Lemon glow chiffon cake

   This cake is an part of Baking partner's anniversery challenge! Quite a surprise that  this community has reached almost an year with marvellous output every month they come up with.  Warm anniversery wishes and a great hug for all members!!

 

Though chiffon cake was quite satisfying with its easy-peasy ingredients, making them was of course a complex process!!  I did go through a lot of tuitoricals as suggested by Saraswathi of Sara's kitchen.  And yes thanks to her for such an helping hand.  Click here, here and here for more info.  Chiffon cake is an  light airy cake resembling like sponge cake usually had on bakery.  The only difference is that here egg whites are beaten into stiff peaks and folded into the batter while for the latter entire egg is added.  Also unlike regular cake which is made of butter, this cake is made of oil which retains their soft texture even after they are refrigerated.

Nankhatai / Ghee Cookies

   Nankhatai is a popular tea-time snack found in Indian Bakeries.  Flour, sugar and ghee are its key ingredients, here I am making cardamom/Elaichi flavored nankhatai. Recipe adapted from Nita Mehta's book. 

Ingredients required

• 125 gm or 11/4 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup of Ghee
• Pinch of baking powder
• 1 tsp curd - beaten till smooth
• Pinch of salt
• Cardamon powder - 1 tbsp

Kollu rasam

   One of my aunty at chennai used to prepare this kollu rasam, in fact she used to prepare or inculcate a lot of herbal spices in her daily routine cooking which I admire.  That is why I couldn't resist myself buying horse gram when found in a super-market shelf (though it was an kilo pack!)  I asked her for the recipe, and prepared it my way.  The rasam came out super-delecious and I could still smell the flavours of it.  

Kollu/Horse gram was generally regarded as an cattle feed, but here in South India kollu has found extensive culinery use.  Kollu rasam, chutney, idly/dosa, poriyal are common form of its existence.  This horse gram is proven beneficial in numerous ways.  Since they form a major source of fibre, they can also aid in weight-reducing.  They are also found as an preventive for winter chill , as they have tendency to heat up the body.  Researchers have also found that unprocessed horse gram seed coats produce excellant antioxidants for diabetic patients.  So, why wait guys?  Do grab your pack in nearby markets.....

Schezwan fried rice

     Who doesn't like to have a fried rice?  Especially when it turns out to be an week-end and you dine out?  This would always be my first preference along with manchurian gravy.  Back at home, my mother used to prepare an excellant chicken fried rice in weekends and we used to relish it with utmost temptation!  Now, here once I tried, the outcome was not worthy :(  But I didn't give up, tried a couple of times till I got it perfectly  done.  Today I tried it with schezwan sauce and guess what?  hubby calls from his office (which he NEVER does) to inform that lunch was good!  :)  

Schezwan sauce is an hot fiery sauce originating from schezwan pepper, they are also termed as indo-chinese sauce because of the equal amount of Indian spices addition.  The sauce is very aromatic too and here I used Chings schezwan sauce easily available in grocery stores.  One might also prepare these at home.  So let us move to recipe.

Hot & Sour Corn balls

   Not long before, I watched hot and sour mutton balls cooked on a TV show.  I wanted to make them too!  Using mutton at my home is like once in a month, so I just skipped the idea of making them with mutton, instead came up with this vegetarian idea.

This dish came out very delecious and went great with roti/dosa/all sorts of bread, do try and let me know.