Indian flat-bread

Potato rotis & coconut-yogurt chutney

I can't get enough of indian food! We have so much potatoes that we're eating it in every form. Boiled and smashed potatoes make fine indian rotis, flat breads baked without raising the dough and roasted on a hot pan. They have something similar with the finnish traditional rieska. Rotis are usually roasted without oil. Rotis and the chutney are well on their own as a small snack, or as an accompany for some spicy indian curry. The rotis and yogurt cool the heat of the food. If it was summer, I'd chop fresh mint leaves in the chutney!

Ingredients:

8-10 boiled potatoes, smashed

1 tsp of chili sauce

1 tsp of chili flakes

1 tsp of turmenic

1 tsp of jeera (roman cumin)

salt

½ dl oil

2-3 dl of flour

Mix the spices and oil with the potatoes. Knead in the flour little by little to get a soft dough. Heat a pan and take a ball of the dough and roll it to a round flat bread on a floured table. Roast on a hot pan until slightly brown, flip over to roast the other side. Serve hot, with a cooling yogurt chutney and some curry.

Only some left any more

Yogurt chutney:

Ingredients:

2-3 dl of desiccated coconut

1 dl of soy yogurt

1 tsp of tamarind paste (or lemon juice)

2 grated garlic cloves

salt

Soak the coconut flakes in warm water for half an hour. Sift the extra water out. Mix the coconut with yogurt and spices.

Vegan brownies

Orange-chocolate brownies

Orange and chocolate are a fine combinement. I recommend you squish the orange juice by yourself, it's a lot better! I also left some of the fruit's pulp in the batter. I'm so glad we had soy yogurt in the fridge, vegan baked tastes so much better, and it's so true. But instead I ran out of good real dark cocoa powder, I found like only one spoonful and I had to use the lighter cocoa powder that has sugar mixed in it.

Ingredients:

3 dl of flour

1 ½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp of vanilla sugar

3 tbsp of cocoa

1 ½ dl of sugar

zest of one orange

2 dl of soy yogurt

½ dl of soy milk

½ dl of orange juice

Icing :

juice of a half orange

25 g margarine, melted

1 tsp of orange zest

2-3 dl of confectioner's sugar

Heat the oven in 175 degrees. Melt the margarine. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and mix separately the wet ingredients (soy yogurt, milk, orange juice and margarine). Whisk all together, do not stir too much. Pour the batter in a large tin and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Once you've taken out the cake, let it cool while making the icing. Melt the margarine in a small kettle. Mix in the squeezed orange juice and zest. Whisk in the confectioner's sugar until the mixture is nicely firm. Lay it on the cooled pie and let settle for a while.

Best NAN bread ever!

We had an indian food-night with girls, I got to show my skills learned from India! I made dishes I learned in our cooking classes. I have done some of these before, and they were so goood, the whole meal was a success! So the recipe for the nan is from Shaila, our teacher, and it's the best I've tried. It's made without yeast (even better). This Indian Thali consisted of these dishes: nan-bread, dhal fry, palak paneer, jeera rice, peanut chutney. For dessert we had masala chai and a western twist, pancake! I'm only putting out some of the recipes, because I don't have proper pictures to offer from all of them. I'll try again next time I'm making these dishes!

Nan-bread

Ingredients:

1 big bowl of wheat flour (about 8 dl)

1 tsp of salt

2 tsp of sugar

1 tbsp of baking powder

2-3 dl of soy yogurt (I added also some milk)

1 tbsp of oil

butter

Mix the baking powder in the flour, add salt and sugar. Add the soy yogurt and knead into a ball. Add oil. Leave the dough aside for 5-6 hours for fermentation.

For making the nan you need a hot (not too hot so they won't burn) pan and butter. Take a small ball from the dough and roll with some flour into a circular shape. When the pan is hot, add the bread. Roast for 2-3 minutes and flip over. When ready, smear butter and serve hot!

Palak paneer

Ingredients:

150 g Frozen spinach (palak)

2 diced onions

200 g of tomatocrush

some fresh ginger

2-3 garlic cloves

oil

cinnamon

clove

peanuts

dried chili

200 g feta-cheese (or the vegan choice, tofu or potatoes)

Take the frozen spinach to room temperature. Dice the cheese (or tofu/potatoes). Warm a pan with 2 spoons of oil, add onions and fry until slightly brown. Add ginger, garlic, chilies, cinnamon, cloves and peanuts and fry until slightl brown. Add the tomato crush and fry for a minute. Take off the heat, and when cool, put in a blender with 1-2 dl of water and make a fine paste.

Take a saucepan, add oil. When hot, add the paste and the spinach. Let the spinach melt, add salt to taste. Add the feta to the pan, bring to boil and remove from the heat. Serve with nan bread.

Peanut chutney

Ingredients:

1 large cup of peanuts

100 g Desiccated coconut

red chilies (can also be replaced with dried chili flakes)

2-3 garlic cloves (optional)

1 tsp of tamarind paste(if you don't have any, replace with a tbsp of lemon juice)

salt to taste

Soak the desiccated coconut in water/or soy milk for 30 minutes. Roast the peanuts on a pan until slightly brown. Heat the red chilies in oil for 2-3 minutes until crispy, add garlic. Grind all the ingredients in a blender. Add the seasoning:

oil

mustard seed

Take a pan with a cover, add oil, and when hot add mustard seeds. Put the cover on and let pop under it. Put this seasoning in the coconut chutney. Delicious!

(Pancake ;)

Sparkling mind

I am a great fan of sparkling wine! Yesterday, for the honor of friday, we had some farely-priced sparkling wine, Törley Sec, very dry. I really can't stand anything else than dry wines, I'm avoiding the sweeter ones always. This wine was definitely sparkly and enthusiastic!

Flourless chocolate brownies

To accompany the drink I made this heavenly chocolate cake. It is not vegan, but use organic eggs and be happy. This flourless cake was quite spongy, not too heavy though I thought it would be. This is a really festive dessert and delight, and definitely easy to make.

Ingredients:

225 g of dark chocolate (use as dark as you can!)
225 g of margarine
1 dl of sugar
1 tsp of vanille sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 dl of raisins and dried fruits, chopped

Heat oven in 175 degrees. Melt the chocolate and grease with low heat. Take off heat and mix in the sugar and vanille. Let it cool for a while, and add then the beaten eggs and dried fruits. Pour the batter in a tin (about 25x25 cm) and bake in the oven for 25-30 min. Let cool. SERVE WITH VANILLA ICE CREAM!!

Savoury pie!

Our fridge seems to look quite plain nowadays, but dad brought some mushrooms and a huge sack of potatoes from his parents. So now it means, we are eating potato for the rest of the spring. I had to "get rid" of the mushrooms before they were spoiled, so I came up with this pie. Since we had no soy cream or milk or pretty much anything, I thought about making a bit different pie dough than our usual, something that doesn't have so much margarine as they normally do. This consists of potato- and carrotmash and has a top crust.

Mushroom pie with potato-carrot crust

Ingredients:

FOR THE PIE-DOUGH

3-4 large potatoes

2 carrots

25 g margarine

salt, pepper

1 tsp of chili

4 dl of flour (and some more for rolling)

Boil the potatoes and carrots. Then squash into a puree, add the margarine and spices. Let it cool for a while. Heat the oven in 200 degrees. Add the flour, until it has made to a nicely firm dough, not too hard. Take it on the table, and divide into to portions, other one a bit bigger. You might need more flour, since the dough can be quite sticky. Take the bigger piece and lay it on the pie mold (about 27 cm). Stick with a fork and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

THE FILLING

1 onion

1 big garlic clove (or two small)

200 gr of mushrooms

1 big potato, margarine

salt, pepper

Chop the onion and mushrooms. Mash the potato, add some soy milk (I used water since we had none, but I'd prefer soy milk, or cream) and mix in the grated garlic and spices. Pour on the pie, and lay on the onions and mushrooms. Now take the other piece of the dough, and roll it for the top-crust. Put on the filling and press nicely, stick with a fork some holes. If you wish, lay some oil on the top-crust. Bake for 45 minutes in 175 degrees.

Sweet tangy tooth

IN ACTION! Our kitty is one of a kind, wild one. She likes to crawl under the tablecloth.. especially when you're drinking tea, ready to spill everything.
I am so full! I didn't really eat any real food today, and made myself a banana-blackcurrant-kiwi-smoothie for dinner. And...made this. Today I knew I had to bake something sweet, and I found a recipe for this from "Frantsilan yrttitilan kasviskeittokirja"-book. Although the recipe was for making pastries, I instead turned it into a pie. And the jam is made by myself. I think you can use any jam, something like apples and cinnamon, or any berries.. but self-made is best. We had some really tangy mandarines, so this is how made their hard core sweeten a bit and put them to use! No waste.

Oat-black currant&mandarinejam pie

I'm feeling pity for this pie since it looks so burned :,) And I can tell you, this pie tasted like a vegan pie, I don't is it just my baking but usually it tastes. But I just love it.
Ingredients:
3 dl of oat flakes
3 dl flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of vanille sugar
3 tbsp of jaggery (or sugar, or honey if you prefer)
250 gr of melted butter
2 dl of soy milk (or cream as in the book)

2 dl of jam, blackcurrant-mandarine or any you like/have!
To make the jam, put in a kettle some blackcurrants and peeled mandarines with sugar to your taste. Boil in a low heat covered for some time. When the berries seem broken enough and the texture is satisfying you, pour in a glass can or some other.. ;)

Heat the oven in 200 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and whisk in the cooled butter and soy milk. Pour the batter in a greased (or as I did, oiled) cake tin (about 24x24 cm) and spoon on the jam evenly. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Perfect with vanilla ice cream (or custard)!!

Baking with alcohol

Beer bread

I got the inspiration for this bread from an old magazine of http://www.glorianruokajaviini.fi. The dough is made entirely to beer, and in this case - it's cornbeer (non-glutein)! I had some cans in store, and I have no other use to them. The bread was really good, the texture is really smooth and it tastes ...different (but not like beer). The negative side is that I felt quite obnoxious while making the dough, because of the smell of the beer. But that can be just me, and the result is good anyway! Maybe next time trying.. white wine??

5 dl of beer (one can)

1 bag of dry yeast (11 g)

some honey

Mix the yeast and honey in room temperature beer. Add

3 dl of barley flour

½ dl of oil

1 dl of oat flakes

Knead in the rest of the flour.

8-9 dl of wheat flour

Knead for about 5-10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. You can also use a machine if you wish to save your arms. Let rise covered for about 30 minutes. Roll the dough on a table to two roundshaped breads, or if you wish you can make smaller buns also. Let them rise for another 30 minutes, and make two crossing cuts on the breads with a sharp knife. Bake in 200 C for 40 minutes (smaller buns for about 15-20 minutes).

My FAVOURITE soup!

Green lentil soup

This is one our familys traditional foods. Always as good and safe. And the younger ones eat it also! Even if it's green! Everyone loves it. This soup is made of green lentils, I have never really gotten into the red ones. To make the soup more nutritious, you can add chick peas also (and some carrots). I variated the basic soup this time by adding some indian spices : jeera (cumin), green cardamoms and cinnamon. I brought these spices from India, that's is not exactly a cinnamon stick... cinnamon wood. The measures in the recipe are "about", if the soup seems dry add more water and so on. This serves about 4 persons.

Ingredients:

4 dl of green lentils
1 onion , chopped
2 garlic cloves
fresh ginger
1 ½ l of water
oil
jeera
green cardamoms, cinnamon
salt, pepper

I first sauteed the onion, garlic, ginger and jeera in oil for a few minutes. Then add the rinsed lentils and roast for some time. Add the water (I use hot water boiled in a tea pan, it's quicker and easier) and boil under cover for about 45 minutes in a low heat. Check if the soup is getting dry and add water if needed. When ready, take out the whole cardamoms and cinnamon. Puree with a blender and add salt and pepper as you wish.

Eat India, Part II

India theme continues! This is what we ate at the second cooking class, North Indian thali. We made Nan-bread, dhal fry, palak paneer, jeera rice and the sweet dessert vermicelli kheer. Palak paneer is the green sauce in the picture, palak means spinach and paneer is indian cheese. It can be easily replaced with tofu or potatoes. I'll try to add some dishes with recipes we made in the cooking classes, when I get to cook and photo them. Here some views we saw in India.

What would India be without the cows? The promised land for elephants and cows.

Some citysight from Mysore, Gokulam.

Views from the train, I guess this is a rice plantasion.

Kerala, village along the river.

Sea in Amritapuri, Kerala! The sea made quite an impact, Kerala is definitely a really beautiful place. It's a shame we didn't stay in Kerala for longer.

Here you can see some pepper! We went as far as the pepper grows. We stayed in an accomodation place, which had their own small garden on the back yard, where they had all kind of fruits, herbs and vegetables growing.

Coffee beans!

And here is the banana tree.

Papayas.

The alcohol culture is quite different in India. I don't know about the night-life in bigger cities, but this is a local "bar" in one village - a small stall beside the street, which sells booze. And not too fancy, just pour the liquor in a paper-cup and all in.

These are the typical shops they have, kiosks beside the street.

Street cooking. I remember this was making masala dosa. Not that I'd dare to eat off the street...

And last, but not least, the palm tree. No coconuts there though!