Mealmaker Manchurian

As we know, soy is a major source of vegetarian protein and so my mom used to cook soy chunks or meal maker since our childhood, I am particularly fond of its chewiness when cooked and crispiness when not cooked (Yeah weird, but I used to snack on them ;)).  But for some reason, may be because it resembles meat in texture and looks, my husband does not like it at all. I buy it part of the groceries and try different recipes to feed him that; of all recipes Manchurian gave me quite a success. 

Ingredients:

1.     Meal maker - 1 cup

2.     Onion - 1

3.     Green chillies - 1

4.     Capsicum - 1

5.     Corn flour  - 2 tbsp

6.     Salt to taste

7.     Chili powder – 1tsp

8.     Pepper crushed – ¼ tsp

9.     Oil – 2 tbsp

10. Garlic – 3 cloves finely chopped

11. Ginger garlic paste – 1tsp

12. Soy sauce - 1 tsp

13. Tomato sauce – 1 tbsp

14. Vinegar – 1 tsp

15. Spring onion for garnishing (if available)

Method:

Step 1: Boil meal maker in salt water; drain and wash and rinse with cold water, squeeze out and keep aside
Step 2: Mix corn flour, salt, chili powder, pepper, ginger-garlic paste in a bowl with few drops of water to make a thin paste
Step 3: Coat the masala paste to meal maker and shallow fry them till crisp. Drain oil and keep aside.

Step 4: In the same tawa, add garlic, onion chopped, green chili, capsicum one by one in that order and sauté them for just 1 minute
Step 5: Add tomato sauce, soy sauce and adjust salt/ chilli. Sprinkle some more crushed pepper for flavor.
Step 6: Finally add fried meal maker, spring onions and toss and serve as starter. This is dry.
Step 7: If you require with gravy, before you add the meal maker add corn flour dissolved in water to the masala and stir until thick. Then add meal maker and cook for 1 min before serving.

Ragi Laddu

This is another instant sweet for surprise guests particularly if they are health freaks. Even for a diabetes patient, this can be prepared with sugar-free substitutes. We at home are used to eating more ragi dishes as our grand-dad had diabetes; so, I generally like the color and flavor of ragi if not for health reasons also.

Ingredients:

1. Ragi powder or finger millet flour - 2 cups
2. Ghee - 3/4 cup
3. Powdered sugar - 1 cup
4. Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp
5. Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp


Method:

Step 1: Heat a spoon of ghee and roast broken cashew nuts in it.
Step 2: Drain the cashews out and in same pan melt the rest of the ghee and fry the ragi flour till brown and aroma fill the room.
Step 3: Sprinkle the cardamom powder, mix well and remove from heat and transfer to a bowl.
Step 4: When the heat of the flour lowers a bit add the powdered sugar, roasted cashew nuts and mix well.
Step 5: Roll into laddu of required size and store in an airtight container.

Ragi Halwa

Suddenly from somewhere I got this ragi-o-mania, I started trialling with ragi flour. Once I had tried this gooey halwa which tasted very good. With generous ghee this slid into the throat like wheat halwa, even with less ghee it should’ve tasted equally good but little sticky.

Ingredients:

1. Ragi Flour - 1 cup
2. Sugar - 1 cup
3. Crushed Cardamom - 2
4. Ghee - 1/2 cup
5. Fried cashew nuts - 2 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: First mix the ragi flour with 2 cups of water in a pan and keep aside for 10 mins.
Step 2: Heat the pan, add sugar,stir it well continuously. Add ghee and stir until it thicken as halwa.
Step 3: After it get thicken add cardamom,fried cashews and mix it well.