Wheat Pav

I always wanted to make Pav at home. After many trials and errors today I could successfully make wheat pavs at home. I am so happy with this successful attempt of mine. Without wasting much time lets begin with the recipe of pav.

PREPARATION TIME: 15 mins

BAKING TIME: 35 to 40 mins

RISING TIME: 2 to 3 hours

YIELDS: 10 large pav 

INGREDIENTS:

Wheat Flour / Atta - 3 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup

Water - 11/4 cup

Dry Yeast - 2 tsp

Sugar - 2 tbsp

Salt - 1.5 tsp or to taste

Oil - 2 tbsp

Milk for brushing on top

Butter for applying over baked pav

METHOD:

1. Take milk and water in a saucepan, heat till it turns warm. Set aside.

2. Take yeast and sugar in a bowl, pour little of the warm liquid over it. Mix well. Set aside for 5 mins till it is foamy and activated.

3. Now take the flour in a bowl, add salt and mix well.

4. Pour in the yeast mix and milk mix. Mix well. The dough will be very sticky.

Now add in oil and mix well.

5. Cover the bowl and put the bowl in a warm place to rise for an hour or till it is doubled in size.

6. Now knock back the dough down and add more flour to it. Transfer the dough to a work surface, sprinkle more flour and knead for 5 mins or so till the dough is soft. Add more flour as needed.

7. Now roll the dough into a log, cut into equal portions.Take a portion and roll it into a smooth ball.

8. Arrange the ball on a well-oiled baking tray. Once it is all done, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 more hour.

9. In the last 10 mins of rising, Preheat oven to 190 Degree C.

10. Now the dough will be well risen and stick to each other. Brush the top with some milk and bake for 35 to 40 mins.

11. Remove and brush some butter over the top. Serve warm.

NOTES:

1. Please ensure your yeast rises well and becomes foamy otherwise you will get hard pav's.

2. Apply milk before baking to get good golden brown color on the top.

Cheese Bay Biscuits

Cheese oooh la la... Who doesn't like cheese??? Melt in the mouth and utterly delicious gives one heavenly feeling. I thought why not make some biscuits from cheese. On google I came across cheese bay biscuits recipe I modified it according to our taste and voila it turned out super moist and super yummy. A must try for all cheese lovers and I bet you will not be disappointed. Thoroughly enjoyed by my daughter who loves cheese.

Let's have a look at the recipe

PREPARATION TIME : 10MINS
COOKING TIME : 15MINS
TOTAL TIME: 25-30 MINS

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 cup salted butter 
1 cup milk 
1 cup shredded cheese
1 tsp dried mixed herbs


METHOD:
1. Preheat oven to 230°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Melt  butter and set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and garlic powder. Whisk to combine and then add melted butter and milk.Do not add all butter keep 3-4tsp for later. Whisk just until wet. Do NOT over-mix.
4. Stir in cheese with a spoon.
5. Drop heaping spoonfuls onto the baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
6. While biscuits are baking, in the remaining butter stir in mixed herbs. Brush butter mixture over hot biscuits and eat them fresh from the oven. Oh. Yum.

Baked Punjabi Samosa's

I wish all of you a happy monsoon. As you all are aware that rains have hit many parts of the country. What we all crave for in this season??? Bhajiyas, Samosas, Vadas name any fried item and we all will relish it with hot cup of coffee ya tea. We love samosas but since we all are diet and health conscious these days I decided to make baked samosas.

Recently I have purchased an Airfryer and I was curious to try samosas in it. I baked samosas in it and the result was crunchy,delicious and amazing samosas. I never imagined baked samosas would taste so good. I would never opt for our traditional method of deep frying samosas over baked samosas.

Lets come to the recipe

PREPARATION TIME : 30 MINUTES

COOKING TIME : 30 MINUTES

TOTAL TIME : 60 MINUTES

YIELDS : 12 SAMOSA'S

INGREDIENTS :

FOR FILLING:

Boiled & mashed potato - 3-4 medium

Jeera - 1/4 tsp

Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp

Hing/ Asofetida - pinch

Sauf/ Fennel seeds- 1/4 tsp

Amchur powder - 1/2 tsp (optional)

Salt to taste

Oil - 1-2 tablespoon

FOR SAMOSA WRAP/OUTER COVERING:

Maida / All purpose flour - 1 cup

Baking soda - 1/3 tsp (optional)

Ajwain seeds - 2 tsp

Water (room temprature) - 1/2 cup

Oil - 2 tbsp

Salt - to taste

METHOD:

FOR FILLING:

• Cook & mash potatoes and set aside. In a non stick pan, heat oil, splutter jeera, sauf, now add hing.
• Then add ginger garlic paste, saute until raw smell goes. Now add all the spices and mix well, add the mashed potatoes and mix until the spices are well spread. Set aside to cool

FOR SAMOSA WRAP/COVERING

• In a medium sized bowl, add flour, baking soda, salt, ajwain seeds, oil and mix well. Add water and knead to a dough. Make sure the dough is not too firm or too smooth, cover with a wet cloth and set aside for 30 mins
• After 30 mins divide the dough into 6 balls and flatten each of them with a rolling pin and cut into two equal parts (semi-circle)
• Use water to add the sides, join both ends of the dough to form a triangle and place in the middle of your fist to form a pocket. Ensure that the cone shaped dough is well sealed to avoid the filling to spill. Take 1 tbsp of the prepared filling and fill the cone dough.
• Now add water to the ends of the cone and pull one side of the dough to the other end and seal. Take care not to tear the dough. Place on prepared tray and  place the samosa in a sitting position
• After you have repeated the same for all the samosas, brush with oil and bake in a pre-heated oven at  180 C for 25-30 minutes until golden, you can flip the samosa's once half way through.
• Place the tray on a cooling rack for 10 minutes serve along with your favourite dipping sauce / chutney.

Spaghetti in Alfredo sauce with Chicken in BBQ sauce

Here is my other blog on perfect weekend dinner. Whenever we go out usually on weekends, either we get long waiting at our favorite restaurant and if we choose another restaurant getting parking space is a big task.

Recently I googled some weekend recipes and came across this particular recipe which is delicious and easy. Weekends usually we are not in the mood to cook and this recipe comes to rescue. 

Here goes the recipe:

Preparation time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 30 mins
Total time: 50 mins
Serves: 4


Ingredients :

MARINATION OF CHICKEN:
6 pieces Boneless Chicken 
1 cup Barbecue sauce
3 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 teaspoon Red chili powder
1.5 tablespoon Olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt to taste

ALFREDO SAUCE:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cream (I used Amul fresh cream)
1 teaspoon of mixed herbs (oregano,basil,thyme)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated cheese, plus more for sprinkling over the final dish, if desired.

SPAGHETTI:
1 packet spaghetti
1 large onion

METHOD:

ALFREDO SAUCE PREPARATION:
1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Make sure the butter does not brown since this sauce is in a creamy white color.
2. Carefully pour the cream into the saucepan with the melted butter. Add salt and pepper to taste and add herbs too.
3. Bring the butter-cream mixture to boiling; reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the sauce gently until it begins to thicken, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. This will take 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat.Stir in the  cheese.
5. Continue stirring until the cheese is incorporated into the sauce. Your sauce is now ready to toss with pasta or use as desired.

CHICKEN PREPARATION:
1. First, let's wash, clean and pat dry chicken pieces. Let's begin by marinating the chicken. Assemble all the ingredients and in a bowl lay out the chicken pieces,pour barbecue sauce on top of it. You can even combine the sauces, stir in the spices and mix till its well blended - then pour it on top of the chicken.
2. Add in soy sauce and spices and give it a good mix till everything blends well with the chicken. Cover and allow it to marinate for 2-3 hours.
3. Heat olive oil in a saucepan and add marinated chicken to it. Keep sauteing on a medium flame. As chicken gets cooked, pull it out of the pan onto an plate and using a fork shred it into pieces.
4. Return shredded chicken back to the pan and keep sauteing till all the liquid reduces and sauce becomes thick and sticks to the chicken. Barbecue chicken is ready.

CARAMELIZING ONIONS:
1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a saucepan and add onion julienne's to it. Keep stirring on a medium flame and within 7-8 minutes you will have beautifully caramelized and crispy onions ready for our recipe.

SPAGHETTI PREPARATION:
1. In a pan boil spaghetti according to the package instructions, add 1 tablespoon oil and season it with salt.
2. When spaghetti is perfectly cooked, drain it through a colander. When fully drained, return it to the pan and stir in dried basil leaves, salt and diluted Alfredo sauce. Give it a good stir until all the spaghetti blends in with the sauce.

ASSEMBLING SPAGHETTI AND CHICKEN:
1. Get your serving plate ready - to serve make a bed of spaghetti on the plate, sprinkle some caramelized onions on top and finish it with barbecued chicken.
2. Toss in some dried basil leaves just before serving.

POINTS TO BE NOTED:
1. In case if your sauce thickens, add little milk to get your desired consistency and bring it to a boil.
2. while adding cheese to Alfredo sauce make sure the pan is off the heat, as high heat can cause the cheese to clump or become stringy rather than melt smoothly.
3. while making Alfredo sauce when cream added to butter ensure you stir continuously to avoid lumps.
4. To enhance taste of Alfredo sauce you can add dried garlic powder in it.

Mango and Vanilla Layered Panna Cotta

Hello all, this is my very first post; from past few months very idea of starting my own blog was on my mind. Finally I took the call and started my own food blog. 

In many households in India there is a belief that whenever we start anything new we should make something sweet at home or we buy sweets from outside. Since I am writing my first blog I thought why not start with a dessert which is very easy and quick to make.

Summers are coming to an end soon and very soon monsoon shall hit. Before mangoes go out of season I wanted to make something special with them and I came across pannacotta recipe in one of the episodes of Master Chef. Another reason was my daughter, she likes mangoes and I wanted to make something special for her.

Here goes the recipe, easy and quick to make perfect dessert for guests.

PREPARATION TIME: 10MINS

COOKING TIME: 15MINS

SETTING TIME : 5-6 HOURS

SERVES: 4

INGREDIENTS:

For Mango Layer:
Mangoes - 3 to 4 medium size chopped
Sugar - 2 tablespoon
Gelatin - 1 tablespoon

For Vanilla Layer:
Cream - 1 cup
Milk - 3/4 cup
Gelatin - 1 tablespoon
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp

METHOD:

For Mango Layer:
1.Take 1 tablespoon gelatin in a bowl, add in 3 tablespoon of water and let them soak for 5 Min's.
2.Now heat them on low heat till it is melted.Set aside.
3.First make the mango layer, take mangoes in a blender, add in sugar and puree it.
4.Add gelatin mix in and puree again. pour this into small moulds and put it in freezer for 30 Min's to 1 hour. Let them set.
5.Once the mango layer is set, lets make the vanilla layer.

For Vanilla Layer:
1.Take 1 tablespoon gelatin in a bowl, add in 3 tablespoon of water and let them soak for 5 Min's. Now heat them on low heat till it is melted.Set aside.
2.Take milk, sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer.
3.Now take it off the heat and add in cream, vanilla and gelatin mix. Mix well.
4.Pour this over the mango layer and let it set in fridge for 3 to 4 hours.

NOTES:
1. Ensure mango layer is set only then add vanilla layer otherwise there will be chances of mixing of both the layers.
2. Add cream only once pan is off the gas otherwise cream will turn into ghee.