Ukdiche Modak | Inippu Kozhukattai | Ganesh Chaturthi Recipes

Ganesh Chaturthi was never celebrated nor it’s done now at my parents place, I have no idea why!  So Ganesh or Vinayakar Chaturthi means eating all those yummy goodies from neighbors and in the last day watch from terrace Ganesh visarjan.   I still remember all the different kinds of Kozhukattai/kolukattai, kudumulu we used to get and relish, but after coming to Singapore there’s not much of happening here as it’s always working day and nor it’s celebrated with fun and fair.   With blogs full of modak, kozhukattai these days I was tempted too and finally manage to make these.  It took lot of courage from me to try this as it’s my first time of making modak, though it doesn’t look perfect but tasted yum.   If you haven’t tried modak yet then don’t be afraid give a try.

Ingredients:

For Modak Outer Layer
Rice Flour - 1 Cup
Water - 1 1/4 Cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Ghee/Sesame Oil - 1 tsp

For Filling/Puran/Pooranam
Jaggery (Gur) -  3/4 Cup
Fresh Grated Coconut - 1 Cup
Cardamom Powder - 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg Powder - 1/2 tsp
Roasted Poppy Seeds Powder - 1 tbsp [optional - I didn’t use]

Method:

For Filling/Puran
1. In a pan add jaggery and coconut and saute for 2 minutes until jaggery starts to melts.  Add cardamom powder, nutmeg powder and poppy seeds if using, mix everything well, remove from flame and allow to cool.  (if over cooked filling will become hard)

For Outer Layer
2. Boil water in a pan add ghee or oil whatever using.   Add salt and rice flour.
3. Mix quickly in slow flame not forming any lumps.

4. Once everything come together off flame and let the dough sit for 2 minutes covered.  In the same pan or in a different bowl knead dough to make it smooth.  It will be warm so big careful while doing this.  If required keep dipping hand in water.  Cover the dough with damp cloth at all times.


To Make Modak/Assembly
5. Pinch a medium lemon size dough and make it into smooth ball.  Grease hands with oil, start pressing with fingers edges of ball to make a small cup/katori.  Make sure cup is not very thick. 
6.  Fill 1-2 tsp of filling and bring all the edges together to seal modak, you can gather them together to form a bundle or roll well to make it in round shape like I did. Repeat same for rest.
7.  Heat a steamer with water or idli cooker, grease idli plates and steam modak for 10-12 minutes, once the outer layer done will be shinny. 


Our modak is ready.  Serve this warm or microwave for 20-30 seconds before serving.



And this goes my Festive Food: Ganesh Chaturthi Event.

Have a nice day !

Cabbage Soup Recipe

 
I make cabbage soup more often than any other soups as it’s super easy to prepare and taste good.  Most of the time half of my cabbage goes in making soup, there are many ways this soup can be made, you can add any other vegetable of your choice or even sambar powder.   But this plain soup goes well with any spicy pasta.  


I like to make my own soups rather using readymade versions, once you get hang of making soup there’s no looking back and for most of the soup you can follow same recipe, there’s no rocket science here.  I never thought of posting this simple soup recipe but this is for one of the friend whom keep asking me to post. 



Ingredients [ Serves 3]

Chopped Cabbage  - 2 Cups
Onion - 1 [medium]
Minced Garlic - 1 tsp
Olive Oil - 1 tsp
Clove - 1
Cinnamon Stick - 1/2” piece
Vegetable Stock Cube - 1 [optional]
Water - 4-5 Cups
Salt & Pepper - To taste



Method

1. Chop cabbage and onion, mince or grate garlic.
2. In a pressure cooker or pan heat oil add garlic and onion and sauté until translucent.
3. Add clove, cinnamon, cabbage and sauté for 2 minutes.
4. Now add salt,  vegetable stock cube (if using) and 1 cup water and cook for 1 whistler or until cabbage becomes soft and cooked if using pan.

5. Allow to cool and then discard clove and cinnamon pieces.
6. Transfer everything to blender or mixer, add 2 cups water and blend until smooth.
7. Bring back everything to pan again and add water 1-2 cups if required.  Add pepper and adjust salt.  Bring it to boil.

Serve warm and relish.


Variations ~
1. Add a potato or broccoli along with cabbage.
2. You can skip clove and cinnamon and add 1 tsp of sambar powder, it taste good.
3. Remember to discard clove and cinnamon before making puree. 
4. While boiling the soup in the end, add 2 tbsp of Parmesan cheese for delicious cheesy version, kids will love it (don’t use sambar powder in this case).
Have a nice day ~~

Black Forest Cake

Remember my tricolor cupcakes with cream frosting, the same day I also made this black forest cake for DH birthday.  Last year I baked chocolate cake with chocolate frosting which was so delicious I got wonderful review for it from DH and others but couldn’t post it as I didn’t took pictures. 


This year after a lot of thinking I decided to make black forest cake as it was in my wish list for long and took all my effect to take pictures too.  The step vise pictures looks a bit messy, but having newspaper over the counter really helps a lot with aftermath of baking as the one part I hate about baking is cleaning after all the work done, always end up having so many things to wash, clean, wipe and store back all the spoons, cups, tins and what not! It’s just me or any of you have same feeling too?  Anyways here the cake just before cutting :)


Coming back to our cake, yes I agree I didn’t pipe well and it doesn’t cook all pretty too as I am still learning and hope to do better in future.  It was a humid day (as always) the icing was melting which you can see in the pictures and I was running out of my patience.   If you are patience enough and practice you can decorate the cake nicely it comes with practice so don’t be dishearten if 1st time you don’t get it right, you will eventually get it it’s just matter of time. 

Anyways the cake tasted deliciousssss, seriously it was too delicious everyone liked it and I shared this with my friend and she loved it too.   I adapted the recipe from joyofbaking and from Prema’s black forest cake recipe and came up with my own recipe, and thanks to Prema for always motivating to try icing, no matter how I do she still praise it with kinds words (though I know the truth ;)).  So not dragging any more let’s look at the recipe.   Posting this cake today as it's dear friend Dharini birthday, so here you go gal Wish you Happy Birthday.

Ingredients:
[Adapted from Joyofbaking & Prema’s Culinary]

For Chocolate Sponge Cake
Plain Flour - 250gms ( 2 cups)
Baking Powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Eggs - 4
Granulated White Sugar - 200gms
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Vegetable Oil - 60 ml [4 tbsp]
Cocoa Powder - 30 gms [ 1/3 cup]

For Whipping Cream Frosting & Assembly
Whipping Cream - 400ml
Icing Sugar - 20gms
Pitted Cherries - 1 tin [halved, keep the syrup]
Corn Flour - 1 tbsp
Granulated White Sugar - 2 tbsp
Maraschino Cherries - 10-12
Chocolate Rise - 100gms
Colorful Sprinkles - 1 tbsp [optional]



Method

For Chocolate Sponge Cake
1. Shift plain four, baking powder, soda, salt and keep aside. Line and grease a 9" round baking tin. Preheat oven at 180C [ I used 8” round baking tin].

2. In a large bowl break eggs, add sugar and beat in high speed for 5-6 minutes or until egg mixture gets light & fluffy  add oil, vanilla extract and beat for a minute to combine everything well.

• For eggless version, replace eggs and sugar with 1/2 cup of condense milk and rest of procedure is same

3. Add cocoa powder, Keep adding flour in small quantities and blend well.

4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  You will also notice cake will start to leave sides of pan.  Cool on a metal rack for 5 minutes before removing cake from pan and then cool the cake completely before frosting.

• [You can bake this as a single cake like I did or divide the batter in two same size tin and bake twice, you need to check the cake after 25 minutes if it’s baked fully.
• You can make the sponge cake in advance and store in fridge (wrapped well in cling) up to to 2 days before doing frosting]

For Frosting
5. Remove wax paper from cake and slice the cake in 2 or 3 layers horizontally.

• [If you baked the cake in 2 pans then slice in 2 layers so in total there will be 4 layers of cake]

6. Drain out juice from cherries in a bowl, halves cherries & keep aside.  In a small bowl take 2-3 tbsp of drained cherries juice, add corn flour and mix well, make sure not to form any lumps.

7. Heat drained juice along with 2 tbsp sugar until it starts to boil, slow flame, now add corn flour mixture and whisk briskly.  In a minute juice will start to thicken off flame and keep aside to cool.

8. In a large bowl add whipping cream, icing sugar and beat till stiff peaks.

Now that we have all prep work done we can work on our assembly.
For Assembly
9. Place a cake layer on the cake board and brush with prepared syrup evenly over, idea here is to soak cake to make it soft but do not add too much of syrup it will make the cake soggy and it will break.

10. Add a dollop of cream on top and spread over, decorate with cherries.

11. Repeat for 2nd cake layer with syrup, cream and cherries. Keep the third layer on second,spread the cream on top evenly.

12. Frost sides of the cake.  Fill cream in a piping bag and decorate top sides.  In the center you have include chocolate  shaves.   I thicken up remaining syrup and spread it in center.

13. Coat sides of cake with chocolate rice and also on top of cake and pipe lower edges of cake.

• [I did a mistake of piping top and bottom of cake and then coat chocolate rice]

14. Place the Maraschino cherries at the top and add sprinkles in center. 

Want a bite?



Have a nice day ~~

Ajwain Paratha Recipe

Ajwain Paratha is my favorite paratha.  I can eat this every day without a problem, this use to be our regular in our lunch box.  Just like lemon rice, it’s also good for travelling as it stays soft for longer duration.   This paratha goes well with any dry or gravy type side dish but for me I love this with tea, just roll the paratha, dip in tea and enjoy.  When I don’t get any ideas of what to cook then ajwain parathas come to rescue and most of the time when I cook for guests I make these as it not only taste delicious but ajawin/carom seeds are good for stomach too.  If you don’t like to bite on carom seeds then soak it in little water for 10-15minutes, strain and use the water to get carom seeds benefits …easy right? 



Ingredients: [Makes 8-9 Parata]

Whole Wheat Flour - 3 cups
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Ajwain/Carom Seeds - 1 tsp
Oil - 2 tsp + to make parathas
Water - To knead (around 1 cup)



Method:

1 In a wide bowl or plate place flour, carom seeds, salt, 2 tsp of oil.  Mix everything well and rub between palm to get sand like texture.  Make a well in the center add water in small quantity.

2. Mix everything well, keep adding water in small quantity to make a smooth, pitiable dough, cover with a wet cloth and keep aside for 20 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into equal portion of 8-9 balls.  Take one piece at a time and roll into circle like we do for roti but little thicker than roti  You can make it as square paratha too which I normally do.


4. Heat  a pan/tawa or griller and place rolled paratha and cook on medium heat until you see it starts to change colour and little bubbles starts to form, flip it apply oil or ghee all over the paratha.  Now flip again to another side and apply ghee or oil.  Cook until both sides are golden brown, flip in intervals to prevent burning.


Serve warm with any side dish of your choice.



Have a nice day ~~

Lemon Rice Recipe

Lemon Rice used to be only for our lunch box during school days along with Aloo fry or bindi fry and that’s makes a perfect lunch box recipe.  Lemon rice has to be one of most easy & quick variety rice recipe and the best part is it’s works well with fresh steamed rice or leftover rice.  Tangy, spicy South Indian dish popular not only during travel but also for festivals like Vinayaka Chaturthi, Navratri etc .   I make this only once in blue moon and lucky DH doesn’t fuss about eating this, on weekend I made this for a friend and she liked it very much, if you haven’t tried lemon rice yet then it’s high time you should do it now.  



Ingredients:

Rice - 1 Cup
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Big Lemon - 1 [ Or 2 small lemons]
Onion - 1 [optional]
Green Chilies - 3-4
Dry Red Chili -1 [optional]
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Channa Dal - 1/2 tbsp
Urad Dal - 1 tsp
Peanuts - 2 tbsp
Asafoetida/Hing - a pinch
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Oil - 2 tbsp
Cilantro - 2 tbsp [chopped]

Method:

1. Pressure cook 1 cup rice with 2 (or 2 1/2) cups water or do same as your regular way of cooking rice.  Rice should be soft but not mashed.  Chop onion and slit green chilies.
2. Once rice is cold enough to handle add salt, turmeric powder and lemon juice and mix gently.  Adjust salt, and lemon if required.

3. In a wok heat oil, add hing, mustard seeds allow to crack.  Add ground nuts and sauté for 30 seconds.  Add channa and urad dal, curry leaves, green and red chili and sauté until golden brown.

4. Add onion and fry until translucent.

5. Add rice mixed with lemon juice, turmeric and salt.

6.  Mix well gently and garnish with cilantro.

Server warm or cold.



Notes ~
~ You can use leftover rice to make this.  If using leftover rice you can use 2-3 cups of cooked rice for this recipe.
~ You can add the seasoning with prepared rice and mix gently instead of adding rice to wok.
~ Don’t ever add lemon juice directly in hot seasoning, it will taste bitter.
~ Using onion is optional, I add only some times. 
~ You can use tbsp of cashew nuts along with peanuts. 
~ I didn’t use channa and urad dal as DH doesn’t like that.

And this goes my Festive Food: Ganesh Chaturthi Event.


Have a nice day.