MAANGAI THOKKU / MANGO PICKLE

Serving size - 3/4 cup

Preparation time - 15 minutes

Cooking time - 20 minutes

               Today's post is Mango Thokku which is one of my all time favorite thokku. I love raw mangoes as well as mango fruit. I bought raw mongoes most of the time, but before cooking I use to finish it off as such  :) LOL... But this time I strictly keep my mouth tight and asked my mom how to make Mango Thokku. She taught me this recipe through phone yesterday. I made this recipe immediately it turns out yummy. Butt will come only for 2 days I believe.

               I do remember the days before my marriage. IF summer comes, my mom and chithies have lot of works like making vathal, vadam, thokkus etc. As we are in the town side, we will get lot of mangoes from all the nearby villages where our relatives are there. Oh my god, I am missing all these fun. Here its very hard to find mangoes as like as our Indian mangoes. Anyhow, at least we are getting mangoes right. We should feel happy for it. 

Let us go to the easy and tasty Mango thokku recipe....

Ingredients

Fresh Shredded Raw Mango - 1 cup
Jaggery - 2 tsp (optional) See Tips
Gingelly Oil - 2 to 3 tbsp

Dry Roast & To Grind

Byadagi red chillies - 4 (optional) see Tips
Red chillies - 2 or 3
Fenugreek seeds - 20 seeds
Hing powder - 1/4 tsp or less

Seasoning 

Gingelly oil - 1 or 1 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp

Method

• Wash the mango and tap it with clean cloth or paper towel.
• Peel its outer green skin to trash. Grate the inner fleshy skin until the seed seems clean. Discard the seed.
• Dry roast fenugreek seeds first and keep it aside. Then dry roast the red chillies. Allow them to cool completely and grind the dry roast ingredients with hing powder into nice powder.
• Heat oil in a sauce pan, add turmeric powder and shredded mangoes. Then add salt and fry for 2 or 3 minutes and close the lid. 
• Mangoes should get half cook. Then add the ground powder to the mangoes and fry for few minutes.
• Then,If you need, you can add less than or 1/8 cup of water to mangoes to get cook.
• Once mangoes are cooked well, open the lid, add jaggery, mix and fry until the oil leaves its sides. Switch off the flame and keep it in the stove which is off or aside.
• Heat the oil in the small pan for seasoning, once its heated, add mustard seeds and wait until the seeds are splutter.
• Allow the pickle and seasoning completely cool and add the seasoning to the pickle.
• Mango thokku is ready now. Keep it in the clean and dry air tight container. It will comes for a long time if you keep it in the refrigerator. 
• It will goes with curd rice or any rice varieties you prefer, Parathas or chapattis too.

Tips

• Gingelly oil gives more taste to pickles, if you want you can use any cooking oil.
• Don't add fenugreek seeds much, then it will give bitter taste.
• While roasting, be careful. It should not burn otherwise it will spoil the whole pickle.
• Jaggery will give you additional taste. I used Byadagi red chilli for rich red color. Instead you could add our normal red chillies too.
• Be sure the container must be clean, otherwise it won't come for long time. It will get spoil soon.
• Use the clean spoon while serving, to keep for long standing.
• If you are doubted that it is going to get spoil, take the pickle out. Heat oil in a pan, once it is heated, add pickle to it and fry for sometime. After it gets cool, keep it in the air tight container.

HOMEMADE EGG FREE SOFT SPONGY ORANGE CAKE

Preparation Time -  15 minutes

Baking Time - 20 minutes

Hi Friends,

As I told in my earliers posts, I am very slow in blogging due to lot of diversions. I made this wonderful spongy yummy cake as VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL, but I couldn't post this on that special day. I din't participate in the LOVE 2 BAKE event which falls on every monday.

I am just pushing me to write this recipe for linking this recipe to 2 of the important events. One is LOVE2BAKE by spicy treats and the other

is SYS-W SERIES SHOW YOUR STYLES TO THE WORLD which is run by my lovely blogger friend Viji from Viruthu unna vanga. This is my first entry in SYS-W SERIES. So Viji asked me to pick my choice of secrete ingredient . I picked Orange Fruit and I made this eggless orange soft cake. Another one special thing in this recipe is, I grab the recipe to make this tasty cake from Viji's space. I really thank her to share this wonderful recipe on her space. I am proud that I got lot of appreciation from my friends. IT really made me so happy. I thanked viji immediately through email, but I want to thank her in my space. SO that I mentioned.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH DEAR !

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 cup
Soften unsalted butter - 3/4 stick
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Condensed milk - 7 oz
Orange zest - 1 tsp
Orange juice - 1/2 cup
ENO Fruit salt - 1/2 tsp (Fresh packet for best result)

Method

• Grease the cake pan with butter and dust it with flour to get a smooth bottom, of the cake.
• Sieve the all purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda well and keep it aside.
• Bake the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Add soften butter and condensed milk in a large bowl to beat well until it comes smooth and creamy. I used electric blender, you could also use hand whisk too. 
• Add orange zest and orange juice to the creamy mixture. To get a fluffy texture, add ENO fruit salt to the mixture and mix well. (zzzzz - sizzling sound is coming while adding the salt)
• Add flour to the mixture and mix gently with flat spatula until it comes smooth and mixed well.
• Pour the mixture into the baking pan and bake for 20 minutes.
• Once the cake is done, allow it to cool completely. Check whether the cake is done or not by inserting the tooth pick. IF it comes clean, cake has done else it comes with sticky the cake has to be in the oven for few more minutes.
• Now,the yummy spongy soft orange cake is ready. Icing is optional. we all had it as such. 

Tips

• Please remove the cake from the oven once it has done. Otherwise it goes hard.
• Don't use the already opened ENO fruit salt packet.
• Check the oven temperature with your manual, because the oven to oven lot of variations. SO take care of temperatures for getting best result.

I am sending this to Love2Bake event 

SYS-W SERIES SHOW YOUR STYLES TO THE WORLD by Viji

LEFT OVER TOMATO GRAVY AND RICE TURNS INTO - CRUNCHY CAULIFLOWER RICE / GOBI RICE - WITH NO MASALA

Preparation time - 5 minutes

Soaking time - 15 minutes

Cooking time - less than 10 minutes

Cauliflower is very good for health, especially heart disease and cancer. It has lots of fiber and vitamin C. The born story of this recipe, I have two left over items, rice and tomato gravy. I want to finish it off. So I planned to prepare this delicious cauliflower rice. Because my kid loves rice with any tomato flavored gravies, so that I had mixed them and turns out yummy. I was very happy while my little picky eater enjoyed it. Let us go to the recipe.

Ingredients

Rice - 1 cup
Tomato gravy - 1/4 bowl
Cauliflower - sliced - 1 small bowl
Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - as needed
Oil - 2 to 3 tsp

Method

                                      

• Wash and sliced the cauliflower. Add cauliflower, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, salt in a bowl and mix well. Keep it aside for 15 minutes.

• Heat oil in a pan and fry these marinated cauliflower slightly. Don't over cook. Cauliflowers must have the cruchy taste. So half cook with sprinkle of water. Just close the lid for 2 or 3 minutes. Not more than that.
• Once the cauliflower is done with its crunchiness, remove it from the heat.
• Take a bowl, add rice, tomato gravy ( I used the left over gravy which I made for poori) and mix well gently without smash the rice. Then add the crunchy cauliflower into the mixed gravy rice and mix gently.
• Left over rice and gravy turns into yummy crunchy cauliflower rice with no masala. Serve it with raita or as such or as you wish.

I am sending this to cutchi kitchen's LeftoverMakeover giveaway

SIMPLE & YUMMY SNACK - VEGETABLE PINWHEELS / WHEEL PUFF

Most of them like to have Vegetable puff, I too comes under that list. But I could not get my favorite puff in my surroundings. Four years ago, one fine day my husband told about pastry sheets. We immediately went to our regular grocery store for getting ready made pastry sheets. We bought it and tried this recipe very next day. It came out well. I was flying and no words to express my happiness. From that day, I always keep this pastry sheets handy.

It is a very simple and grand starter for parties. I kept this yummy snack as a starter in my home parties. I thought of sharing this recipe for the past one year but could not. But it is up today for Love2bake event. I would like to participate in the Love2bake event which falls on every monday. It is a weekly event which is started recently by our co-blogger Sangeetha from Spicy treats.

You could make these sheets into either or as your desired pinwheel shapes. It is totally upto your wish.

FOR CURRY 

Preparation Time - 15 minutes

Cooking time - 20 minutes

Ingredients

Cinnamon - 1/2 inch
Potato - 1/2 or 1 (I used 3/4 potato - chopped)
Carrot - 1 cup (chopped)
Beans - 1 cup (chopped)
Onion - 1 1/4 cup (chopped)
Bell pepper - 1/2 (chopped) (optional)
Ginger garlic paste - 1 1/2 tbsp
Garam masala - 1 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp (or upto your spice level)
Water - less than 1/4 cup
Oil - 2 to 3tbsp

Method

• First boil carrot, potato and beans with salt separately. I used microwave for boiling. (It must be cooked but not mashy consistency) Keep it aside.
• Heat oil in a pan, once it gets heated, add cinnamon, then add onions. Fry until the color of the onion turns transparent.
• Add ginger garlic paste and fry until the raw smell goes. Add bell pepper, fry for less than a minute.
• Add garam masala and red chilli powder, mix well and add little water immediately. 
• Add boiled vegetables into the fried mixture and keep it in the flame until the water completely goes dry.
• Veggie mixture is ready to keep inside the pastry sheets. Please remove the cinnamon stick before using this veggie mixture.

How to make Pinwheels using pastry sheets?

Thaw time - 40 minutes or until to handle the sheets

Preparation time - 15 minutes

Cooking time - 30 minutes

Serving size - 20 pinwheels for 1 sheet

First you must thaw the pastry sheet for 40 minutes by remove it from the freezer to room temperature. If you want to thaw both the sheets, keep the box at the room temperature else take one sheet and wrap the unused sheet and place it back to the freezer. You could also thaw it for overnight by transfer the sheets from freezer to refrigerator.

Ingredients

Pastry sheets - 2
Milk - 2 tbsp or as needed
Water - 1 tbsp or as needed
Brush - 1
Knife - 1

Method

• Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease the baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
• Mix milk and water in a small bowl for brushing the outer layer of the pastry sheets
• Unfold the pastry sheet in the lightly floured surface. Brush it with milk mixture.
• Spread the veggie mixture on the sheet. While spreading veggie mixture please leave 1/4" space around its sides.
• Start rolling from one side until the pastry sheet ends. Seal the sheets at its end. Brush it up with milk on the outer surface too.
• Cut into 1/2" slices. Place the cut- pieces on the baking sheets and brush it up with milk mixture.
• Bake them for 15 minutes or until it get golden color. 
• Serve it warm.

Tips

• Please keep it in the oven to get warm before serving.
• Please don't thaw the unused pastry sheets.
• Don't forget to seal the edges of the pastry sheet while finishing your scroll.

I am sending this to Love2Bake event

LAVANGA LATIKA - BENGALI SWEET - SNC CHALLENGE - 14

Serving size - 5

Preparation time - 30 minutes

Cooking time - 10 minutes

Hi SNC Friends,

I am back to SNC challenges. Sorry friends.. As I told earlier in my post, due to some personal reasons I could not come to the blogging world. So I really missed this wonderful event SNC challenges. From this month, I will try to do all the challenges and also try to do the missed out challenges too. Though Divy (our baby boss) already gave chances to all of us to do the missed out recipes, I could not do them on that time. But some of our friends done a very good job by posting the missed out recipes. Sorry for not commenting on your spaces too. I will try to visit all your space for sure.

We all know that SNC is the event conducted by Divya pramil from youtoocancook. She successfully completed the first anniversary of the SNC two months ago. I am really happy for this brilliant event and wish her to get more and more success. I am very proud to be a member of this event. Thank you Divy for this awesome idea to learn recipes and get to know different people in this blogging world.

 To learn the regional recipes, Divya cleverly introduced this SNC event. The members of this group is divided into two groups. One is North team and another is the south team. The members are grouped according to their origin. Every month one member from each of the team will challenge the opponent team with their regional recipes. IF you want to know more about SNC, please click on the below image.

This month Sanoli from Sanoli's kitchen challenged this awesome bangali sweet Lavanga Latika for us.

Shama Nagarajan from easy to cook recipes challenged with our traditional sweet Surul boli for the the North team members.

I am a member of the southern team.

  Lavanga latika is a Bengali sweet which is the challenge for SNC event of this month. This is also known as labongo latika. Clove is called as labongo in Bengali and lavanga in tamil. Surya kala, chandra kala and lavanga latika are same but the folding are different. I made few changes from the original recipe of lavanga latika. Because surya kala and chandra kala sweet recipes are in my draft list. So I want to show some difference in this recipe. I used

•  wheat flour, instead of all purpose flour. All purpose flour is not good for health.
•  instant home made khoya instead of dry khoya.
•  din't use baking soda.
• Originally, they use ghee for deep frying. But I used oil for deep frying.

I kept the oil in high heat. So its color came darker but its taste is good.

I would like to tell you one truth. All purpose flour is always gives the rich taste, but it is not good for health. Wheat flour is very good for health but tastes is not as rich as the all purpose flour.

Ingredients

Oil - for deep frying

For outer Crust

Wheat flour - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 3/4 tsp

Salt - a pinch

Water - 1/4 cup 

For Stuffing

Khoya - 1/2 cup (Sweet)

Cashew - 2 (shred them)
Almond - 2 (shred them)
Cardamom powder - a pinch (optional, I din't use)

For Sugar syrup

Sugar - 1/4 cup
Water - 2 tbsp
Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method

For Stuffing

• Add the crushed moist khoya, cashews and almonds in a bowl. Mix well.
• Then divide them into five parts and keep it aside for filling.

For sugar syrup

• Add sugar and water in a pan, Mix well and heat that in a medium flame.
• Once it started boiling, add cardamom powder and switch off the flame once it gets one string consistency. 

For Outer crust

• Mix all the ingredients under the outer crust heading. Make a soft dough.
• Divide the dough into 5 equal sized parts.

How to make Lavanga Latika with all together?

• Take one ball of the dough, dip both the sides with wheat flour and start rolling it using the rolling pin to make a thin round.
• Keep one part of the filling in the middle of the round, fold it like envelope and seal the middle point with clove. See the below pictures for the clear understanding.

• Do the rest of the dough balls and fillings as same as the above procedure.

• Heat oil in a pan for deep frying, once the oil gets heated, add all the folded latikas into the oil and fry them until both the sides are well cooked. (Tips for heating the oil )
• Remove them from the oil and pour them into the sugar syrup. Allow them to stand in the sugar syrup for 1 or 2 mins.
• Then take them out and keep them in the plate or air tight box. 

It is very yummy and thanks to sanoli for giving us to cook this delicious recipe and enjoy to the core. 

INSTANT HOMEMADE KHOYA - WITH NO COOKING - 150 th post

Hi friends,

I am happy to share this useful recipe INSTANT HOMEMADE KHOYA as my 150th post.

Khoya is a dairy product which is used by Indians for most of their sweets. There are types of khoya which are classified according to their moisture level. Here I am giving the recipe for 50% of moist on the khoya. If you preserve it in the fridge with air tight box, this will stand only for 2 or 3 days. If the khoya is dry, it will stand for years.

Born story of the recipe is.. I want to make lavanga latika for SNC event. But I don't have khoya in my pantry. All of the sudden I thought of trying this recipe to make khoya. It tastes same as khoya and so I used for lavanga latika. Hope you all guess my next post... Yes! it is Lavanga Latika.

Ingredients

Milk powder -1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 or 1.5 tsp (optional)
Water - 3 1/2 tsp
Ghee - for greasing fingers

Method

• Add sugar, then add water little by little to the milk powder and mix well with spoon.
• Then grease your fingers with ghee and mix them with fingers to get soft dough.
• Wrap the soft ball with cloth or keep it in the air tight box for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Take the dough ball and crush it. Khoya is ready. 

MOR KOOZH WITH CARROT GARNISHING

Serving size - 2

Preparation time - 10 minutes

Cooking time - 15 minutes

 It is my favorite snack. I have learned this recipe from my great grand ma. She is a wonderful cook. More over, this mor koozh is very good for health. You can take it as snacks as well as dinner/breakfast. I made this mor koozh from the left over white rice. We can also make this mor koozh from rice flour.

Ingredients

 

Rice flour / Ground cooked rice - 1 cup

Butter milk - 1/4 cup

Water - 1/4 or 1/3 cup

Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 4 or 5 (optional)
Green/Red chillies - 2

Hing powder - a pinch

Cilantro - 2 tbs

Carrot - 2 tbs
Oil - 3 tsp
Salt - as required

Method

 

1. Add rice flour, buttermilk, water and salt together. Mix them thoroughly without any lumps.
2. Heat oil in a pan, seasoning with mustard seeds, curry leaves, green chillies and hing powder.
3. Add rice flour mixture to the seasoning. Stir continuously until the mixture becomes thicker.
4. If the mixture comes out from the sides and not sticky in the pan, pour it to the oil greased plate or tray.
5. Garnish it with carrot and cilantro.
6. Allow it to cool until it sets well. Apply little oil on the knife and cut it into desire shaped pieces. Remove pieces carefully.
7. Mor koozh is ready.

Tips

1. Instead of green chillies, you can add mor millagai / dried buttermilk chillies.
2. If you have left over boiled white rice, grind it with little water or buttermilk. You can use this ground rice paste, instead of rice flour mixture.

I am sending this to cutchi kitchen's LeftoverMakeover giveaway