Saffron-pistachio cake

Pistachio is my Mom's favorite flavor ans so does the keshar-pista (saffron-pistachio). So I decided to make a nice pistachio cake for Mom on her birthday on 25th April.

Well this recipe can be treated as basic cake recipe, you can replace pistachio by almonds,cashews, chocolate, fruit pulp etc. This cake can serve about 5-6 people very easily. I prefer making standard whipping cream frosting to cake and is explained below as well.I have made a layered cake but you can use single tin to make layers as well.

Ingredients for cake:
1. 250 Grams of plain flour (maida)
2. 250 Grams of sugar (powdered sugar)
3. 100 Grams of butter (room temperature)
4. 240 ml buttermilk
4. 2 Tsp baking powder
5. 2 Eggs
6. 1 Tsp baking soda
7. 1 Tsp white vinegar
8. 1 Tsp pistachio food flavour
9. 100 Grams pistachios
10. Pinch of salt
11. 1 Tsp fresh lime juice
12. 1/2 Tsp food color (saffron)
13. 5-6 strands of saffron.

Method:

1. We will start by making buttermilk. Add 1 Tsp of fresh lime juice (strained) in 240ml milk and set aside. This is our 240ml buttermilk. Add 5-6 saffron strand to buttermilk and add in food color.

 Buttermilk with food color

2. Grease up 2 cake tins, a 9" tin and 7" tin, or you can use single 9" tin with some butter and plain flour, or spray it with cooking spray to prevent cake from sticking to tin.
3. sift together flour, salt, baking powder and set aside, this is our cake flour.
4. Start beating up butter and sugar mixture until its light, fluffy and glossy.

Mixture of butter, sugar and eggs

5. Add in eggs, one at a time in butter-sugar mixture and mix well.
6. Divide cake flour in 2 parts, add first part in above mixture and mix well.
7. Add buttermilk and mix well, mix second part of cake flour to mixture and beat very well, so that more air will be incorporated.

Adding flour and buttermilk mixture

8. Pre-heat oven to 180 degree Celsius
9. Cut about 75 grams of pistachios in halfs and coat them with plain flour, and add in mixture and give a gentle mix.
10. We are ready to pour in cake mixture into tin. Now add 1 Tsp baking soda with 1 Tsp of vinegar in small bowl. As mixture fizzes up, quickly add it in cake mixture and give a gentle stir.

 Cake batter ready to pour in

 11. Pour mixture into 2 greased tins (half-half) and bake cake for about 30-35 minutes or toothpick inserted in cake center come out clean.
12. Take out of oven and cool it off.

Baking complete

Ingredients for frosting:
1. 400ml whipping cream (I prefer using dairy free whipping cream, its soya based and good for health, as it does not have cholesterol)
2. Food color of your choice.

Method:
1. scrape of top of cake, if cake top is not even (I have best recipe for such leftover cake :) ),
so that cake surface is even.

Cakes with their tops scraped off

2.Whip cream with food color until soft peaks are formed.
3. Apply whipped cream with flat spatula all over the cake, in thin even layer.
4. Finely chop 25gms of pistachios and sprinkle on top.

Cake ready with frosting

That's it. Make sure you keep cake in cool place as cream frosting may melt. If you want to add any fruit pulp, chocolate sauce you can add it in step no. 7.

Enjoy :)

Basic cheese cake

Basic cheese cake:

I heard term "cheese cake" for very first time during my stay in USA. And I was like what the heck..really? Unfortunately I didn't got chance to taste due to my short tenure there. Since then I always wanted to eat cheese cake.
I had it in few restaurants and they were too much costly. 100Rs/piece and I was certainly not happy with it.

Still it took about years to finally put into a trial :D Well yeah thats because main ingredient cream cheese was a costly affair all together. As I learned to make cream cheese at home, I made cheese cake almost on very next day.
Another hurdle for making a cheese cake was erratic proportions mentioned in almost all recipes. I mean Come on!!! I never made it before so I cant deal with 48 Oz of cream cheese, 6 eggs and blah blah blah. So I trimmed  down all proportions.

Cheese cake is done in 2 phases. First make its base and then make its creamy filling. Many sites suggests springform tin for this, but you can use normal cake tin as well.

Cake Base
=========
Ingredients:
1. 100 Grams of biscuits (parle-g or digestive biscuits)
2. 50 grams butter (room temperature)
3. 25 grams powdered sugar (optional)

Method:
1. Grease up round cake tin with little butter and plain flour and keep aside.
2. process 100 grams of biscuit in food processor to form coarse crumbs
3. Mix in butter in biscuit crumb. Add in sugar, but if your biscuits are bit sweet don't add sugar.
4. Press this mixture properly in cake tin and spread evenly.
5. Put cake tin in refrigerator and start preparing filling.

 Tin with biscuit base (outer tin for waterbath)

Cream filling:
============
1. 300 Grams of cream cheese (recipe here -> http://vinitsjoyofcooking.blogspot.in/2012/04/yes-i-love-cheese-in-all-forms-be-it.html)
2. 200 ml fresh cream (amul fresh)
3. 2 eggs
4. 75 grams powdered sugar
5. 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:
1. Add cream cheese to bowl and whisk to make smooth texture.
2. Add fresh cream and mix well with cream cheese.
3. Add in sugar, vanilla essence and mix well, make sure sugar is dissolved completely.
4. Add eggs one at a time and mix it up nicely.
5. Entire mixture should be of pouring consistency and looks bit glossy.
6. Pre-heat oven to 180 degree Celsius
7. Pour this mixture on biscuit base and give a gentle tap on tin to remove any bubbles.
8. Bring a cup of water to boil, and pour it in another 9"inch tin or any other baking tin. This is known as waterbath and it make cake bit moist.
9. Put cake tin inside 9"inch tin and make sure water level is just halfway of inner tin, Bake about 40-45 minutes. Cake won't rise too much so don't worry, once top becomes brown as shown in picture. Its done, switch off oven. Cake remains little bit wobbly but top appears bit firm.
9. Let it be cooled down a bit inside oven for about half hour and then take out and allow it cool down further.
10. Once it come to room temperature, generally edges of cake gets separated from tin, if it does not then just scrape edges with sharp knife slowly, and flip cake out. Its not beautiful way but if you don't have springform tin then this is your best bet :)
11. Refrigerate it overnight, take out about half an hour before serving.

Baked cheese cake

If you are using springform tin make sure you seal it properly before using waterbath. I prefer to eat it plain but u can think of putting some fruit sauce over it, or some berries, or even put jelly on top of it before storing in freezer.

Cheese cake ready to serve after refrigeration

Be creative Enjoy!!! :)

Home made cream cheese

Yes, I love cheese in all forms be it cream/spread/slice/cubes or any other form I just love cheese. Cream cheese is widely used in many western cuisines, be it dessert or main dish. However it is very less used in
our cuisine. Rather I don't think any of Indian cheese maker even produces creame cheese.

So bottomline creame cheese is way to much costly, I had checked it out in several super stores and had fallen on face after staring at its price tag. 250Rs/100gms, which is certainly costly, especially when anyone want to "just try" out a recipe :D

After searching and reading through various food blogs, I came across creame cheese recipe and decided to go for it. I referred recipe from
http://www.shesimmers.com/2010/12/how-to-make-cream-cheese-at-home.html

I changed proportions to suit experimental need. Its always good to try out in smaller quantities,so that even if you fail you tend to minimize wastage.

What we need:
1. 200ml fresh cream (amul fresh cream)
2. 120ml milk
3. 10ml of lime juice (no pulp)
4. 1 teaspoon of yogurt
5. Salt to taste

Method:

1.Mix together cream and milk in non-reactive bowl (glass bowl/stainless steel/food grade plastic bowl) and heat up till it gets warm (just wanr don't boil it)

2. Add 1 teasppon of yogurt and mix well

3.Add lime juice to mixture as well, lime juice will act as a coagulator and is must for making cheese, it can be referred as a rennet.

4.Cover mixture with a lid and set bowl aside overnight without disturbing. No need to keep it in freeze as we need to allow fermentation. Make sure place is bit warm. If mixture is kept for longer period then it will develop yogurt like taste and we don't want that.

5. Good morning, we are ready for next step. Mixture should be set by now and should look like yogurt,now use wire whisk and whisk for about 2-3 minutes. Add some salt and align cheese cloath on colander and drain mixture in cheese cloth.

6. Let it drain for about 30 minutes, then pull togther all ends of cheese cloth and seal it with a rubberband. Hang it in refrigerator with a bowl below it to gather all the liquid (whey) for about 24 hours. Yes in refrigerator, in Indian subcontinent day temperatures can reach upto 30-35 degrees even in winter which can cause cheese to become sour, so better use refrigerator.

7.Your cream cheese is ready, check consistency of it, if you want more thick version just hang it for another 12 hrs or so.




Enoy making cream cheese :). this makes about 275 grams of cream cheese. Unfortunately I don't have any pics, but I shall post them for my next trial.

Chilly chicken salami

I was wandering in big bazzar with y daughter Saie, yeah literally "wandering" as my wife was busy in shopping :D I came across meat freezer and all of sudden I started feeling cravings for having chicken. I didn't had chicken for almost 2 weeks and so I was going restless so my eyes got fixed on frozen Chicken salami :D, I immediately picked it up and put in my basket. After reaching home I literally tore pack of salami and took out 3 slices and put rest of stuff in refrigerator and prepared myself for cooking chilly chicken salami.

Ingredients:
1. 3 Chicken salami slices (or any other chicken)
2. Half capsicum (thinly sliced)
3. half onion (thinly sliced)
4. 4 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
5. 1 inch ginger (finely grated)
6. 1 Tsp. vinegar
7. 1 Tsp. Soya sauce
8. 1 Tsp. Red chilly sauce
9. 2 Green chillies (de-seeded and thinly sliced)


That's it, this is sufficient to make thick chilly sauce for one person. 

Put a frying pan on medium heat and add 1 Tsp. oil/butter, once oil becomes hot enough add garlic and ginger and saute a little, you can choose to burn out garlic (But then it will become burnt garlic sauce). Now add sliced onion and saute for a minute, add capsicum and green chilly and saute till capsicum changes its color a bit. Now add in vinegar, soya sauce and chilly sauce and mix well. Cut chicken salami slices in fat stripes and add them to pan, saute till it gets well coated. Now add about 50ml water and keep stirring lightly till gravy thickens up. If you have added more water, then just add some corn flour to pan so that gravy will become thick.

And yeah you are ready to serve/eat it. It is recommended to eat it while its hot. It taste too good. If you don't have chicken salami you can add any sort of chicken pieces. Just make sure chicken is cooked through. Enjoy

Patatas bravas

Patatas bravas its a cuisine of Spain and I had seen it first on TV in my Guru's (Chef Vicky Ratnani)  show gourmet central. I loved it and with few changes I made it and it turned out to be fantastic. So I am sharing with you all.


Patatas mean Potato, and bravas means wild/brave or something like that. Anyways in simple language its a dish made of fried potato chunks/halfs/cubes and served along with tangy tomato sauce made with garlic+mayo.


Ingredients:
1. 10 small potatoes.
2. 2 Red tomatoes chopped/diced
3. 4-5 cloves of garlic
4. 1 medium sized finely chopped onion
5. half inch piece of ginger (grated/finely chopped)
6. Mayonnaise (2-4 Tbspoon)
7. Oil for deep frying and sauce.


Preparation:

Put potatoes in pan and pour water on them until they are fully submerged, add a pinch of salt as well. Bring water to boil and maintain it to boil till all potatoes are boiled through. Throw away water and let potatoes cool down.


Mean while take a frying pan and add little oil to it. Once heated smash garlic cloves and put them in pan. You can finely chop/grate them as well, its your call. Saute a little and then add ginger and finely chopped onion. Saute onions until they become pinkish/transparent. Now add chopped tomatoes and keep sautieng it. Add chopped parsley/coriander (just a little) if you have it, add some basil, oregano, red chilly powder (not too much though) and turn off heat after 5-10 minutes (till tomatoes are cooked through) and then set aside.


Once Sauce cools down, add Mayonnaise to it. But how much to add? Simple just add almost same quantity of finished sauce. Mix well and set aside. you can choose to cool it in fridge.


Now peel off potatoes and dice them, you can cut them in 2 halfs or cut them in cubes. Heat off oil in in frying pan and simply shallow fry/deep fry them until they become bit stiff. After this sprinkle little salt and pepper on them.

Your patatas bravas are ready, just pour some sauce in dish, or put sauce in dipping bowl and serve with hot n crispy potatoes. It really taste good, make sure you make it tangy not spicy. Enjoy :)