The course-2 of wilton cake decorating ended yesterday with the last class. In this entire course of 4 weeks, we bake just one cake in the last class. We make a lot of different kinds of flowers, save them all and use in the grand finale in the last class. So it all gets built up until then.
I could not make all the flowers, because I took wrong icing to all the classes. For some classes, I was really tired and just wanted to take rest. So I practiced all flowers on last Sunday. I could not get one flower, but thought that I would leave that flower out for grand finale.
When I went to the class yesterday, I thought I would mess up this cake. I was really tensed about the basket weave. But when I started it, I realized that it was too easy. Though I messed up at few places, the final result came out to be cute. It was better than my expectations. I know some of other students might get it perfect, but I am very happy with my cake :). The pictures don’t make justice to this cake, I tried taking good pictures many times. But finally I let it go.
I wish I had a few friends and family here for whom I could bake these cakes. My husband is getting a heavy dose of cakes due to my classes :), if only I could bake them for someone else, I would be very happy.
When I was doing my bachelors in Belgaum, I used to go to my mom’s sister’s – Pachi’ s house almost every weekend. She cooks some of the tastiest dishes. I learnt many dishes from her when I started cooking, since her dishes are always simple. Most of the times, she cooks non vegetarian dishes on weekends.
One particular chicken dish that I loved was a simple chicken gravy – chicken rassa ( rassa meaning gravy). It has few simple ingredients and is very tasty. It tastes great with chicken biryani . So when one of my readers asked me for the gravy served with biryani in Bangalore, I remembered this. Though the gravy served in these restaurants does not have any chicken pieces in it, the gravy tastes almost similar to this rassa . I tried getting this recipe from pachi , but I could not explain her which was the dish I was looking for since she makes so many different gravies. So I tried to reproduce the recipe from what she had told me long ago. It turned out to be just superb. This and biryani is a perfect combo for any weekend lunch.
Ingredients: 6-7 chicken pieces 3/4 cup chopped onions 1/4 cup chopped tomato 3/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut 3/4 cup yogurt/curd 1/2 tea spn poppy seeds( khus khus ) 4-5 cloves 2″ cinnamon 1/2 tea spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn ginger-garlic paste 3-4 red chilies 3-4 coriander seeds Oil Salt
Method: Heat a little oil and fry cloves, cinnamon, poppy seeds, coriander seeds, red chilies, 1/4 cup onion. When onion turns slightly brownish, add coconut and fry for sometime. Grind them. Heat oil and fry remaining onions, ginger-garlic paste till they are slightly brownish. Add the tomato and fry till tomatoes become slightly tender. Now add chicken and paste, fry till oil separates. Add well beaten yogurt, salt and cook till chicken is completely done. Add chopped coriander and cook for another 1-2mins. Serve with biryani .
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 25mins
PS: This tastes better and better as time passes. So cook it atleast 2-3hrs before serving. For better results, marinate the chicken pieces with yogurt and ginger-garlic paste for around 30mins.
