Churma

Churma is a traditional Rajasthani dish served with daal baati. It can be made into laddoo or served as is with warm ghee. The sweetness of churma contrasts well with the salty daal baati.

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tbsp semolina

3/4 cup ghee + more for frying and serving

Milk as required

1 tbsp cardamom powder

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Handful of almonds, cashewnuts and raisins

Mix the whole wheat flour and semolina. Heat the ghee to lukewarm and knead it into the flour. Add milk to get a firm dough.

Divide the dough into 12 lemon sized balls and flatten a little bit. Heat ghee in a skillet and fry the dough balls till deep golden brown.

Drain on a tissue and allow to cool.

Chop the almonds and cashewnuts and add to the powdered sugar along with the cardamom powder.

Grind the dough balls to a coarse powder and mix with the sugar prepared above.

Serve with dollops of warm ghee or add a little ghee and make laddoos out of them. They keep well for many weeks in an air tight box.

Rajasthani Daal Baati

Daal baati is a traditional dish from Rajasthan. It is supposed to be difficult to make and only expert cooks usually take courage to prepare it. Let me tell you a little secret. It is in fact an extremely easy dish and has just been hyped up because it used a lot…and I mean a lot of butter/ghee. However, you can easily tone it down to a healthier version and kick it up a notch if you are entertaining guests.

Ingredients – Daal

1/2 cup chana daal

1/2 cup toor daal

2 tbsp red masoor daal

2 tbsp urad daal

2 tbsp moong daal

2 tbsp butter or oil

Pinch of asafetida

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 bay leaf

2 dried red chillies

2 cloves

2 green cardamom pods

1 inch cinnamon stick

1 tbsp turmeric powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

2 tbsp ginger garlic paste (optional)

1 tsp kasoori methi

2 tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Salt to taste

Soak all the daal together for 1/2 an hour in water. Boil them in a pressure cooker and keep aside.

Heat the butter in a large saucepan. Add asafetida, cumin seeds, bay leaf, dried chillies, clove, cardamom and cinnamon. Saute for 2 mins.

Add the ginger garlic paste and saute for 1 min.

Add the boiled daal and 2 cups of water and the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 mins.

Serve hot with baati.

Daal Baati served with churma and gatte ki sabzi

Ingredients – Baati

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup semolina/sooji

1/3 cup oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ajwain seeds

1 tsp baking soda

Ghee for brushing/serving

Heat the oil till it is lukewarm. Mix with the dry ingredients to get a crumbly mixture.

Take about 1 cup lukewarm water and slowly add it to the flour mixture to knead a firm dough.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll into smooth balls. Flatten them a little. Bake in the oven for 20 mins. Turn them over and bake again for 15 mins.

Rub the baati all over with a butter stick or use a pastry brush instead. This will keep the baati soft and is the healthier version. But if you are going the traditional way, soak them in loads of warm ghee. Serve them hot with daal.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 89,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 4 days for that many people to see it.

 

In 2010, there were 25 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 147 posts. There were 46 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was August 6th with 3 views. The most popular post that day was My First Eggless Cake – Baked in Cooker.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were alphainventions.com, foodbuzz.com, google.co.in, webcache.googleusercontent.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for cabbage sabzi, sabudana, how to make eggless cake in pressure cooker, sabudana khichdi, and eggless cake in pressure cooker.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

My First Eggless Cake – Baked in Cooker March 2009
25 comments

2

The Best Cabbage Sabzi Ever January 2009
6 comments

3

How to bake a cake in a pressure cooker September 2008
7 comments

4

Extra Chocolaty Eggless Chocolate Cake May 2009
5 comments

5

Egg Kathi Roll with Paneer Stuffing June 2009
3 comments