Lemon Semolina Cake

      This Valentine, husband gifted an OTG. So now no excuse for not baking, I mean serious baking. 
Since then my experiment with the OTG is going on full swing. Besides the regular cake with all purpose flour aka Maida, I am trying to find out if this chief ingredient of cake can be replaced with some other flours like whole wheat ( atta ), semolina ( suji ), ragi (nachni) etc. In such attempts, I came across a recipe by none other than Nigella Lawson about a "Lemon Polenta Cake". Here she uses Cornmeal or Polenta and butter both of which I replaced to what I had in my kitchen and of course for health reasons. ( Both I and my husband are trying to avoid butter as much as we can). I will call it Lemon Semolina Cake.

        Here's my version of the Lemon Semolina Cake:

Ingredients for the Cake

One small cup of Semolina / Suji
Same cup full of refined oil; I used Rice bran oil.
Half a cup castor sugar or as per your taste
One teaspoon full of baking powder
2 eggs
Half a cup of milk
Zest of one lemon. Keep the lemon aside as we will need the juice for the syrup. 

Few almonds to garnish

Mix all the dry ingredients together. 
Beat in the eggs and oil first in a bowl.
Add it to the dry mixture, add the cup of milk and beat thoroughly so that it turns to a smooth paste. Of course it will not be as smooth as maida mixture. But smooth enough. Leave the batter for 10 minutes.

In the mean time pre heat the oven in 180C . Now transfer the batter into the greased baking tin. Bake it for 40 minutes at 180C. When you try putting in a fork in the middle and it comes clean, the cake is done. Also the cake will start to shrink from sides and come out of the walls of the tin when it is done. Leave it inside the tin while we make the syrup.

For the Syrup
Boil the juice of the lemon whose zest we used in the cake. Add a spoon full of castor sugar to it.

Prick the cake all over with a fork or the cake tester. But go very slow while you do that because it may lead to disaster since the cake is still hot. Now pour the syrup all over the cake. Let the cake get soaked in the syrup while it cools down.

Take it out of the tin and enjoy.

Trust me it tastes equally good like an all purpose flour cake.

Som Tam - The Thai Green Papaya Salad.

Here I am again..back in the kitchen. This time as a part of a facebook group event Guided Cooking - Week 1 . The recipe Thai Green papaya Salad / Som Tam. ( The Event )

Even though I like Thai Food, I really had never cooked them in my kitchen.My husband cooked Red Thai Curry and the Green Thai curry in one or two of our house parties. So when this came up, I grabbed the opportunity to start with this really simple salad.

The recipe shared was from About.com
(http://abt.cm/KemvNt)

Even though I tried and followed the recipe, there were some changes here and there while I was preparing this. Here's how I did .

Ingredients :

1 small Green papaya
1/2 cup roasted pea nuts. I used them slightly crushed.
1 cup bean sprout
Some button tomatoes. Smaller ones can be used as it is and bigger ones cut into wedges. I used 7-8.
2 Spring onions cut into thin pieces
Chopped fresh coriander
Few Basil leaves. I didnot have basil, so used mint instead.
1 Red Chilli cut into thin strips. I used 1/2 Red Bell Pepper.
1Green Chilli cut into thin strips
1 cup of blanched green beans.

Dressing :

2 Table spoon Fish Sauce
2 table Spoon Soy Sauce
2 Table spoon olive oil
Juice of half a lime.
1 table spoon honey
Little red chilli flakes.

In process

Add all the Dressing ingredients together and mix them thoroughly and keep aside.

Peel and deseed the Green papaya. Since I did not have a large grater, I used the potato peeler and knife to cut into thin ribbon like strips. This took a while, but trust me you will love the result.

Now mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. Add the dressing and give it a good toss so that everything gets mixed well.

Now add the nuts and toss again. If you want u can add more honey or even sugar in this stage. However mine was tasting fine so I didnot add any.

Pour some nuts, coriander and basil and serve in a bowl or plate. Ok, honestly I was slightly disappointed as the colour of the salad was not like the pictures available on web. Mine one turned slightly brownish because of the dark soy. But as they say " All's well that end's well". It did not look bad or ugly ( if I may use the word for food) at all and above all it tasted super. Husband happy and me too.

Thai Green Papaya Salad / Som Tam

Jab We Met

It all happened with a simple post on the FB page of "our Group". Our group is the IITTM 2002-03 batch group. IITTM - Indian Institute of  Tourism and Travel Management. We all were in the Gwalior branch of the Institute. The main branch. Our course PG Diploma in Tourism Management (PGDTM)

It was a year that all of us love to call " A year long package tour". Yes we had fun, went to 2 Major trips and few small trips. We studied about Tourism, tours, packages, cargo! Not to forget a foreign language. I took French; and during the 10 long years, never used once. Well I donot blame the teacher. She was a wonderful lady. Its just that I never had to use French in my professional life.

It seems like yesterday at times. We all were in Gwalior, in the sprawling campus; fortress like hostels, classrooms,a mess, a lawn. We even had our own Marine Drive. During the unbearable summers, all the girls had to sit inside the rooms when all the boys would loiter around the campus (some out of it) like free birds. We would be jealous. Icing on the cake was those hours and hours of power cuts. The deadline for girls' to enter the hostel was 9pm. Believe me there was a whistle which the hostel warden Sushma Ma'm would blow sharp at 9pm All of us would run back to the hostel.

Honestly dont exactly remember studying hard during that year. Only may be during the 2 semesters, had to go through the notes, the books. In second semester, I had to take up "extra classes" for Accountancy as I was and still am really bad with numbers. Thanks to Ruchira, Nitya and Sushmita, I managed to score the passing marks. In that one whole year, I was the one who spent most of the time in the Girls' Common room; watching TV or talking on phone. Yeah; even would talk on "wrong numbers"...those were the days.

The campus selection placed all of us in different places. Most of us landed in Delhi. After 3years in Delhi, I moved back to Guwahati, my hometown. Then in 2010 I reached Mumbai. All these years never really stayed in touched with each one of the batchmates. But trust me even though we hardly met, all of us surely remained connectoed somehow. After all how do you not think of that One Year of Packaged tour that we all had spent together in Gwalior.

We all had gone our own ways. But on 14th Dec, many of us managed to come and meet at Nehru Place. It was a simple affair. Nothing fancy. But meeting whosoever could come was so wonderful. So glad to know what the other was doing or who is where.

We all have changed. Grown up, mature, more cautious with our words, appearances changed. Have become wife, husband, father, mother. But I am sure when we sit down and look back, there will always be a year which all of us had spent in Gwalior;just being us. Simple as that.

Holiday Cooking : Sardine in Tamarind and Coconut curry

A holiday in the middle of the week is so welcome and ofcourse so awesome. But spending that holiday alone sitting at home, browsing through TV channels can be really boring. Whenever I get such holidays I mostly try and do something soul satisfying. 

Today I woke up early, went to the fish market with a super enthusiastic and energetic friend and bought lots of sardines. Lots meaning since it was a wholesale fish market, the vendor wont give half and even after both she and I shared, it was still lot for me.

So here's what I did with my first set from the LOT of Sardines. 

Washed and cleaned them properly.
Took 4 Sardines, rubbed some turmeric and salt on them and kept aside.
I dry roasted small tea spoonfulls of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds and a dry red chilli. 
Till the time these dry roasted masala cooled down, I shallow fried one small onion, cut into small pieces; some fresh coconut pieces and a medium tomato again cut into small pieces.

In the meantime I put some dried tamarind in the water so that they become soft and juicy.
Let the onion, coconut and tomato cool a bit. Now grind the dry roasted masala. After that grind/ blend the fried coconut, onion and tomato to a smooth paste.
Heat little oil in a kadahi. Let some mustard seeds and curry leaves crackle. Add a pinch of turmeric and pour the coconut, onion and tomato paste. Fry this till the cooked smell starts coming. I added a little water while frying. Once done, paste the tamarind in the grinder and add in the kadahi. Put salt as per your taste and add atleast 2 cups of water. Let this come to a boil. Now add the fishes. 
Put a lid. Let it boil and the fishes to get cooked. Once the gravy is reduced to your choice switch off the gas.

Serve hot with plain rice. 

Trust me, its simple easy and tastes really good.

Mary had a little lamb

              

         At the stroke of midnight, I woke up with a startle. Oh God, I have fallen asleep while reading this book and with lights on. I got down from the bed to go to the bathroom before switching off the light and going back to sleep. As I entered the bathroom, a little voice came drifting from downstairs..

   "Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow. 
    And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went, 
    Everywhere that Mary went.
    The lamb was sure to go."

               Must be some parents coming from some weekend party and making their child recite the nursery rhyme while they park their car. What the hell, now this is taking things too far. You are making your child practicing her nursery rhymes in the middle of the night. I will check with the watchman tomorrow morning I thought.

               I went to back my bedroom, turned off the light and lie down on the bed. Then I realised that I stay in the 13th Floor and there is no way I could hear sound from parking lot. Also the flat exactly below my flat is unoccupied.

            I froze.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda