We Knead To Bake #44 : Surti Butter

Surti Butter or Batasa or Jeera butter biscuit are a popular tea time snack sold in most bakeries or Irani tea houses in India. These are small, crisp,dried bread buns (or savoury cookies) with a light texture. The rich cookies are a great accompaniment to Indian masala Chai or go well with soups.

Saying Goodbye 2011 with Gingerbread Cookies

‘Stay Tuned’ that’s what I said in my last post- 3 months back! Those of you who ‘stayed tuned’ thanks a lot- I really appreciate your patience, those who didn’t please come back..coz I am back! 🙂 Yes the hectic life is getting the better of me and is keeping me very very busy and still I wanted to drop in here for the last time in 2011 with a simple recipe for Gingerbread cookies.

I am hoping 2012 will be a much better year for me- blogwise; I hope I can be more regular so that I can share my kitchen adventures (there have been many!) with you more often.

The Gingerbread cookies; Almost everyone has a recipe for them. Mine is from a lovely book called ‘Home Baking’. This book (publisher: parragon book) is packed with recipes to suit all tastes and occasions -from pies to tarts to muffins and biscuits, simple cakes to elaborate gateaux. So don’t be surprised if you see some more holiday recipes from the book in the New Year.

With 2 small vacationing kids at home, I ran out of ideas to keep them away from any mischief! The little one is quite a handful and the 6 yr.old gets bored easily without any activities.  Gingerbread cookies kept them busy for almost 2 days- 1 day cutting and baking, the next day for decorating. I didn’t have the gingerbread men cookie cutters so our gingerbread cookies are all shapes from Halloween to Christmas 🙂

The cookies were absolutely delicious with the warm ginger + spice flavour and were consumed in no time by the 2 little elves in my kitchen.

Here’s the recipe:

Gingerbread cookies from ‘Home Baking book’

Ingredients:

115g butter plus extra for greasing(I used Amul butter)

450 g plain flour(Maida), plus extra for dusting

2 tsp ground ginger (Soonth)

1 tsp mixed spice (I used apple pie spice mix)

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

100 g golden syrup

115 g light muscovado sugar

1 egg beaten

To decorate

85 g icing sugar

3-4 tsp water (or as required to make a thick paste)

Method:

Preheat oven to 160^oC

Grease 3 large baking sheets.

Sift the flour, ginger, mixed spice, and soda bi carbonate together into a large bowl.

Place the butter, syrup and sugar in a sauce pan over low heat and stir until melted.

Pour onto the dry ingredients and add the egg.

Take care the butter mixture is not too hot or the egg may scramble.

Mix together to make a dough.

The dough will be sticky to begin with but will become firmer as it cools.

You can store the dough in a plastic wrap upto a week in the refrigerator.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to about 3mm/1/8^th inch thick and stamp out different shapes of your choice.

Place on the prepared baking sheets. Re-knead and re-roll the trimmings and cut out more shapes until the dough is used up.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until firm and lightly browned.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

To Decorate:

Mix the icing sugar with the water to a thick consistency. Place the icing in a small polythene bag/piping bag and cut a tiny hole in one corner. Pipe the desired design on to the cooled biscuits.

Let the icing dry and if you have any left by then store in an airtight container. I didn’t have any left to store! 🙂

I will be hosting a Giveaway in the New Year 2012! So please stay tuned till then 🙂

Till then its Goodbye 2011 …

….see you in 2012 : another New year..lots of new dreams,hopes,ideas and recipes!

 

Vegetable Kung Pao

I wanted to make Kung Pao ever since I saw it on Deeba’s blog here. Being a vegetarian I skipped the chicken and used the available vegetables for this quick and easy vegetable Kung Pao.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients: 

8-10 button mushrooms sliced

1 large carrot diced

1 small Red cabbage diced

4 spring onions, white bulbs and green tops cut separately into 1/2″ pieces

1 red/yellow bell pepper, chopped

3 Tablespoons soy sauce

1Tablespoons sherry

2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons sugar

2 Tablespoons white-wine vinegar

2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil

1/3 cup water

2 Tablespoons cooking oil

3/4 cup cashews

1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes

3-4 garlic cloves, sliced

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, water, soy sauce, sherry and cornstarch.

In a wok or large frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over moderately high heat.

Add the cashews and stirring until light brown, about 30 seconds. Remove from the pan.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Add the garlic & chili flakes. Stir for 2 minutes till fragrant & light pink.

Add the white part of the spring onions, carrot & cabbage and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes.

Add the bell pepper and mushroom and cook for a 1-2 minutes more.

Add the soy sauce mixture and the onion greens and simmer for 1-2 minutes Stir in the cashews.

Serve hot over steamed rice.

Panaki

Panaki or Panagi is a traditional recipe originating from the Konkan region of Maharashtra. Usually it is made with a sweet stuffing of jaggery and coconut.

This is my mom’s non-sweet version of the recipe.

This savory Panaki is a Rice pancake steamed between turmeric leaves stuffed with some vegetables. (traditionally the sweet version is stuffed with coconut-jaggery)  The dominant flavour in this recipe is that of the turmeric leaves. If you can’t find turmeric leaves or if you don’t like its strong flavour you can use banana leaves.

This is entirely my mom’s recipe; in fact these photos are taken when she was actually teaching me how to make it.(the photos don’t do much justice to the recipe, since I was busy learning how to make it!) 

My Mom’s version of Panaki goes to JFI-Rice hosted by Sharmi of Neivedyam

                       

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Panaki recipe

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2 cups Rice soaked in water for~ 2 ½ hrs

3 cucumbers peeled and chopped

10-12 fresh Turmeric leaves

Salt as per taste

Oil for greasing 

For the stuffing:

2 Carrots peeled and grated

~ ¾ th cup Moong Sprouts (You can use any vegetables of your choice ) 

Blend together the Rice and Cucumber pieces to a smooth paste to the Dosa batter like consistency. Cucumber gives a really cool flavour to the Panaki; you may skip the cucumber if you don’t like it.

Add salt and keep this covered overnight for fermentation.

Wash and dry the turmeric leaves.Grease them with little oil.

Spread the Rice batter evenly on each leaf using a ladle in the shape of the leaf.

Sprinkle the grated carrots and moong beans evenly on the leaf-shaped batter and fold the leaf into half.

Steam these Panakis in a steamer.(I use a stainless steel sieve on a pan with water) 

The Turmeric leaves change colour from green to a little blackish-green.

Wait for 10 minutes after switching off the steamer and remove carefully each Panaki from its leaf and serve with Coconut chutney or Curds.

Spinach-Carrot soup and Stuffed Dinner Rolls

I love having different types of soups for dinner. Many times we have some soup teamed up with sandwiches or a pizza or a burger for dinner- a welcome change from our regular Daal-Chawal .

I am tempted to buy Fresh green spinach leaves (Palak) and fresh orange-red carrots every time I visit the market.

This time I cooked the two together to make this scrumptious Spinach- Carrot soup– a treat for all the Popeye’s in the world

We also had some very soft and fresh dinner rolls from our local bakery. I stuffed them with some potato-beetroot-mushroom filling (usually my choice of filling depends on the vegetables available in my fridge) to make these lovely looking appetizing stuffed rolls.

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Spinach Carrot soup recipe

For about 3-4 servings

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 1 bunch Spinach (Palak) –keep the stems as far as possible

2-3 carrots peeled and grated

1 onion skin removed and cut into half

1 large potato boiled (optional)

1 tsp butter/ margarine

½ tsp sugar

White/green pepper powder

Salt to taste 

Blanch spinach and onion together. Cool and blend in a food processor along with the boiled potato.(I add the boiled potato to give thickness to the soup.You can avoid adding the potato if you like and use cornflour to thicken the soup)

Heat butter/margarine in a pan.

Add grated carrots, sauté for a few seconds.

Pour the spinach puree over it.

Add water(used for blanching) to adjust the soup to the desired consistency. Boil for few minutes.

Add salt, sugar, pepper powder and boil one last time.

Serve hot with breadsticks or toasts or bread rolls.

You can garnish with some grated cheese when serving this soup to kids.

Note: To preserve the green colour of the spinach, don’t cover the pan while blanching. Boil for 10 minutes and immediately immerse the blanched leaves in cold water. (Don’t discard the water used to blanch the spinach.Use it for diluting the soup or for making dal or Roti dough)_________________________________________________________ 

Stuffed Dinner Rolls recipe

For 8-10 rolls 

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 8-10 Dinner Rolls

2 large potatoes boiled, peeled and grated

1 beetroot boiled, peeled and grated

7-8 button mushrooms cleaned and chopped

1 tomato chopped

1 onion finely chopped

2 tsp green Jalapeno sauce (readily available, you can use green chili sauce also)

3-4 greenchillies finely chopped

2 cheese cubes grated (optional)

~ 2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp butter 

Heat butter in a pan.

Add the chopped onion,green cillies and fry till translucent.

Add the mushroom and sauté till the water from the mushroom evaporates.

Add chopped tomatoes and cook till they become mushy.

Now add the grated potato and beetroot.

Add salt, mix nicely and remove from fire.

Mix in the tomato ketchup and grated cheese.

Cut the dinner rolls horizontally without cutting through.

Spread as much filling as you can evenly and grill for few minutes.

Serve hot.