Manchurian (Indian - Chinese recipe)

Manchurian is an indian recipe that uses Chinese spices. It is a standard fare in Chinese restaurants in India. But I am confident you would not find it any real Chinese restaurant.
It consists of cabbage balls in a Chinese gravy.


Ingredients
For Manchurian balls
2 cups - shredded cabbage and carrot 
2 green chillies finely chopped
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpose flour will also work)
Corn flour for binding
Salt to taste
Oil for shallow frying

For sauce
1 Tbsp oil
Ginger and garlic chopped
2-3 spring onions finely chopped
2 Tbsp corn flour mixed in water to make a paste
Soya sauce, Sriracha to taste


To make the Manchurian balls, mix the cabbage, carrots, chillies, oil, salt and whole wheat flour. Roll the mixture into small balls. If they are sticky and moist add corn flour to help with the binding.

Shallow fry the balls till they are golden brown. Keep them aside.

To make the sauce, heat the oil and add ginger, garlic and onion part of the spring onion.
Saute it for a minute and then add soya sauce and sriracha as required. Add 2 cups of water in the mixture and once the mixture starts boiling add the corn flour paste.
As the mixture starts to thicken add the manchurian balls and let it cook for few minutes.
Add the spring onions and salt according to taste.
Serve with rice and enjoy!

Low Calorie Yogurt Cheesecake

This is one of the most delicious and easy recipe I have tried in the last few months. After months of trying to master the skill of making french maroons, I was happy to find an easy and delicious recipe to make a cheesecake!
I adapted this recipe for this recipe and it turned out amazing

2 cups of yogurt (I used plain fat free organic yogurt)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp flour ( I had some rice flour and it is a great substitute for corn starch)
Pinch of salt
Pinch of Cardamom (I used it as a flavoring agent instead of vanilla. It provides an Indian touch)

For Crust
15-20 Graham crackers 
2-3 Tbsp of milk


 For the crust, just crush the graham crackers in a blender and add the milk
Make a layer of crust in a pie dish by pressing the graham cracker mixture by your fingers

Now mix all the other ingredients in the blender and combine them

Pour the yogurt mixture in the pie crust
Pre-heat over to 375 deg C and bake the cheesecake for 30 min or so.
When done, the cheesecake is jiggly at the center and starts to pull away from the edges.
Remove from the oven, cool it for hour or so and voila! Yogurt cheesecake is done!

Trust me, this is divine. The yogurt gives it the creamy texture of a true cheesecake and the graham cracker crust provides necessary crunch!

Quick Chicken Stirfry

I always tend to use any leftovers and come up with interesting recipes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Well this time it worked!
I had some leftover grilled chicken (I am vegetarian, this was a result of a potluck) and green beans. The result was a great StirFry

Leftover grilled chicken
Green Beans 
1 small onion diced
Garlic paste (I had paste, but you can use chopped garlic as well)
Sesame seeds
Oil

Sauce (proportions according to your taste)
Soy sauce
Vinegar (I used red wine vinegar, but any vinegar will work)
Honey
Sriracha sauce


I don't like crunchy green beans, so I blanched them in hot water for a min or two. If you want, feel free to use them directly in the stir fry. 
Mix all the sauce ingredients and keep it ready.
Heat the oil in the pan, saute some garlic and onions. Add green beans and chicken.
Stir them for a min or so and add the sauce.
Continue to stir and add the sesame seeds.
That's it Chicken Stirfry is done!!
Simple, tasty and easy.

Healthy Beet Juice

Recently I got hooked onto the fruit and vegetable juices, not only store-bought but also home-made. This refreshing juice had fruits and vegetables that were readily available at my place

2 Beets (peeled)
few carrots
1 Apple
Ginger (as per taste)
Salt (as per taste)



The juice was great, but interesting part was instead of throwing away the pulp, I used it to make a great bread/cake.

2 cups pulp
2 cups wheat flour (I don't like to use all-purpose flour)
1 egg
1 1/2 cup sugar
few walnuts for the crunch
Bake the cake in 350C oven till a knife comes off clean (20 min or so)



I was amazed at how tasty it turned out. So next time you make juice, try to use the pulp. Trust me it will be great!

Paneer Stuffed Chili Pepper

This week I got some fresh Anaheim Peppers (i think) at my grocery store. So I decided to make something with them. Options were to stuff these pepper or to bread and fry them. I choose to stuff them. These peppers are tricky, you never know if they are spicy or mild. So the best solution is to stuff them with cheese or something that is mild. I choose Paneer. (Indian cottage cheese).

Stuffing
Grated Paneer
Chopped onion
Oil (for stuffing as well as sauteing the peppers
Coriander seeds, Turmeric, Curry leaves
Garam masala
Salt to taste

Heat 1tbsp oil in a pan and add coriander seeds, turmeric and curry leaves.
Add the onion and saute it till it becomes translucent
Add the grated paneer, garam masala and salt according to taste
Mix and voila, the stuffing is done.

Now REMOVE ALL MEMBRANE AND SEEDS from the peppers. This will reduce the heat from the peppers and make it edible.
Stuff the peppers with the paneer stuffing. Heat oil in a pan, place the peppers in it and saute it till the peppers are cooked and soft.
You can even bake it in a oven. Done! You can eat it as it is or with some bread or roti.
Enjoy!

Polish Latkas with Indian Zatka (kick)

I always have potatoes in my pantry, so whenever I am in mood for some experiment I turn to my trusty old potatoes. Yesterday I wanted to make a side dish with potatoes but instead of the regular potato salad, I made Latka's with Zatka (Indian version of the polish latkas with Indian spices).

Normally Latka's require eggs and other ingredients, but I updated the ingredients and the result was amazing.

Ingredients
1 potato (I had a russet, but I am sure any other kind will also work)
1/2 onion
Chilli powder
Cumin powder
Coriander powder
Salt & Pepper 
Finely chopped green chillies
1-2 tbsp of rice flour 
Olive oil - to shallow fry

Grate the potato and onion and keep them aside for 10 min. Now squeeze the mixture to remove all water. Make sure that you DO NOT throw this water away. Collect it in a little bowl.
Now add all the spices to the potato, onion mixture according to your taste. Add the rice flour till the mixture becomes dry. (do not add more than 2 tbsp, otherwise it will be flour patties)
Now check the bowl of squeezed water. Gently throw away the water and add the white starch at the bottom of the bowl back to the mixture. I think this makes the latkas extra crispy and help them bind.
Now drizzle some olive oil in a pan and place scoops of mixture on it. Press it down so that you have thin latkas. Cook on low heat and turn them around till you get a nice golden brown color.

Once cooked remove them from the pan and serve them with a dollop of sour cream or greek yogurt. They taste amazing!! You can eat them as a side dish or as breakfast or just about any time!

Healthy Breakfast - Smoothies

Smoothies are the perfect 'quick and healthy' breakfast options. I have tried different combinations, but this one has been the best.

Carrot, Banana, Ginger Smoothie
1 carrot
1 banana
Few slices of ginger (some extra slices and you will have a nice spicy kick!)
Few blueberries (optional)
1 tbsp low fat yogurt
Crushed ice

Blend everything in the a blender and voila, you have the best tasting breakfast smoothie.

Along with the smoothie, I made some strawberry basil scones using the recipe here.
I added 2 tbsp of honey in the batter and also made a lemon glaze to add some sweetness to the scone.

Lemon Glaze
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp milk

Oatmeal Breakfast Bowl

This oatmeal breakfast bowl is perfect for the mornings when you don't have time to 'prepare' any breakfast and picking up donuts is not the option. It is easy, quick and you can make it the previous night.

You will need
Dry ingredients
1 cup Oatmeal (I used the instant ones)
1/2 cup sugar (I used white sugar, but feel free to use brown sugar or even sweetners)
1 ts baking soda
Blackberries (Feel free to use any berries that you have at home)
Chocolate Chips
Wet ingredients
Banana
1 cup Milk
1 Egg
Vanilla

Mix all the dry ingredients- Oatmeal, sugar, baking soda, blackberries, chocolate chips in a bowl. Spray some oil in ramekins and fill them with the dry mixture.

Now mix the wet ingredients - milk, egg and vanilla. Pour this over the dry ingredients so that the liquid rises just above the dry ingredients.Slice some bananas and place them on the top

Preheat the oven to 375deg and bake the ramekins till a knife comes out clean (approx. 15 min). You can keep it in the refrigerator and eat cold oatmeal the next morning or warm it up in a microwave for a warm breakfast.

Another great advantage of the recipe is that you can be flexible and adjust according to the ingredients you have. I have adapted this recipe from number of other similar recipes. Enjoy!

Warm and Heartly Kale Soup

This has been a long winter. Such weather demands some comfortable, warm food that you can eat as you watch the snow pile up and prepare for the future shoveling.

This time I bought some nice fresh Kale and wanted to make something different than a salad. So I made this hearty soup and it turned out pretty good.

Ingredients
1 potato
1 sweet potato
1 cup corn
1 cup of kale
5 cups of water or vegetable stock (whatever you have)
1/2 onion diced
Salt, Pepper, Paprika and Garlic as per taste
Olive oil

Dice the potato and sweet potatoes into small cubes. Heat olive oil in a pan and saute onions till they are translucent. Add the potatoes, sweet potatoes, pepper, salt and garlic. At this point add the vegetable stock or water and bring it to a boil till the potatoes and sweet potatoes are cooked.
If you don't want chunky pieces of potato in your soup, use a masher to crush them. Then add corn kernels, I used the frozen ones, but you can use fresh if you have them. Lastly add kale and boil it till the kale wilts a little. Voila! you are done. As you can see it is very easy and quick, perfect for a weary winter day.

Whole Wheat Biscotti

Biscotti - I love them and I have tried many different recipes with limited success. Finally after lot of permutations and combinations I have finally mastered the basic recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 egg
6 tbsp of sugar
Few drops of vanilla essence
Crushed nuts (optional)
Chocolate chips (optional)

Mix the egg, sugar and vanilla essence and whisk it till the mixture becomes light yellow. If you have a hand mixer, it will be a lot easier
Slowly add the dry ingredient (wheat flour, baking soda and salt) into the egg mixture and mix it into a dough.
The mixture is very sticky. Add nuts and chocolate chips.
Place the mixture in a baking pan in a single mound and flatten it. Be careful the mixture is very sticky.
Bake the mixture at 350C for 15 min. The mixture will bake and should have a slight brown color on the outside. Afterwards remove from the oven and cut the baked mixture into biscotti. This recipe makes about 6-8 biscotti.
Now you can keep the biscotti back in the oven and let it rest to make it crunchy. I just use the residual heat in the oven for this part.
If you want soft biscotti, do not keep them back in the oven.
That's it, you will be done in less than half an hour!

Caramel Custard or Flan

Whenever I have limited dinner options, I end up making some dessert. :) My go-to dessert is Caramel Custard or Flan. All the ingredients are easily available and it is easy to make.

Ingredients
3 eggs
4 Tbsp Sugar
Pinch of Salt
Vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup Milk (I used 1%, but you can use any other type)
10 Tbsp of Sugar (for Caramel)

Warm up the Milk and add salt and vanilla essence. Keep it aside to cool
In another bowl whisk together the eggs and sugar till sugar dissolves.
Prepare caramel by heating the Sugar in a pan till it slightly changes color. Be attentive as the caramel can burn quickly. Pour the caramel into  the ramekins or molds. Be careful with the caramel - it is hot and it cools and hardens pretty quickly. I learnt that the hard way!!
Now mix the milk and egg mixture, whisking it. Then pour it in the prepared ramekins.
Heat the oven to 325C and place the ramekins in a water bath (a container filled with hot water in which the ramekins are placed) and cook for 30 minutes or until the custard is done. To check insert a knife and it should come out clean. Even if the custard is done, it is still jiggly. So no worries.
Cool the ramekins and then place them in the refrigerator.
Once you are ready to serve, de-mold the custard. It comes off easily.
As you can see from the picture, the flan looks great and is tasty!!
Some of the other recipes use condensed milk, but I prefer simpler, healthier recipes and this ones tastes as good as any other. So definitely try it!

Breakfast Muffins

This morning, I wanted to try a different take on standard breakfast. So I combined the breakfast ingredients to make these awesome muffins. I love baking with minimum measurements, no butter (as far as possible) and less sugar. You can imagine that most of experiments are not crowd favorites. But these muffins turned out really good!

The recipe is easy

3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 cup Instant Oats
pinch on Nutmeg
pinch of Baking soda
1/3 cup Sugar / Brown Sugar (whatever you prefer)
1 egg
1/2 banana mashed
1/2 carrot grated
1/3 cup milk (I used 1%, feel free to use whatever you want - skim, whole)
1 tsp of olive oil
Nuts, Chocolate Chips (optional)

Mix all the ingredients and pour it in a muffin tray. Bake for 15min at 350C.
You will have great breakfast muffins!!

 

I had some leftover icing, so also decorated some of the muffins!!

 

Valentine's Day Breakfast.. :)

Thinking of a Valentine's day gift was a herculean task for me. I searched on Amazon for days but did not find anything that I really liked.
So I just ended up making -

The process is same as used for making a normal pancake, only difference is that you pour the batter in a heart-shaped ring. :)
You have to be careful not to fill up the mold to the top otherwise bottom of the pancake is overcooked and top is undercooked.

Next: Heart shaped omelet.. :D

Whole Wheat Pizza

Recently I got a packet of yeast, so I was waiting for an opportunity to make bread / pizza or something similar. But I don't really like All-purpose flour, so when I found out this Whole Wheat Pizza base recipe made from 100% whole wheat, I immediately sprung into action.

I made half the quantity and it made a decent size flatbread enough for 2 people's lunch.

I made this for lunch so I had to be quick, the trick is when the dough is resting you can make the tomato sauce and save yourself some time. Below is the recipe of the quick tomato sauce. It is nowhere close to a Marinara sauce, but tastes great and when you can have a healthy, home-made pizza for lunch, I am not complaining.

Tomato Sauce
2 tomatoes diced
3 cloves of garlic
couple of basil leaves
salt and olive oil for taste

Dice the tomatoes and add the garlic, basil, salt and olive oil and make a paste in a blender
Then transfer it to a pan and cook it till it thickens into a sauce (you can add some rice flour if the tomatoes are too watery)

Once the dough was rested, I rolled it on a cookie sheet which acted as a 'pizza stone'.

Then with the base rolled out, spread the sauce, put some mozzarella, tomatoes and basil on it and done. Just toss it in the over at 500F for 15 - 20 min and it is done.

Once this initial experiment was successful I tried out various different toppings - pesto, bell peppers and they all tasted amazing!

Whole Wheat Ravioli

I am a big fan of Ravioli and am always intimidated about cooking it.
But this recipe is very easy to make and tastes amazing

For Pasta Dough
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Egg
Salt to taste
Water as required

For Filling
1 Sweet Potato
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix whole wheat flour, egg and salt and knead it into a firm dough. Add water as required.

Filling can be anything; here I used mashed Sweet Potato and added salt and pepper to taste.

Split the pasta dough into 2 parts and roll each one and make squares. Fill the sweet potato mix and cover it with another square and seal it with some water
Put these raviolis in boiling water till they rise to the top.
Raviolis Done!

Saute the Ravioli with some Olive Oil
You can use a sauce with the Ravioli or serve them with a bed of greens.
Here I sauteed some greens with olive oil and garlic and served the Ravioli on top
This was an easy, quick and tasty recipe.

Ukadiche Modak - Sweet Dumplings

I love Modaks! They are rice dumplings with coconut filling specially prepared in Maharashtra during the Ganesh Festival. It is difficult to get them at any restaurant, in frozen packs or any other way in the US. So the only solution is to embark on the difficult journey of actually cooking them.
The difficult part of modak for me is the artistic design of the dumpling and to achieve that, it is necessary to get the rice flour mixture perfect.

For the cover
1 cup of rice flour
1 cup water
pinch of salt

Heat the water in a wok and then add the rice flour. Mix well, cover it for couple of minutes and done!

It is as simple as that, but somehow it is tricky. The finished dough needs to be soft yet cooked. You can adjust the water and rice flour proportions based on trial and error. But these proportions are a good start.

For the stuffing
1 cup shredded coconut
3/4 cup jaggery (sugar might work, but jaggery adds a special authentic touch)

Mix both the ingredients and stir it on low flame till jaggery melts and combines with the coconut. You can add cardamom and dry fruits to elevate the flavor.

Now comes the tricky part, make a dough ball, flaten it, fill it with the filling and close it. Fold the way based on the picture. It is difficult to describe the process in words, but even if you make balls, they will be delicious.

Once the modaks/balls are made, steam them for 10 min.
Done! Enjoy the hot, steaming modaks with ghee (Indian butter)

Smores Galore

I love S'mores. Summer = S'mores
Since I dont't have a fire handy to create S'mores whenever I like, I tried creating some pseudo S'more recipes using simple everyday ingredients

S'mores Puffs
Puff Pastry Sheets
Chocolate
Marshmallows



As shown in the picture fill out the pastry sheet with the chocolate and marshmallow and close it using a fork.
Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 450C for 15 min till the pastry sheets become nice golden color
They definitely taste yummy!!



S'mores Cookies
1 Ripe Banana
Some Chocolate chips
Marshmallows
Crushed Graham Crackers

Mash the ripe banana
Add the crushed Graham Crackers, Chocolate Chips and Marshmallows
Mix it, so that the consistency is malleable
Form small cookies and bake them in the oven at 350C for 15 min
Again taste yummy!!

Microwave S'mores
Graham Crackers
Marshmallows
Chocolate chips

Take a Graham Cracker and place few chocolate chips and run it in the microwave for 15 secs
After the chocolate is gooey, place some marshmallows and run it in microwave for 7 secs
Cover it with another Graham Cracker and eat!!

Italian Food it is!

I have always loved pasta.. and using the ready made sauces it was a staple dinner item.
Recently I tried making pesto sauce and the result was awesome. Generally I use base recipe that is readily available on the internet and make my own edits based on the ingredients I have.
For my pesto I used

1 whole pack of basil
2-3 cloves of garlic
olive oil - to make a paste consistency
salt to taste
lemon juice to taste
Crushed peanuts (this is instead of the suggested Pine nuts)
And trust me the result was delicious.. :)

To get to the next level, my amazing pasta needed a salad. Immediately I thought of Caprese Salad, one of my favorite :) I was surprised how easy it was to make it.

Two tomatoes cut in slices (I just used the normal stem tomatoes instead of the Heirloom ones)
Couple of slices of mozzarella cheese
Couple of basil leaf
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar

I wish you could taste the amazing salad, it turned out pretty good
Pasta, Caprese Salad and some wine.. the perfect Friday night dinner!

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls or Vegetable Rolls are the perfect evening snack. They are easy to make and satisfy the evening hunger without filling you up. The basic recipe for summer rolls is commonly available and has tofu, rice noodles and veggies stuffed in rice paper. Generally I stuff the rice paper with whatever veggies I can find in the fridge.
For this one I used mostly cucumber and carrots.
The standard accompaniment is the awesome "Peanut Sauce" and I love it, but the main ingredient for it is peanut butter and I am not a huge fan of PB. So I developed this 'sauce' to accompany the summer rolls.

Balsamic vinegar
Soy sauce
Sriracha
Olive oil
Crushed peanuts
Sugar

The quantities vary every time. Best way is to keep tasting and adjusting till you have the perfect combination of tangy, sweet, spicy taste. Trust me this concoction tastes really good :)

Carrot Banana Cake

Today as I was cleaning up my pantry I found some carrots and (over)ripe bananas. Perfect ingredients to make a cake.
I found a basic carrot cake recipe here. Obviously I did not have all the ingredients, so instead of going to the grocery I choose to be experimental.
I substituted some of the ingredients

For All-purpose flour I added Pancake mix (one that asks you to add eggs)
For Pineapples, I added mashed bananas.. :)
For walnuts, I added some raisins

Overall I was not sure if I will have anything edible after 20 min in the oven.. But I was completely blown away by the end product. The texture was awesome and the taste was great!
I completely surprised myself. It thus paves the way for more experimentation :D