Masale Bhat [HIT]

1. Wash 3 cups of rice and drain.
2. To prepare phodani add 1.5 table spoon of oil, mustard seeds. When mustard seeds start popping add turmeric powder, 3-4 cloves, 2 leaves of tejpatta and 7-8 sppons of garam masala.
3. In phodani add chopped vegetables like cauliflower, carrot, tondli etc.
4. Add lot of chopped coriander.
5. Add salt to taste.

Aloo Paratha

1. Cook potatoes properly.
2. Don't overly mash potatoes. Else the stuffing becomes sticky.
3. Make the dough properly with little oil and salt.

Different Dal

To make tasty dal try following masalas:
1. Dalmakhani masala
2. Dhansak masala
Recently read in "saffron trail" that Mangals dhansak masala is good.

Bharlelya vangyachi bhaji [HIT]

Gravvy:
0.5 cup of gratted dry coconut
2 tsp til
2 tsp khaskhas
3 onions
2 tsp mustard seeds
4 cloves
4 tejpatta
2 sticks of dalchini
kala masala
little dalva powder
ginger
coriander

Did not fill the brinjals as done traditionally. Just cup and fried them.
Tastes creamy because of coconut.

Puran Poli [HIT]

Stuffing:
2 cups of chana dal
2.5 cups of sugar
0.5 cup of jaggery

Dough:
Atta + 3 tsp oil + 1 tsp salt
Number of puran polis = 16
Number of people at lunch = 7

Aloo vada [HIT]

The threee steps for making Aloo vada are:
1. Make Aloo bhaji
2. Make Besan paste
3. Fry Aloo vada
So lets begin with the first step.
1. Make Aloo bhaji:
My method of estimating aloos is - Take about 1 potato person person. Usually four onions. Lots of garlic and ginger. Ginger and garlic give the main taste. I take about 4 garlic petals per potato. And yes the green chillies and lots of coriander.
Boil potatoes. Fry onions in oil. Add potatoes, ginger garlic paste, chopped green chillies and coriander at once. Add salt.
2. Make besan paste.This paste should be of the consitency that it will coat the vadas well. It should not be too thick or too thin. Take about 1.5 cup of besan for 4 potatoes. This mixture can be made again if required. If the batter remains than pithla can be made!!
In besan add 0.5 teaspoon of turmeric, a pinch of soda, salt, little red chilli powder and little rice powder. Mix the ingredients well. Add water slowly and mix to make a thick batter.
3. Make balls of the allo bhaji and deep fry aloo vadas on a low flame.
Enjoy with pav, sos or dry groundnut chutney and fried green chillies!
Mouthwatering is the right word!!

Khobaryachi vadi [HIT]

This is the most simple vadi that I have made recently.
In 3 cups of grated coconut add 1.5 cup of sugar. Heat the mixture till the sugar melts and the mixture starts becoming thick. Add milk powder and cardamom powder. Pour the thick mixture on greased plate, pat it and cut vadis when cool.

Gulab jamun [MISS]

Reference: Sailu's kitchen blog
1. 1 cup khava
2. 3/4th cup maida
3. Soda 1/4th teaspoon
4. Sugar
5. cardamom powder.
6. Oil for frying

Sugar cyrup.
2 cups sugar+2cups water. Just get the solution to boil. Add cardamom powder.
This turned out to be perfect.

Gulab jamun.
Knead khava, maida, soda, 2 spoons of sugar syrup together. Use milk to make a good dough.
Roll into balls of equal size.
Fry on low flame.

The gulab jamuns did not get cooked completely.
Next time will try with rava instead of maida and more soda.

Vada [HIT]

1. 2 cups urad dal
2. 0.5 cup or less moog dal
3. 1 cup pohe
4. small onion

Soak dals for 8-12 hours.
Grind all the above ingredients.
Add a paste of :
green chillies
coriander
jeera

Dudhi halwa [HIT]

1. Dudhi 2.5 cups
2. Sugar 1 cup
3. cardamom powder
4. almonds
5. ghee
6. 2 tsp milk powder
7. 3 cups milk.

1. Heat 2 spoons of ghee in non stick pan.
2. Add grated dudhi and milk and cook till the mixture thickens to a lump.
3. Add sugar, cook.
4. Add pieces of almonds and cardamom powder.

The difference between cooking gajar halwa and dudhi halwa is that it is important to cook grated gajar in lot of ghee and not the grated dudhi.

Gajar Halwa [HIT]

Gajar halwa turned out well but there was stil a lot of scope for
improvement.
For one kg of carrots I added about 2.5 cups of sugar after carrots were
almost cooked in ghee.
It turned out to be a little more sweet than required.
To give it a milky taste I added condensed milk prepared at home.
Milkmaid would have been a better option. For that matter even milk powder
would have been better.
To keep cashew crisp they could have been fried in ghee first.

Kadhi [MISS]

Made "Kadhi" yesterday. I had curds and knew how much of kadhi was required.
Just added that amount of water and added small quantity of "besan".
What went wrong was that the kadhi did not turn out to be of required
consitency. It was not thick and tasty. I forgot to add ginger!

Chole

To make tasty chole with thick gravy:
Mash some to paste for the gravy.

Tilgulachi vadi [HIT]

3.5 cups of bhajalelya tilacha kut
1.0 cup sugar
0.5 cup jaggery
1.5 cup h2O

let "pak" become real thick.

Mix Dal Dosa [Hit]

1 cup Moong dal
1 cup chana dal
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup udit dal
1/2 cup Masoor dal

Mix, Soak for atleast 4 hours, grind.
Add chopped coriander, green chillies, Salt.
Make dosa's of the batter and most importantly serve with chutney and not tomato sause!