Guest Post for Nupur: Kesar Badam Pista Kheer

Addiction is in nerves, not only for sweets as Diwali is approaching, but for blogging as it gives a food blogger that vigor and charm to bewitch the foodie world. This time I'm writing with immense love for a vivacious girl who blogs in a happening way at UK, Rasoi and Me. She is one of my favorite bloggers who lures with her beautiful writing skills and then those breath-taking pictures. I'm delighted to bring in this Kesar Badam Pista Kheer recipe for her 'Be My Guest' series. 
Get to her fantastic blog for utterly-butterly recipes to tempt your mind and entice your taste buds. 

For the recipe of this delicious-looking kheer, please make your cursor run on this link.

Chatpati Palak Patta Chaat (Spinach Fritters)

How many of you count on calories before picking up the kitchen ladles and jars for trying out a new recipe? Well, for sure I'm not the one. I hardly think about the calories, the fat content, the sugars and carbs when I'm in a mood to try out a recipe. Though I'm a doctor and this is quite contradictory to how my behavior should be, but who says doctors don't have diabetes or hypertension. Jokes apart, I believe in eating good, and good here means something that is soul-satisfying.
Now this recipe here on this page is pretty close to my heart and tongue both, because it has been reigning these two for years. How can I forget the first time I saw this and had love at first sight. (My hubby was surely jealous about this! :P) That was the first time ever I had heard of something like that, I mean a 'Chaat' with 'Palak'!! Since then, I've been wanting hard to make this but don't know what was keeping me aback. Finally when I made this a couple of days back (You know how lazy am I not to post things on time!), I was almost on cloud nine, before even tasting it and getting remarks from my better loving half. As usual he said 'acchha hai', with his mind completely engrossed in some stupid cricket match, and hardly giving his taste buds the chance to relish something as great as this. Anyway, men are finally men, so I moved forward with my own bowl and skipped my dinner that evening because of this chatpati chaat (I'm sure many of you can do that! ;))



CHATPATI PALAK PATTA CHAAT

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Makes 10 Servings

Info Meter:

• Spinach is an excellent source of many vitamins and minerals, especially folic acid.
• Spinach is not only great for women, children and growing teens, but it can slow the age related decline in brain function and has anti-inflammatory properties.
• During the First World War, wine was fortified with spinach juice and given to French soldiers weakened by hemorrhaging.
• It is always advisable to cook the spinach than consuming raw spinach.

Ingredients:
For Palak Pakoda/Fritters:
1. Palak Patta/ Spinach Leaves: 10
2. Besan/Gram/Chickpea Flour: 1 cup
3. Water: 1 cup + 2 tbs
4. Salt: 1 tbs or as per taste
5. Turmeric Powder: 1/2 tsp
6. Jeera/Cumin Powder: 1/2 tsp
7. Red Chilli Powder: 1 tsp
8. Coriander Powder: 2 tsp
9. Garam Masala: 1/4 tsp (optional)
10. Asafoetida/ heeng: a pinch
11. Oil: for deep frying

For Chaat:
1. Spicy Green Chutney
2. Sweet Tamarind/Imli Chutney
3. Bhel Ki Sev
4. Anaar/ Pomegranate Seeds



Method:
For Palak Pakoda/ Fritters:

1. Clean the palak/spinach leaves with water and pat them dry. Be careful not to break them.
2. If the leaves are too big, cut them into two halves each.
3. Now prepare the batter by adding the besan/gram flour with all the spices and water.
4. Add water slowly and keep mixing continuously so as to avoid formation of lumps.
5. When the batter reaches ketchup-like consistency, stop any further addition of water.
6. Heat some oil in a pan.
7. Check if it is properly heated by dropping a small portion of the batter and notice if it immediately rises up and starts floating. If so, the oil is ready.
8. Now carefully take one leaf/patta at a time in your palm. Coat it with the batter on both the sides and slide it smoothly in the hot oil.
9. Flip over after a minute and see that both are sides are well fried and are golden brown.
10. Take it out and drain any excess oil on a kitchen tissue. 
11. Fry the leaves one by one after coating them with the batter.
12. Do not keep them aside for cooling as this chaat is enjoyed hot and crisp.

Assembling The Chaat:

1. Now take one crisp spinach leaf/ palak patta and smear it lightly with spicy green chutney and tamarind/imli chutney.
2. Shower some pomegranate/ anaar pearls over it and finally ornament with bhel ki sev.
3. Serve immediately else the leaves will so soggy and soft.

Suggestions:

1. You can also add 2 tbs of rice flour to the batter to make the fritters even crispier.
2. Adjust spices as per your taste.
3. This dish is not meant for storing and keeping, rather make it and finish it at one go.
4. It always tastes heaven when served immediately so that the leaves stay crisp.
5. You can also add chopped onions and tomato to the chaat while assembling.
6. If the batter is too thick, the leaves will have a softer and thicker coat, but if it too runny, the batter will all scatter in the pan, so make sure the consistency is right.

'Dive in Five' Homemade Pizza

Yippieeeee Yuppieeee Happieeeeee..... all emotions shrilling with exaltation as I bake my First Pizza with the base as well. In India, I guess 60% people who are 'Pizza-buffs' try baking them at home using the bakery-baked Pizza bases. And how can I forget the way we used to freak upon trying all variations and hit-or-miss toppings on that pancake sized chhotu sa Pizza base. Believe it or not, but the best Pizza to me would always be the Sukhadia Circle wala 'Desi Pizza' with no mozarella cheese, rather processed cheese grated on the top with desi tomato gravy to line. Those days were different; the gust of wind waving the hair and dabbing the cheeks as we rode on Kinetic Honda, staring at all dolled up people taking over our bike, and that free-bird feel that filled the blood with Endorphin, the happy hormone. I still remember the posture in which I would spread my arms like feathers, sitting at the back, next to my darling sis, and feeling those fresh vibes and energy passing through during the ride (though this was occasional; especially done when there was no one on the road to watch such freaks!! :P)
Huuuh, so now it's time to come back to the real world, out of my fantasies and dreams, but yeah, I definitely will do that again with my daughter at least once after she starts riding. :)
Now this Pizza thing actually took my brain to all directions, from creativity to copying, and from experiments to experience. I almost used everything when I made this first Pizza of mine. I copied the basic ingredients and procedures from various sites, jeweled it with some creativity, experimented with multi-grain flour in the next go, and used the earlier experiences on baking to see that the experiment doesn't fail, and when you are this organized and focused, nothing in this world can stop you from reaching the goal. The outcome was flabbergasting! :)
As always, my brain cells were struggling hard to find a good name for the recipe, and finally I settled on this 'Dive in Five' Homemade Pizza because the topping had five major ingredients to fill it with taste and glamor. 

'DIVE IN FIVE' HOME-MADE PIZZA:

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Dough Rising Time: 1 hour
Baking Time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 2 Pan Pizzas

Ingredients:
 For the Base:
1. Maida/APF: 3 cups
2. Dry/Instant Yeast: 1 and 1/2 tsp
3. Warm Water: 1 cup
4. Sugar: 1 tbs
5. Salt: 1 tsp
6. Olive Oil: 2 tbs + for greasing, smearing and dabbing
7. Cling Film for wrapping

For The Tomato Gravy:
1. Ripe tomatoes: 2 (blanched and pureed)
2. Onion: 1 (finely chopped)
3. Garlic Pods: 5 (medium sized, finely chopped)
4. Olive Oil: 2 tbs
5. Salt: 1 tsp or as per taste
6. Black Ground Pepper: 1 tsp
7. Tomato Ketchup: 2 tbs
8. Oregano: 1 tsp

For the Topping: 
1. Mozzarella/ Pizza Cheese: 200 gms
2.  Tomato: 1
3. Onion: 1
4. Olives: 8
5. Capsicum: 1/2
6. Paneer: 50 gms
7. Oregano
8. Chilli Flakes (optional)



Method:
For the base:

1. Take 1/4 cup warm water (the bowl/cup should be warm as well) and add sugar to it.
2. Now sprinkle the dry yeast over it and let it foam, say for about 10 minutes.
3. On the other hand, sieve the flour, add salt and oil to it and mix.
4. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add warm dissolved yeast to it.
5. Start kneading and prepare a soft dough with it using the remaining warm water. 
6. The consistency should match that of the dough used for poori/chapathi.
7. Remember, the dough will loosen and soften after fermentation, so don't keep it very soft. 
8. Dab your hands with some oil and keep kneading till it goes smooth. Smear the dough with a little oil.
9. Now place this dough in a greased bowl and cover with a cling film.
10. Keep this bowl in a warm place (either in sunlight, or in an oven with lights on, or in a bigger bowl of warm water)
11. The dough will rise to double in an hour. If not, check with the temperature again and keep for some more time.
12. Now take the dough and punch it down.
13. Divide the dough in two equal parts and keep the other part covered while working with one.
14. Take one part of the dough, make a ball and roll it with a rolling pin. Keep the size of the circle slightly bigger than the size of the base of the pizza pan.
15. If you want, you can stretch the dough using your palms and fingers, too, and thus avoid rolling with a pin.
16. Now place this rolled dough in the base of the pan and stretch with your hands on all sides to fit in it.
17. The dough should be stretched up high till the upper rim of the pan.
18. Dab the base with your fingers so that it doesn't puff on baking.

For the Gravy:

1. Blanch the tomatoes, peel off and puree them.
2. Take oil in a pan and heat it.
3. Add chopped onions and garlic to it and saute till they turn translucent.
4. Now add the tomato puree followed by the salt, pepper.
5. Cook for 5 minutes and then add tomato ketchup and oregano.
6. The gravy is ready to use. Make this during the dough-rising time.

For the Topping:

1. Cut onion, tomato and capsicum in medium sized pieces.
2. Cube the paneer and take a boil for them to soften.
3. Slice the olives into rings.
4. Divide the cheese cube into two for the two pizzas.

Assembling the Pizza:

1. Pre-heat the oven at 230 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.
2. Now take the pan with the dough sitting in it.
3. Coat the base with half of the tomato gravy.
4. Now grate half a cube of the mozzarella cheese over the gravy and spread vegetables and olives over it.
5. Now grate the remaining cheese over the veggies and sprinkle some oregano and chilli flakes.
6. Transfer this pan to the pre-heated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes till the top browns.
7. Take it out and carefully lift the pizza out of the pan.
8. Cut it into pieces and serve oven-hot with some ketchup and chilli flakes.

Suggestions:

1. The rising of the dough is the most critical here. I hear many friends complaining that their dough didn't rise well and hence the whole experiment crashed.  My suggestion to them is to check with the yeast they are using first because it could be old or not good enough. Secondly, the temperature for rising matters a lot. If you keep the dough in normal temperature, it might not rise especially in winters or rain, so try keeping it either in an already warmed/heated oven for rising or in a warm bowl of water.
2. You can always play with the base of the pizza. The base could be made 'thin crust' if you keep the dough thin, and this can be made 'deep dish' if you pull the dough high till the upper rim of the pan. 
3. Also, you can make instant thin crust multi-grain pizza without fermentation, just by using more oil like how we keep for Samosa Dough. I tried this and it came out really well, and will post this sometime later for sure.
4. The gravy get vary as per your taste. I even tried with coriander chutney to smear on the base and it was yummilicious.
5. The toppings can go as creative as your mind goes. You could pop in some mushrooms, jalapeno, corn, red bell pepper or other veggies that you love to eat.
6. Do not overheat. As soon as the top browns a bit, take the pan out of the oven.
7. My pizza was baked in about 15 minutes. The oven timings may vary according to the type of oven you are using. 

The recipe flies off to:
My event: Cooking Made Easy With Cheese/Paneer

Bake Fest started by Vardhini guest hosted by Archana  

Choco Banana Walnut Loaf

I have been wanting to post this recipe for about a week, immediately after I baked it, but sometimes time and sometimes your inner soul just don't tune well and thus was this delay. I baked this 'first ever loaf' of mine on the last Tuesday when I was expecting some guests for lunch. Along with these cake delights was my first time attempted home-made pizza and then some braided breads on choice. Everything turned out olympian and I was in such an ecstatic mood. I thought to post it the very next day but had some corporate sessions to take over and thus had to sit back for a while. Now before my daughter wakes up from her fairy-tale sleep, I need to complete this and vroooom....publish it! :)

CHOCO BANANA WALNUT LOAF:

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Baking Time: 25-35 minutes 

Makes one big loaf that can be gulped down the throat in less than a day! ;)

Info Meter:

• Walnuts are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids (about 72%) like oleic acid and an excellent source of all important omega-3 essential fatty acids like linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and arachidonic acids. Regular intake of walnuts in the diet helps to lower total as well as LDL or “bad cholesterol” and increases HDL or “good cholesterol” levels in the blood.
• Eating just as much as 25 g each day provides about 90% of RDI (recommended daily intake) of omega-3 fatty acids. Research studies have suggested that n-3 fatty acids by their virtue of anti-inflammatory action help to lower the risk of blood pressure, coronary artery disease, strokes and breast, colon and prostate cancers.
• Store walnuts in your refrigerator for up to 6 months or in your freezer for up to one year, and away from foods with strong odors (e.g. fish, cabbage, onions). Nuts can absorb the flavors of other foods.  Heat causes the fat in walnuts to change structure, which creates off odors and flavors. Fresh walnuts smell mildly nutty and taste sweet.
• Walnuts are the oldest tree food known to man, dating back to 7000 B.C. The Romans called walnuts Juglans regia, “Jupiter’s royal acorn.

Ingredients:

1. APF/ Maida: 2 and 1/2 cups

2. Sugar: 2 and 1/4 cups

3. Banana: 1 (robust)

4. Cocoa Powder: 1/2 cup

5. Butter: 3/4 cup

6. Eggs: 3

7. Warm Milk: 1/4 cup

8. Baking Powder: 1 and 1/2 tsp

9. Baking Soda: 1/2 tsp

10. Vanilla Essence: a few drops

11. Chopped Walnuts: A handful

12. Salt: a pinch

13. Butter/oil for greasing or cooking spray

Method:

1. Take the Maida/APF, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix them well.  Divide this mixture into two equal parts.
2. Take the first part and sift it with cocoa powder. Keep the second part as it is and sift it separately.
3. Grease and dust the loaf tin and keep it aside.
4. Pre-heat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes.
5. Take the butter and beat sugar with it till it goes light and fluffy. Do not melt the butter, rather keep it at room temperature.
6. Beat the eggs separately and blend them well with the sugar butter mix.
7. Peel off the banana and pulp/blend it to a fine puree. 
8. Now divide the sugar-butter-egg mix into two equal parts.
9. Take the first part and  fold in the cocoa-flour, applying the cut and fold method. 
10. Make sure you get a ribbon consistency while folding it. If you find the batter thick, adjust it with addition of milk.
11. Now take the second part of the sugar-egg-butter mix and add banana pulp, vanilla essence to it followed by the folding in of second part of the flour/maida without cocoa powder in it.
12. Chop the walnuts, coat them in maida and mix them gently with both the batters separately.
13. Now transfer the banana mix/batter into the greased loaf tin followed by pouring in the cocoa mix/batter over it gently.  
14. Now run a fork gently into the batter in a wave fashion, slightly blending the two different batters. This will help give a marble look/ wave pattern to the loaf.
15. Now bake this on 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
16. Check the loaf after 30 minutes by seeing if the cake edges have left the corners; if so, then insert a tooth-pick at the center and see if it comes out clean. When this happens, your loaf is ready.
17. Take the tin out and let it cool for 10-15 minutes. Once it has cooled down, invert the loaf on a plate, making sure it doesn't break.
18. Slice it smooth and enjoy just like that.

Suggestions:

1. Always cut and fold the mixture in a single direction. Cutting and Folding is nothing but mixing the cake in a circular fashion (like how you make a circle) and then cutting this circle into half and again circling. 
2. Do not invert the loaf before it cools down else it would break. Mine was too soft and spongy and I actually couldn't wait to slice it.
3. Do not over-bake else the chocolate will burn, and the cake will become hard, too.
4. It can be stored for 2 days in a cling wrap that doesn't allow it to turn hard even in the refrigerator. Do not keep it outside for long.
5. Walnuts can be replaced with the nuts of your choice. 
6. You can adjust sugar as per your taste. You can add some extra sugar to the cocoa mix as well.
7. If you wish, you could mix the cocoa and banana together and have a uniform loaf. 

This loaf takes off to:

My event: Cooking Made Easy With Chocolates/Cocoa

Bake Fest started by Vardhini guest hosted by Archana  

Show Me Your Dessert  by Pari Cash

 Dish it out hosted by Foodomania