Cheese Croissants – Post 11

Tags

baking, bread, breakfast, cheese, croissants, Friday Feast, main course, NaBloPoMo, recipe, recipes

I was going to do this recipe a little later but than lot of people have asked for it since I put the pic on FB… specially Deeps…So deeps this one is for u :)

Actually these are just cheese dinner rolls shaped as croissants but they taste pretty yumm and go very well with any continental kind side dish for dinner, with eggs for breakfast and even with tea if u make their mini versions

Ingredients

• Maida 250gms
• Salt 4gms (1 little less than 1 tsp however u can go upto 1 tsp)
• Sugar 10gms
• Yeast 12gm
• Water 150ml
• Fat 14gm (we can use butter/margarine or oil)
• Milk 10ml
• Pepper Powder 1 tsp
• Cheese 75gm
• Mustard Powder ¼ tsp

Method

• Mix yeast, water and sugar together and let it activate for about 5 mins.
• Sieve flour and make a well in the center. Add the yeast solution, milk and make soft and smooth dough by kneading. We have to knead it really well atleast for 25 mins or so till it passes the gluten membrane test. Basically when u take a piece in your hand and stretch it should not break

• Mix the fat now and smoothen it.
• Add the grated cheese, pepper powder, mustard powder and knead again for like 4-5 mins. (U can also add any herbs at this point, I think I added oregano to mine)
• Rest the dough covered for about 20-40 mins (depends on the weather hot weather it will work sooner) till it becomes double
• Knockback the dough and rest again for 5 mins
• Roll the dough in a smooth circle. Cut into 8 triangle pieces using pizza cutter.
• Take one part, make the slit at the bottom of about ½ – 1 inch and roll upwards to give it a Croissant like shape till u reach the tip. Put a drop of water to seal.

• Place in the greased baking tray
• Leave it for proofing for about 10-15 mins till it doubles in size and when u touch it kind of bounces back. At this stage u can also brush them with a little mixture of egg and for the shine and color
• Bake at about 200C for 10-15 mins
• The above recipe will yield 8 of them.

Bread Kofta Biryani and more

Tags

baking, biryani, bread, curd, fahsion show, Friday Feast, indian, indian main course, main course, plus size, ramp, recipe, rice, soya, veggies

I love biryanis and I often claim that veg biryani is a term meant to make vegetarians happy and there is no such thing like that, its just a modified form of pulao but then once in a while a recipe like this comes and proves me wrong ;-)

When I first saw this sometime ago in Tarala Dala’s book it excited me because I love both koftas and biryanis and a combination of that excellent isnt it ;-)

As usual I tweaked the recipe a little to suit what I want and here is how I made it..

Ingredients

For the bread koftas

• 4 bread slices (I took the 5 grain bread)
• 2 tbsp finely chopped onions
• 2 green chillies finely chopped
• 2 tsp curds
• 1/2 carrot grated
• 1 tbsp soya flour
• salt to taste
• some oil

For the rice

• 1 cup long grained rice
• 1 bay leaf
• 1″ cinnamon stick
• 2 cardamom
• 2 cloves
• salt to taste

For the gravy

• 2 cloves
• 1″ cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup sliced onions
• 1 tsp chilli poweder
• 2 tsp coriander-cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 cup tomatoes sliced
• 1/2 cup curds
• 1/4 cup green peas
• 1/4 cup carrot grated
• 1/4 cup cabbage grated
• 2 tsp pil
• salt to taste

To be mixed together for curd mixture

• 4 tbsp curds
• 2 tbsp chopped mint
• 2 tbsp chopped corrainder
• 2 tbsp water

Method

For the bread koftas

• Combine all the ingredients except oil with some water and mix well
• Shape the mixture into 15-20 even sized rounds.
• Now u can deep fry the koftas or bake them at 180C for about 15 mins or till brown or fry them with a drop of oil in my fav paniyaram pan :D

For the rice

• Clean, wash and soak rice for approx 15 mins
• Boil 2 cups of water, add the bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and salt and then add the rice
• Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook till the rice is done
• Seperate each grain of rice with a fork. Keep aside

For the gravy

• Heat oil in a pan and add the cloves and cinnamon
• Add the onions and saute till golden brown
• Add all the dry masalas and saute for 1 min
• Add the tomatoes and cook for 5-7 minutes till oil seperates
• Add the curds, mix well and simmer for further 5 minutes
• Add all the veggies and mix well. Keep aside

For the final assembly

• Spoon out the gravy at the bottom of a baking dish
• Top with bread koftas and cover with cooked rice
• Top with curds mixture
• Cover with a lid or aluminium foil and bake in a pre heated over at 200C for 15-20 mins. Serve hot

The changes I made to the recipe were basically that I added some veggies and soya flour to the koftas and lots of veggies to the gravy… makes it more healthier… and yes didnt deep fry the koftas as suggested and also used much less than what was suggested by the recipe.

What I absolutely loved about this recipe was the fact that this is a true one pot meal not even curd needs to be served along as the top layer is just that

Wanna have a bite with all the layers?

Apart from this so nice of u guys this time to ask where have I been missing since a week… life has been very busy, in the baking class, coming home and practising… It was also N’s birthday last week and we planned a party for him and another friend who had her birthday last saturday and did lots of rain dance ;-) and I baked two cakes for the same… they were yumm and were totally polished off :D :D

Mocha Black Forest

Chocolate Sacher Cake

Both the cakes were yummy and were polished off by a gang of 10 people….

What fun that party was and then for the day his actual birthday falls on I planned a surprise family dinner for him with his sister, cousin a few close friends… the higlight of that party was the cake too but this I didnt bake it… I ordered it and u have to see it to understand what I mean

A picture cake with a family collage

Apart from that I have been very busy in one more thing and that is the fashion show that I took part in…  About a month or so back a friend called me saying her friend who is a final year student in JD Institute of Tech is doing a collection for plus size women and will I be interested in walking the ramp for her…. I didn’t think of it much and said yes why not… a sweetheart of a girl came and took my measurements of the dress, showed me a couple of designs and I choose one and then all was forgotten about it till a week or so back when she called saying that we have to come for rehearsals and Rahul Dev Shetty is the one who is choreographing it and there are the likes of Jacky Shetty and Pashmina Barker along with a whole of lot of other models walking for the other segments that I started getting shivers…. ;-) The last time I had walked the ramp was when I was 15 yrs younger and 1/4 the current size…

But Rahul and others did everything to make us all (the plus size models who were all regular women) comfortable and confident and we did walk the ramp after all… It was so much fun… I totally enjoyed myself…

And these are the details for all of those have been asking after seeing the pic on FB, I hope I didnt disappoint those who were asking the designer name ;-)

So how has life been with u?

I did it !!!

Tags

baking, bread, recipe, yeast

That is made my first edible bread :D after uncountable failure attempts finally yesterday with the first day of my baking course I managed it :)

At this point of time I am so happy that I can’t explain… he he. There are a few wrinkles on one but that can be improved later infact the other two are more or less wrinkle free

I specially like this one, though the shape is pretty simple this one is almost perfect

And here is the crumb shot

If I look back on what I was doing before and what I did yesterday in the class, I think I have two major learnings to take home

1. The kneading : I was always kneading the flour no doubt but man never knew had to knead so much. I kneaded it for about 25 minutes yesterday slowly adding water to it all along. Basically the more you knead it and add moisture to it the softer the bread that comes out, a  good test is that take a small piece in your hand and it should be able to stretch to a thin very thin sheet without holes.
2. Yeast : As I always always always suspected its the yeast, I worked with fresh yeast yesterday the first time in my life and here see my bread :) and they sell fresh yeast too….

PS: I have not been able to reply to any of your comments in the past post, life feels like running on a fast track right now… will do it ASAP

Edited to Add: On popular demand as lots of you have asked me the recipe of this bread… here it is

Ingredients

• Maida – 500gms
• Salt – 10 gms (u can go easy here and add about 8 too)
• Sugar – 20 gms
• Yeast  15 gm (we used fresh yeast, bread has never worked for me with dry yeast, try at ur own risk)
• Water – 300 gm
• Fat – 20 gm (use ghee, olive oil or any other oil.Avoid using butter as it has too much moisture)

Method

• Mix yeast and sugar in 100 ml of water and keep seperately for about 10 mins
• Mix salt and flour together and then make a well in the centre.
• Pour the yeast solution and water in the centre of the well and make a dough out of it.
• Knead Knead and some more knead, when will one know when the dough is ready the typically the “WindowPane test” aka gluten test or membrane test. Basically when u take a piece in your hand and stretch it should not break. See this video for understanding what I mean.

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The video says he is kneaded it for 10 minutes I think he is God if he has achieved that consistency in 10 minutes, in the last week the two times that I have kneaded the dough about 30 minutes atleast.

• Add the oil and knead a little more
• Cover the dough and keep aside for about 45 mins – 1 hour, a good test on when the fermentation is done is that when u slightly depress the dough it should NOT spring back
• After the dough is done with raising and fermentation, do a knockback on the dough i.e. remove all the air from the fermented dough. Basically tap the dough with your hand a couple of times.
• Divide the dough into equal parts and Roll the dough inwards keeping it smooth and wrinkle free (this will come only with pratice). U can roll it in any shapes. You tube is full of lovely videos of how to shape, here is one with basic shapes

src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7MVHDdDtuRc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”480″ height=”385″>

and this one explains braiding

src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/92WEVn3iO14&hl=en_GB&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”640″ height=”385″>

• Keep it for proving for about 30 minutes in a closed place, a kitchen drawer works perfect
• Brush with milk/egg and bake at 200 C for about 15 mins or till done

I really can’t believe myself that I am writing this post, there are so many number of times I have screwed up the bread and Mandy had to do a step by step post for me but still it didnt happen

And now finally I have done and it and posting it :)

A day for Baking

Tags

banana, bread, choclate chip, Friday Feast, muffins, pasta, recipe, vegetables, veggies, whole wheat

Myself, N and Ojas all of us love Pasta, and this is the simplest and frankly the most delicious pasta recpie… Works well with almost all pastas…  I have tried it with Frafalle, Penne, Fussili, Alphabet Pasta, the shells and it tastes well with everythin… ofcourse the colored alphabets are Ojas’s favorite are colored alphabets :D

Ingredients

• 1 cup pasta (I use whole wheat/semolina)
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup chopped and blanched veggies (cabbage, capsicum, carrot, baby corn or whatever u like) also if u like ur veggies crisp skip the blanching I blanch more for Ojas
• 1 onion chopped
• handful of fresh oregano, thyme and basil (incase fresh is not there u can use dried variety)
• Red chilli flakes and salt to taste
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp butter

Method

• Boil pasta as per instructions
• Heat olive oil and butter in a pan
• Add the herbs and onions and fry for 3-4 minute, the onions wont really turn brown because of olive oil and butter
• Add the veggies and stir fry for 3-6 minutes depending on whether u blanched ur veggies or not
• Add salt and red chilli flakes
• Fry for another 2-3 minutes
• Transfer to a baking dish, sprinkle the grated cheese
• Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 5 mins till the cheese is nicely melted
• Serve hot

I usually take out my portion, spice it up with more chilli flakes, Tabasco before baking the rest…

I was in a baking mode today and also made yummy Banana muffins courtesy the Baking Buddies, I modified her recipe a little though…. instead of all maida… I made it 3/4 whole wheat flour and 1/4 maida and increased the eggs to 2… the result was healthier and still yummy muffins…

I also experimented with bread the first time in life… again with Mandy’s recipe… but what a disaster it was…Its edible but doesnt have the bread texture at all… My bread is shouting for help Mandy…. feel there was some problem with the way I handled yeast or the yeast I bought because the dough didnt raise at all even after keeping for 4 hours… we have to use dry yeast only na? Mandy, Smitha help please here…