Guess ...

Can you guess the star of this gravy? It is very easy, hence no clues. So put on your thinking caps and your microscopic glasses and tell me what you think those big pieces in this gravy are...:D

Laal Mirchicha Thecha...Finally!

How time flies! I cannot believe that its almost 2 months since my last post...I have been really lazy, for sure :). So, in my last post, I got a lot of people excited about laal mirchicha thecha, which really is a type of chutney that goes as a great side, especially with bhaakri (jowar roti). The Thecha which is made with fresh red chillies is not to be taken lightly...it is super hot and needs to be consumed with care. If you are not a person with a ''hot/spicy tooth'' ;), worry not, as there are a number of ways to enjoy this. So before I get lazy again and abandon this post halfway...lets get to the recipe.

Ingredients :
About 15 fresh red chillies
4-5 Garlic cloves
2-3 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp Mohri (mustard seeds)
Hing (Asafoetida)
2 pinches of fenugreek powder
Lemon juice (1 full)
Salt to taste

Method:
Coarsely grind the chillies and garlic in the mixer/food processor and keep aside. Now, in a pan, heat the oil and add the mohri, hing and methi powder (to make methi powder, dry roast the methi seeds, cool them and grind them to a powder). Next, add the ground Chillies to the pan. Stir fry the mixture till it you see the oil separating. Once done, cool it completely and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix well. Store it in the refrigerator for 15-20 days. Your thecha is ready!
There are a number of ways to enjoy this thecha...some of my favorite are :
With plain dal and rice
With bhaakri and spinach bhaaji
With poli (roti) and any bhaaji
To spread some on sandwiches to add some kick ---like in 'Sour cream sandwiches'

Some indirect ways to enjoy this thecha :
Add this thecha to make any bhaaji/sabji to enhance its flavor, especially alu-gobi. Add this to your favorite dal while cooking, or also to your Chinese noodles...you will be pretty happy with the results. This thecha can add the right zing to your Marinara sauce as well as your pizza.
So what are you waiting for...shed all fear and give this thecha a chance to spice up your kitchen ! :)

Sour Cream Sandwiches

I am back ! I know that it seems like a deja vu, but hopefully this time I will not disappear like I did last time. Its amazing how my life changed in a year! Last April , I stumbled upon this beautiful world of food bloggers, and I knew instantly, that this was something i would love to be a part of. With little kitchen experience and a lot of encouragement from all of you, I have managed to complete a year of blogging on 5th April and 50 posts (although, i wasn't really active for the last 4 months...but who is counting right ? ;))! This April, I was buried deep in work with the last few days of tax season, and even managing to cook something at home was a major achievement. So I literally went from a lot of cooking to no cooking in a year. :)

I want to thank all of you for enquiring about my whereabouts and motivating me to come back with all of your wonderful recipes and stories. I would also like to thank my hubby, for his immense patience and tolerance level (as the guinea pig for my experiments), my sister who is always providing me with quick fix recipes and ideas, my mom-in-law for sharing her treasure of recipes with me, and last but not the least....my Mom. If it had not been for her, I would never have developed this skill and Bhaatukli would never have come into existence.

Now, lets talk about today's recipe. Last week, as I was blog hopping to update my blog for the different events going on, I came across this event - The Sandwich Festival, hosted by Anupama of Food-n-More. What a fun event, I thought. Every week, there is at least one day when my lunch box has a sandwich, and there are countless evenings, when I am tired to make anything else, but the humble bread has always provided me with a quick and delicious meal. The sandwich recipe I am sharing with you today, was my discovery in the early days of my marriage (makes me feel really old), when I was trying out different stuff from the American grocery stores and did not have a clue about food blogs. At that time my main resource for new and different recipes was Bawarchi, and I always found very good recipes contributed by readers like us. One day, I went to the grocery store and bought sour cream. I was very excited at the prospect of making something out of this world with this. As I came back home and put the jar of sour cream in the refrigerator, I realized that I the only thing I could think of was sandwiches. But how ? I quickly went to my favorite website for ideas, half expecting to be disappointed. Who would think of making Sour Cream Sandwiches. But to my great surprise and delight, there was someone who thought like me. Yay! I decided to give this recipe a try, and ever since, Sour Cream Sandwich by Saroj Kering, has been a family favorite. The great part about this recipe is that, you can experiment with it and change to your liking. This sandwich is my entry to the Sandwich Festival. I follow the recipe exactly, with a few teeny tiny changes.

Ingredients: (makes 4 Sandwiches)

8 slices of bread (your choice of white, wheat or any other)

2 potatoes

1/4 tsp Turmeric

1/4 tsp garam masala (I generally skip this)

1/2 tsp Jeera powder (Cumin powder)

2-3 green chillies chopped finely (adjust as per your liking)

Lemon juice ( about half a lemon)

Few leaves of cilantro chopped finely

Sour Cream

Grated Cheese ( I use the readymade grated cheese packets -Italian blend/ Mozarella/or whichever I find interesting)

Green Chutney ( recipe to follow)

Sandwich Maker

Method : Green Chutney

To make this chutney, you will need :

A small bunch of cilantro leaves

2 Green chillies

2 tbsp Peanuts (roasted/unroasted but definitely without the skin)

1 tsp Jeera (Cumin seeds)

1/2 tsp Sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

Salt to taste.

Add all the ingredients except sugar, and lemon juice in a mixer/blender and grind together with little bit of water. The consistency should be a little thick, like a paste. Once done, add the sugar and lemon juice and voila, the chutney is ready! You can also add mint leaves if you like.

Method : Sour cream sandwich

Boil the potatoes in the microwave or a pressure cooker. Then mash them and to this, add the turmeric powder, chopped green chillies, cilantro, lemon juice, garam masala (if using), jeera powder and salt. Mix well and keep aside.

Now take a slice of bread, apply the green chutney to it. On another slice, spread a little bit of the potato mixture. Take a dollop of sour cream and apply over the potato mixture. Finally, sprinkle some grated cheese over it and then place the slice of bread with the chutney on top of it to make a sandwich. Place the sandwich in the sandwich maker and cook as per instructions. Repeat process for all the slices of bread. Enjoy hot with some ketchup!

Variation :

Instead of adding green chillies to the potato mixture, I sometimes add laal mirchicha thecha (a type of chutney made with fresh red chillies) to it. This lends a great flavor to the mixture. I will share the recipe for this thecha in my next post.

Gharge -- A sweet begininning (Pumpkin based sweet puri)

The New Year is here! I cannot believe that 2007 is already over...seems like yesterday when I published my first recipe on my blog! Last year was a real turning point for me and I am excited to see what lies ahead in this year for me. I would like to wish all my friends and their families a very happy & prosperous 2008 and I hope that all your dreams come true this year!
As this is my first post for 2008, I thought of starting the year with something sweet. With all the channels bombarding us with diet & gym ads, I decided to rebel. Besides this recipe is one that is mildly sweet and does have a fruit in it. I had actually made this during fall when pumpkins were in abundance, but somehow I just did not manage to post it then. Although it may be difficult to find pumpkins in the store now, you can use any pumpkin/squash that is slightly sweeter in taste and it will work just perfectly.
'Gharge' is a very traditional Maharashtrian sweet that slowly is getting lost in time. I love this sweet for two reasons:
First, its just so yummy --- its not too sweet and even people with a limited sweet tooth will enjoy this, and the second reason is that this was something my maternal grandma made a lot for us and has a lot of memories attached to it.
Gharge is basically a sweet puri that has pumpkin as one if its major ingredient. My grandma generally made this on the eve of 'Hartalika puja'. 'Hartalika' is a Maharashtrian tradition where young girls observe a fast and do a puja to obtain an 'ideal groom'. This falls just before Ganesh Chaturthi. The eve of Hartalika is called 'aawarna', which is a time for all the ladies of the house to get together and have a small feast before their upaas (fast) the next day. After all, we do sacrifice good food for a day ! ;) We always followed this tradition and all my cousins and aunts used to come together and celebrate. And for this occasion my grandma always made these delicious Gharge. So lets get straight to the recipe...

Ingredients: (makes 12 gharge)
2 cups pumpkin peeled and grated (I used the mini pumpkins)
1 cup jaggery (gul)
1/2 cup wheat flour (atta/kanik)
1/2 cup fine rawa/sooji
1/2 tsp tup (ghee)
Vegetable oil to fry

Method:
Peel and then grate the pumpkin. Traditionally we use the regular pumpkin known as 'laal bhopla' in Marathi, but you can replace these with any variety of pumpkin/squash that is slightly sweeter in taste. Now in a kadhai/pan combine the grated pumpkin and jaggery and cook together. Once the the mixture comes together and the pumpkin is cooked add the ghee to it. Remove from the heat and then mix in the wheat flour and rawa to the pumpkin mixture till everything comes together like a dough. The dough should not be too tight nor too elastic. Note that the wheat flour and rawa have to be in 50:50 ratio. Let the dough cool. Once cooled take a small ball of dough on a plastic sheet and pat it into a small puri with your hand. Heat the oil and then fry the puri until golden brown. Drain the these on a tissue paper and enjoy ! Gharge can be consumed immediately or can easily be stored for 10-15 days at room temperature.

Shev & Chivda

So, I am back again! I know, I know...whats new? I have been like the moon these past few months...fortnightly visit ;) I have missed so much of action in the blog sphere! The fact is, I was busy job hunting and finally I found one!!:) I will be starting from Monday which means that posting a recipe frequently is going to be even more difficult henceforth. But I hope to post at least one recipe every week and try and participate in as many blog events as possible. I am really thankful to all of you for all your nice comments on my posts.
Now onto the remaining part of my diwali faral...its late but these recipes are ones that can be enjoyed any time of the year. Enjoy!

Shev

(Shev--- in the bowl on the left hand side of the plate
Chivda---in the center of the plate)
Ingredients:
5 cups Besan (Chickpea flour)
2 tbsp Oil
1/2 tsp Black peppercorns
1/2 tsp Cloves
1/4 tsp Ajwain seeds
2 tsp Cayenne pepper (adjust to your spice level)
Salt to taste
Water to make the dough
Shev press or Chakli press (sorya)
Oil to fry
Method:
Grind together the peppercorns, cloves and ajwain to a powder. In a bowl mix together the besan, oil, ground spice powder, cayenne pepper and salt. Now make a dough out of this mixture with some water. Taste it and adjust the spices. Cover and let rest for 1/2 an hour. Next, heat vegetable oil in a kadhai. Take a small ball of dough and pass it through the shev/chakli press directly into the kadhai. Fry the shev till it turns golden brown. Do not wait till it turns dark brown as it keeps cooking even when removed from the oil. Repeat the process till all the dough is used up.

Chivda

Ingredients: (the quantities are approximate and can be changed as per liking)
2lb Super thin poha (Flattened rice)
7-8 Green chillies chopped
6-7 Curry leaves
2-3 tbsp Dalia split
1/4 cup Dry coconut shavings (khobra)
1/4 cup Peanuts (can use roasted or unroasted, peeled or unpeeled)
2-3 tsp Cayenne pepper
3 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Citric Acid (optional)

For the tadka:
3-4 tbsp Oil
1/2 tsp Mohri (mustard seeds)
1/2 tsp Jeera (Cumin seeds)
1/2 tsp Hing powder
1 tsp Halad (Turmeric)

Method:
First get all the ingredients ready. Take a huge plate and empty the packet of pohe on it. Add salt and cayenne pepper to it. To make dry coconut shavings, just take a regular peeler and run along the edge of the coconut. Now in a big kadhai (use the biggest one you have, makes life easier), heat the oil. Once heated, fry the peanuts a little. Make sure you don't leave them in too long or else they will burn and taste bitter. Same goes for all other ingredients as well. Remove the fried peanuts and add them to the poha. Next fry the coconut shavings and add to the poha. Do the same thing with the dalia split. You can also add some cashews to the chivda. Next, add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds to the oil and let them pop. Then add the hing and turmeric powder. Next, throw in the chopped chillies and fry till they become crunchy. To this add the curry leaves and fry for a minute. Now pour this tadka over the pohe. Mix together.
Now the pohe can be chewy, so to make them crunchy, just transfer them to the kadhai and keep stirring them on very low heat till they become crunchy. You can dry roast the pohe before you make the tadka but I prefer doing it this way, because I tend to burn the pohe. Another easy way to get them crunchy is to put them under the broiler for a couple of minutes, once the chivda is ready. Make sure you keep checking on them and stir them to avoid burning. Once the chivda is ready and crunchy, let it cool completely and then add the sugar and citric acid to it. Mix well. Citric acid is not a traditional addition but my hubby likes the tang it lends to the chivda and so do I. Enjoy with a cup of tea or as a snack with some curds...yum!

Diwalicha Faral

Its been a week since Diwali and I am still recuperating from all the eating!!! My weighing scale is already unhappy with my weight and yet I am amazed that I am indifferent ;) Who cares...its just once a year anyways...right? So although I am late, I would like to share my Diwali snacks with you. It was fun to share it with my friends here and I am happy to share it at least virtually with all my friends in the blog sphere. I am really sorry for not being regular in leaving comments on all the wonderful recipes being posted, but I have been caught up with something and this has made it difficult for me to go through all the blogs. Please bear with me...:)

I made Microwave Besan Ladoo, the recipe for which I have already posted here, Shev (left bowl), Shankarpalya (right bowl) and Chiwda (center).
Lets start with something sweet...since I have already posted the recipe for ladoo, i will begin with the recipe for Shankarpalya. These small sweet squares (in the right hand side bowl) are a great snack and quite addictive. There are variations to this recipe and every variation is just as yummy!

Ingredients:
2 & 3/4 cup Maida
1/2 cup Tup (Ghee) (can use home made or store bought---I used Nanak's pure ghee)
1/2 cup Water
1 cup Sugar (A little more if the sugar is not very sweet)
Tup (Ghee) to fry (Vegetable oil can also be used but taste will be little different)

Method:
Liquefy the ghee and then mix in the water and sugar in it. Heat this mixture and turn it off as soon as it comes to a boil. Let the mixture cool. Then add the maida to it to make the dough. You may require more or less. The dough should be pliable, just like you would make for chapatis. Cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour.
Next, heat the tup or oil in a kadhai. Take a medium sized ball of the dough and roll it like a chapati. Do not roll the dough very thin, otherwise the shankarpalya will be very thin. Then take a knife or a pasta/ravioli cutter and make vertical cuts on the rolled out dough. Next, make horizontal cuts to make little squares. Drop these squares in the hot ghee and fry till they turn golden brown. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Continue till all the dough is used. Shankarpalya are ready.

Coming up : Recipe for Shev

Happy Diwali

To all my friends in the blog sphere,

A Very Happy & Prosperous Diwali to All of you and your Families!

Have fun and I will soon be back with my Diwali treats. :)