curry puff

Except for the first picture. This one was taken on the bright spot near the living room window right after I steamed the vegetables - 1 potato, 2 cups of mixed vegetables like peas, carrot, beans and sweet corn and one onion sliced long. Steam until the vegetables are cooked through yet not mushy. You can alternately pressure cook them 1 whistle.

I know I said step by step recipe for vegetable cutlet but the patties are very straight forward. You can scroll down for the recipe to make the patties. The assembly is what I wanted to focus on in this post.

First, we need bread crumbs. If you live in a fancy place, you will get to buy bread crumbs but that's too silly for me (don't ask me why), so I made my own. Here's what you do.

Heat a skillet until just hot and place a bread slice on it. Don't use any butter, oil, etc. Just dry-toast the bread slice on both sides until lightly browned.

Powder it in your blender or mixer and voila, bread crumbs!

Now we need a sticky coating that comes between the vegetable patties and the bread crumbs so that the bread crumbs will stick to the patties. The most common one is egg whites and that's what my mom uses. I have made this recipe completely vegetarian so here's what you can use instead of eggs whites in to coat the vegetable cutlets.

Take 3 tbsp maida / all purpose flour.

Add about the same amount of water.

Mix well to form a thick-ish paste.

Make patties of desired size (make sure its not too thick, about 1/2" thick patties are best) and place them gently on the maida paste.

Coat both sides well.

Place this on the prepared bread crumbs.

Coat both sides well. Just drizzle bread crumbs on the patty so that you can avoid turning it around too much and breaking it.

Repeat with the rest of the vegetable mixture. I got about 12 cutlets with the amount of vegetables mentioned above.

I refrigerated the patties for an hour just to firm them up. This is optional. After that, pour enough oil in the skillet to drown the cutlets half way. Heat it up until just below smoking point and lay the cutlets carefully in the oil. Make sure the heat is just medium so that the outside doesn't burn and inside remains undercooked.

Flip over when one side is nice and brown. Cook both sides until crisp.

Drain on a kitchen towel and serve with ketchup, mashed lightly in a wrap, with curd rice - there are tons of options!

Oh God, this picture is killing me! I really should stop taking pics in the night.

Here's the recipe, all in one place.

Vegetable Cutlets Recipe

Makes: 12

What I Used:

For the patties:

1 potato

2 cups mixed vegetables cut into small pieces

1 small onion, chopped fine

2 green chillies, chopped fine

1/2 tsp red chilli powder (adjust according to heat level desired)

1 tsp chaat masala (or garam masala for a different taste)

A pinch of amchur / dried mango powder

1/4 tsp coriander powder / malli podi

1/4 tsp roasted jeera powder / cumin seeds

A handful of finely chopped fresh coriander leaves / kothamalli (optional)

Salt to taste

2 tsp oil

For the coating:

3 tbsp maida mixed into a paste with 3 tbsp water (approx.)

2 slices of bread, toasted dry on a skilled and powdered

Oil to shallow fry

How I Made It:

1. First, make the patties. Steam cook or pressure cook the vegetables until soft yet firm. Heat oil for patties and add the onions. Fry until soft and transparent. Then add the chilly powder, jeera, coriander, amchur, chat masala and green chillies. Mix well for 30 seconds.

2. Mash the potato well and add with the other vegetables. Let the mixture cook until well incorporated (about 2-3 mins). Add the coriander leaves, if using, and mix well. Add salt just before shaping into patties, otherwise the mixture will sweat and loosen up, making it hard to form the shapes.

3. Place each patty in the flour-water mixture and coat well. Then place on the bread crumbs and coat well.

4. Shallow fry until golden brown on both sides. Serve hot with ketchup, curd rice or mashed up in a wrap or sandwich.

curry puff

Vegetable Puffs With Puff Pastry Sheets

When I was in India, I used to drool over a lot of food blogs of people abroad, mainly at all the ingredients they got to cook with. Among fresh berries and different kinds of chocolate and cheese was puff pastry sheets. I was quite amazed at how much difference it can make to baking something like puffs or twisted puff snacks and tons of other variations to these.

I bought my first packet a few weeks ago and it stayed in my freezer till my India trip was over. When it finally reached a point when I had no more excuses to postpone using it, I did!

The first thing I did was to look online for help on how to start using it. The packet had no instructions except to say "thaw for 30 mins to an hour before use". That was well and good but how exactly do I use this chunk of frozen pastry sheets? I searched online for difference things - how to use puff pastry sheets? how to roll out puff pastry? how to divide puff pastry and all synonyms of words in here. I checked some blogs that I remembered had used these but they seemed to know how to since they had lovely pics of puffs - their final products!

I even checked Youtube but nothing useful came up. Then I just guessed my way through it and turned up with pretty awesome vegetable puffs. Here's how.


How to Thaw and Use Puff Pastry Sheets:

1. Take out the packet about 2 hours before you want to use it. Mine took about 2.5 hours to thaw completely and become soft. It will be a big block.

2. Place it on a liberally floured surface and roll it out firmly to about 1/2" thickness. You will get a biggish rectangular piece of puff pastry.

3. Cut out into long rectangles for puffs or other shapes depending on your use.

That's it. That's what I did.

When you make vegetable puffs, the filling is very flexible too. You can pretty much make and add anything. Here's what I did.

Vegetable Puffs Filling Recipe

What I Used:
Makes 8 puffs

Mixed vegetables - 1 cup (I used carrots, French beans, sweet corn and green peas)
Onions - 2, sliced long
Tomatoes - 2, chopped
Capsicum / green bell pepper - 1/2 cup, chopped
Coriander powder /malli podi - 1 tbsp
Jeera /cumin seeds / jeerakam - 1 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp or to taste
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - a few
Oil - 1 tbsp
Sugar - a pinch
Salt - to taste

How I Made It:

1. Boil the vegetables until soft and keep aside.

2. Heat oil and saute the onions until golden brown. Add the curry leaves, coriander powder, chilli powder and jeera. Fry for 30 seconds.

3. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry for another minute.

4. Now add the tomatoes and capsicum and fry well till its blended well.

5. Finally add the vegetables and salt and sugar and mix well. Cook on open fire for about 5 mins. Don't add water at any stage. The filling should be moist yet thick.

To Assemble Puffs Before Baking:

- Take a rectangular strip of rolled out puff pasty sheet and spoon in some filling on one end, leaving enough space on all sides to 'seal' the puff.

- Bring in the other end and seal off the sides. The puff pastry is usually sticky so you wouldn't need anything else to seal it up.

Baking

Bake in a preheated oven at 220 Centrigrade for 30 mins until the top is golden brown. You can brush on some egg white while still warm out of the oven to make it look prettier and glossier.

If you want to make egg puffs, add hard boiled eggs in the place of vegetables. Place half an egg in each puff.

toblerone candy bar

Toblerone Candy Bar Shortbread Recipe

You know sometimes you try something new and you wonder to yourself "why on earth did I never come across this gorgeousness before?"

Well, this is one of those recipes. Its from a brilliant book called A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman. Its uber simple and all you need is 4 ingredients. Yes, that's right! 4 ingredients and you can whip up these bars and I guarantee 'wows' from your friends, family, guests, dog, whoever.

Toblerone Candy Bar Shortbread

Makes about 15 -18 bars

Adapted from: A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, at room temperature

(I used salted butter. If using unsalted, then add a pinch of salt to the flour)

2/3 cup sugar

2 1/4 cups flour

100gm Toblerone chocolate bar, at room temperature

How To Make It:

Preheat oven to 325F / 165 C. Sift flour (and salt if using unsalted butter). This sifting business is optional by the way, I just like to do it so that its easier to fold into the wet part of the dough.

Cream the butter and sugar until soft. You can use a whisk and do this by hand.

Dunk in the flour

Gently mix with fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs

Pat firmly on to a brownie tray or the flattest baking pan you have. Make sure that this layer is not more than 1 to 1.5 inches high. Press with the back of a spoon to layer it firmly.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-30 mins or until the top turns a light golden brown.

Meanwhile, bring out your Toblerone bar. Make sure its at room temperature. Due to the heat in Singapore, mine was squishy - and that's perfect!

Once the base is baked, while its still hot from the oven, chop the Toblerone bar and sprinkle over the base.

With an icing spatula or a flat spoon, spread the chocolate evenly over the baked base.

Cool completely. Using a knife, mark squares so that its easier later to cut them along these marks, when the bars are set.

We are done! Transfer to the refrigerator to set. Once set, cut along the pre-marked lines into square bars and serve. Store in refrigerator so that the chocolate doesn't get runny. I kept mine in the fridge for a week.

The reason why Toblerone works perfect for these bars is beacause of the nougat and cashew pieces in the choclate bars. It gives a surprise element when you bite into the bars! But I am definitely going to experiment with other chocolates too

twix candy bar

Twix Candy Bar Triple Chocolate Brownies Recipe

Have you ever tasted brownies from Brownie Cottage in Hyderabad? They have an outlet in GVK mall in the movie theaters there. I tasted their After 8 Mint Brownies and fell in love with them. They also had various other candie bar brownies so here's my attempt at recreating one of them.



The caramel in the twix bars becomes more chewy and the biscuit retains in crunch. Its heavenly!



One of my favourite chocolates - Twix!

Twix Candy Bar Brownies
Adapted from: Recipe Girl
Makes 12 large pieces


Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3 oz  / 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped semi-sweet chocolate
6 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 tsp instant coffee powder
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar (regular white sugar)
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
2 twix bars (singles) chopped into 1/2" pieces (chill before cutting)

How I Made It:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F / 180C. Grease an 8" brownie / cake pan and set aside.

2. In a pan set over another pan of boiling water, melt both the chocolates and butter together until smooth and glossy. Let cool slightly.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, coffee powder, vanilla and sugar. Stir the egg mixture into the slightly cooled chocolate mixture. Cool to room temperature.

4. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; add to batter. Stir chopped Twix bars into chocolate mixture. Then pour into prepared baking pan and smooth top with a rubber spatula. You can reserve some slices and place on top too.



5. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean with a few crumbs attached; do not overbake! Let cool completely, then cover tightly and chill overnight. Chilled brownies are easier to cut and they actually taste better the next day.



These makes great gifts for a kid's birthday party or generally just bake them for friends and bask in their chocolate-y gratitude :)

moleten chocolate

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes Recipe

I know, that's a lot of chocolate discussion on this site over this week but when it comes to chocolate, there's never too much of it. Agreed? There you go!

This is our Sweet Punch challenge for October, so don't be surprised if you see a lot of chocolate lava cakes cropping up on blogs around you.

I baked this decadence over the weekend. It rose beautifully and the crust was cracked and heavenly. Be very careful not to burn your tongue on this. I speak from experience, like I almost always do. Learn from my mistakes, ok?

Since neither TH nor I like very runny centres for our molten chocolate cakes, I increased baking time but made sure that the centre is still gooey and fudgy.



Molten Chocolate Lava Cake
Fills 4 medium-sized ramekins
Recipe source - showmethecurry.com

Ingredients:
Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate – 4 oz (113g)
Butter – 1/2 cup + to grease ramekins
Eggs – 2
Sugar – 1/3 cup (75 g)
All-purpose Flour – 1/4 cup (40g)

How I Made It:
1. In a double boiler, melt chocolate. Once melted and shiny, remove pan from heat and add in butter. Mix until the butter melts fully. Set aside to cool.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 mins by electric mixer, 5 mins by hand)
3. Add chocolate-butter mixture into the eggs, add all-purpose flour and mix until well incorporated.
4. Butter bottom and sides of ramekins (small glass/porcelain bowls) and pour in mixture until 3/4 way full.
5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 C) for 10 – 15 minutes. Shorter for gooey (molten) inside, longer for stiff inside. I baked for about 13-15 mins.
6. Serve warm with ice-cream, fruits or whipped cream.



Yep, I had to push out some of the centre with my spoon to demo that ;) Now, one thing to remember is, you have to serve this with some fruits, whipped cream, or ice cream to balance out the dense chocolate flavour - its really overpowering. True death by chocolate!