Laddoos

Brahma for creation & Shiva for destruction, Hot summers & Cold winters, Beautiful (e.g. Me) & Ugly, Smart (e.g. Me again) & Dumb,  Happiness & Sadness, Pleasure & Pain, Success & Failure, Hope & Despair, Birth & Death....God has balanced the universe well...

And coming to dishes we have Easy and Difficult dishes. Did you feel my earlier dishes were difficult? :) Let me balance it out with this easy dish.

You know Newton's laws..How can you not know? :) Remember the number of jokes made around it in college? :).... Here is one for old times sake..

First law: A boy in love with a girl, continue to be in love with her and a girl in love with a boy, continue to be in love with him, until on unless any external agent(brother or father of the gal) comes into play and break the legs of the boy.

Second law: The rate of change of intensity of love of a girl towards a boy is directly proportional to the instantaneous bank balance of the boy and the direction of this love is same to as increment or decrements of the bank balance.

Third law: The force applied while proposing a girl by a boy is equal and opposite
to the force applied by the girl while using her sandals

I however like this Einstein's law joke better :)

"Love can neither be created nor be destroyed, it can only be transferred from one boy/girl friend to another" ;)

Anyway Princess's third law is this...For every Difficult dish in Princessownkitchen there is an Easy dish

Less is good sometimes in life....Less worries, Less forced responsibilities, Less fears, Less guilt, Less work in office :) & some other times more is good....More money in pocket, More choices in life, More knowledge in profession, More things to hope for in life

Today however we are trying to balance in favor of the less side and for this you need very less number of ingredients..The list below..

1. Roasted dalia -1cup 
2. Sugar-powdered-1/2- cup
3. Ghee- 1/4 cup
4. Cardamom powder- 1/4 spoon
5. Cashew- 10
6. Turmeric powder- pinch

And here are the easy steps :)

1. Grind Roasted Dalia into fine powder. (Not necessarily as fine as Ponds.. please remember its not for face...I really love guys who apply powder on their face :).. can avoid them without second thought :)) 
2. Add Powdered sugar and cardamom powder along with crushed cashews (Adds Sweetness, essence  and taste required )
3. Turmeric powder to enrich the color ( Looks are important to cheat ;) .. Gore rang pe fida kitne ladke ... Jo aaj kal bangalore ke galiyom me bhadke :))
4. Heat the ghee and add it slowly by stirring the mixture ( Ghee is a bonding agent -- Kuch zyada chipak gaye to aazad na ho paoge...zara sambhalke mere dost!! :) ) 
5. Mix everything well  till it becomes soft and and start pressing it with hands giving a marble shape (small & round)

And there you go ...You easy bhi and Tasty bhi dish is ready... My dish is most like a "Perfect Wife"... Sweet, Soft , Beautiful with Lots of love and bonding ..  "Perfect Wife" might be a myth but my dish is real...So better spend time on this than that ;)

Dedicated to all bachelors.... Enjoy ;)

Bread Wahi Sang Dahi

Hello folks, how you've all been? Its been a while.

This time Princess (that's me ;)) has come up with a dish that even you can make easily. Its soo simple & its soo tasty. Just takes a few minutes of your not so valuable time and doesn't consume many CPU cycles of your brain. I dont want to overload your processor incase its already overloaded  or slow.

It is weekend, you have no idea what to do with it, the restaurant next door is closed and all that you are left with is yesterday's bread and a refrigerator with just curd. Ohh!!! how depressing.

Come on dude... Switch off that sad hindi song now...haven't you heard the saying?...Life is all about making the best out of what you've got.... So what you've got? ;) ....Ofcourse...you've got Bread and Curd :)..and how you make the best out of it?!...You read my blog and make Bread on Curd :)

So get started now... Aaj kuch alag karte hain ;)

Elements

If you don't have those just borrow it from the aunty next door :)

• Bread slices-2 
• Salt
• Jeera powder -1/4th spoon
• Sugar- 1/2th spoon
• Coriander powder -1/4 th spoon
• Red Chili powder-1/4 th spoon
• Chat powder -1/4th spoon
• Curds- 1 cup

Cooking

• Remove edges from  bread slices and keep them aside
• Churn curds till it gets smooth without adding water. 
• Add all the powders mentioned above in the right quantities and mix it well.
• Dip the bread in the solution we just prepared and put it in a bowl.
• Put the rest of the curds remaining on top of it and leave the bread to absorb the curd for 5-10 minutes.
• Garnish with mixture, slices of green chilli's  along with coriander leaves and serve cool.
• And Yes....Throw away the edges you cut and kept aside safely...else you may have an ant problem ;)

Got a guest?! ....Get started with another two slices of bread  and feed her/him your masterpiece too...and just stay home...waise bhi bahar jakke kya karne wale ho :p you can't go wrong with this one ;)..Enjoy Madi..

Kolkotte

     Princess is back in action. This time with her most favorite delicious dish which she thinks everybody should learn, prepare and eat and stay healthy and happy in her kingdom.

It is so easy to find the following Ingredients in the prosperous kingdom where princess lives.

1.     Urad dal -2 cup

2.     Ginger garlic paste-1 spoon

3.     Grated coconut-1/4th cup

4.     Grated carrot- 1/4th cup

5.     Green Chili-6

6.     Chopped onion-1

7.     Soda powder- 1/4th spoon

8.     Bombay rava-1/2 cup

9.     Maida flour-1/2 cup

10. Chopped coriander leaves- 1/2 cup

11. Salt

FAQ:: 
What to do with Maida?

Maida is mainly for preparing outer covering. so just put little salt and water and make a dough like chapati's and keep it aside.

What to do with other ingredients?

Soak urad dal in water for 4 hours. mean while u can go watch the TV. can easily cover 2 movies in that time. Ice age seems to be better option here. ;)

1.... 2.... 3..... finally 4 hours over. Now we have soft urad dal ready.

Grind soaked dal with chilies, ginger and garlic  to turn it into a fine paste. Just make sure batter is thicker than the one we prepare for idli .

Mix up all the ingredients listed above except Maida (we already have something to do with  Maida  )with the fine paste we just prepared and keep it for 15 mins. This is very much essential to soften rava we have  mixed.

How to prepare Maida leaves?

Let us go back to Maida. Make small chunks of Maida and roll them like chapati but to an elliptical shape. Make them as thin as possible. Let me give the proper size.. Distance between foci is 6 cms and keep semi major axis 5 cms.

How to bake the great dish?

Take the leaf you have just rolled and put a spoon or two of the mixture into it and  fold the leaves around the mixture. Cook in steam for 7-10 minutes.

How to Beautify?

Garnish with carrot and coriander leaves .. may be like the national flag or as i have shown in the picture 

How to EAT?

You know it :) but enrich the taste with coconut chatni

Cashew cutlet

Here I am going to teach you a dish
Will make come true your hearts wish
This will make your hunger go amiss
And you will feel life's truest bliss :)


Princess was in hibernation for a while... In fact she was on a trip the himalayas to get mental peace and to get enlightened. And what she learned was, there is nothing better in life than eating good hot food. So here I am to present my new favourite... Cashew Cutlet. Ready to try it out?... Go for it...

Go get these ingredients - Dus Ka Dum :)

1.     Potato-2

2.     Bread crumbs -1 cup

3.     Cashew pieces-1/2 cup

4.     Salt

5.     Garam masala powder-1/4 spoon

6.     Chilli-4( crushed)

7.     Jeera powder-1/2 spoon

8.     Salt

9.     Carrot and beans- 1/2 cup chopped

10. Lots of oil to fry

   Okay... Got the ingredients?.....We are all set to start cooking now. But let me warn you if you are planning to invite guests...These cutlets are assured to fly off the plates really fast...so double the ingredients if you think you should..

1.     Boil potatoes in water and peel the skin and grate it

2.     Shallow fry  chopped carrot and beans till they beak in low flame

3.     Mix these with smashed or grated potatoes along with bread crumbs , add salt cashew pieces, garam masala, pasted chili, jeera powder and mix well till it gets consistency  of Roti dough.

4.     Then make them cylindrical( or any )shape and dip them in bread crumbs and fry in oil

5.     Take them out of the oil when it becomes golden brown and wipe it with tissue paper

Woww.. that was easy wasn't it? :) ....minimum effort maximum returns....You have the beautiful golden brown Cashew Cutlet ready. ....Enjoy eating :)

Mango Mufali

Here is a dish for the Aam Janatha.... We the Mango people..

Now  you may ask, how can the princess be Aam Janatha?!!... What to do? :) Princess's obvious love is for the King.... and Aam is the king of fruits? :)

Mango is truly Indian fruit.. Dil Hai Hindustani!!!... In fact the name Mango originated from the Tamil word for Mango - Mangai

Do you remember Binomial Nomenclature? Remember the scientist Carolus Linnaeus? Who unified the entire human family in to a single genus and species.. Though I sometimes wonder if some of you are of a different species!! :)

Anyway, the scientific name of Mango is Mangifera Indica - It belongs to the same family as Tata Indica :) ha ha ha ....Please laugh at my great joke :)

Now my dear Homo Sapiens.. get ready to cook.. Go get these ingredients.

• Grated Raw mango - 1 cup (Boosts memory - only memory ;) - and keep cells active .. you can remain young and evergreen  always.. )
• Red chili - 6 ( I have one interesting fact to tell about red chili which is not usually know. On being bitten by  snake-if the snake is not poisonous , red chili will not taste bitter. Red chillies will kill the poison. So better test the ability of the snake with red chili:) )
• Salt (Anjalina Jolie is named Salt in a movie, which is also called Salt. I know many of you would prefer to have Salt in dinner ;))
• Grated coconut – 1 cup. (This maintains electrolyte balance. Please don't expect me to explain what is electrolysis now :) )
• Mustard seeds - 1 spoon
• Fenugreek  (Methi ) seeds-2 spoons— Be careful using it.. its reduced sweetness in you ;). Btw, how to measure ones sweetness?! ;) )
• Garlic –8-10 cloves. .   (Powerful antibiotic, antiviral and anti fungal - but not sold in medical shops ;))
• Puffed Channa - 3 spoons (just  for taste folks)
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon (The only component  Curcumin in it helps in beating as well as controlling one of the most deadly diseases known to human kind: cancer)
• Jaggery - 2 spoons (High protein, iron, vitamin and mineral content)

That’s all you need to  prepare mango mufali…. But Procedure is quite difficult and long.

.. ok now

Take a deep breath. Lets start.. I don wanna scare you with a long running procedure.. but what to do…  i don wanna  demotivate  you either.  So let me keep it as simple as possible.

Procedure:

                Take everything and grind it into paste J its ready

Chatpata Mazedar

Spring is a season of colors. Nature ornaments colors decorating earth like a bride. A beautiful bride in fact. I remembered when I was walking on the street observing the fresh baby leaves which had sprouted out on the trees, freshly filling liveliness and  prosperity everywhere.....few were Green, few were Yellow, few were Pink, few were Red...  What an amazing mixture of colors :)  I was totally moved by the sight.


The power of spring and its regenerative effects are evidenced by the fact that every major religion includes a major holiday in the spring season. Ugadi being one such,  always  encourages me to create something new as a tribute to newness which the festival brings in all aspects. 


O goddddd... whaats wrong with me??? I Turned really emotional today :P  All i wanted to say is, I invented this dish (which is something similar to Kachori) on the eve of Ugadi just for the heck of creating something new.. which i m following as a custom of my own code, for years :)


Don know if it was my pure luck or my extra ordinary skill in cooking, it came out extremely well. As a result of my habit, friends you have got an opportunity to try one more cuisine of my kitchen and become world famous in your part of the world..


OK lets get started .. else spring will be over and it might start raining or snowing

Ingredients


Simple & Common ingredients which are available in all seasons. So don’t give me the excuse of not being able to find ingredients… Go get it now...

• Moong Dal - 1 cup
• Tamarind - 1 inch
• Salt
• Jeera - 2 spoons
• Somph - 4 spoons
• Dry red chili - 3
• Jaggery - 1 spoon
• Oil
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 spoon
• Sesame seeds - 2 spoons
• Maida- 1/4kg
• Ground nuts- 1/2 cup
• Haldiram mixture- 1/4 cup

Cooking

This recipe has a soft interior and hard exterior….Just the opposite of me ;) ….if you know me well enough..


Basically what you do is, prepare the nice Chatpata filling & then roll them up in Maida sheets just as if tying a gunny bag and fry nicely in Oil.


Here is how you do it..


Preparing the Filling


1. Roast Moong Dal till it turns slightly brown (close to the color of Bipasha if you need hint)
2. Roast Cumin seeds, Mustard seeds, Sesame seeds. Ground nut, Dry red chilly
3. Grind the above roasted things along with Jaggary, Tamarind, Salt, Somph and mix with Haldi Ram mixture 


Filling is all ready at this point and ready to get covered up..
.
Covering Up


1. Prepare dough of Maida with Chapatti's consistency.
2. Make small leaves out of Maida dough.
3. Fill the mixture in Maida leaves and fold it as shown in the picture.
4. Fry them in oil


You should get the color of the covering to Sun Tanned Bipasha's color.


You Did IT!!!!......If you like it let me know.. Enjoy Madi….


PS: This dish is dedicated to my beloved loving season : Spring

Baked Vegetable Lasagna

Hey Lads and Lassies and uncles and aunts. Here is a messy, cheesy, hot story...oh oh oh..don't let your imagination run wild. This is a cooking blog my dear :)

This is the story of Lasagna. Though it sounds like the name of a beautiful Spanish girl, its actually a dish. So enjoy without feeling any guilt :)

Long ago.. Long long ago.. so long ago.. very long ago there lived a princess in a "Far Far Away" Kingdom. She was my aunt's great grandmother's daughter's grandfather's sister's husband's brother's uncle's only daughter by the way (Very close cousin of course).

The kingdom was filled with mountains of cheese, rivers of milk and swamps of butter (Don't ask me where all the milk came from? :))

The princess had a perfect figure of 40-40-40 as a result of this prosperity. When the old royal chef died the king arranged a cooking competition to select the new chef.

Thousands and thousands of people tried to make the best of the best dishes out of meat, sugar, spices, leaves, herbs etc. 

But the winning cuisine was announced to be "Baked Vegetable Lasagna" which was made of common things available in her kingdom. Never take the common for granted :)

People started making lasagna for lunch every day. As time passed, mountains of cheese became flat ground, rivers of milk drained out and swamps of butter started vanishing due to over usage. Lasagna soon became a rare dish cooked on special occasions and was remembered with fond memories of its history.

Are you celebrating one of those rare moments, which you want to celebrate with a rare dish? Here I present Lasagna for you. Fortunately you don't have to go to the river or mountain now. You just need to visit the grocery store in the corner :)

All set folks?...Enjoy the ride... ;)

       

Secret Ingredients

Shhhhh......

• 4-5 dried lasagna sheets
• 2 spoons of olive oil
• 1 onion.. finely chopped
• 3-4 tomatoes
• 1/4 kg mushrooms
• 6- spoon butter
• Garlic cloves finely chopped
• 2 cups of bechamel sauce
• Grated cheese
• Salt, black pepper

Magic procedure

Well, the result is magical, but you will have to do the cooking yourself. Get started now!!

1.     Bring a pan of water to boiling and drop lasagna sheets into it. Cook for 30 seconds. Take it out and put it in cool water for 30 seconds. Keep them aside

2.     Take a pan. Add some oil and fry onion till it turns out golden brown.

3.     Add chopped tomatoes season with salt and pepper

4.     Get a pan and add butter. Sauté mushrooms till it leaves juice of it. Add garlic lemon juice and salt pepper. Cook it till all water dries away.

5.     Pre-heat the oven till 200 degree

6.     Butter a large shallow oven proof container.  Grease it with bechamel sauce. Spread lasagna sheet on it such that it fits in the container properly. Add mushroom mixture and make one more layer of bechamel sauce along with cheese.

7.     Spread lasagna sheet again and add onion tomato mixture and again some sauce and cheese. Repeat this making several layers. (not more than 4-5) . Then put the remaining sauce, cheese and butter on top of it and cook in oven for 20 minutes. Take it out and let it settle down. 

There you go....Let the magic of Lasagna blow your mind away..

If you are wondering what is bechamel sauce, here is the recipe:

Not so secret Ingredients:

• 1 cup maida
• 2 spoons butter
• 2 cups milk
• half spoon pepper
• Little salt

Simple procedure: 

Mix maida flour in milk and boil it till it thickens a bit stirring continuously adding butter  and pepper with salt. cool it down once it becomes little thick . Your sauce is ready :)

White Chocolate Mousse with Pomegranates sauce

Today I am gonna make biggest declaration i have ever made

 "My Cuisines are Howard Rock's buildings of Fountain Head .. which stand for honesty :).. So you will get to see only what it is... no ornamentation... but plain sense of beauty..beauty with purpose"

Let me prove my point now... for a change we shall go in mathematical line. You remember we used to prove many theorems? Like equation for Fourier transform or derivation to find the locus of en ellipse.. I was always thinking if there any time in life where i can apply Fourier Transforms to solve my problems ;) So let me use it here to  give justice to Mr. Joseph Fourier :).

Lets take the following picture as an example ...















The picture what I have posted is chocolate mousse...

Known data:

1.White chocolate 1 cup ( Dark  chocolate will also do the job)
2.1.5 cup fresh milk ( double )
3.Sugar 1 cup(powdered)
3.Vanilla esssence (1/2 spoon)
4.Lemon zest
5.Pomegranates
6.Corn flour
7.Jelly (optional)

We need to prepare three things..

• Chocolate mix
• Jelly 
• Pomegranate sauce

How to prepare chocolate mix:

1.Melt chocolates keeping the pan in boiling water
2.Add sugar powder,vanilla essence, lemon zest and beaten fresh cream. Blend the mixture well. Keep it aside

Lets call this as step 1-------------------------------------1

How to make pomegranate sauce:
1.Grind pomograntes and sqeeze the juice removing seeds
2. Add half spoon of corn flour to 1 cup of juice nd boil it till it thickens a bit and let it cool down.

Lets call this step 2----------------------------------------2.

How to prepare Jelly
1.Melt jelly mixture available in market
2. Boil it for some minutes and let it set.

Lets call this step 3----------------------------------------3

From step 1 , 2 and 3 its clear that we have prepared three different things required for mousse.

Take  a  bowl or a cup of  your choice . Arrange them in any order you like...( you can copy the arrangement from the above picture as well ) Or you can also arrange it like sine wave or a saw tooth wave .. :) (if u still remember Fourier series)   Garnish with pomogranate sause and serve :)

Results:
Beautiful ,  Delicious Mousse is colorful as well as tastier..

                                                         Hence the proof :)

Potato Dauphinios

Me and a friend of mine got a chance to get together after a long time. We had the entire house, kitchen and all day to ourselves and we started thinking of cooking something special, all for ourselves. After much debate and deliberation we decided to cook a Potato recipe among other things. I shall be posting all the dishes we cooked that day, so that you can also taste the good food that I had the privilege to enjoy. I am generous :)

Here is the first dish we made. Have you heard of this dish "Potato Dauphinios"? This is a Creamy, Garlicky potato recipe that will make a great side dish. We loved it and you will love it too.

Let's get started...

Ingredients

· Sliced potatoes

· Fresh cream

· Butter 2 table spoon

· Garlic-7-8 cloves

· Salt

· Pepper

· Red chili-1(de seeded)

· Sweet corn-1/2 cup

· Baby corn for garnishing

· 1 Cup milk

Lets start cooking

· Slice potatoes

· Remove the seeds from a red chili and make flakes

· Smash 3-4 cloves of garlic along with it

· Blend milk, cream ,pepper, smashed  garlic ,chili  and salt.

· Grease the container with butter

· Arrange potatoes in the container and make a layer. put the mixture just prepared on it.

· Spread slices again  to make a layer and add mixture again.. repeat the process for 2-3 times.

· Add some cheese on it and spread sweet corns and baby corns on it .

· Chop the rest of garlic and spread on it

· Pre heat the oven for 5 mins at 300F. keep the container in it and cook for 40 mins till  water dries away

seeee... its ready now :)

serve hot :)

Palak Paneer

I often wonder how Palak and Paneer got together to form a dish!!! :) May be because both of them start with the letter "P". As a kid my mom used to force me to eat Palak and I used to make all kinds of excuses to escape. Those who know me well know how good or bad  I am at making excuses ;)
And another thing that my mom used to force me to take was milk. We don't have milk here but we have its cousin paneer :) .. may be a second cousin :)

So Palak and Paneer, my childhood nemesis, have come together to form a tasty dish :) and so I thought I should tell you about this and help you prepare it.

Let's get started.. Here is a program to make Palak Paneer :).

Member Variables:

Here are the member variables:

/*********** You find these classes in a single jar called FoodWorld.jar*************/

        package home.kitchen.newdish.palak;
        import nearbyFoodworld.grocery.*;
       
      public  Class PalakPaneer extends Taste implements Cleanliness,Health{

1. public final Palak   cups=3; //(no surprises here)
2. public final Tomatoes  pieces=1 ; //(you know, the round red and slippery ones)
3. public Salt spoons=null; //(initialised at  run time based on condition )
4. public final Garlic  pieces=5;
5. public final GaramMasala spoons=0.5;
6. public final CorianderPowder spoons=1.0;
7. public final CuminSeeds spoons=1.0;
8. public GreenChillies pieces=4; //(this can be incremented at run time based on the taste )
9. public FreshPaneer pieces=n;  //n=how much ever u like;)
10. public final Onions pieces=1.0;
11. public Jaggery spoons=null; //(optional)
12. public LemoJuice spoons=null; // (optional)
13. public Oil spoons=2;

          /**** methods should be implemented based on the algorithm******/
          public void bake (ingredients..){
          }
          public void grindMixture (ingredients..){
          }
          public void fry (ingredients..){
          }
          public void wash (ingredients..){
          }
}

Algorithm:

Now the Algorithm, I can promise you that this is sightly complex than bubble sort but lot easier than a heap sort :)

Please execute the steps in the right order, it can make a world of difference.

1. Bake palak in steam till it becomes soft.. ( changes color to dark green) -- keep it aside to cool it down.
2. Heat a pan and then start frying green chillies, onions and tomatoes one after the other.
3. Grind the mixture of nicely fried onion, chilies and tomatoes with cumin seeds, raw garlic, salt and little jaggery if required.
4. Add steamed palak to it and grind again.
5. Take a pan again & add a little oil
6. Transfer the ground mixture to pan after oil heats up
7. Add garam masala, coriander powder and bake it till color  slightly changes .(2-3 mins)
8. Turn off the stove and add paneer which is cut into desired shape and mix gently and put the lid on for 5 mins.

Check the Results...

Acceptance Criteria:

You should be able to eat at least 8 chapatis with 6 inch radius along with this side dish :) .. Enjoy eating my childhood nemesis.