Rose and Cardamom flavored Fairy Floss/ Candy Floss/ Cotton Candy.🌹
It's breast cancer awareness month and it's pink everywhere! Today my little girl wore pink as it's Pink day and it happens to be a long weekend ahead so I thought of trying out something that I have been wanting to explore and try since so long.
I took this chance and created our very own Cotton Candy/ Candy Floss / Fairy Floss or in our home town it's called Pullu mittayi (grass candy) or Panji mittayi (cotton candy). And since rose is something that I always fall head over heels for, I decided to try a rose and Cardamom flavored candy floss. And after much anticipation, I tried and voila! It was done in less than half an hour and I couldn't believe it. 😍
My little sister stared at me while I spun sugar like a piece of cake. Like recall, y it was that simple! It was simple because the whole process requires a lot of attention, if done right then you are in for it! A few pointers would be to check the sugar syrup, it shouldn't be too thin or too thick. You can nail this simply by dropping a few drops of the sugar syrup in a small bowl of water. If it takes shape and comes out on your finger it is done. And the next pointer is that yih need to work fast with this, a little hot but worth to give it a try! The only thing that I would correct the next time is to add the flavorings at the end, right before pouring it on a greased counter top/ silicon baking mat.
I will definitely be coming up with more recipes using this delicious candy floss.. Something that I used to love as a child and still do.. So stay tuned!
This post is my contribution to raise awareness on Breast Cancer that can be treated and cured if we check ourselves and diagnose early. It's never too late, early detection can save lives and as October is a month of Breast Cancer awareness I conceptualized to portray a flatlay that embraces feminity.
Let's shower our love and support to all those fighting the battle. 🌺🌺🌺
Ingredients:
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour
- 1 tbsp pure ghee
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp rose water (you may use rooh afza or vimto)
- A pinch of cardamom powder
- A few drops of red gel food coloring
Instructions:
- In a clean wide pan, add in your ghee and sprinkle the all purpose flour/ Maida over it and roast well until the raw smell disappears. And set aside to cool.
- In a saucepan, add in your sugar and water, lemon juice and salt, allow to boil well.
- Once your sugar syrup thickens, add in your color/flavorings (cardamom and rose water) and check the consistency by dropping a few drops of the syrup in a small bowl of water and if the syrup keeps its shape and comes on your finger, it's done.
- Onto your clean counter top or silicone baking mat, grease it wel with pure ghee and once the bubbles have disappeared, slowly pour the molten sugar syrup over ghee and wait for a few seconds until the sides start to cool.
- Now slowly push the sides using your hands, be careful, use a steel ladle to play with it, you will burn your hands.
- Using your greased palms, pull the candy outward and attach inward.
- Do this a few many times. Slowly make a circle out of the candy and sprinkle and spread the roasted APF/Maida that we have prepared earlier onto the candy.
- Dip and coat the candy in the Maida and start shaping them into '8' and stretch slowly.
- Repeat the step until you gets thin strands.
- Finally dust off the excess Maida and the super pretty pink candy floss is ready! 😍
Do try this recipe and don't forget to share your experience/feedback with me here in the comments or feel free to send me a mail. Also, do tag me at #taystedit if you try out my recipes on Facebook, Instagram etc so that I can see when you make it. ♡♡♡♡
Chicken Hakka Noodles
It's already halfway through October? Can you believe that? I am done sitting at home and bam! End of year 2020. If there is anything at all that has helped us to rewind and learn is anything and everything related to food. We have all been creepy crawlies when it comes to socializing, and food has been a big part of the whole lock down situation. Even though you belonged to any part or any community of the world, you could always talk food! If there is anything I like to d other than dozing off is cooking dome amazing food and even if I feel a little bumped for the plans I had for the year 2020, I am grateful to the Lord for bringing families together during this pandemic and to stumble upon so many like-minded people whom I now call my friends. Peace and prayers to all those who have been affected by the Virus.
Onto the Hakka noodles, now now, you may call this Hakka noodles, chow mein or stir fried noodles. It doesn't matter. The main difference between Hakka noodles and chow mein is that there is no difference other than they were invented in two different regions in China. They both have the same ingredients, be it vegetables, or a favorite protein like chicken Thighs strips/pieces etc. Additionally chow mein may be prepared a little watery which are slurpy good. But they are cooked by tossing unlike stir frying method which is used for Hakka noodles. For me noodles has always been my go to dish whenever I go to a restaurant. It's so easy to prepare at home too. I'd recommend not to use the Maggie noodle cake coz the textures are quite different.
Here I have used Chings Vegetable Hakka Noodle pack you may use the egg Hakka noodles too, tastes the same.
Chicken Hakka noodles is a popular Indian street food which is prepared using boiled noodles that is stir fried on a high flame with lots of veggies and chicken pieces and a drizzle of soy sauce. Make sure you prepare your Hakka noodles over high heat and you got to slice your veggies thin. I used Onion, Capsicum, carrot, Cabbage and green french beans. When you want to prepare something quick this is just the perfect dinner treat for weeknights! Gets done in half an hour max! 😍
I like to toss and stir fry my noodles and shhh.. I have a secret to share with you. But only if you promise you won't tell it to anyone🤪 haha, who am I kidding? I know you are here for the secret.😉 I like to add a drizzle of vegetable oil at the end of the stir frying to get that glossy restaurant look. But let me tell you, it's not just in the looks but this is the best Hakka noodle recipe. I had to share it here as I have my followers always ask for the recipe, so here you go!
Ingredients:
- 250 gms/ 1 package of Chings Hakka Noodles
- 2 + 1 tbsp vegetable oil (1 tbsp for the final coat)
- 3-4 garlic cloves, chopped finely
- 1/4th of an onion, thinly sliced
- 1/2 Capsicum, thinly sliced
- 9-10 French beans sliced thinly
- 1/4 pc of Cabbage sliced thin
- 1-2 green chillies, chopped finely (depending on the heat level)
- 1/4 Chicken stock or 1 maggi chicken cube (optional)
- 50- 100 gms Boiled and lightly shredded chicken (boil in water with salt + pepper)
- 2 tbsp Soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp white vinegar
- 1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
- 1/2 tsp white pepper powder (optional)
- Salt (if required)
Instructions :
- In a large pot, boil water required to boil noodles. Add salt and allow to cook 80% and drain off the water and run through cold water. Finally coat with a tbsp of vegetable oil.
- In a deep wok, add 1 tbsp oil and Sautee the garlic for around 15 seconds and quickly add the onion and stir well.
- Next add in your veggies in the order - French beans, carrot, Cabbage and Capsicum and finally add your green chillies and stir well.
- Next add your boiled and lightly shredded chicken.
- Next add your soy sauce, white vinegar, and some crushed black pepper powder and add in your noodles, toss and stir fry really well.
- Now you may see the moisture has all dried out and the noodle might look dry, if so use my secret trick, add a tbsp of vegetable oil and stir fry well for a minute and voila your chicken Hakka noodles is ready!
- You may garnish with greens of spring onion. (I didn't here coz let's be honest here, I ran out of groceries🙈)
Do try this recipe and don't forget to share your experience/feedback with me here in the comments or feel free to send me a mail. Also, do tag me at #taystedit if you try out my recipes on Facebook, Instagram etc so that I can see when you make it. ♡♡♡♡
Iles Flotantes - Floating Island
It's International Egg day and which better day to try out this dreamy Classic French dessert called Floating Island. Yup! You read that right! Isn't the name of the dessert in itself so fascinating. It is basically a cloudy-pillowy meringue balls/oval shaped baby cakes that are floating on a rich creamy thick custard.
I have been wanting to try this since a long time now. Though I wanted to try and experiment with different flavors other than vanilla, I stuck to the classic one this time as I wanted to know what the real flavors felt like. The meringue balls are usually made using the help of two Spoons and rolling a spoon full of meringue between two tablespoons till you get them ival shaped. But since the lazy girl in me did not want to go through the struggle, I literally grabbed an ice cream scooper and voila! My little island were scooped and dropped into the hot milk in no time. The meringue requires around 9-10 minutes of cook time, in between which you have to flip them to cook completely. The meringue is cooked well when you close the lid and beware of boiling the milk, you don't want a hot mess in here!
The recipe calls for cornstarch that has to be added to the whisked meringue, but I completely forgot to add it. But there was no issues in holding its shapes Coming to the flavor, practically speaking we all have vanilla essence at our homes, but I'd rather go for the vanilla pod next time I try the dessert. But guys I was literally amazed by the technique of poaching the meringue in the hot milk. Aaaahh! The inventions people come up with, truly genius! The rich creme anglaise and the meringue is a match made in heaven. It's unreal how a few ingredients like literally 4 ingredients and you can make an easy and delicious dessert in a jiffy.
Creme anglaise is basically egg yolks that are cooked along with hot milk and vanilla briefly without boiling, or else you might end up with a creme anglaise that is grainy.
Just a few points to be kept in mind and your classic French dinner dessert called Iles Flotantes with sugar basket is ready to serve! 😍
Let's get started!
Ingredients :
- 2 cups Full Fat milk (plus extra to add on later)
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean paste
- 4 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
- 1/3 cup sugar (for meringue)
- 1/4 cup sugar (for creme anglaise)
- 1 tsp cornstarch /corn flour (optional)
Instructions:
- Pour the milk into a wide skillet (you will be poaching your meringues here) and pour in your vanilla extract. Allow to heat on low flame whilst we prepare the meringue.
- Whip the egg whites using a electric hand beater or a stand mixer on a high speed while gradually adding your sugar and continue to whip until the egg whites have stiff peaks when the beaters are lifted or spoon the meringue and turn the spoon and if the meringue stays intact without falling, the meringues are ready for poaching. Fold in the cornstarch at this stage.
- Once the milk has heated to a point where there are no bubbles of boiling visible, using two large Spoons shaped the meringues to oval shape (I used uce cream scoop) and drop them into the hot milk carefully leaving space between each meringue ball.
- Poach the meringues for 5 minutes uncovered, then flip and cook covered for around 4 minutes.
- Using a slotted spoon, scoop the cooked meringues and set aside to cool on a tray.
- Once cooked, allow to chill.
- Into a clean saucepan, strain the milk that was used to cook the meringues and add extra milk if required (requires 2 cups/500 ml milk). Bring the milk to a Sim.
- Whilst at that, whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl with sugar. Slowly pour the hot milk into the yolk mixture while whisking.
- Transfer the custard mix to the saucepan again and using a wooden spoon mix well until the mix thickens lightly and coats the back of your wooden spoon (you can check this by wiping the back of your spoon with a finger and if it separates, then it is cooked and you may switch off the flame).
- Slowly strain the custard into a clean bowl and cover with a cling wrap directly covering the surface of the custard. Allow the custard to come to a room temperature and chill well before serving.
- Finally, make caramel to garnish. (by bringing sugar to a boil and stiring occasionally until melted)
- To serve, pour ladle fulls of the prepared and chilled creme anglaise into a flat serving dessert bowl and gently place the cooked and cooled meringue. Finally, drizzle the prepared caramelized sugar over the meringue, serve immediately and enjoy! 😍
Do try this recipe and don't forget to share your experience/feedback with me here in the comments or feel free to send me a mail. Also, do tag me at #taystedit if you try out my recipes on Facebook, Instagram etc so that I can see when you make it. ♡♡♡♡
Tamil Nadu/ Madras Chicken Dum Biryani
Nothing screams the weekend like biryani, and Tamil Nadu biryani is one of the best biryani that you could have! It is so light on your tummy, yet so flavorful and easy to prepare. My advice would be to prepare the biryani as early as possible and allow the biryani to develop better flavors by staying in dum.
Now coming back to our recipe of the day Tamil nadu/Madras Style Chicken Dum Biryani. I have had this special fondness to try out this yummy biryani which has its ingredients very similar to our very own Thalassery Biryani. Although there is an addition of yogurt and the rice used here is Basmati rice. And the process varies slightly from Thalassery Biryani, of course! You definitely need some time to keep the rice and Masala in dum.
The first time I tried attempting this biryani, I did not quite like it. Though the next day when the flavors from the chicken Masala actually mingled with the rice, it tasted super delicious. I was all so curious to try out Madras Biryani as I have always heard Tamil stars, celebrities and anyone from Tamil nadu rave about Madras biryani. If you ask them their favorite food it's always biryani. Though I haven't tried the real Madras biryani, I wanted to replicate and ask the people in my house i.e, my bhabhi who has been bought up in Madras and my Hubby who has done his college in Coimbatore and wanted them to check if it resembles. And to my surprise, bhabhi said it's exactly the same way they prepare, just that it's red in color and my hubster told me that it felt like he back in his college days and was similar to what he used to have from coimbatore.
OK. So now, I myself was super happy. But I would definitely prefer Thalassery Biryani to this. But who doesn't like a change and it definitely tastes soo good the next day. Especially along with the raita. As this biryani is quite dry compared to what we usually prepare, raita definitely helps bring out its flavor dimensions. This is when little Huda helped me prepare this biryani. She loves to be with me in my kitchen. So yeah, basically this biryani credit goes to my 3 year old daughter who became a 4 year old last week. (like literally where is the time flying?😭)
Yallah! Let's make this yum biryani and enjoy the moment.😋
Ingredients :
Rice:
- 3 cups Basmati rice
- 4 and 1/2 cups normal water
- 3 tbsp ghee
Masala:
- 1 kg fresh chicken
- 1 tbsp ghee
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 cloves
- 3 cardamom pods
- 2 2" cinnamon stick
- 3 medium onions, sliced finely
- 5-6 garlic cloves, chopped coarsley
- 1" ginger, chopped coarsely
- 3-4 green chillies
- 1 medium tomato, chopped
- 1 tbsp kashmiri chilli powder
- 2 tbsp Coriander powder
- 1/4 cup yogurt
- Salt, as required
- Couple of tbsp of lemon juice
- 15 leaves of mint leaves approx, chopped
- 5-6 sprigs of Coriander leaves, chopped
- Red/orange food color (optional)
Raita:
- 1 cup yogurt
- 1/4 of an onion, finely chopped
- 2 small green chillies, slit
Instructions :
- Soak your Basmati rice for around 15-20 minutes and cook the Basmati rice by turning the flame to the lowest setting when you see fumes forming on top of the boiling water and close the lid and cook untouched for 20-25 minutes (until 80% cooked) and open the lid, pour in your ghee and fluff your rice using a fork gently and allow to cool completely, so that the rice attains better texture. (Cooling in a platter is a good idea)
- In a pressure cooker, pour in your ghee and vegetable oil (flavorless) and add in your whole spices (cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon) and Sautee.
- Next add in your sinely sliced onions and add some some salt, Sautee until translucent.
- Chop your garlic, ginger and green chillies using a hand held chopper or grinder.
- Add the ground ingredients to the onions and sauté for a couple of minutes until the raw aroma dissappears.
- Next add in your chopped tomatoes and cook until tomatoes turn mushy.
- Now add in your Coriander powder and Chilli powder and sauté well.
- Add in your yogurt and mix gently.
- Finally add in your chicken, salt and chopped herbs.
- Close and cook for 2 whistles. Once the pressure is down, open the cooker and allow the gravy to thicken by keeping the masala under low flame. Once done, finally squeeze in your lemon.
- Into a larger vessel start layering the masala and the rice, begining with the masala layer, then a rice layer and a sprinkle of chopped herbs.
- Continue the process until done and add in your color (if you are adding). I prefer my biryani without color.
- Using a foil paper or Maida dough close the lid and seal in the aroma.
- In a preheated oven, 200° C, place your vessel and allow to stay in dum for around 20-30 minutes.
- Serve hot with raita.
Notes:
- Refer to my Bukhari rice recipe for tips to cook Basmati rice perfectly to the T.
- You may add in red color, which is the authentic style. I haven't used any color here.
- You may do the dum process on the stove top if you do not have an oven by placing a flat tawa on flame and put the flame to simmer and place your vessel with your biryani while using a foil to cover your vessel and finally closing with a lid and allow to dum for around 15-20 minutes.
Do try this recipe and don't forget to share your experience/feedback with me here in the comments or feel free to send me a mail. Also, do tag me at #taystedit if you try out my recipes on Facebook, Instagram etc so that I can see when you make it. ♡♡♡♡
