Simple delights of life : Dalma

Few simple things can give you so much pleasure. One recipe I learned after my marriage is a very simple daal. On weekdays when you want quick and healthy meal, this daal can make your life easier. It has daal, vegetables so its complete meal with rice. If you want you can serve mashed potatoes or any simple dry subzi with it.
This daal needs very few ingredients
1 cup moong daal
1 cup vegetables (like pumpkin,plantain,brinjal,drumsticks,beans etc.)
1 tbs paanchfodan(equal mix of mustard seeds,cumin seeds,kalonji,fenugreek seeds,saunf)
2 tbls oil
1 tbs turmeric powder
2 red chillies
Salt to taste
1/2 tbs Cumin powder + red chilli powder for final touch

1.Dry roast the daal lightly
2.In pressure cooker add daal,vegetables, turmeric powder,salt with enough water. Cook till daal and vegetables are well done.
3.In a kadhai, heat oil. Add paanchfodan,red chillies and let it splutter.
3.Then pour cooked vegetables and daal.Add some water to adjust thickness.
4.Boil for 3-4 min.Switch off heat and finish with cumin powder+red chilli powder.
5. Serve with rice

Ganapati special: Ukadiche Modak

For all Mumbaikar Ganesh festival is "THE" festival of year.B'lore,Karnataka also celebrates ganesh festival, but with bit of less glamour. As any pukka "Mumbaikar" I feel that ganesh festival is celebrated best in Mumbai,Maharashtra :) :)
This time Ganesh Chaturthi was on Sunday so I got time to prepare Naivedya (including Modak). Now in Mumai, we get modak in almost every shop (though with hefty price of Rs.10 per piece).Here we don't have any other option, so we had to settle with modak specially hand crafted by me :). The shape was not exactly what I would have liked, but taste was great.
Earlier I used to thought that modak is prepared only in Maharashtra, but I was wrong. The shape is specifically from Maharashtra, but preparation is also common to Oriya or eastern side food. In Orissa, it called as Pitha. They can be of different type, steamed or rice/made with rice floor/suji etc. They eat one more type of pitha called "Arisa pitha" which is nothing but "Anarase". When I tasted it first time I was so surprised that 2 states separated by miles have exact same sweet dish (with almost similar name) :).
Anyways, today's focus is on Ukadiche Modak.
Again preparation is simple, but skill is required to get the exact shape. Else you can prepare stuffed round balls which will still taste good.

Ingredients:
. For cover:
- 1 cup(heaped) very fine rice flour.In Mumbai/Pune you can get this rice floor easily (its called "Modak pith" itself).
- 1 spoon maida (refined flour). This is optional. Its used to add slight stickiness to rice floor cover.
- 1 tbl spoon salt
- 1 spoon oil/ghee
- 1 cup water
. For stuffing
- 1 full coconut, grated. Make 2 heaps of same.
- 1 heap of jaggery (i.e. 1/2 of grated coconut).
- 1-2 tbl spoon ghee
- cardamom powder and finely chopped dry fruits.

Preparation
. For cover:
1. Boil water in a pan. add salt and oil/ghee.
2. Take it down from gas(and switch is off). Now add rice flour (and maida). Mix well.
3. Again keep it on low flame for 5 min. Cover with lid.
4. Switch off the gas. Invert the pan over lid and keep it covered.
5. Once the flour cools down little bit, start kneading and make smooth dough. You can use water or oil to prepare dough.
. For stuffing:
1. Heat ghee/oil in non-stick pan.
2. Mix coconut and jaggery and then add to ghee/oil.
3. Cook till jaggery is completely melted and stuffing is dry (but still moist).
4. Add cardamom powder and dry fruits.
. Making modak
1. Round up a small ball of rice dough. Pat it into think sheet.
2. Now pinch sides of the rounded sheet. Pinch at least 4-5 times to give flower like appearance.
3. Add stuffing and then try to round up dough sheet. Get the petal like pinches together to get modak shape.
4. Once 4-5 modaks are prepared, put then on muslin cloth (water soaked) on keep it on steel strainer.
5. Steam it in cooker (without whistle) for 10-15 min (till you get whietish steam jet from cooker).
6. Serve modaks hot/cold with ghee.

Perfect weekend breakfast: Onion Dosa with Daal chutany

After living in B'lore for so long, we like to have dosas for breakfast. Everyday it is slightly time consuming to prepare dosas even if batter is ready. So we generally make dosa over weekend. Dosa is very easy to make and you can have it for breakfast, dinner anytime. Only thing you need to do right is timing. If you want to have dosa for Saturday morning breakfast, then you've to soak rice and daal on Friday morning and grind same on Friday night.
So here's recipe for Onion Dosa with daal chutney

Ingredients:
Dosa batter
- 4 Cups of Rice.Generally thick grain rice is used, but you can use any type of rice.
- 1 cup of urad daal.
- Salt to taste
Toppings
- 1 large onion chopped
- 7-8 green chillies
- 1 small carrot grated. (Per B'lore dosa recipe, if you like).
For Daal Chutney
- 1 small cup of Chana daal
- 1 Cup curd
- 3-4 red chillies
- 2-3 green chillies
- 1 tbl spoon cumin seeds
- 1 tbl spoon paanch fodan
- salt to taste

Dosa receipe
1. Soak rice and daal separately for 8-10 hrs. Make sure you wash rice and daal very thoroughly till the washing water is almost clear.
2. After required soaking, first grind the daal till batter is very smooth. One simple taste to check that is in small bowlful of water drop small ball of batter. If it riser to water surface immediately, then batter is perfect.
3. Once daal is grinded, grind rice again into smooth paste.
4. Now mix daal and rice batter together. Add pinch of salt. Leave it overnight to ferment. It will take 7-8 hrs to rise.
5. Now when starting to prepare dosa, start heating non-stick tawa on high flame. Don't put oil initially as you'll not be able to spread batter properly.
6. For onion dosa, batter should not be very thin. Put 2 laddleful of batter on tawa and spread it. Immediately put chooped onion and chilli and pat it slightly over batter. Put 1tbl sp oil around dosa. Cook it for 3-4 min.After one side is browned, turn dosa to cook side with onions. Remove from tawa,once onions are slightly darkened.

Chutney
1. Add 2 tbl sp of oil in frying pan. Once oil is headed, add paanch fotan and red chillies and let it splutter. Add chana daal (thoroughly washed)and fry till its golden brown.
2. Soak fried daal for 15-20 min, then grind it roughly with some salt.
3. Now prepare tadka(heat oil, add some green chillies, cummin seeds)and pour it over grounded daal.
3. Later add curd to complete preparation.

Today's special: Aloo Badi in Mustard gravy

After marrying into Oriya family, I ate food cooked in mustard oil or mustard gravy. Initially I was very hesitant about taste, smell everything. But now I'm not only used to it, but I've started preparing Corissa special food and I like it.
Today first time I tried Aloo Badi Jhol.
Badi is my favourite ingredient. Its nothing but dried balls of grounded daal(I think Urad dal) which is fried as & when required.Badi can be used in different subzi's. It adds a nice crunchiness.
There is one more ingredient used in Oriya/Bengali kitchen, i.e. Paanch phutan. Its simple mix of few spices like fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, kalonji and saunf. This adds taste to vegetables specially dry vegetables.
So now lets start with receipe. We'll need following ingredients

3-4 potatos,slieced vertically (or any shape you like).
1 small onion chopped
handful of badis. If badi is not available you can use "Saandge" or just add some more vegetables.
1 tbl sp paanch fotan
2 chillies
1-2 tbl sp oil
For Gravy
5-6 tbl sp mustard seeds
3-4 chillies
3-4 garlic cloves

Start with gravey preparation. First dry grind mustard seeds. Then add garlic & chillies and fine grind it adding little water.
Fry badi in oil and keep aside.
Heat some oil in kadai and add panch fotan, chopped onion and cillies. Fry onion till it turns slightly brown.Now add potatos,badi and fry for some more time. Now add some water and let the poptatoes cook. When potatoes are almost cooked add mustard paste, salt and some more water. Cook for some more time.
This will be thin type gravey (hence called Jhol).

This goes good with rice. Try it.

Simple Delicious Eggless Chocolate cake

To start with new food blog, what's better than sweet. I thought what better than simple yet delicious cake. I learnt this from mother-in-law who is very good cook. Come to think about it, I think most of Oriya people are good cooks(at least the people I know). Saikat, my husband is really very good at cooking (better than me actually which I hate to admit).I think Oriya's live to eat unlike Chitpavan Brahmin's like my family.

So back to the recipe.We'll need following ingredients

2 Cup maida
1 Cup milk powder
1 cup sugar (use regular sugar)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup milk(you might need to add more to thinner the batter if required).
1 tbl spoon baking powder 1/2 tbl spoon backing soda (don't use Eno, use baking soda)
3-4 spoonfuls of cocoa powder
Dry fruits
vanilla essence

Start with mixing milk and oil together. Soak sugar in this mix.
In another bowl sift together maida, milk powder,cocoa powder, baking powder and soda.
At this time you can start heating oven (180 degree C for around 10 min).
Now slowly start adding maida mixture to milk-oil mixture. Make sure you move spatula (or beater) in one direction only (either clockwise or anti-clockwise). If you feel batter is thick add little bit milk. Add vanilla essence and dry fruits. Save some dry fruits for topping.
In the cake tin add some ghee and heat it. Coat all sides of tin with ghee. Pour the cake batter in tin. If cake tin is around half filled then cake turns out better. Add dry fruit toppings.
Now place the tin on lower shelf with only lower heater on. Set timer to 25min.
Check after 20-22 min for clean knief test. If knief comes out clean, you can switch off oven. Don't take out cake tin. Let it cool with oven itself. This keeps cake fluffy.
If you dont like chocolate, you can remove cocoa powder from list to prepare basic cake. Sometimes I divide the batter in 2 portions and add cocoa powder to one portion only. Pour plain and chocolate batter together in tin to get marble like pattern. It looks good and tastes even better.Do try.