The new year started with a new job for me. Two weeks into the job, and I feel very tired by the time I reach home. Here timing is not very flexible like my old job. I am still trying to get adjusted to it, but the extreme cold weather these days is not helping much. No matter how much busy I am, over the years, I have always given preference to home cooked food. I am not a great fan of cooking in advance. So I cook something that gets ready in 15-20mins max. With some modifications here and there, I have cooked some tasty dishes in last couple of days.
My pachi makes something similar to this with moong dal . I clearly remember the taste and aroma, but I don’t know her recipe. I tried this and it was too good. Brought back my college days. Day by day, I have become great fan of goda masala .
Ingredients: 1 cup moong dal 1/2 cup onion 1/2 tea spn garlic 1/2 tea spn chilli powder 1 tea spn goda masala 3-4 strands coriander leaves 1/2 tea spn tamarind extract/ amchoor powder Oil Salt
Method: Wash moong dal and soak in water for 10mins. Heat oil and add onion, garlic. Fry for few minutes. Add moong dal , chilli powder, tamarind/ amchoor , goda masala and fry for 3-4 minutes. Cook till dal is done. (You can cook it in pressure cooker) Garnish with coriander leaves. Add water, salt and cook.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 20mins
I have a bad habit of trying different things when I go to a restaurant. Bad because, most of the time I make wrong choices from the menu (which I later don’t end up liking). I did the same thing at the very popular ‘ Panera bread ‘. Wrong choices a couple of times and we decided never to go again. But last week, I went there with my colleagues. I tasted a panini and loved it. Within a week I returned there to eat it again with V, that itself says how much I loved it.
Now, V wanted me to bake a bread at home. I have been baking a lot these days. I feel baking a bread is much easier once you get the hang of it. I love the freshly baked bread aroma. I know, everyone does. So I decided to bake a bread yesterday. I checked in panera bread website and found an olive bread recipe which looked interesting. Based on that, I baked this bread, with a few variations I wanted to make, to the original recipe.
I must say, this was one of the best breads I have ever baked. It was very easy as I did not spend much time to knead the dough. It got ready in about 2hrs – most of which was proofing time where I didn’t have to do anything. I used 2/3rd of the dough and have frozen the remaining for later use.
Check out tomato cheese panini .
Ingredients: 3 cups all purpose flour 1 and 3/4 cups water(approx) 1 tea spn honey 1/4 cup chopped olives 2 tea spns active dry yeast 1/4 tea spn red chilli flakes 1 tea spn salt 2 tbl spn butter
For brushing: 1 tbl spn butter Garlic salt (if not available, use fresh garlic chopped fine and normal salt) Dried basil
Method: Add salt and honey to luke warm water. Add yeast and leave it for 10mins to get active. Add all other ingredients. Mix and leave it in a warm place till the dough doubles in volume (It took approx 1hr for me). Now take the dough on a clean surface and knead dough for about 2-3mins. Shape it into desired size and keep on the baking tray (I lined a cookie sheet with a aluminum sheet and applied some olive oil to it). Leave it for another 30mins till they proof again. With a knife, put a cut on the dough. Preheat the oven at 450F for 10mins. Bake the bread for about 15mins. Take out and brush some butter on the bread. Sprinkle garlic salt and basil on top. Bake again for about 15mins. I served it with basil and olive oil mixture as it is done in my favorite Italian restaurant.
