Sweet Appams - Festival special

The sweet appams are prepared for many festivals in India. It is made during Ganesh Chaturthi, Krishna Janmashtami to name a few. You can prepare this on any day if you just feel like having something sweet and tasty. This is one of my all time favourites and I just find it very difficult to have a control on the count of appams I eat!!! Normally, when we plan for any deep fry dish at home, I kind of control the quantity made so that the cholestrol levels don't shoot up further. But, when we plan for appams, I am usually quite liberal and prefer to forget about the cholestrol levels....

Ingredients

Wheat flour - 2 cups

Rice flour - 2 tbspns

Jaggery - 1 1/2 cups powdered

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Cashew nuts - a few

coconut grated - 2 tbspns

Ripe banana - 1 big

Oil for deep frying

Procedure

1. Mix the jaggery in 2 cups of water and keep it in the microwave for 5 mins.

2. Mix it well and ensure that there are no lumps. You could strain the liquid if required.

3. Allow it to cool and mix it with all the other ingredients. The consistency of the batter should be like the Idli batter.

4. Set it aside for around 2 -3 hours.

5. In a kadai, add the oil and once it is hot, simmer it and pour the batter using a small ladle. Once it starts floating, add the next one. Depending on the size of the kadai and the amount of oil, you may add 5 to 6 appams in one batch. Turn it and remove it once it is golden brown on both sides. It takes a little patience to make appams as it takes a while to get done.

6. Enjoy the simple yet tasty sweet.

Paneer Shashlik

The first time I ate Paneer Shashlik in a restaurant, I was really excited... Grilled, crispy Paneer along with other grilled veggies decorated on a bed of aromatic basmati rice and the bright red sweetish tangy sauce. The whole thing was served on a beautiful fresh cabbage leaf....what a great sizzler it was! I never thought that I would make such recipes at home. Last week, I tried my best to make a homemade version of it. It tasted good though the sizzling sound was missing...

Ingredients

Rice - 2 cups

Onion sliced - 1

Cloves - 3 to 4

Bay leaves - 2

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Oil - 3 tbspn

Dip for the grilled paneer

Curd - 1 cup

Garam Masala - 2 tbspn

Ginger and Green chillies paste

For the sauce

Onions - 3 -4

Garlic- 5 flakes

Ginger- 1 small piece

Tomatoes- 3-4

Soya Sauce - 2 tsp

Tomato sauce - 2 -3 tbspn

Chilli Sauce - 2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Oil - 5 tbspns

Paneer - 200 g cut into cubes

Capsicum - 1 cut into 8

Tomato- 1 cut into 8

Procedure

1. Soak the rice for 1/2 hour in cold water

2. Heat oil in a cooker and add onions, bay leaves and cloves and fry till golden brown.

3. Add salt, water and cook the rice till it is done.I add water in the proportion of 1: 1 for basmati rice and allow 2 whistles in the cooker.

4. Spread the cooked rice in a tray so that the rice is fluffed up and separated.

5. Grind onions, ginger and garlic to a paste.

6. Blend the tomatoes.

7. Heat oil in a kadai and add the onion paste and cook till golden brown.

8. Now add the tomato paste and fry till the oil separates.

9. Add some water to make the sauce into pouring consistency.

10. Add the readymade sauces and salt and mix well and cook for another 7 mins.

11. Mix all the ingredients for the dip and coat the paneer, capsicum and tomatoes with it and pierce it into the skewers and grill it in the oven for 10 mins.

12. To serve, spread the hot rice in a rice dish.

13. Decorate it with the sauce and the grilled paneer.

Enjoy the wonderful feast..!