My experiments with cooking

Caramel Custard

2008-05-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

Caramel custard is one of those easy to make dessets... For me, it makes me nostalgic! And it definitely has a place in my comfort foods list. Making and eating it soothes me for sure.

I want to share my recipe with you. Hope you also enjoy it!

Ingredients
Melted butter
2 eggs, lightly whisked
1/2 cup thickened cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup castor sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 220°C. Brush an ovenproof dish with melted butter to lightly grease. Place dish in a roasting pan.Combine the egg, cream, milk, vanilla essence and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a vessel. Transfer the remaining sugar in a medium heavy-based frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring with a metal spoon, for 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves and starts to caramelize. Add enough boiling water to the roasting pan to reach halfway up the sides of the baking dish. Pour the hot caramel into the baking dish. Pour the milk mixture into the baking dish. Cover the baking dish with foil. Cook in preheated oven for 12 minutes. Uncover baking dish and cook for a further 5 minutes or until custard sets. Remove from oven. Carefully turn the baked caramel custard into shallow bowl and serve immediately or chill for a few hours and then upturn into a serving platter. It is better to keep it out 30 minutes before you serve, if you are serving it chilled.

I have a low fat/ diet version too. If you are interested, check the below blog...
http://diet-n-cooking.blogspot.com/2008/05/baked-caramel-custard.html

Rava / Semolina Ladoo

2007-10-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

Here comes another ladoo....

Ingredients:
1 cup rava (semolina)
1/2 cup grated coconut
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
*1/4 cup ghee
3 tbsps cashewnuts
3 tbsps golden raisins
1 tsp powdered cardamom powder

Method:
Melt the ghee in a saucepan or wok. Fry cashew nuts till golden brown and remove from the pan. Fry the raisins in the same ghee and remove from pan. Fry the rava/semolina gently till golden brown and fragrant. There should be very noticable change in color and aroma when compared with the raw semolina. Set aside. Powder the dessicated coconut. Mix the sugar and water in a pan. Heat gently to a rolling boil and keep stirring. Check the sugar syrup for a 1-string consistency**. Slowly stir in the the semolina & coconut powder to avoid forming lumps.
Stir in the cashews, raisins and cardamom powder. Remove from heat and let cool.
When warm enough to handle, squeeze a handful of the mixture between your fingers and palm to form small balls. Place one cashew/raisin to each ball. The balls will become firm when kept for 15 min.

Notes:
*If ghee makes you nervous, you can reduce the quantity.
**This means that when you lift the spoon from the syrup and feel the syrup coating the back of the spoon, it should be very sticky. Blow on it a bit before you touch it - it will be hot!. Gently pinch and spread apart your forefinger and thumb. The sugar syrup should trail in a single strand between the two fingers. This is known as "one-string" sugar syrup.
You can sprinkle a little milk to get it ixed. But if it is too much, the ladoo won`t be firm.

Besan Ladoo

2007-10-15T03:33:00.000-07:00

Its again festival time.... Festival means sweets and the first thing which comes to your mind is different types of ladoos. Besan ladoos are very popular in the time of festival and is an inexpensive gift item. So lets start with Besan ladoo....

Ingredients
4 cups Gram Flour
1 cup Pure Ghee
2 cups sugar
1 tsp Powdered Cardamom
1/2 cup chopped Almonds and Raisins

Method
Heat the ghee in a pan. Add the gram flour and fry it on a low flame stirring continuously till brown. Once it is browned, let it cool. Add powdered cardamom and sugar. Mix well. Add chopped almonds and raisins. Shape into ladoos and serve....

Pista Icecream

2007-07-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't like icecreams? Adults and kids alike eat it to beat the summer heat...
I love icecreams... Here is an easy recipe for pista icecream...

Ingredients

3 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
5tbsp corn flour (cornstarch)
Few drops vanilla essence
Few drops yellow and green color
1 cup cream
Crushed pista

Method

Boil milk and add cornstarch dissolved in little water. Cook till thick. Add sugar. Remove milk from gas and cool it. Add vanilla essence and colors in it. Beat it a lot and add cream in it. Keep it in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Beat it again. Then add crushed pista in it. Now cool it in a freezer.

Pazham Pori /Ripe Plantain Fritters – 2

2007-07-11T05:14:00.000-07:00

Let me put down another recipe for making Pazham Pori.

Ripe plantains – 3
Egg – 1
Sugar – 2 tbsp
Black sesame seeds – 1 tsp
Salt – a pinch
Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp
All purpose flour – 1 cup

Cut the plantain in half, and make 3 slices from each piece. Set aside.

Whisk egg and sugar together until smooth. Add sugar and cardamom powder. Add flour and enough water to make a smooth batter. Stir in the sesame seeds. Dip the plantain slices in the batter.

Heat up oil in a non stick pan then deep fry / shallow fry until golden color.
Serve hot with tea.

So, which did you like?

Pazham Pori /Ripe Plantain Fritters – 1

2007-07-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

Here is very popular snack from Kerala, which all keralites love to have with evening tea. Those non resident keralites like me always have these nostalgic memories of this snack wherever we are.

Ingredients:

3 - Ripe plantains
1 cup - Rice flour
3 tbsp - Maida / all purpose flour
3 tbsp - Sugar
A pinch or two - Turmeric powder
A pinch - salt
Oil to fry

Method:

Peel the skin off the ripe plantain(Riper the better) and cut into two parts. Then cut each part into 3- 4 slices, lengthwise. Mix rice powder, maida, sugar, turmeric powder and salt. Make a thick batter. Heat oil in a non stick frying pan. Dip the sliced plantains in the batter and deep fry or shallow fry till golden brown in colour.
Serve with evening tea.

Variation:

With the sliced ripe plantain.... Heat ghee or butter in a non-stick pan. Fry the slices on both side till light brown in colour. Drain and place on a serving plate. Sprinkle some sugar on the fried plantains and serve.

Isn’t it quick and easy to make?

Chocolate cake

2007-07-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

I love baking and for a long time I wanted to bake a cake. My husband and sister are two sweet lovers and it’s a pleaseure to cook when somebody loves something you make.

Ingredients
Sift 3 cups of flour
6 tablespoon of cocoa powder
2 tsp of baking soda
½ tsp saltWhisk 2 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp vinegar / half cup yogurt
½ cup oil.

For Icing:
1 1/2 cups icing sugar sifted
1 tbsp castor or granular sugar
2 1/2 tbsp. thin cream or wholefat milk
40 gms. white butter

Method
Sift the first 4 ingredients. Whisk 2 cups of water, 2 cups of sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp vinegar, ½ cup oil. Whisk until the sugar gets dissolved. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well with help of hand mixer. Pour the batter into a greased oven pan or parchment paper lined. Pre- heat the oven to 350 F and bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Keep checking once in a while, and insert a tooth pick into the cake, if the tooth pick comes out without sticky of cakes, you are all set. Take the pan from the oven. You can cool it and keep in the fridge. Serve it cold. Or you can cool the cake, complete the icing and then refrigerate it before serving.

For Icing:
Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Keep aside. Melt butter carefully in a pan. Add milk and bring to just below simmering point (71°C). Simultaneously, heat castor sugar in another pan. Pour into caramel, stir to dissolve. Pour over icing sugar, beat till thick and creamy. Make sure that the cake is completely cooled and then spread the icing over cake.

Palada Pradhaman

2007-01-08T03:19:00.000-08:00

My favourite payasam.... What is any Sadya without Palada Pradhaman....?

Ingredients:

Milk 4 cup
Water 2 cup
Condensed milk 1 cup
Butter 2 tbsp
Ada 1/4 cup
Sugar 1/2 cup
Cashew nut - 15

Method:
Boil ada by putting it in 2 to 3 cup boiling water. Keep it covered for 30 minutes. Drain water completely. Heat butter in a pan and fry ada to a light pink colour in slow fire taking care that the ada does not break or gets soggy. Keep it aside. Boil milk and water in a thick bottom pan. Add boiled ada and reduce heat to low medium while stirring all the time. Keep stirring till milk is reduced by 2/3rd. It takes about 1-½ hours to prepare the dish and now, the color of pradaman should be of pink color. Add condensed milk and cook for 5-10 minutes more. Add sugar and mix it well. Remove from fire and add the fried cashew nuts and cardamom powder.

Suggestions
Stir continuously for sometime so as to prevent the payasam from curdling.

Pal Payasam - Kerala Style

2007-01-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

Pal Payasam

A dish from Kerala which is very simple to prepare and tasty to eat.

Ingredients
1 litre milk
1 cup brown broken rice
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. cardamom powder
1/2 cup condensed milk
15-20 raisins
Cashew nuts 10

Method
Cook the rice. Add milk, condensed milk and sugar to rice and mix well.
Boil it till payasam thickens. Fry cashew nuts, raisins in pure ghee and add the same into the payasam. Add cardamom powder and stir the payasam. Serve hot or cold.

Shahi Tukre

2006-10-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

My husband loves anything which is sweet. As a private joke I keep thinking that he will be even okay with sugar syrup :-)

Since I love cooking, especially for him, I have some simple recipes which can done quiet easily! One of them is Shahi Tukre...

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Ingredients:
8 bread slices
12 tbsp condensed milk
1 litre milk
1 tsp ground cardamom
30 gm each almonds, pistas, walnut, cashew nuts and raisins

Method: Trim the edges of the bread slices and cut them into four pieces. Then deep fry to golden color. Separately, fry all the nuts and pound coarsely.Cook the milk and condensed milk, sugar, cardamom on low flame. When the mixture thickens put the fried bread slices side by side in the pan.Let it cook till the bread absorbs all the moisture. Serve cold garnished with nuts, raisins and silver foil.

A few Suggestions/ variations:
1.You can use Cardamom/ rose essence instead of ground cardamom. Use according to your taste.
2. You can try most of the dry fruits - Make sure that you cut them into small pieces. I once put bits of dates too... It sure gives a different feel.
3. If you are calorie conscious:
a) Toast the bread instead of deep frying
b) Fry the nuts without oil / use less quantity of nuts

Enjoy eating!