Xi’an stuffed pancakes

Xi’an stuffed pancakes

For the alphabet X I have tried the Xain province from China.I knew of this province for the terracotta army. I would have liked to write more but as my arm is not too agreeable I am just linking my source Wikipediaof course.

These were appreciated a lot at home and the waiting period is right now extended till y arm is better then I better make these again and not just 8. Apparently younger one want 8 for herself alone. ;D

 Xi’an stuffed pancakes

Recipe Source:here

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

Yield: 8 pancakes

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
•  Water as needed

For the filling:

• 200 grms mushrooms
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp garlic paste
• ½ tsp pepper
• Pinch of jeera/cumin
• ½ tblspn soya sauce
• 1 tblspn tomato sauce
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt
• ¼ cup paneer, crumbled
• 1 cup cabbage, finely chopped
• 1 spring onion, chopped
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp oil
• Pinch of white pepper
• 2 tblspn til/sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup oil for frying+ 1 tblspn oil

Method:

Let’s make the dough first:

• To the flour add salt and water little at a time to form dough.
•  Knead for 5 minutes. Set aside keep covered with a damp kitchen towel to rest.

Now let’s make the filling:

• In a kadhai /wok add 1 tblspn of oil.
• Add the garlic and brown it.
• Add the onion and stir fry till the onions are translucent.
• Add the mushrooms and stir and cook covered.
• Once the mushrooms are done add the jeera/cumin, pepper, soya sauce, tomato sauce, salt sugar. Mix and stir fry till almost dry.
• Add the paneer and mix well. Switch off the gas and keep the kadhai/wok open. Set aside to cool.
• Once cool transfer to the chutney jar of the blender and make a coarse paste. Set aside.
•  In another bowl, combine the cabbage, spring onion, garlic powder.

Now let’s assemble the pancakes:

•  Divide the dough into 8 equal portions use one portion and keep the rest covered with a damp towel.
•  Oil the work surface lightly and roll the selected portion into a long, thin rectangle about four inches wide.
• Again very lightly oil the dough and spread on about an eighth of your mushroom paneer mixture on one side. Spread till about the middle of the rectangle.
• Add about 2 tblspn cabbage mixture to one end.
•  Roll the dough a little. Cover the sides like a burrito to make a cylinder till you reach the end of the rectangle.
• Stand the roll on one end so it's like a standing cylinder.
• Press the dough down into a flat pancake with one hand and then sprinkle with sesame seeds.
• Repeat with all the balls. Meanwhile keep the prepared pancakes under the damp towel.
•  Pour ½ cup oil into a small kadhai/wok and heat. When put a small pinch of dough in the hot oil the dough should first sink then slowly come up. In case the dough sinks and stays under you oil is not hot enough heat it and test with a fresh pinch of dough. In case it rises immediately cool the oil. Test and then fry.
• Drop the pancakes gently into the pan and fry until golden.  You will need to flip the pancakes so fry 1-2 at a time.
• Carefully flip and fry on the other side (about 3 minutes per side). Please be careful when working with hot oil.
• When golden brown, transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.
• Taste best when eaten immediately but they can be frozen and re-toasted in the oven.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 44

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

Simiti or Simit or Turkish Sesame Rings

Simiti  or Simit

For the month Swati of Baking Partners has challenged us to make  Simiti  or Simit from here. I was relieved for i had already made this delicious bread. With the month long marathon at my space and all of sick I did not have too much tension.

Then I began thinking where is the post? Cannot see it at my wordpress site or here on blogspot!! I could locate it on my facebook page. The FB page led me to the domain I had and which crashed without any way of recovering it. I lost so many delicious posts. Boy was I upset?

Luckily for me I had the draft and pics. So for me it’s a repost. I hope you don’t mind Swati.

This is my repost....

"For the month of February Aparna had given us a freehand and we could bake anything we choose. Now there are many that I wanted to bake some are from the challenges that I had missed in the past. But I had made the petimezi/ grape juice thickened in the fridge.  So I made Simitia/Koulouria these were to be made for Eggless Baking, Gayatri’s brainchild.

So enjoy these for we We Knead to Bake

Simiti  or Simit

Recipe Source: My Little Expat Kitchen

Makes 10 Simiti or Simit

Ingredients:

For the bread:

• 3 tsp active Yeast
• 5 cups Flour/ Maida
• 2 tblspn  Sugar
• 1 cup Lukewarm Milk
• 1 cup Lukewarm Water
• 2 tblspn Olive Oil + extra for oiling the mould
• 1 tsp salt

For the coating:

• 1 ½ cups Til/Sesame Seeds
• 1/3 cup petimezi /grape juice thickened
• ¼ cup water

Method:

• First make the Petimezi. I have just done nothing but followed the instructions here. As usual I did not follow any measures just crushed and strained the grapes and boiled it stirring constantly. I have done the job in a thick bottomed kadhai/wok on a low flame. 
• In a medium bowl mix the milk, water and sugar. Add the yeast and mix well. Set aside in a warm corner to proof.
• Meanwhile in a large bowl mix together flour, salt, and oil.
• Add yeast mixture to make soft and slightly sticky dough.
• Transfer the dough to the counter and knead for 10 minutes until soft and elastic.
• Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and allow it to double for 1 hour.
• While the dough is resting roast the sesame seeds till slightly brown and aromatic. Remove and cool.
• In a bowl mix together the petimezi thickened grape juice and water. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 180°C. (The original recipe says 200°C but I baked at 180°C).
• Now deflate the dough and divide into 10 equal portions. 
• Divide each portion into two and roll each portion into a 30 cm long rope.
• Attach at one end both the rolls and twist both together to form a braid.
• Make a ring by sealing both the ends to form a braided ring. Repeat with all the portions.
• Dip the ring in petimezi /grape juice and place it on the sesame seeds.
• Coat the ring completely with the seeds.
• Place the coated ring on a baking tray.
• Complete all the rings.  
• Transfer to the oven directly they do not need second proofing.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes until nicely browned.
• Remove from oven and serve it hot or warm.
• Serve slathered with butter, jam or chocolate spread and enjoy!!
• Mine disappeared without any spreads. 

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!

Garam Golpapdi

Ek tha Bachpan when Amma used to make Gul Papdi.

In case you do not know what it is then it's a sweet powder make out of wheat flour and jaggery. We used to put a big spoonful in the mouth and say “Fufi” and the powder came out in puffs! Silly I know but fun, just imagine girls in STD VIII, IX &X doing this!!

  

Then I forgot all about it. When I saw this recipe that I had copied from Tarla Dalal it revived all those carefree days. How I miss them now!!

Curry Leaves Chutney

The other day my best friend Sheetal called on me.

She came bearing gifts……. a big plastic bag full of curry leaves, lovely green and delightfully aromatic just for me.

Apparently her neighbour had pruned her tree and was distributing the leaves. “Tu kide tari karbare sha” she told me which translates to make something delicious. There was one bigger bag for the Office distribution.

A houseful of guests was not the best time to take pictures but making this delicious chutnipudi was easy under hubs Maushi’sguidance.

MASALE BHATH

Cravings that were what my second pregnancy was dotted with!!

I wanted to eat the strangest possible things   “adki” i.e. betel nut powder that my Papa makes (mind you I could barely stand the stuff before and used to wonder how my siblings could stuff themselves with it) to masala bhath I wanted it all.

I still remember stuffing myself with this delicious bhath at a party and then because my friend insisted drinking a lot of buttermilk, just to prevent heartburn as she put it.  Wow that was bliss!!

The effects of these cravings can be seen even now, for my younger one loved this rice preparation while the older one said it was strange, yes strange! Her choice of words left me feeling that I should make this rice more often.

Oats Chikki/Granola

Oats Chikki/granola

I had some muesli about which I had plans to convert to granola but postponing. As a result it started racing fast to it expiry date and now being on leave, I decided to do something to stem the rot.

The firs thing I did was heated it lightly in a kadhai to give it some crispness. Then I let it cool.

Meanwhile I got out my hoard of dry fruits after stealthy glance all around to see if anyone is watching me. Grab a few almonds; pistachios it does not matter how many will count later.

 At a leisurely pace I got out my cashew nuts, walnuts , raisins, groundnuts warmed them up too just to get rid of the raw  nutty ( I like the smell but I need to get rid of the moisture from them after storing them in the fridge).

In  Goa we get different kinds of cashew nuts right from the big ones whole, the ones split into two  or which is broken bits tukda kaju, to  the smallest bit Kani ,that can be directly used in Kheers no need to make smaller pieces . I generally buy this and use it for grinding into curries as they are cheapest and cost efficient.

Since I do not have good honey and was reluctant to use sugar I used chikki jaggery that is beckoning me everyday to do something different out of it.

These measure are by no means standard you can adjust as per taste, needs and budget.

To sum up I used:

Muesli  or rolled oats (about 500 grams)

 20 almonds,

15 pistachios

About cup full of Kaju kani

¼ cup raisins  

½ cup of groundnuts.

½ cup of roasted til/sesame seeds

I used 215 grms of this jaggery cut into small bits

½ cup of homemade ghee

Method:

1.       As I have already said warm everything right from the muesli to the nuts.

2.       When they cool down coarse grind.

3.       At this point of time I started wondering about the quantity of the ground mixture I had so I weighed it. It measured 750 grms I used   580 grams should have used only 500.

4.       In a thick kadhai add the ghee and jaggery.

5.       The jaggery will melt and start boiling. Test it to see if it has reached the hard ball stage. (A drop of jaggery in cold water should form a hard rock when pressed).

6.       Add the muesli 500 grams only or as much as much as needed to form 1 lump and mix and stir fast. Transfer to the kitchen platform and roll out to the ½ inch thick roti.  Cut when cool to desires size and shapes.

7.       Store in an airtight container.

I made the mistake of adding too much of muesli and so my granola/chikki  would not set.  So to rectify matters I transferred it to a tray and baked it at 230°C for 10minutes.

Til/sesame seeds Chikki

Chikki is something we like to eat a lot. Many times my husband and I eat Chikki as our dessert but I had never tried making it myself.

I had all the ingredients Chikki jaggery, til/sesame seeds the recipe and I made chikki .

Ingredients:

150 grms Jaggery (Chikki),cut in small pieces

150 grms Til/sesame seeds

1 tblspn ghee

1 tblspn sugar

Method:

1.       Keep ready a well greased rolling pin, a small bowl of water and your kitchen platform cleaned.

2.       In a kadhai add the ghee and add the jaggery. Stir a bit.

3.       The jaggery will immediately melt when it melts put a drop of the melted jaggery in the bowl of water. Now fish it out and press it between your fingers. When it forms a hard ball you jaggery is ready.

4.       Put off the gas and add the til/sesame seeds and sugar. Stir quickly as the mass solidifies immediately.

5.       Transfer to the platform and roll with the rolling pin.

6.       I have cut the chikki too soon hence the pieces are not very even let it cool slightly and cut the pieces.

Til/Sesame seeds Laddo

I had as usual left buying the “Chikki” jaggery till the last minute and forgot all about it. So I decided to make the kind of laddo that my MIL/Mom made with out “Chikki” jaggery.  To get to the proportions I rang my SIL who was not too sure about the proportions but told me to take more til/Sesame seeds than the ground nuts. She had put every thing in the mixer and got lovely laddos  but  I used  two ways to get the job done one was the mixer and the second was my MIL’s old Khal and Batta.

Ingredients:

1 cup til/Sesame seeds, roasted

¼ cup roasted & peeled groundnuts

¼ cup roasted dry coconut/chobra/khobri (optional)

1 cup jaggery, grated (you can take a little less than 1 cup)

Cardamom seeds/elichi peeled

Method 1: Using the Khal batta

1.       Take the til/sesame seeds, groundnuts and dry coconut and cardamom in the khal and pound it with the batta. you will see the seeds become into a powder a bit oily.

2.       Add the jaggery and continue pounding till the whole thing becomes a nice homogeneous mass.

3.       Make balls and nice soft “til/sesame seeds laddos are ready.

4.       The whole process of pounding took me about 15 minutes thanks to my MIL’s  Khal and Batta.

Method 2: Using the mixer:

1.       Make powders of the til/sesame seeds, ground nuts, dry coconut and cardamom.

2.       Next I transferred all the mixture to the Khal and Batta and added the jaggery and pounded the mixture till the whole thing becomes a nice homogeneous mass. you can add the jaggery and run the mixer  for the same job.

Make laddos in the usual way. Happy Sankranti to you!!