Crispy Rawa Dosa

Rawa dosa is one of my favourite forms of dosa. Especially the one made at Sarvana Bhavan. Its huge crispy crunchy and yum yum. Here's how I make my rawa dosa.

Ingredients :

1 cup rawa / sooji/ semolina

1/4th cup rice flour

5 tbspn of  curds

1 onion finely chopped

5 green chillies chopped

1 tspn of  black pepper and jeera/cumin coarsely ground.

few curry leaves chopped

chopped corriander

salt to taste

pinch of soda.

water 2 -3 cups

Mix all the of the above and make a thin batter. The batter has to be thin such that it spreads on its own.

NOTE : make the batter 5 to 10 mins before u start making the dosa. Dosa tends to tear if mixed n kept for long.

Heat the tawa/girddle. When hot enough spread a tspn of oil and then pour the batter over the tawa. spread a little more oil on top of it and let cook. Once its crsipy on one side turn it over and cook. Fold and serve hot.

Rawa Dosa tastes best with some coconut chutney. Here's how we make it.

1 cup freshly grated coconut.

4 to 5 green chillies

a small piece of tamrind

a tspn of  fried gram dal (optional)

corriander

salt to taste

Grind the above with some water. To enhance the taste you can give it some tempering. In a tbspn of hot oil crackle mustard, urad dal, hing, 1 red chilly broken, few curry leaves.

NOTE : You can try different flavors with ur chutney by adding either or all of the following.

few cloves of garlic

mint leaves

ginger.

Simple Pudding

Was in a mood to make some dessert. Was thinking of options. Wanted it to be simple and easy. I noticed there was a lot of milk  left out. Then why not a simple pudding. So here it is. As I write this I have already polished off half the pudding. Left the other half for sister.

How I made it :

1.5 cups milk.

2 eggs

5 tbspn sugar

1 tspn vanilla essence.

For caramel :

3 tbspn sugar

water just to wet the sugar

Beat the eggs well. Add milk sugar and vanilla essence and beat well until well combined. Set aside.

In a small non stick pan make the caramel. Put sugar in the pan and add water. Heat it stirring continously until the mixture is a nice brown colour. Pour immediately into a stainless steel vessel. Let set for about 5 mins. Pour the mixture over the cramel.

Mean while heat water in a wide pan. I use the Idli cooker placing a steel heat pad ( the ones u use to place below hot vessel when u keep them on the kitchen counter). Once water starts boiling place the vessel over the pad and close with a plate. close the wide vessel/ idli cooker and let steam for about 20mins. 

Once done, invert the pudding on to a plate and let cool completely. Place it in a freezer and let set for about  2 hrs.

Slice and enjoy else just dig your spoon directly into it and enjoy.

Raw Mango Chutney !!

This is an easy pessy chutney and can be stored in the fridge for a week atleast. Eat it with bread, roti or just stick your finger in lick it out clean. This has all the taste in it, tang of the mange, sweetness of sugar, a bit of salt and heat of the chillies...

How I made it :

1 Raw mango ( u can use a slight ripe one also)

4 tbspn Sugar

5 to 6 red chillies.

1 tspn jeera/cumin

1 tspn fennel

salt to taste.

1/4 tspn of  hing.

1/2 tspn of mustard.

2 tbspn of oil.

Grate the mango or if you are lazy like me just chop it to small pieces. Dry roast jeera and fennel seeds until a nice aroma fills up your kitchen. Dry roast the chillies. Powder the chillies, jeera and fennel in a blender.

Heat a little oil in a pan and let the mustard crackle. Add the ground powder and the mango pieces. Stir for a min and add sugar and salt and let cook stirring in between. I let it cook for about 10mins and took it off the heat. Let it cool and then put it in a blender and grind to make a nice paste. You can skip the final blending if you are using grated mango. 

cake for time pass

Well it was a lazy day. Not much to do. Was surfing different blog sites and came upon this zebra cake recipe. Look'd nice n simple to make. I had all the ingredients tat was reqd so what can stop me !!!! :)
So herez my version of the zebra cake along with some choco dip.. have tweeked the recipe a little. N dont blame me for the bad picture i have taken.. i dint have a lot of patience to wait to eat so managed with watever backdrop / deco i cud click :P

The cake batter is made in 2 portions. One is the vanilla cake and the other the chocolate cake.
For the Vanilla Cake :
Maida - 1cup
powdered sugar -  3/4th cup ( i like mine a lil less sweet)
Baking pwdr - half tsp
Baking soda - 2 pinches
2 eggs
milk - 1/3 cup
water - 1/3 cup (adjust as per requirement) 
oil - 1/3 cup
vanilla essence - 1 tsp


For Chocolate cake :
Maida - 3/4th cup
powdered sugar - 3/4th to 1 cup
unsweetened cocoa powder - 1/2 cup
instant coffee pwdr - 1 tbsp ( optional.. add if u dont mind the bitter taste like dark choc)

Baking pwdr - half tsp

Baking soda - 2 pinches

2 eggs

milk - 1/3 cup

water - 1/3 cup (adjust as per requirement) 

oil - 1/3 cup

Method :

Mix all the dry ingedients well. In a bowl beat the eggs till nice a fluffy. Add sugar n beat well. Add-in the milk and oil n mix well. Once ready add the dry mixture n fold in well to avoid lumps. Add water to get a proper consistency of cake batter. 

Note : am a lazy person when it come to beating the eggs n beating with milk n oil. So i just put in all the 3 into a mixie n gave it good beating .... hehehe...

dont forget to add the vanilla essence to the vanila cake batter.

Now dont ask me about the temp settings for a oven cause i dont use one. I make mine in a microwave. 

grease the baking tin/dish.First put a small laddle full of vanilla batter in the centre of the baking tray..DONT SPREAD. On top of it a laddle full of chocolate cake batter. Continue pouring alternate types of batter at the center of the tin. Since the baking tray is greased the batter will spread from the centre and u will be able to see alternate color rings. Make sure u dont disturb the tray while stuffing it into the oven.

For the choco mocha dip :

A bar of chocolate.( I used a small sized Dairy milk and few Hershey Kisses)

powdered sugar - suite ur taste

milk - 1 tbsp

Method : 

Melt the choclate along with some milk. When almost done stir in the sugar. For the mocha part of it... u can add a lil bit of instant coffee pwdr. hmm I love dark choclates and coffee.. don't I ???

Microwave Gajar Ka Halwa

I had so many carrots lying in the fridge. Was thinking what to do with them. Then said lets go with some gajar ka halwa... long since I had made it. And I felt I should put my microwave into some use other than reheating food so I made the halwa in the microwave. It was a good idea as the colours are retained nicely.

How I made it :
2 big carrots  grated.
half cup sugar.
2 tbspn of milk
elachi powder.
almonds fried in ghee for garnishing

Mix the grated carrot, sugar and milk in a bowl and microwave it for 5mins. Remove n mix well and microwave further if  it needs to be cooked more. I like mine to be a little curnchy. Add cardamom powder and garnish with roasted almonds.
For more taste you could add milkmaid to it too.

Simple Meal Series - I

I was thinking of posting a series of simple meals. It would be the everyday simple meal menu mainly consisting of rice dal and some sabzi. So here's the first one :

Rice, Plain Dal and bhindi sabzi :

For the Dal :
Pressure cook 1 cup toor dal with some haldi in it. Add salt and smash the dal. In a skillet heat a little oil and add mustard, jeera, hing, curry leaves, chopped green chillies, chopped garlic. Fry well and add the smashed dal. Add corainder leaves and cook for few mins. ( U could add water if u like a thinner consistency of dal)


For the Bhendi Sabzi :
Wash and dry the okra. Chop it to small pieces. In a skillet heat 5  to 6 tbspn of oil. To this add mustard, udad dal, curry leaves, hing and fry well. Add 1  finely chopped large onion and add the okra. Fry well till the okra is no longer sticky /slimmy.  Add salt to taste , chilli powder, 1 tspn of daniya powder, 1 tbspn of roasted and ground peanuts and a about a tspn of roasted and ground sesame seeds(til). mix well and add corriander for garnish. Let cook for about 5mins.

Tomato Mania

The other day I went to buy some fresh greens in the morning and on the way I saw this regular vegetable seller selling tomatoes on his cart. Nice fresh red n juicy tomatoes. The seller would not sell anything for less than 10rs so here I was carrying a bag of 2kgs of tomatoes all for just rs.10 !!!!
With so many tomatoes at home all I could think of was tomato rasam and tomato fry for lunch.. And hubby asked me what is this??  Tomato Mania??

The tomato rasam is an easy pessy version.


How I made it :
Boil 4 tomatoes and skin it out and puree them when cooled. For the tempering , heat a little oil and when hot add musturd seeds , hing curry leaves a couple of  red chillies. Add a tspn each of coarsely powdered jeera and black pepper and immediately add the tomato puree. Add a pinch of sugar. Add water to get rasam consistency and add salt to taste. Garnish with finely chopped corriander. Boil for a while and your rasam is ready.

For the tomato fry :
U will need :
6 medium sized tomatoes.
1 large onion finely chopped
red chilli powder
1 tspn daniya powder
salt
A pinch of sugar
corriander to garnish.

For tempering:
Oil 
Mustard
jeera
udad dal
curry leaves.
hing

To make it :
Heat oil in a skillet and add mustard, jeera, hing, udad dal, and curry leaves. when done add the chopped onions and fry well till they are done. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry well till they are cooked and the oil starts separating. Add salt, a pinch of sugar, chilli powder and daniya powder and fry well. Garnish with corriander and serve hot with roti or rice.

Macroni Kheer

Macroni Kheer/payasam is the latest version on the lunch menu these days replacing the traditional sheviya payasam. Here is my version on making it. I have made a lot of modification to suit my taste ;)

U will need :
A handful of macroni's/ pasta
half litre milk.
2 tbspn of  vanilla flavoured custurd powder (optional)
Sugar to taste
cardamom powder for flavouring

How I made it :

The proper way to make is to boil the macroni's in the milk but I prefer boiling the macroni till its almost done in some water and then cooking it in the milk.  This I find is easier and a faster way to cook.
So what I do is while the macroni is cooking in the water, I boil milk n add sugar n let it reduce for a while. Then drain out the water from the macroni's and add it to the simmering milk to cook further. I love my payasam to be thick and I love vanilla flovoured custurd. I mixed custurd powder in a little amount of cooled milk and then added it to the cooking milk and macroni. When the payasam is thick enough and the macroni's are done add cardamom powder and turn off the heat.
Your kheer is ready to be eaten hot with a generous amount of  ghee or chilled in the fridge if you have the patience. :)