And I take on my first ever Indian cooking challenge...

Its been 2 months since my last post, isn't it? Our move from Boston to Houston was a long wonderful winding road. We flew to Denver, CO and drove from there to San Diego CA. On our way we did devour some great food. From San Diego the wise guy flew to Boston for some last bits of work while I set sail to SFO and had a great time there- oh so much to eat, so little time!

More on that in a later post- but today read on for my first Indian Cooking Challenge post

The melt-in-your-mouth tirunelveli halwa

Ingredients

Wheat berries- 3/4 cups
Sugar- 1 cup
almonds & walnuts, chopped- 3/4 cup, reserve 1/4 cup for garnish
Ghee- 5 tbsp
cardamom- 1tsp

Pachai karpooram- a pinch
Food color

Method

Soak the wheat berries overnight.

Grind in a blender with about a cup of water. Strain the milk into a bowl. Return the husk to the blender and grind again with water. Strain and repeat the process about 4-5 times.

Note*: Clean the strainer and blender immediately, otherwise you would end up with hard crust

Let the milk stand for about 4-5 hrs. A thick precipitate will deposit on the lower part and the scum will float over the excess water that was added to aid grinding.

Decant the excess water and save the thicker milk portion.

Keep the nuts, cardamom, pachai karpooram and food color ready.

Place sugar with some water in a heavy bottomed pan on fire. Boil this down to a thick syrup

Note: It should form a very strong thread while pressed and pulled apart between the thumb and forefinger.

Add the milk, nuts, cardamom, karpooram and food color. Stir constantly. The wheat will cook to a transparent mass.

When it is thick add the ghee in small quantities. The ghee will initially float and then mix well with the cooking mass. It should get thicker and harder to stir.

Note: It will resemble a sheet of glass falling in a neat ribbon if dropped from a small height. The gloss will be distinct.

Turn the stove off.

Note: Leave the utensil on the stove for sometime. The heat of the stove and the thickness of the utensil aid further thickening of the halwa.

source for the notes- http://lata-raja.blogspot.com/2009/11/tirunelveli-halwa.html

Comments

Puff pastry- a challenge indeed!

This challenge brought back a flood of memories, memories of McRennet or any bakery that would serve tasty vegetable puffs. I loved those and since my mom knew this she would always come home with a handful of these for an evening snack whenever she could. The bliss of biting into a warm puff pastry filled with spicy vegetable mixture is something inexplicable, you should taste it yourself to know the feeling! So when this month we were asked to tackle puff pastry as a part of the Daring Baker's Challenge, I unwittingly thought- how cool is that, I could make my own puffs! Little did I realize that my first attempt at this challenege would result in a horrific half-baked dough in a pool of molten butter, yikes!!! "How am I ever going to have a go at it again?" I muttered to myself and for the next 30min or so could not shake myself out of this horror story. But thankfully with some talking from the WISE GUY and my own sobriety being brought back by a big bowl of icecre

Paruppu thuvaiyal- MLLA 35 entry

My mom is visiting and one of the things I ask her to make every time she visits is some form of paruppu thuvaiyal (a kind of pesto that you eat with rice, similar to chutney except a lot more thicker) This recipe uses yellow moong dal- skinned and split mung beans that are easy to digest. Ingredients 1 cup yellow moong dal 1 clove garlic 2 dried red chillies * a pinch of asaefotida (hing) 2 tbsp oil salt to taste water, minimal quantity for grinding Method Heat oil in a pan. Add the garlic, red chillies, asaefoetida- saute for about 30 seconds. Then add the yellow moong dal and roast till the dal is golden brown. Cool it down and grind with minimal amount of water. Serve with hot rice, ghee (clarified butter) and some fried papad! Judgement With the garlic and the heat from red chillies, it sort of warmed me up- exactly what I needed after kind of weather we have been put through here in the area. (I guess I cannot complain about it being cold when people dow

Noel Nut balls

Oops, I forgot to post my day 4 recipe for the marathon, I did post day 5 with the chocolate cake! Anyway barring that mistake, this would be the day 6 of the marathon and the 11th in my books (confusing numbers eh?!) Well these are yet another batch of cookies that I made to be sent to friends this year- absolutely delicious people! A success story modified from the Martha Stewart recipe for Noel Nut balls , I am beginning to like her cookie recipes... Ingredients 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup vegetable shortening 2 tbsp honey 1 tsp orange juice 2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour 3/4 cup chopped pecans (best if chopped by hand) 1/2 cup sifted confectioners' sugar, plus more for rolling 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 tsp clove powder Method Cream butter and honey until fluffy. Add orange juice, and beat to combine. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pecans, confectioners' sugar, and salt, nutmeg, clove powder. Add

Soulful Creations

Search This Blog