Category: Cooking

Baked Nipattu – A Healthier version of the Famous Bangalorean Snack !!

Healthier version of Bangalore snack Nipattu

When we moved to Bangalore, we enjoyed different snacks of the region and one of my favourite among all was Nipattu but it was fried not baked !!

Nipattu is a popular snack from Karnataka . These are essentially deep fried flour discs that are soft to bite and crunchy at the same time.

I want to try a healthier version of the same and really enjoyed this baked version of nipattu, let’s jump to the recipe a.nd enjoy the snacks

Ingredients

  • whole-wheat flour/ Maida ( all purpose flour ) 110 gms You can do half-half or 60:40 ratio as well
  • salt as per taste
  • mustard oil 45ml
  • poppy seeds 1 tsp ( Lightly roasted )
  • red chilli powder 1 tsp
  • Green chilli finely chopped as per taste 2-3
  • Curry leaves finely chopped 1-2 tbsp
  • Fresh coriander 2 tbsp
  • Baking powder 1/2 tsp
  • sugar 1tsp
  • roasted chopped peanuts 50 gms
  • water 1/4 th cup
Procedure
  • Shift the flour in a bowl
  • Add salt, sugar, baking powder, chilli powder, poppy seeds, peanuts and mix well.
  • heat the oil in a pan and remove from the stove, now add curry leaves, green chilli & coriander leaves to the oil.
  • Add water to this oil mix.
  • Add this mix to the dry ingredients and form a dough with it.
  • Roll this dough thin and cut out round shape with help of round glass or bowl or cookie cutter.
  • preheat your oven at 180 and bake the Nipattu for 12-15 minutes. Keep a watch and set temperature accordingly as all ovens behaves differently.
  • Optional- you can add 2 fined chopped garlic cloves in warm oil also with one spoon onion powder.
  • let it cool down completely before storing in airtight container. It might be soft once out of oven but as it cools it will be crunchy, just keep an eye it its turning brown you know it is done or you need to lower the temperature setting.

For more healthy recipes click here or check the cooking section from Menu.

This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.

How to make Kombucha from Scratch?

How to make Kombucha without scoby

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a fermented drink, made with tea and sugar with help of culture of bacteria also known as scoby. It is also known and consumed for its health benefits.

It is full of probiotics, enzymes, and healthy organic acids, it improves your gut health and immunity and can replace your sugary drinks with it. Because it’s fermented, it contains no or very little sugar!

We can create different flavours from the base kombucha, with the help of fruits and herbs. For detailed study visit here

Recipe to make Kombucha without scoby

Ingredients

  • Raw unpasteurised Kombucha ( I am using raw Kombucha from Peepal farm link to buy )
  • Clean glass jar 2lt-3lt (washed properly with soap, vinegar and dried in sunlight)
  • Clean muslin cloth ( link to buy)
  • Sugar 120 grams
  • Tea 15 grams
  • 2lt water

Procedure

How to make a scoby?
  1. Wash glass jar with soap thoroughly first and then wash with vinegar.
  2. Keep it for drying in sunlight to kill unwanted bacteria.
  3. Add 500ml raw unpasteurized Kombucha in the cleaned glass jar.
  4. Cover this jar with clean muslin cloth and tie its mouth with a elastic band or thick thread.
  5. Keep this jar for 3 weeks in dark warm & dry place (temperature 23C-24C)
  6. After three weeks, you will notice a disc floating on the top of liquid.
  7. This disc is your scoby for next step to prepare Kombucha.
How to make scoby
Steps to make Kombucha
  1. Boil 2 litre drinking water in a clean container.
  2. Add tea and sugar when the water starts boiling and put off the flame.
  3. let it cool down to room temperature .
  4. Add this water to the scoby jar and close it again with muslin cloth.
  5. Now keep it again in dark warm place for 2 Weeks.
  6. After two weeks you can take out the jar and your kombucha is ready for next step.
  7. Pour this in clean bottles and close the lid (air tight ).
  8. Keep these bottles again for 7 days in the same place.
  9. After 7 days keep it in fridge and enjoy your healthy cold drink!

Click here for more such healthy recipes!

Olives Cheese Paratha

Recently I have attended one session where learnt about olives and it’s benefits.

It was such an amazing informative session at Olives at your table INDIA baking with Ajay Chopra and learning about how we can include olives in our daily lifestyle!

We learned about different olives and it’s nutritional benefits!

They have Good fats only! About 75% of an olive’s fat content is oleic acid, which helps maintain normal blood cholesterol levels.

They are an excellent blend of vitamins, minerals, and good fats.

So, wanted to try this recipe with olives, let’s jump to the recipe.

Ingredients

  • Olives 1 cup ( blended without water ) you can take green or black as per your availability.
  • Whole wheat flour 2-3 Cups
  • Grated cheese 3/4th Cup
  • Grated paneer 3/4th Cup
  • One chopped onion
  • Salt as per taste
  • Red chilli flakes as per taste
  • Oregano 1 Tbsp
  • Olive oil

Procedure

  • Blend olives after removing the water in bottle.
  • Add flour and olive paste to a big bowl with little salt and made a dough with it. ( add little water if required)
  • Filling – add grated cheese, paneer, chilli flakes, chopped onion,salt and oregano to a bowl and mix well.
  • Now prepare small ball from dough and roll it with rolling pin. ( see video for all steps )
  • Add filling and seal again.
  • Roll it round and put on heated tawa.
  • Cook properly from both sides and apply some olive oil.
  • Serve it hot with coriander chatni.
Tips

You can add different fillings as per your taste and make sure to adjust salt as per taste as olives water is salty, plus cheese also has salt.

So taste the filling and add salt according to it.

For more healthy recipes you can click here and don’t forget to try the recipes and share your valuable feedback.

Experience with Borosil Oven- Prima 60 L OTG

My baking experience with borosil oven Prima 60 litre OTG

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Baking is like a therapy for me, I started baking in oven after my little one was born and it worked as stress buster for me.

That time we bought 21 L LG microwave convection oven as we were not sure how much we would be using it. But my love for baking kept growing and I kept on learning new new recipes and trying in my small microwave .

I have baked breads, cookies, buns, pizza, bati and many more items in my LG microwave .

But frankly I was not so satisfied with microwave oven baking as end results were not up to mark. As it was 21 ltr oven I need to bake limited quantity every time. So my baking time and electricity consumption was increasing.

So we finally decided to buy proper oven and our search started with all available brands.

What we searched before buying oven?

  • Capacity
  • Temperature settings
  • Reviews
  • Multiple uses
  • Baking time
  • How much you can bake in one go

Why above points are important !!

  • It’s really important to decide how many ltr oven you need to buy as per your baking requirements, here you should consider future needs as well. You won’t be changing your oven any time soon
  • Temperature settings is important as there are many recipes that need higher temperature. In many ovens the max temperature provided is 200 – 220 °C
  • Reviews, user feedback is also important as good looking and feature pack product does not mean it’s good.
  • We should always consider oven which has multiple features like bake, toast & grill are most common one
  • Timer is another important feature as if you want to bake multiple trays in one go then you might need longer time to cook. Many ovens come with just 60 min timer
  • How much you can bake in one go, again if you want to make large batches and want to cook it in one go & if you have smaller capacity oven then it will consume a lot of time & energy

After our search we finally decided to buy Borosil – Prima 60 L OTG as it was one of the few which fulfill almost all of my requirements. So let’s see why I choose to buy Borosil.

Features

  • It has multiple functions that includes convection, rotisserie, grill, bake and toast
  • As it’s Borosil it has borosilicate Double Glass Door
  • Adjustable Temperature Control 90° – 250°C, max temperature is 250°C
  • 0 – 120 minutes mechanical timer, it was really important as when you are baking for many people your oven can bake continuously for 120 minutes
  • It has keep warm function, which will keep oven running at set min temperature to keep your food warm
  • Power Indicator automatically turns on when the timer is set
  • Motorized rotisserie for uniform grilling function available in Borosil Prima Oven Toaster Griller
  • 12 Stage heating options in Prima Oven Toaster Griller
  • Illuminated chamber helps in baking as you can keep an eye while you are baking.
  • As it’s 60 ltr we cam keep multiple trays at once

Items included with Borosil 60lt

  • 1 Removable Crumb Tray for better cleaning
  • 1 Cooking Tray
  • Grill Rack
  • Handle to take out Cooking Tray
  • Rotisserie Rod Set
  • Rotisserie Handle
  • Recipe book
  • Instructions manual

My experience with Borosil Prima Oven

  • Very easy to operate as it has four knobs for setting temperature, mode & heating rod and timer to adjust as per your recipe
  • For easy assistance it comes with a guide book and recipe book with all details to understand your oven
  • It’s quiet spacious to bake multiple items. I have baked around 25-30 medium size cookies in two trays, two cakes in one go, lasagna, breads, baked vegetables.
  • One point to mention, baking time increases little more if you are baking more items in one go.
  • Illuminated chamber is really helpful to keep a check on items baking. I would say it’s really important as I have worked with another oven without light bulb and it’s quiet tough to see the baked level without taking out tray.
  • Big double glaze glass on front so it’s quite easy to keep an eye on every corner of the tray.
  • Initially there was uneven heating issues so I was getting some dark and some light color cookies. In my case it was thermostat issue and got it fixed.
  • But still to avoid that you can change the tray directions when you see it’s getting darker at one end.
  • Oven overall weight is not heavy so you can shift on your own if required.
  • Oven thermometer is must to know the exact temperature of oven as it’s always less or more then what you have set. You should get a good quality one else temperature issue will be there.
  • Oven trays/wire rack quality is ok, but can’t keep heavy pans like Dutch oven or iron tawa on the wire rack which is required in sourdough baking.
  • Overall a happy customer as I love baking in my oven and every oven behaves differently so you will get use to when you bake.

For more product reviews check here.

Soya Dosa – Super Crispy & Healthy

healthy food

Soya is included in my daily diet, so I keep trying different recipes of soya. This one is easy to make and it taste amazing!!

You would love this crispy dosa with coconut chutney. Let’s jump on the recipe.

Ingredients

Dosa

— Rice/ Idly rice – 120 grams
— Urad dal – 50 grams
— Soya chunks– 100 grams (grind well in mixer)
— 1 tsp – Red chili powder (as per taste)
— 2 tsp – Salt (as per taste)
— 1/4 cup soaked poha

Coconut Chatni

— 1 Coconut
— 2-3 Green chili
— Salt as per taste
— 10-20  kadi patta
— 2-3 dry whole red chili.

Procedure

Wash & Soak Urad dal and rice in separate bowls overnight or around 7-8 hours.
Grind dal & rice separately in fine paste.

Dosa batter
  • Add soaked poha in rice while grinding, to make it more crisp and good golden brown color.
  • Mix both the paste in one big bowl and keep in warm place for minimum 5-6 hours for fermentation.
  • It should double in quantity after 5-6 hours.
  • After the fermentation process add 100 grams of soya chunks powder.
  • Add salt, red chili powder as per taste
  • Place iron dosa tawa or non stick pan if you don’t have dosa tawa on high flame
  • Heat it well, check by putting few drops of water, should evaporate quickly
Soya Dosa
  • Pour one big spoon of dosa batter on it and spread it to form round shape
  • Once its semi cooked add some oil and let it cook well
  • Cook on low flame for some time and dosa will start coming out easily. For crispy dosa this step is must
  • Take out dosa with thin steel spatula and serve hot with coconut chatni
  • You can add fillings of Vegetables, paneer in this dosa if you like

Coconut chutney

  • Chop coconut into small pieces for easy grinding
  • Add coconut, green chilies, kari patta, salt in mixer jar and grind into fine paste
Coconut chutney
  • Take out in a bowl and Now Make tadka for the chutney
  • Take oil in small fry pan, add rai(small mustard seed) when it’s hot. Add kari patta and two whole red dry chilies
  • Now add this tadka to your coconut paste
coconut chutney

Enjoy this yummy and healthy chutney with your crispy Dosa 🙂

Kadhi Kachori – Treat from my native

Kadhi kachori is one of my favorite dish from my native place Ajmer Rajasthan. We grew up eating spicy kadi kachori every weekend, so life was missing something here far from home. How can anyone stop me making my childhood favorite items, so here is recipe for favorite kadi kachori.

Ingredients

Dough
2 cups Maida( all purpose flour)
4 tbsp Ghee (thick)
Salt as per taste
Cold water for kneading ( to make soft dough)

Dal filling
200 gram moong dal ( soaked for 4-5 hours )
2 green chills
Spices –
1 tsp red chili, 2 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp amchoor Powder, 1 tsp saunf ( coarse powered) , 1 tsp mint powder salt, 1 tsp garam masala & one pinch asafoetida
1 tsp grated ginger

Kadhi
100 gram gram flour (besan)
400 ml water
Salt as per taste
Spices –
1 tsp red chili, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder & pinch of hing
Lemon & curry leaves
2 green chili’s & Coriander for garnish

Procedure

Kadhi

Take gram flour in a big bowl and add 100 ml water slowly, keep whisking to avoid any lumps. It will form a paste like consistency.
Now take 300 ml luke warm water and add it in gram flour paste and mix properly.

Put all the mixture in a big pan and bring it to boil, keep stirring while it comes to boil.
When it start boiling, slow the flame to low speed.
Let it cook on low flame for half an hour, don’t forget to stir in between few times.

Cook for 10 min and now add salt and tadka. Garnish with coriander leaves.
Consistency should be thick, so if you feel it’s thick add more water.

Take two tbsp oil in a small pan and heat it. Add hing, rai, jeera & kari leaves and put off the flame.
Now add red chili powder and keep it on one side.
Add one lemon to your boiling gram flour kadi and keep stirring.

Filling
For filling take soaked moong dal and blend it coarsely with green chili and ginger.
Now take two Tbsp oil/ghee in a pan and add asafoetida (hing) .
Add coarsely blend Dal and cook it on low flame, keep it steering continuously as it can stick to pan if left unattended.
Add all spices and keep stirring. Now keep it aside and let it cool.

Kachori
First make your dough, take flour in a bowl, add salt and ghee.
Now mix properly and knead it with adding cold water slowly.
Make a soft Dough not a tight one.
Keep it for rest, meanwhile get your filling and kadi ready.

Make small balls out of dough and keep in covered. Take one ball and roll into small puri size.
Take it in your hand in the way shown in picture. Now add two spoon filling to it and close slowly with the help of fingers, check picture for reference.

Steps to prepare kachori

After closing, press gently with side of palm and flatten it (Check picture for reference).

Heat oil in kadai for frying.
To check if the oil is hot, put a small ball of dough in it.

If it comes up instantly means oil is ready. Now put your flame on medium and add kachori slowly.

Two or three at a time as per size of your kadai. After five ten minutes, flip the kachori and low your gas flame. Cooking on low to medium will ensure proper frying.

Let it cook till golden brown and then take out. Crispy kachori are ready to serve with hot kadi and green chatni.

Gluten free cookies

Gluten free cookies

After starting my diet plan I ordered some gluten free cookies from Amazon. Their taste was ok, but I don’t like the choice of ingredients. So thought of baking some gluten free cookies at home.

Here is my version of gluten free cookies sweetened with jaggery, made with love and yes approved by all family members eldest and the youngest!

Ingredients

  • 190gm Oats Flour
  • 90gm Almonds flour
  • 30gms milk powder
  • 1/2 tsp Cream of tartar
  • 1/4tsp baking soda
  • 50gm gram flour
  • 1/2 tbsp cardamom powder
  • Two pinch salt
  • 200gms jaggery ( take less or more 240 gms as per your sweetness requirements )
  • 150gms Ghee ( clarified butter ) It can be reduced to 120gms too.

Tip – 1/2 cup desiccated coconut ( I have made half mix with coconut flavour by adding 1/2 cup coconut in half the mixture, take out two tbsp for coating before bake )

-Add some small pieces of jaggery too it tastes really nice in cookies, it doesn’t melt while baking!

Procedure

  • Shift all the dry ingredients ( Oats Flour, almonds flour, milk powder, Cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, gram flour) in a bowl and mix properly.
  • In another bowl add clarified butter ( Ghee ) and grated jaggery.
  • Now whisk ghee and jaggery to make it fluffy and creamy.
  • Add and mix dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in parts. ( Do not add all in a go ).
  • Make small balls from your dough and keep in baking tray.
  • Now keep it in fridge for 10 minutes, meanwhile pre-heat your oven 170c. ( You can store your dough in Fridge if you don’t want to bake at the same time )
  • Bake your cookies for 12min on 170C ( Keep an eye as temperature settings may be different in all oven )
  • Take our the cookies and let them cool on rack, do not touch until they are cool as they are super soft at this stage.
  • Once properly cooler store them in aur tight container.
  • Enjoy healthy cookies!

Keto flour Pizza crust

These days I keep on trying the healthier version of all recipes. So thought of making pizza with keto flour.

This flour is a mix of many flour that includes nuts and seeds making it more nutritious. It is nutritionally balanced to deliver the right proportion of protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals – essential nutrients that a normal diet usually lacks.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups keto flour ( I have used NutriActive keto flour )
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp instant yeast or 1 tbsp sourdough discard
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • Water 100 ml or more as per dough
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Pizza sause ingredients and procedures you can find here in my  previous blog.

Procedure

  • Add flour in the bowl and add salt in it.
  • Now add yeast and sugar or you can activate your yeast seperately in water with sugar to make sure yeast is active. (Proper process is mentioned here)
  • Add water slowly and knead the dough for atleast 10-12 minutes using strech fold method.

Click here to see the video of this method

  • Now tuck in the dough and keep it for first rise for around an hour or more in a greased bowl and covered properly with cling foil or wet cloth.
  • After first rise punch back the dough and make balls as per pizza base size requirements.
  • Spread the ball in baking tray with the help of fingers.
  • Now poke it with fork and spread some pizza sauce.
  • Add grated cheese with Vegetables of your choice and paneer cubes.

  • Grate more cheese on top and keep it for second rise around for 20 minutes
  • Pre heat your oven @180°C
  • Now bake your Pizza for 20-25min, check the base if you feel it’s still soft then bake 5 more minutes @160°C

Enjoy your healthy pizza by sprinkling some oregano and chilli flakes.

Do let me know how did you like the taste of this pizza

Paneer-Soya-Vegetables cutlet

soya recipe

Being a vegetarian and following particular diet, paneer & soya plays a very important role. I find it difficult to eat the chunks so was trying different versions to make it more appealing . Let’s see the recipe and it’s ingredients.

Nutrition facts for the recipe

Carbs:22gm Protien : 47 gm Fat -11gm

Macros change according to brand, above mentioned macro nutrients information are for Nutrela brand

Ingredients

  • 60 gms soya chunks (Nutrela)
  • 100gms paneer
  • 10 gm olive oil/Ghee
  • Chopped Coriander
  • One onion finely chopped
  • 2-3 green chilies finely chopped
  • Salt as per taste
  • 1 tbsp Red chili flakes
  • Finely chopped/grated vegetables of your choice ( Capsicum, Carrot, cabbage, green chilli, zucchini, red yellow Bell pepper, cucumber)

Procedure

  • Instead of soaking soya we will directly grind it and make aata(fine powder)
  • Make sure there are no big pcs left
  • Add finely chopped onions, green chili, coriander, salt, red chili, ginger garlic paste.
  • Add finely chopped capsicum, carrot.
  • Mix properly until it’s combined to form a dough.
  • Make small equal sized balls and with the help of your palm flaten the top and bottom to form tikki.
  • Take a flat base big pan or tawa and spread one spoon oil on it.
  • Heat it on medium to low flame and put tikki gently on it.
  • Let it cook from one side, it will take around 5 to 10 minutes on low flame.
  • You can now cook without oil too with the help of frying pan foil by Asahi kasei.
  • Flip the tikkis gently and cook the other side.
  • Tikkis are ready to serve with coriander or tomato chatni.

Soya chunks cutlet- protein rich snacks

Being a vegetarian and following particular diet, soya plays a very important role. It’s one of the main and cheapest source of protein for vegetarians. I was not able to eat it in chuncks forms so thought if trying this version. Let’s see the recipe and it’s ingredients .

Nutrition facts for the recipe

Carbs:22gm Protien : 47 gm Fat -11gm

Macros change according to brand, above mentioned macronutrients information are for Nutrela brand

Ingredients

  • 90gms soya chunks (Nutrela)
  • 10gm olive oil/Ghee
  • 15gm corn flour/soya flour/ rice flour (optional)
  • 5gm ginger garlic paste
  • Chopped Coriander
  • One onion finely chopped
  • 2-3 green chillies finely chopped
  • Salt as per taste
  • 1 tbsp Red chilli flakes
  • 2 tbsp grated and squeezed bottle gaurd ( optional )

Procedure

  • Soak soya chunks for 4 to 5 hours or soak in hot water for at least 15minutes.
  • Squeeze all the water from soya chunks.
  • Add the chunks to mixer and blend into thin paste like consistency.
  • Add finely chopped onions, green chilli, coriander, salt, red chilli, ginger garlic paste and corn flour.
  • Mix properly until it’s combined to form a dough.
  • Make small equal sized balls and with the help of your palm flaten the top and bottom to form tikki.
  • Take a flat base big pan or tawa and spread one spoon oil on it.
  • Heat it on medium to low flame and put tikki gently on it.
  • Let it cook from one side, it will take around 5 to 10 minutes on low flame.
  • Flip the tikkis gently and cook the other side.
  • Tikkis are ready to serve with coriander or tomato chatni.