Mango Semolina Cake

With the Mango season drawing to a close, here’s one more Mango recipe to make the most of the last few jewels of the season…

Disclaimer – I have had no part to play in this recipe – neither the idea nor execution. It’s entirely Mom’s creation. But it’s so amazingly delicious that it would be a criminal to not document the recipe and share it with you guys!

So here you go: Mango-Semolina Cake

Ingredients:

½ wati/large cup milk
½ wati large cup yoghurt/curds (not too sour)
¼ wait/ large cup paneer (again, Mom used up some accidental-paneer.: P)
1.5 wati/ large cup semolina (rawa)
1 wati/ large cup sugar
The juice+pulp of 1 ripe mango

Method:
1.Grease a baking pan with ghee
2.Mix all the above ingredients (use your hands) and let the mixture sit for a good 4 hours. (During which the semolina will soak up the goodness of all the dairy products and mango and become slightly fluffy)
3.Preheat the oven
4.Add ½ teaspoon soda bi carb (baking soda) to the mixture, mix through quickly and pop into the preheated oven
5.Cooking time will vary from oven to oven (and our oven doesn’t have temperature controls, so cant tell you that either – put it on medium to be on the safe side) – but the cake should look golden (not brown) and a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean and dry.
6.Take the baking tin out and let the cake cool rapidly, under the fan
7.Once cool, cut into pieces and serve.

This cake tastes yummiest when its warm-from-the-oven (the rich mango + ghee fragrance is heavenly!) but is amazing when served cold with vanilla ice cream too. :) It IS a thing of beauty (all glowing yellow-orange colour and plump jewel-like semolina granules) but alas - it is NOT a joy forever, it’s just too delicious. :D

Kitchen Experiments: Chocolate-Mango Cheesecake

Can you make cheesecake with paneer?

If the question shocks you - well, pick up your jaw from where it has hit the floor - for yes, you can make cheesecake from paneer, and yes, it is mighty yummy too. :)

With the summer heat skittering from the high-30's to the Unbearables, milk tends to curdle very easily. As a result we were landed with 2 lots of paneer from 2 casualties with the daily milk.

Now before you imagine luscious mounds of malai paneer,let me tell you that what I had on hand was the crumbly, almost mealy version, which is difficult to transform into a delish Kadhai Paneer or even a halfway decent Paneer Bhurji.

Given that I'd already been toying with trying something new in the baking department and having bought the eggs necessary for that, it didn't take too long to figure that cheesecake it would be in today's kitchen laboratory. I was going to try a new spin on the traditional chocolate cheesecake (it had been a year since I last baked one), when my foodie bff VS suggested (on GTalk) that I should try my hand at mango cheesecake instead, given the summer abundance of mangoes (Yummmmmm...)

Enthused by the suggestion, I was all set to make 2 cheesecakes - chocolate (because I luuuurve chocolate) and mango. I gathered all the ingredients (eggs, paneer, sour cream, sugar, cocoa, chocolate chips, fresh mango pieces, biscuits (Marie and Good Day - I didn't have the stipulated Digestive biscuits), butter and milk) when I realised that my ill-equipped-for-baking kitchen currently had only one baking pan of the required size.

Considering I was using accidental paneer as a substitute for Philadelphia cream cheese, I shrugged and decided to have a 2-layered chocolate-mango cheesecake instead. Easier for baking (my oven is large enough for only one pan at a time) and the washing up too :D

Now baking is one area where the rules are meant to obeyed. Even Nigella, the Goddess of no-fuss casual cooking recommends using precise measurements when it comes to baking. The last time I'd made cheesecake, I HAD played by the rules. This time around, though, I just couldn't be bothered. Maybe it was the intense summer heat which made me lazy... :P

Its come-clean time - I used no measurements at all. Gulp. There - I have said it. Everything was mixed and poured strictly by eye. But yes, I knew that I was setting myself up very likely for a culinary disaster and that it would take some serious good luck for this slapdash experiment to work. My smidgen of faith was held by the fact that with 2 whole eggs and a yolk in the mix, there was not much that wouldn't set as it baked. :D

Since all's well that ends well, (The final result of my experiment was a chocolatey creamy cheesecake with a surprise mango tang - the choco-mango combination works!) I can share with you the process (I cant call it a recipe - no quantities , you see!) I used to make this doubly delicious Chocolate Mango Cheesecake. You can get the quantities by superimposing this process on any standard cheesecake recipe.

Method:
1. The biscuit base:

• Set some (approx 3 teaspoons) butter to melt, on the stove
• While it melts, whiz the biscuits (I used 3 Marie and 3 Good Day biscuits), sugar and cocoa in the mixer
• Pour the biscuit crumbs and melted butter in the baking pan, mix well and spread it out to cover the base using the pads of your fingers
• Chill in the fridge till the cheesecake batter is ready
  

2. The batter:

• Set the chocolate chips to melt in a double boiler
  
  
  
• In the mixer/food processor, break open 2 eggs. Add the yolk of a third egg. Then toss in sugar, paneer, sour cream (I used 3 teaspoons of 'virajleli saay' (akin to curd/yogurt made entirely of cream instead of milk) ) and some milk (for adjusting the consistency - I ended up using a tad more than necessary).
  
  
  
• Whiz away till smooth, DO NOT OVERMIX. For a luscious cheesecake its essential that not too much air gets beaten into the batter as you mix it. (Its another thing that I was forced to give it one quick whiz and stop, since the lid being loose, the batter started leaking out as I whizzed it. :D )
  

3. Assembly:

• Divide the batter into two halves. Add mango pulp to one and the melted chocolate to another
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Take out the now-chilled-and-slightly-set biscuit base from the fridge. Pour in the mango batter first, followed by the chocolate, so that you get alternate layers of chocolate-mango-chocolate - the base has cocoa in it, remember?
  
  
  
  Be very careful when you pour the chocolate batter- you don't want it to splosh right into the bottom and mix with the mango batter - you'll ruin the layered effect then. Best ladle out the chocolate batter carefully over the mango one. (Though if the two do mix a bit (or a lot) - don't be disheartened - it'll look prettily marbled instead of layered and you can call it Chocolate-Mango Ripple Cheesecake. :) The taste will be just as good, so no worries.)
  
  
  
• Take a saucepan and fill it with hot water. Set the baking tin in this pan and bake in a preheated oven till the cheesecake is just-set - it should have a nervous wobble in the centre but the toothpick/skewer inserted in the edge should come out clean.
  
  
  (Dont ask me oven temperatures and timings - my beast of an oven has neither a timer nor temperature controls)
  
  
  My Old Faithful!
  
  
• Let it cool ASAP under the fan - you want to bring down the temperature immediately to avoid over-cooking the cheesecake.

Once cool, cut into slices (use a hot knife for neat slices) and serve (with whipped cream, if so desired)



Confession time:

I had clean forgotten about baking the cheesecake in a water bath. I tossed together all the ingredients and slid the pan into the oven, feeling slightly smug about how incredibly easy I had made the whole damn recipe - and it was a good ten minutes before I remembered the elaborate double-foil+cling film mechanism Nigella uses to bake her cheesecake. Mortified at my over-confident mistake I hastily made repairs and voila - no damage done. :)


Moral of the story:

You CAN get by with shortcuts and time-saving innovations if you have had some degree of practice in the kitchen. But always be on the lookout for overconfidence, for all it takes to take the air out of THAT is a deflated cake or cheesecake or souffle. Play by the rules as much as you can - but be prepared to face disastrous consequences with a smile if you've broken them - for innovations do flop (literally and figuratively!) - at times. :)

Quick-fix Meals: Scrambled French Toast

I know the name of the dish sounds like a disaster in the kitchen, but I assure you it was an entirely planned recipe. Not an accident caused by toast-sticking-to-pan-and-getting-torn-into-smithereens. :D

This is one of the fastest breakfast dishes I have ever whipped up. And its just as well that it's yummy and filling too! Here's how you make it:

Break an egg into a small pan/saucepan
Add some milk and/or cream (see footnote)
Add salt to taste
Add a dash of any flavouring you like (This is optional) - I used chicken salt (delicious umami taste!) and a tiny squeeze of HOT Sriracha chilly sauce. (Other options can be chopped green chillies/black pepper/ herbs/ garlic/ onion/ ketchup/ mint chutney whathaveyou)
Add small pieces of bread (2 slices/1 pau)
Mix well
Put it on the stove and cook it on medium heat, stirring regularly, till cooked through. (See footnote)
Take off the heat, garnish with chopped coriander / dots of ketchup.
Serve piping hot with coffee/tea/hot chocolate on the side

How much milk to add, whether or not to add cream and how long to cook- all these depend on how you want the dish to be- close to soft -folds of scrambled eggs or more like crisp-on-the-outside-soft-in-the-middle French Toast.

Add more milk and cream and cook for a lesser time for soft scrambled eggs-like texture.
Skimp on the milk and cream and cook on high heat for the crisp outsides of a French Toast.

Either way, you get a bowlful of hot, tasty goodness you can scarf down in moments. The bread soaks up the eggy mixture to give you soft pillows of bites which burst with flavour.

Enjoy!

A lazy afternoon - and the mother of all lunches!

So we finally got around to visiting SG's new place. The cozy apartment is on the 13th floor of one of the few high-rises in a locality dotted with bungalows and lots of trees, so SG and her husband N get an amazing bird's eye view for miles around. Plus lots of natural light and a scuttly breeze through the day - so much so, that we were comfortable without an AC even at high noon. Though the lovely refreshing peach iced tea that SG kept plying us with might have something to do with this!


N had betaken himself to a friend's for the day - can't say I blame him, the thought of facing a gaggle of gabbing girls can be daunting - so we had the place to ourselves. Which worked out just fine, as after lunch, we made quite a sight as we lolled about on the floor groaning about how we had eaten way too much. :)

And what a lunch it was! Methinks SG had gone out and ransacked all the stores in the neighbourhood the day before - there was such a bounty of food! And almost all of it was light and healthy, appropriate for the heat of the sweltering day. There was a GINORMOUS salad (overflowing with crisp lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, onion (white AND red) and boiled shredded chicken)




.........to be dressed with a dressing of your choice - choose from diet mayo, tartare sauce, mushroom-and-tomato herb sauce, teriyaki sauce (yum yum!), mustard - English and French, schezwan sauce, gourmet bottled Italian dressing and French dressing...



Chicken salad!
PLUS there were sandwich fixings - generous loaves of bread (white and whole wheat), to be piled on with butter or cheese (or both!) - need I mention that there was a choice of cheeses? - sliced veggies, chicken patties, eggs (to be made to order - scrambled/boiled/Frech-toasted...) and, for the sweet tooths, 2 kinds of jam...whew! (Never mind that we never got around to making or eating sandwiches)

PLUS there was a dish of mushrooms stir-fried with sundried tomatoes and garlic (delish!)


and my quick and easy pasta(my small contribution to the lunch fiesta)


The other attendees (SP and CG) contributed sweat equity and helped with all the chopping-cutting-dicing-slicing (especially SP, who withdrew to the drawing room with a mountain of veggies and a chopping board, away from the confusion in the kitchen)

Finally, after umpteen trips between the kitchen and the drawing room, to ferry across all the goodies - we were ready to eat!


There is something indescribably amazing about sitting cross legged on the floor, with the breeze ruffling your hair, having a gab session with your closest friends - and munching on some fabulous food, while at it. :)

Equally indescribable was the girls' reaction when they got their first taste of Nutella (incredibly, neither of them had tasted it before) - the second of my contributions to our lunch. (Things were getting almost too healthy - we needed SOME sin!)




The voluptuous chocolate-hazelnut spread has a way of taking you into the stratosphere of bliss. I will not go into the details (strict rotation of the jar, watchful glances of the others when one of us was serving herself (to ensure equal rationing!) - sufficient to say that more than half the jar had disapperead by the time lunch was over. By which time we were too full even for dessert, leave alone the planned-and-prepared for-sandwiches. Sigh.


My plate - before

My plate - after! :P

The wreckage
But an hour or so of lolling about on the comfy outsize cushions and pillows which adorn SG's drawing room, we felt curious about SG's afore-declared "you will all DIE over it, its so awesome!" dessert - individual fruit bowls. SG had painstakingly halved 2 melons, scooped out the flesh, and filled the halves with strawberry jelly mix. She then had stirred in cubes of fresh fruit into the jelly as it set - and served up the wondrous creation with scoops of vanilla ice cream. So what we got was a beautiful orange-pink-white dessert that was cool, light and delicious.





The day was too hot for a rich dessert like chocolate mousse ( though we all are chocaholics!), so this was the perfect end to a gorgeous meal.

Great ambience, awesome food and the best company ever- all boxes checked for a fantastic afternoon. :) Compliments to SG for truly being the hostess with the mostest!

P.S. : This is T&F's 50th post - golden jubilee! Many thanks to all readers - its knowing that there ARE people who like reading my ramblings that has kept me going and reach this milestone. Ahoy for the 100th now!

Kitchen Experiments : Chocolate-drizzled Shankarpale

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Especially when one encounters it in the kitchen.

All it took was the sight of Dad polishing off last of the shankarpale my Mami had given us (these days Diwali snacks are available OTC around the year!) and the memory of chocolate chips lying unused in the fridge to hit me simultaneously - and 'Ting!' went the lightbulb in my head as it flooded my conscious with dazzlingly simple IDEA!

Shankarpale are little squares/chips of fried, slightly-sweet dough traditionally made during Diwali as a snack. They are crumbly in texture and yummy with a cup of steaming-hot chai. This piece of GK is for the benefit of my non-Maharashtrian readers - my North Indian colleagues recoiled in horror at the idea of chocolating the already teeth-numbingly-sweet 'shakkarpare' . (The North Indian version of shankarpale is coated in syrup till the sugar starts
crystallizing around the chip)

To come back to the lab..err...kitchen, I rescued the last 10-12 shankarpale from dad's foraging and laid them out on a plate. Melted a tablespoon of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate) with a splash of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of honey (don't ask me why, just felt the honey would echo the earthy tones of the shankarpale) over a double boiler (chocolate in small bowl kept over a large saucepan filled with boiling water).




Went on adding milk (in stages) till I got a suitable-for-drizzling-over consistency.






Drizzled the chocolate over the arranged shankarpale (with a spoon, nothing fancy) rather generously and dumped them into the fridge.

An hour later, the chocolate had set, and the normally satvik shankarpale had been given a glam makeover. The chocolate complemented the rich buttery biscuit-like shankarpale oh so well!

The only downside was that, to achieve a drizzling consistency, I had added quite a lot of milk to the chocolate, which meant that the chocolate lattice atop the shankarpale was susceptible to melting the moment you took them in yor hand (the temperature of the human body is 37 deg C!) leaving you with messy chocolate-smeared fingers you had to lick clean. (Mmmmmmm...)

A way out of this could be adding very little milk to the chocolate and dipping the shankarpale in the pool of chocolate rather than go for drizzling the melted chocolate on top. My guess is this way, the chcocolate coating/shell atop the shankarpale will be more robust (after all, chocolate chips survive being baked in cookies and cakes in fiery ovens!)

If you don't have access to chocolate chips, a few squares of Cadbury Dairy Milk will do just as well. (Or any other plain chocolate bar, for that matter - chocolate bars dont melt at room temperature either)

So go on, add a little ooomph to your Diwali snacks this year!

N.B. 1: Pardon the foggy pics - the steam rising from the double boiler fogged up the lens quicker than I could wipe it off! :(
N.B. 2: If, like me, you overestimate the amount of chocolate you need and end up with a pool of melted chocolate after the shankarpale receive their chocolate coat, you can do what I did - drop some nuts (I used walnuts - you can use any you like) in the chocolate, coat them all over with chcolate and fish them out with a spoon and arrange them on a tray. Put them in the fridge till the chocolate sets to get yummy choconut morsels. :)