Thekua ~ Indian Cookies For Indian Cooking Challenge

This month for the Indian Cooking Challenge, Srivalli challenged us to prepare traditional Indian cookies from the state of Bihar and these are called as Thekua or Khajur. These are crispy biscuits which are deep fried in oil and makes perfect tea time snack.

I had been too busy this month and am very late to post this but still happy that I am able to join in the gang at ICC.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour- 2 Cups
Semolina- 4 Tablespoons
Powdered Sugar- 8 Tablespoons
Grated Dry Coconut- 4 Teaspoons
Cardamom Powder- 1/8 Teaspoon
Oil/ Ghee- 8 Teaspoons + More for deep frying
Water- To make a dough

Procedure:

Mix flour, sugar, coconut, semolina and cardamom together and add in 8 teaspoons of oil. Using water bring everything together to form a crumbly dough. Meanwhile keep the oil to heat in a deep frying pan at medium heat.

 Roll out the dough to about 3-4 mm thickness, then using a cookie cutter cut out the shapes. Gather the trimmed edges and again repeat the rolling and cutting procedure till all the dough is used up.

Prick the cookies with a fork to prevent them from puffing. Deep fry these cookies in hot oil on medium heat till they turn golden brown in colour. Remove the cookies from oil and place them on kitchen paper to remove excess oil.

Once cool store these cookies in an airtight container, these stay good for about 2 weeks.

Thinner cookies are more crisper than the thick ones and next time I would increase the sugar little bit more as my family has got sweet tooth.

Jalebi For Indian Cooking Challenge

For us Indians any celebration or festival is incomplete without sweets. During festivals almost all the Indian kitchens have same scene~mother's and grandmother's standing for hours, sweating profusely but still making amazing sweets to feed all the greedy tummies. Jalebi is one sweet which was never made in my home, but on many weekends my dad used to treat us with the jalebi ,samosa and poha from the famous sweet shop in town. There was  always a long queue in that shop..and the jalebi's used to vanish in no time. 

When I saw Srivalli's Indian Cooking Challenge this time, I was holidaying and could not take part, but the jalebi's were daily floating in my dreams :) So after returning I made these. The process was very simple and the result was crisp finger licking good Jalebi's.

Ingredients:

For the batter:

All Purpose Flour- 100 grams

Cornflour- 30 grams

Curd- 1 cup

Lime Juice- 1 tsp

Hot Oil- 1 tbsp

Saffron Colour- a pinch

For the sugar syrup:

Sugar- 1 Cup

Water- 1/2 Cup

Lime Juice- 1/2 tsp

Saffron- few strands

Cardamom Powder- a pinch

Oil to fry the jalebis

Procedure:

• In a bowl mix together all the ingredients of the batter. Whisk everything together so that there are no lumps. Set aside overnight for fermentation.
• Make Sugar syrup by mixing sugar and water and boil it till light syrup consistency is achieved. Add in saffron, cardamom powder and lime juice. Keep the syrup warm.
• Heat oil on medium flame.
• In a squeezy ketchup bottle transfer the batter.
• Once the oil is hot squeeze the batter directly in the hot oil in the shape of spirals. Keep the temperature of the oil medium hot.
• Once the jalebis are fried , drop the hot jalebis in warm sugar syrup. Take out the jalebis in a minute out of the syrup.
• Serve the jalebis hot.

Notes:

1. Keep the batter thick.
2. The oil should be medium hot.
3. Make thin jalebis so that they stay crisp.
4. Jalebis can be served with hot milk or rabri.

Khara Biscuits For Indian Cooking Challenge

It's not very long since I started baking but each time I bake something I enjoy the experience thoroughly. Kneading, rolling, shaping gives me lots of relaxation. And the joy of seeing the perfectly baked goodies out of the oven is priceless for me. I had not baked anything since last month..you know..trying to loose weight before my vacations... but still each time I saw any baked goodies in my fav blogs I was so tempted to bake..I only know how much will power it required to stop myself from baking anything sinful.

And while I was trying not to indulge in baking anything Srivalli announced the Indian Cooking Challenge for this month...I have to confess..I got so happy when I saw the challenge...baking...wow..that too savoury biscuits. Since I had missed last months challenge I was determined not to miss this months. The challenge was to make Karnataka special..Iyengar bakery khara biscuits...recipe to be referred was that of Champa's. And champa does not require any introduction. Her baking recipes are always fool proof...so I had even more reasons to be happy...yippee...these biscuits does not require loads of butter and moreover these are savoury ones....these are really so addictive and vanished in no time.

I did very few changes in the original recipe. Added sesame seeds and ground ginger, green chillies and coriander instead of chopping them. I have convection oven so I baked these at 180 degrees.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour- 250 gms

Butter- 1/3 Cup

Sugar- 4 tsp

Salt- 1 tsp

Green Chillies- 5

Coriander Leaves- 3 tbsp

Ginger- 1 Inch Piece

White Sesame- 1 tbsp

Yoghurt- 3 tbsp

Procedure:

• Preheat the oven to 180 Degrees C.
• Line the baking sheets with slightly greased aluminium foil and set aside.
• Grind coriander, chillies and ginger together and keep it aside.
• Sift flour and salt together and keep aside.
• With the help of beater cream butter and sugar till smooth and creamy. 
• Now in the creamed butter and sugar mixture add in the flour and salt mix along with ground green paste and sesame. 
• Make a dough using yoghurt...add little by little and make a stiff dough. Don't over knead the dough. The dough should not be very wet.
• Roll out the dough in 1/4 inch thickness and with the help of desired cookie cutter cut into shapes.
• Bake in the pre heated oven for around 23 minutes.
• The biscuits will be soft when done but will firm up on cooling.
• When cool transfer these biscuits in an air tight container. 

Enjoy these with a cup of hot tea.

Vattayappam for ICC

This month Srivalli challenged us to make a unique dish from Kerala known as Vatteppam or Vattayappam. Initially I thought of skipping this challenge as I was really taken aback by seeing the long recipe, but after reading the recipe for 2-3 times and seeing comments from fellow bloggers who already made this..I decided to give this a try. And after seeing and tasting the end result I was really happy that I tried this.

Thanks to Srivalli who gave this wonderful challenge and also to Shn whose recipe we followed.

Ingredients:

Raw Rice- 1 Cup (soaked for 6 to 8 hours)

Cooked Rice- 2 tbsp

Grated fresh Coconut- 3/4th cup

Thari Kurukku (Porridge)- 4 tbsp

Instant Dry Yeast- 1/4 tsp

Sugar- 3/4th Cup

Cardamom- 1tsp

Cashewnuts- Broken and Roasted in ghee

Raisins- Puffed in ghee

Procedure:

• Grind the soaked rice in a mixer adding very little water and when it is little coarse remove 2 tbsp of it for making thari kurukku.
• After removing 2 tbsp of coarse paste add grated fresh coconut to the remaining paste and grind it till fine consistency is achieved. Use very little water to grind the paste.
• Add the cooked rice to the batter and grind again. Set aside with the jar to cool.
• To make thari kurukku- In a pan combine the 2tbsp of coarse paste with 1/2 cup of water and cook it on medium flame stirring continuously till it reaches a thick porridge consistency. Switch off the gas and keep the paste aside.
• Add 4 tbsp of this thari kurukku mixture to the ground batter and grind again in the mixer.
• Add the instant dry yeast to this mixture and pulse 2-3 times for everything to blend well.
• Transfer the final batter to a big steel utensil and allow to ferment for 6 hours or overnight.
• When the batter is fermented add 3/4 th cup of sugar and mix gently. Keep to rest for 2 hours.
• Before steaming add the cardamom powder and mix in nuts in the batter.
• Pour the batter in a greased round cake tin and keep it in the pressure cooker filled with water without whistle to steam for 30 minutes or till done.
• After removing the cake tin from the pressure cooker allow the vatteppam to cool completely before taking it out.

• Transfer it to a serving plate and cut in wedges. Serve and enjoy.

Suruttai Poli for Indian Cooking Challenge

This month Srivalli challenged us to make Suruttai Poli which is a traditional Tamil Nadu dish originating from Southern States of Tamil Nadu. I had never heard about nor seen this dish so it was a real challenge to attempt this one. But I am happy that I did attempt this challenge and was able to bring out a delicious outcome out of this.

Thanks to Nithya and her mother for suggesting this dish. Since I was making this for first time I followed the recipe to the T.

Ingredients:

For the Filling -

Chutney Daal/ Pottu Kadlai/ Roasted Gram - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1 Cup

Cashews - 20 -25 broken in very small pieces

Fresh Scrapped Coconut - 1 tbsp

Cardamom Powder - 1 tsp

Ghee - 1 tsp

Powdered Sugar - little for dusting

For the Appalams-

APF - 1 Cup

Salt - A Pinch

Oil - For Deep Frying

Procedure-

• Mix APF, salt and knead into a stiff dough by adding water little by little. Set aside the dough to rest for half an hour.
• Meanwhile make the filling by grinding roasted gram and sugar together. Heat ghee and fry the chopped cashews, as soon as they turn golden add the grated coconut and immediately turn off the gas.
• Mix all the ingredients of the filling together. Keep aside the prepared filling.
• Take small balls out of the dough and roll them in very thin applam like circles. Spread these in paper and set aside for 10 minutes.
• Heat oil in kadhai and deep fry the applam till its just cooked and is still flexible. The applams should not fluff up like pooris. Immediately take out of the oil and spread the filling inside and roll it tight keeping the seem side facing down.
• The real challenge is spread the filling and roll the polis fast as they will turn crisp and will start breaking once cool.

I dusted the polis with powdered sugar as it was shown in Pavithra's post.

ICC for February - Gujarati Daal

Daal is frequently made in my house. I like to make various varieties of daals but have never tried gujarati daal. I want to thank Srivalli for joining me in the ICC and giving me an opportunity to try this daal. Srivalli selected authentic gujarati daal from the cookbook Sukham Ayu co authored by Jigyasa giri and Pratibha jain.

This daal turned out great and was loved by everyone including my lil one who is otherwise not very fond of daals. We had this daal with hot rotis.

Ingredients:

Toor Daal - 1/2 cup (soaked for 1/2 hour)

Haldi (Turmeric)- 1/2 tsp

Tamarind pulp - 2 tbsp

Jaggery - 2 tsp

Hard dry dates( kharak) - 4 halved

Drumsticks - 2 (cut in 2 inch pieces)

Groundnuts - 1 tbsp

Green Chillies - 2 slit

Ginger - 1 inch piece ( finely chopped)

Coriander powder- 2 tsp

Cumin Powder - 1 tsp

Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp ( For garnishing)

Coriander Leaves - for garnishing

Salt - to taste

Tadka :

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Fenugreek Seeds- 1/4 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Dry Red Chillies - 2

Heeng - 1/4 tsp

Curry Leaves - few

Procedure :

• Pressure cook soaked daal with turmeric in 2 cups of water for 3 whistles or till it turns soft. Churn well.
• Transfer the cooked daal in a kadhai and add all the ingredients except tempering ingredients and garam masala and coriander leaves.
• Add 1 cup of water and allow the daal to simmer for 15-20 mins. The more the daal simmers the better the taste.
• In a pan prepare the tempering by adding ghee and heating it then add mustard, fenugreek, cumin , red chillies, heeng and curry leaves. Add tempering to the daal.
• Boil the daal for another 5- 10 mins then switch off the gas.
• Add garam masala and coriander leaves for garnishing.
• Serve hot and fresh.

I have kept the original recipe only excluding Yam.