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.

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 !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 !