Strawberry Blueberry Jam

I cannot believe that the last time I had posted something here was 2.7 years back. When I started this blog about a decade back, I had thought I will post daily. How life has changed since then. While my last post was when my little one was 2.4 years old, now he is 20 days shy of 5 years, these 5 years passed in the wink of an eye.

I tried this recipe at the request of my almost 5-year-old and it was an instant hit. He wanted to eat a PB&J sandwich with homemade Strawberry Jam, and we were approaching the end of Strawberry season. ‘A’ went to hunt for strawberries and could not find any, so we gave up and thought of making Mango jam instead. I went vegetable shopping the next weekend and to my delight I found some strawberries with the vendor. Little ‘R’ was with me, there were fresh blueberries at the store too, he wanted both strawberries and blueberries. So, I got both and made a Strawberry Blueberry jam and we all loved it.

Ingredients:

Fresh strawberries – 500 gms

Fresh blueberries – 200 gms

Sugar – ¾ th cup

Juice of one Lime

Method:

Powder the Sugar and set aside

Wash the berries clean and chop them up

Add the juice of one lime to the berries

Mix the sugar and the berries, make sure all the berries are coated well in the sugar

Cover and set aside, at least for an hour

Boil water in a deep pan and soak the glass jar where you want to store your jam to sterilize, once you put the glass jar and the lid in the water, lower the heat, you can switch it off as well

Heat a thick bottomed pan

Pour the mixture into the pan and keep stirring on medium flame

It takes about 30 minutes for the jam to come to the right consistency

Do a saucer test, pour a little bit of jam on a saucer, and tilt it, if the jam does not leave a water trail, it is done

Take out the sterilized glass jar from hot water, pour the water out and store the jam in it, use a funnel if possible, it will make sure the jar is clean from the edges. I did not have a funnel hence mine look a little messy around the edges

Put the lid on once the jam has cooled down a bit

Store it in the fridge, it can be stored for 6 months or more if every time a moisture free clean spoon is used to take out the jam

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Hakka Noodles

Noodles has always been the favorite, my comfort food. It took me years to master the art of making them though, I could never get them boiled right (al dente in the world of pasta), almost always they turned out over cooked. Even today, when I am not paying attention, it gets over cooked, though everyone eats happily, I am the only one who seems to notice the texture has gone wrong. The point I am trying to make here is, if you get your noodles boiled right, most of your job is done, the only thing left is tossing up some other ingredients of your choice and voila!

This is a popular meal at my home, be it breakfast or dinner. This can be put together in about 20-30 mins. I use a variety of ingredients, capsicum, green beans and carrots being the staple vegetables, I add some thinly sliced cabbage at times too. Sometimes I add some diced, boiled or fried chicken, sometimes mushrooms, prawns and eggs, depending on whatever I have available. Amongst the sauces, I use some hot and sweet, dark soy, green and red chili sauce always, occasionally I add some hot sauce, sweet and sour sauce or black pepper sauce for a different flavour.

The vegetables need to be minimum, do not add too much and never wait for them to get cooked thoroughly. The trick is to add a handful of vegetables and fry them at high heat for approximately 3 minutes, the vegetables need to retain their crunch. Chopping them the right way is also something to be considered, try to make thin slices of all vegetables, similar size for all is best.

Ingredients:

Noodles – I use egg noodles, as thin I can get in the market.

Carrot, Capsicum, Green Beans, Cabbage – thinly sliced – each a handful

Onion – 1 – thinly sliced

Green Chili – I add 2-3 with little slits so that the dish does not become extremely spicy, and people who like spice can still take a bite from the chilies.

Mushrooms – sliced thicker than the vegetables (optional)

Chicken – cubed and fried/boiled with a dash of salt and pepper (optional)

Eggs – fried and scrambled (optional)

Dark Soy Sauce

Green Chili Sauce

Red Chili Sauce

Hot and Sweet sauce

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Note: All the sauces are to your taste, use as you like it, skip if you would rather.

Procedure:

Add a teaspoon of salt to water, bring it to a rumbling boil and add noodles to it, when the noodles are no longer stiff and can bend and coil easily, switch off the flame.

Drain the noodles in a colander, run cold water on it to stop the cooking process and set aside. Some add oil to the noodles, I do not prefer it.

Heat oil in a wok/kadhai, once the oil is heated, add the onions and the other vegetables, add a dash of salt and pepper and keep stirring, remember never to lower the heat, Chinese dishes are supposed to be cooked at very high heat to get the right texture.

Add the mushrooms too, they will release some moisture, make sure the moisture is completely evaporated.

At about 3 minutes the vegetables should be cooked to perfection, however, if any moisture from the mushrooms remain, make sure that evaporates before continuing.

Add the noodles, salt, pepper and the sauces of your choice and mix.

Add the already cooked chicken, eggs, prawns and whatever else you want and mix thoroughly.

Your perfect hakka noodles is ready to be eaten, enjoy your meal and let me know if you liked it.

A long pending post: 2016 – by far the best year of my life

Today on New Year’s Eve, I had to write this piece as the curtains draw on the most rewarding year of my life. Mid 2015, I was touched by life, a tiny soul started taking its first breaths in its first home, its mother’s womb, my womb. After the initial jitters and excitement, I broke the news to ‘A’, he was thrilled. We did not break the news to our families right away as a trip back home was around the corner and we wanted to see the expression on the to-be-grandparents faces when we broke the news to them. A month passed after the other and the little soul kept growing, making its presence felt slowly and steadily. 2016 arrived and we accepted it with our arms wide open knowing we were to become parents this year. The never ending assumptions continued about the gender; some said you look exhausted, you have a little boy in there where as the others said it is going to be a little girl. ‘A’ and I cruised through open ended emotions and started shortlisting names. On some days the little wonder will not be in the right position for the scans and we would spend the entire day in the hospital waiting for it to flip. Once a Radiologist actually told us, “You have one stubborn brat in there” after his 5^th attempt to get my baby’s nasal bone on his monitor!  As I entered the last trimester, we started shopping for the little bundle’s arrival and the baby showers followed. During my final checkup the Doctor said, ‘You are almost there’ but I was exhausted; I told her, ‘I have been better’. She understood I was getting impatient and was the only person to tell me the truth, ‘trust me, you are doing fine now, once the baby arrives it will be way more difficult, when you will not be able to figure out why it is crying’. ‘Huh’ I smirked in my mind, got help from the nurse and got up from the examination table and waddled like a seal out of her Cabin. The almighty must have smirked louder that day!

The extensive wait was finally over and the month of May arrived, the Sis-in-law arrived too to welcome the little one. I finally set OOO on my office emails and mentioned I will be on maternity leave and thought really? In spite of getting kicked over a hundred times a day, I still thought, really? Uncertain about what was to happen next.  By now all the apprehension was gone and I was exhilarated beyond imagination, I wanted to see the little me, period. From the time my Sis-in-law set foot in the house, it felt like we had all gathered for some wedding, a couple of friends (more of family than friends) arrived too to help us out. The final baby shower happened and we were all ready for the D Day. The night before I was restless and could not sleep at all, not knowing this was just the first of the countless sleepless nights to come.

And here was May 8^th, a delightful Sunday, the day of the little bundle’s arrival. We left for the hospital early in the morning. The hospital authorities provided a special access pass to park our car for the next 3 days after which hopefully we all go home, hale and hearty. One thing followed the other and in no time I was in the hospital gown with the IV in place and a nurse was already there with a wheelchair to take me inside, close to an hour before the time given! With a final call to my Mum and a look at the door to my room, I was wheeled into the recovery area of the OT. 

It was cold inside and I felt a little fuzzy. This was the area where Mums and their babies are placed post the delivery to recover and then moved into their rooms if all the vitals were okay, this was also the area where pre-OT tasks took place. As I waited with bated breath for something to happen, I noticed this woman in the opposite bed, telling the nurse she could not feel her legs still, it was already close to 2 hours for her in recovery. Beside her on an elevated table was a bundled up little baby, a bright glowing light over her head. At the first sight, I thought it was an adorable miniature model when I noticed its lips quiver and gasped! It was a live baby, a couple of hours old, that Woman’s baby! WOW! This must feel tremendous I thought. I struck up a conversation with the woman and found out it was a little girl born just a couple of hours back, that woman realised I was next and wished me luck. I was taken inside in the next few minutes and told not to get nervous looking at the surgical equipment’s placed on a table nearby. In front was a big white board which had all my particulars itemised, the nurses confirmed everything that was mentioned on the board, I nodded. It was time for the spinal anaesthesia, the nurses explained they will push a local anaesthesia first which will numb the spinal area and then the actual epidural will be pushed. In the next few seconds, countless thoughts overlapped in my mind, all that I had read on the internet about the epidural, all that my experienced friends and family members had told me about it, but I could not feel the chill which these thoughts should have triggered down my spine, it was done and I did not feel a thing besides a tiny prick. My brilliant doctor and her team kept chatting with me trying to break my anxiety every now and then, all I kept checking with them was, if ‘A’ was ready outside, I wanted him by my side, I did not want him to miss the first moments, after asking the nurses a few times, the Doctor finally told me that he is waiting right outside and they exchanged pleasantries when she came in, she also said he will be in as soon as the baby is out. Amidst all this tête-à-tête I vaguely heard someone asking for a suction pump and within moments heard a loud cry, I was numb. I can still recall the precise intonation in which my Doctor said ‘It’s a baby boy, Ananya’ and I saw the first glimpse of my Son. How am I supposed to feel and react I thought in my mind, but could not comprehend. Before I could react, the Doctor informed again, your husband is here. I saw ‘A’, his face covered in a mask, I could tell from the look in his eyes, he was more scared than ever. He went with the nurses and clipped the umbilical cord. I asked him if everything looked okay with the baby, he assured our little boy was perfect. ‘A’ still looked dazed but definitely a little relaxed now as he left the OT to break the news to everyone. We had become parents to a handsome baby boy!

Back in the recovery room, I could not take my eyes off my little champ, who was now placed on the same elevated table under the bright light like that little girl was a little while back. I was ecstatic, I could not rest no matter how hard I tried. We returned home a couple of days later and our lives had changed forever.

We, lovingly named him Aarush - meaning the first ray of the Sun, our son-shine, the sunshine of our life! The first flutters and kicks still feels like yesterday but as I write this my baby is 7 months and 23 days old already and life has been a roller coaster ride. 

The day he was born, was a rebirth for us, as parents. We are not perfect, not even close to it, but I do hope we can learn and become the parents our little boy deserves. The most difficult yet the most gratifying year of our life is coming to a close. 2016 - You were amazing, thank you for giving us a new meaning to our life!

Coconut and Milk Barfi - Indian Sweet

It is absolutely overwhelming when anyone requests for a recipe, I want to post it right away. However, with a 9-5 job, family, friends, books, my plants, and my craziness for cooking, I sometimes wish days were longer than 24 hours. This one is for one of the nicest and prettiest woman I have known, 'T' Di, thank you for those kind words, they indeed mean a lot to me.

So it was sometime last week when I wanted to make a simple, ‘on the burner’ dessert at home, ‘on the burner’ as my Microwave Oven is down for close to a week now and I have not yet managed to open a ticket with the vendor to fix it. Spoke to Mum and she mentioned a Barfi she knew of made with Milk Powder and desiccated Coconut, I was instantaneously interested. I ordered the required ingredients from BigBasket and waited for them to arrive. Once they arrives, I made them for the weekend.  Initially, I told ‘A’ they were store-bought, he believed me and I was elated! (They were seriously that good).

Ingredients:

Desiccated Coconut – 100 gms

Milk Powder – 140 gms

Milk – 3/4^th Cup

Powdered Sugar – ½ Cup

Cardamom Powder – ½ tsp (I pounded 6-7 whole Green Cardamoms for this)

Any dry fruit of your choice – chopped – I had Raisins, so I cut them in half and used them, you can use broken cashews, sliced almonds, sliced pistachios or none – to your taste.

Unsalted Butter – 60 gms

Clarified Butter / Ghee – ½ tsp

Method:

Heat a Pan and drop the butter in and let it melt, bring down the heat to low

Add the Milk and mix well

Add the Milk Powder, little at a time and keep mixing, make sure no lumps remain

Add the desiccated coconut and mix in with a spatula

Add the powdered Sugar and mix it in, add the cardamom powder as well (be careful while adding sugar, don’t add all of it at once, you might like it a little less or more sweet than me, mix little at a time and do a taste test to check if the sweetness is right for you. Many a times I have added all the sugar at once, as recommended by the recipe and it has been way sweeter than my taste).

Keep cooking this on low - medium flame, stir continuously to make sure it does not get burnt from the bottom, cook until the consistency is dense and the mixture starts to leave the sides of the Pan. Once the right consistency is reached, turn off the gas and set aside

Take a plate where you want this mixture to set, I used a simple stainless steel plate with about .5 cm sides as I did not want my Barfis to be very thick.

Take ½ a tsp of clarified butter and butter the surface of the plate so that the Barfis come off easily after they are set, pour the mixture in. Using a spoon spread the mixture on the plate, make sure the thickness is the same throughout, else you will get Barfis with uneven thickness, this process takes a little while, be patient.

Once done sprinkle the chopped dry fruit on the mixture, use the spoon and press them in lightly.

Keep it in the refrigerator and let it set. I kept it for 1.5 hours. Take it out, run a knife and cut slices as per your wish.

Light the burner again, and heat the plate a little (30 seconds should do it), so that the clarified butter melts at the bottom and it is much easier to separate the pieces from the plate. Using the same knife to separate the pieces and enjoy!

Coconut and Milk Barfi can be refrigerated for up to a week, though this batch only 48 hours at my home :D

Balsamic Roasted whole Chicken legs - in the Grill Pan

I bought this wonderchef granite grill pan sometime back and never used it. Over the weekend, I had whole Chicken legs sitting in my freezer and decided to use the grill pan. This is an extremely easy recipe, all I did was marinated the Chicken legs for an hour and roasted them on my grill pan and not in the Oven. It procedure is extremely simple and the end result tastes awesome. The Onion and Bell Pepper rings, I added run time, they got a little cooked in the marinade and tasted great too.

Balsamic Vinegar is the base of this marinade; it looks like red wine, adds an amazingly rich taste and texture to the dish.

Ingredients:

Whole Chicken Legs – 2

Balsamic Vinegar - ½ cup

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – 2 tbsps

Dried Rosemary – 1 tsp

Dried Mixed Herbs – 1 tsp

Garlic – 2 medium cloves – crushed

Ginger Powder – 1/4^th tsp

Lime Juice – ¼ the juice of a Lime

Chili Paprika – ½ tsp

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Sliced Onion and Bell Pepper rings - optional

Marination:

Wash the Chicken Legs thoroughly and pat dry. I used frozen one’s, let them completely defrost, pat dry.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients and marinate the Chicken legs in the marinade in the Refrigerator for an hour or more (I did for an hour).

Method:

Heat the Grill Pan and place the Chicken Legs in them over medium heat, I cooked them for about 7-8 minutes on each side.

Add more EVOO if needed.

Once one side is cooked, turn and cook the other side.

Add the Onion and Bell Pepper rings, sprinkle some more salt and pepper.

Run the knife through the thigh of the Chicken, if the juice runs clear, the meat is done.

Give it standing time for 5-7 minutes before you serve, if cut immediately, the juices will run out and the meat will become extremely dry.

Basanti Pulao - a traditional Bengali Sweet Pulao

I have been intending to post the recipe of my Basanti Pulao for close to 2 years now. Sometime back, I actually took pictures of the step by step process and was still not able to post it for reasons unknown. Basanti Pulao and Kosha Mangsho (slow cooked spicy Mutton curry) is a match made in heaven and is an absolute regular at my home. We celebrate the craziest of occasions with this menu, even occasions like both of us working from home on a given day! The sweetness of the pulao compliments the hot and spicy mutton curry and they just have to be tried together.

The Rice traditionally used for this recipe is Gobindobhog and one should never deviate from this tradition. If you do, you will still make a pulao, but not the Godly Basanti Pulao! I have lived in Maharashtra for 8 years and always carried my share of Gobindobhog from back home; however, I did find a variant of this which I used when I ran out of Gobindobhog, Ambemohar! A dear friend from work once introduced me to Ambemohar, and I agree it is a lost sibling of the Bengali Gobindobhog!

I usually assemble the dish and put it in the Microwave Oven for the final cooking bit. Though the last time I made it in the Pressure and it came out just perfect!

Ingredients:

Gobindobhog / Ambemohar Rice – 1 cup

Cashews – a handful

Raisins – a handful

Green Cardamom – 2-3

Cinnamon – 1” stick

Cloves – 2-3

Bay Leaf – 2

Grated Ginger - 1 tsp

Nutmeg Powder – ¼ th tsp

Frozen Green Peas – ½ cup (optional)

Sugar – depending on how sweet you want the Pulao to be – I add about 7 tsps, as this is essentially a sweet pulao with a little bit of salt to balance out the taste.

Salt– to balance

Turmeric Powder – ½ tsp (traditionally soaked Saffron is used for the color, I use Turmeric Powder for the yellow hue as Saffron is not always handy in my Kitchen)

A small slice of Lime (if cooking in the Microwave Oven)

Ghee / Clarified Butter – 2 tbsp

Method:

Wash the Rice till the water runs clear, drain and set aside.

Heat Clarified Butter / Ghee in a Pan, drop the whole garam masalas (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and bay leaves) in it, let them sizzle for a while. Add the cashews and raisins and roast them till golden, do not roast too much and burn them.

Now add the Rice to the Pan and keep stirring so that every grain gets coated in Ghee.

Add the grated ginger and keep stirring till the raw ginger smell is gone.

Stir in the frozen Peas.

Add the Sugar, Salt, Turmeric Powder and Nutmeg Powder and mix well.

Do a taste test to see if the sugar and salt are okay, add more if needed, remember this is mishit pulao so it will be a LOT sweeter than other Rice dishes and Salt will only balance out the taste.

Now for the final bit there are two methods:

Pressure Cooker: Transfer the contents of the Pan into a Pressure Cooker, Add 2 cups of Water (double the quantity of Rice) and cook for one whistle, let the pressure completely go down on its own, and then open the lid.

Microwave Oven: Transfer the contents into a Microwave safe bowl, add 2 cups of water, add a few drops of lime juice, cover with a cling film, and Microwave on high for 20 minutes. Unwrap the cling film, and serve the Basanti Pulao with the Kosha Mangsho – slow cooked spicy Mutton Curry!

Chire Bhaja - ‘Crispy Flattened Rice with Sweet Peas and Peanuts'

So I made the simple Bengali Chire Bhaja - ‘Crispy flattened rice with sweet peas and peanuts’ as a snack last evening and we both loved it. As a kid I never enjoyed this dish, I guess that is because, wherever I ate, they either added peanuts like misers or the Chire was not as kurmure (crispy) as I like. There are different variants of this snack in different households, some add peas, some don’t, some add sugar, and some don’t. This recipe requires quite a bit of cooking oil as the flattened rice absorbs all the oil you can pour and very fast at that, hence keep the Oil to minimum. The ingredients listed will make the snack for three people, I wanted to make for two, but it was more than enough for the two of us.

Ingredients to make Chire Bhaja:

Chire Bhaja/Flattened Rice – 2 cups

Cooking Oil – 2 tbsps

Raw Peanuts – ½ cup

Shelled Green Peas – ½ cup – I used the frozen kind

Whole Dry Red Chilli – 2

Red Chilli Powder – ½ tsp (to your taste)

Salt to taste
Black Pepper to taste

Sugar to balance

Method:

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a Kadhai and fry the raw peanuts in the oil, add a pinch of salt, keep stirring, fry them till the peanuts are done. The skin of the peanuts will turn a dark color indicating that they are done. Once done scoop them out and drain them on a paper towel.

To the same oil, add the green peas and fry them for a while with a pinch of salt. The frozen green peas take very less time to get done compared to the Peanuts. Scoop them out and drain them on a paper towel too.,

Add the rest of the Oil to the Kadhai. Once the Oil is hot, tear the two whole dried red chillies and add to this oil, let it sizzle. This process flavors the oil.

Stir in the 2 cups of flattened rice, keep the heat to medium while frying the flattened rice. Keep stirring otherwise it will burn the rice at the bottom and it will not taste good. The flattened rice will absorb all the oil, keep stirring.

Add the Salt, Sugar, Red Chili Powder and Black Pepper Powder and keep stirring. Once desired crispiness is reached, add the Peanuts and Peas to it and mix thoroughly. Be very careful while doing a taste test as all the ingredients tend to get extremely hot and can burn your tongue like never before.

Serve with Chai - Tea of your choice..heaven!