Spicyandhra

Do you all like me wonder about authenticity of recipes??

Do you blindly follow a recipe if its unknown cuisine. How do u know whether its a traditional one.

When I am guest hosting RCI-Rajasthan, I actually didn’t know where to look for for authentic recipes which gives me a picture by picture illustration of an unknown cuisine. Am I being judgemental here? Does any of my readers feel that?

For me if its an unknown cuisine like mexican, moroccon,mediterrean etc, I would like to see pictures of the recipe and how to cook rather then googling and get loads and loads of websites which vaguely describes and to my utter amusement, sometimes the ingredients doesn’t match with the cooking method.

Its so hard right…When I look for different recipes from India, we have so many wonderful fellow bloggers whom we can trust and those step by step pictures speak 1000 words and it doesn’t look intimidating.

Any how I would love to see an authentic website which categories each cuisine with pictures and recipes together.

If I am ignorant and if something like that exists please my friends do enlighten me… Till then … Savour my Baatis with Dal… my contribution to Flavours of Rajasthan. The version I followed is from here.

I tweaked this traditional recipe as I couldn’t find some of the ingredients in my pantry.

For Baatis

2 cups wheat flour
2 tbsp. ghee
salt to taste

Method

Mix the flour, salt and ghee and knead until the dough is very stiff with very little warm water. Shape them into lemon sized balls.

Bake them in the oven for atleast 1/2 and turn them once,Take them off as soon as the baati is brown and crusty.

Serve immediately by break them into small pieces and pour some ghee(I haven’t as I am dieting u see) .Have it with the dal and pickle.
For Daal

1 cup of green moong dal, toor dal, yellow channa dal
1 tbsp. ghee or oil
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. red chilli powder
1/4 tsp.haldi (turmeric) powder
1/2 tsp. coriander powder
salt to taste
1/2 lemon
1 tbsp. coriander chopped
1/2″ ginger grated
1/2 tsp. each cumin and mustard seeds
2 cups water

Method

Wash all the dals together and add 1 cup water and a pinch of turmeric.Pressure cook.Now take a saucepan and put ghee in a pan and add cumin and mustard seeds, as soon as they start spluttering add ginger and all the spice powders. Fry for a minute,and then add the dal.Stir well and let it boil for sometime.Add lemon juice and garnish with chopped coriander. Savour those amazing baatis with the dal. It was our meal last night and thoroughly enjoyed.

Desserts are such a delight and its such a special  way to end a meal. I don’t know why I do not try to make desserts as often as I would love to. Myself and Rocky are voracious chilli eaters and need  spicy meals to jazz up our tastebuds then ending it with a sweet note.

 I am so glad to see Noel enjoying the spicy food just as much as we enjoy. Now a days  he comes up asking if he can have pickle rice,  those pickles are homemade and come from the chilli hub of India, Guntur. One thing I do not forget to bring when I go on holiday to India  is these amazing pickles which last for a very long time and does wonders for any depressed soul at times to cheer up and zings up any day over a drizzle of ghee and steamingly hot rice.

Now coming back to my first time try, My kitchen desperately  needed a sweet fragrant makeover after all the spicy chilly cooking so I experimented with this recipe I found in one of my magazine collections,  bbcgoodfood  when I had Noel’s friends over the half term.

 All the 4  boys were eager to  know what is for afters even before sitting at the dining table. As I have taken leave from work, had plenty of time in hand to make these endearing little puds  for the kiddos. I wasn’t surprised at all when R and J asked their moms’ to take the recipe from me as they simply loved it.Would I be making it often, Most certainly as it was such a simple good pud and I was delighted to have tried this rather then then just drooling over the lovely pictures of the desserts in the book collection I have

Ingredients:

3 clementines

140g butter 

6 tbsp golden syrup

175g  caster sugar

3 eggs beaten

140g self-raising flour 85g ground almonds

How to put together:Heat oven to 200C and juice one of the clementines and set aside. Peel the other two, reserving the peel. Slice the clementines into thick rounds. Using a teaspoon, scrape away the pith from the reserved peel, then finely chop the peel. Grease 6 individual pudding basins with butter and add 1 tbsp golden syrup into each one of them andplaces sliced clementine. Take another bowl, whisk butter and sugar together until its mixed well, now add the eggs. Fold in the flour, almonds, chopped peel and the juice.

Divide the mixture between the basins then cover each tightly with foil. Now carefully place these pudding basins in a roasting tray which is half filled with boiling water from the kettle and cook in the oven for 30 mins until they are puffed up. Turn out onto plates and serve with cream or custard but I served these little puds on their own and they absolutely loved them.

I made these chicken goujons over the weekend. Its a simple recipe, a great favourite among kids and even adults as well.

It doesn’t take anytime at all for preparing but the taste is absolutely incredible and wonderfully versatile.

I saw this recipe www.bbcgoodfood.com in a special edition which is cooking with kids and I adapted to my taste.

I like this recipe for its simplicity really. Whenever we have Noel’s friends home I do try to make different kids favourites as you know how fussy can kids get if they have to have the same things over and over again.

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