Broccoli Naan

Weekend is the time I like to cook elaborate meals. A few months back, I was at an Indian restaurant for a  lunch buffet where they served broccoli naan. I am not a big fan of this vegetable and never really enjoyed eating it - be it baked or boiled - the flavor is a little too strong for my taste. Naturally, I was a little skeptical as to how the naan would taste. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. It was really amazing and it didn't taste at all like broccoli.  It was a good revelation for me as it gave me a way to eat broccoli - sneak it in parathas or naans. After all you cannot give a miss to eating something that is so packed with nutrients.  

Broccoli naan has been on my to do list of recipes ever since I had it at the Indian buffet. Making this naan is just like making any regular naan. The only addition is stuffing the broccoli.  

Broccoli Naan

Ingredients:

(Makes 6 palm sized naans)

1.5 cups APF (I used equal amounts of APF and whole wheat flour)

1 tsp instant/rapid rise yeast

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lukewarm water

1/4 cup yogurt (at room temperature)

2 tbsp melted butter/oil

Salt to taste

1/2 cup shredded broccoli  

Water/Milk to knead the dough

Recipe: 

Making the naan is a simple 3 step process - 

1. Make the dough 

2. Make the stuffing 

3. Stuff and roll the dough out, and bake the naans

Start by preparing the dough. The dough needs to be rested for at least half an hour (more is always better). Since we are using instant yeast, the dough rises pretty quickly and you can make naans with as little as 30 minutes of resting time. 

1. The Dough:

• In a bowl, mix sugar and yeast together and pour lukewarm water over the mix. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes. 
• In another bowl, take flour and add salt to taste. Mix well and pour the yeast mixture over along with yogurt and melted butter/oil. 
• Mix all of the ingredients and add water/milk as required to form a loose, sticky dough. 
• Oil the dough, cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for at least half an hour.  

2. The Broccoli Stuffing: 

To use broccoli as stuffing, it needs to be finely chopped, or shredded in a food processor. I find it easy the food processor way. All you need to do is clean the broccoli, put the florets in the food processor and pulse it a couple of times. 

I used just the shredded broccoli without even the added salt, but you can spice the broccoli up and use a spicy stuffing if you like. I prefer mine the simple way. 

3. Making the Naans:

• Now that the dough has been resting for some time, divide it into 6 equal balls. 
• Dip the ball in flour and spread it out with your fingers or simply roll it out to about 3" diameter.
• Put 1-1.5 tbsp of shredded broccoli in the center, and gather all sides around the stuffing to form a ball.
• Dust this ball with some flour and press it between your palms. At this point, you can choose to either roll it out or stretch it from all sides to form a triangular/oval naan. It should be about a quarter inch thick.  

Before baking, sprinke some dry flour onto a baking sheet/pan and then lay the naans over it. Bake the naans in a preheated 500 F oven for 10-15 minutes or until done. Apply butter on top and serve hot with your favorite curry.

The naans turned out really soft and stayed soft even the next day. 

Prepping for Sankranti - Gul Poli

Today I want to share with you my very first experience of making Gul Poli (Jaggery Flatbread). Over all these years, I have been making Tilgul every Makar Sankranti. Apart from Tilgul, a very popular dish made on occasion of Sankranti in Maharashtra is Gul Poli. I had been holding myself back from making it just because I always thought it to be something very difficult and time consuming. Unlike many other festive dishes, I had never actually seen the process of making these. So, in spite of knowing the recipe I never made it. This year I was determined to try these as my husband and I absolutely love this dish.

Gul Poli is a flatbread that is made by stuffing a mixture of jaggery, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds inside a dough. For me, the actual process of stuffing, rolling and cooking did not take very long, but the preparations took quite some time.

Gul Poli

(made 11 flatbreads of 6-7 inch diameter)

To make Gul Poli, you need the following ingredients -

For Dough:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp besan (chick pea flour)
3 tbsp hot oil
1/2 cup milk
A pinch of salt

For Stuffing:
1 cup jaggery (grated)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup poppy seed powder
1/4 cup besan (chick pea flour)
1-1.5 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

Before you make the stuffing, make the dough. The dough needs to rest before you roll it out.

Making the dough:

1. First sift all flours and add a pinch of salt.

2. Heat oil in a pan. The oil should be very hot.

3. Add oil to the flour mixture and incorporate well with the flour. To make sure that oil is well incorporated in flour, take a fistful of flour and rub it with your fingers. Continue this process until the oil is well mixed. To make sure, take a small quantity of flour and squeeze it in your palm. If the flour holds together, you can start making the dough. If not, add some more hot oil.

4. Now make the dough by adding milk to the flour mixture. The dough should be medium soft.

5. Once the dough is formed, knead it well. Apply some oil and cover it. Let the dough rest for a couple of hours (I let mine rest for 2 hours).

Making the stuffing:

1. In a pan, heat about a tablespoon of ghee (clarified butter) and cook besan on it on low heat until golden brown. It took me about 5-7 minutes.

2. Dry roast sesame seeds, let them cool completely and then grind to a powder.

3. Mix cooled besan, jaggery, sesame seed powder, poppy seed powder and cardamom powder until well blended. This takes quite an effort, so I mixed them in a food processor. All you need to do is pulse all of these ingredients together. Once well mixed, the stuffing looks like this -

Making the Flatbreads:


1. Take a small ball of dough and roll it out about 3-4 inches in diameter (I divided my dough into 10 equal sized balls before I started).

2. Take some stuffing and put it in the center of rolled out dough (I used 1/8 cup measure to have the same amount of stuffing for each flatbread. Since there is nothing binding the stuffing, it is in a loose form. So, I packed the measuring cup with stuffing and it was easier to stuff that way).

3. Now gather all edges of the rolled dough around the stuffing (like you would do for a paratha) and remove the excess dough.

4. Dip the stuffed ball of dough in flour and start rolling it out (I rolled mine about 6-7 inches in diameter, and about 1/8" inch thick).

5. Cook on a medium heat until brown spots appear. Apply ghee on both sides as you cook.

6. Let cool completely before you store. These stay good at room temperature at least for a week, and even longer if refrigerated.

The polis turned out just wonderful and barely survived a day. Now, I am looking forward to making another batch in a day or two.

Jamaican Coconut Toto

Hello there... We are already a week into the new year, but better late than never... so let me first wish all of you a very happy 2012!

Though I would like to blog more than I normally do, I have been very irregular at blogging. So naturally among many of my new year resolutions I have decided not to ignore my poor little blog, and I hope I live up to this resolution.

I read and watch a lot of food related stuff, and keep bookmarking the recipes I think I would definitely try. Now I honestly think that my bookmark is kinda of a mess. Let's see if that changes soon.

One such recipe is 'Jamaican Coconut Toto' which I have been wanting to try for over a year. My cousin had tried this recipe and had sent me a link. Finally I made it! Luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand, so when DH was out with friends the entire evening yesterday, I spent the time cooking and baking.

Jamaican Coconut Toto

(from this Sanjeev Kapoor Recipe)

I made a few changes to the original recipe -

• Used sweetened coconut flakes instead of fresh coconut.
• Used 3/4 cup of sugar instead of 1 cup, since I used sweetened coconut.
  
• Used coconut extract instead of vanilla extract.
• Used cardamom instead of cinnamon (since I absolutely detest cinnamon flavor in sweets).
  

To make coconut toto, I used -

• 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp coconut extract
  
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
  

1. Cream butter and sugar; add eggs and beat until the mixture becomes light.

2. Add coconut extract.

3. Sift together - APF, baking powder, cardamom powder and nutmeg powder, and add it to the batter; mix well.

4. Fold in coconut flakes.

5. Lastly, add condensed milk and mix until well incorporated.

6. Transfer the mixture into a greased loaf tin and top off it with some coconut.

7. Bake at 325F for 50-60 minutes (I have had an experience with baking coconut in the past. The last time I tried baking a cake with coconut, it started browing too quickly at the suggested temperature and looked over browned by the time it was done. So this time I reduced the oven temperature, and let it cook longer).

8. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely. Cut into slices and serve.

The outcome is a delicious, nutty cake. However, I would like to mention a couple of things here. My cake was moist from inside, but I felt that the edges were a bit chewy. I don't know whether to attribute it to my modifications to the recipe (using coconut flakes instead of freshly grated coconut, which could have caused lack of moisture or baking at lower temperature for a longer time), or the use of condensed milk. I have never used condensed milk in baking, so I am really not sure if it makes your baked goodies slightly chewy. But, in spite of this the browned edges were the yummiest part of the toto!

Almond Shortbread

The Halloween celebrations last weekend have officially marked the beginning of holiday season. I love this last quarter of the year where you have all the celebrations, festive foods and lots of sales (read shopping) to look forward to. Considering the gigantic sweet tooth that I have, I love these sugar high holidays - A reason to eat more sweets and feel a little less guilty about it.

Almond Shortbread Cookies

(From this recipe, Makes 12 wedges)

I have a bunch of bookmarked recipes and have been wanting to make these shortbread cookies for a while now. This is probably the simplest baking recipe ever. You just cannot go wrong with it. The recipe calls for Almond Meal. This is an expensive ingredient. One pound packet costs about $12. I was very sure that I will not be able to use up so much quantity in a couple months. I was reading the label on the packet and it said "Almond meal is simply the blanched almonds ground..." So I thought why not make my own almond meal? All you need is blanched almonds.

(Almond Meal)

I used 1/2 lb blanched almonds which yielded 3 cups of ground almond. The recipe I followed for shortbread also mentions that adding sugar while grinding almonds helps absorb oils from the nuts.
1. Using a coffee grinder or Indian style mixer-grinder or mixie as many people call it, ground almonds in batches.
2. I divided half pound almonds in 4-5 batches. With every batch add a couple pinches of sugar and grind to a medium powder.
3. Voila, you almond meal is ready! Store in an air tight container in the fridge.


I followed the recipe from Joy of Baking word to word. The only change was instead of rice flour, I used corn flour.

• In a bowl, beat together 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature) and 1/4 cup sugar. Add 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract.
  
• In another bowl, mix 3/4 cup APF, 1/4 cup almond meal, 2 tbsp corn starch and 1/8 tsp salt.
• Fold in the dry ingredients in butter-sugar mix. This forms into a soft, buttery and loose dough.
  
• In an 8" round pan press the dough and score into wedges. Prick the dough with a fork so that it won't puff up.

• Bake in a 300 F oven for about 50 minutes or until golden brown.
  
• Let cool on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then cut into wedges and cool completely before storing.
  

The shortbread tasted great and we had it with evening tea for three days in a row. The next time I make it, I think I will use a square pan and cut it into sticks instead. I think powdered cashews will taste equally good and plan to use them next time.


This weekend celebrates Diwali, the festival of lights. Wish you all a very Happy Diwali and a wonderful year ahead!

Homemade Puris for Panipuri

My love for Panipuri is inexplicable. Known by different names such as golgappa, phuchka; panipuri is probably the most popular street food in India. Having good puris is the utmost requirement for a good panipuri. I usually use storebought puris, but most of the times they are not so fresh. And that is why I started making my own puris. Of course I don't always make them, as making them is quite a task. But believe me it is so worth it.

Puris for Panipuri are made with a semolina dough. The dough is then rolled and deep fried in oil. I have made these a few times now, and all I can say is they are way better than the puris we buy here at India grocery stores.

Puris for Panipuri

Making the dough is very simple, but what is difficult is rolling it out. To make this dough all you need is semolina, APF, salt and water. Most of the Indian stores carry panipuri flour. If you have that, all you need to do is form a dough. I normally use semolina, but this time I had some leftover panipuri flour from last time, so I used that instead.

Ingredients:
(makes about 12o puris of 1.5" diameter)
2 cups semolina
4-5 tbsp APF (more or less as needed to bind the dough together)
1/2 tsp salt
Warm water
Oil for deep frying
( If you use panipuri flour, skip APF)

1. In a bowl take semolina and salt, and soak it in little bit of water for about a minute. Now add APF and make a dough. Put about a quarter teaspoon of oil and knead until smooth. Make sure that the dough is firm.

2. Once dough is formed, let it rest for about 30 minutes.

3. To make puris, take some dough and roll it out very thin. Using a small cookie cutter cut it into individual puris.


4. Heat some oil and deep fry these puris on a medium heat until golden brown.

5. Let cool completely. Store in an air tight container.

Remember that this dough is very elastic and keeps stretching back. That is why it is very important to roll it out very thin. If you fry a thick dough, puris will be soft and not as hard as the ones needed for panipuri. If some of the puris don't puff up, don't worry - you can always use them for Ragda puri or Shev puri.

Before you store your puris, check if there are any soft puris in the batch. Sort them out, spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 180-200(F) degree oven for about 20-30 minutes. Enjoy the fruit of your hard work!

You can find the recipe for Panipuri here.

And now a little quiz time. Can you guess what this is? I got it from the Farmer's market.
I will be back with the answer and a recipe for the above in a couple of days. See you then!

Banana Bread for Chocolate Lovers

The theme for this month's Blog Bites event hosted at One Hot Stove calls for using up the food and ingredients in the kitchen that are just waiting to be used. Hmmmm.... interesting! So get ready, it's time for stock taking of the pantry.

Okay, here goes the challenge... in Nupur's own words -
Look into your kitchen cupboards, your refrigerator and freezer and raise your hand if you see any of the following; And my response to each question follows.

• Open bottles of jams and preserves that have not been touched for months: Yes
  
• Ingredients bought for a specific recipe that you have not used again: Yes
  
• Foods given to you as gifts but that you never get around to using: No
  
• Food at the back of the freezer that you can't even get to: Yes
  
• Bottles lined up in the fridge door filled with mysterious sauces: Yes
  
• Leftovers in the fridge waiting to be used up before you forget about them and chuck them out next weekend: Yes
  
• Ingredients that you buy because they are nutritious and you feel like you should be eating them, but you can't think of ways to use them, so they sit there, taking up space and mocking you: Yes
  
• Foods that are dangerously close to or just past the expiration date: No
  
• Overripe bananas that you are collecting in the freezer: YES
  
• Spices that you bought in bulk because the price was right but are now rapidly losing their flavor: No
  
• A bulk package of something that will last you until 2035: No
  
• Ingredients that you are saving for a "special occasion" that never comes: No
  
• Impulse purchases from grocery shopping trips that are sitting around 6 months later and making you feel guilty: No
  

Well as you see I said yes to more than half of these questions and realized how much stuff I have that seriously needed my attention. So thanks Nupur for coming up with this great idea.

To start with, I made a list of all those lurkers in my kitchen. Some of these need an immediate action, else they will have to go in the trash and others need to be used because they have not been used in a really long time. So here goes the list -
1. APF ( I have this for the longest time since I started using whole wheat flour as much as I could in baking)
2. Chana dal which I don't use very often and which has not been used in almost 3 months
3. 1 packet of cake mix - Totally forgot about it and it had expired a couple months back, so had to trash it- So what if it cost me just a dollar? Felt very bad for wasting it
4. Baking cocoa
5. In the fridge door- Red chilli sauce, Soy sauce
6. Soyabean flour
7. Found in my freezer- half a packet of methi leaves, drumsticks, pineapple chunks, leftover tomatoes from can, paneer ( I didn't even know it was there - just a few small cubes - but without even thinking about it, I trashed it - well if you don't know of something that you have you better not use it... right?) and of course frozen bananas-4 of them
8. 3 carrots, half a cabbage, spinach packet
9. 6 Eggs which expire in a couple days
10. About 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Surprisingly, the list is not as long as I thought it would be. I ended up using almost half of these items in the last two days and have plans for using a few of these in the next two days. I used methi leaves and some of chana dal by making Dal-Methi. Pineapple chunks were used as an additional topping on a takeout pizza yesterday.

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

We had friends over for cards night and I decided to make this double chocolate banana bread from the recipe that I read on The Sisters Cafe. I had all the ingredients that the recipe calls for and amazingly a lot of them were in the list above. Probably that was the main reason for making this chocolate banana bread.

I followed this recipe from The Sisters Cafe with a slight modification. I used butter instead of oil and baking powder in place of baking soda (since I did not have baking soda on hand). I did not use a lot of chocolate chips since I had just about half a cup of them. Everyone loved the cake bread. It was very moist and inspite of having so much chocolate, it still had that banana flavor.

This is my entry for Blog Bites # 4 hosted at One Hot Stove.

I plan to use carrots and drumsticks in Sambar (recipe is in the middle of the post) that I will make today to go with Idlis. The plan with the remaining carrots is to go in Manchurian along with cabbage, soy sauce and red chilli sauce. Some more chana dal will be used in Mixed Dal Appey sometime this month. And predictably enough spinach will be used for making Spinach parathas in the next 2-3 days. The last frozen banana, which can definitely sit a little longer in the freezer may be used in Sheera or Banana Pancakes.

I hope to use all of these as planned and not waste any. I also have one more kitchen cabinet left to check for any hidden packets. Thankfully I am not an impulsive shopper when it comes to groceries, so the chances of finding something mysterious are quite unlikely.