At my home, everyone is a huge fan of eggs. While growing up, eggs were a treat for us. We didn’t have the eggs in refrigerator always(like I do now), but whenever we wanted to eat them, my dad would buy fresh ones from stores. I still remember this thin guy (one of dad’s patients) who used to bring us very fresh eggs occasionally as a gift. Our favorite among all egg dishes was this delicious egg curry.
I have been playing with this a lot, but nothing can be compared to this original one that aayi makes. She usually serves this with chapathis for breakfast (yes, chapathis were/are breakfast items for us since we are mainly rice eaters). Somehow this is one of my all time comfort food. Even though I make this very often, I don’t seem to get bored of it. Whenever this is made, I usually eat few bites more than my normal. I absolutely love this.
Ingredients: 4-5 boiled eggs 1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut 3-4 cloves 1″ cinnamon 1 tea spn fennel seeds( badishepi ) 1/4 ” piece nutmeg 1/2 tea spn caraway seeds ( shah jeera ) 4-5 pepper 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 cup chopped onion 4-5 red chilies 1/4 chopped tomatoes Oil Salt
Method: Heat oil and fry cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, nutmeg, caraway seeds, pepper, red chilies till nice aroma comes out. Add garlic, 1/4 cup onions and fry till onions turn slightly brownish. Now add coconut and fry for 2-3mins. Grind these together to a smooth paste. Heat little oil and fry remaining onions till they turn brownish. Add the tomatoes and fry for 2-3 mins. Pour the coconut paste, salt, little water to bring it to thick gravy consistency and cook till the paste starts boiling. Remove the shells off the boiled eggs and cut into half. Slowly slide these pieces into the gravy and cook for another 2mins. Serve hot with chapathis .
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 20mins
About 2 months ago, we had been to a farm near our place. We were hoping to do some berry picking. But unfortunately due to bad weather this year, they had lost their crop of berries and were no more allowing any pickings. If I say I was disappointed, then it would be a understatement. So anyway, we were in this small reception booth where they were selling few books as well as breads and other stuff. As usual, I went near the book shelf and one particular book caught my attention. Now, you all know, I have some craze for traditional and authentic recipes. So I picked up a thin book – Old fashioned Cake and Cheesecake recipes . I can say this is one of my best spent $3 on book shopping :).
After few days of that, one of my friends (who was my colleague) was leaving our company for a better opportunity somewhere else. I wanted to make a send off cake for her. When I asked her, she said she likes chocolate cakes. So I decided to bake a cake from the above book. But I was very tensed. All these days I had baked for my hubby and his friends who were not grown up eating cakes. They would accept any reasonable tasting cake and say it was good. But when I had to bake for some fine chefs(one of our colleague is a good chef), I was bit afraid. I didn’t want to loose my face in front of everyone.
It is better not to tell what happened in all my nervousness. It is enough to tell the cake looked like a disaster. Anyway, to top it off, I refrigerated it and next day the frosting had become hard like cement. I was close to tears. I took it to office anyway and shyly showed it to my friend and told her I was very sorry for the mess I had created. She and ‘the chef’, both looked at it and said it was not as bad as I had described it. We let it rest for 2-3hrs in which the cake came to room temperature and the frosting was back to its normal state. I can’t say how happy I was. Then we tasted it. I should say it was one of the best tasting chocolate cakes I ever made. Delicious, soft and moist, too good to be true.
Fudge cake: 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/2 tea spn baking soda 1 tea spn baking powder 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract 2 eggs 3/8 cup unsweetened chocolate 1/2 cup ice water
Method: Sift together flour, soda, baking powder. In a separate bowl beat softened butter with sugar and vanilla till they are well mixed. Now add eggs and beat again till fluffy. Melt chocolate on low heat, switch off heat and add to butter mixture. Add iced water and flour mixture alternately and mix well. Grease a baking pan and pour the batter in it. Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Bake the cake for about 30-35mins at 350F or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Chocolate frosting: 1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 6tbl spn milk 1 tea spn vanilla 4 cups(approx 1lb) confectioners’ sugar
Method: Combine butter, cocoa, milk in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and take off from heat. Add vanilla, sugar, beating continuously till it holds a peak.
Finishing: Cut the cake into two equal half horizontally.
Spread a thick layer of frosting on top of it.
Keep the other half on top and spread remaining frosting on the cake. Decorate with pecans and raspberry(I thought these two would look good on this cake, it was not mentioned in recipe).
PS: The frosting was not very easy to handle. So you can see the cracks on the cake :(.
