Flaked rice Uppma

Flaked rice Uppma

South Indian breakfasts are  elaborate affairs. That two pieces of silky soft fluffy idlis which vanishes within seconds actually needs overnight workload of soaking the grains, then grinding the grains, then fermenting the grains, then greasing the idli moulds, steaming them so that those fluffy pillows of goodness can be devoured.

I am the laziest bum in my family.
I cant be bothered to do all this work today so that I can have my breakfast tomorrow.
So here is a tasty alternative for a South Indian breakfast,

I learned to make Uppma from my aunt Jayanthi, around the time my grandfather passed away. My aunt , whom I call Jayanthi Mami, volunteered to make breakfast for everyone in the family and I gladly became her assistant.  She is a woman of few words but she is the most efficient woman in my family. This Uppma is a long cry from the traditional one she taught me, but I do remember her in gratitude every time I make Uppma.

This is what you need to make this yummy dish.

Flaked rice  -  2 cups
grated coconut - 3 table spoons
chopped green chillies - 2
chopped carrot - 1
chopped green pepper - 1
chopped onion - 1 large
black gram dhal (Urad dal)- 1 teaspoon
egg - 1
curry leaves
butter , ghee or oil  - 2 tablespoons

Add 2 tablespoons of water to the flaked rice to soften it. Keep it aside while you prepare the vegetables.

Heat the oil, butter or ghee and add curry leaves and black gram dhal. When it browns add the chopped onion and sauté. Add all other chopped vegetables and sauté till soft. Add salt to taste.
Break the egg and pour over the veggies and scramble so that the egg coats the vegetables evenly.

Now add the softened flaked rice, and mix it thoroughly with the vegetables. Add grated coconut, remove from fire and serve hot with banana.

Coco ripple Sour cream cake

Coco ripple Sour cream cake

Cakes are for any time. Not just for special occasions or tea time.
Today is Vishu for Keralites like me. Vishu is a Hindu festival and it is the day when the young ones in the family get money from the elders to ensure year long prosperity.
This cake I baked today is soft, moist and full of flavour. I added a chocolate ripple to satisfy my children who likes to have chocolate in anything.

All you need to make this cake are the following ingredients.

softened butter  125 gm
sugar  220g
eggs 2
cake flour 300 g
baking powder  3 teaspoons
sour cream  300 ml
vanilla extract  1 teaspoon
chopped walnuts  2 tablespoon
cocoa powder 1 table spoon

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease a loaf pan and dust with flour.
Beat butter, vanilla, powdered sugar and eggs till light and fluffy. Sieve the flour and baking powder.
Fold in the sifted flour alternating with sour cream.
Drop big spoonfuls of batter into the loaf pan. Dust with cocoa powder to cover the batter. Repeat till all the batter is used up. Sprinkle chopped walnuts on top.
Bake for about an hour. Stand in pan for 5 minutes and turn the cake into a wire rack. Cool and serve.

White chocolate mud cakes

White chocolate mud cake

I was away from home for quite some time. Everytime I return, my home embraces me with all its love and warmth, 

This time was no different except that my husband took ill the same day I returned. The children also got tense and while he is resting and recovering, I decided to bake some cup cakes to cheer up the kids.

I dont eat chocolate of any kind. Even the aroma gives me a headache but everyone else in my family loves chocolate. 

This cupcake is made without a blender or a whisk. Sometimes Australian Women's weekly gives recipes which are triple tested in their kitchen and works amazingly well all the time.

This is what you need to make these cuties.

White chocolate - 90 gms

butter - 90 g

castor sugar - 110 g

honey - 2 table spoons

milk - 125 ml

cake flour - 150 g

baking `powder - 1 teaspoon

egg - 1

icing sugar to dust

Pre heat oven to 160 degrees  celsius. Grease a 9 hole cup cake tin and line with cup cake liners.

In a small thick based sauce pan, heat chocolate, butter, sugar, honey and milk over low heat till smooth. Leave to cool.

Sift flour with baking powder. Lightly beat the egg. Add sifted flout and egg to the chocolate mixture. Divide among the cupcake liners and bake about 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned.

Cool the cakes and serve dusted with icing sugar.

I am sure you will enjoy baking and eating these mud cakes.

Caramel Melon

Yellow Melon is sweeter and flavorsome than the pink one. I am not very keen on experimenting with Melon other than making the occasional smoothie or juice with lemon or orange zest. Some time back I watched a very famous English lady making a melon salad with chilies, onion and coriander leaves. I even saw her friends eating that and saying it was so yummy. But then you really cant be sure with English, since they never give their true opinion. They always say it is awesome for fear of upsetting the listener.
Anyway I tried her Melon Cilantro salad and trust me, it was awful. A lesson learned, Coriander and Melon doesn't go together !!
This time I had some yellow Melon and I wanted to try it with salted Caramel. A word of warning, though. Serve it immediately. If you keep it, the caramel will melt and sink into the Melon, forming a pool of watery Caramel around the Melon. But eaten immediately, it brings smiles.

To make this, Cut slices of the Melon. Melt sugar to make a Caramel. Pour over cut slices and sprinkle sea salt. Serve immediately and enjoy.

Steamed Pork Buns ( Baozi / Mantou)

If you walk down the street , any street, in Shanghai, you will find at least two Mantou vendors. It is very easy to spot them because they always have their huge tall Steamers ready to give you the juiciest and softest buns you have ever tasted.
I have been longing to make steamed buns myself and by trial and error succeeded in making  soft Buns today. They might not look very professional, but they did taste awesome with a very succulent flavorsome filling and soft and cushion like dough.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

2 to 2 and a half cups flour
1 and a half teaspoon yeast
quarter cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon oil
2 teaspoon baking powder

Mix yeast with sugar and water. Stir till yeast dissolves and keep it aside for a couple of minutes till frothy. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Place the flour in a large bowl and make a soft dough with the yeast and oil. Knead till soft for about 5 minutes. Place the soft dough in an oiled bowl and keep in a warm place for about an hour,

For the filling
 1 teaspoon oil
2 or 3 spring onion, chopped fine
250 gms Pork mince
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon chopped chillies
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce

Make a paste with Cornflour and 1 and a half tablespoon of water and keep aside.
Heat the oil and add spring onions until it wilts. Add the mince and stir.Add everything else except Cornflour paste and Shaoxing wine and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the Shaoxing wine to the Corn flour paste and add this to the Pork. Stir for a  minute till the mixture comes together as a paste. Remove from fire and cool completely.

To assemble
Divide the dough in half and  Roll each half  on a lightly floured surface to form a long sausage. ( about 12 inches long). Cut the logs into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten it slightly to form a flattened circle.
Lightly dust a surface and roll each circle into a three and a half inch circle. The edges should be thinner than the middle. Hold the circle in your palm and place about two or three teaspoons of the filling on the circle. Flatten the filling , taking care to leave at least half inch around the edge. Fold the buns and let it rest for half an hour. When it is well risen, place on the steamer and steam for 15 minutes

You can see how it is assembled in this video here .

Radish and Cucumber salad with seasoned Yogurt

Cucumber is really a cool vegetable. It is very refreshing in summer. It is delicious either raw or cooked. We use Cucumber a lot in our traditional cuisine and most of the time it is in combination with yogurt or tamarind. 

 
Today I went to the fresh produce market and got some good organic Cucumber. They even had the flowers still attached to the fruit.

I am going with a vegetable theme this week , as an attempt to detoxify without starving myself to death. Cucumbers are an excellent choice for detox, or that is what people say. Whether it helps detox or not, I love Cucumber ( Well, everyone knows that. That is why we chose to name our spa, Cucumber :)  )

It was really hot and humid today and so I decided to make a Yogurt mint dressing to go with it. Though garlic is considered heat inducing, I added a bit of garlic too, because along with Cucumbers I got fresh garlic too.

What I did was pretty simple, but nevertheless gave me a dish I was so pleased with.

I washed the Cucumbers and peeled them into strips with a peeler. I also cut the unpeeled radish to thin slices. Then I sprinkled some salt into it and left it aside while I was preparing the Yogurt sauce.

For the Yogurt sauce, I chopped a small garlic clove and added that to a cup of Yogurt. I didn't want the garlic to overpower the flavor, and that is why I chose the smallest clove. I added a teaspoon of chopped mint leaves, a bit of lemon juice and salt. Then I thought , maybe I need to spice it up a bit. So I heated a teaspoon of oil and when the oil was smoking hot, I dropped in some mustard seeds, chopped red chillies and a pinch of Fenugreek seeds. I added the seasoning straight to the Yogurt stirring constantly till evenly mixed. I was scared that the hot oil will curdle the Yogurt, but since I stirred it as soon as added the oil, it was still creamy.

Then I took the Cucumber and radish and crushed it slightly to remove the salty water. Pile them on a plate and serve with the Yogurt sauce.

Coconut Yogurt Cake

Trivandrum is my home. Everytime I am away, It calls me back to it´s green paddy fields and Coconut farms, enticing me with the aroma of Coconut based food. It wont be a lie, if I say that Coconut is in my blood and in my mind. Whenever I feel homesick the comfort food I crave for is  Coconut Chammanthi made with Coconut, chillies, ginger and lemon leaves served with brown rice. In fact, I can be far away from Kerala, but I can never be far from Coconut. Once a Malayali, always a Malayali :)

Here I try to add Coconut to a cake. Considering the fact that this photo was taken by a phone, it has turned out well. And the yellow Jasmine flowers are from my garden.

125 gm softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
half a cup of dessicated coconut
1 and a half cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup thick yoghurt

Heat oven to 180 degrees.
Beat butter and sugar in a bowl till light and fluffy. Beat in eggs.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
Fold in the flour, yogurt and coconut into the butter mixture.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured cake tin.
Bake for about 40 minutes.