Coffee Almond Cake

Here's the recipe for those who've been asking me for ages:

Ingredients:

Maida - 150 gm
Sugar 150 gm
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Eggs - 4
Almonds n raisins - a handful
Butter or Oil- 150 gm
Coffee - 1 to 2 tbsp as per taste

Method:

- Mix all the dry ingredients: Maida, sugar, baking powder
- In another bowl whisk the eggs and add oil and mix
- Heat a tbspn of water and mix the coffee till it dissolves
- Now mix all ingredients along with dry fruits in a blender
- Grease the baking dish with butter, sprinkle some baking powder or maida before adding the blended cake mixture
- Add some crushed almonds at the top of the baking mix for a crunchy texture.

Enjoy! :)

Chicken Kosha

One of those dull Saturday's when all I want to do is curl up with a good book, eat loads of chocolates (the fridge is stuffed thank goodness), and do absolutely nothing else. But so many chores and repairs to get done. To top it, I can't watch most of my favorite channels due to a bad signal caused by a building construction right in front of the dish antenna.

More than the TV woes, what I will miss the most is the lovely view of this beautiful, serene mustard field I could gaze upon from our dining room. Now all I see is this monstrosity of a large apartment complex being built called Fresh Living. Weird name! Even weirder when I wonder what's so fresh about a concrete structure in a concrete city but well can't do much about the haphazard development that occurs in Indian cities. I would need to move to the countryside or buy a farm of my own and since I lack funds to do that back to reality.

Well to motivate and distract myself from a lot of stuff decided to cook. I haven't cooked much the last 2 years so was apprehensive as to how it would turn out but thank goodness it turned out more than edible. :) So here goes my Mom's recipe customized a bit based on the ingredients available in the fridge:

Chicken - 8-10 pieces
Mustard Oil - I don't really measure. I just pour till it covers the pan
Bay leaf -1-2
Onions - 2
Tomatoes - 2
Garlic - 8-10 cloves
Ginger - 1 small slice
Green chillies - 8-10
Red chilly - depending on your preference
Cardamom - 3 pods
Cinammon - 1 stick
Cloves - 3
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1-2 tsp depending on how spicy you want the dish
Biryani masala - 1-2 tsp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Coriander - 1 bunch chopped
Mint - 1 bunch chopped
Salt to taste
Sugar - 1 tspn

- Marinate the chicken with salt, turmeric, biryani masala. I decided to use biryani masala instead of chicken masala coz read somewhere it gives a wonderful flavor
- Heat oil and add the bay leaf, and dried red chilly until it infuses the flavor.
- Add the whole spices and onions and cook till it browns.
- Add the garlic, ginger, green chilli, turmeric, chilli powder and cook for 7-8 mins. Add a spoon of water if it tends to stick to the pan.
- Add the chicken and chopped tomato, a dollop of ghee based on your preference and season with salt and sugar.
- Cook in medium heat for 30-40 mins.
- Add the chopped coriander and mint leaves (Mint is not necessary but I decided to try my own variation)
- Cook until the water evaporates based on your gravy preference.
- Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with coriander and serve.

Methi Saag with Gajar and Alu

Found some fresh green methi in the supermarket today after work and picked it up thinking I will cook methi chicken. However, when I reached home found there was no chicken. Forgetful me! Sigh! It is quite a task thinking what to cook every day.

Rummaged through the fridge, found some carrots and potatoes and got started. Decided to make some daal too and eat it with this gujarati spiced roti called thepla that can be found in the super markets here.

Well, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Methi leaves (Fenugreek) - 2-3 bunches
Carrots - 3 chopped into squares
Potatoes - 1 chopped into squares
Kalonji - 1 tsp
Red chilli - 1
Green chillies - 2 finely chopped
Garlic pods - 3-4 finely chopped
Hing (Asafoetida) - 1 tsp
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Sugar - depending on individual preference

- Boil the potatoes and carrots till half cooked.
- Heat some oil in a pan and add kalonji, red chilli and hing.
- Add the chopped garlic and chillies
- Add the carrots and potatoes and cook for around 10 mins.
- Add the methi leaves and let it cook till done.
- Add turmeric and salt and garnish with coriander.

Fish Chop and Fish Fry

Potluck Day! :) Loads of excitement and planning on what to take for this big day at work. Finally, on public demand zeroed in on fish fry and fish chop. Marinated fish pieces overnight with turmeric, salt, chilli powder and ginger garlic paste to fry the next morning.



Called up Mom to get the recipe for fish chop. Pretty simple.



- Steam the fish and boil potatoes separately.
- Remove the bones from the fish and mash thoroughly with the potatoes.
- Add salt, cumin powder, chilli powder.
- Heat some oil in a pan and fry onions till brownish.
- Add the mashed mixture to the pan and fry till the raw smell disappears.
- Add some finely chopped coriander and chillies and mix some more.
- Remove from pan and once it has cooled, take small portions and roll it into round flat shaped portions.
- Beat 2 eggs with some salt and pepper.
- Roll the chops in this egg mixture and bread crumbs and fry till done.

You can prepare in bulk and store in the deep freeze. So when you have guests just remove and heat in the microwave or pan before serving. At your own risk. :)) However, for me it never lasts more than 2-3 days coz guess too many cats around. ;-)

Jaggery Cake with Oats

I love nolen gur (its a special jaggery that you find in Bengal in winter). Since I had some left in the freezer thought would try something different. Decided to bake a cake with nolen gur instead of sugar. After baking the cake, there was some jaggery left over so also made "nolen gurer payesh".



Sharing the recipe of Nolen Gur Cake with Oats. If you do not have this variety of jaggery, you can always substitute with 1 cup of sugar.

2 cups flour
1 cup jaggery (nolen gur)
1/2 cup oil
25 gms butter
1 cup oats
2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

- Mix all the ingredients in a blender
- Grease a baking dish and pour the mixture in.
- Sprinkle some crushed oats on top.
- Set the oven temperature to 200 degrees and bake for around 45 minutes or till a fork comes out clean.

Simple Banana Cake

For the umpteenth time I bought bananas last week for Joy and a week later it is still there. So decided that before it spoils, let me try baking a banana cake that I used to see my Mom bake years ago.

Ingredients:

4-5 ripe bananas mashed
75 gms butter
1-2 eggs
1-2 tbsp of milk or milkmaid for added flavor
90 gms of castor sugar (you can even use plain sugar)
1 and half cups of plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of sodium bicarb
1 tsp of orange essence (you can use vanilla essence too)
1 tsp cinnamon powder

- Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and sodium bicarb in a bowl
- Beat the eggs, milk and butter and add them to the mashed bananas.
- Mix the dry mixture with the rest of the ingredients in step 2 along with orange essence and cinnamon powder and whisk them in a blender.
- Pour into a greased baking dish and bake with the temperature set at 200 degree for around 40-45 minutes.

Voila! Its ready.

Bread Poha

Its been two weeks since I have been trying to lead a disciplined life, waking up at 6, cooking breakfast, packing our lunch and even cooking enough for dinner so don't have to cook twice. Whew! Never ever imagined that I would be cooking this much but then guess the craving for good food and lack of good cooks around gives way to all this hard work in the kitchen. :) Well, guess my experiments in the kitchen will continue till I find another cook.

The recipe today is a quick and easy snack I used to see my Mom cooking. I usually pack it as a mid-meal snack to take care of any hunger pangs sometime between breakfast and lunch or between lunch and tea when you get the craving to munch something. Yeah, yeah I know I eat too much but atleast this is a filling and tasty alternative to snacking on chips and other junk food at work.

Ingredients:

8 slices of bread cut into squares (you can use smaller quantities but I make enough to share at work) :P
2 potatoes cut into squares (you can even use carrots)
1 cup of peas
1-2 green chillis depending on your preference
1 tbsp ginger paste
2 chopped onions
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp turmeric
A handful of chopped coriander
Salt to taste
Oil

- Boil the veggies (potatoes, peas) in a pressure cooker.
- Heat oil in a separate pan and add cumin and the mustard seeds.
- Add onions, chillies and the ginger paste and fry till onions turn brownish
- Add the boiled veggies and stir for 2 minutes.
- Add the bread squares and stir some more
- Add turmeric, salt and coriander and fry for 2 minutes.

You can even add a dash of lemon if you want some zest. The bread poha is ready to be eaten or packed as a mid-meal snack or even lunch if you wish.