Apricot bread pudding

My easy soft egg bread rolls

almost a brioche

Roti, layered chapathi, Indian bread

Basic and the best. 

Focaccia de reco

got this recipe from Chef John's foodwishes. didn't have the stracchino/ crescenza cheese. used mozzarella and gruyere. no yeast.  and like our stuffed rotis. try this, won't stop eating.

Dublin/Irish coddle

Usually I make the Irish-Ameican corned beef and cabbge for St Patricks Day. This year, went for Irish coddle. Simple but tasty with Irish soda bread.

Estonian kringel bread

Another beautiful, delicious cinnamon bread made with a mix of spelt and all purpose flour. Saffron, cardamom optional, I hear.

Christmas 2017

Countdown to Christmas 2017

When Christmas arrives, Europe, especially England, calls. I have written about my liking for those quaint  olde English pubs, castles, cottages and of course, food. This year wasn't too crazy, I made just a few.

The rock cake and sticky toffee pudding are favorites of kids over there, I hear. And of Harry Potter too! But I did not make a sticky toffee pudding. Instead, I made a gingerbread cake and the sticky sauce of the toffee cake., because I wanted to make gingerbread. I substituted golden syrup for the molasses in the gingerbread recipe, and for treacle in the sticky sauce one. In any case, it was delicious. When eaten warm, it was heavenly!

As usual, the Kerala style plum cake was made ahead. Christmas cookies are the usual ones, except this time, my decoration is kind of sloppy. Also, forgot the nose on the snowmen!

Linzer cookie

rock cakes

gingerbread

warm gingerbread with sticky sauce

Christmas cookies

Christmas eve 2017


Appetizers

lamb chops

latkes

Soup:

butternut squash soup with spiced cream as garnish

and bread

pain d'epi

Should have diluted that soup a tad bit, but by then, the roast and the accompaniments were calling for my attention, and so, just served it as it is. It was a meal in itself!

For the main course, this X'mas eve, I prepared a typical English roast. Roast beef, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. Gave an American touch with the creamed spinach.

roast beef dinner

Desserts:

Kerala style plum cake, creme brulee

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the clink of the spoon  against the caramelized sugar on top, and the softness of the pudding inside! yum!


On Christmas day, a pared down Nazrani Christmas. For breakfast, Paalappam and lamb stew. Just our fish in spicy coconut sauce, fried fish, Beef cutlets, and a vegetable. Paalalppam looks a bit tattered! waiting and transferring didnt go well.

paalappam and lamb stew

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paalappam and stew - an earlier better pic

Nazrani beef varattiyathu with leftover roast beef

Kerala porotta

"Porotta" is a rich, flaky bread very common in Kerala, especially, in the Malabar area. I can still recall the mouthwatering egg masala and  porotta that we used to tuck into in the eateries around Kozhikode/Calicut, back during our university days. Health-conscious people shouldn't eat it, but we are human, so once in a while is fine. Everything in moderation! :) Traditionally, porotta does not have that many ingredients -- just the right amount of flour, water, salt and oil/ghee. But I have seen recipes that have milk, eggs etc. The recipe we have here is the simple kind.

Makes 10 porottas

1 . Maida/all-purpose flour -- 4 cups
     Salt -- 1 tsp
    Water - 1 cup
     Oil - 2 tbsp

2. Oil -- 1 cup and more for cooking


Method:

Add the salt to the flour. Whisk around. Measure out the oil into the cup of water.

Make a well in the flour-salt mixture. Add the oil-water mixture to this. Knead . If using the food processor, use the dough hook and stir gently, till it forms a soft, moist mass. If it looks dry, add tiny bits of water and mix some more. Cover the bowl with the dough for half an hour.  Important, as this is the gluten forming stage.

Now, take the dough out and onto the work surface. Slowly add 1/4 cup of the oil in the second set, and knead. Knead well, for about half an hour. Another important action that will make the dough smooth, and give you a great upper arm/shoulder workout. :( Again, the food processor will be a boon at this stage.

Once the dough is a soft, smooth, manageable ball,  roll it to a cylindrical shape-- a fat one- and start pushing out round portions through the circle formed between your thumb and forefinger. Or, just divide into 10 portions. Keep these covered by a wet towel/ papertowel.

Then comes the making of the porottas. Take one ball of dough. With well-oiled palms, press it down on the work surface. You can either use a rolling pin to stretch the dough real thin. Or you can throw the flattened dough onto the surface and around like a seasoned porotta maker. I did neither. After the first flattening, I stretched it out by hand, pulling it on all sides. The trick is to use plenty of oil on the dough while doing this. And not think of the calories you are building into it. hehee

Once the dough is stretched thin and glistening like glass with that oil, -- it may break here and there, don't worry -- start pleating like you would a fan. Start from the end near you and hold both the ends and hit the middle gently on the surface 2 or 3 times. Now roll it from one end, into a pinwheel-like spiral round, tucking the end under. Place the spiral under another wet towel. Instead of pleating, you may also hold it together and up  by one end, and then one end  in each hand, and then do the gentle hitting, and final rolling. Finish making spirals with each portion. Keep them coverd under the wet towel.

Heat the griddle/tawa. We want low-medium heat.
Take one rolled spiral, and roll it out to form a flat circle, just on one side. Or  use the good, old, oiled- palm ploy. Just press down evenly.

Transfer the flattened spiral onto the heated griddle. After a minute on side, when the color of the dough changes, flip. More oil, as you toast it. around 2 more minutes, it should be ready.

Once you have made 3 or 4 porottas, stack'em up , and with a clapping motion, fluff them up around the edges, turning it around to get to all sides.

Serve with korma, or vindaloo, or egg masala. 
and remember, the oil massage is important. There are a lot of videos on youtube, that we can watch and learn from.
:) asha

beef vindaloo

This dish said to be brought to Goa by the Portuguese, -- vin =wine, ahlo = garlic-- is now thoroughly Indian. It is at once a stew, and a pickle. The wine-garlic connection reminds me of all the other red wine - garlic - bouquet garni soups/stews of Europe. Here, the spices are Indian.  Usually made with pork, it works well with a variety of meats, and fish, and every cook seems to have his/her own mix of spices, and ways in which they are dealt with - some are ground from whole form, some are used in powder form etc. The idea is to get the spices as fresh as possible. I am not averse to using powders, (as long as they are not from Jambavan's time) esp when there is a time constraint.
This recipe is adapted from a  recipe by  Mrs K. M.Mathew,  the original Malayali Julia Child from Kottayam.  And this is quite hot.



beef vindaloo



Ingredients:

2 lbs beef, cubed

1st set:

20 Kashmiri chillies

1'' piece ginger, cut in small pieces

4 flakes of garlic, slightly crushed -- just hit it with the tenderizer once and the skin comes off too

1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1tsp peppercorn
1/2 cup water

2nd set :

1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
2 cups onion, sliced thin
2 medium size tomatoes, chopped

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tsp garlic flakes, sliced
1 tsp ginger, sliced thin

2 tbsp vinegar, regular white, mixed with
1/4 tsp sugar or another 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/2 cup oil
salt


Clean and drain the cubed meat.

Soak the spices in the 1st set in water for half an hour. Grind them all together. You may soak this paste in the vinegar, if you like. And then marinate the beef in this mixture overnight or for a few hours. Or you could just leave it alone, and add the vinegar later. I did not do the whole marination thing, btw.

Heat oil. Add the mustard seeds from the second set. Reduce the heat, if it's smoking. We don't want them burned. Let'em pop. Add onions and saute till light brown. At this point, some cooks remove the onion and puree it.
Others puree onions first and then saute it till brown. Again, I chose the easier way -- the one with sliced onions. Didn't have the heart to overkill. :)

Okay, where were we? The onions are almost brown. Add the turmeric now. Stir once or twice. Add the chopped, red tomatoes. Now, here's another chance to wait around scratchin' your head, metaphorically. I microwave the tomatoes for 1 to 2 minutes, till they are soft, then add it to the onion. This will reduce the frying time of tomatoes. Because, one secret to a great tasting dish is properly cooked tomatoes. Now keep stirring, till the oil separates, and the tomato -- onion mix is a dark red.

Add the ground paste -- the first set -- now. Saute.

Add the meat. Again, some prefer to brown the meat with a little marinade.  The meat is then removed and set aside, while the onion is pureed. Needless to say, I browned the meat in the onion and ground masala mix. No removings and setting asides. Stir well. Pour in the red wine vinegar, that we had decided to leave alone. Stir again. May add salt at this point. Add enough water to cover the meat , Cover and let it come to a boil. Now reduce heat and  cook on medium-low heat till the meat is done. Could take around 2 hours. I should say it is getting marinated slow and nice on the stove. ;) Stir it around once in a while, we do not want a burnt stew.  Once the meat is cooked, raise the heat and let the sauce reduce to your desired consistency. Meanwhile, add the last set of ginger-garlic slices, and  pour in the last of the vinegar. Let it simmer some more. Adjust salt.



braided mini breads

 Serve hot with rice, bread, or Indian rotis.

This version is quite hot. Also, instead of the 20 whole chillies, we may use 4 tsp kashmiri chilli powder or 2 tsp kashmiri and 2 tsp regular red chilli powders. For those who want it milder, use 1/2 tsp kashmiri chilli powder or 2-3 whole ones. And, if you do not feel like soaking and grinding the masalas, use  powders.
And in spite of all the shortcuts, the dish turned out delicious, and will be even more, the next day.

i will post the recipe for the bread soon. :)

love
asha