Usha's Recipes

Mamidikaya Pulihora (Mango Rice)

Ingredients: 

2 cups cooked rice

1 small raw mango grated

2-3 tbsp groundnuts

3 tbsp cashew nuts

Salt

1 ½ tbsp Oil

5-6 green chilies slit length wise

½ tsp turmeric

2 Dry red chilies

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp chana dal

1 tbsp urud dal

Few curry leaves

Pinch of asafoetida (inguva)

Procedure:

·         Spread the cooked rice in a platter to cool down.

·         Heat oil in a pan fry peanuts and cashew nuts separately until they turn light brown. Remove them to a plate and keep aside.

·         Now in the remaining oil, add dry red chilies, cumin, mustard seeds, chana dal, urud dal green chilies and curry leaves. Fry for a minute and add turmeic powder, hing and turn off the fire.

·         Add the above seasoning to rice and wait for 5 minutes to cool the seasoning.

·         Add grated mango along with salt, peanuts, cashew nuts to the rice and mix well with the hand, taking care not to break the rice grains.

·         Adjsut salt and grated mango accordingly and serve with any pickle.

Mamidikaya Pappu (Mango Dal)

Ingredients:

½ cup Toor dal

1 cup water

1 small onion chopped

1 medium size Raw Mango (peel & cut into cubes)                                          

3 green chilies chopped

½ tsp Turmeric

1 tsp red chili powder

Salt to taste

½ tsp cumin seeds

¼ tsp mustard seeds

2 dry red chilies

Few  Curry leaves

2 garlic clove crushed

Pinch of hing

1 tbsp oil

Procedure:

·         Wash dal, add water, onions, chilies, mango pieces, turmeric and pressure cook it for 3 whistles . ( alternatively you can cook on stove top by adding 1 ½ cup water to dal and cook till half done then add onions, chilies, mango and cook till dal and mango are soft).

·         Heat oil in a pan, add dry red chilies, mustard, cumin, garlic, curry leaves, hing and stir for a minute.

·         Now add the mango dal to the seasoning  along with salt and chili powder and cook for 5-8 minutes or untill you get the required consistency.

·         Serve with hot rice,a stir fry (bhendi fry or beans fry) and curd chilis (majjiga mirapakayalu).

Black Forest Cake

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!!! 

New Year started with baking and today finally thought of sharing this cake here. This is the first cake in my site. It’s been one year I started posting recipes here, but ended up with very few. This year I will try to post many more recipes. For this New Year I baked black forest cake, the reason I choose this is I find myself no time to decorate with butter cream icing. As New Year fell on Friday the cake should be ready by Thursday so I thought to bake on Wednesday and want to decorate on Thursday. But suddenly H booked for Avatar movie on Thursday. So changed my plan and started to bake and whip the cream on Wednesday itself. Unfortunately we were caught in the traffic jam and thought I may miss the new year bells. But finally we reached home around 11 pm with tiring faces and started to fill the cake with whipping cream and getting chocolate shavings ready. H helped me a lot to set up the new Microwave which we bought for this New Year and clean up my messy kitchen platform. At last I ended my cake by 11:40 pm.  Refresh myself to welcome the New Year. Happy to share this recipe here I used the basic sponge cake with chocolate flavor and topped with whipping cream.  Here goes the recipe………

Ingredients: 

For Cake

¾ cup Plain flour (maida)

¼ cup cocoa powder

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

6 eggs

½ cup water

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

6 tbsp powdered sugar

½ tsp vanilla

Few Cherries

3-4 tbsp chocolate rice

Chocolate bar

Procedure: 

·         Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl and mix.

·         Separate egg yolks and whites into separate bowls.

·         Beat yolks with vanilla and sugar till it forms thick batter.

·         Beat egg whites on medium-high speed till it forms soft peaks.

·         Add yolks mixture into whites and mix gently with the spatula. (Don’t beat).

·         Now sprinkle flour all over the egg mixture and gently mix.

·         Pour this batter into 2 greased baking pans (divide the batter into equal amounts).

·         Bake for 18-20 minutes in a preheated (preheat for 15 minutes) oven at 180 C.

·         Time varies oven to oven, so make sure to test with a tooth pick or skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean.

·         Remove the cake from the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes to cool and then invert the cake on to a wire rack to cool completely for about 1 hr.

·         Place the mixing bowl and whisk or blades in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes.

·         Boil water and sugar to make syrup and let it.

·         Peel the chocolate bar to get enough shavings; I peeled on the sides of the bar to get curls. You can use grater to get fine chocolate crumbs.

·         Pour the heavy (whipping) cream into chilled mixing bowl and beat on low speed for a while till the top surface is filled with bubbles.

·         Add sugar and beat on medium-high speed till it forms soft peaks (can be stored in refrigerator until used).

·         Place one cake on the cake board or on a plate and feed (sprinkle evenly) with sugar syrup and spread 1/3 of cream and sprinkle chopped cherries.

·         Place the second cake over the cream and cherries and feed with syrup first and cover the cake with 2/3 of the remaining cream on the top and sides.

·         Fill the piping bag with left over cream and pipe design and arrange the cherries (cut the cherries into half) as you wish. Sprinkle chocolate rice/shavings on the sides and top of the cake.

·         Keep refrigerated for 3-4 hours and serve chilled.