Palak Paneer

There is no story behind why I started cooking this..except that I like it. But I remember what a huge mess my mom and I made when we tried it for the first time. When we put the spinach into the blender and switched it on, the lid flew off and the spinach was all over the kitchen :). Hope no such thing happens to those who try it. This dish is more of  my husband's expertise and he makes it a more elaborate process with more ingredients. The recipe that I gave here is lot simpler with lesser ingredients and the spinach flavor is more prominent in my version.

Ingredients

Palak (Spinach)- 500g

Paneer(Cottage cheese)- 400g

Onion - 1 small

Garlic - 4 big pods

Green chillies

Cumin seeds

Salt

 

Process

1. Cut off the stems of the spinach and wash the leaves.
2. Chop the onions, slit the green chillies and peel the skin of garlic pods
3. Put the spinach, onions, garlic and green chillies in a cooker. Add a cup of water, it does not require lot of water. Add a little salt as well. Cook for 2-3 whistles.
4. Meanwhile cut the paneer and pan fry them. I generally cut into bigger pieces for frying and then cut them into smaller pieces later on.

5. When the spinach cools, drain of the excess water. Remember not to throw the water as it has nutrients can be used in cooking instead of water :).Blend the spinach into smooth paste

6. In a deep pan add little oil and add the cumin seeds when oil is hot.
7. When the cumin seeds start to splutter, add the spinach paste. Remember to cover, because if the paste is too thick, the paste will splatter all over. Add a little bit of the water we saved earlier.

8. Now add more salt if needed and let it boil. Then add the paneer pieces to it and let it cook for 5 mins.

9. There its all done now... enjoy your meal :)

Double Ka Meetha

Its been a while since I have posted in this blog, this is an attempt to keep the blog alive as the fellow blogger is pretty busy these days. This dish is a sweet and considered as special in some parts of Andhra Pradesh especially in Hyderabad and called as 'Double Ka Meetha'....

This is fairly a simple dish if you follow few basics correctly, lets get started....and forgot to mention, if you are calorie conscious, you can skip this... :) others may proceed...

Ingredients:

• Ghee
• White Bread
• Cashew
• Raisins
• Pistachio
• Milk
• Sugar
• Khoa

Procedure:

• Cut bread slices into your favorite shapes/sizes (you can be creative here if you want to), and keep it aside for an hour or so.
• Meanwhile prepare the sugar syrup by heating 2 cups of water with 2 cups of sugar. Keep on boiling till it becomes consistent (around 20-30 mins).
• Heat Ghee at a medium flame.
• Fry the bread pieces in ghee till it gets brown color on both the sides and keep it aside.
• Just dip the bread pieces in the sugar syrup for a min and keep it aside.
• Roast Cashews, raisins and pistachios in ghee and add on top of the bread pieces.
• Take some khoa and make it into tiny pieces (similar to grating). Add this to little amount of milk and start heating it. After getting some consistency, apply this on the bread pieces (don't apply more on each piece).

and you are done...

P.S: For those who are in US, I got Nanak's Khoa from indian store, you can find it at the same place as Paneer. It will be unsweetened so while boiling with Milk add some sugar.

Mysore Bajji

All of sudden one of my roommates screamed "its snowinggggg!!!!!". I couldn't stop myself running towards balcony and there it is as i stepped outside...i can see it, i can feel it....wow what a wonderful feeling it is to feel the cool breeze while it is snowing, i just closed my eyes so that i can enjoy that feeling and suddenly i felt like eating hot and spicey snack :) I opened my eyes and was going through the list i have...and then i remembered that Mr.Ronaldo has prepared Mysore bajji previous night which came ok but not up to the mark. I thought i should try it and then i called my mom for recipe...so lets start.....

Ingredients:

1 cup Maida (All purpose flour)
1/4 cup rice flour
thick buttermilk
chopped ginger
chopped green chillies
freshly grated coconut
Baking soda
salt

Procedure:

1. Take all the ingredients into a bowl, i.e. 1 cup of maida and 1/4 cup of rice flour, add salt, 1/2 tea spoon of baking soda, grated coconut, chopped ginger, chopped chillies.
2. Mix the above contents by adding buttermilk (make sure it is very thick). Don't make the batter very thin.
   
3. Keep the batter aside for 1 hr and meanwhile start heating oil.
4. Once the oil is heated, start frying by dropping small dumplings of batter into oil (make sure you are frying under medium flame)
5. After frying properly (it should turn into golden brown color) remove the bajjis from oil.
6. Serve with coconut chutney and it would be awesomeeeeee

P.S: Mr.Ronaldo is my roommate and I seriously don't know why it is called as Mysore bajji :) but i love it :)

Vegetable Pulav

Another of my quick fix, lazy day favourite. Life is easier, since I get chopped mixed vegetables from the store.  So here goes the recipe...

Ingredients

Rice - 1.5 cup
Chopped vegetable - 1.5 cup
Chopped Onion - 1 medium size
Green chillies (slit) - 4
Cloves - 2
Bay leaf - 1
Salt
Water - 3 cups

Vegetables
Carrots, beans,peas, potatoes - my these are my favourite, you can change as per you liking.

Process

1. Wash the rice and soak in water for 15 mins and drain the water
2. Add  s2- 3 tsp of oil in a pan and heat. Add green chillies, cloves, bay leaf and fry.
3. Then add the chopped onion and mixed vegetables , fry for 5 mins.
4. Then add the rice and salt to taste. Fry for another 2-3 mins.
5. Since I use an electric cooker, I move the contents into its container and pour the 3 cups of water and wait till its done. If using a normal cooker I will doing the frying in the cooker itself and add the water and close the lid. Switch the stove after 3 whistles.
6. It goes well with raita or veg. or soya nugget kurma.

Gutti Vankaya

This is a very famous and special dish in Andhra Pradesh and if properly made, tastes delicious :)
I like Brinjal (baby eggplant) a lot and hence like all brinjal dishes :) But gutti vankai is the one of the best brinjal dishes one can prepare :)

Coming to the preparation.....

Ingredients:
1) Small Brinjal (5 - 7)
2) Groundnuts (Peanuts) - 1 small cup
3) Sesame seeds - 1/4 cup
4) Chilly powder 1 table spoon
5) Sambar powder - 2 table spoons
6) Salt - as per your taste.

Procedure:
1) Roast groundnuts in a pan without oil.
2) Once the above step is done, roast sesame seeds.
3) Let both groundnuts and sesame seeds cool down a bit and then put these two into mixer jar and add 2 spoons of sambar powder and 1 spoon of chilly powder, 1-2 spoons of salt(as per your taste) and grind it well.
4) Cut the brinjals into in a way that you can stuff the above powder into it (as shown below).

5) Take a pan or cooker, add 3 spoons of oil and place stuffed brinjal into it pour one small cup of water.
6) Make sure that you have masala powder left after stuffing brinjal so that you can add on top the brinjal and water.
7) Cook in the cooker till 1 whistle and switch it off.
8) Wait for 10 mins and Gutti vankai is ready.



This goes well with Rice and also with chapathis.

Note that this is not an authentic recipe for gutti vankai but it tastes really good.