Nani ki kahaniyan

Nani  ki kahaniyan

Going back to the roots.....ever so often the hubby endeavours to find some old recipes and techniques we can use to refresh his memories.....

Men. Their memories of food are always of the grandmother and the love that they dished out with the unending rotis and stories...my father talks of the same and in the years to come so will the son. Poor wives...figure nowhere in their men’s culinary memories.

This is one such jewel...against my wishes...I had to admit, the husbands Nani was indeed great.

One reason I started blogging about food was this ....almost every blog on food will be written by an expat originating from Kerala or Tamil Nadu , India. You’ll even find Gujarati and Bengali food blogs......But no one, no one ever writes about the richness of the food traditions of the north. Authentic Punjabi, Dogri, Himachali even Kashmiri cuisines are such sad representatives of their actual self that you almost groan in frustration when you see the umpteenth picture of payasam and banana chips.

So let’s rectify that, starting right now.

Join me...mail me the names, recipes, pictures or even a few ingredients  of your favourite food memories....let’s make some more.


So what are you making today???

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French Apple Tart

Happiness is made of this...

The heady aroma of apples and of cinnamon and butter...everyone is going nuts with Christmas cakes and cookies...so we do something away from the ordinary  ...we make tarts and stay  happy.

I once read a book where the damsel in distress professes her love for the art of perfumes and their creation, trying to win over the hero with the promise of a perfume that smells like pumpkin pie... (Trying to weave a way to his heart, but through his olfactory senses-since her culinary escapades only resulted in the hero running sprints to the bathroom). Some women have it so easy. My man, he would puke all of yesterday’s dinner, if I attacked him with this kind of perfume on. He, however, would be sure to drool if the perfume made me smell like Seekh Kebabs.

Wily woman, me, that’s why lunch is seekh kebabs and roomali roti today.

The barbeque’s spewing smoke and the onions are all spiced.

Anyways, back to the apple tart.

Always poking and pestering friends to help me out with one more blog post, after all, how much sweet can I feed sweet child and sweet dog Romeo?

This time it was Dr. Monica Mallik to the rescue.

Her daughter, actually...she is the one who is always pushing her mum to do something with apples. Way to go Khushboo! FYI, Khushboo means fragrance...err Aromas!

So this apple tart is dedicated to Khushboo Mallik.BTW it has French connections.

For the

French Apple Tart...

You need

6-8 apples (you can dice the soft ones and slice the crisp ones)

3 tbs butter

50-100 Gms sugar

Lemon zest

½ tsp cinnamon powder

Walnuts /raisins (optional...I prefer not to use them, you can)

1 tbs jam/fruit preserve

1 tbs/15mils brandy/rum

For the pastry

1 ½ cups/195 Gms plain flour

¼ cup/50 Gms icing sugar

½ cup/115 Gms butter-chilled

1 egg

Let’s start with the flour and the butter –as usual the food processor to the rescue. I have cold hands (i.e. warm heart). If I try to make short crust pastry with my hands, the pastry acts like a two year old petulant child. It refuses to let go.

Knead the dough with the beaten egg, if it does not come together; add teaspoons of ice cold water.

This is what it looks like. You can omit the egg and make the dough with just ice cold water also. then this will be egg less.

Open out cling film and cover the ball of dough with it.

Roll fairly thin. A little thicker than 1/8^th of an inch will do it.

Remove the film from one side and place the dough on a fluted pastry case. Press out and cut the excess. Wrap and dump in the freezer for a rainy day.

While the case now chills in the fridge, preheat your oven to 200C/405F.

Poke a few holes in the base of the tart. You can use the same film you used to roll out the dough and fill the tart with old beans or ceramic baking beans...if you have them. We are desi...we manage with black eyed peas.

These are also the black eyed peas...only you cant bake them...

Now that the oven is hot enough, pop the tart base in for 20 minutes.

In the meanwhile, peel and core the apples.

Half you dice fine and half you slice into ½ cm thick slices.

The three tablespoons of butter=heat half of it in a pan (too many halves...but they will make a whole) into the pan toss the diced apples add half (again half?) the sugar and the cinnamon and the lemon zest. Cook till you can mash it into a puree. ET voila applesauce!

Remove to a bowl to cool.

Same pan, leftovers –the butter, the apple slices, the sugar, the cinnamon, the lemon zest all. Toss them together, show your omelette making skills and let them bounce and toss about in the air. I tried showing my omelette techniques of being able to toss in the air and catch the flipped apples...well, enough saying that Monica did have some cleaning up to do. The idea was just to coat...where I walk, theatrics follow.

Blamed it on an unfamiliar pan, did I!

Ok tart done, bring it out and brush it with the leftover beaten egg, or a mix of milk and sugar and pop it back 5 minutes. Seal the crust. You can also use a wee bit of butter and sugar.

Now, spread the applesauce on the bottom...

Layer the slices in a circle...        

  Blend the jam and the brandy...we, we love the tadka (tempering)-any alcohol will do...

Coat all over the apples. Reduce the oven temperature to 180C/360F and the tart goes back 25 minutes.

When the apples start to crisp and colour, bring it out and refresh the apples with the leftover glaze....back into the oven for 5 final minutes.

Bring it out...and serve warm.

With or without icecream, with or without custard...YUM!

Hey, I’m not just saying it...those were doctor’s orders....Encore!

Khushboo Mallik,I hope to enjoyed the French Apple Tart.

So what are you baking today???

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Red Velvet Cup Cakes -Eggless and Microwaved

The winter sun doth caress us all, and is wont to see us in bed??

Nope, I have not copied this one bit of (hardly)poetry from anywhere or anyone...tough I doubt anyone could come up with line that so (do not) rhyme. FYI...my attempts at poetry suck! With a capital S...so I do not bother .ever.

Problem here is the cold, not so much that YOU can freeze and enjoy the fact that you are frozen... It’s just cold. We sit in the quilt and refuse to get out until there is a dire necessity to. Just when you are snug and warm will someone ring the doorbell, or ask for a cup of java as if their life depended on it.

So many things to do and not the inclination to do a single thing...

i

That my friend is called lethargy, and I’m sure you too have been struck by this ailment at some point of time.

I know I promised red velvet cookies and the frosted butter cookies...but all my musings have come to naught.

So after being pestered by sweet sister, who BTW is just back after a holiday in the sunny locales of Florida so is walking on sunshine...here are the red velvet cupcakes, this time micro waved AND egg less.

The eggs omitted, not because she is ova-hating all of a sudden...it’s just that she has now a little girl, who’ll make the little chickens run even before they have  had a chance to hatch, so she is constantly under pressure ...no time ,no time.

So babes ,just so that you can smell the roses and feed the squirrels that come knocking on your window panes-one dish red velvet cupcakes. Just one dish and spoon to dump into the dishwasher, no cake moulds to wash and store and the convenience of the microwave.

And this is also for friend Ritu Sharma who is indeed not ova eating...

I made half the recipe and made a few changes to the recipe I posted 
 http://baketitude.blogspot.com/2011/12/red-velvet-cup-cakes-microwaved.html...primarily because I was The last batch was just microwaved ,changes ,no eggs,no butter -fresh out of butter and wanted to use applesauce.

sometime last month ,I had made a big bowlful of applesauce when the apples had begun to lose their texture and taste bland (it had been dumped somewhere in the recesses of my freezer).

So many pictures,only because I could not make up my mind....

Decisions,decisions!

 for the 

Red Velvet Cup Cakes -Egg less and Microwaved...

you need

1 cup /240 mils milk

1 tsp vinegar+ 1 extra tsp(if you feel that the milk isn't curdles enough)

 1 ¼ cup/200 gms plain flour

¾ cups /100 gms +1 tsp sugar

1  tsp cocoa

½  tsp  baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/3 tsp salt

1/3 cup/80 mils vegetable oil(I used sunflower)

1 tsp apple sauce(optional)

1 oz/25 mils red colour

1 tsp vanilla essence

In a glass of milk add the vinegar and the red colouring, mix well.

Start with the sugar ground the granular sugar only because I didn’t want to waste too much time in mixing.

To this I added the applesauce, mines pink, only because I used unpeeled Delicious red apples...altruistic...save time, save energy!

P.S. Apple sauce, chop a few apples, sauté them in butter and add a pinch cinnamon powder and little lemon zest,puree and store in a bottle-to use when and as you remember.

Blend the sugar and the apple sauce with the vegetable oil...olive oil in cakes is BAD! Sunflower tastes good, so even if the olive oil is healthier, let it stay on the shelf.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and salt twice.

Add the vanilla essence.

Alternate the flour mix and the milk mix into the oil mix, blend in one direction ensuring no lumps remain.

That's the batter ready.

Get the cup cake containers ready and pour half full and pop in the microwave at 80% power with the glass of water for 12 minutes. BTW Half the recipe made 17 cupcakes.

I also made a batter for the rainbow cake and tried red and white bulls eye cupcakes.

Red, white and then red batter...these were cute, but deserve another blog post.they are not dirt to be hidden under a rug...this was a teaser.

There’s a lot you can do with colour.

I’m thinking pink bread...maybe.

Eyes,hm mm..
Instead of bulls eyes,I have Cats Eyes!
Only they are not tawny ,then maybe we could call them Leonine!

Now that the cupcakes were ready, I  made tiny stencils from paper and sifted some icing sugar on the cupcakes.

A word of caution....they have to be devoured IMMEDIATELY! The icing sugar does not stay too long.

This butterfly that was fluttering by and stopped to sip some nectar is entranced.

BTW, the cupcakes were red! Not maroon as they look. I tried shooting the pictures with the macro off.

Next time we use more lights.

Make 'em...now you have no excuse...

You have no right, to ask me how I am...if you don’t bake these!

 Phil Collins would be cheesed off too.

So what are you baking today??

Hey..love the fact that the rainbow cake has generated sooooo much interest.
http://baketitude.blogspot.com/2011/12/rainbow-cake-eggless-and-microwaved.html
If you haven't already tried it...go right ahead.So many people cant have got the recipe wrong.

Whatever are the glitches in the blog which don't allow you to join the site and be a follower or post comments...I hope to have them sorted out ASAP.
In the meanwhile ,keep enjoying the "RANBO" cake ...as it is now known in Ranchi,Jharkhand,INDIA.
Hugs to those of you who keep coming back!

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ATTA CHICKEN- KOTKAPURA inspired...

Proof that I watch TV…

But only if food is the hero.

We’d heard of this famous ATTA CHICKEN made by two Sardarjis in KOTKAPURA near Ludhiana, Punjab. On television, many, many food show hosts have tried their best to wrangle the secret recipe from the creators…but to no avail. Yes the technique they display, that is what lets the cat out of the bag.

Fame is a fickle friend.  On the one side they do not want to reveal their recipes (top secret like the mission to Mars!)On the other-the more people that talk about the famed ATTA CHICKEN, the better it is for business. They can but not talk about the subtlety of flavors or the creaminess. The one thing they did reveal is that their recipe is based on the same technique that Afghanis use to bake or roast a whole sheep.

Afghanistan equals dry fruit, in all probability they use pistachios and almonds…these that are available in abundance there. Not keen users of our desi ginger and garlic or tomatoes or cream-so “elementary my dear Watson!”

Nuts!

Not happening, I heart nuts, totally .but in meat or chicken…no can do!

After much procrastination and the application of logic…this is what we came up with.

We keep some ingredients intact-after all its safer to be in familiar territory, make some changes here and there ET Voila… ATTA CHICKEN.

We have the luxury of a tandoor at our disposal; you may use a BBQ stand or just your plain oven.

The key is the dough and the amount of heat.

The rest all is left to god and his magnificent ways.

So this festive season try your own homemade ATTA CHICKEN.

For the

ATTA CHICKEN- KOTKAPURA inspired...

You need

1 whole bird-offal’s removed and cleaned (about a kilogram will suffice for 3-4 people)

2 tbsp fresh cream/malai

2 tbsp yogurt

½ tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp tandoori chicken Masala (if you do not have access to it, use garam Masala red chili flakes and kasoori Methi)

Additional red chili flakes

Salt

Atta dough made by using ¾ kg whole wheat flour and water-nothing fancy

30 cm by 30 cm muslin cloth

An “s’ shaped hook if you are using a tandoor

Sliced and spiced onions to serve (don't forget the peg-sheg)

The night before you have to serve the Atta Chicken...

Poke/prick the chicken many times over with a fork, to better enable the flavors to penetrate.

Blend the cream/malai, yogurt, vinegar, tandoori chicken masala, salt and red chili flakes to taste (1 ½ tsp of salt is good for a full bird).

The 4 tbsp shelled pistachios/almonds (we have pistachios languishing around as now hubby dear has graduated onto the  healthier option of sea salt roasted almonds)

Mix in the pounded nuts and rub over and inside the bird. Let it now rest in peace in this marinade for 12-15 hours.

The S shaped iron hook and the muslin "cheesecloth".

Place the bird with all the marinade ,(what you cant slather on it,stuff inside it) on the muslin.I topped this with extra red chilli flakes. Wasn't looking spicy enough for me.

Now thread the hook through the pelvis ...the neck is not strong enough to handle the weight.Tie the feet  with a little twine...just around itd lower back you'll find that the bone is HARD. Thats where the hook goes in...away me hearty! Peter pan will not come to the rescue. No worries.

Testing!

Get your Atta dough…me; I use my food processor to make the dough. the dough should be atleast 1/2 inch thick and not too soft.Wrap it around the kukkad /bird and seal with wet hands.

Get your tandoor or BBQ started at least 10 minutes before you venture to pack the bird.

A word of caution –the temperature in the tandoor can touch close to 630C, you don’t want it that blazing. If you are deprived of these, pre heat your oven to its highest temperature. Bake till the Atta burns and blackens and then reduce the temperature to about 160C. This will need at least 3 hours.

If you see how red and intense the flames are...you can guess how hot the tandoor is.first the ata cooks then it will cook the chicken on DUM  .

This was less than 2 minutes after we placed the chicken in the Tandoor.

Yup,the seekh/iron rod stood no chance.The bird was too heavy for it...so that was replaced by a daratti- a punjabi name for a straightened sickle.दर्रात्ति it is.

After 30 minutes…but a watched kettle never boils and a little lecture"tte" on how the tandoor heat must be controlled from hubby dear-I don’t like the getting educated –as my classmates from Loreto Convent Delhi will vouch for.

I was the girl with the Mills and Boon novels on my lap when calculus was swimming around in all their brains. Don’t blame me; the teacher was B-O R ring!

That’s what I did strive not to be ,when I took up teaching math’s…all right kids? Smile for me here! Wont you!

OK, long wait two hours…we were famished! Didn’t bother with breakfast….and now we were so eager to wield our hammers. Blood thirsty!

Ah! The fruits of labor! The burnt to solid rock Atta gave way to the chicken…so tender and falling off the bone…I didn’t use food color so the pics look pale. That BTW is the muslin cloth,had to be torn off.

The ground pistachios tasted like chicken and the chicken tasted like pistachios…

Since the pics were not pretty, I plated this a la Vineet Bhatia…complete, with the rice and the onions and the gravy…

The only thing that came to my mind...Wallah!Kya Khoobsoorat lagti!..(Pran ,was it from Zanjeer...starring Amitabh Bachchan)
Bottoms up!

Inspired???
Come on....

So what are you baking today???

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