Kids' Special # 2 - Ghee Chapatti (Indian Flatbread with clarified butter) with steamed buttered veggies and poached egg

If you have been following my posts since last week you may have noticed that I have started a new recipe series dedicated to the most precious beings in our lives..Our Kids! So for all your SAHMs and SAHDs, I am hoping to provide you with a variety of meals/snacks for the kids.

As I mentioned in my last Kids' Special series #1 last week, I did tell you that I want to make it easy for you to cook up your kids' meal simultaneously with the adult meal or taken from a part of the adult meal.

So here is this week's Kids' Special meal -  Ghee Chapatti (Indian Flatbread with clarified butter) with steamed buttered veggies and poached egg.

For the recipes:

Ghee Chapatti 

Steamed Buttered Veggies

Poached Eggs

Hope your little one(s) enjoys this meal as much as mine did!

Ghee Chapattis - Indian wholewheat Flatbread topped with clarified butter

Chapattis are well-known around the world now! I even read an article in the newspaper a while ago on a debate as to which country has the ownership of this flat bread!! We all know the answer to that right? #India

I am not doing justice to the images in this blog post. I will add more photos later.

A lot of commercial mixes of Chapatti flour secretly add refined flour (maida) to add softness to the flour. It really isn't required! You can make your own multigrain flour. You can even have it milled to ensure that there is no refined white flour in the mix. A mix of whole wheat:bajra(pearl millet):oat:ragi(finger millet):psyllium husk or isabgol:soya in 2:1:1:1:0.5:0.5 proportion. You could also add Maize or Channa Dal which is a kind of a dried pulse.

You need:

• 2 cups of whole wheat or multigrain flour ('Aata' /chapati flour)
• 1 cup of lukewarm drinking water
• Salt to taste
• Ghee/clarified butter (1 tsp per chapatti)

The Make:
Makes 7-8 chappatis depending on the size | Preparation Time (including standing time): 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 15 minutes

1. In a fairly large bowl, add the lukewarm water and add in the flour and salt.
2. Knead the flour into a smooth dough. Add water if required.
3. If the dough gets too sticky, add a shake of flour taking care not too add too much or it would end up being too floury.
4. Cover the bowl and let the dough stand for 15 minutes. If you leave it longer say like an hour or more, it tends to get softer.
5. Divide the dough into 8 balls and roll out the dough using a rolling pin into a perfect or almost perfect medium sized round using some additional flour as required. It helps to keep the flour in a small ramekin or bowl on the side as you roll out the dough to help dip into the bowl in case of sticky sides.
6. Heat a pan/tawa and lower the heat on medium-low and carefully place the rolled out dough circle on the Tawa. Allow it to cook and rise which takes about  a minute to a minute and a half of each side. Flip to cook the other side. You can also take the cooked chapati and toss over the medium flame directly on both sides to give it a rustic look and flavour.
7. Add a tsp of ghee on each side and set aside in a covered chapatti casserole.

Serve hot with your favourite side dish Rajma Masala, Aloo Jeera, Methi Chicken Curry.

Beef Roast/Beef Dry Fry - Beef Ularthiyadu/Olaythiyadu - Hubby's Special!!

Anup made one of his mom's recipes for Beef Ularthiyadu which translates to Beef roast or Beef dry fry. He made this when Uncle Soman, Aunty Anne, Anu and Rohit visited our home on a weekend a couple of months ago. It was definitely amazing as we pretty much wiped the dish clean :)

I was only the helper this time just to get the spices ground or for the dicing and the clean up after. This is all him and his mum :) My MIL makes the best beef and cutlets by the way. Of course I love my mom's but they both are aces in their own way.

What you need:

• 1 kg Beef, diced into cubes (washed and cleaned in 1/2 tbsp turmeric powder and 2 tbsp vinegar)
• 1 coconut, sliced finely into squares
• 2 onions, finely diced or 1 cup of red onions, chopped (red onions are preferred)
• 1 sprig of curry leaves (washed in vinegar and turmeric and air dried)
• Ginger-garlic (10 cloves of garlic and 2 tbsp of ginger - chopped finely)
• 2 tbsps Coriander powder
• 2 tbsp Chili powder
• 1/2 tbsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Garam Masala
• 1-2 tsps of Pepper powder
• 11/2 tbsp of cooking oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp+ drinking water

The Make

Cooking Time: 1 hour | Preparation Time: 10 minutes | Serves 6-7

1. Drain the cleaned beef in a colander until all the water is completely drained.

2 . Meanwhile, fry the coconut in 1/2 tbsp of the oil till golden brown and add a pinch of turmeric. Set aside.

3. Add 1/2 tbsp of the oil to a wok and splutter the mustard seeds.

4. Add 1 of the diced onions and saute till golden brown. Then add the ginger and garlic and saute for a minute or until the garlic is slightly brown.

5. Make a paste with some water of some of the dry spices (11/2 tbsp of coriander powder, 11/2 tbsp of chili powder, 3/4 tbsp of Garam Masala and  1/2  tbsp of salt).

6. Add the masala paste to the wok and saute until the masala is cooked or leaves the sides of the wok.

7. Cook the raw beef with the prepared coconut, cooked masala and curry leaves in the pressure cooker for at least 45 minutes (5-6 whistles).

Tip: Make sure you have added enough water to cover half the beef content. It does not have to cover the entire beef content as this a dry fry.

8. In the wok, heat the remaining oil and saute the remaining diced onions till golden brown.

9. Next add in the remaining coriander powder, chili powder, garam masala and the pepper powder and cook the masala.

10. Lower heat to low and add in the cooked beef and fry till the residual water gets absorbed.

Serve hot with a flatbread of your choice - Paratha, chappatis or rotis, appam or rice.

Tip: You can subsitute with chicken or soya chunks. Soya chunks actually work really well with this recipe!

Bon Appetit!

Methi Roti (Wholewheat Indian flatbread with Fenugreek Leaves)

Fenugreek leaves as I have mentioned in my earlier posts has many a medicinal value. Fenugreek was introduced to us by our nutritionist as to avoid Type1 and Type 2 diabetes and thus found its way into my kitchen. Methi or Fenugreek leaves based Chapatis(Unleavened Flatbread) or Rotis(Flatbread made of wholewheat) has been a part of our staple diet.

You need:

Makes: 12 Rotis

• One sprig of Methi (Fenugreek) leaves (washed and drained) finely chopped
• 2 cups of wholewheat flour/'Atta' (additional flour as required for dusting)
• Lukewarm water as required (to make into a dough) - I take about 2 cups
• Salt to taste(1/2 tsp)
• Oil/Ghee(clarified butter) - optional

The make:

Cooking Time: 20 minutes|Preparation Time: 30 minutes| Serves: 4 adults

The dough:
Take the flour and salt in a large vessel to allow for the kneading process. Add a little lukewarm water and knead (keep adding water bit by bit as required) until a dough is formed. Take a wooden board or worktop, dust a tad of flour as required and place the dough over and knead through until a smooth dough is formed (to avoid stickiness).

Fenugreek leaves

Ensure that the leaves are not wet or pat dry before adding it to the dough or else the dough would get sticky. Ideally pat dry before the chopping of the leaves. With a fisted hand, pound the dough in the center and add half the leaves, continue kneading so as to evenly spread the leaves across the dough. Add the remaining leaves and repeat.

Once the dough is ready, leave it to stand for at least 15-30 minutes. This will ensure that the rotis or Chapati turns out soft when serving.

Rolling the dough:
Roll out the dough into small rounds depending on the size of the roti you would like to serve. On a wooden base, dust a little flour. Press the small dough ball flat using your hand. Now using a rolling pin, roll out the flattened dough on one side. Keep a tad bit of flour on one side of the worktop and dab the dough into the flour if required(normally if the dough is found to be slightly stick so as not to stick to the rolling pin or wooden base and cause tearing halfway through the rolling process).

Flip the flat dough on the other side and repeat till the Roti is evenly flat all around and reaches the shape you need. You can make it into the traditional round or a triangular shape as required.

Initially of course you may end up having different shapes of various countries on your board.I have yet to perfect the art of making perfectly round rotis/chapattis. It requires some amount of effort, time and patience. I remember one special aunt (Aunty Vinna), I stayed with for a while required perfectly round chapatis and I found it very cute that she achieved that by placing a clean vessel over the rolled out dough forming a perfect circle. I particularly enjoyed the chapatis she used to make for us :)

Keep your hot plate ready to store your rotis. Heat a skillet and lower to a medium flame, add your first rolled out dough and after 2-3 minutes, flip it to the other side. Check if it is evenly cooked. You can also add oil or ghee as desired. We use neither, so next I move my skillet(which has a guarded handle so as not to burn myself) away from the flame and place the Roti on the flame using my spatula and move the spatula away, you will find that the Roti puffs up. I toss the Roti back onto the skillet (still not on the flame), and repeat for the other side. The roti then goes into the hot plate.

Methi Roti

Serve your Rotis with Yoghurt/Curd or your specially prepared dish. Kids also enjoy this with jam or cheese and other spreads. In my case, it was Rajma Masala! Enjoy! Bon Appetit..