There are few days when no matter how much you try, you can’t get yourself to do something. We are having a horrible weather here, sometimes too cold and windy. So all I want to do these days is sleep :). So I have been not keeping up with my pace of one recipe every alternate day. I could not even work on so many improvements which I wanted to do to the blog. Anyway, I am hoping to get adjusted to this weather soon. When the weather is this bad, all I can think of is some hot and spicy dish prepared by aayi. One dish that is lingering in my mind is this spicy shark gravy.
This is one of my all time favorite recipes. Its been sitting in my drafts for a long time now. Aayi had cooked this for us when she visited us 3 months ago. I had posted the traditional shark gravy recipe sometime ago. This recipe with garam masala is one of my aayi’s creations. Since shark pieces look/taste something like chicken, she makes this. At my home, we all like this more than the traditional recipe. Its absolutely yummy. We love to eat this with chapathis .
Ingredients: 15 pieces of shark ( mori ) 1 tea spn coriander seeds 8 cloves 1/2 inch cinnamon 3/4 tea spn fennel seeds(badishepi) 3/4 tea spn shah jeera 4 peppercorns 1 tea spn poppy seeds 1/2″ piece nutmeg 4-5 red chilies 1 and 1/2 cups frozen/fresh coconut 3/4 cup chopped onion 1 tea spn ginger-garlic paste 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes 3-4 strands coriander leaves Oil Salt
Method: Heat oil and fry coriander seeds, cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, shah jeera , peppercorns, poppy seeds, nutmeg for sometime. When they are half done, add red chilies and fry for sometime. When a nice aroma comes out, add 1/4 cup onion and fry till onions turn slightly brownish. Add coconut and fry for about 3-4mins. When it cools to room temperature, grind this to a smooth paste. Heat oil and fry remaining onion till they turn brownish. Add ginger-garlic paste, fish pieces and fry for about a minute. Now put tomato pieces, fry for a second and then add masala and salt. When it starts boiling, garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with rice or chapathis .
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 20mins
From many days I am terribly missing these khara (spicy) buns available in Bangalore bakeries. These buns are nothing but very soft bread stuffed with some kind of very spicy vegetable. But I have a very bad history of baking breads. I must have attempted it atleast 5-6 times(that I know of) and consistently I got rock hard products which I am sure would work great as cricket balls :). But no matter how many times I failed, I wanted to try it again, I am pretty optimistic when it comes to cooking.
Then last week when I was blog hopping, I came across Sunitha’s amazing bread creations . While reading through her post, I came to know it was November daring baker ‘s challenge. Now my next stop was Meeta’s blog . I have been reading Meeta’s creations for this “event” for last few months. I didn’t know Sunita was also a part of daring bakers till now, as soon as I came to know, I spent next few minutes digging her old posts. I am always bowled over by the amazing creations by these two for the challenge every month. Though all of their creations were very tempting, they looked very difficult to me. But this bread looked very very simple. With lot of difficulty, I postponed the baking for over a week. Finally I baked it yesterday.
I had very less hopes because of my previous attempts, but since all the daring bakers had created such nice results, I ordered my mind to keep cool ;). When the bread dough beautifully rose, I was sure the bread would come soft. It was amazing :). Very soft and very tasty.
Since I am not officially a daring baker (or to be honest, I missed one step while reading it), I kind of took a slight shortcut – I added all the flour at once instead of adding it in steps. It made my life much easier, because the dough was not very sticky and therefore easily manageable. I made a very small batch, I didn’t want to throw a big batch if I messed up this time. Try it, its the best. Thanks a lot daring bakers and to Tanna for coming up with this recipe . Here is the measurements I used-
I use the measuring cup+spoon set , so measuring was exact.
Method: Put the peeled and chopped potato in 1 cup water, 1/4 tea spn salt and bring it to boil. Cook till the potatoes are very tender. Drain the water (save the water). Mash the potatoes. Measure the saved water. If it is less than 3/4 cup, add extra water to get a total of 3/4 cup. Take the mashed potatoes and water in a big bowl. When the mixture is cooled to about 70-80F (ie, when it is still a bit warm but not hot), add the active dry yeast. Add all purpose flour, mix and leave for 5mins ( According to original recipe, at this stage only 1/2 cup all purpose flour is added. so the dough was not at all sticky ). Add remaining salt, softened butter and wheat flour and mix well. ( According to original recipe, at this stage 1/2 more cup of all purpose flour is added. Remaining flour is used to dust the surface where the bread is kneaded. I am not sure what difference it makes if I add the flour at once because the dough rose well without any trouble ).
Now take the dough on a clean surface and knead it well for 10mins ( if you follow the original recipe, the dough at this stage has only 1 cup of flour, so dough is very sticky. Keep adding flour to get a dough that can be easily managed . Since I added all the flour earlier, I didn’t dust the surface at all ). Leave the dough in a warm place for about 2hrs or till the dough doubles in volume.
Stuffing: 1 cup onion 3-4 green chilies 1/2 tea spn garam masala 1 tbl spn chopped coriander leaves A pinch turmeric Oil Salt
Method: Heat a little oil and add green chilies, onion, turmeric, salt and fry till the onions are translucent. Add a little water, close the lid and let it cook. Add garam masala , coriander leaves. Cook till onions are completely cooked and the mixture has become very dry. Take off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.
How to make the buns Preheat the oven at 400F for 10mins. Take the dough and knead for some more time. Make big balls of the dough. (For above measurements, divide the dough into 8 equal parts). Divide the stuffing into 4 equal parts.
Take one ball of dough and keep one part of stuffing on it. Cover with second half of dough and Cover properly from all sides. Make sure all the edges are sealed properly, otherwise the buns open up while baking. Slightly flatten with hand.
Drizzle some olive oil or butter on top of the bun. Spread some oregano on top (optional). Repeat same for remaining dough and stuffing to get 4 buns. Leave it aside for atleast 30mins for the buns to proof again. When they are almost double the size, they are ready to bake. Bake in the oven for about 10-12 mins (or the top becomes brown). Cool on a wire rack.
Note : This is by no means a simple recipe . As you all see, it’s a daring bakers challenge recipe. Daring bakers is a group which takes up very difficult challenges every month and tries to bake them. Whatever I knew about the recipe, I have already posted here. So, try on your own risk :).
