Pudina Pooris

Indian Bread: Poori

Pudina: Mint

Jeera: Cumin

Pudina Pooris are definitely a treat once in a while. I fell in love with these when I ate them first couple of years back. The event Herb Mania-Mint made me think about these again and I made these especially to post for that event. And we all enjoyed eating them too! Pooris can be eaten without any chutney, but you can serve with Tomato Chutney if you have it ready.

Ingredients

2 cups Maida

1/2 cup Pudina

1 tsp Cumin seeds

2 Green Chilies

1 tbsp Lemon juice

1/2 tsp Sugar

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method

1. Grind mint leaves, cumin seeds, green chilies, lemon juice, sugar and salt together to make paste.
2. Add this paste to the flour, add required water and knead into a firm dough. And keep the dough aside for 30 mins.
3. Roll the dough to make Pooris and deep fry them in oil.

Cottage Cheese Bajji

Was craving for something nice to eat, opened the refrigerator door, stood infront of it for a long time hoping to find something nice in some corner, but nope. Since my mom is here, she empties it and keeps things clean and tidy. I found cottage cheese box that we got from the store the other day and thought of making these bajjis. This is the second time I made them and my mom loved these instantly. They are crispy from outside and soft from inside and taste sour.

To make these you need..

Cottage Cheese

Maida

Green Chillies

Coriander

Curry Leaves

Jeera

Onion

Salt

Take Cottage Cheese in a bowl. Add chopped green chillies, coriander, curry leaves, jeera, onion, salt and keep adding maida until the dough come together and forms like a bajji dough.

Take little dough at a time and form into disc shapes and deep fry in oil. Remove and serve hot with Coffee or Tea.

Aloo Manchuria

Indo-Chinese: Aloo Manchuria (Aloo: Potato: Aloo Gadda)

Aloo/Potato Manchuria is my sister's favorite dish and she has been making this for quite sometime now and each time she tried she asked me to try and see how it tastes. I told my mom that we should make that and she immediately started cutting potatoes but let me tell you that she hates potatoes big time and she ate only one piece after making it. She says one piece once in a while is ok but not everyday. Btw, Ravi commented on this and said that he found Aloo Manchuria more tastier than any other Manchuria.

Sending this over to A.W.E.D Theme: Chinese

Anyways, coming to the Recipe, here it is..

Printer-Friendly Recipe: Aloo Manchuria

Potatoes-2 (cut into any shape you want)
1 cup each of Maida and Corn flour
1 onion
1 capcisum/green bell pepper
2 tbsp chilli garlic sauce
2 green chillies, chopped (and increase according to your taste)
1 tbsp chopped ginger
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp pepper
salt to taste
2 tbsp oil for shallow frying
oil for deep frying
ajinomoto, a pinch
half bunch cilantro
spring onions, optional for garnish

1. Add maida, corn flour, salt and pepper to the potatoes and mix well with very little water.


2. Deep fry potatoes in oil and keep aside.


3. Take a wide pan, pour 2 tbsp oil, add green chillies, ginger and garlic pieces and fry for a minute.


4. Increase heat and add onions and green peppers and fry them till until they turn light brown.


5. Add soy sauce, chilli garlic sauce, ajinomoto, pepper, salt and little water. Let that cook for a minute. Add cilantro and mix well.


6. Add fried potatoes and mix until the mixture coats well on all potatoes. Remove and garnish with cilantro or spring onions. Serve hot.
   

Rava Biscuits

Its such a happy feeling to have Mom around with us, those never ending conversations about life in general, recipes, colony people, cousins etc..she is the first best friend for any girl, there is so much to learn, so much to accomplish, looking at her everyday around the kitchen makes me question over and over again, why am I not so like her, she takes care of every minute thing at home, from filling drinking bottles to even folding your bedsheets when you wake up.

For cooking, she is concerned of green leafy vegetables and if they are not fresh at one store, we make rounds to all the other stores around Raleigh but they are must on the table with any meal. She is just something that I want to have her around forever in my life. But, I know that it is just not possible.

While having coffee yesterday, we had this discussion on various biscuits/cookies that she makes at home and she mentioned to me about these Rava Biscuits and said we can make those in jiffy and the ingredients she mentioned in making those were all available in the kitchen, so I thought we should go ahead and make those immediately. We finally made these in less than 30 mins.

These biscuits were soft with the first batch and we made them crunchy in the next batch by leaving them in the oven for another 5 mins. I think these are also known as Nan Khatai as I recall seeing the ingredients but I have tried various versions of Nan Khatai and this is one of them.

This makes approximately 30 biscuits.

Printer-Friendly Recipe: Rava/Semolina Biscuits/Cookies

21/2 cups maida

3/4 cup rava

11 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp cardammom powder

4 drops vanilla extract

3 drops rose water (optional)

3/4 cup sugar (you can add more, as these were not so sweet)

milk if needed for kneading

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. In a bowl, sift flour, add semolina to it and mix well.
3. In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add cardammom and vanilla extract, rose water to it and beat again.
4. Add the butter paste to the flour and knead for few mins. (add little milk if needed).
5. Roll the dough and cut into desired shapes.
6. Place them in the oven for 15 mins or more for crunchy biscuits.
   

Badusha

If you want real authentic recipe with correct quantities, please refer to the recipe here

I made Badusha many many times and each time it turned out different, I don’t know why. May be the quality of maida or yogurt made them different. I learnt little from each experiment and I used that experience today while making this Badusha. Seriously speaking, I have not measured oil and yogurt in this recipe. And the Badusha has turned out really well. Ravi and Naveen loved those instantly and we finished all at one go.

What I did was, I took 2 cups of maida, added little salt to it, a spoon of baking powder and 1/6th cup of rice flour and mixed them thoroughly (usually people sieve the whole thing together). I kept on adding oil instead of ghee (as I ran out of ghee) until the mixture became like breadcrumbs. Then I kept adding yogurt until the mixture looked like layers and made that into a ball. Do not put water. These are the ground rules for making badusha. Oil/ghee and yogurt form an important part of the recipe. Then covered it with a wet cloth for half an hour. Made small balls out of the dough and pressed in the center. Made thin sugar syrup on the side. Deep fried the balls and soaked in sugar syrup for 15 mins. Took them out and left them aside for an hour.

You can store them for more than a month in a refrigerator. Heat those for 10 sec before eating.

Rava Dosa

I seriously wanted to name my blog site “Dosa” and I tried for it everywhere but the name was taken. I don’t know if there is anyone in this world who loves dosa so much as I do. I love dosas made by Tower, a south Indian restaurant near my place. They have so many varieties of dosa to eat and each one is great on its own. Whenever I feel like eating something outside, I prefer going to Tower and eating dosa and I never get bored going there.

I do make dosas at home from scratch, some of them are Plain Dosa, Paper Dosa, Paneer Dosa, Pav Bhaji Dosa, Masala Dosa, Mysore Masala Dosa, Gunpowder Dosa, Cheese Dosa. Out of all I make Rava Dosa frequently because it takes less preparation time but it is tough to make. Once you get hang of it, I know you will keep making it every week.


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Ingredients
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1 cup each of Rava, Rice Flour and Maida
Readymade Buttermilk from grocery store
Popu- oil, ½ spoon each of jeera, rai, chana dal, urad dal. Add 3 chopped greenchillies, ½ inch chopped ginger, few curry leaves

• Mix Rava, Rice Flour and Maida and add salt to it.
• Keep mixing the above mixture with buttermilk until the semi-solid consistency is reached. Don’t put too much water, a little to dilute the buttermilk and the mixture should be sour.
• Add the popu to the mixture and mix.
• Keep the mixture aside for half hour.
• Heat the pan a lot, pan should be very very hot and don’t put the dosa mixture like you do for the regular dosas, you should drop the dough from little height and spread by gently rotating the griddle.
• Reduce the heat and cook dosa for long time until it is cooked thoroughly, turn it to the other side and cook for a minute and your crunchy dosa is ready.

Don’t lose patience, it takes a while to get the hang of it. Once you do, you will love to make these dosas all the time.
Serve it with coconut chutney, sambhar or any podi.