Raspberry Chocolate Brownies

I like magazine subscriptions, often they are cheaper and i don't forget to but it so never miss one. My favourite food magazine is Good Food. Here I will share some of my favourite recipes from Good Food magazine.

Raspberry Chocolate Brownies 

7oz dark chocolate

4oz milk chocolate

9oz butter

14oz soft light brown sugar

4 eggs

5oz plain flour

2oz cocoa powder

7oz raspberries

Preheat oven to 170C fan

Line a baking tray with baking parchment

Melt butter chocolate and sugar in a pan

Remove from heat and allow to cool

Stir in the eggs

Sieve in the flour and cocoa and stir in

Stir in half the raspberries

Pour into prepared tray and scatter over remaining raspberries

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Cool and cut into squares

Its's all about Pressure Cooking!!

We are all familiar about how important pressure cookers are in Indian cooking. It is one of the very important things in our kitchen on which we are completely dependent. In India, the leading pressure cooker brands are Prestige and Hawkins.

This blog post is just a brief review on both the pressure cookers. Prestige pressure cookers have been one of the leading brands in South India. They are outer lid pressure cookers. Recently,they have also introduced inner lid pressure cookers. They have introduced many lines of cookers based on different materials they are manufactured from. The most used model is the prestige popular pressure cooker. A new line called prestige deluxe is equally good. Ideally stainless steel pressure cookers are the best. Hard anodized pressure cookers are in demand today due to its excellent non stick properties and minimal to no wear and tear. One more successful model of prestige pressure cookers is the handi model. It is very useful model and we can use it like the regular handi's to make main gravy dishes. All the models look very nice and are very safe to use.

For all living outside India, make sure you buy enough spare parts of the models you have at home. The important spare parts are the safety valve, weights, steam vent (whole assembly) and gaskets. Handles are also available as spare parts and are very handy to keep.

Hawkins Pressure cookers are also one of the leading brand. Many find it useful but some find that the inner lid locking is a little tricky and cumbersome. They are long lasting and have a very good safety locking mechanism. The hawkins company have quite good models like the classic model, contura and futura model. They also have hard anodized and stainless steel versions. I personally like the contura model a lot. I own one too. Futura model is classy and looks very sleek.

Pressure cooking is very energy efficient and time-saving. It is advisable to invest in a good pressure cooker of your choice. Pressure cooking with separators makes cooking faster and multiple things can be cooked simultaneously. Separator cooking is supposed to be one of the healthier ways to cook food. 


Pressure cooking is a method of cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure. Since the boiling point of water increases as the pressure rises, the pressure built up inside the vessel allows the liquid to rise to a higher temperature before boiling (wikipedia).

So this was a short write up about pressure cookers. We can have a discussion on which pressure cooker models you all use and which one did you find the best. Please do leave all your comments or you can even e-mail me at gayu.kitchen@gmail.com.


Hope to see you all again with a new blog post. Till then, bye and take care..

Dal Tadka - My simple version

Dal is THE comfort food for many people. Like others, we too enjoy a simple dinner of Rice and Dal :). It is just heavenly when you taste home cooked simple dal and rice after a busy and a tiring day at work. DH loves dal /blush and he is the most happiest person at home when the menu for the day has DAL....Its a surprise dinner for him today with his favorite food. Lets take a look at Dal Tadka - My simple version.

Ingredients:

• Toor Dal - 1/2 cup
• Tomatoes - 2 medium sized (I used grape tomatoes)
• Salt - To taste
• Water - 2 cups

For the seasoning:

• Ghee / oil - 1 tbsp (I used coconut oil)al cooks fast and gets really
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
• Cumin seeds / jeera - 1 tsp
• Asafoetida - A pinch
• Curry leaves - a few
• Cilantro - Finely chopped for garnishing
• Dry Red chillies - 3-4

Method:

• Soak the Toor dal for 15 min. By doing so the dal cooks faster and gets really mushy. 

• Add salt, tomatoes and pressure cook for about 4-5 whistles.

• For the seasoning, take a tadka pan and add the ghee/ oil. I used coconut oil to get an authentic south Indian taste.

• Add the mustard seeds and allow it to pop. Then add cumin seeds, dry red chilies, asafoetida and curry leaves.

• Pour the tadka/seasoning into the cooked dal and mix well.

• Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with basmati rice or phulka rotis. 

• Enjoy!!

Notes:

• You can use ghee or any kind of oil suited to your taste.
• You can choose to add tomatoes or make a plain dal without any veggies which would taste just as fine.
• You can even use moong dal or masoor dal/red lentils for this dal tadka.