Mahanandi

Living in Consciousness ~ Indi(r)a’s Food and Garden Weblog

Potato Curry Puffs ~ A Pictorial

curry puffs

Potato puffs also known as curry puffs are one of the most popular items sold at Indian bakeries. Flaky wrap and spicy filling, people love them a lot. They are prepared with puff pastry like dough, and the filling varies. Common is potato, then there is egg and also chicken etc. Baked to golden perfection, hot from the oven, with coffee or tea, the chat and the laughs – I can see going back to college days.

Thanks to ready availability of good quality puff pastry, I can bake them at home easily. My version has all the flavor and eye appeal of bakery-style curry puffs, but they are smaller in size, hence more figure and finger friendly.

For filling, I prepared potato curry with red potatoes. Boiled the potatoes to tender, and then peeled the skins, cut them to tiny pieces. Sautéed them with tadka seasoning, onions and peas. Added salt, chilli and turmeric to taste. The potato filling was ready.

For wrapping, I used the frozen puff pastry from Trader Joe’s. There are four sheets in one pack, and they were stuck to each other. So I cut them to three strips. Rolled each one to a thin rectangle. Divided again into eight equal portions. Placed a tablespoon of potato curry in each portion, did a roll, and baked them at 350°F for about 15 minutes to golden-brown.

Here is the whole process in images.


Puff Pastry Strip and Potato Curry Filling


Puff pastry strip rolled into a thin rectangle and divided into eight equal portions. Then wrapped around the potato curry filling. (I’ve refrigerated the dough after rolling and after wrapping for about two minutes each time, to firm-up the dough and for sticky free results.


Potato puffs on a baking pan. (I placed the attached ends on the bottom side, so that they won’t open up during baking.)


Baked at 350°F for about 15 minutes, Potato puffs ~ Hot out of the Oven


Potato Curry Puffs with Red Pepper Chutney ~ for Potato Fe(a)st at DK’s

Notes:
Puff pastry doesn’t like heat. Refrigerate frequently and work with firm dough for sticky-free results.

~ Indira

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Amma & Authentic Andhra,Potato,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Thursday February 21, 2008 at 9:16 pm- permalink)
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Puri Pictorial


Puris ~ The Happy, Lovable Cousins of Chapatis

Made with special wheat flour called atta, rolled out to paper-thin circles and puffed to peach colored balloons, delicate and delectable puris means pure pleasure guaranteed.

I usually prepare puris at home for friends get-togethers or when I host a party, but very rarely for us. It has to be a special occasion and today is one such day for us. To celebrate, a party call was sent out by Anita of A Mad Tea Party, the fabulous food blogger from Delhi. I wanted to join. So, here I am at the party with Nandyala-style puri treats.

Atta
Whole Wheat Flour from India and Tap Water from Seattle:) ~ for Puri Dough

Recipe:
(Makes about 15- 18 small salad-plate sized puris)

For Puri dough:
3 cups atta (Special wheat flour from India)
1½ cups of warm water
1 teaspoon salt

To deep-fry
3 cups peanut oil
sturdy based kadai or wok
A big slotted spoon

In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Move the flour to the sides of the bowl to make a small well in the center. Pour water into the well. Using fingers combine the ingredients, until the flour comes together to firm dough. (For puris, I make the dough very tight, so that when deep fried they won’t absorb lot of oil and look greasy. Tight dough also helps to balloon the puris.)

Gently knead the dough for a minute or two to remove the creases and until the surface is smooth. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside for about 30 minutes. Then, follow the puri pictorial.


Roll out the Puri dough to a round coil about the width of baby’s fist.


Divide the dough to equal portions and shape each portion to a round.


Using a rolling pin, press the round to a circle of greeting card thickness


Place the kadai on stovetop. Add and heat the peanut oil to frying hot(375 F). Carefully slip the pressed puri round into hot oil. Gently push-down once with slotted spoon, and let the hot oil work its magic.


The puri comes out of the oil like a balloon. Flip and fry for few seconds


We want not red nor angry-red but peach color for Puri. Remove to a paper covered plate. Serve hot with a curry, dal or chutney.


Puris with Red and Green Capsicum Bhaji ~ for A Mad Tea Party

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Amma & Authentic Andhra,Goduma (Wheat),ID Food Parade,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 6:51 pm- permalink)
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Wheat Flour Dosa (Godhuma Dosa)

Goduma Dosa with Peanut Chutney
Wheat flour dosa (Godhuma Dosa) with Peanut Chutney

Easy, breezy and lacy – that’s how I’d describe wheat flour dosa. I prepare this traditional, lace like, instant dosa when I am low in appetite, ya that happens sometimes, or short on time, aren’t we always?

Recipe is really simple. Mix a cup of wheat flour (atta/chapati flour) with 2 to 3 cups of water. Stir in a teaspoon of black pepper powder and salt. Thoroughly mix the batter without any lumps. The consistency of batter must be like thick buttermilk, not too watery or not too tight. Don’t let the batter sit for long time, it will become gooey mass, and resulting dosas won’t be pretty.

To prepare dosas, lightly oil the dosa tava and rub it with a cut onion. Heat over medium-high. When the tava is hot, pour a ladleful of batter steadily from a height of 3 to 5 inches onto the tava. Allow it spread on its own in a thin lace like layer. Because wheat flour batter is very sticky, trying to shape the dosa with back of the spoon like we do for regular dosa won’t work. Please resist the temptation to shape and allow it to spread on its own. Sprinkle a half teaspoon of ghee or peanut oil and on high heat, cook. Within a minute or two, bubbles start to appear on the surface. Wait until the underside of dosa turns golden and then gently turn it to the other side. Cook for another minute or two. Remove and serve hot with peanut or coconut chutney.

Wheat flour batter spead thin in a lace like fashion on hot tava. Bubbles are appearing.
Wheat flour batter spread in a thin lace like fashion

 Turning to the other side to cook

Folding it into half to remove the dosa
With 4 plate-sized dosas like these, expect to get stuffed royally.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Amma & Authentic Andhra,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Tuesday April 18, 2006 at 3:24 pm- permalink)
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Avocado Chapatis

Why didn’t I think of this idea before? That is what I thought, when I read the post “Avocado Parathas” by GM of ‘The spice is right’ food blog.

I know that avocado is nature’s ghee/butter. And just like them, ripe avocado is full of fat and has no significant taste to speak of. Avocado’s mashed pulp easily mixes with all kinds of ingredients and helps to make their flavors stand out. I had to give it a try.

Yesterday, I tried the recipe. The result – very smooth, tasty chapatis, the kind we know from India and dream of making it here in US. Smooth, silky flesh of ripe avocados when mixed with chapati flour, magic happened. All the fat in avocado made the flour softer, very pliable, easy to handle and chapatis off the griddle (tava), remained soft even after 6 hours. In this cold, winter weather, that’s a miracle, if you ask me.

Ripe Avocado and Wheat flour with red chilli-garlic powder and salt

Recipe:
for 10 to 12 chapatis

2 cups of durum wheat flour
(I used Golden Temple brand wheat flour, available in Indian grocery shops)
1 very ripe avocado (more about avocado-here)
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of warm water
I also added 1/4 tsp of red chilli-garlic powder for a little bit of hotness

 Chapati Dough made with wheat flour and avocado paste  Rolling out chapati in round shape

Preparation:

Avocado: Take a ripe avocado; cut it into half, going around the pit (seed) in the middle. Twist and separate two halves. Stab the knife into the pit; pull it out, the pit will come out easily. Scoop the flesh of avocado using a spoon, from each half. Take it into a small cup; mash it to a smooth paste, using your fingers or with a spoon.

Flour: Take flour in a big vessel. Sprinkle in salt and red chilli-garlic powder, and mix the flour. Then add the avocado paste to the flour and mix thoroughly. Now gradually adding water, make firm dough. Make sure that dough is not too soft or too hard. Knead the dough for two minutes. Cover and set it aside to rest for about 15 to 30 minutes. In the meantime, prepare a curry for avocado chapatis. I made Brussels sprouts-potato curry.

 Shaping the chapati in triangle shape  Cooking chapati on hot iron tava

Rolling out Chapatis:
Knead and rollout the dough into a cylindrical long roll on a wood board. Take small lime sized portions and using hands, shape each into a smooth ball shape.
Take the dough ball on a clean wood board, sprinkle some flour on it and around. Using a rolling pin, press/roll out the dough into a big thin round. You can fry it on a hot griddle or to get more flaky layers, what I usually do is, fold the rolled out round twice, to get a triangle shape (see the photo above) then roll into a big, thin triangle.

Cooking chapatis:
Heat a cast-iron griddle/tava, when it is hot, place the chapati and cook it on each side until golden. While the chapati is cooking on hot tava, I roll out another chapati for frying. I usually make 6 chapatis for the two of us for a meal, takes about 15 to 20 minutes maximum.

Serve hot with curry or dal.

Avocado Chapatis with Brussel Sprouts Curry
Avocado Chapatis with Brussels Sprouts-potato Curry

Thank you GM for sharing this recipe. It’s really is a very neat and clever idea that I am going to apply quite regularly from now on. Who wouldn’t love soft chapatis anyway?

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Avocado,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Tuesday January 31, 2006 at 4:46 pm- permalink)
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Pizza with Red Beans & Tomato Chutney

Red Bean Pizza

When it’s this easy to make flavorful, delicious pizza at home, I can only imagine restaurants suffer. Why? This homemade crisp pizza tastes as good or better as any thin crust pizza I have ever had in a restaurant.

I started with few leftover chapatis of yesterday. I added the tomato chutney layer and topped with red beans and cheese. Baked in an oven for few minutes, the outcome was a scrumptious looking, saliva inducing meal. An impressively, easy way to satiate the pizza cravings without doing the back-breaking pizza labor.

Red Beans, Onion, Garlic, Chilli, Tomato, Cheese and Chapati

Recipe:

1. Pressure cook: One cup red beans(soaked in water overnight beforehand) to tender or use the canned red beans.

2. Prepare chutney: In a skillet, add oil and cook coarsely chopped one onion, two tomatoes, three cloves of garlic and four chillies to brown. Cool, then add salt and blend to coarse puree.

3. Take fresh or leftover chapatis, about 4 to 6. Cut each chapati to 4 wedge-shaped pieces of equal size.

4. Slice to thin strips or grate cheese. I used Monterey Jack cheese in this recipe – About half cup.

Layering Chapati pieces, Tomato, chutney, red beans and cheese in an iron skillet

Before Meal Time:

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

In an iron skillet or in an ovenproof dish:
First, place the chapati pieces, then on top, add and spread tomato chutney to a thin layer. Sprinkle some red beans, cheese and cilantro. Continue until the last chapati, ending with a layer of the chutney, beans and cheese on top. Place the skillet in the oven and bake at 400°F for about 10-15 minutes, until the cheese melts and chapatis start to brown. Remove, slice and serve.

The whole combination of baked chapatis, spicy tomato chutney, red beans and cheese came out very well and tasted real good.

Slice of Red Bean Pizza

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Cheese,Red Beans (Chori),Tomato,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Monday September 19, 2005 at 11:44 am- permalink)
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Paratha + Frittata (Egg Pizza)

For this month’s EoMEoTE, I got this idea of combining paratha + frittata from the charming couple Mrs. D and Chopper Dave’s post Quittata. I mostly followed their recipe, but instead of puff pastry, I used homemade Paratha and also added the ingredients I liked (eggs of course and vegetables)- that’s how I came up with “Paratta“.

I wanted to make this with 6 eggs, as I felt very guilty to use one dozen eggs just for the two of us. My frugal mentality won’t allow me to even think about such excesses. But 6 were not enough, so finally I brought the number up to 8.

The ingredients I’ve added:

One paratha made to skillet size. (How to make Paratha? Follow the Gif)
8 eggs
One small onion, 2 green chillies- finely chopped
Half cup chickpeas, soaked in water beforehand for about one hour
Sun dried tomatoes, sliced – quarter cup
Few sprigs of cilantro, finely chopped – quarter cup or to taste
One medium sized tomato, sliced in thin round pieces for decoration
Salt to taste or ½ teaspoon

I’ve also added some leftover spinach curry to this mix. I did remove egg yolks because we both can’t stand the smell of yolks. I wanted to add eggplant too, I’ve even cut and prepared but unsure how they’d taste with eggs, at the last minute I’ve dropped adding eggplant slices to the egg mixture. Instead grilled the eggplant slices for a separate meal later in the day.

Eggs, Sun dried tomatoes, Chickpeas, Eggplant, Spinach, Tomato slices, Cilantro and Onions

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350* F

In a big bowl, break only 6 eggs. To these eggs add onions, green chillies, chickpeas, cilantro, spinach and salt. Whisk them together to blend well.

Heat an iron skillet on medium flame and fry the paratha lightly on both sides.

Now, pour the egg mixture on to the paratha and arrange the round tomato slices on top.

Break the remaining two eggs in the same bowl, whisk them well and pour this mixture on top of tomato slices.

Paratha Paratta in Making

Place the iron skillet in oven and bake at 350*F for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the center is set and sides are puffy golden.

When you are sure that paratta is well cooked, remove the skillet from oven. Let it cool for about 5 minutes then loosen the edges with a spatula or knife and slide it onto a serving plate. Cut Paratta into wedges and serve them warm or at room temperature.

Paratha+Frittata = Paratta

Slice of Paratta

This is one new dish that I am going to make frequently as we both were really satisfied with the final result.

My regular readers, you may be curious about my delayed posting today – your guess is right, I wanted to escape the primetime ratings drama by King George the Second. Really, who believes him anymore? (except of course the madcow infected ones.)

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Eggs,Tomato,Wheat Flour (Durum Atta) (Tuesday June 28, 2005 at 9:09 pm- permalink)
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