My fav chaat ,Panipuri & a winner of a giveaway in London

Recently in London ,the smiling sun was quite in a mood and we were having such bright sunny days that most of the time we spent in the gardens and beaches .A couple of weeks back i had my first potluck and considering the sun showing some empathy on us i opted for panipuri .I have made panipuri quite a few times before and ofcourse i had it end number of times on the streets of mumbai ,infact i can say i have grown up eating panipuris ;)....buh this time i made the panipuri from the scratch,i rolled and puffed the puris which turned out nearly perfect that also in my very first attempt,im so proud of myself...hehehehe yeah i know this is too much now buh i really had a myth that making puris is a tedious job ,believe me i proved myself wrong.If you have a perfect puri recipe in your hand and if you are  following the proper technique then nowhere you are making a mistake.
I want to share some good news you all ,hey wait a min ,dont misunderstand,no im not pregnant or so ...just that i recently won a GIVEAWAY which was hosted by NAYNA from simple sensational food.I won a pair of free tickets for foodies festival at battersea park in London.I had tried my luck before in entering quite a few giveaways but everytime i was disappointed,this time luckily i won and that too for foodies festival,what better than this can it be right ? So my hubby who is also a big foodie joined me for the festival .We had gala time tasting and experiencing various foods,drinks and the amazing culinary talents.Will write and post some of the event pics in my next post .Till then tc and njoy the weekend !
Without any further delay lets go to the chatpata chaat recipe ....

 

ingredients for 50 puris ( puri recipe is taken from manjula's kitchen ) -
3/4th cup suji ( i used coarse semolina / rava )
1/4th cup maida (plain flour )
1/2 cup water ( or as required,for me this qty was good enough )
method :
Mix rava and maida together ,add water and make a dough.Knead the dough until it is firm and pliable .Cover with a damp cloth and keep aside for 10-15 mins.Pinch a golf size dough and roll it flat and thin like a big round chapati ,with a help of round cookie cutter or any sharp cutter scoop out the circles as shown in the picture above and deep fry them on medium heat ,with the back of your frying spoon press the puri to puff up and fry till they turn golden in colour.Strain the excess oil on the kitchen towel.Once they get cooled down store in an airtight container for few days and use as required .

ingredients for pani -
1 bunch pudina leaves ( mint leaves)
1 bunch corriander leaves ( cilantro )
7-8 green chillies ( pls adjust acc to your taste,i luv spicy water )
1 tsp chopped ginger
salt to taste
kala namak ( black salt ) to taste
black pepper pwd to taste
cumin powder to taste ( roasted jeera pwd )
amchur pwd to taste ( dry mango pwd )
7-8 cups water ( adjust more or less )
1/2 cup plain boondi ( optional )
method :
Clean the pudina and corriander and wash thoroughly under cold running water.Mix pudina ,corriander,green chillies and ginger together,add some water and grind into a paste just like u grind a chutney.Strain this paste adding the water .Add all the other ingredients in this water and refrigerate until you use it.When serving add the boondis and put this paani in the puris.

ingredients for potato and chana masala
2-3 boiled and mashed potatoes
1/2 cup kala chana ( soaked overnight and pressure cooked with little salt and turmeric )
salt to taste
cumin pwd to taste
red chilli pwd to taste
1-2 tsps lemon juice
black salt to taste
chopped cilantro to taste
method :
Crush the boiled chanas with your fingers  and mix it with mashed potatoes.Add the rest of the ingredients ,mix everything together and the filling to put in the puri is ready .

Assembling the panipuris :
For assembling the pani puris ,crack the puri with a finger in the centre( make a small hole ). Fill the puris with boiled  potato and chana masala. Fill each puris with the hot and sour pani (water). Serve immediately !

Elaichi & kesar pedas for our first UK bloggers meet :)

Hey friends ! hope everyone are in pink of their health.Life has really been a roller coaster ride so far ..... finally after settling down in a new country,state,city and ofcourse our new home in London ,i am back to blogging.I have been ususally lucky as when i moved from Australia to India i got a chance to meet the lovely bloggers from bangalore and now when im in UK i had a chance to meet some of the UK bloggers and trust me i never ever imagined in my life that i may move to London and meet such amazing foodies one fine day.To begin with we were 8 of them and had such a lovely day out,besides a foodie and a blogger they all are wonderful humans too and that is what surprised me ;) .We had such a gala time sipping,chatting ,eating and gossiping together the whole sunny afternoon .The hang over is still there and we are not enough with the pics and are pretty much alert on our messangers as well.Had tried for the first time these small sweet treats for everyone and i was glad to know the results.Thank you guys for liking the pedas !

approx makes 18-20 pedas
ingredients :
11/2 cups mava ( grated or crumpled )
1/2 cup sugar ( please adjust more or less acc to your sweet tooth )
1/2 cup whole full fat milk
1 tsp elaichi pwd
4-5 strands of kesar
2 tsps ghee + 1/2 tsp extra
handful of almond flakes or pistachios
method :
In a microwave safe bowl add mava ,sugar,milk,elaichi and kesar together.Give it a stir and throw in microwave .Heat on 800 w for 8-10 mins ,stirring every 2 mins in between OR till it starts getting thick enough.Once the mixture is little crumbly and thich enough take it out from the micro and let it cool down or else you will burn your fingers.After few mins,apply the extra ghee on your palms and roll the mixture into a smooth and fine dough.Scoop out 1 tbsp of dough and mould it into whatever desired shape you like.Sprinkle some almond flakes/pistachios on top and press it little with your thumb.Let it set for some time and store it for a couple of days.

Mexican Rice

Wishing everyone a very happy and safe holi ,also a very happy international women's day ,hope you all have a colourful life .To celeberate this holi i made mexican rice and bread halwa , i tried both the dishes for the first time and this rice  recipe i noted down while i was going through the bangalore times newspaper and the bread halwa recipe is taken from Sailu's blog.Both the dishes were quite interesting and easy to cook,i hardly took any time for dishing them out.The lovely aroma while making this rice makes u nostalgic and the flavour is just mind blowing.

approx for 3-4 ppl
ingredients :
11/2 cups rice ( washed & soaked )
1 big red bell pepper,cubed
2 tomatoes,cubed
1 small onion,sliced
5-6 cloves of garlic
4-5 dry whole red chillies
1 small carrot peeled,shredded
salt to taste
2 tbsps olive oil
method :
Heat 1 tbsp of oil ,add garlic,dry red chillies ,bell pepper  and tomatoes.Saute them on high till slightly charred.When cooled down grind them into a paste.Heat rest of the remaining oil ,fry onions ,add rice and ground paste and fry for few seconds,add carrots,salt and water.Cook rice till done or you can pressure cook the rice.Serve hot with raita or some veggies.

Bread cigars

Today's dish was a creativity flowing in my kitchen and hopefully it was moulded  pretty good which i never thought it would.I had a lunch potluck  party with some of my blogger friends a week back and the starters were on me so i decided to try and innovate a  new dish ,had babycorns at home so i wanted to try something with them,i had hardly used babycorn all this while and thought why not give it a try with these little beauties.Bread and babycorn are so common and vibrant ingredients that anyone can create their own personal best out of it.I reckon you can even try baking the bread rolls instead of frying and that would be more healthier ,on the other note one can use brown breads instead of white bread for the healthy variation.Deep frying is always so luxurious method and hence without a thought i jumped over to fry these cigars :D .I made some paste salad for the potluck as well which is my next post,see you then,have a nice weekened people .

approx for 3-4 ppl
ingredients :
10-12 slices of sandwhich bread
10-12 babycorns ( slice ,sprinkle salt and ltl garam masala on the babycorns )
1/2 cup plain flour ( maida )
garam masala to taste
1 cup shredded cheese
salt to taste
for the spread :
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
3 tbsp chilli garlic paste ( i used ready made red chilli garlic paste )
black pepper to taste
method :
Trim the edges ( the brown parts ) of the bread slices.Make the spread by mixing the the tomato ketchup ,chilli garlic paste ,a pinch of salt and pepper .Steam the bread slices and roll them with a roller pin to flatten them ,spread a tbsp of sauce - paste mixture all over one side,spread some cheese all over,place a slice babycorn in one end and start rolling the bread  like a cigar or a pipe .Mix plain flour with very little water to make a medium thick paste . Dip the bread rolls in the flour paste and deep fry till golden brown in colour .Drain on the paper towel and serve hot with ketch up or chilli sauce.