Bhaja Pithey

Ma , as I call ab's mother, was a wonderful cook.  I was introduced to bhaja pithey at his house and  Poush sankranti or Makar sankranti meant bhaja pithey, shoru chakli ( to be eaten with cabbage sabji) . With baba also having passed away recently, the need to reach out to the life which I had known in Baroda became stronger . And I took the courage to try out this recipe. Thankfully it was a success or  that would have been the end of my journey to continue a tradition ;) ;) .

I do not have the weights / measures for this recipe as I recreated this from memory. 

Steps:

1. Dry roast yellow moong dal. Wash and boil it with salt to taste in minimal water till very soft in a separator in the pressure cooker. Using a separator allowed me to cook with minimal water. As you can see in the picture the dal has hardly any water. If you end up with  more water, you may like to dry up the water.

2. Mash it in the mixie to a smooth paste with chilli powder to taste and very little jeera powder, two spoons of maida to bind and two spoons of rice powder to make it crisp. 

3. Mash again with hand and roll into smooth balls. Stuff each ball with a small ball of sweet khoya or coconut mixture. My stuffing is a coconut jaggery mixture. In the picture below, the whitish balls are the moong dal balls and the brown shaped things are the jaggery coconut mixture.

4. You are actually supposed to pat it to a crescent shape but oblong is all I could muster..  

5. Deep fry in very hot oil so that it does not crack while frying. It does not require frying for long as all the ingredients in it  are already cooked. Your bhaja pithe is ready.. 

When u eat it, u get the taste of a savoury and sweet alternately... Bon Appetit! We had it with shoru chakli ( urad dal savoury pancakes) and a cabbage sabji.. "Tradition" as the song goes...  

If you are looking for a bhaja pithey recipe with exact measurements, you may like to checkout this blog by the multi-talented Sayantani .. And when you are on her blog, do not miss out on her breathtaking nokshabori...

http://www.ahomemakersdiary.com/2012/01/mug-daler-bhaja-pithe-or-muger-puli.html

Vegetarian Burgers

Ingredients for the burger patty :

• 1 can Chick peas/ Garbanzo beans/ Boiled chana ( one can is of 450 gms, the drained weight is 250 gms. So if you are boiling chick peas at home, the net weight without any water post boiling should be around 250 grams)
• 2 bread slices
• 2 boiled potatoes small
• 1 tspn each of cumin seeds , dry roasted and ground
• Salt , sugar, pepper to taste.
• Dried mango powder ( aamchur)  or lemon juice to taste
• Chopped coriander leaves
• White sesame seeds

1. Take a can of chick peas (or boil chana), mash it up with 2 breads, 2 boiled potatoes, 1 tspn each of roasted jeera powder, sugar, pepper each, sugar optional ( that's a Bong touch) , aamchur/ lemon juice and salt to taste, chopped coriander leaves. 

2. Prepare patties of the mixture.  Sprinkle sesame seeds on a plate  press either side of the patty on sesame seeds .

3. Heat a flat pan/ tawa.  Add a little oil and fry either side of the patty.  If you like it  deep fried in lots of oil, you may do so too. 

4. Prepare a spread of mayonnaise , wasabi ( optional, u may add mustard) , grated carrot and cucumber.

5. Slice a fresh soft bun. Apply the spread , patty, cheese slice , lettuce pieces. I skipped the cheese. 

 Had some strawberries in the freezer, used it to make a yogurt strawberry smoothie to serve it along the burgers...

Manjula's kitchen is a treasure trove of very doable vegetarian recipes. I first came across her site in search of a recipe to make rosogulla which incidentally was a  great success. I found tinned rossogullas thereafter .. ;)...  Her site is my regular hunting ground when I am in search of vegetarian recipes,  particularly recipes  which do not use onion garlic / Jain recipes as they are popularly called in India.   You may have noted that this recipe too does not have onion and garlic. The link to the original recipe on her site from where I have taken this recipe is attached herewith
http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2014/01/17/spicy-chickpea-patty-sandwich/

 .. Have a great weekend all!!

Hershey Kissed Brownie Bites

Ingredients

• 100 gms salted butter
• 1 cup choco chips
• 3 tbspns cocoa powder
• 2 tspns vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar ( I used 3/4th)
• 3 eggs
• 3/4th cup wheat flour ( you may use 1 cup unbleached flour in case you do not want to use wheat flour)

 Microwave for a minute 100 gms butter with 1 cup Choco chips. Mix with a spatula till all the chips melt. 

Add in order and keep mixing after each addition -- 3 tbspns of cocoa powder, 2 tspns vanilla extract, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 3/4th cup wheat flour . Mix properly ( do not beat) .

Add 1/4th tspn salt if using unsalted butter. 

Fill muffin cups till 3/4th. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Bake for 35 mins 

Remove and let cool for 2 mins.

Then insert Hershey's kisses in each. 

 Mine melted and this how they looked after ten minutes . 

But super chocolatey , awesome in taste and something which can be made in a jiffy. Happy baking!!  

This recipe has been taken from chocolatechocolateandmore.com. I guess the name of the site says it all... :)    Do check out her awesome website for some great ideas..

http://chocolatechocolateandmore.com/2013/12/hershey-kissed-brownie-bites/

Baking bread at home

Ingredients :

• 300 grams unbleached  flour 
• 3/4th  tspn of dry active yeast ( Store in a refrigerator to ensure the yeast remains in form) 
• 3/4th tspn of salt
• 3/4th tspn of sugar
• 15 gms butter . ( If using salted butter, decrease the amount of salt stated )
• 215-225 ml lukewarm water.

Procedure

Mix the flour , salt , sugar, yeast . Then add the butter, water and knead. Initially the dough will be very sticky. But as you knead, adding dry flour from time to time it will slowly form  a firm mass. I added Italian herbs and sesame seeds. U may add milk or yogurt, left over soup, pureed veggies. The options available lets you experiment with variety. Only adjust the amount of water stated in the list of ingredients accordingly. If you are planning to add larger things like raisins or nuts -- do not add them now as they may get squashed or may break as u knead.

Knead for around ten minutes. For bread you may knead in your kneading bowl as against kneading for pav wherein you need to stretch the dough and so knead it on a larger surface ( see my post on pav) .

Over kneading does not help  and so do take care not to overdo the timing of the kneading.  Now take the dough in both your hand and squeeze it lightly with one hand and then the other  around six times, lightly rotating it so that the entire ball has been more or less pinched. This apparently creates surface tension . Now oil a deep container and place the dough in it. Keep it in a warm area  and let it remain there for 45 minutes to an hour till it doubles. If it doesn't double in an hour , let in remain a little longer. The idea of oiling the container before placing the dough is to ensure the dough does not tear off when we reuse it for further processing . When you are letting the dough double, do ensure that it is kept in a place where it receives no jerks. It should be handled with care to ensure that no tear or jerk releases the carbon dioxide inside the dough. 

Now take the doubled dough and punch it lightly from all sides --  for say five minutes. This is the time to add raisins and nuts , if you would like to.  Again create surface tension by pinching with your palms.  Take the baking pan you plan to bake your bread in. Oil it lightly and dust it lightly with flour. Place the dough in it.  If you want a glaze on the bread, you may brush the top of the dough with egg white. For a soft top, brush the top of the dough with milk. If you want to sprinkle sesame seeds or herbs on the top, brush lightly with oil/ milk and then sprinkle the seeds or herbs.  Cover the bread pan and let it again rise till it doubles . This should take another 45 minutes to an hour. Take care that the cover does not touch the dough. If u are covering it with cling film, lightly oil the cling film in the inside so that the cling film can be removed smoothly without tearing the dough.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees centigrade. Bake the buns for 20 to 30 minutes. This will vary from oven to oven. I baked mine in the convection mode of my microwave and it took me twenty minutes. I plan to bake a little longer the next time for a browner crust. Remove the bread from the pan and let cool on wire racks or it  will become soggy from the bottom. Tilt the bread pan almost upside down and a few knocks on the underside of the pan should have the bread sliding out.  You need to let the bread cool before you cut them . If you cut the when they are warm, the bread is soft and so tears. 

The first time you bake bread, do break it with unbleached flour only. Once you get the hang of it, you may consider a proportion of unbleached flour and whole wheat flour in equal proportions. The  baking teacher recommended not increasing the amount of whole wheat flour beyond 50% as the bread becomes  very dense and is very heavy on the stomach too.

Bon appetit amigos !!  Do not cringe at the language fusion please ;) 

Baking Pav (as in Pav Bhaji) at home

Joining  a bread baking class was one of those spur of the moment impulsive decisions... Sure there are a lot of sites that teach you baking bread, my favorite being the King Arthur Flour site. But thought a practical demonstration would maybe teach me  the nuances of baking bread  which would make understanding recipes on the net easier .

The class by Preeta of Crusts & Crumbs focused basically on 'Pavs'. I wasn't aware that the name Pav came from the fact that the dough used to be kneaded with legs and hence comes from the hindi word for legs 'Paon/ Pav'. Ouch!! I also understood from the animated discussion in the class that the pavs available in Singapore is not a touch of the original pav available in Mumbai. I had been totally clueless till then. :) :) 

Anyway, here goes the recipe.

Ingredients :

• 3.5 cups of 12% high protein flour.  ( High protein flour is also known as bread flour)
• 1 tspn of dry active yeast. ( Preeta advised using this over instant and also to store them in a refrigerator to ensure the yeast remained in form) 
• 1 tspn of salt
• 1 tspn of sugar
• 3 tbspn oil
• 350 ml lukewarm water.

Procedure

Mix the flour , salt , sugar, yeast . Then add half the oil.. Add  the water and knead. Initially the dough will be very sticky and look something like this.

This is the time to add any flavor in case you are not planning to bake a pav. I wanted to bake buns to go with a soup. And so I added some  sun dried tomato pesto which I had at home.  I added two generous tablespoonfuls of the pesto. I would maybe add more the next time for a stronger flavor. And maybe add crushed dried basil too for added flavor. You  need to accordingly decrease the amount of water  considering the amount of liquid you are adding. If you are adding dry herbs, seeds  - then you may add  most of the 350 ml water stated in the ingredient list. Since  pesto is semi-liquid, I let a little bit of water remain of the 350 ml stated in the ingredient list.

Keep kneading, adding dry flour and a little oil from time to time till it becomes a little less sticky. Now take it out of the bowl you were kneading it in. Take a large flat surface, say a clean kitchen slab. Sprinkle some dry flour on it and place this dough on it. Keep kneading for around ten minutes. Stretch it ahead ( that is why u need a flat larger surface) , fold it , turn over clock wise or anti-clockwise  and stretch again.   Keep adding flour and the oil as and when u feel the need for it . In ten minutes the dough will become less sticky and will more or less become a condensed mass like this.

Over kneading does not help  and so do take care not to overdo the timing of the kneading.  Now take the dough in both your hand and squeeze it lightly with one hand and then the other  around six times, lightly rotating it so that the entire ball has been more or less pinched. This apparently creates surface tension . Now oil a deep container and place the dough in it. Keep it in a warm area  and let it remain there for 45 minutes to an hour till it doubles. If it doesn't double in an hour , let in remain a little longer. The idea of oiling the container before placing the dough is to ensure the dough does not tear off when we reuse it for further processing . When you are letting the dough double, do ensure that it is kept in a place where it receives no jerks. It should be handled with care to ensure that no tear or jerk releases the carbon dioxide inside the dough. 

Now take the doubled dough and punch it lightly from all sides --  for say five minutes. Again create surface tension by pinching with your palms. This is the time u shape your dough. Take the baking pan u plan to bake your bun in. Oil it lightly and dust it lightly with flour. Place the buns on it.  Cover it and let it again rise till it doubles . This should take another 45 minutes to an hour. Take care that the cover does not touch the dough. If u are covering it with cling film, lightly oil the cling film in the inside so that the cling film can be removed smoothly without tearing the dough.

In this picture you can see the buns are touching each other as they have doubled.  I took three other buns and very lightly shaped and depressed it and placed sausages in it.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees centigrade. Bake the buns for 20 to 30 minutes. This will vary from oven to oven. I baked mine in the convection mode of my microwave and it took me thirty minutes. A fellow student baked hers in a regular oven and hers were very brown at the top -- just as the one we see in shops. The darkness of your pan also contributes in baking browner buns. I plan to bake the sausage buns for a longer time the next time I bake them and also create a incision in the sausage as I found the sausage a little dry. The sausage buns may not seem as fluffy as the regular buns as the weight of the sausage pulls it down. Remove them from the pans and let cool on wire racks or they will become soggy from the bottom. Let them cool a little before serving. 

                

We had them with a  butternut squash clear soup and it certainly was yummy... What do they say about chopping your own wood making you warmer?  Bon Appetit!!