MODAK - BUT THIS TIME ITS FRIED

As I have already mentioned on my blog that Lord Ganesha is my favourite God and we do Puja on Sankashti Chaturthi every month and offer HIM piping hot Steamed Modak . For past few such chaturthi's my steamed modak were not turning the way it has to be , thanks to the store brought rice flour . Last Chaturthi I decided to prepare fried Modak. We thought even Bappa needs some change in taste. (Bappa or we ? Anyways) . So I logged on to my favorute marathi site Marathiworld.com to find a recipe. The site is in marathi. So those who can not read the same in marathi , following is the translation :-

Fried Modak:
INGREDIENTS :
Grated Coconut :- 2 cup
Jaggery :- 1 cup
Cardamom Powder :- 1 tsp
Maida :- 1 cup
Semolina ;- 1 cup
Pinch of salt
Hot Oil :- 2-3 tsp
Cashew Nuts :- Optional (Since I belong to konkan , i always have a good supply of cashews so i keep using the same in many of the recipes in which it will add flaour to it)
For Frying :-
Oil or Vanaspati or Ghee
Recipe:-

• Mix the jaggery , a bit if ghee (clarified butter) and scrapped coconut in thick bottomed pan till the mixture is uniform and has no lumps of jaggery.
• Mix Semolina , salt and Maida thouroughly and add 3 tspn very hot oil to it and mix well . Knead the flour , preferable in milk or water and cover and keep it aside for an hour.Knead the flour well and make small puris.
• Take the puris on your palm and put the filling on it and bring together the ends in form of plates and form a tip and seal the same. Repeat the procedure for rest of dough balls.(Cover all the modaks with wet cloth to avoid drying resulting in cracking)
• Fry all the Modaks in oil or ghee or Vanaspati till light golden.

Modaks were really good and tasted amazing. A must try for those who are not lucky enough with Steamed Modak.

YELLOW BUTTER CAKE

One such Sunday evening , wanted to prepare something for snacks and what is better than a coffee cake. I have already had Yellow butter cake in mind which I had seen on one of my favorite baking site "Joy of Baking" . This is kinda a easy fix cake . I skipped the chocolate frosting. Earlier I had prepared this cake with frosting and my husband was of opinion that cakes for snacks shall be without frosting so this time i had avoided the frosting. And to my utter surprise this cake was really a winner as Tea time cake. I took half of all the portions from initial recipe and prepared the cake in loaf tin . Both of us finished the cake in no time . Deifinitely need a try.

MASALE BHATH - A QUICK FIX & GREATER SATISFACTION..

Sometimes when i get bored of eating plain rice and daal. A quick fix pulav or masale bhat is on my list to do. This is not a authentic recipe for Masale bhat but as per my convenience and taste .

INGREDIENTS :

Ambe Mohar rice/ Basmati rice :- 1 cup

Tendli :- 10-12 (each cut into 4)

Brinjal :- 1 finely cut

Onion :- 3 big size (2 finely chopped and 1 finely cut)

Green Chillies :- 4-5 chopped

Goda Masala :- 2 tablespoon (I used Bedekar Goda Masala)

Salt :- As per taste

Cashews :- Optional

Black pepper :- 6-7

Cloves :- 4-5

Cinnamon :- 1 small stick

Bay leaf :- 1 2

RECIPE :-

• Wash and drain the rice and keep it aside for 1 hr.
• Chop the 2 onion and chillies finely.
• Heat the sufficient oil or ghee in thick bottomed pan. Add Black pepper, cloves , cinnamon stcik and bay leave. Then add onion and chilli and suate till the onion turned transluscent.
• Add Tendli, brinjal and cashwes and fry thourughly.
• Then add 3/4th Goda masala and stir fry again for 1 mins.
• Then add rice and mix it properly and add 2 cups water. Add salt as per taste and remaining goda masala .Somebody has mentioned to me that adding goda masala after adding water gives the aroma of Masala to rice. Keep it covered till done. Reduce the heat to simmer . Towards the end place it on a hot griddle till properly cooked.
• Fry the finely cut one onion on oil till golden brown and crisp. I prefer to serve the masale bhath with fried onion (Biryani style) and coriander leaves and scrapped coconut.

Hot masale bhath is ready to serve with some hot curry.

KANDA BHAJI - KHEKADA BHAJI - ITS RAINY SEASON

This year rain played a good hide and seek in Western Maharashtra. When it was raining cats and dogs in Malvan(Incidently my father happened to be in Malvan and had to cancel his plan to come to pune twice thanks to incessant rains ) , we were praying for good rain in Pune. Fortunately I stay in PCMC area where there was no water shortage but those who staying in pune suffered very badly beacuase of poor water supply. The vegetable rates just touched the sky. Amidst all these things finally rain god showed his mercy and it started raining. When its raining , for me better way to express my feelings of happiness is preparing something which will go with the mood. and what's better than garamagaram KANDA BHAJJI and hot piping CHAI. Sitting in the terrace and enjoying the rain. It's just heaven on earth. Watching the rain embracing earth with such passion. It's highly romantic. That's all rainy season is all about. Those who are from Pune can definitely understand and agree that the most romantic idea in rainy season to go to Sinhgad and have Kandabhajji. Its amazing and truly romantic!!!!! But whats life without little romance in it.
RECIPE:-
INGREDIENTS :-
Onions :- 2-3 (Can increased depeding upon the quantity required)
Green Chillies :- 2-3 finey chopped (If you want a spicy kick can increase 2 more)
Bengal Gram Flour:- As per required quanity
Ajwain :- 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander ;- a bunch
Turmeric Powder :- 1/2 teaspoon
Salt :- As per taste
Oil :- To fry and little for batter
RECIPE :-

• Chop the onion . Chop the green chillies finely and coriander. Add salt, turmeric powder and Ajwain to it. Let it stand for sometime.
• Due to addition of salt to onion , onion leaves enough water. To this only add bengal gram floor .Do not add extra water and 2 teaspoon hot oil. It gives a crunch. Some people prefer to add pinch of soda bi carb to it. But i avoid the same.
• Now heat the oil well and put the small dumplings of batter in oil and fry till golden brown and enough crunchy.
• Place on abosorbent paper to drain the excess oil. Serve hot with tomato sauce and piping hot tea.

Enjoy the monsoon with KANDA BHAJJI .......

TANDLACHE WADE - ACCOMPANIMENT TO SAGUTI (CHICKEN GRAVY)

"Chicken curry" and "Vade" is a special Malavani dish. Mostly "Vade" is a accompaniment for Chicken gravies . Every year on 7th June , if it is a day when we eat nonvegetarian food , the chicken gravies (Rassa and Sukka Chicken) are prepared to celebrate the "MIRAG". "MIRAG" is the starting of the Monsoon. It's a heaven on earth to eat the piping hot Chicken gravy and garamagaram TANDALACHE VADE. Simply mindblowing!!!!!
I ll post the Chicken Rassa recipe some other time. But here , is the recipe for Tandlache wade which is also called Kombdi Wade.
INSTRUCTIONs:-
Wash & soak the Ukada rice in water for 2-3 hrs. Then dry the rice in sun . Grind it.
RECIPE :-

• Mix the rice flour and wheat flour in 3:1 proportion.
• Add salt to eat as per taste.
• Knead it with sufficient water and oil and cover it with dampen cloth and leave it for 1 hr.
• Knead it again and divide the dough into equal sized balls.
• Apply little water to your palm and press the dough with ur right palm on the kitchen surface.
• Deep fry in hot oil.
• Garamagaram Vade are ready to savour with Chicken curry.

These Vades can also be used as accompaniment for "Kalya Watanyachi Usal"(Black Peas Curry)

Coffee Butter Cake - Sinful Indulgence in butter, Chocolate and Coffee

Since the time I have started baking , my husband is one helluva enthusiast to try different types of cake. According to him , by doing so , he is actually perfecting my skills at baking. Such a supportive husband !!! . But mostly he prefers cake without any kind of icing on them . Mostly I bake cake on Sunday evening for tea/coffee time. On sunday , i was wondering which cake to prepare. I browsed through most of the baking sites including my fvaourite , Joy of Baking , Passionate About Baking and Madhuram's Eggless Cooking . Since my MIL and BIL are vegetarian , there is a major task to strike a balance between veg and non-veg food. But after going through many recipes and inspecting the pantry for the ingredients I settled on Deeba's Coffee Butter Cake . I prepared the same in a loaf tin with half the ingredients in the main recipe by Deeba. It was just a perfect cake, perfectly baked, moist and tasty. I poured the left over chocolate ganache which was waiting to be used . This is actually a sinful indulgence only when it comes to amount of chocolate and butter in cake... But once in a while its okay. Just Chill and enjoy the cake.

AAMRAS - MANGO , MANGO & MANGOES.........

"Aamras & Puri " . Such a beautiful combination and a very quick sweet dish or dessert. I am a kinda person who enjoys eating mangoes with both the hands with mango squeez running along the hands. It has its own magical ,mysticals( whatever u call sort)taste. This can be attributed to my upbringing in Malvan , where as a kid we had all the liberty to pick the mangoes from the trees and eat it like that without even caring to wash it. Some may find it really awful but i have sincere suggestion for those to shed all the inhibitions of the sophisticated social world and live only one day out the reach of the fast city life . You ll enjoy and your souls will be refreshed. Thats the reason a summer holiday in Malvan is must for me & my husband just to refresh our senses.
This year the mango crop was not so good attributed to untimely rain.One can say it was a recession in Mango field also. But still we (my husband specifically)enjoyed the season thanks to my father. He made sure that we are no where affected by the recession in Mango field.
He is perfect at preparing the AAMRAS. The bowl full of Aamras which u are seeing in picture is prepared by him.He not only gets the mangoes for me and my brother but also takes a stock of them in every 1-2 days(.Since sometimes becuase of heat the mangoes get rotten inside the box .) That's major advantage for me staying nearer to my brother's place. Usually the AAMRAS is prepared by sqeezing the mangoes with hand and combing it with sugar as per your taste.But my father's recipe is as follows :
INGREDIENTS :
Mangoes :- 2-3 fully riped
Sugar :- As per taste
Milk :- 2 tablespoon
Cashews :- 3-4
Cardamom :- for flavour
RECIPE :

• Peel off the riped mangoes and squeez it in grinder.
• Add sugar, milk , cardamom powder and cashews.
• Grind it till smooth.
• Chill well .

Aamras is actually served with PURI'S in Maharashtra. But we prefer to have it as a dessert.

Full mango flavour is on.....

MALVAN - JUST TO UNWIND

When I was growing up in Malvan , i was fascinated by the world outside the Malvan. Literally envy my cousins who were staying in Mumbai. But when I stepped into Mumbai for my higher education , I was missing Malvan very badly. Maybe since my entire family was in Malvan. I used to wait for my holidays to go back home. I used to hang out with my friends at Juhu beach , Nariman Point , but used be restless in mind. I remember as a kid , whenever my cousins used to come to Malvan for their Summer vacations , we used to have such fun. Ours was a joint family. Today we all remember those days and miss those days very badly. I dont remember we ever slept in afternoon , even after a heavy meal. We used to hang out in our backyard , full of Coconut and Cashew trees. Used to play hide and seek. Once while hiding behind a coconut tree , i had accidently slipped in cow dung , everyone had a good laugh. Everyone still remember that. When I was kid , Malvan used to a sleepy town. In afternoons , u can actully find complete silence on the roads. Those days i never liked that.Nowadays whenever I go to Malvan , I miss that silence. Malvan is now buzzed with tourists and that is all the time. Roads are no more empty. Beaches , Markets are always full.

I had studied Change Management in my management syllabus. We did presentations on how we have to be adaptive to change. But I am not able to gulp this change. Modernisation is everywhere. How my little town will be left behind. I remember my grandfather never liked the pressure cooked rice , mixer grinded gravies. We had this hand grinder at my house. My Kaki ( aunty) used to grind masala for gravies . It was a bit time consuming , but I must say taste used be really good.

My husband is already in love with Malvan, its beauty , its food and its simple life style. He has so many future plans to settle there down on one fine day. Touchwood!!! Every year we visit Malvan in Ganesh Chaturthi and Summer Vacations. This year I can not go since my little son was not well and was not actually able to cope up with the rising mercury levels. This is his second summer only. But my brother had gone and this time he visited some places which we had never been there. We are planning to go there in next summer. Lets see what Amu(my son) has plans for himself.

Those who have not been there , plz visit once. You ll be totally in love with my little town.

A TIGER CAKE - A BIG ROAR TO ENJOY

Many eyebrows might have raised after reading the name of the cake . But it is the same cake as zebra Cake which was a great hit in my house . My nephew , Pratham is a great fan of Spiderman. There are spiderman all over the house .( even he has a small spiderman with a Indian sword. )Other favourite of him is a TIGER. Sometimes he dons the avatar of a Tiger and wander roaring around the house. My father is a victim of this TIGER . He keeps pouncing on him , scratch him like a tiger and try to scare him with a tagline "Ata me tula khanar."(Now i ll eat you) . So i decided to prepare this cake keeping him in mind.This recipe is the same as of zebra cake. As in case of Zebra Cake, i divided the batter in 2 equal portions. To one part I added the Cocoa powder and to other one I added yellow food colour.Pour the batter in tin in the same manner and this tigerish looking cake was born. Pratham was delighted to see it and eat it. Nowadays he is bit puzzled about my baking fever. Whenever I take a cake for him , he has a straight question "What happened to you ? Why do you always bake a cake? "

ZEBRA CAKE - IT'S BLACK & WHITE

When I first had a look at this beautiful cake at Passionate About Baking by Deeba , I was smitten by the same and decided to try the same. I followed the recipe as mentioned on her blog. And everyone was surprised to see the results. I melted some chocolate with cream and poured it over the hot cake.
The taste was amazing. It was moist and beautiful looking. Looking at it , everyone was amazed at the zebra stripes.I am actually taking baby steps in the field of baking cakes.But, indeed , in this cake , I was a clear winner. All thanks to Deeba!!!! She has explained the procedure in such details with photographs , no one can ever go wrong. I could not click the photographs at that time.My nephew , Pratham was very excited about the zebra stripes. Again I prepared this cake in loaf tin to gift it somebody. I used half the quanities for this cake. May be since it was a loaf tin , i did not get the zebra stripes , but it was more like a Marble design. Anyways the taste was good and to whom we were sending the same were amazed at the designs. This cake is actually a good treat for kids . Definitely deserve a try.

\

Chocolate Coffee Cake - Ultimate Combination

I wanted to gift something special to my hubby darling on his birthday. And what is better than a cake prepared by myself. I was toying with lot of ideas . Was planning month before his bday on May 31st . Finally decided on the chocolate cake. After a lot of googling , i stayed on at Deeba's Passionate About Baking .I just admire her for her creation. She has such beautiful hand and vision when it comes to decorating the cakes and taking the photographs and arranging them in such a way that u just want to try that. This cake is actually a combination of 2 cakes from her collections...Chocolate Mocha Gateau and Espresso Cake. The sponge was inspired by her Coffee sponge of Coffee Mocha Gateau .It was spongy and had the good coffee flavour. I baked it a on saturday and refrigerated the sponge overnight. The Coffee Cream was inspired by her Espresso Cake filling. And the result was amazing. I used Chocolate ganache for frosting.Recipe for Ganache is Here .Further decorated with grated chocolate and chocolate curls and shavings. It was completely chocolicious. Tasted amazing.Perfect blend of coffe and Chocolate. Birthday boy liked it very much.

But those with not so affectionate towards the chocolate and coffee , this cake may be too srong to gulp down. We enjoyed since we both like the chocolate and coffee. I used the nescafe .I dont remember the name but it's mixture of coffee and chicory and has that very strong aroma.

PIZZA - Tryst with yeast and Baked Pepper & Potato Fuseli Pasta

On Hubby's birthday , he wanted to have everything special right from breakfast .Sometimes he is very demanding. I toyed with several ideas what to do for him. He actually not person to go for English Junk food. He is very desi at heart when it comes to having Junk food like Samosas , Vada Pav , Bhajji's etc. But still i decided to take a chance and decided to prepare a Pizza and Pasta all by me. This was actually a great risk. Since in past I had never been lucky with Mr. Yeast who always enjoyed to give me nightmares. But i have said earlier , failures inspires me to try. I did the same. I followed Shilpa's Pizza base recipe. I kept the dough overnight . I had become such a yestophobic that i was getting up every 2 hrs to check up the dough. And to my utter surprise , the dough had started raising right one & half hrs. I had to replace the dough in bigger box. I was so happy to myself. It is said , If there is a will , there is a way. Morning I just rolled the dough and the pizza base was ready.

TOPPINGS :-

• Red & Yellow & Green Bell Paper
• Cheddar Chese
• Corn nibblets
• Baby Corns
• Pizza Sauce
• Mozarella Chese

I prepared 2 Pizzas following Shilpa's directions. I used the store brought pizza sauce. Applied the sauce in Pizza base followed by grated cheddar chese , peppers , corns and baby corns. Spread some diced mozarella and fresh chopped basil leaves over the topping. I prepared one with Pizza sauce and one without it. Hubby liked the one without sauce the most. One thing is for sure that my husband will not be entering the Pizza Hut or Domino's or any other Pizza Parlour anymore. He was happy and that made my day.

I decided to have the accompaniment to Pizza and decided to prepare baked pasta. During our training sessions , we had planned for this executive lunches which comprised of Baked pasta with vegetables, noodles , sandwiches , salads etc. That was the first time, I had tasted the Baked pasta and liked that taste. That taste was always at the back of mind. So I set on mission to prepare the pasta.Just started the work on intuition. Since i did not have time to surf the net at the moment , started recollecting the things seen on blogs , sites , books etc.

RECIPE :-

• Boiled the potatoes with salt and cut it in round. Boiled the fuseli as per the instruction on the packet.
• Buttered the oven proof dish and arranged the potatoes,Grated some cheese over them
• Spread a layer of remaining diced peppers from Pizza and corn nibblets and baby corn.Spread the cheese slices. Spread the boiled Fuseli over it. Spread the Pasta sauce over it. Grated some cheese over it.
• Spread the dices of Mozarella cheese and baked at pre heated oven at 180 C for 20 mins.

The hot and savoury Baked Pasta is ready to be devoured. Hubby liked the same. But he was more in praise for Pizza. May be next time i ll try the same with more vegetable and homemade Indianised sauce to give it a real desi and rustic taste.