Bread Halwa

I have been noticing so many bread halwa posts recently, but never tasted one before. So I was very keen to experiment it. It is very easy with simple ingredients and my daughter loved it.

There are different versions of bread halwa.

·         With khoya (Mawa)

·         With Milk

·         Without milk / khoya only with sugar syrup. Saw this in Indian Kitchen.

·         Deep frying bread in ghee and then making halwa.

My recipe is shallow frying bread in ghee and using milk.

Ingredients:

·         Bread – 10 slices

·         Sugar – 1 cup

·         Milk – 500 ml (half litre )

·         Ghee – 6 tbsp

·         Cardamom Powder – ½ tsp

·         Dry fruits and Nuts – 2- 3 tbsp

Preparation:

Cut the bread slices into cubes as below. You need not discard the corners. I used brown bread. You can use any type of bread for this.

 

Roughly chop the Dry fruits and nuts.

Method:

Heat a table spoon of ghee is a Kadai. Fry the dry fruits and nuts. Keep it aside.

Add 2 more table spoons of ghee and fry the bread pieces till its crisp and golden brown.(I dint fry much.. may be i should have waited for the next stage) Don’t burn it too much. There is also a short cut here. Just deep fry the bread pieces in ghee. I cant even imagine that.

Tip: Instead of this step you can toast the bread with ghee in dosa pan. That will save the time.

Add milk and sugar and mix well. With the help of ladle mash the bread pieces well. Add the cardamom powder and 2 tbsp of ghee .

Cook the halwa in low flame for 15 mins with constant stirring. 

Add another tbsp of ghee and fried nuts to it. It gains brown color after a while.

Serve hot.

Adai Kunukku

Adai Kunukkku is a famous tea time snack in Tambrahm houses.

Adai Kunukku is one of the comfort snack item, I love to munch nonstop. This triggers my childhood memories so much. Whenever adai mavu is left over or more fermented, my mom use to make this as a Sunday snack. Not much preparation needed. Just chop onions, add to the batter, deep fry. This is crispier than the usual masala vadai and since it is a fermented batter it has little tanginess.

How to prepare adai batter – Recipe here.

Ingredients:

·         Adai Batter – 2 cups

·         Onion – 1 - Medium Sized

·         Oil to deep fry 

Method:

The adai batter should be thick, not too watery. My Adai batter was not thick. So I added rice flour and ragi flour. Same way if your batter is not thick, you can add any millet flours, rice flour to make the batter thick. I added little chili powder as well since I added other flours to match the spice. 

Heat the oil in a kadai, take the batter in ur hand, drop the batter as small small balls in the oil.

Flip the sides to cook evenly. Cook till it gets a reddish color. Take out from the oil and drain the excess oil using tissue paper.

Serve hot with Tea or Coffee

Note: 

This is a versatile recipe. You can add any chopped veggies, greens as you like it. I added some sweet corn kernels.

Fun with Vanilla

 

2 days back there was some offer for in Kwality Walls. Buy one get one free. It was for vanilla flavor. After one round of plain vanilla ice cream it was little boring to finish the rest of plain ice cream.

I tried following varieties and enjoyed them a lot.

1.       Mix cocoa powder and make it a chocolate ice cream. It will not be as brown as choco ice cream we buy in the stores. It is slightly brown, yet tasty. Add some choco chips and nuts and enjoy.

2.       This is one super hit. Add chopped nuts, dry fruits and honey. This tastes like a sinful butter scotch. 

3.       Add rose essence and make it a rose ice cream. This one my daughter loved it.

It is really fun to do these. Instead of buying a particular flavored ice cream, buy vanilla and create ur own flavors.

 

 

 

 

Mutter Paneer Burji

  

Paneer Burji was introduced to me by my friend Ajay who is from Himachal. One day he brought it for lunch and asked me to taste and guess what it was. It looked like Egg burji but tasted different. He said it was Paneer. From that time I make it often and love the texture and taste. The result is best with homemade paneer.

Adding mutter to paneer burji will add some volume and beautiful color.

Ingredients:

·         Paneer – 1 cup

·         Green peas – ¼ cup (As much as u prefer, but don’t make it too dominating)

·         Onion – 1 medium size – finely chopped

·         Green Chili – 1 - roughly chopped

·         Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp - finely chopped

·         Oil – 1 tsp

·         Salt – to taste

Spices:

·         Red chili powder – ½ tsp

·         Coriader powder -½ tsp

·         Jeera powder – ¼ tsp

·         Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp

Preparation:

Crumble the paneer. Since it is homemade it is easy to crumble with hands. If you have bought a store bought paneer then grate it.

Finely chop onion and coriander leaves.

Method:

Cook green peas till soft with help of little water. Keep it aside.

 Heat the Kadai/ wok, add oil.

Once heated add finely chopped onions. Don’t brown it too much, leave it lil crunchy.

Add the spices mentioned. Mix well.

 

 

Add the cooked green peas and chilies and sauté for a minute.

Change to low heat, add the paneer and mix well. Add salt as per taste. As a Final touch, add the chopped coriander leaves.

 

Serve it with rotis. You can also stuff them in bread and make it a sandwich. 

 

 

Pazham Nurukku

This dish takes me back few decades where my paru patty (Grandma) used to pamper me with this wonderful yet simple dish. Pazham Nurukku. Kerela Special.

This is such a kids friendly delight. Nendram pazham is such healthy variety of plantain. For kids, it is usually given steamed and mashed with lil sugar and Ghee added. My grandma use to steam it with Jaggery and add ghee as final touch. The house smells with the aroma of the banana with jaggery. Cardamom added will make the aroma reach the streets.

This weekend I made this along with my daughter. She was patiently watching me and when I gave her to eat it, she licked the plate clean. The jaggery sauce flavoured with cardamom and plantain will do all the magic.

Note: The plantain should not be overripe or neither too firm. Overripe bananas will get smashed while steaming. Very firm ones will harden when u steam it. So it should be in between stage.

Ingredients:

·         Nendram Banana – 3

·         Jaggery – 3 tbsp  (Pagu variety)

·         Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

·         Ghee – 1 tsp

·         Water – 1 cup 

Method:

Peel and cut the bananas into 3 pieces like shown below.

Add jaggery and water in a kadai. Once Jaggery is melted, filter it to remove any impurities.

Transfer the filtered jaggery syrup to same kadai ; add the cut bananas and cardamom powder. I dint have cardamom powder, so I slit the pods and added them.

Cover the kadai with the lid and steam it for 10 mins with constant checking it between. Time varies based on how ripe they are. Cook till they are glossy and soft. Make sure the bananas wont stick in the kadai.

If it is over ripened bananas then u can reduce the time to 5 mins, as they will be cooked very soon.

As a final touch add a tea spoon of ghee to it and slightly mix it.

 

Serve it hot. While giving for small kids, smash the bananas and feed it.

 

 

Paneer Sandwich / Cottage cheese Sandwich

 

I made a batch of Paneer / Cottage cheese at home. Tried this sandwich with that fresh Paneer. I will share the making of Homemade paneer some other time.

To reduce the extra calories in normal cheese sandwich, I replaced the cheese with cottage cheese. It is more filling and very tasty too. But the taste is totally different from the usual cheese sandwich.

By adding some indian spices, this is pakka desi sandwich. Altering the spice quantity is purely ur choice, this one is such a customizable sandwich you will ever come across in your life.

Below quantity makes 2 sandwiches.

Ingredients:

·         Bread slices – 4

·         Paneer – ½ cup

·         Onion – 1 medium size – Finely chopped.

·         Capsicum – 2 tbsp – Finely chopped

·         Red chili sauce – 1 tbsp (U can also substitute with tomato sauce)

·         Corainder leaves – 2 tbsp – Finely chopped

·         Salt to taste

·         Oil – 1 tsp ( I used Olive oil. U can also use butter)

Spices:

·         Red chili powder – ¼ tsp

·         Jeera powder – ¼ tsp (Desi touch)

·         Black Pepper powder – ¼ tsp

Preparation:

Crumble the paneer. Since it is homemade it is easy to crumble with hands. If you have bought a store bought paneer then grate it.

Finely chop onion, capsicum and coriander leaves.

Method:

Heat the Kadai/ wok, add oil.

Once heated add finely chopped onions. Don’t brown it too much, leave it lil crunchy.

Add the spices mentioned. Mix well.

Change to low heat, add the paneer and mix well. Add salt as per taste.

Add the red chili sauce.Let it cook for a minute with constant stirring.

Add capsicum and coriander leaves. Stir well and switch of the heat. Now our stuffing for bread is ready.

Spread the paneer filling between 2 slices of bread and toast it in a pan with help of lil oil or butter.

 

Serve it hot.

 

 

 

Homemade Nutella

Nutella is my fav spread for Bread. I do make some easy chocolate sweets with it. But it is too costly I feel. Making it a batch at home will be fresher and pocket friendly.

One big change I did to the regular Nutella is, replace Hazelnut with our peanuts. I don’t see any bog change in the taste.

It is same method as Homemade Peanut butter with addition of chocolate chips. Since the chocolate is semisweet I skipped the addition of Honey and salt.

 

Ingredients:

·         Roasted Peanuts – 1 cup

·         Semisweet chocolate chips – 1 to 2 tbsp (I used dark ones)

·         Cooking Oil – 1 tsp (Optional)

If the Roasted peanuts are not very fresh, then dry roast them in pan for a while and cool it down.
 

Grind the peanuts into fine paste with the help of little oil. (You can skip the oil too). (If you like little coarse, then don’t grind it very smooth).

 

Once it is smooth add the chocolate chips and grind again for a minute. The chocolate chips will be easily melted with the heat because of grinding.

Cleaning the mixie jar after making this is boring. So I made a milk shake with chickoo. You can make similar milkshakes with banana or apple too. It goes great with nutella.

Refrigerate in a clear jar. It holds up good for more than a week.

 

 

Oma Podi

This is one easy peesy snack you can make on weekends. It is actually used for making south indian savory mixture. It also can be eaten as such.
 
Caution : Deep fried Snack. Once in a while its ok.. chill.
Recipe Source : MIL

Ingredients:

·         Gram flour – 2 cups

·         Omam / Ajwain – 1 tsp (dry roasted and powdered)

·         Rice flour – 2 tsp

·         Salt to taste

·         Water as required

·         Oil for deep frying

Preparation :

Sift the gram flour to remove the clumps if any

Dry roast the Omam seeds and make it into nice powder. You can powder a big batch to get a smooth texture and it can be stored for future use.

Method:

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan.

In a wide bowl, add 2 cups of gram flour, 1 tsp powdered omam, 2 tsp rice flour.

Add salt and 1 tbsp of heat oil from the deep frying pan and mix well.

Add water little by little and make the mixture as soft ball. When it is flour mixture is hard, it is difficult to press, so I make it lil loose.

 

Grease the murukku press. Put this flour mixture in the murukku press, and directly press it in oil. Don’t overdo in the same place, as it will not be crispy.

 

Flip both sides and cook. Since the murukku is very thin, It cooks very fast. 30 secs each side is fine.

Store it in airtight container in a warm place.