Bhel Puri

I guess its time for me to post some recipes!! This is one of my favorite snacks and took some time to learn this recipe. If you are a creative person you can add stuffs which you like from the pantry, still it would be a perfect snack. Every time I make this recipe I keep adding different ingredients to it and the process never ends. You can add boiled potato, cooked chana (garbanzo beans), roasted peanuts, cucumber, chopped tomato, raw mango, spring onions, carrots, sprouts, any cooked beans like black eye bean, kidney beans, lima beans blah blah and the list goes on and on. So just be creative and add what you like :) Here goes the recipe!!!!

For the bhel

• 2 cups of puffed rice
• ½ cup sev
• ½ cup of papadi’s broken
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1/2 cup boiled chopped potatoes
• 1/4 cup boiled chana
• 2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
• salt to taste

Green Chutney

• 2 cups coriander leaves
• 1/2 cup mint leaves
• 5-6 green chilies
• 1 tbs lime juice
• Salt to taste

Grind the above items to a fine paste by adding required water

Tamarind Chutney

• 3/4 cup tamarind water (lemon size tamarind soaked in water)
• 1/2 cup dates deseeded
• 3/4 cup jaggery (brown sugar )
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

In a pan add the tamarind water, seedless dates, jaggery, cumin powder, and salt. Bring them to boil and cook for 8- 10 minutes until the mixture reduce to a thick liquid. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool, and grind to a smooth paste.

Method

Mix puffed rice, sev, and broken papadi in a large bowl. Add onions, tomato, cooked chana, boiled potato, add required green and tamarind chutney. Mix well and garnish with sev and cilantro leaves. Serve immediately :)

Notes

• You can store these chutneys in a container and keep refrigerated.

• Add ingredients of your choice to the bhel puri.

• Bombay Bhel puri mix is available in the stores, just buy that and add chutneys and ingredients of your choice.

Murukku

Back home Diwali was never celebrated in big way, and I always envied seeing others. Diwali celebrations in Kerala are on the low keys and my family adopted the same. It was always Onam and Vishu (Kerala New year) was celebrated in a big way at my place though I was brought up at Coimbatore. Slowly after many years my mom started making this snack (murukku) for Diwali. My memories of Diwali would be just this delicious snack, which my mom makes for us. Seeing all the blogs with the delicious sweets and savories I thought I would post this snack for Diwali. Here goes the recipe!!

Ingredients

• 4cups of rice flour
• 1 cup of roasted chana (made into a powder) or Gram flour or chickpeas flour
• 3 tablespoon butter
• Handful of sesame seeds
• 6tsp of red chili powder
• 1 tsp of cumin seeds, and ajwain seeds
• Salt for taste and water to knead
  

Method

• Mix rice flour, roasted chana powder, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, ajwain seeds, red chili powder, sesame seeds and salt. Soften the butter and work into the mixture to form a crumbly mixture. Add water into small quantities and knead into soft dough.
  

• Use murukku maker, place in a lump of dough and pipe out the patterns, forming circles. I placed the patterns in the plate first.
  

• Heat oil under medium high heat. Use sufficient quantity of oil to submerge all frying murukkus without touching each other. Transfer the murukkus from the plate to the hot oil.
  

• Fry to light golden brown color.

• Remove the murukku from oil and place on a paper towel to drain the surplus oil.

• Allow them to cool and store them in a container.

My contribution to Vee of Past, Present and Me for JFI-Diwali Treats.

Wishing you all a Happy Diwali:)

Almond Cookies

Lately I am getting attracted to sweets :(, which is definitely not a good sign. I always admire the sweet recipes in the blog and never had the interest to try it, since me and my hubby are not fond of cookies or cakes. Consuming little sugar in a day is not that bad….so I made up my mind to explore my expertise in baking cookies, cakes, and so on. This recipe I got from sugar and spice and it was originally from here chocolate and Zucchini. The best things about these cookies are – it takes less time to make, few ingredients, and it is yummy. What else you need when the making and out come process is so simple and delicious. Here goes the recipe!!

Method

• Pre heat the oven to 350 F

• Mix two eggs and 1 cup of sugar in a blender/ mixer and blend them until it turns fluffy.

• Add ¼ cup oil, 1 tsp rum, 2 tsp vanilla extract, pinch of salt and blend well with the mixture.

• Add all-purpose flour 1 ¾ cup little by little to the liquid mixture and blend well to a thick proportion.

• Pour this to an oven safe dish greased or lined with parchment paper. Even out the mixture.

• Now place almond or pecans or nuts of your choice on the surface, each with distance of 3cm.

• Bake 20-25 minutes until they turn light golden color. Check them with a toothpick to see whether it is baked. Take out and keep it aside for 5 minutes.

• Cut them into small squares and arrange them in a foil sheet.Keep inside the (turned off) oven for 25- 30 minutes. It will become crunchy:)

Serve with coffee or tea :)

Notes: You can try this recipe without Rum, but adding a tsp of Rum did make a difference in the taste and the aroma , which I loved in this recipe :)

Chilli Paratha: Baked and Broiled

Until this evening I was in no mood to cook something delicious for dinner. I thought of just making dosa and eat with left over chutneys. Since I dint have much plans for dinner I called my friend and was chatting for while about food blogs. She listed the food she tried and how well it turned out be... so as we were talking Archana’s Chilly crepes came into our topic. She suggested me to give a try since it was a hit at her place. I had tried Archana’s Naan which turned out so delicious, so I gave a try to her chilly crepes. I dint have all the ingredients which she used, so I cooked with the available ingredients and made some changes to recipe. I also broiled at the end to give a crispy texture for the parathas. So those who haven’t tried this recipe do give a try because it is super delicious. I made spicier version by adding masalas. Here goes the recipe!!!!

Method for making Parathas

• Mix 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 tsp salt, required amount of water to form a thick batter. Leave it for 10- 15 minutes.
• Heat a flat pan, pour a ladle full of batter on the pan and spread it evenly like a circle. Spray or apply oil at the edges of the batter. Heat for about a minute and flip to the other side and cook for another minute. For step by step instruction see here. Keep aside and allow them to cool.
• Cut them into square pieces, I used scissors to cut them into small pieces. Take an oven safe flat pan and put the aluminum foil. Arrange the pieces evenly.

• Bake at 300 F for 10-12 minutes and broil at high for 3-4 minutes. While broiling keep an eye on the pieces, once it turns little crisper take it out and keep aside.
  

Method for making Chili Parathas

• Heat non-stick pan with oil, add 1 onion cut into small pieces, few curry leaves, 1 tsp of ginger, 1 tsp of garlic, 2 green chilies finely chopped, ½ tsp chili powder, 1 tsp coriander powder, ¼ tsp garam masala and sauté them for a minute.
• Now add 1 green bell pepper finely chopped or chopped length wise. Sauté them for another one minutes until it turns soft.
• Add 1 big tomato grinded into a paste with ½ tsp soya sauce into the mixture and cook for another one minute.
• Add the baked and broiled pieces into the mixture and saute them until all the spice covered with pieces.

Serve them hot with raita. I made raita very bland since the chili parathas were spicy. Just added onion, cilantro leaves, yogurt, salt, and mixed them together.

Potato & Peas Cups

What should I call this Snack? Mini Puffs? Samosa? When I served this dish to my hubby this evening he asked me for the recipe name. I told him different names and he was confused and didn’t bother to ask me more about it and ate the snack quitely. So I quickly went and took the Puff pastry from the freezer and saw the recipe name; it had the recipe for Chocolate peanut butter cups and I replaced them as Potato- Peas cups. So that’s how I came up with this name. I just followed the instruction of the pack and just changed the filling. I served this with sweet and sour chutney. Here goes the recipe!!!

For Filling

• Mash 1 boiled potato with ¼ cup frozen green peas, 1tsp garam masala, 1tsp of crushed cumin and coriander seeds, and salt. You can add any filling of your choice.
  

Method

• Thaw the pastry sheet at room temperature for 30-40 min. Preheat oven to 400°F. I used Pepperidge farm puff pastry sheets.

• Unfold pastry sheet on lightly floured surface. Cut the pastry sheets into squares about 3 inches. Press squares into bottoms of muffin-pan cups.

• Place about 1 tbsp. filling in center of each squares and bake 15-18 min or until it turns into a golden color.
  

Sweet and Sour Chutney

• Heat pan with ½ cup of water; add ½ -1 tsp tamarind paste, 5-6 finely chopped dates, ¼ tsp salt, and 3-4 tsp jaggery or brown sugar. Boil them until it reduces to a semi-thick paste. Allow them to cool.

• Grind the paste with few cilantro, few mint leaves, and 4-5 green chilies. Add water, salt, and sugar according to your taste.

This chutney can be served for any snack. You can use this for bhel puri

See fellow bloggers recipes using pastry sheets: Samosas, Vegetable Puffs, Vegetable puff.