Phirni

Ingredients

Milk - 1 glass
Rice flour - 1 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
green Cardamom - 1
Badam - 10
Pista - 15
saffron (optional)

Preparation

In a pan pour thick milk and mix rice flour.
Keep on slow fire and stir continously.
As it cooks and start to thicken,
add sugar and crushed badam and pista.
Stir till it turns thick and creamy.
Add crushed cardamom and garnish with
crushed green pistas.
Rerigerate it for 2 hours

Serve this soft mildly flavoured sweet
after a heavy biriyani.

A very easy north indian dessert .

Yellow Roses

This yellow rose is a true survivor.
After each flowering she comes out with
lots of shoots ,each with buds.
I give her a handful of compost she presents
me with a handful of yellow roses.

Pink Hydrangea

First bloom in our pink hydrangea.

Fish Masala

Fish - 4 pieces

For chilli paste
Red cashmere chilli - 4
(piriyan mulaku)
grated coconut - 1 cup
ginger - 2 inch
pepper corns - 10
cloves - 4
petals from a star anise – 2
onion - ½
Natural vinegar – 3 tbsp
sea salt - to taste

For sautéing
Garlic - 6
Green chilli -2
Onion - 1
Tomatoes – 2
Ginger - 2 inch
Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp

Cut and clean the fish with salt and cold water.
Make a fine wet paste of chilli,coconut and all
Other above ingredients.

Chop finely onion, ginger, garlic, chilli,
tomatoes and coriander leaves .

In an earthen pot add oil and sauté garlic to golden brown.
Now add green chilli, onion and ginger sauté for two minutes
Then add the chilli paste sauté for five minutes on slow flame.
Pour half a glass of water, fish pieces, tomato pieces and coriander leaves.
Taste, add salt and vinegar only if needed.

This fish masala is great with roti or white rice.
Always skin the fish while cleaning.
Espesially pomfret and seer fish.
Instead of fish you can add prawns and make prawn masala.

Home Made Wine

Happy New Year
A toast for a sweet and colourful New Year

Grapes - 3 kg
Sugar -1/2 kg
Broken wheat - 100gm
cinnamon sticks - 6 inch long

Seperate the grapes from the stem.
Wash ,dry and crush grapes.

In a dry and clean earthen jar (barani),
add crushed grapes,sugar,cinnamon sticks and broken wheat.
Close the lid tight cover with a thick cloth and tie it tight.
Keep the jar in a dark and humid corner
of your room for forty days.
Once a week open the lid and stir it
with a wooden ladel.
After forty days strain the wine
through a muslin cloth and
store in air tight bottles.

After a week as the wine gets clear you can
slowly pour it into another bottle.

Traditionally in the slow process of
matuering wine, broken wheat is not added.
Only two ingredients go into the jar.
Grapes and sugar.
For two kilogram grapes I add one kilogram sugar.
But for many people the ratio is 1:1.
Close the lid and just forget for 90 days.
Open the jar after 3 months, seive through a
fine muslin cloth and bottle it.

Wine made by adding wheat, and wine made of
only sugar and grapes has lot of difference in
its texture and taste.

Try to make both the types of wine and enjoy...

Black colour grapes give dark red wine.
Light red coloured grapes give rose wine.

Silent Valley

God still lives here-
God’s own valley,
The abode of God

Like in the ‘ark’
Birds, mammals, reptiles
In pairs they live in peace

Trees and herbs
Flowers and fruits
Sparkling rivers, with the mystic touch of God

Silence is the rule
Close your eyes
You will feel the presence of God

Dare not touch
A flower, leaf or stone
Forbidden valley for man

Step in only-
If pure in heart and soul
Determined not to hurt even the air

Else the eerie silence will bite you
The deadly- dark shadow,
Will haunt you
For ‘Nature the God’ is powerful for ever

mini thomas

Prawn Chutney Powder

Ingredients

Grated coconut -2 cups
Dried prawns -1 ½ cup
Dried red chillies - 3
Pepper corns - 15
Urad dal - 2 tbsp
Curry leaves - ½ cup
Sliced shallots (small onions)- ½ cup
Ginger grated -3 tbsp
Chopped garlic - 2 tbsp
Tamarind - 1 tbsp
Oil - ½ cup
Salt to taste

Preparation

On a low flame, in a wok, pour a tablespoon of
oil for frying each ingredient separately.
Red chilli, pepper corns and urad dal can be fried together.
Each ingredient should be fried crisp.

Grind each ingredient seperately in a chutney grinder.
Mix all items together with sea salt and grind again.
Now, add the tamarind and run the mixer on high speed.
See that there are no lumps.
Store the chutney powder in an air-tight container.

Prawn chutney powder goes well with rice and curd.

It is helpful if we stock a bottle of prawn chutney or
Fish pickle to manage the lazy days.
May be a day after Onam, when you have all the
left over veggies but no fish!!

Generally,two types of dried prawns are available.
One is red, firm and comparatively bigger in size.
The other one is soft, smaller and pale in colour.
For making chutney, softer dried prawns are preferred.