Egg roll

For me, egg rolls are the stars of Calcutta street food. When we lived in Calcutta, we used to buy egg rolls on Saturday nights as a weekend as a treat. I have never managed to get quite the same taste at home (obviously). Still, the egg roll recipe below makes a very satisfying and tasty dish with very little effort.

Using maida malabar parottas will take the taste of this dish to an entire new level. However, using wheat rotis is a not-too-bad healthy compromise.

Egg roll

Egg Roll

Ingredients (for one roll):
1 cooked wheat chapathi
1 egg
1/2 small onion, chopped
Lime juice, about 1 tsp
Tomato sauce
Green chilli sauce
Soy sauce
Pepper
Salt

All the ingredients

Method
1. Add the lime juice to the chopped onions and set aside.
2. Spray cooking oil on a tawa and place on medium heat.
3. Place chapathi on heated tawa. Break egg over the chapathi. Spread egg as much as you can over the surface of the chapathi.
4. Sprinkle pepper and salt on the egg (remember soy sauce is salty, so do not go over board with the salt).
5. Carefully flip the chapathi so that the egg side is facing down.
6. Continue cooking on medium heat. When the chapathi rises a bit, it means the eggs are cooked and are fluffing up.
7. Remove the egg coated chapathi from the tawa and place non-egg side down on a plate.
8. Sprinkle the onions in a vertical line across a diameter line of the chapathi.
9. Sprinkle all three sauces over the onions. The quantities of the sauces you use depends on your taste but in general, adding equal amounts of each (around 1-2 tsp each) tastes best.
10. Roll up the chapathi carefully so that the filling does not spill out.
11. If you want the roll to look professional, you can wrap a piece of wax paper or napkin paper around the lower half of the roll so that the filling does not fall out.

Serve hot!

Notes:
1. You can mince about 1/4-1/2 a green chilli and add it to the chopped onion/lime juice mixture. It enhances taste but could turn out to be very spicy if the chillis are fiery!

Applesauce cake

I used to like apples once upon a time. Then, I went to grad school. Apple was the cheapest fruit and as a poor Indian grad student, I ate one as my daily fruit quota religiously for close to 3 years. Then, not surprisingly, I got sick of it. Now, while I can tolerate fresh apples occasionally (read, once in 6 months or so), I cannot eat it on a regular basis. Thus, all apples lovingly brought by visitors took up more and more space on the refrigerator shelf.

So, when sis asked me to bake a cake, I immediately decided that apples would be the base. I first picked a recipe from Good Housekeeping magazine but was unsure of some of the ingredients. Besides, nowadays, unless a recipe has good reviews, I do not try it out (unless, of course, it looks too good even on paper).

Then, I luckily stumbled upon this recipe for applesauce cake. This blog usually features great recipes and this cake did not disappoint either. It was easy to make and the end result was moist, fluffy and delicious.

I adapted the recipe a little. Here it is:

Applesauce Cake

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1/2 cup butter (I used 1/4 cup butter and a little less than 1/4 cup oil - use non-flavorful oils like vegetable, canola or sunflower oil)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup applesauce (recipe below)
1/4 cup yogurt (diluted with a little water and mixed well)
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp slivered almonds


Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Grease a baking pan and lightly flour it
2. Sift the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking soda together a couple of times. Keep aside.
3. Beat the sugar with butter/oil till light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well after adding each egg.
5. Add in the applesauce and the vanilla essence and mix well.
6. Add in half of the dry mixture from step 1 and mix till almost blended.
7. Now add in the yogurt and the rest of the dry mix and stir till just mixed.
8. Pour in the mixture into the prepared pan.
9. Sprinkle the slivered almonds over the top of the cake.
10. Bake immediately for 30 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in various parts of the cake comes out clean.
11. Cool completely on a wire-rack.

Recipe for apple sauce:
Ingredients (makes about a cup)
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped into medium pieces
1 tsp lemon juice
Water

Method
1. Place apple pieces in a pan and pour enough water to cover.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil and add lemon juice.
3. Cover pan and cook on medium-low heat for about 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Applesauce is done when apples can be easily mashed with the back of a spoon. Water remaining in the pan is okay.
5. Mash the apples with a big spoon or masher till it forms a mixture with little lumps.
6. Applesauce is ready. Cool before using in the above recipe.

Notes
1. You can add sugar/cinnamon powder to the apple-sauce as per your taste. I did not add any for the applesauce I used for the cake.

Cucumber Yoghurt dip

This is a great recipe to beat the summer heat. Can use it as a dip for chips or pita bread or roti or simply eat spoonful by yummy spoonful by itself.

This recipe is loosely based it on the Greek tzatziki - though the ingredients used are fewer and more common in Indian households.

Cucumber Yoghurt Dip

Cucumber yoghurt dip

Ingredients (makes enough for 2):
1 medium cucumber
1/2-3/4 cup of thick yogurt (non-fatfree yogurt tastes best)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium green chili (or to taste)
1/4 tsp black pepper powder
Sea salt to taste

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients other than the cucumbers well.
2. Peel and chop the cucumber into small pieces and mix well with the yogurt mixture.
3. Adjust salt and serve immediately.

Notes:
1. If you want to prepare the dip beforehand, make and refrigerate the yogurt mix. Stir in the cucumbers just before serving.
2. You can also deseed the cucumbers before chopping.
3. If using as a dip, make sure yoghurt is thick (you can even strain the yogurt to remove as much liquid as possible).