Tag: recipe

Velvety Hot Chocolate Fudge

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date August 15, 2012
7 Comments on Velvety Hot Chocolate Fudge

Of all the lovely chocolatey treats in the world, chocolate-themed ice cream is one of my favourites. If you’ve seen my post on the best ice cream in the world you know I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say that I am hooked to chocolate filled, chocolate topped and chocolate sprinkled chocolate ice cream.

Now ordinarily, I eat my ice cream with Sanders Dark Chocolate Fudge, which is an absolutely delicious ice cream-topping that you can get in grocery stores all over Michigan. I haven’t found a decent substitute here in Canada though, and believe me, I’ve looked. So I stock up on Sanders every time I am in Michigan. When I run out, which is always fairly soon after I return to Canada, I settle for whatever generic fudge is available at my local grocery store. This makes me immensely discontent. Really, it gets in the way of me being truly happy here. Also, store-bought fudge is often filled with high fructose corn syrup and tonnes of sugar and preservatives. Given this unfortunate state of affairs, I’ve tried on 3 separate occasions to make a homemade fudge topping, following recipes from different sources each time. Alas, the result was sub-par each time.

But today, as I sat down on my couch to a new episode of “Luther”, I was struck by an idea. You see, the biggest problem with the homemade sauces I made was that none of them were gooey and fudgy enough. Also, there is a warm, velvety feeling that the Sanders fudge fills my mouth with, and I haven’t been able to re-create this texture and taste in all my fudge-making attempts. I’ve been telling myself that my refusal to use high fructose corn syrup lies at the root of my failure. “Or perhaps, it is some other, secret ingredient that I am missing”, I would think to myself morosely, in my dark moments. But the thought that came to me this evening, the question rather, was this: could it be, that the secret ingredient was caramel sauce? (Side note: I have now discovered that this inspiring epiphany was the result not of divine intervention, but a happy co-incidence. You see, I was eating caramel chocolate ice cream on the couch, while watching the tv show).

I was intrigued, I was inspired, I was impatient! I pranced over to the kitchen, and began concocting. What I ended up with wasn’t as good as Sanders chocolate fudge, but it was pretty darned delicious nevertheless. Also, I think that this recipe is slightly healthier, because I used no corn syrup or preservatives, just good wholesome, somewhat fattening ingredients 🙂 If you want to try it, here’s how:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp organic unpasteurized honey

1 tbsp organic grade B maple syrup

1/2 cup heavy cream

4 tbsp good quality, unsalted butter

A few pinches of salt to taste

1 tsp vanilla essence

150 g 80% good quality dark chocolate

Method:

Place the sugar, water, honey and maple syrup in a little saucepan and heat on medium heat. Don’t stir the mixture at all; instead swirl the liquid about in the saucepan once in a while. Use a basting brush dipped in water to brush down the sides of the pan if needed. Wait until the sugar dissolves and then turns a deep amber (the maple syrup will make the mixture a little brown right from the start, so wait until the mixture turns even darker), about 8 minutes.

Next, take the pan off the heat and add cream and butter to the mixture. Whisk the mixture until it is smooth.

Then add the chocolate, salt and vanilla essence. Mix it all up until you have a nice smooth texture.

You can serve it warm, as most people like it, or you can wait until it cools and thickens. I like my sauce thicker and more fudgy, so I wait until it has cooled down before I drown my ice cream in it. Either way, whenever you’re ready, pour this delicious goeeyness on your ice cream and eat away to your heart’s content.

Pour the left-over fudge into a jar and store it in the fridge.

Tags caramel sauce, chocolate, food, fudge, hot chocolate fudge, ice cream, photos, recipe

Cooking Food General Recipes

Scrumpalumpous Sunday Morning: Pumpkin-Apple Pancakes topped with my ‘Sugar and Spice Butter’

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date July 22, 2012
No Comments on Scrumpalumpous Sunday Morning: Pumpkin-Apple Pancakes topped with my ‘Sugar and Spice Butter’

I woke up this morning with a hankering for delicious pancakes 🙂 but I didn’t want just plain old pancakes, I wanted to make something interesting. Of course, I could have made nutella pancakes, or ice-cream pancakes, but I wanted to try to make something a little, well healthier.

You see, over the past few days, I’ve been trying to eat more fruit and vegetables. It is however, not an easy thing to do, given that I dislike most veggies and nearly all fruit. Yesterday, I even tried making myself a carrot smoothie, because I hate eating carrots. I chopped up a few skinned carrots and threw them in the food processor with some water. This experiment did not go too well, and I do not recommend trying it at home. I ended up with what can be best described as orange glop, of which I unfortunately took a large gulp. This was, in equal measure, both brave and stupid.

So this morning, I woke up with renewed determination; I was going to eat fruit, and I was going to enjoy it! I decided on pumpkin and apple pancakes topped with maple syrup and a flavoured butter that I call ‘Sugar and Spice Butter’. This I washed down with hazelnut and chocolate tea.

This was a delicious and fairly easy to set-up, sunday brunch. And yes, while it wasn’t really that healthy, it was most definitely a change from my usual chocolate-themed food 🙂

And this did go into the making of this breakfast 🙂

I admit that I did take a shortcut, just this once. I started off with pancake mix. Calm down dear readers, there is a reason, a justification for this otherwise unpardonable sin! First and foremost, I am NOT a morning person! Second, this Trader’s Joe’s mix is absolutely delicious. You really should go and stock up on a whole lot of boxes of this in the fall- it’s a seasonal product you see.

So I followed the instructions on the box, except that I added chopped up apple bits to the batter. For the flavoured butter all you need is:

1/4 cup good quality unsalted butter

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

A few drops vanilla essence

Whip all this up in a bowl and then heat the mixture for about 45 seconds on low heat in the microwave, just enough to melt the sugar. Then whip it all up again and place it in the fridge to cool and harden. And there you have it: flavoured butter for pancakes, crepes or bread!

Oh and I have to fess up, I did finish up my brunch with a little dessert. I moved over to the coffee table, with this:

Another cup of tea and a little cup of home-made hazelnut chocolate butter 😉

Mmmm…I can’t help it, I am a chocolate nut-butter fiend.

Tags breakfast, cinnamon butter, flavored butter, food, nutmeg butter, photos, recipe

Chocolate Chocolate Truffles Food General Recipes

A Hand-made, Delicious Gift for your Grown-up Friends

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date April 23, 2012
12 Comments on A Hand-made, Delicious Gift for your Grown-up Friends

This post is also about truffles. I thought I should just make that clear right at the start. If you’re tired of all my truffle-y posts, skip this one; my next one won’t be about truffles, or even chocolate. It’ll probably be about this delicious, spicy Hyderabadi-style fish I made yesterday; or it might be about a nice little Persian restaurant that I visited last week. Either way, it probably won’t be about chocolate.

Although, it just occurred to me that if you’re bored by chocolatey posts, you’re not really my key demographic, are you? (Really, what are you doing here if chocolate doesn’t make you ever-so-slightly unhinged?)

Anyway, this is a post about a great gift-idea: assorted chocolate truffles. This is usually an ideal little present because truffles are delicious (to most people), make people happy (quite literally (read my previous post for more on this)) and they’re very personal (you can custom-make flavours to suit your friends’ tastes). They’re also pretty easy to make, once you’ve gotten the hang of it.

The first step involves choosing flavours. You could choose from so many different kinds! Here are a few:

1. Dark Chocolate truffles (go here for my recipe)

2. Cointreau Dark Chocolate truffles (go here for my recipe)

3. Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Truffles with Cream Cheese Centers (go here for my recipe)

4. Dark Chocolate Truffles with Orange-Cream Cheese Centers (go here for my recipe)

5. Dark Chocolate Truffles with Strawberry Cream Cheese Centers (go here for my recipe)

6. Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles (recipe in this post)

7. Mint Chocolate Truffles (recipe in this post)

8. Dark Chocolate Truffles with Brazil-nut butter centers (recipe forthcoming)

I could go on and on, but I’ve got my whole life to invent truffle recipes. For now, I am going to stop thinking about truffle flavours and get on with this post.

Here’s what I chose for my first truffle-gift-experiment: Cointreau chocolate, mint chocolate and hazelnut. I chose these flavours because they’re really easy to make, easier than truffles with flavoured centers.

What you will need:

200g dark chocolate (At least 70% cocoa solids)

1 cup heavy/whipping cream

Two pinches of salt

About a teaspoon of mint essence

2 teaspoons Frangelico (or some other hazelnut liqueur)

1 teaspoon Cointreau or Grand Marnier

A handful of hazelnuts

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

50g chocolate to dip the mint truffles in

3 sheets of parchment paper or foil

3 post-its

Coloured paper cups to place the truffles in

Method:

Chop up the chocolate with a knife and place it in a bowl:

You could also use a food processor. Next, warm up the cream until it just begins to boil and pour it over the chocolate:

Try and make sure that all the chocolate is covered. Let the bowl stand for a few minutes. Add the salt, take a whisk and gently mix the cream and chocolate. Now your ganache is ready.

Bring out two more bowls. Spoon about one-third of the ganache into one of these bowls and another third of the ganache into the other bowl. Now you have three portions of ganache in three separate bowls.

Mix in the mint essence in the first bowl, Frangelico in the second bowl and Cointreau (or Grand Marnier) in the third bowl. I would start by adding a little of each flavour and then adding more to taste. It is especially important to use the mint essence sparingly. For one thing, different brands of mint essence have varying levels of strength. Also, mint as a flavour very easily overpowers chocolate.

Let the ganache(s) cool to room temperature and then, place the bowls in the fridge.

In about an hour, check if the ganache has firmed up. If it has, take all three bowls out of the fridge. Place three sheets of foil or parchment paper on three separate plates. Take three post-its and write the names of the flavours of the truffles down, one flavour for each post-it. Now, stick a post-it underneath each plate. Next, scoop out tablespoon-sized portions of the mint flavoured ganache on the correspondingly labelled plate. Use an ice-cream scoop if you have one.

Repeat this with the other two flavoured ganaches. Place the plates in the fridge.

After about 20 minutes, take the plates out and begin to roll each scoop of ganache into as perfect a sphere as possible. Make sure not to confuse the different flavoured truffles; place all mint truffles on the plate labelled ‘mint’ and the Cointreau ones on the plate labelled ‘Cointreau’ and so on.

Once you’ve rolled all the ganache into balls, place all three plates back in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Now comes the last step, coating the truffles.

For the hazelnuts truffles, I decided that the most appropriate coating was toasted and crushed hazelnuts. This is a simple enough coating to make. Just pop a handful of hazelnuts in the oven (preheated to 375 farenheit (that’s 180 celsius)) for about 10 minutes, tossing the nuts once during this time. Let them cool and then place them in a tea-towel and rub them against each other until they lose their skins. Then place them in a mortar and pestle and coarsely grind them. I suggested a mortar and pestle rather than a grinder because this way you can make sure you break up all the nuts without reducing most of the nuts to a powder.

photo 3-15 — Coarsely ground toasted hazelnuts

And now for the final touch, just roll each hazelnut truffle about in your hand for a bit to make the outside of the truffle sticky and then roll it in the crushed hazelnuts. Lightly press the nuts in to make sure they stick to the truffle.

For the Cointreau truffles, I decided on a simple coating: cocoa powder. Just take a few tablespoons of cocoa powder in a bowl, warm the outside of each Cointreau truffle by rolling it about in your hand, and then lightly roll it in the bowl of cocoa until it is completely covered.

Lastly, I decided to dip the mint truffles in dark chocolate. This looks and sounds more difficult than it is, and it’s actually a lot of fun 🙂 It is also undoubtedly messy.

Carefully melt 50g dark chocolate (using either a double boiler or a microwave on a very low heat setting). Let the chocolate cool a bit (we don’t want to wait for it to harden, but we don’t want it to be too warm either).

Once the chocolate has cooled somewhat, take a truffle and dip it into the chocolate. Roll it about in the chocolate until it’s completely coated and then fish it out.

Place the truffle back on the foil/butter paper. Repeat this process with all the truffles. Once you’ve dipped all the truffles, take a toothpick and trace a circle around the bottom of each truffle. This is so that we don’t have a lot of excess chocolate stuck awkwardly to the bottom of the truffle once the outside chocolate has hardened.

Place each truffle in a paper cup. Preferably, use paper cups of different colours that compliment the truffle flavours. For instance, I used green for mint, orange for Cointreau and light brown for hazelnut. Let the truffles sit somewhere cool to cool. They should be ready in 20-30 minutes.

Since the idea was to make assorted truffles as a gift, I wanted to pack them in a nice box. I hunted all over my neighborhood for a cute gift box, but couldn’t find anything appropriate. I finally stumbled upon an arts and crafts store, and they were nice enough to cut some beautiful coloured paper for me so that I could make little bags out fo it:

I placed the truffles in these bags once they were ready and sowed on little message cards on the front that not only gave my friend my regards, but also described the different flavours of truffles included in the bag on the back.

Needless to say, my friend won’t mind taking care of my plants again 😉

Tags chocolate, chocolate truffles, DIY, food, Gifts, photos, recipe

Chocolate Chocolate Truffles Food General Recipes

Sugar-Coated Dark Chocolate Truffles with Orange Cream Cheese Centers

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date April 11, 2012
14 Comments on Sugar-Coated Dark Chocolate Truffles with Orange Cream Cheese Centers

This is my favourite kind of truffle so far. In fact, I can honestly say that I’ve never eaten a more delicious chocolate truffle. Mmmm.

It all started with me wandering into my kitchen last evening. I went through my fridge and cabinets, trying to think of a new combination of flavours that I’d never tried in a truffle before. All sorts of ingredients caught my attention, but my eyes kept returning to the block of cream cheese in my fridge. As I wrote in Sunday’s post about dark chocolate cream cheese truffles, I absolutely love the flavour of cream cheese. So I decided to stick with cream cheese, and see if I couldn’t come up with a slightly better version of Sunday’s recipe.

Sunday’s truffles were cream cheese truffles through and through; not only did they have cream cheese centers, the truffles themselves were made with cream cheese. While I liked Sunday’s truffles, what I found was that the texture of the truffle changes when you use cream cheese instead of heavy/whipping cream (this is what is used in traditional truffles); the texture isn’t as velvety and creamy. Generally speaking, this is an acceptable compromise to me because I love the flavour of cream cheese. But Sunday’s experiment taught me that if you’re willing to go to the extra trouble of making cream cheese centers, you don’t need to make this compromise at all! In fact, I thought that the cream cheese in the chocolate didn’t add much in terms of flavour, it was upstaged by the intense flavour of the dark chocolate and by the cream cheese in the center. I could reduce the amount of chocolate I added, but I wanted to make dark chocolate truffles, not milk chocolate ones.

Therefore, for today’s project, I decided to use a traditional dark chocolate ganache (made with cream) to make the truffles, and then incorporate the cream cheese flavour I love so much by making cream cheese centers for them. But that wasn’t all, I added a twist or two to the recipe. You see, I wanted to play around a little with the flavours in my kitchen; it would have been boring to simply recreate, with a small modification, Sundays recipe.

First, I wanted a citrus flavour to the cream cheese, so I added some orange liqueur (Cointreau). Second, I thought it might be fun to coat the truffles with something I’ve never tried before, large brown sugar crystals. But since they’re sweet, I decided to make the chocolate a bit bitter. So I replaced some of the dark chocolate in the ganache recipe with unsweetened chocolate. Here’s what I ended up with:

And boy am I glad I played instead of sticking to what I know. The truffles were just right in terms of texture and flavour! They were creamy and squishy and the cream cheese centers were gooey, soft, and a little orang-ey. To top it all, the sugar-coating was literally the sugar-coating, it balanced the bitterness of the chocolate perfectly. Here is a shot of half a truffle after I’d bitten into it. I think it illustrates the squishiness and softness I am talking about:

The flavours danced together on my tongue with just enough complexity to be intriguing; they acted in perfect concert, I had to close my eyes and savour it. I haven’t felt this excited since I discovered chocolate brazil nut butter.

If you’ve been sold by my mad ravings or these pictures, go ahead and give it a go! The only tough part of the process is actually shaping the truffles with the cream cheese centers. This can be a little messy and it requires patience.

Update: Another important thing to note is that the sugar-coating absorbs moisture. So the outside of the truffle can get wet and sticky over a day or two. The solution that I have found for this problem is to roll the truffles in brown-sugar right before (or even a few hours before) serving them.

Ingredients for the Truffles:

2.5 ounces dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup heavy/whipping cream

A small dollop of butter

A pinch of salt

Brown sugar to coat the truffles

Ingredients for the Cream Cheese Centers:

50 g cream cheese (at room temperature)

A dollop of butter

2-4 tablespoons of icing sugar

2-3 teaspoons of Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Method:

Chop up the chocolate into small pieces (you could also process it in a food processor) and place it in a bowl. It’s important to chop up the chocolate into little bits so that it melts evenly when you pour the cream over it. It should look like this:

Heat the cream in a pan until it just begins to bubble and then pour it over the chocolate:

Let the mixture stand for a few minutes. Then very gently mix the chocolate and cream:

Add the butter and salt and mix until you have a smooth ganache:

Cover the bowl and let the ganache cool to room temperature, then place it in the fridge.

While the ganache hardens, let’s make the cream cheese filling. Take another bowl, put the cream cheese in it and whip it up with a mixer, until it’s smooth.

Now add the butter, two tablespoons of icing sugar and a teaspoon of Cointreau and whip it all up.

Taste the mixture. If you think it needs more sugar or Cointreau add some more. When it tastes right, cover the bowl and put it in the fridge.

Once the ganache has been in the fridge for about an hour, take it out and see if it’s firmed up. It should be firm but not hard. If it’s firm take it out along with the cream cheese filling. You will also need a bowl with a few tablespoons of brown sugar in it and a large plate covered with foil or butter paper. Now you’re ready to begin shaping the truffles.

Portion out the ganache onto the foil or butter paper, with each portion measuring about a tablespoon. When you’ve scooped out the lot take the first portion and shape it into a ball. Then, flatten it on your hand like a mini-tortilla or chapathi:

Now scoop a bit of cream cheese filling onto the center of the ‘chocolate chapathi’:

Now fold the chocolate over the cream cheese.

Finally, roll the whole thing carefully into a ball. I don’t have a photograph of this because by this time my hands were covered in chocolate. Repeat this until all the ganache has been used up.

For the final step, start with one of the first few truffles you shaped. (When you work with the truffles they will get a little melted and squishy from your body heat. This is why i suggest picking up one of the first few truffles you worked on; by now it will have cooled down and firmed up again.) Gently roll it about in your hand to make the surface a little sticky. Roll the truffle in the bowl of brown sugar so that it is completely coated.

Repeat until all the truffles are coated. And there you’re all done! Enjoy your delicious truffles, I know I did 😉

Tags chocolate, chocolate truffle, cream cheese truffle, dark chocolate, DIY, food, recipe

Cooking Food General Indian Cooking Recipes

Heavenly, Healthy Hyderabadi Palak Dal (Spinach Lentils)

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date April 10, 2012
10 Comments on Heavenly, Healthy Hyderabadi Palak Dal (Spinach Lentils)

I made some absolutely delicious truffles today, and I was all set to write a post about it. Then I looked at my blog home page and realized that my last post was also about truffles. (In fact, a LOT of my posts are about truffles.) Also, Easter was just the other day, so it occurred to me that some of you are probably feeling a little stuffed, maybe even a little ill from all the chocolate eating. In thinking about how guilty and sick you might be feeling, I began to feel somewhat stuffed myself. I’ve been eating loads of homemade, delicious but cheese covered pizza and of course, tonnes of chocolate. It was time, I decided, to eat something yummy but healthy. And so, I made myself the healthiest dinner that I am capable of eating. I have difficulty eating leafy vegetables you see, they literally make me feel unhappy and hopeless. But this particular magical recipe for spinach lentils that I am about to share with you is as spicy and flavourful, as it is good for you. I am no doctor or nutritionist, but I think you’ll all agree with me when you see the ingredient list.

Oh and as you can see from the title, this is a Hyderabadi recipe. Hyderabad is the capital of a southern State in India: Andhra Pradesh. It was the seat of the Nizams, who ruled Hyderabad for about 2 centuries. The word Nizam or Nizam-ul-mulk means ‘administrator of the realm’ or ‘governor of the nation’ in Urdu. This is because the first Nizam was originally appointed by the Mughal emperor to oversee and govern Southern India on his behalf. As the Mughal empire began to crumble (for a brief overview of Mughal history go here), Asaf Jha who was a Mughal noble and a Nizam, declared independence from the Mughals and founded his own dynasty, the Asaf Jha dynasty, also known as the Nizams.

The history of the Nizams is of course more complex than this little paragraph intimates. It is full of battles, intrigue and all the other stuff that good history is made of. But this post is about food, also I am not a historian. I just wanted to give you this brief little background so you can understand Hyderabadi cuisine better. I would recommend reading more about the Nizams though, about their food, jewellery and architecture in particular.

Because the Nizams were essentially nobles from the Mughal court, their food was strongly influenced by Mughlai cuisine. But South Indian food, more precisely Andhra food, i.e. the food the locals ate (and continue to eat today) before the Nizams came to Hyderabad, is also delicious and distinctive. Typical Andhra foods include: spicy peppery Rasam; Chappala Pulusu (fish curry); and Erra Avakaya. So it isn’t surprising that Hyderabadi food blends Andhra and Mughlai styles. Andhra food itself can be broken down into several different types based on different regions of the State. There are also hints of Arab, Turkish, Parsi and other influences in Hyderabadi food. So you see, it is bastardized, pluralistic, and historically rich.

It is also amongst the most delicious cuisines on earth. I kid you not. It’s as spicy as South Indian Andhra food, its magnificence equals Mughlai food (like dal Makhani), and it’s as rich and flavourful as Italian food can be.

(And while I am not appointing myself final arbiter of the best food known to man, I think a woman who has a blog (mostly) about food, a woman who goes into raptures about food, a woman whose very mental stability depends on the availability of a delicious meal, in short a food-crazed woman, should be taken very seriously.)

Anyway, now that you’re sold on its deliciousness, here it is, a spicy palak dal- Hyderabadi style:

Ingredients:

1 cup of moong dal (a type of lentil, native to India)

1/2 teaspoon haldi/pasupu/turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic

About a medium sized bunch of spinach

1/2 tablespoon dried mango powder (Amchur)

5-6 green chilies cut in half lengthwise

2-3 sprigs of coriander/cilantro

Salt to taste

(The following are the ingredients for the tadka baghar or popu)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

5 dried red chilies

5-6 fresh curry leaves or about 10 dried ones

4 peeled whole garlic cloves

2-3 tablespoons of ghee (you can get ghee at an Indian store; if you want to make south Indian ghee, you can read my recipe here)

Method:

The first thing to do is to prepare the dal (lentils). I use moong dal for this recipe. You should be able to get these lentils at an Indian store, if you don’t live in India. I normally soak lentils for about 20 minutes before I cook them. If you don’t have the time to do this, you can skip this step. This is how the lentils look soaked:

The easiest way to cook dal is to cook it in a pressure cooker. If you don’t have one, just boil the dal in water until its cooked. Add half a teaspoon of turmeric and some salt to the dal before you cook it. Once it’s cooked it should look like this: Next, heat one tablespoon of oil in a saucepan. When it’s hot add the ginger and garlic. Fry the ginger and garlic until cooked (slightly browned, but not burnt). Add the spinach to the ginger-garlic and let it cook, stirring occasionally. Once the spinach is tender, add the lentils.

Let this cook for about 10 minutes. Then add half a tablespoon of dried Mango powder (Amchur), the green chillies and the coriander sprigs to the pot and again, let the dal cook. After about 5 minutes we’re ready to add the tadka or baghar (tempering of spices in oil).

The baghar:

Heat a tablespoon or two of ghee in a little saucepan like this:

Let the ghee get hot. To test if it’s hot enough, throw a single cumin seed into the pan. If it begins to sizzle, add the rest of the cumin along with the mustard seeds and stir them about until they start to pop. When they start to pop, add the curry leaves, garlic cloves and red chilies.

Once the red chillies darken like this:

Add the baghar to the lentils.

and immediately cover the pot.

The dal is now ready! Serve it with some hot rice, yoghurt and a papad.

Tags cooking, food, healthy, hyderabadi, Indian food, low-fat, recipe, spinach

Chocolate Chocolate Truffles Cooking Food General Recipes

Rich Dark Chocolate Truffles with Soft Cream Cheese Centers

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date April 8, 2012
19 Comments on Rich Dark Chocolate Truffles with Soft Cream Cheese Centers

This afternoon I was out grocery shopping and I saw a box of truffles in the chocolate section that caught my eye- they were ‘cheesecake truffles’. “Hmm that sounds delicious” I thought to myself. The thing is, and you may not know this about me, as much as I am a chocolate-lover, even a chocolate-addict, I am so much more when it comes to cheesecake, I am in fact, a chocolate-cheesecake-fiend.

Don’t believe me? Well it’s true and the following tale will prove it to you. You see, there is a coffee shop quite literally below my apartment and they have delicious chocolate-almond cheesecake. This time last year, I was eating one slice of cheesecake per day. Soon, things got so bad that the owner of the coffee shop, his wife and two employees of theirs, independently of each other, expressed genuine surprise bordering on concern, when they noticed how often I was running downstairs for cake. When your cheesecake supplier stages an almost-intervention, well you know things have gone too far, so I quit cold turkey.

But of course, I still have a soft spot for the cheesecake-chocolate combination. So when I saw the box of cheesecake truffles, I rushed home like a woman possessed and researched recipes. It turns out one has to first bake a cheesecake, then let it firm up in the fridge for several hours and only then can one use this hardened cheesecake as a filling in truffles. This seemed like far too much waiting, so I decided to make chocolate cream cheese truffles, which are close enough.

The process was fairly easy, and what I really liked about it was that one could add sugar and chocolate to taste. Traditional chocolate truffles are made from a ganache (you can read more about this in my previous posts about basic dark chocolate truffles and Cointreau truffles), and you can’t really add more or less chocolate, with intermittent tastings while making ganache (to be accurate, you probably could, but I think it would be a complicated process and you’d run the risk of breaking the ganache). So this really is something unique about this cream cheese truffle recipe. I’d recommend giving it a go, you might get hooked 😉

Ingredients:

100 g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids) (the better this chocolate is, the better your truffles will taste)

150 g cream cheese

5-6 tablespoons of icing sugar

1/2 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Some cocoa powder or a handful of hazelnuts toasted and ground

Equipment:

4 Bowls and several spoons

1 large plate

A hand-held or stand-alone egg-beater/mixer

1 sheet of foil or butter paper

Method:

I began by placing the cream cheese (at room temperature) in a bowl.

Next, I melted the chocolate in the microwave. (When you do this, be sure to do this on a low setting as you don’t want to burn the chocolate. Ideally, you should melt the chocolate in a double boiler to avoid this, but I find that if I am careful, I can do it in the microwave.

While the chocolate was melting I began whipping the cream cheese up with the mixer (egg-beater). When it was creamy and softened, I added 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and whipped this into the cheese. I tasted the mixture and thought it needed a little more sugar, so I added another 2 tablespoons. (You should also taste the mixture intermittently and see if it needs more sugar; add as much as you think is appropriate.) Once it tasted just right, I scooped out about a third of the mixture into another bowl and place this bowl in the fridge.

To the rest of the cream cheese mixture (the 2/3rd remaining in the first bowl) I added the vanilla essence, butter and about three-quarters of the chocolate and mixed it all up with a spoon (don’t whip this). Then I took a little taste. It tasted like it needed more chocolate, so I added some more.

I repeated this until I was satisfied that it tasted just right.

Now I was ready to start shaping the truffles. When you’re trying this, make sure you have enough works-space on your kitchen counter. I like sitting down while I do this, because it takes some time, so I usually move over to the floor because I feel more comfortable sitting cross-legged. You could move over to the dining table if you prefer. So I set the cream cheese mixture and the chocolate cream cheese mixture side by side on the floor.

I also placed a sheet of butter paper on a large plate next to these bowls.

Now I was ready for the fun part! I scooped out some of the chocolate mixture and shaped it into a sphere in my hand. Then I flattened it out on my hand like a mini chapathi or tortilla.

Then, I scooped out a bit of the plain cream cheese mixture on to the centre of the ‘chocolate chapathi’:

and carefully rolled the chocolate layer over the cream cheese centre, shaping the truffle into as perfect a sphere as possible. (I don’t have a photograph of the sphere-shaping bit because I needed both hands and by this time my other hand was covered in chocolate.)

I repeated this until all the chocolate was used up:

I was almost done…the last step was rolling the truffles in ground, toasted hazelnuts (you can also use cocoa). To do this, I placed the ground toasted hazelnuts in a bowl:

Then, I took each truffle and warmed the outside up by rolling it about in my hand. Next, I rolled the truffle about in the ground hazelnuts. Once its outside was coated, I placed the truffle in a little paper cup:

I repeated this until all the truffles were coated, here they are:

Ta DA! They’re ready to be devoured! Rich dark chocolate truffles with soft cream cheese centres!

Mmm..what a cheesy, chocolatey evening I had.

Tags chocolate, chocolate cream cheese truffles, cooking, DIY, food, recipe, truffle

Cooking Food General Recipes

Delicious Re-fried Beans are Surprisingly Easy to Make!

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date March 22, 2012
13 Comments on Delicious Re-fried Beans are Surprisingly Easy to Make!

Loads of people I’ve met and blogs I’ve read tell me to buy a can of re-fried beans at the store when I am making burritos or quesadillas or whatever else I might be making that call for re-fried beans. Not being Mexican myself, and never having researched the issue, I assumed it must be difficult to make good re-fried beans at home, that there must be some secret to it.

Then, I talked to one of my best friends who happens to be Mexican and she told me that I was most certainly misinformed. This friend of mine happens to live in a wooden hut, a-top some wooden stilts, in a little village in Panama, with an indigenous community called the Embera-Wounaan. I shall write more about this later, I promise.

Here is her house:

A hut in an Embera-Wounaan village in Colon Province, Panama

While I was visiting her in Panama, we talked about re-fried beans and she even suggested making some right there in her little hut. And so we did!

Making refried beans for breakfast in a Panamanian village — Re-fried beans for breakfast!

We had the beans with eggs for breakfast, and they were delicious, even though we had no cheese (there is no electricity in the village and hence, no fridge). Oh and we also had fried sweet plantains, which in my opinion, are overrated.

This homemade re-fried beans adventure really encouraged me, so when I was back in North America, I did some general research on making re-fried beans, namely, the process, spices etc., and then proceeded to make some myself.

Spicy homemade refried beans — Spicy homemade re-fried beans

You should try it too! Here is my recipe!

(I based this recipe off my friends’ recipes, but I tweaked the quantities of the spices (you guessed right, I increased them) and incorporated some of the useful tips and information I got from my internet research.)

What you will need:

1 cup beans (you can use kidney beans, pinto beans or black beans)

Water

3-4 tablespoons ghee

1 medium sized red onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

2 small (or one large) jalapenos

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon red chill Powder

1 tablespoon cumin Powder

Two handfuls of (I use either cheddar or Chihuahua (this is one aspect of the recipe I need to do more research on. I need to find out what cheese is best for this recipe!))

Cilantro/Coriander for garnish

Preparing the beans:

Soak the beans in plenty of water (at least tree times as much water as beans) overnight or at least 7 hours. This soaking is important; if you don’t soak the beans, they won’t be soft enough and the result won’t taste as good. There are allegedly short cuts to this, but I don’t believe they can produce the same results.

The next step is to cook the beans. Here’s a little tip, don’t use the water the beans were soaking in, to cook them. This water contains ‘oligosaccharides’ released from the beans, and they cause.. eerm.. flatulence! If you don’t follow my advice, there is always this yoga pose:

Pavanamukta Asana (Wind-relieving pose)

(Image by The Holistic Care Yoga Wiki. The above image is CC licensed, for more information go here.)

It’s a pretty easy pose, but it’s also easy to just throw the water out 😉 . So with fresh water, cook the beans in a pressure cooker until the cooker whistles about 4 times. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can simply boil them, it’ll just take longer. If you’re cooking them in a pot with water, the beans will be done when you can take one out and squish it between your fingers. I suppose you could use canned beans instead of going through all this trouble, but I am somehow not a big fan of things in cans. I feel, and obviously this is subjective, that beans from a can don’t taste as good as beans that have been soaked and cooked.

Method:

Finely dice the red onion, crush the cloves of garlic, and chop up the jalapenos.

Now we begin cooking! Start with some oil or ghee (Indian clarified butter) in a frying pan. (Apparently, what makes really great re-fried beans is cooking with lard. Since I am a vegetarian, that was not an option for me. But, it turned out quite well when I used oil, it also worked well with ghee.) Since I believe in Ayurveda (an ancient system of Indian medicine see here for more) I actually prefer cooking with ghee; it’s supposed to be healthier than oil. If you’d like to read my recipe, go here.

Of course a Mexican might be bemused or even annoyed by this bizarre substitution, but I think fusion and playfulness in cooking are good, as long as you are aware of what you’re doing, and acknowledge how the recipe or method has been changed. This ensures that you are more aware of how these changes affect the end product and this makes you a better cook. (I didn’t mean to sound preachy here, it’s just that I feel strongly about the difference between being playful and creative on the one hand, and being just, well, plain lazy, on the other.)

Anyway, I really ought to get back to writing about the beans eh?

When the oil is all heated up, add the diced onions and cook until slightly browned.

Now it’s time for the Jalapenos and garlic.

Once they’ve cooked for a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon each of cumin powder and chilli powder and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Mix it all up and fry until you smell the spices. Mmmm the fragrance will make you hungry!

It’s time for the beans! Add the cooked beans to the pan and let them cook for a while. Until they go from this:

To this:

Add salt to taste.

Now taste it and see how you like it. If the flavour is rich and intense, you can stop cooking the beans. If you think the beans taste like they could use a little more cooking, add a little of the water left over from cooking the beans to the pan, and let the beans cook some more. When you think the beans are done, turn the heat off and add a handful or two of grated cheese to the pan. Mix it all up until the cheese is melted and evenly mixed in.

Your beans are ready. Garnish with coriander/cilantro and enjoy!

I’ve use these re-fried beans in enchiladas, burritos and tacos, I’ve even made a re-fried bean-pizza. But most often, I like to just scoop some beans onto a plate and go at them with a spoon 🙂

Tags cooking, food, mexican, photos, re-fried beans, recipe, travel

Adventure General

Part I of my trip to Isla Grande and How to Make a Delicious, Impromptu Beach Cocktail

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date March 2, 2012
3 Comments on Part I of my trip to Isla Grande and How to Make a Delicious, Impromptu Beach Cocktail

I’ve been missing in action for over a week now, and the reason for this is that I have been away in lovely, warm, sunny Panama. I enjoyed all of my trip, but I would have to say that my favourite bit was visiting the Caribbean coast and some islands around it. This is why my first post is going to be about the beach part of my vacation.

To get to the coast one has to travel by road from Panama city to the Panamanian province of Colon, up until a little port on the coast called La Guaira. From there we took a boat ride to Isla Grande, an island off the coast. We spent two days there; it was both a beautiful and puzzling little place. It was an extremely laid-back and sleepy town, and people seemed somewhat erratic in their niceness and willingness to serve customers. (I feel I must clarify here that we visited the island during the week, and apparently, it gets much busier during the weekends.)

There were for instance, little stores on the island that sold snacks, toilet paper, water, alcohol etc., Now these stores seemed to keep arbitrary timings and on top of this, the store-keepers also randomly, decided not to sell a customer things even though they were seemingly open. On second thought, their decision not to serve you wasn’t random, I think that if you asked too many questions they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and refused to deal with you. Now, this didn’t happen to me, but it happened to my friends, and I have it on good authority (my friends who actually live in Panama) that this isn’t out of the ordinary at all. One morning for example, two of my friends went over to a store/café and asked if the Cafe was serving breakfast. The lady behind the counter asked what they would like for breakfast. My friends said they weren’t sure, “how about eggs?”, they casually asked. She then promptly told them that both the café and store were closed and wouldn’t even sell them bottled water.

Despite the island’s eccentric (but also friendly) inhabitants, all in all, I enjoyed myself and really liked the place. I would even recommend it to anyone who wants a relaxed Caribbean vacation. It isn’t crowded, it’s fairly inexpensive and there aren’t a lot of resorts, relatively speaking. This is a good thing in my opinion because the place was empty and peaceful. There are also very few foreign tourists here, and most visitors were Panamanians. I would recommend however, that you go during the week, rather than the weekend.

When we arrived, I was disappointed because much of the shore was either rocky or had restaurants and hotels built on it. The town seemed somewhat disorganized and it seemed as though the bars, restaurants and hotels were not making the best of the wonderful natural beauty around them. Most importantly, there didn’t seem to be a nice, sandy beach about, except for little sandy bits between hotels and houses. But after lunch we went out wandering and found a lovely, deserted beach on the other side of the island.

Beautiful beach, Isla Grande, Panama — Isla Grande, Panama (Photo: Matthew Snyder).

There was a part of the beach that looked like a Peninsula; waves broke on either side of it. You can see it more clearly in the picture below:

Beautiful virgin beach, Isla Grande, Panama — Isla Grande Beach, Panama (Photo: Matthew Snyder)

It was empty and beautiful, as you can see:

Secluded beach, Isla Grande Panama — Deserted beach stretch, Isla Grande, Panama (Photo: Matthew Snyder)

There was a café right on the beach, but oddly it had only one type of beer and only served fried plantains. It didn’t even open until about 4 p.m. This was another example of the inexplicable moodiness of the service industry on the island.

So the next afternoon, we went back to this beach with supplies of our own. We had snacks, pineapple juice and this insanely cheap Panamanian rum called Seco. As we were walking to the beach, we ran into a sole and very out-of-place looking vendor who was trying to sell fresh coconuts on an almost-empty beach. We bought some and while we were sitting on the beach sipping fresh coconut water, my friend Andrea pondered aloud if it would be weird for her to put some rum in the coconut. No it wouldn’t Matt and I exclaimed! The next thing we knew, we were making impromptu pina-colada inspired beach cocktails. Here’s how YOU can do this too, the next time you’re on the beach. (That’s my friend Andrea in the photos.)

First, take a fresh coconut and drink up some of the coconut water in it, to make space for the other ingredients:

Then, add a few generous ‘glugs’ of rum:

Next, add some Pineapple juice to taste:

Impromptu beach cocktail recipe — The best beach cocktail ever!

Swirl everything in the coconut about. Lastly, drink up!

It was a truly delicious cocktail!

Tags beach drink, cocktail, coconut drink, food, Isla Grande, Panama, photos, recipe, travel

Cooking Food General Indian Cooking Recipes

How to Make Khichdi: A Low-fat, Fast, and Simple Indian Recipe

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date February 16, 2012
2 Comments on How to Make Khichdi: A Low-fat, Fast, and Simple Indian Recipe

I spent much of this past week writing a long note on copyright theory. I had a deadline to meet (as I mentioned, in my previous post about sunbathing kitties) and I found myself working pretty much around the clock. So I ended up eating out quite a bit. 4 days out of the past 7, I walked out in the snow, slush, gorgeous winter sun, or whatever else this bizarre winter threw at me, and got takeout. Finally, yesterday, sick of all this, I decided to make myself some good, comfort food. I needed something that was simple, fast and healthy; especially something ‘fast’ because I wanted to send off the note to my supervisor before the end of the day. “What should I make?” I pondered, and then it struck me! I was going to make Khichdi!

I’ve forgotten all about khichdi these past few years, choosing to explore more complex and indulgent dishes like dal makhani instead. But today was a khichdi kind of day. Khichdi is the perfect food for when you’re sick, or too busy to make something more complicated. It’s just lentils and rice with some mild spices. You can however, add some vegetables (bleugh! (I am not a huge fan of vegetables, you see)) to it to if you want to.

Here’s how to make some khichdi for yourself:

Ingredients:

1 cup moong dal (you could also use other lentils like Tur dal for instance)

A little less than 1 cup rice

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp cumin powder (dry roast cumin seeds and then grind them, or you can buy the powder at the store)

1 tsp coriander powder (dry roast coriander seeds and then grind them, or you can buy the powder at the store)

1/2 tsp haldi (turmeric powder)

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

1-2 green chilli sliced horizontally into two. (You can also use half a Jalapeño).

For the tadka (tempering):

1-2 tbsp of ghee (Indian clarified butter, you can make this at home, or buy some at an Indian store)

1/2 to 3/4 cumin seeds

3 dried red chillies

A few kernels of black pepper

2 pinches of heengh (asafoetida)

3 cloves

Optional Serving Accompaniments:

Yoghurt

Ghee (you can find it in an Indian store; if you’d like to make it at home, here is my recipe)

Indian Pickle (you can make some at home, but this isn’t so easy. You can also buy some at any Indian store. I chose a Andhra-style tomato pickle for today).

Method:

Start by soaking the moong dal in water for about 30 minutes. You don’t generally have to soak moong dal, but it cooks faster if you do. Also, I like the dal to be well-cooked, even squishy in khichdi, which is why I wouldn’t skip this step in this recipe.

Place a pressure cooker or pot (that comes with a lid) on the stove. Add the lentils, rice, garlic, green chillies and red chilli, turmeric, coriander and cumin powders and stir. Finally, add 2 cups of water, place the lid on the cooker/pot, lower the heat to medium and let the lentil-rice mixture cook. If you’re using a pressure cooker, let the mixture cook until the cooker lets off 4 whistles. If you’re using a pot, just let the mixture cook slowly, stirring occasionally. The mixture is done when it’s squishy enough for you, but make sure not to overdo it or you will end up with a goopy mess.

Now, add one or two tablespoons of ghee (I added two but one will do the trick) to the smallest pot you own, and turn on the heat to high. When the ghee is hot, add the cumin seeds and wait for them to splutter. Then, add the red chillies (torn in half), black pepper, cloves and heengh to the ghee and toss them about. When the chillies darken add this spiced ghee (called the tadka or popu) to the lentil-rice mixture. Your khichdi is done!

Serve with yoghurt and some pickle.

I like eating south Indian ghee with khichdi, so I served some ghee along with it in a little tart mold. That’s what I placed right on top of the khichdi.

Khichdi with Ghee — Khichdi tastes best with a generous helping of Ghee- Indian Clarified butter.

If you want to know more about making south Indian ghee, you can read about it on this website. I am sure I will post something about it soon enough though. I LOVE ghee in general and South Indian ghee in particular.

Tags easy, food, Indian food, khichdi, recipe, simple

Baking Chocolate Cooking Food Recipes

An Incredibly Simple Chocolate Mousse Recipe (It’s about as healthy as something chocolatey can get!)

Post author By Megha Jandhyala
Post date February 8, 2012
7 Comments on An Incredibly Simple Chocolate Mousse Recipe (It’s about as healthy as something chocolatey can get!)

I am somewhat infamous amongst my friends and family for my chocolate obsession (it’s not hard to see why). As a result, my friends often send me chocolate-related recipes by email, Facebook etc. I am always grateful for these messages from them, if nothing else because it means they thought of me. But last week, my friend Zoe posted a link for a chocolate mousse recipe on my Facebook timeline that has entirely changed the way I look at chocolate!

When I first saw the recipe, I thought it seemed too simple to be true. Despite my skepticism, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a try sometime in the near future. As it turned out, I woke up today to find I was out of the Cointreau chocolate truffles I recently made, so, desperately needing my chocolate fix, I decided to try the mousse recipe out. The method employed in this recipe was invented by Herve This, who is a French chemist and, well if you ask me, also a French magician! It turns out this truly is a miracle method/recipe! I am not just being hyperbolic; I mean it. Here’s why:

1. The basic recipe has only has two ingredients: chocolate and water.

2. Although this point is essentially redundant given point 1, I just want to emphasize the fact that the recipe does not call for cream, butter or sugar! So it is pretty low-fat and healthy, for a chocolate mousse recipe.

3. The process is fairly simply, all it needs is a bit of whipping.

You’re amazed aren’t you? Well give it a go, I promise it’s easy and the result is delicious! But before I go on, I just want to add a little caveat to all this. I say this recipe is low-fat because it doesn’t call for cream, butter etc. Having said that, it is still a chocolate mousse recipe. Even though it contains only chocolate and water, chocolate, even dark chocolate contains quite a lot of calories. So this mousse is still considerably more fattening than say just eating some fruit for dessert. So eat it in reasonable quantities.

(I know, I know, you’re calling me a hypocrite now, but YOU, my dear reader can, and should, aspire to a healthier, more sane lifestyle than I adopt, surely!)

I used Heston Blumenthal’s recipe as a base but changed the quantities a little, and added Cointreau for a little extra oomph. Here are the instructions for my version:

Equipment:

1 Saucepan

1 large bowl and 1 smaller bowl

Ice

A whisk

Ingredients:

250g good dark chocolate (I used Godiva chocolate with 72% cocoa solids)

220 ml water

2 tbsp Cointreau (you could also use Grand Marnier)

Cocoa powder and finely grated orange peel for decoration

(The exact quantity of water that you will need varies a little with the room temperature in the room and ice bath, and the particular chocolate you use, so you might have to tweak these measurements. Once you try the recipe out, you’ll get a sense of it and you might find you need to add another tablespoon of water, or reduce the water in the recipe by a bit.)

Method:

Chop up the chocolate on a cutting board into fine bits with a large knife. I have a food processor, so I just break the chocolate up into individual squares and then throw it into the processor. The reason you want the chocolate broken up into fine bits is because you want it all to melt easily when you heat it. Chocolate burns easily, so you’ve always got to be careful when melting it.

Take the larger bowl and fill it with ice and cold water. Place the smaller bowl in this bigger bowl on top of the ice. The bottom of the smaller bowl should rest on the ice.

Next pour the water into a saucepan, place the pan on the stove and turn on the heat/flame to low. Now add the chocolate and Cointreau. With the whisk begin mixing the chocolate, liqueur, and water. Once the chocolate is melted, pour it into the small bowl sitting in the ice-bath. Start whisking the chocolate fairly furiously. It will slowly thicken.

Watch the video below to get an idea of how much to whisk it and when to stop (the whisking bit is from around 1.15 to 1.45).

It’s important not to overdo the whipping; if you do, you won’t end up with a mousse-like consistency. I made that mistake the first time around 😦 and I ended up with a dry mess that looked like this:

If you overdo it, you can melt the chocolate again and repeat the whipping process.

When you have the right consistency, you should stop whisking immediately and serve the mousse. I used an ice cream scoop to gorge some out and then served it on a plate like this- lightly dusted with cocoa on top:

Another option is to scoop into little serving bowls like this. Again, I dusted the top with cocoa powder and then garnished with finely grated orange peel. I’ll probably take of the orange bits before I eat it though, so this is a purely decorative addition.

Tags chocolate, chocolate chantilly, cointreau chocolate mousse, food, low-fat, mousse, recipe

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