INSTANT CASHEW COCONUT DOSA

I still don’t know to make the regular Dosa, the one that needs to be soaked, ground and fermented overnight. So, I am constantly on the lookout for instant Dosa recipes and S has an abundant collection of these.

When S sent me the Cashew Coconut Dosa recipe, I knew I’d be making this one for sure. I’d never had Dosa that had coconut in its batter and most definitely not cashews. I have never been more excited about eating any other Dosa.

All recipes that go up on my blog are made by me. I didn’t have time to prepare the batter for this one as I have a tight schedule in the mornings on weekdays. Radha had prepared the batter and as I entered the kitchen and turned on the flame to heat the pan, I couldn’t wait to taste this one. If I were a puppy, I’d have wagged my tail off in excitement.

Speaking of puppies, ain’t they cutest!

Look how crispy these are!

These are crispy Dosas that melt in your mouth. It has a wonderfully, mild coconut flavour, I probably didn’t add enough cashews to taste their rich creaminess. I had the Dosas with chutney and honey. The ones with honey tasted like crunchy, coconut crepes. 

These Dosas are instant, perfect for those days when you run out of breakfast ideas.

I also have the recipe for Instant Watermelon Dosa on my blog. Go check that out.

 

INSTANT CASHEW COCONUT DOSA

Ingredients:

Upma rawa (semolina) (roasted) – 1 cup

Rice flour (roasted) – 1 cup

Freshly grated coconut – ¾ cup

Cashew nuts – ¼ cup

Salt – to taste

For the seasoning:

Oil – 8 tbsp

Green chilli (finely chopped) – 2

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Jeera (cumin) – 1 tsp

Curry leaves (finely chopped)- A sprig ( or two)

 

Method:

 

1.     Blend the coconut and cashew into a fine paste.

2.     Add this paste to the  rawa and rice flour.

3.     Sauté the seasoning ingredients in oil and add to the above mixture.

4.     Add enough water to soak the above mixture and set aside for an hour.

5.   When you pour the dosas, add more water ( batter should be of neer dosa/rawa dosa consistency).

6.     Cook on both sides.

7.     Done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BAALE NURUK (BANANA FRITTERS)

We live on the top floor, with the terrace above us. It gets so hot in here, bananas ripen in no time. I had three overripe bananas in the fridge. The bananas were so ripe that I hadn't even peeled it halfway and they just slid off the peel and plonked into the mixing bowl. 

I used one banana to bake an eggless, whole wheat flour banana upside down "brownie". 

While Skip and Sky enjoyed what they called banana pudding, I was quite disappointed with the outcome as it didn't taste like a brownie. I baked this post dinner at 8 pm. In no mood to wash an extra plate, I placed a slice of the "brownie pudding" on an avocado and half-heartedly clicked a picture. The recipe won't be going up on the blog, but I didn't want this picture to be confined to the archives. One slice remained the next morning and I wanted to click a better picture in the sunlight. I placed the slice outside in our balcony, went in to get my phone, only to find this teensy crumb remaining.

I'm not sure if it was Skip or the suspicious looking pigeon that still seems to be lurking about our house. 

Disappointed with the last recipe instructions found online, I decided to make Baale Nuruk (banana fritters), a popular Kodava snack and messaged a trustworthy source for the recipe. My mother promptly sent me a recipe link she randomly found on the internet! 

While I have listed out the quantities of the ingredients used, please accordingly adjust the amount of the flour to get the right consistency for the batter. The batter ought to look like this, neither too thick nor runny. 

I love banana fritters, they are crispy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside and so easy to make. Everyone at home loves it and it makes a great snack to accompany your evening coffee (or tea). If you are in the mood to try something savoury try our recipe for breadfruit fritters.

BAALE NURUK ( BANANA FRITTERS) 

Ingredients : 

Bananas -2 (large, overripe ones)

Sesame seeds - 1 tsp (roasted)

Freshly grated coconut - ¼ cup 

Rice flour - 4 tbsp 

All-purpose flour (maida) - 2 tbsp 

Jaggery/sugar - 2 tsp(optional, taste the batter) 

Cardamom powder - ½ tsp

Pinch of salt 

Method : 

1. Mash the bananas. 
2. Add sesame seeds, coconut, cardamom powder and jaggery to it and mix well. 
3. Add the flour one at a time gradually mixing it till you get the required consistency.
4. Heat oil, once it's hot, drop spoonfuls of the batter into the oil and deep fry on low flame until they turn golden-brown. 
5. Remove from heat and place it on kitchen paper rolls to absorb excess oil. 
6. Done

Recipe Notes:

1. You may use any variety of ripe bananas. 
2. You may skip coconut and sesame seeds if you don't have them. I didn't have the seeds.
3. A sweetener is optional. Overripe bananas are sweet by themselves; I added a spoonful of powdered jaggery. 
4. I found it easier to drop bite sized portions of batter into the oil using my fingers. 

NO-YEAST PIZZA BASE

Who doesn't love a pizza? All you need is a base, the pizza sauce and some cheese. You can add whatever your heart desires as topping, pineapple too.(yes I love pineapple on my pizza).

The pizza is beautiful in any shape or size. It can be a perfect round, an unshapely oval or a haphazard rectangle. It could be thin or deep dish or thin in the middle and thick around the edges. You don't judge a pizza for its shape! Top it with calorie inducing bucket loads of gooey, stretchy cheese or a handful of rocket leaves. Crusty, cheesy , saucy , bland or fiery, we all love Pizza! 

I love Pizza so much that some of my friends call me Pijja.  I like my pizza best with a thin crust, lots of cheese and an overload of toppings. (Ohhhh, Pepperoni, I miss you so much).

We were all craving for a pizza so I got busy searching for a recipe that didn't require yeast. I have to be honest, I haven't even made an attempt to look for yeast. I hear it's been flying off the shelves but I have an aversion to yeast ever since I failed at making pretty looking buns with it years ago. (keep an eye out on our blog, we'll be posting the recipe of a no-yeast bread soon) 

 

I knead when I want! 

I haven't kneaded dough since ages and found the whole process quite therapeutic. Skip too had fun punching, pounding and stretching the dough. I wasn't sure how large the base would be and that explains the extra toppings on the base. 

I had just enough pizza sauce for this pizza. The next time I bake pizza , I will make the sauce at home and post the recipe. 

As I took the baked Pizza out of the oven , I looked at it fondly. It smelled gorgeous. For the first time in my life, I didn't have the heart to slice and gobble up that pizza. I walked around the house carrying the tray lovingly in my arms, admiring what I had created. Skip tagged along with a big smile on his face. The pictures do no justice to what the pizza really looked like. 

More importantly, it tasted lovely. Do bookmark this recipe. It's a fool proof recipe that requires no yeast which means no proofing, no waiting patiently for the dough to rise. 

NO-YEAST PIZZA BASE (makes a 14*10 inch pizza) -serves 3

Ingredients: 

All-purpose flour (maida) - 2 cups 

Curd - ½ cup 

Baking powder - 1tsp

Baking soda - 1 tsp

Sugar - 1tsp

Salt - 1 tsp 

Oil - 1 tbsp 

Water - enough to make a dough 

Method 

1.Preheat oven at 200 degree Celsius.

2.Mix all ingredients other than water and oil. 

3. Add water, a few tablespoons at a time and knead into a dough.

4.Add oil and knead the dough( for about 10 mins) until it's firm and smooth. 

5. Set aside, covered in a moist cloth. 

6.Prepare the toppings. I have used paneer sauteed in a curd sauce, sauteed mushrooms, raw onion, capsicum and fenugreek and mustard leaves. 

7.After letting the dough rest for a while, knead it again for 5 mins. 

8.Roll the dough flat and transfer to the baking tray.  Poke holes with a fork. Spread the pizza sauce. Sprinkle the cheese. Add the toppings. 

9.Bake for 10-15 mins till the base browns. 

10.Done

Recipe notes: 

• Most recipes on the net used only baking powder and not soda. You can do the same, just proportionately increase the quantity of the baking powder. 

• I sprinkled semolina (rawa) on the baking dish and then rolled out the dough on it. It makes the base crunchy. 

• I rolled the dough directly on the baking dish. It was easier to flatten it with my hands than with the rolling pin. I also added a little oil on the tray as the dough was sticking to it when I was flattening it.  

• I would recommend a thin base. A thick base may taste chewy. 

• Goes without saying that Mozarella and Cheddar work best with pizzas. I didn't have either. I grated two cubes of Amul Cheese and shredded a Nandini cheese slice.

Have you all been craving for some dish that you currently don't have access to? Drop a comment and we will collectively drool and if we happen to have the ingredients for that dish, we will share the recipe with you. 

Skip currently enjoys watching Amul advertisements on TV and can often be heard singing "Anjali Banjali delicious Amul".

Banana walnut cake

The banana bread seems to be trending online and we didn't want to be left behind. 

I've been on the lookout for the perfect banana cake recipe and after years of looking, finally found the one that gives you a moist, flavourful 'bananany' cake. 

I baked the cake for my father in law's birthday as I had all the ingredients at home. Since it was a birthday cake, I had to make it look pretty so I sprinkled powdered sugar on it. I usually bake birthday cakes a day in advance. I had some batter remaining, so that went into muffin moulds. As the heavenly aroma of banana bread wafted from the kitchen, Skip who had earlier insisted that I use the muffins on the birthday cake, wondered out aloud if we could eat just one muffin as it smelled so good and it was important to check if the taste matched the aroma. Needless to say, the muffins didn't make it to the birthday party. 

If you need to bake a banana bread, this is THE recipe. I've seen similar variations of these on the net which may work as well. The key ingredient, the banana, needs to be very ripe, not just the kind where the peel is speckled with black spots but where the peel has turned entirely black. 

This recipe is from 'baked by an introvert'. 

At the end of the post, check out some other birthday cakes that I had baked prior to the lockdown. 

BANANA WALNUT CAKE 

Ingredients: 

Bananas - 4 large (ripe)

Unsalted butter - ½ cup

Light brown sugar - ¾ cup (packed)

Eggs - 2 

Vanilla extract - 2 tsp

Buttermilk - ¼ cup 

All-purpose flour (maida) - 2 cups 

Baking soda - ¾ tsp

Salt - a pinch 

Chopped walnuts - ½ cup (optional)

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 200 degree Celsius.
2. To prepare buttermilk - Add 1 tbsp lemon juice/vinegar to ¼ cup milk, stir and set aside. 
3. To ripen the bananas: bake the bananas in their peel at 180 degree Celsius for 15 min (or until the peels darken). Set aside to cool. Once it cools down, puree the bananas (without the peel ofcourse). 
4. Heat butter on low heat in a pan while constantly stirring it. Once it begins to brown (might take about 2-3 minutes ), remove from flame and let it cool. 
5. Sieve the flour, baking soda and salt. 
6. In a separate bowl, combine the melted butter and sugar and mix it well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla extract. 
7. Add the banana puree to the above mixture. Mix well. Add the buttermilk and mix well. 
8. Add the flour mixture and walnuts to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. 
9. Pour batter into a greased tin and bake at 180 degree Celsius for 50- 60 mins. 
10. Done. 

Recipe notes : 

• Roasting the bananas enhances the sweetness and the flavour of the banana. 
• Walnuts are optional but I would recommend you use them.
• Mix only until the dry ingredients is well incorporated into the wet, do not overmix the batter at this stage. 
• I had only half a cup of brown sugar, so I mixed regular white with it. 

As Skip bit into his first slice of banana bread, he said "bye bye chocolate cake". 

Here's a Chocolate Cake  I baked for my grandmother' birthday. 

The Swedish Almond Cake was for my father's. 

If you have no bread, eat cake! For inspiration click 👉 Cakes and Bakes.

Gobi Manchurian

  

Sky loves cauliflower, especially gobi manchurian. Each time that I'd tried dissuading him from ordering gobi manchurian at restaurants, I'd promised to make it at home and after years of promising achche gobi manchurian at home, I finally made it last week. 

Skip doesn't like cauliflower but he likes gobi manchurian which he always proceeds to eat only after suspiciously sniffing and twirling it around in his little fingers, checking that it's not chicken being fed to him under the guise of cauliflower. 

Typically, I do not cook deep fried food at home, however in light of the current situation which has us away from restaurants; I've been a tad bit generous with the oil. Unlike chillypaneer, which you can shallow fry, I wouldn't recommend attempting to shallow fry cauliflower. 

The manchurian tasted good (as I've been told :D) and I made it twice in the span of one week. It goes well with noodles, poori, parantha, rice … with everything. It's gobi manchurian after all! 

GOBI MANCHURIAN 

Ingredients: 

Cauliflower - 1 (medium sized) 

Rice flour/cornflour - ¼ cup 

All-purpose flour(maida) - ¾ cup 

Onion - 1 (large, finely chopped) 

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp 

Chilly - 1 (slit) 

Capsicum - ½  (finely chopped, optional)

Soya sauce - 2 tbsp

Red chilly sauce (optional) - 1 tbsp

Tomato ketchup - 2 tbsp

Cornflour slurry- 1 tsp cornflour in ¼ cup water 

Salt - according to taste 

Red chilly powder- according to taste

Oil - for cooking 

Spring onions - 1 tbsp (chopped) 

Method:

1. Cut the cauliflower into tiny florets and blanch them. 

Blanching : heat water, add salt to it. Once the water starts boiling, add the florets into the boiling water and let it cook for 2 minutes. Take it off the heat, drain the water and pour cold water on the florets to stop the cooking process. 

2. In a separate bowl, add maida, rice flour (or cornflour), salt and chilly powder.  Add water and whisk it into a smooth, thick paste. (Adjust quantities of the flours according to the number of florets).

3. Add the florets into the batter and gently coat them.       

4. Deep fry the florets in hot oil by gently dropping them one by one into the oil until they turn crisp and golden and then set them aside on a plate with tissue paper to soak the excess oil. 

5. In a separate pan, heat oil and add onions. When they turn pink, add ginger garlic paste and chilly. Sauté it and then add capsicum. Sauté it for a minute.

6. Add soya sauce, red chilly sauce, tomato ketchup, salt and red chilly powder to the pan and mix it well. 

7. Add the cornflour slurry and mix till the liquid thickens. 

8. Add the fried florets into the pan and stir till it's well coated with the sauces.

9. Garnish with chopped spring onions. 

10. Done.

Recipe Notes :  

• Have the gobi manchurain as soon as it's prepared as it tends to get soggy especially if you cover it with a lid post cooking. 
• You may add a teaspoon of sugar or more tomato ketchup if you like the manchurian sweet. 

Hanuman has set Lanka on fire and as he flies away to report news of Sita's sighting to Rama, Skip in a grave tone says,"why couldn't Hanuman have carried Sita back on his shoulders, now he has burnt Lanka and caused so much air pollution."

For more experimental cooking you can try our previous recipes listed 👉 HERE!

BUTTERMILK PANCAKES

Day 7 of self isolation : Time to revive the blog!!! As Skip practices batting, out in the balcony, I quickly slide behind my work desk, flex my fingers (I pause for a bit as I have forgotten the font we used for our blog), I step out and bark a few instructions at Skip (drink water, wash your hands, gargle), I come back in and ponder for a while.

Last night, I wondered out aloud if this was all a bad dream and asked Sky to pinch me. His face lit up at this wonderful opportunity being presented before him but as he stepped closer, he decided it would be for the best to remain a mute spectator to my soliloquy.  

It appears that life goes on as usual outside the confines of my house as I can hear vehicles whizzing past. I have half a mind of getting my dented plate and spoon out and shout out warning calls to these passers-by. I have to admit my panic has reduced from last week and now, I cannot bring myself to read articles or watch videos anymore on this topic. 

I really crave for a pizza (boring old Margherita will also do) and a nice long swim in a pool. I wake up daily and send out a little prayer to the universe, hoping that today’s the day when we see a miraculous drop in the spread of this virus.

Last Wednesday (18^th March) on Bob’s insistence I brought Skip back home from my parents’ place and geared myself up for self isolation with an active 7 year old. I had a whole schedule planned for Day 1.

         

By mid-day, I erased the board realising that making a timetable would be futile and that it would be best to just go with the flow.

I made pancakes yesterday. I usually make whole wheat pancakes (without any leavening agents) for Skip as they are healthier but I think we all deserve a special treat once in a while.

The pancakes are light and airy and fluffy and feel like thin heavenly slices of cake. I wish I had drizzled the chocolate sauce aesthetically ( I used Hershey’s). Bob called them Spiderman’s pancakes!

BUTTERMILK PANCAKE (MAKES 5 PANCAKES)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour (maida) – 1 ½ cups

Baking powder – 2 tsp

Baking soda – ½ tsp

Sugar – 2 tbsp

Salt – a pinch

Buttermilk – 1 ½ cups

Egg -1

Unsalted butter (melted) – 2 tbsp

Vanilla essence/ cinnamon powder  – ½ tsp

Method:

1.     Melt butter and set aside .

2.    In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, soda, sugar and salt)

3.    In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla essence.

4.    Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined. ( Do not over mix).

5.     Heat a pan on medium heat, add a dollop of butter ( I used ghee (clarified butter). Pour a thick layer of the batter into the pan. Once bubbles begin to form, flip the pancake and cook for a minute.

6.     Serve with a syrup or topping of your choice.

7.     Done.

Recipe notes

·     To prepare buttermilk: Add 1 ½  tbsps of lemon juice or vinegar to the 1 ½ cups of milk, stir with spoon and set aside for 10 mins. The mixture will curdle, give it a quick whisk and your buttermilk is ready.

·  The prepared pancake batter will have lumps, do not over mix else the pancakes will end up dense.

·  You may top the pancake with honey or chocolate syrup or layer it with chopped fruits/peanut butter/jam. You may also increase the amount of sugar that goes into the batter and have it plain.  

Follow our blog as we come up with more ideas on how to spend time in self isolation and keeping those little ones occupied!

Stay home, stay safe !