Dahi Baingan

Well I saw all these New Year resolutions posted I thought to myself - no resolutions, just good intentions - I will post regularly (at least 2 times a month). How difficult can that be ?  Hmmm Couldn't even post twice in the 1st month! Well the intentions are still good - so lets see...



Here is one of my favorite comfort food! I can eat Dahi Baingan anytime. The one here is the pure sinful one - deep fried version. I will post a guilt free version, later. While this dish is prepared in most states of India, the Oriya preparation is the one I make. It is very simple and amazingly forgiving - an additional pinch of this or that doesn't affect the overall taste of this dish!


Happy Saraswati Puja everyone!




Ingredients
1 Eggplant 
1 cup yogurt - well beaten


1 tea spoon Chili powder
1 tea spoon turmeric powder
1-2 tea spoon of Besan or Maida
1 tea spoon fried Jeera Powder
pinch of black salt (optional)
Salt to taste
1/2 inch grated ginger
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
2-3 green chillies
sprig of curry leaves


How To
Cut the eggplant into thin long pieces. Sprinkle turmeric powder, chili powder, salt and Besan or Maida. (this prevents the eggplant from being too mushy when fried). Keep aside for 15 minutes.
Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the eggplant pieces to a golden brown color and drain onto a paper towel.
Pour the yogurt into a serving dish and add salt , black salt and fried Jeera powder and mix well. Add water based on the consistency you like. I like mine a little watery...
Heat little oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add green chillies and grated ginger and curry leaves. 
Pour the above fried contents into the yogurt mixture. Add the eggplants to the yogurt mixture. Sprinkle some fried Jeera powder and red chili powder on top and enjoy!

My Baby turns 2

Yes, can't believe it that my baby (my blog) is growing up! Yes my blog turns 2 today! Happy Birthday - my toddling blog! And Happy New Year everyone. Hoping you had a great New Year bash and wishing everyone a lovely year ahead...

This dish is dedicated to one of my mausi... She makes these awesome chena tarkari, aka Paneer Curry. She makes it so well even without adding ginger and garlic to the curry; and her paneer balls are as smooth as silk. This version I present here is my adaption of her chena tarkari... Hope you enjoy these as much as I do...

Ingredients

For the Paneer balls
1/2 gallon of whole milk (yields about 12-14 paneer balls)
1 lemon or 1/4 cup vinegar to curdle milk
1/4 cup maida
Salt to taste
a pinch of Garam masala
1 cup of oil for deep frying the balls

For the curry
1 big onion chopped finely
1 tea spoon of ginger garlic paste
2 tomatoes - chopped finely or mixed once in the mixie
1/2 tea spoon garam masala
1/2 tea spoon Turmeric powder
1/2 tea spoon Chili powder
1-2 bay leaves
1-2 green chillies (optional)
Salt to taste
1-2 table spoon oil

How To

Make Paneer balls
Boil the milk in a large container. Keep stirring so that it doesn't burn.
Once it boils, add the lemon or vinegar to curdle the milk.
Strain the paneer and remove as much whey as you can from the paneer.
Mix well with maida, salt and garam masala.
Make small balls, flatten against your palm and keep aside.
Deep fry the balls in oil, in small batches until golden brown and keep aside.

Make curry
Put the oil in a large vessel and heat.
Once the oil is hot, add the bay leaves and green chillies. Let it sputter for a minute.
Add onions and fry on low heat until the onions turn golden brown.
At this point, I took the onions out, let it cooled for a few minutes and mixed it well in a food processor to get a smooth paste.
Put the onion paste back into the hot vessel, add the ginger garlic paste and let it cook for a few minutes
Add the turmeric powder and chili powder now and mix well. Add the tomato puree or chopped tomatoes and cook until the oil starts to come out of the sides.
Add the garam masala and a cup of water and let the curry look nice and rich.
Turn off the heat and add the paneer balls.

Tastes awesome with plain rice or Jeera rice. This curry tastes even better the next day!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I have been swamped at work and home. Loads of new projects at work and have been busy entertaining friends and family for the last 2 month, every weekend. So there is rarely anytime to take a picture or post something. Even visiting blogs of other friends has been irregular. Here is wishing everyone a great Christmas and a lovely holidays season. I will be back soon and until then, stay warm and enjoy!


Here is a view of the snow covered tree outside our house. We have been covered in snow since yesterday and all traffic in and around has stopped. The 1st snow of the season and we are enjoying it with hot cup of chocolate and garam garam bhajis. How are you enjoying your holidays season ?


Here is also a picture of the ginger-bread house my kids put together. Oh the fun they had and the mess they created!

Also I have been passed on several awards in the last few months. Indrani  and Satarupa had passed on the sunshine award. Thanks Indrani and Satarupa! You both are amazing people with such yummy blogs and thanks for thinking of me!

Also tagged by Sayantani. She has an amazing blog and check out the flurry of baking going on her site in the last few weeks. She is in the right Christmas spirit!

Another person who has just had her blog's anniversary and tagged me was Pre. I can spend hours on her blog and facebook page looking through the pictures. Have you seen how she celebrated the blog's 1st birthday ? Now even I wouldn't mind such a celebration! 

So every enjoy and see you back soon!

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 ?