Soya, WholeWheat & Olive Bread

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour/atta              - 2 cups
Soya Bean Flour                       - 1 cup
Water                                        - 1 + 1/4 cups
Instant Dry Yeast                      - 1 tspoon
Yogurt                                       - 2 tblspoon
Salt                                            - 1 tspoon
Olives                                        - 1/2 cup finely chopped black or green
Cane Sugar                                - 1 tblspoon
Oil                                             - 2 tblspoon



Method:

Sieve both the flours with salt. Add the 1 tsp instant dry yeast and just lightly mix.
Now add sugar, oil, yogurt and mix well.
Mix everything gently and then slowly start adding water in intervals to knead it to a smooth, soft dough.
Add more water if required. The dough should be slightly sticky.
Keep the dough in a deep wide bowl, brush it with oil, covered with a cling film or kitchen towel for 1 hour.

After an hour remove the dough from the bowl and then lightly punch & knead the dough again.

Now stretch the dough and sprinkle the finely chopped olives onto it.

Now make a log of the dough and seam the edges under the log.

Put it in a greased bread loaf tin for 40-45 minutes. cover and let it rise again for about 45 min to 1 hour.
Preheat your oven at 220 degrees C.
Once the bread has risen in the loaf pan, place it in the oven and bake for 22-25 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped.
If the bread begins to brown from the top, then cover with butter paper or aluminium foil.
when the bread is still slightly hot, remove from the loaf pan and keep it on a wired tray to cool.

Slice the bread only once it cools down completely, as sometimes it keeps on cooking with heat inside it.

Gobhi Manchurian with Gravy

Ingredients:

Plain flour/Maida         -2 tblsp
Corn flour                     -2 tblsp + 2 tspoon (For gravy)
Baking Soda            -1 pinch
Cauliflower                   -1 medium size
Onion                            -1 big very finely chopped
Garlic                            -6 cloves pureed
Ginger                           -1 inch pureed
Spring onion                 -4 sprigs
Chilli tomato sauce       -1 tblsp
Soy sauce                      -2 tsp
Black Pepper powder   -1 tsp heaped
Salt                               -to taste
Sugar                            -1/2 tsp
Oil                                -to fry cauliflower florets
Water                           -1/2 cup

Method:

First of all, Clean the cauliflower florets by immersing them in hot water with salt for 10 minutes. This way, they will be parboiled.

Now, Make a batter with corn flour, plain flour and cooking soda, thick enough to coat the florets. Just the way you make coating batter for pakoras.

You can either dip the well drained florets one by one in the batter or just mix all of the batter with the drained florets and deep fry.
Just make sure there is enough batter to coat the florets. Deep fry until crisp and light.Keep aside.

In a heavy bottom wide pan heat 2 tblsp oil and add garlic and ginger puree.
Give it a quick stir and then add finely chopped white part of the spring onion and the chopped red onion and fry till transparent.
Add both soy and tomato chili sauce, salt, sugar, black pepper and mix well.
Add 1/2 cup of water to this mixture.
Now dissolve 2 tspoon corn-flour in 2 tblspoon of water and add it to the pan.
Stir continuously so that cornflour mixture mixes well with everything.
Now let it boil for 2 minutes, keep it boiling untill the gravy starts to thicken
Now add the fried florets and mix well. Give a chance to soak bit of gravy , say for a minute.

Now switch off the flame and take out the Manchurian in a serving dish.
Finally garnish it with chopped green part of the spring onion.
Serve hot immediately as starter or with any Chinese style rice or noodles. I serve them with either steamed rice or garlic noodles.

Butter Croissant

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour               -4 cups
Milk                                    -1-1/4 cups
Granulated Sugar                -1/4 cup
Unsalted Butter                   -2 Tbspoon of softened at room temperature
Instant Yeast                       -1 Tbspoon
Salt                                      -1-1/2 tspoon

For the butter layer and Brushing:

Unsalted Butter                  -1 cup plus 2 Tbsp of, cold
Milk                                    -1/4 cup


Method:

Take the water into a large bowl. Stir in the yeast and sugar, leave for 5 minutes or until frothy.
Add milk, softened 3 tablespoon butter, salt and mix it well. Now Mix it with the flour.
Mix well and incorporate it with your hands into a shaggy ball. If you have a standing mixer with dough hook, it works perfect.
Tip the the dough out onto a floured clean work surface and knead until you’ve incorporated all the flour (this should only take about 2-4 minutes). shape it like a round disk.
Place the dough into a lightly floured bowl, cover with cling film, and put it in the fridge to rest for 5-6 hour or may be overnight.
Next day I started with the butter, take the butter directly from the fridge and grate onto a piece of cling film or plastic wrap.
spread the butter, and make it into a perfect 7*7 inch square.
Fold up in the cling film and pat together well, make sure it's nicely compact square block.
Refrigerate this butter square for 30 minutes, as while grating and rolling will turn it into room temperature.
Now take out your dough from the fridge. pat it down.
Take out your dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into roughly 10*10 inch square.
Now take out your butter after 30 minutes and keep the butter block on the dough rectangle.
Now fold and pinch the dough from the sides like you are wrapping a gift and hiding whatever is inside.
four side folds on the butter block and pinch it properly to seal it.
Now roll the dough into 8*24 inch rectangle out of this buttery dough block.
Now fold into 3 folds like a letter. Make sure to brush off the extra flour stick onto the dough (Which we used while rolling).
Place it on the parchment paper lined baking tray and cover with cling film and keep it in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, take out the dough from the fridge and roll it out again into 8*24 inch rectangle (same process as you did first time).
Keep the width to 8 inch everytime and you just need to roll it lengthwise into 24 inch.
After rolling brush off the excess flour again. Fold it in 3 folds and brush off the excess flour.
Re-peat this method 2 more times.  and keep chilling it for 30 minutes after each rolling process.
After 4th process leave it into the fridge over-night.
Second day take out the dough from the fridge and it should have risen to almost double in size.
Cut the dough into exact half . Now roll both the dough pieces into 8*44 inch rectangle.
Now cut the exact 6 inch pieces from the dough rectangles. Brush off all the excess flour from the dough pieces.
Now cut out each 6 inch square pieces from the middle as if you are making two triangles. Do this with all the 6 inch squares.

Now start the shaping of Croissants.
Lay each little triangle in front of you, brush off any excess flour from top and bottom, stretch it out from the largest side just a bit to make sure the pointed end is centered.
Now starting at the widest part of the triangle, roll it into a crescent shape pinching the ends together .

Place the croissants on your lined baking trays and place them somewhere warm and allow the croissants to proof for about an hour or so. They will puff up a bit. If you can see the picture the butter layer is visible very well here.

Now preheat your oven to 200c.
Brush the croissants with butter and milk mixture and keep the baking trays in the middle rack for the good all over cooking.

Your Croissants are ready to eat. Enjoy the fruits of your patience and hard work.

Urad Dal Pinni

Ingredients:

Desi Ghee                                  - 1/2 cup
Semolina/Sooji                          - 4 tblspoon
Urad Daal/Split Black Gram     - 1 cup soaked and grind to paste
Sugar                                         - 1 cup
Cardamom powder                    - 1/2 tspoon
Sliced mixed nuts                      - 1-2 tbsp (I used Almond, Cashews and Chironji)
Khoya/Mawa                             - 3/4 cup grated
Halved almonds                         - 5-6 to garnish



Method:

Soak Urad daal overnight or for minimum 3-4 hrs.
Grind without water, if possible in a paste.
Heat a pan and add desi ghee.
Add sooji and roast it well.
Now add the urad dal paste, Mix very well.

Keep mixing till the color starts to turn golden.
Now add the sliced mixed nuts, mix well, and cook for 5–7 minutes.

Now add cardamom powder and sugar into it, cook for 2-3 minutes.

Now add khoya, mix well, and remove from flame.
Let the mixture cool down.
Now make small pinnis into any desired shape.
Place a half-sliced almond on it.
Now make all the Pinnis, garnish and serve.
You can store them into the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

Baked Dal Kachori

Ingredients:

For the dough:

Plain Flour                   -1 cup
Whole Wheat Flour     -1/2 cup
Ghee/Oil/Butter           -2 tblspoon
Salt                              -to taste
Ajwain                         -1 tspoon
water                            -make the dough

For the filling:
Mung dal                       -1 cup (250 ml) soaked and grind to paste
Urad Dal                        -1/2 cup (125 ml) soaked and grind to paste
Heeng                            -a pinch
Green chili paste           -1 tspoon
Ginger paste                  -1 tspoon
Amchoor                       -1 tspoon
Salt                                -to taste
Garam Masala               -1 tspoon
Oil                                 -1 tspoon


Method:

For the dough, mix both flour into a deep mixing bowl.
now tip in the ajwain and salt into it and mix well.
Now make a well in between the flour and pour the oil into it.
Now start to mix it and with the help of water knead it to stiff but smooth dough. Pt the dough aside for few minutes.

For the filling, Mix both the dal in to a bowl and add the green chili, ginger paste to it. Mix it well.
Now heat a pan with 1 tblspoon of oil, add heeng into the oil and immediately add the dal mix.
Now fry the dal in the oil add salt, amchoor and garam masala to it.
Cook the mixture till all the moisture from dal is gone and it starts to look dry crumble.

Pre-heat the oven at 200C and grease a oven tray.

Now divide the dough into 20 equal parts.
Roll each portion into a smooth ball.
With a rolling pin on a slightly oiled surface, roll out each ball into a thick patty about 5 cm (2-inches) wide.
Place 1 tablespoon of cooled filling in the centre of each one, pinching the edges of the dough back over to completely enclose the filling.
Pinch the excess dough together and press it back into the centre of the patty.
Flatten slightly; then with a rolling pin roll out seam side down (carefully avoiding puncturing the pastry) into a 2 inch wide kachori.
Now put all the rolled Kachoris onto the Oven tray and bake them for 25 minutes or until Kachoris turn golden.

Once your all Kachoris are baked, Brush them with butter or oil, if you wish to.
Serve them with Chutney or Chole on breakfast or evening tea.