Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Sweet Potato Halva


Serving size: 3
Ingredients:

  • Sweet Potato - 3
  • Sago - 1/2 cups
  • Brown Sugar - 5 tbsp
  • Cardamon - 5
  • Cashew nuts - 10
  • Ghee - 3 tbsp
  • Water
Procedure:
  1. Cook sweet potato until tender. Save the excess water for later use.
  2. In a pan, add sago and 1/2 cup of water and cook until its well cooked.
  3. Let the sweet potato and sago cool down.
  4. Grind sweet potato and sago in mixy to make a very silky smooth paste. Add little water(remaining water from the cooked potatoes) if it is too dry.
  5. In a pan, add 2 tbsp of ghee. Saute cashews. Once it becomes light brown, take it from the pan and keep it aside.
  6. In the same pan with remaining ghee, add coarsely powdered cardamon and add the sweet potato & sago paste
  7. Add sugar and keep mixing it. Taste for sweetness. Add more sugar at any time, according to your taste.
  8. Keep mixing, until the mix gets thicken. if it sticks to the pan, add more ghee to it.
  9. Finally, add cashews. Pour it into the serving bowl and let it cool. 
  10. Keep it in refrigerator for 1 hour, once it cool down. 
NOTE: Milk can also be added in the process. It make the halva more rich.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Roomali Roti


Ingredients:

  • 1 cup Maida flour
  • 1 cup wheat flour
  • Rice flour - in small quantity
  • Ghee - 1 tbsp
  • Warm water 
  • Salt
Procedure:
  1. Mix maida and wheat flour together. Add salt
  2. Add warm water and knead a soft dough.
  3. Keep it aside for 30 mins.
  4. Take rice flour and spread it in a place.
  5. Make small balls from the dough.
  6. Take 2 small balls of dough, press it with fingers and make it flat
  7. Apply ghee to 1 side of each hand pressed dough.
  8. Place the dough on rice flour, so that rice flour sticks to the ghee coated side.
  9. Place one dough on top of the other dough (ghee & rice flour coated side facing each other) 
  10. Roll it together very thin. (as thin as possible). use maida flour to avoid dough sticking to the roller.
  11. Heat dosa pan. make sure its really hot and place the rolled dough over it. Turn sides after few seconds.
  12. The roti puff up and will be able to separate the 2 layers.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Hot & Sour Soup (Veg & Chicken)


Ingredients:

  • Stock (Vegetable or Chicken Stock) - 4 cups
  • Soy sauce - less than 1/4 cups
  • Rice Vinegar - 2 tbsp
  • Chilli sauce - 2 tbsp
  • Salt to taste
  • Vegetables
    • Mushroom - 2 big sized (chopped)
    • Green onions(Spring onions) - 3 stems (chopped)
    • Onions - 1/2 thin sliced
    • Shredded carrots - 1/2 carrot
    • Egg whites (from 1 egg)
  • Corn flour - 2 tbsp (dissolved in little water)
  • Chicken pieces - few (for chicken soup)
Procedure:
  1. In a pan, add stock, soy sauce, rice vinegar
  2. Add all chopped vegetables and chicken pieces. DO NOT add egg whites and green onions now.
  3. Add chilli sauce and bring it to boil.
  4. Check taste. Add little salt if the stock doesn't have salt in it. 
  5. If you want it more spicy, add pepper powder.
  6. When the mushrooms and chicken are well cooked, add egg whites to a strainer and drop it little by little.
  7. Add corn flour (dissolved in water) liquid. This is to give some thickness to the soup.
  8. Finally add chopped green onions and let it cook for 3 mins.
  9. Enjoy the soup.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

  • All purpose flour - 4 cups
  • Eggs - 7
  • Vegetable oil - 2 cups
  • Vanilla essence - 2 tsp
  • Cocoa powder - 3 tsp (heap)
  • Dates - 15 (chopped)
  • Nuts (Almonds, Walnuts,...) - 1 cup
  • Baking powder - 1 tsp (heap)
  • Sugar - 2 cups
Procedure:
  1. Mix oil and sugar well
  2. Beat eggs well separately, add vanilla essence and mix with oil and sugar.
  3. Add baking powder, cocoa powder, nuts and dates to the flour and mix well.
  4. Mix the flour mixture with egg+sugar_oil mix and stir all the above in same direction.
  5.  Keep it for an hour
  6. Bake in 250 degrees for 30 mins.
  7. To make sure it is well bakes, insert a toothpick at the center part of the cake.
  8. If the cake mix doesnt stick to the toothpick, it is well cooked.
  9. Let the cake cool for 15 mins.