Crispy leftover lentil rice jeera (cumin) fritters

 

 

 

 

Invention is always a challenge….Or discovering something that’s experimental and stimulating to the mind and taste buds as well.. Just not with food but with anything don’t we like to wonder if its worth the effort and experimentation and the investment, Well I say sometimes let things be for the joy of it… And if it brings joy to the heart, the returns come to you naturally.. Let the process be fun…no matter what the outcome.

With leftovers sometimes you just want to reheat and have them because else by then they get boring and mundane..

And Leftovers are common. But creatively churning out something that’s worth eating the next day too.. is quite a challenge…

I had left over Dry Spicy Khichdi/ an Indian preparation made from rice and lentils (dal).

Khichdi is commonly considered to be a comfort food, and was the inspiration for the Anglo-Indian dish kedgeree. Khichri is also thought to be the inspiration for the popular Egyptian dish, kushari.

In India Khichdi is usually prepared atleast once a week (Just a guess). An absolute comfort food.
If you are new to this, you must try and have it hot with the family with some pickle of your choice.

A quick recipe of Khichdi would be:

In a pressure cooker, temper in two tsp of hot refined oil, some chopped onions, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and green chillies. Add one cup of lentil (moong/ tuar),one cup of regular rice and three cups of water. Add two pinch of turmeric powder, 1/4th tbsp of red chilly powder, two tbsp or more tomato puree or chopped tomatoes, salt and let pressure cook with two whistles or till rice and lentile are just cooked. Garnish with chopped coriander.

 

So, since I had these leftovers, I ended up whipping these fritters/ snackers that would go perfect with you cuppa tea or coffee.. Click on the link to get a ginger tea recipe done the Indian way.

You can use left over steamed rice too and play with flavours by adding more spices to the fritters dough

The ingredients used in this recipe have a lot character and Indianess ! By that I mean, they all together add to the final recipe and taste!

To make this mathri kind of fritters or snackers,

Take a quarter plate or a big cup of khichdi.
Add 1 and half cup of sieved maida/all purpose flour.
Throw in 1/4th cup of fine semolina and 1/4th cup of sieved rice flour. And one tbsp of gram flour.
Add dry ingredients like, 2 tbsp jeera/cumin seeds, one tsp ajwain/ carom seeds, one tsp turmeric powder, one tbsp red chilly powder, some dry fenugreek/kasuri methi if you have. Add a pinch of baking soda and a pinch of castor sugar.

 

Now add two big onions chopped very very finely and a tbsp of chopped garlic. These added an interesting dimension indeed since the touch of onions added a sweet and crunchy taste/texture.

 

Knead it into a pastry kind of crumble. Do not over knead. Not soft but slightly firm. Add flour as per your judgement here keeping in mind that you would need to roll them and cut into pieces later.

 

Take tiny batches of these kneaded dough and spread on flat surface with a rolling pin. Not too thick. Maintain medium thickness.

Pierce all over.

Cut into pieces of your desired shape.

 

In a deep bottomed pan, heat sufficient oil for deep frying.

Once smoky hot, add these bits and let fry till crisp. Golden brown. Place them in paper towel so excess oil gets absorbed.

 

Let them stand for about 20 minutes.

Enjoy them crisp with a cuppta tea!!

 

Good to keep in mind:

You can also make soft round  flatbreads /parathas  with them if you do not want to deep fry

Cumin seeds add great taste so add as per your whim

Since these have onions and left overs its better not to store them beyond a day. Have them fresh once slightly cooled.

 

 

Instant Creamy Golden Brown Coconut dessert or Instant nariyal barfi

Homemade Coconut Round dessert or laddoos are my all time favourite dessert. I can finish 20 to 30 of them in a matter of two days. No seriously!

 

Since I am out of patience but had the craving.. here is the instant version. No. Not as good as the original. But perfect and delicious for sudden sweet cravings…if you know what I mean.

 

 

So, take two cup of dessicated coconut (readily available in food outlets)

 

Dessicated coconut is crisp, snow white in colour and has a sweet pleasant and fresh taste of the nut. It is made from fresh coconuts which are harvested at just the right time to ensure the best flavor. The coconut is then dried to the perfect moisture content to ensure long shelf life, best flavor and mouth feel. is produced from matured coconuts and the white coconut meat is granulated into the various desired cuts and is available as Macaroon, Medium, Flakes, Shreds, Chips, or as Coconut Flour. It’s also available either as Sweetened, Toasted, or Toasted Sweetened. It can be used as a substitute to grated fresh coconut in household preparations. It is a very important coconut kernel based product having very good demand all over the world in the confectionery and allied food industries (Source:tarladalal.com)

 

 

Toast them well in a deep bottomed pan by continuously stirring for a minute.

Add one cup of sugar granules and stir well. CONTINUOUSLY!

The aroma now will fill your kitchen and senses completely. But don’t get all lost…Stir as you watch these two ingredients turn golden brown and gooey…

Once golden brown, moist and not burnt! add one cup  of condescend milk goodness to it and stir/mix for another minute.

Remove from the gastop/flame.

Spread it in a plate carefully. Once slightly warm cut into square or triangular pieces….

Just in case you do not finish them all up, store them in an air tight container for upto a week or more..

 

 

coconuty rustic charm

 

Toasted Golden Brown Coconut Dessert

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Sweet Mushy Banana Coconuty Fritters

 

 

Happens to me a lot..but these fritters… I tell you they are delicious if you have the slightest of sweet tooth!

 

 

 

 

I enjoy very particular kind of sweet stuff.

And I love these. Have always done. Sweet, savoury, deep fried,  with a lingering soft taste in the mouth and something you can pop in the mouth the next day too…and the next…

Nostalgia. Family. Togetherness.  The fritters personify these things and more…

HOW  DO I MAKE IT ?

Take two almost ripe bananas to prepare this recipe. Mash them and keep aside.

3/4th cup all purpose flour / maida

Two tbsp wheat flour/ aata

One tbsp rava/sooji/semolina (For crispiness)

Two tbsp rice flour (For crispiness)

l/4th cup of ready made desiccated coconut or better still FRESHLY GRATED COCONUT..

3/4 cup of milk

1/4th cup of condensed milk

half a cup of sugar

2 tbsp jaggery

1 tsp baking powder and a punch of baking soda (Just avoid if you don’t want to use these)

 

 

 

 

Mix mashed banana, sieved all purpose flour, sieved wheat flour, sieved rava (semolina), sieved rice flour, coconut,  and sieved baking powder and soda together.

Now, preheat a deep bottomed solid pan to melt the sugar and jaggery. I usually screw up sugar caramelization process so got to be careful if you are new at this too..

Once slightly preheated add the sugar granules. Let them turn brown from the edges. Stir initially and then stop stirring to avoid them from getting crystallized. These sugary lil things can turn evil and go all sticky and hard within miliseconds.. Add the jaggery pieces after 10 secs or so . Just when the sugar granules are slightly light brown add the milk and stir till it all mixes well into a smooth consistency.

Add this beautiful liquid to the dry mixture of flour. Add slowly and keep mixing with a whisk  to avoid lumps. Add the condensed milk and let it cuddle up well too.The consistency should be slightly runny like a pancake batter but not too thin or thick. Add milk accordingly.

Now, while this liquid rests, take a deep bottomed pan in a gastop  and fill with two cups of oil for deep frying. I like to add 1/4th of clarified butter or ghee too for a beautiful flavour.  Let the oil get smoky on medium flame.

Now, take a ziplock plastic bag and fill it with the banana, flour mixture that you have already gotten ready. Or use hands!

In the hot oil deep fry by slowly adding little rounds of the mixture. See how they puff up ! 🙂 Dont worry about the shapes 😉 its okay to have uneven shapes. They add to the rustic memories…and traditions of cooking homemade recipes..

 

 

Do it in a batch of 4 to 5 fritters if you are new at this.  Keep an eye to make sure the oil doesn’t get so hot as to burn up, so keep lowering the heat as and when you feel the fritters are going too dark. Look for golden brown . Try different shapes if you want.

Some like to shallow fry it too like tiny pancakes…

Let the oil get absorbed in a paper towel every time you take they off the pan after frying.

 

 

 

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Sewai Kheer/ Vermicelli dessert – a rich noodly milky delight

Sweet vermicelli kheer or dessert

A lil birdie visited me today. I saw her and thought to myself, she must be hungry… And so was I… Well she flew away, but the thought remained…

The TV telecasted sweet savories and the mind played tunes of some sweet and bitter memories…while calls poured in since it was a so-called special day…

While I sat back relaxed…not in the mind though, I decided to whip up  a sweet vermicelli/sewai kheer.

Rice Kheer is a popular dish on special occasions, but many like the sewai version better because its less heavy and tastes beautiful and sometimes like sweet soupy noodly goodly delight…

As Wikipedia aptly informs…”Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section similar to spaghetti.…The dish in the original language are variously known as seviyan in Urdu and Hindi, shemai in Bengali, sev in Gujarati, shavige in Kannada, sevalu or semiya in Telugu, and semiya in Tamil and Malayalam. The noodles are used in a number of dishes including a variation of kheer, a sweet dessert similar to rice pudding. Vermicelli are also used in many parts of India to make a popular dish called upma. ”

Sometimes, you don’t want a full fancy meal but want to revive old memories…you want replicate the original with right proportions..and nothing fusiony, experimental.. because somethings are good the good’ol original way!

For this recipe for two servings..

–>You need One litre of full cream good quality milk. Since milk is the main ingredient here. So no comprise!

–>Half a fist of sewai/vermicilli or a ratio of 2:6 (6 being milk)

–>Sugar: one fourth quantity of the milk or 2 to 3 tbsps of sugarfree sweetners for the calorie conscious.. sigh!

–>Milkmaid or condensed milk

–> Cashews, raisins, almonds

–>Cardamom powder if you like the taste of cardamom

–>Saffron (Optional..add if you want to add that shaahi/royal touch)

• Let the milk boil in a deep thick bottomed pot on low flame till reduced. Try reducing it to half by continuously supervising that the milk doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pan. You can ensure that by stirring it in between, and keeping a ladle in the milk.

• Take  another pan and roast the broken vermicelli in half tsp of ghee/clarified butter.
• Use a roasted vermicelli packet in which case you need to roast these for 2 to 3 minutes only otherwise till lightly pink or golden brown.

• Keep the vermicilli aside and roast the nuts in the same pan in ghee and switch off flame once they are just about roasted. Keep an eye to avoid burning of these nutty nuts.
• Meanwhile once the milk starts reducing add the sugar and milkmaid.

• After stirring and having reduced the milk to desired level,  add the vermicelli evenly.  (Actually since we are using condensed milk, you might avoid reducing it all the way to half, reducing it just a little to get a thicker texture is enough)

• Stir to avoid lumps from forming.
• Add the raisins so that they swell up and cuddle up with the lovely ingredients that have already created a storm in the pot with a lovely aroma.

• After another 10 to 12  minutes add the roasted nuts and if you like few roasted grated almonds.
• Sprinkle little pinch of cardamom powder.
• Add the few saffron strands.
• Switch off the flame.
• Let it stand for couple of minutes. Serve slightly warm in your favourite bowl and I say two spoons for a sweet, memorable experience with your loved one.

Might be good to keep in mind:

–> Vermicelli  have a tendency to thicken up in milk so its better to take lesser quantity compared to the milk and have it warm.
–>Roasting the nuts before adding to the kheer helps get a rich aroma, although personally I like the kheer without any nuts or raisins somehow
–>The things with such sweet /dessert is that the proportion is very important and the method helps make or break the dish.
–>Sometimes lot of people do not reduce the milk for this kind of dessert, but reducing it gives the rich gooey creamy taste and texture of milk that makes the cooking worth it. Just make sure that the quantity of vermicelli is much much lesser to the milk.

–>Once you add the vermicelli the texture starts thickening. So its good to keep an eye.

–>If you in trouble reducing the milk and to not burn it at the bottom consider using a thick bottomed kadhai and you are safe!

–> Try the chilled version with kulfi and some chopped cadbury chocolates for another heavenly experience

–>Adding the raisins while cooking helps them swell up which many love to eat that way only

  

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Colourful basic mix veg recipe

Well, its a beautiful morning and loved the colours on the sky…the untouched guitar still added music to the room silently…music of thoughts…

and then the mind wanders  on to whatever colourful was there in the fridge.. orange, green, white, brown….
You open the fridge and you wonder what to cook really! What today…
Sometimes just mix and match the veggies you have got with you..

The recipe I share today with almost realtime images and videos is easy, simple and colourful. Flavours of basic Indian spices. The process can be replicated with any of the other available dishes and you have a handy dish ready anyday, anytime.

Pick some Cauliflowers (phulgobhi), carrots (gajar), potato (aloo), capsicums (shimla mirch),and fresh coriander leaves .

Blanch the cauliflower by putting them in boiling water for a minute and transferring into a bowl of icecold water. Strain them dry.

VEGGIES from the street food sabziwala

Dice the veggies into whatever shape you like. I was in hurry so I went for diced square medium sized ones.

Preheat a deep pan for a minute. Add one tablespoon oil in a deep pan. Let it heat on medium flame. Add pinch of cumin seeds and mustard seeds (saabut jeera and rai).

Once they start spluttering, add the veggies except the tender colourful capsicum.

After say 5 mins of stirring it gently on high heat, lower the heat. Add, a pinch of turmeric powder (haldi), one big tsp of coriander powder (dhaniya powder), red chilly powder (laal mirchi), and pinch of garam masala.With it throw in freshly grated ginder of about half tsp.

Add the capsicums in the end . Stir for half a minute. Add the coriander leaves. Squeeze in half a lemon and some water (1/4th of a medium coffee cup)

Cover the lid and let cook slowly for 7 to 8 mins.

And we are done! 🙂

Enjoy with hot rotis/naan/steamed of any form of rice.

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Quench Quick Dessert Craving

Add chocolate sauce between two slices of bread and grill them with butter till golden brown!

Have them and serve them happy!