Dips

 *NOTE: NO PHOTOS IN THIS BLOG; ALL PICTURES ARE ADVERTISEMENTS.

A set of four recipes that can be used as dips with your chips over a couple of beers. So get the mixer grinder ready for one pink, and one white and very creamy dip.

1. Chlodnik:

     Though it sounds like a Gujarati bad word, other than being purely vegetarian, there is nothing Gujarati about it. It's a polish dish from Lithuania. Chlodnik  in simple language would be called a cold beet soup.  It can be used as a dip, coz it's thick, but is more of a salad. More of a salad. as all of the fresh salad-y greens - in this case - 'pinks', are ground in a mixie. The 'cold' in 'cold beet soup' is misleading - as the beets are boiled. And then they are to be cooled, because, cold curd is mixed in, and, to avoid the curd from curdling under heat, the dish is amalgamated into a cold dish.

 1.     Take four medium sized beets, skin them and boil chunks in water. Add one potato too. (Keep the stock.)

 2.     Test softness of potato by inserting a knife into it, which should enter the boiling potato smoothly. After which you can extract the beet and potato chunk in a colander and pass cold water over them.

 3.     Blend in Salt, pepper, one small onion, two cucumbers, one radish along with the cold curd and the cooled-off beet and potato chunks.

4.     Serve cold. 

      Bon Appetit. You may add water to turn it from a thick paste into a cuppa soup, or use it as dip. A very pink dip.

Ingredient details: (8 servings)

Beet root	4 nos. (3 if leaves not removed)
Potato	1 nos.
Onion (small)	1 nos.
Cucumber	1 nos.
Radish	1 nos. (optional)
Salt	To taste
Pepper (powder)	1 tbsp
Curd	1 cup

2. Béchamel

     The French call it béchamel. In simple language it is called as white sauce and is commonly used as a pasta mix. The sauce can be paired with vegetables or ladle it over fried seafood or chicken. And, the not so secret ingredients that can also be added are - anything white is welcome.

 1.     In a large pan, add butter and all-purpose flour on low heat. Be careful that it does not burn. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 2.     Add one cup milk, to the above pan, keep stirring. Always keep on low heat, you may remove it from the heat source, while adding different ingredients.

 3.  Keep stirring until thick dip-type texture.

 4. Serve with cheese or cream or hummus added to enhance the flavour.

Ingredient details: (Dip for 1 cup macaroni)

Butter	2 tbsp.
All-purpose flour	2 tbsp.
Salt	To taste
Pepper (powder)	To taste
Milk	1 cup
Cheese / Cream / Hummus	(optional)

3. Hummus

     A Lebanese delight - pronounced by stressing on the two "U's". The simplicity of the dish astonishes, however, a disclaimer - may lead to excessive farting (coz of the chickpeas.)

 1.     Steal one cup chickpeas from your mum's chole masala, or soak overnight and boil till soft. (Keep the stock.)

 2.  Then comes the game changer - the calcium filled sesame seeds. Toast the seeds on a pan. Do not burn them - golden brown is apt.

 3.     In a mixie, grind the toasted sesame seeds. Use olive oil as a lubricant, add 7-8 garlic cloves. 2-3 pepper corns. Add salt to taste, (salt to be added if, the chick peas are boiled without salt) This paste is called tahini.

4.     Grind in the boiled chickpeas. Grind in batches as this is motor intensive and be sure to add the tahini paste in batches too, so as to not lose the taste. Use stock to lubricate - sparingly though, remember, this is a dip.

 5.     Serve with nachos. Add lime before serving. Do not store with lime added. Can be used sparingly for 2 weeks when refrigerated (without lime added).

Ingredient details: (Dip for 1 big chip packet)

Chickpeas tbsp.	1 cup (2 cups, if boiled)
Sesame seeds	1 tbsp.
Garlic	7-8 cloves
Peppercorn	2-3 nos.
Salt	To taste
Olive oil	(for lubrication)

4. Red Chutney

     An Indian dish in its entirety, and can be compared to any spicy dip worldwide, except that chutneys have coconut in them. Some would say using desiccated coconut minimizes the freshness, and that is where the easy part ends and the tough part begins. The tough part being -desiccating the coconut - some cultures sit on a wooden stool fitted a solid steel scrapper to scrape out the white, while some use circular-hand-powered scrapers.

 1.     Scrape half a coconut (however, you please).

 2.    Soak a lime-sized ball of tamarind in water for 5 mins.

 3.    Grind in the ball of tamarind with the coconut, Kashmiri (dried) chillies, one garlic clove and ginger

4.     Add salt to taste and sugar to counter the above chillies' hotness. (Any red chillies can be used)

 5.     Serve as a dip.

Ingredient details: (Dip for 8 servings)

Dried red chillies (Kashmiri)	3 nos.
Coconut	1/2 (or 100gms desiccated.)
Garlic	1 clove.
Ginger	1 inch.
Salt	To taste
Sugar	1/2 tsp.

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Genre - Recipe

800 words

Baking without an oven

 

*NOTE: NO PHOTOS IN THIS BLOG; ALL PICTURES ARE ADVERTISEMENTS.

Baking without an oven:

• 1.       The greased-baking-tray would need to be enclosed in a wide-bottomed vessel.
• 2.       Take the wide bottomed-vessel and pour some rock salt into it. (Salt can be substituted for sand, as well)
• ·         This salt/sand will be baked red-hot to bake the cake.
• ·         The salt/sand will absorb the extra moisture.
• 3.       Preheat; Cover and heat the wide-bottomed vessel (with the salt/sand in it), for 10 mins.
• 4.       After pre-heating. Add the cake-mix to the baking-tray.
• 5.       Place the baking-tray in the wide-bottom vessel, on a ring. The ring is placed so that the baking tray does not directly lie on the red-hot salt/sand. The ring elevates the baking-tray from direct heat below.
• 6.       Cover the baking-tray. (To avoid salt/sand to fly into the cake-mix.)
• 7.       Cover the wide-bottomed vessel too.
• 8.       The entire setup to be set on slow fire for 30 mins.
• 9.       Remove the baked cake and enjoy. Bon Appetit.

Baking in an oven:

• 1.       Preheat oven to targeted temp - for e.g. 180C/350 ºF – for 10 min
• 2.       Line an eight-inch baking tin tray and grease it well.
• 3.       Pour the thick paste into the prepared tray
• 4.       Bake in the preheated oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes at same temperature.

Common Baking tips:

1. Always use oven mitts to handle hot setup
2. Always preheat.
3. Always grease the baking-tray.
4. Sift some flour for crust after greasing it. (Optional but recommended)
5. Do not open setup too often during the bake.
6. Check your bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean,
7. Once done, place hot tray on wire rack and let it cool completely before icing or eating it.

 Below are two tried out cake mix recipes. We can use above oven and/or non-oven baking methods:-

1. Vanilla Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Butter	100 gms
Sweetener	1 cup (approx.)
Eggs	3 nos.
Vanilla essence	1 teaspoon
Milk	1 cup
Baking Soda	1 teaspoon
Baking Powder	1 teaspoon
All-propose flour (sifted)	1 cup

Note:

·         Same cup measure used for all of the above ingredients.
·         Applicable to any form of sweetener.

Method

1. Melt the butter.
2. Beat the butter in its liquid state with the powder sugar until smooth (use blender).
3. Separate the egg-yolks from the egg-whites.
• Break the egg(s) without damaging the yolk(s).
• Use a disposable plastic water bottle to suck the yolk out of the raw egg.
4. Add the egg yolks (all 3 of them) into the main mixture.
5. Add vanilla essence.
6. Continue beating the mix.
7. If tough, add milk (little by little). Do see that it is not runny, it’s a cake after all.
8. Beat the egg-whites in until frothy. And add the egg whites to the main mix.
9. Do not agitate the mix.
10. in a third container, add the baking powder and baking soda to the all-purpose flour and mix well.
11. Gradually cut and fold in the powder mix from the third container. (Do not beat the mixture too much.)
12. Bake

2. Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

Butter	100 gms
All-propose flour (sifted)	1/2 cup
Eggs	3 nos.
Unsweetened cocoa	2 tablespoons
Bittersweet chocolate	10 pieces
Sweetener	1/4 cup
Baking powder	1 teaspoon
Pure vanilla extract	1 teaspoon
Sour cream	1/2 cup
Bittersweet chocolate	4 ounces coarsely chopped

Method

1.       Lightly butter and flour cake pan. Lightly sift flour, cocoa, baking powder together onto a sheet of waxed paper.

2.       In the top vessel of a double boiler melt chocolate and butter over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat.

3.       Beat the eggs into the sweetener.

4.       Add vanilla essence.

5.       Continue beating the mix.

6.       Add to the melted chocolate mixture and mix on medium heat for 30 seconds.

7.       Add flour mixture and mix on low 10 seconds, then on medium 10 seconds.

8.       Add sour cream and mix on medium for 5 seconds.

9.       Scrape around sides and bottom of bowl with a rubber spatula to combine thoroughly. Use spatula to fold-in the chopped chocolate.

10.    Pour batter into cake pan and spread evenly.

11.    Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

12.    Bake

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Length of blog: 1000 words (approx.)
Genre: Recipes

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