Aam Panna (Raw Mango Drink)

When summers are around, body tends to dehydrate easily and now a days with so much warm climate and long sun light exposure might take you to a heat stroke. With so hot and warm climate fluids levels in the body needs to be balance so as to protect it from heat strokes. And raw mangoes are the best source of it, keeps your body cool. Remembering  my childhood, how my mum use to make this healthy and refreshing drink for us and it was compulsory everyday drink during summers. 

Aam Panna is the best way to keep your body hydrate and balncing fluid levels. It is a perfect thirst quencher which acts as an shield against heat. It detoxifies your body from within. Do try this drink and am sure you are gonna love this.

You can make a bottle full of it as I did and store it into a refrigerator for upto a week.

Ingredients:-

700 gms Raw Mango

2 tsp Black Salt

1/2 cup Fresh Mint Leaves

2 tsp Roasted Cumin Seeds

2 tsp Lemon juice

200 gms sugar

Salt to taste

Water to boil

Chaat masala to sprinkle 

Method:-

Pressure cook Raw mangoes in water.

Once pressure cooked mango is slightly cool, peel its outer skin or it can be easily removed by hands too (It will become soft and pulpy).

Do not throw the water in which mangoes were boiled. (I used the same while blending)

Take out the mango pulp and straightway throw it into a blender jar along with all the ingredients listed above and the water in which mangoes were boiled.

Blend until smoothie like texture add more water if necessary..

Serve it with the cubes of ice and a sprinkle of chaat masala.

Garnish with mint leaves and your perfect summer drink is ready to sip...ahhhaa so refreshing !!!😋😋

Drink atleast one glass of this refreshing drink a day. It's so delicious when chilled. ❤️❤️

Paneer (Cottage Cheese) Shawarma Wrap

Shawarma is a roti wrap or a roll which is wrapped with Paneer or boneless chicken piece or a meat with spreads and sliced onions and tomatoes. Which is easy, healthy and quick if you are having all the ingredients handy. I myself tried it first time but find it really tasty and healthy other than spring rolls which are fried. 

Here i have used home made tomato paste and bell pepper paste as a spread on wrap. If running short of time, you can also buy tomato paste jar readily available in market. As it was not in a stock, so i made it by myself. Below you can see its recipe. If you end up making tomato paste in large qty, than can store in cleaned glass jar in refrigerator for months.

Ingredients:

Tomato Paste:

6-7 large size bright red tomatoes

3 pods of garlic

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 -1 tsp salt or to taste

Green Bell Pepper Paste

2 Green bell pepper Roasted on Gas Flame (1 large and other medium small)

1 1/2 tbsp Sesame seeds

Salt to Taste

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

1 small green chilly

For Marinating Paneer (Cottage Cheese)

100 gms Paneer (Cottage Cheese)

2 tbsp thick creamy Curd or Yogurt

1 3/4 tsp Tomato Paste

2 tsp Bell pepper paste

1 tsp ginger- garlic paste each

1 tsp Red chilly powder (adjust the spice level to your taste)

1 tsp Pickle powder or paste (optional.. I bought ready pickle mix powder packet that is used in making pickles, if you do not have, can skip)

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

Salt to taste

1/2 tsp lemon juice

For Wrap

1 Cup whole wheat flour

1 cup Maida/APF

1 tsp Instant dry yeast

1 tbsp Olive oil

3/4 cup warm water

1/2 tsp sugar

salt to taste

For Garnishing and Serving:

1 Large Onion Sliced

1 large Tomato Sliced

1 cup of freshly chopped green Coriander leaves.

Recipe: 

1. For Tomato Paste 

In a heavy vessel pan, boil tomatoes with tsp of salt. Boil until its outer skin can be peeled easily. Bring the boiled tomatoes out of water, peel all and puree all the peeled tomatoes in a mixer jar with garlic and olive oil until nicely pureed. 

Heat a pan, pour all the blended puree in to it and cook on medium-high flame for 20-30 minutes. Keep a watch and stir in between, Quantity will reduce little by the time. Later turn the flame to medium and cook until you get thick paste like consistency.. (Consistency should be similar to tomato catch up)

    2. For Green Bell Pepper Paste

Roast Green bell pepper greased with olive oil on a gas flame, until soft and shrinks a little.

Once roasted, Remove its seeds and chop roughly, blend in mixer jar with sesame seeds, small green chilly, olive oil and salt to taste. Blend until smooth.

   3. For Marinating Paneer (Cottage Cheese)

Cut Paneer (Cottage Cheese) in to finger size. Marinate it with ready Tomato Paste, Green bell pepper paste, thick creamy curd/yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, pickle powder or pickle paste, red chilly powder and salt to taste. (Save some tomato paste and bell pepper paste for spreading on wrap).

Mix all well. Cover and let it stand for 20 minutes.

In a Non stick pan, heat a tsp or little more oil, and shallow fry panner (cottage cheese) until light brown. If you want to avoid shallow frying, can also grill in Oven or on non stick grill pan on flame. (Save some marination mixture for spreading on wrap).

    4. For Wrap

Dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar, let it stand until mixture is frothy. (about 10-15 minutes)

In a large bowl, Mix Whole wheat flour and Maida/APF with salt and olive oil. Add Frothy yeast mixture to the flour and knead in to soft, smooth and elastic dough. Once Kneaded, Cover it with a tea towel and allow to rise until it doubles in volume (about 45min-1 hour).

Once it is proofed, deflate the dough by punching down. 

Pull out large lemon size ball of the ready yeasted dough and roll each dough ball with a rolling pin in to a round roti shape.

Roast all the rolled rotis in a non-stick pan with slight patches on both the sides.

Wrapping Shawrma...

• Spread a little of saved marinated mixture, tomato paste, bell pepper paste on roasted roti. Add 2-3 Shallow fried or grilled Paneer Fingers, sliced onions, tomatoes, freshly chopped Corriander leaves and Roll it. 
• Serve the Paneer Shawrma wrap or a roll in a plate with few more sliced onion and tomatoes.
• So here you are ready with your delicious and tangy Paneer Shawrama.
• Non Vegetarians can use Grilled and marinated boneless chicken and meat by replacing paneer that too will taste yummm...

Jam Filled Croissants

Recently we had a freshly baked croissants on our holiday. Me and My husband is very much fond of it and thus i wanted to try the same at home. Came across so many recipes, but was finding it little complex to work on as i was unable to understand the procedure. But few picture inscrutable for shaping croissants made little easy to understand..Here i have tried my best to make all you viewers to get proper understanding.
As this summer i stored mango jam in a large qty so thought to make Jam filled Croissants for breakfast...
But to be honest, i was little disappointed with the color crust as i myself forgot to Egg wash the Croissants that gives a nice glaze and golden crust.
Please be careful and don't forget to egg wash before baking...I have mentioned below for the same.

Ingredients:

For Dough:
3 cups Maida / All purpose flour
3/4 cup warm milk
1/2 cup water
1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp Instant dry yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/4 cup cold grated butter

1 beaten egg for egg washing the croissants.

For Filling:
1 cup home made or store bought Mango Jam (Click on the link for the jam recipe)

Note: I used mango jam but feel free to use Jams or preserves of your choice. For filling Per croissant, you will need 1 tsp of jams/preserve that you will use. Best part is,  you can play with the fillings inside and create your own version...Dough measurements will remains same.
Try the one Savoury croissants.


Recipe:

• In a small bowl, pour milk and sprinkle sugar and yeast. Let the yeast mixture stand until frothy, about 15 minutes.
•  In a large bowl, Mix Maida / All purpose flour with salt and olive oil. Now pour frothy yeast milk mixture in to it, pour water and accumulate all into a sticky dough mixture. (You may need extra flour for dusting and kneading the dough to form a smooth, soft and elastic dough)
• Keep Kneading for 5 minutes until smooth, soft and elastic. Grease the dough with olive oil, cover it with a plastic cling film and allow it rise until doubles in volume, about 30-35 minutes. 
• 
  
• Mean while tear a cling film and grate cold butter on to it. Disperse a little and cover it with the cling film. Refrigerate the butter in a cling film about 40 minutes or an hour, until again hard and stiff. 

(see the picture below)

• Once the dough rises, deflate it by punching down. 
• Again tear a cling film and place it on a work surface, sprinkle it with some flour and bring the dough on the dusted cling film, knead the dough for 2 minutes. Roll the dough with a rolling pin in a rectangular shape.

Bring out the dispersed chilled butter from fridge. Unwrap it and place it on the rolled dough and make 2 folds of the dough. Roll it again with a rolling pin and again make 2-3 folds out of it. Wrap the dough with the film and refrigerate for atleast 30 minutes.
(see the picture below)

• After 30 minutes bring the dough out, unwrap the dough and roll. Fold it as shown above, Re-wrap and refrigerate again for 30 minutes. Repeat the procedure for total 4 times. (i know its little time consuming but for achieving something good and best it does takes time and the end seeing the results you will feel worth doing this, infact i enjoyed the whole process and i am sure you too will)
• Now once you finish the rolling and wrapping procedure four times, its time for making croissants and its filling...( Alas Finallyy...;) 

For shaping Croissants:

(Follow the step-by-step pic below)

• Unwrap the dough, roll it in a large rectangular shape about 16"x7"
• Cut the rectangular dough in half diagonally forming 7-8 triangle. 
• Take one triangle of the dough, pull on the corners of  a triangle unlike a little stretching. 
• Take a tsp of Mango jam or preserves of your choice and place it on a triangle dough, fold it till the end carefully..Like wise make croissants of each triangle and line it on a greased baking tray.
• Cover the tray with a tea towel and allow the croissants to rise for about an hour.
• Once it rises, egg wash the top of all the croissants before baking. 
• Pre-heat oven at 180 degree Celsius.
• Bake the rised croissants for 20 minutes and after that reduce the temperature at 160 degree Celsius and allow to bake more for 15 minutes, or until you get nice golden crust on top. (place a bowl of water in lower rack of oven and croissants on top rack, keep a check on the crust to avoid over baking and burning)
• Once Baked allow all the croissants to cool on wire rack.

Here you are ready with your freshly baked Jam Filled Croissants for breakfast..
Enjoy...:)

Baked Aam Doi / Bhapa Aam Doi (Sweetned Mango Curd)

A very easy and a one pot quick dessert where there is no chance to go wrong..Its a No fuss, No mess, No hard work, No load, but yes, A healthy and a quick dessert..A baked Mishti Doi, a well known Bengali dessert which is made with curd. You can make a flavored Doi as i did. To bid adieu to mangoes of season, tried my hands with one more mango dessert which is super yummy and was easy too...Have a look below for the recipe....

 Ingredients:

1 can Condensed Milk

1/2 cup room temperature Milk  (Full fat or low fat, up to you)

1 cup Full Fat Curd / Yogurt Strained (Basically a hung curd or Greek yogurt, which is more creamier)

2 ripe mangoes

and some sliced Pistachios for Garnishing... 

Recipe:

• Strain the Curd in a Muslin cloth tied over tap for 30 minutes. Let the water part strained out of it.
• Meanwhile Wash, peel and roughly cut the ripe mangoes.
• Now Empty Condensed milk can, Milk, Full Fat Strained Yogurt and roughly cut mangoes in a mixer jar.
• Blend all until smooth and pour the mixture in to a baking Mould. 
• Preheat Oven at 140 degree Celsius.
• Bake the Mixture for 25-30 minutes in Preheated oven.
• Once done, bring the set curd out from oven and allow it to cool. 
• Garnish it with sliced Pistachios.
• Refrigerate for 2-3 hours and here you are ready to serve, A Chilled Aam Doi.

Wasn't it easy and quick? Do try today and you too will fall in love with it....

Savoury Fresh Cherry Spread

Cherry Spread is now on my favorite. Made this first time and it was really to fall for. I love sour and fresh cherries in desserts and as an toppings on ice creams, so i bought 2 packets. 1 packet is already put in to use to make Savory Fresh Cherry spread. In a simple language a Cherry chutney. Have a look to a recipe below...

Ingredients:
2 cups of Pitted Fresh Red Cherries
1 medium sliced red onion
1/4 tsp Mustard seeds
1 Cinnamon stick
2 Black Cloves whole
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 tsp Black pepper powder
1/2 to 1 tsp of Red chilly powder
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tsp Lime juice
1/4 cup Cider Vinegar
1 tsp grated lemon zest or orange zest
Salt to taste



Recipe:

• Mix all the mixture in a small bowl.

• Empty the bowl mixture in a pan and bring the mixture to boil on a medium flame.
• Turn the flame to low cover and cook further for about 30 minutes.
• Open the lid after 30 minutes, stir the mixture and cook more on low flame until mixture is glossy and thick. 
• Turn the flame off and allow it to cool completely. Remove Cinnamon stick and whole cloves form inside. Transfer the chutney in clean glass jar. Refrigerate and it remains good up to a week. 
• Hereby your savory bread spread is ready to use.

Eggless Mawa Wheat Cake

Mawa cake, a perfect tea time cake. I never had this before, but heard a lot about Mumbai's and pune's Irani cafe serving mawa cake. Mawa sweets are my favorite and so the mawa cake by now on.. I was just looking for traditional irani mawa cake's recipe but all traditional recipes that i saw was having eggs in it. And i wanted to make eggless version of it, so here i have made eggless wheat mawa cake, not whole wheat but a mixture of maida and  regular wheat flour.
In India you easily get mawa/khoya but in outside some countries you don't easily get, so what you can do here is you can substitute with milk cake, the one which we generally have during fasting. Or one more option is to make mawa at home. So here i' ll be posting  both mawa recipe along with its cake too.

Ingredients:
For Mawa/Khoya:
4 cups Full Fat milk
1 cup full fat cream

For Mawa Cake
Dry Ingerdients:
1 cup Maida
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup brown sugar (or white powdered sugar)

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup Clarified butter (Ghee) / Melted butter (I prefer using Clarified butter (Ghee) to give it little more of traditional taste to it)
1/2 Milk (Full fat or low fat up to you)
3/4 cup Grated Mawa/Khoya
2 tsp Full Rose water
4-5 saffron threads soaked in 1 tsp milk for 15-20 minutes

Dried fruits:
1 1/2 tsp green cardamom powder (remove its seed and powder it)
3 tbsp chopped Pistachios (2 tbsp in cake and 1 tbsp for Garnishing)
3 tbsp chopped Roasted Almond (2 tbsp in cake and 1 tbsp for Garnishing)
3 tbsp chopped cashew nuts (2 tbsp in cake and 1 tbsp for Garnishing)

Recipe:

For Mawa:
In a heavy bottom non stick pan Mix full fat milk with cream. On a high flame bring it to boil thrice. Stir and cook the mixture on medium flame for about 15 minutes. Now turn the flame from medium to low, keep stirring. Now cook for about 30-35 minutes or more and keep stirring in between. Slowly you'll start seeing a little grainy like texture in the mixture. Keep cooking and stirring further for 35-40 minutes more on low flame, until it becomes semi solid, dense and much like halwa. Turn the flame off and let it cool completely to room temperature (will become little more solid once it cools down and that is what you want). The total cooking time will be around 1 hr 20 minutes.

Yields: 1 cup full and 200 gms of Mawa/khoya (Once cool completely, it can be refrigerate for 4 days. Or you can freeze it in freezer for 1 month, whenever you want to use, let it come to room temperature, grate and than use to avoid lumps)

Home Made Mawa / Khoya

 For Mawa/ Khoya Cake:

• Preheat Oven at 180 degree Celsius.
• In a large bowl, Grate Mawa and mix with all the wet ingredients. Use hand blender to mix all of them nicely in to thick paste like consistency.
• Now in another small bowl mix all dry ingredients with wet ingredients. Mixture of the cake batter should be lump free (use hand blender if required).
• Now fold in green cardamom powder with 2 tbsp chopped each (Pistachios, Almonds and Cashew nuts) in the mixture.
• Pour the batter in the greased cake pan and spread all over evenly. For Garnishing Sprinkle on top 1 tbsp chopped each (Pistachios, almonds and Cashew nuts).

• Now Bake the cake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in, comes out clean.

• Serve Hot with a cup of Tea or Coffee and Enjoy :)

Punjabi Rajma Masala (Kidney bean curry)

Very often i make Punjabi rajma masala. And is always a hit everytime...Rajma is a famous North indian vegetarian dish having rajma (red kidney beans) in thick gravy. Gravy is nothing, but a blend of indian spice with tomatoes and onion paste. Rajma Masala is either served with naan, or simple tawa roti or with rice. Most of the time i serve it with rice and accompany it with boondi raita or cucumber raita.
Do check its recipe below...

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Rajma soaked in water 6-8 hours (red kidney beans)

For Gravy:
2 Onion puree (1 large and 1 medium-small)
1 large tomato puree
1 tsp garlic paste (about 3 pods)
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp green chilly paste
11/2 tsp khas khas soaked in 1 tsp water for about 10 minutes and finely paste
1  tsp Cumin powder
1 tsp Coriander powder
1/2 tsp dry ginger powder
1/4 tsp black pepper powder
1/2 tsp black cardomom powder (remove its seeds and crush it)
1/2 tsp cloves powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp dry mint leaves powder (can use fresh one too, just paste it)
1 tsp dry methi leaves (dry fenugreek leaves)
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
3/4 tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp aamchur powder (dry mango powder)
1 tsp Saunf powder (Dry fennel powder)
3/4 tsp methi powder (Dry fenugreek powder)
1 tsp red chilly powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds
Salt to taste
1 bay leaf
pinch of Hing (asafoetida powder)
1 tbsp Oil
1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)


Recipe:

• Pressure cook soaked rajma (red kidney beans) with water.
• Once cooked, do not drain its water, use the same while making gravy.
• In a deep kadai or wok, heat oil and ghee with whole cumin seeds,and mustard seeds. As as it splutters add pinch of Hing powder (asafoetida powder), bay leaf and onion puree. Saute until light pink with little salt. 
• Now add tomato puree with all the spice powders mentioned above.
• Add Rajma water to this mixture, about 1/2 cup. Simmer it on low flame and let it cook for about 5 minutes with its lid covered.
• After cooked, add rajmas in to this gravy with its remaining water.
• Again cook furthur for about 10 minutes on a low flame, or until you get nice thick gravy.
• Garnish it with fresh Coriander leaves and serve hot with rice, sliced onion rings and with grated cucumber raita.