Gobi 65

What is the one food that comes to your mind immediately when you think of restaurant favorites? Think about it - what is it that you order every time you walk into your favorite restaurant? Or you've have had like a million times already but still look forward to it? Or like me, you've had a million times already but can't have it anymore since you moved out of the place? 

That's what happened to me. This dish here Gobi 65 used to be on my 'always order' list - whether I eat it or take out from a restaurant in Salem called Argees. And then, they have a way to pack this when ordering take out. The fried Gobi 65 pieces are first packed in green banana leaves. And covered with newspaper. And then another layer of leaves around it with crisp onions, bell peppers and green chillies and a slice of lemon. Everytime I opened that package, I was assured of a wonderful dinner in front of the tv! And boy, do I used to love those? 

So when the free spirit bloggers put up their theme this time - restaurant favorites - this came to my mind immediately. Actually the theme was main course - but I've just been craving this so much. So Siri - I hope you won't mind that I cooked up an appetizer. Trust me, I've eaten more of this than the main course..so that might make this qualify!

I made a whole big batch of this for a potluck party with our friends. So, the final pictures are not that great - they were taken using my IPhone. So, please excuse that. I just could not wait to dig in, you see!

Wash and cut a cauliflower into long pieces. Leave a little of the stalks so that you have sticks to pick on while eating. 

In a bowl, add 1 cup of maida.

To that, add 1/2 cup of corn flour.

Finally add about 2 heaped tsps of rice flour.

Now comes the fun seasonings. Throw in all of these -

1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1-2 tsps red chilli powder (the more spicier, the tastier!)
Salt - to taste

And for a kicker - 1 big spoon of ginger garlic paste. Or you can also add fresh finely chopped garlic and ginger. These really do add a ton of flavor.

And yes, a few drops of red food color. If you want it the restaurant way, that is.

Add a little water about 1/2 cup, a little at a time and mix well to make a thick smooth paste.

Now, if you want to make this more in an Indo-Chinese way, you can add a little bit of soy sauce and vinegar.

Dip the cauliflower pieces and deep fry in hot oil. Drain on a paper towel and set aside.

It seemed like there were a lot more pieces - don't know where a few went. 

In a pan, saute some long cut onions and bell peppers individually till crisp. Add a pinch of salt to the veggies while frying those up.

Fry a few pieces of green chillies too and add to this.

Just before serving, mix all the crisp sauteed veggies with the Gobi 65 and mix well. Add 1 tsp of chat masala and mix well.  Add in a couple of cut lemon wedges on top. 

And the only thing left now is to dig in and enjoy. This was well loved by all my friends and a few folks were happy that there is an easy veggie alternative to Chicken 65. 

Thank you FSB gals for taking me back home with this dish. 

Check out all the awesome posts of FSB bloggers here - Siri, Lata Raja, Nags, Madhuri Kumar, Deepti Pawar, Mittu, Dhivya Karthik.

Enjoy and Peace Out!

Buckwheat Ice Cream

When life gives you buckwheat, make ice cream out of it. Or something like that.

 

This post is a part of the Free Spirit Blogger series and the theme this month was selected by Lata Raja of Flavors and Tastes. She came up with this ingenious idea of having all us participants pick a number without knowing what ingredient was assigned to it and whatever we pick, we had to make a dessert with that ingredient. And mine turned out to be Buckwheat. Really of all ingredients, that is what I go pick! But, after I tasted what I made below, I’m glad I picked this. Thank you Lata!

The recipe is directly adapted from the Ice cream guru David Lebovitz recipe and this was recently also published in our local LA Times. I did not even have to look further. I made very small modifications to the recipe like using low fat milk instead of whole milk and using regular honey instead of buckwheat honey. If mine can taste good, I can only imagine how creamy the original recipe will taste. Anyways, my hips don’t miss the extra calories and my mouth and soul still remain satisfied. Mission accomplished.

Here’s the original recipe for Buckwheat Ice Cream from David Lebovitz.

So I picked up Buckwheat groats from my local Whole Foods store – you can either buy them pre-packaged or also in bulk and get just as much as you need.

Dry roast the buckwheat in a heavy saucepan in low-medium heat stirring continuously so as not to burn them. Roast until they turn a shade brown and you smell a nice aroma wafting around. Remove from the pan and set aside on a mixing bowl.

Take about 2 tbsp and set aside in a mortar or on a rolling board to crush later and use as a mix in to the ice cream.

In the same saucepan, heat about 2 ¾ cup of milk. The recipe calls for whole milk but I used 2% low fat milk. If you want a creamier ice cream, go with the whole milk.

Heat the milk in low-medium heat and when hot, pour the milk over the roasted buckwheat kernels in the mixing bowl.

 

Mix well and let this sit covered for an hour so all flavors get a chance to mingle and jingle together.

After an hour, strain out all the milk from the using a muslin cloth and squeeze out as much you can from the soaked kernels. Move the milk back to the saucepan.

Add ½ cup of sugar and stir well with the milk. Reheat the milk on low-medium heat until hot.

 

Meanwhile, in another small mixing bowl, take about 4 egg yolks after separating out the whites. Once the milk is hot, gently pour the milk on the egg yolks a little at a time while stirring continuously to form a custard. Add all the milk and whisk together well. Now move this whole mix back to the saucepan and heat again on simmer till the custard thickens a bit.

 

 

 

Before you heat the egg-milk mixture, make sure you keep this ready for the next step. In a mixing bowl, add 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 tbsp of honey. The recipe calls for buckwheat honey – but I just added regular honey for a more earthier flavor. Mix well and set this on a ice bath. I just used a bigger mixing bowl and filled the bottom with ice cubes and set this mixing bowl inside it. This will keep the cream chilled too and will also help temper the custard when added to the cream and honey.

 

Once the custard has thickened, switch off the flame and immediately move the custard from the saucepan to a strainer placed on top of the cream-honey mixture. Strain the custard into the cream and then fold everything together well using a spatula.

Add the crushed toasted kernels in here and mix well. And you’re done! Well, at least the cooking part if done. Now comes the hard part –waiting for this to freeze. This is where I wish we had a magic tv kitchen…where they cook up things one min and then the next min take out the same dish prebaked or pre frozen and go voila..oh well. I’ll just have to wait.

I refrigerated the ice cream for almost a day and then put it back in my ice cream maker -yes, I finally have one and have to thanks a dear friend for buying it as a gift for me - thank you my dear - you know who you are! Add the batter and mix it up for about 20 mins. This provides the perfect ice cream texture and creaminess required. Now I too can say Voila!

This ice cream was soft though similar to a soft serve. If you want a more firm ice cream, freeze this overnight. Here's my frozen block of icecream. I tried to take pictures with the soft serve but it really wasn't pretty for the blog! So, went ahead and froze it up again and cut into little blocks. Now this is pretty. These would be perfect for a party - just poke a toothpick in each piece and everyone has their own buckwheat kulfi pieces!  

The verdict was that the hubby ate 2 cups of this and told me it tasted real good - but then after I told him it had buckwheat in it, he was like.. yuck. He could not believe that he just ate buckwheat. So, if you have someone in your house who make weird faces at weird ingredients, just don't tell them its in there. They won't know - trust me! But I do have to say that this is a low sugar sweetness ice cream. I would have liked it more sweeter but that's just me!

Serve up with some fresh fruit on the side or add a dollop of chocolate syrup on top. Chocolate makes everything only better, right?!

Check out all the other FSB blogger posts here - these are some awesome ingredients cooked up in ways you would not ever imagine. No kidding. check it out now!

Lata Raja - Apple and Strawberry Crumble with Barley Flour

Nags - White Chocolate Pomegranate Cupcakes

Madhuri - Sweet Corn Panna Cotta

Mittu - Quinoa Raisin Muffins with Lime-curd Frosting

Siri - Cornmeal Orange Cookies

DK - Eggless Chocolate Tapioca Pudding

Now for some exciting personal news on my side. Some of you have noticed and asked me about why my posts are so few and far apart these last couple of months. Well, the ones who asked me know it now but for all you others - here's why. With a lot of blessings and a lot of joy, I'm expecting another baby soon!!!Well actually in November. Just shuffling between work, home, my daughter, summer time, my parents in law visitng us here and of course my pregnancy, I haven't had a lot of time cooking up fun stuff and photographing for the blog. I resolve to get better this month and hopefully will stay on track with publishing many posts. There's always hope, right? And if not, I know you'll still save some love for me, won't you? 

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Eggless Chocolate Cake - Made with Ricotta Cheese

When a few girls get together, anything can happen. Some girls get together, go for a movie and dinner and paint the town red. Some girls get together and start a band and rename themselves with different spice names. Some girls get together and go save the world helping out calamity stuck nations. Some girls get together and solve mysteries and their stories appear in yellow hard covered book with a certain Drew as their lead girl. Some girls get together and just start their own reality show or fashion show or whatever.

But, what happens when a few girls who never met each other, ever, and who live in all different parts of the world meet together? They start talking about the one favorite passion they all share in common. They start sharing everything they have on that passion. And then one of them decides to get these girls in a group and start doing stuff together and share. I’m talking very much about food blogging here since that’s the passion all these girls share, well..so passionately.

One fine day in spring, Madhuri from Cook Curry Nook emailed us about this wonderful new group called Free-Spirit Bloggers. And here is what she came up with -for starts, Free-spirit Bloggers is a closed-group of 8 bloggers. Every month, the FSB group will pick a theme and share eight appropriate tongue-ticking recipes with you by the month-end. Be it dishes/bakes, we’re all going to be sharing different recipes each but we will still be sticking to the central premise of the theme that month. Let me give you examples of the kind of exciting themes you can look forward to in the coming months – We each pick a personal favourite Chef and cook a signature dish of his/her’s. We each share a family heirloom recipe. We each choose a personal vice and create a dish/bake based on it (How about a slow-cooker dish from the lazy-bum? Or an eye-popping chocolate treat from the sinner?!!). You get the drift? It IS different. The themes chosen will just act as a guide and not suffocate those creative juices. It also gives each blogger the flexibility to cook/bake according to their personal choice, style and palette so every month, we churn out a potpourri of veritable recipes for you guys to devour from. Sounds like fun? Each of us is working towards putting our best food forward for you guys every month, and I sure as shooting hope that you will all enjoy these bursts of ‘free-spirit’, blog-readers and bloggers alike. All of us on FSB are thrilled to bits, and we hope that you will encourage and motivate us like you always have. Who knows, if we get a good response from y’all out there, we could even maybe start taking ideas from you guys for our themes…somewhat like recipe requests, with a twist.

And do check out Madhuri's own detailed post on this event including all the members and their impressive profiles. 

We had a list of more than a dozen different egg substitutes to pick from and bake our very own chocolate cake. Just the word chocolate had me going here. The rest just falls in place. And so, I picked Ricotta cheese. I also picked Pureed pears but haven’t gotten to making it yet. Once I do, you’ll know about that too.

This recipe uses a basic Chocolate Pound cake recipe provided by Mads. I made small tweaks to the recipe to reduce the sugar and butter quantity since Ricotta cheese itself has a little richness and I can always use a little less sugar.

Here’s the ingredient list –
All Purpose or Cake Flour – 2 cups
Sugar – 11/2 cups
Butter – 1 stick
Cocoa Powder – a little less than ½ cup. You can use ½ cup if you want it really chocolatey.
Eggs 4 – Substituted with Low fat Ricotta cheese – 1 cup
Baking Soda – 1 tsp
Baking Powder – ½ tsp
Salt – ¼ tsp
Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp
Milk – as required, to adjust batter to dropping consistency – max ½ cup


Take 2 cups of the all purpose or cake flour in a mixing bowl.

Add the cocoa powder. I used a little less than ½ cup – somewhere in the middle between ¼ and ½. Now, I hope that’s really clear..

Add 1 tsp of baking soda

And ½ tsp of baking powder

And about ¼ tsp of salt

Sieve all of these fry ingredients together for about 2-3 times so that you get an even smooth dry flour mix.

Measure out 1 ½ cups of granulated sugar.

Bring to room temperature or melt slightly about 1 stick of butter. Move the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and beat together at a low-medium speed until combined together well.

Next, add the 1 cup of ricotta cheese on to the butter-sugar mixture and mix well in medium speed until all combined well. When done, add 1 tsp of vanilla essence and mix for a min.

On low speed, gently mix the dry ingredients a little at a time along with the wet ingredients and mix well to combine.

Finally, add a little bit of milk to the batter just enough to get a dropping consistency.

And there, lo and behold, is the batter. You can see that this is still thick but perfect to be dropped in a cake pan.

Butter and flour the cake pan. I actually just spray them with the baking spray and they turn out perfect each time. So if you don’t have one, get one of those sprays immediately – they cost like 2 dollars but is the best baking  assistant you can buy off shelves!

Pour batter and spread out even on top. Bake in a pre heated oven at 350F for about 35 mins or so – until the toothpick test passes!

I think because my pan was a really wide pan, the top when done was a little cracked. But did I become really sad and cry my heart out. No. Never. Because I had a wicked plan. A wicked sinful plan to cover the whole cake with an awesome Coconut-Pecan frosting.

Like I said, this was wicked. I used a store bought frosting to cover the cake. Because a simple chocolate cake with a  coconut pecan frosting is what the Germans like to eat. And so magically, my simple chocolate cake suddenly transformed into a German Chocolate Cake.

Sorry, I can’t resist showing you how wicked and sinful this frosting really is. And yes, I’m not sad anymore about the cracks on top. Who would even know?

So, now all that’s gotto be done is to slice up a piece of heaven, and add another few drops of heavenly chocolate sauce on top and serve with a couple of soft sweet strawberries. If this is not what heaven looks like, I don’t even want to go there ever. But I’m sure this is a pretty good idea of heaven. And when you eat this, you can actually go there and come back to earth. Cool, isn’t it!

I've got to tell you, this was a pretty dense but soft and really chocolatey cake. It was a perfect taste every time you bit into this. And I know how many times that was but not telling you all about it. The cake was not over the top sweet and felt like it just had the enough sweetness to complement the chocolate flavor. The frosting added all the extra sweetness for those with a really sweet tooth. I actually for once liked the cake better just by itself without the frosting. Yeah, maybe I’m getting old. Who cares though!

I actually packed this and took it for our camping trip to share with our friends. This just made the trip even more sweeter!

So make yourself some chocolate cake soon and enjoy the sweet things in life. Life is meant just for that.

This piece is for my other FSB Bloggers - Madhuri, Lata Raja, Nags, Deepti Pawar, Divya Karthik, Mrudu Mohan and Siri - its been fun baking with you and I'm looking forward to all our other adventures in the kitchen this year!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Click here for Printable Recipe