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What's Cooking? Indian recipes

Share recipes and cooking tips. Every fortnight, a selected entry will be featured in What’s Cooking? and its sender crowned NRI Pulse’s Gourmet Chef. Pls. send contributions to contact@NRIPulse.com with What’s Cooking? in the subject line.

Give Me My Daily Bread

<<What's Cooking? Main

Bread doesn’t necessarily have to mean boring sandwiches. A little bit of imagination, and voila, you have an exotic Indian fare! Four tempting, easy to make snacks, for those “I want to try something different” times.


Bread Bhelpuri

Ingredients:

1 small cucumber, chopped 
1 big onion, chopped 
1 big tomato, chopped 
2-3 nos. potatoes, boiled, peeled, diced 
½ cup cilantro, chopped 
1 no. apples, chopped
1 tbsp. peanuts, crushed 
½ cup sev 
¼ cup tamarind chutney 

For Tamarind Chutney:
100 gms. tamarind
50 gms. jaggery 
¼ tsp. cumin seeds 
Salt to taste 
Black salt to taste
Oil to fry

Method:
Take the bread slices, remove crust and cut into small squares (croutons). Heat oil in a kadai and deep-fry the bread pieces. Drain and keep aside. Place the bread pieces in a bowl. Add chopped onion, tomatoes, cucumber, half the cilantro, potatoes, apples (add lemon juice to the apples after cutting them so that they do not turn brown) and mix. Add crushed peanuts, salt, tamarind chutney and mix well. Sprinkle sev on top and garnish with the remaining cilantro.

Bread Pakodas

Ingredients:
½ cup besan (chickpea flour)
½ cup curd
1 no. onions, chopped
½ tsp. dried pomegranate seeds, ground
1 tsp. chili-ginger paste
¼ cup roasted peanut, ground
1 tbsp. cilantro, chopped
6 nos. bread, slices
Oil as required
Salt to taste

Method:
Mix the two flours with ½ of the curd, chopped onions, pomegranate seed powder, chili ginger paste, peanuts, cilantro and salt. Add enough water to make a thick batter. Mix the remaining curd with ½ cup water and make buttermilk. Cut each slice of bread into 6 small pieces and then soak them in buttermilk for a few seconds. Remove the bread, squeeze and then put them in the batter. Coat each bread piece with enough batter and then deep fry in hot oil till light brown. Serve hot with tomato sauce or chutney.

Bread Upma

Ingredients:

3 bread slices
2 green chilies
2 tomatoes
4 french beans
2 tbsp peas
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 sprig curry leaves
½ piece lemon
5 tbsp. oil
Salt to taste

Method:
Fry mustard, cumin seeds and curry leaves. Chop tomatoes, green chilies, peas, beans and add to the frying pan and fry well. When cooked add 1 ½ cups of water and salt to taste and bring to a boil. Break the bread into small pieces and add to the above. Then add the lemon juice and stir. Cover with a lid and cook on low heat till water evaporates. Mix well and serve with ketchup.

Double Meetha 

Ingredients:

1 loaf white bread.
10 tsp. oil
10 tsp sugar
1/2-liter milk
1/4 kg khoya
50 gm raisins
50 gm cashew nuts
25 gms. chopped walnuts
2 tsp rose water
1/4 tsp saffron 

Method:
Break bread slices into approx 1" squares. Heat oil in a large frying pan. Fry raisins and cashew nuts, remove and keep aside. To the same ghee, add bread squares and fry till golden brown. Mix khoya and milk together to a smooth consistency and add to the fried bread, stir well and cook for 5 minutes. 
Add sugar, raisins, cashew nuts and saffron ground in rose water. Blend well and cook two minutes. Remove from fire, cool and garnish with chopped walnuts. 

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