Paneer Stuffed Bun

I was going through the recipe list on my blog and realised that I had not posted even one recipe with paneer in it. And I made a mental note to include paneer in my next post. Stuffed bun was on my to-do list fr a long time. So I decided to stuff the buns with paneer, so here goes :

Filling:
Ingredients :
1 medium onion
7 to 8 garlic cloves
1 to 2 green chillies
1 medium tomato
1 tsp garam masala
3/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 medium capsicum
300 gm paneer, chopped into tiny cubes.
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/2 cup boiled corn
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
a few springs coriander leaves
Salt

Method:
Heat butter/ oil. Roast finely chopped onion and garlic, till onion turns brownish. Add finely chopped green chilles, garam masala, chilli powder and turmeric powder and roast for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes and saute till they are completely cooked. Add capsicum and saute for a few minutes till they become soft. Add paneer, green peas, corn and tomato ketchup and roast for sometime. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Bun:
Ingredients:
2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (atta)
1 cup all purpose flour (maida)
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp ghee or butter or olive oil
1/2 cup water
Sesame seeds

Method :
Combine 1/2 cup warm water with sugar. Add yeast, mix gently and set aside for 10 minutes till yeast becomes frothy.

In a large bowl combine the flours, salt, water and ghee/oil. Add the yeast mixture and knead into a dough. (Add more flour or water as needed). Transfer the dough into a well oiled bowl, turning the dough in the bowl so that it is coated with oil. Cover with a plastic wrap and set aside for one and half hours. The dough will double in size.

Punch the dough to remove air. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and roll each one into a ball.

On a cutting board or a clean counter top, roll each ball into a circle, 4 to 5 inches in diameter. Place the filling (about 1 and 1/2 tbsp) in the center. Pull the sides so that they join together in the centre. Press the sides, flatten with your palm and shape into a round.

Place the ball seam side down on a baking tray, lined with foil. Brush the top with milk, butter or egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Cover lightly and set aside for about half an hour. The dough will rise again.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes (mine took 21 minutes) till the bun turns slightly brown in colour.

When my husband came home from office this evening I welcomed him with these hot buns straight from the oven. The look on his face was priceless :)!!

Veggie Garam Masala Pizza with Homemade Whole Wheat Base

This is not your regular Pizza Hut style pizza. But it is my most favourite pizza recipe in the whole world. That's because this is the pizza that I've been eating since I was a little girl. My Amma (mother) used to make it very often and my friends loved it too. Some of them still remember the 'Pizza Party' we had several times at my place where Amma and Pachi (aunt) would whip up these delcious pizzas by the dozen.

We would get the base from some local bakeries and if the base was not available, how disspointed we would be! Those were times when Dominos was the only famous pizza joint in M'lore and paying a large sum of money for a pizza seemed downright stupid!

Even now when I travel to M'lore I look forward to eating these yummy pizzas made by my mother. She got this recipe from her sister, Nandini Pachi.

My previous endeavours with baking bread - the crescent rolls and the jeera bread - left me overjoyed. I thought of using this experience to make a whole wheat pizza base. A healthy pizza base with my favorite Indian-style topping on it, what more could I ask for! Cheese of course.

The Topping
Ingredients :
1 to 2 tbsp ghee/ butter
12 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
2 tsp chilly powder
1/4 tsp pepper powder
1 large tomato
2 tsp garam masala powder
1 1/2 cups finely chopped green beans
1 1/2 cups finely chopped carrots
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp maida (all purpose flour)
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp sugar
Coriander leaves
Grated mozzarella cheese

[Note : You could add mushrooms, corn, capsicum, olives, jalapeños etc to make it more colourful. Here, I have stuck to my mom's recipe].


Method :

Chop onions fine. Crush garlic. I like to use the garlic peel as well, but you can discard them. 

Boil carrots and beans in the microwave for 4 to 5 minutes with just a few tablespoons of water, mixing once or twice in between. The vegetables should be crunchy to the bite and not overcooked. [The beans may be a bit raw at this stage but will be taken care of later].

Heat ghee/ butter. Add the crushed garlic and roast till they turn brownish and exude a garlicky smell. Sauté onions till they turn translucent. Add chilly powder, black pepper powder and stir well. Add tomatoes and roast till they are completely cooked. Sprinkle garam masala powder and roast for a couple more minutes. Add the vegetables and roast till they are cooked but crunchy. Pour in tomato ketchup and mix well. To thicken the sauce, mix 2 tsp maida (all purpose flour) with water and add. Bring to a soft boil. Add sugar, salt and coriander leaves and mix well.

The Base 
Ingredients:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
1/4 cup warm water (100ºF to 110ºF)
1/2 tsp sugar
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (atta)
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp garlic powder
3/4 cup water (+ a few tsp)

Combine sugar and 1/4 cup warm water . Add yeast, mix gently and leave aside for 5 to 10 minutes, till it foams.
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, oil, water, garlic powder and yeast mixture and knead for a few minutes to form a smooth dough. If it is too dry and stiff, add a few tsp of water. If it turns too sticky, add some more flour and knead well. [It should be very slightly sticky.]
Transfer the dough into a large bowl greased with oil, turning the dough around, till it is well coated with oil.

Cover with a plastic wrap or a towel. Keep aside for an hour to hour and a half, till the dough doubles in size. It will be light and airy.

Punch the dough to deflate it and divide it into 3 equal portions.  [I was so excited about the whole thing I completely forgot to take pictures. If you want to see how much the dough increases and how to roll it, refer my earlier posts here and here]

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.

I remembered seeing a pizza stone being used to bake the dough in some cookery show sometime back. So I read up a little bit on it. However, I don't have a pizza stone, so I used what I thought was the next best thing - a cookie sheet [baking tray used to bake cookies]. Place the (ungreased) cookie sheet into the preheated oven for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, dust a large cutting board or a clean countertop with a little bit of flour. Roll one portion of the dough into a big circle (5 to 6") in diameter. [I couldn't manage to get a  perfect round. So I overturned a round plate on it to cut out a circle. I gently pressed the edges of the circle].

Transfer the base onto a parchment paper. With a fork, gently poke a few holes into the base like so :

Take the cookie sheet out of the oven and transfer the pizza base along with the parchement paper onto the cookie sheet.

Bake at 425ºF for 5 minutes. Take the entire cookie sheet out. Liberally spread the topping on the baked pizza base.

Spread grated mozarella cheese on top. This is where homemade pizza has an advantage - you can add only as much cheese as you want.

Return to the oven and bake at 425ºF  for another 5 minutes. Repeat with the other two portions.

[If you don't have an oven and use a ready made pizza base, just heat oil on the tawa, roast the pizza covered till the bottom of the base browns up. Microwave for 15s so that the cheese melts all over].

 This entire five minutes, my nose was stuck to the oven door and I was enjoying every second watching the cheese slowly melt into the sizzling sauce. Divine!

And for the next few minutes I was pacing up and down waiting for the pizza to cool down a little so I could devour it! Burned my tongue in the process, but who really cares!

Whole Wheat Garlic-Rosemary Crescent Rolls

I had a great time baking my first bread a few months back. Infact I wanted to bake another one soon and had planned for it. As usual, I did not find the time and would wait for the weekend, each new week! Not just does baking bread take a lot of time, it also needs a lot of attention - what with the kneading, rolling and the time taken for the dough to rise.

When I saw the Tried and Tasted announcement this month (hosted by Srivalli, originally started by Lakshmi), I knew I had to participate. That's because the featured blogger is Aparna of 'My Diverse Kitchen'. Aparna has a wonderful blog with great bakes, specially bread and I always admire her photographic skills. Apart from that, Aparna has given me very good advice whenever I wanted some. We also share the same name, if you hadn't noticed :). Plenty of reasons for me to try and taste, eh?

So it was decided. I would bake a bread with Aparna's recipe. I bookmarked a few of her posts on bread and finally decided on one, which I wanted to bake the following weekend. But something or the other would come up till I was down to the last weekend before the final date. So it had to happen that weekend!  That's when I saw this post on Crescent Rolls with garlic and whole wheat and fell straight for it!
My husband took care of our little inquisitive toddler while I confined myself into the kitchen with my foot down baking this beautiful bread which filled the house with a comforting aroma I always love!
Thanks Aparna for this wonderful recipe.

Ingredients :
2 1/2 cups (+ a few tbsp) whole wheat flour (atta)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic paste (I used garlic powder)

Chopped rosemary (I used 2 tsp)

1/2 tsp red chilli flakes (optional)

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup  yogurt
1/2 cup warm milk
1 tbsp honey
2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) dry active yeast

Method:
Combine milk and honey in a small vessel. Dissolve yeast and allow to froth, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Heat oil. Add rosemary and roast a bit. Add garlic powder and chilli flakes and roast a little more. Allow to cool.

Knead flour with the flavored oil, yogurt, salt and the yeast mixture until you get a smooth and soft dough. If it sticks to your hand, add some more flour and knead further. Grease a fairly big container with olive oil. Transfer the dough into this, covering and coating the dough with oil. Cover with a plastic wrap or a lid and leave aside for 2 hours.

The dough will rise and become almost double in size.

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
Divide the dough into two equal parts and shape each one into a ball. Transfer the ball of dough onto a flat surface - a large cutting board or a clean kitchen counter, and roll it out into a large flat circle, about 12" in diameter. (Ok, my circle doesn't look too great, I know!)

Divide the circle with a pizza cutter into 12 equal portions like so :

Take the wide end and roll it towards the narrow end like so:

Tuck the tip underneath.

Transfer each of the roll onto a greased baking dish (I used a greased aluminium foil on the dish),  making sure the tip is under the roll.
Cover loosely and let it rise again, about 45 minutes. Repeat with the other ball of dough.
Bake at 400ºF for 18 to 20 minutes. Lightly brush with butter just before serving.

I enjoyed the entire experience of baking the bread. Hoping to make another one 'soon' :)!

The warm buttered rolls also go to Hearth and Soul, Bake Off , Yeastspotting and Cakes and Bakes.

My First Bread

Ater baking a few cakes, I thought, why not bake bread?! I turned to aayisrecipes.com and decided to try her Cumin Bread.

I modified the recipe slightly. Here's the recipe:

To 1 cup warm water, add 1 tbsp unsalted butter (room temperature), 1/2 tsp sugar, 2 tsp olive oil and 2 and 1/4 tsp (1 packet) of active dry yeast.

Set aside for 10 minutes till yeast turns frothy.

Add 1 tsp roasted cumin seeds, 1 tsp salt, 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour. [ The original recipe calls for 2 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup wheat flour].

Knead really well, adding a little water if necessary. Cover and set aside in a vessel greased with oil, for 2 hours. The dough will almost double in size.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangular shape.

Starting along one side, roll up the dough into a loaf, pinching the seams to hold the loaf together.

 Roll over so that the seams are at the bottom. Apply olive oil around the loaf, cover and set aside for an hour. The loaf will increase in size.

Make slits on top.

Bake at 500 F for half an hour. Shilpa suggests adding butter after 15 mts and baking for another 15mts. I skipped the butter and the bread did not turn all that brown. But I have no complaints!

The bread turned out very tasty. Like Shilpa calls it, 'crusty on the outside, soft on the inside'.

Sending the entry to The YeastSpotting event.

On another note, MD was nice enough to shower the Sunshine Blog award on apycooking.

I would like to pass this award to all the new food bloggers, who started their blog in 2010, adding more sunshine to the blogworld! If you are one of them, please accept this award.