The story of a generous Fisherman :) -Part 2

The story continues..( this is a late post btw :) )

I went for my usual run the next Sunday..and I see the same group of people at the pier. This time I thought of asking the name of the person. Finally, I have a name for my subject :).He is "Alex"

This time I observed another trait of this group. The group was still looking happy.The fish catch was a little less than the last weekend..

However, I noticed that Alex even asked a person who didn't have any catch to come to his spot and give it a shot !!

I got my answer to one of the unanswered questions!! -> Generosity is an eventually a personality trait !!

Exceptions would always be there however it was interesting to interact with this group and enjoy my weekend running.

Beginner RealStoryTeller.

The story of a generous Fisherman :)

Today was an awesome day, I got up and was feeling lazy to go for my weekend run. Then something struck me and I put on my running gear and started for my favorite run from my home to Redondo Beach pier in Torrance, California, USA.

I normally take a pit spot when I reach the pier for few minutes to regain my breath and drink water.

Today was something special, very good waves and then while I was walking on the pier I see a bunch of folks arrived for fishing. I noticed that it was fisherman's paradise day today, almost everyone had a nice catch.

I observed quite a few things and that made me think even harder about the perception of generosity.

I saw a fisherman, who got 5 fish in his catch, he gave 2 of his catch to the seagulls and the crane standing there. I have never seen fisherman giving the catch like this till now in all my visits to Redondo pier, its the other way round then these birds come to spy on the fish in the buckets and steal something from it.

Then I see another gentleman walking there offering Cheetos to everyone standing in that area !!

A few minutes later I hear another person who came for fishing, saying "Good enough for me, one dinner" and waved everyone a goodbye.

I was thinking wow !! whats going on..am I in wonderland.

The story doesn't end here...as the climate was good and I was having a good time, for some strange reason I thought of staying a bit longer than usual.

There were many folks who got "FullHouse", a new term I heard on the pier, anyone getting a fish caught in all 6 of the fishing rod hooks, calls it a FullHouse.

Now comes the masterstroke event, the same fisherman ( generous one) come in the corner area with a plastic bag , where I was standing with other folks catching fish, asks "Who is the owner of this bag ( he meant the ice cooler) lying on the pavement "?

People pointed to the owner of it and he asked I have an extra catch today, where should I put it. As that ice cooler was already filled with catching fish, the owner asked to drop in the cardboard box :)

Everyone started laughing at the initial chuckle :) :)

 He said, I am done, you guys carry one ..I have extra catch take it...

Now I was thinking ...what a generosity !!

If you observe in daily life, you can see this act of generosity by even some of the simple living people like the fisherman's in this case, btw they were not the so-called hi-fi people.

Then another thought came to my mind, was it because it was a good day for fishing and everyone was getting a good catch ..or generosity comes when you are full stomach !!

I still don't know the answers, however, I'd say I enjoyed my 30-40 mins with that group of people, laughing aloud on many FullHouses and chatting on their catches of the day.

A day well spent !!

Beginner RealStoryTeller.

Happy Face !! Choco Chip Cookies :) Kids favorite !

This weekend I prepared my son's favorite Choco Chip Cookies.

When we were making the cookies, the happy face cookies was Akshaj's idea.

Another one in the baking segment :)

Based on the variety of ingredients e.g sugar, ghee, the texture of the cookie mix will vary and you might need varying quantity of milk to get the final texture of the cookies. I experimented with the quantity of salt, milk and choco chips.

Recipe

Ingredients:

(The below quantity gave me 24 cookies, you can reduce it by half if you want to experiment.)

1/2 cup ghee melted and cooled

2 cup packed organic brown sugar

8 tablespoons milk -I needed more, please do not add all milk at once

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cup maida or all-purpose flour

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon  baking soda

1   pinch of teaspoon  salt

1.25 cups dark chocolate chips

Process

Take a big bowl and add ghee and brown sugar to it. Mix the mixture till the sugar and ghee are consistent.

Now add milk, vanilla extract and whip the mixture for few minutes. The mixture will turn fluffy in texture.

Below is the picture.

Then add maida, baking powder, baking soda and a pinch of salt and mix all the ingredients thoroughly. You might need to add a little more teaspoon of milk if the mixture is still too loose.

Now add choco chips and mix it again. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and we'll refrigerate the dough for an hour.

After an hour take the mix out and take small portions of the mix to make into small cookie shaped.

Put butter paper( parchment paper) on baking tray and arrange the cookies in it.

Baking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the baking tray in the oven for 15 mins.

Bring out the cookies out from the oven, let it cool down.

Yummy delicious cookies are ready !!

My kid kept on asking " Are the cookies ready ? " when he knew that Papa is making his favorite cookies today.

He was keeping an eye on the clock when we refrigerated the mix for an hour.

When we started making the cookie portion, Akshaj said "Papa, lets make Happy Face Cookies"

and we made all the cookies as "Happy Face" , 2 chocs in top and 1 in centre :) :)

So enjoy the Happy Face cookies and be Happy !!!

Have an awesome weekend !!

Have Fun Cooking !!

From:

Experimentalfuncooker :)

Makar Sankranti Special !! Till Ke Laddoo :)

This is a very easy recipe for traditional Till Laddoo on the occasion of Makar Sankranti. The festival is celebrated with various names in our country :) :).

Ever mouthwatering laddoos which we used to enjoy in winters !! Very delicious, nutritious, energy giving traditional laddoos.

The dish looks very simple. The key to it lies in 2 things. Proper roasting of Til seeds and proper consistency of jaggery syrup. I have shared my experience.

Recipe

Ingredients.:

2 cups of Till or Sesame seeds
1.5 cup of Gud or Jaggary.
4 tablespoon Ghee

Process

Take the Till seeds in the pan and roast them until slightly brownish. The key to note here is to keep the flame at low. Excessive flame might burn the Till seeds. Also, note to keep stirring the seeds in the pan so that the heat is evenly distributed.

Once the color turns light brown then remove the seeds from the pan and put it out.

Now take another pan and put 4 tablespoons of Ghee and add the jaggery to it. Use a steel spoon to stir the mix. Try to keep breaking the lumps of jaggery with the spoon. The jaggery will mix with ghee and then become a smooth texture.

Tip 1:

Keep stirring the mix for some time and observe the consistency of the mix, it should be thick. When I made it today, I put the gas off when the ghee was mixed with jaggery and it became like syrup. I should have continued for few more minutes so that when we make them in round shape, they'd come out good.

Once the jaggery syrup is done, mix the roaster Till seeds to the mix and stir. After this bring it out and place on an open plate. 

Tip 2:

Do not let it settle down or cool down for long. 

Grease your hands with Ghee and take a small portion of the mix and make into round shape laddos. Be careful of the hotness of the mixture.

Let it settle for few minutes and Till Ke Laddoos are ready :)

Wow, I almost ate 3 of them and am super full, amazingly yummy one, they just melt in the mouth !!

Have Fun Cooking !!

From:

Experimentalfuncooker :)

Garama Garam Moong Dal Khasta Kachoris :)

After the first 2 baked dishes of Nan Khatai and Tutti Fruitti Biscuits, this time I thought of changing the cooking genre to making something crispy and namkeen !! So friends this time it's shift from Baking to Frying and taste Sweet to Namkeen.

I thought of a lot of possible dishes to make and then Aloha !! what better then Khasta Kachori's on a chilly winter day !!

I read through a couple of recipes and many had different ways of making masala. I took inspiration from them and made some modifications.

Recipe

Ingredients.:

A. Ingredients for the Kachori Dough

2 cups of maida
1/4 cup of oil to mix in the flour to make the dough.
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 Cup of water for mixing the dough

B. Ingredient for the Kachori Stuffing

1/2 cup of mogar moong dal (without chilka, soak it for 4 hrs)
2 Chopped Chilly pieces
1/2 tablespoon cumin seeds (Jeera)
1 pinch of Asafoetida ( Hing)
1 tablespoon dhania powder

1 tablespoon aniseed (Sonf) powder
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/4 tablespoon garam masala
1/2 tablespoon ginger powder/paste (if you don't have ginger paste then cut around 1 inch of ginger and use mesh crusher to chop it into fine particles )
1/4 tablespoon red chilli powder
2 tablespoon chopped green coriander
Oil for frying

Process

Making the Kachori Dough

Put the maida in the vessel and add salt to it. Then add the oil, spread it uniformly while pouring the oil into the mix. Once it is mixed well, we'll add a small quantity of water to make the dough. Keep adding little quantity of water to make a soft dough.

Please note that we don't have to knead maida dough, just keep it a soft texture. Below is the picture of the dough.

Cover the dough and keep it for 20 minutes.

Now we'll make the Kachori stuffing

Take the soaked moong dal (remove excess water) in a mixer grinder and run it for 2 seconds. Do not grind it more than that else it will become a paste. There are many chefs who have many variations on this step like boiling the dal and using it for stuffing etc. In this preparation, I ground the mix for 2 seconds.

Take a frying pan and add 4 tablespoon oil to it. Once the oil is heated add cumin seeds, add Hing. Once they get roasted add green chillies to it. Then add Dhania powder, sonf powder, Roast the masala for few minutes.

Now add the ground moong dal to this mix.Keep stirring the mix till it becomes a dry mixture.

Add salt, Garam Masala, ginger, chilli powder, coriander and keep stirring on medium flame till it becomes dry and roasted.

Then remove it from pan and keep it in a separate vessel for cooling.

Frying

Now the dough is also ready so let's start by taking small portions of the dough and make it into round shape. Then use your thumb and index finger to press in the centre of the round shaped dough ball to create enough space to put the stuffing. We'll take 1 tablespoon of the stuffing and put in the centre of the dough ball that we spread.

Now we start bringing all the edges together and close the Kachori. One piece of advice here is to use pinch and release method where you bring the edges together via pinching them and then keep doing it and then press it once done from all side. This step will ensure that once the kachoris are fried they won't break into the oil.

I first made all the stuffed kachoris. They look like this.

Now heat the oil in a deep frying pan. Take the stuffed kachori press it with hand and roll it with chapati roller once. It should still be thick. Do not roll it too thin.

Once the oil is heated put the Kachori in the oil for frying. Now, this is the tricky step.

As this was my first time of making Kachori, I put Kachori in superheated oil and within few minutes they were dark brown. This is not the ideal way of frying the Kachoris. My advice is to put the Kachoris in warm oil and then keep flipping them in few minutes until they are golden brown in color. It may take upto 11-14 minutes.

In my next round of frying I did the same and they came really well. Here are the pics. I know this is too time consuming however I can assure you from my experience you'd reap the fruits of patience.

Take out the Kachori from pan and keep it on paper towel to soak any extra oil.

AND THE GARAMA GARAM KHASTA KACHORI ARE READY !! Yippe !!

Once you take a bite of it !! you'd love the crispiness of the Kachori and the amazing taste of the stuffing will make you go crazy !!

This was tough one for me to make as there were too many things to go wrong however once I was done with cooking and frying all of them , I was super delighted that it was worth giving a try and it came really well for the first timer like me, so friends don't get scared ,it's easy, just follow the few tips that I shared from my mistakes and you'll also be able to make this amazing Khasta Kachori :)

Happy Cooking  !!

From:
Experimentalfuncooker :)

Tutti Frutti Biscuit aka Karachi Biscuits

Tutti Frutti Biscuit aka Karachi Biscuits

This weekend I thought of making my favorite Hyderabadi Karachi Biscuits.

I read a lot of recipes on Youtube and Euphoric Delight FB group and tweaked some steps.

Here is the recipe I followed.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups maida
• 1/2 cup custard powder ( vanilla flavor)
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tablespoons cardamom powder
• 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoons pineapple essence
• 4 tablespoons milk
• ½ cup tutti-frutti

Process:

1. Take the unsalted butter in a bowl and add sugar to it. Now mix the mixture well until it is fluffy and creamy. You can use a hand mixer for this step. As I was making it for the first time I used a spoon and then shifted to hand mixer. The texture should be as in the pic.

2. Put a sieve on top of the bowl and add maida, custard powder, cardamom powder, a pinch of salt, baking powder and mix the ingredients and sieve.  We are using sieve so that there are no lumps in our mixture.

3. Now add tutti-frutti to the mixture, add pineapple essence and mix all the ingredients. It will come as shown in the picture.

4. Add 2 tablespoon of milk to the mix to form the dough, do not knead the mixture, if you feel that the dough is not forming then add milk in increments of 1 spoon. I needed 4 spoons of milk for my dough preparation. The texture of the dough is as shown in the picture.

5. Divide the dough into 2 parts and roll in the shape you want for your cookies. You can have a square shape or round ones as you wish.

6. Now we will take cling sheet and wrap the rolls tightly and cover from the ends. We'll keep these rolls in the fridge. Now there were many recipes where the time varied from 2 hrs to overnight. I kept it for over 6 hrs. 

Before:

After:

7. Bring the rolls out from the fridge and remove the cling sheet. Now take a sharp edge knife and cut the rolls into slices of around 1/4 inch each. Now if the dough roll is well refrigerated then it will cut into slices easily else it might crack. Even if it cracks, don't worry, you can use hands to restore the shape and they would be back in good shape.

8. Take a baking tray and put butter paper( parchment paper) in it. 

9. Arrange the cookies on the tray.

Baking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the baking tray in the oven for 15 mins. If you want the cookies to be crispy then you can keep for additional 3 minutes. I checked at 15 mins and then kept for extra 3 minutes for crispy cookies :) just to avoid then getting burned.

Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool down. If you see that they are a very soft don't worry, once they cool down the texture will come out to be crispy. Even I got worried for a second in my preparation :) 

Here are our Tutti Fruity cookies !!! Aka famous Karachi Biscuits.

Enjoy with chai :) :) and have a great relaxing weekend !!!

Weekend Special Nan Khatai :)

Nan Khatai

Recipe:

Ingredients

1 Cup Maida
1/2 Cup Besan
2 table spoon Sooji
1/2 Cup Sugar ( I used the one which we get from Costco)
1/2 cup Ghee
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Cardamom powder
Almond for Garnish

Process:

Take a bowl and put Maida, Besan, Sooji ( as per above mentioned measures) and mix it.
Add Sugar, cardamom powder, and pinch of salt.
Now start adding Ghee to the mix. I'd suggest to add Ghee slowly (and not in single go)and keep mixing the ingredients.
As we have Besan in the ingredient, knead the mixture well to crush all the small particles which form while we add Ghee.
Once the initial mixing with Ghee is done, pour the rest of the Ghee and mix.
The texture of the dough would come like the attached picture.

This dough will make approximately 15-18 Nan Khatai based on the size you choose for it.

Take small portions of the dough and make them into round shapes. Then make a small dent with your finger on top of it.

I had cut small pieces of almonds to garnish on top of each of the Nan Khatai.

Baking

Pre heat the oven at 300 degree Fahrenheit.

Take the Baking tray and cover with aluminum foil. Then place the nan khatai's equidistant so that they get proper heat in the oven

Put the baking try in the pre heated oven for 15 mins.

Your delicious Nan Khatai is ready !!

Whole Kitchen would be full of awesome aroma of it. I couldn't resists and had a hot one to taste !! It just melted in the mouth

Try it and let me know your thoughts !!

Enjoy Cooking !!