Desserts and Sweets

Mango Kulfi ( Mango Flavoured Indian Ice Cream)

3:59 AM


This year we are witnessing a bumper harvest of Mangoes in India. The three mango trees in my backyard never fail me and this year also they have given me great produce. It’s great more because I was not here for most of the mango season following which they had been attack by almost all the passersby. The bigger tree gives me most of the produce, almost 80% but the ripe fruits of this one are not juicy or sweet. So I mostly use them for pickles and Amchurs. The medium one is of a hybrid variety and tastes great when ripe. The last one is small and yet to fruit but provides excellent support to my broad bean and pumpkin vines as trellis. When I came back I only saw some fruits at our side of the garden, the opposite side faces a road and most of the visible fruits there were collected by the numerous tent owners residing in our locality. Hubby suggested that we pick all the remaining fruits or they would cause more nuisances.  So last month brother and Hubby climbed the tree and collected all the mangoes and to our astonishment even that amounted more than two big bucketfuls. I have made a huge batch of Amchurs for my family which will at least last for the coming year. The mangoes in the second tree have started to ripen and they are juicy and sweet. We had a few of them in themselves as after meal desserts but my experimenting self wanted to do something new with them . After a lot of brain storming decided upon making Mango Kulfi.

Kulfi or flavoured frozen rich milk based dessert from India is a delicacy in hot summer days. By nature they are close cousin of Ice cream, but they are not whipped so have a dense frozen texture and thus take more time to melt.  Traditionally it is cooked on slow fire by stirring full cream milk for hours till it thickens and then it is frozen in small aluminium cone shaped pots or moulds. In Northern India Kulfis are available on roads where the vendors keep it frozen by placing them in big earthenware pots filled with ice and salt and covered with thick layers of wet cloth. Sometimes kulfis are set in small terracotta pots called Matka and are served with flavoured faloodas (Indian Vermicelli). Among all types of frozen desserts Kulfi is my most favourite and whenever I am in Kolkata I make it a point to visit Rally’s to have my share. There saffron flavored pistachio and rose syrup topped kulfis are to die for, am not a fan of faloodas so mostly give it a miss. These kulfis were an instant hit with my brother, Hubby only likes pista flavored ones so was not much enthusiastic about this.  I simply loved it and this summer and all coming summers I am going to make them again and again. The only problem I had with my kulfis were the mangoes, they were not very flavourful so next time when am going to make this I will make sure I use better mangoes or otherwise will use some artificial Mango flavours (Bush).

Here is my quick recipe:

Mango Kulfi


Ingredients:
Mango Pulp: 1 cup
Full cream milk: 1 liter
Condensed milk: ½ can
Khowa/ Sandesh: ¼ cup
White bread: 1 slice
Corn flour: 1 tbsp
Sugar: 1/3 cup

Method:
Take 1/3 cup of milk and grind the bread slice in a mixer. Add the corn flour, mix well and keep aside.

Also grate the khowa or sandesh and mix it with 1/3 cup of milk. Keep aside.
Now in a heavy bottomed pan boil the milk on medium heat for 15 minutes. Stir continuously or it will burn at the bottom.

Add the condensed milk and sugar and again boil for 2-3 minutes.

Add in the bread-corn flour mixture and boil for 5 minutes.

Take it off from heat and let it cool for 20 minutes.

Mix the mango pulp and mix well.

Pour in moulds and freeze. You don’t need to have kulfi moulds as small plastic coffee cups or pop sickle makers will work fine.

To unmold bring them out of the fridge and rub between your palms. Revert on a serving plate.

Decorate with chopped candies mangoes and more mango pulp if you like.
Serve and devour immediately.

Note:
Make sure to mix the pulp only when the milk is cold otherwise if the mangoes are tart it might curdle.

Similarly strawberries or any other aromatic sweet fruits could be used.

To make Kesar Pista Kulfi follow the same method but instead of using mango pulp use some milk soaked saffron strands. Boil them along with milk and before freezing stir in some chopped pistachios.


Sending this to Monthly Mingle: Sweet Treats guest hosted this month by Erin of The Aprtment Kitchen. This event is a brainchild of Meeta of What’s For Lunch, Honey.


and also to Yasmeen's I scream for Ice Cream.


 and Neethu's Sizzling Summer Contest. 


Tags:
Mango, Kulfi, Indian Ice Cream, Mango Ice Cream, Mango Dessert, Indian Dessert, Frozen Dessert, Milk Dessert, Corn flour, Sugar, Mango Pulp, Frozen Milk,Cold Dessert.

Noodle and Pasta

Chilled Summer Salad

11:46 PM


I like to blog not only because I love to cook but it also helps me to know a lot of new things and inspires me to try out ingredients that I never thought of buying. Zuchini is one such vegetable that I see each time on the fridge section of the Hypermarket where I do my vegetable shopping these days but never thought of reaching and picking them. I always thought these are some fancy vegetables that are used in continental dishes unless one day I saw this month’s theme for NCR. So yesterday, while picking groceries I finally walked that few steps to these dark green vegetables and put a couple of them in my basket. Hubby gave me a wired look when he saw these and asked the obvious question what are you going to do with these? I was as clueless as him so decided to give him a ‘Wait and watch’ kind of smile.

Once home I googled and my ever trusted Wikipedia told me that The zucchini has a delicate flavor and requires little more than quick cooking with butter or olive oil, with or without fresh herbs. And I got my clue….Salad, which fits the NCR requirement perfectly. So with some more summer veggies I created this refreshing summer salad. Before I get into anymore blabbering let me thank you once again for inspiring me to bring these crunchy zucchinis home, which I am going to do again and again.

The salad I created had more vegetables than pasta and tossed everything in a mildly flavoured white sauce. The bite from the pasta, the crunch of the vegetables, the sweetness of the baby corn mingled brilliantly with the sauce and this makes for a very light refreshing meal. We had this for dinner with some cold coffee and immediately after finishing the meal Hubby enquired when am going to make it next…guess that only means good. I am going to make this again and again as this is
  1. healthy
  2. Tasty
  3. real quick
 AND

4. Hubby has fallen in love with it (you know those times when I eye that perfect silver ear ring or so badly want another set of hand block printed curtains)
  
Here is how I did it

Chilled Summer Salad


Ingrediants:
Pasta: 1 cup: any small variety will do; I used penne
Zucchini: 1 medium
Carrot: 1 medium
Potato: 1 small
Cauliflower: 1/3 cup: separated in small florets
Beans: 6-7
Capsicum: 1 medium
Babycorn: 6-7
Onion: ½ of a small one
Garlic: 2 fat cloves
Tomato: 1 small

For the Sauce:
Olive oil: 1 tsp
Flour: 1 tbsp
Milk: ½ cup
English mustard: ½ tsp
Grated Cheese: 2 tsp

Seasoning:
Salt
Pepper
Chilli flakes
Oregano
Olive Oil: 1 tsp

Method:
Boil a big pan full of water with salt and put the pasta in it. Cook as per the time given in the packet.

In the mean time slice all the vegetables (Potato, carrot, beans. Cauli flower, zucchini, baby corn, capsicum) in small pieces and keep everything separate.

Microwave potato, carrot, beans, cauliflower for 5 minutes.

Also chop the onion and garlic.

Heat 1 tsp oil and add the flour. Stir continuously till the raw smell is gone (approx. 2 minutes).

In a steady stream add the milk while stirring the flour continuously. Try to avoid formation of any lumps. Season with salt and pepper and cook on low till it thickens a little. The consistency would not be very thick but it should be able to coat the back of a spoon. If you need extra water to make it thin use the water from the boiled veggies. Finally stir in the grated cheese and Keep the sauce aside.

Once the pasta is done, drain the water and keep aside.

Now heat one tsp of oil and add the chopped garlic and onion. Fry for a minute and add zucchini, capsicum and baby corn. Add a pinch of salt and cook for another minute. Take it off from the stove.

In a big bowl put everything together and give it a good mix. Check the seasoning.

Serve immediately or after chilling for 30 minutes.

Sizzling Summer Contest Am sending this to Sizzling Summer at Nithu's Spicytasty.com


Also sending this to two events associated with Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes
 Priya's Healing Foods- Onion started by Siri of Siri"s Corner


CWS: Peppers this month hosted at Padma of Padma's Recipes.




also to Vegetable Marathon: Carrot at Seduce your tastebuds.



















and also to No Croutons Required this time hosted at Tinned tomatoes.

Tips:
This morning I had the left over salad mixed with a chopped boiled egg and it tasted excellent.

Other veggies that will work well in this would be green peas, salad greens, broccoli, cabbages etc.

Homemade crumbled cottage cheese will also taste great in this.

Bengali

Panchmisheli Tarkari (Bengali Style Mixed Veg)

10:44 AM


The last couple of weeks have been very hectic yet fun. As told earlier had to arrange everything in the house and there were big big cleaning works. Then we went for a weekend trip to Yercaud that we stretched for additional two days, came back with another big bag of laundry finally today I can sit back and make this post. But am writing this with a heavy heart as my kid brother went home today. After almost three months with family today we feel very lonely. The baby is opening doors and looking for his Chhoto Mamu (younger maternal uncle) and in the evening he brought his shoes to his father and pointed to the main door to take him out as his Mamu used to do this past couple of months.  My Brother could literally be called a big guy with a heart of a little boy. He came here after almost 2 years and this time enjoyed it to the fullest so that way am very happy. As like everyone in my family he is a total foodie and I cooked some special items some of which he liked a lot. I am going to post those one by one in the coming weeks. But today I present to you a very simple yet very tasty and flavourful dish.  This weekend we dint got for our weekly vegetable shopping so the fridge had nothing but some odd vegetables like half of a carrot, half of ridge gourd, a little piece of pumpkin etc. Hubby went to the Airport with brother so thought of making a quick dish with these.

Paanch in Bengali means five and misheli means medley or mixture so Panchmisheli tarkari means a dish cooked with five vegetables. Though no one actually will stop you if you want to make it with more vegetable, even I always cook it with 7-8 veggies. Like my last post this one is also a peasant dish and they add whatever little bit of vegetables they have, a little bit of this and that to prepare something delectable to eat with rice. Another variation of this dish without onions are cooked during Puja to offer to God as Neivedya. Before I start with the recipe let me warn you that it’s nowhere close to that cream laden spicy omnipresent restaurant staple North Indian Mixed Veg. This is very light dish but without any compromise with the taste. This is a dish where the vegetables beautifully mingle with each other and provides a creamy texture.  This is one of my most favorite veggie dish and could be eaten with both roti and rice. We had a satisfying meal with rice, lentil, this veggie and some leftover fish curry.  Hubby renamed this dish as Fridge raided Curry.

Here is how I made it

Panchmisheli Tarkari
(Serves 4)

Ingredients:
Take 2 cups of cubed potato, pumpkin, ridge gourd, cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, beans or whatever veggies you like.
Tomato: 1 medium
Ginger: ½ piece; grated
Onion: 1 medium; chopped
Panchforon: 1 tsp
Red chillies: 2 pieces
Peanuts: handful
Oil: 1 tbsp
Salt
Sugar: ½ tsp
turmeric

Method:
Dry roast the pea nuts and coarsely ground in a mortar n pestle. keep aside.

Heat the oil in a kadai or heavy bottomed pan. Add the panchforon and red chillies. Once the aroma hits you add in the chopped onions.

Fry till the onions change colour then add all the veggies, salt, turmeric, whole tomato and the grated ginger. Mix well and cover.

Let it cook on medium flame and stir in between.

Once the veggies are soft (almost 10 minutes) mash the tomato with the back of spatula. Mix everything together and add 1 cup water.

Again cover and cook on medium till the veggies are cooked and the gravy coats the veggies.

Add the sugar, ground pea nuts, mix well and check the seasoning.
Serve hot with rice, roti or paratha.


This curry tastes best when eaten fresh and hot. if you want to keep it in fridge then next day while heating add fresh tempering.

Tips: you can try any combination of veggies in this dish but potato, pumpkin and ridge gourd is what gives it the creamy texture.

You can also add peanuts or soaked chickpeas.

For non vegetarian version add a handful of prawns or small fishes. In that case add the non veg items after frying the onion. Cook for some time and then add veggies.

Sometime I make coarse paste of prawn heads and mix it in the curry.

Some veggies that mingle in the dish well are potato, pumpkin, ridge gourd, drumsticks, cauliflower, cabbage, cluster beans, French beans, carrot, egg plant, parwal etc.


Am sending this to an event which is very close to my heart, Green Gourmet at Preeti's Write Food.


Also to Priya's Healing Food Onion an event started by Siri of Siri's Corner.

Bengali

Ghanto/ Lentil with Veggies and Leafy Greens

1:07 PM


If you follow Bengali cooking recipes then you must agree that Bengali cooking terms and methods are a bit quite confusing. We make mixed vegetables in numerous ways and give every type a new name like ghanto, charchari, chyanchra, bati tarkari, labra etc. sometimes even a true Bengali who has grown up solely on the regional cuisine cannot tell the difference at all. And if that numerous ways are not enough we again have made variations in this categories too like pui shaker ghanto (Malabar spinach curry) is a dish where the gravy coats the veggies but in Bandhakopi’r ghanto (dry cabbage dish) is a dry dish. Confused? Then let me warn you am going to confuse you more with today’s recipe. :-)

Ghanto in Bengali means a mixture where the ingredients are mixed with each other, sometimes beyond recognition. And this dish is a perfect example of the literal meaning… which is meant to be cooked in a way where all the vegetables are soft and mushy and entirely mixed with each other and this is known as ‘Ghanto’, which might be unknown to many Bengalis. We mostly are familiar with ghantos where one main vegetable rules the dish like mulo’r Ghanto (dry Raddish dish with potatoes), Lau Ghanto (bottlegourd dish) etc but only ‘GHANTO’? well that’s quite unheard, right? So let me explain, this is a lentil based vegetable dish where leafy greens and veggies are added, sometimes with a handful of prawns.  This is a daily dish in the coastal villagers of West Bengal where I have my roots. It is a common sight in rural Bengal where village women collect varities of leafy greens from the sides of ponds or from fields on their way back after the bath in pond. Sometime its kolmi shaak (water spinach), bothua shaak (lamb’s quarters), gima shaak (Hydroctyle rotundifolia) or the hingche shaak (Enhydra fluctuans) this provides for the veggie dish. For the non veg the man of the house use a standing net, knitted of nylon thread on a triangular cane base. They place it overnight at the narrow openings of the canals or ponds to get small prawns, fishes and crabs in the morning.  And trust me with these meager ingredients they prepare amazing meals. Whenever am there I always make it a point to go to our neighbors to share their meals. Now back to my recipe. Though this is meant to be cooked with Malabar greens but as told, the poor villagers make it with the varieties of greens. With that they throw in whatever veggies they have like ripe parwal or cluster beans, baby potatoes or colocasia roots. Being the fish lover Bengalis are Sometimes they combine it with a handful of small prawns from their net.
Malabar Spinach form my garden

My Sejo jethi (Aunt from paternal side) makes it finger licking good. She passed the recipe to Maa and from her I got…carrying on the good work!!! huh. This is the most versatile dish I ever cook…you can add any vegetable that you cannot use in regular cooking like ripe parwal, hard eggplant, over ripe pumpkin etc but one veggie that you have to use is the colocasia roots as that gives it a thick texture. I personally prefer to cook it with Malabar spinach, pumpkin, colocasia roots, potatoes and any ripe vegetable from the fridge. The Malabar spinach in this dish are from my winter garden which means this recipe was stored in the draft before I went for my lo…ng break. 

Before you get into the recipe here are some pictures from the village I talked about so much.




And here is some picture of fishing in a pond (this is not the net I talked about) with hand net
Getting Ready

Throwing as far as possible

Carefully pulling it together

Coming back to the shore

The Catch
Now the recipe
Ghanto

Ingredients:
Yellow lentil (mung dal): 11/2 cup
Malabar Spinach: 11/2 cups; roughly chopped
Pumpkin: 1/3 cup; cubed
Potato: one small; cubed
Colocasia roots: 4-5; peeled and cubed
Beans: 4-5; cut in 1” pieces
Ridge gourd: 5-6 cubed pieces
Prawns: handful (optional)
Onion: 1 small; chopped
Grated ginger: 1” piece
Dry red chilli: 4-5
Panchforon: ¾ tsp
Oil: 1 tbsp
Salt
Turmeric
Sugar: ½ tsp

Method:
Put the yellow lentil in a heavy bottom pan or kadhai and dry roast on low till a nice roasted aroma comes. During this process keep on stirring as it might burn at the bottom. The roasted lentil would be golden in colour without any black grain.

Wash this and boil with fresh water (4 cups) with turmeric and grated ginger.
When the lentil is half cooked (approx. 10 minutes) add the vegetables and salt. 

Once the veggies are cooked and the lentil is soft take off from heat and keep aside. It should have a moderately thick consistency, not runny. So please adjust the water accordingly.

Now heat the oil in a bigger pan and add panchforon, dry red chillies and onion one by one. When the onions are lightly coloured add the prawns and fry for a minute.

Add the lentil mixture and combine everything together. Check the seasoning.


Boil for 5 minutes and serve with hot steamed rice.


We had a great meal with this, okra fry and Fish Curry.


i am sending this Ghanto to few events

MLLA 23, this time hosted by the Inventor herself, our inspiration Susan of The well seasoned cook.


Cooking with seeds; Cumin. A lovely event started by Priya and this month hosted at Sara's corner.

Bengali

Macher Kalia/ A Rich and Spicy Fish Curry

12:25 AM


Ok. So here is another fish curry from one more Bengali blogger. So what if every Bengali in the blogging block have posted similar or different version of this dish, no way that will deter me from posting mine. Jokes apart but this is our second most favorite fish recipe after Ilish Macher Jhal and a must for any gathering or special occasion. This ubiquitous fish dish will greet you on a birthday bash, wedding ceremony, house warming feast, Family gathering or even on Sunday special luncheons. This also is my first fish preparation that I cooked for my friends. Those days I hardly cooked non veg but friends asked for a party after I landed my first job and settled in my rented flat. One weekend evening a bunch of them attacked my place in demand of a party at a popular restaurant. Over a lot of argument I served them my favorite one dish dinner, Mushroom Pasta. They ate in silence and then decided on having a party at my place with food cooked by me. They decided the menu all by themselves which included some fish preparation. I called up Dida for Macher Kalia recipe and cooked this…till date whenever those friends visit me they make it a point that I cook this.

This is a rich and spicy dish which in no means is to be eaten every day. Kalia actually is a cooking process where the fish or meat is cooked in rich gravy with onion-ginger-garlic and garam masala. Most popularly is cooked with big fishes like Paka Rui (Carp/ Rohu) or Katla, which are big sweet water fishes weighing more than 2 kgs, as The fat from the fish adds more richness to the gravy. Like any other Bengali preparation this one also is very aromatic with bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. My Maa also adds some cashews and raisins to it which I absolutely adore. Love the crunch of the cashew mingles with the creaminess of the hot and spicy gravy or those occasional sweet explode of raisins on the tongue.

Today it was raining heavily here and the baby is having equally running nose following which Hubby had to take a day off. I wanted to cook something fancy to wrap up our dinner with one or two preparations. This fitted the bill perfectly and we had a superb dinner with steamed white rice, macher kalia and alu bhaja
(fried potato).

Here is the recipe:

Macher Kalia

Ingredients:
Fish: 4 pieces
Potato: 1 medium (optional)
Onion paste: 3 tbsp
Ginger paste: 1 tsp
Garlic paste: ½ tsp
Cumin powder: ½ tsp
Coriander powder: ½ tsp
Turmeric powder: 1 tsp 
Chilli powder: 1 tsp (use kashmiri red chili or tikhalal for better colour)
Tomato: 1 medium
Curd: 1 tbsp
Bay leaf: 1
Cinnamon, clove: 2 pcs each
Garam masala powder:  1/3 tsp
Oil: 4 tbsp (more if you are not cooking in non stick kadhai)
Salt
Sugar: 1/3 tsp
Cashews: handful
Raisins: handful

Method:
Wash the fish pieces and smear with salt and turmeric. Keep aside.

Wash, peel and cut the potato in long wedges. Keep aside.

Soak the raisin in water. Mix the cumin-coriander powder with 2 tbsp water and keep aside.

Heat half of the oil and fry the fish pieces till lightly browned on both sides. Drain and reserve.

Now add the rest of the oil and temper with whole cloves, cinnamon and bay leaf. Tip in the potatoes. Fry lightly with salt.

Add the onion paste and fry on low flame. Once the juice of the onion dries add the ginger and garlic paste, turmeric, chilli powder, cashews and salt. Keep frying till oil separates at the sides. This process is called kashano or frying the spices on low flame which is very important for this dish.

Now add the cumin-coriander paste and fry till the raw smell of the spices are gone (approx. 3 mins)

Add in the beaten curd and again fry till everything mixes well. Put the tomato pieces and cook till they are soft and mushy.

Once you see the oils are separating at the sides add 11/2 cups of warm water. Once it comes to boil add the fish pieces, raisins and adjust the seasoning.

Let it cook on medium flame till the gravy thickens and coat the fish pieces nicely.


Sprinkle with garam masala powder and serve hot with white steamed rice.

Vegetarian Version: use chhana or homemade Paneer (how to make chhana HERE) for this. Drain the water and mash with boiled potato, chopped onion, grated ginger, green chillies, salt and bhaja masala. Make small patties, shallow fry till golden brown on both sides. Use these for fish but don't simmer them for long as that might cause breaking of the patties. Will try to post this recipe later.

Same way you can also cook Chicken Kalia.

you can find variation sof this dish at Sandeepa's, Indrani's and Sutapa's amzing blogs.

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