Thursday, August 12, 2010

Stir fried-crispy mushroom


I wanted to make a crispy , crunchy mushroom at snack time, without deep frying it. The experiment turned out yum!

Ingredients

1 cup button mushrooms cut into two halves
2-3 tbsp gram flour
2 tbsp corn flour
1 capsicum
1 onion
1tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp chilli powder
salt to taste
3-4 tbsp oil
fresh chopped mint and coriander to garnish

Preparation

In a pan add 2 tbsp oil, to this add the mushrooms, corn flour and gram flour. Stir fry on high flame for few minutes till it becomes golden and crispy. Add salt and chilli powder, toss well and set aside. In another pan add 2 tbsp oil. To this add ginger-garlic paste, onions, capsicum, very little salt and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add this mixture to the crispy mushrooms and toss. Garnish with coriander and mint and serve hot. If you want it more spicy, you can add green chillies also. I wanted my kids to enjoy it so I made it less spicy, no colours, no deep fry and it is a perfect snack:)
Sending this to Kids Delight by Pari


Thses are some of my travel clicks while in northern India:)



Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Soya chunks and cauliflower pakodi kadhi


This is a Rajastani thali meal which we enjoyed at a resort in Hyderabad. It was served hot along with background Rajastani folk music!!



Ingredients
1/2 cup Soya chunks

For Pakodis

1 cup cauliflower
1 cup cup gram flour
salt to taste
1/2 tsp chilli powder
oil for frying

For Kadhi
1 1/2 cup yogurt
2 tbsp gram flour
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ginger garlic paste

For tempering and garnish
2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp Cumin seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
7-8 curry leaves
2 dry red chillies
1 tbsp fresh chopped coriander for garnish

Preparation

In a bowl prepare batter for making pakodis by adding gramflour, salt, chilli powder and water. Dip cauliflower in the batter and make pakodis. Set aside.
Soak soya chunks in water till it becomes soft. Drain the water and keep aside.
To prepare Kadhi, in a bowl mix yogurt, 2 cups of water, ginger garlic paste, salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder and gramflour. Mix well and set aside.
In a pan add 2 tbsp oil and temper with the given ingredients. Add the yogurt mixture and stir. Cook till the kadhi thickens, stirring continously.
Add the cauliflower pakodis and soya chunks and bring the kadhi to boil.
Garnish with fresh coriander and serve hot.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

My Little one turns "2" today and Roti making


No Picture pleaseeeee...... I am not ready yet :)

She is down with a fever and I feel terrible.... Hope she feels better by evening for cutting her cake!!!

Time flies and we never know when kids grow up... I feel that it was just yesterday when the nurse brought her to me for the first time and she was cuddling into my hands, she had not even opened her eyes fully.... and now......

She wants to have what ever her big brother has, she want to be taught what ever he learns, she gets angry and possessive when her brother is paid attention, she slowly learns the poems, alphabets and even Hindi alphabets all by herself looking at her brother, she wants to eat by herself. She snatches the remote to watch cartoon, she slowly takes away his stuff and runs into the other room to get him annoyed:) and they both start fighting like two little lambs and finally she lands up crying as the survival of the fitest happens!!

The story does not end here though..... Will catch up later on this.

The Art of Roti Making

While in Mount Abu, I was lucky to get into the Brahma Kumaris Kitchen, where a big hall is just alloted for making " Rotis". During special events the Rotis are made for about 15,ooo to 20,000 people in the huge kitchen. Right from preparing the dough to the packing of the rotis, take a beautiful tour through this kitchen.

Dough making

There are about 5 to 6 rows and in each row there are about 80 to 100 people helping to shape the rotis. I even spotted some kids who were helping take the rotis to the tava (hot pan) .


Rotis on the Tava!!

Not just a Tava...

and from the tawa to the alignment table which lay side to side..





The Ghee rotis are kept separately and the dry ones separate.

Packing and delivery...

While I was back home from US, I found some friends who made themselves very comfortable at my balcony.