A Letter from me to you

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are all doing fine..Thanks Archana of Spicyana for remembering me!Others have asked about my inaction too in the past, one of them being my friend Sumitha.Since I took a break from blogging, life has shown us(me and my family) a different path.We had a new addition to our family and now he is one naughty toddler.We are also going through other changes in our lives,meaning situations in life,which is still holding me back from doing my favourtie thing-experimenting, cooking up new dishes,and then blogging about them.

But I do promise you all, that I will return.Afterall,one can't ignore ones's inner calling for long!So,here's wishing this happens soon,and do watch this space for more!

Wish you all of the best in your lives!

MAIDA MYSOREPAK

Wish you all a very Happy New Year!

My blog has remained largely untouched by me since the last 3 months because of changes in my routine.My daughter started school and with it,came other things that needed to be set into routine.(Needless to say,I now have a new respect and admiration for working women who have kids and are also avidly maintaining excellent blogs).I hope I will be able to attend to my blog much more regularly in this new year.I feel sort of guilty not being able to read all of your blogs,and post new recipes myself.I guess that is another tag that comes with being a mum...but I digress..

Ever since I first learnt how to make mysorepak,I always wanted to try if there was any other flour I could use for this, since I find that gramflour(Besan) with which this sweet is traditionally made, does not agree with many people.So in order to usher in the new year,I decided to experiment with maida.And the rest is history,as they say.

The ingredients and measurements are pretty much the same as in the traditional mysorepak, but I tend to use a little less ghee, so I think this recipe might help you understand it a bit better:

Ingredients:1 cup Maida/All purpose flour

1 & 1/2 cups white sugar

3-4 cups ghee

Cardamom seeds from 5-6 pods,ground into a powder

Method: Heat the ghee in a pan .It should be really hot.In the meanwhile,add 1/2 cup water to the sugar and let it melt on heat.Now,cook the syrup to the consistency of 1 string.To test whether the syrup is of this consistency,carefully take a little drop of syrup between your forefinger and thumb and then,bring your free finger(not the one with the syrup) to the other, and join.then pull your fingers apart ,about 1 cm apart, and see it it forms a string.With the measurements that I have given, this should be achieved easily.

Now, once the syrup is ready, take it off the stove.Now sieve the flour into the syrup and mix quickly so as to form a paste.Be careful not to form lumps and return it to medium heat.Now add a ladle full(about 1/2 cup) of ghee to the paste and cook, stirring all the time.Once the ghee is all absorbed into the paste,add more ghee.As the mixture cooks, it begins to form a honeycomb like structure .Immediately, add the ground cardamom and mix thoroughly.Then pour it immediately into a greased thali or baking tray.Cut into pieces immediately and set it aside to cool.



My Notes:Since this was the first time I tried this,I was sceptical of how it would turn out.But it did very well.The consistency of the cooled mysorepak was a bit harder than the traditional mysorepak.But it still turned out very nice.While I was making it, the flour and syrup mixture suddenly looked very thin to me.I was thinking that the next time I make this, I am going to add some cornflour to the all purpose flour,so as to give it a lighter,melt in your mouth type texture, and to fasten the cooking time.I know that in cakes,cornflour tends to give a very light texture which is why I am suggesting this.If you try this out,do let me know if you had any troubles.

As in traditional mysorepak made with besan,the amount of ghee used depends entirely on what stage the batter reaches the honeycomb texture.In the besan mysorepak,the ratio of ghee to besan is 2:1, but when I made this,it took more ghee to reach the honeycomb texture which is why I mentioned the amount of ghee as 3 to 4 cups.

HAPPY VIJAYA DASAMI/HAPPY BIJOYA!

Hello Dear friends,

Wish you all a Very Happy Dussehra!Dussehra being the festival of Good destroying the Evil,I am glad to say that it has certainly had a positive effect on my health.I am now feeling much better.
Well friends,I would like to invite you all to partake of the Naivedyam(offering to the Mother Goddess)which I prepared today.It consists of Garelu(Deep fried lentil patties),Pongali(sweet pudding made of rice and yellow mung lentils with milk,ghee and jaggery) and Daddojanam(Curd rice,seasoned with mustard,ginger,asafoetida,salt,red chillies, and fresh chopped coriander.

Enjoy!