Habisa Dalma

Today is Kartika Purnima - one of the holiest days of the year, and culminates a whole month of puja in the month of Kartika masa. Lots of Oriya women (not sure if men do it - I have seen grandma, mom and aunts celebrate this month) do not eat non vegetarian for the whole month. Usually they eat once during the day and one of the key item for the meal is Habisa Dalma. Here is my Aunt's version of the habisa dalama that I  love. Tomorrow is Chada Khai, the day everyone feasts on non vegetarian food. I have heard the price of mutton goes up 2-3 times for the day - talk about Supply and Demand!


Ingredients
1 cup Mung Dal
1 tin of Jackfruit (non-ripe version)
2 raw bananas - chopped into small pieces
2 Saru or Arbi - peeled and chopped into small pieces
1 table spoon ghee
1 tea spoon cumin seeds
2 red chillies
2 green chillies
2 inch ginger - grated
1 tea spoon of dry cumin seeds roasted and powdered
handful of fresh grated coconut (frozen ones, thawed work fine too)
2-3 bay leaves
Salt to taste

How to
Take a pan and heat it. Add the mung dal and dry roast it until it starts changing color (at very low heat). It takes about 10-12 min.
Remove from heat and soak the dal for 1 hr.
Take a pan, add the dal and salt and 3 times the water and let it boil for 15 min.
If the dal looks a little bit cooked, add the saru and let it cook for a few minutes.
Then add the chopped raw bananas and the cut raw jack-fruit pieces.
Once everything is cooked, adjust salt to taste. (No Tumeric is added to this dal)

Take another pan, add the ghee and let it get hot.
Add the chillies and the cumin seeds, bay leaves and the grated ginger and pour the mixture on the dal.
Add some dry roasted and powdered cumin seeds and fresh grated coconut and mix well in the dal.

Eat fresh or the next day. Add some lemon to enhance the taste of the dalma! As Satarupa says, enjoy this dalma with Arua Bhata (white rice), Aloo Bharta (Mashed potatoes), Saga and khata.

Happy Diwali with Besan Coconut Burfi

Hello All! A very Happy Diwali! Here is again something sweet and easy to prepare. If you have 1/2hr and want to make a home made sweet for Diwali puja or any puja - this is the sweet for you... It is so easy that I made it for my home science class in 9th grade. I hope you all are having a lovely Diwali with friends and family...


Ingredients


1 cup fresh coconut (or the frozen coconut thawed in microwave for 1 minute)
1 cup Besan
1 cup ghee (you can use oil)
3/4 cup sugar
freshly ground cardamom (3-4 of them)

How to

Mix all the ingredients well, other than the cardamom powder. Once mixed well it will be like a soft dough.
Heat a pan and put the mixture in the pan at low heat and keep mixing well. Once the mixture warms up, loads of ghee will ooze out.
Keep stirring for 8-10 min at low heat, until there is a nice aroma of the besan and it starts changing color.
Add the cardamom powder, mix well and remove from heat onto a well greezed tray. Do not throw out the extra ghee. Cut the mixture into diamond shapes and let it cool. The mixture hardens in 5-8 minutes and all the additional ghee is absorbed and your burfi is ready!

Enjoy it whenever you please!

Easy Breezy Egg-less White Cup Cakes

Every-time I am off from work, everyone last a list of tasks for me. Hubby wants me to run some chores, my daughter wants me to plan a play-date with one of her friends and my son wants me to cook something special for him (Didn't I tell you - he is a big foodie ?), while I want to laze around all day. Usually my daughter wins and I end up doing something fun for her. This time my son put his foot down, he needed "White cup cakes"!  Usually we bake chocolate cup cakes, but some how he is bored of them and I had to make something "special" for him.

So I took the easy way out, took my usual chocolate cup cake recipe and skipped the chocolate and add a little bit extra milk and I was done. Also I used the self rising flour and so the cake fluffed up with barely any work on anyone's side! Isn't that a nice project to be done with a young one ? And you should have seen his smile when he saw the puffed up cup cakes in the oven - surely worth the effort (and more) !
Also we tried chocolate chip cookies with this self rising flour and it was a disaster! I guess the lesson is, stick to cakes and cup cakes while using self rising flour!

Ingredients
3 cups of Self rising flour
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk
 2 tea spoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
some chopped nuts or chocolate chip cookies to decorate (optional - my kids didn't allow me to add it)

How To
Pre-heat the oven to 350*F
Mix the dry ingredients (flour and salt) well.
In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar until the mixture changes color. Add the milk and flour alternately to the sugar-butter mixture. Beat well after each addition. Once everything is added, add the vanilla extract and mix well.
Pour into paper lined cup-cake tins and bake for 20-25 min until the tooth-pick inserted comes out clean.
Let it cool a little but, before you dig in!

Enjoy it warm off the oven! If you have any left over for the next day, warm it for 10 seconds in the microwave and Enjoy!

Dahi Bara and Aloo dum and Ghuguni

You talk to any Cuttacki (Cuttack is the place where I grew up in Orissa) and they will swear by their dahi bara, aloo dum and ghughuni chat! Ofcourse each local region will have its own favorite. Some will swear by Eshwara's dahi bara, aloo dum and ghughuni chat, while other's will only touch Raghu's dahi bara and Aloo dum and others are purists who love their chandi chowk's dahi bara!

Durga Puja times brings nostalgia and somehow food figures high on my list of happy times during puja. While I cannot claim this dahi bara, aloo dum or ghughuni is authetic, it does get me to a happy mood! My cousin E and her hubby were coming over for lunch and we enjoyed this cuttacki feast! The yummy Aloo dum was made my little sister - and it was real yum.

Pree - this post was inspired by your event  Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja.

For the ghughuni recipe, you can look at my mom's here, or just make your own! While I am not sure of the details on how my sister made the Aloo Dum, you can try a simpler version here.

Ingredients
For the Bara
Urad Dal - 1 cup soaked overnight
fist ful of chana dal soaked overnight with the urad dal
2 -3 green chillies
bunch of coriander leaves
1 inch of ginger - cut into thin slices
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

For the Dahi (Yogurt mixture)
Yogurt - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup (adjust consistency based on taste).
2 table spoon Grated Ginger
1-2 Green chillies cut into thin slices
Black Salt to taste
Sat to taste
Fried and ground cumin seeds
Oil for seasoning
Curry leaves
1 teaspoon of Mustard seeds
pinch of hing

How To make the Dahi Bara
Soak the urad Dal and chana dal over night.
Grind to a rough paste along with the ginger slices, chillies and coriander leaves.
Mix Salt and leave aside in a warm place for 6-8 hrs. (Tip : If in India don't mix salt and leave aside , it is too warm and the Bara becomes too sour. Add salt only before deep frying)

Just before deep frying, get the dahi mixture ready. It is simple, beat the yogurt with salt and black salt.
Once it is a smooth paste, add water and cumin powder and grated ginger and chillies. Taste at this point and adjust any of the above as per your liking.

Season the dahi mixture. Take a small pot, and heat oil in it. Add mustard seeds and hing and curry leaves and pour into the dahi mixture...

Now before you fry the baras, you need to follow one more step. Get a big bowl, fill with warm water and add a pinch of salt and sugar and lemon juice to it.

Once your fry your baras, dung them in this warm water for a few minutes before transferring them to the dahi mixture. This steps keeps the bara's soft and drains out some of the excess oil.

Now the fun starts with dahi baras, eat them as is or make a chat with adding some cuttacki bara maja (mixture  - haldiram's will do, if you can't lay your hands on the original ones), and onions and imli chutney. Look at mine above!

Or eat it as chat with Aloo Dum and Ghughuni. I love my Dahi Bara with Aloo Duma and Ghuguni with chopped onions! How do you like yours ?

Paneer Mattar Masala

This month has been a busy month. We have had friends and cousins from India every weekend. This weekend I had my husband's Uncle and Aunt from India. His Aunt is an expert cook and I had to make something special. So I tried this paneer mattar masala from another expert's blog - Rak's blog. The paneer turned out creamy and yummy and we all enjoyed it immensely.

The recipe I followed was quite close to what was on Rak's blog. I just skipped the yogurt and lemon bit! Also the step by step pictures, helped me not burn the onions - key to a yummy gravy!

Sending this recipe off to Priya's every tuesday book-marked event.



Ingredients
1 packet of Paneer - defrosted

1/2 cup of Frozen Peas
2 Tomatoes - diced
3 Green chillies
1 tea spoon of Ginger garlic paste
1/2 tea spoon of Red chili powder
1 tea spoon of Dhaniya powder
1/2 tea spoon of Turmeric powder
pinch of Garam masala powder
Coriander leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste
2 tablespoon of oil 

To Fry and grind to a paste
2 Onion - sliced
1 small Cinnamon
2 Elachi/cardamom
2 cloves
4-5 Pepper
1 tea spoon of oil or ghee

How To

Heat a pan with oil and add the cinnamon, elachi, cloves and pepper.
The add onion and fry till golden brown. Ensure it doesn't burn. (Look at the pictures on her site to know when to stop frying the onions). Cool and grind into a smooth paste.
Shallow fry the frozen paneer with a little bit of oil until it turns golden brown. Remove and keep aside.
Heat a pan, add oil. Once the oil is hot, add green chilies and then ginger garlic paste. Fry for 2 minutes and then add the onion paste from above and let it simmer at low heat for 10-12 min. Keep stirring the paste every few minutes. Keep doing this until oil comes out from the mixture.
Add the salt and red chili powder and dhaniya powder and mix well.

After this add the diced tomatoes and cook well. Add garam masala. Cook until the tomatoes are mushy.
Add the frozen peas and the paneer cook for a few minutes.
Adjust spice level and garnish with coriander leaves. Add some water if you like gravy in your paneer curry.
I love my paneer curry, the next day. You can enjoy it same day or warmed the next day!

Panasa (Jackfruit) cutlets

Here is panasa cutlet that was made by Sasu (who I would say is the queen of cutlets- she makes them all and makes them awesome). See my earlier post on Soya cutlet and Fish cutlet,  to see what I mean.

Most of the cutlets are similar, but each tastes unique.. This made from fresh jack fruit, tastes just as good as mutton cutlets. No fresh jackfruit, no worries, use the canned ones - they state yummy too!

My in-laws had a huge jackfruit tree in their backyard. So summer months, they had load of panasa delicacies. So while both the sons (my husband and his younger brother) sat reminiscing their childhood days with mom, they remembered this cutlet. My Sasu made this as a farewell dinner for her sons, as she left for India yesterday.

Ingredients

1 can of raw Jackfruit (or panasa in Oriya)

4 small potatoes (peeled)

2-3 green chillies chopped

1 large Onion finely chopped

2 tea spoon of ginger-garlic paste

handful of peanuts (optional)

1 tea spoon of garam masala

1 spring of coriander leaves cut finely (optional)

Salt to taste

Bread Crumbs - as needed

1 cup of Besan

Oil for deep frying

How To

Boil the jackfruit with potatoes and salt until they turn mushy. Once the mixtures cools down, mash the 2 together.

In a nonstick pan fry Onion and ginger-garlic for 2 minutes. Add the peanut and fry well.

Then add the mashed jackfruit and potatoes mashed mixture and fry  for 1-2 minutes. 

Add the garam masala and salt if needed. Mix well and let it cool.

Add the coriander leaves and green chillies and mix well.

In a separate bowl, take the besan, a pinch of salt and pinch of garam masala and mix well.

Add water to make a thick batter and mix well to ensure there are no lumps.

After the jacfruit and potatoes mixture cools, take small portions and shape into oval cutlets.

Dip them in besan batter then roll them in bread crumbs and keep aside.

Fry them and eat them hot off the plate. Enjoy with mint chutney!

Summer fun with orange (color)

Its end of summer and wow what a fun filled time it was. Evenings were fun and sunny and warm and spent in the parks or beach. The kids got a restful summer doing nothing and it is all coming to an end. Summer here reminds me of grilled corn and lemonade (kids love making it)... Of course cannot imagine summer without mangoes. So here is my ode to summer color - orange!

The orange juice is freshly squeezed by my kids. Add a pinch of salt to enhance the flavor of the juice. And if the orange is too sour - add a spoonful of sugar and mix well and serve!

The mango ice-cream was made for family friends who have a sweet tooth and are borderline diabetics. So certainly not a very healthy choice but they really enjoyed it. The ice-cream I initially served to them was not really sweet, so I had to add some honey to it while I ate it. I have added some sugar to the recipe here (adjust to taste - since I am putting approximate amounts here). I also made mango milk shake with dollops of the mango ice-cream and it was heavenly...

Ingredients for the mango ice-cream

1 can of unsweetened condensed milk
1 can of mango slices (you can use the sugar syrup if you want, I didn't)
1/2 can of evaporated milk
1/4 cup sugar (optional - use any sweetener of your choice)
1/4 cup of fresh mango sliced into small pieces

How To

Mix the condensed milk, mango slices, evaporated milk, sugar using a blender. Do it in batches if needed.
Put in a container and freeze for 2 hours. Take it out, break the ice crystals and re-freeze. Take it out after an hour, break the mixture again, add the mango slices and put it back to freeze. Let it freeze for 2-4 hrs (depending on the size of the container). Serve chilled!

Enjoy as ice-cream or mix well with milk and enjoy as a mango milkshake!