From my childhood, I have a strong aversion to apple. No matter how much I tried, I cannot get myself to like this fruit. My parents did everything they could to make me eat this. Even now, whenever we talk to them, they tell me to eat it. My hubby has a entirely different story. He has no problem in eating this, but he wants someone to cut it into pieces and give him. He promptly brings 4-5 apples once in a month and keeps them in fridge. On the first day, in full enthusiasm, he neatly cuts and eats one. Thats it. Remaining apples just sit there begging to be eaten. I don’t know how many times this has repeated. I have decided now to reduce such wastage as much as possible(yeah..I do think of making some new year resolutions, but whether I follow them or not is another story).
Yesterday when I saw 5 beautiful golden apples in the fridge, I was really irritated. We were just back from shopping and I had to cook for dinner. As usual, I wanted to make something new. So when I was going through my recipe books, I saw a recipe for apple burfi . One of the main ingredients was khova . I never buy khova unless I have preplanned something with it (which has never happened so far) and I was out of milk (with which I could have made it at home). Then there was a step to create one string sugar syrup, which is not my cup of tea. So I decided to take a chance and change the recipe completely.
I followed my mom’s bottle gourd burfi recipe , which happens to be my absolute favorite. I had very less hopes that it would work out. But it turned out great. It was more or less like the halwas available in India. The entire batch was gone within minutes. I think I am going to buy apples hereafter to make this halwa :).
Ingredients: 2 cups grated apples (about 3-4 apples) 1 cup sugar 1 tbl spn ghee (this is just used for aroma, can be omitted if desired) 2 tbl spn chopped or coarsely powdered almonds 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Method: Peel the apples and grate them. Heat ghee in a thick bottomed (or non stick) pan. Add the grated apple and fry on a medium flame, till all the water is evaporated and it looks like cooked. It takes about 10mins or so.
Now add the sugar. Actually at this step, the apple should be measured and equal volume of sugar should be added.
Cook, mixing occasionally, till the mixture thickens and all the sugar is mixed well with apples. Towards the end, you need to mix continuously, otherwise it sticks to bottom of the pan and gets burnt.
Add the chopped or coarsely powdered almonds and mix it.
When it looks very dry, add cardamom powder, mix .
Transfer the contents on a greased(with ghee ) plate or cutting board. I just used a wax paper. Flatten it with a rolling pin. To avoid sticking to rolling pin, grease it with some ghee .
Cut it into squares. Let it cool down a bit and then take out the pieces and press the ends to the board to get even shapes.
Makes about 15-20 halwas Preparation time : 40mins
During my Engineering college days at Belgaum, we had a few senior students who were ultimate singers. Even though I don’t call myself as a music lover, I particularly liked the songs of one person. Some of us called him Junior S.P.Balasubramanium (a famous playback singer). After college, I heard from few common friends that he is taking his singing very seriously and working towards a career in it along with his job of software engineer. Since I didn’t know this person personally nor I had any kind of contact with him, I didn’t hear about him for couple of years.
Then one fine day, my husband V told me that he met Sunil Koshy in social networking site orkut. Apparently they knew each other well in college. They had met after a long time. I think V told him about my site and he sent me an email saying he liked it a lot. I can’t say how happy I was to get his feedback. We exchanged a few emails/chats. Well..the irony of whole situation is, I didn’t know he was from Kerala all this time. In the college, the most popular song he sung was “ Karunada taayi sada chinmayee “(this is a Kannada song) and I never realized he didn’t know to speak Kannada.
Finally, after his all friends pushed him enough, he has started a music blog. I feel very honored to know such an amazing singer. If you are a music lover, watch out his blog . There are just couple of songs as of now, but he will update it soon.
Here is one song that I absolutely love. We wish him a very bright future. Please leave your feedback here or at his blog, let him know how you like the song. Thanks.
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Here is the picture of fish version
Ingredients: 1 lb cleaned shrimp or 1 lb fish cut into small pieces 2 tea spns chili powder 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 2 tea spns + 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn methi (fenugreek) seeds 1/8 tea spn asafoetida powder 2-3 green chilies 1 tbl spn ginger finely chopped 20-25 curry leaves Oil 1 tbl spn vinegar Salt
Method: Apply chili powder, salt and turmeric to the fish/shrimps and keep it aside for about 15-30mins.
Then heat a little oil and fry till they are done. Keep them aside.
Heat a little oil and fry mustard seeds (2 tea spns) and methi seeds. Just before taking out of heat, add asafoetida. Grind them to make a powder. Heat a little oil and add remaining mustard seeds. When they start popping, add chopped chilies, ginger and curry leaves. Fry for about a minute. ( Sunil had mentioned adding chili powder again at this stage, which I ignored because I had already added a lot for marination ). Add the ground powder, vinegar and if required, some salt (be careful while adding salt since the shrimp/fish has it already). Mix and then add shrimp/fish and close the lid ( I closed the lid to seal in all the flavors of curry leaves and ginger ). After about a 1-2mins, take out the lid, mix well and take off heat. Cool to room temperature and store in air tight container. It can be consumed immediately. I have refrigerated it upto 2 weeks and the taste went on increasing day by day (I think this remains good for a long time).
Preparation time : 30mins
PS: Make sure all the vessels that are used for making/storing this pickle and the mixer are completely dry. Any moisture spoils the pickle.
