Brocoli Manchurian

Ingredients

Brocoli - 15-20 florets
Cornflour - 3 tablespoon
All purpose flour - 2 tablespoon
Red chilli powder - 1 tablespoon
Onion -2
Tomato sauce -2 tablespoon
Red chilli sauce - 1 tablespoon
Green chilli sauce - 1 teaspoon
Soya sauce - 2 tablespoon
Pepper powder - 1 tablespoon
Green chilly - 1
Garlic - 4 cloves
Ginger - small piece
Coriander leaves
Spring onions
Oil
Salt

Cook broccoli in 1/2 cup of water for 3-4 minutes. Now for the batter, mix corn flour, all purpose flour, with pepper powder, red chilli powder and little salt. Add little water and make it a thick paste. Make sure to have a thick consistency as we don't want this to be watery. Keep this aside.
 

In a pan, add little oil. Once it is hot, add finely cut onions. Saute it for two to three minutes. Add ginger, garlic and green chilly to this. Saute it again. Now add tomato sauce, red chilly sauce, green chilly sauce and soya sauce to this. Add little pepper powder (optional here , if you want this to be little spicy).  After this drain off the water from half cooked Brocoli and  dip this florets in the batter and deep fry it in oil. Finally mix this fried florets with the sauce mixture and serve it hot.

Brocoli Potato Masala

Ingredients

Brocoli - 30-40 florets
Potato - 2 medium
Red bell pepper - 1
Onion - 2
Tomato - 1
Ginger garlic paste - 1 teaspoon
Green chilli - 1
Coconut milk- 1/2 cup
Oil
Salt
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Fennel seeds -1/2 teaspoon
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
Asafoetida - 1/4 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Red chilli powder- 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder- 1 teaspoon
Cumin powder - 1 teaspoon
Pepper powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Cook Brocoli and potato in a pan for 3- 4 minutes. Drain off the water and keep it aside.  Now in another pan, add little oil. Once oil is hot, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves. After this add finely sliced onion and saute it until it turns golden brown in colour.

Now add finely cut bell pepper and tomatoes to this. Let it cook for 3- 4 minutes. Add all the masala powder to this and saute it for two minutes. Add half cooked potatoes and Brocoli to this. Cover it with a lid and let it cook for 2 -3 minutes. Finally add coconut milk and coriander leaves. It goes well with chapatti or roti.

Prawns Pepper Masala

Ingredients

Prawns (Medium-sized ) -20
Onion - 3
Tomato - 2
Green chilly - 2
Tomato sauce - 1 teaspoon
Pepper powder - 1 teaspoon
Red chili powder - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric Powder - 1 teaspoon
Cumin powder  - 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Ginger - 1 small piece
Garlic - 4
Curry leaves
Salt
Oil

In a pan, add two tablespoon of oil. Once it is hot, add finely sliced onions. Saute it until it turns golden brown colour. Now add finely sliced tomatoes. Saute it for two minutes. After this add ginger, garlic and little salt. Saute it for a minute. Now add all the Masala powder which includes turmeric powder, red chilly powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and pepper powder. Add more pepper powder if you need it extra spicy.

Cook prawns in separate pan with little salt, water, turmeric and red chilly powder for two to three minutes. Finally add half cooked prawns, curry leaves and salt to it. Cook it for three to four minutes. Add little tomato sauce at the end and Prawns pepper Masala is ready. Recipe courtesy : Princy Grace :)

I just tried this recipe and it came out well. So please try out this recipe, especially for those who like prawns. Since we shifted to another place recently, I am not able to give much time for cooking. And because of that I forgot to take step by step pictures of this recipe. I am going to come up with many short and delicious recipes soon once everything is settled. Please do keep visiting my pages as it motivates me to publish more posts. 

Valentine's Day Hidden Heart Cake

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup

Sugar - 1 1/2 cup

Eggs - 2

Vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon 

Vegetable oil - 3/8 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup

Salt - 1/ teaspoon 

Pink food colour 

For chocolate cake

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup

Sugar 1 1/2 cup

Eggs - 2

Vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon 

Baking powder  - 1 teaspoon 

Milk - 1/2 cup

Vegetable oil - 3/8 cup

Salt - 1/2 teaspoon 

Coco powder - 30 grams

For topping (optional)

Butter cream frosting

Chocolate shavings

Finely chopped red cherries 

Preheat heat oven to 180 degree Celsius. In a bowl, beat egg and sugar until it becomes fluffy. Slowly add flour, vanilla essence, baking powder, salt, milk and vegetable oil. Finally add pink food colour. I have used wilton food colour here. Mix it well. Make sure not to over beat it. Use a rectangle shape cake mould and bake it for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Let it cool on a wire rack once it is out of microwave oven. When it is completely cool, cut this cake into 2-3 cm wide slices. And using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out heart shapes out of it. Keep it aside.

Now for chocolate cake, follow the same procedure as above. Just you need to skip the pink colour and instead add coco powder. Once the batter is ready, use a rectangular cake mould and arrange these heart shaped cake pieces in the middle of the cake tin. Make sure to leave at least 2 cm on the edges. Once it is arranged in order, Slowly start pouring chocolate cake batter on the sides and top of it. So that the entire heart shapes should cover with this chocolate cake batter. Bake it for 40-45 minutes.

Once it is cool, you can decorate it with butter frosting, chocolate shavings and red cherries which is completely optional. And one thing I have learned after making this cake is, not to use bigger cookie cutter. It will be better if you use medium shaped cookie cutter to get the heart shape. So that the chocolate cake batter will cover it completely. Here, I struggled little bit to cover it with chocolate batter as it was little less and these hearts were little big like my heart...:). But the cake was yummy as always. Please try it out today for your loved ones. Wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Finally I would like to share a pic from The Capgemini Family Cookbook. It was an excellent initiative taken by Capgemini for Chennai Flood relief. I was excited to be a part of this initiative as two of my favourite recipes was posted in this book.

Please find below link for those two recipes.

http://bakemode.blogspot.in/2015/12/pathiri-pancake-rice-flour-malabar.html

http://bakemode.blogspot.in/2015/12/chicken-stew.html