Egyptian "Balah El Sham" dessert

For the dough:-
250 ml water
25 ml Oil
250 gm flour
3 eggs
2 ml vanilla essence

For Sugar syrup:-
150 ml water
650 gm sugar
175 gm glucose

Method for syrup:-
Dissolve sugar in water. Heat it in heavy base pan, until sugar melts. Add glucose to this syrup. Continue boiling syrup till thick. Remove from heat and cool off.

Method for dough:-
Boil water and Oil in heavy sauce pan.
Add the flour to this boiling solution and cook till it thickens and start to leave the sides of pan.
Cool mix and add eggs slowly, one at a time. Then add vanilla essence.
Mix the mixture till it forms tight thick dough.
Remove and put in piping bag.
Pipe the mix, one finger length into oil and deep fry. When it cooks, it will double in size. So drop enough mix in to the pan.
Once done remove from Oil and drop into room temp sugar syrup.
Let it stand for 2-3 minutes and remove onto wire mesh to drain off excess syrup.

Serve Balah El Sham . . .

Citrus Salmon

1 orange peeled and sliced
30 gms butter
splash of double cream
1/2 orange juice only
1 tbsp fresh chives chopped
1 tsp Olive oil
110 gm Salmon
pinch of sea salt


Preheat grill to high.
Heat oil in pan, add salmon and season with salt. Top with orange and cook for 5-6 minutes.
Remove from heat and place under grill for few minutes to finish off. 3-4 minutes will do the trick.
Meanwhile, gently melt the butter in pan and add cream and orange juice to make a sauce.

Place salmon and drizzle the sauce over and serve with fresh chives. . .

Drop pancakes with banana and butterscotch sauce

Pancakes , the perfect breakfast for so many families out there. Its is sometime for me also.
I make the banana-butterscotch sauce in advance and so its easy for me in the morning... I am a lazy morning bird.

My husband was bored of eating the honey or syrup for the pancakes, so I first tried just the double cream. Then in one TV show I learned about this sauce for a Ice-cream spread. I thought why not try it with our usual Pancakes, and guess what it worked. . .

Hope you all also enjoy this arrangement. Keep cooking :)

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:-
110 gm self rising flour
3 eggs
1/4 tsp baking powder
290 ml milk
30 gm caster sugar
2 tbsp veg oil for cooking

For the butterscotch sauce:-
55 gm butter
70 gm soft brown sugar
120 ml double cream
3 bananas peeled and cut into chunks

Whisk the flour, eggs, milk and baking powder and sugar in a bowl.
Heat pan and put oil and make the pancakes round in shape and thick enuff.
For the sauce, place butter in a pan and melt it , then put sugar and stir in the cream and remove from heat. Spoon in bananas.
Serve the pancakes with this sauce on the top and look at the faces of your family members. . . You will definitely feel worth doing this much work. . .

Mexican Rice salsa salad for Nacho's

Making salsa for the Nacho's is very common. So this time I twisted it with adding Rice. You can use your left over rice or cook some new one. :)

Try it and comment how you like rice in your salsa.
Here goes the recipe:-

Ingredients:
2 cups Rice - boiled
2 cups Corn - boiled
1/2 cup red and green pepper each
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
1/2 cup spring onions
1 tbsp salsa sauce
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp basil leaves - dry
some dry red chilly flakes
2 tbsp Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste


Heat Oil , add onions and peanuts.
Sautè for a minute and add green & red pepper.
Stir fry for 2 minutes and add corn.
Mix well and add the sauce and ketchup and vinegar, lemon juice and basil leaves.
Stir and add boiled rice. Toss gently.
Transfer to a serving dish and serve with Nacho's.

Vegetable Noodles soup

20 gms Egg noodles - boiled and set aside
20 gms Chinese cabbage and carrot - chopped in thin strips
20 gms black mushrooms
5 ml Onion oil

Blanch the vegetables. Put vegetable water in wok. Add boiled noodles, vegetables and salt to taste. Then add onion oil. Soup is ready to be served.

Rainbow soup

20 gm capsicum - green preferably
10 gm beet root
10 gm cabbage
10 gm bean sprout
5 gm onion oil
pinch of Ajinomoto
20 gms corn flour
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the capsicum, beet root and cabbage. Blanch for 2 minutes. Put the water in a wok. Boil and put all the vegetables. Add salt to taste. Add ajinomoto, white pepper, onion oil and corn flour paste( mix the corn flour with cold water to make a paste). Corn flour paste will thicken the soup.
Serve hot with bread crumbs . . .

Crunchy stuffed paneer pakoras

250 gms Paneer
Oil
1 cup bundi ( see the recipe in "Dahi bundi raita")

For garlic chutney:-
8- 10 big cloves garlic
1 tsp Oil
1 tbsp red chilly powder
Salt to taste

For the batter:-
1 cup besan
1 tbsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp red chilly powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
Soda bicarbonate - pinch
Salt to taste


Cut the paneer cubes ad slit each paneer into half leaving one edge intact for filling.
Crush the bundi and set aside.
For garlic chutney, roast the garlic in 1 tsp oil. Mix with red chilly powder and salt and grind to a smooth paste.
To prepare batter, mix the besan(gram flour) with ginger, garlic paste, chilly powder, turmeric, soda and salt. Add sufficient water and wisk well to make a batter of a coating consistency. Rest the batter for 15 minutes.
Stuff garlic chutney into the slit of each paneer pieces.
Heat sufficient oil in pan, dip each piece of paneer in the batter and roll in the crushed bundi and deep fry on medium flame till crisp and golden brown.
Serve with chutney of your choice or tomato ketchup. . .

Paneer pakoras

50 gms paneer
50 gms carrot
250 gms boiled potatoes
1 cup spinach paste
4 tbsp besan
1 tbsp chilly paste
1 tbsp ginger paste
salt and pepper to taste and Oil for frying

Grate paneer and carrot. Mix them in a large bowl with salt and pepper, half the chilly and ginger pastes. Keep aside for 1/2 hour. Mash boiled potatoes in another bowl and add salt and pepper. Make small balls of this mix and pat them flat. Place a little paneer mix in the middle and wrap into a ball. In a third bowl, add spinach paste and besan and remaining chilly and ginger paste. Make a thick batter with all these using appropriate water, add salt and pepper accordingly.
Dip each potato balls in the spinach batter and deep fry in the oil.
Serve by slicing into halves with sweet chutney.

Rice pakoras

1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup besan
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup onion - chopped
1 tbsp ajwain
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp jeera
6 green chillies
1/4 cup curry leaves
1/4 cup coriander leaves
salt and oil

Mix the cooked rice with besan and water. Add onions, ajwain, sesame seeds, jeera, green chillies, curry and coriander leaves. Mix well. Heat oil in pan, spoon in small amount of the mix and deep fry untill golden brown.
Serve hot with tomato achar or ketchup, with a cup of tea.

Sooji spread

100 gms sooji
1 cup milk or water
salt to taste
red chilly to taste
1 medium sized onion and tomato - chopped finely
3-4 green chilies - chopped finely
slices of brown bread

Add milk to sooji to make a thick paste. Add the rest of the ingredients except the bread slices to the paste.
Spread the paste on one side of the bread. Shallow fry the side without the paste till the paste thickens and holds, then flip over.
Serve piping hot with tomato ketchup or chutney.

Jhaal vada with tomato achar

Ingredients:-
1 cup rice flour
1 tbsp atta
1 tsp ginger paste
1 onion - chopped finely
1 tsp chilly paste
salt and oil

Make the dough from the above ingredients and water. Roll in to small balls and deep fry in oil to make vadas.

For the achar :-
1 kg ripe tomatoes
100 ml vinegar
250 ml mustard oil
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp jeera seeds
1 tsp methi seeds
1 tsp salt
50 gms green chillies - chopped finely
50 gms garlic
50 gms ginger
Curry leaves

Grind the mustard, jeera and methi seeds and half of ginger & garlic to a paste with half vinegar. Add turmeric and green chillies. Chop the rest of ginger and garlic.
Wash and dry tomatoes. Heat oil. Add a handful of curry leaves, when they start spluttering add chopped ginger and garlic.
When ingredients turn red, add tomatoes and grounded paste. Add salt.
Cook on slow fire and add the rest of vinegar. Keep cooking till oil seperates.
Your delicious achar is ready.

Serve the hot Vadas with tomato achar.

Salt n pepper prawns

100 gms prawns
lemon juice
1 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg white
toothpick

Clean the prawns properly. Smear with lemon juice and wash off after 2-3 minutes.
Carefully pierce prawn with toothpick length wise.
Add salt and pepper to egg.
Heat butter in pan. Dip the prawn in the egg batter and fry for 3-4 minutes till pink.
Sprinkle with pepper and serve hot.

Its a perfect snack for the party...

Spicy spinach sandwich

We all know that Nobody likes spinach much. But because of its rich iron and other mineral content we try to have it once a week or so for a healthy meal.
As said, The iron in spinach is poorly absorbed by the body unless eaten with vitamin C. So I propose that you serve this with a glass of Orange juice in the side. We want to take out so much from the little breakfast, and there is no harm in that too. . .
Eat healthy but not always :) Your body needs change from time to time. Here goes my recipe for the spinach sandwich.

Ingredients:-
500 gm spinach
100 gm mushroom - chopped finely
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 tbsp schezwan sauce
12 bread pieces
margarine

Wash and shred the spinach leaves. Boil and drain completely so that no excess water remains.
Clean wash and chop mushroom and saute in little olive oil, adding the schezwan sauce. Let it cool for some time. Add salt and pepper and then mix this to the spinach.
Lightly coat one side of the bread with margarine. Spread mix on unbuttered side of the slice. Cover with another bread piece with margarine on other side.
Grill till golden brown.

Jacket potato with coleslaw

1 medium size potato
1 small carrot - grated
1 small chunk cabbage - shredded
1/2 apple - sliced thinly
1 celery stick - sliced
handful of salted peanuts
2 tbsp mayonnaise
black pepper powder
a cube of butter

Preheat oven to 200 C.
Bake the potato until cooked through.
To make coleslaw, put the carrot, cabbage, apple and celery stick in a bowl. Add peanuts, mayo and some black pepper powder and toss together.
When potato is cooked , cut a cross in the top and add the knob of butter, seasoning and spoon of coleslaw on top.
Serve .

Egg bread sandwich

2 slice bread
Mustard spread
1 small tomato (chopped)
1 slice of cheddar cheese grated
1 egg
1 slice ham

Spread the slices of bread with mustard sauce. Now put grated cheese, tomato and ham and press down the other slice of bread to complete your sandwich. Now secure this with a toothpick.
Now break egg into a shallow dish and beat lightly with fork, then season with salt and pepper.
Dip the prepared sandwich into the egg, then turn over to coat on both the sides .
Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan until sizzling hot. Fry the sandwich , pouring over any remaining egg for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden.
Your great breakfast meal is ready to be served with the hot cup of tea or coffee.