shakarkandi ke roth or shakarkandi ki meethi poori | deep fried flat breads with sweet potatoes

Shakarkandi is Sweet potato in Hindi. Indian Sweet potato is basically a yam whose leaves are also edible but we are taking about the use of the tuber right now, in the making of a deep fried flat bread.

Someone was talking about shakarkand ki poori and I was reminded of the last time I made them. I was in an impression that I had already shared the recipe of shakarakand ki poori on the blog so came here to search for it. And lo, I couldn't find it here. Because I never posted it. Damn.

The blogs of mine serve as a cloud storage for me and my mind automatically comes here to search for what I had cooked long time back. This shakarkandi ki poori or roth as we call it, was cooked 2 years ago and I had forgotten to share it. Not a good thing as the recipe wont be accessible for even my own use.

Thankfully this shakarkandi ki poori is a traditional recipe and I have cooked it several times in the past to know it like the back of my hand.

If you are getting confused between the names shakarkandi ki poori and shakarkandi ke roth (roT), let me explain it for you. Yes these two are a little different from each other.

Shakarkandi ki poori is a little softer, uses some milk too while kneading the dough and uses a little more flour compared to the quantity of sweet potato pulp. 

Shakarkandi ke roth are made using very little flour compared to sweet potato pulp (mash), just enough to bind the boiled and mashed sweet potatoes. So shakarkandi ke roth are almost like a crusty flat bread that cooks on medium flame for a long time to get crusty on the outside and softer inside.

To make the frying time shorter, I make a hole in the middle (just like a doughnut) so the cooking is even and quick. We like them hot but these are great at room temperature too and make great picnic or journey food.

For picnics you would like them served with some nice chocolate dip of fruit preserve. When eating them hot, we like to drizzle some raw honey over them. Yum.

It is a great breakfast option on weekdays when the family is relaxed and can have as finger food reading the heap of weekend newspapers.

ingredients...
(makes enough for 2 and some leftovers too)

sweet potatoes cleaned and rinsed thoroughly 250 gm
whole wheat flour 100-120 gm
*green cardamom powder 2 pinches (optional)

*You can use cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder or clove powder individually or in combination for a deeper flavour. I use a mix of these three mostly.

No sugar required, but add a little jaggery if you like it really sweet.

Ghee for deep frying. These roth do not absorb much ghee as the dough is not too loose, take care to boil the sweet potatoes with skin to ensure lesser moisture in them. If boiled after peeling and slicing they absorb a lot of water and the dough will be loose in consistency and the pooris may absorb more ghee while frying.

procedure...

After through cleaning, boil the sweet potatoes in pressure cooker with just about 1/4th cup water. It takes about 2-3 whistles to cook.

Cool the pressure cooker and start mashing the sweet potatoes while they are still warm. I prefer using them with the peel but you may discard the peel if it looks scabby or dirty. For such vegetable I always recommend getting organic produce.

Now add the spice powder of choice and add the flour slowly while kneading it into a dough. No water or milk is being added, the quantity of the flour will just to make a smooth dough. If the sweet potatoes are more moist they may take some more flour.

Heat the ghee, divide the dough in about 20 gm portions and roll them into small thick discs, make a hole in the center and fry on medium heat till they get lightly browned. At the stage of frying too you may fry them on high flame to get softer pooris and fry on low or medium to get firm roth.

Serve hot or cold with honey, fruit preserve or even some fresh cream or yogurt if you like.

There is the natural sweetness of sweet potatoes that you wouldn't want to spoil using sugar or jaggery. I suggest eating this roth with some sweet condiment if you find it not as sweet as you like.

And please fry it in ghee only, oils don't suit such traditional recipes.

I have seen some people enjoying these sweet pooris with pickle too, try it you may start liking such sweet and sour combinations in food.

And I just got to know that Maharashtrians also make a similar fried bread with sweet potatoes with a slightly different recipe and call it Ratalyacha Gharya. I am sure this meethi poori with shakarkandi is made all over India in some or the other form.

Besan ki pinni | a chickpea flour fudge with almonds, gum tragacanth and pistachios | Indian homemade mithai

I grew up eating this besan ki pinni. And it used to be a round huge ball dripping with ghee, interspersed with few nuts and I remember my tiny hands would be full struggling with this pinni. Well, it's weird talking about my tiny hands as I have really huge hands as an adult, but those days are etched in my mind. This used to be a school lunch box thing and I remember I used to wait for the turn of besan ki pinni in my lunch box. I still remember that aroma more than the ones I cook now. Such are memories and such are the ways we connect with our food.

Besan ki pinni was made freshly those days. It was a way to fortify a warming sweet besan ka halwa, and to keep it for longer duration too probably, as there is not much difference in the ingredients apart from the tragacanth gum (gond) and the amount of nuts used. Some recipes use added khoya or evaporated milk in it and that makes the pinni quite rich. I like the roasted besan flavours more so no khoya for me. Moisture in pinni is definitely lesser than the halwa.

I like adding the gurbandi almonds (small, more rounded variety with high fat content) to such desserts as the flavour is much better than regular almonds.

These are some of the desi desserts that I like. I love anything made using besan (chickpea flour) by the way. I saw the besan ki pinni transforming as I grew up. It was being made into bars or squares, looked like a yellow nut studded fudge and was easier to shape. I adapted this shape when I started making pinnis, as it was easier to set in a flat tray rather than making balls with hot cooked pinni mix.

And when we recently tasted pinni again at The Claridges dhaba, I reminded myself to make some pinni soon. And here it is.

ingredients :

Besan (chickpea flour) 250 gm
ghee 100 gm
almonds 100 gm (I used Gurbandi almonds, small in size and higher fat content)
pistachios 10-15 gm
*gum tragacanth 40 gm (optional)
sugar 100 gm (I used 60 gm as we like it very mildly sweet)
milk 1/3 cup

*Gum tragacanth adds a nice bite and mouth feel to the pinni and has health benefits as well.
In folk medicine it has been used for a laxative, persistent cough, diarrhea, and as an aphrodesiac. Modern pharmaceutical uses include an adhesive agent for pills and tablets, and for emulsifying oil droplets in lotions, creams and pastes. Its superior water absorbing qualities make it an excellent thickening agent. Gum tragacanth is used in many everyday commercial products, from cosmetics and toothpaste to jellies and salad dressings. ~ source.

procedure :

Fry the gum tragacanth (gond, if using) in hot ghee and let them fluff up. Remove using a slotted spoon and save. See how it looks after frying.

Let it cool and crush lightly.

Make a coarse powder of the fried gum and almonds in food processor or mixie.

Now heat the remaining ghee and dump the besan in it. Roast the besan on low flame till nice and brown, the sign is the aroma of bhuna besan (roasted chickpea flour) and you see the ghee starts separating from the roasted besan. If using lesser ghee like this recipe, you start with a dry sandy mixture while roasting the besan, and then it starts coming together while it gets roasted.

You can mix the besan with ghee nicely, rubbing with your fingers and bake in the oven at 180 C for about 20 minutes or till it gets browned. Stirring the besan a couple of times in between.

Add the sugar and the coarse powder of gum and almonds to this mixture and stir to mix well. Now add the milk slowly and keep folding the slightly wet mixture so it all comes together like a crumbled cake. You might use up a bit more milk that suggested in the recipe.

 Dump it all into a flat tray or plate, whatever is convenient and press using a wide blade of knife or the back of a steel plate.

Sprinkle chopped pistachios over it and press down again, I used a small wooden chopping board that fits inside this tray. Let this tray rest overnight, or at least for 2 hours, cling wrapped or covered properly.

It gets set and looks like this.

Cut this set pinni in desired shapes and enjoy at room temperature. It keeps well for about 3 days at room temperature and for about 2 weeks when refrigerated. You would like to warm it up in microwave if refrigerated, before you serve it. Warm is better for me, the ghee in the pinni hardens it when refrigerated. Some like it hard too, so you can decide for yourself.

Besan ki pinni is a traditional breakfast dish also, taken with milk and some fruit it makes a healthy choice. A desi gluten free granola bar I would say. Lightly sweetened and studded with healthy nuts.

 Either in the shape of such bars or laddoos, these are a sweet treat everyone would like and at any time. But I would recommend it in small portions as a dessert.

For a breakfast you can have a large portion as it is a protein rich bar that way. I have a cheats recipe with this pinni as well. Sometimes I just dunk one bar in a very hot glass of milk and dissolve it. It makes a nice warming drink when you are not well. Or a porridge consistency if not a drink.

Try that, You will be surprised with how it comforts you. And do you realise it is one of the best gluten free Indian mithais that can be made at home? It can be made lactose free too if you skip using milk.

Do let me know when you try this besan ki pinni. This is one healthy dessert if you keep the sugar minimal. I would have used raw sugar but I had used up my stock when I decided to make besan ki pinni.

Next time raw sugar it will be, darker pinni, richer taste. And this pinni is not the ghee dripping types, much leaner I would say :-)

a quick pearl onion stew with sun dried cherry tomatoes served with appams for breakfast...

Vegetables stews the way it is cooked in Kerala homes or even in Tamilnadu are very aromatic and rich with coconut. Spicy and lightly sour most of the times but I have not tasted too many of them. To me these vegetable stews were meal time curries most of the times but when I realised these curries are served with breakfast dosa or even idlis as well, I thought of trying it. The husband wont take a subzi for breakfast if it is not a poori subzi breakfast, tough situation. But a girl got to do what she has to do...

There was some leftover appam batter and we both love appam any which way. I had recently done a post on sun dried tomatoes and there was a discussion on my facebook page whether they can be used to make sambars and rasam. Why not? The way I sun dry the tomatoes, they are not flavored or seasoned so one has all the liberty to use them in any cuisine and dress up the recipe with unique flavors. So being summers we don't much like sambars if it is not a dosa idli party that we used to do some years ago. For those parties there used to be a lot of sambar, 2-3 types of chutneys and all possible variants of idlis, vadas and masala dosa. Now I wonder how I used to manage all that. Now I look for easy options and cook for just the two of us most of the times.

Anyways, I decided to use sun dried cherry tomatoes for a simple no fuss stew for this appam breakfast. It took just 10 minutes to cook. I used pearl onions (baby onions) for this stew and peeling them can be time consuming, I get it done by the maid sometimes and keep a bag of it in the fridge. So it was easy.

ingredients...
(serves 2)
a cup of pearl onions halved
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 spring of curry patta

for a paste...
(Use fresh tomatoes or tamarind if you don't have sun dried cherry tomatoes)
1 tbsp sun dried cherry tomatoes or to taste (mine are quite tart home grown cherry tomatoes)
1/4 cup fresh coconut scraped ( I use frozen)
2 dry red chilies
1/2 inch piece of ginger
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
5-6 grains of fenugreek seeds
salt to taste

procedure...

Make the paste and keep aside.

Heat the oil in a pan and tip in the halved pearl onions and curry patta and give it a quick stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the paste, stir for about a minute, add a cup of water ans simmer for 5 minutes.

You can add some coconut milk in the end, but it's not required if you are not looking for a milky creamy color. This stew goes really well with appams. Nice deep flavors, sun dried cherry tomatoes lend enough tartness and the flavors are all very rounded with so many different spices used.

Perfectly crisp appams or plain dosa is perfect with it. This is so quick it was a week day breakfast for us. Yes I had most things ready in the fridge but still the things were cooked freshly.

Cheers...

atte ka halwa | the UP counterpart of teacakes...

Halwa is a traditional UP dish that is sweet but not necessarily a dessert. It can be a breakfast for some, yes in the older days it was a quick dish to make on stove tops and was almost equivalent to the cakes we bake today in fancy ovens. I say cakes because of the ghee that goes into  traditionally made Halwa that is only comparable to a cake and not a cereal breakfast. If the content of ghee is lesser, a halwa can be a cereal breakfast in it's composition.

Halwa is definitely not a breakfast dish anymore in our adult lives, with our butts stuck to the chairs all day, but in the childhood days halwa and jalebi was a happy note to start the day on most weekends. Going by what my mother in law tells me, she used to pack halwa and poori in Arvind's lunch box often. I know where his love for halwa and all things sweet comes from. I have to make some halwa every now and then, making just one serving is my solution as I don't like it much and can eat only 2-3 tea spoonfuls at a time.

ingredients...
(1-2 servings)
atta (whole wheat flour) 1/4 cup
ghee 1/4 cup
sugar 2 tbsp or more if you like it sweeter
water 1/4 cup
chopped nuts as per taste
powdered green cardamom or nutmeg if you wish
procedure..

Heat the ghee in a deep pan and tip in the flour into it. Keep stirring on low heat till the flour starts getting aromatic and changes color to pinkish brown. This takes about 5-8 minutes for this quantity.

If making a larger quantity, halwa can be a work for 40 odd minutes, I have made halwa for family get togethers and the aroma of roasting flour makes everyone hungry while the halwa takes it's own sweet time to get made. Once ready it pleases everyone.

Ad the sugar once the flour becomes nicely browned, and let the sugar crystals become caramalised a bit. It will start getting sticky after a couple of minutes. If making large quantity, it may take another 10 minutes. So as soon as the sugar crystals start getting sticky, add the water in a gentle stream. and mixing the halwa mixture steadily, using a spatula with the other hand. The halwa comes together and becomes like a shining dough, keep stirring it till it starts getting a bit crumbly by further dehydrating.

Add chopped nuts, roasted or fried if you wish, mix well and serve hot.

Halwa is never served cold unless it is a carrot or pumpkin halwa. It can be a nice quick snack if you have a sweet tooth.

This kind of dryish crumbly halwa is great with hot milk for breakfast as well. Some people like it a little wet, you would have to not dehydrate it while cooking after adding water in that case.

Making a small amount of halwa is not very tricky and you can always make some for your kids instead of those store bought muffins or biscuits. It is a high calorie and high carb dish but healthier than many of the ready packed food that we hand out to our kids mindlessly.

I have posted an instant besan ka halwa made in microwave and a kadhai made besan ka halwa too. Go have a look if you want besan ka halwa. A step by step mung ka halwa recipe is also posted if you have some time to indulge. Now you know how much loved is halwa at my place.

You know what, I started getting that aroma of halwa being made while typing this. I don't like halwa much but that aroma is one of the favorite food aromas for me. Tell me when are you going to make some halwa for your loved ones?

Cheers...

Amaranth seeds or Ramdana for fasting | three ways with Ramdaana...

Amaranth grains are very small like yellow mustard seeds but the similarity ends there. They pop up when roasted dry and get nice and smooth when boiled with water or milk. The Flour made from Amaranth seeds makes nice flat breads and pancakes. It is a grain most of us UPites grew up eating. My memories are of the Ramdane ka laddoo we always had at our grandparent's place during our summer vacations. The same Ramdaana ka laddoo is available even now, at least in Delhi, but somehow I never get the same taste. Is it the childhood charm of memories? Nostalgia is always sweeter when it is food related. Yes it is.

The laddoo are very light and melt in the mouth texture. Very lightly sweetened with jaggery and can be eaten as a snack or as a breakfast porridge. When you put them in hot milk they just seem to melt in it and a nice smooth and light porridge is ready.

It is a very nice baby food also.

The second way to make a breakfast porridge is to boil the raw Amaranth grains with water, either in a pan or in pressure cooker. In a pan it takes about 25 minutes to get soft and cooked. In pressure cooker just one whistle is all you need. Water required for cooking the grains is double the volume of grains.

Add milk once the grains are boiled. You might like to add fresh cream as well. Sweeten it with sugar or honey, or even jaggery if you wish and have warm.

I developed a few Vrat ka khana recipes for Leonardo Olive oils. Those recipes are cooked in pure olive oil or seasoned or dressed with extra virgin olive oil. One Amaranth seeds savory porridge or risotto made using coconut milk is one of my favorite recipe among them.

You can see the recipe of this savory porridge here at Leonardo facebook page. The perfect way to eat rejuvenating food during the sattvic time of Navratri.

puran poli made easy | step by step recipe of puran poli

A sweet stuffed flat bread that gives the cinnamon roll a run for its' money. That is puran poli for you, a step by step recipe so you can make this decadent soft flat bread for yourself..

Stuffed with a delicate mixture of chickpea and jaggery and lightly spiced with cardamom, rolled out to make a flaky crust encasing a melting goodness of a uniquely sweet filling. As simple as that.

This sweet stuffing is so tasty that it defies the fact that it is made using a simple and cheap ingredient. Actually when I made it for my MIL when I was a newly wed, she guessed it to be khoya and jaggery. The texture of the chickpea cooked with jaggery or sugar becomes almost like khoya and given the fact that a certain khoya paratha was a family favorite there, this sweet puran poli fell in the same category immediately.

I like my puran poli stuffed with a melt in the mouth kind of filling and not a dry crumbling type which makes it tough to swallow the poli without a slug of milk. I have a similar reservation about a certain daal ki puri too which is made with a savory stuffing of chickpea. This melt in the mouth kind of filling is not that tough to make my dear friends. Actually a lot easier than the dry filling. Let's see how to make the filling of puran poli....

ingredients...
(makes about 10-12 puran polis)
for the filling..
chana daal (split chickpea) 1 cup
jaggery powdered 3/4 cup (i used unrefined brown sugar)
green cardamom 2 nos.
water 2 cups
for the pastry..
whole wheat flour 1.5 cup approximately (depends upon how much filling you can stuff in each poli, it is a skill to stuff more filling in a small ball of dough)
pinch of salt
water to knead a dough

procedure for the filling...

Boil the split chickpea in pressure cooker along with the water indicated.
Cook for 7-8 minutes after the first whistle, lowering the flame after the first whistle.
Let the cooker cool down, open the lid and add the jaggery to the cooked daal.

Now cook the daal along with jaggery till the mixture gets a bit thick (about 5 minutes).

It is time to blend the mixture now. A hand held stick blender is a useful device for such things and helps in blending the mixture right inside the pot. I used the stick blender but the mixture can be transferred to the food processor to be blended smooth.

Return the mixture back to the cooker, if doing it in a food processor and continue to cook for about 5 more minutes to condense the mixture. Transfer to a bowl .

The mixture still looks a little loose consistency to make a chapati filling. But the secret to a melt in the mouth kind of filling is this consistency of the filling mixture. Almost like molten chocolate.

It has to be kept in the fridge so it gets a little harder and manageable when cold. It will be easier to stuff inside the poli after this, but when the poli is roasted on the pan the filling will again become soft and melting kind.

Look how it looks after a half an hour rest in the fridge. It is a small portion and needs lesser time in the fridge. For large quantities you will need to keep it longer in the fridge.

As I said, stuffing the mixture inside the poli is a skill but a few pointers can work wonders if you follow them carefully. I am not uploading any pictures of the stuffing process as the instructions will be enough to understand and also because the hands get really messy and clicking pictures during stuffing is not a possibility.

Just follow the instructions and note the pointers.

procedure for the pastry...

Knead a dough exactly when required, kneading enough to make it soft and elastic and a little softer than roti dough. Refrigerated dough does not behave well with a meting type filling.

The consistency of the dough should be exactly like the filling, so if the filling is soft, the dough should be as soft, or just a bit harder than that.

Use finer dusting flour to roll the poli, using maida for dusting is a good option as whole wheat flour does not stretch as much as maida.

Also, if you are making puran poli for the first time, use maida instead of whole wheat flour to make the dough as it will be easier to roll with such a tricky filling.


Pinch a small portion of the dough, make a ball and then make a depression in the middle to shape it like a bowl. Now spoon out a bigger portion of filling and place inside the dough bowl, stretch the edges and seal the bowl to make a ball again.

Use some dusting and flatten the ball with your fingers on the rolling board first before rolling it with the help of rolling pin. Some of the filling mixture may look like being exposed and it enhances the taste but take care not to let the filling leak out of the pastry. A thin even layer of pastry over a rich filling is what you have to work for.

Carefully lift the poli and flip it over the hot pan. Roast both sides till pinkish brown patches are formed and the poli is cooked through. Apply little ghee after taking the poli off the heat.

 Repeat to make more polis and keep them in a butter paper lined container. Serve hot.

See how the filling is exposed and yet held up together inside thin layer of pastry. A right consistency of the dough makes it possible and rolling it with soft even hands is also critical. The taste will anyways be great with such a flavorful filling but if the poli is rolled perfectly it will make the effort worth.

Such a dark color of the filling is due to the dark brown colored unrefined sugar I used. This kind of filling makes a really nice and soft puran poli whose puran doesn't get crumbly and scatter in the plate. It sticks to the pastry and melts in the mouth when you take a bite.

Use of whole wheat for the pastry and a dark brown colored filling makes a rustic looking puran poli, but the taste will blow your mind away.

We have always liked it this way, the way we were introduced to this dish in younger times.

Puran poli had come to our house through a marathi friend of my younger sister and this is the way they used to make it. We adopted it and it stayed with us the same way.

Leftovers polis reheated in the microwave are great for breakfast with a glass of milk or as a meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt Although it goes well with some sweet and sour kind of pumpkin curry too, we always try and have it in more than one ways whenever I make it....

The puran (filling) keeps well in the fridge and a freshly made dough is all needed to make fresh polis anytime.

Have you tried any flat bread with a sweet filling? Some friends tell me it tastes great with fresh coconut milk. I am yet to try that.

apple cake/bread with whole wheat....

 The cake is heavy on the apple flavor as apples are used in three forms. Apple juice , apple pieces and apple sauce, making it a moist cake made with lesser fat and some whole wheat.This should be a good reason to keep this cake in the fridge when kids are visiting, or you have growing kids of your own.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine had come with her daughter and the daughter had liked this cake . Knowing that this kid was fed on bakery bought pastries with heavy icing , i was not surprised when she did not recognize a cake without icing . It's not a cake...she had announced. Surprisingly , she liked the cake when i served it saying it is a nice bread . Later, I had packed some of this cake for the kid and when after some time this friend asked for the recipe i did not actually remember which apple cake i had made that time . In all probability , my memory indicates as the child was in love with the apples , also she thought it was a bread and not a cake ( the most unattractive cake it is , if you believe it's a cake ) it must have been this cake and now after more than 2 years i am posting this recipe. With all my apologies to this friend of mine ....

So do not go by how it looks ..... better call it an apple bread if you please...

The cake/bread is the most easy cake you might have prepared . It is all the more convenient when you have some apple butter in your fridge , homemade or otherwise. Even if you do not have some apple butter , it's so easy to peel a few apples core them , dice them and microwave them with a little sugar and a stick of cinnamon or any other spice you like ..... blend to make a puree and viola !!! I keep a jar of apple butter in my fridge almost all the time.

Now armed with apple butter you just need a few ordinary things to start with.

apples 2 nos peeled and chopped in cubes
apple butter 1.5 cup( mine was quite thick like jam)
apple juice 1/2 cup approximately ( i used from a carton)
whole wheat flour (atta) 2 cups
sugar 3/4 cup or more if the apple butter has no sugar
eggs 4 nos.
oil 1/2 cup
baking powder 2 tsp
soda bicarb 1/2 tsp
cinnamon powder 1/4 tsp ( indian cinnamon)
nutmeg powder a pinch
apple or vanilla essence

preparation...

Mix oil , sugar and eggs and whisk till fluffy . Add the apple butter and whisk to mix .

Mix the atta with baking powder, soda bi carb and the spice powders , mixing them dry before adding them to the wet mixture.

Add the essence and the apple pieces to the batter . The batter should be barely dropping consistency so add the apple juice at this stage to adjust consistency. If your apple butter is thin , you may not need to add the apple juice at all , and this will not interfere with the flavor of the cake . Thicker apple butter results in a richer flavor of the cake , just that.

The consistency of the batter should be thick...  A thick batter which resists when dropped from a ladle...

Line a baking tray with greased butter paper , or whatever way you grease or line your cake tin , and bake for 45-50 minutes on 180 degree. Check with a skewer after 35 minutes and decide how much more time it needs in the oven...for me it's always a matter of how the cake is behaving this time ....as i keep changing the proportions of the ingredients :)

This is the kind of cake which fills your kitchen with a nice toasted apple or apple pie aroma in your kitchen ..... you would be impatient with the cooling of this cake i tell you...

No problems even if you cut this cake while still warm , but cooling will be a good idea if you want nice clean slices .

Enjoy the cake for a week or two , if it lasts that long . Or simply make a large one . This cake or bread whatever you like to call it , keeps well in the fridge for about 2 weeks , actually gets better with time , ages well as they say ...

desi banana pancake with toffee banana topping ..... and toffee banana for a dessert

Every country has it's own pancake and every home has it's own version . Not only one ,  different versions for different seasons , for many healthy - yummy reasons . Overripe bananas in the fruit basket is one great reason to mash them up for a quick pancake ( if not a bread or a cake ) .

Meetha cheela is a common desi pancake often served with malai ( clotted cream ) , honey , fruity chutneys or with just a tall glass of hot milk . I make it with jaggery or white sugar but when it is made with bananas , it is a special flavor for the sweet tooth guy . This pancake has bananas in two ways ... read on...

ingredients...
( 4 pancakes )
whole wheat flour 2 cups
milk 2 cups approximately
sugar 1 tbsp or more if you want it sweeter
mashed banana 1 no. ( large n overripe )
firm ripe banana 1 no. ( sliced diagonally )
Ghee 1 tbsp per pancake
butter 1 tbsp
sugar 1.5 tbsp for caramel

Procedure...

Mix the mashed banana , whole wheat flour and milk with sugar to taste and make a thick batter of flowing consistency .

Heat 1/2 tbsp ghee in a griddle ( i use an iron one ) , spread the ghee evenly and pour a ladleful of batter and spread to make a thick pancake ..... flip when brown on one side and apply ghee on the other side too....make similar pancakes with the remaining batter .

For the toffee banana topping , heat the butter on the same griddle or a different pan if you must , add the sugar to the melting butter and let it melt and get browned . Arrange the sliced bananas over the melting sugar and let it get coated with the caramelized sugar .

Pour over the pancakes and serve immediately......... and be ready for huge complements coming your way...

Take a bite yourself and you would know...

 But ...this is not a pancake for you if you hate bananas . Going by the belief that most of the kids and adults like bananas , this is a great weekend breakfast . Still not for me .... cuz i like these pancake in a very small portion and my breakfast has to be a hearty filling something savory kind ....you get that...all the uttapams and poodas , poha etc. are for me....

Those toffee bananas are a favorite dessert of mine with some whipped fresh cream ....or a scoop of plain vanilla ice cream............

Just melt some butter and sugar together and let it caramelize ... dunk in the sliced bananas and let them coat ........ pour the bananas in individual serving bowls or shot glasses while still hot and top with vanilla ice cream.......... let the cold ice cream melt over the hot toffee bananas and scoop in........

Pure bliss it is........ don't think about the calories for once and dig in........let the ice cream melt a bit and it's a selfish indulgence after this ........

I have not seen a person who didn't love it.....cheers !!!

sago banana and cream | breakfast 'cereal' or a hearty dessert meal for vrat ka khana

Sago is a wonderful pearl when it comes to desserts and Navratri is the time when we all look forward for sugary sago treats. Saboodana vada and saboodana khichdi are my favorite too but I love the sago deserts more. Actually I can't decide whether I love saboodana kheer and other desserts more or saboodana vada and khichdi more. Sago pearls have a very nice texture when cooked rightly and that I love for sure. Cook sago wrongly and you kill it.

Many of us make the saboodana  kheer and sago falooda with nuts and fruits, here I am introducing a different recipe of sago which was a revelation for me some 8 years ago. I had cooked the saboodana khichdi (I have not posted it as yet but you can find it on many blogs) and a Bengali friend had liked the khichdi very much. I was astonished when he said that sago can be eaten raw as well. I had never heard of this and wanted to try that, and I did. Tried the recipe he was talking about the very next day.

And then another friend made a rich sago dessert for us, made with soaked but uncooked sago pearls. I just loved it, as it was fuss free and the flavors and different textures in this dessert were just amazing . Just to assemble a few things and a hearty dessert meal was ready for our navaratri fasting. Both of us used to fast all 9 days of navratri and have a good time eating many fasting foods. We used to entertain many friends who enjoyed fasting food in those days. Past couple of years have been no fasting, and no feasting in the navaratri days. Still I like to cook something which reminds me of those days....

Seeing the number of hits my 'vrat ka khana ' posts are getting during these days, I thought of posting this hearty dessert meal for navaratri fasting. Writing this I am reminded of so many things I used to make during this time of the year. This is one of the few unusual things which many of you will find very convenient to rustle up. A very nice breakfast dish because it is full of carbohydrates and fat of course. All good things in fact, gluten free, fuss free. A large bowl of this will keep you full till late in the afternoon if you had it for the breakfast..

First of all you need to soak the sago pearls in just enough water to skim through the surface in a wide bowl. 3-4 hours of soaking is good enough for the larger variety of sago pearls. You can test for the readiness of the sago pearls actually by pressing one sago pearl between your thumb and index finger. The sago pearl should get flattened and yet should not disintegrate... as it looks like here...you see two sago pearls flattened in the left side...

If the sago is not ready you can add a little more water or milk (if the sago looks dry) and keep for another couple of hours. Best is to soak overnight in the fridge and use in the morning. Soaked sago keeps well in the fridge for a week. It is very convenient that way during this season as you will be able to make saboodana khichdi and vadas or for kheer and falooda with the same soaked sago. Soaking is similar for all of  these recipes.

For a cup of soaked sago, add 1/2 cup of fresh cream (Iuse malai) 1 cup of full cream milk and sugar or honey to taste. Add any nuts of your choice (cashew, raisins and almonds are the best for this) and a chopped banana .

Yummy.... The sago pearls have a great texture against the soft bananas and the crunchy nuts. Raisins taste very good in this, I did not use them as I did not have them at this point. Dried apricots and prunes will be great too. Just think of different textures and different flavors going into it. Add some Jam or a fruit preserve and see how beautiful it gets. Fasting is not about boring food, it's about your imagination including all the falahari (non cereal and non legume) ingredients to the optimum taste balance and nutritional requirements...

Happy fasting ....... I will be back with another 'vrat ka khana' very soon....stay tuned...

edible flowers : drumstick flowers make really good pakoda, cheela or shallow fried fritters

This is the season when we start seeing drumstick flowers in the quaint neighborhood markets in Delhi. The high end grocers don't stock such foraged produce but the weekly vegetable markets and the friendly neighborhood subziwala (green grocer) starts bringing it for you if he knows there is a demand. I see that many middle aged and old women keep inquiring the subziwalas about swanjne ke phool or sehjan ke phool (drumstick flowers in local parlance) and buy them quickly if they spot. I feel great at such times that I have a huge drumstick tree in my garden that flowers twice a year.

What I do as an instinct that I offer the auntyjees a bunch of drumstick flowers from my garden next time she needs and start chatting. And then I ask how does she cook swanjne ke phool. Believe me I have done it about 4-5 times and everytime I get the same recipe of the curry that has a base of tomatoes and curd and the flowers are boiled and squeezed before being added to the curry. I figured this is the authentic Punjabi recipe of swanjne ke phool ki subzi. I recreated it in my kitchen and tried all the options suggested by different women I met in the weekly vegetable market. I learnt that whenever you add water to the curry it becomes a little bitter in taste as the juices of the drumstick flowers come out in the gravy. If we keep the curry dry and let it cook in it's own juices the taste is better and the bitterness is only in traces.

But the best use of these drumstick flowers I learnt from my mother in law. She used to make very nice cheela with chopped onions and drumstick flowers and later I started adding some chopped dhaniya patta (coriander greens) and green chillies etc to the batter mix, started making pakodas too sometimes but the cheela became a common breakfast whenever drumstick flowers were in season. The drumstick tree in my garden flowers twice a year as I mentioned, we get to enjoy this pakoda or cheela quite often.

To clean drumstick flowers you just need to pick all the stalks from the buds and flowers and rinse them under running water once. If you have bought from market and have doubts about some dust in it, you would need to dip the flowers in plenty of water in a large bowl, then strain them and rinse again under running water. Let all the water drain before using.

ingredients
(2 breakfast servings or 4-5 tea time snack servings)

drumstick flowers cleaned, rinsed and drained 1 cup
finely diced red onions 3/4 cup
minced green chillies 1 tsp
minced ginger 2 tsp
chopped coriander greens 1/2 cup
ajwain seeds 1 tsp
turmeric powder 1 tsp
salt to taste
besan or chickpea flour 1 cup or a bit more if required
water to make a thick batter to bind everything together
mustard oil to shallow fry about 1 tsp per small flat pancake or fritter

procedure 

Mix everything together to make a thick batter.

Heat a flat bottom frying pan and grease with oil. Spread large spoonfuls of batter into several discs on the pan and drizzle oil around them. You can easily make 3-4 small pancakes (cheela or pakoda) at a time on a regular sized pan.

If you drizzle the oil a little generously you get the texture of a crisp pakoda and if you keep the amount of oil lesser you get the texture of a pancake. The pancake type would need to be cooked for a little longer to get completely cooked.

Serve hot with a green chutney or fresh tomato chutney. The one I served this time was made of 3 large tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 green chillies and salt to taste. Just blend everything together and pour into the serving bowl.

As kids we used to eat such fritters as a sandwich filling sometimes. I remember buttered slices of bread sandwiching one such fat crisp fritter or patty made of any vegetables and paneer etc or even ghee smeared rotis wrapped around such fritters used to be a filling snack after some long distance cycling or whatever that exhausted us and made us hungry.

A similar shallow fried pakoda recipe is here. Such shallow fried pakodas and pancakes make really good tea time snacks or hearty winter or rainy day breakfasts. Don't forget to serve a tangy hot freshly made chutney on the side and see how everyone laps up healthy food without a wink.

I will share recipes of drumstick flower subzi really soon.

atte ka meetha cheela | desi whole wheat crepe recipe

Atte ka cheela is a healthy traditional whole wheat pancake or crepe that is laced with the mild flavour of fennel seeds. Some people like it a little thicker like pancakes (unleavened) and some like it thin like a crepe. The thin cheelas are known as chithda (चिथड़ा ) in some areas, meaning a rag, because once folded it looks like a rag.

I sometimes serve the atte ka cheela rolled up with mango chhunda. The meetha cheela is served as a breakfast or a quick snack, can be rolled up nicely with some relish or chutney and can be a good lunch box meal to be carried to work. Kids would sure love it in their lunch boxes. 

The recipe is simple and needs no specific instructions.

Just take about a cup of whole wheat flour in a large bowl, for 4 cheelas mix sugar to taste ( I use 2 tbps for this quantity) and a tbsp of whole fennel seeds.

Now pour enough milk in it to make a pouring consistency batter. Just that and now you are ready to make cheelas or pancakes.

You need 2 tsp of ghee per cheela and chhunda or mango chutney or even jam or marmalade of choice as much you like.

Heat a flat griddle or tawa and grease it with a tsp of ghee, pour a ladle full of the batter on the griddle and spread it like dosa or a thin pancake, let it cook for a while.

Pour a tsp of ghee on top and now flip it to be cooked on the other side too.

When cooked it has to be soft and not very crisp. Take the cooked cheela off from the griddle, keep on a plate and spread the mango chhunda evenly on it (mango chhunda is made with grated raw mangoes and sugar and is something like candied slivers of mango).

Now roll this up and serve hot or warm with lassi or hot or chilled milk.

And tell me if you liked it for the simplicity and the taste which is so out of this world with fennel in the pancake combining very well with the sweet and sour chhunda inside the crepe like cheelas.

Make your whole wheat cheela plain or roll it up with your favourite relish, this is the easiest breakfast or snack one can make with minimal fuss.