Akbar Ali Sandwich

This is one of my favorite brunch recipes. I learnt how to make these sandwiches from my mom. The sandwich is a variation of a type thats sold in the Akbar Ali area of Mumbai and thus the name. My mom made this for us when she came to stay with us when Sahana was born. Its a layered vegetarian sandwich but you can definitely modify and add whatever you want to it.

Ingredients

Bread: white or wheat

Fillings
1/2 cucumber fineyl chopped
1 tomato finely chopped
grated cheddar cheese
One onion sliced
Two large potatoes, sliced thinly
Butter or butter spread
Oil

Method
Add oil to a pan. Saute sliced onions till golden. Add sliced potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and cook till potatoes are done.

Chutney
1 cup cilantro
1/4 cup coconut
1 pod garlic
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste
lime juice
Grind all these ingredients to a fine paste using water.


Assembling the sandwich.
Toast the bread. Take one slice of bread. Apply butter. Add generous amount of the chutney. For layer one add chopped cucumber and tomatoes and a little bit of cheese.

Take another buttered toast place on top of the first layer and add onion potato filling and a little bit of cheese. At this layer you can add tomato ketchup if you like. Top with another buttered toast.

Place the club sandwich on a hot pan greased with oil spray. Press down the sandwich using a spatula. Do this on both sides.

Remove from heat. Cut in half and serve with more chutney and ketchup.
I couldn't resist it: look i even took a bite out of it before I was done taking pics.

Mango and Vanilla Ice cream

Between the 2-3 hour feeding cycles, I managed to find some time to surf the web for random baby items and kitchen appliances. I found this ice cream maker up for grabs on craigslist. I have been wanting one for ages and finally got a brand new one at half the price. Since moving to Seattle I have started to appreciate the importance of recycling, reuse and thrift store shopping to reduce waste in the world. Remember: one person's trash is another person's treasure!! With this began my attempts at making ice-cream. I wanted all the recipes to be vegetarian since raw eggs are not something lactating moms want to use. Here are my recipes for mango and vanilla ice cream.



Mango Ice cream

Ingredients (All ingredients should be cold)

2 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 cup chopped mangoes
3/4 cup mango puree/pulp
3 tbslp sugar

Method
This method is for my ice cream maker. Just follow instructions for your ice cream maker. Put ice cream maker insert in the freezer wrapped in saran wrap for atleast 24 hours. I tend to store mine in the freezer that way its always ready when I need it. If you don't have one, freeze the ice cream in the freezer and blend in the blender 2-3 times between freezes.
Combine all ingredients together. Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill through but not freeze. Add into ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer instructions. In my ice cream maker I churn for about 20 minutes. Move into an air tight container and store in the freezer for an hour if you want the ice cream harder.

Vanilla Ice cream

Ingredients (All ingredients should be cold)

2 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 vanilla bean (i buy mine online from Penzeys spices)
3/4 cup sugar

Method

Slit vanilla bean length wise and using a thin knife scrape out the " vanilla meat" in the bean. Add the vanilla into the milk along with the left over bean. Warm the milk In a medium saucepan over low heat with vanilla. Remove from heat and remove bean. Cool milk in the fridge. Add cold cream and sugar. Combine and chill in the freezer to chill through but not freeze. Add into ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer instructions. I churn for about 20 minutes. Move into an air tight container and store in the freezer for an hour if you want the ice cream harder.

Sahana is here!!

I'm a mommyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!! My baby girl came into this world on April 16th. If i may say so myself she is absolutely adorable. She's keeping me busy round the clock and I feel like a dairy animal ; ) but she is sooooo worth it.
Lots of recipes are piling up and I will slowly ease into posting them. Till then wish me luck with surviving all the sleep deprivation. Oh yes i also bought an ice cream maker so if any of you have some good ice cream recipes please send me a link to look them up.
More later.

Yummylicious Bread Pudding

Last night I had this strong craving for bread pudding. Since we only eat wheat bread and I had never made bread pudding with wheat bread I thought twice before making this. Believe me it turned out just awesome. Plus it was super easy and fast to make ....remember a craving pregnant woman can't wait too long. The pudding had a rich caramelly bottom layer and the pudding itself was moist and smelt of cinnamon and vanilla. Do try this one out.

Ingredients

6 slices of wheat bread, diced
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup whipped cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

For caramel sauce"
3tblsp sugar
3 tbsp water

Butter 1 tsp

Method:
Whip eggs together. Add milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla extract. Mix together. Stir in whipped cream. Add bread to the mixture and keep aside for 10 minutes. Meanwhile add 3 tbslp sugar to a pot and let it caramelize and turn brown. Then add equal quantity of water and stirring continuously mix the caramel together and let the volume reduce till the mixture turns thicker but not too thick and sticky. Pour it into the bottom of the baking dish. Add walnuts to bread mixture. Pour the bread mixture over the caramel. Dot with butter. Bake at 400 degrees uncovered for 30 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes and serve warm.

Mamma's Chicken Masala

Its April finally! I'm due in two weeks people and i hope this baby sticks to schedule and doesn't make me wait. Well with baby on the way I have my mom here with me. She made this really yummy chicken curry which tasted just like they make in the restaurants. It tastes great with rotis or nans. Its a bit tedious to put together but hey it can be made on a day when you have a bit more time. Try it out, its really good. I find it tastes better the day after its been made which allows all the sauce to nicely soak into the chicken.

Ingredients

1 pound chicken pieces, preferably bone in

Marinade
1/2 cup yogurt
ginger paste 1 tsp
garlic paste 1 tsp
corriander powder 1 tblsp
Cumin powder 1 tsp
chilly powder 1 tsp
turmeric 1 tsp
salt to taste

For the sauce
3-4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon
black pepper -5-6 seeds
1/2 cup grated coconut
1/2 tsp saunf/fennel seeds
1 tblsp khuskhus/poppy seeds
1 green chilly

Other ingredients

One large onion
3 tblsp tomato paste

Method
Mix all ingredients of the marinade together. Add to chicken and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile dry roast spices and poppy seeds. Then add coconut and roast for about a couple of minutes. Grind together all ingredients of the sauce using as little water as needed to make a smooth paste. Heat oil in a pot. Add one large chopped onion and fry till golden brown. Add tomato paste and fry. Cook till oil floats to the top. Add chicken without the marinade and fry till chicken brown a bit. Add the marinade slowly in batches cooking for a minute or two between each addition. When the chicken is half cooked, add the coconut gravy paste with 1/2 cup water and cook till chicken is completely cooked. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve with nans.

Plum Compote

Like many new expectant parents Nits and I finally succumbed and got our costco membership:hey have to save on those diapers! So as is all too common while shopping at these wholesale stores, I ended up with way more stuff than I needed. We bought this giant box of plums and it was taking forever for us to finish them off before they went bad. Finally I took the last half a dozen or so of the plums and made a nice compote out of it. I added rose water to the compote, a unique idea from 101 cookbooks, one of my favorite food blogs. This compote goes so well with toast, sweet and tangy and the rose essence makes it even better.

Ingredients

Plums 6, washed, and cut into pieces
lime juice 2 tblsp
Rose water 2 tblsp
Sugar: same quantity as plums (I had 1 cup diced plums and I used 1 cup sugar)

Method
Dice plums. Place in a bowl. Add sugar, lime juice and rose water. Let it sit for 30 minutes.

Add the plum mixture to a deep bottomed pot. Boil on low heat. Remove any froth as it forms. Once it stops foaming, remove from heat, add to jar and cool.

Almond Biscotti

Finally a post after all these days. Now that I'm in the middle of my third trimester I have slowed down so much. I get so tired after work, all I want to do is put my feet up and lie on the couch. This has resulted in procrastination on making stuff and posting it. Well, last week our friend Danielle threw me a really beautiful baby shower. All our friends from work came and we had so much fun. I got beautiful gifts and i'm so grateful for all the love people showered on us and our lil one. Anyway, I wanted to thank Danielle and her girls for the beautiful shower. I saw this really cute cookie jar in target the other day:colorful and bright, something the girls would love. So decided to fill it with something homemade. Since Danielle is not a big fan of simple sugars, I decided to make a healthy cookie and whats better than the traditional biscotti. Using no fat, low sugar and lots of toasted almonds this indeed is a very healthy yet delectable treat. Biscotti is a twice baked cookie that is great for dunking in coffee. So here is my recipe:

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped
1 tsp almond extract (for a more intense flavor add 1.5 tsp)
1 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup sugar (maybe 1 cup if you like it a little sweeter)
3 eggs
dash of salt
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Preheat over to 300 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Beat eggs with almond extract and vanilla essence. Add slowly to dry ingredients mixing with an electric mixer. Add almonds and continue mixing until a dough forms. Flour your hands and surface and form the dough into logs. This recipe will make two logs about 10 inches long. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place logs on the sheet and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove and let it cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack.

Transfer to a cutting board and use a serrated knife to slice the biscotti diagonally.

Place each piece on the baking sheet and bake again for 10 minutes on each side. Remove from oven and let it cool. A nice touch is to dip each end of the biscotti in melted choolate and letting that cool to get chocolate dipped biscottis.