Deepaavali Sweet - Pista Poorie - Flattened And Fried Pistachio Dough In Sugar Syrup

PISTA POORIE

With Deepaavali just around the corner, the sweet shops are competing in  showcasing their most innovative food crafts. It is amazing to watch the multitudes of edible art pieces crafted in different colours and shapes using just maida ( plain flour ), sugar and ghee as the basic ingredients.

Pista Poorie is  Badam Poorie's sister sweet, the basic ingredients being maida, sugar and pista.

                                                  

INGREDIENTS

Maida - 2 cups

Ghee - 5 tbsps

Rice flour - 3 tbsps

Pista - 1 cup

Cooking soda - 1 pinch

Edible colour green - 2 pinches

Sugar - 2 cups

Lime juice - a few drops

Oil - for frying

METHOD

1. Blanch pista and grind into a smooth paste adding one pinch of edible green colour and little water.

2. Mix cooking soda and maida and rub two tbsps of ghee into it, until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

                                                

3. Add the ground pista paste and make a soft dough sprinkling little water if necessary.

4. Beat the remaining three tbsps of ghee and three tbsps of rice flour into a smooth paste. This is called 'saati'.

5. Divide the pista and maida dough into four portions and knead them into balls.

                                                

6. Roll one ball into a thin chapati using a rolling pin.

7. Apply one spoon of saati all over the chapati and keep aside.

                                                 

8. Roll out another chapati and place it on the previous chapati painted with saati.

                                                 

9. Apply saati over the second chapati.

10. Repeat the same with two more chapaties.

11. Apply saati on the fourth and last chapati and tightly roll all the chapaties together.

                                                 

12. Cut the roll using a sharp knife into ten slices.

                                                 

                                                     

13. Roll out the cut pieces into 1/4 inch thick poories with the cut sides up, dusting with rice flour if necessary.

                                                 

14. Heat oil in a kadai.

15. In the mean while wash the mixer used for grinding pista with little water and add it to the sugar with two more cups of water. Add a pinch of edible colour and boil the same till it reaches one thread consistency. Add a few drops of lime juice to lend gloss to the finished product.

                                                 

16. When the oil is hot enough turn down flame to medium and fry the pista poories till the edges start turning golden brown in colour.

                                                 

17. Drain the poories and then dip them in the hot sugar syrup coating them well with the syrup.

18. Remove poories from the syrup after three minutes and arrange them on a plate.

19. Garnish with fried pista pieces.

20.Thoroughly cool the Pista Poories before storing .

                        

Enjoy the Pista Poories with your grand Deepaavali spread.

Curry Leaves Powder / Karuveppilai Podi

Whatever may the dish be, I used to incorporate curry leaves if it involves seasoning simply because of its health benefits. No matter whether it is fresh or dry! But for some reasons I love to use fresh curry leaves and whenever I run out of it, then only go for the dried curry leaves. So, I always store dried leaves in a container as a backup. For the past few weeks, I have got fresh curry leaves enough to my cooking and I totally forget about the dried one which was sleeping in my pantry.



As a result of cleaning process for diwali, I found this container of dried curry leaves. When you get some interesting, healthy ingredient in larger quantity, what will you do next if you are foodie? you definitely think about some recipe like I did. Yes! I first prepared Pollachi chicken masala using it and curry leaves powder with the remaining leaves.



Did you know? Eating 10 fully grown curry leaves every morning for three months will help to prevent diabetes due to heredity factors. (Source: Home Remedies Guide)

Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Makes: 1 cup

Ingredients:



Curry Leaves - 2 cups

Urid dal - 1/4 cup

Channa dal - 2 tablespoons

Dry red chilli - 4 nos

Garlic - 1 clove

Salt - to taste



Method:



1) Wash curry leaves and dry them completely. It should not be wet.

2) Dry roast curry leaves till they are crisp and nice aroma spreads out in the kitchen.

3) Then, dry roast channa dal, urid dal and dry red chilli till they become golden brown in colour.

4) Remove from stove and allow all the roasted ingredients to cool.

5) In a mixer/food processor, first add curry leaf and grind for 2 minutes.

 

6) Then, add remaining ingredients and grind to a coarse powder.

7) Towards the end of grinding, add salt and chopped garlic. Continue grinding for few more minutes.

 

8) Store it in a air tight container and serve with idly, dosa and hot steamed rice.

Note:

1) I have used 50 % fresh and 50 % dried curry leaves to make the powder and hence I have got the colour as shown in the picture. If you use fresh one, you will get the dark green colour for the powder.



Sending this recipe to Akila's Dish Name Starts with K Event.

Soy Flour Pineapple Cake - Healthy and Gluten Free - Blog Hop Wednesday - Week 7

I always wanted to try something different with cakes. This time I decided to make flour less cakes, this being the second one. My first experiment was a hit with Almond Honey Cake, so wanted to try now with soy flour. This cake too turned out so good and tasty. I added pineapple because Shoj likes pineapple a lot and I thought if it does not turn out good, then he would eat it at least because of pineapple.:) But he liked it!

Ingredients:

------------

1 1/3 cup Soy Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Brown Sugar

1 can of Pineapple slices with Syrup (pineapple juice)

2 Eggs

2 tsp Oil

(Note: You can substitute 2 Eggs + 2tsp Oil = 4 Egg Whites)

2 tbsp Yogurt or Soy Yogurt

Method:

---------

1. Preheat oven to 325F. 

2. Line baking cups or pan with parchment paper.

3. Remove the pineapple slices from the pineapple juice and cut the pineapple slices into small pieces.

(Note: You also use apples instead of pineapple, or you can also crush the apples/ pineapple in a blender - I wanted it to be chunky so did not use or crush the pineapple)

4. In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder and sugar and mix well.

5. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients i.e., eggs, oil, yogurt and half of the pineapple juice from the can. Mix well and add this mixture to the flour mix and combine it with a hand mixer until well blended.

6. Now add the pineapple pieces and with a wooden spoon or spatula mix the batter gently.

7. Pour this batter into the prepared cups or pan and bake it for about 45 mins.

(Note: As there is no flour in this cake mix, we need to bake this cake in a medium oven and for longer time so that the flour will not burn and will cook properly).

Sending this to "Blog Hop Wednesday - Week 7" hosting by Radhika of "Tickling Palates" and my partner for this week is "Priya" of "Enveetu Ktichen".