Khandvi - A Gujarati snack

We are hungry. There is nothing that proves this more than the fact that I havent been able to click a single photograph of a dish before wolfing it down over the past months. Blogging requires discipline and blogging about food requires restraint both of which have been happily absent in my world for some time now. My little boy is 7 months old and time flew like the blink of an eye. My sweet daughter is nearly 7 years old and is discerning when it comes to food. But to my delight, she is imbibing tolerance in her approach to home cooked food. For her nothing compares to home cooked food which is a boon but can be a pain on days when I want to take off. I love her and love cooking for her. She is my biggest cheer leader when it comes to making new dishes. But she is not the worst critic since she will only procrastinate eating anything she doesnt like by looks or taste.

Yesterday I made a nice little snack for those after school hunger pangs. It was in her favourite colour too!
Khandvi is a gujarati snack made out of besan (chickpea flour) and butter milk mainly. Thin rolls of the cooked flour served seasoned, with or without a delicious filling. I thinned home made yogurt to obtain butter milk. Since bland or sweet tastes are not appreciated in my house, I spiced up the dish with heat from green chillies.

The only decision point in this dish is when the flour is ready to spread. And the other important note to remember is to use ungreased surface for spreading. I went through a few blogs which said the surface has to be greased but with that I could not roll at all. I wasted atleast 10-15 mins thinking the batter was not ready for the spread. But as soon as I wiped off the grease and spread, I could roll easily. Hence a word of warning.
Stuffing in khandvi is optional and can be left plain. Folks at my house did not relish it without the stuffing so I didnt have much of a choice but to add filling. I personally liked either.
I have also provided some pictures of the stages of the batter while cooking. Spreading and rolling pictures are also provided. Hope that helps.

Khandvi 

Recipe adapted from here
Servings: 16 - 18 rolls (2 inches in width)
Prep Time: 10 mins  Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 cup Besan (Chick pea flour)
3/4 cup thick Yogurt
2 1/4 cup Water
2 tsp Lime juice
1/2 - 1 tsp Turmeric
Pinch of Hing
1/2 tsp Salt or to taste

Grind

3- 4 Green chillies
1/2 inch Ginger

Stuff

1 cup Coriander (cut fine)
1/4 cup grated Coconut (optional)

Season

3 tsp Oil
2 tsp Mustard seeds
2 Green chillies (cut very fine)
20 Curry leaves (cut very fine)

Instructions

1. Coarse grind green chillies and ginger with a couple of spoons of water.
2. Mix coriander and coconut required for the suffing
3. Keep the flat spreading surface ready. I used backs of steel thali plates as well as aluminium foil and both worked very well. Do not grease them.
4. Add water to the yogurt and mix well using a wire whisk or a fork.
5. To this add the ginger chilli paste, turmeric, hing and salt and mix well.
6. Now add the besan in while stirring and ensure that there are no lumps formed. Whisk till it is a smooth batter. Atlernately use an electric beater to make life easier.
7. Cook this batter in a heavy bottomed vessel, on low heat, while continously stirring. The batter should not become lumpy or stick to the bottom of the vessel. 
8. Continue to stir and cook while the batter becomes thick.
9. The readiness of the batter can be checked by spread a spoonful on a plate. Wait for around five minutes for it to cool and then roll from the edge. If it rolls it is ready else cook some more. 
10. When the batter is ready, work fast to spread it on the surfaces. The batter should not become overtly thick since it becomes difficult to spread. Ofcourse we do have a window of 5-10 mins. I took that much time to spread it on all available surfaces and the batter had not  become thicker or harder. 
11. Take a blob of the batter and spread it using a spatula on to the flat surface. Spread it thin.
12. Leave it to cool for nearly 10 mins.
13. If making a stuffed khandvi, then spread the stuffing evenly on top of the cooled batter.
14. Slice the spread batter into long strips, around 2 inches wide.
15. Pick up the end of the strip, at the shorter end and start rolling. 
16. Place all the rolls onto a serving plate.
17. Now prepare the seasoning by heating oil in a heavy bottomed vessel, add in mustard seeds. 
18. When the seeds crackle, add in finely cut green chillies and curry leaves. 
19. Spoon the filling onto the rolls.
20. Serve Khandvi warm.
21. Khandvi can also be prepared ahead of time. Refridgerate the rolls, warm (I used microwave oven) and season before serving.

Spiced Mini Apple Pies

It is the beginning of fall here and the weather is absolutely lovely. Warm days compliment cooler nights. Happiness compliments the rash of colours in the nature around us. But the icing on the cake is that Deepavali compliments Halloween! Indian houses here in the US are beautifully decorated with fall adornments and halloween spooks and the entranceways are bathed perfectly in the light emanating from Deepavali diyas.
Such joy to share the festival of lights with all the pumpkins and "Mohabbatein" leaves!
Most of all, this is the first Deepavali for our two month old sonny boy. I simply could not allow the festival to roll by without celebrating to the maximum extent possible amidst all the newborn chores and chaos.

My dear family esp the hubby abhors sweet food in any form. Except for the occasional Mysore Pak. The darling dotzy has only now begun to relish sweets but mostly prefers baked goods to the traditional Indian fare. Hence I decided to kick start the Deepavali food fest with the Apple pie. It falls easy on the pallette and is so warm that it automatically fills you with love. Adding a twist to the classic and making it less sweet suits our tastes. Baking a pie is like an experience. The whole house is awash with the wonderful smell, the taste buds thank us and is appetizing to look at. I love the crusty flaky exterior of a pie so much that I could eat just the crust and be very happy. Given a choice of a 9 inch pie/cake or muffin sized portions I always tend to choose the latter since its easier to store and gets consumed real fast. Size is inversely proportional to the want in our house. That is how we ended up with mini spiced apple pies!

The pie dough recipe in this post is a keeper. It is extremely flaky and has a nice crust without being hard. It can be used as the go-to dough for all kinds of filling- spicy,veggie, sweet, salty. The recipe makes enough for a 9 inch pie base and the pie topper. Alternately it makes enough for 12 mini pie bases and their tops.

Spiced Mini Apple Pies

Servings: 12 mini pies (standard muffin size)
Prep Time: 45 mins (including cooling time)  Cook Time: 35 mins

Ingredients

For the Pie Dough

2 cups All Purpose Flour (or substitute half Whole Wheat flour, I have done this and it remains delicious)
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 cup Chilled Yogurt (replaces 1 egg)
3/4 cup Chilled butter cut into cubes (can be reduced to 1/2 cup if desired)
2 tbsp Sugar (increase to 5 tbsp if a sweet crust beckons)
2 tbsp Chilled Water
Pinch of Salt

For the Apple Pie filling

2 Gala Apples (the apple really held up well and did not get mushy when baked for 35 mins)
3-4 tsp Lemon Juice
1/4 tsp Cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp Nutmeg powder
1/3 cup Sugar

Instructions

For the Pie Dough

1. Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar
2. Drop in the chilled butter cubes and lightly mix it into the flour till the mixture is crumbly. I used my fingers for this and it took around 5 minutes. 
3. Add in the chilled yogurt and mix. The dough should start coming around.
4. If required mix in the chilled water one tbsp at a time till a ball of dough is formed. 
5. Do not knead the mix. Merely collect the dough to form a ball. 
6. Cling wrap the dough and refrigerate for 30 mins.
7. If refrigerated for more time the dough becomes harder. Allow dough to rest on the counter till it is pliable before using.

For the Apple pie filling

1. Toss all the ingredients for the filling together.
2. Do not mix it a lot in advance since the juice from the apples oozes out which could make the pie soggy. 

Making the Pie

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease a muffin tray lightly.
2. I use a trick to make it easier to get the pies out after they are done - Place strips of foil in the muffin cup with ends hanging out. The pies can later be pulled out using the over hanging tabs. 
3. Roll out the pie dough between two sheets of parchment (to make cleaning simpler) to a thin sheet. I kept it at 1/5 inch thick but it could be made thicker upto 1/4 inch. 
4. To make mini pies, cut out rounds from the dough sheet around an inch bigger than the size of the muffin cup.
5. Insert it into the muffin cup and lightly press against the walls of the cup to make a pie base. (It is easier to close the pie if the pie base juts out of the muffin cup.)
6. Put in one and half tbsp of the filling into the pie base
7. Cut out another round of dough which is slightly smaller than the first one.
8. Cover the pie with this and press all around to seal the pie. 
9. At the point you could make the edges fluted or press all around the edge using a fork.
10. With a knife make small slits on the pie top to help bake the filling nicely. 
11. Brush the top with some milk to prevent dryness while baking
12. Bake at 350 F for 30 - 35 minutes till the top has browned and  you can see the filling bubbling inside. Mostly you could go by the heavenly smell and know its done!
13. Serve warm or cold. We like both ways. 

Vegan Banana Nut Bread

In the recent weeks there hasnt been a situation of over ripe bananas in our house. But last week we went on a camping trip to Arkansas where I had carried a bunch of bananas but half a dozen remained uneaten given the variety of food we had there. We were an enthusiastic group making upma and bhelpuri among other delectables, at the camp. It was a lovely time beside the river. The river itself was shallow at the camp site and there were innumerable small size fishes swimming around our legs. The whole gang enjoyed playing in the water and swimming with the fishes.

By the time we came back home, due to the heat, the bananas were all over ripe and I had to find a way to use them without throwing out the whole lot. I mentioned banana bread and to my surprise my daughter was overjoyed. I have no idea what caused the change of heart in the non-sweet eater but I wasnt going to let this chance get away. I baked the bread that very night and as is always the case with banana baked goods, it came out very well. We all enjoyed a healthy dessert that night and it lasted well for the next four days with refreidgeration.

Vegan Banana Nut Bread

Servings: One 4*8 loaf
Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 35 - 45 mins

Ingredients

4 very ripe bananas
1 cup Whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup All purpose flour
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup nuts (walnuts, almonds)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Grease a 4*8 loaf tin with a little oil or line it with parchment paper
3. Mash the bananas to fine and add in oil and sugar and mix well. Add in the vanilla extract and mix well.
4. Sieve the flours, baking soda and baking powder and mix well and keep aside
5. Add salt to the flour and mix well
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till it comes together. Do not overmix.
7. Fold in the nuts
8. Pour the mix into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 35 - 45 mins till a skewer inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. (My oven took 45 mins)
9. Slice it up and serve warm.
10. It also tastes good as a base to a trifle or with ice-cream.