Monday, August 29, 2016

Homemade Ghee with video | Clarified Butter | Grainy Homemade Ghee

Ghee is nothing but clarified butter used in Indian cooking extensively.It's so flavorful and stays well at room temperature for months unlike butter. Making ghee at home is super easy and way cheaper and flavorful than the store bought ghee. All you need is butter!!! For aromatic ghee, i would recommend to use cultured butter, but sweet cream butter also works fine. 

I have been making ghee at home for years now and can't remember when was the last time i had bought at store. If you can make it easily at home why do you need to buy at store ,right??  Here in the post/video i have included all the tips to make ghee, even beginners can't go wrong with this.

After lot of trials, i had came to know that the slow cooking and the cultured butter gives the exact grainy texture of ghee.So be patient and don't leave the butter unattended not even for a min while making ghee. And also, you have to very careful at the end of the ghee making process.

Once the sizzling sound stops and the foam raise up in the sauce pan(you can see the details in the ghee making picture/video below), immediately switch off the flame.If you're using electric stoves like me, remove the pan from the stove top and place it on kitchen table counter immediately because the residual heat from the stove top cook the ghee further and there is a chance of burning even after switch off the stove.

Homemade Ghee

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 25 minsMakes : 1 cup (approx) 
Recipe Category: How to/Basic | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Homemade Ghee, How to make clarified butter, Ghee ,Ghee from butter, Ghee is nothing but clarified butter used in Indian cooking extensively.It's so flavorful and stays well at room temperature for months unlike butter.
Ingredients
Home made Butter -2 cups





Procedure
First take the butter from the freezer and let it comes to room temperature.Heat the heavy sauce pan in low flame.I have number setting in my stove and i use 4 setting throughout the process.Add butter into the pan and allow to melt.
Once the butter is completely melted,you can see the thin white foam on top, below the foam you can see the melted butter as yellow in color.
Once the butter gets heated, it will start to boil and you can hear the sizzling sound.
Allow the butter to boil for minimum 12- 15 mins,once the butter is fully clarified, the sizzling sound will stop and also it forms lots of small bubble like foam and it's started to rise up in the sauce pan.
At this stage, add the drumstick leaves and switch off the stove and place it on kitchen counter. Moisture from the drumstick leaves makes the ghee to splutter for few secs and then it stopped.
Once the residue settles at bottom and the ghee comes to room temperature, strain the ghee from residues and the drumstick leaves and store in clean container. Dont discard the residues and drumstick, it will be very tasty when you mix it with rice and season with pinch of salt.
Yummy, Flavorful ghee is ready, it solidifies after few hours. For more kitchen basic recipes, check out here 


Notes:
  • Stir the ghee in between to avoid burning at the bottom.
  • Cooking on the low flame helps to get grainy texture.
  • Adding drumstick leaves enhance the flavor of ghee.
  • Making ghee from the cultured butter is more flavorful than sweetened butter.
  • Keep the flame in low medium for the entire cooking time.
see those grainy texture, my favorite



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Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Aval Dates Payasam | Aval Payasam without sugar | Poha Kheer | Gokulashtami recipes

Aval Dates Payasam,a delicious payasam made from the rice flakes and dates without any sugar. It's also one of the easiest payasam recipe that can be prepared in 20 mins.

Last month, when i want to try some payasam without sugar,i had thought that dates would be the suitable option to replace sugar and immediately gave a try !  As expected,the payasam turned  out really tasty and i was super happy that my trial worked out.

So last week, again i had prepared this dates payasam with aval and we loved it so much, so today i'm sharing this post, since it may be useful for coming Krishna Jeyanthi preperation.

Aval Dates Payasam

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 15 minsServes :
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Aval Dates Payasam, Poha Kheer, Poha Dates Kheer Aval Dates Payasam,a delicious payasam made from the rice flakes and dates without any sugar.
Ingredients
Aval/Rice flakes/Poha - 1/4 cup
Seedless Dates - 10 to 12
Cashew(broken) - 1 tsp
Raisins - 5
Milk - 1/2 cup
Cardamom - 2
Ghee - 1/2 tsp

Procedure
First chop the dates into small pieces and measure the aval,keep everything ready.Heat a kadai with ghee.
Add the cashews & raisins and roast till cashews becomes slightly brown and raisins puff up well. Remove it from the kadai and then add the aval in the same kadai.
Roast the aval till it becomes crispy and remove it on the plate. Then add the chopped dates in the same kadai.
Add 1/2 cup of water and cover cook the dates till it turns mushy and then add the crushed cardamom into it.
Now add the aval into the cooked dates and allow the aval to cook.
In the mean time, heat the milk in another sauce pan and add into the Aval mixture.Finally add the roasted cashews & raisins and switch off the flame.
Tasty Aval Dates Payasam is ready !

Related : How to make Paruppu Payasam / Moong Dal Kheer

Notes:
  • Depends on Aval thickness, cooking time varies,so keep an eye on while cooking the Aval.
  • Adjust the dates quantity according to your sweet preference.
  • This payasam is in spoonable consistency, if you want drinking consistency, add more milk.
  • If you want smooth consistency, after cooked the dates, let it cool and grind it smooth and proceed as usual.

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Monday, August 22, 2016

Neer Moor | Spicy Buttermilk | Masala Buttermilk

Neer moor or spicy butter milk is the excellent thirst quencer for the summer and it's really a good body coolant too. Neer moor or panagam always remember me the "Therottam" festival (car festival) in my city(Tirunelveli Town).During the car festival in Tirunelveli Town,all the shops in the four car streets (ratha veethi) are closed & lot of free stalls are opened  by individuals or by any organizations in the platform to distribute food, neer moor, panagam etc for the devotees on that particular day and it's really delicious to have that on scroching sunny day.
This post is being in draft for quite a long time and also it's been raining here for past 4 days,i couldn't get a single decent picture because of very low sunlight,so thought of posting this today.


Neer moor | Spicy Buttermilk

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 0 minsServes :
Recipe Category: Drinks | Recipe Cuisine: South Indian
Ingredients
Buttermilk - 2 cup
Green Chili - 1
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece
Curry leaves - 2
Coriander leave - 1/2 spring
Salt - to taste
To Temper
Oil - 1/2 tsp
Mustard - 1/4 tsp
Procedure
Take the buttermilk in a bowl, add the green chili,ginger,curry leaves and coriander leaves in the mixie jar, grind into coarse mixture.

Add the chili mixture into the buttermilk, add enough salt.Mix it well. Finally temper the ingredients listed under "To Temper" and add into buttermilk.

Tasty & cooling Buttermilk is ready.


Notes:

  • If you don't have buttermilk, take 1 cup of curd and add 1 cup of water into it , whisk it well and proceed as above.
  • Instead of grinding, you can also finely chop the ingredients and add it.
  • Adjust the spiciness according to your taste.



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Thursday, August 18, 2016

Homemade Butter & Buttermilk | Cultured butter | Gokulashtami recipe

Homemade Butter is so flavorful than the store brought ones. Here in US, Sweet Cream Butter only available in general and i hardly find the "Cultured Butter" in grocery stores ,so thought of making my own.But making butter at home is very time consuming process and also need lot of patience and in the end you have sink full of greasy dish to wash :-).Is it all worth the effort? Yes, definitely100%. 
Quality of the butter is depends on Milk's or Cream's quality.So buy the best quality of cream that you can afford.To make cultured butter, first we need the fermented cream. Before making cultured butter, let see what is "Cultured" Butter"? 
As per wiki
"Before modern factory butter making, cream was usually collected from several milkings and was therefore several days old and somewhat fermented by the time it was made into butter. Butter made from a fermented cream is known as cultured butter. During fermentation, the cream naturally sours as bacteria convert milk sugars into lactic acid. The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, including diacetyl, which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product"

Yeah, what you're guessing is right, our old way of making butter is known as "Cultured Butter". My favorite part of making the butter is the left over buttermilk after churning the cream. To be honest here, I don't use lot of butter in my cooking,but i use ghee(clarified butter),so i churn the cream regularly at my home.
And also this year, Krishna jeyanthi/Gokulashtami falls on next Thursday(Aug 25,2016), butter is the most important offering to the Lord Krishna ,so this post will be helpful to make the homemade butter and also it gives immense satisfaction, while offering the home made Butter to God.


Homemade Butter

Preparation Time : 24 hr | Cooking Time : 0 minsMakes : 2 Cups of butter & 61/2 cups of Buttermilk 
Recipe Category: Basic/How to | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients
Heavy Whipping Cream - 1 quart(approx 1 litre)
Curd - 2 tbsp
Ice cold water - 6 to 7 cup



Procedure
First remove the cream & curd from the refrigerator and allow to come room temperature.Pour the cream in a bowl and add the curd into it and mix it well.Cover the bowl with the lid and place it in warm place for fermentation.I keep it in oven with lights on.After 24 hrs, the cream becomes thick and taste like sour curd(see the difference in the pictures).Now keep cream,mixie/blender & jar, ice cold water are ready and a bowl with water to collect the butter.Put 1/3 of cream in a mixie jar and add 1- 11/2 cup of ice water.Make sure that you don't fill more than 2/3 of mixie jar.Run the mixie slowly.After 1 1/2 to 2 mins, the butter will float on the top, Remove it carefully and put it in water.
Repeat the same process for the remaining cream.Every time after removing the butter, collect the remaining butter milk in separate bowl.After all the cream was churned, carefully wash the butter in the water to remove the extra buttermilk(if it has) and collect it in freezer safe bowl.Totally i have 2 cup of butter and 6 1/2 cup of buttermilk.To freeze the butter, put it in parchement paper shape as per your wish and roll it tight & freeze.
Tasty and flavorful Butter & butter milk is ready.

Notes:
  • Make sure that you use ice cold water for churning.
  • If the butter is not floated after 2 mins of running the mixie/blender, add some more cold water and run the mixie/blender again.
  • Don't run the mixie/blender continuously, give a break in between.
  • Don't fill more than 2/3 of mixie/blender jar.
  • At any point of time, make sure that the mixie/blender & jar shouldn't get heated.
  • Make sure that the cream is fermented well before starting the process.
  • Squeeze the butter as much as possible before storing.




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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Egg Masala | Egg in Onion Tomato Masala | Side dish for roti

Egg Masala, a delicious curry made with onion tomato masala and boiled eggs. I have learned a  lot of recipes from the Samayal Samayal show and this one recipe is also added into that list.

This egg masala can be prepared in 20 mins from the scratch and it goes well with chapathipulkha or mild pulao. It's been one of our favourites and  we love this curry for rotis and puloa. 

Now let's check out on how to make this delicious egg masala. 





Egg Masala

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 20 minsServes :
Recipe Category: Curry | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Egg Masala, Egg Curry, Egg curry for rotis Egg Masala, a delicious curry made with onion tomato masala and boiled eggs.
Ingredients
Hard Boiled Egg - 3 
Onion - 1 (big)
Tomato - 2 
Green chili - 1 
Cumin seed - 1/2 tsp
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 3/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 3/4 tsp
Salt - to taste
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves -few
Coriander leaves - few
Oil - 1 tbsp
Cinnamon - 1/2 inch piece
Cardamom -2 
Cloves -2

Procedure
First cut the onions & tomato into small pieces, slit the chilies and keep everything ready.Heat the kadai with oil, add cinnamon, cardamom & cloves into it and fry it for 30 secs.
Add the cumin seed, let it splutter,add onions,chili & curry leave one by one and saute till the onions becomes translucent.
Add the ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell leaves. Then add the tomatoes and spice powder(turmeric, red chili & coriander powder ).
Now add the required salt for the masala and sugar. Mix the spices well.
Transfer this masala into cooker and add enough water(approx 1/4 cup) into the masala and cook it for 2 whistle.
In the mean time, remove the egg shells & slit the eggs vertically. Once the pressure released from the cooker,open it and keep it on flame again, then add the garam masala powder.
Once the masala comes  to boil, add the coriander leaves , give a good mix. Place the eggs on the masala and pour some masala on the top of the egg. Switch off the flame. 
Tasty Egg Masala is ready. Serve it with rotis / pulao

Related: How to make Egg Kurma / Muttai Kurma

Notes:
  • I have used the pressure cooker to speedup the process, but you can cook it in the kadai itself or use the pressure cooker in the starting itself.
  • Instead of using cumin seed, you can use 1/2 tsp of cumin powder.
  • Adding sugar helps to balance the sourness & hotness in the masala.
  • Switch off the flame immediately after adding the eggs, otherwise the eggs will be over cooked.





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