Street Food: Bhapa Pitha (Steamed Rice cakes)

It has been four months since my last post...life has been taking over a bit. But, I am back with another addition to the Street Food series!!

Today's is Bhapa Pitha! Its a bit out of season since these vendors are out during the winter months and right now its is HOT!! What are Bhapa Pithas? It is rice flour steamed with jaggery. It's incredibly soft and pillow-y when steamed right and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you bite into hot off the oven. What's even more interesting is --this is one of those very rare items that are solely sold by women on the streets! Whether its a tiny makeshift stove by the roadside or a cart by the park...it is almost always by a women steaming away the cakes.

I always find the compactness of the street vendors amazing. Everything is at their fingertips and ready to pick and go in a matter of mins. For this particular item one requires a portable fire, a metal pot with a built in steamer, small disc plates and rice flour (boiled), salt, jaggery (date palm) and shredded fresh coconut. One just needs to mix the flour and salt and spread on plate. Add shredded cocnut and spoonful of jaggery in the middle, cover with a muslin or thin cloth and steam away for few mins.

Thats it! Each one costs about Tk.5 - thats about $0.07 !!!

Warm Apple Bites

We had one apple staring at us from the fruit basket and I had no appetite and hubby isn't a big fan of them apples. So, what to do? Decided to try my hand at an apple turnover type thing. Was looking on Open Source Food for hours at recipes to try out in my Mom's old tiny oven.
(This thing must be over 15 years old - my grandmother pulled it out of storage and gave it to me and I am still shocked it lights up!)

Anyway, after a lot of yummy recipes, came across one that was easy and simple enough to try out. I love apple pie and this seemed very similar. But alas, I still have to figure out how Mom's old oven works! I put it in to bake and it just wasn't working - so regrettably the lil pies were deep fried. It wasn't too much of a disaster - name one deep fried food that you haven't liked - go ahead! The bites came out delish! Crunchy on the outside and sweet and gooey apple bites inside. Hubby gave his approval of - "not just good, its Great!" - Okay, so I added the capital G and the exclamation ;)

Excuse the poor quality of pictures - had really bad lighting and was just too tired (I made them at 11pm!)

Here is how I made 2 Warm Apple Bites:

















Ingredients

1 apple - diced
4-5 cloves - crushed
1/2 tsp. cinnamon powder
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. honey
2 Tbsp. of clarified butter (knob of regular butter is fine)
1 egg
2 drops of vanilla essence
oil to deep fry
2 pcs of white bread

1. Peel and dice 1 apple. Small bite size chunks are fine.

2. Warm a pan on low heat. Add butter and melt. Add cloves, cinnamon, sugar, honey and apple. Stir and cook till apples are between firm and soft. Think apples from apple pie. Remove from heat and let cool.

3. Take 2 pcs of bread and cut of crusts. Use a rolling pin to flatten each out thin. Split the apple in half and spoon on side of each piece of bread. Fold over each to make two pies. Use egg wash to seal edges. (I added a bit of sugar and vanilla to eggwash).

4. At this point you can put it in the oven and bake. But-I ended up dipping the two pies in the egg like French toast and putting it into the oil to deep fry.

Let it cool and enjoy! Would be great with some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream!!

Sweet Milky Bread

Hubby and I both have a major sweet tooth! After dinner we must must, nay, he must! have something sweet. Usually he just takes a piece of bread and lathers on some Nocilla (like Nutella, a hazelnut-chocolate spread) and devours it. Last night he was about to the same. He sat down with the bread box and the bottle of Nocilla and I couldn't bare to watch. But what to make in 10 mins? Well, if you have sugar, milk, bread, eggs and flour - anything is possible! I had made some doughnuts a few days back (they were more deep fried cakes!) and I knew that would take a while.

So, he requested Shahi Tukra.

Shahi is usually term used in the South Asian cuisine for anything cooked with milk or yogurt - it connotates richness. Tukra means - pieces. In the old days, milk was reduced to a rich creamy state, hence the name. Today's milk loses so much in the processing that it can hardly be boiled down to a thick cream.

I remember as a child we used to get fresh milk straight from the cow and when it was boiled to purify, it formed a thick layer of cream (we called it shor). We would eat the shor just with some sugar - but it was usually preserved for the special baby of the home - so when little brother was old enough - I no longer got the shor, same with hubby, when his little sister was old enough and then his cousin brothers - he never got that thick layer of delicious cream. *sigh*

So, back to last night. What he wanted was bread in sweetened milk. I have made it several times and by no means is it healthy but - dang - it taste good!!!

Sweet Milky Bread

Bread: about 3-4 slices
Milk: 1 cup
Sweetened Condensed Milk: 2-3 tbsp.
Cardamom Whole: 2
Cinnamon: 1 inch
Nutmeg: garnish
Pistachios or almonds or raisins

1. Heat the milk. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer. Add the cardamom, cinnamon and stir in the condensed milk. Let it simmer for about 10 mins or so. You can do it till its thickened, especially if it full cream milk but, not necessary.

2. Have a deep dish ready or a bowl, tear the bread into big chunks and layer it. If you want to make it look pretty, cut into triangles and lay it out neatly overlapping.

3. Check for desired sweetness - add honey or sugar if needs to be sweeter. Pour slowly over the bread. Garnish with nutmeg shavings or swirl some honey on top or spread out raisins or nuts.

Let it cool and enjoy!

*Tip: this is a very versatile dish, you can do anything you want with it! Powder milk can be used. If you don't want condensed milk - palm sugar, jaggery, brown sugar, honey - any natural sweetener can be substituted. Saffron can be used in the milk for a sophisticated taste or Vanilla. If eggs mixed in the milk then perhaps can be baked even? (don't know abt that one - have to test t out).

Coconut Nut Barfi - Sweet Coconut Balls

I have a thing for coconuts. I saw this on Food Safari the other day and thought it was THE most simplest, easiest, quickest and yummiest dessert! Hubby just pops one in his mouth every time he passes the fridge. Make 'em and you will see!

The ingredients are simple and adjustable too. If you don't want to use condensed milk - just use milk and sugar (jaggery, palm sugar, brown sugar). just a reminder - different sugars will give it different tastes, which in itself is a fun idea to roll around with! Make sure to fry it up in the pan so it all congeals and cooks together.

The use of fresh coconuts is advisable, but if not possible - most specialty stores sell them in packages so experiment a little. I broke the coconut myself and scraped it by hand -- owwww! its hard and tiring so i don't recommend it to anyone! But if you have gadgets to help ya out - go for it! Nothing in the world like fresh coconut!!

If you try this out - let me know how they turn out...


Coconut Barfi

2 cups fresh ground coconut
1 cup condensed milk
ground pistachios
ground cashews
ground elachi (try fresh next time)

(maybe cinnamon too?)
enough for strong flavor

Mix well all together, cook on pan with little bit of ghee (butter) and 2 tbsp of suji (semolina), till dry. Let it cool. Roll small portions into round balls and roll through fresh coconut.

Keep cool - it will firm up after few hours.

Homemade Donuts!

Cal hasn't been well for past week or so and has had practically no appetite :( This evening he actually asked for something to eat - but something sweet. Initial request was a banana chocolate milkshake, so he went downstairs to get milk and bananas. Meanwhile I was thumbing through a cookbook (Ranna Khado Pusti by Siddiqa Kabir)to figure out a menu for Eid and stumbled on a recipe for homemade donuts! I love this cookbook - no wonder my mother and my mother's mother swore by it! I had made them mini and Cal gulped down a bowl full!! Here is the recipe, with my own tweaks of course:




Homemade Donuts

Eggs 2
Sugar 1/3 cup (adjust to your own sweetness, I will add more next time)
Milk 1/3 cup
Clarified butter or Melted butter 1/3 cup (equal to milk)
Flour 1 1/2 cups
Baking Powder 2 tsp.
Salt 1/2 tsp
Oil to deep fry
Few drops of vanilla or any other flavor you prefer
Cinnamon powder or confectionery sugar or melted glaze or melted chocolate, etc. - you gt the idea, anything to top the donuts with!

1) Whip the eggs and sugar together, mix in milk and butter.

2) Mix the flour, salt and baking powder, add the egg mix and form into a sift dough. Leave in refrigerator for 15mins.

3) After 30 mins, spread the dough and roll out thick. Cut into donuts (I used a small bowl to make mini size and a small bottle cap to cut the middle holes out). Set aside for about 10mins.

4) Heat the oil, drop a 'tester' to check temp. It should make a golden brown color, if it becomes a chocolatey color, lower the heat and cool the oil a bit. Flip it to make it evenly colored.

Place them on a paper towel to dry off excess oil, sprinkle with toppings! Enjoy!!

Peanut Butter Balls

C wanted something sweet after dinner the other night and for once there was nothing in the house-- being it was 11pm - no stores to go buy smth either - so the next day i went hunting for some recipes and came across this easy yummy recipe and decided to make a batch and always have in the fridge for that sudden sweet tooth craving!

You need...
Peanut butter
Sugar or icing sugar works better
powdered milk (optional)
Cinnamon(Optional)
Chocolate shavings of ur choice (optional)

In a bowl mix all ingredients to form a firm dough ball of the peanut butter. Taste along the way for sweetness that you like. Then take tiny bits and form little balls - I make little bite size about size of malt balls. Then roll them in some powdered sugar and cinnamon mix to seal and stick them in a box and into the fridge. Pop one whenever you feel like one =)

Note of Caution: pop sparingly - unless you want to start looking like a ball!

Fruit Desserts

Below post is another one from my bohemian bongo blog...figured should move the recipes over to here! This one is from a Eid party my husband I had hosted last October...

For Eid I ended up making 3 fruit dishes. Why? I over estimated and had a surplus of fruits so had to do something with it.

Main - Leche de Fruit (ok - i made it up-- have a better idea?)

Combination of soft and hard fruits cut to bite size pieces.
I used: red apples, bananas, starfruit, guava, pineapple

fresh grated coconut shavings
Can of sweetened condensed milk

In a large decorative platter make a thin layer of coconut shavings. Dunk all the fruit in the condensed milk and make layers of fruits and top it all with coconut shavings. The starfruits looked so pretty that I had small toothpicks inserted and the pieces standing like stars around the dish. The kids loved it =)

Fruits 2:

Mix of fruits sprinkled with sugar, garam masala and black salt. I had put it inside a emptied watermelon turned into a bowl.

Fruits 3:

Mix of fruits with salt and kasondi. Kasondi is a mustard seed concoction. It was a nice kick of spicy and and sweet. Kasondi is like a preserve so it keeps if fresh hard fruits.

Honey Cardamom Chicken

This is my husband's absolute favorite dish at the moment. I was getting tired of all the curries so I went searching online for some interesting chicken recipes. I came across this but have modified it for our palates. Make sure make enough, cause Cal is usually licking the honey off the plate!!

Ingredients

Honey: 1/4-1/2 cup.
Cardamom - ground: 1 tsp.
Cloves - ground: 1 tsp.
Whole Black pepper: 1 tsp.
Red Chili powder: 1 tsp.
Olive oil: 3-4 tbsp.
Onion: 1 roughly chopped
Chicken: 1 cut into 4 or 8 pcs

1) Heat the honey slightly to make it easier to work with. I just microwave it for 10 sec.

2) Mix in all the spices except the onion. Place the chicken pcs in the marinade and mix well. I like to use my hands, so I really massage the honey mix into the meat. Also take a fork and pierce the skin to help the marinade seep in. Cover and set aside for at least 1/2 hour. If you have more time, leave it in the fridge on warm day for at least 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

3) Heat some olive oil in pan, throw in the chopped onions and let it sautee for 1 min. Places chicken pieces in the oil and pan fry. Once well fried on both sides, pour the reamaining marinade into the pan and simmer until ready to take off stove. Cook the chicken well - for at least 15-20mins.

I find that I have to cook the chicken a little bit longer here than I did in the states...oh well, better to have well cooked meat than under cooked!

Let me know how your family or you enjoy this recipe. I serve it, of course, with some fluffy white rice. Its also good on its own with some veggie sides and roasted potatoes.

Enjoy!

Suji Halwa

1/4 cup (Gur) Jaggery
4 tbsp. Sugar
1 cup Suji or Semolina
1/3 cup Ghee
2 pods Cardamom pod
2 cm. Cinnamon stick
1 Bay Leaf
2 cups Water
raisins (optional and as desired)


(all can be adjusted to your own taste)

1) Boil a 1/4 cup of water to melt the jaggery and add sugar. Once melted, leave it on burner on very low heat.

2) On a non stick skillet, heat ghee and add cardamom pod/powder, cinnamon stick and bay leaf.
Fry for 1 min.

3) Add the semolina to the ghee mix. Keep on medium heat. Roast the semolina till it
is a brown nutty toasted color.

4) Once toasted, add the jaggery/sugar mix and remaining water. Let it cook and become like a paste. Keep stirring till it all sticks tightly together and leaves the sides of pan.

5) Grease a shallow dish and scoop out the mix and flatten with a buttered spoon. Let it cool and cut into desired shapes.

I usually cut into diamond shapes and place a raisin or nut in the center. You can also add raisins or nuts when you fry the spices in the ghee.

Note: ghee = clarified butter. Can be found in Indian grocery or specialty food shop. Or make your own by melting butter over heat!