Upma Kozhakattai

Women's day is celebrated across the world on March 8th. This year I wanted to actually remember a strong woman by raising a toast to my kitchen guru - my maternal grandmother or Patti as I call her. I think I am very lucky as I got to learn a lot of traditional recipes from her when I started cooking as a new bride. We had just set up home in Bangalore and Patti used to visit us often and teach me the basics of traditional tam-bhram cooking and to make bhakshanams for the various functions. She is quite the perfectionist. The urad dal had to be just browned perfectly for the tadka and a lemon size ball of butter was just so - no more no less.


Some of the favorite dishes that Patti taught me are Mohanthal, Umpa Kozhakattai with Puli-inji. When my mother was growing up in the 50s and 60s, there was not much access to recipes outside magazines, Still Patti used to experiment and had a very open mind to taste new dishes and experiment with new ideas. Did I mention that she spent many years in a small town called Mithapur in Gujarat after her marriage, she not only taught herself to speak Gujarati but also picked up a lot of Gujarati cooking. This place was an industrial township that housed the factories of Tata Chemicals. So the whole place had a nice mix of people from various states and this allowed her to learn about various cooking styles and incorporate it in her daily cooking. She still has a very open mind and is always eager to learn even from people quarter her age and a large heart that praises the young cooks too.


So cutting short my rambling let me get on with Patti's upma kozhakattai. The recipe you will notice is slightly different from others as it contains a paste of dals that is cooked along with the rice. This gives the rice some binding and also lends a nice depth and flavor profile to the dish.


Ingredients
Raw rice - 3 cups

For the paste
2 tsp urad dal
2 tsp toor dal
Curry leaves
2-3 Green chilli (adjust as per your taste)
a small piece of asafetida chunk (powder doesn't smell half as nice as the chunky version)
water

For the tadka
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Chana Dal
2-3 tsp refined oil
2-3 dried red chilies
2 sprigs of Curry leaves

Grated coconut - 1/4-1/2 cup (to taste and as per your preference, coconut absorbs any extra water so there is no need to add loads of it to the rice paste)
Salt to taste

Method

Pre preparation

A. 3 cups of raw rice (I use a variety called Dosa rice that is available easily in Bangalore)

(wash the rice and then leave it on a fine colander to drain. Once water is drained, spread it out on a kitchen towel till all moisture is dried out completely). Coarsely powder this rice in a mixer and using a fine mesh sieve, discard the rice powder from the rice mixture. The texture of the rice is a little coarser than the idly rawa rice. Some folks use idly rawa rice instead, I don't...
Measure the coarsely powdered rice and keep aside.


B. Soak ahead about 2 tsp each of urad and toor dal for 15-30 minutes

Grind the dals to a paste with green chillies, whole hing and about 10-15 curry leaves in a chutney jar.

Actual preparation

1. Take 2.25 cups of water for every one cup of the coarsely powdered rice. So as we have about 3 cups of rice, set aside about 3/4 cup of water from the total quantity of water.
2. Use 3/4 cup water  to dilute the dal paste in the mixie
3. Take a large thick bottom kadai and its lid.
4. Pour oil into it and add mustard seeds, Chana dal, red chilli, & curry leaves and wait till it splutters.
5. Pour the measured water into the kadai and wait till it comes to a rolling boil
6. Add the salt required and the powdered rice, mix well.
7. Add the diluted dal paste and cook the mixture till it starts getting solid and leaves the sides of the pan. Add the grated coconut to this mixture. Keep stirring continuously till a homogeneous mass starts forming and starts pulling away from the sides of the pan. The water should have all been absorbed by now - the mixture should not be too sticky nor too dry.
8. Cook for 5 minutes more and switch off the gas
9. Cover with a lid and let it cool down (15-30 minutes)
10. Take a deep pan (such as an idly steamer) and fill it with enough water and place it so that the water is heated. Grease a steamer plate with oil and make elongated balls with the mixture and steam them for about 10-15 minutes till its cooked.
11. Serve it with coconut chutney or Puli- Inji (a spicy concoction made with sliced ginger, green chilies, tamarind water).

Upma Kozhakattai with coconut chutney

Sheermal - a Mughalai bread

Bread baking is addictive, meditative, relaxing.. I could go on and on, but will stop now. Some of you had been asking me about the bread posts that have been far and few this year. Yes, this blog has been on the back burner for a while now. Thankfully, my oven wasn't. Its just that I never found the time to take pictures of the final product before my family descended and polished it off. November is coming to an end and thankfully the non-posting inertia is also fading away.. This month's to-do bread (in the bread baking group I belong to, We Knead to Bake) was a rare delicacy called Sheermal. According to what I read up - Sheer means milk in Persian. This bread is kneaded using the moisture only from Eggs, milk and ghee. Ghee gives this bread a wonderful taste, so don't skimp on it, go for an extra walk instead. This is one of the easier breads to bake, so even if you are new to bread baking, I don't think you could go wrong with this bread.
Find the original recipe here

I used only Kewra water to flavour this bread, although many use rose water, elaichi (cardamom)and even orange blossom water. Who is to stop a baker on roll ;) The toppings can also vary, I've seen folks top it with a generous portion of almond shavings, other nuts... My family loved the mild fragrance of Kewra in the bread....
I didn’t make any changes to the original recipe except to increase the sugar and decrease the salt. And the plan was to have it for evening tea - this bread is a traditional accompaniment to Korma and Nihari. If you'd rather have it in a restaurant, you might have to search hard and probably might find it in a humble eatery somewhere in your city, I haven’t seen in any of the mid range or higher end restaurants menus yet.

Ingredients

1 tsp active dried yeast
3 tsp sugar (Aparna’s recipe uses only 2 tsps)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I had to use a little more)
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup ghee (I used home made ghee)
1/2 cup milk (or more, as required for kneading)
1 tsp kewra water (screw pine essence)
¼ tsp saffron strands soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk
Ghee, for brushing


Method
Activate the yeast by mixing in warm water with sugar in the bowl of your mixer. It starts frothing in 5-10 minutes, in the meantime get ready with the other ingredients.
Sift flour and salt in a bowl and set aside. Lightly whisk the egg and keep aside.
Add the flour and the beaten egg to the mixer bowl of your stand mixer and ensure that the dry and wet ingredients are mixed. Then add the ghee and ensure that it gets evenly distributed. I did this process by hand.
Attach the dough hook and start adding the warm milk, follow it up with the kewra water.
You will notice that the dough starts to pull away from the sides and gets a smooth texture. This takes about 8 minutes. Knead by hand to get the final consistency. I found that I needed a bit more flour (2 tbsp) more than the recipe mentioned. You will get a smooth, silky dough (due to the milk and fat) that is quite sticky. Shape into a ball and proof it in a greased bowl. Cover it with a damp cloth and proof it till doubles (it took the dough about 1 hour or so).
Knead the dough again (dust the worktable with a little bit of flour if required). Shape into a ball, lightly coat all over with a little ghee, cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for about 15 to 20 minutes. You can preheat your oven now.
Divide the dough into 4 equal portions and using your fingers/rolling pin, press out each portion into a round of approximately 4” diameter (about 1/8” thick). Place the rounds on a parchment lined or lightly greased baking tray and using a fork, dock (prick holes) the whole surface of the dough rounds. Brush the surface of the bread liberally with saffron milk
Note: I tried lining the pan with parchment paper for one lot and greased butter paper for another. The bread got stuck in the butter paper lined tray.

Bake for 15 minutes @180C. The bread has to be lightly browned, The more it bakes the crisper it gets and we don’t want that. A well-made Sheermal is soft not crisp.
Also remember to brush the baked Sheermal with ghee as soon as its out of the oven.

We had this aromatic bread with a cup of tea. You can try it with a spicy gravy. If so, then reduce the sugar and increase the salt by a notch.
Let me know if this bread was a hit with your family

Oats and Cranberry bread

While we Indians have always loved our food, the current fixation with international ingredients that don't cost an arm and leg is quite difficult to find. Those lovely cheeses, hazelnuts are not really for regular cooking. However, one ingredient that is still lots affordable is Cranberry. While it is much more expensive than raisin, I normally keep the dried ones handy as a snack as it does not cloyingly sweet taste that the 'kismis' we get here. I was looking for a recipe that would use a fair amount of this and found this lovely recipe by Dan Lepard Find the Original Recipe here: I made a few minor substitutions and there was a lovely flavourful bread that landed on our breakfast plates today. I liked the bread plain with a cup of tea. But my kids preferred a sweeter version so they topped the slices with chocolate sauce and enjoyed it

Ingredients

75g instant oats, plus extra for the crust (the original recipe calls for rolled oats, I used the quick cooking ones instead)
175g dried cranberries
450g strong white flour (I added 3 tbsp of Vital wheat gluten and topped the rest with maida as I don't get bread flour here)
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp all spice powder
1 tsp sugar
50g unsalted butter
1 tsp instant dry yeast
Oil, for kneading
Method

Put the cranberries in a bowl and add 375ml boiling water. Leave for 10 minutes, then add the instant oats to the mixture and leave it until the mixture is warm.
Mix flour, salt, spice and sugar in another bowl, rub in the butter, toss the yeast through, then add the oats and berries, and mix well. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
I tipped this mixture into my KitchenAid stand mixer and kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes till the dough started pulling together. Then I covered it with a towel and let it rest. There are two more of this knead and rest cycles. I kneaded for 5 minutes after a 10 minutes interval. I did the final knead by hand. The dough is sticky so its good to oil your hands before kneading the dough. Roll up the dough in an oiled bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes. I covered with a tea towel.
You will see the dough rising. At the end of 30 minutes rise, shape the dough into a rectangle, roll up tightly and squeeze, seam-side down, into a large, loaf tin. My load tin is non stick so I just coated it with a thin film of oil. Use parchment paper for metal loaf tins. Leave for an hour until risen by half. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted). Brush the top of the loaf with water, press on a handful of oats, cut a gash down the middle and bake for 50 minutes.
Tap the bottom of the loaf and when you hear the deep hollow sound, you know that the bread has been baked enough. Cover with a towel and let it cool completely before slicing.

Note: The bread browns very quickly on the top; the original recipe says that its typical for a fruit bread.

Cajun-Basil Eggless Cheese Muffins

A good Savoury Muffin recipe that is vegetarian, easy to make and tasty has been eluding me for long now. One recipe gave me really tasty ones but they got really stuck to the liners :( The second time around, the flavours were mild and they popped out of the muffin pan in a breeze but then the baking soda left a vague bitter aftertaste which was more pronounced as the muffins cooled... Farrukh has a lovely blog on http://www.cubesnjuliennes.com/. I have tried some of her bakes before, not only are they amazing, but you have to see the pictures to believe it. She had published a wonderful recipe of cheesy-chive muffins that were eggless and I wanted to try it out. What I did was I stuck to the basic flour-fat-liquid proportions from her recipe and changed the flavours to the ones I had available in my pantry.

My adapted recipe goes like this... INGREDIENTS:- 110 gms. maida 50 gms. butter, softened ½ cup, curd (I used the set dahi curd) 80 ml. milk ½ tsp. baking soda 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh Basil 1 tbsp chilli Flakes 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder 1/2 of pickled Jalapeno (seeds removed and chopped fine) 1/2 tbsp. sugar 6-8 black olives chopped fine 1/2 tablespoon tomato Ketchup 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning 2 tablespoons cheddar cheese (grated) ½ tsp, salt Cheddar cheese, grated, as required for topping Method: This recipe yields 6 medium muffins... Pre-heat the oven at 170 degrees, grease the muffin pan. In bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cajun seasoning, garlic powder and chilli flakes. In another bowl, mix together butter, jalapenos, olives, cheddar cheese, basil, curd, tomato ketchup. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk, mix until combined well Add remaining half of the flour mixture and remaining milk, mix until combined well (do not over mix, work with a light hand else you get rubbery muffins) Fill the muffin pan with the batter upto 2/3. Top with some grated cheddar cheese. Note: These muffins do not rise much Bake them in pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. Take out and cool. Serve them warm with more ketchup :) if your palette is anything like my kids' Enjoy....

Focaccia Caprese

New year brings new beginnings they say and mine will be to blog regularly about the recipes I try out in the kitchen regularly. I am kinda de cluttering my life and putting blogging high up on my priority list :) so those of my friends who have been asking me when the next post is coming up. Here it is. I have joined a fabulous bread baking group started by Aparna that's called We Knead to Bake. She gives out a tested and a fabulous recipe every month and we need to bake along. There is nothing like a gang of virtual bakers egging you on to try bread recipes and they are so helpful in sharing tips and tricks and the finer nuances of bread baking. I love baking breads and think that breads for snacks are definitely a healthier option. I haven't tried out very complicated ones like croissants yet but have come a long way since my first foray some 2 years back. More about the recipe now....There are loads of variations in focaccia like plain, herbed, topped etc and this is the first time I am trying a recipe that has a lot of toppings along with a flavoured oil drizzle. I think that's the secret of keeping this bread moist and bursting with flavour. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.mydiversekitchen.com/2014/01/we-knead-to-bake-13-focaccia-caprese.html I did not make any changes to the recipe. Just added some black olives to the other topping ingredients. Fresh Mozzarella definitely makes this bread special. Do try to bake with this cheese but ensure that the cheese is well drained else the top becomes soggy. So without rambling on any further, here is my version of the Focaccia Caperese.

The bread is light and moist. Its best consumed immediately after baking. The bread was being baked in the oven when my daughter came back home from school. One sniff and she guessed that a 'yummy bread' was being baked :) Note: I use my KitchenAid stand mixer to knead the dough but you should be able to achive good results by hand too. If you are using KA then it takes just about 7-8 minutes for mixing and kneading the dough. Substitute with mozzarella if you cannot find the fresh one. You need about 1/2 cup of oil for the entire recipe (1/4 cup of flavoured oil and 1/4 cup plain) but what I did was used herbs and seasoning to the half cup of oil to OD the flavour. Try it and let me know if it worked for you too...

Multigrain Rosemary Focaccia Bread

Blogging after a long gap and this post has the exp. of baking my first 100% whole-wheat (multigrain) flat bread. Rosemary has this amazing flavour and fragrance and I find that the whole house smells divine when you are baking any bread with rosemary in it. I used Archana's recipe (of Archana's Kitchen fame) of Whole Wheat Rosemary Focaccia Bread on her website for this recipe that can be found here. http://www.archanaskitchen.com/world-recipes/breads/408-whole-wheat-rosemary-focaccia-bread

I find that a lot of folks are scared to attempt whole wheat bread, but if my first time exp. is anything to go by, folks its a breeze. Yeah keep some extra water handy and a little more stickier dough than an APF version probably.

The recipe Archana used yields quite a bit (Pls note that the cup measurements are US cup measurements) - she suggests that you split it and bake in batches. She is really sweet and responds to all email enquiries in detail and PROMPTLY... Also it makes more sense to halve it if you are kneading by hand. I found is really hard to knead the whole dough in one go - No kitchenaid u see.. Maybe i should put it on my list for Santa this Christmas:)

The yeast I used here is the Instant variety called 'Gloripan' - very pleased with the results and summer does help bread baking by making the rising process so much faster. Just a warning, the rosemary we get here is quite hard - maybe not so fresh - so ensure that its chopped really fine or use the dried one (halve the quantity mentioned if using dry rosemary). I followed the recipe exactly. Just added my own toppings. The first one had onion, olives and parmesan cheese and the other one had not-quite-sundried tomatoes, onion and thyme

Loved the recipe and this is a keeper - just replicating here again with my notes...

Whole Wheat Rosemary Focaccia Bread
Ingredients
6 cups multigrain flour or whole wheat flour (Aashirwad brand)
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup honey
2 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast (gloripan)
1/2 cup chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup olive oil and more for coating and brushing
3 cups water

Method

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, honey, yeast, and rosemary. Gradually add in the oil and water and knead well until all the ingredients are well combined. I use a KitchenAid mixer and it takes less than two minutes for me to get the ingredients together and mix it all up into a complete mass. Having said that your hands work well as well and you would build some good muscles. (Archana is totally right abt that, i had to divide into two portions and knead!!)

When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a bowl with a light fitting lid and let it rise in a warm place for two hours. Sometimes I make the dough rise for two hours and then place the same bowl in the refrigerator to be baked for the next day. This kneaded dough will stay in the refrigerator for at least 5 days, so you could bake a small portion of bread for every single day of the week for dinner or a snack.(very sensible advice)

Preheat oven to 250 C. Punch dough down and place on floured baking sheet. Pat and spread into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle and make finger imprints over the bread. Brush the top with olive oil and you could optionally sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese or even ringed onions.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.

(My oven's max peaks at 220 and i used that setting and it look lesser than 12 minutes for baking)

Apple-Walnut-Raisin Cake

So birthdays normally are associated with a nice rich cake with a creamy or chocolaty frosting. But what kind of a cake can you bake for a person who likes all sweet things as long as they are not too sweet? I had to make one such cake recently and came across a recipe from my long time favourite - Joy of baking website. Click on the headline of this post to go to the original recipe or search for apple cake in www.joyofbaking.com, you'll find the video and the tested recipe of this cake..


I did not make ANY changes to the recipe mentioned..

Couple of pointers for those trying to attempt this recipe..
1 Omit the Apricot glaze if you dont like your desserts very sweet - the cake just has a hint of sweetness
2. toast the walnuts very lightly
3. dont use golden raisins like i did for the recipe, dont quite like the taste..
4. this is a fruit muffin kinda cake, dont overbeat the batter
5. I didnt add lemon juice to cut apples (the cutting takes the longest part of the recipe preperation!)I just kept cutting it and storing it in a tight plastic box and after that stored in the fridge for a bit when i was making the batter for the cake...
6. This is quite moist cake and the peices cant be cut evenly because of the apple chunks..
7. The cake was LOVED by all.......