Stuffed aloo baji in a croissant

• I have had the above picture in flick r photos for about three months now. I uploaded it thinking i will post the recipe soon.

• But i kept postponing it. Few of my readers have asked me that they could not find the recipe. I am sorry about that. Finally i am posting the recipe today.

• Life has been quite busy recently and blogging had definitely taken a back seat. I will try to post atleast a couple of recipes in a month. Fingers crossed……

• Coming to the recipe- I just used the store bought croissant dinner rolls, stuffed them with potato curry and baked them in the oven for few minutes.

Recipe:

• Pillsbury reduced fat croissant dinner rolls- 1 pack
• Potato curry (For the recipe, click here)

• The croissant dough which i bought come in a tin. When you open it, you will find dough in the form of a square shape. It has some dots on the dough, just cut the dough following the dots and you will end up with eight traingle shaped dough.

• Now fill little bit of potato curry in the center of the dough. Start rolling from one end to the other end. Now put the croissants in a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes depending upon your oven temperature.
• Can be served with hot and sweet tomato sauce, found in the Indian stores.

NOTE:

1. Croissant dinner rolls are found in any American supermarkets here in the U.S.
2. Make the potato curry little bit more spicy than usual because croissant is buttery and mild. So to compliment that you need to have the curry little spicy.
3. Put a good amount of curry inside the dough, because when it bakes the croissant puffs up.

• For a sweeter version, instead of potato curry i put few chocolate chips( about 10 ) and few walnuts pieces.

Onion pakoda on a cold day

On a cloudy and cold day all I want to do is turn on the heat, put on my favorite movie/show, sit back and sip on some hot coffee with a snack to go with it. But i guess its just not possible, not at least when you have a 7 month old crawling and pulling the stuff around the house. But luckily as my daughter slept for some time in the afternoon i decided i will make something deep fried.

Deep fried ha! Well, I have an excuse though: Its been a long time i fried anything and secondly,Ven has been pretty busy recently. So, thought as a treat lets make something he might enjoy.

Making pakoda doesn’t take too long because it doesn’t need that pre-soaking or lot of prepping.



Recipe:

Besan/gram flour/chanaga pindi- 1 cup
Rice flour/ Biyyapau pindi- 2 tbsps
large red onion - 1 ( cut to 1/2 inch thing slices)
Red chillie powder- 1/4th tsp or as desired
Salt- 1/2 tsp or as desired
Hot oil- 2 to 3 tsps
Chopped coriander/ cilantro- 2 tbsps
and some water

In a vessel mix the onion, chillie powder, coriander and salt. Now add the besan, rice flour, hot oil and mix it well. Now take some water and combine the whole mixture. Its important not to add too much water.

Deep fry the pakoda making sure not over crowding the pan. If not the temperature drops and the pakoda become saagi.

Enjoy the pakoda with a cup of coffee or tea.

Bruschetta with tomatoes and basil

Bruschetta is a light Italian appetizer. I first tasted it when we went to Olive Garden Restaurant and just fell in love with its simple ingredients and its fresh flavors. Usually Italian bread is grilled with some extra virgin olive oil till nice and crunchy and is rubbed with a garlic clove. Then this crunchy bread is topped of with a mixture of tomato, red onion, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. It’s simple but ultimate satisfying.

There are different ways of making bruschetta, some add cheese and different kinds of peppers. But the classic way is with the ingredients which I mentioned above.

Recipe:

A loaf of Italian bread

• Red Plum tomato- 6 to 7
• Red onion- 1 ½ tbsp chopped finely
• Small yellow or green bell pepper - 2 tbsp chopped fine (optional)
• Fresh basil- 2 tbsp
• Extra virgin olive oil- 2 tbsps
• Small garlic clove- 1
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Dry Italian seasoning- 2 pinches (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients except for bread and let it sit for ten minutes. This helps the tomato to release some of its juices and get incorporated with the others ingredients.

Mean while cut the bread into half inch slices, apply extra virgin olive oil on to it and grill both sides. You can also use a toaster oven to toast the bread. Once toasted, remove and rub it with a garlic clove. Then put the tomato mixture on top of the bread and enjoy this light snack.

This is my entry to JFI: Tomato hosted by RP of MY Workshop

Masala vada

This is my husband Venkatesh’s recipe. I made these vadas for so many small gatherings and party’s, all my friends and family love it. I add dill to my vadas. It definitely brings a slightly different taste and aroma to the vadas.

Makes about 18 med vada’s.

This is a quite simple recipe. All you need is…

• Chana dal (Pachi chenaga pappu/chenaga bedalu)- 1 cup
• Yellow moong dal (Pesala pappy)- 2 tbsps
• Small Green chillies -5
• Grated fresh coconut- 2 tbsps (I used frozen coconut, just thawed it for 40 seconds in microwave)
• Ginger garlic paste- ½ tsp
• Onion -1 (chop it pretty small)
• Chopped cilantro- 1 tbsp
• Chopped dill- 2 tbsps
• Salt- 1 tsp ( add according to ur taste)

Soak chana dal and yellow moong dal together in water for 2 hours. Drain the dal, make sure there is absolutely no water left.

In a food processor grind coarsely the dal and green chilies together. Don’t make a paste out of it, Its important that you grind the dal coarsely.

Now to this dal and chillie mixture add the coconut, ginger garlic paste, finely chopped onion, salt, coriander and dil.

Heat oil in a deep skillet and fry the vadas.

Enjoy the vadas like an evening snack with a hot cup of tea. I think a fried snack and a cup of tea goes well together.

Note:
I generally make a vada, taste it and make sure the seasonings are right. If not i fix it before making the rest of the vada’s.

Recipe: Venkatesh

Aloo bonda

Aloo filling:

• med potato-2
• large onion-1
• green chillies-5
• few curry leaves
• cilantro
• lemon juice and salt

1. Cook the potato in micro wave for good five minutes. Peel the skin, and mash the potatoe leaving just few chunks.
2. In a skillet do the popu by adding 4 tsps of oil, few mustard seeds, 1 tsp chana dal, 1/2 tsp urad dal, a pinch of hing and few curry leaves.
3. Now add the finely chopped green chillies, and onion with some turmeric.
4. Once the onion is soft add the mashed potatoe, salt, lemon juice and salt.
5. Just cook for another five minutes and turn of the stove.
6. When the aloo mixture is warm enough to handle, make small round balls out of it.

For the batter:

( Makes about 20 bondas)

• besan(gram flour)- 2 cups
• rice flour- 3 tbsps
• red chillie powder- 3/4th tsp
• cumin powder-1/2 tsp
• hot oil- 3tbsps
• salt

Mix all the above ingredients with water and hot oil. The consistency should be towards the thicker side.

Frying:

In a skillet add oil , make sure only about sixty percent of the skillet is filled with oil. If there’s too much oil, when you fry the bonda there is a good chance that oil will spill out.

Take the aloo balls, dip them in the batter and fry at medium-high heat until golden brown.

Serve the aloo bonda with garlic and date chutney.

         Aloo bonda, Mirapakaya bajji and Onion pakoda

Mango salsa

Mango salsa, a light refreshing snack which goes well with the nachos. I like the color combo of this salsa - light yellow from the mango, green from the bell pepper and red from the onion. I generally make this salsa in summer when the mango’s are peak in their taste, texture and flavor.

Few months back, I made this salsa for a small get-together. It was an instant hit. I adopted this recipe from our own Sanjeev kapoor. Make sure the mango is not too hard, nor too soft. It must be somewhere in between. I didnot have Jalapeno peppers, so I used the green chillies. I removed the seeds and the vein, and chopped up pretty fine.

Ingredients:

• 1 green mango
• 1/2 green bell pepper (capsicum)
• 1/4th of med red onion
• 4 med green chillies (seeds and vein removed) or Jalapeno peppers
• cilantro (coriander leaves)
• lemon juice
• black pepper and salt.

Procedure:

1. Chop the mango into small chunks, like shown in the picture.
2. Chop the bell pepper, onion, cilantro and green chillie pretty fine.
3. Mix all the above ingredienst with some salt, crushed black pepper and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
4. Let this salsa sit for few minutes, before serving. This helps all the ingredients to blend together and release some of its juices.
5. Serve with nachos or any kind of chips you have handy.

                           Mango salsa with nachos

Recipe: Adopted from Sanjeev kapoor

Black eyed peas cutlet (Alasandu cutlet)

I adopted this recipe from paula deen of food network. It is definitely a healthy snack and could be made with just the ingredients we have in the pantry. I am very fond of black eyed peas, i use them in many of my dishes like- sambar, curry, snack(sauteing it with some oil and chillies) and of course these cutlets.

These cutlets are very soft and must be handled with gentle care.

Makes about 10 cutlets.

Ingredients:

• Black eyed peas(alasandu)- 1 cup(uncooked)
• Medium green bell pepper(capscium)- 1
• small onion-1
• garlic cloves-2
• all purpose flour(maida)-few teaspoons
• crushed black pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Red chillie powder- 1tsp
• cilantro

Procedure:

• The black eyed peas have a thinner skin, no presoaking is required before cooking. Pressure cook the black eyed peas, it should be soft but still hold its shape.
• Drain the water and squeeze the peas just a little.
• Now add finely chopped green bell pepper, onion, garlic, red and black pepper, cilantro and salt.
• Mix it well, taste and re-season accordingly.
• Now make a pattie, dust both sides of the pattie with all purpose flour(maida).
• Take a non stick pan, add few teaspoons of oil and cook the pattie for three minutes on each side.
• Serve with some tomato ketchup or maggi hot & sweet tomato sauce.
• These cutlets are little soft immediately after cooking. If you prefer it little firm, just leave the cutlets for few minutes and then serve it.

Black eyed peas (Alasandu) cutlet with tomato ketchup

Puffed rice snack (Borugulu or maramaralu mixture)

                

                                         Puffed rice snack ( borugulu or maramaralu mixture)

In andhra we call this snack as borugulu or maramaralu mixture and its called chirumuri in karnataka. This is a lite snack and can be found in pretty much every corner of the street in andhra.  When you go to taste this  snack, you will get to see and taste some of his others friends like bajji, bonda, pakoda and masala soda. What a comfort food they are! This being my favourite snack, i make this atleast twice a week.

My husband, venkatesh makes very good bhel and borugula mixture. He is often called the bhel mama. I generally prep all the ingredients for him., then he mixes them all.

               

                                     Tomato, onion, carrot, cilantro and puffed rice

Ingredients:

• puffed rice ( borugulu or maramaralu)
• red onion
• tomatoes
• grated carrot
• chopped cilantro
• lemon juice
• red chillie powder
• oil
• salt and some hot & spicy peanuts

Procedure:

I am not giving the exact measurements because, you can add them according to your taste.                  

• First lightly toast the puffed rice for a minute, i do this to make it nice and crisp. 
•  Then take a big bowl, add the puffed rice, few teaspoons of oil and mix well.
• Now add salt and the chillie powder. The oil makes the salt and the chillie powder stick to it,  without the oil the salt and chillie powder just settles in the bottom.
• Add red onion (not too much), tomato, grated carrot, cilantro and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
• Taste and reseason accordingly. Serve it, topped with some hot and spicy peanuts.