It has been a long time I posted anything here. Today I thought of posting a Gooseberry Pickle recipe which was introduced to me many years ago, by a neighbor. I normally make avaLe hindi which is loved by everyone that has ever tasted it. Recently we were trying to think of recipes which we have not posted here and I remembered this.
The gooseberries that we get at our place are very small, so I get my batch from either Bangalore or from Mumbai. This is a quick pickle which does not stay well for a long time, so eat it within couple of days. For any pickle, preferably use asafoetida that is available as small stones. The powdered one does not give the same aroma.
Ingredients: 1/4th kg gooseberries (avaLe) 15-20 green chillies (increase or decrease according to taste) 1 tbl spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn fenugreek(methi) seeds 1/4 tea spn turmeric A small piece of asafoetida Salt Oil
Method: Cut green chillies into small pieces. Pressure cook them with gooseberries and salt till they are soft. Remove the seeds from gooseberries and cut the soft edible part into small pieces. Let them cool down completely. Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add asafoetida and fenugreek seeds. When they are fried, add turmeric and take off the heat. Using a mortar and pestle, grind them to a powder. Add the powder to gooseberry-chilli mixture and mix well. Transfer the pickle into a airtight jar and refrigerate.
I have always stayed away from eggless cakes we cause we love very fluffy cakes which are usually made by lot of eggs. But recently, we have got few strict vegetarian friends who do not eat eggs. So I have been venturing into eggless baking. Slowly we have started liking them now. It is amazing that last few cakes that I have baked are all eggless. I baked the very popular date cake for a get together recently and it was gone within minutes. So when we were planning to go for a trip to animal safari over the weekend, I started thinking about cakes. I decided to bake this eggless banana cake with carrots and raisins. I have baked couple of times before and everyone loved it – ofcourse you should like the banana flavor to like this cake!.
This cake is based on a old recipe banana-carrot cake . I tried to change it a bit to taste different and make it little more healthy. Cardamom gives a great aroma to it. I was a bit lazy to make cardamom powder, so I just used 1/2 tea spn. I think 1 tea spn of it would have given a better aroma. The cake came out very moist and soft. The biggest fan was Ishaan, so I was very happy.
Ingredients: 1 cup all purpose flour 1/2 cup wheat flour 1 cup grated carrot 1 cup sugar 1 cup mashed banana (approx 2 bananas) 1 tea spn freshly ground cardamom powder 1/2 cup oil 2 tea spns baking powder 1 tbl spn raisins 1/4 tea spn salt
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Mix sugar, bananas and oil till they are well mixed. Sieve together flours, baking powder and salt.
Add this mixture to the banana mixture, a little at a time, and mix well. Add carrots, raisins and cardamom powder. Mix with a spatula. Pour it in a well greased baking dish. Bake at 350F for about 30mins or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Makes about 10-12 pieces Preparation time : 1 hr
