Maida Murukku by Vimitha Anand (My Culinary Trial Room)

The celebration is still on with another guest post by my dearest friend Vimitha Anand of  My Culinary Trial Room, she don't need any introduction further as I'm sure all of you know who is she, she comes up with very innovative and creative recipes every time you check her blog. For those who have not visited, don't waste any time, go now na....Vimi thank you for your time doing a guest post for me. Now off to her;

When Arthy of Sumanarthy's kitchen asked me to do a guest post for her in the month of November, I was first hesitant to accept it. Seriously, I just can't find the time to even blog these days and a guest post was totally out of question. But when she gave the theme as Diwali recipes, I thought that I could squeeze in a guest post sometime. After all, I had decided to make quite a few Diwali sweets and snacks and I just had to pick one for her.

I am a sucker for traditional South Indian snack items. And by sucker I mean not in eating it but to make it. The first time I tried Omapodi at home, it drank so much oil that I had to bin it. The second time I tried seedai and most of you know what happened. And to those who are new, it burst right out spluttering my entire kitchen with oil and it took me 2 hours to clean up the mess. And thus come everything to an end. The huss, the brother, and the whole family asked me to stop venturing out of my league. And so have I. Until Diwali came and I started browsing for some easy recipes. The huss was so adamant that I make the muruku under his vigilance. Grrrrr... As for the recipe, I saw this one in a TV cookery show. Its an easy and go-to recipe for beginners like me...

~*What U Need*~ Unbleached all purpose flour - 1 cup Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp Sesame seeds - 1/2 tbsp Ghee - 1 tsp Salt - to taste Warm water - to knead dough Oil - to deep fry How I Made it: Place the maida in a clean cloth and steam for 10 mins. Once done, remove and when it is warm, crumble it with your hand. Once it is completely cool, sieve it and collect the flour. If you want you can run it in the food processor or mixie once. In a mixing bowl, add maida, ghee, sesame seeds, cumin seeds, required salt and mix it once. Then add hot water little by little and combine to form a dough. Then divide them equal portions and set aside. Put each ball into the murukku press. Heat oil in a kadai and when hot drop murukkus (you could either pipe it directly into the hot oil or pipe murukku on a greased plastic cover and drop it carefully into the oil. I piped it directly into the oil. Cook on both side till golden brown, remove and drain in kitchen towl. Crush into bite sized pieces and store in an airtight container. Always fry the murukku in medium low flame.

Serve with tea!!!

So that's it Folks... 

 With Love, Signs off!!!

Bajra & Paneer Ladoo (Pearl Millet & Cottage Cheese Ladoo) by Preeti Tamilarasan of

How educating blogging can be, you get to learn and cook dishes from all around the world even when you have not tried or tasted their food before. Another interesting thing that we could learn through blogging is Food Photography, and this person have mastered the art of food photography very well, and I'm sure many of you know this person well, its non other than Preeti Tamilarasan of Indian Kitchen. Now let us see, what she have prepared for us for this Diwali, you might be thinking what Diwali recipe now, buddies its still November for me the celebration is still on. Thank you so much da PT for this wonderful guest post.

Today i'm sharing my 7th guest post for one of my dear blogger friend Karthi from Sumanarthy's Kitchen. We came to know about each other through Facebook and i still can't believe we have known each other for past one year. How soon the time flies by. I always liked her non-veg recipes which resembles my style of cooking. When she asked for a guest post, i was all excited. I took some time and finally came up with the idea of preparing my fav indian sweet "Ladoo" 

Paneer ladoo is made with crumbled paneer and sugar/condensed milk. I replaced sugar with karupatti vellam(palm jaggery), which makes it more healthy. You can also try this with normal jaggery. Lets check the recipe,

Makes 13-14 medium sized Ladoo

Preparation time : 5 mins

Cooking time : 15-20 mins 

Ingredients :

• 1 cup crumbled cottage cheese (Paneer) – homemade or store-bought
• 8-9 tbsp Bajra Flour (Pearl Millet / Kambu Maavu)
• 1 cup grated palm jaggery (karupatti vellam / palm jaggery)
• 1 tsp cardamom powder

Method :

• Dry roast bajra flour on low flame till nice aroma comes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
• Grind crumbled paneer in a mixie until smooth. Transfer it to a bowl. Combine jaggery and ¼ cup water in a pan or kadhai. Once it melts down completely, remove from the heat and strain it to remove impurities. Pour it back to pan and switch the flame to low. 

 

• Add cardamom powder and ground paneer. Keep stirring to avoid lumps. Once paneer is completely dissolved with jaggery syrup, add bajra flour little by little. 

 

• Add 1 tbsp at a time and keep stirring the mixture on low flame. Initially the mixture will be sticky. Once it starts leaving the sides of pan, remove from the heat and allow to cool for a minute. 

• Grease your palm with oil or ghee and start making small lemon sized ladoo. Store in an airtight container.

Notes :

You can replace Bajra with Oats or wheat flour. 

 

Peanut Mawa Ladoo by Viji @ Virunthu Unna Vangga

Diwali have been a festival we always look forward in our family because of my uncle, he used to be the one person who kick-starts the Diwali mood in our family. Weeks before he will start asking when are you making cookies and sweets, and he will be in joyous mood throughout.On Diwali eve, my uncle and me would go to market to buy fruits and meat to give out to our neighbors, and its like a tradition every year since I was a small child. The year he passed away in 2011 was the last my family celebrated Diwali, looking at his picture makes me burst into tears, I'm known as someone very strong in the family and I'm their strength all the while, but that year I was the one who made everyone in the family to cry on an auspicious day. Ok, I'm so carried away with my sad story, let me bring you to the Diwali mood, I have someone special to share a wonderful recipe for 2013 Diwali, that's none other than Vijayalakshmi Dharmaraj from Virunthu Unna Vangga. Now let us welcome her with her superb Peanut Ladoo;

Hi friends, am really very happy to be here to present guest post on Arthy akka’s SUMANARTHY’S KITCHEN. I am really unexpected that I will do the guest in the festival season... I accepted her invite immediately, when she asked me for the guest post. We both were introduced in our FB chat through some of our friends. She is so polite, down-to-earth and affectionate... She always call me Kutty J, I love the way of she calls me... I learnt many healthy tips from akka, but I implemented very few ;) because of my laziness... Here you can see more non-vegetarian recipes with good photographs. I love her photographs with lively ingredients.

Coming to the recipe, during the short time, I couldn’t prepare any traditional recipe so this is my quick and delicious recipe for the guest post... You can make it anytime within 15 minutes, after you tasted the ladoo, you will make it again and again, am sure about it... J Here I used peanut butter and instant mawa to prepare the cute balls...

INGREDIENTS

Peanut butter – ½ Cup

Mawa/Khoya – 5 Tbsp (I used *Instant Mawa)

Powder Sugar – ¼ Cup

Cardamom powder – ½ Tsp

*Instant Mawa

Milk Powder – ½ Cup

Water – 2-3 Tbsp

Ghee – ½ Tsp

Mix everything into pliable dough, cover it with cloth and steam it in idli cooker or pressure pan for 10 minutes on medium flame. Cool it completely, crumble and use it the instant mawa.

METHOD

·       Take a wide mixing bowl, add peanut butter and mawa mix it well till combines well, it looks like        bread crumbs.

·       Now add powder sugar and cardamom powder mix it well.

·       Grease your hand with ghee and take small amount and start rolling to make balls.

·       Garnish with cashew nuts or almonds.

·       Serve it with coffee/tea.

NOTE

·       You can use fresh mawa instead of instant one.

·       Add ghee roasted cashews and raisins in the dough before making ladoos.

        HOPE YOU LOVE THE CUTE LADOOS...

THANK YOU SO MUCH ARTHY AKA FOR THE WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY...

Am really very happy to be here as ARTHY akka’s guest.....

Such a simple yet amazing ladoo isn't it, I'm sure many of you will try making these ladoos at home for Diwali. Do let us know how it turned out for you! Thank you so much Kutty for preparing these delicious ladoos for us. Happy Diwali to you and your family.

Ennailappam/ Nei appam

This is a dish loved by all my family members and also people who visit us during this day. I would like to share our family recipe with you all today. Lets check out the recipe;

Ingredients:

3 cups uncooked rice (soaked 4 to 6 hours)

600g of palm sugar (mix with water and strain)

Half coconut flesh (cut small)

Enough water to mix the batter

Salt to taste

Drain the soaked rice and dry blend and strain to get fine flour, keep the coarse grains for use later. Mix the palm sugar that have been soaked and strained with the rice flour and 2 tbsp of coarse grains. Add salt to the above mixture with some water to get thick batter consistency. Keep this mixture overnight covered.

This is how the coconut flesh supposed to be cut

The next day add coconut flesh to the mixture and fry in deep hot oil to get appam like this.

Muruku

It has been 10 days since I have updated my blog, I have been extremely busy with work,business and Diwali preparations. Today I found a few minutes to write a post early in the morning, nothing much to say so let me bring you direct to the recipe; 

Ingredients:

6 cups of rice flour

3 cups of ulunthu flour (urad dal)

1/4 cup of white sesame seeds

1/4 cup of cumin seeds

1/4 cup of ajwain seeds

4 cups of coconut milk

1 tbsp of salt

2 tbsp of butter

Oil to fry

Dry roast rice flour and ulunthu flour and keep aside. Simmer coconut milk with salt, until warm do not boil it.

Mix butter to rice flour,ulunthu flour, butter and add 1 cup of coconut milk

Add sesame seeds, cumin seeds and ajwain seeds to flour

Now add the rest of the coconut milk and knead dough well and apply some oil to the dough

Press dough into a close coil like design and keep aside

Arrange all the pressed dough on a tray to fry

Heat oil and fry the coils in hot oil and fry until golden

Strain the muruku and keep aside to remove excess oil

Now our muruku is ready to be served

Do try and let me know how it turned out!

Im sending this recipe to Love2Cook's Event Deepavali Delights 2012

Almond London Cookies

No story today, I'm extremely busy meeting customers orders all the stock must go out in next few days, I have tried this recipe from Mat Gebu's Dapur Tanpa Sempadan. This is a very simple recipe but very time consuming because I prepared more than 500 pieces, I don't know how this cookies got its name but I'm sure its not available in London. 

Let's look at the recipe;

Ingredients: (Recipe Yields-300 pcs)

250 g of butter

550 g of all purpose flour

140 g of castor sugar

1 tsp of emplex (for cookies crispiness-I didn't add)

300 pcs of whole almond ( baked for 10 minutes)

2 egg yolk ( I have used whole eggs)

1 tsp of vanilla extract

300 pcs of small paper cups

Topping:

600 g of cooking chocolate

1 tbsp of vegetable shortening

50 g of almond nibs (baked for 5 minutes)

Whisk butter, sugar, vanilla extract, eggs incorporate well

Add flour knead the dough well until soft and pliable

Take 1 whole almond and wrap some dough covering it, per piece should be 5g each 

and arrange on a baking tray, bake at 150 degree for 10- 15 minutes

All perfectly baked, set aside to cool down while we prepare the topping

Double-boil the cooking chocolate and once it completely melted turn off the flame 

and add the shortening for shine, I kept the bowl over the water bath until I completely 

finish decorating the cookie as the chocolate will harden if left too long outside

Arrange cookie on a small paper cup 

Spoon over some melted chocolate over the cookie

Drain the excess chocolate

Cookie well coated in melted chocolate

Add some almond nibs and let the chocolate harden

Cookie coated in melted chocolate and almond nibs

All the cookies should be arrange very near to achieve the oval shape, 

once chocolate harden transfer to a container and seal tight

Do try and let me know how it turned out!

I'm sending this recipe to Love2Cook Malaysia's Event Deepavali Deights 2012