DRY FRUIT HALWA

This dry fruit halwa is from my mom's kitchen.Halwa with lots of nuts,Amma made this delicious halwa for both of us(me and my hubby).She already prepaired her menu for my vecations before I landed here.When I eat a piece of this halwa and told superb amma she gave a beautiful smile to me and i enjoyed that smile.And this halwa is really so mouth-watering with a special ingredient thats my moms love............
Hope now you all understand where i am yaa I am in India for vecation...

INGREDIENTS:------
Maida (all purpose flour) --- 1 cup
sugar ---- 1 cup (or according to your taste you can increase or decrease the sugar)
Yellow food color --- 2 pinches
Cashew nuts --- 20 broken
Almonds --- 20 chopped
Pista -- 20 chopped(fry all nuts in ghee till light brown color)
Netmeg powder --- 1/4 tea sp
Ghee --- 1 cup
Cardamom powder --- 1 tea sp
METHOD:----
Now add little water to sugar and boil it to make a sticky syrup(add a little water to sugar don't add too much water ).

Shift maida in to a big bowl and add water to make a thin batter like rava dosa batter and add food color to this maida batter and leave a side.Now add maida mixture to the sugar syrup keep stirring well. with in 6-8 min it will get thick.

In the same time heat the ghee, now start adding the ghee to the maida and sugar syrup mixture and keep stirring.

The halwa would absorb all the ghee then again add some more ghee and keep stirring.

By the time you finish the ghee halwa starts to leave the sides of the pan and it will become like a ball around to your laddle. Now add cardamom powder and mix well.

Now add fried dry fruits, netmeg powder mix well.

Now transfer it in to a greased plate and make it flat with a spoon and let it cool and cut in to pieces.
enjoy your sweet.

This will stay for 15 days if you keep it in the fridge 1-2 month s

When ever you want to serve remove from the fridge and keep it in the microwave for 5 sec. and serve.

This process will give a fresh taste and texture to halwa.

SWEET CORN AND VEGETABLE SALAD WITH ITALIAN DRESSING

Like any other words in cooking language SALAD also came from French word 'Salade' of the same meaning,which is originally came from a Latin word 'Salata' means vegetables seasoned with salt,pepper powder ,some herbs and olive oil or any salad oil. Vegetables seasoned with brine was a popular Roman dish (Brine is a saturated water which is comonly used in preserving vegetables,meat.fish and some cheese like Feta cheese.). Salad is often served as an appetizer before a meal but also some times served as a side dish or a main course. Now a days 99%people are health-conscious so they don't like high calories in their every day meal ,due to their low calorie density these salads became a main course in their every day meal.most of the people like salads with lots of green leafy vegetables, vegetables, lentils,meat and seafood also. After the vegetables the main ingredient in this salads is dressing many light edible oils, vinaigrettes , mayonnaise are used in this salad dressing but my personal favorite is olive oil with some italian herbs and lemon juice.And to day I am here with a simple salad with Italian dressing and the recipe is like this.................
INGREDIENTS:----
Sweet corn -- 1 cup
Carrot -- 1 cup chopped
Olives -- 1/4 cup chopped
Red bell pepper -- 1 chopped
Green bell pepper -- 1 chopped
Zucchini -- 1 chopped
FOR DRESSING:---
Extra-virgin olive oil -- 1 tab sp
Freshly ground black pepper -- 1/4 tea sp
Lemon juice --- 1 tab sp (optional)
Salt to taste
Basil -- 4-5 leaves chopped
Dry Italian hearbs -- 1 tea sp
salt to taste
METHOD:---
Mix all dressing ingredients in a small jar or bottle and shake well(or you can take this in to a big mixing bowl and wisk well) and leave a side.
Mix all vegetables in a mixing bowl and pour the dressing on top of the vegetables and now toss well to coat evenly .
Garnish with lots of carrot juliennes
Enjoy your salad with brown bread..
If you like you can add boiled and chopped chicken to this salad.

GINGER - GARLIC PASTE -- BASIC RECIPE FOR INDIAN COOKING

In many Indian recipes one of the main ingredient is Ginger garlic paste . so many of us generaly brought this from store but most of the times we make this at home also.but other then store brouht ginger garlic paste what we make at home will give a better taste and aroma to our curry.A must ingredient in every non-vegetarian recipes.Normaly we make this paste and store it in the fridge for 1 week so that we can use it when ever we need. to day let us see how I make and store ginger garlic paste for long time.


INGREDIENTS:----- Ginger -- 250 g.
Garlic --- 250g.
METHOD:---

1. Wash ginger peel a little skin(if you like with skin then no need to peel but that will give a brownish color to the paste)
2. Peel garlic also and chop both garlic and ginger in to small pieces
3. Now blend ginger and garlic in to a fine paste in a blender.
4. Remove from the blender jar in to airtight container and store it in the fridge.

1. If you want to store this for long time then add 1tea sp salt and 1 tea sp oil while grinding ginger and garlic.
2. And then place 1 tea sp paste in each block of ice cubes try and place it in the deep freezer and leave it for over night to make ginger garlic cubes( that means at least 12- 15 hours)
3. Then take out from the freezer and remove the cubes from try and place them in a container and again leave it in the freezer.
4. When ever you want to use take out from the freezer before you start cooking
5. This will stay fresh for 1 year with its original aroma.
6. You can make Ginger and green chili paste also in the same way and store it in the freezer

Regarding this ginger-garlic paste storage I got 2 questions...
1. when I place the try in the fridge I covered it with foil so that the strong smell of the g&g paste won't spread in the freezer.
2.@ Malar .. yes if you keep it in the fridge some times it changes the color but you do like this the color won,t change.

TOMATO CHARU (SPICY SOUTH INDIAN TOMATO SOUP)

Charu – Rasam – Saru is a very common dish in every day meal in South Indian cuisine. Charu or Rasam means extract or juice in Telugu or any other south Indian language. Traditionally made by tamarind extract and seasoned with spices like black pepper corns, dry coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Charu is a tangy and spicy thin tamarind soup which is a very power full home remedy for digetation, clod and perfect comfort food when you are having flue it keeps you warm. This traditional recipe was adapted in to British cuisine as Mulligatawny soup (pepper water) and it is very popular even today in England. A bowl of lightly mashed rice with a few drops of ghee and mix with hot Charu and vadiyalu (vadam,sundried rice flour wafers, deep fried in oil like fryams)or a potato stir fry, yummmm is there any other comfort food other then this …….. If you ask me no… any way

There are so many versions in this Charu recipe like

Chintapandu charu (tamarind Soup),

Vellulli charu(garlic soup)

Pappu charu or pappu rasam (lentil soup)

Miriyala charu (black pepper soup)

Pineapple rasam (spicy pineapple soup)

Ulava charu (horse gram soup)

Nimmakaya charu (lemon soup)

Tomato charu (thin spicy tomato soup)

Tiyya charu (sweet tamarind soup)

Pachi charu(pachi pulusu, Raw tamarind soup)

Majjiga charu (butter milk soup)

In some versions we use pappu kattu(cook 1 tab sp any lentils with 2-3 cups of water till lentils become soft remove from the heat and strain the water and use this water in the place of normal water for making charu. If you like you can add that cooked lentils also but mash well and mix with Charu).And to day here I am with the recipe TOMATO CHARU………….

INGREDIENTS:----

Tomato --- 1 big

Tamarind -- 1inch pieces 4-5 pieces soak in hot water(if you hold all these tamarind pieces tightly in your hand that should become like table tennis ball size.After you soak and extract water from this tamarind that should be 100 ml thin tamarind extract.

Oil -- 1 tab sp

Garlic -- 3 cloves crushed

Mustard - 1/2 tea sp

Asafoetida --- 1 pinch(hing, inguva)(optional)

curry leaves -- 12 leaves

salt to taste

Water --- 2&1/2 -3 cups

Charu podi (rasam powder) -- 1&1/2 tea sp you can use any brand which is easly available in any Indian store like MTR - Rasam powder or Priya Rasam powder or you can make at home check my recipe here.

Coriander leaves --- 1 tab sp chopped.

Soak tamarind in warm water and extract juice with 120 ml water and you can get 100 ml tamarind juice from that.

Pour this tamarind juice in to a heavy bottom pan and start boiling in a medium flame.

Take 1 big tomato and make puree in a blender. when you measure this tomato puree this should be 1 cup means 120- 130 ml.

Now add this tomato puree(if you want you can strain this tomato puree to remove the tomato skin pieces add 50 ml water (1/2 cup) and strain through a juice strainer) to tamarind juice,add 1 cup water(120 ml) and boil in a medium heat the raw smell of the tamarind and tomato will disappears .

This will take 10 min. to boil.After 10 min. add crushed garlic, salt to taste,curry leaves and 1 more cup water, charu podi(rasam powder), bring to a full boil lower the flame and let it cook for 15 min.

After 15 min add chopped coriander leaves and cook for 2 more min and remove from heat.

Now heat oil in a pan add mustard seeds and let them popup(here you can add a pinch add asafoetida if you like) then add this seasoning to Charu immediately cover with a lid and let it rest for at least 10 min before you serve.

Serve hot with rice.
Note: -- if you want to make a fresh rasam powder the

Coriander seeds -- 1/2 tea sp

Cumin seeds -- 1 tea sp

Black pepper corns -- 1 tea sp

Garlic cloves -- 3

few curry leaves (if you are making this instant Rasam powder with garlic and curry leaves then no need to add garlic and curry leaves what i have given in the ingredients list.)

Dry roast all ingredients in a pan and make a coarse powder in a hand pastel or a coffee grinder.This will give a great aroma to charu.

You like hot and spicy soups then strain this Charu through a strainer and enjoy like a soup.

GULAB JAMOON FOR ICC

Gulab jamoons are my all time favorite dessert I can have any time.when I saw Valli has choosen Gulab jamoon for this month s chalenge I was exited to try one more version of jamoons.valli has given three recipes of jamoon s those three recipes are almost same but with very little difference but I have choosen Alka s recipe because I tried almost the same recipe before also. For the first time when I tried that was a big disaster and second time jamoon came out very heard and this time they were just melting in the mouth.Thank you so much for the recipe Alka, and thank you so much for the Indian cooking challenge Valli. and here I am with the Delicious Gulab jamoon recipe from Alka of Sindhi Rasoi
                                                                   

MAKING KHOYA (KHOVA)(MAAWA) (unsweetened condensed milk) :---
Milk --- 1 & 1/2 litre this will give you 250 gms of condensed milk(khoya)
In a heavy bottom pan pour milk and start boilling the milk in a medium flame.
mix in between and let it boil till milk become thick.If you are boiling milk in a stainless steel pan then add 2-3 stainless steel spoons in to the milk to avoid burning.
Make sure the flame should be in medium and keep on boiling After some time the milk should become thick like in the down pic.Keep on mixing other wise in this stage there are chances that milk will burn in the bottom.
With in few min. the thick milk will become like a semi solid like crumbled paneer(crumbled cottage cheese) at this time switch off the heat and let it cool.

Now mash Khoya a little and leave a side. This Khoya (condensed milk) you can use for making Gulab jamoons, peda,milk burfi and many more milk sweets and also for some rich Nawabi and Kashmiri recipes here I used it for making Gulab jamoons for Indian cooking challenge.

INGREDIENTS FOR MAKING JAMOONS:---

Khoya --- 250 gms

All purpose flour -- 1&1/2 tea sp

Corn flour -- 1 tea sp

Cardamom powder --- 1 tea sp

Oil for frying

METHOD FOR MAKING JAMOONS....

Mix all above ingredients in a big mixing bowl and mix well till it turn in to a very soft texture.

Keep mixing till the dough is really very soft.

Now make very small size balls(bit larger then pebbles) as they swell up after frying and soaking in the sugar syrup.

Make sure that the surface of the balls is really smooth with out any cracks.

In case the cracks refuse to go away, slightly wet your palms with water and roll the flour till absolutely smooth.check the below picture.NOW LET US SEE HOW TO MAKE SUGAR SYRUP FOR GULAB JAMOONS..........

Sugar -- 500 gms

Water -- 1&1/2 cups

Cardamom powder -- 1 tea sp

Milk --- 1 spoon

Few threads of saffron

Rose water -- 2-3 drops

METHOD:----

Mix water and sugar and start boiling

Add a spoon of milk to remove impurities (if any impurities in the milk, will form a scum on surface)

Now add cardamom and saffron and boil till you get a sticky syrup.

gulab jamoon syrup is not very dense not to dilute as in rasgulla.

Strain the syrup, add rose water when the syrup is slightly cooled.Do not add rose water while syrup is boiling or it is very hor that gives a bitter taste to the final product.Now start frying the jamoons. Heat oil in a deep frying pan and drop 2-3 jamoons at a time and fry in a very low flame.

While frying jamoons stir the oil with a slotted spoon but not to touch gulab jamoons.Means you have to keep on swirling the oil with out tossing or turning Gulab Jamoons.

Fry till light brown in color, remove from oil and drop them in to the sugar syrup.

Let the jamoons soak in the sugar syrup for few hours. They will surely swell up.

These Gulab Jamoons can be stored in the same syrup till consumed
If there are cracks in the balls before frying it will burst open while frying, in that case adding a bit of cornflour will surely help

Enjoy this delicious Gulab Jamoons cold or hot.