Melanzane Parmigiana

 

A classic Italian dish made with Aubergine or brinjal. It is almost like a lasagna but the pasta is replaced by Aubergine and the white sauce by cheese.

Ingredients:

Aubergine / Bhartha baingan - 750 gms

Tomato - 500 gms

Garlic - 2 pods

Salt

Red chilli flakes

Basil leaves - 4

Sugar - 1 pinch

Tomato ketchup 😉 - 1 tbsp

Olive oil - 2 tbsp 

Cheese - 250 gms

Method:

Cut the aubergine into thick 1 cm rounds and apply salt lightly on both sides. Keep aside for 1 hour. Then use a towel to squeeze out the extra water. Grill on a hot pan till lightly brown.

To make Tomato sauce:

Hear olive oil and fry the finely chopped garlic. Add the chopped tomato, salt, red chilly flakes, basil leaves and cook till the tomato becomes mushy. Add the tomato ketchup and sugar. Mix well and once cool, make a smooth purée. 

Layering and baking:

Take an oven proof dish and apply a thin layer of tomato sauce. Place the grilled aubergine and now add more tomato sauce. Add a thick layer of grated cheese. Next a layer of aubergine tomato sauce and cheese.

Repeat till you finish your stock of grilled melanzane, sauce and cheese.

Cover with aluminium foil.

Bake at 180 C for 45 minutes.

Baked sweet potato with salad

Indians bake. But mostly Cakes and breads. And I had not baked in days. Navrathri just got over and Diwali is in the offing. So, today I baked sweet potato and served with a simple salad and Mushrooms.

So easy to make. Just pop everything into the oven; mix your salad and serve!

Oven Temperature : 200C

Ingredients:
Sweet potato - 3 (250 gm each)
Mushroom - 200 gm (optional)
Garlic - 10 pods (optional)
Onion - 1 medium
Tomato - 3 medium
Green chilly - 2
Coriander leaf - 3 tbsp (garnish)
Spring onion - 1 tbsp (garnish)
Lemon - 1
Olive oil - 4 tbsp
Salt
Pepper

Method:
Preheat oven for 10 minutes.
Wash and scrub the sweet potato to remove all grime and dirt.
Pat dry.
Brush olive oil over the potatoes and sprinkle salt.

Lay on a tray covered with aluminium foil (shiny side up) and bake for 45 minutes. Turn each potato after 20 minutes.
If you want to add mushrooms and garlic do the same as you did for sweet potatoes and put them into the oven when there is still 20 minutes baking time left. (I have added 1 quartered onion too.)

Salad:
Cut the onion and tomato into strips. Add sliced green chilly.
Just before serving, add salt and lime juice. Mix well.

Serving:
Slit the sweet potato down the middle and top with the salad.
Serve with baked Mushroom (garnished with pepper), baked garlic, onion and a slice of lemon.
Garnish with Coriander leaf and spring onion.

Turkish Pide

One thing we bought from London was.....a cook book. A Turkish vegetarian cookbook. Makes no sense, but that is what I insisted on buying.

Yes, I am strange.

One recipe that caught my eye was Pide (pronounced pie-day). It is a bread served plain. There is also a stuffed variety available made mostly with meat and cheese. It is shaped like a boat.

This is supposed to be the 'father of pizza'.

It is quite easy to make, not extremely easy.

Ingredients:

For the bread:
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Yeast - 1/2 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Oil - 2 tbsp

For the filling:
Onion -2 medium
Garlic - 4 cloves
Paneer / cottage cheese - 200 gm
Salt
Chilly powder - 1 tbsp
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Tomato - 3 medium
Mint leaves - 3 tbsp
Celery - 1 stalk
Oil - 4 tbsp

Topping (optional):
Jalapenos (Bhajia chilli)

To serve: 
Lemon slices

My advice: Make the filling slightly spicier than you would usually, as the bread will balance it.

Method:

Bread:
Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, yeast.
Add enough water to make a smooth dough.
Knead for 5 minutes and then add 1 tbsp oil and knead again for 5 more minutes.
Coat the kneaded dough with 1 tbsp oil and keep covered in a vessel for it to double in size. (90 minutes)

Filling:
Heat oil in a heavy vessel and fry thr onion and garlic till garlic becomes translucent.
Add the paneer and fry till it becomes golden brown.
Add the tomato and all the powders.
Fry till all the water evaporates.
Turn off flame, allow to cool and add the celery and mint leaves.

How to proceed:
Preheat oven to 250 C for 15 minutes.
Knead the dough again and divide into 6 pieces.
Roll out thinly into a long flat strip.
Place this on top of a buttered butter paper.
Place the filling in the middle.
Bring both the sides together and pinch the ends, so that it resembles a boat.
Coat with oil on the exposed sides of the bread. You can put some til seeds if you wish.
Place the Jalapenos over it.
Bake for 10 - 12 minutes till the sides get golden brown.
Cool a bit.
Cut each pide into 3 inch slices and serve.

Pictorial:

Eggless Mango Cheesecake

Cheesecake is not really a favorite, but I wanted to try a recipe of cheesecake; just for knowing if I can make it! Strange, isn't it? But when the 'cooking-bug' bites, then there is no logic!!

All the cheesecake recipes had upto 4 eggs or gelatine.
Since we are moving from being eggatarian to complete vegetarian, it was a no-no.

And cream cheese. What was that?! Mostly unavailable in the stores of India; very expensive at gourmet stores.

Good Food Magazine, January 2015 issue had a recipe of 'salted caramel swirl cheesecake' using paneer / Indian cottage cheese and had no eggs or gelatine. PERFECT!! And the recipe was very easy.

I substitued the carmel with mango jam and fresh mango.

Oven temperature : 160 C

Ingredients:
Marie Biscuit - 100 gms
Butter - 25 gms, melted + extra
Powdered Sugar - 80 + 20 gms
Paneer - 400 gms
Fresh Cream - 100 gms
Vanilla essence - 3 drops
Corn flour - 2 tbsp
Mango Jam - 5 tbsp
Freshly cut mango for garnish

Method:
Preheat oven for 10 minutes.

Powder the marie biscuit and add the 20 gms sugar. Mix well.
Add the melted butter to the powdered biscuit and mix well.
Grease a 18 cm loose bottomed round cake tin with the extra butter.
Press the biscuit mixture at the bottom of the tin and level it.
Bake for 5 minutes and remove. Cool to room temperature.

Blend together the paneer, corn flour, vanilla essence and fresh cream with 80 gms of sugar until smooth and well combined.

Once the base cools, pour 3/4 of the paneer mixture into the cake tin over the biscuit layer. Spread evenly.
Top with the mango jam and spread this also evenly over the paneer.
Top with rest of the paneer and level again.

Cover with an aluminium foil and bake for 35 minutes.
Place a small oven proof vessel filled with water next to the cake tin to prevent the surface of the cheesecake from cracking.
After 35 minutes, remove aluminium foil and bake for a further 15-20 minutes. The middle will be slightly wobbly.
Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate covered and before serving, top with freshly cut mangoes.

Bread / Bun / Pav

Baking bread has always been a dream for me. I waned to never buy bread and over the years I have tried many recipes, some a success like ciabatta and jewish white bread and some breads are very elusive - like a whole wheat bread.

I attended a baking class some years ago, conducted by Mrs.Anitha Issac and she gave a simple recipe of white sandwich bread. But what I took away mainly from that class was how to fold the bread! The recipe was not really all that great.

Ciabatta recipe is easy and good. The bread is very tasty with many air pockets. But you do not knead the dough, so shaping it into a loaf is an issue.

Jewish white bread does not smell like the bakery bread which we enjoy a lot. (presence of egg?).

And then came the news in the papers that almost all the packaged bread is filled with chemicals and preservatives. My search was getting desperate. 

Watch how industries make bread using machines : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-U-BHB-mrM

Around this time my husband ate 'the tastiest bread'. It was made by Mrs.Suman Kenny and when I messaged her she told me she made 'milk bread from the wok's life' blog. The recipe used both egg and heavy cream. I decided that I will use either banana or milk in the place of egg and since I did not have 'heavy cream' , I added 1 big tbsp butter to my milk.

Oven Temperature : 180 C

Ingredients (for 1 loaf or 12 pav):

All purpose flour / maida - 2 cups + some more

Sugar (powdered) - 2 tbsp (1/6 cup)

Yeast - 1/2 tbsp

Salt - 3/4 tbsp

Milk - 180 ml (1/2 cup + 1/3 cup)

Butter - 1 tbsp heaped (room temperature)

Oil for greasing proofing vessel and bread loaf tin

Method:

Mix together the flour, sugar and salt. 

Add in the yeast and mix well.

Add the butter and crumble it well to incorporate it into the flour.

Add the milk and start kneading. Add 1/4 cup more of flour if you feel it is too sticky. 

Knead for 5 minutes.

Grease a vessel and place the kneaded dough inside it.

Cover and proof until doubled. (In South India = 1 hour)

After 1 hour, knead the dough for 5 minutes and shape.

Grease the loaf tin and set aside.

Shaping the loaf

Spread the kneaded dough into a rectangle and fold the thirds like an envelop. Bottom third towards the middle and top third on top of the middle.

Pinch the edges and place in a greased bread baking loaf tin with the pinched side down.

If you wish to make Pav bhaji bread then shape into small balls and place within 1 inch of each other.

Dust the loaf / pav with more flour on top.

Proof again under a damp cloth for 1 hour.

After proofing the pav will look like this.

 Just before baking, slash 2 slits on top of the ordinary loaf with a sharp blade or you can try these designs too.

You might love to watch this slovenian chef make art on bread!

Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Remove from tin and cool.

You can brush butter or sugar syrup on top to get a glazed look.

Once cool , use a serrated knife to cut into slices.

Homemade Phyllo Filo pastry sheet (eggless) / Brick Pastry / Moroccan Warka

So thin!

Crispy spring rolls

I usually buy the pastry sheets which I use to make my samosa and spring rolls. My friend, Mrs. Safeena Harris, does make her own sheets, but the time and effort involved will make tears well up in your eyes!
Yesterday while watching Masterchef Australia, they mentioned something called 'pate au bric' or something like that. They also said that usually it is used to encase savory fillings and then baked / deep fried. Surely I had to get hold of the recipe!
After researching online, I got to know that it is indeed something like filo pastry, but a lot thinner. It is Moroccan / north African in origin and is called - warka there.
I followed a video online to make my warka sheets. Find the Link here.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 150 gms
Salt - 1 tsp / 2 gms
Water - 1 cup + 2 tbsp
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
Olive oil - 1 tbsp

Method:
Mix all the above into a smooth paste, and keep covered and refridgerated overnight.

 After mixing at night

How it looks the next day

Next morning, heat a deep vessel with water and place a non-stick pan slightly bigger than the water holding vessel over it.

Mix the batter well.
Use a basting brush to spread thin lines over the heated non stick pan and wait for the pastry to change colour from transparent to translucent to white.

 Started making round sheet 

Square shape is better

Apply 3-4 drops of oil on the pastry.

Peel from the pan.

See how thin the sheets are!

Repeat with the rest of the batter.

Keep the sheets covered and refridgerate the unused sheets for upto 3 days.
Make samosas, spring rolls or other sweets like baklava with these tasty sheets.
P.S -You might have to use more than 1 sheet per piece, as the sheets are VERY thin.

Filling made with red cabbage and capsicum

To know more on spring roll filling, folding, click here.