Paneer jalebi

Paneer Jalebi

Diwali is the celebration of victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. Its celebration includes millions of lights shining outside and inside of the house.  Colorful rangolis at the entrance of the house, Preparation of sweets in the kitchen and happy and enjoying kids outside with crackers..  it is celebrated along with laxmi puja.

Got bore of regular jalebis, so try this special jalebi on this Diwali. A very easy and very satisfying sweet dish to eat. Fried paneer coils dunk in sugar syrup and soaked, crispy and juicy at the same time. You will definitely fall in lover with this. It is an east Indian delicacy, mostly Bengali and odia people prepare this for special occasions.

Here is the recipe of the dish

Milk- 1 lit (full cream)

Vinegar- 4 to 5 tbsp

Sugar- 1 1/2 cup

Water- 1 1/2 cup

Cardamom- 3 to 4

Saffron- a pinch

Maida- 3 to 4 tbsp

Suji- 1 tbsp

Orange colour- a drop (optional)

Baking powder-1/4 tsp

Milk- 2 tsp (optional)

Ghee for frying

In a heavy button pan boil milk and add vinegar to it and let it spilt. In this way you will get paneer or chhena. Drain the paneer on a colander or strain and keep aside for an hour.

After an hour bring out paneer on a wide plate and start kneading up to a min. If it is too dry to knead then add 1 tsp of milk to it. The add suji or rava and baking powder to it and knead again.

Then add maida to it and one spoon at a time. Maida will soak the moisture and help in formings. I have added 3 tbsp of maida and made soft dough which can rolled to form jalebis.

In the mean time in another kadai add sugar and water to it and let it melt. Cook the sugar syrup up to one thread consistency. Make cardamom powder and add to it. The add saffron and color to it and let it infuse in the sugar syrup.

Take a lemon size ball from the dough. Put on the kitchen platform and try to make rope out of it. Then make coil like jalebi with the rope to form jalebis. While preparing jalebis if u see crack then repair it with wet hand. Like this make jalebis out of the dough and keep aside.

Heat ghee in a kadai and fry the jalebis on low and medium flame. When done one side and flip to the other side. Similarly fry all the jalebis and drop in the sugar syrup. Temperature of ghee is very important, and it should not be very hot. Drop all the jalebis in the hit sugar syrup.

After putting all the jalebis in the sugar syrup give a boil to the syrup. It will help to soak the jalebis better. Let it stand in the syrup for 2 hours before serving.

This can be served warm, cold or in room temperature. The motive is to eat which ever temperature doesn’t matter. 

Besan and oats ladoo

Besan And Oats Ladoo

Diwali is the festival of light, colour, sweets and crackers. This festival is celebrated in the month of November. It is originally celebrated to welcome prabhu Sri Ram from forest exile (vana basa). Diwali is my favorite festival. I used to celebrate it with my friends as we stay away from my native.

This diwali is also no difference from others, so lots of sweets will be prepared by me. I started my diwali celebration with besan and oats ladoo. This dish is the combination of two healthy ingredients, besan and oats. Besan or gram flour is pulse flour made from ground chickpeas. It can be used raw or roasted. Raw one is bit bitter taste but roasted one is very flavorful.

Oats is another healthy ingredient of the dish. Rolled oats are used to make porridge and in baking and other cereal like muesli and granola. But in india people started adding oats to their traditional dishes.

Here is the recipe

Besan- 2 cups

Oats-1 cup+ 4 to 5 tbsp

Sugar- 4 to 5 tbsp (depends on the sweet taste)

Cardamom- 3 to 4

Magaz (melon seeds) - 4 to 5 tbsp

Ghee- 4 to 5 tbsp

Take a heavy button pan, add besan to eat and dry roast it properly in low flame. After 5 to 6 mins a smoothing smell will come from the besan. Fry for some more mins. Switch off the gas and keep aside.

In the same pan add oats and dry roast for 5 to 6 min on low flame. Don’t change the colour of the oats. Switch off the gas and let it cool down. Once it comes down to normal temperature make a coarse powder.

Deseed the cardamom pods and make powder,

Dry roast the magaz or melon seeds and keep aside.

In a big plate add roasted besan and crushed oats together. Before mixing, reserve 4 to 5 tbsp of crushed oats aside. Then add powdered sugar, cardamom powder and magaz to it. And mix again. Now add ghee to it one spoon at a time and mix. After mixing of one spoon of ghee try to make ladoos. If ladoo formed then don’t add ghee any more. If not then again one more spoon of gh. I used 4 to 5 tbsp of ghee to make. But sometime more or less may be needed. Roll the ladoos on the crushed oats and place on the plates.

Now ladoo is ready to be served to the guest. It can be used as gifting purpose.

Sabudana Dahi Vada

                             Sabudana DAhi Vada                                                             

Sabudana is a processed ready to cook food product from tapioca. It is a considered as a good nutritional food for infant and sick person or during fasting period. There are varieties of dishes prepared from this ingredient like kheer, khichdi, vada etc. it is full carbohydrates and also has the goodness of tapioca. In Andhra Pradesh people make papad out of sabudana.  They called it vadiyaalu. It is very tasty.

It resembles a lot with sago palm. Both the product are small (2mm diameter) in size, dry, opaque balls and white in colour. At the time of soaking and cooking, both become large, soft and spongy . Both the ingredient used for pudding.

During navratri use of sabudana increased as a fasting food. Mostly sabudana khichdi, kheer or vada is prepared from this. I thought of putting this crispy vadas in chilled and sweetened dahi with some spices. That turned out to be very soft and yummy. So here is the recipe of sabudana dahi vada.

Sabudana- 1 cup

Peanut- 1/2 cup

Sugar- 1 tsp

Rock salt to taste

Ginger- 1/2 inch

Coriander leaves- 2 tbsp

Boiled potatoes- 3 medium size

Zeera- 1 tbsp

Green chili- 2

Red chili powder- 1/ 2 tsp

Oil for frying

Dahi- 1 ½ cup

Sugar- 1 tsp

Rock salt to taste 

chili powder- 1/2 tsp

Zeera- 2 tbsp

Red chili- 2

Wash and clean sabudana properly and soak them in water for 4 to 5 hours. If it is hard in the center after soaking for 4 to 5 hours the soak for some more time.

Heat a pan add peanuts to it. Dry roast the peanut properly or up to the skin can be removed easily. Let it cool down and crush it a bit. Mash the potatoes till very soft and keep aside.

In a bowl add soaked sabudana, crushed peanut, sugar, mashed potatoes, salt, chopped green chills, grated ginger, zeera, chili powder, coriander leaves. Mix Them properly.

Heat oil for deep frying. Divid the dough in equal size balls. Now flatten the balls in the middle of the palm and shape it like medu vadas. Slowly and carefully slide the vadas in the hot oil and fry them up to golden brown in both side. Similarly fry all the vadas and keep on the tissue paper.

Heat kadai and dry roast zeera and red chili separately. Let it cool down a bit and then make a coarse powder.

Take dahi or curd in bowl and beat properly without any lumps. Add sugar, salt, red chili powder and the ½ tsp above roasted powder to it and mix.

At the time of serving place two vadas (I placed 2 but the number depends on choice) on a plate then spread the masala dahi on it. Then sprinkle some roasted masala on the top. One can add green chutney and mithi chutney to complete the dish.

Arrange the plates just before serving or the vadas will be soggy.

Makhana ki khir

Makhana Ki Khir

Lotus seeds or makhana or fox nut is a very popular dry fruits in northern part of India.  This dry fruit is low in fat and high in carbohydrates that makes it distinct from Other nuts and seeds.  These are a good source of protein,  carbohydrates,  fiber,  magnesium,  potassium, iron and zinc. 

These nuts are known as fasting food. In navratri festival fasting people make different varieties  of makhana dish..  Roasted makhana,  makhana namkeen and sweet makhana is very famous.  But makhana ki khir is star dish. 

This navratri season I thought of trying my hand preparing makhana ki khir.  Though I never prepared this khir but I followed my instinct while preparing this.  The end result of the dish is so yumm and delicious that with or without fasting this khir became a family favorite.  Here is the recipe of makhana ki khir 

Milk - 2lits

Makhana -  1 1/2 cup 

Ghee - 2tbsp

Salt to taste (for vrat recipe one can avoid) 

Sugar -  6 to 7tbsp(depends on the taste) 

Kaji- 8 to 10

Kaju and kissing -  1/2cup

Cardamom powder -  2tsp

In a heavy button pan add milk and keep on gas to boil and reduce.  

In another kadai heat 1tbsp of ghee and add 1 cup of makhana.  Dry roast the makhana properly up to crispy and keep aside. 

In another pan heat 1/2tbsp of ghee and add 1/2 cup of makhana and 8 to 10 kaju together. These things should be dry roasted for 4 to 5mins. Then let it cool down for some time.  Then grind to a smooth powder. 

In the same pan 1/2tbsp of ghee and dry roast the kaju and kismish and keep aside.  

When milk is reduced to half of its volume add the dry roasted makhana to it.  Let the makhana cook properly and let the milk reduce even more.  After good 6 to 7 mins add sugar and let it mix.  Then add powdered makhana and kaju and mix.  Let it cook.  This will help to thick the milk even more.

Now add cardamom powder and fried kaju and kismish and switch off the gas.  Allow it to come down to room temperature.  Then serve it either in room temperature or chilled as per choice.