Chakkara choru / Whole wheat Dessert

Chakkarachoru or sharkkara choru is one of the famous desserts found in Malabar Muslim households occassionally made during traditional festives. Sakkara is jaggery and choru is rice; though both these are not used in the recipe these days. My dad loves this with jaggery ,but we like it with sugar; so mom has to make both the versions everytime. I could see many varieties of this dish online from different regions of South India. Ours is slightly different. Let's move on to the recipe. 

Whole wheat is cooked in coconut milk, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with cardamom to bring out the best of the sweet dishes prepared in Malabar.

INGREDIENTS

Wholewheat  1 cup

Onion  4 tbsp

Coconut  4 cups

Chana dal 1/4 cup

Salt 1/2 tsp

Sugar 1  cup or more

Cardamom powder a generous pinch

 Method:

1. Blend coconut by adding4 cups of water to it. Strain milk using a strainer. Squeeze out the coconut pulp to extract maximum milk as possible.This is first milk. Keep it aside. Use the coconut solids after extracting milk to extract the second milk.

2. Pour 6 cups of water to the coconut solids and blend again. Squeeze out the milk using a strainer. This is called thin milk or second milk.

3. Add second milk, wholewheat, onion and salt in a pressure cooker . Lower the flame after first whistle and simmer in cooker for about 25-30 minutes or until the wheat cooks well.

4. Boil chana dal in another pan till it cooks well but crunch remains.

5. Add sugar and first milk to the cooked wheat. Stir well until it boils nicely and thickens.

6. Add cooked bengal gram to it and stir well. Sprinkle cardamom powder to it. Check the taste and add more salt or sugar if needed.

Chicken-Soya Burger

There's nothing more delicious than homemade juicy burgers. Forget your jaws and fill as much as you can ... full open your mouth and stuff it with the burgers.. yummm ! I can't resist that. 

These are juicy , melt in mouth, easy to follow, simple to make and delicious little patties ; shallow fried in oil or grilled and then sandwiched between buns and salads of your choice. The recipe is a revised version of that adapted from Vah re Vah . I had mixed soya with chicken for healthy reasons and a little variation in the spices. Noo likes chicken and Raz likes vegetable burgers. So I say Noo that these are chicken burgers and to Raz I say Soya burgers.. Both are happy and I don't have to lie.. taada !

INGREDIENTS

2 cups/450g Chicken mince *

160g/1 cup Soya

4 tbsp cream

1 tsp Pepper powder

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp Lemon juice 

3 tbsp Chopped coriander

1 tbsp Red chilli, crushed

2 Onions, finely chopped

1 tsp Garam masala

Salt

1/2 cup Bread crumbs

Extra Bread crumbs to coat

 METHOD:

 1. Soak soya nuggets in warm milk for atleast an hour. Drain them nicely, press till all moisture dries up and then  process in a food processor. 

2. Add chicken mince to it and blend again.

3. Place chicken and soya mixture in a bowl. Add all other ingredients except bread crumbs to coat . Mix well using a wooden spatula. 

4. The mixture will be very wet and sticky(that's the secret behind juicy burgers). Place some bread crumbs on a plate. Shape the chicken soya dough into patties and coat them with bread crumbs. You can either fry them then and there or freeze them for later purpose. Click here for freezing tips. 

5. Fry them till it turns golden color and get cooked through. About 3-4 minutes on each side on medium-high flame.

6. For assembling:- I used mayonnaise, lettuce,onions, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, pickled jalapeno peppers, cheese and saute mushrooms.

* If you are using chicken breasts, cut them into chunks, clean and dry them nicely, process them in food processor.

Stuffed Shami Kebab

Ingredients:

Boneless meat or mince 500g

Chana Dal 1/2 cup

Ginger, chopped 1 tbsp

Garlic,chopped 1 tbsp

Potato boiled 1 medium

Whole red chillies 3-4

Whole pepper corns 2 tsp

Lemon juice 1 tbsp

Egg 1

Garam Masala 1 tsp

Stuffing:

Egg, boiled and chopped 3 tbsp

Onion, finely chopped 3 tbsp

Coriander leaves, finely chopped 1 tbsp

Green chillies 3no.s

Method:

1. Pressure cook boneless meat, chana dal,whole red chillies and chopped ginger & garlic  until meat is done. If you are using chicken, soak dal for atleast half an hour before cooking.

2. When meat is done, add garam masala to the cookeer and dry up all the liquid in high flame. Let it cool.

3. Grind meat alongwith the cooked ingredients in a blender or food processor to make a paste. Add boiled potato  and lemon juice to it and blend again. Break one egg into this mixture. Mix well.

4. Mix the ingredients listed under the heading 'Stuffing' together and keep aside.

5. Now, take a portion of kebab dough, flatten to a circle, keep a tsp of stuffing mixture on it and cover the dough . Gently shape it like cutlets/patties. 

6. You can either freeze your patties* or fry it as and then. Shallow fry these patties until it turns brown on both the sides. Serve hot with mint chutney or ketchup.

Notes:

You can follow the same tips to freeze mentioned here.

Some dips these kebabs in eggwhites before frying. Choice is yours.

Any meat can be used- Chicken, beef or mutton.

Chicken Curry

Chicken is considered to be the most versatile meat available. It's not a strong flavoured meat; got a bland taste and so it goes well with any gravies. It can be baked, grilled, sautéed, fried ,broiled etc. ,which makes it more versatile.

This recipe is a basic curry recipe which involves no much of hard work . Every household has their own chicken curry recipe, which provides a slight variation here and there; but the basic recipe is all the same. No readymade masalas/spices used here. Malabar chicken curry and pathiri is quite famous combination back home. This curry pairs well with rice, rotis, pathiris, porotta, ghee rice etc

Ingredients

1kg Chicken

100 ml Oil

2 no.s Cardamom

2 no.s Cloves

1"Cinnamon

2 cups Onion

1 cup Tomatoes

3 cloves Garlic

1 tbsp Ginger

2 Green Chillies

1 tbsp Red Chilli powder

2 tbsp Coriander powder

1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1 cup Boiling water

Method:

1. Wash and clean chicken pieces and drain excess water from it.

2. Heat oil in a deep pan and pop in whole masalas and saute for a few seconds until its aroma comes out. Don't burn it ; otherwise the whole gravy would turn bitter.

3. Throw in onions and saute till it turns translucent and wilted so nicely. (important step). Saute ginger-garlic pastes and green chillies for a minute. Add tomatoes and cook till the oil leaves the sides of the pan. 

4. Add masalas/spice powders to it. Saute till the raw smell disappears- for a few seconds.

5. Turn the flame to high and mix in the chicken pieces so that the masalas get coated well. Pour hot boiling water to it and cook till chicken is done. Adjust the consistency of the gravy.

6. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or rotis.

SNICKERS PUDDING

As tasty as they are beautiful, with rich and decadent layers- from peanuts to cream, crunchy biscuits to luscious chocolate- for the most memorable and delicious dessert.

INGREDIENTS

Ingredient List	50g thick cream
1 & Half cups/20 no.s biscuits	220g Semi-sweet Chocolate
2 tbsp Sugar	1 cup Whipped cream
4 tbsp Butter, melted	1 tbsp Butter
110 g Cream Cheese	½ cup Peanuts, salted
½ cup Peanut Butter
½ cup Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
200g Thick cream
1 ½ tbsp. Butter
220g Chewy Caramel

METHOD

Line a rectangular baking /Pyrex tray of about 11x7.5 inch with melted butter.

Crush biscuits in a food processor along with sugar until it is finely crushed. Then pop in butter and process again for a few seconds.

Transfer mixture to the tray and pat into an even layer using the bottom of a measuring cup or palm. Freeze this for about 15 minutes.

Bake this pan until the crust is firm to touch or for 8-10 minutes at 160C/320F.

Let it cool at room temperature and then refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

For peanut & cheese layer:- Take cheese in another bowl.

Mix in peanut butter , sugar and vanilla in a  blender or with hand.

Fold in 200 g of thick cream into it.

Pour this mixture on top of the biscuit layer. Refrigerate until it sets; for about a minimum of 20 minutes.

For caramel layer:- Microwave or double boil caramels, butter and cream (50g) until it melts and turn into a smooth cream. Keep on stirring while melting.

Pour this on top of the peanut cream.

Spread chopped peanuts on top of this layer.

Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes or until it sets.

For ganache layer:- Take chocolate chips/chunks in a bowl.

Heat cream until you see bubbles on the sides of the pan. Take it out and pour over the chocolates. Mix nicely until you get smooth ganache. Pop in a tbsp. of butter and mix well. Let it cool .

Layer this ganache on top of the caramel layer.

Garnish with peanuts, snickers or peanut/chocolate chips.

chewy caramels that I used

TIPS/VARIATION

For biscuits, you can use Oreo, Marie, Digestive, Graham crackers etc.

This dessert is deliciously sweet. You can cut down a little bit sweetness by substituting unsweetened whipped cream instead of ganache.  In that case , garnish with chocolate syrup and chocolate flakes. You can otherwise cut down the sugar added in peanut & cheese cream layer.

When microwaving caramels, stir between every 30 seconds.

I used ‘tiffany cream fudge’ for caramel layer.