Sausage Rolls

Ingredients:

3 cups warm water

3 tsp. active dry yeast

1 cup honey

5 cups Maida/All-purpose flour

3 tbsp. butter, melted

1 tbsp. salt

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, plus 2 or 3 cups if necessary

Sausages, for as many rolls as you are making

1 to 2 tbsp. melted butter for brushing

Method:

• Mix warm water, yeast, and half the honey. Add the all-purpose flour, and mix well. Set aside for 30 minutes, or till it has risen a little.
• To the above, add 3 tbsp. melted butter, remaining honey, and salt. Add the whole wheat flour; knead until it’s just pulling away, but still slightly sticky to touch. This may take an additional 2 or 3 cups of whole wheat flour. Grease the entire surface of the dough with a little butter or oil. Cover with a soft cloth and keep it in a warm place. Leave it aside till it has risen and doubled in size, this may take about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
• Once it has risen well, pat it down, and divide into small balls in the size of the rolls that you prefer - small, medium or large. I made small ones.  Flatten out each ball to about an inch thickness, place half of a regular sized sausage, or 1 cocktail sausage, in the middle and roll it up, making sure the ends are stuck firmly and does not come loose.
• Place in greased baking pans, and leave it until dough has risen to at least about half an inch.
• Bake at 350°F /175°C for 20 to 30 minutes; do not over bake. Lightly brush the tops of rolls with melted butter when done to prevent the crust from getting hard. Serve warm.

English breakfast

For some reason, the simplest of things are often the best. An English breakfast would be the best of examples for this... it's so simple, yet so awesome.. and the best part is, there's no predefined way that it needs to be in, there's a wide variety of combinations to choose from. I've made a version that I used to have regularly at a restaurant on MG Road, Bangalore, called Koshy's, during my college days, when even for the simplest of things we had to resort to restaurants as we weren't allowed to use the hostel kitchen.

I happened to visit Koshy's a while ago, but somehow, it didn't feel like old times, now it's just another restaurant, maybe it's the company which made all the difference.. that's when I realized that I was missing college and old friends, who are all in different parts of the world now.

Hmmm...anyhow, I decided to have it home-made this time, in fond memory of college days... it tastes the same, but definitely doesn't feel the same.

Toast, 2 slices
Upside down egg, 1
Fried sausages, 2 (this one's my addition, Koshy's didn't serve sausages)
Baked beans (canned), sautéed in very little oil, with some chopped onion and green chillies

Serve with a cup of hot tea.

Vellayappam or Lace rimmed rice pancakes

In Kerala, Vellayappam is one of the most popular breakfasts. Almost every household has Vellayappam for breakfast atleast once a week. But they can pass really well for lunch or dinner as well.
The lore is that this delicacy is a foreigner to the Mallu-land. It's said the Dutch got the Appam into our land ages ago.  I’m really not sure about the authenticity of that tale, but if it’s true, I’m so thankful to the Dutch!!  

Traditionally this recipe uses ‘toddy’ instead of yeast, but I really have no way of getting toddy here! So the next best alternative is active dry yeast. I’ve heard that people collect water from the coconuts they use for regular cooking for about a week  or so and store it up in the refrigerator, (We Mallus use quite an amount of coconut in our cooking, I’m sure that isn’t news for most people). The stored up coconut water is supposed to be a good enough supplement for the toddy, but I haven’t tried it yet, so no guarantees on that one. I’ve come to trust the good ol’ yeast by now.

  

Raw rice 3 cups (Soak for 5-8 hours)

Coconut, grated 1 cup

Cooked rice ¾ cup

Yeast mixture ¼ cup*

Sugar 2 tbsp

Salt 1 tsp or as per taste

Baking soda ¼ tsp (Optional)

*For the yeast mixture:

   Warm milk or water ¼ cup

   Sugar 1 tsp

   Dry yeast ¼ tsp

·        Add 1 tsp sugar to the warm milk or water. To this mixture add the yeast. The milk should just be lukewarm. Leave the mixture aside for a few minutes to let the yeast develop.

For the batter:

·        Grind the raw rice, cooked rice and coconut to make a fine batter (slightly thicker in consistency than Dosa batter)

·        Add the yeast mixture and salt to the batter. Use a bowl in which the batter will only be half full. This is because the batter will rise up in a few hours and there should be space for it to come up, if not it’ll spill out of the bowl and that’ll be lotsa mess to cleanup, and lotsa batter wasted

·        Keep it aside in a warm place overnight or for atleast 6-7 hours

·        Next morning, add the baking soda and sugar (2 tbsp) and mix it in very slowly, so as not to disturb the batter too much. DO NOT mix vigorously, as that will affect the quality of the appam

To make the Appam: 

·        Lightly grease an appam chatti or wok, and heat it on a high flame. Once it’s heated, lower the flame and pour one ladle, or ½ cup, of the batter in and swirl the chatti or wok around so that the batter coats the wok to make a thin crust around the rest of the batter which settles into the center. Close with the lid and cook on low flame for about 2-3 minutes, or till the appam is cooked in the middle (slowly poke with a skewer in the middle part and if the batter doesn’t stick, then the appam is ready) and lacy part around the middle would have turned into a light brown color.

·        Gently remove the appam onto a plate or tray and repeat this process to make the number of appams you need. If there is any batter left, you can store it for about 3-4 days in the refrigerator

·        Appam is best served hot, with a variety of side dishes like stew, chicken curry, pork curry, fish curry, vegetable korma, kadala curry, egg curry and the list goes on and on… in short, appam tastes good with almost any side dish, but i suppose the winning combo is Appam with sweetened coconut milk.

Mango Milkshake

Ripe mangoes, 2, peeled and cubed

Cold milk, ½ litre

Sugar, 3tbsp

Mango or Vanilla ice-cream (optional)

• Blend all the ingredients, except the ice-cream, to make a smooth paste.

• Pour into tall glasses and top it with a scoop of ice-cream.

• Serve cold!

Pancakes with Maple syrup

Pancakes are something one can have anytime of the day…breakfast, lunch, evening snack, dinner or even as a midnight snack!

I remember my childhood days when we used to come back from school, and would be welcomed by the delightful aroma of hot pancakes & maple syrup that Mom would have kept ready for us. Everyday there used to be a different snack, and since I was never very fond of rice this used to be the bribe for me to eat my lunch or else she wouldn’t let me touch it, and I would have done anything for the snacks, let alone eat rice. Those were the times I used to thank god for a Mom who loves to cook … who would be waiting for us at the front door with a serene smile on her face…. who did not run after building a career, and was least bothered about what would happen on her work-front if she wasted half an hour on making pancakes for her kids…and more than God, I guess we should thank our Dad, for insisting that Mom needn’t work, that he would take care of everything…. though he’d left the choice to her… thankfully, mom chose us above a job.

So today I was looking up mom’s old cookbook when I saw this recipe, and suddenly the good ol’ nostalgia struck again… and I had to have the pancakes with the maple syrup…. and I did….

And here’s how…

Ingredients:

• Maida 2 small cups
• Eggs 3
• Vanilla essence 1/2 tsp
• Baking powder 1 pinch
• Castor sugar as per your taste, I used about 5 tbsp
• Salt 1 pinch
• Milk ¼ small cup

For the topping:

• Maple syrup

Method:

· Add all the ingredients to a blender. Make a smooth, thick paste.

· Heat a non-stick pan, pour 1 ladle of the batter on to the pan, do not spread it.

· Cook both sides for less than a minute each.

· Once all the pancakes are ready, take a plate, keep one pancake in the middle, pour a little maple syrup on top, keep another pancake on top of the first one, and pour some more maple syrup. Repeat with about 3-4 pancakes for each serving.

· Enjoy the pancakes, I accompanied it wid some apple juice!

Sending this to Any one can cook series of  Umm Mymoonah