Thursday, May 30, 2013

Anniversary cake ( Devils food cake with coffee liqueur flavoured chocolate buttercream ) with few step by step progress and some holiday pictures



It was our anniversary yesterday and this time I decided to surprise S with a anniversary dinner and a cake. Its 8 years now, so we have passed that stage of suprise gifts and  all but once in a while I do like to surprise him and rarely I do get surpise too :) Luckily for us our anniversary falls during may end which is long bank holiday here so last few years we have been going on holidays to celebrate anniversary making use of the long bank holiday ! This time we set off to Lake district which is a beautiful place, a perfect place for a person who enjoys scenery , all the places were beautiful like a painting and we couldn't stop clicking pictures :)












Anyway after getting back I had only one day to plan something for dinner, so I kept it  simple and  only made some ghee rice and chicken curry . Before going to trip I did try my modelling skills with a trial attempt of a  face as I have never done faces before, since it came out o.k, I decided to go ahead and make a personalised cake with me and S on top, sitting on a couch watching TV with remote in his hands, but lil A got so upset when he found out that he was not on cake and started crying , so I had make a small lil boy and find a room for   him on that small couch too. He was not quite happy with the way I mdae him first time as his face was not quite smiley as he wanted so I had to re do his face again.

Here is few step by step clicks of face which i clicked during my trial attempt, I didnt use this face on the cake as it was too big for my cake :)


Make an oval shape with flesh coloured fondant which I made by adding a pinch of red and yellow to white fondant. I added a bit of cmc to make fondant a bot sturdy, the tools in the picture are quite handy, I made pattern on the hair by scoring it with the first tool , the eyes ,eyebrows and moustache is drawn using and edible pen.


Here is how I made the body of the man :)



I made the sofa with a rice krispy treats and spread some buttercream and covered it in red coloured fondant. I made the sofa first and then made the figurines and made them sit on it. I made the other figurines in a similar way.

Before going to the recipe just want to remind you all that there is a Give away going on here. Please do check it out :)

Recipe source - Nigella

Devils food cake

Ingredients 
Maida / All pupose  flour - 225 gm /  roughly 2 cups
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup
Boiling water 250 ml
Unsalted butter ( softened )- 125 gm 
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
Dark muscuvado sugar - 100 gm ( tighly packed 1/2 cup) 
Caster sugar - 150 gm ( 1 1/2 cup )
Eggs - 2 large ( at room temperature )

Method
  • Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and keep it aside.
  • In a bowl measure cocoa powder, dark brown muscuvado sugar, boiling water and whisk. Keep it aside.
  • Cream butter and sugar until soft and creamy.
  • Beat one egg at a time and beat well ,add a  tbs of  sifted flour and beat for few seconds, break the second egg  and beat well.
  • Add vanilla extract and  beat.
  • Add  the rest of the sifted flour and beat.
  • Finally add the cocoa mixture and fold in.
  • Pour the batter into two 8 inch greased cake tins and bake them in a preheated oven at 180 degree celcius for 30 minutes.
Please find the recipe for coffee liqueur flavoured chocolate  butter cream here.
Notes
The cake has a  dark chocolate flavour and is  not a vert  sweet cake, so it might not a be the kind of of cake if want if you are going to make it without icing but with icing its sweet and perfect and soo soo delcious. If you are not a dark chocolate fan and want to make the cake without icing replace a small amount cocoa powder with plain flour according to your liking and add more sugar if you like. 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Dal Makhani



I hate the fact that I have to scratch my head every single day for coming up with what to cook for dinner. If I ask my other half he never gives an answer really, or maybe I should say I only cook something if I am also upto eating it /cooking it  :) Every single day when I enter the kitchen I declare to my hubby that I hate cooking and washing up and its a fact that  I hate my daily cooking if its usual things, so blogging has kind of helped me to enjoy  cooking and whip up  something interesting / different. 

Back home when we used to live in Pune I never used to have this dilema as the veggies available were endless and there was a fish market nearby so most of the time the question is which fish curry to make rather than which curry to make. But here things have changed, we dont like  fish curry that much, mainly because the english fish doesnt give that authentic  taste when they are curried, so we prefer to fry it so curry options are limited.

 I miss Pune very badly when thinking about all those fishes and fresh vegetables and most of all the eating out. If I ever go back to Pune again first thing I will do is go and eat out in all my favourite restaurants and cook some nice fish curry ! Anyway Dal makhani is something I got introduced from Pune and there was this Punjabi dabba, a kind of take away place and all I had  to do on lazy day is to just pick up the phone and order our favourite tandoori chicken or dal makhani   etc etc..I never cared to make dal makhani back then, who will when you get such great food outside ! I love Dal makhani , I have been trying to  recreate the one which I used to have from the Punjabi dabba in Pune and after few attempts  I am very  happy the way they turned out this time. So this recipe is for my own future use aswell :)



Ingrediets
Sabut Urad / Whole urad / Uzhunnu - 1 cup
Rajma/ Red kidney beans  - 1/4 cup
Onion - 4 ( chopped )
Tomato - 3(chopped )
Ginger - garlic paste - 2 tbs
Coriander powder - 1 tbs
Garam masala - 1 1/2 tsp
Redchillly powder - 1 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Ginger (Julienned) - 1 tbs
Fresh cream- few tablespoon
Coriander leaves 
Salt 
Water as required 

Method
  • Soak whole urad and rajma overnight or atleast 10-12 hours.
  • Pressure cook the dals adding enough water until cooked very well. Mash the dals lightly.
  • In a saucepan add oil and add chopped onions and saute until light brown.
  • Add ginger garlic paste and fry for 1-2 minutes.
  • Add chopped tomatoes, redchilly powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, salt and cook tomatoes until mushy.
  • Add cooked and mashed dal and boil for 5- 10 minutes.
  • Finally add garam masala, fresh cream  and cook for 1-2 minutes.
  • Remove from fire and add finely chopped corainder leaves.
  • Meanwhile in small pan add juliened  ginger and fry until brown. Add this to the dal.
  • Serve with rice / roti with a dollop of fresh cream on Dal !

Monday, May 20, 2013

Banana bread with fruits and nuts and some hiking pictures


Yesterday morning when we woke up the weather outside looked so gloomy and grey, so with much disappointement  we all slowed down our routine pace and was planning to spend the weekend in a shopping mall which is very unusual for us during this time of the year, but the unpredictable weather took a twist and all of sudden the sun came out. Within minutes we ditched our shopping plans and  decided to explore a hills nearby instead. When we set off the journey least did I know that we were going to have our first hike ! We choose the medium hike covering in 2 hours and oh boy we are glad we did it. The satisfaction of doing something like that is really priceless.

Thats the hill we hiked !

Look who is leading us :)





Waiting for  our turn to cross the river

Coming back to  topic, todays post is a banana bread which I baked few days before and I can  authoritatively say this is one of the best banana bread ever, well this  verdict is not just from  my family but also from my friends who came for a tea to my place and my  blogger friend Manjiri who tasted this insisted that I should post the recipe the same day, I guess that says it all :)



Recipe adapted form here

Ingredients
Plain flour / Maida - 175 gm /1 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Unsalted butter - 125 gm ( melted )
Sugar - 150 gm ( 3/4 cup )
Eggs - 2 large
Vanilla extract- 1 tsp
Very ripe bananas - 4 medium (mashed )
Raisins - 100 gm
Walnuts -  60 gm ( chopped )
Rum / Orange juice - 75 ml

Method
  • In a saucepan put the rasins and add 75 ml of rum and bring it to boil.Turn off the flame and leave it covered for 1 hour for raisins to absorb the rum.
  • Drain and keep aside.
  • In a mixing bowl add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Give it a mix with a wooden spoon and combine the ingredients.
  • Meanwhile melt butter in microwave or in a saucepan and keep aside.
  • In  a mixing bowl add melted butter and sugar and beat until combined.
  • Best in one eggs at a time and beat well after each addition.
  • Add mashed banana to it and fold in.
  • Add chopped walnut, drained raisins, vanilla extract and fold in with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.
  • Add 1/3 rd of the flour mixture to it and fold in add remaining flour in 2 additions and repeat the same.
  • Transfer the batter into a greased loaf tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree celcius for 1 hour 10 minute to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
  • Cool the cake in wire rack until cool.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Announcing my first Give away

Ever since I completed 5 years of blogging last january, I have been thinking of doing a give away here but for some reason I kept postponing it. So after lots of thinking finally the right  time has come !
Thanks to all my wonderful readers and friends who supported me  through out to reach this milestone. Just to say thank you I have decided to give this Bambo steamer for my first give away.


All you need to do is just help me improve my blog with your valuable  suggestion by answering any of the 3 questions below and you are good to go. Unfortunately this give away is only for readers in U.K and India, but if you can provide an address in U.K or India you can  participate as well . So here are  the 3 questions.

1.Have you got any tips or suggestions to improve my blog, please give your  honest opinion.
2.Have you tried any recipe from my blog and how did you find it  ?
3.What kind of recipes would you like to see more on my blog ?

So thats it, please answer any of the questions or if you have time you can answer all of it :) And the optional thing is if you really like my blog and would like to see more updates ( no pressure ) you can join my FB page here.

How to enter
Please comment below this post with 

  • Your name
  • Your mail id
  • Answer of the question with the question number.
The give away is open till July 9 th and winner will be picked based on a lucky draw. If the winner doesnt respond within 1 week another winner will be picked.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Achari Gobi / Cauliflower in pickling masala


When it comes to veggies cauliflower is something I like to experiment a lot with. I m surprised by the way my eating habits have changed as I used to hate it before and the only cauliflower thing I used to like  was gobi manjurian. But now every week when I go for grocery shopping I pick cauliflower and think of every new way to prepare it. So when I came across this Achari gobi recipe in Playful cooking I  knew what I was going to do with cauliflower next time. And I did make it, not  just once but twice already. The first time when I made it, it was dark so we straight way digged in but second time I planned it ahead and made this a bit early before getting dark.

These days taking food pictures is not that easy especially when  my lil one is a tad bit hungry he gets frustrated and keep on nagging so I  pack my photo session right away, and when is not hungry he wants to help me  in taking pictures, so either way its not easy !!


Recipe source - Playful cooking

Ingredients
Cauliflower - 1 small

For roasting 
Whole redchilly / vattal mulaku - 2 
Fenugreek / Uluva - 1/2 tsp
Nigella / kalonji - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds / jeerakam / jeera  - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds / kaduku  - 1/2 tsp

Lime juice - 2 tbs

For sauce
Cinnamon stick/ Patta  - 1 inch stick 
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Nigella seeds - 1/2 tsp 
Onion   - 1 medium(chopped )
Tomato -2 ( blanched and pureed )
Ginger garlic paste ( inji - veluthulli paste ) - 1 tbs
Kashmiri chilly powder( piriyan mulaku podi )- 1 tbsp
Yogurt / curd/ thayyir  - 2 tbs
Sugar - 1 tsp
Oil 
Salt 
Coriander leaves/ malli ila 

Method
  •  In a pan dry roast( without oil ) the ingredients mentioned under roasting to a fine powder.
  • Transfer the pickling powder into a bowl and add lime juice to it give it a mix and keep it aside.
  • In a wok or a pan add some oil and add cauliflower florets and saute it for 10 minutes on a medium flame adding a pinch of salt until they turn light brown in colour.Transfer into a paper towel and keep it aside.
  • In the same pan add some more oil and sputter mustard seeds, thrown in cumin, nigella and fry for a minute or so until  they  leave aroma .
  • Add chopped onions and saute until soft and light brown in colour.
  • Add ginger garlic paste and fry till raw smell goes off.
  • Add tomato puree, roasted pickling  powder, chilly powder, salt, sugar and cook for 2-3 minutes.
  • Add the cauliflower florets kept aside to the sauce and cook for another 5 minutes.
  • Finally add beaten yogurt and cook on a low flame stirring continously for 2-3 minutes.Check the salt and turn off the flame.
  • Garnish with some finely chopped coriander leaves.
Serve hot with rice/ roti/chapathi !



Tuesday, May 14, 2013

New york style Pizza


I have been making pizza  on and off since a long time and they tasted great all the time but look wise I was always disappointed. I wanted a pizza that looked like dominos pizza or pizza hut's pizza, but  they always come out of the oven as a bummer but that doesnt mean that it didn't taste good.We always enjoy homemade ones to the core  but  the picture wont be good enough to post.

It has been a while since I made  pizza at home, so this time when the Baking partners choose pizza I was  very much looking forward to take picture and post it. Unlike the usual pizza dough which I have tried before, this one wanted the dough to rise for 24 hours so I kept postponing making this till last minute. I did follow the recipe to the dot and the pizza tasted really yummy but still  look wise I was not happy this time too. I think now after making several pizza's  I have come to the conclusion that I should make my pizza bigger which might give a better look than making two smaller ones.



Recipe source - Serious eats
Recipe suggested by - Archana of Tangy minds

Ingredients (serves 3 )
For pizza dough ( for  1 very large pizza or 2 small ones )
Bread flour - 2 1/4 cup
Sugar - 3/4 tsp
Salt - 1 1/ 2 tsp
Instant yeast - 1 tsp
Olive oil - 2 tbs
Lukewarm water - 1 cup
For new york style pizza sauce
Peeled plum tomatoes - 1 can
Extra virgin olive oil - 1 tbs
Unsalted butter - 1 tbs
Garlic cloves - 2 medium (grated )
Dried oregano - 1tsp
Red pepper flakes - pinch 
Salt
Basil leaves - 2 sprigs
Onion - 1  medium (chopped )
Sugar - 1 tsp
salt - as required 
Ingredients for topping
Mozzarella cheese - 150 gm ( kept in freezer for 15 mins)
Parmesan cheese -50 gm ( kept in freezer for 15 mins)
Vegetables or meat of your choice( I used pepperoni )

Method

Making the Dough
  • In a bowl combine bread flour, salt, olive oil, sugar and yeast and add lukewarm water to it and knead well for about 10 -15 minutes until smooth . At this point  the dough should strech very thinly and ideally it should  pass the window pane test. You can read more about window pane test here.
  • Place the dough in the fridge and allow it to rise for minimum 24 hours or upto 5 days and remember to take it out of the fridge atleast 2 hours before baking to  bring the dough to room temperature.
Making of Sauce
  • Puree the canned tomatoes in a blender ( not a  completely smooth kind of puree ) and keep it aside.
  • In a pan add butter and olive oil and when butter melts add grated garlic, oregano, pepper flakes , pinch of salt and cook for about 3 minutes.
  • Add tomato puree, basil sprigs, chopped onions and sugar and bring it to simmer and cook for about 1 hour stirring in between until the sauce thickens a bit and has reduced to half. Add salt.

Assembling

  • Take the dough and press it into a roughly 8 inch circle leaving outer edge a little higher than the rest.
  • Strech the circle with knuckle until you get a 14-15 inch circle.
  • Transfer the pizza into a baking pan /baking tray.
  • Spread the  pizza sauce evenly on the pizza leaving the outer edge.
  • Take the cheese out of the freezer and spread the cheese on top of the sauce.
  • Place the toppings of your choice on top.
  • Bake the pizza in a preheated oven at 260 or full blast for 10-15 minutes until cheese has melted and is bubbly and the crust has browned and puffed.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Parippu Vada /Chana dal fritters



Back home Parippu vada is a very popular tea time snack and people who love it go crazy for it, but I was never a parippu vada fan but once in while I too enjoy this with a cup of tea.

When I got hold of some banana leafs recently  I went crazy making use of it, I made  ela ada first, then I made fish pollichathu as well and still there was one more left and since it was stored in fridge it was going a bit yellow after few days, so just before chucking it into the bin I wanted to use it one more last time thats how I decided to make something and shoot it in banana leaf .Yes you read it right, I made this parippu vada just to take picture in banan leaf ! S who goes crazy for parippu thought that I made this especially for him without knowing my intention, anyway he was one happy boy that day and ate almost 3/4 th of the parippu vada :)


Ingredients (makes about 10 parippu vada )
Chana dal / Kadala parippu  - 1 cup
Onion - small ( finely chopped )
Green chillies/  -1 -2 (I didnt use it )
Curry leaves/ kariveppila( torn into pieces )  - few
Fennel / Perum jeerakam - 1/2 tsp
Ginger - 1 tbs (finely chopped )
Asafoetida - pinch
salt
Oil for deep frying

Method
  • Soak Chana dal in hot water for 3 hours.
  • Drain the chana dal and make a coarse paste of it in a food processor or mixie.
  • Transfer it into a bowl and add finely chopped onion, green chillies, curry leaves , fennel and asafoetida, salt and mix well.
  • Make equal sized ball out of it and flaten the balls a little bit by pressing them in between the palms.
  • Heat oil in a pan on a medium flame and deep fry the parippu vada until golden brown.



Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Pavakka Kichadi / Tempered Karela Raita



I  am still in that holiday mood after the 3 day bank holiday here and I  don't  feel like getting back to usual routine. The glorious sun  is shining  ever so brightly now and  usually in summer my cooking and blogging suffers a lot , well that was the case till last summer. I love spending most of the time outside and then by the end of the day I always go for some simple cooking !!

This long weekend we decided to be a bit adventurous and went for a Safari, well not that adventurous as it was not a deep forest , it was just  a safari park and there the animals were well fed , so going into the wild was not risky as the animals were too lazy to even get up when cars were passing by !! Can you see those lions lying down dont they looked so full and lazy  ??


Another exciting thing was monkeys, they were absolute cheeky monkeys, climbing on cars roofs, side view mirror and jumping from  cars to cars. Initially they were not jumping on our cars much to  lil A dissappointment. Monkeys only had interest  in brightly coloured cars and big van, so they totally ignored our car. But  just before we left the monkey area we got lucky and few of them jumped on to our car :)


And then yesterday  I had a great day with my blogger buddies Nisha and Finla. It was a fabulous day with lots walking, giggling , shopping and most importantly eating !! The first picture on the left is from a famous restaurant ottolenghi  ,Nisha took us there to taste their sweet treats and we had tough time even  picking a treat from there, then for lunch we went to an Indian restaurant  where we had some cocktails and chicken biriyani and thali ,finally we splitted up with a cup of coffee in the evening !


Coming to todays topic, this is something which I made for my Vishu Sadya last month. If there is one vegetable that I hate most ,then it has to be Bitter gourd or Karela or Pavakka or kaipakka as we call it , and the only preparation I like with this veggie is this Pavakka Kichadi as the bitterness from the vegetable is harldy noticable because of the way its cooked, so if you hate this veggie because of its bitterness then give this a go ! 


Ingredients
Pavakka /Bittergourd - 1 (large )
Green chillies - 2 (optional ) I didnt use 
Curd / Yogurt - 1 cup
Curry leaves- few sprigs
Whole red chillies
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Oil (preferably coconut oil ) 

Method
  • Slit the pavakka into two by running a knife in the middle and remove all the seeds from inside.Wash and clean.
  • Slice it very  thinly and keep it aside.
  • In a non stick pan add oil and saute the pavakka slices until brown in colour, it takes 10- 15 minutes.
  • Once its brown, add curry leaves and green chillies (if using ) and saute for 2-3 minutes and remove from fire.
  • Let it cool down for some time and then transfer it  into a serving bowl.
  • Add slightly beaten curd/yogurt to pavakka pieces and give it a good mix.
  • Meanwhile in a small pan add little oil and add mustard seeds, when it sputters add whole redchillies, and curry leaves and once the whole red chilly turns dark in colour turn of the flame and pour the tempering into pavakka mixture.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Ela Ada / Steamed rice flour parcels with Sweet coconut filling !


If you ask me how many times I have devoured this , I have to say countless. For 4  years of my high school life  atleast few times a week I used to eat Elad ada . I am not going into all that story again as I have written all about that in my Bonda post before :) So probably if anyone ask me to judge an Ela ada, I can judge it better than anyone. Thats how much I love ela ada  and for that reason I have been trying to re create it at home several times, but to be honest I was never happy with the ones I used to make, but its only later that I realised the rice flour determines the quality of Ela ada, if you are making it readymade rice flour made from Basmathi rice or any easy cooking rice of that kind or Pachari  podi as we call it , it wont come out half as good as the ones you make with rice flour of Boiled rice / puzhugal ari. But getting that rice flour here is out of question but everytime when I come after a vacation I bring some homemade rice flour of boiled rice to make puttu /steamed rice  cake and the ela ada made with that flour will blow you away ! It will be the  softest elad ada ever and you will be making it over and over again  like me :)


Ingredients
Rice flour(from  boiled rice ) - 1 cup
Boiling water - 1 cup
Salt

or alternatively for making boiled rice flour 

Soak boiled rice for few hours, drain it completely and pat dry with a towel until completely dry. Grind it to flour .

For filling
Melted Jaggerry - 1/2 cup
Grated coconut - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp

Banana leaves

Method

  • Roast the rice flour for few minutes.
  • Add boiling water and salt to it and make a smooth dough.
  • Strain the impurities of melted jaggery and transfer it  into a saucepan.
  • Add grated coconut to it. Cook the coconut in jaggery for 1-2 minutes.
  • Add cardamom powder and turn off the flame.
  • Meanwhile make equal sizes balls from the dough..
  • Take the   banana leaves  and place a ball on the centre, flatten it with your wet palm  and spread it evenly.
                 

  •  Place a tbs or two tbs of the filling in the middle and fold it into half.
  • Steam the Ela adas for 8-10 mins.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Kuzhi paniyaram


My fight with idly batter go a long way back, the weather here is so horrible for the batter to ferment and after trying all the tricks ( keeping it a preheated oven, keeping it a whole day etc ) still my batter didn't ferment and I knew that it had got nothing to do with batter or ratio as I used  to get soft idly's with the same ratio in India, but surprisingly that ratio didn't work for me here, but one of my  blogger friend Shibi who blogs at Flavz corner  suggested trying her ratio which works well for her. With much hope and expectation  I tried it first time and as usual my batter didn't ferment, I was very disappointed as I wanted to  eat  idly  badly, but when I got back to her  she encouraged me again so I decided to give it a go one more time. Finally for a change instead of fermenting the batter in night I did it the morning and kept in a preheated oven thorough out the day on and off  for almost 12 hours and voila I got a beautifully fermented batter by evening .I was jumping with joy that day, so next day it was weekend and usually we sleep a bit longer on weekends  but the thought of having idly's woke me up on time and got to my business  and guess what ??  I got the softest fluffiest idly ever ! So now I know what was wrong with my batter, I should blame my oven which cools down so quickly after preheating and turning it off, so my batter was  not getting the warmth for fermentation. Thanks a lot to Shibi and  I am going to stick to her  recipe for my idly's from now on. 

After my unniappam attempt during  Vishu I almost packed my paniyaram pan  but when Nisha posted her Kuzhi paniyaram I was so tempted to try it and  the  succesful idly's gave  the all confidence so I decided to go ahead and make this with the remaining batter. We all loved it and it disappeared form my kitchen soon. So if you like a change from usual idly- dosa why not try this ? This is a perfect snack to much on with a cup of tea but you can also have it for breakfast like we did ,but we had to eat a whole lot of it for filling our tummy :)


Recipe source for idly batter - Shibi (Flavz corner )
Recipe source for kuzhipaniyaram - Look who is cooking too

Ingredients 
For idly batter
Rice - 2 cups
Urad dal - 1 1/4 cup
Fenugreek - 1 tbs
Salt

For kuzhi paniyarams
Idly batter - 3 cups
Shallot - 1/2 cup ( sliced )
Carrot - 1 (grated )
Minced ginger - 1 tbs
Green chillies - 1-2(chopped )
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs( finely chopped)
Grated coconut - 3 tbs
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1tbs
Asafoetida - pinch
Finely Chopped coriander leaves  -2 tbs
Oil

Method 
  • Soak all the ingredients for idly batter for 6-8 hours and grind them into a smooth batter of medium consistany. Usually salt is added  after the batter is fermented but if you are living in a cold country add salt in the beginning as  it helps in fermentation. Keep the batter in a warm place or preheated oven  till it ferments which takes about 8- 12 hours.
  • Take 3 cups of fermented batter and keep aside.
  • In a pan add oil and sputter mustard seeds, followed by urad dal till its golden.
  • Add sliced shallots, minced ginger and saute till soft.
  • Add grated carrot, green chillies, curry leaves and cook for few minutes.
  • Finally add grated coconut, asafoetida, stir for 1 minute and turn off the flame.
  • Add chopped corainder leaves and  cooked mix to the batter and add salt as required.
  • Meanwhile place the paniyaram pan onto to stove and add a little bit of oil to each hole.
  • Pour a tsp or 1 tbs of batter (depending on how big ur holes are ) to the pan and cook it and when it starts to slighlt brown on the edges flip them over and cook for sometime.
  • Serve it with some coconut chutney or tomoto chutney or  sambar !