Simple Indian Food- An Easy Cooking Blog: September 2008

WYF: Party Food event announcement

Party food ..need I say more. We put in a lot of efforts to organise parties, be it for kids or friends. The food prepared needs to be interesting, non messy as well as quick to make. So, the theme for October is Party Food. Bring in your cakes, snack varieties, muffins, cookies, mocktails & other beverages, desserts, Icecreams, etc or even a full course meal that would like to serve during parties and we shall have a one-stop place for Party food.

Please note that

1) After posting your recipe on your blog, please link it back to this announcement and add the logo if possible. In case you wish to send some dish that you have posted earlier, please repost it with the link to the event and the logo. No restrictions on the number of entries...send in as many as you can

2) Please post only vegetarian recipes for the event since this is a 100% Vegetarian blog. No eggs please. If you are a non-blogger, mail me the recipe and the picture.

3) Mail me the following details - Subject: WYF- Party Food, your name, dish name and link to the post to easycrafts@gmail.com by 31st October '08. I will pick up the picture from your blog...you neednt send it. The roundup would be published during the first week of November.

Looking forward to your participation in the event.

Please rush in your entries for the WYF:Soups/Salads/Starters event as today is the last date .. No late entries please as I will be posting the roundup in a day or two.

Wheat Ashoka Halwa

Priya of Easyntasty recipes came up with this interesting recipe some time back..It turned out to be very tasty

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Wheat flour
1/2 cup maida/all purpose flour
2 cups sugar (add more as per your taste)
1/2 cup Ghee
Few roasted nuts
Pinch of food colour
1 tsp cardamom powder

Heat the ghee and add the wheat flour to it. Mix well for 5 minutes and add the all purpose flour to it. Keep mixing for 10 minutes till you get start getting nice aroma. Add the food colour to it and slowly add 3 cups of hot water to it.

Keep stirring to ensure there are no lumps to it till everything comes together as a big ball. Now add the sugar, cardamom powder and the nuts to it. Transfer it to a greased plate and cool for some time. Now cut it into desired pieces.

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Tandoori Roti

Ingredients

2 cups wheat flour
1 cup maida(all purpose flour)
Salt to taste
Ghee

Make a soft dough of the flours and salt with water. Let it stay covered for atleast an hour.

Make small balls and roll out into thick rotis. Spread some water on both the sides of the roti and stick it to the tava. Now turn the tava and cook on low heat till the roti falls down..make sure you dont burn the roti.

Spread some ghee and serve hot with side dish of your choice.

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Kesar Pista Kulfi

Ingredients

4 cups boiled milk
1/2 cup condensed milk
Few strands of saffron soaked in warm milk
Chopped pista
2 tsp pista (ground into paste)
Sugar (as required considering the sweetness of condensed milk)

Mix all the ingredients well and keep heating it till it reduces to less than half. Cool and pour them into kulfi moulds and freeze for a day.

Run the moulds under water for a minute to easily remove the kulfi from the mould.

Serve immediately.

A small reminder that the WYF:Soups/Salads/Starters event ends on the 30th Sept. The roundup would be out on 1st Oct. So please rush up and send me your entries by 30th Sept.

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Soya Dosa

Ingredients

1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup soya flour
Salt to taste

Mix all these together with water to get a thick batter and let it stay covered for 1 hour. Heat tava and spread a ladle of the batter in circular motion. Cook with litte oil and then turn over to cook on the other side as well.

Serve hot with chutney or sambar of your choice.

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Parota-Kurma

Made parota for the first time following Cham's recipe and it was a perfect one..

Ingredients

2 cups of maida (all purpose flour)
Salt to taste
2 tsp oil
Hot water
1/4 tsp baking soda

Make a soft dough of the maida, salt, baking soda and hot water. Knead well and spread the oil over it. Keep covered for atleast 2 -3 hrs.

Make small balls of it. Roll out a ball into the thinest possible chapati. Spread some oil all over it and fold it into pleats like fan. Now roll it up to get a spiral shape. Press with less pressure to roll out and then cook it on hot tava in medium flame with some oil. Allow it to cook on both sides to get brown spots over it.

Serve hot with kurma.

My version of Aloo-Matar Kurma (without onion and garlic) recipe .

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Broken Wheat Kheer

Saw this interesting recipe on a cookery show some time back

Ingredients

1 cup broken wheat
4 cups milk
1/2 cup grated jaggery(adjust as per taste considering the use of condensed milk)
Few roasted nuts
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
4 tbsp condensed milk

Dry roast the broken wheat till it starts changing colour. Add the milk and cook till the wheat is soft. Heat the jaggery seperately with some water and once it comes to a boil, use a strainer to remove the dirt from it. Add this jaggery water to the cooked wheat and add cardamom powder and nuts. Finally add the condensed milk and mix well.

Serve hot or cold.
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Masala Idli fry (Less oil version)

Ingredients

Idlis(Fresh or leftovers)
2 tsp oil
Dosa Milagai Podi or Paruppu podi

Spread a drop of oil over the idlis. Cut the idli in four/nine pieces as required. Add the powder/podi of your choice and mix it well.

Normally these are fried in hot till golden brown to get crispy idlis. But for the less oil version, simply roast these on the dosa tava till it gets crisp on both sides.

Serve with chutney of your choice or just like that.

Sending this over to Vandana for her Lunchbox Special event

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Bengali Kichuri

This recipe is adapted from Sunshinemom's version at Tongue Ticklers blog with slight differences to suit my taste buds.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup raw rice
1 cup moong dal (dry roasted)
1/2 cup red gram dal
1 1/2 cup of mix veggies
A piece of cinnamon
1 bay leaf
2-3 cardamoms
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp ghee
Salt to taste
Finely chopped coriander leaves

For masala paste

1 green chilli
1/2 tsp ginger paste
2 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds

Wash the dals and rice and soak them in sufficient water for 15 minutes in seperate containers.

Heat ghee, add the cardamom, cinnamon and bayleaf. Add the rice and dals (after draining out the water) and mix well. Add veggies, masala paste, salt and 6 cups of water to it. Pressure cook it till done.

Garnish with coriander leaves and add more ghee for taste.

This goes off to the SWC:West Bengal event hosted by Lakshmi.

Divya of Dil Se blog is hosting the Diet Foods event. Horsegram Adai and Horsegram Chutney and Broken Wheat pongal are my entries to this event. (Horsegram helps in burning excess fat in the body and substituting wheat for rice is very good during dieting)

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Neer Dosa/Paan Pole

Ingredients

2 cups rice
Salt to taste
2 tbsp grated coconut
Oil

Soak the rice overnight or for atleast 4 hrs and grind it to a smooth batter with coconut. Add salt to it and enough water to make it very thin.

Heat tava and add a drop of oil in the center. Now pour a laddle full of batter in the center. Dont spread it with the ladle...rotate the pan to spread the batter into a circle. Cover and cook for 2 minutes. Slowly take it off from the tava and serve hot with chutney of your choice.

This Konkan special dish is off to RCI:Konkan event hosted by Deepa

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Alu Manchurian

Recipe source: Lata from La Gourmet Chef with slight changes to suit taste buds.

Ingredients

Potatoes cut into cubes
1 cup maida/all purpose flour
3 tbsp corn flour
Oil to fry
Salt to taste
1 capscium cut into pieces
1 tsp green chilli sauce
1 tsp red chilli sauce
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tbsp soya sauce
2 tsp pepper
Finely cut coriander leaves

Mix the potato cubes, corn flour, maida, salt and pepper by sprinkling some water. Deep fry it and drain out the excess oil on a tissue paper.

Heat 2 tsp oil and add ginger paste, capsicum and cook for 2 minutes. Add the sauces, pepper, little salt and mix well. Add very less water and allow it to cook for 2 minutes. Switch off the stove, add coriander leaves and fried potato pieces, Mix well and serve immediately.

This is my second entry to the WYF:Soups/Salads/Starters event under the starters category.

Also sending this over to Pallavi for the Sunday Snacks:Hot and Spicy event and Trupti's Winter Treat event

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Green chickpeas cutlet

Ingredients

2 cups green chickpeas (soaked overnight and pressure cooked)
1 boiled and mashed potato
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/4 tsp amchur powder
1/4 tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp ginger paste
2 tbsp bread crumbs
Oil

Grind the chickpeas without adding water. Add the rest of the ingredients except oil and bread crumbs.

Make small balls and flatten them. Roll them in bread crumbs and cook on tava with little oil. Cook on both sides till it becomes crispy.

Serve immediately with sauce.

This goes to My legume love affair event started by Susan and guest hosted by Lucy, to FIC:Green event hosted by Sunshinemom and Lunchbox special event hosted by Vandana

Karuna of Foodie by nature and Annarasa have tagged me to state 6 unspectacular quirks about myself

The rules of the tag are:

Link back to the person who tagged you
Mention the rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

- I never feel satisfied about sleeping, always feel like sleeping more
- Once I get into some work, unless I finish it off I can't concentrate on anything else
- My mood keeps swinging
- I can never stay away from icecreams
- Very very fussy about food
- Find it very difficult to travel long distance in buses and so avoid such trips

I would like to tag

Sunshinemom
Pavani
Yasmeen
Rekha
Supriya
Aparna

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Thalipeeth and Okra Raita

This delicious recipe is from Sia's blog Monsoon Spice. (I skipped the onions in both the dishes)

Ingredients for thalipeeth

1 1/2 cups jowar flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
Salt to taste
2 tbsp rice flour
2 tbsp bengalgram dlour
1 tbsp rava
Green chillies as per taste
Finely chopped coriander leaves
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin seeds powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
Oil/Ghee as required

Make a stiff dough of all the ingredients leaving out oil/ghee with some water. Let it stay covered for 10 minutes under a wet cloth. Make balls of it and pat it on a greased plastic sheet. Dip fingers in water to ease patting. Make a small hole in the center.

Cook it on hot tava with some oil in the sides and center till brown spots appear on both sides.

Serve with raita of your choice.

Ingredients for Okra Raita

Okra cut into thin pieces
Curd
Salt as per taste
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
A bit of cumin seeds powder
A bit of finely chopped green chillies

Heat oil, add mustard seeds and when it splutters, add the okra to it. Cook till okra is done and add it to the curds. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate for some time before serving.

Sending this over to Zlamushka's Tried and Tested Event.

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Ragi Oatmeal Soya Dosa

Archana of Archana's Kitchen posted this healthy and instant dosa variety idea some time back. It was soft as well as tasty.

Ingredients

1/4 cup of ragi flour, oats and rice flour each
2 tbsp soya flour
Salt to taste
Green chillies (I used green chilli sauce instead)
1/2 tsp pepper powder
1/2 cup curd
Finely chopped coriander leaves
Oil

Mix all the ingredients except oil with sufficient water to get a batter slightly thinner than the normal one. Let it stay covered for atleast 15 minutes.

Heat tava and spread a ladle of the batter all over..It would look like rava dosa. Spread some oil and when it gets cooked, turn over and cook on the other side as well.

Serve hot.

Sending this over to WBB series started by Nandita's and guest hosted by Aparna of My diverse Kitchen with the theme of Grains in my breakfast.

Also sending this over to JFI: Whole Grains event hosted by Suganya of Tasty Palettes.

Siri of Siri's Corner is hosting the Herb Mania : Coriander event and my entries for the events are

Coriander Pulav

Coriander Thuvaiyal

Coriander seeds Podi

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Maida Omlette

This recipe was sent by Cookspot for the Powerless cooking event. I just skipped the onions in the recipe, added coriander leaves and substituted green chillies with green chilli sauce.

Ingredients

2 cups maida (all purpose flour)
Salt to taste
Mix vegetables like grated carrots, cabbage, tomatoes and capsicum
Green chilli sauce

Finely chopped coriander leaves
Oil

Mix all the ingredients except oil with water to get a batter that is neither very thick nor very thin.

Heat tava and pour the batter from outside to inside. Spread a little oil over the sides and the holes in between. When cooked, turn over slowly to other side and cook for a minute.

Serve immediately.

Sending this over to Sangeeth for the 101 Omelet Recipes series

Have added a blogroll to the right sidebar..Please do check if your blog is there or else do put me a word and I will include it.
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Carrot Beans Thoran

Ingredients

1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped beans
2 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
Few curry leaves
Salt to taste
1/4 cup grated coconut

Heat coconut oil, add mustard seeds and when it splutters add the curry leaves and chopped vegetables. Add a little water and cook it till soft.

Add salt, grated coconut and mix well.

Serve with rice.

Carrot beans thoran and Avial are also my entries to the Festive Foods:Onam event hosted by Asankhana

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Roasted dal/Fried Dal chutney

Ingredients

4 tbsp fried bengalgram dal/roasted dal
2 tsp grated coconut
Salt to taste
Bit of asafoetida
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp blackgram dal
Few curry leaves
1 green chilli

Grind the dal, coconut, salt and green chillies together. Heat oil, add mustard seeds, blackgram dal, asafoetida and curry leaves. When it splutters add it to the chutney and mix well.

Serve with idli/dosa/upma.

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Appam (Rice version)

Ingredients

1 cup raw rice (soaked in water for 1/2 hour)
1/2 to 3/4 cup crushed jaggery(depending on taste)
1 tsp cardamom powder
Oil to fry

Drain out all the water and grind it in the mixer to get a coarse powder. Add the cardamom powder and jaggery to it and grind again to get a thick batter.

Heat oil and when hot, take a big spoon full of the batter and pour it slowly in the oil. It will spread by itself to a round. Let it cook on low flame till it puffs up. When it starts turning brown, turn and cook on other side as well.

Cool and store in an air-tight container.

Jhangri