Soul Food.............

From last 8 days I was eating so called junk food (I love to :)..... mostly outside. Today we are celebrating our festival Dipawali and in lunch I prepared simple Indian food.

Potato curry, Roti (Indian bread), salad and Sweet Gulab Jamun (prepared from ready made pack).

Soul Food.............

Though I consider my taste buds to be quite good, but after munching on junk food here and there, I loved to prepare such simple food with very less spices. I would like to call this food as soul food........... :)

Cucumber, Carrot , curd (raita) salad

Yum yum....... Gulab jamun...

HAPPY DIPAWALI

Wheat and Barley Bran flour Biscuits

I love baking but I hate to use very fine white flour. So, this time I have made biscuits from wheat flour and Barley Bran. These are perfect tea-time or evening snacks. These are also all time favorite of my daughter. As I used whole wheat flour and barley bran flour with home made butter, I don't suffer from any guilt when she eats 4-5 pieces at a time.

Ingredients:

1 cups sifted whole wheat flour,1/2 cup barley bran flour,
1 tsp. baking powder,
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. butter milk

Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again now add sugar . Cut the butter and use your hand to mix it in the flour. Add butter milk if required so that you can make a soft dough.
Now wrap the dough in plastic film and keep in the fridge for 30 min.
Roll and cut with biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 300-350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. My Big Help...........

Dried Curd in Mango pulp wrap

last weekend we had called one of our friends for lunch. When he came, he opened a box for me as a surprise. The box was full of sweets. He asked me guess what it is. Rather than guessing I put one piece in my mouth :)....
He had made it himself at home and it was really delicious. The outer cover is made from Mango pulp and inside is dried curd powder with sugar .
A quick recipe for a sweet. I really appreciate his idea and next time when I bring mango pulp-sheet I 'll try to prepare it.

Recipe :
Curd Powder,
sugar, pinch of cardamon powder/ saffron/ or any essence,
Mango pulp sheet.

Here, we get curd powder very easily. If you cannot get it, just hang fresh curd in cloth for 1/2 hour and add powder sugar, pinch of cardamon powder/ saffron/ or any essence and wrap it by mango-pulp sheet .

Angakar Roti

I was enjoying my vacation with my hubby those days. The location was a very beautiful Central Indian Village called Dongiya in Chhattisgarh. As a residential geologist, he chose to establish his camp on the village outskirts. Some local people used to work with us. We used to eat chapati and sabji as breakfast early in the morning. The Local workers with us used to prepare their breakfast separately. One day, I wanted to see what they are preparing. I was surprised to see that they were making chapati from rice powder/flour packed in some kind of tree leaves. They were baking the packed powder on fire. I asked them what it is they are preparing and they said it is called Angakar Roti.

I expressed my desire to eat their preparation as it was a new dish for me, and I had never ever tasted anything like it. At first they were hesitant to serve me their food as they thought I would not like it. But when I insisted, they said they will prepare it for us in the evening. So they did and I tasted Angakar Roti for the first time in the evening with Chicken Curry. It tasted really delicious and we enjoyed our meal very much. I do not know whether it was the taste or the camp ambience, which appealed to my senses more, but I, to this day remember eating the Angakar Roti with delicious chicken curry and some fish fry. I loved the taste and ate a lot of it, which caused stomach pain. I understood why this chapatti is eaten in the breakfast.

I collected some information about this Roti from the local workers. I came to know that it is a common breakfast in villages of Chattisgarh and farmers eat this in the morning with achar or sabji It is a Heavy food, and keeps the stomach full till the afternoon.

I’m giving here the Recipe:

Ingredients:

Rice Flour 1 cup

Luke warm water

Salt

Vegetable oil 2 Ts

Leave of Tendu tree (tendupatta)

Procedure:

This dish is generally prepared on charcoal ovens. Make dough of Rice flour with the help of lukewarm water, add salt as required, while making dough. Get the Tava (flat pan) hot over fire. Meanwhile, Prepare thick big rice chapati using your palm. Now apply oil on the tendu leaves, put leaves on the pan, keep the chapati on it and then again cover the chapati on top by some more tendu leaves (apply oil before covering). Put some hot charcoal over the tendu leaves. Keep it baking for 15 to 20 min.

(PS: I had taken some snaps of those days, but unfortunately I do not have them with me at present)