Peanut Brittle/ Chikki/ Kadala Muttai

Whenever I go to buy groceries, I would always sneek into the eatery section (ie. if my husband is not watching :-) and would grab these peanut chikkis. If I think about the calories, I would never have these and my husband doesn’t allow me to eat it either, especially after my C-section. But I just couldn’t resist the taste and flavor.

These brittles can be made using jaggery as well as sugar. I like it either way. Whole peanuts and ground peanuts are used to make these brittles. In my childhood, when my Mom used to prepared these, I would grab some 4-5 “slabs” at a time. She used to make it with jaggery.

Once when I was googling around Ria’s blog, I came across this brittle and fell in love with these.So when this time my mom was around, I bought a packet of peanuts and we tried this ground peanut chikki using sugar and trust me, it vanished in 2-3 days !!

Adapted from here

Ingredients:

1. Peanuts- 2 cups
2. Sugar- 1 Cup

Method:

1. Melt the sugar in a non stick pan without adding water till it dissolves completely. When it turns dark brown in colour and then switch off the flame.
2. Meanwhile coarsely ground the peanuts using a rolling pin. Add these ground peanuts and mix quickly in the above caramel mixture. Spread this using the back of a spoon over a greased plate and cut with a sharp knife in desired shape.
3. When it is cool completely, cut into pieces.

Chilli Mushroom Gravy

Chilli mushroom is a classic Chinese dish which will be loved by those who like mushrooms. This is a simple and easy dish which can be prepared very quick. Chilli mushroom tastes awesome along with fried rice, rotis, naan, bread or even with plain rice.

This is a spicy dish as we are adding red chilli paste and also green chillies. We can also make this dish dry, by not adding corn flour dissolved water.

In this recipe, the mushrooms are stir fried till dry and then sauteed along with onions, capsicum and green chillies. Whenever I have mushrooms, I like to try making different varieties of dishes and so this is one of them and I am sure this dish would get your taste buds craving for more…:-)

Ingredients:

1. Mushrooms- 250 gms
2. Capsicum (cubed)- 1 no
3. Onions (Cubed)- 2 nos
4. Ginger and Garlic paste- 1 tbsp
5. Green Chillies (Slit)- 3 nos
6. Soya Sauce- 1 tbsp
7. Red Chilli powder- ½ tbsp
8. Crushed pepper powder- ½ tbsp
9. Corn Flour- 1 tbsp
10. Oil- 1 tbsp
11. Salt- as required

Method:

1. Chop the mushrooms and clean them in turmeric and salt dissolved water. Keep it for some time.
2. Heat oil, add the cubed onions and stir fry on medium flame till they turn transparent.
3. Add the ginger and garlic paste, green chillies, cubed capsicum and stir for few minutes.
4. Add the cleaned mushrooms, stir till the water is absorbed and it should look dry.
5. In this add the soya sauce, red chilli powder and crushed pepper powder.
6. For the gravy, dissolve the corn flour in 2 tbsps of water. Now slowly pour this corn flour mixture in the above dry mushroom. Stir well so that it won’t form any lumps.
7. When the sauce is thick enough, remove from heat and serve hot along with fried rice, bread or even plain rice.

Egg Roll- Street Food in lunch box...

At the place where we are staying, there are so many street food shops nearby. You will find a whole range of varieties from rolls to chats to parathas.. you name it.. Among all these shops, the one which we all love, is those Kolkata roll shops. I love to have hot and spicy egg rolls and so my little one loves it a lot. But these shops for some reason does not compromise on the quantity of the oil they pour in it. Oil drips from those rotis !!! So we thought of making these at home in the way we want it and this also ended up being one option for my sweetie’s lunch box.

I prefer to make this with wheat instead of maida as wheat is more nutritious. For the stuffing, I used onions and green chillies. You can also use cabbage, capsicum, tomatoes and so on. You can make these egg rolls to pack in lunch boxes, to carry for picnics and as a quick dinner too.

This is simple, easy and takes very little time, especially when you have a stock of chapati dough :-)

Ingredients:

1. Wheat Flour- 2 Cups
2. Water- as needed to knead
3. salt- as required
4. Oil- 1 tbsp
5. Tomato Ketchup- 2 tbsp
6. Schezwan sauce (optional)- 1 tbsp
7. Eggs- 2 nos
8. Onions (sliced)- 2nos
9. Green Chillies (chopped)- 3nos
10. Lemon Juice- 1 no
11. Salt- as required

Method:

1. Knead the wheat flour, water, salt and oil in the form of dough for chapatis. Make small balls and roll out these balls with a rolling pin and cook them on a hot tawa and drizzle oil to cook evenly.
2. Meanwhile beat the egg with a pinch of salt and keep this aside.
3. Pour 2 tbsps of egg on one side of the half cooked chapati and spread using a spoon. Apply oil on it, flip the side and cook on low flame. Repeat the process with all the chapatis.
4. Now place one chapati with the egg on top on a plate. Spread the tomato ketchup then spread little schezwan sauce.
5. In a bowl mix the onions, green chillies, lemon juice and salt. Spread this mixture on top of the chapati and roll it. Cut and serve.

Orange Burfi- A Sweet dish for a Sweet Occasion

Hi all.Its been more than a month.. How r u all ? For those who were wondering why I went MIA.. I have been busy welcoming by newborn son who came to this world in the last week of Sep!!! and I was busy revising the old lessons.. after a long gap of 6 years…. :)

Meanwhile I have missed my little space a lot but I was catching up with all the recipes my fellow bloggers were posting. Today I am posting a sweet dish which will be loved by all who has a sweet tooth. I tasted this orange burfi when one of our friends bought this from pune. That time itself I had decided to try this out and so I got the opportunity when there were lots of oranges at home.

Orange pulp

Orange Pulp Cooked in Milk

This burfi, which is made from oranges is very famous in Nagpur, yes..the city of oranges... This is a quick dish which can be prepared within minutes.

Ingredients:

1. Orange- 2 nos
2. Maida / All Purpose Flour- 1 Cup
3. Sugar- ½ Cup
4. Ghee- 4 tbsp
5. Milk- ½ Cup
6. Almonds- ½ Cup

Method:

1. Peel the skin and the transparent skin of orange and keep the orange pulp aside.
2. Fry the maida on low flame in the ghee till the raw smell disappears and till it turns light brown.
3. Heat milk, sugar, orange pulp and stir continuously till the mixture thickens.
4. Add the roasted maida and stir continuously so that there are no lumps and mixed well with milk. Add slight orange edible colour and cook till the mixture separates from the sides of the pan. Remove from stove and pour this in a greased pan, let it cool, decorate with almonds and cut into desired shapes.