Back to indian roots: Indian style sun dried potato chips and sticks

My mother was a wonderful indian housewife and growing up with five beautiful elder sisters was also a beautiful experience. Instead of reading comics I grew up collecting recipes and beauty tips. Almost every day we used to try something new. When I am alone in this new place I remember a few very basic things which are inevitable part of Indian life, and western world has no idea that it exists.

Indian style sun dried potato chips and sticks 

Whenever I see winter of Europe I remember roof of my home, Indian tea with rich flavour of ginger and Indian Basil and Potato chips. Really in last two years I never enjoyed the potato chips that are available in markets. In fact I never bought chips from Indian market too. I belong to a village and my relatives load us with at least 10kg of Potatoes/sugarcane/ sweet potatoes in every visit. That’s where the story begins. One can eat boiled sweet potatoes and sugarcane. But whenever we get potatoes, very next day we wake up early (because you may get sunburn if you´ll dry chips at 12 pm.) and start papad/chips making program.Here is the recipe.

First wash the potatoes and peel them. After peeling, immerse it in water otherwise it will become black. 

Then boil around double quantity of water in a pot and add salt 2tsp oil (so that they will not stick together) and 1 pinch Alum/Fitkari (I did not added this but it makes Chips of snow white colour). 

Boil it for 5 min until it is half cooked.

Then use muslin cloth or thick plastic sheet and spread chips on it. Leave it in sun light for 1-2 days and then store them. Now whenever you want you can fry and put some seasoning of salt and pepper and enjoy it.

There is something more to mention about drying process actually neither I had muslin/thin cloth nor a roof.(in fact here weather is always cloudy so even I did not had proper sunlight). So I used a worth sharing trick!!!! I used my cloth drying stand and put sheets of butter paper on it and then I spreaded my chips on it. I kept it inside my room and my chips were ready in 2 days. If you can use room heater it´ll also help. 

I hope you will enjoy these chips. I like it especially because it does not soak much oil during frying. Guten Apetit!

Tamarind Rice recipe

Tamarind Rice recipe

Ingredients
Basmati Rice 250 g
Tamarind 8 g
Roasted Peanut 70g
2 Tsp oil
1 Chilli
½ tsp mustard
4-5 curry leaves
 ½ handful urad dal
 ½ handful chana dal
½ tsp garam masala
It’s very easy to make because as preparation you should soak tamarind for 5 min in water and wash rice. Then heat 2 tsp oil add a chilli ½ tsp mustard and 4-5 curry leave ½ handful urad dal and ½ handful chana dal to it and let it roast then add rice water and tamarind to it. Finally add roasted peanuts to it. And let it boil for around 15 min.
No comments!!! just try and taste it! 

picnic recipe : bread rolls

If you are belong to India you must have enjoyed samosa. This recipe is inspired by samosa recipe but I avoid frying now a days so I am searching for the no frying doughs for samosa. At first I tried baking this filling in the puff pastry sheets or Blätterteig which resulted in forming baked samosas (as we can generally buy in shops). I did not like it because these sheets contain a lot of hydrogenated plant fat, which is worst thing to consume. So I ended up with in situ bread formation.  I hope you will enjoy the taste of freshly baked bread and basic samosa filling.

 

Bread rolls recipe

Ingredients : for covering
350g flour
150g Oat meal
2tsp sugar
half tsp salt
some ajwain and cumin seeds
½ pack of fresh yeast
30ml olive oil
For Filling
5 medium potatoes
2 tsp oil
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp mustard
½ tsp turmeric
1 handful peas
½ tsp garam masala
I took 350g flour and 150g Oat meal (for having nice fiber content) and all 2tsp sugar and half tsp salt. And some ajwain and cumin seeds for flavour. Then I dissolved ½ pack of fresh yeast in luke warm water and added ½ bowl quark to it. I added around 30ml olive oil to it and made dough, and let it rest for 30 min.
For making filling I boiled 5 medium potatoes and peeled them and then heated 2 tsp oil and added 1 tsp cumin mustard and turmeric to it. Then I added 1 chopped onion and let it fry a bit then added 1 handful peas to it and potatoes I used salt for taste and ½ tsp garam masala and mixed well. Then I filled the dough with this mixture and formed rolls of it. And baked it.
I am not very happy about the taste of the covering so you can avoid using oat meal and ajwain in the dough and can use butter instead of olive oil. I have a delicate stomach that´s why I wanted to make it more digestible. Last time when I made it without oat meal and ajwain, it tasted AWESOME.
These bread rolls require no bread and are very convenient to make and eat in picnic. So next time when you go to picnic, please try and ENJOY it.

Panchamrita / Panchamrata recipe

All four mondays of savan month are considered very pious. It is considered that if one does abhisheka of lord shiva with panchamita then he bless us. The prasada from the abhisheka is known as panchamrita. Today I am demonstrating you how to make panchamrata.

Rule of thumb is that there should me 5 liquids and 5 dry fruits in panchamrita, they could be anything.

Ingredients: 5 dry fruits

Kishmish 10

Kaju/ cashew 4-5

Badam/Almonds 4-5

Pista 4-5

Saffron a pinch

5 liquids

½ cup joghurt

A bit of butter or ghee

¼ cup water

½ tsp honey

½ cup milk

Mix everything together. Wash and dry shivlinga. Wash it with a tsp of panchamrita. Do not discard the water and mix this water to panchamrita. Har Har Mahadev

eggless/ Eifrei Donauwellen : tastiest cake

Few days ago one of my chinese friends made this beautiful cake since then i decided to make it on my birthday but it took some time to find recipe of eggless version of this cake.

Ingredients

Basic cake or first layer:

Maida/Flour/Weizenmehl 140 g

Condensed milk 1 cup

Sugar 75 g

Milk 80g

Baking powder ½ tsp

Baking soda ½ tsp

Butter 50g

Vanillin powder / vanilla essence ½ tsp

second layer: sauer cherries/Sauerkirschen 1 bottle 

Third layer: pudding / custard powder 1 pack 

Butter 200g

Fourth layer: Cooking chocolate +Plant fat/coconut oil or fat/butter 

or Kuchen glasur

sliced almonds for garnishing 

Additionally: baking tray, butter paper, oil for greasing

First of all take flour baking powder and baking soda together and Sieve it.

Its really important because it will make the cake fluffy. Then beat condensed milk, and butter together and add sugar and vanilla essence to it. If you are using sweetened condensed milk e.g.Milkmaid then do not add sugar because then it will be very very sweet.  Now mix flour mixture with this liquid part and beat nicely be careful that there should be no lumps in the mixture. Preheat oven at 180 degree.

Then its time to put butter paper on baking tray maake a layer of oil to butter paper too.  Now add cake batter to baking tray. add a dense layer of cherries on the batter. bake it for 15 min. to check whether cake is baked prick it with a thick needle if it come out clean that means cake is cooked if not bake it a bit more.

now let it cool down for 1 hr. it is the time to apply buttercream layer to it. to make buttercream make custard or pudding as per instructions on the packet. Usually it is so that we should take 500ml milk and take 6 tsp milk in a cup and boil the rest milk. in the little amount of milk add pudding powder sugar and make a smooth paste. now add this paste to boiling milk. and let it boil. turn off the flame. it is pudding´s recipe. to make butter cream wait a min and add butter to it and mix it well. now apply buttercream layer to the cake. let it cool too.

now melt cocolate as i instructed in last recipe Take content of the kuchen glasur in a porcelain bowl. Or if you did not buy that then put cooking chocolate to a bowl and add approximately me quantity of butter/Vegetable fat/ vanaspati ghee. Now take a pan and add some water to the pan let it boil and then place your bowl to it. Mix occasionally and let it melt. Now pour it over cake and cover the cake with the help of brush.

roast sliced almonds without oil and garnish the cake with it. serve it cool and ENJOY!!!

basic eggless sponge cake

I celebrated my birthday last week and since then I am baking cakes every otherday. Well i am really happy about it. On Satureday I was invited for an Einschulung party. It is a complex word but it has a very simple meaning according to German tradition when children start their schooling, the parents and teacher greet them with gifts and chocolate. It’s a very lively celebration with musical performances and gifts. What could be better as a gift then beautiful cake? So I baked it for the little angel.

Ingredients

Basic cake:

Maida/Flour/Weizenmehl 140 g

Condensed milk 1 cup

Sugar 75 g

Milk 80g

Baking powder ½ tsp

Baking soda ½ tsp

Butter 50g

Vanillin powder / vanilla essence ½ tsp

Icing/ Garnishing

Sugar decorations/Zucker décor

Cooking chocolate/Kuchen glasur

Additionally silicon or normal baking moulds

First of all take flour baking powder and baking soda together and Sieve it.

Its really important because it will make the cake fluffy. Then beat condensed milk, and butter together and add sugar and vanilla essence to it. If you are using sweetened condensed milk e.g.Milkmaid then do not add sugar because then it will be very very sweet.  Now mix flour mixture with this liquid part and beat nicely be careful that there should be no lumps in the mixture. Preheat oven at 180 degree.

Then its time to grease baking mould, apply a uniform layer of oil/butter to the mould and dust some Flour to it. Since I used silicon moulds I did not grease it. Now add cake batter to moulds. And bake it for 25 min. to check whether cake is baked prick it with a thick needle if it come out clean that means cake is cooked if not bake it a bit more.

There is another tip, “always demould your cake when it is properly cooled” so waist for at least 2 hours before taking the mould out. So that it will not break during demoulding process.

Now we will decorate our master piece. Take content of the kuchen glasur in a porcelain bowl. Or if you did not buy that then put cooking chocolate to a bowl and add approximately me quantity of butter/Vegetable fat/ vanaspati ghee. Now take a pan and add some water to the pan let it boil and then place your bowl to it. Mix occasionally and let it melt. Now pour it over cake and cover the cake with the help of brush. Now add sugar decorations as per your choice and ENJOY.

Well! You can use same batter to make muffins too.

eggless cheese cake or Eifrei Kaesekuchen

I truly love this delicacy. When I visited Germany and tried cheese cake for the first time, I was surprised by feeling its texture and taste. I tried to search recipe of eggless cheese cake in internet but all were very complex and required costly and scarcely found ingredients. Here I am presenting you a recipe in which I am using good quality and commonly found ingredients.

Ingredients

For the base

200g crushed biscuits

50 g  butter

For Filling

1kg Quark/ cottage cheese / hung curd

600mL milk

60g corn flour/Speisestaerke

100g sugar

1 pinch salt

½ tsp vanilla essence or vanilla sugar

One must have thing for making cheese cake is the ring form this recipe makes a 26cm diameter cake. First line the base of ring form with butter paper and apply some butter in the inside of the bake tin.

Then crush the biscuits. in this recipe I used whole wheat crackers you are free to choose any biscuit of your choice in fact once I used roasted bread crumbs to make the base of the cake and ya… that too worked well.

Mix it with butter. It will be easy to mix when butter is at room temperature.

Preheat oven at 180°C and bake the base for 5 min.

Boil 500mL milk in a large pot and add sugar, salt and vanilla to it.

In rest of the milk add  corn flour and mix well and then pour this mixture to rest of the milk then remove pot from the flame. 

 Now add Quark to it.  

 Add this filling to the base.

Let is bake for around 40 min. outer layer will not burn if you will cover it with aluminum foil while baking.

Let it cool overnight. Cut into pieces and ENJOY!!!

  

Roti / Chapati Recipe

Chapati is also known as Roti. It is Indian flat-bread, when it is properly made it has pa pocket like pita bread. I remember as I was about 7 years old,  my mother used to tell me that she knows magic. I was so fascinated to see how she used to roll roties without even touching it. when Roti used to swell like a football, I used to dance with happiness. I can never forget the fresh smell of chapati layered with ghee and a pinch of salt... that was just divine...

In the sleepless nights of my exam preparation I used to eat left chapati of dinner with tomato ketchup. There are so many experiences to share but I´ll prefer to share chapati recipe first.
Recipe is simple and fast but you need to practice a bit to make perfect chapatis.even my chapatis are not very perfect. well that you can see this in the picture.

First you have to make dough for making chapatis usually chapati atta is used for making chapatis. It is super simple! just mix atta and a bit salt and add water LITTLE BY LITTLE. Its really important if you are making chapati for the first time and make a soft dough and leave it for approximately 15 min.

But what if you live somewhere in small city in USA or Europe (like me) where you can not buy atta. No Worry! you can use a combination of quick cooking oat meal and flour. Oat meal is known as Haferflocken and Maida or Flour is known as Weizenmehl  in Germany. usually 30% oat meal and 70% flour works well. but you can change this proportion. In this case you have to soak Oat meal with a little water for five minutes and then with flour knead it well. You can also add some oil to it. I do not usually add oil to my chapatis because i am health conscious.

I usually prefer to make multigrain Chapatis. For this I use half cup of besan ( also known as Gram flour or Kichererbsenmehl) and and mix it with one and half cup of atta and then knead it. It is very important for vegetarians because it increases the amount of Protein to chapatis. for growing kids one can add 1/10 weight of soyabeans with gehun and make atta of it :) it is healthier than any costly health drink and you will increase nutrition without compromising with taste at all. To make Jwar/bajra/makka Roties mix 50% of desired flour with 50% atta and make Chapatis. Everybody will wonder how did you make such a nice round roties.

so back to the recipe, now you have to use some atta/flour to roll it. before that you should heat a flat pan or tawa properly. please be cautious with pan because if your wrist will accidentally touch the sides of pan you will burn. if you wear Chudi or other hand accessory remove it because its risky too.

then flip the side of chapati when its a bit cooked.... flip it once and twice and then third time you will see some bubbles to chapati. now its the time to press chapati gently with a clean cloth.

take Chapati in a plate and add some butter... see melting of butter, be tempted with its look and smell then ENJOY!!!! 

in short... 

Ingredients
Chapati atta 2 cups
salt to taste
water to knead

Recipe
 just mix atta and a bit salt and add water LITTLE BY LITTLE. its really important if you are making chapati for the first time and make a soft dough and leave it for approximately 15 min.
now you have to use some atta/flour to roll it. before that you should heat a flat pan or tawa properly. place chapati on tawa.
then flip the side of chapati when its a bit cooked.... flip it once and twice and then third time you will see some bubbles to chapati. now its the time to press chapati gently with a clean cloth.
chapati is ready!!!