Strawberry Cake

Strawberry is in season and this cake highlights this seasonal fruit in full glory.

My family fell in love with this cake. And I thoroughly enjoyed baking it as all the ingredients are measured in cups and not in grams. It is easy to assembly. 

Must I add how beautiful it looks?!

This is a Martha Stewart recipe.

I have followed the recipe to the 'T' but have not used 1 pound of strawberry.

Grease a 9 inch cake tin

Preheat oven at 180 C for 10 minutes.

There are 2 different temperature settings used in this recipe, so be aware.

Ingredients:

Maida / all purpose flour - 1 and 1/2 cups

Baking powder - 1 and 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Sugar powdered - 1 cup + 2 tbsp

Butter / oil / margarine - 6 tbsp

Egg - 1 large (or 1 medium and 1/2 of another mixed egg)

Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Milk - 1/2 cup

Strawberry - 1 packet, washed and cut into 1/2 ( if some strawberries don't look good, then chop them up)

Method:

Sieve the maida / flour, baking powder and salt together. Keep aside.

Beat the butter and 1 cup sugar until fluffy.

Add in the egg and vanilla essence beat well.

Add the milk and flour mixture in batches and fold (not beat) into the egg mixture.

The batter will be very thick.

Add in the chopped berries and fold it in.

Now pour into the greased cake tin and flatten the top. Make a slight well in the middle (so that when it bakes, it gets an even top).

Arrange the halved strawberry on top. No need to press down.

Dust with the 2 tbsp sugar.

Bake for 10 minutes at 170 C.

Then lower oven temperature to 160 C and bake for 1 hour / 60 minutes.

One pot white pasta

I love anything cooked in a single pot. That means just one vessel to wash. Everyone can wash their own plates!!

Remember it is one pot, but not really 'healthy' as it has loads of cheese and 1 tbsp butter.

Recipe was inspired by 'One Pot Chef'.
I have added broccoli to my pasta, but it is optional.

Do try the pasta in red tomato sauce. It is also a one pot recipe too!

Serves : 3

Ingredients:

Pasta - 200gms

Water - 2 & 1/2 cups

Milk - 1 cup

Salt

Mixed herbs - 1 tsp

Garlic crushed - 1 heaped tbsp

Onion chopped fine - 3 tbsp

Parmesan cheese grated - 1 cup

Spring onion chopped (both white and green) - 4 tbsp
Broccoli (optional) - 1 cup

Olive oil - 2 tbsp

Butter - 1 tbsp

If you want , you may add mushroom instead of broccoli. Just saute with the onion and remember to take it out of the pan when it browns. Add just before serving.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot / pan.

Add in the garlic and fry till aromatic.

Next add the onion. Fry on medium flame till transparent.

Add in the water, milk, butter, salt and mixed herbs.

When it boils , add in the pasta.
If you are adding the broccoli, add it when the pasta is 3/4 cooked.
Once the pasta gets cooked and almost all the liquid has evaporated, tip in 3/4 of the cheese and spring onion.

Mix well.

Serve hot garnished with rest of the cheese and spring onion.

Kozhakkattai

Every Tamil Brahmin would have heard this song - "Amma , amma kozhakkattaikku kannum undo di?"
Translation: Mummy, does kozhakkattai have eyes?
The story goes likes this.
A mother made kozhakkattai for her many kids before going for her afternoon nap. The children were told, they must each take a fixed number of pieces. But it turns out that the elder ones over ate and they dunk a frog into the gruel to tease the younger one. So when the youngest one opens the lid of the vessel he sees 2 eyes peering at him. He runs to his mother with this question.

This is a very traditional dish made with a Kerala special rice - Puzhukkal ari, or parboiled rice. Rice is ground with coconut and salt into a very thick paste and balls of paste are boiled in of water.
The result is like dumplings in thick soup. These are had with thick chutney.

My mother-in-law, Mrs.Rajam Ganapathy, makes excellent kozhakkattai.And this is her recipe.

Yield - 20 kozhakkattai
Ingredients :
Parboiled rice / Puzhukkal arisi / brown chemba rice - 1 & 1/2 cups
Coconut - 1 cup
Salt
Water

Wash and soak the rice in water for minimum 6 hours, preferably overnight.

Use a wet grinder for best results.
Grind the soaked rice with minimum / almost nil amount of water.

When it is coarsely ground, add the salt and coconut.

Grind for another minute and take out this thick paste from the grinder.

Boil 6 large cups of water with a little salt in a deep vessel.
Make small balls of the rice paste

Add each ball into boiling salted water.

The water must be always simmering.
The color of the water and the balls also changes.

Cook for 15 - 20 minutes and run a knife through one kozhakkatai. If knife comes out almost clean, then your kozhakkattai is done. Otherwise boil for another 10 minutes.

If your kozhakkatai disintegrates, then you have added too much water while grinding.
Serve with chutney of your choice.

Chinese mixed vegetable soup

A wholesome soup with vegetables and noodles. Almost a complete meal.

Ingredients:
Ginger - 1 tsp
Garlic - 1 tsp
Green chilli - 1 tsp
Onion - 3 tbsp
Carrot - 1/2 medium, cut into rounds
Mushroom - 3
Cabbage - 2 tbsp
Tomato - 1 medium
Mint leaves - 1 tsp (optional)
Coriander leaves - 1 tsp
Capsicum - 1 tbsp
Corn flour - 1 heaped tbsp mixed with 1/2 cup water
Soy sauce - 1&1/2 tbsp
salt (add less in the beginning )
Pepper - 1 tsp
Noodles - 1 cup, broken
Vinegar - 1 tbsp
Oil - 1 tbsp

Preparation:
Keep all the vegetables chopped and every other ingredient close by. We have to do the initial cooking on high flame.

Take a heavy bottomed vessel ( I used a pressure cooker bottom).
Heat the oil on high flame and when it starts smoking, add in the ginger, garlic and green chilli.

After 30 seconds, add the onion.

After 30 seconds, add in the mushroom and carrot.

Stir this for a minute , but take care to not break the mushroom.
Next add in the rest of the chopped vegetables.

After 1 minute of frying, add the salt, pepper and soy sauce.
Pour in 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.
Add in the broken noodles.

Reduce flame and cook without covering till the carrot softens.
Mix in the corn flour slurry.

When the soup thickens, turn off flame.

Add the vinegar, while it is still hot.

Taste and adjust the salt / pepper level. Add more soy sauce if you want.

Serve hot and enjoy!

Orange Chilli Dipping Sauce

When I made Vietnamese rice rolls at home, I searched the web for a dip recipe.
After much searching , I zeroed in on this recipe.The orange juice in the dip adds a lot of freshness and zing.

Recipe Courtesy : Food Network, The Cookworks, 2003

The original recipe uses 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice and 3 tbsp sugar. I substituted this with Tang powder, as I did not have orange at home.

Ingredients:
Tang orange juice powder - 1 1/2 tbsp mixed in 1/2 cup water
Soya sauce - 2 tbsp
Lime - 1/2, just the juice
Til oil / sesame oil - 1 tbsp
Chilli flakes - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp

Method:
Shake all the ingredients together in a bottle with a tight lid.
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Keep aside till serving time.

Banana Roast

Both my "all time favorite" evening snacks are made with banana - nenthira pazham to be exact and loaded with calories. They are Banana Roast and Pazham pori / battered banana fritters
.

(image from google)

When we were at school, my mom used to keep this post-school 'snack' ready, if there were ripened bananas at home. I used to look forward to having these banana slivers roasted in ghee and topped with crunchy sugar. Heart clogging calorie snack!
Oh! How I wish I could eat this now without being killed by guilt!!

Recipe is very simple.
Cut each banana into 3 - 4 thin long pieces.
Heat liberal amount of ghee in a non stick pan.
Shallow fry each side till golden.
Transfer to a plate and top with sugar.

Ginger Chilli Pickle

This no oil - no cook pickle is almost like a spicy salad!!

I had some fresh turmeric root, which I have added, only because it was in season and available.

The following ingredients have been mixed in the ratio, my family likes. I have reduced ginger and added more green chilli, but you may add the same quantity of ginger and green chilli.

Ingredients:
Green chilli - 150 gms
Ginger - 50 gms
Turmeric - 30 gms (optional / when in season)
Salt - 2 tbsp
Lemon - 3 + 2

Wash, clean and dry all the roots and green chillies.

Chop the ginger, turmeric root into small slivers. Cut the green chilli into 1 cm cylinders. 

Cut 2 lemons into quarters, yielding a total of 8 pieces. There is no need to remove the seeds.

Take a clean dry bottle and add all the chopped ingredients and top with salt and juice of 3 lemons.

Mix well and keep closed bottle in direct sunlight for 2 days, mixing / shaking bottle whenever possible.

Pickle will be ready in 2 days.

Enjoy without guilt!

Mohantaal

A Gujarati sweet. 

Thanks to Shefali and Arvind, I got to taste this amazing sweet.

Kadalamav / besan / chick pea flour - 150 gms

Ghee - 75 gms

Milk - 1/4 cup

Sugar - 90 to 100 gms 

Saffron - 1 pinch

Cardamom - 3 pods

Unsweetened khoya - 60 gms, grated

Almond slivers - 5 tbsp

Crucial step:

Mix the flour with 15 gms of ghee.

Next add in the milk one teaspoon at a time and try to NOT make a dough. Even if it does, do not worry.

Pass it through a wide holed sieve, so that it looks like bread crumbs.

It MUST be sieved.

Grate the khoya and pound the cardamom seeds.

Grease a square tin and keep aside.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Preparation:

Heat the rest of the ghee in a thick bottomed vessel on a low flame and pour in the besan crumbs.

Stir often.

Start boiling the sugar in 1/2 cup water with the saffron.

Stir the besan mixture, always on a low flame, till it becomes golden brown in colour. This will take around 15 minutes. Keep stirring often. Turn off flame (when the mixture becomes golden brown) immediately. 

Add the khoya and cardamom to the hot besan mix and mix well.

The saffron water mixture must reach one string stage. Pour this into the besan mixture.

Mix well and pour while still hot into the greased mould and garnish with the slivered almonds.

When the mixture is warm cut into desired shape. Do not unmould till it becomes room temperature.