Double ka Meetha- Kuch Meetha ho Jaaye (for the Boys in Blue)

Double ka Meetha is a Hyderabadi cousin of Shahi Tukda. The dessert gets its name from bread or what is also called “double roti”. There really isn’t much difference between the two except that in Shahi Tukda the fried bread slices are soaked up in rich rabdi or condensed milk and for Double ka Meetha the fried bread slices are soaked in hot milk. 

Shahi Tukda  is something I am not very fond of and I don’t know if it’s the amount of sugar I used or because I made it at home for the first time, but going by the way my Double Ka Meetha tasted, I would take that over Shahi Tukda any day. In fact this is one of the few Indian desserts I really enjoyed eating and would happily make another batch soon. This recipe is also from Neeta Mehta’s recipe book with suggestions and inputs from my friend’s mother who, as I have heard, is a fantastic cook. 

And we’ve just won the India v. South Africa ICC World Cup Match as I type this post and that too by a whopping margin so my post is dedicated to the boys in blue! #WontGiveItBack.

This recipe serves 20 as I had prepared it for mum’s potluck.

Ingredients:

White bread slices- 20 (trim the edges and cut each slice into half diagonally) (Note to Readers: The slices I used were small in size. If using big slices of bread you may want to restrict to 15 in number.)

Milk- 1kg

Fresh Cream- 1 cup

Sugar- 1 ¾ cup

Water- 1 cup

Saffron- a pinch

Rose Water- 4 tbsp  (Soak the saffron in rose water and keep it aside)

Almonds- 20- blanched and sliced

Pistachio- 20 sliced (Note to Readers: You may use a larger quantity of the dry fruits as per your liking)

Oil/Ghee- For shallow frying the bread slices

A few sheets of Silver Leaves or Chandi ka Warq (optional)

Preheat oven to 180° C for at least 10 minutes

Method:

• In a medium sauce pan boil the milk. Once the milk has come to a boil reduce the heat and cook on medium heat for about 15-20 minutes till the consistency is reduced to almost half. The reduction also depends upon the type of milk used. If using full cream milk the reduction should be almost ¾th of the quantity used and if using regular toned milk then the reduction should be ½ of the quantity used. Once the consistency has reduced, add cream and cook for a minute. Keep aside.

• Boil sugar in half cup water and make a syrup. You want a one wire or “ek taar” consistency for the syrup. Keep this sugar aside to cool. Once cooled slightly, mix the saffron infused rose water to this sugar syrup.

• Heat ghee/ oil in a pan to shallow fry the bread slices. The traditional method for any sweet will almost always ask you to use ghee only but because it makes the dessert a tad too heavy and rich, I used half ghee and half oil. The bread slices have to be shallow fried till light golden on both the sides. Ensure that you do not fry more than 2-4 triangles in one go (depending on the size of your pieces).  Please note that the bread slices will soak up all the ghee/ oil in the pan. Some recipes even suggest that the bread slices can be toasted till slight golden. This will definitely be a healthier option but somewhere you might end up compromising on the taste. But do whatever suits you best.

• Layering- Grease a baking tray with ghee or oil. Place the bread slices in the tray and pour one tbsp of the flavoured sugar syrup over each slice to soak it completely. Next pour the creamy milk over the slices. Then sprinkle chopped dry fruits on the slices. Allow the bread to soak in the liquids.
• I had enough slices to make three layers in my dish. I repeated the procedure for each layer. Do not worry about the slices sticking to each other because you will scoop out the dessert and serve it. The second layer gets all gooey and that tastes fantastic.

• Bake this in a pre-heated oven in the middle rack for 15-20 minutes till the liquids almost dry up.

• You may want to decorate this with silver leaves.

• You can serve this warm or chilled. This one was served warm and it was loved by all!

Achaar ke Aaloo: Hyderabadi zone

As everyone knows I love food, eating out especially, and recently I have tried to actively enter the cooking zone as well. End of last year, a friend of mine, who is also an ardent food lover, gifted me a recipe book on my birthday (best gift ever, right?). I have been in the mood for Indian cooking for a while and this recipe book seemed as a great way to kick start the journey. It’s a book on Hyderabadi cuisine by Neeta Mehta and I set down to prepare a few dishes (3 to be precise) for a dinner when we were hosting some family friends at home. 

Today I shall give you the recipe for one of those dishes that was prepared- Achaar ke Aaloo or Potatoes in a Pickle Sauce. The dish was perfect, soft potatoes and proper achaari tangy mirchi vaala taste. Goes well with hot phulkas.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

Potatoes- 700 gm, boiled and cut into 1” pieces

Onions- 5 medium sized, ground in a mixture to form a fine paste

Ginger paste- 1 ½ tsp

Garlic paste- 1 ½ tsp

Red Chili powder- 1 ½ tsp

Turmeric powder (haldi)- ½ tsp 

Salt- to taste

Oil- for frying

Mix Together

Vinegar – ¼ cup and Sugar- 2 tsp

For Tempering

Oil- 2 tbsp

Nigella seeds (Kalonji) 1 tsp

Mustard seeds (Rai)- ½ tsp

Cumin seeds (Jeera) or Coriander seeds- 1 tsp

Dry whole Red Chilies- 8

Method:

• Take a kadhai and heat oil for frying.
• Deep fry the potatoes till they give a slight golden brownish colour. Keep the potatoes aside.
• In another kadhai or pan, heat 8 tbsp oil. Add the onions on medium flame till they turn golden brown.
• To this, add the ginger paste and the garlic paste and fry for about a minute.  Then add the salt, turmeric powder and red chili powder and mix well.
• Add the fried potatoes to the onion-ginger-garlic paste mixture and mix well gently.
• Add about ½ cup water and cook on low heat for about 5 minutes till the spices are well blended and some gravy remains.
• Remove this from the fire and add the sugar and vinegar mixture. Mix well gently and then transfer to the serving dish.
• For tempering- Heat 2 tbsp oil. Add the dry whole red chilies, mustard seeds, coriander seeds or cumin seeds (Note: The recipe originally calls for cumin seeds, however I tried a twist with the coriander seeds which I felt made the temper crispier).  After these add the nigella seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to splutter and the red whole chilies begin to darken pour this baghaar over the dish.
• Serve hot with garma garam phulkas and enjoy!

After eating delicious cupcakes, sweets, chocolates and various desserts on the occasion of valentine’s day and India winning the India-Pak ICC World Cup match, I am sure everyone must be craving for some chatpata and tangy flavor. Cook this Achaar ke Aaloo and satiate those cravings! 

Taste Bhi Health Bhi- Garlic Roasted Broccoli

Being at home means comfort and a lot of pampering. In a typical Punjabi household a lot of pampering equates to a lot of food and sometimes being over stuffed with it.  Thankfully, that’s not the kind of household I come from. Here, the family members have over the years become health conscious and strive to eat right.  big credit goes to mommy dearest who can cook any dish magically with just a smear of oil. I am yet to imbibe this wonderful quality and tactic of her. Nevertheless, after all the Mumbai gluttony that I have been through, I decided to figure out some easy, healthy and yummy recipes during my stay.

I decided stick to a diet of fruits and veggies for a few days and with no choice of my regular dose of gobhi parantha I had to satiate my taste buds with something healthy yet delicious. This is how this dish- Garlic Roasted Broccoli- came into the picture.

Broccoli is an edible green plant and belongs to the cabbage family. It is the large flowering head of the broccoli that is used as a vegetable. It is known to be a hearty and tasty vegetable and is also rich in dozens of nutrients. It is known to be beneficial in many ways including preventing cancer, reducing cholesterol and is a great diet aid. It is believed that a cup of broccoli has as much protein as a cup of rice or corn with half the calories.

Image source

But yes, to make this nutrient packed vegetable into a delicious dish was the task at hand, and what could be more fun than roasting it!

Ingredients:

(Note to Readers: The measurements for this recipe are more of a guideline. You can add more or less olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, salt or pepper.) 

Broccoli- 2 heads, cut into florets

Olive oil- 2 tbsp

Garlic- 5 cloves, minced

Sale- 1 tsp

Pepper- ½ tsp

Lemon juice- 1 tsp

Pinch of red chili flakes (optional)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
• Take a large bowl and toss the broccoli along with the olive oil, salt, garlic and black pepper.
  

• Spread the broccoli florets in a single layer on a baking dish.
  
• Bake until the florets and tender enough to pierce a folk and the edges are browning (about 15- 20 minutes depending on how crisp you want it).
• Turn once halfway through the baking process and add the red chili flakes if you wish too.
  
• Once baked, add a generous squeeze of lemon juice over the broccoli before serving.

Happy eating!

Luncheon in the Queen of Hills

Dehradun is home for me and being here for a month means a lot of ghar ka mummy ke haath ka khaana (which I do not get in Mumbai), lots of cooking and of course trips to Mussoorie, the Queen of Hills. Getting home was not less than a herculean task this time thanks to Jet Airways- flight delayed, connecting flight missed, no flight same day, luggage lost; basically a lot of tamasha. After all this, I managed to reach home on February 2^nd, on my Dadu’s birthday and just in time for my Dad’s birthday which falls on the 3^rd of February.

And in this weather, we decided to drive up to Mussoorie for lunch to celebrate Dad’s birthday. What a fantastic idea :)

It’s a half an hour drive from my place too Mussoorie and the roads are winding (please note people who are prone to nausea on such journeys). However, once that is taken care of, the view is spectacular-add to that the chilly weather and some Maggi points where you can stop a while and devour the delicious Maggi noodles prepared by the small dhabas enroute.

Mall Road, Mussoorie

However, as we were specifically going for lunch and usually do the Maggi scene when we are just going for a drive in the evening, we gave this a miss and headed straight to the Mall Road to go to Tavern Restaurant. To our dismay, on entering the restaurant we realized that the central heating was not working and the place seemed quite stuffy. During the season this place is always buzzing with people and in fact it is difficult to manage a table here, but off season and we didn’t want to take a chance. Stepped out in the freezing cold and were wondering where to cure our growling tummies when we spotted My Shop.

My Shop, Mussoorie

My Shop is a very old (read: about 15-20 years old) restaurant situated at the Mall Road.  My Dad tells me that earlier this was a shop where woolens were sold. Very recently My Shop has acquired space from the video games parlour that was adjacent to it to increase the seating capacity. I have been here on numerous occasions earlier but it had been a while since we had tucked in some food from My Shop on any of our trips to Mussoorie as we head to Char Dukaan, Rokeby or Tavern on most of our trips. While this restaurant is open, with no central heating, from the outside the live tandoor counter looked extremely inviting. We dashed in and just about saved ourselves from the drizzle that had started.

The whiff of the tandoor was driving us crazy and we ordered for half a Tandoori Chicken right away. The menu is a decent spread of Mughlai food and while we waited for our first dish to arrive it started hailing. What a pretty sight! Too bad I couldn’t take a picture because as soon as I got up to click our Tandoori Chicken was on the table and food is more of a love than the weather; which is just an accompaniment. The Tandoori Chicken was hot, good looking and well seasoned. The chicken was cooked through and through and the flavor of the tandoor was infused well within. Don’t forget to squeeze a wedge of lemon on top and you would be licking your fingers.

Tandoori Chicken

My Shop passed the starter-test and on scanning through the variety available on the menu we decided to call for the Kali Mirch Chicken, the My Shop special Dal Makhani and tandoori rotis. 

It took about 10-15 minutes for our food to arrive and this is where I would like to add a note for the service. While the Kali Mirch Chicken and the Dal Makhani was served, along with the accompaniments- onion rings, lemon wedges and green chilies- it took them another 5 minutes to bring the rotis to us.  Because of our starving selves, it was torturous to just wait for rotis while we were staring at the beauty that was the dal and chicken. Thankfully by the time the fresh and soft Tadoori Rotis arrived, the dishes had not gotten cold else the experience would have been a disaster.

Kali Mirch Chicken

The Kali Mirch Chicken was a spicy and thick gravied affair with a very distinct flavor of black pepper. While I would give full marks to the gravy I feel that all the flavours had not entered the chicken. Nevertheless, the dish was enjoyed in the freezing cold weather. 

Dal Makhani

The Dal Makhani was topped with oodles of white butter and this made the dish rich, creamy and extremely satisfying. While at home we usually try to cook a healthy version of Dal Makhani by cutting down on the amount of butter that goes in, we also end up compromising on the taste factor. Here, however, the flavor was plentiful and going by the way this Dal Makhani tasted, I give it a rating higher than the Kali Mirch Chicken. 

For our second round of rotis we ordered a Pudina Parantha along with the rotis. This was delicious to the core, warm, soft, and yummy. Apologies for not letting you feast with your eyes on this one as really it got over within seconds. The bill for all this was a total of Rs. 710! 

The regular scene after a meal in Mussoorie is to stop at the corner Mussoorie Sweet Shop to feast on some jalebis or gulab jamuns and some badaam elaichi doodh- and that is exactly what we did. 

Gulab Jamuns

Badaam Elaichi vaala Doodh

I gave the jalebis a miss this time even though they looked quite tempting- hot and crisp- and went ahead with the badaam elaichi doodh and gulab jamun. 

Badaam Elaichi vaala Doodh in Kulhad

The hot milk infused with almonds and cardamom and a special treat of chopped almonds at the bottom served in clay kulhads is a delightful drink and was indeed a treat in this weather. I gulped down two of these. The Gulab Jamuns that they serve here are just as I like- no dry fruits, right amount of sugar, soft and hot. Your visit to Mussoorie is incomplete without paying a visit to this Mussoorie Sweet Shop and devouring on the yumminess that is served here.

Gulab Jamun

The other tried and tested eateries that I’d suggest to people who are visiting Mussoorie are- The Green (serves delicious vegetarian food), Tavern (Mughlai, Chinese and Sizzlers), Kalsung (known for its Chinese and Tibetan fair), Rokeby Manor (go there for taking a tour of the beautiful property and the breakfast), Char Dukaan-Landour (for a great open aired ambiance and food like bun omelette, pancakes, waffles, various maggi preparations, ginger lemon tea and coffee served to you on tiny tables right outside the shops), Doma’s Inn (for their veg momos which are better than any non vegetarian momos that you would have ever had), Chic Chocolate (for the various desserts they offer and their hot chocolate) and Deodar Woods (for the pizzas).