Aam ras with puri/mango puree

Hello everyone! How have you all been? Well, the mango season is about to end. So I thought why not make aamras to ease my tummy and be at ease with this heat which is still here. Today I would  show you easy way to make aamras or in short mango puree which you can eat it as it is or with poori or as a topping on any dish. 

Its very easy and simple to make but taste wise yummy.

Ingredients for aamras:

2 Alphonso mangoes

Sugar if needed

Milk if needed

Method:

Peel the mangoes and take the pulp out. Make a smooth puree using mixer or handblender.  I used blender here.  Add sugar if you want more sweet and if the  puree is thick add slight milk.  Its done and your mango puree or aamras is ready.  Keep it in fridge to be chilled and serve it later with pooris. Pooris are standard and I am sure all know how to make it

Yummy yummy isn’t it?

So what are you waiting for! Have nice sweet aamras with poori.  

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Rice Bhajiyas/pakodas/fritters

Hello everyone!  Today I am bringing you a dish which my late aunt loved  a lot. Very simple to make and tastes yummy.  Over the years I made bit of variations to it and it still tastes good. Hope you all like it.

This recipe consists of left over rice and it can be plain rice, biryani ,pulao or any cooked rice. We would make rice pakodas now.

Ingredients:

Left over rice( depends on whatever quantity you have got)

½ cup plain yoghurt or dahi

1 cup besan (gram flour)

2green chillies cut in small pieces (increase according to quantity or taste)

Some coriander leaves cut

1/2tsp coriander seeds

1inch ginger cut in small pieces

Salt to taste

Oil to fry

Method:

Take rice in bowl and mix dahi (yoghurt) with it.  Keep it aside for some time till dahi almost soaks rice. Water is not needed here at all. Put besan , salt, chillies, coriander seeds, coriander leaves and ginger pieces and mix them all together with dahi and rice. The consistency should be bit thick to make pakodas.

Heat oil in pan and slowly take one spoonful of rice dahi mix and  drop in hot oil. Do the  same with the whole batter.  Deep fry pakodas till they turn bit golden. 

Take them off the pan and put on paper to soak excess oil.

Take them on plate and serve hot with chutney or sauce of your choice.

They are best as tea time snacks and plus your rice is also used up in this. 

Hope you enjoy this dish. Any comments or feedback is always welcome.

P.s I think most would be confused and I would suggest just go slow and add the dahi and besan and try out. if the besan is more it would become too hard and if its less rice would come out in oil. These pakodas are bit on softer side and with dahi you get bit of sour.khatta taste. The measurement is for indication purpose only.

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Mix vegetables in spinach gravy

Hello everyone! My today’s recipe is  mix vegetables in spinach gravy. Earlier I used to make plain spinach and  well not all liked it so had been experimenting. Two months back I made koftas/dumplings in spinach gravy and it was well received.  Last year  I had gone on a weekend break to Alibaug  and while returning from there we stopped at Khargar to have our lunch. My dad loves spinach and  since my parents  don’t  eat onion garlic they ordered spinach without  them.  The dish which came was really yummy with loads of vegetables and even without onion and garlic it still tasted awesome.  Since then I have made it a lot of times.  And as my son doesn’t like spinach this way he has it without any complaints. I have included onion and garlic though and you can skip it if you don’t like or don’t want to have them in your gravy.

Ingredients for gravy:

I made same type of gravy in kofta dish so just would copy it again here.

2 bunch of spinach washed and boiled (spinach reduces after boil)

1 onion cut in small pieces
1tbsp ginger garlic paste                                         

2 green chillies  cut in small pieces

1tomato cut in small pieces.

Salt to taste

1tsp garam masala powder

1tsp amchur powder

1tbsp oil or ghee

Method:

Boil spinach in vessel, drain out water and make a puree of it.  Keep it aside. In another pan put ghee or oil to heat. Put ginger garlic paste to sauté for a min, and then add onions, sauté it again till raw smell of onion goes. Add green chillies and tomato. Stir it for a min and add little water for tomatoes to cook. Bring to boil and then add salt, garam masala powder and amchur powder. Switch off the gas and put all this mixture of onion tomatoes in mixer and make puree of it.  Mix this with spinach puree and keep it aside.

Mix vegetables:

I have used cauliflower,potato, peas,carrots,and tomato here.  You can add paneer also later.

Take one cup of these mix vegetables and boil them with little salt. Take them off the heat, drain water and add the vegetables in the spinach gravy.

Your  vegetables with spinach gravy is ready and since I love butter I topped a bit of it for garnishing. Do let me know what you think of this.

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Vegetable Keema

Hello all!  My today’s recipe came as result of experiments and inspiration from my blogger friend Radhika and her amazing blog TicklingPalates. I was not sure how it would turn out as I had read her recipe only once but was determined to try out. But when I planned to make my computer was busy so couldn’t  check how she made it. 

Call it what ever you want to but my son calls it gobhi bhurji.  Hope you like this as I made variations from what Radhika made.

Ingredients:

1  large cauliflower or 2 medium sized

1/2cup  peas ( I used frozen peas here)

1  onion grated

2  tomatoes chopped into small pieces

2 garlic cloves crushed 

2tsp  red chilli powder

1tsp garam masala powder

1tsp turmeric  powder

1tsp coriander/cumin powder

Salt to taste

2tbsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)

3tbsp oil for shallow frying

1tbsp oil to sauté

Coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

Wash and clean the cauliflower and grate it. In a pan put 3tbsp oil,heat it and shallow fry the grated cauliflower and keep stirring it to prevent it from burning. Let cauliflower become little brown.  Once done remove in plate and keep it aside.

Use same pan and add 1tbsp oil, add onions and sauté it for a min or two till it turns translucent, add crushed garlic and sauté it too. Add tomatoes and all masalas above except kasuri methi.  Stir it and add peas to it. Put some water and keep on slow flame to cook.

After few mins the tomatoes would resemble gravy then add shallow fried grated cauliflower to it.  Add more water for required consistency and let it cook some time on slow flame.

Once cauliflower is also done add kasuri methi and stir and switch off the gas.   Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with puri, roti, paratha or naan.

I had some  of this delightful dish left over so next day stuffed my sandwich with it and the taste was still awesome.

Enjoy this dish and once again special thanks to Radhika  for this recipe. I had changed few things from her original dish.

The end verdict at my home was YUMMY. So what's your verdict!!!

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On the go...Street food in Mumbai.....

Hello everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the first part WELCOME TO MUMBAI.

Continuing my story about Mumbai  I would tell you about street food which is very famous here.

While eating in Mumbai one can have all delicacies in top end hotels or restaurants but if you want to taste the real tasty stuff  come to the streets. There are some very good places where the food is hygenic.

Khaoo galli - literally means  food street and it has food stalls lined up on both sides of the lane serving variety of food items. Its near Churchgate station and it has mainly vegetarian food.

Juhu beach or Chowpatty beach -  There are many stalls right on the beach serving numerous snack items.

Mohammed Ali road - down at South Mumbai area it serves mainly non vegetarian delicacies. 

Elco restaurant  at Bandra west  has best street food available and my personal favorite is Dahi papdi chaat.
Kailash Parbat Hindu hotel at Colaba and Andheri and in many malls across the city have very good snack items.

So what exactly is street food here.  They are mainly  vada pav, pav bhaji, bhelpuri, pani puri,  ragda pattis, sandwiches, variety of dosas and idlis. Street food in India is very cheap but tasty however do consider about the hygiene part before you have these delicacies.

VADA PAV

 

Pav Bhaji

ragda patties 

pics courtesy: google and original uploader.

For Pav Bhaji recipe.. check my blog entry here
 

Enjoy the delicious items when you visit Mumbai.

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INSTANT BREAD UPMA

Hello! Today I would show you one very simple easy to cook dish. It’s a breakfast item and it cooks in jiffy.

INGREDIENTS:

3-4 bread slices ( you can use old ones if it has not gone bad or you can use fresh ones too)

1         onion finely chopped

2          tomatoes finely chopped

¼ tsp   mustard seeds

Few leaves of curry patta

1tbsp oil

1 green chilli cut in small pieces

Salt to taste

¼ tsp turmeric powder

¼ tsp  coriander powder

¼ tsp red chilli powder

For garnishing  some cut coriander leaves

METHOD:

In a  pan  put oil, let it heat then add mustard seeds and curry patta and green chilli.  Stir for a min till mustard seeds splutter.  Put  chopped onion pieces and let them turn bit pink. Then  put cut tomato pieces and stir again for a min.  Next put 1cup of water, stir and add salt and other spices. Let it cook for few minutes till tomatoes soften.  While its still watery break  bread pieces by hand and put in the pan. Stir it and bread would take up all the water making it soft.  Stir some more till it comes to required thick consistency.

Switch off gas and put bread upma in plate. Put coriander leaves to garnish and serve hot.

Optional: you can add ginger garlic paste with onion and add some more vegetables if you prefer.

I have kept it mild but you can increase the chilli if you want it more hot.  This above recipe serves one.  Increase quantities if you want to make more.

There is a dry upma method too and in that no tomatoes or water is used but its too dry so I prefer the one with gravy.

Enjoy!

  

  

INSTANT BREAD UPMA

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Pav bhaji................. the way I make :)

Hello all! Yesterday I made pav bhaji and as my kids like it so much I decided to make a post on how I make pav bhaji. I am sure everyone knows about this dish as its very famous throughout northern India. From streets to  hotels everywhere you would get variety of tastes of this wonderful dish.

There are variations in the way everyone makes but here I would show you how I make. I always make a bit more so we can have it next day as well.  Quantity can be increased or decreased as per individual choice.

Serves  4-5

5 Big potatoes  washed, peeled and cut into cubes

1 cup  mix vegetables    (cauliflower, small brinjal, capsicum,  and carrots, cut in small pieces )

2 onions  chopped into very fine pieces

2tsp  ginger garlic paste

5 tomatoes cut into small pieces

1/2cup peas boiled and kept separate

2tsp ghee and butter
2 green chillies cut in small pieces

2 tsp pav bhaji masala  (available in stores)

salt according to taste

1tsp each amchur powder (dry mango powder), coriander powder,  red chilli powder, haldi powder (turmeric powder) 

12 Pav buns

In big  pressure cooker  heat ghee & butter, add one cup of cut onion pieces and cook till onion turns translucent, add ginger garlic paste and  cook a bit more.

Add tomatoes and cook till tomatoes are bit soft. Add all the dry masalas (amchur powder etc) and fry  one min more till all masalas are mixed.

Add the vegetables and potatoes and add salt according to your taste and mix well. Add one cup water and close the lid on pressure cooker and put the whistle on. Bring it to boil with one whistle.  Let the cooker cool. 

Remove  the lid and mash all the vegetables in it. Here I prefer to add the peas after the vegetables are mashed as at times if I put peas before the are just not visible in the gravy. 

Boil the gravy a bit more till you get required  consistency which should not be too thick or too watery  and take it off the heat. 

Slit the pav buns horizontally and fry them in butter on  a tawa or a pan.

In a plate serve the buttered buns along with bhaji or the gravy we made. Garnish the gravy with  coriander leaves and some of the remaining pieces of onion.

For variations garnish the gravy with grated cheese.
To make  bhaji more spicy increase the quantity of red chilli powder.

Normally people boil all the vegetables before and then fry onions garlic ginger and put mashed vegetables in it. But I prefer this way as all are boiled and cooked right in the pressure cooker specially when we have to make large quantity.

P.S. sorry pic quality is not good but hope you would still enjoy.

Enjoy!

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