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While clicking photographs, certain things draw our attention for the mere reason that they exhibit some uniqueness. The pictures below drew my attention for the symmetry they showed and automatically got framed in the snapshot.

Nature at its best-in symmetry!

Man-made wonders-an iron grill door, clicked at Gumba, Mysore in India.

The pillars at a Matha in South India.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Symmetry.”

Herbs,Cottage Cheese & Sprouts Croquettes

When the weather turns a bit cold, one looks forward to making hot, deep fried foods. When the day dawned, I had not planned or even thought about trying out anything new in the kitchen, this recipe just happened. I would also not say that it is cold out here now as compared to the rest of the world. This morning while sipping the hot tea in front of the TV screen and flipping the channels on the TV remote, I came across the word croquette in one of the travel shows. It was definitely a mouth watering moment and the thought to make it in my kitchen got rooted in the mind. It is always fun to try out making something different from whatever ingredients I can use that are available in the fridge or at home when such instances occur. I had some of these left-over ingredients in the fridge and the Herbs, Cottage Cheese (fresh Paneer) and Sprouted Legume Croquette recipe got shaped and taste was good.As I was happy with the taste and it was also approved by my foodie Jr. so here I am sharing it with you all. The herbs used are parsley and coriander (coriander and mint combination would also go well). The breadcrumbs used were extremely fine. I usually dry the leftover bread and use this for making breadcrumbs for coating. I used the mixer pot and ground it fine so the outer coating of the croquette was smooth. The corn flour was used for dusting and dipping the croquette and then breadcrumbs for coating. The outer coat was crisp with a soft inner side. The herbs gave it a lovely green colour, appealing to the eye when it was cut in half.

Do leave your thoughts if you find it tempting enough to try out and enjoy making it in your kitchen as much as I did in my kitchen.

Herbs,Cottage Cheese and Sprouts Croquette:

Ingredients:

Cottage Cheese (Paneer)-100 gm

Legume Sprouts (Green Gram)-100 gm

Boiled Potato: 1

Herbs: Parsley and Coriander -50 gm (or 2 Tbsp each, finely chopped)

Green Chillies: 2 long (as per taste)

Corn Flour: 2-3 Tbsp

Bread Crumbs: 150-200 gm( left over can be stored for later use)

Cumin: 1Tsp (Dry Roasted)

Flax seeds: 1Tsp (Dry Roasted)

Salt: To taste

Oil: For frying

Method: Do assemble all the ingredients before starting the recipe, this saves time in the preparation. Combine the herbs, cumin, flax seeds, chillies, sprouts in a mixer pot and grind to get a coarse mix. The ingredients should be dry as the grinding results in obtaining a slightly wet mix if wet herbs or sprouts are used. Remove this mixture in a bowl and crumble the Paneer cubes ( or if using a paneer block then grate it) in this mix. Mash the boiled potato and add to the mix, add 2 tbsp of cornflour. Add the salt as per ones taste. Mix all the ingredients and if the mixture is still a bit moist then add breadcrumbs as needed. If all ingredients used are dry then the mixture might not require breadcrumbs, hence use your discretion for adding the breadcrumbs. I have added breadcrumbs to the mixture.

The mixture should be firm and hold together. Make small even-sized balls of the mixture and give them croquette shape, and keep them in a plate.

Take some cornflour in a plate and coat each croquette with the flour.

In a bowl mix 1 Tbsp corn flour with water to make a paste and then dip each flour coated croquette into the paste and remove immediately, then coat them with the fine breadcrumbs. Dust away the extra coating of the crumbs.

Heat cooking oil in a Kadai on high flame. Once the oil is hot, then deep fry the croquettes on high-to-medium flame until they get cooked inside and we get the desired golden brown colour on the outside coat. Remove them from the pan and drain on a kitchen tissue roll so that the excess oil gets absorbed.

Serving Options: They can be served with a sweet, tangy tomato ketchup or chilli sauce, or a chilli mayonnaise too. The dip to serve are many, choice is yours!

Nutritional Information : When making a dish or recipe I try to incorporate all the three components of food, i.e. proteins, carbohydrates, and fat in it.  In this dish too the Paneer and Legume Sprouts provide the protein part, the potato and cornflour the carbohydrates part, the flax seeds (click-flax seeds) the essential fatty acids. If one wishes to reduce the fat content then instead of deep frying , pan frying with less or 1-2 tsp oil can be done. The cumin, flax seeds, chilli and herbs add the required flavours, tastes, and not to forget-the fibre!

Home cooking ensures best quality ingredient use and one has the free hand to alter the recipe by adding ingredients of choice. Hence friends, a healthy eating approach starts right at home in your kitchen, give some time and make your daily cooking an intelligent choice and an enjoyable experience. Happy Cooking.

Enjoy!

Upside-down Apple and Almond Cake

Greeting’s dear friends. Pleasant weather round this time of the year in this part of the world with brightly coloured seasonal flowers blooming all over, around the pavements and gardens, bring out the best of the moods and lift the soul.  We already are in the second month of the year, the month of celebrating Valentine’s day, showering love and affection, of caring  and it also happens to be the birthday month of my dearest hubby.  To celebrate his birthday I baked a warm, comforting, delicious apple cake with cinnamon and nutmeg flavouring, my first time try of using apples in a cake. I had seen and purchased a cute apple-shaped cake tin in one of my shopping spree that was waiting for the day to dawn when I could use it. Today’s post is my 50th blog post and therefore it had to be something to do with baking and I decided to post this recipe of an Upside-down Apple and Almond cake. The aroma that engulfs the house when a cake is baked is always heavenly, this time round the fruit and cinnamon flavour was divine. From the oven it went to the cake stand and was cut as a midnight birthday celebration.

I have used the Royal Gala apple variety from USA. The markets here have so many varieties from different countries, but I prefer to use these for the sweet dishes that I make. The apple slices were tossed in caramelized brown sugar to give it the sweet and chocolaty taste and almond slices were used to provide the nutty taste, I prefer to use sliced or crushed nuts in most of my cakes. To give more of a chocolate taste to the apples, the bottom layer of the cake was of batter containing chocolate and top was kept plain that added the cinnamon taste to each bite.

General Tips: Before starting  to bake anything it is very essential to weigh the ingredients correctly, use room temperature ingredients, and assemble the ingredients so that one is not rushing around to get them. When everything is kept handy you would notice that baking cakes at home is not a big effort at all . Sieve the baking powder in the flour mix and keep ready for use. Grease the cake tin with butter and dust flour on it.

Upside-Down Apple and Almond Cake:

INGRIEDIENTS:

Apples: 2 no. (Ripe and firm)

Almonds: 50 gm (sliced or crushed)

Unsalted butter: 200 gm

Sugar: 200gm

Dark Brown Sugar: 3 Tbsp

Milk: 180 ml

Eggs: 3

Refined Flour: 200 gm

Baking Powder: 1 Tsp

Baking Soda: 1 Pinch

Cocoa Powder: 2 Tbsp

Cinnamon & Nutmeg: 1Tsp (Use powder or grate it directly)

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 180 deg C, fan-assisted. Grease the cake tin that is to be used for baking with butter. I used an apple-shaped tin, but a square or round tin would also be fine.

Peel, core, and slice the apples with the  help of an apple cutter, and make thin slices.  Heat a pan on the stove, add 1 Tsp butter and the brown sugar, stirring it and taking care not to burn the sugar. As the sugar caramelises add the apple slices and toss so that all the slices get coated with the sugar. Remove from pan and keep aside. Do not discard the leftover sugar syrup, if any.

In a bowl take the butter and  beat it soft.  Use a hand blender or spatula. Then add the powdered sugar or castor sugar and mix so that the mixture becomes soft, light and fluffy.

Add the eggs to the mix, one at a time, mixing after each addition. Grate the cinnamon stick and nutmeg  directly over the mixture or make powder and add 1 Tsp of the powder to the mixture. If one does not want to use these flavours then add Vanilla essence 1 Tsp.

Stir in the refined flour and milk in two batches to the egg and sugar mixture. The batter should be mixed so that the mixture is smooth and folds. Divide the batter into two equal portions.

In a small bowl take the leftover caramelised sugar syrup and mix 2 Tbsp of cocoa powder in it, add milk if required. Add this cocoa mixture to one portion of the batter.

Line the bottom of the cake tin with the caramelised apple slices. Sprinkle dark brown sugar and almond slices over the apples. Then pour over the chocolate batter over it. Next pour over the other cake batter portion.

Insert the cake tin into the preheated oven, bake at 180 deg C for 50 min or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the tin for sometime and then as the sides loosen up transfer it or invert it upside- down on a cake stand, with the apple layer on top.

The sugar content added to the cake is as per my taste. If you like a more sweeter cake, then increase the sugar content to 250gm instead of 200 gm.

Serving Options: The cake can be served as a warm dessert with more chocolate sauce poured over each slice if you prefer a chocolaty taste. It can be cooled then cut into slices and served with cups of hot tea or coffee. For a cake lover it would hardly matter how it is served, I always love to have cake at home so that every time I walk past the cake I can stop and grab a slice or a bite of it.

Note for new or first time bakers: In case their is no brown sugar at home then the normal white sugar can also used for caramelizing the apples. It is always a joy to cook or bake in the kitchen, experience it for yourself by trying out different recipes.

Enjoy!!