Coconut Rice

Hello Readers,
Hope you all had a great Diwali! Sorry for not being able to post any sweet recipes. I had been busy with some other commitments for the past few days.

Here's a simple rice recipe perfect for lunch box.

Ingredients:
Fresh or frozen grated coconut - 1/2 cup
Cooked Basmati rice - 3 cups
Salt as needed
Hing - a pinch
Cooking Oil - 1 tbsp
Coconut oil - 1 tsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Red chilli - 1
Roasted peanuts - handful
Green chilli - 1
Mutard seeds - 1 tsp
Urud dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - a few
Coriander leaves - to garnish

Method:
Heat oil (regular oil and coconut oil) in a pan. Add mustard seeds, urud dal, hing, red chilli, green chilli, curry leaves. When mustard seeds crackle, add coconut and fry on low flame for 5-7 min.
Add cooked rice, salt, roasted peanuts and ghee.
Mix well and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve with pappad/yogurt or avial.

Prawn Masala Curry - South Indian Style

Hope you all had very good Diwali. Mine went well and fired few crackers. Due to Diwali sweets/snacks preparation, I was not able to update few of the Diwali recipes in my blog yet.



Also, I noticed I have not posted any non-veg recipes in my blog for some period of time. so, I decided to post few non-veg recipes first which were in my draft for some period of time, then I will post the remaining Diwali recipes.



This is the recipe from my MIL which is prepared in south Indian method, goes well with steamed rice. However, you can also use as a side dish for roti/chapathi too.

Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 30-40 minutes

Serves: 4 people

Ingredients:



Prawns / Iraal - 500 grams, peeled and deveined

Small Onion / Sambar Onion / Shallots - 1/2 cup, finely chopped or minced

Tomato - 3 nos in medium size or 1 cup, sliced

Ginger garlic paste - 1 and 1/2 teaspoons

Salt - to taste

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Oil - 3 tablespoons

Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Curry leaves - 2 strings

Coriander leaves - for garnishing

Water - 3/4 cup



To Roast and Grind:

Fennel seeds - 1 teaspoon

Cumin seeds - 3/4 teaspoon

Rice grains - 1 tablespoon

Coriander seeds  / Dhania - 1 and 1/2 tablespoons

Curry leaves - 1 string

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Red chilli powder - 1 teaspoon or to taste

Method:

1) Wash prawns well in water for 2 to 3 times. Add salt, turmeric and a big pinch of red chilli powder. Mix well. Cover and keep aside for 30 minutes.

2) Meanwhile, in a heavy bottom pan, heat a teaspoon of oil. Add the ingredients except red chilli powder given under roasting and roast it till they releases nice aroma.

3) Turn the flame off and add the red chilli powder. The heat in the pan is sufficient for red chilli powder. At the same time, make sure not to burn it.

4) Allow it to cool and grind to a fine powder. If required add water to make a smooth paste.

5) Grind tomato and make a puree of it. keep aside.

6) Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in the same kadai / pan which we used for roasting. Add mustard seeds when it is hot. Add onion along with curry leaves. Fry till onion becomes very soft and translucent.

7) Add ginger garlic paste and fry till the raw smell goes off.

8) Add tomato puree and cook till it reduces and releases oil from the sides of the pan.

9) Now, add prawns, ground masala powder,salt, turmeric and water one by one. Mix gently. Adjust the salt and spicy as per your taste. When the gravy starts boiling, cover the pan and lower the flame to medium. Let it cook for few minutes.

10) Cook the gravy till the oil oozes out from the top of the pan and the prawns are well cooked.

11) Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.

Note:

1) Instead of red chilli powder, you can also use dry red chillies for roasting for this gravy.

2) Increase or decrease the water quantity as per your personal preference. If you like gravy consistency, then add a cup of water instead of 3/4 cup of water.

Bhapa Doi or Steamed Yoghurt (Better than Cheese Cake!) - Deepawali Sweet

Bhapa Doi  or  Steamed Yoghurt (Better than Cheese Cake!)

Wish you all a very Happy Deepawali!  May the festival of lights dispel darkness and ignorance and bring all things bright and wonderful your way this year!

Fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge

 

This year we wanted to make a simple sweet dish of Deepawali, but also something new which we haven’t tried before. Although as a family we are mostly off sugar, we wanted to ensure Dib’s little daughter learns to celebrate Deepawali with all traditions intact!  She is fussy about food, and surprisingly doesn’t have an affinity for sweets.  She loves her cheese though, and so we were thinking of a dish that she can enjoy as well.  We promptly zeroed on ‘Bhapa Doi’ or ‘Steamed Curd’  from the Bengali cuisine. It looked easy enough to make as well.

We tried it for the first time. It is surprisingly easy to make and tastes amazing. It‘s texture is like cheese cake, and in fact tastes far better than cheese cake without its dry biscuit crust!  Weare thinking of adding fruit pulp the next time we make it!

INGREDIENTS:

Ingredients

 

Greek Yogurt- ½ kilo  (If you don’t have greek yoghurt, hang curd in a muslin cloth and allow all the water to drip off (at least 2 – 3 hours)
Sweetened Condensed milk – 1 tin
Milk – 2 tbsps
Saffron strands – a generous pinch
Dry roasted whole cardamoms – a few

METHOD:

1.       Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

2.       Fill your  kettle and put it on to boil.

3.       Blend yogurt and condensed milk together, using a hand blender or whisk.

Whisk yoghurt and condensed milk.

 

4.       Pour it into a bake proof bowl. We poured it into small ramekins and we got about 6.

5.      The ramekins need to be cooked in a Water Bath. To create a water bath, place the ramekins in a large baking tray (we used a foil tray), and place in the oven. Very carefully fill with hot water upto ¾ height of the ramekins. Be careful not to burn your hands, or spill water in the Doi!

Water Bath in the Oven

6.       In the meanwhile soak the saffron strands in warm milk.

7.       After 25 minutes, open the oven carefully and top the contents of each bowl with a little soaked saffron milk, and place one cardamom on top. Breaking the pod a little, but without removing the seeds helps in releasing flavours.

8.       Again bake for ten minutes.

9.       Remove from the oven, cover with cling film and chill for few hours,( but best results are to chill  overnight)  before serving.  

Chilled and ready to serve!

 

Its all set!

 

Cheese cake texture - but better!

Enjoy the delicious Bhapa Doi after a hearty and sumptuous Deepaavaali meal.