Butter Naan

There are various versions of naan and I always love to ve a butter naan because of its easy preparation and the melting taste of it. It can be made using tawa and microwave. Here I am using oven to make this recipe. The advantage of using the oven is that we can prepare multiple naans at a time.


Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour or maida
½ cup unsalted butter, cold
3/4 cup plain yogurt or milk
3 tablespoons of hot water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (Make sure its freshly bought store yeast and not an opened one)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 egg (pure vegetarians can avoid this
1 tablespoon of olive oil


Method:
In a large bowl add the 3 cups of flour and butter. With your hands, blend the butter into the flour.
Stir water and yeast until yeast is completely dissolved. Now make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the yogurt, sugar, egg, salt and yeast mixture.


Knead into the flour and until the whole dough collects into a mass. It will be wet and sticky.
Wipe your hands clean and oil them. Now knead the dough with the oiled hands until smooth
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest until doubled in volume; about 4 hours. It is essential to keep the dough sticky for the microwave preparation of naan.

knead for a minute and divide into equal portions

Preheat the oven to the maximum heat.
If you have a baking stone; place it in the oven. Arrange a few of the naans in a single layer on the ungreased baking sheets or directly on the baking stone. And bake until they are puffed and brown, 4-5 minutes.
Brush the naans with butter while serving.
Serve hot.

Malai kofta

This is a very rich gravy which goes well with chappathis and naan. I must say one thing that this dish will definitely take a long time to prepare and I assure you that the taste will be damn good.


Ingredients:
For the koftas:
1 cup peeled and diced boiled potatoes
1 cup mixed vegetables (carrots, beans, peas, sweet corn) boiled
1/4 cup paneer cubes
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp chopped cashewnuts
Salt to taste

For the Sauce:
2 large onions
2 tomatoes
2 tbsps garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste
2 tsps coriander powder
1 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp poppy seeds
3 tbsps cashews ground into a thick paste
Salt to taste
2 tsps garam masala

Method:

1.Mash the potatoes, mixed vegetables and paneer. Add the kofta spices to this mash and mix well. The resulting dough should be firm. If not add some more boiled potato. Season with salt.
2.Make this dough into balls and put 1/2 a tsp of the nut and raisin mix in the center of each ball. Roll into perfect rounds.

4.For the gravy, heat 3 tbsps of oil in a pan and fry the onions till light brown.

5.Add the tomatoes, onions, ginger, garlic, coriander, cumin and red chilli powders.

6.Saute it in oil and make a paste.

7.Put this paste back into the pan and fry till the oil begins to separate from the masala.

8.Add the nut paste and fry for another 2-3 minutes.

9.Add 1 cup of warm water (the sauce for this dish is meant to be thick so do not add too much water) to this masala to form a sauce/gravy.Add salt. 10.Bring the sauce/gravy to a boil and then reduce the fire to a simmer. 11.Turn off the fire and sprinkle the garam masala all over the top.

12.Add the koftas to the gravy while serving.Serve with hot Naans or Ghee Rice

Szechuan Potato

This is an excellent chinese dish which i made it in an indo-chinese way. This is an easy to make recipe with right sort of ingredients.



Ingredients:

Potatoes - 4(Medium sized)
Ginger
Garlic - 5 pods
Red chillies- 3
Tomato Sauce- 2 tsp
Soya Sauce - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Spring onions(optional)
Capsicum(optional)

Method:

1.Boil the potatoes slightly.Dont overcook the potatoes else it will become too mashy.

2.Dice the potatoes into cubes.

3.Make a paste out of ginger,garlic and red chillies.(Instead of this,we can also use szechuan sauce)

4.Heat oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds and when it gets splutter,add the capsicum.

5.Add the potatoes and deep fry it.

6.Now add the paste,tomato sauce and soya sauce.

7.Give it a good mix and serve as appetizer.

Vegetable Biriyani

Personally,I am not a big fan of veg biriyani but I consider dis recipe as a quick fix dish when there are guests and eventhough it appears to be a complicated dish,it is not so actually.This dish is very easy to make and goes well with any kind of raitha.

Ingredients:

Basmathi rice(uncooked) - 1 cup

Tomatoes(finely chopped)- 2

Mixed Vegetables - 1 cup

Coconut milk - 3/4 cup

Curd - 2 tsp

Ghee - 4 tsp

Cashews

Coriander leaves(chopped)

Salt to taste

Biriyani leaves

To make a paste:

25 mm pc of Ginger

Garlic - 6 pods

Cardomom - 2

Cloves 2

3 sticks of cinnamom

Green chillies -3

Small Onions(few)

Method:

1.Heat the ghee and add the cashews and biriyani leaves.

2.Add the paste and fry it for 3-4 minutes.

3.Once the paste is well fried, add the tomatoes.

4.Add the vegetables and coriander leaves and stir it for 2-3 min.

5.Add the curd and coconut milk and let it boil for 4 min.

6.Add 2 cups of water for basmathi rice to get cooked.We ve already added 1 cup of coconut milk so we can add 1 cup of water.

7.Add the rice and it well and pressure cook the rice.

Note:We can use fried onions for garnishing

land of aromas..

Hi folks,

I Just wanna bring it to ur knowledge dat my blog is still alive n me too(:-)

Well, U must think dat I ve turned into such a lazy lass dat i dint posted even a single word for last 4-5 months.. The thing is dat I ve lost my digi cam to post flashy n mouth-watering pics(guess so!!) for u n i jus found it few days back..Anywayz, I ll take time to dust it n bring it back to my usage..So, i ve decided to post some nonsense in dis post n how abt telling abt de birth of "land of aromas"..


"College life"-Its a fun package altogether n thr whr my cooking saga began..Oops,I am not frm catering school anywayz..I did my engineering n eventually emerged as a good cook..Surely inhoherent(isnt it?)..The credit goes to the well established(!!!) mess of our college.. Hostel life is one wr u can feel the effect of "food craving"..Slowly, we all got fed up wit the purely vegetarian food(??despite of dat cockroaches in curd rice)..So, we started our mission of cooking wit the electric cooker.. We, in our gang, all were novice n dint even know to cut de vegetables properly. We started de mission wit de simple ingredients of tomatoes n onions n later we experimented wit eggs n potatoes..We somehow managed to make a colourfull gravy(ofcourse,tasteful) wit all those garam masala n stuff like dat.. n spread the aromas all around...Those mondays n thursdays,we used to ve heavenly food during our dinners.. We took chapathis frm mess n combine it wit the gravy we made it in our room n it goes well wit "Tang"(Our all-time companion)..Oh God,dats a divine food!! Dats a good start for my cooking saga..


And soon aftter, I got married, to earn the so-called "good cook" name n to impress my in-laws(ofcourse,my husband), i tried to mastery over cooking n still in de process of learning..n my sis n husband were de one poor souls who were in de testing department to authenticate my experiments..Well, dats how dis "land of aromas" emerged n one more valid reason is my boredom drove me to start dis blog..

So,wat is that something striking ur mind?"So,Whn is de nxt post?" Oh yeah, I am still in de thinking process of how to delight u wit my delicious recipes. Soon catch u with th emouth watering recipe..Cheers!!!

Bread bonda

Ingredients:

Bread slices - 6(for making 6 bondas)

Potato - 3

Finely chopped Green chillis- 1

Finely Sliced Onion - 1

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Coriander leaves

Turmeric a pinch

Curry leaves

Method:
1.Heat the oil in the pan and fry the mustard seeds,onions,turmeric,green chillis and curry leaves.

2.Boil the potatoes and smash it well and make it into a dough.

3.Add the fried stuff,coriander leaves and salt to the potato dough.

4.Make it into small balls as similar for bondas.

5.Remove the sides of the bread.

6.Soak the bread slices in water and squeeze it so that it can be rolled out easily.Place the stuffing inside the bread slices.

7.Place it in a low flame and Deep fry it and serve it with tomato sauce.

Arisi parupu

This is a very very special kongu nattu recipe.I bet u, definitely this recipe will seduce your taste buds.

Ingredients:
Cooked rice – 2 cups Thur dal – ½ cup small Onions – 1 cup Red chillies – 4Curry leaves – few Mustard seeds – ½ tspOil – 2 tbsp Salt – to tasteTomatoes - 2
Make it to paste:
Cumin seeds – ½ tspTurmeric powder – ½ Fennel seeds – 1 tspCoriander leaves- fewKhus Khus - 1 tspRed chilli - 1Curry leaves - 3ginger garlic paste - 1 tspcinnamom - 1 stick
Method:
1.Add oil in a kadai and let the mustards splutter 2.Add the tomatoes,red chillies and curry leaves.3.Add the paste to the kadai now and let it cook for 3 minutes4.Now add the rice and dal to the mixture and add 6 cups of water.5.While it starts boiling,add the small onions. Add required amount of salt and pressure cook it.
Mix cooked rice and serve hot.