Wishing you all a very Happy & Colorful Holi.
Holi special menu: Puran Poli & Mixed Dal Vada.
Enjoy!
ashu 🙂
Happy Holi
Tag Archives: Indian recipes
Anarsa
The memory goes back to the days during Diwali time when early mornings Mom would restrict our entry into the kitchen. It was quite intriguing as when one was not allowed to enter the Kitchen that was the time when the urgency to get something from the kitchen would surface. Every Diwali on the Narak Chaturthi day, the early morning bath day was how the day is remembered as, my mother would make these Anarsas, a Maharashtrian sweet that is made of rice and sugar. It is one of my favorites, and the preparation involves a very tedious/elaborate method, I had never attempted it in my kitchen until last year. Whenever I visit my mom’s house she has always made this for me and always packs this sweet for me to bring home. This was another reason to never attempt it before. But there always was the nagging reminder by my ever eager mind to start making it in my kitchen, finally this happened from last Diwali. Last April mom had visited me here in the UAE and she had made the Anarsa at home and explained me all the details of its preparation. Finally I think I now know how to make them, and hence posting this here to document it for anyone interested to learn and also for my own future reference 🙂 as well.
Anarsa, is one of the sweet items of the Diwali Faral or snacks in the Maharastrian menu. The ingredients used are rice, sugar, poppy seeds, and ghee or oil for deep frying. Anarsa when fried in ghee tastes very delicious, though one could also use oil. I have modified my mom’s original recipe a bit here. As the use of poppy seeds is banned here, I have substituted it with Semolina.
We have to soak the rice for three days, change the rice water every day, then drain it away after three days, pat dry the rice and powder it. The powdered rice is sieved to ensure we get very fine rice powder. This rice powder is then mixed with the powdered sugar, and the mixture is given a round ball shape and kept in an airtight container or box in the cupboard. We leave this for at least a day or more before making the Anarsa out of it, this mixture lasts for many days without getting spoilt. One can refrigerate this mix to last for a month or two too, but must be kept in airtight box.
INGREDIENTS:
Rice: 2 Bowl /Katori (200gm)
Sugar: 1 &3/4th Bowl (175gm)
Semolina: 2-3 Tbsp
Ghee/Oil: 250 gm
Milk: 1 Tbsp
METHOD:
Wash the rice and soak it in water for three days. Daily change the water of the soaked rice.
Drain the water at the end of the third day and dry the rice with a kitchen towel or tissue roll.
Grind this rice in a mixer to get fine powder, use the finest sieve to get fine rice powder.
Grind the sugar too to get a fine powder.
Mix the rice and sugar powders, use 1-2 drops of milk, only if required, to form a tight ball shape of this mixture. The milk is used just to bind the two powders together. One might not even require the milk as the rice powder is bit damp, hence use self discretion to decide whether to use milk.
Keep this powder dough ball in an air-tight container or box. Keep this for at least a day before using it to make the Anarsa. This mix would last for many days to months too if refrigerated and kept airtight.
After a day or two take out the powdered rice ball and break it in a bowl or plate. Mix it well, add 1 tbsp milk to it and make a stiff dough. Knead it well, use only few drops of milk at first and go on adding more drops only if required, but the dough should not be too soft. It will be sticky, use ghee to prevent it from sticking to hands.
Roll out the dough and cut equal sized portions of it and give them round shape.
Take each round ball and press it on semolina giving it a round shape.
Heat the ghee in Kadai on medium flame. Picking up the round-shaped Anarsa slip it semolina side up into the Kadai for frying.
We give support to the shape by holding a sieve type frying spoon under the Anarsa and by pushing the ghee over it using another frying spoon. This ensures the even color and cooking of the Anarsa. If the dough is bit loose then the shape is not retained while frying in the oil and the whole dough disintegrates, the spoon gives it support until it becomes firm and cooked. Keep the gas flame from medium-to-low while frying the anarsa, for the even cooking and color.
Fry the Anarsa till it is cooked and an even reddish color is attained.
Drain the fried anarsa on a kitchen tissue so that all the excess ghee/oil is soaked on it. Keep these fried goodies in airtight box and enjoy them as and when you wish to eat.
This recipe is learnt from my mother, have modified it according to the ingredients that are available for making it here. This is prepared as a Diwali sweet so it sure holds a special place in the Faral plate that we serve to family and guests. I had always felt my Diwali snacks as being incomplete until last year, as my favorite Anarsa would not be seen in the plate, but not anymore 🙂 .
These were the snacks that I had served to my friends during this Diwali, last month 🙂 . It includes Chivda, Besan Ladoo, Andhra rice chakli, mom’s special chakli, savory and sweet types of Shankarpale, Besan sev.
It feels good to share this Anarsa recipe with you all. Looking forward to hear your thoughts on the post.
Enjoy!
ashu
Tandoori Gongura Prawns
I know most of us are way too much fond of grilled baked food, I love tandoori food. I have been making a lot of tandoori veg and non-veg dishes at home as we all love it, but have posted very few of the recipes. I always wanted to make use of Gongura and prawns combination, Andhra recipes use this combination if I am not wrong, but had never tried. I absolutely love the Gongura leaves and as it is not a regularly seen leafy vegetable in supermarkets here, I always buy and prepare the Gongura chutney and store in the refrigerator. It is my pickle that I enjoy whenever I am eating a simple meal of dal and rice. Indian recipes give us a lot many options for making meals either very lavishly elaborate or as simple as a khichdi or rice and dal combos for days when one wants a light simple meal. For today’s tandoori menu I decided to make the Tandoori Gongura Prawns and yes, I loved it. My Jr. does not like the Gongura leaves so he choose not to eat even a single of this, but I had also made other tandoori prawns and he finished those. The tandoori prawns recipe will be my next post. The Gongura imparts such a tangy and unique taste to the sweetish prawns, those who love to experiment with their food will love the combination, and as I love it so I am gonna start making it more often.
Today lunch at my place was an assortment of tandoori dishes and can tell you how satisfying the lunch turned out to be. My Jr. had been asking me for sometime now to make some new type of dish from whole chicken breast meat. I used Italian herb mix and made a yummy baked dish, will be posting that recipe too. Then I made Tandoori Prawns too, the typical red colored spicy one, and they were so so Yum!!
Also baked and grilled some vegetables to go along with the chicken. I had fresh paneer cubes stored in the refrigerator, and marinated few of the cubes with my homemade tandoori masala and grilled it. So you can see I had a full tandoori platter as my lunch:). The weekend started out with masala tea with Karachi Bakery Cashew biscuits and a tandoori platter lunch and simple dal and rice with Gongura chutney as dinner. 🙂
Now to get started with making this recipe. We need the Gongura chutney for this recipe and few Kashmiri Chilies and Prawns that are cleaned and deveined. You can see my Gongura Chutney recipe here.
TANDOORI GONGURA PRAWNS
INGREDIENTS:
Gongura Chutney: 2 Tbsp
Kashmiri Red Chili: 3 no
Prawns/Shrimps: 250 gm
Olive oil: 2 tbsp
Turmeric: 1 Tsp
Salt: To taste
NOTE: You can use any cooking oil of choice.
METHOD:
Soak the Kashmiri red chili in hot water, they are easier to grind after soaking as they become soft.
Wash, devein, and clean the shrimps and pat dry with kitchen towel or tissue.
Apply salt and turmeric.
Preheat the oven to 200 deg C on the grill and oven setting.
Grind the Kashmiri chili along with the Gongura chutney and some oil. The chutney already had oil so you may only need 1 tbsp or less. Adding oil helps make a smooth paste and we can easily coat this paste on the shrimps. Oil does not make the shrimps dry when being grilled. Use remaining oil, if required, to brush on the prawns while they are being grilled.
Do remember that shrimps have delicate flesh and do not need a long time to be grilled, over grilling will result in burning and making them hard. Also do not keep them very close to the grill. The intense heat dries up the prawns. Hence adding oil to the marinade prevents the flesh from drying.
Line the skewers with the chutney marinated prawns and insert them in the oven for 10 mins. After 10 min. check if they are done, and if not crisp on the outside then keep for another 5 minutes and remove. They are perfectly done in 10-15 min, but depending upon the size and the grill oven used decide upon the grilling time.
Remove from the skewers and serve hot. The gongura chutney already imparts the tangy flavor and hence I did not need any sauce or dips along with these.
Serving Options:
- You can serve it with a fresh salad of thinly sliced onions and tomatoes, seasoned with only salt and pepper. This is the classic salad accompaniment to any tandoori dish.
- You can make a chutney infused olive oil dip as seen in the picture.
- You can mix these with mixed salad and serve too.
For the other Tandoori recipes from ashuskitchen, click the link below:
Wishing you all a Happy Weekend. Looking forward to see you visiting again for checking out more tandoori and other yummy recipes.
Enjoy!! 🙂
ashu
Sweet Potato Puri
Blogging is a very interesting experience. After each of my posts, there are new ideas taking shape about the next blog post, new recipe to write and share with you all. Most of the dishes that get cooked at home always include family favorites and new cuisines that I would like to try out. In the process, dishes eaten by me in my childhood or the one’s that my mom made back in those days, take a back seat. The idea behind this post is to make something that was eaten a long time ago, in my growing up days, and something that I have not made enough times for the kids to like it as much as I did. I can count on my finger tips the scant number of times that I have made this puri, hence I made them so that the recipe gets documented.
SWEET POTATO PURI: The taste is yum and I love it. The starchy sweet potato is a good source of carbohydrate and fiber. It is also a good source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C.
The puris are deep fried. I also tried to bake some puris, my effort to decrease the calorie count of the dish, but I did not like the taste, and also found them to be a bit hard to chew. Hence I ruled out the baking option for now, it needs more experimentation and changes in the recipe.
INGREDIENTS:
Sweet potato- 2 no. (Boiled and mashed)
Sugar- 1-1½ Katori or bowl (powdered. Use sugar as per sweetness preferred)
Flour- 1½ Katori or Bowl- Refined flour or whole wheat flour.
Cardamom powder- 1Tsp
Oil- For frying.
METHOD:
Boil and mash the sweet potatoes. Take the mashed potatoes in a round bowl, add the powdered sugar and flour to it, and make dough out of it. The dough consistency should not be too soft as we have to make puri. Add the freshly ground cardamom powder. Knead the dough so that all the ingredients get mixed evenly.
Divide the dough into 4-5 portions and roll them out flat, then using a cookie cutter cut out evenly shaped puris.
Prick these small circular shaped puris with a fork. This is done to prevent them from rising up in oil. Heat oil in a kadai and deep fry the puris to golden brown color on medium flame, then drain them on kitchen tissue roll and cool.
This is how they should look in appearance. These are bit soft to eat, but have a unique taste. If you like sweet potatoes or are willing to try out something different, then go ahead and give yourself the experience of tasting them. Looking forward to hearing your comments and feedback on this post.
Enjoy!!
ashu 🙂
Coconut Barfi
Sometimes we plan something and it does not happen, well this is what happened with this post. This post was due last week and it so happened that it got unnecessarily delayed, but better late than never.
Once on my grocery shopping spree I randomly put a tin of Nestle’s sweetened condensed milk into my shopping cart, thinking I will use it to make something sweet. The tin was placed on the first rack of the fridge and was completely forgotten. Last week one of my kids suddenly asked me to make coconut barfi, listening to this remark was definitely music to my ear, never has this kind of demand come up and that too for the barfi, it’s something they never wanted to eat and hence I stopped making it altogether. So when this demand came, I had to make it soon before some other demand cropped up. I got the grated coconut and finally the condensed milk tin saw the daylight, was removed from the fridge to use in the recipe.
I have to share, I have never used condensed milk ever to make coconut barfi/laddu. I always followed method using milk, sugar and it was a lengthy one. I am pleased with the way this recipe turned out, hassle free, and so fast. So this is yet another one of the Zhatpat dishes, a homemade Indian dessert. Go ahead and try making this sweet, delicious, and effortless recipe.
COCONUT BARFI:
INGREDIENTS:
Fresh Coconut-1 1/2 (grated)
Ghee-2 tbsp
Sweetened condensed milk-1 tin (I used 3/4th tin)
Green Cardamom (ground)-1 tsp
For Garnish– Nuts of choice-Pistachios/Almonds/Cashew nuts.
METHOD:
- Heat a thick bottom pot/kadai on medium heat and then add ghee. Once the ghee melts then add the grated coconut and cook for 10 minutes or so, using spatula to continuously stir, till the raw taste of the coconut is gone. This prevents the coconut from getting burnt and gives an even color.
- Add the sweetened condensed milk to the coconut and mix it well. Adjust adding the milk according to your preferred sweetness.
- Cook it on medium/slow flame till the coconut and milk mixture is sticky enough to form barfi.
- Add the ground cardamom powder and coarsely crushed or chopped nuts of choice and mix well.
- Grease a square brownie tin or a round plate and spread the coconut mixture evenly on it and let it cool and get set.
- Cut the set mixture into small even-sized squares/barfi shape and serve.
This can be served as dessert/mithai after a meal or along with snacks. I found making this to be extremely easy and less time consuming. As the tinned condensed milk was sweetened, so add quantity as per sweetness preferred. I did not use the whole tin, 2-3 spoonful milk was still left at the bottom of the tin. The Barfi was prepared within 30 minutes, and almost half of it was consumed within minutes of making it, a fast disappearing item if one is fond of sweets!
Enjoy!
ashu 🙂
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