Rajasthani Lahsan-Pyaaz-Kairi ka Achar - राजस्थानी लहसन-प्याज-कैरी का आचार (Garlic - Onion - Raw Mango Pickle)

Hello Friends,


How are you all? Today, I am here with an authentic Rajasthani/Marwari pickle that I learnt from a friend's mom who is visiting her these days. She had made it for her daughter and gave me a little to taste and I fell in love with it and wanted to learn it right away. Took the details, prepped my ingredients and then she helped me make it. Isn't it sweet. 


If you are a fan of pickles and spicy ones and you love garlic or onions, you will love it. Do give it a try.


Rajasthani Lahsan-Pyaaz-Kairi ka Achar - राजस्थानी लहसन-प्याज-कैरी का आचार (Garlic - Onion - Raw Mango Pickle)

Ingredients
Onion - 9 cups (measure after chopping them)
Garlic - 4 cups (peeled, big ones)
Raw Mango - 6 cups, (measure after grating)
Whole Dry Red Chilies - 2 cups
Spices
Saunf (Fennel Seeds) - 2 cups, dry roasted and coarsely ground
Peela Sarso (Yellow Mustard Seeds) - 1/4 cup, coarsely ground
Kalaunji (Black Caraway Seeds - 1/2 cup
Red Chili Powder - add depending on how spicy you would like it to be, remember that onion and garlic have a little spice on their own
Salt - as per your taste
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 cup or add based on how much color you want
Mustard Oil - 4-5 cups, feel free to use olive oil, but traditionally it is made with mustard oil
Preparation

• Wash, wipe and sun dry your glass jar to store the pickle in.
• Peel and chop onions in big pieces, as shown in the picture above, spread it on a tray or cloth and sun dry for 3-4 hours.
• Peel and sun-dry garlic for 3-4 hours.
• Wash, wipe well, peel and grate raw mango. Measure the quantity and then sun dry it for 3-4 hours.
• Prepare saunf and peela sarso as mentioned in ingredients
• Take a big enough bowl to mix all the ingredients and then mix all the spices in oil first.
• Now, add onion, garlic and raw mango to it and mix well.
• Fill it now in the dried glass jar (make sure to use glass or ceramic jar only). Let it sit on the counter.
• Next day, do a quick taste test to see that salt and spiciness is what you want. Make sure the pickle has enough oil (check my jar and see how much oil it needs). Mix the whole thing once thoroughly with a dry spoon.
• Keep stirring it for next 3-4 days before you indulge in it as onion/garlic specially need to soak that spice and oil in before you can eat them or else it will be like eating raw onion/garlic.
• Enjoy it after 3rd or 4th day !!!
• As it has onion/garlic, my friend's mom suggested me to keep it in fridge after a couple of week, if I still have leftovers (which I will as I made a lot...lol). She wasn't sure how long it will stay outside as it has raw onion/garlic. But, I will let you know how it goes. Just to be sure, I will refrigerate it anyways, don't want to loose all that goodness :)

Serving
Serve it with anything, roti, rice or even simple mathris. In my picture, I actually served it with dosa :)


I am sending this to Flavors of Rajasthan event @ Sonu's blog. The series was original started by Nayna.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake from Maria's Menu

Hello Friends,


Here is a wonderful recipe from Maria's Menu. I guess almost everyone from the blog world tried it and now it is my time to post about it. We absolutely loved it and so did my neighbors... lol


One of the best recipes and I am going to keep making it. Thanks Maria :)


So, without further ado, here is the delicious recipe.


Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake

Recipe Source: Maria's Menu
Ingredients

Milk – 1 1/2 cups
Butter – 100 gms (1/3 cup + 2 tbsp approx)
Oil – 1/4 cup (I used olive oil)
Coco Powder – 1/2 cup ( I used Hershey’s)
Self Raising Flour – 1 cup (to get 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder+ 1/4 tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (source)
Egg – 1 beaten, room temp
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
Sugar – 1 cup + 2 tbsp

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree F and grease your cupcake pan (it will make about 12 cupcakes)
2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Heat together butter, milk, oil and coco powder in a pan till butter melts and let it cool down to room temperature.
4. Beat the egg and mix it with wet ingredient and then dry ingredients till everything is well incorporated.
5. Pour it about 3/4 full in cupcake pans (feel free to bake it as a cake) and bake for about 25 min. or till a toothpick inserts comes out clean.
6. Let them cool completely before you take them out as they are very moist and may break apart (it happened with me).

Serving
Feel free to serve them topped with any frosting or ganache you like.

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 51) event of Aipi and Mine.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event - 26th July 2011 (Volume 51)

Hello friends,

This is the 51st volume of Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event. You can find recipes for all other volumes here. where we all with link the blog posts where we posted a recipe that we had Bookmarked from another blog or book or magazine or simply from a TV show written on a blank paper. It would be great to know when you bookmarked it (date), if you would like to share it, not mandatory.

Remember, you will have to post that recipe on Tuesday, 26th July 2011 and no archived or past recipes are allowed to be entered in this event. You can make that recipe any date or time, but it has be posted on Tuesday. Hope that is clear :)

Important Note: The recipe has to be from another source (blog, magazine, friend, noted from somewhere in your diary etc.) and importantly as this is a vegetarian blog, it has to be a vegetarian recipe, no kind of meat allowed. Eggs are allowed, but only in baking.

Please use the logo displayed below in your post and link it with this post or the original announcement post of this event.

Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 26th July 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

Hoping to see lots of recipes as I know all of us have bookmarked recipe, blogger or non-blogger. If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me the recipe with pic and the source of your bookmark.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Tempered and Spiced Barley with Potato and Peas

Hello Friends,


Here is just a creation to mix few things and the idea to eat something other than whole wheat and rice that we normally do on regular basis as part of Indian lunch/dinner. It tasted great and we all loved it. It was healthy and filling too :)


Tempered and Spiced Barley with Potato and Peas

Ingredients
Pearl Barley - 1 cup (washed and soaked overnight or for at least 4-6 hours)
Green Peas - 1 cup
Onion - 1 cup
Tomato - 1 cup
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Red Chili Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Chopped Cilantro - 1/4 cup for garnishing
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Preparation

• Drain soaked barley and cook with plenty of water (fill it till about 2 inches above barley) in a pressure cooker for about 20 minutes till barley is well cooked (not al dente) with a pinch of salt. You can also do an open pot cooking or slow cooking method, whichever you prefer.
• Once cooked, drain the barley and keep aside.
• In a non-stick pan or wok, add oil and once hot, add mustard and cumin seeds.
• Once they are spluttering, add onion and ginger-garlic paste.
• Fry till onion is golden brown.
• Add potato, peas, tomato and all dry spices (along with salt) and cover and cook till potato and peas are done.
• Remove the cover and mix in barley along with chopped cilantro and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
• At this point, on you preference, feel free to add a tbsp of lemon juice or chat masala or anything you want to spike it up :)

Serving
Serve it with some plain yogurt or raita.


Sending this to Anu's Healthy Fiber and Protein Rich Whole Grains event.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Plain Dosa (Rice and Lentils Savory Crepes)

Hello friends,


I am sorry that I am not as regular for last few days. I also want to apologize to the blogger friends whom I follow and try to visit them regularly very religiously. But, I haven't been able to do that due to my busy schedule in last couple of days.


Here is a recipe from my mom. You will be surprised when I tell you that this is the first time I made simple dosa batter from scratch at home, except for Quinoa Dosa, I posted a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who think you cannot make the batter without grinder, let me tell you, you can. I have recently boughy Cuisinart Food Processor and it did the job perfectly for me. My son loves these and now I plan to do it more regularly :)


Plain Dosa (Rice and Lentils Savory Crepes)

Ingredients
Idli rice - 3 cups
Urad dal - 1 cup
Methi/Fenugreek - 1 tbsp
Salt to taste
Preparation

• Rinse and soak rice, dal (add fenugreek to it) for about 4-6 hours (or overnight) separately in plenty of water.
• After soaking well, grind them separately to a smooth batter (by not pouring a lot of water, but a little will be necessary to grind it).
• Mix both the batters now in a bowl where it only fills upto 1/2 or 3/4 along with salt. It is important to leave at least 1/4 of the bowl empty as after fermentation, it will increase in volume and you don't want overflowing batter on your counter.
• Leave the mixed batter for fermentation for upto 8 hours or preferably overnight. I usually soak the rice/dal during afternoon and then grind it before going to sleep, so that next morning it is ready to be used.
• Once the batter is fermented, (you will get the fermentation smell and it would have risen, so you will know) mix it well. Make sure it is of pouring consistency (little thicker than that of pancake)
• Heat the iron griddle at high heat. Once you start seeing smoke, sprinkle little water and oil on the griddle (you will get that hissing sound due to water touching the hot griddle, which would mean that your griddle is ready). Traditionally iron griddle is used, but like me if you do not have iron griddle, feel free to use non-stick and then you don't want it to obviously get smoking hot, so take care of that.
• Pour about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of batter (depending on your griddle size) in the middle of the griddle and spread it using the same cup (if you are using plastic, then take some other spatula) into a circular shape, till it is spread thin. Reduce the heat a little bit (medium-high) and let it cook on each side till golden brown (as you see in the picture).
• Based on how thin you spread, the texture of dosa will vary. 

Serving
Serve it warm out of griddle, with your favorite chutney, sambar or podi or a combination of all 3.

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 50) event of Aipi and Mine.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event - 19th July 2011 (Volume 50)

Hello friends,

This is the 50th volume of Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event. You can find recipes for all other volumes here. where we all with link the blog posts where we posted a recipe that we had Bookmarked from another blog or book or magazine or simply from a TV show written on a blank paper. It would be great to know when you bookmarked it (date), if you would like to share it, not mandatory.

Remember, you will have to post that recipe on Tuesday, 19th July 2011 and no archived or past recipes are allowed to be entered in this event. You can make that recipe any date or time, but it has be posted on Tuesday. Hope that is clear :)

Important Note: The recipe has to be from another source (blog, magazine, friend, noted from somewhere in your diary etc.) and importantly as this is a vegetarian blog, it has to be a vegetarian recipe, no kind of meat allowed. Eggs are allowed, but only in baking.

Please use the logo displayed below in your post and link it with this post or the original announcement post of this event.

Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 19th July 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

Hoping to see lots of recipes as I know all of us have bookmarked recipe, blogger or non-blogger. If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me the recipe with pic and the source of your bookmark.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.