Tag: cooking

Awesome Sherbets :)

After learning about the History of Sherbets ..in this new episode we sample some awesomely mouthwatering drinks 🙂 Phaalsaa, Tukhm-e-Balanga, Shahi Paan, Baadaam, Thandaai, Brahmi, Kaala Khatta and much more 🙂 Enjoy! 🙂

Some “tasty” Fun at Work for a Noble Cause :)

Some awesome folks at my workplace got together to cook some simple yet interesting dishes..put up food stalls..and the fund collections went for charity 🙂 We even invited a ‘shakarkandi‘ (roasted sweet-potatoes) wala to host his stall within the office premises…and ofcourse we all pretended to be food-show TV anchors while tasting the food 🙂 Was fun to be kiddish amidst tough office deadlines..and for a noble cause… all in good taste! Here’s a quick glance at the experience! 🙂

Street Food of Old Delhi – Episode 3

Old Delhi street-food specialties like KACHORI, SAMOSA, FIRNI, CHICKEN TIKKA and much more..in this quick episode :) Enjoy !!

Street Food of Old Delhi – Episode 2

Old Delhi street-food specialties like KULIYA CHAAT, FRUIT SANDWICH and much more..in this quick episode :) Enjoy !!

Street Food of Old Delhi – Episode 1

Old Delhi street-food specialties like Kheer, Kalmi Vada, Gol Gappa, Daulat ki Chaat and much more..in this quick episode 🙂 Enjoy !!

Zaika-e-Shahjahanabad : The flavors of Old Delhi (Promo)

The flavors of Old Delhi..in half a minute!!

Coming Soon : ZAIKA-e-SHAHJAHANABAD .. here’s a quick glance at WHAT’s COOKING

Aataa Laddoo Recipe

aataa ladoo collage

Was fun making these..and even greater fun to eat these awesome laddoos 🙂 Am trying to scribble a quick recipe below:

Ingredients:

  1. 1kg aatta
  2. 800gm powdered sugar
  3. 750gm (or around 1lt.) ghee/refined oil for frying dry fruits and roasting the aatta (aataa bhoon-ne ke liye)
  4. 400gm safed til
  5. 150gm magaj (kharbooje/ tarbooje ke beej)
  6. almonds, cashew nuts – 150gm each
  7. 200gm kishmish
  8. 100gm makhana

Quick meanings of Hindi names used above:

Aataa = wheat fluor

Ghee = commonly used Indian clarified butter;

Safed Til = white sesame seeds

Magaj = dried seeds of melon and water-melon

Kishmish = raisins

Makhana = Euryale ferox (foxnut)

makhana
makhana

Process:

  • in a dry frying pan, roast the safed til.
  • grind (dardara/mota) around 300gm of the roasted til in a mixer/grinder to make a paste with coarse granules (not a fine smooth paste). Keep aside around 100gm of the roasted til for adding to the mixture later.
  • heat refined oil/ghee for frying the almonds and cashew-nuts.
  • crush the fried almonds and cashew-nuts after they cool down a bit.
  • also fry the magaj in heated oil
  • roast (not deep fry) the makhana using very small amount of oil.
  • crush the roasted makhana

crushed ingredients

  • heat 200gm ghee and 300gm refined oil. (The ghee helps in binding the mixture for making laddoos)
  • add the aatta in the heated ghee/oil. Cook on a medium flame constantly mixing the contents well thoroughly..till the color of the mix deepens and a mild fragrance of the cooked mix rises. (Medium flame pe aataa achhe se bhunein. Jab sondhi khushbu aane lage aur aate ka rang badal jaae to aata ready hai.)

mixing aataa

  • once the aataa cools down a bit, properly mix with it all the other ingredients (kishmish, crushed dry fruits, crushed makhana, safed til (crushed as well as whole), fried magaj, powdered sugar). Sugar can be added as per taste.
  • make small laddoos picking small portions of the mix in your palms

making laddoos

aataa laddoo

 

Enjoy… MERRY CHRISTMAS 🙂 Here’s a special Christmas Greeting from our musical kitchen 🙂 Cheers!

Recipe for making Thekua (Khajoor)

Some of my friends had asked for the recipe to make Thekuas/Khajoors (a sort of Indian home-made cookies) 🙂 Just scribbled some quick notes below. Hope it helps 🙂 Special thanks to my mom and sis for helping me out with this! Enjoy !!

thekua

INGREDIENTS

#600gm wheat flour
#300gm maida
#600gm powdered sugar (add or reduce as per taste)
#250gm refined oil (for the dough)
#more refined oil- enough for deep frying the thekua
#4 tbsp safed til (white Sesame seeds)
#4 tbsp saunf – badi or chhoti, any (Fennel seeds)
#3 tbsp magaj (kharbooze ke beej) – (dried Melon seeds)
# (Optional) Around 4 tbsp (100-150gm) of crushed dry fruits – baadaam, kaaju (Almonds, Cashews)

METHOD

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl

2. Mix refined oil (kept for the dough) in the dry mixture

3. Prepare a relatively dry/hard  dough by gradually adding very small amounts of water and mixing well. The final dough should feel somewhat like the dough used for making Namakpaara/Matthri. (Adding more water will tend to make the dough soggy, since the sugar content also adds to the moisture. Hence, be mindful about not adding more water than what is required.)

4. Pick small portions of the dough in your hands and press them gently to give shape as desired or as illustrated in the pictures. (Try not to leave the dough unused for long, fry it soon after it gets prepared. If we leave this for a long time, the dough might start becoming soggy esp due to all the sugar content)

5. Now deep fry the thekuas in hot refined oil, stroking (if needed) gently so as to avoid breaking the thekua. DO NOT fry more than 4-5 pieces at once. The oil should be very hot when you put these pieces for frying, otherwise the thekuas will tend to break. Cook on a high flame. In case the thekuas still tend to break, add 1-2 tbsp of maida to the dough and mix well. Use gentle hands when stroking/flipping the thekua pieces while being fried.

6. As the thekuas appear cooked and the surface becomes light brown in color, take them out of the oil and spread on sheets of clean newspaper to soak the oil out

7. Leave the thekuas on the newspaper for air-cooling for a while, so that they become firm and crisp at room temperature.

8. The thekuas are ready to be finished off or to be stored in air-tight containers! 🙂