Za Recipes

- Panes have been scrubbed clean, enough for accident-prone me to walk into them

- Organised the kitchen cabinets well enough to find the right pots and pans in a jiffy

- Gave away stuff that we havent used in the last 6 months

- Bought nice earthern lamps painted red and a red thoran to hang outside our door

- Also improvised on a boring, black side-table to make it colourful and bigger (Read as hold more junk)

- Brought in my favourite areca nut palm plant indoors to liven up the living space

Cut to our favourite topic - FOOD

Ive been wanting to try Nankhatai - our goold ol Indian cookie for quite some time. Doing a blog search on the same lead me to some blogger recipes for this cookie. Here are the recipes for the same:

Jyotsnas Nankhatais from Pune

Krithika making Nankhatais Jyotsnas style

Manasis Plain Jane cookies - A cook @ heart

Vaishalis Narayan Kataar Naankhatai

After a great deal of blog hopping, I finally settled for Manasis recipe with a bit of modification in technique.

I rolled the dough in cling film, chilled them and cut them into slices instead of rolling them into balls. I actually reduced the sugar to 1/4th cup and added a pinch of salt with coarsely powdered fennel seeds. It was a salty sweet version that will appeal to the sweet-lover as well as the savoury-lover.

Spicy Khajas (Recipe adapted from bawarchi.com)

Deep fried savoury crisps

Type - Festival Food, Indian Snack

Time taken - Around one hour including drying time

Ingredients:

1 cup gram flour (besan)

1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp carom seeds and 1/2 tsp cumin seeds - roasted and crushed

Salt to taste - roughly 3/4 tsp

1 tbsp oil

Oil for frying ( Iused Saffola losorb)

Method:

1. Mix the flours with salt and spices.

2. Add water little by little to make a smooth and pliable dough. Knead with one tbsp oil into a smooth ball.

3. Divide into 4 big balls. Spread each ball into a big round (less than 1/2 cm thin). You can cut this into desired shapes. Prick both sides of all pieces with a fork.

4. Dry out the cut out pieces on a clean kitchen towel. Repeat the same process for the other 3 balls. Dry out the pieces for 20 minutes or so on the towel like shown in the picture below.

5. Heat about 1.5 cups of oil in a kadai. (use the one you prefer for deep frying)

Dried and ready to be fried

6. You can decide if the oil is hot enough by putting a small piece of dough. If it rises to the top immediately, the oil is ready.

7. Put the cut out pieces in batches and fry till golden brown on a medium flame. Drain excess oil on kitchen tissues. Store in airtight container.

This is my entry for the Special Edition Jihva hosted by Vee of Past, Present, Me.

Note:

You can add any of your favourite spices like black pepper, sesame seeds etc. to the dough. The original recipe asked for the dough to be rolled into small puris, but I found my method more practical.

Tags:

Diwali recipes, Deepawali, Indian snacks, festival food, Nankhatai, khaja, besan, savouries

-----------------------------------------------

Just reminding you about Weekend Breakfast Blogging - the theme for this month is Twist in the Plate. Did you jazz up an ordinary breakfast for Diwali? Did you try your favourite bloggers recipe with your own twist? Did you turn a sweet one into a savoury one?

Come on, share it with us. You have time till 29th of this month to send me your entries. WBB turns monthly and theme-based this month onwards. Read more about it here.

Ingredients
For outer layer
1 cup Refined flour (maida)
2 tbsps Semolina (rawa)
2 tbsps Ghee
1/4 cup Milk
For stuffing
3/4 cup Seedless dates (chopped)
3/4 cup Dried figs, (anjeer) (chopped)
15-20 Cashewnuts (crushed)
15-20 Pistachios (crushed)
1 tsp Green Cardamom Powder
1 tbsp Roasted poppy seeds (khus khus)
2 tbsps Milk
2 tbsps Ghee (melted)

Method:

1. Take refined flour in a bowl. Add semolina, ghee and milk and knead into a semi soft dough. Divide into equal portions and shape them into pedas. Keep them covered with a damp cloth.

2. Preheat oven to 180°C.

3. To make the stuffing take dates and figs in a bowl. Add crushed cashewnuts, pistachios, green cardamom powder, roasted poppy seeds and mix. Mash lightly with fingers and add a little milk.

4. Roll out a dough peda. Place it in the karanji mould. Put a small portion of the prepared filling in the hollow. Apply a little water on edges, close the mould and press firmly.Remove the excess dough and use again. Similarly make the remaining karanjis.

5. These can be made without the mould too.Place the karanjis on a greased baking tray. Brush them with a little ghee and bake at 180°C for twenty to twenty five minutes. Cool, store in an airtight container.

Modifications:
I added a pinch of baking powder to the dough. Also omitted the nuts and the poppy seeds.

I wont try to convince you that these were as good as the fried ones. But considering that the ingredients are relatively healthy and so is the baking process, the karanjis tasted good enough. Filling tasted quite sweet. Guess I should have baked them for a lesser time as the cover was quite hard.


Tags:
Diwali, Deepavali, Diwali recipe, sugar-free desserts, diabetic recipe, Indian sweet, Festival food

See what my friends have made this Diwali -

Shankarpalas at Vaishalis

Shankari has made a whole lot of goodies too.

Saffron has made Rava ladoos