Recipe world

Bottle Gourd is one of those vegetables which are available throughout the year. Here in Australia, it is commonly available not only in Indian grocery stores, but also in most of the Asian grocery stores. Bottle gourd is a good of vitamins and minerals and hence, regular consumption of this veggie is good for our health.
In our home, we would prefer typical Indian style food most of the time. We buy bottle gourd more frequently to prepare different Indian dishes. I have shared the recipe of Bottle Gourd Palya / Spiced Bottle Gourd long back. Here is one more delicacy made with Bottle Gourd. Do try this Bottle Gourd Payasa when you buy bottle gourd next time and let me hear your feedback! 😊

Time required: 35 - 40 minutes
Serves - 3
Difficulty level: Medium

Ingredients:

Sugar - 3/4 cup (1 cup =
Bottle gourd peeled, seeded and chopped into small or medium pieces - 2 cups
Semolina (medium) - 1/3 cup
Jaggery - 2 tbsp (see Tips)
Salt - big pinch
Ghee / clarified butter - 1 tsp
Milk - 2 1/2 cup
Water - 2 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp
Saffron strands - 8 to 10 (optional)

Method:

Heat the water in a pan. Once it becomes nicely hot, add a teaspoon of ghee and chopped bottle gourd. Continue cooking till bottle gourd pieces become soft.
In the meanwhile, wash the semolina by adding some water and drain it off.
Add this semolina to the cooked mixture and mix it continuously for 2 - 3 minutes to avoid lumps.
Add sugar, salt, jaggery (optional), milk and saffron strands. Allow the Payasa to boil for 8 - 10 minutes.
Add cardamom powder before switching off the flame.
Serve this delicious Payasa hot or cold. This Payasa goes well with Poori, if you are a sweet lover.

Tips:

If you don't like jaggery, you can replace it with sugar. If you like to use jaggery, use more jaggery and reduce the quantity of sugar accordingly. If using more jaggery, no need to add saffron as the flavour will be dominated by jaggery.

Christmas is already round the corner. Joy of the festival is visible everywhere in the form of lights, decorations and of course, shopping! We just roamed everywhere and did enough shopping. Actually speaking, we won't celebrate Christmas in our home. But we are very much fond of Christmas Fruit Cake / Plum Cake. So, all the preparations are done to prepare the Fruit Cake!

Candied Peel is one of the key ingredients for Christmas Fruit Cake. Peel of citrus fruits such as orange, lemon are taken out in order to make the candied peel. Fruit peel will be chopped, boiled, drained and then cooked in sugar syrup to make it delicious. Candied peel and candied fruits are easily available in the market especially during the Christmas time, but I always prefer making them at home.

Here is the easy recipe of making Candied orange peel. Thanks to Suma of Cakes And More for this wonderful recipe!

Preparation time: 1 1/4 hour

Cooling time: 1 hour

Yield: 30 - 32 pieces of peel

Difficulty level: Medium

Ingredients:

2 medium sized navel oranges
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup + more water to cook the peel

Method:

Cut the oranges into 4 equal halves and take out the peel carefully.
Slit the peels into equal size pieces to ensure even cooking.
Take about 2 cups of water in a vessel and bring to boil. Add the orange peel and cook it for 4 - 5 minutes. Now, drain all the water from the peel and run the peels through cold water.
In order to remove the bitterness from the orange peel, I have repeated the above step two times.
Combine 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a vessel and heat it on the stovetop. Once the sugar is dissolved, add the orange peels and simmer the flame.
Cook the peels for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or till the all sugar syrup is absorbed.
Switch off the flame and leave the orange peels on a wire rack for an hour for cooling.
Thats it, homemade orange peels are ready to use!

Tips:

You can prepare Candied lemon peel using the above method.

Dry Fruits Ladoo is a very common sweet which is found in most of the sweet stalls in Karnataka. These ladoos are made of all healthy ingredients like almonds, cashews, poppy seeds, raisins, dates, etc. and taste divine! These yummy ladoos are good for people of all ages.

At home, we all love munching dry fruits and nuts. But what happens normally is, one day we tend to eat more of them and the next day, we forget to eat them. If Dry Fruit Ladoos are there at home, we won't forget to eat them daily! Thats the reason I keep making these ladoos at home regularly.

Here is my version of Dry Fruit Ladoo..

Preparation time: 40 minutes

Yield: 30 ladoos (depending on the size)

Difficulty level: Medium

Ingredients:

Dates (De-seeded and roughly chopped) - 2 cups (1 cup=
Chopped almonds - 1/2 cup
Broken cashews - 1/2 cup
Raisins - 1/2 cup
Shredded coconut - 1/2 cup
Poppy seeds - 1/4 cup
Ghee / Clarified butter - 4 tbsp

Method:

Heat a heavy bottom pan. Toast the chopped almonds, broken cashews and poppy seeds separately.
Then, Melt the ghee in the same pan. Add the chopped dates and raisins. Keep mixing the mixture for 4 - 5 minutes or till it becomes like a dough.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the dates mixture and mix them well.
Make equal sized balls from the mixture and store them in an airtight container.

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'Baklava' is a Turkish delicacy, which was introduced to me few months back. I had heard of this sweet dish before, but never got a chance to taste it. One of my friends had brought Baklava while visiting us sometime back. We liked its unique taste and crispy texture.
After tasting this heavenly sweet, I just googled for Baklava recipe. The recipe called for walnut as one of the main ingredient. I didn't had walnuts in my pantry and hence, I have replaced it with almonds. Baklava tasted perfect just the same as the store bought ones.
I have adopted this recipe from allrecipes.com with slight modifications. Try this recipe and let me know your feedback..

Preparation time: 35 minutes
Baking time: 50 - 55 minutes
Yield: 40 pieces (depending on the size)
Difficulty level: Difficult

Ingredients:

Filo pastry sheets - 375 gm
Butter - 250 gm
Sugar - 1 cup (1 cup = 200 gm)
Almonds - 2 cups (see tips)
Sugar powder - 4 tbsp
Water - 1 cup
Peel of half lime
Cloves - 2
Honey - 6 tbsp
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp

Method:

Thaw the filo pastry sheets according to the instructions on the pack.
Chop the almonds finely and toast them on low flame till aromatic or till it turns golden brown. Add sugar powder, cinnamon powder once its cool and keep aside.
Grease the baking tray with butter. I have used a 33*23 cm baking pan here.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Take out two sheets of filo pastry carefully from the pack and arrange them on the greased tray. Brush the top with melted butter and place two more sheets upon it and brush it with butter. Continue this process till half of the sheets are done.
Once you finished arranging half of the sheets, fold in the almond mixture and spread it evenly.
Start placing filo pastry sheets 2 at a time, brush with butter and continue this process till you are done with all the sheets.
Brush the top layer with butter and cut the sheets into diamond or any desired shapes of equal size.
Place the baking tray inside the pre-heated oven and bake them for 50 - 55 minutes or till they turn golden brown.
Prepare sugar syrup while Baklava is baking. Combine sugar and water in a vessel and bring to boil. Once the sugar has diluted, add cloves, honey and lemon peel. Allow it to boil on low flame for 15 - 20 minutes and turn off the flame. Take out the cloves and lemon peel and discard it.
Once the Baklava is cooked, take it out of oven and pour the sugar syrup evenly. Allow it to set for atleast two hours before serving.

Tips:

The original recipe calls for walnuts. I have used almonds here since i didn't had walnuts.

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Being born and brought up in a village environment, we rarely used to eat the bakery food. All we knew was only Bread those days! We didn't had an oven, so there was no chance to eat any baked food at home. When I started going to college, I came to know about more varieties of bakery food and got addicted to them.

Veg Puffs are one of my favourite bakery food. Making the pastry sheets at home is bit tedious task. These days, puff pastry sheets are available in super markets, so making the Puffs at home is not that difficult. Here is my version of Veg Puffs!

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Baking time: 25 minutes

Difficulty level: Medium

Yield: 6 Veg Puffs

Ingredients:

Eggplant - 1 (small sized)
Potato - 1 (medium sized)
Capsicum - 1 halve
Beans - 4 to 5
Green peas - 1/2 cup (*see Tips)
Onion - 1 large
Salt - to taste
Amchur powder - 1/2 tsp or to taste
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp or according to taste
Garam masala powder - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 3 tbsp (plus more for brushing)
Puff pastry sheet - 1 1/2 (can make 4 puffs from 1 sheet)

Method:

Cut the potato into two halves, cover with enough water and pressure cook upto 2 whistles. Once they are cool, peel off the skin and chop them into medium sized cubes.
Chop eggplant, capsicum, beans and onion into small chunks and keep separately.
Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan. Add chopped beans and eggplant. Cook them covered on low flame. Add up to 2 tbsp of water if needed.
Once these veggies are almost cooked, add green peas and chopped capsicum.
Add chopped onion after a minute and mix well. Cook it on medium flame for 4 - 5 minutes.
Add the potato pieces followed by salt, amchur powder, red chilli powder and garam masala powder. Mix everything well and turn off the flame.
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Thaw the puff pastry sheets according to the instructions on the package.
Take one whole pastry sheet and cut it into 4 equal squares. Take one piece and put it on a flat surface. Pour 2 tbsp or little more of stuffing mixture on the middle of the pastry piece. Apply little water to the sides of pastry piece and fold it keeping the stuffing mixture inside. Press the edges and make sure that stuffing won't comes out. Do the same with all the pastry pieces.
Line the baking tray with aluminium foil or baking sheet and place the veg puffs on it. Keep some space for them to expand.
Brush the puffs with oil or butter and cook them for around 25 minutes or till they turn golden brown.
Serve them hot with Tomato ketchup and a cup of hot tea!

Tips:

If using dried green peas, you nee to soak it for 4 - 5 hours and pressure cook along with potatoes. I have used fresh ones here hence, no need to cook before using.
For the stuffing, use any vegetable which has less water content. Veggies like carrot, beetroot, sweet corn, cabbage also go well for the stuffing. Or if if there is any leftover stir fry, you can use it too!

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