Mexican Wedding Cookies for Global Kadai Event and Thai Velli Kolam

The idea behind the Global Kadai event announced by Cilantro interested me - indianizing the recipe. One is free to make any changes to suit the availability of ingredients in India. the first recipe is the popular Mexican wedding cookies. Since no egg in the orginal recipe, I  didnot have to look for an egg replacer. No leavening agents like baking powder or cooking soda. I opted for coconut in place of pecans and used cardamom for flavor instead of cinnamon. Though i love cinnamon, to give an Indian flavor, chose cardamom. Coconut and cardamom paired well with the cocoa and its a keeper recipe. I had only 1/2 cup of butter so halved the recipe. I got 2 dozens of cookies.

Baking Temp : 180 C
Time              : 15-18 minutes
Yields            : 2 dozen


You need


Butter, softened - 1 cup

Powdered Sugar - 1/3 cup

Vanilla essence - 2 tspn

All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup

Fresh grated coconut - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup

cardamom - 3/4 tspn

Salt - a pinch

1/2 cup powdered sugar for coating the cookies



Method

Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Mix the rest of the dry ingredients and slowly add to the creamed butter and sugar mix. Gather the ingredients and make a soft dough. Chill the dough for 1-2 hours to firm up. I chilled for 2 hours. Pinch off the dough and make small balls. Line it on a greased baking tray and bake at 180 C for 18 minutes. When warm, roll it on the powdered sugar and leave it to cool.

Though the cookies were less sweet on its own, the sugar coating makes it up. It was very tasty and could not stop with one. I baked it one evening and on the second day only 10 was left.

Here is the kolam for this Friday.

A 'No Grinding' Dosa Sandwhich for A.R.Rahman's Concert

A 'No Grinding' Dosa Sandwhich for A.R.Rahman's Concert



A.R.Rahman at the Sydney 2010 festival!!! This was reason enough to stir out a flurry of excited activities among the Indians here. My daugther and son in law were eager to go with the entire family. Hubby and I however, decided to pass the noise, the rush and the waiting, and stay back home with our little grandaughter instead. My daugther’s friends had gone to the venue at Paramatta grounds at 11:00am itself to book spaces, for the show that was to begin at 7:00pm in the evening. They were undeterred by Sydney’s scorching Summer Sun beating down relentlessly! Such was the enthusiasm for the event!

They had all decided to carry some homemade eats along, so that everyone could enjoy the assortment of home food while the ears feasted on the mesmerizing music of the century’s most celebrated maestro. After pondering on a tasty, filling, and yet ‘fast’ food, I suggested they take the easy to handle dosa sandwiches. Grinding batters with my daugther's small mixie is quite a task, and so I decided to do away with the grinding, and prepared these dosas for her by using flours that are readily available in the Indian stores instead. It turned out quite well and the group enjoyed their pot luck along with AR’s best music. Here is how I prepared it without grinding.

INGREDIENTS:
Rice flour – 3 leveled cups
Urad dal (Black gram dal) flour -1 heaped cup
Beaten rice – 1 tbsp
Fenugreek seeds – 1tsp
Butter milk – 1 cup
Salt – 3 tsps
Oil- for cooking

METHOD:
1. Mix rice flour, urad dal flour and salt together.
2. Finely powder beaten rice and fenugreek seeds, and add it to the flour mixture.
3. Blend in butter milk.
4. Keep blending with a clean hand, adding water little by little until you get a smooth and thick dosa dough consistency.
5. Cover and keep it in a warm place to rise for 8 hours or overnight.
For preparing the dosas:
6. Heat a greased tava. Sprinkle little water to test the temperature. If you get a hissing sound the tava is ready.
7. Pour a ladle of the batter on the centre of the tava and spread it into a moderately thick dasa.
8. Dribble oil around the dosa.
9. When lots of small holes appear, cover with lid and decrease heat.
10. Cook on low fire for a minute or until the top surface looks cooked.
11. Flip the dosa to the other side and cook for four seconds and remove from pan and leave it on flat surface to cool.
12. Increase heat and pour the batter for the next dosa.
FOR THE FILLING:
Mix one portion of dosai molagai podi (also known as Gun Powder) with one portion of sesame oil, and apply liberally on one side of the dasai. Fold the dosai in the middle and stack it up in a dry container or pack in a foil. Ideal snack for picnics and take away. You will get twenty five palm sized dosais for the above mentioned ingredients. A standard size drinking water glass was used to measure out the flour.

The Zen Perfection of Mal Corboy

I have just been on a web trip to New Zealand to view the work of a groundbreaking kitchen designer, Mal Corboy, who won the 2009 Australian Kitchen Designer of the Year award for the kitchen below.

I am blown away by his deft integration of materials and lighting, and use of Corian and stone in unexpected ways (yes, that is stone UNDER the counter/table in the kitchen below).

Take a look.

Peggy