I promised Zlamushka that I would send her some Christmas special recipes for her Spoonful of Christmas event . When I said that, I had Kuswar- traditional Christmas dishes prepared at Mangalore , recipes in mind. But what I had not checked was the fact that all the Kuswar dishes that I had involved deep frying. They are all so tempting, but I am not in a mood to prepare anything deep fried after the Diwali overdose. So, I changed my plan.
Next in line was the Italian sandwich cookies which look absolutely delicious. I have tried these once before and messed them up. I wanted to give them a second try. So I started and took care not to miss a single step. But looks like making these is not my cup of tea. The cookies turned out like thin sheet even though I had taken all precautions. I am not yet ready to give up on them because they look absolutely delicious, I will give them another try after few days with a new batch of cornmeal(I seriously doubt the cornmeal that I have).
So now, I started going through my recipe collection, which my dad had got for me. There were many dishes which could go well for this event. Then I got this idea of making cookies with cashews. So I took ideas from more than one recipe in the collection and some from the above Italian sandwich cookies, came up with these cookies. I had really little hope that they would turn out good. But to my surprise, they were very very tasty, crunchy and melt in the mouth types. Give them a try to know what I mean.
I will send this to Zlamushka’s spoonful of Christmas event & hope she accepts such trial recipes. Well, I had not read the rules properly, so I haven’t wrapped these. Will see if I can do something about it before they all get over. Well..I have never celebrated Christmas before and have baked these just for the event, so I hope I get some kind of concession ;).
Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter 1 and 1/2 tea spns baking powder 1/2 cup chopped cashews 1/2 cup chopped pecans Zest of one orange 1 egg 1/2 tea spn salt
1 tea spn vanilla extract can be substituted for orange zest. But I loved the orange flavor in these. Instead of adding pecans and/cashews, any kind of nuts can be added. Coarsely powder the nuts leaving few big pieces for better result.
Method: Preheat oven at 375F for about 10mins. Beat together sugar and butter till they are well mixed. Add baking powder, flour, orange zest, egg, salt and mix well. Now add chopped nuts and mix well. Make small balls from the dough and keep them on baking sheet leaving enough space between two. They almost double in volume when done, so leave enough space.
Bake in oven for about 15 mins at 375 F.
Makes about 30 cookies Preparation time : 30mins (excluding baking time)
Ragi mudde must be one of the most popular items of Karnataka cuisine. I have heard about it from the time I was a kid, but never got a chance to taste this. It was on my to-do list for a long time now, finally I prepared it. In my opinion, it takes some time for any one to get adjusted to the taste of these ragi balls.
When I started blogging, I read about ragi mudde over and over again in many places. It was in the back of my mind and I even bought ragi flour , but some how the color and taste of it always put me off. Then I got a treasure in the recipe collection. Have a look at – Madhu’s ragi mudde , Shynee’s ragi mudde , Latha’s ragi mudde with avrekalu saru , Ramya’s ragi mudde . There are many more, but I read these before going ahead.
The following information is from a cut out of Tharanga magazine-2003. In one of the editions, the magazine asked “ mudde prashne “( mudde question) to readers. According to the magazine, they got flood of answers from readers. They chose few of them and printed. Its a treasure for any mudde lovers. It had all the information from A to Z about ragi mudde plus lots and lots of side dishes that go well with these. Well, I am not going to translate the whole article here, but I will post about some things I learned about mudde in this post.
I am thankful to K.M.Navaratna Kumari, who actually collected all the information from different user responses and came up with this amazing article for the magazine.
Ingredients: 1 cup ragi (finger millet) flour 2 cups water Salt
Method: In old days, these were made in mud pots. Then aluminum vessels replaced them. Now people use steel. Traditionally a thick stick known as “mudde kolu” of 2″ wide, 1/2″ thick and 18″ tall is used to mix the contents of the mudde. Most popular ragi muddes are made bland without salt.
Heat water with salt in a vessel with wide opening. When water starts to boil, add about 2 tea spns of flour and mix. Soon the mixture starts to thicken.
At this stage the mixture is called “ KoTare”.
When it starts to boil, add remaining flour. DO NOT mix with the spoon and DO NOT close the lid. Now the koTare starts rising abound the dry flour. Leave it as it is for about 5mins.
Now push the dry flour down with the spoon so that it is covered with liquid (do not mix it, just push it down). On a low flame, let it cook for 10mins.
At this stage a very nice aroma comes out of the mixture.
Take off the heat and with the help of mudde kolu or a normal wooden spoon mix it very well, taking care to remove all the lumps.
Traditionally the vessel is held tight with the feet and the contents are mixed with the mudde kolu. This step is called “goTayisuvudu”. According to the article, knowing when the mixture is cooked and how much to mix is a art in itself. It comes only with lots and lots of practice.
When the mixture is still warm, apply some water to hands and shape it into balls (roughly of tennis ball size). Cover with a damp towel till they are served to avoid drying up.
These are usually served with some kind of thin gravies like bassaru or massaru . Some people also serve green chilies and raw onion with them. These are usually eaten with hands and not spoon. Take out a small piece of mudde , dip in gravy and gulp it. To get the ultimate feel of these, do not chew them.
PS: First timers, please be very careful while eating them. Needs enough care while gulping them, but once you get used to it, they taste delicious ;).
