Nanaimo Bar for Ugadi with D2

Fun with D2, for Ugadi with Nanaimo Bars

My grand daughter spent the week end with me as she had missed me terribly all these days. Like Dibs and myself she too is a born foodie and she is fond of cooking. Dibs had prepared various delicious dishes during our stay with her.She had also requested me to prepare the same for my grand daughter D2. (Dhrithi is called D2; Dibs being D1!), once I was back in Bangalore.

D2 opted to cook the delicious Nanaimo Bar for Ugadi. She did all the mixing,whisking and pressing while I helped her with only the double boiling.

We did have the recipe but could not conform to the measurements. The steel dinner plate which we selected to mould the bar was too big and we ended up mixing in 'some more of this and some more of that' ingredient as per D2's wishes! But the end product was quite yummy, thanks to the chocolate, butter and sugar!

INGREDIENTS FOR LAYER - 1

Almonds - 200 gms
Digestive biscuits - 1 small packet
Cocoa powder - 4 tbps
Powdered sugar ( we used icing sugar) - 2 cups
Butter - 150 gms
METHOD
1. Crumble biscuits, and chop the almonds by running in a mixer for a minute.
2. Double boil sugar, cocoa powder and butter and blend well.
3. Add the sugar,cocoa,butter blend to the biscuit and nut mixture and mix well.
4. Pour into a deep greased plate and press down to pack it tightly and leave it in the refrigerator.

INGREDIENTS FOR LAYER -2
Butter - 150 gms
Powdered sugar - 2 cups
Custard powder - 4 tbps
Fresh milk cream - 2 tbps

METHOD
1.Take powdered sugar and custard powder in a bowl.
2.Add butter and whisk with a wooden spatula adding cream to make a fluffy cream, thick enough to spread on the first layer.
3.Take out the chilled plate and pour the whisked cream uniformly to spread over the compressed nut and almond layer.
4.Return the plate to the refrigerator.

INGREDIENTS FOR LAYER - 3

Dark chocolate - 2 big slabs
Butter - 50 gms
Sugar - 1 cup
METHOD
1.Double boil butter , broken chocolate pieces and sugar.
2.Cook until the ingredients blend well .
3.Bring out the chilled tray and pour the chocolate mixture uniformly over the creamy layer.
4.Spread the chocolate quickly before the cream layer melts and immediately return it to the refrigerator.
5.Chill until firm and then cut into bars with a sharp knife.
Since D2 was in a great hurry to taste the Nanaimo Bar she chilled it in the freezer! She could not wait too long to relish the haphazard shapes of the 'melt in the mouth', Nanaimo Bar! The ear to ear beam which lit up her face was in itself a festival to celebrate!

HAPPY UGADI TO ALL OF YOU!

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.