Something to snack on - chakar-kadis and namkeen-kadis

It has been a while since I entered my kitchen and put thought to cook something - anything worth to be posted at My Dhaba. AAA team (hope you know all of them by now - Adarsh, Aditya, and the little Advait with his cute smile) were pestering me too much today to cook something for them :-) . It was tea time when I reached back home today evening from office so I could sneak out some time quite easily.

Here is what I prepared today, sharing it with you. Chakar kadis... and namkeen kadis... Hope you have already heard about these home-cooked delicacies. Yes, these are absolutely traditonal ones, quite an easy sweets/snack combo to prepare too. Folks - do try these out.

So, bringing the ingredients together...
Chakar kadi recipe

To make 12 servings:

Ingredients:
Maida flour – 2-1/2 teacups (I used all-purpose flour today)
Sugar – 1 cupful, finely powdered
Ghee – 3 cupfuls
Salt – a pinch, powdered
Rice flour – 1-1/2 teacups

Method: Sift the maida and add a pinch of powdered salt to it. Add water little by little to the maida and make it to a hard stiff dough. Keep aside for 2 hours. Smear a bit of ghee over the dough and knead very well once again till it turns soft and elastic.

Mix 4 teaspoons of rice flour with half cup of warm ghee and beat together to a thin cream.

Take a ball of dough the size of a small orange and roll out to a thin round as finely as you possibly can, smearing the surfaces of the round generously with rice flour while rolling it. After you have rolled out the ball of dough to a thin round, smear its surface all over with the rice flour-ghee cream. Next, lift the right side edge of the round and fold so that its central edge covers two-thirds of the surface of the round. Smear the rice flour-ghee cream all over, then lift the uncovered left side of the round and fold it over so that the middle edge of its circumference reaches the central end of the first folded line; if you have understood the directions so far correctly, you will now have a rough rectangle before you. Fold this twice or fold by half to form a square. Remember that before and after every fold you must smear the surface of the round with rice flour-ghee cream. This is just like making a square-shaped paratha. Now roll out the square of folded dough with a light hand till it is about one-eighth inch thick. Cut it into inch squares or diamond shapes. Deep fry these cut pieces in smoking hot ghee to a light brown color and while still hot drench liberally with powdered sugar. These sweet tit-bits may be served hot or cold. Kids will love it.

To make namkeen kadis, while still hot sprinkle coarsely ground black pepper and a little powdered salt. That is how I like it. Alternatively, you may add the ground black pepper and a little powdered salt to the dough and make in the same way, omitting of course the sugar. Enjoy!

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Traditional Indian Home Cooking: Ragi (Finger Millet) Dosai

VCC 375 - Colcannon

Is there anyone out there who have tasted this dish? Colcannon!

This is a traditional Irish recipe kindly contributed by Sophie Kevany to the group cookbook project - You Can Cook' for 'Feed a Hungry Child' campaign.

I will aim to do the taste-testing of this recipe myself over next weekend and will get you an end-result picture later.

Colcannon recipe
(unedited)

Ingredients:
3lbs or six large potatoes
Six spring onions/scallions/chives or one onion
Half a pint of milk or 4 oz cream
salt and pepper
1lb boiled green curley kale
3oz butter
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Nutmeg, mace, white pepper or dill as prefered

Method: Put the potatoes on to boil, then cook the kale in lightly salted
water. Do not overcook, drain and keep warm.

Fry an onion in one tablespoon of butter for about five minutes. Add the cream, more butter and nutmeg/dill/white pepper/mace.

When the potatoes are boiled, mash with milk, then add cream/onion mix.

Chop the kale finely, and then in a warm bowel, stir gently into potatoes.

Serve with extra melted butter.

VCC: VCC Q4-2006: FAHC: FAHC-campaign

VCC 374 - Pickle Rice

Here is another recipe which is a homely innovation contributed by Swapna to the group cookbook project - You Can Cook' for 'Feed a Hungry Child' campaign.

The recipe details of pickle rice is here.

VCC: VCC Q4-2006: FAHC: FAHC-campaign

VCC 373 - Tomato Majjiga Pulusu

Here is a very traditonal family recipe kindly contributed by Padmaja to the group cookbook project - You Can Cook' for 'Feed a Hungry Child' campaign.

The recipe details of tomato majjiga pulusu are here.

VCC: VCC Q4-2006: FAHC: FAHC-campaign

VCC 372 - Meen Pollichathu

Back from a quite satisfying one-month vacation. I will get you the details of FAHC's first event very soon where we have begun supporting 14 children with effective from April 17, 2007. A group snap of the pilot batch of the FAHC-supported children are here.

I have a few more contributing entries to the group cookbook project - You Can Cook' for 'Feed a Hungry Child' campaign. Here is the first entry kindly offered by Shn.

The recipe details of meen pollichathu aka fish in banana leaf wraps are here.

VCC: VCC Q4-2006: FAHC: FAHC-campaign