Mint Pulav in InstaPot

Presenting another one-pot/InstaPot dish - mint pulav. 

Advantages of cooking in InstaPot - vegetables were perfectly cooked… onions too. Flavor was retained. 

Instant? Not really! 

Less baby sitting - if you call turning off the cooker on time baby sitting, then yes! I really don’t get this guys! It took me 1 hr from start to finish, how is that instant :)

Anyways, rice bath was flavorful…  Enjoy! 

Aloo Bonda

Anyone for aloo bonda? Hot spicy aloo bonda and coffee… yum! 

Like samosa, aloo bonda is universally loved! 

Making this is little more time consuming than regular pakodas… but if you prepare palya(stuffing) before hand and keep everything ready, you can prepare bondas in no time. 

Do try!  

Vegetable fried rice

Presenting another one of my favorite Indo Chinese recipes - Vegetable fried rice. I was thrilled to find this recipe in one my favorite blogs(link given below). I just tweaked it a little bit - like adding celery, and adding green sauce instead of green chillies. 

Celery, like I mentioned in my last post, definitely enhances flavor. But this recipe has another key ingredient - white pepper powder, which also gives a very unique and authentic flavor to the dish. Do not skip this. 

Overall preparing this is very easy. Comes out extremely tasty. Do try! 

Schezwan Noodles

Noodles are anytime welcome in our house, lunch or dinner. I personally love anything Indo-Chinese and Hakka noodles tops the list. 

To get an extra kick out of plain Hakka noodles, add schezwan chutney, which I found out about in a recipe online(link given below). 

I also followed a tip given by Vah chef, that to take any Indo-Chinese dish to the next level, to get that authentic taste, use celery. Yes, celery definitely enhances the taste, and I would highly recommend it for any Indo-Chinese dish, be it noodles or fried rice. 

Now, one more personal tip - generally you cook noodles and then run them in cold water and then add little oil and use them later. To avoid all these steps, I sauté all vegetables and keep everything ready, then I cook noodles, take them out of water and add them directly to the wok. This saves lot of time and energy :)

Do try! 

Enchilada - Method 2

There’s already one recipe for Enchilada, which can be found here. What’s different in this recipe is enchilada sauce is made from scratch and I have also used refried beans, which gives authentic flavor to any Mexican dish. Sauce and refried beans are very easy to make. 

Enchilada Sauce recipe can be found here - Enchilada Sauce

Refried beans here - Refried Beans

Do try!

Palya bun

Happy New Year!! 

Presenting first ever post for this year - Bakery style palya bun. 

Baking is not that intimidating as it sounds/appears. Right ingredients, right measurements and an oven - you can pretty much get it right. These days I am seeing in cooking shows that a pressure cooker can also be used for baking. Add salt and the plate that comes with the cooker, then take out the gasket and cooker weight from the lid, close, pre heat and bake at high temperature. 

Last year, after my friend’s high recommendation, I added bread machine to my kitchen collection. Now I highly recommend it to others. All you need to do is add all the ingredients and turn on the machine. You’ll get a freshly baked loaf in a matter of hours. It tastes same as store bought ones, plus added advantage of no preservatives. Do consider :)

Moving on, for this recipe I made bread dough two ways. First one from scratch - kneading with hands. Second one from bread machine, using dough setting. Today I’ll give the procedure for making from scratch. Do try and enjoy! May your year be filled with good food! 

Easy eggless brownies

Enjoy this Christmas with some homemade eggless brownies…  

I have used flax meal as an egg substitute. Flax meal(ground flax seed) is such a wonderful egg substitute, it has no odd taste, it is good for health, and texture of the brownie comes out soft and fluffy. 

This recipe is extremely easy. Mix everything and bake, as simple as that. Do try! 

Happy holidays!! Merry Christmas!! Happy New Year!!