Methi Dhebra (Gujarathi flat bread)

Some people are hard to forget. Some are hard to remember. One such person in my life who is hard to forget is one of my friend's mother. I was introduced to Gujarathi food in her place and even when she is not around anymore, I remember her quite often. She was not only a great cook, but also a great person who always had a smile for everyone.

When I ate these dhebra for the first time, I instantly fell in love with them. Since I am from karnataka, jowar roti is not foreign to me. Dhebra is very similar since it uses bajra flour which is similar to jowar flour in its behaviour. Both have no gluten in them. But, the earthiness of bajra flour is more pronounce and many people do not like it because of this. I have made dhebra many times since then and I do not in any means say that this is authentic. These recipes change from one house to another just like dal does.

Ingredients:
Methi leaves - cleaned and leaves chopped from one bunch. Either use stalks in something or discard
Bajra Flour - 2 cups
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup + more for rolling the dough
Salt - to taste
Red chilli powder - to taste (See Notes)
Turmeric - a pinch
Grated ginger - about 1 TBSP (optional)
Oil - 3 TBSP for the dough and more for cooking
Water - Very warm almost hot to mix the dough

Method:
In a large bowl, take both the flours, salt, turmeric, chilli powder, ginger if using. Mix in the oil. Start adding very warm water and make a stiff dough. Mix the methi leaves to this. Make sure this is not a very smooth dough since the hot water will make the dough sweat a bit and make it more watery. If that happens, simply add some more wheat flour, knead it and continue. Cover and let it stand for about 20 minutes. Make big lemon sized balls or small orange sized balls. Dust with plenty of flour and roll into circles. Circles won't come out perfect since the bajra flour has no gluten in them. It will also tear very easily. Keep dusting with flour and roll. Do not try to make them as thin as rotis. They will just crumble when you try to lift them. Heat a tawa and cook on hot tawa both sides with a bit of oil. Take it out when done and repeat the same with the rest of the dough.
Typically this is served with yogurt and some pickle. This can also be served as a tea time snack with some tea.

Notes:
You can add finely chopped green chillies instead of red chilli powder. You can also add garlic with ginger to the dough. My friend's mother used to mix the dough with yogurt and some extra water and not water completely. I have done that way too, but prefer just plain water since when you mix it with hot water, the bajra flour tends to get soft resulting in easier handling of the dough.

Enjoy!! Pin It

Zucchini Kootu

Did I tell you that I have a vegetable garden for the first time this year? My gardening was limited to growing some herbs in planters till last year. This year, I planted green beans, tomatoes and one of my summer favorites zucchini. There are plenty of flowers on zucchini plants and three of them have formed into cute, tiny zucchini so far. Ask me how many became big and how many did I use in cooking? None, courtesy of a bunny visiting my yard. I have already got some green beans which I cooked last week. But, I have given up the hopes of ever cooking the zucchini that I grew. So, I went and bought zucchini from the store. Pathetic, isn't it?

My mother made kootu a lot. She served it with rice. You can use this recipe with many other vegetables like chayote squash/ seeme badanekayi, spinach/palak, cucumber, green beans etc. This is a great recipe for those who do not eat tamarind for a reason since it doesn't use any.

Ingredients:

Toor dal - 3/4 cup pressure cooked with turmeric and a drop of oil - See Notes.
Oil - 1/4 tsp
Coconut - 1/3 cup grated (You can increase this to 1/2 cup or more if you like coconut taste)
Zucchini - 1 large peeled and cut into big chunks (Or any other vegetable of your choice)
Chana dal /Kadale bele - 2 TBSP
Urad dal / Uddina bele - 2 TBSP
Black Pepper / Menasu - 1/2 TBSP or more if you like it spicier
Red chillies / Kempu menasinakayi - 4 (Not Byadagi kind. If using byadagi, increase this and pepper)
Hing  - 2 big pinches
Salt - to taste

Method:
In a sauce pan, boil zucchini (or other vegetables) in enough water with some salt. When it is cooking, in another pan, roast red chillies, chana dal, urad dal, black pepper with 1/4 tsp of oil till they are nicely roasted and golden in color. Let them cool down a bit. Grind the roasted ingredients, hing with coconut into a thick paste. You can use water to facilitate the blender but not make it too watery. When the vegetables / zucchini is cooked, add the cooked dal to it. Mix the ground paste with a little bit of water and break the lumps in the ground paste and mix it to the dal vegetable mixture. Adjust the salt and bring it to a boil. Be careful after adding the ground paste since if you don't stir occasionally, it'll stick to the bottom and burn. After simmering for a couple of minutes, turn off the heat. Serve with rice.

Notes:
This can be served with rotis or chapathis if you make it a little thicker. Use more dal if you want to serve with rotis or chapathis. You can use chana dal instead of toor dal. In that case, use only watery vegetables like zucchini, long squash, chayote squash, cucumber.

Enjoy!! Pin It

Bake - Off (6/25/2010)

Thanks to everyone for participating. If you want to know how to participate, read this. Next Bake-Off will be on '7/2/2010'. Bake-Off archive can be found here.
In the order of reception, we have:

 

'Chocolate Cake with Cherry Filling and Smooth Chocolate Frosting' from 'For the Love of Food'

'Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars' from 'Oh Taste N See'

 'Zebra Cake' from 'Cakes and More'

'Sweet Almond Buns' from 'Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes'

'Chocolate Fondant Cake with Nutella cream frosting' from 'Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes'

'Blueberry Crumb Cake' from 'Torviewtoranto'

'Melting Moments' from 'Kitchen Samraj!'

 'Apricot Cashew Chewy Bar Cookies' from 'The Well Seasoned Cook'

'Orange Biscotti' from 'Spice Buds'

'Multi Grain Mixed Berry Muffins' from 'Pan Gravy Kadai Curry'

'Vegan Whole Wheat Bread' from 'Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen'

 'Sourdough Applesauce Spice Cake' from 'Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen'

Happy Baking!!

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Sourdough Applesauce Spice Cake

My search for 'sourdough' recipes probably will never end. Every week when I have to feed the starter, I have to figure out what to do with the starter that needs to be used up. I hate wasting and when I was looking for a recipe using 'sourdough starter', I came across this site and I modified the 'Sourdough carrot cake' to make an an applesauce spice cake. It does say in the original recipe that carrots could be substituted with applesauce, but I changed the ingredients a bit and made changes so that this is a 'one bowl, one measuring cup, one whisk and one spatula cake'.

Ingredients:
Sourdough Starter - 1 cup (not fed)
Milk - 1/4 cup
Vegetable Oil - 1/4 cup
Applesauce - 1 cup (I used sweetened)
Egg - 1 large
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
White sugar - 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup (I used light brown sugar)
Baking Soda - 2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
Cloves powder - 1/4 tsp
Ginger powder - 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg - 1/8 tsp or a big pinch

Method:
Grease a 13 X 9 pan with vegetable oil spray. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a 4 cup measuring cup (if you don't have one, you'll have to measure and mix in a smaller bowl), measure one cup of starter. Add 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 cup of applesauce to the same measuring cup. Whisk it. Add one egg and beat with a whisk.

In another larger bowl, take flour, sugars, salt, baking soda, spice powders. Stir to combine. Make a well in the center and pour the liquid ingredients and stir till moistened. Do not over beat. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 35 - 40 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine was done exactly at 35 minutes. Cool on the cooling rack in the pan for 15 minutes and then turn it out on to the cooling rack to cool completely.

You could dust with confectioner's sugar before serving and serve as a snack cake. You could go overboard and frost this cake too. I am thinking cream cheese frosting with a touch of cinnamon.

Notes:
I am so glad I found this recipe since this can be modified to suit many flavor requirements. Use mashed banana 1 cup in place of applesauce. Fold in chocolate chips or some nuts with it. Use pumpkin puree in the place of applesauce to get pumpkin spice cake. Use just sour cream in the place of applesauce to get sour cream cake. Think people think.
And now, this cake looked something like this in the pan. Look at that awesome color..

I am sending this cake to weekly 'Yeastspotting' hosted by Susan.

Happy Baking!! Pin It

Vegan Whole Wheat Bread

Here I come with yet another bread recipe but this one is a basic whole wheat bread. No fancy things in here and I believe ingredients used in here are available in almost every part of the world. I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour website. But since it is hot and humid here and since I was using the Durum atta flour from the Indian store, I ended up using a lot more flour than what the original recipe called for. To avoid extra chubby loaf, I split into two leaner loaves. When I say leaner, if I had smaller length pan, it wouldn't have been this short in height. But since the main bread consumers in our house are my kids, I thought it is alright if it is smaller. If and when you try this, use less water in the beginning so that you don't have to use lot of flour. Another option is if you use brown sugar or sugar in the place of maple syrup, you don't have to worry about adding extra flour at all.

Ingredients:

• Warm water - 1 1/2 cup
• Maple Syrup - 1/3 cup (You can use Honey then it won't be vegan or use plain sugar)
• Oil - 3 TBSP
• Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
• Active dry yeast - 1 1/2 tsp
• Whole Wheat Flour - 4 1/2 cups (Original recipe has 3 1/2 cups)

Method:

In a large bowl, combine warm water, maple syrup and yeast. Let it sit for about 10 minutes or till frothy. Now add the salt, oil. Mix well. Slowly start adding flour to make a smooth dough. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes or until you get a smooth dough. If it is sticky, instead of adding more flour, try coating your hands with oil and then knead.

Coat with oil and let it rest for about an hour or till double in volume. After the initial rise, deflate the dough gently and on a lightly floured surface, shape into the loaf. Grease a 9 X 5 pan with vegetable oil spray and place the shaped dough in it.(If you want to get a chubby loaf) Else divide into two loaf pans. Cover loosely with an oiled aluminum foil and place in a warm place till double about 45 minutes to an hour. Towards the end of final rise, preheat the oven to 350 F. When ready to bake, place the pan in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Loosely tent with aluminum foil and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes or till the crust is nicely brown and bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on wire rack. You could brush with some milk or milk oil mixture before baking to get a nice color. I didn't do any of those. You could brush with melted butter once it comes out of the oven to get a softer crust. I didn't do that either.

Note:
If you decide to bake this as one loaf, you will have to increase the bake time by another 5 - 10 minutes.
I am sending these loaves to weekly 'Yeastspotting' hosted by Susan.

Happy Baking!! Pin It

Kara Kuzhambu for Tried and Tasted

I have lived in Karnataka all my life before coming to U.S. Only place that I stayed apart from Mysore, Bangalore area is Secunderabad. I was there for about 4 months before moving here. So, I have never tasted Tamil Nadu cuisine except in some restaurants. As some of you might know that I am hosting the 'Tried and Tasted' event this month and the blog chosen was Divya's Dilse.

When I went through her up to date recipe index, what caught my attention was this 'Kara Kuzhambu' which I have never tried or tasted in my life. This she says is 'Chettinad Style' and she gives the option of using vegetables in it, which I did. I changed the recipe a little bit in using the vegetables and reducing the garlic since we like the garlic flavor very mild.

Here goes my version..

Ingredients:

Red Onion - 1 large or 2 small diced
Tomato - 1 cut into chunks
Garlic - 3 pods
Tamarind - a lemon size soaked in water and juice extracted
Turmeric - 1/2 teaspoon
Chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
Jaggery - 1 TBSP (Don't skip this. This brings out the other flavors together)
Salt -  to taste
Oil - 1 TBSP

Seasoning:
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
fenugreek seeds –1 tsp

Dry red chilies - 2 broken
Curry leaves – 1 spring

Oil - 2 TBSP

Masala to grind:
Coconut - 2 TBSP
Peppercorns - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Vegetables that I added:
Eggplant - 1 medium size cut into medium chunks
Potato - 1 small peeled and cut into medium chunks

Method:
In a pan, heat 1 TBSP oil. When hot, add garlic pods, chopped onions. Stir and add turmeric and a little bit of salt. Let it cook. When onions are cooked, add chopped tomatoes, red chilli powder. When tomatoes are cooked, turn off the heat and let it cool down a bit.

Meanwhile, in another pan, heat 2 TBSP of oil. When hot, add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add broken red chillies, fenugreek, cumin, curry leaves. When they are done, add chopped eggplant, potato. Add some salt and saute for a minute or two. Cover with enough water and close the lid till the vegetables are almost cooked.
Take the onion tomato masala in a blender. To this, add cumin seeds, coconut, coriander seeds, pepper corns mentioned in 'Masala to Grind' part. Make a paste of this. When the vegetables are almost done, add this paste and tamarind juice, jaggery and mix. Let it come to a boil. Adjust the thickness by adding more water if necessary. Adjust the salt and chilli powder if needed and simmer for couple of minutes and turn off the heat. Serve with rice.

I really liked the taste of this and it is a nice change from the traditional sambar I make which has roasted dals with the other masala. Thank you Divya for a wonderful recipe.


Enjoy!! Pin It

Quinoa Chick peas Pulav

I had cooked chana/chick peas in the refrigerator. My friend gave me a bag full of mint leaves from her garden. What should I do to use both of them? I started out to make a mint chana pulav but instead of rice, I used Quinoa. So, this is in no way an innovative recipe, but just a healthy and delicious dish.

Ingredients:

• Cooked Chana - 2 cups (You can use canned ones too. Drain and measure)
• Quinoa -1 cup rinsed thoroughly
• Red Onions - 3 small or 2 medium or 1 big chopped lengthwise to get 1/2" strips
• Mint leaves - washed and chopped fine about 1 cup (You can use cilantro if you don't have mint, just about 1/4 cup)
• Green Chillies - 6 or more as per taste chopped
• Oil - 4 TBSP
• Ginger - 1/2" piece peeled and grated
• Garlic - 3 pods grated
• Pepper corns - 8
• Cinnamon- 1" stick
• Bay Leaf -1 or 2
• Cloves - 8
• Whole cardamom - 2 - 3
• Yogurt - 3 TBSP
• Salt - to taste
• Turmeric - a big pinch

Method:
Take oil in a pan. When hot, add bay leaf. When that gets roasted, add ginger, garlic, green chillies, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom. When the spices start popping, add the onions, turmeric, some salt and saute for a minute or two. Add chopped mint and mix. Let it cook. Add the cooked chana, yogurt, rinsed and drained quinoa, enough water to cook quinoa (Quinoa : Water in the ratio 1: 2). Let it come to a boil. When it starts boiling, reduce the heat and cover with a lid and let it cook and absorb all the liquid. Adjust the salt if necessary and turn off the heat. Serve with raita or just plain yogurt.

This was not only tasty but very filling too.
I am sending this as an entry to current month's MLLA hosted here, which was started by Susan.
Also sending this to Priya's 'Healing Foods - Onions'  which was started by Siri. Along with this, I am sending the following to the same event.
Eggplant Curry in Onion Coconut sauce
Penny with minty almond sauce
Savory Onion Tart
Avocado Focaccia
Thanks Priya for such a wonderful event.



Enjoy!! Pin It

And the winner of the CSN Giveaway is.....

'Happy Father's Day' to all the fathers. As promised, here is the winner for this giveaway by CSN Stores. I received not many, but just 26 comments. Thanks to everyone who suggested something about this blog. Those of you who requested something to be posted on the blog, be patient. It'll come one at a time slowly.


Disclaimer: I am not getting compensated in any way from CSN Stores for this giveaway.

I have never used random.org. So all I did was write everyone of comment's names in a piece of paper and pick one from the bowl. Picking was done by my daughter.

And shuffling of the rolls..

Here goes the picking..

And the winner is.........................

Congratulations Meena!! Enjoy your win. I'll send you an email soon with details.
For all those who tried, thanks.

Enjoy!! Pin It

Bake - Off (6/18/2010)

Thanks to everyone for participating. If you want to know how to participate, read this. Next Bake-Off will be on '6/25/2010'. Bake-Off archive can be found here.
In the order of reception, we have:

Honey Madeleines from 'Oh Taste N See'

Baked Apple Surprise from 'The Veggie Hut'

Healthy whole wheat, oats and sesame crackers from 'Cakes and More'

 Low Fat Marble Cake from 'Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes'

Rosetta Rolls from 'Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes'

Benne Biscuit from 'Sum's Cuisine'

Turkish Spinach Feta Cheese Borek from 'Pan Gravy Kadai Curry'

Cherry-Cherry Cake from 'Pan Gravy Kadai Curry'

Basic White Bread from 'Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen'

Happy Baking!! Pin It