Setting curds with red chilli

 We used to travel a lot and on coming back, to start setting the curds again, it was a difficult job to hunt for starter curd. When the starter was used from factory made curd, it used to take a couple of batches to get the proper taste. So it was a real boon when I got this easy method to set curds.

Ingredients

1 cup boiled, slightly cooled milk

1 red chilli along with its stalk

Instruction

Bring the milk to boil and allow it to cool a little.

-          Drop the red chilli along with its stalk into the warm (almost hot) milk.

-          Cover it and keep in a warm place. It may take 12 to 18 hours to set nicely.

-          This can be used as starter curd to set further batches of delicious curd.

-          Since the curd set with the red chilli will have the strong flavour of chilli, you may not enjoy eating it as it is, but can be used to make kadhi.

Khoba roti

Khoba roti comes from Rajasthan, where I got married. The word khoba means indentation. The indentations are made by pinching the surface to create the design. It is a lot thicker than regular rotis and the indentations serve to cook it evenly. First time I made it by baking, then I started cooking it on a thava (skillet), which is much easier and less time consuming.

Khoba roti with methi malai matar, cucumber carrot beetroot salad and lemon pickle

Ingredients

2 cups wheat flower, for one roti

2 tbsps melted ghee

Salt to taste

1 cup water

Instruction

-          Take the flour, add salt and ghee.

-          Rub the flour between the fingers to coat the entire flour with ghee.

-          Add water little by little to knead stiff dough. Coat with some ghee and let it rest covered for 15 minutes.

-          Roll into a round of about 1 cm thick, without dusting with dry flour. Keep the thava on low flame.

-          Make slashes on one side with a knife to prevent it from puffing up while cooking.

-          Turn it upside down and make the floral design by pinching it, starting from the center, going round and round to the periphery.

-          Put the slashed side down in the hot thava. Keep the flame low.

-          When the underside is cooked (in 6 to 8 minutes), flip upside down gently and cook the side with floral design ( takes about 4 minutes).

-          Finally, you can take the floral side over the flame directy for a few seconds.

-          Put butter or ghee on top while serving.

  

Candied orange peel

 I used to feel sad to see the beautiful orange peels being thrown away. Never knew it is so easy to make candied orange peels. Taking guidance from this site I prepared them yesterday and they turned out delicious.

Ingredients

4 orange peels, the inner softer part scraped off with a spoon

1 cup sugar

2 cups water

2 tbsps sugar powder

Instruction

-          Cut the orange peel into long strips. Take water in a saucepan and put the cut peels into it, put on high flame and let it boil.

-          Strain the peels, fill the saucepan again with water, put the peels and bring it to boil again. It is boiled twice to remove the bitterness.

-          Strain the peels, put them back into the saucepan, and add 1 cup sugar and 2 cups water. Put on high flame, bring it to boil, reduce the flame and let it simmer for half an hour.

-          Take out the peels and put them over wire mesh and let dry for 24 hours. 

-      The left over sugar syrup I added to yoghurt and we had a delicious dish.

-          Roll the peels in powdered sugar and now it is ready!

-          Enjoy the tongue tingling taste of the candied orange peels and the left over ones can be refrigerated to be consumed later.