Strawberry Delights

                                                 Fresh Strawberries picked from the farm

We went for Strawberry picking near Oxford. It was so calm and peaceful and totally away from the busy life. One can pick the fruits and vegetables as per their choice. We found very healthy plants. There were raspberries, gooseberries, black currants, red currants, strawberries, cherries, runner beans, garden peas. Nearby farm is available with all freshly grown vegetables.

We picked few raspberries and ate them fresh. Initially we struggle a bit to choose the right ones. Tried, tested and wasted few and then, mastered the art of picking them. Raspberries are so soft and delicate with lovely ruby colours.

Raspberries

Various stages of Raspberries

 Fully ripen fruits are very sweet and juicy, where as the unripe fruits are bit sour. It is bit difficult to differentiate the ripe and unripe fruits as they differ by very slight colours. One trick I found in picking the very ripe ones is, when you hold your fingers around the fruit and give slow movements, the fruit will come into your hands, where as the unripe fruit doesn’t and literally we need to pull it.

A fully ripened raspberry

Black currants

Aren't they resembling black pearls

Millets Farm House

Fresh vegetables at Millets Farm

 Red Currants

Accidentally we found a nest with little chick. Have a look at this cute chick.

A cute little chick peeping out of the nest

Strawberry plants

Strawberry clusters

A fresh delicate strawberry

There is a big difference between the farm fruits and the superstore ones. Not only the freshness, but also the taste differs a lot. In superstores though the fruit colour tempts, the taste doesn’t. Whereas the farm ones, even the unripe fruit tastes sweet if it matured enough.

Here are some strawberry delights.

Strawberry milk shake:

Select few fully ripe fruits, so that we don’t need to add extra sweetness. Remove the stalks and blend the fruits by adding sugar. Slowly add milk to this and pulse again until the milk blends well. Serve it immediately in a glass and top it up with ice.

Strawberry Milkshake

Strawberry yogurt smoothie

1 Cup yogurt

1 Cup Strawberry puree
2 tsp Honey

Select few fully ripe fruits and make them into puree using blender. In another cup beat the yogurt along with honey into smooth paste and slowly fold the strawberry puree into it and serve it cold. This is not only a healthy recipe but also a best substitute for ice creams.

Strawberry yogurt smoothie

Masala peanuts - 1

This is one of the easy peasy snacks which needs less effort and nil oil. My mom call this as pachi kaaram chenagginjalu as we mix the peanuts with raw spices, still they taste like fried masala peanuts. This is mainly due to the technique used to prepare the recipe. 

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 tblsp

Chili powder - 1 tsp

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1/2 - 3/4th tsp

Peanuts - 1 cup

Method:

Soak rice for 30 minutes. Drain it and grind the rice along with salt, chili powder and turmeric into coarse paste using stone mortar. This coarse rice paste gives the extra crunchiness

Grounded Rice with chili powder, salt and turmeric

Roast the peanuts until they are done and while they are still hot, immediately pour them into mortar and mix them well with the masala paste. Now transfer them back into hot pan, separate them and allow them to get dry completely by spreading them on a wide plate. If necessary reheat the pan for a minute or two and dry them completely.

Roasted peanuts mixing along with raw spices

You can preserve them for 2 – 3 weeks in air tight container.

Peanuts with pachi kaaram (Raw spices)

Note: If you don't have mortar or any other grinding tool, just mix the spices with rice floor and 1 or 2 spoons of water

Ksheerannam / Milk Pudding

Ksheerannam

This is a simple recipe with rich taste yet with minimal ingredients. Soaked rice cooked completely in thick milk along with safron gives the rich flavour.

Ingredients:

½ cup pudding rice or any other normal rice

7 cups whole milk

¾ cup sugar

Saffron – I pinch

Method:
1. Clean, wash and drain the rice.

2. Pour the milk into a heavy bottomed pan. Sprinkle in the saffron threads.
3. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon, bring the milk to the boil over moderately high heat.

Boiling Milk with saffron strands

4. Reduce the heat and add the rice and boil gently for 25 – 30 min.

5. Stir constantly with a smooth, sweeping action.

 

6. When the rice becomes creamy and slightly thick, remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the sugar, mix well and allow the sweet rice to cool slightly and serve warm. You can also offer this as neivedhyam.

Ksheerannam neivedhyam for Lord Srikrishna

Plain Cake

As a learner I faced few difficulties in making this simple cake and ended up with few disasters like hard cake or burned cake. Few reasons for the failure are, not beating the ingredients well, not pre-heating the oven, not choosing the right butter etc.


Now as an expert, I can suggest you few tips.

No matter whether you beat the ingredients with balloon whisk, fork, spatula or an electric blender, you need to make sure that you beat them well as per the required consistency which is the most important thing in making cake.

Always pre-heat the oven as advised.

Do not pour the batter into thick layer, as we will end up in having raw batter in the centre and burnt in the corners. Instead divide the dough into two and bake.

In India most of the people use home made butter so no question of quality. Where as in here there are loads and loads of varieties and we need to be very careful while choosing the butter.

I have given the minimum measurements to start with and when you gain enough experience you can increase the quantities. My mom’s and sister-in-law’s standard measurements are Maida, butter, sugar 250 gms each, 1 ½ tsp baking powder and 4 eggs. Those days when the technology was not available to the common man, my mom used to bake the cake using pressure pan half filled with sand and bake the cake on stove top.

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 medium eggs
Plain Flour – 150 gms
Sugar – 150 gms ground into fine powder.
Spreadable Butter – 150 gms (Room temperature)
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C/ Gas Mark 4 and place rack in centre of oven. Butter or spray with a non stick vegetable spray or line the bottom of a 7 inch cake pan with parchment paper.

Sugar, Plain Flour, Butter, eggs

Before preheating the oven keep all the ingredients measured, bowls and required tools to beat the ingredients.

Take a bowl and beat butter and sugar until forms a smooth paste like ice cream

Butter and sugar powder

Butter and sugar beaten into smooth cream

In a medium bowl combine the eggs and vanilla extract, beat until frothy.

Egg beaten until frothy 

In another bowl mix all the dry ingredients and incorporate the wet mixtures and blend them all until forms a smooth batter. If you are doing manually beat for about 10 -15 minutes. If you are using electric one beat for about 4-5 minutes. First mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and slowly increase the speed. If the batter is not loose enough you can add 1 or 2 tblsp of milk

Mixing the dry ingredients with wet 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. As a finishing bit pat the pan with both the hands, so that the batter spreads evenly. Bake for about 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

 

Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely on a lightly buttered wire rack.

cake that has a very moist, light, and velvety texture. Will keep well up to 5 days at room temperature.

 Plain Cake

Pulka / Roti

Pulka

PULKA - the name itself is so HALKA (means light ). Easy to digest. Best recipe for the diet planners as it contains no fat. This is simple, unpretentious home cooking but very satisfying, healthy and easy. Rotis are made from small balls of wheat dough that are rolled out and then partially cooked on a hot griddle and then finished directly over high heat. The high heat makes the rotis puff up into a ball.

INGREDIENTS
Whole Wheat flour - 2 cups.
Salt - 1/4 tsp. (Optional)
Water - 1 cup

PROCEDURE

Take a bowl ,add wheat flour ,salt, and mix 1 cup of water with it and make a dough by mixing well and cover it for 30 min. This will allow the flour to absorb water thoroughly and become soft which will leave an impression if you press as below.

Pulka dough

Now,pinch the dough with your fingers and make into balls by rolling in between your palms. Then take one ball ,press with all the four fingers till it becomes flate and circular,dip in dry wheat flour(both the sides of the circular plate).

Use a roti stick to make a circular thin rotis with it. Each ball has to be made into a circular chappathi with the roti stick (Penny thickness).

Heat the tava and put each circular chappathi on it for 15 seconds

After 15 - 20 sec slowly bubbles will appear like this

Bubbles appearing on the roti

Remove the roti from the tava and using a holder, hold the roti and show it to the stove flame (low flame) directly

Pulka started rising

when the roti bulges like a baloon ,turn it to the other side and immediately transfer it to the bowl.

Fluffy pulka

Serve hot with gravy or curry.

My son explained pulka as below.

Pull.......

Kaa...

NOTE:
Do not add oil or ghee to the tava.

Kandi pappu thalimpu (Toor daal curry)

This is another tasty yet simple recipe introduced to me by my Athamma (mother-in-law).

Kandi pappu thalimpu

Ingredients:

Toor Dal (Kandipappu) – ½ cup
Water - ¾ th cup
Onion – 1 Chopped into small pieces

For coconut powder
Dry Coconut grated or chopped - 1/4 cup
Corriander powder - 1 tsp
Garlic cloves - 3-4
Chilli powder - 1 tsp

Grind all the ingredients into fine powder.
For seasoning
Curry leaves
Oil – 2 tbsp
Mustard + Cumin seeds.

Method:

Soak the dal for 30 min and cook till just done. Most important thing for this recipe is, should not over cook the da1.

Drain the excess water if any.

Cooked daal

Never throw away the water in which veggies or dals are boiled as it contains water soluble nutrients. If you have to do so, then don’t discard the water, instead use the water in curries, soups or to mix chapatti dough.

Take a kadai, heat it with oil. Check the heat and add mustard, cumin seeds and curry leaves.

When they start splatter, add onion, salt and fry until the onion becomes translucent.

Add the boiled dal and fry for 2 more minutes until it looses the moisture. Finally sprinkle the coconut powder and remove from the fire.

Serve with roti or rice.

Kobbari podi (Coconut powder)

This is a simple spicy powder with minimal ingredients. We use this powder is most of the stir fries (Thalimpulu)

Ingredients:

Dry coconut grated - 1 cup (Or chop the dry coconut into thin slices)
Red Chilli powder - 1 tblsp
Garlic cloves - 6 - 8
Salt

Chilli powder, coconut, garlic

Grind them all together to fine powder and store in a bottle and occasionally use in the recipes.

Coconut powder ready to go into the bottle

Note: Do not remove the skin from the garlic cloves as it enhances the aroma further.

Ponganaalu

This is another traditional element of South Indian cooking. In Rayalaseema, we call them as Ponganalu / Guntha ponganalu. Also this is a popular breakfast dish from the Konkan regions in the west coast with a different name 'Appe' with slight variations in ingredients.

How I plan my breakfasts is first day dosa and second day ponganam with the same batter.

You can also prepare the batter just for this purpose.

Ingredients goes like this

For the batter
1/2 cup Urad daal (Black gram)
2 cups - Rice

For mixing:
2 Onions - finely chopped
4 -5 green chilli finely chopped
Corriander - fist full
Curry leaves - fist full
Channa daal (Bengal gram) - roasted and soaked in water for 10 min
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Salt
Oil

Method:

Soak them together for 6 hours, grind it into fine paste and allow to ferment for 8 - 10 hours. For the ponganam, you need to have a special pan like this

Ponganala penamu

Mix all the above mentioned ingredients except oil

Batter, Chilli, onion, corriander, curry leaves, cumin and channa daal

Heat the mould with few drops of oil in each pit and pour the batter carefully into each pit and cook it till the outer surface becomes golden colour.

Turn each ponganam upside down using a fork or spoonso as to cook on the other side.

 

Repeat with the remaining batter to make more ponganalu. Serve hot with kobbari podi.

Ponganaalu with Kobbari podi