Ghujia or Karanji

Hi Readers,

Wish you a very happy diwali. This time on eve of Diwali, I have made a well known dish that is generally made on Diwali. Ghujia or Karanji. Lets now have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients :-  

Covering :- 

1 cup maida

1 tbsp ghee

2 tbsp milk

Oil for frying

Filling :- 

1 cup coconut

1/2 tbsp powdered cardamom powder

1 tbsp cinnamon powder

1/4 tbsp black pepper crushed

3 tbsp milk

1/2 cup sugar

Method :-

 Mix ghee in batter, add milk and water if required and form a dough keep aside for 5 mins.

For filling :- Heat a pan, add the shredded coconut and cook till it is slightly roasted , add cinnamon powder, cardamom powder, black pepper, sugar and milk. Mix well and cook till it becomes dry. Remove and keep aside to cool a bit.

Divide the dough into small portions. Using a rolling stick, roll the dough . Put the filling in between and seal the edges. 

Heat a Pan, add enough oil for frying. when oil is sufficiently hot, add ghujia's and deep fry. If oil is too hot, adjust the heat. It should be medium hot to cook the ghujia's properly. You ca serve them immediately or keep in air tight container and can store for 3 to 4 days.

Nariyal Suji Ladoo ( Coconut Suji Ladoo)

Hi Readers,

This is yet another, easy to make dessert recipe, that can be stored for a weeks duration. I had prepared this on auspicious Maha Navami. For the first time, I replaced the normal halwa with a Ladoo to distribute. Well,  occasionally when time permits,  I prepare food and distribute among the beggars outside temple. My thought behind doing this is, if I give them money, I do not know where they would spend it. It could be used for food, medicine or may be for alcohol. Moreover, they would seldom get a chance to eat something tasty. So, this time on Navami, I had prepared Poori, Chana aloo curry and Nariyal Suji Ladoo to distribute among them.

 The ladoo was a hit, my husband also liked it so very much. I had kept a box full of it separately for our household, and he finished it in just two days. That was awesome to see him liking it. So, here is my own recipe of it.

Ingredients :-

Suji/Rava - 1 cup

Coconut/Kopra Powder - 1 cup

ghee - 2 tbsp

jaggery - 4 tbsp

milk - 1/2 cup

magaj(pumpkin seeds ) - 2 tbsp

Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

Method:- 

 Roast Suji/Rava  on low flame till pink.Add little ghee and mix well.

Take it out and keep it aside. Now, add 1 cup water, and jaggery.

Mix well and keep cooking to form syrup consistency.

Add Suji, coconut & milk to it and cook for more 2-3 mins.

Mix the Magaj and sesame seeds, turn off gas and let it mix well.

When the mixture is little cold and you can form balls out of it, take small quantity and form balls.

You can also spread this in a baking tray and when its cool, cut it into square pieces. 

Suji Halwa

Hi Readers,

I had prepared this dessert few days back. I did not post this at time, as I thought the day I won't have anything to post I will post this one. It is one of the most common halwa, or seera as it is sometimes called. It uses Rawa/Suji as its main ingredient.

Ingredients :- 

1 cup Rawa/Suji

2 tbsp jaggery

1 tbsp ghee

1/2 cup water

few dry nuts and rasins roasted

1 cup milk

Method :-

Heat a skillet. Roast Suji/Rawa over medium heat and mix in between so that it does not start burning at bottom. When it gives a good smell and starts turning brown, add ghee, mix ghee well and keep it aside. Add water to same skillet. Add jaggery and mix it well to form a syrup like consistency. Add the Suji/Rawa, add milk and the nuts and rasins. Serve hot.

Singhare ke atta(Water-chestnut flour) ka Halwa

Hi Readers,

Today, I  had made another dessert on sasthi Puja of Maa Durga. This halwa is especially made during navaratri fast. Below, is the recipe.

Ingredients :-

1 cup Singhare ka atta

1 tbsp ghee

2 tbsp Jaggery

1 cup water

1/2 cup milk

roasted dry fruits

Method:- 

Heat a pan. Add Singhare ka atta and stir it continuously. When it starts turning golden brown, add ghee to it and mix ghee and flour. Take it out of pan and keep aside. In same pan heat 1 cup water and add jaggery to it. Mix it till it forms syrup. Add the Singhara flour prepared earlier. Add milk and dry fruits, cook till flour is cooked well and water has evaporated. Let it cool down, you can spread it over a plate in the required thickness and cut it into small small pieces. Serve it topped with dry fruits. 

Apple Kheer

Hi Readers,

Today is the second day of Navaratri, so I had prepared another dessert, that can be prepared without cereal and pulses.  So, lets now look at the recipe.

Ingredients
•Apples 2 medium
•Milk 5 cups
•Sugar 1/2 cup
•Green cardamom powder 1/2 teaspoon
•Almonds 6 - 8
•Pistachios 6 - 8

Method
Bring milk to a boil in a thick bottom pan and simmer till it thickens. Thickly grate apples. Heat a pan, add the grated apples and cook on medium heat. Add sugar and stew till sugar melts and continue to cook till most of the moisture evaporates. Add some of the reduced milk and cook. As the mixture thickens add the remaining milk and cook till the kheer thickens some more. Add green cardamom powder, almonds and pistachios and continue to cook till the kheer thickens to the desired consistency. Cool and then chill before serving.

Sitaphal/Custard apple Basundhi

Hi Readers,

Here is another easy to make dessert on this auspicious Navaratri. This is made with Sitaphal or custard apple which is a seasonal fruit available during this time. Basundhi is a Maharastrian dessert that is made with milk.

Ingredients :-

500 ml Milk
3 tbsp sugar
2 Sitaphal de-seeded

Method :-

Boil milk , and then reduce flame to simmer and let s cook till, milk reduces to half its original quantity. Add sugar and sitaphal let it cook for another 5 mins then remove from heat. Serve chilled.

Caramel Pudding

Hi Readers,

I tried this dessert a long time ago, but never posted it. Today, while searching for some photo, I got to get this and then though of finally sharing it. Puddings generally came from Britishers. Its easy to make not too much time consuming. So, here goes the recipe for you.

For caramel:

Sugar - 20 gms

Water - 3 tbsp

For vanilla pudding:

Milk - 500 ml

Sugar - 50 gms

Eggs - 3

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp

For making caramel :

Add sugar in a dry pan and leave it untouched until the sugar melts down completely and turns slightly brown.Add water and the sugar syrup will start bubbling up.

Do not stir just swirl to heat up evenly.

Once the mixture turns golden brown then pour the caramel into moulds

 or ramekins immediately so that spreads to fill the base. 

For making vanilla pudding:

Beat the eggs and egg yolks together with vanilla essence. 

Add milk while stirring. 

Strain the mixture.

Dissolve sugar and water together until caramelized. 

Line serving dish with the caramel. 

Pour the custard over the caramel. Cover with foil. 

Place some water in a pressure cooker (enough for it to last the length of your cooking time). 

Now place something like a katori in it and then a perforated metal plate (cookers usually have them). 

Over this place the pudding to be steamed. 

The plate should be above the water, not touching it. Seal the pressure cooker and cook without the pressure for about 20 minutes. 

Take the pudding out of the cooker, turn upside down into a dish and serve.

Eggless Banana Pancake

Hi Readers,

This is a Indian recipe better known as Pua in India. Its similar to Malpua but less sweeter and is not deep fried unlike Malpua. Healthy recipe as it contains less oil and less sweet. Well, banana pancake is a continental dish that has egg and can be made egg-less too. We Indians do not add baking powder to Pua(banana pancake). Almost all the dosha, cheela varieties would fall under pancake as the process of cooking over the pan remains more or less same.

I want to share a interesting story before I proceed with the recipe. Once, me and my friend visited a well known coffee shop near our locality. Just out of our curiosity we both ordered maple syrup banana pancake with vanila ice-cream. And you could guess what we got, it was banana pancake, almost same taste as our Indian Pua topped with maple syrup and vanila ice-cream. It was an innovative idea to serve the pancake this way. It looks really good and much more sophisticated compared to normal Pua. Here, is plate with same presentation for you. But, yes so much of syrup, makes it too much sweet just like malpua. I prefer little bit of syrup or honey with this dish, just enough to give it a light sweet taste.

Well, yes if want to put in so much of maple syrup, then add very little sugar to your Pancake, or else it will be too sweet. So, here goes the recipe for you.

INGREDIENTS:

1 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 Teaspoon Sugar

1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 Cup Milk (I Used 2%)

1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil

1 Tablespoon Water

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 Tablespoons Butter

PROCEDURE:

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

In a liquid measuring mug, measure 1 cup milk. To that add the vegetable oil, water and vanilla extract.

Stir in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Do not over-mix. Lumps are perfectly fine. Set aside for a couple of minutes.

Heat a griddle at medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot add the butter and let it melt.

Add the melted butter to the pancake batter and return the pan to the stove. Mix the butter into the batter.

When the pan is hot enough, pour a ladle full of batter on the pan for each pancake. Cook until bubbles appear on the face of the pancake.

Carefully flip the pancake and cook until its golden brown.

For serving:

Decorate with banana slices and maple syrup. You can replace maple syrup with honey. In fact, honey and cinnamon would add more flavors to it. The first photo has the decoration with banana, vanilla ice-cream and maple syrup. But, others are simple without any decoration just with Honey cinnamon topped.

makhane ki Kheer

Hi Readers,

This time on the eve of Ganesha Chaturthi, I made this dessert. It was a fasting day for us as this time, Ganesha Chaturthy was on Monday. Thankfully, I had a holiday, but I could not make use of it like previous years, my Grandmom-in-law expired one month back and it is a mourning year for us. No big celebration, only Puja. One interesting incident happened yesterday. Since, we never used to get Ganesha Chaturthy holidays, I did not check my holiday calender. In fact on this 3 days long weekend I was quite occupied with official work. Still, I managed to make wonderful new experiments with various dishes. Yesterday morning my husband went to office and then he realized it was a holiday.

When he returned home, I thought let me check my calender and then make a move. Hurrey, it was a holiday for me too. Past two days was very hectic so I didn't wanted to go to office. I was so very happy. At that point, I just wanted to make something wonderful. We both went shopping for groceries so that I can make this new experiment. Well, this turned to be a tasty dish. Makhane(puffed lotus seeds) do not have any flavor of its own. However, this absorbs the taste of Ghee, milk, khoya to give a nice texture and taste.

Ingredients

•Puffed lotus seeds (makhanas) 1 cup

•Milk 1/2 litre

•Pure ghee 2 tablespoons

•Khoya/mawa 3 tablespoons

•Green cardamom powder 1/4 teaspoon

•Almonds,chopped 1 tablespoon

•Pistachios,chopped 1 tablespoon

•Kismis 1 tablespoon.

Method

Heat ghee in a non-stick pan. Pour the milk into a deep non-stick pan and let it come to a boil. Add the makhane to the first pan and sauté lightly.

 Take it off the heat. Add khoya and powdered sugar to the milk and let it boil on low heat.  Crush the makane , (I crushed half and left others as it is).Add the makhane and mix lightly. Add green cardamom powder, almonds and pistachios, kismis. Mix well and take it off the heat. Let it cool to room temperature and then keep in the refrigerator to chill. Serve chilled.

This is one of the dessert that is prepared during Navaratra's as this does not use any cereal or pulses in it. One good dessert for fasting.

Rasgulla

Rasgulla is famous as a Bengali Sweet, however it actually originated in Odisha which was later introduced to Bengal. Pahala and Salepur Rasgulla has different and unique taste for which this is exported in large quantity from these two places. The Halwai in these places use their unique recipe that they will not share with others. They use Chenna and Semolina mixed together to form the balls. However, the canned Rasgulla available in market is actually sponge Rasgulla  that I am going to share , this will be very spongy but this cant be compared with the taste of Rasgulla from Pahala or Salepur.

Ingredients :- 

For The Rasgullas

1 recipe chenna

1 tsp plain flour (maida) for dusting

For The Sugar Syrup

5 cups sugar

Other Ingredients

2 tsp plain flour (maida)

Method :- 

For the rasgullas

Knead the chenna well.Divide the chenna into 16 equals parts and roll each part into a ball, taking care to see that the there are no cracks on the surface

Dust the back of a flat plate (thali) lightly with the flour and place the rolled chenna balls on it.

For the sugar syrup

Combine the sugarwith 3 cups of water in a large pan approx. 200 mm. (8") in diameter and 150 mm. (6") in height and heat while stirring continuously till the sugar dissolves.

When the syrup comes to a boil, the impurities in the sugar will begin to float on the surface, forming a grey layer.

Heat over a medium flame to allow the grey layer to float. Do not stir at this point as the layer will break and it will not clarify the syrup.

After about 5 minutes, slowly drizzle 1 cup of water form the sides of the pan with the help of a ladle. Water added at this stage will bring down the temperature of the sugar syrup and will not allow it to boil and break the grey layer.

Continue to simmer the syrup over a medium flame for about 10 minutes and then gently remove the grey layer using a slotted spoon.

Bring the syrup to the boil once again and then slowly drizzle another cup of water from the sides of the pan using a ladle. Remove all the remaining impurities from the syrup, again using a slotted spoon.

Increase the flame and boil vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Keep aside.

Next Procedure:- 

Mix 2 teaspoons of the plain flour with 3/4 cup of water to make a flour solution. Keep aside.

Heat the sugar syrup in a deep pan over a high flame and allow it to boil vigorously.

When it boils, sprinkle half the flour solution in the sugar syrup and then add the chenna balls by upturning the plate on which they are kept. (do not touch the chenna balls at this point as they are fragile).

When the flour solution is added, a frothy layer is formed on the surface of the syrup.

If the frothy layer begins to subside, sprinkle the remaining half portion of the flour solution.

After this, keep on sprinkling water (minimum 1 cup) on the surface of the sugar syurp. Ensure that the syrup froths all the time while cooking the rasgullas.

Cook for about 15 minutes, continuously sprinkling water to enable the froth to form.

Check if the rasgullas are cooked. This is determined by touch. If the rasgulla springs back and retains its shape when pressed, it is cooked. Another way of checking is to drop a rasgulla in a pan of cold water.

If it sinks to the bottom, it is cooked.

Remove form the fire.

Transfer the rasgullas to a bowl along with 2 ladles of sugar syrup and 1 cup of water.

Cool and chill for approx. 3 to 4 hours before serving.

Tips

Rasgullas should always be cooked on a very high flame.

While cooking rasgullas, the sugar syrup must froth continuously.

The pan should be approximately 200 mm. (8") in diameter and 150 mm. (6") in height and the sugar syrup should fill about 1/3 of the pan.

While making rasgulla shapes (see variation below), always ensure that there are no cracks on the surface of the shapes.

While cooking, rasgullas expand to at least 4 times their original size.

While sprinkling water on the syrup when the rasgullas are cooking,

make sure you sprinkle a little water at a time (approx. a teaspoon at a time using your hands) and not large quantities.

The cooking time of the rasgullas will vary depending on their size.

(i.e. large shapes viz. the rolls, rajbhog etc. will need more cooking time and versa).

Note :- To make Chenna, boil milk and a few drops of lemon juice when it starts to boil, reduce flame and let it boil till water and Chenna separates. Remeber not to add too much lemon as the taste and smell of lemon will come in Chenna. 

Gajar ka halwa

Hi Readers,

Here is a set of steps to prepare Gajar ka Halwa. The most famous mouth watering Indian dessert Gajar ka halwa made in simple steps. 

Ingredient:-

1- 8 to 10 carrots.

2- 1 kg full cream milk.

3- 200gm sugar

4- cashewnuts

5- rasins

6- almonds

7- 3 to 4 tsp pure ghee

Method :- 

Wash the carrots and grate them. In a pan add ghee and when its hot add the grated carrots and cook till its half cooked.(nearly 10 mins). Add milk to it and cook till it soaks all the milk and only the carrots are visible. Now, add sugar as per your choice. Add chopped cashewnuts,rasins and almonds. Serve hot or cold as per your choice and preferences.

Thankyou!