Have fun :)

Jeer-mirya kadi (Cumin Peppercorn Curry)

For lunch we usually like to eat rice with some daal (lentils) or some other rice preparation such as tomato rice or lemon rice. I have lived in Delhi, UP and Rajasthan for most of my life but have spent some good 1.5 years in Bangalore as well. There is quiet a variation in food when you move from one part of India to another. I don't know my favorite yet, it could be pyaaz ki kachori from Rajasthan, chicken shawarma from Delhi, chaats from UP or Bisebelle bath from Bangalore. But I sure love the south Indian flavors and the usage of  different kind of spices, coconut, coconut oil, red chillies, urad dal, chana dal, lots of garlic, curry leaves, mustard seeds, tamarind and a lot more in the day to day cooking. So many more flavors to work with. Konkan cuisine has been on my list for a while though I have not prepared much from it yet. It is rich and sounds different from other cuisines. I came across  a cumin pepper kadhi which I felt would turn out delicious and had very different kind of flavors from what I usually eat. I could also put the good old coconut to some use which has been sitting in the fridge for quiet a few days now. Similar was the state of drumsticks. I and my sister had bought drumsticks in our last grocery shopping thinking we would make drumstick sambhar. You can see that our comfort level is not that high with drumsticks. I was browsing something and came across a beautiful kerela style drumstick and shallots fry. So I thought I would give it a go with this curry and rice. (Recipe for the drumsticks fry will follow).
The kadi was tasty and had a really good consistency. For me those were very different flavors and we really enjoyed our lunch.

Jeer-mirya kadi
Recipe:
Serves 3
Recipe Source: Aayi's Recipes

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup coconut
2. 1 tsp cumin seeds
3. 4 dry red chillies
4. 6-7 black peppercorns
5. 1 piece tamarind
6. 6-7 cloves of garlic
7. olive oil to fry

8. 5-6 cups water 

9. salt to taste

Fry the cumin seeds, chopped/crushed red chilies and the peppercorns in oil. Grind these fried spices with coconut and tamarind. Now cook this coconut paste in a wok with about 5-6 cups of water for around 10-15 minutes. Add salt. Fry the chopped garlic in olive oil and add to the curry. This should be enough to serve 3, if you feel less then add some more water and cook. Finally add some chopped coriander and serve hot with rice.

The  tamarind and the spices complimented the sweetness of the coconut well. Go ahead and give it a try. Have fun cooking :)