Semolina Cake a.k.a Basbousa

Semolina Cake a.k.a Basbousa

There was a time when I used to bake everyday. Gone are those days and now it is a matter just about managing to make everyday meal from scratch. I found a pack of fine semolina in my pantry while doing the all important pantry stock taking task. I thought I will try this middle eastern dish a try and take it to friends who we were visiting that evening. The recipe is somewhat altered from Nestle's website. Here it is...

2 1/2 cups semolina

1 tin condensed milk

generous pinch of saffron steeped in 2 tablespoons warm milk

1 cup melted butter and bit more to grease the tin

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the syrup

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

dash of lemon juice

Bring all ingredients for the cake together but leave the baking powder to be added last. Mix together until combined. Add little water if needed to bring to thick batter consistency

Pour into a cake tin and bake in preheated oven at 170degC for about 35-40 minutes (until skewer comes out clean and top has browned)

In the meantime, add sugar and water in a pan and bring to boil. Allow it to reduce to make a syrup. You know it is ready when the sugar water is sticky to touch. If you reduce too much, you will not have enough for the whole cake. Add lemon juice to the syrup so the sugar does not crystallise

The syrup should have cooled down while the cake should be warm when you pour the syrup on the cake. I pour the syrup while the cake is still in teh tin but on teh cooling rack. I alo pierced some holes using the skewer. You can garnish with some chopped nuts. I used almonds and pistachios but wait till all the syrup has seeped through

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

I had not planned to post two pasta recipes back to back but it just so happened. These days I do not go back to my huge list of draft but rather post as and when I make something exciting (atleast for me). I made this dish for the kids today and they seemed to like it. I tasted the sauce only as I am not a pasta person and I must say that if you do not thicken to sauce consistency, it can be had as a yummy soup. You could make it as soup for yourself and thicken it as sauce for kids so they get to eat pasta. I had ordered chopped butternut squash, infact it is the only vegetable I order processed as it is quite a task chopping the squash. Instead, full squash was delivered and I failed to read the substitutes properly so am stuck with them. I managed to chop one up thought I will use them fresh for the kids. There is no reason why only they should enjoy this, ofcourse, grown ups can have it as well. If you run out of time, skip the white sauce, just use the roasted squash puree and a bit of milk to make it little creamy.

Pasta for 2-3 adults, cooked as per package instructions

2 handful of butternut squash, cubed

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 tablespoon butter

Salt to taste

Oregano or other dried herbs to taste

½ cup milk

Cooking oil

In an oven proof dish, put the butternut squash, onion and garlic, drizzle few drops of oil and roast at 170degC for 30 minutes, until cooked. Sprinkling very little salt will help speed up the process and enhance flavour. The squash should become tender

Cool and grind this to a fine paste

Heat the butter in a heavy bottom pan and add the all purpose flour and keep stirring until raw smell goes and it just begins to brown, keep the heat low

Add milk and keep stirring else it will form lumps and still keep on low heat

The white sauce will be ready when it becomes thick but nice and shiny. Now add the squash onion paste, oregano, salt to taste and some water as well and bring to boil stirring now and then.

Add cooked pasta and let it boil once. Sprinkle some cheese and serve!

Roasted Pepper Pasta

Roasted Pepper Pasta

I love making homemade sauce especially for the pasta. The readymade ones from the jar are so loaded with oil they trigger acidic reflux which is quite annoying. Also, I think pasta sauces are a great way of adding vegetables to our diet. I did use some Chinese ingredients like soya sauce and have even added toasted sesame seeds sometimes and have enjoyed the result. Oh well, it is a bit late in the evening and I had a long day so not more stories, here you go with the recipe.

1 large red pepper, cut into chunks

1 large yellow pepper, cut into chunks

1 large green pepper

5-6 babycorn

1 large tomato, cut into chunks

1 large onion, cut into chunks

Salt to taste

Dried organo and basil

Mozzarella cheese, grated to cover the pasta

Olive oil

1 teaspoon soya sauce

Penne pasta for 3 servings

Put the yellow pepper, red pepper, onion and tomato in an oven proof dish and drizzle some oil. I used garlic infused olive oil. Roast at 200degC for about 20 minutes. By now the veggies will be soft

 Cool and grind this to a paste

Heat some oil in a sauce pan and add the green pepper and baby corn and sauté until they look cooked but still crunchy

Add the ground sauce and bring to boil and add required oregano, basil, salt and soy sauce and simmer for couple of minutes. Add some water if needed

Add cooked pasta and simmer for couple of minutes. Pour into an oven proof dish and sprinkle cheese on top

Bake at 180degc for 10-15 minutes, until cheese melts and browns

Serve hot

Peach Custard

Peach Custard


I am not a big fan of peach and neither are others in my family. Despite that I had bought a can of peach and have no idea what I was thinking. Well, I must have thought I will figure out a use for it later. Now that I am determined to use up the stuff in my pantry, I am lining up recipes for many of them. So out came the can of peach. I had bookmarked a rather simple dessert from Tarla Dalal’s website and found a good opportunity to try it. A tamil couple were visiting us and I knew they are not very fond of very sweet dishes. This dessert did not sound like a very sweet one as it seemed to rely on sweetness from peach (my kinda dish) so I thought I will have them taste test it. Their feedback was positive so that is why it is getting logged in the blog. A simple warm dessert that is easy to make…

1 can of peach
3 tablespoons custard powder
2 cups milk
2 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons brown sugar

Mix the custard powder and sugar with some milk to make a cream and heat the rest of the milk

Pour the mixed cream into the hot milk and bring to boil while stirring continuously. Boil it for atleast couple of minutes. The custard should be slightly thicker than buttermilk

Arrange the peaches in an oven proof dish

Pour the hot custard over the peaches and sprinkle some brown sugar on top

Bake in a preheated oven at 200degC for 15 minutes

Serve warm

Baklava

Baklava


Baklava is a Turkish sweet dish made with rich filo (fillo/phyllo) pastry and dry fruits and nuts typically. The filo pastry is made using all purpose flour, water and oil. It is quite a time consuming process and also needs a lot of patience because the dough has to be rolled to paper thin layers and tears are to be avoided. As for me, I would much rather prefer to buy readymade filo pastry from the supermarket fridge because I seldom use it and am ok with the little preservative that they add. If it was a regular in my kitchen, I would make it at home. Hopefully, sometime soon I will post another baklava recipe with homemade pastry. I used sugar syrup although some use honey syrup. Again, when I get to try honey syrup, I will post it. The quantity mentioned makes 16 pieces using about 8 filo sheets. You could use some dry fruits in the stuffing, I stuck to nuts. I liked the baklava recipe from Manjula’s kitchen and adapted the same.

8 filo pastry sheets
1/3 cup walnuts
½ cup almonds
¼ cup sugar (I mixed brown and white)
1/3 cup melted butter
Pistachio slithers for garnish

For syrup
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
Pinch of cardamom powder
1 teaspoon lime juice

Coarsely grind the nuts and mix with the sugar

Take two sheets of filo pastry together and apply butter then leave an inch gap from the shorter edge and spoon some filling along that side. A pastry brush would be helpful to apply butter evenly but mine had become hard for some reason so I used my best tool, hand

Roll the pastry twice and apply butter again

Roll again and apply butter. Repeat until you reach the middle of the sheet and now add more filling. Again roll and apply butter

Keeping the edge below, place the roll on a greased baking tray and apply butter

Repeat process until all sheets and filling are used

  Cut each roll into about 4 pieces and butter again

Bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 20 minutes (until it turns light brown)

For syrup:

Dissolve the sugar in the water and boil

Simmer until it reduces to about half a cup and is sticky. Add cardamom powder and once flame is turned off add the lime juice (this is to prevent crystallisation of sugar)

Let it cool and then poor over the baklava and garnish with chopped nuts like pista and serve at room temperature
 

 

Cheese and Vegetable Pizza

Vegetarian Pizza


Pizza is certainly not a regular at home. I have probably made it a couple of times in the last 3 years and they have been with the mix that I just need to knead a bit and roll. This time however I had some cheese to use up and for some reason wanted to try pizza. I must also mention that I did get a request for vegetarian pizza recipe from a reader when I posted the baked pasta recipe. Unfortunately, it has taken so much time to get around to making one. This is a very simple recipe and turned out absolutely fabulous. My husband’s feedback (I must say he is quite critical usually) was that it was even better than Domino’s or Pizza corner/Hut’s vegetarian ones. I thought so too and definitely wanted to share this recipe with you. I have read in the past that pizza could actually make a healthy meal because it has carbohydrates from the dough, calcium and protein from cheese (ofcourse from meat if you add any), vitamins and minerals from the vegetables and thus could be a wholesome meal if portion size is watched. I would like to add that I will not call this a healthy version yet because it uses refined flour. With this success, I will work on more wholesome pizza base recipes while you enjoy this one. I have suggested some quantities for cheese but it really is up to you. Certainly pizza with no cheese would not be for me but some cheese will be good enough. I used low fat mozzarella and low fat cheddar. Here is how I prepared it...

For dough:
2 ½ cups white flour (maida)
1 teaspoon yeast (1 sachet)
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon sugar
1 to 1 ½ cups warm water
¼ cup olive oil

For the sauce:
1 tin chopped tomato
½ teaspoon black pepper powder
½ teaspoon oregano
Salt to taste
¼ to ½ teaspoon onion ganules
3 garlic pods, finely chopped
Some olive oil

For topping:
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Few slices of mozzarella
Handful of chopped green pepper
Handful of sliced baby corn
Handful of sliced red onions

To make the dough:

Put the sugar in a glass of warm water and add the yeast to it and allow it to froth (about 10 minutes). In the meantime, combine the flour, salt and a portion of the oil and then pour the water with yeast and make a soft dough. Depending on the flour, you may need about half cup more water. Apply olive oil to the sides of the bowl and leave the dough covered until it doubles in size (about 1-2 hours depending on ambient temperature). Rub the remaining oil on the surface of the dough.

To make the sauce:
Heat some olive oil and fry the garlic until it begins to brown

Add the chopped tomatoes from the tin along with black pepper powder,oreganos, onion granules and salt. Add some water as well

Simmer until the sauce thickens

To assemble the pizza:

Take the dough and roll it to desired shape and thickness. I do not like it too thick and tried to keep the shape round. If you like, you could divide the dough to make two small pizzas. I did not dust using flour as the oil was enough to help me roll without being sticky

Roll up the edges of the dough to form the crust so you can fill the rest of it with the sauce and topping

Spread the sauce uniformly everywhere but the raised area that you created around the circumference

Add the grated cheddar cheese and spread evenly

Spread the vegetables – onion, babycorn, capsicum etc. uniformly and spread the mozzarella on top. Sprinkle more oregano

Bake in a preheated oven at 220degC for about 15-25 minutes. You know it is done when the edges look cooked and topping browns.