Double Ka Meeta January 17, 2010

 Thanks to Sai for introducing this dish to me.

Prep Time

45 min – 1 hour (a bit steep for a weekday)

Serving

Serves 5

Ingredients

•  Bread – 1  loaf
• Oil – Enough to fry bread
• Sugar – 150 gms
• Cream- Spray Can

Preparation Steps

  1) Slice bread as a triangle or into small squares as illustrated

  2) Fry the bread in oil (although usage of ghee is traditional, best to stick to oil as ghee is heavy in cholesterol). Leave the fried bread in kitchen tissue to drain any excess oil

  3) Add sugar to a pan and add water. Wait till the syrup is of a string like consistency. To test take some syrup between thumb and index finger

4) Soak the fried bread in the sugar syrup. Set aside it for 15 mins

5) Garnish with Cream, Cashews and serve hot or cold tastes grand both ways!

Chakkara/ Sweet Pongal January 16, 2010

Sakkara Pongal

Belates pongal wishes to all…I celebrated mine with the taste of sweetness…here is the recipe for chakkara (tamil for sugar) pongal

Preparation time

45 mins

Serving

Serves 6

Ingredients

 Rice – 4 cups

Jaggery – 200gms

Milk – 1.5 pints

Moong Dal – 1/2 cup (optional)

Saffron – couple of strands

Cashews – 10 finely chopped

Raisins – 10

Ghee – 7-8 tsp

Water

Preparation Steps

1) In a pan add 200gms of jaggery and 200ml of water. (Break the jaggery into smaller pieces before tossing it into the pan). Wait till it becomes gooey. Take care to ensure its still liquidy and does not become a paste. Usually this takes 10-15 mins. Ensure you set the gas at low.

2) In another pan as a parallel activty, roast rice and moong dal with ghee

3) After 2 mins of roasting, add milk  (1 pint) and cook the rice with milk until it gets crunchy. Add a spoon for ghee every 10 mins. Do this for about 30 mins again the gas should be set at low

4) Now add the jaggery to the rice pan. Constantly stir while adding the jaggery. Stiring ensures you blend the flavours

5) Add another 1/2 pint of milk and stir till the rice is now completely cooked.  Add saffron

6)Fry cashews and raisins in  ghee. Ensure you add the raisings after the cashews as raisins tend to cook faster. Take off the gas when golden brown

7) Garnish the dish with cashews and you have a winning dish there…yum!