Banana Buns (Inspired by Jai & Bee’s Chelsea buns) – JFI Banana

Amma gave me so many recipes using raw bananas, the stem and flower. But wanted to try something different. By recent baking spree headed up and my thoughts were towards baking something with banana. Thanks for Jai nad Bee for their “chelsea bun recipe“. Got inspired by the taste of those delicious buns and made these with bananas. I made the basic dough with that recipe and added sliced banana’s and voila it turned to be a fabulous bun. I did not want to post the recipe before tasting them and if it is not good I would go for amma’s recipes. Thats waht I was thinking before I had one. Today did not have much time to have breakfast and was carrying these buns along with the second batch of Chelsea buns for my brother for work. On the way to work I tasted one of the banana buns and it simply went inside within less than a minute. They were really good. Luckily I clicked few pics before and after baking which I can post now! Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:
For Basic dough – I followed the chelsea bun recipe for the bun dough.(Halfed the contents to make 4 buns)
All purpose flour – 2 1/4 cups
Active Dry Yeast – 1 tea spoon
Salt – 1/8 tea spoon (3 pinches)
Butter – 1 table spoon nad 1 tea spoon
Milk – 1/2 cup (warm)
Sugar – 1/4 cup

For the filling:
Domerara sugar – 4 tea spoons
Cinnamon powder – 4 pinch
Firm ripe bananas sliced into 1/4 discs – 12  pieces

How to make it?
Make the bun dough as per the recipe. After the first rise punch down the dough and knead it until it becomes smooth. Make large lemon sized balls. Flatten one ball to 1/4 inch thick disc. Arrange 3 slices of banana and spread 1 tea spoon of domerara sugar over it. Sprinkle one pinch of cinnamon over it.

 Close all the edges firmly and make the ball in to a bun. Repeat for the rest of the balls. Arrange these filled buns in a greased baking pan and let it rise to double of its size in a warm place. It takes almost an hour.

 

Bake it in a pre-heated oven for 15 minutes or until the crust becomes golden brown. Glaze it with honey when they are still warm and enjoy!

This is my contribution for JFI Banana hosted by lovely Mandira of Ahaar.

And as my dear  friends asked me to send this as an entry for MBP - bread(which I have never dared to do till date because I am beginner in baking). This is my entry for MBP conducted by Coffee of The Spice Cafe.

As Coffee wants us to list all our favorite smells in the kitchen, here goes the list:

1. Curry leaves and jeera frying in oil during taalipu

2. Drumstick leaves frying in the ghee at the end of ghee making process

3. Buns baking in the oven

4. Coriander leaves when added to hot rasam in the end.

and so many others. I love the smell of my mom’s palms once she’s done with the her cooking. A vareity of spice smells along with Love and Care !

Simplest mushroom saute

This recipe is from my dear friend dear M. When I was working in Coimbatore, myself and 3 of my friends (disliking hostel food) decided to takeup a house and cook for ourselves. That was the golden period in my life. Myself and M alone knew cooking and the other two shared all other household work. We had a real good time cooking various recipes. We were running the house in minimal budget and no fridge and no wet grinder. Yet  we managed to cook fresh food and eat all the time. My dear M would make this delicious mushroom curry which was a treat during our sunday meals. This is the simplest curry with just 3 ingredients and yet so tasty.

Ingredients:

Button mushrooms – 20 (cleaned and cut into 4 pieces vertically)

Green chillies slit vertically – 4 or 5 (depends on how hot you want the saute)

Ghee – 3 table spoons

Salt – 1/4 teaspoon

How to make it?

Heat a wide skillet and pour the ghee into it. It will start smoking immediately. Simmer the stove and add the green chilles and saute for few seconds. Then add the mushrooms. Turn the stove to high flame. Saute continously for 2 minutes. Let the mushrooms cook in its own juice. After 2 minutes simmer the stove and cook for further 5-6 minutes until the water evapourates to 1/4 of its original amount. Now add required salt. Taste them now and add more salt if required. Turn off the stove and your curry is ready. This can go well with rotis or rice with a spicy curry.

And I baked the Chelsea buns from Jai and Bee! They were wonderful! Thanks Jai & Bee for the foolproof recipes.

Butter beans kurma

Butter beans kurma

This week I visited Cumbam. A flying visit as I started the night before by 9 pm and reached there by 12.30 pm next day. Then started by 7 pm and reached by 10.30 the next day to Chennai. A real hectic trip but I enjoyed every moment of it. After some 7 years this is the first time I travel alone leaving my kids wtih amma. Thank God…no troubles and both the kids never got reminded of me (don’t know if I shud feel happy or sad about it).

And what I did at Cumbam? After  my work is done went to the market and got these wonderful beans. These are called “Butter beans” for their texture and taste (more creamy when cooked) and amma gave this wonderful recipe for that.

Ingredients:
Butter beans (fresh) – 1 cup
Green chilles – 3 (or to suit your taste)
Salt – as required
Onion – 1 big chopped
Tomato – 1 big chopped
Ginger & Garlic paste – 1/2 teaspoon
Cinnamon+Clove+cardomom – powdered 1/4 teaspoon (if you want it sipcy make it to to 1/2 teaspoon)
Fresh Coconut shredded – 1 cup
Cashews toasted and powdered – 3 table spoon
Penaut Oil -  for cooking

How to make it?
Heat a heavy bottom vessel and pour 1 table spoon of peanut oil. Once it is hot add the ginger garlic paste. Fry them till golden brown. Add the chopped onions and fry till they turn pink.  Slit the green chilles lengthwise and add. Add the spice powder. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till it turns mushy.Add the cashew powder too and mix well so that no lumps are formed. Add the beans, salt and 3 cups of water and let it cook till the beans is cooked. In the mean time grind the remaining coconut add this paste to the beans mix. Boil it for further till u see the first bubble and switch off the stove. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and cover and let the falvors mix in for atleast 10 minutes.

Serve hot with phulkas / chapathis. They taste great with rice and papad too.

Asha cookies

You were one of those dear ones who can hug any weary creature who longs for some attention. I every time get overwhelmed when I see your comment. Today I baked a pastry. All these days my baking recipes are from fellow bloggers but this one is my own creation. I suddenly thought of giving names to my own creations…what about giving my dear bloggers’ names to them? First thing came to my mind is yours but was bit hesitant to do it without your permission…But again our dear angel said a big YES to me. And you can easily guess her name its Ashaji of Foodie’s hope!

Dear Asha, this my humble recipe and I call it as Asha cookies. Sounds great na?

Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 1 cup
Butter (unsalted, cut into cubes) – 1/2 cup
Chocolate shavings – 1 cup
Toasted and coarsely ground pistachios – 1 cup
Salt – 1/4 spoon
Sugar – 1/4 cup

Actually what I wanted to make:
Make a pastry dough with the flour, butter, salt and sugar and refrigirate it. Take them out roll it into a big rectangle, sprinkle the choco shavings and pistas and roll them as a swiss roll. Cut them into slices. Bake them and serve them warm with shipped cream. In thought this was perfect but the destiny was having a big laugh at my back with I failed to notice.

But what happened ?
When I tried to roll the dough it was not at all pliable. Somehow I managed to roll it and spreaded the choco and pista and tried to roll the dough as a swiss roll. Hmm…after some minutes of trial I ended up with a big mass of dough, choco shavings and pistas everything together. Thought for a minute and immediately made the dough into small balls and flattened them into cookies and baked. Voila…they were really nice to my surprise. So I am giving the decent version of a “how to make”.

How to make it?
Mix the butter cubes, salt and flour with your hands until the flour resembles bread crubs. Add salt and sugar and knead well. Keep it in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Take it out and add the chocolate and pista and knead well. Divide into small balls (2 inch diameter) and flatten them into a cookie. Pre heat the oven and bake these cookies on a baking sheet for 10-12 minutes at 375 degress.. They won’t get crisper or chewy. Just check with a skewer if the cookies are done. The above mentioned time is enough. Take them out and cool them for 10 more minutes. These were not the kind of chewy or crispy ones. These were melt in the mouth kind and the only thing will remain in u’re mouth for chewing is the toasted pistas.

They tasted great and I liked them more because they do not have either eggs or baking powder. Give a try!

An experiment with chocolate brownies…

I very much wanted to make a brownie when yesterday I had a craving for chocolate. I made some variations with the available recipe and reduced the amount of chocolate in them to suit my taste. There came out a dense, choclaty brownie which I sent to my friend’s b’day! Hope he should like them.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 1 cup
Bitter sweet chocolate – 135 gms (chopped to small pieces)
Salt 1/4 tea spoon
Brown sugar – 1 cup (packed)
Baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon
Eggs – 2
Egg white – 1
Butter (unsalted) – 1 cup (at room temperature)

How to make it?
Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt together until well mixed. Beat the eggs, egg whites with sugar until creamy. In a double boiler melt the butter and add the chopped chocolates to it. Take it off the boiler and mix well until the mixture is creamy (the chocolate peices melts in the hot melted butter). Add this to the egg, sugar mix and beat in low speed until well mixed (do not over beat). Add the flour to this and mix well with a spoon until well incorporated. The batter will be a creamy, chocolaty mass. Grease a cake pan with butter and pre-heat the oven. Pour the batter into the greased cake pan and bake it for 15 minutes at 375 degree centigrade or until a spoon inderted into the cake comes out clean.
Let it cool thoroughly and slice them into 2 inch x 2 inch squares. The above content makes about 20-25 squares. And now watch them dissappear from your eyes in minutes!

Vendakkai (okra) stuffed with Indira’s kobbari kaaram

At home okra or vendaikai is for sambhar or a simple poriyal. Else it will go into a puli kuzhambu (a tamarind based gravy). When we were kids we used to make a big fuss to eat these vendaikai (inspite of amma making us believe that eating okra will increase our arithmetic skills – till now don’t know how ). So one fine day she invented this okra fry which made us empty the vessel in few minutes. Yes! we used to have it by 11 am in the morning straight from the tava
When our dear Indira posted the “kobbari kaaram” recipe I was very tempted to try that with okra and here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:
Fresh tender okra / venkaikai – 20 nos.
Sambar podi – 1 tea spoon
salt – as required
Peanut oil – for shallow frying
Kobbari kaaram – 5 table spoons
Corn flour – 2 table spoons

How to make it?
Wash the okra and dry them with a kitchen towel. Cut the head and tails of the okra. Keep them aside. Make a thick paste by mixing the sambar podi, salt and corn flour adding little water. It should be thick enough to make a thin coating on the okra. Make a vertical slit in each okra like this.
Mix the kobbari karam with a table spoon of ghee to make it just moist. Stuff the kobbari kaaram and ghee mix inside the slit. Make sure you do not overstuff and tear the okras. Once stuffing is done with all the okras give them a thin coating with the corn flour+sambar podi mix.

Heat a tava in the stove and brush some oil. Place the stuffed okras on the tava and shallow fry with required peanut oil. Once properly cooked the okras will tend to turn pale. At this stage you can remove it from the tava and proceed with the remianing ones. You can fry 5-6 okras in a batch.

 

Fresh curd rice with these fried okras are simply divine !