Chatti Pathiri

We are back from 2 short trips. We all had a relaxing vacation, which we all needed so badly. Now coming back after almost 2 weeks of not being in the kitchen, I kind of feel lost in my own kitchen. Do you feel lost in your kitchen when you come back from vacation? It took me sometime to get used to what was there in the fridge or pantry and what wasn't. It is a strange feeling to feel lost in your own kitchen. Even cooking a dish that I must have made a million times can take a wee bit longer and I often forget an ingredient. Does that happen to you? Or should I blame this to - getting old you know, statement that we tend to make often.

In any case, let me start talking about the dish that I have been daunting to make for many years now. For one, I stay away from dishes that contain a whole lot of eggs. I tend to skip recipes that have more then 4 eggs in anything I have to bake or if something that is real drool worthy, I plan to make it when I have some guest over. That way I don't end up eating the dish by myself and everybody gets a share of the cholesterol laden dish he he! Secondly this dish has a lot of prep work, so I almost never have the time to make it. And the other reason is my son can't have a single bite, as he is highly allergic to almost all the ingredients in this dish. But I had to make it, as I craved for this dish way too long and was running out of excuses.

This is a sweet Malabar delicacy and this dish is also made in a different way and that is - with meat as a filling. I love this dish with the meat but my hubby is a fan of the sweet one. So this one is for him. Enjoy!

So here goes...

For the Pandam/Filling:

• 3-4 eggs beaten
• handful of cashews
• handful of raisins
• 4-5 tbsps of sugar ( +/- to your liking)
• 3-4 cardamom pods, crushed, seeds removed and powdered
• 1 tsp of oil/ghee

To Dip the otada:

• 5-6 eggs beaten
• 6-7 tbsps of sugar ( +/- to your liking)
• 6 cardamom pods, crushed, seeds removed and powdered
• 1/2 cup of milk (optional)

For the Topping:

• Handful of raisins and cashews
• 1 tsp of white poppy seeds

For Assembling the dish.

• 1 tbsp of oil
• 1-2 tbsps of sugar

Ingredients to make Otada/Malabar crepe - refer to this. But do NOT assemble the otada (i.e. with the shallots in the recipe, just make the otada/crepe's and keep aside).

Method:

To make the Pandam/Filling

Beat the eggs with sugar and cardamom and set aside.

In a non stick pot, heat the oil add the cashews and raisins, until the cashews start to become light brown and the raisins plump up. Add the beaten eggs, sugar and cardamom mix. Keep stirring to make the consistency of scramble eggs. Keep this filling aside.

Make the Otada/Crepe like this. But make sure the otada that you make should be more or less the size of the pot that you are going to make the dish in.

In another bowl beat the eggs with all the ingredients for the dip and set aside.

Now to Assemble the dish.

Pour oil in a pot that you are ready to cook the dish in. Place one of the otada's/crepes on the oil. Put a little of the egg filling. Take another otada/crepe and dip it in the egg, sugar and milk mix that is kept aside for dipping the otada's/crepes. Sprinkle some sugar. Put some more of the filling followed by the dipped otada/crepe and sprinkle of sugar. Repeat this till you have consumed all the filling and otada/crepes, with the last layer being the crepe. Pour over any of the remaining egg, sugar and milk mix.

Sprinkle the top layer with the white poppy seeds, cashews, little sugar and raisins. Cover and let it cook the dish for 25 - 30 minutes on a low flame till a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let it cool.

Once it is cool enough to handle, remove the lid and place

a dinner plate over the pot and flip the pot upside down. The chatti pathiri will be bottom side up now, slide the chatti pathiri back on to the pot ( the top layer with the cashews, raisins and poppy seeds facing down). Cook the chatti pathiri for another 5-10 minutes on a low flame to get a beautiful golden brown color. Once cool take a serving plate and flip the chatti pathiri over, so that top layer with the cashews, raisins and poppy seeds are on top and serve warm.

This recipe is going to Joy from Fasting to Feasting from Kitchen flavors who is conducting the event.

Raspberry Banana Upside down cake

I woke up this morning to pretty roses on my door step, a warm hug from my 2 beautiful kids and a bunch of gifts my 5 year old made in school. She made 2 beautiful cards, a bright colored jewelry box, nicely wrapped in pink tissue paper and before I could unwrap the tissue she was jumping around saying open it mama, open it. There was a bracelet in the box that she had made, orange, purple and candy cane striped beads. She described how she made it and was as thrilled as I was. I wore the bracelet all day.




To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's day!

My neighbor invited us over for lunch and I decided to take dessert. I had no time to shop and my pantry was running low on chocolate. My plan for making something chocolatey wouldn't be possible. So plan B - I found 2 ripe bananas and a packet of frozen raspberries in the freezer. I used the raspberries for a layer in the cake and thought upside down cake would be perfect. This is how the cake was born, with things that were screaming in the fridge and freezer to use. The cake came out beautifully. The raspberries gave a lovely tartness and the banana added a lot of flavor to the cake. I served it with a sprinkle of icing/confectioners sugar.


Ingredients:

1 stick butter(113gms)
100 gms sugar
2 eggs
150 gms self raising flour
2 over ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp milk
1tbsp sugar
1tbsp confectioners/icing sugar(optional)
120z Frozen raspberries

Method:

Preheat the oven 350F. Butter a springform cake tin. Sprinkle and coat the tin with the confectioners/icing sugar. Top it with frozen raspberries and keep aside.

Beat the butter and sugar till pale in color. Add eggs one at a time beating well. Add the mashed banana's and vanilla extract. Beat it for a few more minutes and add the flour in batches. Add one table spoon of milk and beat for a few more minutes.

Pour the cake batter on top of the raspberries. Level the batter with the spatula and bake it for 45 minutes - an hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely before turning it on a platter. Serve with confectioners/icing sugar.

Note: The cake is more like a tart. If you prefer, you could double the amount of self raising flour, sugar and butter to get more of a cake. Also, the cake is quite tart from the raspberries. You could try substituting raspberries with other berries, like blueberries, blackberries or even cranberries.

Tip: To ease up on cleaning put the springform cake tin on a cookie sheet wrapped with aluminum foil while baking. The juices from the berries does leak out.

Torta Caprese - Chocolate Mocha Nut Cake (Gluten free treat)

Roberto, my husband's Italian friend is from Capri and gets us this lovely chocolate mocha nut cake from his home town every time he goes there on vacation. It is beautifully packed in the bakery's green gift wrap. The cake is packed on a hard golden scalloped cardboard base with a hard plastic cover that keeps it intact and moist. My daughter and I can't wait to unwrap it when my husband brings it home. The first bite takes you to chocolate heaven. The cake is chocolatey, nutty and with a hint of coffee, just melts in your mouth. Roby has been getting us this cake about twice a year for five years now. So it was time to decode the ingredients and try something on my own that we could enjoy whenever we wanted it.

I then found this recipe in one of the BBC GoodFood magazine few years ago which had chocolate, ground nuts and coffee in the ingredients. It looked as scrumptious as Roby's cake. So I did make it not only once but I have made this many times - as a dessert for a party, when I had guest over, when I had my girlfriends over, for birthday parties, when my in laws were over. In short every time I craved it, I made it. This is an acceptable alternative to what Roby brings from Italy.

I have had a lot of request from my girl friends and my sister in law (who loves to bake) to share the recipe. I have procrastinated but I am finally posting it. So here it is - this one is for you, A.S.A, for being very patient with me for the past few years. Also, a big thank you to Roberto for introducing this fantastic cake.

The cake from Capri

Also, this cake is perfect if you want to impress certain someone in your life. It is perfect to set a romantic mood. Happy Valentines day in advance.

Ingredients:

• 200g/8 oz Almond meal
  
• 200g/8 oz Good quality semi sweet chocolate, roughly chopped
  
• 200g/8 oz Unsalted butter, softened
  
• 200g/8 oz Caster sugar
  
• 4 Eggs, seperated
  
• 2 tsp Instant coffee granules
  
• 100g/4 oz Cornflour
  
• Cocoa powder, for dusting
  

Method:

Lightly grease a 20 cm, loose based round cake tin. Heat oven to 180C/350F.

Put chocolate in a microwave dish and microwave for 2 minutes, stirring after a minute. Or melt over a pan of simmering water.

Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time. Stir in the almond meal, chocolate, coffee and cornflour.

Whisk egg whites to soft peaks. Fold a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mix, then gradually fold in the remainder. Pour the mix into a prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Check after 35 minutes and if the cake is browning, cover with grease proof paper and continue to cook.

Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from the tin. Dust with cocoa powder and serve.

Note: You could use hazelnut meal instead of almond meal. You could also blanch hazelnut/almonds and put it in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.

Farida's Zebra Cake

Zebra Cake

It has been a while since I blogged.  First, it was my three-week vacation that I extended to two and half months as we were having so much fun.  Then, the two little ones had to deal with jet lag when we returned and this was followed by my 5 year old starting kindergarten. I was more anxious about her first day then she. Just when we were getting into a routine...Ramadan started.  So although late, let me wish everyone Ramadan Kareem and also a very belated happy Onam!

During my vacation, I did absolutely nothing other than enjoy good food and time with my family.  I did jot down some new recipes to share with everyone here. With all the activities that my 5-year old is involved in, I hope to post at least one recipe a week or so.  Hopefully I can keep up.

As I was blog hopping before I went for my vacation, I came across Farida's excellent blog of Azerbaijani food - not something that I was familiar with.  I love her blog - there are some excellent recipes, photos and  some step by step instructions with photos.  The Zebra cake is from her blog.  Although she has corrected her recipe recently, I had made this cake before she had corrected and did reduce the amount of cocoa powder according to my judgement.  The cake came out perfectly and I was dying to cut it to see the zebra stripes.  I am definitely going to make this cake again; although I might experiment and tweak it a bit.  Maybe add lemon or orange zest or perhaps use almond extract instead of vanilla.  If these adjustments work out, I will surely update this post.  Until then, all I have to say is thank you Farida for posting and sharing the recipe for this beautiful cake.  

Like Farida says - Nush Olsun! Enjoy!

This photo is going to Jugalbandi for this months click event, the theme is crust

Ingredients: 

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  
• 1 cup/8oz/250g granulated sugar
  
• 1 cup/8 fl oz/250 ml milk, at room temperature
  
• 1 cup/8 fl oz/250 ml oil 
  
• 1/3 tsp vanilla extract/powder
  
• 2 cups/10 oz /300g all purpose flour
  
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsps dark cocoa powder
  

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C

In a large bowl, combine eggs and sugar.  Using a hand held electric mixer or wire whisk beat until the mixture is creamy and light in color.

Add milk and oil, and continue beating until well blended.

Add vanilla powder/extract and baking powder to the mixture.  Gradually add the flour and beat until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are mixed well.

Divide the mixture into 2 equal parts.  Keep one portion as it is and add cocoa powder to the other and mix well.

Lightly grease the cake pan with oil/butter or PAM for baking spray.

Next is the most time consuming part, but it is worth every minute.

Start with 3 heaped tablespoons of plain batter into the middle of the baking pan. Then scoop 3 tablespoons of the cocoa batter and pour it in the center and on top of the plain batter.  Do not tilt the pan, the mixture will spread on it's own and fill the pan.  Continue this way till you finish both batters.  There are some excellent step by step pictures in Farida's AZcooking blog check them here.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes  or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Farida says do not open the oven door at least for the first 20 minutes or the cake will shrink and not rise.

    Enjoy!

Microwave Lemon Cake

I mentioned in an earlier post about the BBC GoodFood magazine that I thoroughly enjoy reading, and how my hubby dear surprised me with an annual subscription when we moved to the US two years ago. More on the story here…That subscription ran out and then with the new baby and house, we didn't renew it.

A month ago, I opened the mailbox and there it was, the magazine. As I had started blogging, he surprised me with yet another annual subscription. Was I thrilled or what.

This lemon cake (although called as a lemon pudding in the magazine) is perfect when you don’t have enough time to prepare and bake, but want a quick sweet fix. It takes 5 minutes to prepare and 4 minutes to make. And best of all it is made in the microwave and not in the oven.
Ingredients:

• 100g/4oz Caster sugar
• 100g/4oz-softened butter
• 100g/4oz self raising flour
• 2 eggs
• Zest of lemon (I used zest of orange)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 tbsp lemon curd

Method:

Mix the sugar, butter, flour, eggs, lemon/orange zest and vanilla together till creamy, then spoon into a medium microwave proof-baking dish. Microwave on high for 3 minutes, turning half way through cooking, until risen and set all the way through. Leave to stand for a minute.

Meanwhile, heat the lemon curd for 30 seconds in the microwave and stir until smooth. Pour all over the top of the cake and serve with a dollop of whipping crème, scoop of ice cream or just as it is.

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Lemon curd is not readily available in some countries, and I have had some request for the recipe to make Lemon curd. Also, you could substitute Lemon drizzle for Lemon curd, which is an easy option and requires only two ingredients. :-) The recipe for Lemon curd and Lemon drizzle follows.

Lemon Curd

Ingredients:

• 4 lemons, rind and juice
• 4 eggs
• 110g/4oz butter
• 450g/1lb sugar

Method:

Grate rind of lemons and squeeze out juice. Put sugar, rind and juice, butter and beaten eggs into a large basin on top of a pan of simmering water. Stir with a wooden spoon until thick and curd coats the back of the spoon. Pour into warm sterile jars, cover, seal and label. Refrigerate.

Lemon Drizzle:

Ingredients:

• 50g/2oz icing sugar
• 1 lemon, juice only

Method:

Make the lemon drizzle topping by mixing together the sugar and lemon juice.
Spoon over the cake.