All posts by Ashwita

Ashwita is a Reiki master and past life therapist. She loves traveling, photography, writing, painting and cooking! She made her first cookies at 12 and fell in love with baking, a love that is still strong. Desserts are her specialty, although she can cook dishes from around a dozen cuisines.
All Posts, Breakfast

Yogurt Pancakes

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Yogurt Pancakes
Yogurt Pancakes

The first time I learned that yogurt pancakes existed, was in Sweden, when a loving family friend make them for  breakfast to celebrate her son’s graduation. They were just so yummy, I copied down the recipe from her book.

Yogurt pancakes are special. They have a beautiful fluffiness which is impossible to achieve with traditional milk pancakes. You can make them healthier by substituting the refined flour with whole wheat flour and a dash of milk. The result will be a wee bit less soft, but you barely notice.

Makes about 4

Ingredients:

½ cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
150gm Greek Yogurt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda or 1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tbsp Orange or Lemon rind, or 1 tsp vanilla essence (Optional)

Method:

Mix the yogurt, sugar and egg together.

Sift the flour and baking soda together and slowly fold it into the batter, along with the rind or vanilla essence.

Pour spoonfuls of the batter onto a skillet and flip when bubbles appear. Cook until golden brown on both sides

Serve with jam, whipped cream, or fresh fruit compote.

All Posts, Mains, Sides

Rajma Masala

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Rajma Masala with Jeera Rice
Rajma Masala with Jeera Rice

Rajma masala with jeera rice is one of my favorite combinations, and I haven’t met anyone so far who doesn’t like this dish. It is just so wholesome – tasty, nutritious, healthy.

Some recipes don’t call for grinding the masala. Now this, I have found, really pulls down the quality of the dish. I tried very hard to work around it initially, because I was too lazy to do all the grinding, but I have found that the difference is just too much to skip this critical step.

Time taken: 50 min (Overnight soaking required)
Serves 4

Ingredients

1½ cups rajma or kidney beans
4 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped ginger
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 green chilies

½ tsp haldi or turmeric powder
½ tsp lal mirch or red chili powder
2 tsp dhania or coriander powder
½ tsp garam masala powder
2 tsp kasuri methi or crushed dry fenugreek leaves

1 badi elaichi or black cardamom
1 tej patta or bay leaf
2 tsp jeera or cumin seeds
2 tbsp ghee (or mustard oil in the winters)
Salt to taste

Method

Soak the rajma overnight, atleast 8-10 hours. Drain.

Pressure cook the rajma with salt and 4-5 cups of water, for 15-20 minutes. When the pressure has come to normal, open and check if it is cooked through, or simmer for a few more minutes. (If you’re cooking without a pressure cooker, cook the rajma for about 1 to 1.5 hours). Drain the rajma and reserve the water.

While the rajma is cooking, heat 1 tbsp ghee and add the jeera or cumin seeds. Add the onions and cook until soft.

Now add the ginger, garlic, chilies and tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes are soft and mushy. Take off the heat.

Once cool, grind this into a fine paste.

Heat the remaining ghee in the same pan and add the bay leaf and black cardamom. Add the onion-tomato puree and cook on medium heat with constant stirring, until the paste starts to release ghee. The sides of the pan start to glisten when this starts happening.

Add the spice powders – turmeric, chili, coriander and garam masala.

Add the cooked rajma to this paste, and add 2 cups of the reserved water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10-15 min without a lid.

Check the consistency of the curry and add more water if required. Adjust the salt if needed.

Garnish with cream or coriander leaves, depending on whether you want it rich or spicy. Serve hot with parathas, rice or jeera rice.

All Posts, Mains

Mavinakayi Chitranna (Mango Rice)

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mango chitranna

I love Ugadi. We hang fresh mango leaves at the door to purify and disinfect incoming air. We start the day by eating neem (a very, very bitter tree) flowers mixed with jaggery, to signify that we will take the sweet and the bitter that life has to offer, in the same spirit. That, undoubtedly, is my favorite part of the day and I often sneak in and eat everything that is remaining.

The next thing I love most about the day, is the mango rice. Oh, how I look forward to lunch. Ugadi heralds the start of the new lunar year, and also of the summer. It is the perfect time to start eating raw mangoes, something that helps the body cool down and stay healthy.

Time taken: 20 min
Serves 4

Ingredients

2 small raw mangoes
2½ cups rice
2 tbsp freshly grated coconut
1 tbsp udad dal or split skinned black gram
1 tbsp chana dal or Bengal gram
1 tbsp jeera or cumin seeds
1 tbsp rai or mustard
A pinch of hing or asafetida
3 dried red chilies
½ cup peanuts
A sprig of curry leaves
1 tbsp oil
Salt

Method:

Cook the rice and let it cool. A day old rice is also fine to use.

Deseed and grate the mangoes. I like to grate half and chop half of the mangoes, your choice.

Heat oil and add chana dal, udad dal, cumin seeds and red chili.

Fry until light brown.

Grind this along with mustard, coconut and asafetida into a fine paste.

Heat oil in a big pan and add curry leaves and peanuts.

When peanuts are done, add the paste and the mangoes. Cook for a minute and add the rice.

Mix well, take off the heat and serve with coconut chutney.

All Posts, Desserts

Black Forest Cake

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Super easy black forest cake
Super easy black forest cake

This is such a simple, easy dish really, but make it anywhere and everyone thinks you are a brilliant cook. It was something I threw together recently for a potluck during the group Reiki healing session. It was a hit and I had everyone asking me for the recipe.

I actually made this cake because I was feeling lazy. I just bought a cake mix, whipped cream, cherry pie filling and a bar of chocolate. The rest was cake walk.

Did you know that the name of the cake comes from a forest in Germany called ‘Black Forest’? The traditional name for the cake is schwarzwälder kirschtorte, which translates to ‘Black forest cherry liquor cake’. The main ingredient in this cake is the cherry liquor that comes from the black forest region.

So I guess our black forest cakes aren’t very black forest after all, but we make do. Sab chalta hai in India, after all!

Makes a 10″ cake

Ingredients:

1 sponge cake
50gm (1 packet) whipped cream powder
1 can cherry pie filling
100gm bar dark chocolate, grated
50ml cherry liquor, if available
½ cup sugar, maybe more
Water

Method:

Make whipped cream as per instructions. Typically, that would involve blending the powder with 100ml chilled water. Refrigerate atleast for half an hour, overnight if you can.

Check the cherry filling. If it is too sour, you might want to add some powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit.

Dissolve ½ cup sugar in a cup of water. If you don’t have cherry liquor, take ½ cup filling without the cherries, and add it to the syrup. Check the taste and add more sugar if required.

Once the sponge cake is cool, cut it in half horizontally. (If you want more layers in your cake and your sponge is thick enough, you could even cut it into 3 parts. Increase the quantities of whipped cream and chocolate accordingly) Using a thread to cut the cake is very effective and even.

Place the first layer of the cake on the plate you want to serve the cake on.

Drizzle half the sugar syrup and the liquor over the sponge.

Smear a centimeter thick layer of whipped cream, and spread a thin layer of cherry filling.

Place the other sponge on top, and top with whipped cream and cherry filling. Cover the edges of the cake with whipped cream and pat grated chocolate on the sides. Voila, you’re done!

Refrigerate and serve chilled.

All Posts, Salads

Avocado Egg Salad

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I spent a few months with a German friend, who (obviously) made awesome potato salads. And both of us being small eaters who are very fond of salads, that was almost always dinner. So we’d experiment with whatever was in the fridge. This came up one day as a result of those experiments.

Now, avocados are tricky to pick. If you need help with choosing good ones, click here.

Serves 2 – 4
Time: 20 min

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado
2 boiled eggs
1 small potato, boiled and peeled (optional)
½ onion, chopped
1 tbsp chopped dill leaves
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard sauce
Salt and pepper

Method:

Scoop the avocado flesh and shell the eggs.

Mash the avocado, eggs and potato gently. Too much pressure will make it pasty. You want it to retain some shape, so be gentle.

Mix in the onions, dill, mayo and mustard sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

To enhance the taste, refrigerate for about half an hour before serving.

All Posts, Easy Recipes, Mains, Sides

Olan (Pumpkin & Black Eyed Peas Curry)

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Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry
Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry

It is quite easy to get me to like a dish. Just add coconut milk! I couldn’t stop eating this the first time I tasted it. And now it is the same story every time I make it.

This is another of those super healthy AND super tasty dishes. One may wonder where the taste even comes from, because there are barely any spices here. But make it once, and you’re hooked!

Traditionally, ginger is not added, but it is an addition I love.

Time taken: 25 min (Overnight soaking required)
Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup lobhiya / van payaru or black eyed peas
1 cup cubed elavan/ ash gourd/ white pumpkin
2 green chilies
1 cup coconut milk
2 tsp ginger (optional)
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 tbsp coconut oil
Salt to taste

Method

Soak the lobhiya in enough water overnight, at least 8-9 hours.

Pressure cook the lobhiya for 8 min, or open cook until done.

Cook the pumpkin with a little water, salt, green chilies and ginger.

When done, add the lobhiya and coconut milk. Bring to a boil and simmer until it reaches the desired consistency. Check for salt.

Heat the coconut oil, add the curry leaves and pour it over the dish. Serve with rice.

All Posts, Desserts

Eggless Banana Cake

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Eggless Banana Cake
Eggless Banana Cake

I wonder why it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The easiest way to make me happy is to gift me some great food! Isn’t it for most Indians?

Even better if I get the recipe along with the dish 😀

When a friend came over for an advanced Reiki class, he decided to bake a banana cake for me. And the moment I bit into it, I knew that it was made from atta – whole wheat flour, and not refined flour. I wanted the recipe immediately. He had it by-heart!

The most important thing to remember when baking anything with bananas is, the riper the better. It is ok if the banana looks as if it should be thrown away. All those bananas which you think need to go into the bin? Use them here.

This cake is so, so moist, it is amazing. It is also very easy to put together – do not use a blender as it will cause over-mixing and cracking on the surface. Just gently blend with a spatula.

Makes a 10″ cake

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour/ atta
1 cup brown sugar (or ½ white and ½ demerara sugar)
½ cup oil
¼ cup dry fruits and nuts (he used walnuts and cranberries)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
4 cups mashed banana
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt 3-4 times.

Mix oil and sugar together, using a spatula.

Add banana puree and mix for 2-3 minutes.

Now add the dry fruits, nuts, vanilla essence, stir 2 min and let it sit for 2 minutes.

Slowly stir the flour in, in 3-4 parts. If the batter seems dry, add a bit more oil.

Pour into a 10″ cake tin and bake for 30-40 min until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Mains

Dal Baati Gatta Churma

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As children, we’d wait for our mother to make this mouth-watering Rajasthani dish. Traditionally baked over charcoal, we would bake it in an oven, and I still remember the excitement every time she would open the oven door.

My mom stuffed it with different fillings – potato, cheese, and that would only add to the excitement. The fact that this is served with two curries, one of which happens to be a favourite – gatte ki subzi, only made things better. Most of the times the meal would end with churma, which we would somehow manage to stuff into our very full stomachs simply because it was so tasty.

If you ever have an opportunity to eat this dish in a village or a Marwari household, skip breakfast and lunch and go for it. It is sometimes served with the baatis dunked in a bucket of ghee, but it is an experience you won’t regret!

So, here goes mom’s recipe for one of my favourite childhood memories.

Ingredients:

Baati

400 gm whole wheat flour (atta) [can add 2 tbsp sooji. we don’t)
⅓ tsp baking soda
2 tbsp ghee
Salt to taste
Water

Dal

Green gram, split, with skin – 1 cup
Green gram, split, without skin – 2 tsps
Udad dal ( black gram without skin) – 2 tsps
Bengal gram (chana dal) – 3 tsps
Salt to taste
Asafoetida – a pinch
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Water – 2 ½ cups

To season:
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Garlic – 5 flakes cut into small pieces
Ginger – ¾ tsp cut into strips
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp in 1 tbsp water

Gatte ki Subzi:

Besan ( Bengal gram flour) – 1 cup
Baking soda – a pinch
Salt to taste
Oil – 2 tsps
Water
Cut coriander leaves and garlic – 1 tsp each (optional)

For gravy:
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Tomatoes -2 big, grate them
Curds – ½ cup
Turmeric powder – 1/3 tsp
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Coriander piwder – ¾ tsp
Garam masala powder – 1/3 tsp
Coriander leaves to garnish

Churma:

Baked baatis (in flattened shape) -2
Sugar -75 gms
Melted ghee – 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder – 1/2 tsp

Instructions:

  • Sieve the wheat flour with baking soda and add salt and ghee.
  • Pour water little by little and knead into stiff dough.
  • Divide into eight portions.
  • Roll each portion between the palms with some pressure and make into a ball.
  • Make a depression on one side with your finger tip.

Two of the portions can be flattened, to make churma later.

  • Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
  • Put all the prepared balls on an oil smeared aluminum foil, with the depression on the top, and the two flattened ones and bake for 30 minutes.
  • Now turn them over and bake for another 15 minutes.

  • You can make stuffed baatis too. Make the potato filling that you prepare for aloo paratha, and fill the battis. I like cheese stuffed baatis very much!
  • Traditionally, Rajasthanis keep the baatis dipped in ghee for some time, then take out, break them between the palms, put on the serving plate and pour more ghee over it. Since it used to be a regular dish for us and we didn’t want to consume too much ghee, I never did that.

Dal:

  • Clean and wash all the dals, put inside the pressure cooker. Add salt, asafetida, water and all the masala powders.
  • Pressure cook for 8 minutes, cool and open.
  • Heat the ghee in a seasoning vessel. Add the cut garlic and ginger.
  • When they brown, close the flame, add the chilli powder in water, mix and pour over the cooked dal.
  • Serve with lemon; it has to be squeezed into the dal before eating.

Gatta sabzi

  • Put two cups of water, with a drop of ghee in it to boil.
  • Mix the first five (or six) ingredients into a smooth dough, divide into four portions.
  • Roll each portion between the palms into long rope. Meanwhile the water is boiling.
  • Reduce the flame and drop each rope into the boiling water and keep medium flame for about ten minutes. You will see the crust forming on the surface, which means they are cooked. Remove from heat, take out the ropes and keep on a plate. Don’t discard the water, we will use it for the gravy.
  • Cut the ropes into roughly ¾ cm rounds.
  • Mash about 6 pieces until smooth.

  • Heat ghee in a thick bottomed pan, add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the grated tomatoes and let it cook for some time.
  • Add all the masala powders, stir, add the beaten curd. Mix well.
  • Add the gatta pieces, mashed gattas, stir and add the water in which gattas were cooked, add salt.
  • Let it simmer for ten minutes on low flame.
  • Garnish with coriander leaves before serving.

Churma

  • Break the baatis into pieces and let them cool.

  • Add the cooled baati pieces to the powdered sugar in the grinder, along with cardamom powder
  • Take it out on a plate, add the melted ghee and mix well
  • You can add mava (khoya) also and mix, if you want to make it more rich.

Dal baati gatta sabzi, churma

Looks like too many things to make? It just needs a little bit of planning, and you can have the entire meal ready within an hour and a half.

Let’s go through the steps. Knead the flour for baati with all the ingredients, place them in the oven and set a timer for 30 minutes. This is important because we are going to be busy with other things and it is easy to forget to turn the battis upside down for further fifteen minutes of baking.

Put  all the ingredients for the dal in the pressure cooker and pressure cook it for eight minutes

Keep the water for boiling gattas on the stove and mix the besan with other ingredients and by this time, the water is boiling. Reduce the flame and slide the besan ropes into the boiling water.

Meanwhile the dal is cooked for eight minutes in the pressure cooker. Remove from the flame and let it cool. Chop the ginger, garlic and put the red chilli powder in water.

Grate the tomatoes. Beat the curds for gatta sabzi.

The besan ropes have developed the crust by now (takes about eight minutes). Drain them from water and cut them into slices.

The timer will go off now. Open the oven and turn all the baatis upside down and keep the timer for fifteen minutes now.

Go ahead and finish making the gatta sabzi.

Open the pressure cooker and season the dal.

The baatis are ready now, so are the dal and gatta sabzi. Set the table with all the things, and before you sit down to eat, break the two flat baatis into pieces and keep on a plate to cool down. After you finish your dal baati gatta sabzi, go ahead and make the churma and enjoy the sweet dish now!

All Posts, Breakfast

Palak Adai Dosa

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palak adai dosa

My mother was visiting a friend, when she was served this dosa. Her friend had learned it in a cooking class and was experimenting at home. My parents loved it and make it often, and it turns out that the friend never had the time to make the dosa again. Destiny.

The first time I ate this dosa, I went ‘wowwwww, its so crispy!’ Look at the edges of the dosa in the picture and you get an idea. If you grind the batter coarsely like I do, you get this delightful, crunchy texture.

You could make this dosa plain, or with add-ons. Traditionally, spinach is added, but I’m sure you could experiment with other things too. I often throw in a handful of other pulses as well. You can spot horse gram in the picture below.

As this dosa has so much more dal than usual, it is higher in protein. Also, because of the dal, I feel that it doesn’t pair too well with sambars or dals, and is best served with just chutney, or maybe even curds.

Time taken: 30 min (Plus time for soaking and fermenting)
Makes 10-12 dosas

Ingredients:

1 cup rice
½ cup toor dal/ pigeon peas
½ cup mung dal
½ cup urad dal or split skinned black gram
½ cup chana dal or Bengal gram

½ onion, chopped finely
1 cup palak or spinach leaves, chopped
1 tsp chopped green chilies (optional)
½ cup grated coconut

1 tsp saunf or aniseed
1 tsp jeera or cumin
2-3 dried red chilies
1 tbsp chopped garlic
Salt to taste

Method:

Soak the dals and rice together for 4-6 hours. Grind into a coarse batter.

 

Fermentation is an optional step in this recipe, so if you have the time, let it sit for a few hours or use immediately.

Grind together the aniseed, cumin, chilies and garlic. Traditionally, this is ground on stone, and that gives a different flavor, but you can use a mortar and pestle or a mixer.

Mix the onions, chilies, spinach, coconut, and the paste into the batter.

Spread on a hot oiled tava or skillet, and flip over when the bottom surface has browned sufficiently. You can check this by raising a corner.

Serve hot with mint and coriander chutney.

All Posts, Breakfast

Ragi Puttu

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Ragi puttu with kadala curry

Did you know that ragi has about 8 times the calcium that rice and wheat contain? Half a cup of ragi flour will take care of a third of your daily calcium needs and half of your daily vitamin B1 (thiamine) needs. How cool is that!

It is also a wonderful food option for diabetics, as it contains no gluten. It also has 3 times the fibre content that rice and wheat have, making it a wonderful digestion aid.

Making ragi puttu is one of the best ways to cook ragi, as it primarily involves steaming, which preserves much higher nutrition compared to other methods of cooking.

Serves 2
Time: 20 min

Ingredients:

2 cups ragi flour
1 cup freshly grated coconut
½ cup water
Salt

puttu-vesselSpecial Equipment:

The puttu vessel is traditionally used to prepare puttu

Substitutions: A coconut shell with one eye pierced and placed over the valve of a pressure cooker might be used as a substitute.
A steamer could also be used.

Method:

Mix boiling water into ragi flour in small quantities. The water is mixed in by rubbing it into the flour, so that the flour becomes granular, resembling the texture of bread crumbs. It should not be too dry or too wet.

Mix 5 tbsp of grated coconut and salt into the flour..

Place a layer of 2-3 tbsp of coconut at the bottom of the puttu vessel and then put the rice flour mixture, followed by another layer of coconut.

Steam for 10 minutes.

Remove the puttu from the vessel and serve hot with kadala or payar curry, plaintains or just sugar and ghee.