Rava idli

Ingredients

2 cups roasted rava

2 tsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp bengalgram dal

1 tsp blackgram dal

Few curry leaves

Bit of ginger paste

Finely chopped coriander leaves

Few roasted cashew pieces

1/4 tsp eno fruit salt

1/4 cup beaten curd

Salt to taste

Mix the rava with curds, salt and 1 cup water. Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When it splutters, add bengalgram dal, blackgram dal, curry leaves and ginger and add to the rava batter. Add coriander leaves, cashews and mix well. Let it stay covered for 10 minutes. Add more water if required to get a thick batter. Grease idli plates with a drop of oil. Add eno to the batter and mix. Pour immediately into idli moulds and steam cook for 5-7 minutes. Insert a toothpic to check if it comes out clean, else cook for another 1 or 2 minutes.

Serve hot with chutney/sambar of your choice.

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Budding blogger : Lani

Meet Lani of Fig and Walnut blog in the Budding blogger series

She says -

My name is Lani, I am a cooking teacher in Australia and have just started my food blog, Fig and Walnut. I love all types of cooking, and want to share my recipes with the world! I have lots of multicultural influences in my cooking - my family is greek, my partner is Sri Lankan, my step family is Italian - cooking is in my blood. I travel to different places around the world every year to find new influences for my cooking - last year I travelled to Malaysia and China and learnt some great new recipes. This year I am off to the deep south in the USA to learn some Cajun and Creole recipes, and to Sri Lanka to pick up some short eat recipes and perfect my curries! Subscribe to my email newsletter for some exclusive recipes, or to my feed to get all my latest updates.

Fig and Walnut showcases my cooking ideas, recipes, restaurant reviews, and general food chatter that I have collected on my travels and through my work as a cooking teacher for the local council. I have a passion for baking and love to experiment with different types of breads, cakes, sweets and pastries. I am also largely vegetarian so my blog includes a special Vegetarian and Vegan section where you can view all my meat and animal product-free recipes. Though for the meat lovers I do have recipes with meat! I also often recommend meat substitutions for the vegetarians who would like to try my meat recipes.

My previous career was as a filmmaker so I love to populate my blog with lots of photos of my recipes. I am based out of both Melbourne, Australia and Phoenix, Arizona, USA throughout the year so my recipe base will  never run dry!

Butter Badushah

Its raining sweet and savories in the blogging world for the upcoming Deepavali festival..I also finally tried out something that I have never tried earlier - Badushah. The recipe is as it is from one of my favourite blogger - Sharmilee of Sharmis passion..Also have a look at Raji's version at Raks kitchen with recipe and video for Badushah but with a different measurement for ingredients. Both of them have provided step by step instructions with special tips and leave no space for going wrong in any way......

Ingredients

1.5 cups of all purpose flour

1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

2 tbsp beaten curd

1 tsp sugar

1.5 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp cooking soda

1/2 cup sugar

Cardamom powder for flavour

3/4 cup water

Bit of lemon juice

Water as required

Oil to fry

Mix the butter, oil, sugar, curd and soda well. Slowly add in the flour and keep mixing it well. Finally add water as required to get a soft dough. Keep aside for 10 minutes and prepare the sugar syrup by that time.

Heat the sugar and water to get a single string consistency. Add in the lemon juice and cardamom powder and keep aside. Make small balls of the dough and flatten them slightly. To make the corners decorative, have a look at the videos at Sharmis blog or Raks kitchen. 

Heat oil in medium flame. Put a small piece of the flour to check the heat. If it pops up immediately, put in a few pieces of the badushah and switch off the stove. Dont disturb it and let it cook in the oil. When the bubbles settle down, switch on the stove again and cook on medium flame till golden brown. Drain excess oil in a tissue paper and dip in the sugar syrup. Let it stay soaked for 2-3 minutes and then transfer to a greased plate. Repeat for rest of the dough.

Although it takes a reasonable time to prepare these, the end results are just fantastic. Garnish with cardamom powder or saffron strands.

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Jowar paniyaram

Ingredients

2 cups jowar flour

2 tbsp rice flour

2 tsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp bengalgram dal

1 tsp blackgram dal

Few curry leaves

Bit of ginger

Salt to taste

Finely chopped onion -1

Finely chopped coriander leaves

Optional : Grated carrots, cabbage

Mix jowar flour, rice flour, salt, coriander leaves with water to get thick batter consistency and keep aside. Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When it splutters, add bengalgram dal, blackgram dal, chopped curry leaves, ginger and onion. Fry for a minute and add to the batter.

Heat paniyaram pan and grease it with little oil. Add the batter into the holes and allow it to cook well till golden brown on the lower side. Slowly turn and cook on other side as well till done.

Remove from pan and serve hot with chutney/sambar of your choice.

A quick and healthy breakfast and can be served also as an evening snack.

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Eggless microwave vanilla cake

This week I am paired with Radhika of Tickling palates -the brain behind the Blog Hop Wednesday series. I tried to follow a theme of baking throughout this series until now and this time too I baked a eggless vanilla cake in Microwave mode from Radhika's blog. However I substituted the cocoa powder with all purpose flour to make it a vanilla flavoured cake.

Thanks for the simple yet delicious cake recipe Radhika

Ingredients

1.5 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose flour

1.25 cups powdered sugar

1 cup milk

5 tbsp butter

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp white vinegar

Sift flour with sugar and baking soda and keep aside. Add milk, oil, essence and vinegar and mix well together. Bake in a greased microwave safe bowl for 5-7 minutes in high temperature setting. Allow it to cool for 10 minutes.

Simple and quick microwave cake ready to serve.

Eggless chocolate chip cookies

Radhika's brainchild Blog Hop Wednesday enters another week today and my blog hop partner is Pratima of Prats Corner. I chose to try her Eggless Chocolate chip cookies and they were perfect..I used chocolate essence instead of vanilla and chopped chocolate pieces instead of chocolate chips..I chopped the chocolate too finely and it melted during baking...so ensure that you dont grate the chocolates pieces or chop it very finely..

Ingredients

170 grams all purpose flour

100 grams sugar (powdered)

Bit of baking powder

120 grams soft unsalted butter

Chocolate chips or chopped chocolate pieces as desired

1 tsp chocolate essence

Beat the butter and sugar well until creamy. Add the essence and mix well. Sieve flour and baking powder and add slowly to the butter mixture. Finally add choco chips and mix lightly. Make balls, flatten them and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes till edges start getting brown.

Cool it well to let it get crisp.