Rice Pudding (with variant for Chakkarai Pongal)

Rice Pudding (with variant for Chakkarai Pongal)

I had bought couple of small tubs of cream in the hope to make ice cream. One of it fell from the fridge and went down the drain so I had the second one had to be finished somehow. I did not want to slave over it so kept looking for ways to use cream in dishes that need next to no attention. I came across rice pudding and what a finding it is! The pudding came out really good albeit for people with sweet tooth, it could have done with more sugar. Here is the recipe...

100g rice

600-700 ml rice (i used basmati but you could use pudding rice)

100g sugar

300ml double cream

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

4 small knobs of butter

Chopped nuts for garnishing

Preheat oven to 150degC

Take a deep (because shallow would let milk spill over while cooking) oven proof dish and grease with butter. Add washed rice, sugar, cream, milk, vanilla essence and mix. Dot the butter here and there and put in the oven for about 1.5 hours. You can stir half way through and add bit more milk if needed. Depending on the rice, t he amount of milk needed may vary.

Take out and garnish with nuts

I had made this and taken to a friend’s house and it was given thumbs up. I then decided to adapt this to make it south Indian and save some time while preparing other dishes for a festival.

Short cut yummy chakkara pongal:

Put a cup of rice, handful of mung dal, ¾ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup white sugar, 300ml cream and 600ml milk in a greased deep oven proof dish. Dot the butter like above and cook just like above. Add some saffron after steeping it in hot water or milk. Add milk if needed and stir in between.

Chakli (Mullu Muruku)

Chakli

It is summer holiday for school now so for the first time, my son is at home. Crispy snacks can always come handy when you have a bored young child around. Rather than buying them, I thought I should give it a try myself. Afterall, it may not hurt too much to fry now and then. I picked something easy and this was it. Also, my son’s friend’s gran had made this and after trying them my son asked me to make some. What I loved about what I made is it tasted quite like ‘kai muruku’, the one shaped with hand without the labour of sitting down to shape them. Hope you like it as well. It is one of the 'batchanams' made for Krishna Jayanthi and even Diwali. Here is the recipe...

3 cups rice flour (I used store bought rice flour)

1 cup besan flour

Salt to taste

Dash of asafoetida

1 teaspoon chilly powder

3 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon ghee

1 tablespoon white sesame seeds

Oil for deep frying

Sift the flours together and add chilly powder, asafoetida, sesame seeds and salt

Heat the three tablespoons of oil, ghee and add it to the flour mixture and mix to form crumb like consistency. Heated oil and ghee are used to amke sure the murukus come out crispy. Rather check the seasoning at this stage than later

Add water slowly to make a soft dough. The dough must be soft enough to be able to be forced through the mould. Rather add water little by little so it does not become to soft. Also, check the consistency by putting it into the mould and see if it comes out without problem. What you do not want is, hard dough struggling to come out and eventually forces the mould open and falls into hot oil splashing it all over you and the kitchen!

Use the star shaped mould and make murukus on a ladle as shown. This can be slipped into hot oil for frying. Check if oil is ready by putting a small piece of dough in. It is ready if it emerges up quickly. It does not have to be perfectly shaped, so you can even press it directly into the oil in random shape.

Fry both sides until golden, drain and keep aside

Cool completely before putting in airtight boxes.

Almond Ricotta Cheesecake – Indian Kalakand with my spin

Almond Ricotta Cheesecake – Indian Kalakand with my spin

Diwali is a wonderful festival as it always brings back great memories. The purchase was big, food was big and emotions were plenty. This year, I was keen to share that feeling with my children as well and wanted to get into this habit of making Diwali special to them. Although we did not splash out on shopping for outfits like how my parents unfailingly did, I wanted us to be with people we were comfortable with. A few friends got together and had a potluck dinner and what a great evening it was! My son had his friends to play with and the firework itself took a good hour of the evening. Considering I have a little one as well, I thought potluck would be the way to go but being a food blogger I could not stop myself from trying couple of more things. As time and energy were tight, I chose to make milk sweet that literally needed to be whipped up and briefly cooked. It turned out to be so awesome that we kept trying more and more in the name of tasting, who were we kidding!! In the end, there was no enough to offer my friends and their families, ouch! To me, this is a classic Indian recipe made the western way – bake!

This recipe is dedicated to Ms Tarla Dalal. She has been a great inspiration and will live in my kitchen through the wonderful books I have.

150g coarsely ground almonds

1 tin of condensed milk

1 tub ricotta cheese, 300g or so

Pinch of saffron

Few chopped nuts

Ghee to grease bakeware

Mix together everything but the nuts

Pour into over proof baking dish hat has been greased with ghee. I wanted the cake height to be about an inch or just about so chose a suitable rectangular dish

Bake at 180degC for about 15-20 minutes. It will just begin to brown on top, sides will start to pull from the dish and it will still be a bit wobbly. Sprinkle nuts on top, cool and cut to required slices.

Enjoy this without having to slave in the kitchen for such a yummy desi treat!

Rava Laddu (semolina ladoo/rava ladoo)

Rava Laddu

With Diwali round the corner, I am quite guilty that I have not posted many recipes that signify the celebrations during this wonderful festival season. Having said that, it has been quite hard to post any recipe for that matter when we have a baby at home. I try my best to take pictures of every step and hopefully of the final dish. Diwali brings back loads of childhood memories and the ofcourse most of them centre around food and fireworks. I remember my mom used to make do many savouries and sweets although she had little children to care for. Mixture, mysore pa, murukku, thattai etc etc. Oh boy, she had so much patience! Well, as for me, I find my day filled with just the regular chores, entertaining pre-schooler and a baby, cleaning up after them and so on. However, I wish I could get a sudden burst of energy and time to make some Diwali specials just to create that festive spirit for my children, the one that we enjoyed as a child. I know I could do it next year too but I believe in the present. For that reason, I told in my son’s pre-school that i will help them with som Diwali celebration. We intend to do rangoli, paint/colour some lamps and make into festoons on one day. I will be telling them the story behind Diwali and also making a sweet with them. With suggestions from some of the lovely readers, I managed to come up with a recipe that will be enjoyable for kids and suitable for their dietary restrictions.

When I did a few experiments in my kitchen to come up with a recipe that has traditional Indian roots, yet suitable for children to make/assemble, I realised that I need to make more traditional sweets and post their recipes. Anyway, I chose this recipe because it will be easy for children to lay their hands on. The traditional rava laddu is made with loads of ghee and milk and shaped when still warm and that I thought is not ideal for children to do. For a change, I had decided to almost stick to a recipe I found on another blog as I barely and the time to experiment. However, unfortunately, the recipe did not quite work.

It is important to make sure the rava is roasted very well as that is the only way it gets cooked in this dish. This dish is quite forgiving in the sense that you could always add more condensed milk to make it thicker or add more roasted rava if it was way too soft. Treat the quantities as guidelines because different rava draw different amount of liquid and as there is no question of overmixing the dough, feel free to mix and check if you are there. The laddus will be slightly soft soon after they are made, but will firm as they rest, which however, won’t be for long. I will be skipping the nuts while making this for children due to allergies but the addition of ground almond, for those who can eat it, makes this laddu even better. If you want to skip it, replace with semolina. I had o use a bit of icing sugar as the recipe I followed did not work. However, if you find the sweetness from condensed milk inadequate, feel free to add the sugar. The quantity below will make about 15 laddus. Best kept in the fridge, but I did not have that problem as they were all gone!

1 ¼ cup semolina (fine preferably)

2 tablespoon powdered sugar/icing sugar (optional)

1/3 cup ground almond

¾ cup sweetened condensed milk

Few strands of saffron, steep it in a tablespoon hot water

Few raisins

2 generous pinches cardamom powder

Any other nuts of choice, chopped

2-3 tablespoon ghee

Heat little ghee and fry the raisins until it puffs up, keep aside

Add rest of the ghee and fry the semolina on low flame until it begins to change colour and aromatic

Transfer to a mixing bowl and add ground almond, fried raisins, saffron water, icing sugar, cardamom powder. Add most of the condensed milk and mix to a consistency when it resembles a sticky dough but you manage to roll it into balls. You can always add more condensed milk if needed

Make bite size balls. You could roll them in chopped nuts or dessicated coconuts or some coco powder

Kozhukattai

Kozhukattai

Say lord Ganesha’s name and the first couple of things that come to my mind is remover of obstacles and lover of kozhukattai, the wonderful sweet dumpling. Don’t ask me if the lord himself told me he likes it but I can speak for myself and say I love it. Ganapathy being more popular among Iyers or shivites, iyengars call the lord Thumbikkai Azhwar. Not all iyengar families celebrate vinayaga chathurthi elaborately but as my brother and I were keen, my mom always encouraged us to celebrate. We would go with my father to a nearby temple and buy the idol, one for my bro and one for me. Then pick a nice umbrella for each of our idols and ofcourse buy garlands, arugam pul etc. and head back home. The interesting bit is decorating the place where we will keep the idol and worship. My mom would make the festive meal and ofcourse kozhukattai. My grandmother makes this dish so well and she makes it seem so easy. I also learned some tips from my MIL to shape them nicely, it is no surprise that she is good at that as she is from iyer family. Anyway, here is the recipe...

1 cup rice

1 coconut, grated

¾ cup jaggery, crushed or powdered

Oil

Soak the rice for about 10 minutes and spread on a cheesecloth so it dries completely. Grind to fine powder

In a kadai, put the rice flour and add required amount of hot water to make a soft dough. You may add few drops of ghee to increase flavour and aroma

In a kadai, sauté the coconut and jaggery until they come together

Pinch lime sized ball of dough and make it like a cup by pressing it between your fingers of both hands

Place a spoon of the coconut jaggery mixture and seal it by pulling over the dough and sealing by pressing the dough

Steam for about 10-15 minutes, until the dough becomes glossy

Serve!

Uppu Kozhukattai

Uppu Kozhukattai

Although not a regular in our house, it is a festival special. Honestly, I have not made it every year for Vinayaga Chathurthi and this really is my first time and this I say despite being married to an Iyer! I assisted my mother-in-law in making these during the very first vinayaga chathurthi after my marriage. I learned how to make the shape from her while she sat down after the pooja to make the big batch of both sweet and savoury kozhukattais. My personal opinion is that this is a very healthy snack and a great way of including lentils especially for kids. Next time I make it, I intend to make it using red rice flour instead of white rice flour just to enhance the nutritive value. Anyway here is the recipe...

1 cup rice flour

½ cup urd dal

1 green chilly

¾ teaspoon mustard seeds

Salt to taste

Asafoetida

Oil, preferably gingelly oil

Soak urd dal for about 1 hour and grind coarsely along with salt and green chilly. Make small patties or balls and steam these for 15 minutes

Heat little oil and add mustard seeds and asafoetida, once it crackles, add the steamed dal, break it with your hand, and mix well. You may add curry leaves to the tempering as well (forgot to click the mixture after tempering)

Roast rice flour in a heavy bottom kadai for couple of minutes and add salt and boiling hot water and make a soft dough. Add some oil/ghee to make it all come together

 Pinch lime sized ball and flatten them and depress them in the centre to make it like a cup. Use some oil to grease your hand 

Put about a teaspoon of stuffing in the centre and seal it.

Pinch the edges to form a pattern for the crimp and steam for about 15 minutes. Make sure you grease plate on which you steam so you do not break the kozhukattais when taking out. You know they are done when they look glossy. 

Serve!