Besan Ladoo

This recipe is an adaptation from www.nishamadhulika.com. I had tried this recipe a couple of times earlier too but for Diwali I attempted this tried and tested recipe:)

Original recipe Source: Nishamadhulika.com

Ingredients:

1. Gram flour - 500 gm
2. Sugar - 500 gm
3. Ghee - 400 gm
4. Cashew nuts - 50 gm
5. Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Method:

Step 1: The first step is to prepare bura. To prepare this, heat a heavy bottomed pan add sugar and half a cup of water and stir continuously. After about 10-15 minutes you'll feel the sugar solidifying on the outer rim; at this point switch off the heat and let it cool by stirring. On doing this for about 15 minutes you'll get sugary powder. This is just the dissolved and recrystallized sugar in a uniform and finer texture that we call bura.

Step 2: Roast broken cashew nuts with some ghee in  a heavy bottomed pan and keep it aside.
Step 3: In the same pan, melt the rest of the ghee in low heat and add gram flour to it and roast until aroma emanates and turns slightly brownish. Switch off the heat and let it cool a bit.

Step 4: Now in a big mixing tray or bowl, add bura, roasted gram flour cardamom powder, cashew nuts and mix thoroughly. The gram flour should be slightly warm to press ladoos.

Step 5: Take a ladle full of this mixture in your palm and press and roll continuously until you get a nice round ladoo. Repeat until the mixture is done.

Tips:
* If the ladoo is not staying in form, heat some more ghee and add to the mixture.
* You can use almonds instead of cashews.
* You can place whole nuts at the center of the ladoo or even press one at the top of it.

Butter Murukku

Butter murukku was the savoury at home for this Diwali. After some research I found that this is relatively an easy thing to attempt and not that it came out mind blowing. I learnt that sweets and savoury making is not just about the formula and procedure like baking, it is also about experience. What I missed this time was the texture and freshness of the rice flour; depending on their dryness and type of rice used the rice flour gets its traits which result in crispness, colour of the savoury, flavour, oil absorbing nature and stuff like that. I don't think there is any metric to determine these; we just got to use the experience or instincts. Usually what wise people do is try a small batch first and then repeat for the rest, so that there is room for correction if necessary. Oh, too much of gyan just because mine was screwed a bit (It was slightly hard); don’t worry; sometimes you just crack it at the first go. However, I’ve given modified measures here which finally rendered me good results.

Ingredients:

1. Rice flour - 4 cups

2. Roasted-gram flour - 1 cup

3. Urad dal flour - 1/2 cup

4. Butter - 2 tbsp

5. Salt as per taste

6. Carom seeds- 1 tsp

7. Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

8. Oil for deep frying

Method:

Step 1: Sieve and mix all the flours in a mixing bowl, add salt, carom seeds, sesame seeds, softened butter, a tbsp of hot oil and mix well thoroughly. Then add warm water gradually and mix to make a soft dough. Wrap it in a muslin cloth and leave for 10 minutes.

Step 2: Heat oil in a deep pan; and in parallel with the help of murukku mold squeeze circular swirls with the desired size/shape/ number of holes in mold.

Step 3: When the oil in hot, simmer the heat and slide in the swirls very delicately and carefully into it. Once it  browns on one side, flip to the other side. Adjust  heat depending on the color you want and make sure it is cooked well.

TIPS:

* Usual mistakes in murkkus are that they turn out very dark in color or or they are brittle that they don't take the swirl shape or they are soft or they are too hard to bite or sometimes they absorb lot of oil. For each of these experienced people give suggestions and by that I mean I have not much idea :)

Plantain Cutlet

One of our friends had given some plantains which he got from his place. I had plenty of them and so wanted to try something other than the fry. Cutlet was a nice idea... I tried the recipe with a meal maker twist.

Ingredients:
1. Plantain - 2
2. Meal maker - 1 cup (Alternately you can replace boiled & mashed potatoes)
3. Onion - 1 finely chopped
4. Green chilies - 2 finely chopped
5. Corn flour - 2 tbsp
6. Cumin powder - 1 tsp
7. Lemon - 1
7. Salt as per taste
8. Chili powder - 1/4 tsp
9. Oil as required
10. Bread crumbs - 1/2 cup

Method:

Step 1: Steam cook the plantains, peel and mash them.
Step 2: Soak the meal makers in salted boiling water for 5 min, squeeze out water and grind in a mixer.
Step 3: Mix mashed plantains, ground meal makers, chopped onion & chilies, salt, cumin powder, chili powder and squeeze juice of a lemon and mix well.
Step 4: Divide into medium sized portions and pat into desired shapes (I used cookie cutter). Ready all the portions similarly.
Step 5: Heat tawa, grease oil, take a cutlet toss on the both sides to smear bread crumbs and place delicately onto the hot tawa. You can make around 6 in single go.
Step 6: When one side is browned, with a flat spatula, flip cutlets to the other side and drizzle a few drops of oil. Slightly press on the top of each cutlet to make them touch the surface of the tawa in order to brown evenly.
Step 7: When done, draw them to the plate and relish with sauce of your choice and onion salad if preferred.