Until very recently, I didn’t know what a ‘pie’ is. So one day my hubby comes home from office –
Can you make soft juicy pies? Me – Which one are you talking about? Today my boss brought one pie, it was amazing. Me – What pie was it? It had chocolate, pecans in it. Very soft and fluffy, had a crust, thick layer of something and on top cream with nuts. Me – From where did he get it? He said his wife made it. He said it was pecan pie. Me – ( Thinking – whatever I do, he is going to say it is not same, so let me get the recipe from him and then I can worry about it ) Ok..ask him to get me the recipe from his wife. I will make it for you. Okay I will.
Few days passed. Again one fine day…
Can you make that pie? Me – Did you bring the recipe? I will ask.
One or two months had already passed from the day he had tasted it. Finally after pestering him continuously about it, he asked his boss about it. He told, his wife buys this pie mix from one of their friends and if we want, he can get few samples for us. Finally I had 3 packets of sample pie mixes with me.
After keeping it in my pantry for one more month without touching it, I finally decided to give it a try. Here I applied my super-intelligent brain which gives me wrong signals most of the time. Even though it was not mentioned anywhere in the instructions, I baked the pie. It was a total disaster. I started pestering him again to ask proper instructions and he kept on forgetting it. After few days of wondering, I tried second batch. I didn’t bake it this time, but somehow the cream was still in liquid state and he said, it was somewhat okay, but not like what his boss had brought. So I gave up, I said, you ask him or else I will not use the third batch.
Then when my parents were here, I used the third batch. By this time, I had tasted pies once or twice in restaurants and knew what it was. So my pie was perfect. Well…I had followed the instructions thoroughly this time. So much for doing constructive thinking on first and second batch ;).
Now we were out of all the samples and his boss had left the company. So, I had to come up with a recipe which was atleast as good as the one we had tasted. One fine day, I decided I was going to try something with ricotta cheese and cream cheese that I had in my refrigerator. I started with something else, and finally I had created this pie.
Ohh..it came out so delicious. his comment?? “This is the best pie I have ever tasted” :). I could not wait till I shared this with you all. This was the most successful experiment I have ever done. You will only know when you taste it.
Ingredients: 8oz cream cheese (1 pack) 1/2 cup ricotta cheese 9″ Graham ready crust 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk chocolate morsels 2 eggs 1/2 cup chopped pecans Coffee powder Whipped cream
Method: Melt chocolate on a double broiler – In one big pan, heat water. On the top, keep another bowl containing chocolate morsels, so that the bottom of the bowl dips in the boiling water. Keep mixing the chocolate with a spoon. When the chocolate melts, switch off the heat. Let the chocolate cool. In a separate bowl, mix cream cheese, ricotta cheese, sugar. Add eggs one by one mixing all the time. Add the pecans and mix. Now pour the chocolate(which is at room temperature). Mix well. Pour the mixture in pie crust.
Preheat oven at 350F for 10mins. Bake the pie for about 25mins till it is set.
Cool to room temperature. Spread whipped cream on the pie. Refrigerate it for 4-5hrs.
While serving, cut wedges from the pie. Sprinkle coffee powder on top. Serve.
PS: I had sprinkled coffee before refrigerating. So when we tasted this, the coffee taste was not very prominent. So if you want very good coffee aroma, sprinkle just before serving.
Sometime around 5 years back, I was working for a software company in Bangalore. Our project was a nightmare to everyone involved. We were working day and night 7 days a week. Either we used to go home at odd hours like 12 in the night or we worked throughout night. There was only one dorm in our office which was occupied by guys. So if at all any girls worked throughout night, they had to actually work instead of trying to get a nap (like many guys did – they used to sleep at 1 or 2AM).
I was working with Suma, who was my senior and very nice girl. We worked till next day morning 8AM and we were almost going insane. So, she suggested that we go to her home, take a nap and come back to office. Since my home was 25kms from office and going home and coming back from there was almost impossible due to heavy traffic, I decided to go with her. We took a nice nap and then her mom served us an amazing lunch. I still remember the taste of the lunch. She had prepared this Bendekayi (okra) huLi (a sour dish) which was just out of the world. I even got the recipe from her, but misplaced it somewhere.
Every time I saw okra, I would remember this dish. Finally I got the recipe in my collection from Kannada magazines. It came out so delicious. It might not be same recipe, but this sure is a winner :).
Ingredients: 1 cup toor dal 1 cup chopped okra 2 tea spns dry coconut or dessicated coconut 1 tea spn chana dal 1 tea spn urad dal 1 tea spn rice(raw) 4-5 red chilies 1 tea spn cumin seeds 1 tea spn coriander seeds 4 peppers 1″ cinnamon A pinch asafoetida Oil 1/3 tea spn tamarind extract or 2-3 pieces tamarind 1 tea spn jaggery A pinch turmeric Salt
Method: Add a pinch of turmeric to the toor dal and cook till it is soft. Heat little oil and fry chana dal , urad dal , rice, red chilies, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, pepper, cinnamon, asafoetida and coconut till a nice aroma comes out. Grind it to a smooth paste with tamarind and jaggery. Heat oil and fry okra till the pieces become reddish and they are fried very well. Add cooked dal , paste and salt. Cook for 5-6mins. Serve hot.
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 25mins
