Black Gram Patties (Urad Dal Vadas)

INGREDIENTS:

Urad Dal - 2 cups
Onion - 1 finely chopped
Green Chillies - 2
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Pepper Corns - 1/2 tablespoon crushed
Curry leaves - 1/2 tablespoon finely chopped
Coriander leaves  - 1/2 tablespoon finely chopped
Salt to taste
Oil for deep fry

HOW TO MAKE:

1)   Soak urad dal for 2 to 3 hrs and drain the water completely.

2)   Grind the batter to a paste (it can be slighlty coarse also for crispiness) - Don't add water while grinding so that the batter is a bit thick.

3)   Then add onion, green chillies, curry leaves, salt, cumin seeds, peppercorns,curry leaves, coriander leaves to it an mix well.

4)   Dip your hands in water and take a small ball sized batter and keep it on the palm and pat it to form a circle.

5)   Make a hole in the center of the patted batter.

6)   Fry the patted batter in oil till golden brown on both sides.

RATING NOTES:

              DIFFICULTY LEVEL    :   EASY

              RATING  POINTS         :    8/10**

**  The batter can be ground coarsely with very little water for crispiness.

Chole Bhathura

INGREDIENTS:

For the Bhathura:


Maida - 2 Cups
Yogurt - 3 Tablespoons
Semolina - 1 Cups
Salt  - 2 teaspoon
Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

For the Chole Curry:


Chick Peas    - 1 Cup soaked overnight in water
Onion - 1 Big
Oil -  2 Tablespoons
Green Chillies - 3
Tomato  -  2 small
Ginger & Garlic Paste - 1 Tablespoon
Red Chilli Powder    - 1 heaped teaspoon
Coriander Powder  -  1/2 teaspoon
Cumin Powder    - 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric Powder    - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt     - to taste
Chick Pea/Chole Masala - 1 tablespoon
Chat Masala - 1 teaspoon
Coriander Leaves - 1 fist (finely chopped)
Lime Juice   - 1 teaspoon

 HOW TO MAKE:

Bhathura :


1)   Mix all the ingredients of the Bhathura with sufficient water to form a firm dough and keep aside for 30 minutes covered with a clean wet cloth.

2)   Make small balls from the dough and roll each of them into palm sized Rotis/Pooris

3)   Deep fry each of them in hot oil and drain on an absorbent paper.

 Chole Curry:


1)  Pressure cook the soaked Chickpeas for 10 minutes.

2)  Slice onions and chop the tomatoes.

3)  Grind 1 tablespoon of the pressure cooked chickpeas with the onions, ginger-garlic paste and other spices and powders.

4) Heat oil in a pan, add the ground paste and fry till oil comes up. Add tomatoes and cook for 3-5 minutes.

5) Add the Chickpeas and cook till oil comes up.

6) Garnish with Fresh coriander leaves, rounded/chopped onions, green Chillies and lime juice.

7) Serve the Chickpea curry (Chole) with the Bhathuras.

RATING NOTES:

              DIFFICULTY LEVEL    :   EASY

              RATING  POINTS         :    8/10**

**  The more chickpeas you add for grinding along with the spices, the more gravy you get for this dish.

** Do not pressure cook the chickpeas for more than 15 minutes as they get very smoothed and the dish would not look good.

Four & Four , Here's more & more ...

4 fantastic destinations I would like to go on vacation before I pass out:





1)   Barcelona

2)   Dubai

3)   SanFrancisco

4)   Scotland


4 dream destinations I wish to reside in:

1)   Belgium

2)   Newzealand

3)   Canada

4)   Sweden

 4 things I would love to do on weekends:

 1)   Curl up on my Couch and read my favourite book

2)   Prepare a lovely meal with all my favourite dishes

3)   Sleep ,sleep, sleep

4)  Go to my favourite mall on a shopping spree


4 celebrities I would like to go on a big date with:

1)   Sharukh Khan

2)   Cristiano Ronaldo

3)   Andrew Flintoff

4)   Tom Cruise

4 objects I could not live without:

1)   Cell phone

2)   Cash Card

3)   Computer/Laptop

4)   Clothes.....


 4 gadgets I do not have, which I would like to have:

1)   Black Berry

2)   Touch Reader

3)   Food Processor

4)   Stand Mixer 


4 jobs I would stink at:

1)   Police/Detective

2)   Construction Worker

3)   Sailor

4)   Veterinery Doctor


4 Junk foods I'd love to snack on

1)   Chips

2)   Chocolates

3)   Fried stuff

4)   Sandwiches



4 websites I'd love to visit

1)   Facebook

2)   Twitter

3)   Gmail

4)   Blogger

Grilled Veg Sausages

I had never made Sausages earlier. So I thought of trying them with vegetables. I did not have a recipe for this.I combined the Cutlets and the Kebab recipe to shape the ingredients into sausages before I grilled them. The result was gratifying. Grilled Sausages perfectly browned with a hint of tartness. Tartness because I also added a liberal quantity of Fenugreek stuff.

This is how the recipe goes:

INGREDIENTS:

Potatoes                            - 1 Big
Frozen Corn                      - 1/2 Cup
Fenugreek Seeds              - 1 full teaspoon
Dried Fenugreek Leaves  - 1/2 tablespoon
Red Chilli Powder             -  1/2 teaspoon
Salt                                     - To taste
Chaat Masala                   -  1 teaspoon
Cumin Powder                 -   1/2 teaspoon
Corn Flour                       -   3 teaspoons
Ginger-Garlic Paste        - 1/2 teaspoon
Oil                                      -  1/4 Cup


HOW TO MAKE:

1)   Boil, Peel and Mash the Potatoes until smooth.

2)   Mix all the ingredients well and make small balls in them. Shape them in the form of sausages.

3)   Grill them in an Oven basking with oil liberally till browned and done.

4)   Serve them hot with Tomato Ketchup or Corinader Chutney

RATING NOTES:

              DIFFICULTY LEVEL    :   EASY

              RATING  POINTS         :    8/10**

**  Mash the Potatoes very smoothly for best shaped sausages

** You can also fry the sausages (deep/shallow fry) if you dont want to grill them

Cupcake Disaster

12 poor little light brownish cupcakes topped with pink icing sitting unpretty on a tray !!!

What went wrong with them? Why do they look sad in their pale and tiny paper covers?


Yes, disasters do happen in my kitchen. And I sit with a low morale soon after I find out about a failed attempt. But this time, I have made up my mind to re-try it all over again.


My story goes on like this :

 During the Hols, I decided to give a shot at baking. The Cupcake experiment was pending since long. So I decided to try them in the hols. I had never made cupcakes before. So I tried this with just 4 eggs.

I had purchased a muffin tray a couple of months back itself. I also bought a new cake decorator.

I browsed for a few good recipes and shortlisted one of them. I learnt about the new frostings/icings and finally selected one for my try. Everything looked easy and interesting. I was still debating if I should try the chocolate ones or vanilla. Finally I settled for Vanilla cupcakes with strawberry flavoured butter cream icing.

I was unhappy with the results. When the cupcakes started getting baked, they looked good in the oven for the first 10 minutes. They doomed also and then started to crack . At the end of baking time, I noticed that they had cracked a lot on the top surface. The top surface obtained a nice browinish shade. I inserted a pick into one of the cupcakes to see it come out clean. So I left them for cooling.

After a while I noticed that the cracks had reduced and the cupcakes looked shrinked slightly. When I tried to taste one of them, the inner portion had a raw taste and seemed undercooked.

Nevertheless, I went on to prepare the icing which tasted quite fine. Atleast there was something for me to cheer for.

I've been trying to troubleshoot. I have been wondering if its excess baking powder or excess oven temperature that caused this disaster. But they tasted fine. Not delicious. Thanks to the icing.

I think I may try them again with another recipe. I am sure I can do it better this time. I had made 12 cupcakes and I just ate the last one while I wrote this post.

Visit to the Grand Mosque,Beaches and the Sultan's Al Alam Palace

It was the day after Eid. This was apparently a fun day. So we decided to wake up early and spend the day outdoors. I had planned a number of places to visit in Muscat as its almost a year since I have come here and we had not had enough time in the past to tour this beautiful city. By the time we could get ready and have our breakfast it was past 10 a.m.

Our afternoon prayers were scheduled for 11:55 a.m. So we decided to vist the Grand Mosque first.  The Grand Mosque is the 4th largest Mosque in the world with a total area of 416,000 sq metres. It has a total capacity of 20,000 worshippers with a seperate prayer section for the women which can house around 750 worshippers. This mosque was built in the year 1992 under the leadership of the present Sultan of Oman - Sultan Qaboos and the Mosque is named after him. It has lovely gardens around the Mosque area and magnificient interiors. I clicked several pictures of the same to share with you all.

Our next stop over was a beach called the Al Azaiba beach. Al Azaiba is a posh area in Muscat housing beautiful Villas. It is situated near the sea side and it has one of the loveliest beaches. We stayed there for just sometime as it was quite hot. We then left to have a view of a few luxury apartments at the beach side called " The Wave - Muscat" .




The Wave - Muscat ( Luxury Apartments)



It was lunch time by the time we were done with our morning tours. We were quite hungry so we decided to try out the Rajasthani thaali for lunch. We visited a specialised Rajasthani restaurant close to our house. We were given a royal treatment there with our hand wash done in brass vessels and food served within seconds of we getting seated. The plate in which the food was served was huge with 10 bowls around and 4 sweets. The menu was unlimited and we ate till we could not eat any more.  The Rotis (bread) were soft and appeatising and the buttermilk served tasted excellent.

We went back home for a short while to rest as it was very hot outside. For the evening we had planned for another beach to view the sunset and for a nice walk along the beach area which has several restaurants. At 4:30 in the evening we left home to the Al Qurum Beach. The restaurant street was extremely crowded and so was the beach. We passed through several 5-star restaurants and coffee shops - La Mer was one among them. We clicked a few pictures and had a long walk of almost 5 km and finally reached the main beach area. It was sun set time and it was almost dark. We spent some time to return back to the street where we sat on the benches chatting till 7 p.m.

Our next stop over was the Sultan's Al Alam Royal Palace. We had to view this Palace from outside itself. It had lovely gardens and the next pictures say it all. The interiors of this beautiful Palace can be viewd on google images. I discovered this after i browsed on this sometime back.

  

Our fun filled day was coming to an end. We were heading for dinner and then back home. It was a long day. We had just another day left to return to work again. We dined in a simple South Indian restaurant. We had Chaats and light food. From the restaurant's glass patio we could see lightining strike the skies at a far off place. It apparently was raining somewhere.