Quick and easy lemon cake

One hour flat including the baking if you are a slow coach with obsessive no-spill compulsion like me – that’s how long this fluffy yet crumbly lemon cake will take from measuring flour to cutting the first slice.

A few technicalities about this recipe; there is lemon juice and dairy- so careful not to over-mix else you will end up curdling the milk. Use cold milk to adjust (explained below) to reduce further the risk of it splitting. The small portion of semolina flour has two purposes- it gives the crumbly texture inside the cake and on the outside it gives you a firm, almost crispy crust which eases slicing. Size of the pan is crucial. A smaller pan will mean a taller cake and hence a longer baking time plus excessive doming. The butter- my promise of one hour does not hold if you are taking your butter out of the freezer. It should be at room temperature but firm and not become runny the second you begin whipping it.

Ready for the take off?

Your dry stuff:

1 cup of white flour (maida)

2 tbsp fine semolina (rava/sooji)

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

Your wet stuff:

¼ cup unsalted butter

3 tbsp olive oil

½ cup sugar (this much is fine for dessert; a little less if it’s for coffee/tea time or breakfast)

1 egg

¼ cup milk to adjust (explained below)

1 lemon- zest and juice.

Other things you need:

7-inch round cake tin

Vegetable shortening for greasing

In a small bowl mix your dry stuff well with a fork. In a larger bowl whisk the butter with a hand mixer till creamy. Add in the sugar and continue whisking until fluffy. If your sugar grains are very large, just pulse the sugar in a blender before adding. Mix in the olive oil and egg and the zest of the lemon.

Add in your dry mixture and mix until combined. It will be very dry so use the milk to “adjust” the consistency. To those people intimidated by baking, trust me; this is what cake baking finally comes down to - knowing the consistency of the batter you want and some sense of proportion. You hear only too often people saying the proportions are oh-so exacting. The measuring is so snootily critical. It is not- all that banter comes from just one difference in the cooking method. Unlike your soup or gravy that you can fine tune as the cooking goes on the stove top, in baking you have one chance to mix your stuff and pop it into the oven. There is no adjusting after that and there is no interrupting the cooking. So when you realize that that is the only reason we are measuring more carefully, you will be less worried about whether you got 5/17^th cup of ingredient X measured right.

Back to the batter. So you adjust with the cold milk to get the batter consistency right. Go with my measurement of ¼ cup for the first time and you will figure out the right amount in the subsequent cakes. Now there is the last ingredient lemon juice remaining and we will hold off for now. Turn on your oven to 180 degrees C. Grease your cake dish with the vegetable shortening. It is the best thing for greasing- tastes horrible and bad for health if consumed in excess but perfect for greasing. I usually have a stick of the stuff in the fridge frozen and use it like a crayon to grease the baking dish.

Add the juice of lemon and whisk until just combined (but well distributed in the batter) as less as possible. Quickly scrape out the batter into the prepared dish and pop into the oven (I never wait until fully pre-heated). After adding the lemon juice you need to work quickly because the acid in the lemon and the baking soda react very fast. You do not want to lose all that fizz which will make your cake fluffy.

Bake for 25-30 mins until the cake passes a toothpick test. Cool a bit but serve warm :)

Whole Wheat bread

Key to making whole wheat bread is to first get to know the high hydration requirements of whole wheat flour and secondly giving up the attraction for fancy shapes that white bread can be made into. When it comes to whole wheat bread, taste, texture and most importantly health are the highlights. If you want a golden glossy 5 strand braided wreath bread, please stick to white bread (it will look pretty on one's coffin as they say "the whiter your bread, the sooner you're dead!"). There is not much shaping possible with this bread.

This is the second post for whole wheat bread. This one is different in that it is a little lighter as there are no potatoes and I also found this was closer to the store bought wheat bread as regards the crumb and the ease of slicing.

For a small little loaf that can be polished off by two people at breakfast you will need:

- 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

- 5/6 cup of water *

- 1/6 cup of olive oil * (any liquid fat is fine, be healthy and choose a good kind)

- 3/4 tsp dry yeast

- 1/2 tsp sugar

- Salt

- Spices/nuts/seeds ** (optional add-ons)

- 1 Tbsp White flour i.e. maida - for handling the sticky dough. Lesser you use the better, although no more than 1 Tbsp.

(*The weird water to oil proportions are because I had to write in some numbers. The basis is 1 1/2 cup flour to 1 cup fluid (oil+water). Easy measuring is explained below)

Getting started. Warm roughly 1/4 - 1/3 cup of water. You should be able to hold your finger in the water comfortably (60 degrees C precisely). Add the warm water to the yeast and sugar, stir and keep side while you measure out the whole wheat flour in a large bowl. Add the salt and add-ons if using.

** Digression: Whole wheat flour uses the whole wheat berry i.e. the bran and the germ that contains oil is also ground into the flour. This oil is what gives the bread a more full nutty taste when fresh but is also responsible for the slightly bitter taste associated with whole wheat bread. The oil in the germ turns rancid due to contact with water. The bitter taste is very mild and does not at all mean that the bread is going bad. It can be felt only when eating the bread plain without toasting and if you are very discerning of such mild changes in taste. However, bitterness is bitterness and most whole wheat bread recipes contain some additives to mask it (I know of a recipe that uses orange juice!). Choose wisely at most one or two additives from each of these two groups.

Spices: (dry) oregano, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, crushed garlic.

Nuts/seeds: Sunflower kernels, watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame, walnuts. I used caraway (ajwain) + sesame in this one.

Back to the bread; your yeast should be frothy and bubbly by now. Pour it into your cup measure and add more water well above ¾ of the cup but not full. Then top up the cup to the brim with olive oil. This will get you close to the 5/6 water to 1/6 oil ratio. Pour the brimming cup of fluid into the dry ingredients and mix until all wet. Knead with the dough hook attachments on your and mixer for about 7-10 minutes. I don’t recommend hand kneading; it gets very sticky and you will waste a lot trying to clean your hands and hand kneading requires a good 20-25mins of kneading.

If you have made white bread before don’t expect the same smooth, springy dough. It is going to be a shaggy dough and definitely avoid attempting a paning test; it won’t pass. Scrape the sides of the bowl and the dough hooks to gather the dough to the center and keep covered to rise. There is no additional kneading on the counter top to make a ball, it can rise as such in the bowl.

In an hour or two your dough should have risen to double its volume. Grease your loafpan and keep ready. I find vegetable shortening (vanaspati/dalda) is the best for greasing. It’s horrible to taste and unhealthy to eat but excellent for greasing. It does not get into the bread. You can find it remaining in the pan once the loaf is out. Using a rubber spatula deflate the dough and gather it to the middle of the bowl. Heavily flour your counter top/kneading surface and your hands using some of the 1 Tbsp white flour. Turn out the dough onto your counter top and sprinkle on top some of the white flour. With as few as 6 to 10 light strokes pat it smooth and shape it into a log. Remember; do not work the white flour into the dough. It is supposed to remain at the surface to prevent sticking (to your hands and the counter). Plop the shaped log into your prepared loafpan and give it a shake for the log to settle in snuggly. Let rise another 30-40 minutes and bake at 180 degrees C for 35-40 minutes. Knocking on the bottom of the pan should produce a hollow sound. Remove from pan and slice when cooled completely.

Pizza bites

Nothing fancy. There are recipes all over the internet dime a dozen. This just happens to be a tried and working vegetarian variation. The classic recipe is with pepperoni. Also in this version the tomato sauce goes into the dish and is hence easier to serve. The prep for this dish is exactly the same as for pizza. In fact in the last minute you can just decide to make it a pizza, albeit one with only very unimaginative toppings. So let's get started.
The recipe has two parts- dough and filling. Start with the dough.
Warm about 1/4 cup of fluid (water or milk). You should be able to comfortably keep a finger in the water. "Ouch"- hot is equal to "ouch, you killed the yeast". If this subjectivity is too much for you, get a thermometer, we want 60 degrees C. Add 60 degrees C water to 3/4 tsp dry yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar, stir and keep aside while you measure out flour.
For 12 pizza bites you will need 2 cups of all-purpose flour. If all-purpose flour is synonymous with maida for you (which it is not, ask me), then take 1 3/4 cup of maida and 1/4 cup of atta. Add salt to taste and check the yeast now for bubbly froth. No froth? Pack up- next recipe please. Yeast has to be frothy. Pour the frothy yeast into the flour and an additional 1/4 cup plain water. Measure out 1/4 cup water and keep aside before starting to knead. Use the dough hooks attachment on your hand mixer. You will need more water as you knead. Use the measured out 1/4 cup of water, but that is the max you can go with water i.e. 2 cups of flour to 3/4 cup of water in total (1/4 cup with yeast, 1/4 to start kneading and 1/4 as you go on). It is precisely 2 cups of flour to 2/3 cup of water. Since atta soaks a lot we allow 3/4 cup water , but really no more. Knead 5-7 mins with the hand mixer or 15-20 mins after the dough comes together if kneading by hand. Nice smooth and springy ball, coat with a dot of oil to avoid drying and then pizza dough - R.I.P (rise in peace).
Summing up pizza dough ingredients and proportions:
- 2 cups flour (see above about what kind)
- 2/3 cup water in ALL (3/4 if using whole wheat, see above)
- 3/4 tsp dry yeast
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- salt

For the filling you will need:
- 6-7 ripe tomatoes
- A knob of butter (1tsp)
- 10 leaves of of fresh basil or dry oregano/thyme
- Black pepper corns
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- Handful of sweet corn kernels (frozen is fine)
- 75 gms of your favourite cheese (cheddar or mozarella works fine).
- 2 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- salt

Quarter tomatoes and throw them in the jar of a blender. Pulse for 3-5 seconds. We don't want them pureed; just thoroughly crushed small chunks are good. Set on a stove a saucepan or any heavy bottomed vessel with the knob of butter on high flame. Add all the tomato mush and bring to a boil. Then reduce the flame to simmer; cover and forget about it for at least 20 mins.
Meanwhile, crush pepper corns, peel and mince garlic, thaw the corn kernels and cut the cheese into 12 equal cubes/pieces.
Back to the tomatoes. Scrape the sides of the pot and bring the pulp together in the middle. There should be very little water separating out of the tomato pulp, else cook open on a high flame. Add the crushed pepper, salt and minced garlic and stir well on high flame. You should have crossed pizza sauce consistency reached almost a loose tomato paste consistency. Turn off the heat and mix in the corn kernels immediately. After about 2 mins stir in olive oil and shreds of basil.

Assembly. Deflate with flour dusted hands the now risen pizza dough and make a ball with as little handling as possible. Depending on your work surface, roll out the dough as thick as you would for pizza (or a little thicker if you only make thin crust).

 Cut them up into about 3 inch pieces (squares/rectangles) with a knife.

On each piece of rolled out dough place some filling and a piece of the cheese (no grating..yipee!).

Wrap up each piece bringing up the sides and sealing in the filling. Place seam side down on a greased baking dish.

If you do not want them pull-apart style use a large cookie sheet and place them well spaced (totally unnecessary in my opinion). Let rise for another 20-30 mins and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees C for about 30-40 mins or till the bread looks done. Optionally brush on top with butter and dry spices when still hot. Pull apart (or not) and enjoy.

Blog resurrected with prawn curry

I claim and assert my malayalee roots to excuse myself from explicitly calling the dish Kerala prawn curry. Well it is and most curry posts,especially seafood, unless otherwise qualified will be.
This is a super quick dinner fix; one of those meals about which you can hear non vegetarian Keralites saying.. "I make non-veg meals so that I don"t have too many veggies to chop and too many side dishes to make and just this one curry completes the meal".
A note before we begin, this is not a curry to make if you have umami craving. The prawns are really only meant to flavor the curry and not for biting into. Hence the really small quantity of prawns required. We now begin.
You will need
- 6-8 medium sized prawns (cleaned)
- 1 raw mango from the mango tree outside peeled and chopped.
- 10 curry leaves
- 2 green chillies
- 1/4 coconut
- Red chilli powder
- Turmeric powder
- Corriander powder
- Cumin seeds
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 small piece of ginger
- 3 dry red chillies
- 3 shallots/1/4 onion finely chopped
- Mustard seeds
- Fenugreek seeds
- 2-3 Tbsp Coconut oil
- Salt

Ok, that seemed like a long list, but you must admit it's mostly just regular stuff found in any Indian kitchen even when your grocery shopping is due. Set on the stove a pot with 2 cups of water with prawns, mango, curry leaves, slit green chillies, turmeric and salt. When it comes to a boil reduce to a simmer and carry on with the remaining prep. Into the jar of a blender make a paste of chopped coconut (don't bother with grating), red chilli powder, corriander powder, cumin seeds, garlic and ginger. Add water as needed. The prawns must be simmering for about 15-20 mins by now. Add the contents of the blender and bring to a boil. Simmer again for 5 mins for the raw spices to cook through and take off heat. Temper the curry - heat coconut oil in a wok, splutter mustard seeds, add fenugrek seeds, dry red chillies and shallots/onions- pour the hot oil with condiments into the curry and mix. Ladle some curry into the wok to get all the oil. Serve with rice or rice based main dish like idli, dosa, idiappam or appam.
Nothing fancy hence no photo.

Spaghetti with Mackerel

Happy New year and all that! For the elusive reader, here's a sincere apology for not posting for a long time. To be fair to us, it's the terrace gardening that kept us from posting new recipes. So one of these days, when we saw Jamie Oliver's 'Fish with linguine' recipe on his FB wall, we knew this should be tried and tested. Tried and tested we did and owing to its awesomeness, we immediately decided it needs to be shared. 

Here it is for you. We have generously adapted the recipe to fit our taste (and to the ingredients that we had in the kitchen). Not a fish eater? Just skip the mackerel and you get a great, light pasta dish for dinner!

Mackerel - 2 fillets 
Spaghetti (or linguine) - 250 gms
Garlic - 3 large or 4 small cloves
Cherry Tomatoes - 4 to 5 (or one big tomato)
Parsley - few sprigs
Thyme - few sprigs
Lemon -  1 (juice and zest)
Fresh Red Chili - 1
Butter - 1 tbsp
Olive Oil
Sea salt
Pepper 

Directions to cook:

• Set a pot of water to boil for the pasta with a teaspoon of cooking oil and salt. Meanwhile...
• Wash the fillet, apply just enough salt and crushed pepper and keep aside to marinate.
• Peel and slice the garlic cloves, finely chop the red chili, parsley and thyme; also, halve the cherry tomatoes and zest the lemon
• Add around 3 tablespoons of oil in the hot wok, add the garlic; once it starts to show some color, add red chili, half of parsley and the fish fillet (skin side down, else your fish will curl up in the heat)
• Toss and cook the fillet in low heat; it's ok if it flakes and breaks, it's supposed to (if it doesn't, use the spatula to break it up into rough chunks. You don't want a whole fillet in your pasta)
• Add the tomatoes and stir for about a minute
• Throw in the lemon zest and stir for exactly 30 seconds, else the zest loses its flavor
• Turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and give it a stir
• Your pasta must be done now, use tongs to add the pasta from the pot to the wok. 
• Add the butter to the hot pasta and toss to coat
• Add the seasoning, salt followed by the finely chopped spices - Parsley and Thyme

Serve warm!

Spinach and roasted pumpkin sandwich

In the Indian context sandwiches are considered a snack. One that you can whip up in minutes if you have the chutney. Typically a sandwich is just a couple of slices of pure white bread (preferably with the crust trimmed off!!) with green corriander chutney and butter in between and a few measly slices of tomatoes, cucumber, onions and boiled potato. With a good appetite you can easily polish off 5-6 triangles and then some more.
Subway managed to introduce the solid and substantial western of the sandwich. However they have managed to only reach out to a fairly upward crowd and their sandwiches are exclusively referred to as Subway with clear opposition (and rightly so) to the "Indian Sandwich".

Here is one sandwich recipe which attempts like Subway an acceptance of "The Sandwich" as a meal. The preparation is also as elaborate as you would reckon for a meal. The ingredients list for this sandwich:
-Whole wheat sandwich bread (preferably home made, I have a posted a recipe already)
- Pumpkin 300 gm
- Cheese - as much as you like and the kind you like. I used Parmesan.
- Green peppers - 2 Nos. (any colour actually)
- Garlic - 2-3 cloves
- Red chilli flakes or Chilli oil
- Basil leaves - 8-10 leaves
- Cream - 1 Tbsp (optional)
- Olive oil
- Salt

The recipe has three parts: veggies and cheese, dressing and the bread. If you are not using chilli oil, start with the dressing. Mix the chilli flakes in about a tablespoon of olive oil and keep aside. We will come back to this later. Chilli oil is just olive oil with chilli flakes soaking in it for a couple of days or more, so the oil gets infused with the spice.
Now we being with the vegetables and cheese part. Peel and chop the pumpkin in 1/2 cm thick slices i.e. really thin. Just quarter the green peppers, you want longish broad slices. Put the pumpkin and peppers in a roasting pan, drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some salt and pop it into an oven at 180 degrees celsius. (Pre-heating or semi-pre-heating is good, I never bothered in which case it takes a little longer).
While the vegetables roast, prepare the spinach. Trim he roots and the tough stems and chop roughly. Put a little oil or butter in a pot and add the spinach. On low heat, the greens will take 2-3 mins to wilt and release a lot of water. Cook the spinach through, but save about a tablespoon of the water. Grate cheese and keep aside.
Start dressing. To the chilli oil or the olive oil with chili flakes add crushed garlic cloves and about 4-5 finely chopped basil leaves and mix well. Add the cream if using, the spinach water and mix again- the dressing is ready.
Bread: Lightly toast the bread slices dry. Brown them only slightly. Very stiffly toasted slices of bread don't make good sandwiches.
We are now good to assembles the sandwiches if the vegetables in the oven are done. Check on them in the oven. Remember to give them a stir half way through their roasting time (somewhere around the time you wait for the spinach to wilt). The pumpkin slices would be a nice golden brown when done.
Take two slices of bread, spread some of the dressing on them. Place some spinach followed by cheese, pumpkin slices, one whole leaf of basil and finally two long slices of the peppers. Close your sandwich. Enjoy your meal. If the bread used is home made, I bet you will finish your meal with two of these sandwiches.

Nidi = Italian for nests

Countless Italian foods, mainly pasta, are named after their shapes of after things of similar shape found in nature. For example, did you know "Farfalle" means butterfly, "Orecchitte" means little ears and "Conchiglie" means shells? Google up their images and you will instantly know how the names came about.
This recipe is one along those lines. Nido means nest and Nidi refers to several of them. These nests are made of pancake strips and house roasted vegetables and a makeshift filling with easily available Indian ingredients to substitute the actual recipe which calls for ricotta, as explained in the TV series "Simply Italian". That's where this recipe is inspired from. It can be served just plain, but pairs just excellently with a classic arrabbiata sauce. So here we go.

Ingredients for the pancakes:
1/2 (120ml) Cup Milk
1/2 Cup White Flour (maida)
1 Egg
Salt
Nutmeg

Ingredients for the filling:
2 Tbsp Mawa/Khoya (unsweetened)
1 Tbsp Thick set Yogurt
1/2 tsp Red chilli flakes
4-5 large leaves of fresh Basil
Zest of half a lemon
Salt

Veggies to roast:
Egg plant, Zucchini, Peppers (Green/Red/Yellow), 1Tbsp olive oil, Salt. Parmesan cheese.

Ingredients for the arrabbiata sauce:
5-6 ripe Tomatoes
1/2 Onion
1Tbsp cooking Butter
2-3 pods of Garlic
Salt and Pepper
3Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil.

We start with the slowest. Slice the vegetables to be roasted. Do not chop them. You want to be able to spread them on the pancakes without piling too high. I have not given any measurement for how much of each vegetable because it depends on the size of the veggies. One whole Egg plant might be too much or too less depending on how big the Egg plant is and likewise for zucchini and peppers. So read till the end of the recipe and use your judgement. Apply a few drops of olive oil on a skillet and spread the veggies as much as possible on it and pop into an oven set to 180 degrees Celsius for 20-25mins. Pre-heating is not required.

We start on the next slowest. My recent discovery and my would-be all time favourite- The Classic Arrabbiata Sauce. This sauce is so simple and so awesome and will never let you down. Perfect to be used in any Italian recipe that calls for a tomato sauce or just toss in any cooked pasta grate cheese and you'll have the your Italian cravings satiated in minutes.
Quarter the tomatoes and put them in the jar of a blender. Pulse for exactly five seconds. We are trying to arrive at the consistency of "crushed" tomatoes, NOT tomato puree or paste. Set a non-stick pot on a medium-high flame and pour in the contents of the blender. Rinse the blender with no more than a tablespoon of water to get the remaining tomato and pour into the pot. Peel an onion, halve it and dunk one half into the pot. No chopping, no slicing- just half the onion as such. Plop in the tablespoon of butter, give the three (tomato, onion and butter) a good stir, cover the pot, reduce flame to simmer and forget about it for 15-20mins.

Next, the pancakes. With a hand or electric whisk mix all the pancake ingredients into a smooth batter. It should be quite runny. Ladle out onto a good non-stick skillet to get a large thin pancake. Use up the batter and you should have two large ones. Keep aside.

Filling. Except the basil leaves, mix the other ingredients well with a fork until well combined. The mawa will give a grainy texture, this is ok. Finely snip the basil leaves with kitchen scissors and mix in as well.

Give the tomato sauce a good stir now. Remove the half onion and return the lid. Let it go for another 5-10mins and turn off the heat. Keep aside with the lid on.

The veggies must be done now too. It's time to assemble the Nidi. Generously oil a baking dish (borosil) and keep ready. On a large cutting board place one of the pancakes, spread on it half of the filling in a thin layer stopping about 2cm before the edge. Place a layer of the roasted veggies without piling them. Gently but firmly roll the pancake, leave the last inch or so. Place the other pancake and repeat the same layers. Overlap the left out inch of the first pancake with the starting of the next and continue rolling. It sounds more complicated than it is. You are trying to simulate rolling up a longish mat by placing the pancakes one after the other. You should have a very thick roll of the two pancakes now. Using a very sharp knife, slice the roll into about one inch thick slices and place these on the oiled baking dish. The slices touching each other to hold shape. Grate parmesan cheese on top of the Nidi and bake for 10-15mins in a pre-heated oven at 180 Degrees Celsius until the cheese has melted and cooked through.

While the Nidi bake, resume the tomato sauce. Put back on the stove on low flame and stir in any juices that have separated. Crush the garlic pods with the side of a knife and add it to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and stir in 2-3 Tbsp of Extra virgin olive oil. Never heat Extra virgin olive oil. The virginity is lost! Literally.

Nidi must be done. Serve a couple of Nidi onto a plate and spoon some arrabbiata sauce on them. Serve with good white wine!