Pound Cake

Hey friends

yesterday i had spent a considerable amount of time Baking ! i beginning to fall in love witht he baking process.. i feel so elated when the result turns out good , as though i have done a magic :-)
i had so many recipes bookmarked to be tried and one such is the pound cake from
Finger Licking Food by Namratha...
i have followed her recipe dint change even a thing.. the original recipe is here
but still i will give the recipe
The cake came out awesome and i have been snacking on it since yesterday !

Ingredients

2 cups All-purpose flour

1 tbsp Baking powder

¼ tsp Salt

1 cup Sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp

4 eggs, at room temp

1 tsp Vanilla extract

Method

• Centre a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 325F.
• Butter a 9 x 5” loaf pan. Place on a baking sheet.
• Whisk flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl.
  
• Cream butter and sugar in another bowl on high speed for 5 minutes, till light and fluffy.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, add one egg at a time. Beat 1-2 minutes after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract.

• Turn the speed to low, and add the flour little at a time, just until incorporated. Do not overmix it. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Place in the centre of the rack in oven and bake for 70-75 minutes. The cake is done when a knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and transfer loaf pan to a rack. Let rest for 30 minutes, and then invert onto rack. Cool completely before slicing and storing.
  

Slicing: Slice it with a long serrated knife using a sawing motion. You can slice it thin or thick depending on what you are using it for.

Storing: Wrap the pound cake tightly with cling wrap and let sit on your kitchen counter. This tastes better the longer it sits. If wrapped well, the cake will hold good for 5-7 days at room temperature.

Channa Batura / chick peas curry

Chickpeas are a helpful source of zinc, folate and protein. They are also very high in dietary fiber and hence a healthy source of carbohydrates for persons with insulin sensitivity or diabetes Chickpeas are low in fat and most of this is polyunsaturated (source :wikipedia)

When i got engaged my office colleague sent me an email containing a recipe PDF..
I had neatly printed it out and filed it. This came in handy during my trial times as i was zero in cooking .. i have tried this several times and this has always been a super duper hit at my place..
I'm not sure as to whether this is Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe.. but the taste is unbeatable !

For Bhatura
Ingredients

2 cups plain flour (maida)
2 tbsp. curds
2 tbsp. butter or oil
1/2 tsp. soda bicarb
salt to taste
Milk to knead dough
oil to deep fry

Method

• Sieve together flour, salt and soda.
• Add and mix in curds and oil.
• Add enough milk to knead into a soft pliable dough.
• Cover with a wet cloth.
• Keep aside for 5-6 hours. Make sure the cloth does not dry up, or wet again.
• Knead dough again. Take fistful of dough. Roll into 1/4" thick 5" diameter round. Fry in hot oil.
• Turning only once. Till very light golden in colour. Repeat for all. Serve hot with hot channa and
• slices of onions and lemon.

For Channa

Ingredients

1 cup kabuli channa soaked overnight
1 large tomato
2 large onions
1 1/2 tbsp. chopped coriander
1 tsp. ginger grated
1 tsp. garlic crushed
1 lemon (juice extracted)
2 tbsp. oil, 1 tbsp. ghee
1 tsp. tea leaves (tied into a pouch in a
small piece of clean muslin cloth)
4 green chillies slit
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cumin seeds

Dry masalas

1 tsp. red chilli powder
1/2 tsp. each cinnamon - clove powder,
turmeric powder
1/4 tsp. each garam masala, pepper powder
salt to taste

Method for Channa

• Put the soaked, washed channa in a cooked with enough water, tea pouch and bay leaves.
• Pressure cook till done. (approx. 6-7 whistles).
• Cool about 5 tbsp. channa for grinding.
• In a mixie, blend together 1/2 tomato, 1 onion, cooled channa and 1/2 tbsp. coriander. Keep aside.
• Chop remaining tomatoes and onions fine.
• Heat oil in a large skillet.
• Add cumin seeds to splutter.
• Add ginger-garlic and fry for a minute.
• Add chopped tomatoes, onion and fry till tender.
• Add channa-paste, fry further 3-4 minutes.
• Add all dry masala except cinnamon-clove powder.
• Stir and fry till oil separates. Add drained channa and 2 cup water which was drained from channa.
• Stir and bring to boil.
• Simmer for 7-8 minutes till gravy thickens.
• Take in serving dish.
• Heat ghee in a small sauce pan.
• Add the chillies and cinnamon-clove powder.
• Add chopped coriander and pour hot over the channa.
• Squeeze lemon over channa.
• Stir in seasoning gently.

Making time :- 30 mins (excluding pressure cooking)

I'm sending this to My Legume Love Affair hosted by annarasa and started by susan

Maavathal kulambu (sun dried mangoes curry)

Dear friends

This dish has been my all time favourite.. its super tangy with lots of tamarind and sun dried mango.. but you can adjust it according to your taste..
Usually the raw mangoes are cut into pieces with lots of salt and are left in a container for few days
then they are dried in the sun for a couple of days until they become really dry..usually my grand mom makes these , but the poor mangoes gets eaten up by me and cousins before it reaches grand mom...the lucky survivors are used by her in the curries..
these mangoes were sent to me by my grand mom ( she managed to save them as we were not around :-) ....)
here is a picture of the sun dried mangoes



Ingredients

Sun dried mangoes - 6 to 7
shallots - 10
tamarind - size of lemon ( i make this dish very tangy so adjust the tamarind as per taste)
curry powder (kulambu milagai thool)- 2 tbspn ( substitute by chilli powder and coriander powder 1:2)
salt - as per taste ( be careful as the mangoes have lots of salt in it)
methi seeds- 1/4 tspn
cumin seeds - 1/4 tspn
curry leaves - 1 stalk
garlic pods - 6
sesame oil - 2 tbspn

Method

• soak the tamarind and the mangoes separately in hot water
• heat sesame oil in a deep bottomed pan and add the methi seeds and cumin seeds and allow them to splutter
• then add the curry leaves and then add the crushed garlic pods, you can sense the aroma at his stage
  
• add the shallots which are chopped lengthwise and saute till turns golden brown
• at this stage add the curry powder and saute for a min or two
  
• gently squeeze the tamarind and add only the tamarind water
  
• then add the sun dried mangoes and wait for a while then check for salt
• simmer it till the gravy turns semi thick
• when done remove it and enjoy with rice and a vegetable kootu
  

Sending these to Mango Mela hosted by srivalli of cooking 4 all seasons

Bell Pepper Rings

Dear friends

This time i have tried bajjis using green pepper..
Long back i had this snack at a friends place.. she had made with besan,green chilli paste and salt. so keeping that in mind i was planning to do the same except to substitute by adding red chilli powder but ended up adding many more things.. i had besan and then was preparing the batter and it had become too watery ... ooh i went to the pantry foraging for a packet of besan..alas to my dissapointment no besan was there.. crazy pooja was wondering what to do and finally ended up adding little rice flour but still the batter was little loose and then i opened the kitchen cabinet and there i spotted tomato ketchup..why not add some???? lets try ! thinking i added about a tsp of tomato ketchup.. the batter was better and believe me guys the recipe turned out to be good
now let me share this crazy recipe
you can also make this using the regular bajji batter

Ingredients

Bell pepper(green) - 1
gram flour/besan - 5 tbspn
rice flour - 1 tbspn
tomato ketchup - 1 tspn
red chilli powder - 1/4 tspn
turmeric powder - a pinch
asafoetida - a pinch
salt - acc to taste
oil - for frying

Method

• slice the green pepper in the form of rings
• mix the above mentioned ing with water to form a batter
  
• mean while heat oil in a pan
• now dip the pepper rings in teh batter and deep fry them in oil
  
• serve hot with tea

this can be made in a jiffy , when you want to fix a quick snack !
sending these to AFAM(a fruit a month) - Bell Pepper hosted by priya and started by maheswari of beyond the usual

Celebrating my first award with a sweet

I'm so very happy to receive my first award from pavithra
Pavithra you made my day.! i feel very touched !
i was looking at the coconut laddu from a2vegetariancuisine and was planning to make it .. fellow bloggers i must confess that i'm utterly zero in making sweets.. dessert at my dinner parties are always store bought ice creams.. this recipe was very easy and i thought , "why not give it a try?"
i was almost close to finishing the coconut laddu and was about to take some snaps, then a peed into my laptop and there was pavi's surprise.. i was so happy what a coincidence ! thanks again pavithra..

i sticked to the original recipe but changed it a little , i dint have condensed milk and so i used milk powder and mixed it with water and i added about a 1 tbspn of sugar.. thats all the changes i made.
Now lets share my award

This award goes to all my fellow bloggers but as i had to nominate 10...
This goes to ganga, divya vikram, parita , sharmi,vrinda , rekha, poornima nair,pooja,gita and padma
please accept the award and pass it on to your friends !

Souvenirs from Ivory Coast

This weekend was spent eventfully with some shopping, meeting up friends and ofcourse munching on foods .. well on saturday we planned on buying some souvenirs and we did purchase few wooden stuff

On the way to the beach there are numerous shops made of thatched roofs and you can see the hungry sellers running towards the vehicles to sell their stuff.. i have spent 1 1/2 years in Abidjan and it has been fun and i got to see Africa , visit new places, see the lifestyle of them, theirs cuisine..all in all it was an interesting experience !

it has been raining non stop since 3 weeks here.. so there was no chance of going to the beach . so we decided to visit a place which is little away from the city , where hand made wooden stuff can be bought. i landed up buying some ebony, so here is a little note about ebony

Ebony is a general name for very dense black wood. In the strict sense it is yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, but other heavy, black (or dark colored) woods (from completely unrelated trees) are sometimes also called ebony. The best-known ebony may be that from Diospyros ebenum native to southern India and Srilanka.

Ebony is one of the most intensely black woods known, which, combined with its very high density (it is one of the woods that sink in water), fine texture, and ability to polish very smoothly, has made it very valuable as an ornamental wood.

Chicken Fry/Tandoori Chicken

Well i have experimented on tandoori chicken without using a tan door.
sounds strange but as i am away from india i dont have the tan door.
yeah but the chicken can be grilled in the oven also but i have used simple frying pan and cooked it on the gas.
This is a post from the archive but i would like to re-post it for the event Potluck chicken
hosted by viki


Ingredients

Chicken - 300 gms
For marination

• Ginger paste- 1 tspn
• Garlic paste- 1 tspn
• Vinegar - 1 tbspn
• Lime juice - 1 tbspn
• Curd - 2 tbspn
• Chicken masala - 2 tspn
• Red color powder - a pinch ( optional)
• salt - acc to taste.

Chicken masala

The chicken masala which i usually use is "sakthi chilli chicken "
Marination

• wash the chicken and make small incisions on it (with fork or knife) and set it aside
• in a bowl add ginger garlic paste and all the above mentioned ingredients for marination
  
• stir it properly so that the masala gets dissolved
• then add the chicken pieces and mix it well
• now this has to kept it in the refrigerator for to 1 to 2 hrs for proper marination
• sometimes i keep it overnight( depends upon the availability of time)

Method

• Heat about 1 tbspn of oil in the frying pan
• when its hot add the marinated chicken pieces
  
• make sure the flame is low
• occasionally brush it with oil n make sure to turn it
  
• keep cooking for about 10 to 12 mins
• here we go tasty chicken is ready

Enjoy it as a starter or with chappathi or naan