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.

Who can resist those incredible variety of nuts we get everywhere.

My favourite of all is definitely Cashewnuts as the taste is so unique, can’t stop after a handful, the taste dances on your taste buds and makes you crave for more.

I remember my childhood days where mom used to hide the dry-fruits and nuts somewhere in the kitchen as we. Kids along with dad used to rummage our kitchen on weekends or when she is out to get our hands on these nuts.

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Christmas is round the corner and everyone definitely are busy with organising everything right from gifts to decorations and planning family meal. In all this excitement, I was quite busy till I saw Joanna’s mail about the incredible event  Menu For Hope which takes place around Christmas. For those of you who are hearing about this for the first time, its a campaign involves Food Bloggers around the world each donating something to be raffled off online for charity. Everyone will get to read about raffle items and then place a bid  and there by entering their name for any raffle prize  they would love to have for Christmas and at the end of the campaign, winners are chosen using a software application, after which the hosts will tell people the good news of what they have won. (More Details at Joanna’s blog)

The money will be going to the World Food Programme (WFP), Have a look at what kind of amazing changes are happening around the world  with the money raised by amazing events like this and with little help from everyone at a festive time like this. This year, the WFP has allowed us to earmark the funds to a specific program and the chosen place is school feeding program in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho which is a place in fellow blogger Jeanne’s home country, South Africa! I know every little help really changes lives of those amazing kids who not only deserve to live by at-least having a proper meal a day. I, a proud mom to my little one makes my heart bleed for those poor kids suffering from malnutrition and disease before they reach five. We are hoping to raise as much money as we can to help them. The kingdom is confronting the triple threat of increasing chronic poverty, rising HIV/AIDS rates and weakened government capacity. This threat takes a heavy toll on the households of the rural poor in Lesotho, who are faced with a limited number of coping strategies to respond to the intensifying hazard. 56% of the population live on less then $2 per day. Its heart wrenching to even think that so please donate whatever you can and win some fantastic prizes.

I AM PROUD TO BE DONATING:

                                                  (PRIZE CODES: UK23 and UK29)

2 of Anjum Anand’s Easy Indian Cooking,  her recipes are clear, straightforward, simple, healthy and concise.I was totally amazed at how easy they were to follow and absolutely loved it and I guess it would be an amazing gift to any Indian Food Lover who wants to try making it home. I am going to add the five basic, authentic ,traditional Spices needed to kick-start Indian Cooking at home. The following prizes make great gifts, and each item will be sent to the raffle winner neatly packed and shipping expenses paid. This particular cookbook is an amazing gift to anyone who loves Indian Food.

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