Caramel Nutty Cake

A warm, simple & tasty preparation to spread Christmas cheer...Caramel Nutty Cake

Ingredients for Caramel Nutty Cake:

All-purpose flour – 500g

Sugar – 600g

Butter – 500g (Unsalted/white butter)

Eggs – 500g (The number which equals to 500g)

Vanilla essence – 2 Tbsp

Almonds – 250g (Finely grated)

Cashew – 250g (Finely grated)

Salt – 1 Tsp

How to make Caramel Nutty Cake:

For best results, let all the ingredients be at room temperature before you start baking.

Caramel prep:

Take 100g sugar in a thick bottom sauce pan on low heat. Continuous stirring is a must. Once the sugar starts melting and frothing up, pour little water. As soon as you do it, it turns into a dark lump. But do not stop stirring! Give it few seconds and it will come down to liquid state again. Take it off heat.

Cake mix:

In a blender on medium high speed, put in the butter, eggs and sugar. Once the sugar is completely melted, pour in the vanilla & salt. Put in the flour in small batches and pour the caramel. Let all the ingredients get incorporate well before you turn off the blender.

Now take 3/4^th of the grated nuts and fold them into the batter. Avoid mixing the batter too much as it results in dense cakes and not light fluffy ones.

Pre-heat the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

I’ve used cup-cake baking material (Silicon moulds). You can go ahead and use any baking tray or a glass tray available.

Fill the batter to 3/4th of the tray height and sprinkle few nuts on top.

Now set the oven temperature at 180°C and put in the tray. Average baking time ranges between 30-40 minutes. However, it differs from oven to oven. I used an OTG. So, the best way to check if the cake is done is to use a toothpick/any sharp instrument and poke at the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean...Perfect!!! If not, let it stay in there for few minutes and check again.

Once the cake is out of oven, let it rest for 2-5 minutes before you take it off the tray/baking cups.

Hope you’ll enjoy the taste just the way you would enjoy preparing the Caramel Nutty Cake. I am sure U would J

Chilly Chicken

Yet another Chinese dish and an all time favourite – Chilly Chicken

Ingredients for Chilly Chicken:

Chicken – 1 Kg (Boneless)

Ginger-Garlic Paste – 2 Tbsp

Parsley – 4 Tbsp

Vinegar – 1 Tsp

Soya sauce – 2 Tbsp

Tomato Ketchup – 1 Tbsp

Red-Chilly Sweet Sauce – 2-3 Tbsp

Tabasco Sauce – 1 Tbsp

Capsicum – 1 Big (Medium sized cubes)

Onion – 1 Big (Medium sized cubes)

Green Chillies – 4-5 (slit along the length)

Spring onion – 4-5 (Jus the green part, finely chopped)

Ginger – 1-2 Tbsp (Finely chopped)

Garlic - 1-2 Tbsp (Finely chopped)

Salt and Ajinomoto to taste

Oil (olive oil preferably)

Procedure - Chilly Chicken:

Dice chicken into desirable chunks. Marinate it with ginger-garlic paste, 2 Tbsp parsley & vinegar and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Now shallow fry the chicken pieces. Do not over fry the pieces as they tend to get hard and chewy when cooled down. Take them off the oil, the moment you see the meat is cooked tender. Keep it aside.

Take a shallow pan on low heat, put 2 Tbsp oil. Now drop in the ginger and garlic pieces, and then the veggies including chillies & spring onion. Sauté them for a minute and drop the chicken pieces as well. Let the heat be on low and put in all the sauces. The measurements of the sauces are in accordance to my liking. Please do feel free to adjust them to yours. Sprinkle salt, ajinomoto and the remaining parsley and give it a good stir. Let all the sauces glaze the chicken and veggies well. Once you get the aroma of the same, it’s time to turn off the heat, serve and relish the pipping hot Chilly Chicken.

Chocolate Doughnut

Finger-licking chocolate doughnut, loved by all ages!

 

Ingredients for Chocolate Doughnut:
(1 Cup = 200g)

Cooking Chocolate – 500g (Dark)

All-purpose Flour (Maida) – 2 Cups

Wheat Flour (Atta) – 2 ½ Cups

Butter – 1 ¼ Cups (150g)

Sugar – 2/3 Cup

Eggs – 3 (room temperature)

Dry Yeast – 2 Tbsp

Vanilla Essence – 1 Tsp

Salt – 1 Tsp

Procedure - Chocolate Doughnut

Soak yeast in 1 cup warm water and 1 Tsp sugar and cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes. This is the most important ingredient of the entire dish. If the yeast is old/expired, it would not work out well and the doughnuts will be heavy & dense, instead of light & fluffy.

Blend sugar and butter in another bowl by adding eggs one at a time. Once the sugar is melted completely, add the atta, vanilla & salt to the egg mixture. It would be runny/sticky dough. Do not worry. We still have maida to add.

After 10 minutes of the yeast soaking, add maida to it and mix well. Now add this maida+yeast mixture to the atta dough and knead well into dough. If the dough still seems sticky, you can go ahead and add maida, little, not much. Now cover it tight with a clear wrap or a lid and place it in a warm place for the yeast to do its thing. The best place recommended – Microwave. Make sure you do not turn it on J You’ll have to give the dough atleast 2 hrs to rest before you start preparing the doughnuts.

After two hours, the dough would be double the size. Congrats, you’ve got good quality yeast. Now let your kitchen counter be spick & span as you got to knead the dough and start spreading the dough with a rolling pin. Let the thickness be quarter of an inch. Now take a cookie cutter/any tumbler with sharp edge to cut round pieces (doughnuts). Now with a smaller cookie cutter/bottle cap, cut another round piece in the middle of the doughnut.

Meanwhile, put oil in a pan for deep fry on low-medium heat. Once the oil is hot, gently immerse the doughnuts. If they rise to the surface immediately, bang on, the oil is at the right temperature. It would take 1-2 minutes each side to turn into golden brown. Take them out, place them on the kitchen napkin for the extra oil to drip out and then store them in an air-tight container. 

Chocolate Prep:

Take the chocolate in a glass bowl and melt it in microwave for about a minute on low heat. Take it out stir it and again put it back for a minute on low. Continue the process till the bar is melted completely. The stirring and melting process helps in proper tempering of the chocolate and hence good glaze & texture. Now dip each doughnut half way through the chocolate and serve as shown. I’ve used the sprinkles that I had handy at home. You can get going with whatever topping you prefer on your favourite and soft chocolate doughnut.

Topping recommendations – Powdered sugar, choco-rice, coloured rice, choco-chips, melted white chocolate, grated chocolate (milk/dark/white), crushed cookies, crushed wafers and the list goes on...

Pasta in Alfredo Sauce

An Italian favourite and something easy to make at home - Pasta in Alfredo Sauce .

Ingredients for Pasta in Alfredo Sauce:

Pasta (Penne Rigate) – 500 g

Chicken – ½ Kg (boneless)

Cheese – 150 g (Cheddar/Parmesan/Cream cheese - grated)

All-purpose flour (Maida) – 6 Tbsp

Butter – 3 Tbsp (Semi-solid)

Milk – 1 Lt

Onion – 1 (small, 2halves)

Cloves – 2 Nos

Bay Leaf – 2 Nos

Ginger-Garlic paste – 2 Tbsp

Thyme/Parsley – 1 Tsp

Olive oil – 1 Tbsp

Salt & Pepper to taste

Procedure - Pasta in Alfredo Sauce:

Chicken Prep:

Cut chicken into desired cubes, mix ginger-garlic paste, parsley & salt and let it marinate for 5 minutes. Then fry chicken pieces in a shallow pan with little oil. Make sure chicken is not over-cooked/fried & turned into brown. It got to be tender and white in colour even after frying. Take it off heat and let it rest.

Sauce Prep:
Take a deep dish with milk, onion halves, cloves & bay leaf and heat it. Take it off heat as soon as you see the first boil.

Now take a sauce pan on low heat. Put butter and let it melt. Then put in the flour. Continuous whisking is important as the flour might form lumps or get burnt. Once you do not get the raw smell of flour anymore, pour in the milk. Remember; do not stop stirring/whisking. The flour tends to make the milk a little thicker. Put in thyme, salt & pepper. Now put on the grated cheese and continue stirring till all of it is melted. Taste for the balance of salt and pepper according to your preference. Finally, fold in the chicken pieces and give it a good stir. Take it off heat and let it rest for 5-10 min.

Boiling Pasta:

Take a deep dish and fill it with water. Add salt & 1 Tbsp olive oil and bring it to boil. Now put in the pasta and stir so that they do not stick to the bottom of the pan. It should normally take 8-10 minutes for it to cook. Do not stir much, as it leads to breaking of pasta. Once cooked, drain the water. Drizzle the pasta with the same oil that you fried chicken with. This not only keeps the pasta glazed but also gives the chicken flavour to it. Serve hot and enjoy the creamy Pasta in Alfredo Sauce.

Vegetarians:

You can totally skip the chicken part. In accordance to your preferences, you can add veggies.

Recommended veggies – Cauliflower, Capsicum, Broccoli, Zucchini etc.  

Chocolate Brownie

Satisfy your chocolate cravings with some oh so sweet Chocolate Brownie!!

Ingredients for Chocolate Brownie:

Dark cooking chocolate – 250g

Butter (regular) – 250g

Sugar – 300g

All-purpose flour (Maida) – 150g

Eggs – 4

Vanilla essence - 2 Tsp

Simple process of Chocolate Brownie:

Melt chocolate along with butter in a microwave on low for a minute. Then take it out and stir and put it back for another minute. Continue the process till the chocolate and butter are completely melted and become a nice smooth, flowing mixture. This process avoids burning of chocolate and results in a good texture.

In another bowl, beat eggs, sugar & vanilla essence. Use a blender for smooth mixture. The sugar should be completely dissolved, before you put in the chocolate-butter mixture. Do not stir the mixture vigorously, but fold in the batter till all the elements are totally incorporated. Now add the flour and repeat the folding process. Batter is ready! Now pour the batter in the baking bowl evenly.

Pre-heat the oven for 10 minutes at 250°C.

Then, lower the heat to 200°C and put in the baking bowl. It normally takes 45-50 minutes to bake. However, keep checking after 30 minutes, as every oven differs in the heating patterns.

When will you know that the brownie is ready to take it out???

When you poke in a toothpick/knife in the middle, it comes out clean without any batter sticking to it.

Take it out. Let it rest for 2-5 minutes. Cut into a desirable size and serve hot.

Enjoy the gooey dark chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce, choc-chips or ice-cream!

Note:

A glass bowl is preferred for melting chocolate and butter.

I have used an OTG oven for baking and not the Convection.

Egg Fried Rice

A nice and light Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients for Egg Fried Rice:

Rice – 2 Cups (Cooked)

Eggs – 2 (Room temperature)

Milk – 1 Tbsp (Room temperature)

Parsley – 1 Tsp (Optional)

Carrot – 1 (Finely chopped)

French beans – 4-5 (Finely chopped)

Spring Onion – 4-5 (Finely chopped)

Oil – 2-3 Tbsp

Ajinomoto, Salt & Pepper to taste.

Procedure - Egg Fried Rice:

Beat eggs in a bowl. Whisk in the milk, salt and parsley. Do not over whisk the eggs. Take a wide pan with 2 Tbsp oil on low heat and pour in the egg mixture. Make sure oil is not too hot when you put in the eggs. That will burn the eggs or turn them into dark golden brown which spoils the appealing sight of fried rice. Also, once you put in the egg mixture, do not stir it vigorously. Light and subtle folds and breaking it into desired smaller chunks is recommended.

Now put in the veggies (carrot, beans & spring onion) and let them fry for a minute. Fried rice is all about the colour. So make sure the colour and crunch of the veggies will retain as shown in the picture.

Put in the rice, 1 Tbsp oil, salt, ajinomoto and give it a good stir and let it fry for 1-2 minutes. Add pepper at the end, stir and taste for the balance of salt and ajinomoto. Serve hot and relish the delicious Egg Fried Rice.

Mutton Potato curry

An authentic Andhra style mutton potato curry!!!

Ingredients for Mutton Potato curry:

Mutton – 1 Kg

Potatoes – ¾ Kg (Medium sized pieces)

Onion – 3 medium sized (Finely chopped)

Tomato – 2 small sized (Finely chopped)

Ginger- Garlic Paste – 2 Tbsp

Coconut milk – 1-2 Tbsp

Tamarind – half a handful (soaked in water)

Lime – ½

Jeera powder – ½ Tbsp

Dhaniya powder – ½ Tbsp

Garamasala Powder – 1 Tbsp

Salt and Chilly powder to taste

Procedure - Mutton Potato curry:

Marinate the mutton with chilly powder and turmeric and put it in the fridge, covered for ½ hour. Any meat that is put in the fridge for marination, has to be taken out 5 min before you start the dish prep.

In a pressure cooker, put 2-3 Tbsp oil. Once hot, put in the onion and let it fry till golden brown. Now put in the ginger-garlic paste, jeera powder, garamasala powder, dhaniya powder & salt and let them all fry well, till you do not get the raw smell of the powders anymore. Now put in the meat & tomato and give it a good stir and let them all fry for a minute. Drop in the potatoes and once again, a nice stir and fry for a minute. Now pour in water till the level of all the ingredients and put on the cooker lid along with the weight. 4 whistles and you can turn off the stove and let the steam totally die out. Open the lid and put it back on the flame. This is the time when you take a quick taste to check for the balance of the spices and salt. In-case anything required more, please do not hesitate. When everything is well balanced, now pour in the coconut milk, give it a good stir and take the pan off heat. Garnish with coriander and serve hot & savour the spicy mutton potato curry.