Milky –Jelly

Believe it or not I came up with this dessert idea because of my toddler. I got some apples from the market as my baby loves fruits. But when I made a puree of those apples with couple of apricots, the puree turned out to be too sour for him. May be it was the apple I choose but anyhow I made melon puree for his lunch but didn't throw the apple and apricot mix away.

Once he was fed and asleep I was left with that puree. Can’t drink it, as it was too sour and can’t throw it as well. The colour as you can see is very beautiful too. So I went back in the kitchen and this is what I ended up with. It tasted as good as it looks.

I added some sugar (as per your taste you can adjust the sweetness) and some corn flour to say 150 ml milk (normal temperature) and then placed it on the hob and started heating the mixture. You can also use soymilk instead of cow milk if you want this recipe to be dairy-free.  Brought it to boil and at some point I could see the mixture is getting thicker. You can add few drops of vanilla essence at this point, but that’s optional. I poured it in to the dessert glasses and left it in the fridge to cool and set.

Next step, I took that fruit puree in to a saucepan and placed it on the hob. Added 3 tbsp of sugar in it. You can add more or less sugar depending upon your taste and the sourness of the fruits. Boiled it for couple of minutes then added one full sachet of gelatine powder. Kept stirring so that it gets mixed in the puree well. Took it off the hob and let it cool for 5 minutes. Now took those set milk glasses and pour this jelly mix on top of it, spoon by spoon. Don’t pour it in a continuous flow then it will melt or cut through your set milk. Fill the glasses and return them in the fridge for couple of hours to set. Serve chilled.

Note: Don't start making your jelly before the milk has set. else your jelly will be ready but the milk in the bottom won’t set. Also the jelly wont be very wobbly, as the fruit puree will of thicker consistency compared to the normal jelly liquid. It will be more like jam. 

17/30 Photo a day–In your bag

Other than the usual suspects one thing you will always find in my bag is Chocolate. They can be of any form, like dark chocolate bars or dried fruits covered in chocolate or nuts covered in chocolate or chocolate fudge or all of the above. This is a picture of some home made chocolate covered dried fruits. More on that can be found here.

4/30 Photo a day–Close-up

I had taken this picture quite some time ago. As you already guessed this is a pavlova with whipped cream and berries. A perfect summer dessert. Very light and melt in the mouth dish. The photo is a close-up look on a slice of the meringue, with the rest of the meringue in the background. I made this for a fellow foodie’s recipe testing. You can read more about it here and enjoy the visual treat in both posts. Have a great day.

Dairy free Cream au Chocolat

I was trying to do some dieting lately. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I realized it pretty soon as I was eating more than normal. All I could think about is food, food and food. So, I gave up. Now back to my regular diet which includes dark chocolate. I was looking for an easy dessert to make which involves chocolate of course, and stumbled upon this recipe. Just five ingredients, doesn't take much time to cook or prepare, what else do I need? Only thing I had to make it dairy free. What can replace heavy double cream and still give that smooth, rich and creamy texture to the cream au chocolat? the answer is coconut milk.

Recipe adapted from here.

Ingredients:

1 cup of coconut milk

50 gm dark chocolate

3 egg yolks

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

In a double boiler heat the coconut cream and the chocolate together and keep stirring until they are mixed uniformly. Take it out of the double boiler and let it cool for some time. In a separate bowl separate the three eggs yolks. Add a spoonful of sugar to it and whisk it for at least 5 minutes or until the mixture turns pale yellow.

Pre-heat the oven at 160 degree C. Add the eggs to the chocolate mix and add the vanilla extract and give it a very good mix. Pour the chocolate mix in to five ramekins and place them in a baking tray half filled with boiling water. Cover the baking tray with an aluminium foil and place in the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes in the oven take the tray out of the oven. Remove the cover and check if the puddings are set on the sides. Slowly remove the ramekins from the baking tray and let them cool on a wire rack. Be careful of the boiling hot water of the baking tray. Once the ramekins are cooled down a bit cover them again and keep them in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set. Serve chilled with some strawberries or raspberries on top or just like that.

Sondesh– Bengali’s favourite

Bengalis are gastronomes and are obsessed with fish and sweets. No Bengali meal would complete without either one of these not being present in the menu. I am a Bengali too but my obsession is limited to sweets only. In Bengal every neighbourhood has one or more sweet shop. Almost every street has one. I guess because there were plenty, I strangely enough didn’t used to like sweets, especially sondesh. Its only when I came out of Bengal, I started missing it. And now I miss it more than ever, mainly because it’s not so easily available here.

In Bengal very few people will actually think of making sondesh at home, simply because it is so easily available in the shops. they are freshly made every day and with lots of different variety. We get Indian sweets in UK too but my personal experience is not so good unless I am in Southall, London. I remember my first visit to Southhall, I had proper 3D samosa, chole bature and jalebee, all freshly made. Can’t express in words what that meal meant to me, as I was having that combination after a long time.

Anyway', back to sondesh, I am yet to find a place where I can find this particular variety in UK and this particular one is a legend on its own. Just to give an example, if you mention the name “Nole-Gur er Sondesh” to any Bengali living outside Bengal, it will make them homesick almost instantly. Within no time you will know all the stories/childhood memories related to this he/she had. In fact writing this post is actually making me homesick. Anyway you get the point, I am homesick, addicted to sweets and there is no good Indian sweet shop nearby where I live, let alone Bengali delicacies. So I made an attempt to make some at home and I am proud to say it was a success.

 

Ingredients:

(Makes 20 small sondesh)

1.5 Litters of full fat milk

Juice of 1 big lemon

175-200 gms of Date Molasses / Nolen (Khejur) Gur (I didn’t measure exactly, also it depends on how much sweetness you can take!) If you can’t get hold of Nolen/ Khejur/Date Gur then you can use dark Muscovado sugar.

1 tbsp butter

Oil for shaping the sondesh

Method:

Take a deep, thick bottom vessel and heat the full fat milk in it. Keep a close eye on the milk as it can boil over anytime. To avoid that, keep stirring the milk and keep the flame to  medium. Bring it to boil and pour the lemon juice in it. Continue to stir and keep the heat in medium to low so that it doesn't boil over. Wait till the lumps of paneer forms and the liquid becomes light green in colour.

Take it off the heat. In a sieve place a cheese cloth (big enough to cover the sieve) and pour the content of the vessel. Now take the cheese cloth out of the sieve and squeeze it so that the water in the paneer comes out. Drain as much water as possible then place it back on the seive. Now place something heavy on the paneer so that it continues to drain water from it. At this point you can do two thing, either wait for couple of hrs till the paneer is ready or keep the whole arrangement in the fridge for over night (Dont forget to take the heavy weight out before placing it in the fridge). I did the later. Next morning take the cheese cloth off and place the paneer in a bowl and heat in the microwave for a minute. This will soften the paneer and it will also be easy to kneed.

In a wide base bowl take the paneer, first break it into pieces and then start kneading. Continue to kneed till the paneer becomes smooth and no big lumps remaining (5-7 minutes) then add the Molasses to the paneer and keep kneading. At this point the mix will be little softer than before. Now in a non-stick pan melt the butter and pour the mix into it and start stirring with an wooden spoon. Cook for 3-4 minutes on low heat, stirring continuously. At one point you will see the mix is not sticking to the sides of the pan and has become even smoother and softer, take it off the heat. Oil a plate and pour the sondesh mix on the plate. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes.

Last time when my mum visited me I had asked her to get me some moulds for making the sondesh. I have used them to give them this shape but if you don't have one, then just apply some oil on your palm take a spoon full of sondesh mix each time and make small balls by rolling between your palms. Press them a little so that they take small peda shape. Place them on a oiled plate and keep them couple of hours in the fridge to harden a bit. If you have the moulds then press those pedas on the mould and press hard. Now when I say hard I mean hard enough to get the impression on the sondesh but not to break it into pieces!! Just kidding, you will know once you stat! Enjoy!! 

Something Sweet and First Giveaway at NuttyCook

 

I love cheese-cake! No matter what flavour it is, I just love it. At first you get that smooth, creamy, slightly sweet soft cream cheese and then comes the contrast in texture, crunchy, buttery biscuit which simply creates magic in your mouth and melts away.

But this pleasure comes at a cost. Every time I thought of making a cheese cake, first thing comes to my mind is I have to finish it all alone. Ideally that is not a problem for me but since I am counting my calories now I can’t really afford to have lots of cheese cake. If not heart attack I would die out of guilt! So, I was looking for alternative solutions to soft cheese that I can use and guess what I found .. yoghurt!

This dessert is so simple that I couldn’t believe when I finished making it. It’s really an assembly job of very few ingredients and no cooking involved. You can do so many varieties of it that the possibilities are endless. And to top it all it’s quite low in calorie compared to traditional cheese cake and it is eggless too.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2 : in individual serving glass or bowl)

6-8 tbsp of low fat set yoghurt

2 digestive biscuits (broken into very small pieces)

4 heaped tsp sweetner

2 heaped tsp dry roasted broken pea nuts

4-6 dried apricot (cut into small pieces)

2 tsp mixed peal (I used orange and lemon but this is purely optional)

Handful of broken pistachio nuts for garnishing

 

Method:

Take a big sieve, place it on top of a wide container which can collect the liquid draining from the sieve. Place a cheese cloth on top of the sieve and pour the set yoghurt on it. Cover the top of the sieve and place the whole arrangement in the fridge and now you can forget about it for next 24 hrs.

After 24 hrs of draining the moisture out of the yoghurt, transfer the content of the cheese cloth to a container and add the sweetner to it. If you want to use sugar instead then go ahead but use icing sugar as it will melt instantly and mix easily. Now add the chopped dried apricot and the mixed peal to the yoghurt. You can use any dried fruit or even chocolate if you want. its entirely up to your taste.

Mix the toasted nuts and the digestive biscuits and pour 2 tbsp on each serving glass press a bit to get the air out of it. Now pour the dollops of yoghurt and dried fruit mix on top of the biscuit and nut mix. Pour as much as you like, then garnish it with pistachio nuts. You can also use dark chocolate, it will work equally well. Now you can either serve or keep in the fridge and serve chilled later.

Coming to the Giveaway bit..this is the first time I am having a cookbook giveaway on NuttyCook and I am really excited about it. I was thinking about it for a long time but for some reason or the other this was getting postponed. Now that Easter is coming I thought it will be a perfect opportunity for me to host the giveaway. So without further delay here comes the details of the three great cookbooks I have for you!!

The first one is: Pasta

The second one is : Entertaining at home 

and the third one is : Easy Food for Utter Indulgence

I will giveaway one book to each winner, which means there will be three winners of this giveaway! The giveaway will be open for 2 weeks from now. I will be announcing the name of the winners on NuttyCook’s Facebook page and on Twitter. I guess now you would want to know what you need to do, to win this fabulous cook books. Well nothing much just do the following..

1. Leave a comment in this post stating which book you would like to receive if you are the winner.

2. Like NuttyCook’s Facebook page 

3. Follow NuttyCook on twitter @thenuttycook

4. Spread the word in twitter using #nuttycookbookgiveaway (this is optional but if you do then I will appreciate it a lot and consider that as an extra entry from you).  

I will collect all the entries and choose the winners randomly.

Now comes the fine print bit:  I can only post the books to UK address.

So guys tell me your choices and you could win one of these fabulous books.