Hazelnut Cookies

Ingredients

• All Purpose flour - 1.5 cups
• Hazelnuts - 1/2 cup (toasted and chopped) and 1 cup (grind to powder)
• Butter/Margarine - 1.5 cups (i used margarine)
• Brown Sugar - 1 cup (can be adjusted according to taste) 
• Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Salt - a pinch
• Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
• Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp

Method

• Mix the sugar and butter until fluffy.
• In another bowl, mix the all purpose flour, powdered hazelnuts, baking soda and baking powder and salt.

• Now add this flours, to the sugar butter mixture and now add the chopped hazelnuts and mix together.
• Make the smooth dough with the mixture and make into small balls.

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg Celsius.
• Now arrange the balls, in the baking tray and flatten a little bit.
• Bake it for 15 to 20 min or until they become brown in colour and allow to cool.
• Store it in an air tight container for 2 weeks.

This goes to my event Dish Name Starts with H

Vegetable Kofta

Ingredients


For Kofta

• Vegetables - 2 cups (boiled) ( I used frozen mixed vegetables - carrot, beans, green peas, corn, and cauliflower)
• Potato - 1 cup (boiled and smashed)
• Green chilles - 3 to 4 (chopped)
• Coriander powder - 1 tsp
• Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder - 1/2 tsp (adjusted to taste)
• Coriander Leaves - 1/2 cup
• Salt - a per taste
• Corn Flour/All puprose flour - 2 tsp
• Oil for frying

For Gravy

• Tomato - 2 cups
• Onion - 1 cup
• Cashew - 1/2 cup
• Cream or milk - 1/2 cup
• Cumin powder - 1 tsp
• Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Black Jeera - 1/2 tsp
• Coriander powder - 1 tsp
• Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup (chopped)
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
• Turmeric - 2 pinch
• Garam masala - 1/4 tsp
• Salt as per taste
• Oil - 2 tsp

Method

To Make Kofta

• Smash the potato, vegetables and mix together.
• In that, add the green chillies, coriander powder, cumin powder, chilli powder, chopped coriander, salt and mix thoroughly.
• Now make them in to small round balls (can be of any shape).
• Roll over the corn flour.
• In a kadai, head the oil in medium flame and put the balls one by one slowly and fry till they become slight brown in colour.
• Take them from oil, dry in tissue paper.

To make Gravy

• Dry fry the cashews just for 2 to 3 minutes and grind it to make a coarse powder.
• In a Pan, add oil, onion and little salt and let it become little brown colour.
• To this add ginger garlic paste, turmeric, chopped tomatoes, chilli powder, cumin powder and coriander powder.
• If needed, add little water.
• Cook till the tomatoes becomes soft and blend it in a blender to make a smooth paste.
• In another pan, add oil and when hot, add jeera, and the blended paste.
• Allow to boil by adding the garam masala.
• Add the cream/milk and again boil it.
• Now add the cashew powder, and allow to cook again for another 2 min.
• Now gently put the kofta's one by one and let it rest for half an hour.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with any roti, naan, chappathi etc.

Home Made Khova/Khoya - Sugarless

Ingredients

• Milk - 1 litre
• Ghee - 1 tsp (optional)

Method

• In a big pan (non stick works well), start boiling the milk.
• When it becomes half its quantity, start stirring well, so that it does not stick to the bottom, keeping flame in medium.
• In this stage, if you need ghee, you can add. But it is optional only.
• When the milk, becomes very less quantity, as shown in last figure, switch off the stove.
• Sugarless khova is ready to be used in making, gulab jamuns, carrot halwa etc...
• It can be stored in fridge for more than 15 days.

This goes to my event Dish Name Starts with H

Makkan Peda - The Famous Arcot Sweet

I always love the famous Arcot Sweet "Makkan Peda". Arcot is my mother's native and even mine as i too born in Arcot but brought up in Chennai from my age one onwards. Whenever i go during school holidays, i used to have it. But now a days, whenever i go Chennai, my uncle get this sweet from Arcot specially for me. I love it so much. I just love the crunchy taste of nuts and the soft and sweetness of the peda. After i saw the peda from Jay of Tasty Appetite, i started craving for it and now is the time for it. I did it with the gulab jamun formula instead of khoya. Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients

• Milk Powder - 1.5 cup
• All Purpose flour - 1/2 cup
• Unsalted Butter - 1/4 cup 
• Baking Soda - 2 pinch
• Milk - 1/4 cup (can be increased or reduced accordingly)
• Curd - 1 tsp
• Nuts and Raisins - as required for the stuffing (i used Pumpkin seeds, almonds, cashews, water melon seeds)
• Oil - for frying

Sugar syrup

• Sugar - 2 cups
• Water - 1.5 cups
• Cardamom - 2 pinch
• Saffron - few strands

Method

• In a bowl, mix the milk powder, all purpose flour, baking soda and butter nicely.
• Now add the curd and mix again.
• Add milk, little by little and make it into a soft dough. 
• Let it rest for 15 min.
• Now take the dough and it will be bit dry by this time, add some more milk (or water) little by little and keep it soft.
• Now take small quantity of dough and stuff it with nuts and raisins and make in to small balls.

• While making the balls, you can start preparing the sugar syrup, in a large bowl, by adding the sugar and water. When sugar gets dissolved, add the cardamom and saffron, and keep in low flame.
• In another pan, add the oil and keep in low to medium flame.
• When the oil is hot, add the balls one by one and start frying as like jamuns.
• Fry till the balls comes to golden brown color fully.
• Take out the balls, and dry it with kitchen tissue and transfer in to the hot sugar syrup immediately.
• Let it rest for 1 to 2 hrs or till the balls absorbs the syrup.
• Serve it by garnishing with some nuts.

Note: 
1. The softness of dough is that, it should not stick more in your hands and you should be able to make it into a small balls.
2. For frying, instead of oil, ghee can also be used.
3. Instead of butter, even ghee can be added.
4. The sugar syrup must be hot, when you add the makkan peda in to the syrup.

This goes to the event - Celebrate Sweets - Stuffed Sweets - Guest hosted by me and brain child of Nivedita.

Event Announcement: Celebrate Sweets - Stuffed Sweets

Hi All,

Its my pleasure to announce the great event - Celebrate Sweets - Stuffed Sweets which is a brainchild of Nivedita and now, guest hosted by me, for the month of May. I first thank Nivedita, for giving the wonderful opportunity to host the event. Hope all my lovely fellow bloggers, will give support as usual and make the event a grand success. Here comes the rules for the event

• Post the recipe in your blog from MAY 7TH TILL JUNE 7TH.
• Send it to my email id events.akilaskitchen@gmail.com with "CELEBRATE SWEETS~STUFFED SWEETS"  as a subject.
• You can send as many entries as you wish.
• For archived posts,

                 ->  If the recipe is posted within two months, just update the post and link back to this event.
                 ->  If the recipe  is posted earlier, please update, repost and link bank it to this event.

Courtesy : Google Images

• Placing the logo will be highly appreciated as it will be easy to spread the news about this event.
• Non bloggers can send their entries to my email. 

Chicken Tikka in skewer

Ingredients

• Chicken – 250 gms
• Capsicum (green, yellow, red) - cut into cubical
• Onion -1 cut into cubical shape
• Tomati - 1 cut into cubical shape
• Tikka Masala – 3 tsp (according to taste – for more spicy add 1 more tsp)
• Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
• Lemon Juice – 2 tsp
• Butter – 1 tsp (for brushing the chicken)

Method

• Wash the boneless chicken pieces nicely with salt. (So that the smell goes off)
• Marinate the chicken pieces with tikka  masala, ginger garlic paste, lemon juice for 2 hrs or 1 hr in fridge. 
• Also marinate the capsicum, onion and tomato for 30 min.
• After 2 hrs, in the wooden skewer, arrange the chicken pieces, capsicum, onion and tomato alternatively and keep in preheated oven of 250 C for 20 min.
• While 10 min over, take out the chic pieces, brush with butter and keep inside the oven.
• Serve hot.

Note:

1. Soak the wooden skewer in water atleast 10 min before keeping in oven

2. Since i want my chicken tikka to be more spicy, i added more masala. It can be adjusted according to your taste.

Banana Walnut Muffins - Eggless

Ingredients

• Banana - 3 (Long sized)
• Walnut - 1/2 cup
• All Purpose flour - 1.5 cups
• Sugar - 1 cup
• Vegetable oil - 1/4 cup
• Curd - 2 tsp
• Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
• Baking Powder - 1 tsp
• Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
• Salt - a pinch

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180 degree celcius.
• In a large pan, mix the all purpose flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

• In another pan, add, banana and sugar and smash well.
• Add the oil, curd and vanilla essence to this and mix well.
• Now transfer this to the flour pan and mix together to a semi-liquid state.

• Add the chopped walnuts and pour to the muffin cups.
• Bake it in the oven for 20 to 25 min, until the muffins gets baked. (the outside layer becomes brown or insert a wooden tooth stick inside one muffin and when taken out, it should be non sticky).
• Let it cook for 5 min and serve it.