Potato , Soya Bean Cutlets !

A friend told this recipe and we tried this yesterday !

Ingredients

Potatos - 2 , boiled and grated
Soya Nuggets - 8
chopped Coriander leaves - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 0.5 tsp
Garam Masala - 0.5 tsp
Salt , red chilli powder to taste


Steps

1. Wash Soya Nuggets and soak them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Squeeze and drain all the water amd mash them.
2. Mix all the ingredients and make small patties. you can make them round or oval.
3. Keep them in freezer for 10 minutes.
4. Shallow fry or deep fry them (I shallow fried)

Serve them with tomato ketchup. You can also use them as filling in burgers or bread.

Dahi Vada

Has to be my fave summer snack ever!

Ingredients:
Urad dal/split black gram - 100g
Adrak/Ginger - about 1/2 inch
Saunf/Fennel seeds or aniseed - 1 tsp
Dahi/Curd) - 300 gm
Imli/Tamarind syrup(sweetened with molasses or sugar)
Jeera/Cumin, roasted then powdered
Dhania-patta/Coriander leaves(optional)
Hari mirch/Green chillies (optional)
Lal mirch/Red chilli powder(optional)
Salt
Water

Process:

For the vadas(dumplings):

• Take about 100g split black gram seeds(urad dal) and soak overnight in about 250 mL water. It should swell up to over twice the original volume.
  
• Drain off excess water, then grind with a little ginger and fennel/aniseed. Some people add a green chilli, deseeded.
  
• Take the batter and shape it into flattish dumplings onto a damp muslin cloth.
• Heat salad oil for deep frying, and one by one dump the dumplings into the hot oil. Preferably, do not hold the dumplings in hand, but just overturn the cloth over the frying pan.
• Fry the dumplings till golden brown, and immediately soak in warm salt water. You can soak these for upto 24 hours, if you refrigerate once they cool down.

For the tamarind syrup:

• Take some ripe tamarind - 100g should do.
• Squish with water to extract a thick, dark juice.
• Squeeze the seeds and peels to get the maximum out of them, then separate the dry pulp from the juice.
  
• Sweeten to taste, preferably with molasses. Sugar will do too.
  

To serve, lift the dumplings out of the salt water and squeeze out the excess. Pour curd over them, then a generous amount of tamarind chutney, and sprinkle cumin powder on top.
Red chilli powder, chopped coriander leaves and green chillies are optional toppings.

I know this pic(courtesy www.manjulaskitchen.com) looks a bit like vanilla icecream with chocolate sauce. Trust me, it tastes different, but equally good! I really liked Manjula's recipes for Dahi Vada, and if you look up the comments on the post, they explore a number of variations on the recipe.

Cross-posted to my blog.

Sooji cheela with carrots

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup sooji
2. 1/4th cup besan (optional) - it just gives different flavour
3. 1/4th cup grated carrots
4. salt - 2 tsp
5. water to make thick paste
6. Oil/Ghee to roast

Steps:

1. Sift sooji, besan and salt to mix properly.
2. Add water and make an even thick batter.
3. Add grated carrots and leave for 10 mins. Add more water if required. The amount of water to be used varies on the type of sooji being used.
4. Brush some oil in the tawa/girdle and pour a ladle of batter and spread.
5. Scatter few drops of ghee/oil on the visible side.
6. Once done, flip to roast from both sides.
7. Eat it with coriander-mint chutney or just plain ketchup.

Quick corn snacks

A very very simple & quite healthy recipe for evening snacks of toddlers and kids. I know you might already know this or a variant of this but still I am writing for people like me who discovered it quite recently :-)

Ingredients :

Potato : 1 small
Frozen Sweet corn : 1 tbsp
Frozen Peas : 1 tbsp
Butter : 1/2 tsp
Roasted and crushed cumin seeds : 1 pinch
Salt to taste

Optional :

Chat Masala
Black Pepper

Steps :

1. Cut potatos in small chunks.
2. Mix protatoes, corn, peas, butter and water in a microwave bowl.
3. Microwave for 3 minutes.
4. Add salt and roasted cumin seeds.

Wheat Flour Cheela

Kheer Cheela is one of the loved occasional weekend brunch at my in laws place. Occasional because its high in calories and loved because we all love sweets. Its nothing but rice kheer served with two kinds of cheelas.To all my south indian friends , cheela is nothing but small dosa.

Of the two kinds of cheela served , one is salty moong dal cheela. I did share the recipe here , the only difference is that instead of moong sprouts , moong dal is used.

Other one is the sweet wheet flour cheela. This post concentrates on this cheela , because Aryan loved it and I now make it often just for him , without kheer , as evening snack.

Ingredients

Wheat Flour - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1/2 Cup

Cardomom powdered - 1 pinch

Water - 1 glass

Steps
1. Mix water in flour , to make a smooth paste.

2. Add sugar and cardomon powder and leave for 10 minutes for sugar to dissolve.

3. Mix well. The paste should be of dripping consistency.

4. Spread like a dosa on a non stick tava and roast using little ghee.

Bad Picture Quality ..Sorry!

Thats my plate ..SLURP !!

To add to variety , coriander chutney and Potato gravy is also served along , but I did not make potato gravy and rather served another gravy from previous night.

Uttapam

Ingredients:

1. Dhuli Urad - 3/4 cup
2. Rice - 1/4 cup

Steps:
1. Wash and soak the rice and daal for 2-3 hours.


2. Grind them adding little water to make a thick batter, add salt and asafoetida (heeng) and let it to rise overnight (8-9 hours)


3. You might have to add little bit of water after the batter has risen as the batter should not be very thick.

4. Spread it over a tawa (girdle). I've never been fussy of perfect rounds which is obvious from the picture.

5. Sprinkle some chopped onions and put little droplets of oil on the open side and flip it when its done from the other side.


7. Serve it with coconut chutney or ketchup as you like it!

Variations:
1. Instead of onion, you can use finely chopped tomato as a topping.
2. You can make mixed veggie uttapam by finely dicing capsicum, diced tomato, chopped onion, coriander and grated carrot for topping.

P.S. I forgot to click the pic of the uttapam when fully done.

Bread Poha

I made bread poha today morning for breakfast. Its a quick and easy snack. Everyone in our family likes it. plus feel its a nice change from regular poha or eating bread toast.


Ingredients:

1. 6-7 Bread slices (white or brown)
2. 2 tomatoes
   
3. 1 big onion (or take 2 small ones)
4. Salt
5. Garam masala
6. Red chilli powder
7. Coriander powder
8. Kadhi Patta
9. Rye/Mustard seeds
10. Fresh Coriander
11. 1 tbsp oil
12. 1/4 cup milk (optional)

Steps:

1. Dice onions and tomatoes finely and keep them separate.
2. Dice bread slices into small squares. You can decide the size as per your liking. I usually dice them into very small squares.
   
3. Wash and clean the kadhi patta and either use it whole or dice it thin. (I dice it thin because my son doesn't like whole leaves coming into his mouth)
4. In a kadhai/wok, put the 1 tbsp oil.
5. When oil has become hot, add the rye seeds and let them splutter.
6. Add diced kadhi patta and onions. Saute them till translucent.
7. Add coriander powder, garam masala and red chilli powder.
8. Add tomatoes and salt. Saute it for a minute.
9. Add bread slices and diced fresh coriander. Mix well on low to medium flame.
10. Add the milk and mix.

Variations:

1. You can add vegetables in it as well. Use grated carrot, diced capsicum, green peas and saute them with onion before adding the diced tomatoes.
2. You can add fried peanuts or cashews.
3. I sometimes grate cheese over the serving and microwave it so that cheese kind of melts up. Betu likes it that way a lot.
   

Tomato - Onion Sandwich

This is a very simple sandwich variation which I usually make on the tawa/girdle but can be made in the toast makers as well.

Ingredients:

1. Tomato
2. Onion
3. Dhaniya/Coriander leaves (optional)
4. Salt
5. Red chilli powder (optional)

Steps:

1. Finely dice the tomato and onions.
   
2. Mix them together in a bowl and add salt and chilli powder.
   
3. Butter up one side of the slice and put the buttered side down on the tawa.
4. Spread the mixture with a spoon and put one slice of bread over it and press it with your palms or a flat ladle as you feel comfortable.
5. When its almost done on one side, apply butter on the upper slice and flip it.
   
6. Once done, cut it into 2 halves. I cut it into 4 squares for Betu as it makes it easier for him to eat that way. Eat it with Ketchup or plain as you like it.
   

Variations:

1. Add grated cheese into the mixture as mentioned above.
2. You can use mashed boiled potatoes roasted with cumin(zeera) and onions as a filling.
3. You can make mixed veggie sandwich by finely chopping the veggies and saute them in butter

Sooji Dhokla

Ingredients:

1. Suji/Rava/Semolina - 1 Cup (not roasted)
2. Dahi/Curd - 1/2 cup (preferably slightly sour)
3. Baking Soda - 1 tsp
4. Salt to taste
5. 1 tbsp Oil
6. Water
   

Tadka:

1. Rayee/Sarson (Mustard seeds) for tadka
2. Curry leaves (optional)
3. 1 tbsp Oil
4. Red chili powder (optional)
   

Steps:

1. Whip curd in a bowl
2. Add 1 cup water in it.
3. Mix salt in dry Suji/Semolina.
4. Add the curd and water mixture in the Suji/Semolina.
5. Leave it for 5-7 minutes. The texture of the batter should be of dripping consistency. If required add more water.
6. Add baking soda and mix it well.
7. Line a microwave dish with little oil.
8. Pour the batter in it and try that the the batter layer is not more than 1.5 inches in depth.
9. Microwave it for 2 mins at high.
10. Leave it for 5 mins to cool and then cut pieces of the desired sizes.

For tadka:

1. Put a pan on the gas and add 1 tbsp of rayee/sarson/mustard seeds in it.
2. When they have spluttered add curry leaves(optional)
3. Then add dhokla pieces in it and add coriander and red chilli powder.
4. Stir it on medium flame for 2 mins and take them off the gas.
5. Serve them with tomato ketchup or have them plain!

Variations:

1. If you have time you can have some variations to the above recipe. In the batter add shredded ginger, and roasted kaju (cashew), finely diced red chillies and roasted chana daal before microwaving it.
2. You can also layer the bottom of the microwave dish with slices of tomato and then pour batter over it. So when its done and you upturn it, you can see the rings of red tomato on the cooked dhokla.

The pictures:

Sooji

Batter after adding curd, water, salt to Sooji

Dhokla ready to be eaten :)