Roasted Sponge Gourd

The high fiber content of sponge gourd contributes to healthy digestive system. It also contains high amounts of  vitamin C, riboflavin, zinc, thiamine, iron, and magnesium. It can be used in salads. Roasted sponge gourd is a delicious preparation.

Ingredients

2 sponge gourds

2 tbsps of oil

Salt to taste

½ tsp turmeric powder

½ red chilli powder

1 tsp coriander powder

Instruction

-          Scrape the surface of sponge gourd, wash and cut it lengthwise and cross wise to make four pieces

-          Preheat oven to 180 degrees

-          Smear oil on aluminium foil, arrange the pieces over it, cut side up. Sprinkle all the masala powders, salt and drizzle oil over the surface

-          Keep it inside the oven. After eight to ten minutes, turn them over and cook for six to eight minutes more  and they are ready

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.

 

 

Bread pudding

 

Ingredients

6 slices of bread

Half litre milk

60 grams sugar

2 eggs

15 raisins

A pinch of nutmeg powder

Instructions

-       Cut bread into small pieces

-       Boil the milk and pour over bread, set aside for half hour.

-       Beat the eggs until creamy add to the bread milk mixture.

-       Add the sugar, nutmeg powder, raisins and mix well.

-       Pour the mixture into greased vessel and cover it.

-       Pour 2 cups of water in the pressure cooker and keep the covered vessel inside.

-       Close the lid and place the cooker on maximum heat.

-       Bring to full cooking pressure, reduce to medium heat and cook for 15 minutes. Allow the cooker to cool gradually.

-       Take out the vessel, invert it onto a plate.

-       Cut into pieces and serve. It can be refrigerated and served  cold also

 

Ginger Candy

 Ginger candies are easy to make and they are nice to chew on cold days. You will feel heat being generated inside the body while chewing it.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups ground ginger, ground with a little milk to make a paste

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk powder

2 tsps ghee

½ cup sugar powder

Instruction

-          Keep the ginger paste and sugar on fire on medium fire and keep stirring.

-          When it becomes a little thick, add the milk powder and the ghee, mix well and let it become thick again.

-          Remove from fire and slowly keep adding the sugar powder and mix well.

-          Pat it down on a plate smeared with ghee and when it is a little cool, cut into squares.

-          When cooled thoroughly, store in air tight bottle.

Banana Halwa

Ingredients

3 Kerala bananas

3 tbsps of ghee

3/4 cup jaggery

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

Instructions

• Peel and slice the bananas and grind to a paste.
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• Keep a thick bottomed pan on fire, add the ghee. When it melts, add the ground bananas and lower the flame.
• Keep stirring in between to prevent sticking to the bottom.
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• Meanwhile, keep the jaggery with water on fire and let it dissolve in water completely.
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• When the banana paste starts separating from the sides, add the melted jaggery, mix in slowly 
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• and let it be on low fire till it becomes quite thick. Add the cardamom powder and mix well. 
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• Pat it down on a ghee smeared plate and cut into pieces when cool. If you want to keep it for longer time, refrigerate it.
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• It is a nice accompaniment for tea and coffee.