Aathirasallu /Athirasam for Indian Cooking Challenge

Srivalli challenged us with Aathirasallu or Athirasam for the the month of February. Athirasam is such a tricky sweet even for an expert cook. I experienced it on my first trial of it when I misunderstood the proportion of rice flour. On my second attempt too, I had my share of failure while making this before I got perfect discs. Irrespective of any number of earlier attempts, for me, making it every time is a challenge. Armed with the hints picked up with the failed attempts, I was determined to get it right from the first one.

Ingredients Needed

Raw Rice - 200 gms

Paku Jaggary - 250 gms

Sesame Seeds - 2 tsp or less

Gasa gasa or Poppy Seeds - 1/4 tsp

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method

I followed the first recipe given where the measurements was in weight. I don't have a wieghing scale and cook the help of online conversions and proceeded. For the 200 gms of rice, I took less than a cup of rice andd soaked it for 6 hours and powdered in my mixie. When I measured, it the flour was around 1 1/2 cups. I took 1 cup of jaggery.

Melt the jaggery and make a syrup of 3 thread consistency. Add  sesame seeds, poppy seeds and cardamom powder to the syrup. Slowly stir in the flour and mix well. The dough consistency should be of chappathi dough. But mine turned out to be gooey. Added around 1/2 cup of flour to get the correct consistency. When you pat the dough to make discs, it should not stick to your hand. Thats the test I do.

Luckily, when I dropped the first disc into the hot oil, it did retain the shape and got fried well. When the jaggery is more, thats what usually happens, the disc will disintegtate into strands,which does taste good on deep frying. Enjoyed the crunch from the sesame seeds, when we bite into. Liked the addition of poppy seeds too.

Thanks Srivalli for choosing this for the challenge and my confidence level in making this has surely increased after this attempt.

RICE DAL SUNDAL

Ingredients:

Split green gram- ¼ cup
Raw rice- ¾ cup
Shredded coconut- half cup to ¾ cup
Salt to taste
Gingelly oil-3 tbsp
Mustard seeds- 1 sp
Black gram- 2 tsp
Bengal gram- 1 tbsp
Red chillies-4
Curry leaves- 1 arc
Chopped coriander leaves- ¼ cup
asafoetida

Procedure:

Dry roast the green gram to golden brown.
Wash and cook it in plenty of water.
After some minutes, wash the rice and add it to the green gram.
Add enough salt.
Cook the rice until the rice is almost done.
The rice should not be over-cooked.
Drain the water completely.
Heat a pan and pour the oil.
Add the mustard seeds and when they splutter add the dals with the asafotida powder.
Fry them to golden brown.
Add the red chillies with the greens and fry for a few seconds.
Add the rice and mix well on slow fire.
Cook for a few seconds.
Put off the fire, add the coconut and mix well.

Marble Soft Cheesecake

This is very much like soufflé texture and also soft like feather light kind of cheesecake. It is the softest one in my cheesecake menu. My hubby falls in love with soft cheesecake recently as he feels like eating a big piece without adding any calories into his body (which is not true, haha!), but I guess it should be less calories than the rich cheesecake, which also my favorite.

Generally, the cheesecake taste very good, just the marble effect doesn't looks good, I did not make a good job at this stage but will definitely practice again as I want to make another two more in the coming weeks for my friends. For the cake base, I used the cocoa sponge cake recipe which I feel the best in my menu as its soft and spongy texture just so match to the soft cheesecake. I cut the cocoa sponge into three layers and use a piece for the base then freeze another two for next bake.

Recipe:

160g cream cheese

50ml whippping cream

70ml milk

60g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

30g corn flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 egg yolks

4 egg whites

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 thin slice of 8 inches cocoa sponge

1. Melt cream cheese, whipping cream, milk and butter over double boiler. Stir occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat.
2. Add in 50g of sugar, corn flour, vanilla and egg yolks then stir well.
3. Beat egg white and cream of tartar in another clean bowl until mixture forms soft peaks. Gradually add in the rest of sugar, continue beating until frothy and stiff peaks form.
4. Gently fold beaten egg white foam into cheese mixture until blended.
5. Stir 80g of cheese mixture with cocoa powder until well combined.
6. Place a sponge cake into a 8 inches lose bottom or spring form baking pan. Pour vanilla cheese mixture into cake tin. Drizzle some cocoa cheese mixture over the surface and draw marble pattern with skewer. Place the baking pan in a large tray.
7. Pour enough hot water into larger tray to come half way up sides of baking pan. Bake in preheated oven at 140C for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 120C and continue bake for 30 minutes.
8. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Chill in the fridge for overnight before serve.