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Tag: Snack
Aalu ki tikiya(potato patties stuffed with spicy peas)
Winter season brings a lot more memories from my parent’s house related to food. We are 4 siblings and we all were great foodies. Dinner used to be the main meal of the day because whole family used to be together at the end of the day and we used to have it in the kitchen itself because kitchen had wonderful aroma of hot food preparation and all the warmth of cooking.
Other than regular food, menu for winter dinner used to be hot dosa, different varieties of cheela, stuffed parathas or plain parathas and aaloo ki tikiya.
Aaloo ki tikiya is a type of patty prepared with boiled potatoes and stuffed with spicy boiled peas. It is roasted on heavy tava brushed up with oil. Aalu ki tikiya is a very popular North Indian street snack during winter. It is served with sweet chutney and spicy coriander chutney. If you want to have it as a full meal, serve chole also along with chutney.
When we shifted to Bangalore around 15 years ago we were staying in a rented house. There I had prepared Aaloo ki tikiya for my daughter’s third birthday party. I guess it was a gathering of 15-16 people. Well, among them nine people were from our house owner’s family. They all were staying together as a joint family with two married sons, their kids and parents. Guests loved aaloo ki tikiya so much that for next birthday party there was a demand to prepare them again!!
Well, the reason I prepared aaloo ki tikiya this time was completely different. I wanted to use this tikiya as a filling for veg burger. So I prepared small and thinner tikiya. If you want to prepare them as only snack, prepare slightly bigger in size and don’t flatten them so much.
You must have seen how they are sold in food corners in the market. One big flat heavy bottomed tava completely covered with big sized tikiyas around it and the moment you order, street-food magician😊 will drag one from the edge of tawa and roast it in the middle of tawa till it gets beautiful brown crisp and you will be having a plate of hot crisp and soft tikiya with sweet and spicy chutney and chopped onions… Oh well…. I can visualize the scene!!!
Aren’t you tempted enough to give a try? I am sure you are!! Just have some patience while roasting them on tawa. It is done on sim heat. Some prefer to fry them because frying makes the work fast. But personally I never really like the taste of fried ones and I don’t want to consume so much of oil when there is a better option.
Choice is yours, whatever the way you want to go ahead with!!
In the list of ingredients I have not mentioned the quantity because you actually don’t need. Add all spices as per your taste buds. I prefer little bit spicy – your choice might be less or very mild …. so add all spices whichever the way you want!!
Ingredients :
Boiled potatoes
Boiled peas
Finely chopped green coriander leaves
Finely chopped green chillies
Finely chopped onions
Salt, dry mango powder(amchoor), dry chilli powder, garam masala, asafoetida (hing) and oil for brushing up.
Process :
Boil potatoes and keep them on a sieve so that excess water get drained out.
Now boil peas and after boiling keep them also in sieve so that excess water gets drained out. Watery peas and potatoes would create problem in preparing tikiya, so take care of this point.
Peel boiled potatoes and grate them in a vessel.
Yes, you heard it right! We don’t mash them because in mashed potatoes there are tiny little chunks of potatoes. We need fine thick paste kind of consistency, so we have to grate them.
Grease your palms and vessel with little bit of oil and slightly knead these grated potatoes and collect them in the shape of a dough.
In another vessel keep boiled peas along with all spices, chopped chillies and coriander leaves. Slightly mash peas with your fingers while mixing everything together. Filling is ready.
Grease your hands with oil and take a small portion of potato dough and give it a round shape like ball. Finish potato dough by preparing round shaped balls.
Now keep one potato ball in your palm, give a cup like shape to your palm and slowly by tapping from all the sides create some space for the filling.
Fill-in peas filling in there and slowly and carefully close it back and roll it again between your palms in ball shape. If potatoes are sticking, grease palms with oil. Fill – in all potato balls in the same way.
Heat heavy bottomed flat tava on medium heat and grease it with oil. Once tava is hot enough, keep all tikiya (peas filled potato balls) on it and reduce heat on sim.
Brush up the upper part of tikiya with oil and spread very little quantity of oil around all tikiya.
With the help of slight sharp edged flat spatula turn all tikiya upside down and once again brush up with oil. Now you can increase the heat on medium to sim.
Roast tikiya nicely from both the sides till they become nice brown and crisp. Serve with sweet chutney and spicy coriander chutney.
What do you think about this popular Indian snack? Have you ever tried it before this way or in a different way .. would love to hear from you all in the comments section 😊😊
Hot dog buns
When I started learning baking bread, I thought that there are only three varieties of breads which are common and popular ……sandwich bread, pav buns/dinner rolls and pizza bread. But as we start learning one thing, we become greedy to know more. Slowly I got introduced to a lot more varieties in breads.
But to keep it simple, we can actually create a lot more varieties through these three types of bread only — sandwich, buns and pizza.
Buns are kind of tiny round shaped bread. I love baking them the most. Just change their shapes and flavors and give them different titles.
Through pizza base basic recipe, do slight changes and create different varieties. Here you have a freedom to add different veggies, sauce and herbs.
The most popular and forgiving is White Sandwich Bread. Unlimited variations can be created with sandwich bread recipe.
Hot dog bun is also a kind of small size rectangular bread. It is named as ‘bun’ probably because instead of slicing it like bread, it has filling in between like burger buns. Whatever you call it, hot dog bun or hot dog bread… it is a wonderful stomach filling snack!!
But hot dog bun is still a fancy variety of bread in India. You wouldn’t find them in local bakeries too. But nowadays courtesy social media, kids have a lot of exposure to different things. They definitely know about hot dog buns. So why not bake this fancy bread at home and give a pleasant surprise to your kids in the evening!!!
I have taken the recipe of Pull apart buns/Dinner bread rolls here to bake hot dog buns. I got total 11 buns from this recipe. But if you want slightly bigger sized buns, divide the dough only in 8-9 buns… choice is all yours!!
I have used all purpose flour here but for a healthy version wheat flour or 50:50 ratio of wheat flour and all purpose flour can be taken. You can follow the same recipe if using wheat flour or mixed flour – just have to increase the quantity of water/milk for kneading as wheat flour absorbs more liquid.
Please don’t forget to go through the whole list of tips before proceeding with the process of baking. I have a separate post for some guidelines on bread/buns baking. You can check that also…. Wheat flour buns with pizza spices (2) (basic tips to follow if following a bread /buns recipe)
Tips:
1. Except water/milk, rest of the ingredients should be used at room temperature.
2. Instead of water, milk can be used to knead the dough. Or you can take both milk and water in 50:50 ratio.
3. Every oven is different – so baking time may vary.
4. Dough proofing time depends a lot on the temperature of your kitchen. In colder temperature first proofing can take 60 to 90 minutes. In warmer temperatures it might get over in 40 to 50 minutes. The same logic will be for second proofing time also.
5. Absorbing liquid quality of flour varies. So don’t follow blindly the quantity of water /milk given in this recipe. If required, add or reduce 1 or 2 tbsp of water.
6. Don’t compare the result of homebaked bread with any market bought bread. We are not adding any artificial gluten, emulsifier or bread enhancer. We are trying to bake a healthy bread loaf for our family which is free from preservatives.
7. Don’t get discouraged if your first bake is not as good as you had expected. Try to find out the problem, sort it out and with the same excitement, give another trial, you will surely get it!!
Ingredients :
All purpose flour /maida 3+3/4 cup
Instant active yeast 1+1/2 tsp (Gloripan brand)
Milk powder 1/4 cup
Salt 1+1/2 tsp
Sugar 1+1/2 tbsp
Oil/butter 3 tbsp
Water/ milk 1+1//2 cup minus 2 tbsp (slightly warmer than lukewarm but not hot)
Process:
Combine all dry ingrediants in a big vessel.
Start adding water/milk and collect all ingredients in shape of a dough (don’t use whole quantity of water).
Now keep adding little quantity of water and start kneading. Consistency of dough would be wet and sticky in the beginning, but slowly by continued kneading for 12-15 minutes will get required elasticity. Add oil/butter along with kneading and mix it nicely into the dough.
Keep this dough in a big oil greased bowl for first proofing. Cover the bowl with cling film and keep it in a warm place so that the dough rises till it is double in volume. This process might take 60 to 90 minutes.
After first proofing, take out the dough on clean oil greased kitchen counter and gently deflate it.
Collect the dough together, knead slightly it to make it smooth and divide the dough in 11 equal parts.
Again grease kitchen counter with oil or sprinkle some flour. Roll these equal sized dough parts in smooth rectangular shaped buns. Spread the buns about 6 by 4 size.
Roll the bun from the top exactly the way we roll bread.
Seam the edges tight by pinching them. Prepare all the rolls in the same way.
Keeping this seam side at the bottom, place them in your butter/oil greased tin by keeping some gap between each bun.
Brush these buns with oil and keep them covered at a warm place for second proofing. Second proofing will be over in 20-30 minutes. If weather is cold it might take slightly more time.
Just before second proofing time is getting over, preheat oven at 185 degrees. Brush-up buns with milk and bake them at the same temperature till they are nicely brown.
Take out the buns from the oven and keep them on a cooling rack. Apply butter evenly on hot buns. This will be helpful in keeping the buns soft and buns will get nice sheen.
Prepare filling of your choice. I finely chopped onion, cucumber, tomato and cabbage, added salt, pepper crushed paneer, dry mint powder and mix with Coriander Chutneyand tomato sauce. It was delicious vegetarian filling.
Instead of paneer… cheese and boiled potatoes with mustard sauce and oregano flakes can be added. Choices are unlimited!!!!
I am sure some of you are definitely planning to give your kiddo’s a wonderful delicious surprise.. don’t forget to share your experience with us. I would love to here from you about this post and your baking experience ❤️❤️
Pyaaz ke pakode/onion bhajji
I have a very interesting story regarding how I have learnt to prepare these Pyaaz ke pakode/onion bhajji. After my marriage I came to Chennai with my husband and here I got introduced to the word bhajji. In North India ‘bhajji’ word is not used for any kind of pakode. Bhajji is South Indian term for pakoda and compared to North India, in South there are a big variety of bhajjis.
After staying 10 months in Chennai we went to Jamaica. There was an Indian restaurant named Akbar. As an appetizer pyaaz ke pakode/onion bhajji used to be served. It was less oily, and unlike onion pakode, crispy fried slices of onions were wrapped with less flour. We had enjoyed them thoroughly and I always wondered how do they manage to use such less flour and have every slice separate without getting stuck with each other. I tried to replicate at home but failed miserably.
Three years later when when we were settled down in Bangalore, Manish and I were watching Sanjeev Kapoor’s food show on TV and there he was cooking the same onion bhajji!!! We both jumped with joy to see the whole process and next weekend this onion bhajji was part of our breakfast!!!!
There is one more post based on onions in the blog. if you are interested, can take a look… Pyaaz ka paratha (Indian flat bread, stuffed with roasted onion)
Ingredients :
Vertically chopped onion slices
Oil for frying
Gram flour
salt as per taste
Process :
Peel onions and wash them nicely. Chop them vertically in long stripes.
You really need to chop a lot of onions here so take help from your family members…
Add salt as per your taste in these chopped onion and mix nicely. Let these salted onions rest for 20-30 minutes.
During this resting period salt will melt and onions will be wet.
Now start sprinkling gram flour (besan) 1 tbsp at a time over these wet salty onion. We are not going to add water here, so use gram flour wisely that it gets wrapped around with wet onions.
Heat oil in a deep wok on medium flame and fry these onions. As there is less flour wrapped around onions, pakodas/bhajjis wouldn’t absorb much oil during frying.
Serve hot pyaaz ke karare pakode/onion bhajji with your choice of chutney or sauce!!!
