3 Ingredient Aval Kozhukattai

This 3 ingredient kozhukattai is perfect for a healthy hot breakfast or evening snack.

You can follow the recipe here https://youtu.be/2ZvVVkDpBPA. 

I powdered 1.5 cups of aval and used ¾ cup of Nattu Sakkarai instead of vellam. 

This yielded 18 kozhukattais. 

I then steamed the kozhukattais in the rice cooker steam setting for 10 mins.

Pepper Murukku

Happy Deepavali dear foodies!

 

 This year I couldn’t spare enough time to make a huge batch of goodies. So I took the easy way out with my pepper murukku trial.

I pinned this recipe from Subbu’s Kitchen earlier this month. It was a quick and staright forward recipe. But unfortunately when I set of to try it, I got the wrong brand of rice flour. I was so confidant and double the recipe and started making these murukku. I couldn’t belive myself when the first batch  of murukku frying in the hot hot oil went KABOOM. Oil splattered all over my kitchen, thankfully I was standing away from the stove. Otherwise I would have had severe burns. I realised my mistake only the next morning.

I got the correct rice flour the next day and tried it out. The murukkus turned out perfect. Nice and crispy and spicy. Try out this quick murukku recipe with a spicy twist for this deepavali.

Pepper Murukku:

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 2 Cups

Besan  flour (Kadalai maavu) - 3/4 Cup

Asafoetida - 1/4 Teaspoon

Salt  to taste

Coarse pepper powder – 1 tablespoon

Cumin seeds   1 teaspoon

Butter - 3 Tablespoon

Oil – For frying

Directions:

• In a bowl. Add rice flour, besan flour, asafoetida, salt, freshly coarsely ground pepper powder, cumin seeds, butter and mix everything well
• Add water little by little and knead the flours to smooth and soft dough.
• Take star mould and press. Fill the press with the murukku dough press.
• Heat oil in pan. If you drop a pinch of dough in oil it should rise up immediately in the oil. Hold the press and mould on top of the oil and gently squeeze the dough. Deep fry the pepper murukku till they are crispy and golden brown color.
• Take out the crispy murukku in a paper towel to drain any excess oil. Pepper murkku is now ready to serve!

Mix together - Rice flour,besan flour, pepper, asafotedia, salt and butter

Using star shape mould for the murukku press.

Crispy fried pepper murukku, Let it cool and break into small pieces.

Veggie Cheese Balls

 This is a great choice as a appetizer when your hosting a party. I made these cheese balls a few months back when we had a game night at our place. Deep fried cheese is always a hit among guests. The panner and cheese makes this a yummy appetizer, so I often make this just when we have guests over. 

The usual cheese ball recipe sounded too plain for me. So I added some spaghetti and grated veggies to give a nice texture to the otherwise rich cheese balls. The breadcrumb coating is so crispy which complements the smoothness of the cheese filling.

When we have guests over for dinner, I usually prepare the cheese balls with the bread crumb coating in the morning, store in an air-tight container and freeze it. And when the guests arrive, I just take out the prepared balls and deep fry them and serve it hot. This way it is hassle free and piping hot.

Veggie Cheese Balls:

Makes: 25 small balls

Ingredients:
Spaghetti  Pasta – 100gms (cooked and strained)
Cheese – ¼ cup (grated)
Paneer – ½ cup (crumbled)
Beans – ¼ cup (finely chopped)
Carrots – ¼ cup (grated)
Green chillies – 5 (finely chopped)
Ginger garlic paste – 1 teaspoon
Milk – 1 ½ cups
Corn flour – 2 tablespoon
Maida – 2 tablespoon + more for coating
Breadcrumbs – 1 ½ cups
Salt – 2 teaspoon (or as needed)
Oil – for frying

Directions:

• Heat some oil in a pan.  Add the green chilies, beans, carrots and ginger garlic paste, and fry for a few minutes.
• Then add the crumbled paneer, grated cheese and salt to the vegetables, and fry. To this, add the cooked spaghetti and mix everything together.
• Mix the corn flour with the milk and add to the pasta and vegetable mixture. Cook until the mixture becomes thick.
• Add 2 tblsp of maida to the mixture and mix until well incorporated. Remove from flame and let it cool down.
• After the mixture cools down, roll into small bite sized balls.
• In a bowl mix water and maida to form a very thin paste. In another bowl take the breadcrumbs.
• Take the vegetable cheese ball and dip it into the maida paste and then coat it with the breadcrumbs.
• Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the balls until golden brown. Serve hot.

 

Oatmeal Crackers

This post has been long overdue. I went to India for a short visit, so I couldn’t post this recipe sooner.

I wanted to make a healthy snack for hubby. So I researched and found a good recipe for oatmeal crackers in The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas.

These crackers are full of toasty oat flavour and hearty. I had to roll the dough real thin to give a crispy snap to the crackers. The dough, made of rye flour and rolled oats, is quite stiff. So I spent a lot of energy rolling out the dough very thin.

The actual recipe calls for 2 table spoons cane sugar, but I prefer to omit the sugar and adding salt instead, and sprinkling more on top of the crackers. I cut out the crackers in small rectangles, but you can also use a cookie cutter to cut out desired shapes. Stored in an air tight container, these crackers last for weeks.

So for your next tea time snack, give the cookies a break and try an oatmeal cracker for a healthier choice.

Oatmeal Crackers:

http://chitra-frommykitchen.blogspot.sg/

Ingredients:

1/2 cup - Rolled Oats
½ cup+ 2 tablespoons - whole milk, heated just to boiling
2 tablespoon - room-temperature unsalted butter
2 tablespoons - natural cane sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons - baking powder
1 teaspoons - crushed anise seed - optional
1/4 teaspoon - fine grain sea salt
½ cup+ 2 tablespoon - Dark rye flour
3/4 cups - All-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
more salt for sprinkling


Directions:

• In a large bowl combine the rolled oats and boiling milk. Let stand until cool.
• To speed this up I placed the bowl in the freezer for about 35 minutes.
• When cool, stir in the butter, sugar, baking powder, anise seed, salt, and rye flour.
• Stir in the all-purpose flour, a bit at a time, until a stiff dough forms.
• Turn out onto a counter top and knead until the dough comes together and is uniform.
• Heat the oven to 425F / 245C.
• Divide the dough into 2-3 parts, just so you have a manageable amount to work with.
• Now, you're going to want to roll the dough out very thin - 1/8th-inch.
• This way your crackers will have snap. Have a look at the photo up above, and try to get it thinner than that.
• If your dough is at all stubborn, just let it rest there for ten minutes or so, then try again.
• Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheets, and sprinkle with a bit more salt - flaky salt if you have it. Use a fork to make a line of small holes on each cracker.
• Bake for roughly 14 minutes.
• When the cracker bottoms are deeply golden, roughly 9 minutes in, flip each cracker, and brown the flip side as well.
• Use your best judgement and remove when well done.
• Cool completely before storing in large air-tight jars.

Almond Bars

Made some delicious almond bars this weekend. Hubby was playing a cricket match with his team. And it went on for the whole weekend! So I was home all weekend working on my overdue craft orders.

On Sunday hubby’s team won the match! He mentioned during their lunch break, that they were in the finals and were about to win. So I wanted to make something for him to celebrate when he came home.

Almonds are his favourites! I have some wonderful almonds that my aunt brought from Malaysia. I wanted to make something special with those almonds. And hence these almond bars. 

The recipe called for flaked almonds,but I wanted to use the whole almonds that I had. So I soaked the whole almonds for a 3 hours in warm water, and then peeled the skin off. I cut the peeled almonds into thin slices. This is a time consuming project, and not really necessary, unless you have almonds at hand. Otherwise it is better to just buy some flaked almonds.

The super easy recipe is from http://www.aspoonfulofsugardesigns.com/. I loved how simple the recipe was. The almond bars were heaven! They were chewy, soft and super moist! The brown sugar and the slivers of almond gave the bars a deeper level of richness to them. Hubby loved it!

Ingredients:

Makes 8 big bars

1/4 cup - butter

1 cup - brown sugar

1 - egg

3 tablespoons - honey

3/4 cup - plain flour

1 teaspoon - baking powder

1/2 teaspoon - vanilla extract

1/3 cup - flaked almonds

Directions:

• Heat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).
• Line a square pan with baking paper.
• Melt butter in a heat proof bowl, in the microwave for 30 seconds.
• Add brown sugar and honey, and stir until well combined.
• Stir in egg. Mix well.
• Combine flour and baking powder, then stir into the mixture.
• Add vanilla and fold in almonds.
• Pour batter into pan and bake for 23-28 minutes, or until golden.
• Cool in pan and then cut into pieces. 
• Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hubby and I were to meet with a few of his North Indian colleagues over the weekend. We meet at the Lakeside park. It was a wonderful evening, and the place was so beautiful. We had so much fun and games! 

All of has decided on a pot-luck style dinner, so each family got to bring something. I made some veg. noodles as main course, and decided to bake some cookies for dessert or as a snack. But most of our friends were pure vegetarians and don’t eat eggs. So this was a challenge for me. Because, I have never tried out an eggless cookie or a cake recipe before.

 

I have been asked a lot of times before, about eggless recipes. So this seemed like a good time for me to do some research on eggless baking. I decided to make Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies. And I started collecting recipes. I had 4-5 recipes that I was going to try out. The first recipe was a simple cookie recipe, without egg. I thought this was so simple, and tried out my first batch. It wasn’t nice at all, too oily and too hard. 

So I went to me second recipe on my list. This time it included flax seeds as a replacement for eggs. I was sceptical at first. But still gave it a try, and the cookies were so good! They were crunchy and chocolaty! Perfectly cooked! I was so relieved that they came out good! And the flax seeds are high in fibre, and also contain omega 3 fatty acids, so double ok for the Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!

Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Ingredients: 

·         1 1/4 Cup - All Purpose Flour

·         1/4 tea sp  - Baking soda

·         1 pinch  - salt

·         1/2 Cup -  Brown Sugar

·         1/4 Cup  - White Sugar

·         1/2 Cup - Butter

·         2 table sp - Ground Flax Seed  ( got mine at NTUC )

·         3 table sp - Warm Water

·         1 tea sp - Vanilla Essence  

·         1 Cup - Chocolate Chips ( I used Hershey’s )

Directions: 

·         Preheat your oven to 160°C for 10 minutes.

·         Mix the ground flax seed with the warm water. Allow it to sit for 2 minutes.

·         Sift together the all-purpose flour, baking soda and the salt.

·         In a separate bowl, combine together the brown & white sugar, butter and flax seed mixture.  Mix thoroughly. 

·         Add the sifted flour to the sugar and butter mixture.  Mix until combined.

·         You should have a nice stiff dough.

·         Mix in your chocolate chips.

·         Cover your baking tray with butter paper.

·         Form small balls of dough with wet hands.

·         Place on the baking tray with 2 inch space between them, and slightly press them flat.

·         Bake for 20 minutes at 160°C, until golden brown.

This one is for all you vegan out there! enjoy! And for non-vegan, Please add two eggs in place of the flax seed and warm water. Thanks.

Chocolate Puffs

I have always wanted to try out pie recipes. But I found the task of making the pie crust quite daunting. I thought maybe if I found some frozen pie crust, then it would be easier. But all I found was frozen puff pastry.

So I bought those, and searched the web for a recipe to use up my puff pastry dough. I had the following recipe for chocolate puffs in my PC for a long time. But I never got a chance to try it out. But now since I had the puff pastry I thought this might be an easy way to try it all out.

The making of these puffs were a breeze. I had some chocolate Hershey’s Kiss in my pantry, and I used those for the chocolate fillings. The puffs were crispy and sweet on the outside, and oh so chocolaty on the inside! I passed these to my neighbour’s daughter and she loveddddd it! She finished the entire box in one sitting and refused to share it with her parents J She has become my un-official taste taster as of lately. And she loves all my cooking experiments!

Chocolate Puffs:

Recipe adapted from http://picky-palate.com/

Ingredients: 

·         1 frozen puff pastry, thawed

·         25 Hershey Kisses of choice

·         1 egg white whisked with 1 Tbsp water

·         Powdered sugar for dusting 

Directions:

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

2.      Roll out puff pastry onto a lightly floured counter top. 

3.      Place 10 Kisses on the rolled out puff pastry, about 2 1/2 inches apart.

4.      Take a knife or a rounder cookie cutter and cut a 2 1/2-3 inch circle around Kiss. 

5.      Fold half of pie dough around top of dough and pinch edge around top of kiss.

6.      Now, fold up both sides of remaining dough up to the tip of the kiss pinching edge.

7.      Now press together edges and form criss-cross.

8.      Continue cutting dough around kisses until all dough is used up

9.      Brush all little pies with an egg white wash then sprinkle with granulated sugar.

10.  Bake for 20-28 minutes or until little pies are golden. 

11.  Remove and let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

12.  Dust each with powdered sugar and serve.

Channa Cutlet

During the weekend one of our friends made a surprise visit to our home. I wanted to make something for evening snacks. This particular friend prefers Indian food to baked goods. So I was mentally ruffling through all the snack recipes that I could make. And then, decided on making some cutlets. I have tried cutlets previously and failed miserably.  So I wanted to try something simple, with the ingredients I had at hand.

My mom gave me some recipe books when I got married and moved to Singapore. I refer to them from time to time. So now I searched for one of them and found a good and simple recipe for Channa cutlets.

Usually the channa has to soak overnight. But since I didn’t have time to prepare ahead, I soaked the channa in hot water inside my hot pack. I kept changing the hot water every hour or so, and it was good to go within 3 hours.

Then I made the patties and stored them in the freezer, until my guests arrived. I fried and served them hot with ketchup. And our friends really enjoyed it. It was a treat for all of us, since I don’t usually make deep fried foods often.  My husband and his friend were leaving to go play some games with their other guy friends. So I packed some cutlets for the other guys too. But turns out the hubby and his friend finished half of the cutlets in the car on the way to the games. Hahaha, anyway that just goes to say how good these cutlets are.

Channa Cutlets:

Ingeriendts:

Channa – 1 cup

Potato - 2 Medium

Ginger – 1 inch piece

Garlic – 8 pieces

Green chilli – 4

Onion – 1

Coriader – 1 handful

Lemon Juice – 1 tablesp

Garam Masala – 2 teasp

Oil – for frying

Salt – as needed

Maida – 3 table sp

Bread crumbs – 1 cup

Directions: 

·         Soak channa for 5-6 hours.

·         Pressure cook the channa and potatoes for 10 minutes, and mash them well.

·         Cut the ginger, garlic, onion, green chillies and the coriander very finely.

·         Mix the lemon juice, garam masala, and salt, maida along with the onion, green chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander.

·         Mix the mashed channa and potatoes along with everything else.

·         Make into small patties.

·         Dip the patties in some maida mixed with water, and roll in bread crumbs.

·         Deep fry until golden brown.

Aloo Tikki

I have always wanted to make cutlets. But thought it a huge task. These are an easy version of the deep fried cutlets. I shallow fried them in a pan with very little oil. Came across this recipe in a recipe book a long long time ago. Finally gave it a try.

These were too good! Hubby loves potatoes, so he was sampling the tikkies as they were coming out of the pan! But these tikkies have to be eaten hot, otherwise they get a bit soggy, as with all cutlets. Unfortunately I made this a bit early, and my guest was also running a bit late. Even though I tried heating them up in the microwave, they were still soggy. So I would suggest making the patties earlier and store them in the fridge, and cook them after your guests arrive.

Aloo Tikkies

Ingredients:

4 – Big mashed Potatoes

2 – Slices of bread ( soaked in water and squeezed dry)

1 tsp – Pepper Powder

½ tsp – Garam Masala

1 tsp – Chilli Powder

Juice of half a small lime

Salt – to taste

Oil – as required

Method:

·         Crumble the soaked bread slices well.

·         Add all the ingredients, except oil together in a bowl, and mix well.

·         Make small round patties of the mixture.

·         Heat a shallow pan on medium flame.

·         Add little oil and fry the patties until golden brown on both sides.

·         Serve with ketchup/Pudhina Chutney.