Guest Post~Hazelnut Macarons with Mocha Ganache

 

I am just done with my spring cleaning and finally sorted my kitchen cabinets. Pheww. My kitchen cabinet’s been overflowing, with all the stuffs jumbled up in spite of cleaning them every couple of months. Things being lost deep in the cabinets and myself trying to fish them out standing on a chair and often knocking the jars off the shelf has been happening regularly since the past few weeks. So I had to do organize it and I planned to do it big. It took me several hours for 2-3 days to sort them out, but finally it is done. There were many unused and sparingly used spice jars and that left me wondering if there is any spice that I don’t really own! I never even used some of them.

While cleaning the cabinets, I also found out these pack of hazelnut hiding in a corner. I went ahead and baked some great biscottis a while ago and with the leftover ones, I could not think of baking anything but macarons. Hazelnut macarons tasted very different from the regular almond ones and had a great hazelnut flavour which would pair well with nutella. It was delicious, came out perfectly baked and looked great.

I felt honoured when Ambika asked me to do a guest post and these macarons were the first that came to mind. To see more of the post, recipe and pictures, please hop over to Ambika’s Kitchen. She’s got a great space there

Tomato Rasam (Spicy South Indian Tomato Soup)

During our visit to India last year,  we had been to Kumarakom house boat which was an amazing experience.  We had great relishing meal prepared by the on-board crews and rasam was one of them. Rasam is a South Indian watery soup and varies slightly from region to region. There are several types of them like tomato rasam, lentil rasam and pepper rasam to name a few. Some uses dal/lentil to thicken the soup, but I haven’t used it mainly because I wanted to keep it simple, watery, and I was too lazy to cook dal and mash it.  I have used the spices as mentioned in the little book that own, but you really can get instant rasam powders from supermarkets these days. I dont think you really need to get all those readymade stuffs. It is not that tricky to make it home and i found it quite easy and instant.

The other day I was preparing lunch and all of a sudden I got this craving for  rasam that I had from the houseboat. Thanks to the social Networks, I got hold of my dear friends Nisha Rosh and Dhanya KP instantly, who approximately gave me their recipe. My tomato rasam is a result of their recipe and valuable tips combined with another recipe from my favourite book Lalitha Pachakam by Nikhila Govind. I normally mix and match few recipes to make something. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing but I have always been like that. Thanks you guys for the recipe and tips; it was simple, fuss free, delicious, and just the way I wanted it to be. A thin tomato soup with tantalising aroma and flavour with a note of heat from the crushed pepper was the result. Just perfect for a cold afternoon.

Tomato Rasam (Spicy South Indian Tomato Soup)

serves 4-6

Ingredients:

4 medium/350g/2 cups finely chopped tomatoes

4 cups boiling water

1 tbsp tamarind

¼ cup hot water

salt as necessary

A handful of coriander leaves with stem on

To temper:

2-3 tbsp coconut oil

½ tsp black mustard seeds

6 shallots

5 fat cloves of garlic

2 twig curry leaves

¼ - 1/2 tsp asafoetida

¼ tsp cumin seeds

½ tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp pepper corns

4 dried red chillies

Preparation:

1. Boil tomatoes in water for about 10 minutes until it is soft and cooked. Pass it through a sieve and squeeze all possible pulp out. Reserve the strained liquid and discard the seeds and skin in the sieve.

2. Mix tamarind in hot water and squeeze to loosen its tough pulp. Pass it through a sieve again and pour it into the strained tomato juice.

3. Pour the tomato and tamarind mixture into the tempered oil or viceversa. Add in coriander leaves with stalks, salt and cook until it starts to boil.

4. Just before serving discard the corinader leaves and have it before your regular meal or pour it into plain rice along with dal and sambhar.

To temper:

1.Using a pestle and mortar gently crush the garlic and shallots just to break them up.  Keep it a side.

2. In a dry pan roast cumin and pepper for about 30 secods or until they leave aroma. Pound them to fine powder.

3. Heat a pan and add oil. Add in mustard and cumin and let them crackle. Once they start crackling, add red chillies broken into two, curry leaves, onion and garlic. Once they go soft and trasnparent, add in roasted and ground cumin and pepper, asafoetida, turmeric and stir for few seconds.

Note:

Even though it mentioned gently crushed garlic and onion, I finely chopped garlic and shallots in the recipe and I dint like the feel of chopped onions. I would be using gently crushed garlic and shallots next time.

Spiced up Carrot and Apple Muffins

Rishan’s school is now closed for Easter and I am looking forward to trying something healthy and include as much as fruits and vegetables into his diet. He is not a picky eater, but when he goes to school, he is quite concerned about what he carries in his lunch box -  No Indian Food, no cold food and but only couple of sandwiches that  he loves. So, it’s not always possible to make his diet wholesome and healthy.

 Here is a one of our favourite muffin recipes that I made quite a few times and he carries in his lunch box once in a while. These are great whilst warm and are packed with fruits, seeds and carrot without any pronounced taste of any. The seeds give a bite to the muffins which could easily be omitted if you dislike. These cup cakes are moist, healthy and simply delectable. As the muffin uses oil instead of butter, it stays soft and moist without going tough unlike many butter based cakes. The spices nutmeg and cinnamon works very well with carrot and apple and make a perfect combination. These are delicious plain and you wouldn’t want to laden yourself with calories by frosting it. You may use cream cheese frosting if need be. The recipe is adapted from the Gulf News cookery book that I possess so fondly. It was gifted to me by my dear uncle about 15 years back.

Spiced up Carrot and Apple Muffins

Serves 6-12

preparation time: 15-20 mins

Bake time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

75 g (1/2 cup  -1 tablespoon) Plain flour

½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp  ground cinnamon-
¼ tsp  freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch of salt
1 large organic egg

40ml, 4 tbsp olive oil/sunflower oil

70g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence

55g- ½ cup grated carrot
50g grated apple, unpeeled

1 tbsp milk
25g raisins

25g sunflower seeds

For 12 muffins:

150g all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)
Pinch of salt
2 large organic eggs

80ml sunflower oil (I used olive oil)
140g castor sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

110g grated carrot

100g grated apple, unpeeled

1 Tbsp milk

50g raisins

50g sunflower seeds

Preparations:

1.Set oven to 175°C and preheat for 10 minutes. Line the muffin tin with individual muffin cases.
 

2. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
 

3. Beat together eggs, oil, vanilla and castor sugar, and then mix in the grated carrot, grated apple, raisins and seeds.
 

4. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid. Using a large spoon, stir just enough to moisten the mixture.
 

5. Don’t worry about lumps, these will bake in and are part of the muffin texture.
 

6. Spoon about 2/3^rd full into each muffin cases, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the skewers/toothpick inserted in the middle of muffins comes out clean without being sticky.

Notes: You can add little chopped walnuts if you need that extra bite. You can also omit seeds ans raisins.