Rasmalai

A divine dessert made up of with divine milk.  The cheese balls are soaked in creamy milk that is boiled with loads of pistachios and almonds and with a hint of saffron which is called as rabdi.

Unlike the rasgullas which will be round in shape and soaked in sugar syrup, these rasmalai will be flat in shape and soaked in rich creamy milk.

The preparation is divided into parts.

First part is preparing the flat rasgullas and the second part is preparation of rabdi.

For Rasgullas -

Milk – 2 litres

Vinegar / Lemon juice – up to ½ cup

To make the cheese balls follow the same procedure as we do for rasgullas except making them flat instead of round.

For Rabdi -

Sugar – ¼ cup

Almonds – 10

Pistachios – 20

Saffron  - 1 pinch

To prepare rabdi –

Take 1 litre of milk and boil it until it reduced to 1/2 litre. Add thinly sliced pistachios, almonds and saffron and cook for some more time and remove from the flame.

Squeeze the sugar syrup from the rasgullas and drop them into rabdi.

Chill them before serving. Chillness will enhance the divine taste.

Pappu Chekkalu / Nippattu

These fritters are made up of rice flour and roasted chick pea flour. Adding the chana dal and peanuts will not only enhance the crunchiness, but also enhances the flavour. A nice companion during a cold day.

Ingredients:

2 cups, rice flour
1/4 cup, Roasted chick pea flour (Pappula podi)
1/4 cup, finely chopped fresh curry leaves
2 tablespoons each- soaked chana dal and roasted peanuts
Salt as per the taste


Method:
Take the flours into a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix well. 
Parallel to this, heat the oil in a wok.
Add few table spoons of warm oil to the flour and add just enough water to make a firm dough.
Tear out small portion of dough and place it on a wax / plastic paper. Flatten it a bit and using your fingers, spread out the nippattu in a circle until it is about 2 to 3 inches in diameter.

Slip these discs gently into the hot oil and deep fry to pale gold. 

Remove to paper-covered tray. Make all the fritters in the same way. It is quick if you do them in batches.

Bread baasundhi

Baasundi is a rich Indian dessert basically made with milk, flavoured with saffron, fruits and nuts. Here is a quick version of baasundi where condensed milk is used instead of going through the lengthy process of reducing the whole milk. Bread is crumbled and added to the hot milk for texture and flavoured with cardamom and saffron. Finally, serve bread basundi hot or cold garnished with chopped almonds.

Ingredients:
Brioche roll - 1 or 2 Sweet Bread Slices
Milk - 1 1/2 cups
Sweetened Condensed Milk 2 Tbsps
Cardamom Powder a Pinch
Almonds 8-10
Pistachios - 8-10
Saffron few strands
Sugar 1/4 cup

Method:

Soak the almonds in warm water and peel off the skin and slice the almonds.

Chop the pistachios into thin slices.

Soak saffron in a tbsp of warm milk for a minute.

Crumble the bread. 

Boil milk in a heavy bottomed vessel on medium – low flame until it reduces to half.

Keep stirring during the process to avoid scorching.

Stir in cardamom powder and saffron milk.

After a few seconds, add bread and let it soak up the flavoured milk.

Finally stir in sweetened condensed milk and half of chopped almonds.

When the desired consistency of the baasundi is reached, remove from heat.

Garnish bread baasundi with sliced almonds and serve hot or cold.

Munakkaya Rasam / Drumsticks soup

Drumstick - I call this as wonder stick. It’s health benefits are plenty and it is said to cure many an ailments. Here are some of its health benefits.

Juice of Drum stick when mixed in milk and offered to children greatly helps by strengthening their bones as it is said to be a great source of Calcium. Also drumstick is said to be a great blood purifier.

Pregnant women should often eat drumsticks as it helps ease any kind of pre and post delivery complication.

Drumstick soup helps ease any kind of chest congestions, coughs and sore throats.

Inhaling steam of water in which drumsticks have been boiled helps ease asthma and other lung problem.

This is another way of benefiting from this wonderful God's given gift.

Ingredients:

Toor daal - 1/4 cup
Drumsticks - 2 cut them into 2 inch size pieces

Ripe tomatoes - 3-4

Tamarind - 1/2 lemon size

Salt - as per taste

Rasam powder - 2 tsp

For seasoning - 

Oil - 1 tbsp

Curry leaves - 1 string

Coriander leaves chopped - 1 tbsp

Mustard - 1/2 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Garlic pods - 1 or 2 pounded

Dry chili - 1 or 2

Method:

Boil the tomatoes and drumsticks by adding 2 pinches of salt. Mash the tomatoes.
Boil the toor daal, mash it and keep it aside.
Soak tamarind in some hot water, squeeze the juice.
Heat a deep sauce pan, and add oil to it.

When the oil is warm enough, add crushed garlic pods, dry chili and then mustard, cumin and curry leaves. 

When the garlic gets slightly roasted, add the tomato mixture, boiled drumsticks, tamarind juice and the mashed toor daal. 

Add the required amount of salt, rasam powder and bring it to boil. Add chopped coriander at the end and remove from the fire.

Oats Idly - Instant

This is an instant variety of idly. Adding the sour yoghurt will enhance the spongy texture of the idly. 

Oats idly with coriander chutney

Ingredients:
Instant oats powder – 3 cups
Semolina (Fine variety)– 1 ½ cup
Yoghurt – 4 cups (should be very sour)
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Salt

Method:
Dry roast the oats powder and semolina separately.
Mix them with yoghurt along with salt and rest it for 1 hour
Just before making the idly, add baking soda and mix everything.

Scoop the batter into idly moulds and steam for 12- 15 minutes.
Serve hot with any chutney.  

Note: If you do not have the instant oats, you can use the rolled oats and pulse them into coarse to fine powder.

Paalak pakoda / Spinach fritters

Another way of eating spinach is in the form of fritters. A nice treat for a dull autumn.

Serves for 4 members

Ingredients:
Onion – 2 large (Chopped length wise into thin strips)
Spinach leaves – 1 bunch or 1 pack chopped into thin strips
Basin / Gram flour – ¼ cup
Rice Flour – ¼ cup
Salt
Green chili paste – 1 tsp
Ginger – grated – 1 tsp
Oil to deep fry

Method:

To deep fry the pakodas, heat a pan with oil on medium heat.

Whilst the oil is getting hot, mix the chopped onion and spinach with salt, green chili, ginger, curry

leaves, gram flour and rice flours thoroughly.

Now add about 3-4 tbsp of warm oil into the onion mixture.

Mix the ingredients well, so that they resemble crumbs.

Now sprinkle enough water and mix everything thoroughly. It should be sticky like bread dough and

not watery.

Increase the flame and when the oil is hot enough, take hand full of onion mixture and drop them

into oil slowly by breaking the batter into small bite size pieces. This is the quick way. If you can’t do

it quick enough, then just pick small amounts of batter and drop into the oil slowly.

Occasionally turn the pakodas, so that they get cooked equally on all the sides.

Drain them on to a paper towel and serve them warm with Coffee or Tea

Paakam vundalu

Again this is another recipe which I learnt from my sister's-in-law friend. Pretty much similar to the one which I prepared earlier - Paakam pappu but the taste is bit different due to the slight variation.

Ingredients:

Peanuts – 2 cups

Roasted chana daal / Putnala pappu – ½ cup

Sesame seeds  / Till – ½ cup

Jaggery – 1 cup heaped

Water – ½ cup

Method –

Roast the sesame seeds until they leave the nice aroma and keep them aside.

Roast and skin the peanuts and keep them aside.

Now mix the above with roasted chana daal (Pappulu)

Melt the jaggery by adding water under low flame and filter it.

Bring the jaggery water to boil until it forms the ball consistency.

As I mentioned before, to do the candy test, place a cup of water and add few drops of boiled jaggery syrup into the cold water.

Take the dropped jaggery syrup into your hand and try to make a ball. If it retains its shape, then it is the perfect consistency. If the ball falls off, then boil the syrup for few more minutes.

As soon as the syrup reaches the consistency, turn off the heat and add the peanuts, roasted chana daal and sesame seeds.

Mix everything and make balls even when the syrup is still warm.

Tip: to avoid the excess hotness, dip your hand in cold water once in a while.