Semolina Bread

Semolina Bread

Today on the last day of the BM #52 I am paired with Mir and I wanted bake a bread. I had my eye on the bread that Mir had set out for us in Taming the Yeast; it was a whole wheat bread. You know me I cannot leave them alone so I tried it. The bread had a mind of its own; it did rise to the occasion.

My discussion with Mir gave me an understanding of the reason.  The whole wheat flour in India has greater protein content  lesser protein content so it does not rise as much as the bread made with the whole wheat flour made in US. The solution is to add vital wheat gluten. 

Since I do not have access to gluten I decided to make this Semolina Bread.

The bread flour was what Kalyani gifted to me.

Family of course loved the bread.

Semolina Bread, 

Semolina Bread

Recipe Source: The Schizo Chef

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

Semolina Bread, 

• 2 cups warm water
• 1 tblspn instant yeast
• 1 tblspn sugar
• 1 tblspn salt
• 3 ½ – 4 cups bread flour 
• 1 cup semolina
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tblspn milk
• 2 tblspn til/ sesame seeds

Method:

• Dissolve the sugar in the water.
• In a large bowl, combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, salt, yeast and water, with an electric mixer, mix for a few minutes.
• Add semolina, 1 cup of flour and olive oil.
• Mix well and using the dough hook attachment, start to knead the dough.
• Add flour, ½ cup at a time until the dough wraps itself around the dough hook.
• Knead for 5 minutes. Dough will be elastic and slightly sticky.
• Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl.
• Cover with greased plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.
• Leave to rise for 1 hour, until doubled in size.
• On a floured board, knead dough for a few minutes, sprinkling a little flour on top as needed.
• You can shape into a rustic round loaf. But I preferred to make it in a loaf. I rolled it in a thick rectangle and rolled it up from the narrow end in the thick roll.
• Sprinkle a greased loaf pan with rava/semolina or corn flour.
• Cover with kitchen towel and leave to rise another 45 minutes, until doubled in size.
• Preheat the oven to 190°C/375 F.
• Brush the top with milk and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
• Bake for 45 – 50 minutes, until loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
• Cool and slice.
• I served it with a delicious  mushroom dip. 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 53

Hi! First time here? Well then you are Most Welcome! I hope you keep coming back for more here. If you are my regular visitor then Thanks, for you encourage me to experiment more!! I would like you to please click on my link below and like my Facebook Page. I will be happy if you can follow me on on Twitter too!

 

Alsande cho Tonak at BM#50 Meet

Alsande cho Tonak

"Make Alsande Tonak "

And I panicked and made a SOS visit to Sheetal!

What am I talking about? 

My readers, I am a part of Bloggers Marathon, a group of us who blog every month on various themes.

Naturally we are all very close, it’s more like a family group and we meet. We met in Chennai this year and it was fun.

On the last day we were go to Foodology, an amazing place for foodies.

Valli and Padma asked me to make Alsande cho Tonak and I decided to ask Sheetal, my guide for all these traditional recipes!

I must thank Valli and Padma for the honour not mention Kamalika for organising the place!

This is a mild tonak you may use more of the masala starting from laung/cloves to chillies to get stronger gravy.

Alsande cho Tonak

Recipe Source: Sheetal

Ingredients:

• ½ kg alsande, soaked overnight
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 1 tomato chopped fine
• 1 coconut, freshly grated
• 1 onion, sliced
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 10 laung/cloves
• 1 inch dalchini/cinnamon ( adjust)
• 3 tblspn dhania/ coriander seeds
• 4-6 kali mirch/ pepper corns
• 12-13 dry chillies
• ½ tsp saunf/fennel seeds
• Haldi/turmeric
• 1 pinch nutmeg
• 2 dagad phool/star anise petals
• Oil
• Salt

Method:

• In the alsande add the onion and tomato and salt you can either pressure cook for 2-3 whistles or cook outside in an open pot till the alsande are cooked.
•  Meanwhile in a kadhai/wok add a little oil and fry the cloves, cinnamon, coriander seeds, pepper, dry chillies, fennel seeds, nutmeg and the star anise and   set aside.
• In the same kadhai/wok roast the coconut with the onions and garlic.
• Grind the coconut with turmeric to a fine paste.
• Add to the alsande and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste.
• Serve with pav garnished with dhania/ coriander.

This joins the May Week 1 Cooking from Cookbook Challenge Group.



Linking to  The Veggie Indian, Lisa’s blog and Susan’s blog.

Hi! First time here? Well then you are Most Welcome! I hope you keep coming back for more here. If you are my regular visitor then Thanks, for you encourage me to experiment more!! I would like you to please click on my link below and like my Facebook Page. I will be happy if you can follow me on on Twitter too!

 

Misal Pav ~~SNC Challenge #3

In my family misal is greeted with groans, especially when I make it. For I make it like a usal. I just could not imagine how else to make it one wants more masala, other lesser the only people who enjoyed it was my FIL and I.

Recently we went on a holiday to Pawankhind, in Amba valley, it was beautiful. The breakfast on day 2 was misal and everyone dug it. Now I was mystified for to me it tasted like how I made usal.

So when I saw the challenge for NSC by Meena of Random Ramblings  I was a bit apprehensive. But then I read the recipe and realized it different. So I followed the recipe to sorry cannot say to the T. Made a few minor changes just to suit our taste buds.

Read on dears but first I would like to thank Meena the Chef for this month also I have basically copied and pasted her recipe word to word and Divya the brains behind the outfit. For we enjoyed misal!!

Cheese Stuffed Rajma Cutlets

When I buy some ingredients for my pantry I get carried away. I know that there are some things that we read family will not eat but still I buy it, hoping that at least this time they will eat.  

I end up losing each time, one such ingredient is rajma or kidney beans. Not only they refuse to eat it not even consider it as a healthy option. Why I do not know but they just don’t like it. So last time I stuck the soaked & boiled rajma in the freezer and was wondering what to do with them.

Usali the Goan Way

I have been living in Goa for many years but still one article that was printed in the Times of India was an eye-opener.

The author of the article was Melinda Pereira Kamat and she wrote about The Perfect Usali, in case you are interested it is featured in the Times of India, Goa edition on Tuesday, July 13, 2010.  I was supposed to scan and post it here but... hope will do so in near future. 

Till I read this article my view about usal or usali was that it is made in Karnataka and Maharashtra/Gujarat and the method that I followed was about similar to what my mother and MIL made. That is it has garlic and onion for Kaku (my MIL) made it that way and it had coriander and coconut ground for Amma. So I had mixed both and made my usal.

Alande or Cow Peas

As a part of Blogging Marathon I have chosen Kid Friendly Snacks, snacks that can be ready under 30 minutes. This is my entry for  BM#14, Group 2, Day 1.

We have store brought snacks in the evening as I am too tired and frankly it never did occur to me that some planning and precooking in the morning can get me delicious and healthy snacks.

Basically I want to try out something that my elder daughter (who hates cooking but   cooks beautifully when needed, read when I am not well) can make in a jiffy when she comes with her friends.