Sara Dhanani

Archive for the ‘Favorite Recipes’ Category

Old fashioned Bread Pudding

In Breakfast/Brunch, Dessert, Favorite Recipes on October 9, 2012 at 7:20 pm

It’s finally the weekend! After a crazy week filled with deadlines, we relaxed with a lazy goldilocks and porridge saturday morning, grocery shopping and even lazier afternoon naps. I’ve been hoarding some white bread, awaiting it to turn just the right amount of stale so we could delight in some custardy soft bread pudding. And this is the perfect recipe.. soft, custardy, warm deliciousness. Feel free to soak the raisins in rum or boubourn to indulge further.

Ingredients:

5-6 cups stale white bread, edges trimmed and cubed into 2 inch pieces

One cup whole milk

One cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup raisins

One teaspoon vanilla

Two eggs

dash of fresh nutmeg

pinch of all spice powder

Method:

Heat oven to 350 C

In a saucepan, heat the milk, cream and butter till the butter melts. By hand or using electric mixer, beat the sugar and eggs. Add the hot milk slowly, making sure not to curdle the eggs (i use the stand mixer and add milk so very slowly till the eggs temper). Next incorporate the vanilla, raisins and spices, finally adding the bread, letting it soak up the egg custard for 15-20 minutes. You can save a handful of bread pieces to add to the top if you like a crunchy top. Butter a 9×5 pan and place the bread pudding mix in it. Take a larger deeper pan than your bread pudding dish and fill it with hot water half way through. Submerge the bread pudding dish into your water bath and bake for 45 mins.

Bake till top is browned. Serve with whipped cream if desired…

Khousey

In Favorite Recipes, Meat & Poultry, Week night meals on September 1, 2012 at 9:39 pm

Chewy noodles mixed with a meat curry, coconut based curry and the best part – the condiments of cilantro, green chillies, crispy noodles, red chilli flakes. I’ve had multiple variations of khousey, with the two curries mixed and cooked together, the coconut curry made with yoghurt (kadhi), but our favorite growing up was the one made at my friend Maria’s house. This is that coveted recipe, tweaked a bit, but in essence the same…. still incredible! The aroma of this khousey recipe brought back days of sitting at our friends house, putting on lipstick because we were sad, first loves, careers, weddings and now our kids playing together. Here’s to my girls! I hope our daughters or sons make this one day and remember their khalas.

Ingredients:

Spaghetti – Boil one packet of spaghetti according to instructions given.

Beef Curry

Ingredients:

500 grams lean beef – cubed in 2 inch peices

One large onion finely diced

Two large tomatoes finely diced

One tablespoon ginger garlic paste

Two tablespoons ground up green chillies

Two teaspoons cumin powder

One teaspoon chilli powder

One teaspoon cilantro powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

One teaspoon salt or more per taste

A few tablespoons of oil

Method:

Heat oil in a pressure cooker and saute onions till translucent. Add the dry spices of cumin, corriander, turmeric, salt and chilli powders. Next add the ginger garlic paste and green chilli paste and fry for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes till the juices mingle together, and then add the beef. Add one cup of water and cover the lid of the pressure cooker and cook on high heat for 15-20 minutes while its whistling. Lower heat, allow the steam to escape and once its safe, uncover the pressure cooker. Cook on medium high heat while stirring intermittently till the oil separates from the masala. This method is called bhuno, which is frying the masala on medium high heat. The curry should have a beautiful glossy brown color.
Alternatively, you could also cook this without the pressure cooker, but it saved me some time so I did. If cooking without pressure cooker, cook with lid on till the meat is tender and then remove lid and bhuno the curry.

Coconut Curry:

Ingredients:

Two tablespoons besan (chickpea flour)

One can of unsweetened coconut milk

One teaspoon cumin powder

1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder

salt to taste

Method:

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, dry roast the besan. Keep stirring, so as not to burn it. Once you can smell the besan and it has a lightly toasted color, add the coconut milk and the turmeric, cumin powder and salt(maybe even a little red chilli powder if desired). Cook on medium low heat, till it boils and is slightly thick (should coat the back of the spoon).

To serve, you can either mix the two curries together or serve separately with plain boiled spaghetti. Various garnishes can be used – potato chips (mmmm- slims), red chilli flakes, finely chopped corriander, finely cut green chillies or fried noodles – recipe below!

Fried noodles to garnish: Heat oil in a nonstick pan, and fry boiled spaghetti in it till golder brown. crush and use as a garnish.

Assembling the perfect bowl can be challenging, a handful of noodles, a tablespoons of the beef curry (or more), a few tablespoons of the coconut curry with garnishes of green chillies, corriander, red chilli flakes and fried noodles.

Bihari dum Keema

In Favorite Recipes, Meat & Poultry on August 12, 2012 at 11:24 am

Mouth watering, tender minced beef with hot naan. The smoky flavor comes from giving the cooked beef “dum”. Thanks Zaidi! This one is a keeper!

Bihari dum Qeema

2.5 pounds of minced beef (85 or 90% lean)
One packet of Shaan Bihari Kabab mix
One tablespoon meat tenderizer powder
One cup full fat yogurt

One tablespoon ginger garlic paste

Three green chillies, finely sliced
Two tablespoons gram flour (besan)

Dum

One piece of charcoal, foil and One teaspoon oil

Method:
In a heavy bottomed pan, dry roast the gram flour. This means cooking it on medium heat, without any oil in the pan, till you can smell it. You have to keep stirring so it doesn’t burn. Once done, set aside.
In a large bowl, mix the ground beef, shaan bihari masala, ginger garlic paste, meat tenderizer, green chillies. Add the yogurt and gram flour, combining them thoroughly. Let this mixture marinate for 4-6 hours or overnight in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 375 C. Add the meat mixture to an oven safe dish which has a lid (I use a large saucepan) and bake with the lid on for 20 minutes. Uncover and cook for 10 more minutes. Remove from oven. For “Dum”, make a small well in the middle of qeema and put a small piece of aluminum foil on it. Heat a piece of charcoal on stove top till its red-hot in the center. Place coal in the foil boat, and add 1 teaspoon of oil on it. It will sizzle immediately! Replace lid on the saucepan and cover for 15-20 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander. Serve with paratha or naan.

Pad See Ew

In Favorite Recipes, Meat & Poultry on July 14, 2012 at 12:19 pm

Eight years ago, when we were newly weds living in the gorgeous city of Seattle with abundant excellent Asian hideaway restaurants, I fell in love with Pad See Ew. Chewy rice noodles, crisp vegetables and salty sweet spicy sauce. We visited Seattle over the last 2 weeks and ate at one of favorite hole in the wall Thai restaurants – Thai Tom in the University district! I wish I had taken pictures to show the gastronomical delight this eatery continues to be. Back in Phoenix, I’ve yet to find a great Thai restaurant, but these noodles will easily satisfy any Thai food cravings you have.

Here’s a recipe adapted from Rasa Malaysia. An excellent side would be stir fried string beans. The key with Thai recipes is a hot Wok, high heat and everything prepped earlier so you can work fast!

Pad See Ew

Ingredients:

One pound of fresh wide Rice Noodles

Half a pound of thinly sliced chicken

Handful of sugar snap peas (or Chinese broccoli)

Thinly sliced carrots (optional)

One tablespoon garlic (finely chopped)

Three tablespoons of soy sauce

One tablespoon of thick dark soy sauce

One teaspoon rice vinegar

two – three teaspoons of sugar (dissolved in a few tablespoons of water to make a sugar solution)

Four tablespoons vegetable oil

One teaspoon red chili flakes (optional)

one egg

A few sprigs of Thai basil ( about 8-10 leaves)

Method:

Soak the rice noodles in water for 30 minutes till they are separable. You may have to help separate the noodles since they can be sticky.

Marinate the chicken with one tablespoon of soy sauce, one teaspoon of sugar and keep aside for 15-20 minutes.

In a sauce pan, heat one teaspoon of canola oil. Crack in the egg and soft scramble it. Don’t over cook the egg!

In a hot wok, heat 2 tablespoons of oil and stir fry chicken till for 3-4 minutes, now add the  sugar snap peas and carrots on high heat, allowing them to remain crispy another minute or two. Add the noodles, remaining soy sauce (dark and regular), rice wine, sugar solution, red chili flakes and canola oil. Continue stir frying on high heat till the noodles are soft. Add the scrambled egg and basil to the stir fry. Saute and flip a few time, you may need a few tablespoons of water if the noodles are sticking to the wok. The noodles will sheen and have a slight glaze. Delicious!


A traditional Pakistani breakfast

In Breakfast/Brunch, Favorite Recipes, Vegetarian on May 27, 2012 at 5:35 pm

 

The warm summer sun is ablaze in Phoenix! Over the long weekend, rather than barbequeing we were craving halwa puri. From Boat Basin, thin puri’s packaged in oil soaked newspaper, haldi yellow alu and fiery cholay with a thin layer of oil, that would make my mama shudder every time. And the gorgeous orange halwa, super sweet with tangy achaar.. makes me salivate first and then remember the heart burn!

So with bitter sweet memories I looked up a recipe from a pakistani cooking show (which was painfully entertaining!), and we had halwa puri for brunch. Delicious!! Without the heavy, artery clogging feeling after. Surprisingly the recipes are very hands off, basically dumping all the spices with the beans or potatoes and cooking till the curry forms. I peeked in on them periodically and gave a stir, adding water is needed, so feel free to adapt to your liking. The key is not to fry the spices separately but rather allow everything to cook together. I fried tortillas instead of making puri’s from scratch. It works in a pinch, but fresh puri’s would have been incredible!

Halwa:
One Third cup sooji (Semolina flour)

Half a cup ghee

One cup sugar

Two cups water

One teaspoon orange food coloring ( I had yellow at home)

5 cardamom pods (opened up)

Method:

Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. Fry the suji in the ghee for 4-5 minutes till it looks lacey. It has a beautiful nutty aroma. Add the cardamom. Remove from heat. In another pan heat water and sugar till the sugar dissolves (chashni). Add the food coloring. Now stir in the cooked sooji and continue cooked on a medium low heat till its thick (if you stir a spoon it should leave tracks). It will thicken more as it cools.

 

Cholay:

Two cups Garbanzo beans soaked overnight in water

1 medium sided onion grated

1 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon soonf

1 teaspoon cayanne pepper (powdered)

1 tablespoon red chilli flakes

1/4 teaspoon haldi

1/2 teaspoon corriander powder

salt to taste

1/3 cup oil

Method:

Boil in 5 cups of water, the soaked garbanzo beans till mostly soft. Drain most of the water saving approximately 2 cups of water. Add the grated onion to the garbanzo beans and water and boil further till soft. Add all the spices and the oil and continue cooking for 30 minutes till a thick curry is formed. Garnish with chopped corriander.

Alu Ki Tarkari:
Five – Six medium sized Russet Potatoes, peeled

One teaspoon Crushed red pepper

One Fourth teaspoon Haldi

One teaspoon kalonji

One teaspoon cumin powder

Two tablespoons oil

One – 1.5 cup water

One teaspoon achaar (optional)

Method:

Chop the peeled potato’s into 2 -3 inch cubes. Add water with all the spices and oil (except the achaar) and cook on medium high heat till a thick curry forms. You may want to mash a few tablespoons of the potato while they’re cooking to facilitate the curry. Mix in achaar in the end.( I preferred the taste without the achaar)