Almond-Butter Spread
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Here is my own recipe for a healthy bread-spread you and your family will enjoy. A good alternative for peanut butter or other sugar or corn-syrup loaded spread. I got my inspiration for this recipe from couple of traditional dishes - Baklava and Athirasam
All the ingredients has its own health benefits. Almonds are packed with vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber. Honey is a blend of sugar, trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids that has antibacterial, anti-fungal, and antioxidant properties. Honey has helped me a lot in reducing my seasonal pollen allergies. Found out consuming local honey works best as the bees interact with the local vegetation.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Almonds
- 1 tbsp Raw Honey
- 1 pod cardamom (Ēlakki/Elachi)
- 1 cloves (Lavaṅga/Laung)
- 1 small piece Cinnamon (Dālcinni/Daalacheenee)
- 2 black pepper (Kaalu meṇasu/Kalee mirch)
- ¼ tsp Ginger powder
- Optional - Nutmeg/Jāyikāyi powder and Saffron/Kēsari - a pinch
- Optional - Brown sugar /Jaggery (Bella/Gud) - to taste
Method:
- Soak Almonds for at least four to five hours.
- Remove and discard the skin. Spread the almonds on a towel for about 10 mins to remove water moistrue out.
- In a mortar, dry grind the spices (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and black-pepper) into fine powder.
- In a blender or food processor, make almond paste. It is hard to get smooth paste, coarse consistence will do.
- Transfer the paste in to a bowl. Mix in the ground spices and ginger powder. Now add raw-honey and mix it all together. Note: You may blend ground spices and honey in the blender itself, but I found out it is difficult to clean the blender after that. I usually mix all together in the container I intend to store the spread and keep.
- Optional : may add jaggery, brown-sugar or sugar according to your taste... more sweet; Mix in pinch of nutmeg powder and saffron.
- Stored in refrigerator will last for a month.
- Enjoy your morning breakfast with toasted bread or croissant with homemade almond butter spread.
Tips:
- For your child's lunch-box, spread this mixture on cooked Chapathi/Roti and roll it in to tubes for easy munching.
- This mixture may be used as stuffing for other dishes like Modaka, Kadabbu, Dilkush/Dilpasand, turnovers, puff-pastries (especially Danish Bear Claw : recipe ) etc.,
Labels: breakfast, Lunch-box, Tiffin Variety, Vegetarian
Jola/Jowar Chakli
Sunday, January 01, 2017
Ingredients:
- 2 cups Jawar ka atta / Sorgum Flour
- 3/4 cup yogurt
- 1 tbsp Oil/melted butter
- 1 tbsp Sesame Seeds
- 1 tbsp Red Chilli powder
- 1 tbsp Coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Hing
- Turmeric/Haldi - 1/8 tsp
- 1/4 tsp Carom seeds / Ajwayan
- Sugar - 1 tsp
- 1/2 cup water
- Oil for frying
Method:
- Take jawar flour in to a bowl.
- To that add red chilli powder, hing, coriander powder, oil, salt, sesame seeds, carom seeds.
- Mix very well.
- Then add yogurt and start to knead that in to a dough.
- Then add water and make that in to a stiff dough.
- Now divide dough in small cylinder shapes so that it will fit in to a chakali mould.
- Now start to make that in to chakali shapes on to a wax paper or clean wet towel. I use wet paper towel. Or if you don't care for the shapes, press directly into the hot oil. Just be careful.
- Now deep fry chakali until it gets deep golden color.
- After chakali cools down store that in to a air tight container.
Labels: Snack, Vegetarian
Kadale Kalu Usli
Kadale Kalu Usli / Kadle Usli / Channa Sundal - all different names depending on the different regions. This is a south-Indian dish prepared as offering (naivedyam) during Ganesha Pooja. A Festive food, but it is one of favored snack in our house. May be prepared with Kabul Channa (Garbanzo beans/ Chickpeas) but I prefer the Black or Green Channa / Kappu Kadle kalu or Hassiru Kadle kalu. Also can be prepared with (green) Mung beans, split lentils like Bengal gram or green gram. Preparing this dish with sprouted beans makes it more nutritious.
Ingredients:
- Kari Kadale Kalu / Channa /Garbanzo / Chickpeas
- Chili powder
- Lemon Juice
- Coconut
- Kadi Patha (curry leaves)
- Mustard
- Asafetida/Hing
- Salt
- Coriander (cilantro)
Method:
- Soak Kadale/Garbanzo over night. Note: No need to soak if you are using canned chickpeas.
- To sprout the beans (optional) - Drain the soaked beans and leave it in the strainer covered with a wet cloth for one more day.
- Wash and pressure cook with salt and water. (You may add a piece of ginger while cooking as it will help reducing the Gas problem. ) Let it cool. Drain and keep aside.
- Take 2 tsp., of oil in a pan and heat it on medium heat. Add mustard seeds, Curry leaves and asafetida.
- Once mustard starts to crack, add cooked Kadale/Channa to it. Mix in salt and chili powder to taste . After 2 minutes of stirring, add grated coconut.
- Remove from the fire and garnish with lemon juice and chopped cilantro.
Labels: Festive Food, South-Indian Dish, Usli, Vegetarian
Khara (Spicy) Mangalore Buns
Mangalore Buns are one of my favorite evening snacks my mom used to make. It is prepared as breakfast dish too. They are fluffy sweet pooris(puris). But when it comes to pooris, my hubby does not like it sweet, so here is my version of spicy and savory Mangalore Buns.
For the original Mangalore Buns recipe,
add more sugar (5 tbsp or to taste) and
skip - chilli pdr, turmeric and coriander leaves. Here is post for
Mangalore Buns recipe.
- 1/2 kg maida/all purpose flour/plain flour
- 2 ripe bananas (fully ripe soft banana's are the best to use)
- 1 tsp sugar
- Salt to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder (or Eno Fruit Salt - unflavored one) some use baking soda too.
- 2 tbsp curds
- 2 tsp cumin(Geera) seeds
- 2 tsp red chilli pdr
- 1/2 tsp turmeric(Haldi) pdr
- 1 handful of chopped coriander/cilantro
- Oil for deep frying
- Extra flour for dusting
Method:
- Peel and slice the bananas. Add them into a mixer/blender along with salt and sugar. Blend them into a fine paste. You may mash all these in a bowl using your hands.
- Transfer the ground banana paste into a mixing bowl, add in the curds, turmeric pdr, chilli pdr, cumin seeds, chopped coriander leaves and baking powder and mix well. [Optional: ginger/garlic paste or Garam-Masala or one of your other masala may be added too]
- Heat 1 tbsp dalda/vanaspati or ghee or cooking oil in a tempering pan and keep it aside.
- Add maida/plain flour to the mixture in the bowl little by little and knead it into a soft dough. When you have a sticky dough, add in the melted dalda and knead well.
- Add in more flour if needed to make a nice dough that doesn't stick to your fingers completely. But we don't need a hard dough. We need a wet, soft, sticky, rubbery dough. (softer than chapathi dough). Note: Do not add any water while kneading the dough. Sugar when mixed with banana and curds gives out enough water to knead a dough. If needed add more curds or buttermilk.
- Spread bit of oil over the dough to keep it moist and prevents drying of the outer layer of the dough.
- Wet a thin cloth or paper-towel, squeeze out all the excess water, cover the dough completely with this damp cloth and allow it to rest at room temperature for 7-8 hours. The wet cloth helps retain moisture during rising of the dough. Make sure the cloth isn't too wet and is just damp enough.
- After at least 6 hours, lightly knead the dough before you make buns. Make tiny lemon sized balls of the dough, roll it out a little using flour to dust. Don't flatten the balls too much, keep them thick. This dough does not roll into round shapes so I use one of my glass bowls to press it into all even round shapes. You may use a cookie cutter too.
- Heat up oil for deep frying, test if the oil is rolling hot by dropping a small piece of dough. If the dough emerges on top of the oil, that means the oil's hot enough. Lower the flame to medium heat. If the oil's not heated up yet, wait for another 3-4 minutes.
- Dust excess flour off the rolled pooris and fry them one by one on medium flame. As soon as you drop the pooris into the oil they puff up beautifully, flip them over, keep them pressed under the oil for few seconds, that helps the puri puff up more.
- Once they are cooked on both the sides and are golden brown, remove the poori from the hot oil and place it in a bowl lined with paper towel.
Labels: Banana, breakfast, Indian Bread, Kundapura, Lunch-box, Mangalore dish, Snack, Tiffin Variety
