Semiya Payasom

Last week it was Onam and I was like should I make a huge Onam Sadya ( in our case it was Dinner) as Traditionally back at home it is all vegetarian dishes.
The reason I was reluctant was because first of all I don't get all the Indian vegetables and secondly if I make all veggie Sadya and ask my in laws etc they would not enjoy.
So in the end I decided to celebrate Onam but then with dishes everybody will love.
So there were few Veg and few Non Veg dishes.

When it came to dessert I gave the choice to Hans and Shyama and they said they would love to have Semiya payasom.



So the day before the Onam I was slaving in the kitchen for few hours as I wanted to make most of the dishes and keep in the fridge so that I won't have too much work on the day it self.
But it is always a pleasure to prepare all these dishes especially if they love the food you have prepared which all of them did anyway.
And also had the plus point of getting all the oh and wow when the thali plates were brought to the dinning table.
Traditionally they are served in banana leaves back home but from were can i get them here :-)



So here goes the payasam recipe courtsey to my eldest sis :-)

I cup Vermecelli ( broken into small pieces) in India we use and here i ised too the vermecelli you get for making this dessert)
Milk 1 cup
Water 1/2 cup
Ghee/ Butter 2 tbsp ( I used butter)
200 ml sweet condensed milk, ( I am just giving the measurement, but i didn't measure it, i just poured and then tasted it and if it was not sweet I added more, depends on your taste)
Raisins 15 to 20
Cashewnuts 15 to 20
Cardamom powder 1/4 sp
Pinch of salt

Heat the ghee / Butter and fry the raisins and cashewnuts, remove and drain in a kitchen paper.
In the same pan roast the vermecelli till it turns to light golden colour and ramove it to a plate.
In a pan add the milk and water when it boils add the fried vermicelli, cook it, mine only took few minutes and if you think there is not enough liquid add more milk.
You must stir it continiously so that it doesn't stick to the pan. When the vermicelli is cooked add the condensed milk and give it a stir. Add the cardamom powder , the nuts and the raisins,remove  from the heat.
You can serve this hot or at room temperature. I love it it room temperature.



Jangris

When I was home and from the time I can remember, most of the time when my mom went out for shopping, paying the electric bill, visiting her family or anyother things, she always came back home with a small packet from the Bakkery.
And we three girls knew that she would always have something, like a Ladoo, Jalebi ( that is what we call this in Kerala at least what we call ) but it is normally called Jengiri.

Can you imagine kids beeing really happy now a days because their mom brought them goodies from the bakers.
Isn't it funny as kids we were so happy with these small things a least we kids were.
Now to makes kids happy one has to spend so much money.

The christmas is not yet there but we get now itself folders from the shops what ll new toys and games are there and they all cost so much.

Now to the recipe this is one of my favourite Indian sweet and from the time when I saw in Rak's Kitchen I have been wanting to make it, but then I am always so lazy to grin dal etc.... but then 2 weeks back priya was asking in FB what sweets to make for Diwali and I told her make this from Rak's place and the temptaion for me was too much, I went straight to te Kitchen soaked urid dal and in few hours was munching on these delcious sweet with a cup of tea.

I did exactly as Rak's did the only difference I did was, I made double the quantity of sugar syrup as I wanted the jengiri to be soaked really good.

Whole white urad dal 3/4 cup
Rice flour 1 tsp
Orange food colour
pinch Salt
Oil for frying


For Sugar syrup ( I doubled up the below quantity of the ingrients of the syrup, which is given below)
Sugar 3/4 cup
water
Just to immerse the sugar
Lemon juice 1/2 tsp
Rose essence 4 drops
Orange food colour

Soak urad dal for 2 hrs and grind with very little water .
The batter should be fluffy and smooth.
Mix a pinch of salt,food colour and rice flour and mix well.


Heat the sugar with water just to immerse it and after it starts boiling,let it boil for 3-4 minutes.Add lemon juice,food colour and lastly essence and mix well and switch off the stove.

Take a pastry bag cover and make a tiny hole.

Fill the pastry bag with the batter and first practice doing in a plate .

Then heat a broad,flat bottomed pan(keep the flame in low) with only little oil say 1 inch depth.
The oil should notget fully heated,when it starts forming small,small bubbles in the bottom,then draw jangris in the oil,repeat the same to make many.
Once the jangris gets cooked and becomes light,turn over and cook till crisp and then take out carefully and transfer to the sugar syrup.

Dunk the fried jangris in hot sugar syrup for 1-2 minutes and take out carefully and arrange it a plate. Wait for half hour before serving.
I have stp by step oics but tghe loader of my old camera canot be found so when i findh it i will post the making of the jangri.
Sending this to Mina for complete my Thali event which she is hosting, which was started by Jags of Joy of Cooking.

Sending this to M

Happy Diwali and Mysoore Pak

Happy Diwali or Deepavali दिवाली or दीपावली to all my friends around the world whoVisit My Kitchen Treasures.

When i saw the recipie for Mysoor Pak by Latha Narasimhan from The Yum Blog I knew What sweet i have to make at home for Diwali.
Thankyou Latha.
Mysore pak is one of the favourite Indian sweets for my daughter and I. We both love it, so now i saw the recipie it was my chance to make them.

They came out very well even though i didn't get the fully honey comb effect.
Maybe i took out from the fire too fast. But still the taste was divine.
Woudn't it be with all the ghee in it.It reallt tasted good.

We have few Indian musicians comming over from India for playing few concerts with my husband, and they have a concert tommorow.

So i was saying to my daughter we'll give for them each packet of sweets and we can also give them homemade mysore pak.And after feww seconds she asked me you are not going to give all the mysore pak for them are you.
I told her no I will keep for us also and she said better believe it.

I am also sending this to Meeta's Monthly Mingle event Traditional Feast

Ghee, Sugar, Besan

Keep on stirring

Cooling

Mysoore pak

Mango Kulfi With Coconut

Mango Coconut Kulfi

I didn't know what to call this Kulfi.
It had Mangoes, coconut milk, Almonds, Saffron etc............

When I saw Sunita's this month spice event, I knew what i was going to send her. As i have been wanting to make this kulfi for a while.

So this is my entry for Sunita's Think Spice...think Saffron



Kulfi was really delicious, if i may say it myself, I don't know if I will add the Almond powder next time as I personally thought it was not necesary. But the recipie had asked it so thought i will make it exactly.

I was surprised how easy it was to make this, there wasnot cooking at all involved.

Mangoes, Saffron, Almond powder etc....

Such a Beautiful Colour

I bought the kulfi moulds in India....

Refershing Kulfi

Ingridients:
1 big ripe mango peeled and pureed
Coconut Milk 250 ml ( I used canned coconut milk)
Saffron 1/2 to 1 tsp
Cream 250 ml
Almond Powder 60 gm
Sugar 3 to 4 tbsp.

Method:
Into a bowl add the pureed mango, then add the coconut milk, cream and sugar. Stir well and add the rest of the ingridients.
Pour into Kulfi moulds and freeze them for few hours.

Done told you it is a super easy kulfi.

Laddoo

"Laddoo" is typically a popular Indian sweet prepared on festive occassions and also served as Prashad in the Hindu temples of india.

According to the Hindu mythology, it is associated with Lord Ganesha, whose favourite is besan laddu. It is often prepared during the festival of Diwali.

This is my entry for RCI Tamil Festival Cusine event hosted by Vcuisine

I had mailed and asked Viji if i can make Laddoo's for the event ( I have never ever made laddoo in my whole life, for me they were sweets which were bought from the sweet shop).

I was very enthusiastic to make them i even asked viji if i can make mysoore pak forthe event too as it was my favorite Indian sweet. She was really thrilled that i was going to make both the sweets.
But after me trying to make these laddoo's and the disaster i had, when i was making them I have fully changed my mind in making the mysore pak for the next few weeks :-))))

The disaster i was talking about was when i was making the sugar syrup, it was almost sitcky in nature and then suddenly it was all gone crystal and hard, maybe my fire was too high.
So i started from scratch again and the same happened, i was almost in the verge of giving up when my hubby came to the kitchen hearing me grumbling and swearing about the disaster.
He advised me to start making the syrup again with less heat and it worked.

We had the laddoos with coffee and the taste was great.
I was surprsied about the taste and now i am glad that I made them at home.

Ofcourse my hubby takes all the credit for it, he saying that if it was not for his advice I would have thrown everything in the dirtbag when I had the disaster with the sugar syrup!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the recipe from here

Making the bhoondi took time. As it was made a bit by bit.

Few of the things needed

Fried boondhi

My First ever home made Laddoo's

Ingridients:
Bengal gram flour - 1 cup.
Sugar - 11/4 cups.
Cardamom powder 1tsp.
Oil -1/2 kg
Cashewnut1 cup.
Water 1 cup.
3 tbsp raisins
2 tsps cardamom powder
Raisins Few Tbsp
1/4 tsp yellow food colour ( optional)
If i had thought about Sunita's Spice event i would have added saffron. But now it is too late so have to look for a new dish for the think spice event.
Which is also fun.

Method:
Add 1 cup of water to bengal gram flour and mix well.
Keep this mixture aside.Add 1/2 cup of water to the sugar and boil for 25 minutes (until the sugar becomes threadishly sticky in nature )
Heat oil in a frying pan.
Take the laddoo-boondhi spoon (a special spoon with tiny holes especially used and designed for preparing laddoo),and then add 2 tbsps. of the above prepared bengal gram mixture on top of the special boondhi spoon and rub so that the mixture falls into the oil in the frying pan.

I do not have these spoon so i just took a sieve and then added the mixture through this.
Allow the boondhi to get deep fried (till the boondhi turns light brown in color).
Repeat the entire procedure till the entire mixture is turned into boondhis.
Now add all the boondhis into the sugar syrup.
Add cardamom powder to the syrup.
Add ghee fried cashew nuts and raisins
Mix well.
Now,take 4 tsps. of this mixture in your hand and size into a lemon sized ball.
Do this till the entire mixture into balls.Serve hot or cold.