Blueberry And Lavender Cream Pie

  Color,color what color do you choose? Violet, will be my answer. As kids we all have our favourite color. The mauve shades were my favorite specially purple and violet. I just took a trip down the memory lane and I remembered a game based on colors I used to play with my friends when I was a kid. Also, this is the beginning of a new year, so a lot of you will be reminiscing the past year, past decade etc. I'll leave you to that, while we at FSB unveil a colorful theme to represent a colorful past year and for an even more colorful new year which we all are looking forward to.


  The theme for this month was picked by me. This season of FSB saw all kinds of themes so it was tough for me to pick something that was not done before. I put on my thinking cap and landed on COLORS!! and colors instantly  remind me of the rainbow. 


  The rainbow has 7 colors and there are 8 of us. So I decided to add White. After all white is the resulting color when all the colors of the rainbow are fused together. The colors were randomly picked by the free- sprirters. I got the color violet.

The rules were simple:

• The food must be naturally colored. The dish(s) could be sweet or savory and of any course, without using or minimally using food coloring.
• The dish can be of a certain color by itself or it can be representative of the flavor in it. For example, I made pistachio rose water cupcakes. I added 3-4 tbsp of rose water in all but I had to add pink coloring. So usage of food coloring in such situations is OK. You can also get creative and avoid it completely, that would be ideal.
• Of-course you can add garnishes and accessorize you final dish, but the focus should be on the color assigned.  

  This got all us, the free-spiriters busy thinking and cooking. My first thoughts obviously went to desserts (my favorite course of the meal!). I decided to use some ingredient I have never used before or make a dish I have never made before. I zeroed in on Lavender, and a pie. I thought it was going to be as easy as a pie. Boy! was I wrong. The whole process was so lengthy! The result however, was very delicious. Lavender was a new flavor for me, the taste was very new and refreshing.


Recipe for the pie filling adapted from here
Recipe for the crust adapted from here


For the Pie Crust: Makes one 9 inch pie crust. Make it 1 day before you make the pie.


1 1/4 cups of All purpose flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Sugar
3 Tbsp Vegetable shortening, chilled
4 Tbsp Butter -cold, unsalted and cut into 1/4th inch pieces
4-5 Tbsp Ice water

• Stir together flour,salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the shortening and beat until the mixture resembles coarse sand. 
• Scatter butter over the flour mixture and cut butter into flour using a pastry cutter or you can use your finger tips, until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse crumbs. The butter bits should not be bigger than small peas.
• Sprinkle 4 tbsp of ice water over the mixture. Using a silicone spatula  mix into a sticky dough.If the dough does not come together sprinkle upto 1 tbsp of ice water more.
• Flatten the  dough into a 4 -inch disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate atleast an hour, or upto 2 days before rolling.
• Remove the dough from the refrigerator( if refrigerated for more than an hour, let stand at room temperature until malleable). 
• Roll the dough into a 12 inch circle on a lightly floured surface  (I even floured my rolling pin).
• Transfer the dough into the pie plate by rolling the dough around the rolling pin and unrolling over the pan. Working around the circumference of the pie plate, ease the dough into the pan corners by gently lifting the edge of the dough with one hand while pressing into the pan bottom with the other hand. Trim the edges.
• Refrigerate the dough-lined pie plate until firm about 40 minutes, then freeze until very cold , about 20 minutes.
• Adjust an oven rack to lower middle position and heat to 375 F. 
• Remove the pie plate from the freezer, press a 12 inch sheet of foil inside the pie shell. Distribute the pie weights evenly.
• Bake leaving the foil and weights in place, until the dough looks dry and is light brown in color. Takes about 23-30 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and pie weights. If you want a partially baked crust bake for another 5-6 minutes. If you want a fully baked crust continue baking for about 12 minutes till golden brown.
•  Transfer to a wire rack.

To make the filling:

For the lavender cream:

2 Cups Heavy cream

1 Cup Half and half  or Milk

3 Tbsp Dried Lavender buds (I would add lesser next time)

For the cooked blueberries:

1 Tbsp Butter

12 oz Blueberries (I used frozen)

2 Tbsp Cornstarch

For the Custard:

3 Whole eggs

3 Egg yolks

1/2 Cup Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

To make the lavender cream: (If you are making the pie too, make this cream before you start baking the pie.)

• Pre-heat the oven to 325 F.
• Warm the cream and milk together until it starts to simmer. Turn of heat and stir in the lavender buds. Allow to steep for 30 minutes

To make the cooked  blueberries:

• Set a colander over a bowl.
• In a large skillet over medium heat add the butter. When the butter is fully melted and starts foaming, add the blueberries.
• Cook until the blueberries are soft and much of the juice has run out. After about 3-5 minutes turn off heat and pour into the colander. Set aside the drained blueberries.
• Mix cornstarch with the blueberry juice and set aside.

To make the Custard:

• Whisk the eggs, egg yolks,sugar and vanilla lightly and set aside
• Strain the Cream into a large saucepan and discard the lavender.
• Whisk in the blueberry- cornstarch mixture. Bring to simmer over medium heat. The color looks gorgeous!!!
• When the mixture boils and starts to thicken lightly, remove from heat.
• Whisk in a little of the cream mixture into the egg mixture to temper it. Add this mixture to the cream mixture and whisk vigorously. It will look curdled and broken at first but it will come together into a satiny, glossy and a very violet mixture!
• Stir in half the reserved blueberries.
• Pour the mixture into the pre-baked pie shell and bake for 30 minutes.
• after 30 minutes sprinkle the rest of the blueberries on top. Bake for another 15 minutes, until the center is wobbly but firm. and the crust is nice and golden.
• Take out and rest for 15 minutes before serving. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

  The pie was very tasty! Specially with a scoop of icecream on the side. The one thing I would keep in mind the next time is reduce the quantity of lavender as I felt it was very overpowering, it was so strong that I didn't taste any blueberry! Other than that I felt lavender was a very unique flavor it had some cardamom notes to it and a soapy feeling(I guess that's just me, I got a new body wash that is made of pure lavender and it smelt exactly like the packet of dried lavender buds!!!). Also If you have a very dark colored vanilla extract  use a lighter colored or colorless vanilla extract, because that kind of made my violet a bit grey-ish.

Do check whats happening with the other colors of the rainbow! Anu, Deepti-Orange, DK- Yellow , Lataji - Red, Mads, Nags- Blue, and Siri - Green

Pie anyone?

Bombay Chutney / Kadalamaav Gothsu/ Besan Chutney

  It beats me why this dish is called a "chutney" it's more like a sambar in my opinion, but that's irrelevant here. This is a great accompaniment for Idly and Dosa and it is a very easy and quick side dish to make. Back home in India, my mom used to make this for me every time she made idly/dosa. Though I was a big fan of this recipe, you might have guessed by now, my brother did not like it. This one time my parents were out and I was going to take care of dinner for my brother and I. I made idlis and this chutney/gothsu to go with it and my brother was to have it with the molaga podi (a spicy powder made of roasted lentils and is mixed with oil and had as an accompaniment with idly dosa). So we sat down for dinner and I guess my brother was bored with his molaga podi and asked if he can taste some of . I was like "if you had told me sooner I had to share this with you, I would have made more." He just wanted to taste a little bit. Minutes later, he had finished the entire side dish and when my mom got back he accused her of never making this for him! My mom was like "yeah that's exactly how it is - I deprived you of this dish when clearly you always have liked it!"

  Then a couple of years back, after getting married, I made this for my hubby for breakfast once. My husband is a big foodie as I've mentioned before. He generally doesn't hate anything but he didn't like this! I was upset initially and I got around eating it later - it tasted like feet!!! In my defense, I made this for breakfast and I am no morning person. No wonder he hated it! I got around making it again for dinner this other time and he was like "errr... do you have coconut chutney instead?" I tasted it and it seemed fine. After that I learnt that he dislikes any dish that has besan (gram flour) in it, even if it is well hidden. So, I forgot about this dish for almost a year till one day when I was on the phone with my mother and she was making this chutney for dinner. I got reminded of this favorite I had not made in a while! So, I decided to make it again for myself and make some coconut chutney for the husband. I was enjoying myself and reeling in the memories of life in Chennai when I was interrupted by a "can I try some?" This was like deja-vu! I even gave him the same reply I gave my brother many years back! He tastes it, and he was like "this is not so bad, its actually pretty good", and he ended up finishing the whole thing. I don't think I did anything different other than that the very first time I made this for him, I screwed up the dish. I guess the man with his falter-less devotion for coconut chutney finally got bored of the plain looks and got attracted to my yellow-red-green tinged side. With that, I had successfully converted two people into liking this dish... Yay!

  All this talk of "conversion" because the theme for FSB this time around was chosen by Anu, who wanted us to make something with an ingredient that we have not cooked with ever or avoid because someone in the house doesn't like it. I picked an ingredient that the husband doesn't like because his list of things he doesn't like is much shorter than mine and he is not fussy. My endless list of dislikes was hard to pick from and I am pretty stubborn in not eating what I don't like.

Ingredients:

Onion - 1 Medium/Small ( you can skip it if you are avoiding onions)

Tomato- 1 Medium

Chilly powder - 1/2 - 1 Tsp (as per your taste)

Salt - As per taste

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 Tsp

Corriander Leaves/ Cilantro - a generous portion

Hing - a generous pinch

Besan - 2-3 Tbsps

Tadka:

Oil - 1 tsp
Urad Dal - 1 Tsp

Mustard seeds
Green Chillies -1-2 slit (I don't like the pieces coming in my mouth!)

Curry leaves

• In a sauce pan, add some oil and once hot enough temper with mustard seeds, urad dal, chillies and curry leaves.
• Sautee the onions till translucent. Add the tomato and sautee for a min.

• After lowering the heat, add the besan that has been mixed in 1- 1.5 cups water. Ensure that the paste it is smooth and free of lumps prior to adding. Add the rest of the ingredients, and increase the temperature of the stove to medium heat.

It looks pretty!

But a terrible idea ! It was so difficult to mix it into a smooth paste!

• This mixture will thicken. You do not want the mixture to be thick like a paste, nor should it be runny. If the mixture doesn't thicken, you can always add some more besan, and if the mixture is too thick, you can add some water - so no sweat!

• Take it off the stove and garnish with cilantro/ corriander leaves.
• Serve hot with Idly, 

• Or Dosas

• Or both!!!

This recipe is super easy and super quick! I personally like the onions and the tomatoes to be a bit chunky. Try it once and you will be converted into liking it too :). Do check out what my other FSB buddies are cooking up in their kitchens: Anu, Deepti, DK, Lata, Madhuri, Nags, Siri

Glazed Lemon-Blueberry Cream Scones (Eggless)

Every time I go to a bakery, cafe or a coffee shop I always end up getting something chocolate to munch along with my cuppa chai. If I got a second pick I would go for scones. This one time I decided to skip the chocolate (blashpemy! :O) and picked up the scones. It was definitely not chocolate, but it took me to another planet of bliss! Ever since then I have been looking for an opportunity to make them at home.

The Opportunity:At work, my husband is part of a "Breakfast Club" where team members take turns bringing breakfast on Fridays, and it was his turn this one week. So, this recurring event, is a perfect opportunity for me to try making some new type of breakfast items. I will share some of those other recipes later. Also, for Cafe Casa, we had to come up with a side eat to go with our beverage. So, everything had lined up perfectly for making scones. On hind sight, the breakfast club was unnecessary, I could have easily polished off the entire batch of scones without any help ;)

I made the traditional English scones, which are less sweeter than the American variety. The english variety is usually had with toppings such as jam/jelly to add sweetness. The American variety on the the other hand, is eaten as is, and the sweetness is hence baked in.

Recipe source: Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:
For Scones:
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
3 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 Tsp Salt
5 Tbsp Cold, Unsalted Butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup Blueberries, Fresh (I used a frozen variety for the first batch and it was a disaster! not the taste, but the appearance of it! They looked like Smurf scones!!! I recommend buying fresh blueberries if you can)
1 Cup Heavy Cream, Cold
1 Tsp Lemon Zest

For Glaze:(Optional)
1 Tbsp Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Sugar

• Preheat the over to 425 F/ 218- 220 C
• In a large mixing bowl whisk the flour, baking powder,sugar and salt. Else, process in your food processor with quick pulses.
• Add the lemon zest
• If making by hand, use 2 knives, a pastry blender, or your finger tips, and quickly cut in the butter till the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few skightly larger lumps.If using a food processor , distribute the butter evenly over the dry ingredients and process with twelve 1-second pulses.
• Add the blueberries and quickly, but gently, mix in.
• Stir in heavy cream with rubber spatula or fork until the dough begins to form, this takes about 30 secons- 1 minute
• Place the dough on a floured surface and very gently knead it, until it comes together into a rough and slightly sticky ball.

Remember, all the steps above once the mixing starts, needs to be done very quickly and moved to the cake pan for baking in a relatively cold state to avoid the scones ending up being hard and flat. Another alternative is to make the dough and quickly transferred to the refrigerator for 1-2 hrs before baking.

• Press the dough into a 8-inch cake pan, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.
• With a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges.
• Place the wedges on an un-greased baking sheet.
• Brush the tops of the scones with heavy cream and sprinkling them with sugar just before baking them.
• Bake until the scone tips are light brown - some 12 to 15 minutes.

• Cool on a cooling rack for atleast 10 minutes, then watch them vanish in record time!

Latte - Starbucks style! (Chai Tea Latte)

Coffee. Hmm mm? It's probably the most consumed beverage in the world! Too bad I don't contribute to that consumption.... I am a tea drinker. I do not like the smell of coffee and I have never had coffee in my entire life. By never, I mean never had coffee as a beverage. I have had coffee bite (coffee bite is a coffee flavored toffee available in India) when I was a kid, and I really did not like it unlike most kids. Coffee drinkers give me the she-must-be-out-of-her-mind look when I mention my preference of tea over coffee. Why this rant about coffee?... This month's theme for FSB is -Cafe Casa, picked by Deepti. We basically had to concoct our favorite cafe drink along with a side eat. Who doesn't love to munch stuff along with their favorite beverage??? Since I am not a coffee drinker, I chose to to figure out making Chai Tea Latte, inspired by Starbucks.

When I first came to the US, I was under the impression that most Americans drink all their tea black, without sugar or milk. This one time at Starbucks I saw "Chai Tea Latte" as an option on the menu and I inquired about it. The Barista described it as a spiced tea with milk. I was super happy and gathered it was like 'Masala Chai' and tried it out. I made sure I got the smallest size which is still the size of the big glass I have milkshake in! It was not anything like the 'Masala Chai' that you make at home, but I liked it.. and ever since, I have been hooked.

Last year while visiting my cousin and his family, his wife introduced me to "TAZO Tea Concentrate". Having worked at Starbucks as a manager long back, she explained to me that Starbucks used this to make their Chai Tea Latte. We followed the instructions on the pack (not really!) and it came out quite terrible. It was a struggle trying to get it right and we somehow finished that carton. So, after vaguely recollecting the consistency and flavor of the TAZO concentrate, I decided to make my own Chai Tea Latte this month. Here is the recipe for you, so you can make Starbucks style Chai Tea Latte at home when you crave for it!

Ingredients:
(Makes 2 small cups of Chai)

For chai latte concentrate:
Water - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1/8th - 1/4th cup
Sugar - 2 tsp Or add as per your preference. The Starbucks chai is a bit on the sweeter side.
Cloves, Whole - 4
Cardamom, Whole - 2-3
Cinnamon - 1 Inch Piece
*Peppercorns - 2-3. Include this if you feel adventurous. I have tried this variant and the results were very good, specially if you have a cold or a sore throat!
Tea powder - 1.5 Tsp ( I used the Indian leaf variety, Taj Mahal  ) Else you could use 2 regular tea bags.

Steps:

• Pound together the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and peppercorn (if you opted to include it) with a mortal and pestle. Else you could just grind it up in your food processor or even use a hammer or some heavy object to pound it with contents between a folded paper.

• In a small saucepan add the water, milk,sugar and the pounded spices. Allow it to boil. You will notice that the color of the concoction is a pinkish-brown hue. If you feel that the liquid has evaporated, you could add some water. 

• Once It boils over turn the flame to the medium, and add the tea powder/ tea bags.

• It is not typically recommended to boil tea, however, since we need to create a concentrate, let the above-mentioned mixture boil for a few seconds. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Other Ingredients/ apparatus needed for assembling the chai latte:

2 coffee mugs

Cold milk - 3/4 cup

A tea strainer

Coffee Frother Jug
Milk Frother/ steamer

• Strain the "Tazo" chai tea latte concentrate into the two cups

• Take the cold milk in a frother jug and steam it using a milk frother (the attachment that typically comes with an Espresso machine) till it reaches some 150 F (slightly hotter than drinking temperature). You will notice that the milk has a very foamy texture. That is what baristas call "Micro Foam". This foam does not become flat. The foam holds up. It is necessary to start with cold milk to get micro foam.

• Slowly pour the foamy milk into to the two cups with the concentrate. While pouring out, gently shake the jug, so that the foam doesn't remain in the jug.

Here is a video to better explain the frothing and addition of milk.

For those of you who do not have the steamer or you do not want to use a steamer you can have a look at this video... A wonderful find by Deepti.

You can also get yourself one of these. Ikea / World Market have it for 3-4$ - cheap and effective!


See what else is happening at Cafe FSB - Anu, Deepti, DK, Lata, Mads, Nags, and Siri

Hotel Saravana Bhavan Inspired 14 Idly - Sambar (Rice Cakes Soaked in Lentil Sauce)

 This month the theme for Free Spirit Bloggers was picked by Siri, We had to recreate that one dish we have had in a restaurant and and relive those moments/ memories, and it had to be a main course.

  My pick was 14 Idly from Hotel Saravana Bhavan (HSB). It is a dish unique to this restaurant. I have had Sambar-Idly in other Bhavans, but none of them can even hold a candle to HSB's 14 Idly. When ever I go to HSB I order this for sure, apart from some dosa be it in New York City or Chennai!. I am pretty surprised that food in HSB New York tastes just like the one in Chennai! Over the dozen times we have visited NYC, I make it a point to religiously visit HSB like it is a holy shrine. Once we are in the restaurant the rules are short and sweet (maybe not!), DO NOT TOUCH MY 14 IDLY, EVEN IF YOU JUST WANT A PIECE OR 2 TO TASTE. I NEED THE 14 IDLIES, SO GET YOUR OWN  and I will share everything else. Usually if I order any dish with sambar as the side, the sambar will almost remain at the same level as it was when left on my table. Even after I am done eating! This is one dish where I lick the sambar clean of the oblong bowl that they serve it in.

  I have been on the quest for Saravana Bhavan sambar for a long time now. Thanks to my genius mother, I   think I finally nailed it!. Here is the recipe for all of you to lick clean ;).I will come up with a detailed post for making idlies. The proportion of rice and dal is different, plus there are several tips and tricks!

Ingredients:

For Idlies: ( This is a 2-in-1 batter. I use it for Idly and dosa)

Idly rice - 4 Cups

Urad dal - 1 Cup*

Fenugreek seeds - 1 Tsp
Toor Dal - 2-3 Tbsps (optional)

Salt 

Water - 4 cups

• Soak the rice, fenugreek seeds and toor dal ( if using) for 6-8 hours.
• Soak the Urad dal for some 45 mins, seperately.
• Grind the Urad dal to a fine soft paste using about 3/4th cup of water.  Empty into a big vessel.
• In the same grinder/food processor add a little rice mixture and water and start grinding. Gradually add the rest.
• Grind to a fine paste. Try not to use more water than the 4 cups mentioned for the entire grinding . Its always better to have a thicker batter and add water as needed than to have a batter thats runny an you need to do a lot of golmal to fix it!!!. Empty in the same container as you did the urad dal batter.**
• Add salt about 2 tsp. Mix it with your hand. It is an important step. The "good yeast" in your hands help in fermentation. And result in a fluffy idly.
• Set the batter aside overnight, in a warm place. Well this again depends on where you live. In Chennai I remember the batter will ferment in some 4 hrs!!!. I keep my batter in the oven with lights turned on. Sometimes I warm up the oven and keep the batter in. So if you live in a cold place you can try this method.
• Once it has fermented. Mix the batter and deflate it. Add water to the batter as you make idly/ dosa as per your requirement. The batter should not be too thick or thin. When you pour it from a ladle it should flow like a ribbon. Always make Idly first before making dosa. The Idlies do not come out fluffy if you make dosa out of the batter first.

To make the Idlies:

• I make my idlies in the pressure cooker. I am sure you can make it in microwave (I've seen microwave idly plates in India), electric cooker etc. though I have not tried it personally.
• Fill up the pan of the cooker with atleast 1 inch water. Use the stand that comes with the cooker. If not use lesser water. Close the pressure cooker and keep the flame on high. Let a big jet of steam come out. Do not use the cooker weights.
• In the meanwhile, oil the cavities of the idly pan(s)and fill it with the batter. Using a small ladle or a big spoon.
• Once you get a nice big jet of steam. Reduce the flame wait for a few seconds and open the cooker lid carefully. Place the filled Idly pan(s) into the cooker and close the cooker. And keep the flame on high and again do not use the cooker weights.
• Set a kitchen timer for 7- 9 minutes.
• Once done. Reduce the flame wait for a few seconds before opening the cooker. And remove from the cooker. To test for doneness stick a knife/spoon/fork in the middle. If it comes out clean its done 
• This step is optional. You can show the Idly plate under cool running water. This helps in cooling the idlies faster and make it easier to remove it from the plates.
• Next step is a must(according to me!!!!) Drizzle some sesame oil on your idly. You can have it with some molagai podi, chutney, or/and sambar, or even Sugar with ghee.... yummmmmmm!!!!

For the 14 Idly Sambar: (This recipe makes a lot of sambar.Well!! you need a lot of sambar to soak you idlies in! )

Ingredients:

Onion - 1 Medium sized,( Shallots would be ideal! but I had none :( )

Tomatoes - 3-4 medium (be generous!)

Toor dal - 1/2 cup

Turmeric powder -1 Tsp

Tamrind Paste - 1 Tbsp (I use a brand called tamicon.Its pretty strong)

Sambar Powder - 3-4 tsp (Adjust according to the strength your sambar powder.)

Hing - A generous pinch

Salt to taste

Curry leaves - Divided

Cilantro/ corriander leaves - a handful

Sesame Oil - 1 tsp

 A handful of vegetables like drumstick, capsicum e.t.c can be used to add to the flavor of the sambar. Do not use too many vegetables though.
Milk - 1/2 cup 

For Tempering:

Sesame oil (perferable) - 2 tsp

Mustard Seeds- 1 Tsp

Dry Red Chillies- 1-2 (as per your perference)

Curry leaves 

For Garnish:

Finely Chopped Onion - 1/2 - 1 medium onion (depending on how much you like or hate raw onions. )

Finely Chopped Cilantro/ Corriander leaves- A small bunch (Absolute must)

Ghee - 1/2 - 1 tsp per serving

Sesame Oil - 1/4 - 1/2 tsp per serving 

• Pressure cook the toor dal with turmeric and tomatoes. Let it cook for atleast 4-5 whistles. The dal should be really mushy. Also steaming the tomatoes along with the toor dal gives it a different flavor!
• In a saucepan add the sesame oil and sauté the onions till translucent.
• Add the tamrind paste (dissolved in 1 cup warm water), sambar powder, turmeric powder,hing,salt, corriander leaves, and some curry leaves.
• Give it a boil till the raw smell of the powder leaves the mixture.
• Add 1 more cup of water and addthe mushy dal- tomato mixture.
• Give it a boil.. And in the meanwhile taste it and add salt ,sambar powder or more tamrind paste if needed. This sambar should not be too spicy or tangy. Rather the tang should come from the tomatoes rather than the tamrind.
• Add the milk in the end. Do not boil too much after adding it. Yes, this is the secret ingredient in most hotel sambars!
• Also the consistency should be slightly watery. And not too thick like the usual sambars.

Assembling:

• In a bowl place 14 mini idlies. Yes, there should be exactly 14 idlies! It's not called 14 idly for nothing. I'm just kidding you can use as many idlies as you want!

                                           No prizes for guessing the number of idlies in there!  

Thanks to my MIL who generously donated this Onlong bowl to me :D.

• Drizzle some sesame oil. 
• Pour sambar over the idlies, generously.

• Drizzle some ghee and some more sesame oil. You can omit the ghee and/ or the oil. But I think this gives it the restaurant feel! 
• Sprinkle some onions and top it off with some finely chopped cilantro/ corriander leaves.

• Enjoy the Idlies as they go in one by one! Its strange, I always count my idlies at HSB everytime I eat there and  I've never been lucky enough to get even one idly extra! :(

* If you are using a mixie or food processor to grind the batter, use 1.5 cups of urad dal.

**  It is important to use a large container as the mixture ferments and if it is a small container it will spill over.

  Do check out what my team-mates :Anu, Deepti, DK, Lata, Madhuri, Nags, and Siri are cooking up in their kitchens!

Quinoa Raisin Muffins with Lime Curd Whipped Cream Frosting

It's Free Spirit Blogger (FSB) time again. This month it was Lataji's turn to host and pick our monthly theme for FSB. She made a list of ingredients for use in making desserts and paired it up with two flavorable add-ons (for us to use one of them). Each of us FSBs had to make a dessert based on a random assignment of the ingredients.  I was super nervous as all the ingredients' combination in her list were unique and sounded challenging to use in a dessert. The draw got me Quinoa with flavourable addons - raisins or fruit juice. Quinoa is supposed to be a healthy pseudocereal with high protein, fiber, iron,  a balanced set of amino acids, and is gluten free.

I had a big bag of quinoa sitting in my pantry staring at my face.. as you can imagine, I got it as part of my 'healthy' grocery list a while back after getting inspired by all the recipes online, but had not used it a whole lot beyond the initial experimentation. So, this was some sort of a sign for me to bring that bag of quinoa out for incorporation.  I had never used quinoa in a dessert before. I've used it as a rice substitute with a bunch of alterations to recipes in order to mask its chewy texture, but using it in a dessert seemed hard to do. And after a lot of debate (with myself!), some googling and polling a few people, I settled on a recipe from the internet with some adjustments I wanted to make. 

Now over to the recipe.
Recipe below adapted from here


Ingredients:
1/3rd cup Unsalted Butter, in room temperature
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 Large Egg
2 cups of All Purpose Flour/Maida
1 ½ tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Salt
1/3rd cup - 1/2 cup Raisins (I used golden raisins)
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla (I used 1/2 tsp of vanilla powder and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract)
1 tsp Lemon Eest
1/2 tsp of Lemon Extract
2 cups of Cooked Quinoa

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 F / 180 C. Grease and flour muffin tins, or line with cupcake liners
• Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy
• Add the egg and mix well.Add vanilla extract and mix till incorporated
• In a medium sized bowl, sift  together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
• Alternately, add the flour mixture and milk and mix well until incorporated
• Fold in the raisins, lemon zest and lemon extract
• Fold in the cooked quinoa
• Divide the batter evenly among the 12  muffin cups
• Bake for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean
• Cool the muffins on a cooling rack

I was surprised with the outcome of these cupcakes. It was more edible than I imagined ;). I had not planned on frosting the cupcakes initially. Once they were done, I tasted one and realized they were still a bit chewy and somewhat dry. I had suspected this would happen based on my past experience using quinoa, and I did not have a whole lot of room to experiment with a baking recipe. Without some moisture to ease its intake, this would have been a bit hard to swallow. Hence, I added a tangy but light frosting. I have also included below a few suggestions on how to improve the recipe to make the cupcake more moist.

For the frosting:

1 cup of very cold Heavy Whipping Cream

2-3 tbsp Sugar (more if you like it sweeter)

4-5 tbsp Lime Curd ( I used lime juice and lime zest instead of lemon zest and lemon juice)

1 tbsp Lime Zest

• In a bowl place the whipping cream and sugar and whip it on high speed until it holds peaks
• Fold in the lime curd and zest with a rubber spatula
• Fill it into pastry bags and decorate your cupcakes

I should say these two worked very well with each other. I felt like some feedback would help refine this more experimental bake, so had sent out the extra muffins to my husband's office. They all liked it. They too did feel that it was a bit dry. One of them suggested that I add something like grated zucchini to make a lighter muffin and also keep it a bit moist. It sounds like a good idea! Baking with zucchini has been on my list of things to do too. I shall keep you posted about it. Quinoa-rasin cupcakes are definitely a good option for someone looking for a healthy treat (minus the frosting if you don't need that)

Also, do hop over to my fellow free spirit bloggers: Anu, Deepti, DK, Lata, Mads, Nags and Siri, to check out what ingredient combination they worked with over July.

Eggless Chocolate Pound Cake (FSB)

Here I am with my second post. I started writing it and in parallel was working on a project the night before I was leaving for my 2 month visit to India!! It may have seemed strange that I launched my blog in all that excitement, headed off for vacation 2 days later, and have not been heard from since... or, maybe that’s how it is initially? Maybe be not the one blog in a week type of a scenario for my start?

Well, this might explain some. The reason I started my blog after much procrastination was due to the motivation behind this particular post (I know I have said in other entries and pages there are many that got me to where I am.. but there’s more!). I doubted it would take me a couple of days after I got to India, that I get to complete this entry (as is the case), but the mission was to complete the project by the end of April !! OK, before I start sounding like the person who tried to write about some secret spy mission, with a end of the month deadline on a blog, let me explain the project before you get totally confused.

About 2 months back, my dear friend Madhuri, with her fervor and enthusiasm, came up with this innovative idea for a series of blogger events that would be ‘something totally different’ - Free Spirit Bloggers (FSB), and included me in the mailing list announcing this idea. There I was, seen in a mailing list with some very enthusiastic and inspiring thought leaders in the food making and food blogging society, super excited, but had a slight problem… I did not have a blog to be using, to join a blogger event like this one!

Either Madhuri’s was the final kick-in-the-butt I needed to start my food blog, or this was just plain embarrassing and I had to do something! I had been wanting to do this for some time now whereas I was satisfied with posting some pictures I clicked of the food we make at home, and derived my pleasure talking about, and serving food to people around me when I got the chance - but was I really getting to something with this interest? Don’t get me wrong, I still love that experience and I am sure everyone who enjoys food and cooking, does too... but to take the effort to organize thoughts, recipes and pictures in trying to represent the taste of the food, while also sharing a good recipe, and facing a larger audience on the web, is something that takes some hard work and being inspired, to make happen! It is a bit harder for me than cooking and eating itself! I wondered for a while... did I have it in me? Is there a right circumstance that would present itself.. ‘a while’ here btw, being almost 2 years!!

I think you get the idea.. FSB + realization that I was being a lazy bum, got me to seek some help I much needed, from my husband and Madhuri. This connects back to some other stuff I said here. Believe me, I’ll soon stop talking about why and how I started blogging :P, but for now, I am saying this to myself so I keep myself motivated. Now let’s get to the project at hand.

FSB is a group of 8 bloggers. We will work together every month to pick a theme and share 8 recipes based on that theme, but only at the end of the month (still wondering what this post is doing coming out mid-month?!- I am late posting, as I was leaving for a 2 month trip to India, and no this is not an example of IST :P). While each recipe can be quite different, and sometimes not even the same general dish, we will all stick to the central premise of the theme of that month. Read more here.

April's theme was egg substitutions. I think most of us Indian vegetarians have at some point wondered about egg substitution - be it for ourselves, for our parents who do not eat eggs, for a friend/ relative who is allergic, of course the Brahmin sect that traditionally considers egg as non-vegetarian and would not eat it, while many of the same sect have said “egg is allowed, but chicken, mutton, beef, sea food not allowed” (as though the latter covered everything that’s not vegetarian!), or “ I will eat it in cakes, but not omlettes or boiled eggs that stink of the Hydrogen Sulphide I remember from the Chemistry Lab” (me talking anything remotely chemistry is my husband’s influence or his input to a post... sure, you guessed that if you know my relationship with the subject :P).... or maybe egg replacers simply because you feel like substituting something that is so vital to baking! We FSBs had around 16 substitutions (!) for eggs at our disposal to work with, and we each picked 2 out of that list to work into a recipe that otherwise needed eggs. I picked Ener-G, a commercial egg replacer, and a combination of water + oil + baking powder. These 2 were to be used in the making of 2 separate chocolate pound cakes.

As you can tell, I was very excited to start working on this project, get my blog going on the side, and I started out very optimistically and excited, and must say had a great experience doing this and writing about it. Let’s go to the recipes and the outcome, shall we?

.

*I have presented the original recipe in italics and my notes on alternative approaches adopted in regular bold font as I walk you through this.

Ingredients:
250 Grams All purpose flour/ Maida
250 Grams Sugar
250 Grams Butter
50 Grams Cocoa powder

( I accidentally reset the scale before the Photo. That was about 50 grams of Cocoa Powder)

4 Eggs –

I used :

for cake (a), 1 ½ tsp Ener -G + 2 Tbsp warm water in place of 1 egg, and

for cake (b), 1 tbsp oil + 2 tbsp water + ½ tsp baking powder in place of 1 egg.

1 tsp Baking soda
½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla extract
Upto ½ cup Milk

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350f/ 180c and grease the baking tin - Check
• Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt 2-3 times and set aside - Check
• Cream butter and sugar until creamy and pale . Add vanilla extract and beat well - Check
• Add the eggs one at a time and beat till well incorporated. - For cake (a), I mixed Ener-G and water, whisked it, and set it aside for 5 minutes. Then I added that mixture to the mixture with butter and beat it till nice and creamy. For cake (b), I added Oil and beat it till it was well incorporated.

• Now, add the sifted flour mixture to the butter mixture little by little and beat well till blended smoothly - Check
• Add adequate milk to achieve a batter of dropping consistency - I maxed out on the ½ cup milk . For effort (a), I found that the batter was not of dropping consistency and that it was slightly thicker. For effort (b), I found that the batter was very thick in spite of adding ½ cup milk + 8 Tbsp water ( part of the egg re-placer)

• Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake @ 180C/ 350F for 45-50 mins or until done - Check, I baked Cake (a) in a 8*8 pan and it took me 45 mins. I baked Cake (b) in a 13*9 pan and it took me 20 mins.

Now the results ...

Cake (a) using Ener-G Egg replacer

Cake a) The cake tasted absolutely great and it was super soft. But what seemed odd after I set it to cool, was this mini meteor crater/depression that had formed in the middle of the cake! My husband said it must have been plate tectonics/faulting created by angered ingredients for not seeing their egg around them in their good times in the hot sauna, the oven (the show-off Civil Engineer!)! 

Don’t think seeing the picture and the missing patch that looks like the boundary of the state of Bihar (before jharkhand), and think I am calling that the crater, or that my husband dug into it while I was not looking, it was just a patch that would have been covered with the icing, and now it sat in the middle of this crater/depression. Nevertheless, I covered it up with blissfully- gooey- chocolatey-goodness i.e., Chocolate Ganache!. No one would know about the crater unless I tell them, right ?

Cake b) This cake was super duper fragile (which, of course, I did not know when I took it out of the oven) and when I turned the cake upside down to cool it, only half of the cake came out. The rest decided to stay in the pan for a bit longer!. I tried to coax the rest of the cake to come out of the pan and I think they got pissed off with me and decided to crumble when I forced the rest of the cake out of the pan. Disaster, ain? Well, They don’t know me that well I am not the one to give up a fight so easily.... not when I have been trained for fights by my brother who I am so pally with now! So this is what I did: I crumbled the entire cake in a big bowl..Mugahahah! I am evil. crumbly cakes get more crumbled. All this in a state of mind where I am wondering what I did wrong and I still have not figured it out, and did not want to conclude that the substitution did not do the trick for me. Then for a change, the usually rule book, recipe following, chart-out-a-plan-well-before-you-can me, was taken over by some experimental rush. I was motivated in wanting to get something out of this. I poured some nice warm chocolate ganache on its crumbly head (Mittu to cake: You didn’t expect that for revenge did ya? hah! If you thought that was evil, you have no idea what you are in for) . I mixed up the cake and ganache well and I made lemon sized balls out of it, and stuck in some lollipop sticks (serves you right). I refrigerated them for a while. Once they were a bit hard, I dipped them into some more Chocolate ganache I had set aside. I should have stuck these on a piece of Styrofoam, but well, this was disaster recovery being performed by someone who is usually very bad at it (I will be very mad if anyone provides any snippets in the comments section to prove this :P). Oh, I also did not have a Styrofoam ready in hand. Hence, I placed them in a muffin tray ( not the best idea, but it worked) and again put them back into the fridge. After about half an hour later, we had some sinfully chocolate, cake pops!.

Cake (pops) (b) using Oil+Water+Baking Powder Egg substitution

Then those little rascals started going after her.. and then shortly chomped together (Yumm!)

So, I guess with both my substitutions I could have done better. Given what I ultimately did with my second cake (you got chomped, ***** ), I probably was not my usual self - one following recipes down to a tee, and being a little more in control of the outcomes (Baking is a science with rules unlike cooking where you have more room for experimenting). Maybe a slightly more experimental self of me took over. This could be because these are substitutions, and already an attempt to break the norm :). 

I will be sure to try these substitutions again and report back to you on how it worked and what I did better to get the consistency right, not just the great taste I got and in the altered form. Having said that, I had a lot of fun this time being part of the FSB initiative, enjoyed the hard work and the challenges I had to overcome (phew!). Hope that I have not let the team down by pulling a stunt and not figuring out what went wrong and fixing it, but instead, that I have shared with you, a fun experience I had. I have continued determination to make these egg substitutions work well, and hope to try some of the other options too. Thanks again to Madhuri and other Free Spirit Bloggers for the company, and for being part of inspiring me to start this blog.