Mango, pineapple and watermelon salsa

I have always struggled with eating salads and fresh vegetables and lately I have also noticed that my fruit intake has slowed down considerably and this despite the availability of fresh produce this summer. These days, whatever fruits and berries I have, usually come in the form of apple pie, raspberry crumble bars, blueberry muffins... well, you get the picture. So in an attempt to increase my vitamin intake, I made this salsa.

Butterscotch Ice Cream

Happy Father's Day to everyone! It feels great to be back blogging after a some break. Thank you and a big hug to everyone who checked on me during my absence. Even though I made this really delicious butterscotch ice cream from smittenkitchen a couple of days ago, I have been in two minds about whether to post it here. Photographing ice cream is more difficult than I thought it would be. I put the ice cream outside to defrost and when I came back, the ice cream looked like soup. I hope you can look beyond that, because the butterscotch/caramel flavour is simply out of this world. This ice cream is very rich in flavour. If you love butterscotch/caramel, you've got to try this recipe.

Lentil Fritters - Masala Vadai

I believe everyone had a wonderful  Mother's Day. I wanted to post a recipe that I will always associate with my mother today and one that I know she loves too - vadai. Being a diabetic, she rarely indulges in sweetmeat and is more of a snack person. She also happens to be a vegetarian and a very picky eater but one thing she will never be able to resist is deep-fried goodness like these crispy lentil fritters (paruppu vadai) or masala vadai.


This vadai goes by many different names but is often sold as masala vadai at restaurants, probably because the word masala conjures such pleasant images to people. I tried to make these once before, in my early days of cooking, but unfortunately that attempt went bonkers and the vadai fell apart while frying. I did the mistake of not grinding the batter properly. Anyway, I have finished mourning that mishap and have been wanting to give this another try. This time the masala vadai turned out really well and I was told it tasted great too.

We don't normally add garlic to this but I was inspired to try these with garlic after seeing a recipe on Rak's Kitchen for the same. I do add ground garlic to falafel and pakoda and since the garlic adds an immense depth of flavour, especially to fried food, it got me curious. Those of you who do not wish to use garlic could substitute the garlic with a pinch of asafoetida (hing). The green chilies are optional and could be added if you prefer your masala vadai to be really hot.

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow lentils (chana dal)
1 onion
1/2-1 tsp fennel seeds (or powder)
1 1/2 tsp red chili powder
2-3 green chilies (optional)
2 garlic cloves
2 sprigs curry leaves
3/4 to 1 tsp salt (or to taste)
Oil for frying

Method:
Rinse and wash the lentils in water 4 times or so until the water becomes clear and then soak the yellow lentils for 4 hours. Finely chop the onion, garlic cloves and the green chilies (if you are adding them). I prefer to cut the curry leaves with a food scissor as well. After 4 hours the lentils should have doubled in size. Drain the lentils. Put away 1/4 of the lentils and grind the remaining with garlic. Alternatively, grind the fennel seeds as well, because they can be a little domineering in flavor as whole. The batter should be ground coarsely with a generous amount of whole lentils. The more whole lentils there are in the vadai, the crunchier the vadai will turn out. So bearing this in mind, don't grind the lentils too much - just enough so as to able to shape them. In a bowl, mix the batter with red chili powder, curry leaves, onion, fennel seeds, salt and green chilies (if you are adding these) and mix/knead well.

Heat the oil needed for frying the vadai. Prepare a plate with tissue or absorbent paper to to drain the excessive oil from the deep-fried vadai and keep aside. Pinch off some batter and shape a small ball out of it and then flatten it out little to resemble a small cookie and carefully place one vadai in the oil. Take care not to splash oil while dropping the vadai into the oil. Also, take care not to drop it from a high altitude so as to avoid splashing hot oil around you. Fry it until it looks crisp on medium heat. Once you have fried the first vadai, taste to check whether the salt level is right. Add some more salt at this stage, if needed, and knead the batter before frying the rest of the vadai. Make sure the oil is really hot when dropping the vadai to get a crispy exterior, then lower the heat to medium so that it gets evenly fried. Serve the vadai warm and crispy with chutney/dip/ketchup or enjoy them just the way they are. Good luck!

Mango curry - Amba maluwa

 

Amba maluwa is a delicious, sweet, sour and spicy Sri Lankan mango curry. I had this curry for the first time at a restaurant and I couldn't figure out what "vegetable" it was but the taste was out of this world. It was part of a traditonal Sri Lankan meal that consisted of perfectly cooked red rice, some other vegetable and bean curries and pappadom/appalam. Unlike the other vegetable and bean curries that were completely dependent on the seasonings, the mango was bursting with flavours and with each bite it tasted differently. It has ever since been one of my favourite curries.

Egg Thokku - Muttai Thokku

For someone who loves eggs, I just noticed that I have very few recipes that involve eggs (not including cakes and bakes here). So my mission now is to add some more egg recipes and I am going to begin with this easy and pretty fool-proof egg thokku recipe.

Thokku is a thick and sour curry (it probably derives from the word thokkai which means thick). Thokku is either made from sour vegetables/fruits or tamarind paste (or tomatoes) are added to make it sour. The vegetables are cooked along with spices and without adding any water. You stir-fry the vegetables until the water (from the vegetables) has evaporated. The thokku is lastly layered with a few teaspoons of oil before being sealed. The low water content and the acidity prevents it from being spoilt. And you should always use dry spoon and dry hands when serving or opening thokku. This is an effective way to prepare vegetables and make them last a little longer.

Drumstick curry - Murungai kai curry

At my ancestral home, we had a big murungai tree that would blossom after the monsoon season. I never cared much for ours then - my eyes were always set on the mango trees. It was an old and a most stubborn tree that would only blossom periodically. One day, along with some garden work and for whatever reason, we cut down the twigs and branches of that tree. Even though I had never cared much for it, I was saddened to see the state of that beautiful tree. It was only then that I realized its value. I missed the fragrant white flowers that we would inhale. I missed the shadow that we would take refuge in. And most of all, I missed the sight of these green, thin drumsticks that we would desperately try to fetch by jumping up and down with a long stick.    

Pear frangipane tart

I have made this pear tart twice before in the past and both times with canned pears. Since pears are in season now (well, at least here), I decided to make the poached pears from scratch this time. It went well, if I may say so myself. I never get a chance to photograph this tart properly when I make this, simply because this tart is so delicious and once it is out of the oven I start to dig in immediately. However this time, I made two pear frangipane tarts, to make sure that I would have something to click. The recipe is modified from Dorie Greenspan's pear tart recipe. The recipe is actually for one tart but I always have some crust leftover that I eventually throw away. This happens every time I make pies and tarts so I doubled the filling instead so that I could make two pear tarts. 

Middle Eastern Salad

I am not too fond of salads (unless it's fruit salad) and I'm definitely not proud to say that. I would love to include fresh greens in my diet and I think this recipe is a good start. The only salad that I ever enjoyed was this Middle Eastern salad that a Syrian friend of mine prepared for me a couple of years ago. She explained to me that the salad was of Lebanese origin. However, the name of that dish did not stick to my mind as the dish did. I initially did not want to eat it, but took some only to taste, and to my surprise I ended up liking that salad so much so that I took some home with me. It was very flavourful and she served this salad with something that looked like a pizza (a delicious oven-baked flatbread with a filling on top) and dolmas, that means stuffed and cooked vine leaves.

Mocha cake - Mockaruta

This cake is one of my childhood favorites. Mockaruta a delightful chocolate cake with a pretty sweet mocha frosting. It goes by many names in Scandinavia. In Sweden, it is often addressed as mockaruta or chokladruta (literally meaning mocha square or chocolate square) because it is baked in rectangular baking pans and then cut into squares, like brownies. I used to order this at every single cafe I visited in my school days. But those cafe visits were very expensive for me back then and I had look up other alternatives. Even though I was under the impression that this cake was difficult to make at home I gave it a shot. It turned out wonderful the second time and there was no stopping me every since from making this. 

Cake:
150 g butter
2 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanillin sugar (or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)
2 tsp baking powder
3 tbs cocoa powder
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole milk

Frosting:
75 g butter
2 tbs cold coffee (1-2 tsp espresso coffee powder + 2 tbs hot water)
1 tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp vanillin sugar (optional)
3/4-1 cup icing sugar/confectioner's sugar

Garnish:
Desiccated coconut or sprinkles (optional)
Strawberries (optional)

Method:
Melt the butter at below medium heat. Put aside and allow to cool down. Lightly butter either a 7*9 inch square baking pan or a 9 inch round baking pan. Place a parchment paper at the bottom and butter the parchment paper lightly. Prepare the dry ingredients by mixing flour, vanillin sugar, baking powder and cocoa powder and sift twice. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the butter and mix until well blended. First, drizzle half of the milk into the egg mixture. Then sift half of the dry ingredients in there and fold with a spoon. Then drizzle the remaining milk and then the dry ingredients. Fold until well-blended.

Spoon in the cake batter into the baking pan and put the cake in the oven. Bake the cake in a preheated oven at 200 C (about 400 F) in the bottom third rack for about 25 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to cool down and meanwhile, go ahead and prepare the mocha frosting.

To make the frosting, add the coffee powder in a small cup and then pour 2 tbs of warm water and mix. Put aside. Melt the butter at low heat. Once the butter has melted, sift the cocoa powder and then drizzle the coffee. Whisk until well blended. Measure up the icing sugar and sift it in the same bowl, add the vanilla sugar and mix. Cook at low heat for about 2-3 minutes while continuously whisking until it is completely free of any lumps. Once the frosting looks smooth, take it away from the stove. Let it cool for sometime (but not completely) before spreading it on the cake. Drizzle it on top of the cake and spread it evenly. Sprinkle some desiccated coconut or sprinkles on top, if desired. Allow the frosting to stiffen completely before cutting into slices. I prefer to keep this cake in an airtight container at room temperature but you can also store them in the fridge.

Boondi Laddu

I thought I would celebrate my completing six months of food blogging by reposting the boondi laddu recipe. Boondi laddu is my all-time favourite sweet. This recipe was one of my earliest posts and the previous picture made no justice to this delectable sweet, which is why I'm reposting this recipe with new pictures.