Mango Sheera

This is a delicious variation of the regular sheera using alfonso mango pulp. Mango Sheera or Mango kesari makes for a delicious dessert and can be served warm or cold depending on your preference.

Ingredients

1 cup coarse sooji
2 cup milk
1 cups alfonso mango pulp
1 cup sugar
2 tea spoon ghee / unsalted butter for roasting sooji
2 tea spoon ghee to add at the end
2 tea spoon chopped nuts of your choice (cashews, almonds, walnuts) (optional)
Few strands of saffron

Method

Microwave couple of table spoon of milk till warm and add in the saffron strands to let them soak. 

In a vessel place milk for heating with a tablespoon of water added to the milk. If you are using nuts you cann add them here to boil if you dont like them too hard. I added a few candied walnuts today because i had them on hand.

While the milk heats, in a different pan heat ghee slightly and on medium heat lightly roast sooji till it gets a faint pink color. I like to use a egg beater for making sheera. It helps so much in avoiding formation of lumps and because of its wireframe structure, stirring the thickening sheera also takes very little effort. Over roasting sooji till it browns will prevent the sooji from cooking and coming together with mango pulp.

When the milk is hot and almost close to boiling, add the milk to the pan with roasting sooji. This will immediately start cooking and evaporating really fast. So lower the heat and as you whip the mixture with egg beater add the mango pulp, stirring continuously. 

Cook for a bit and add sugar, cardamom powder and soaked saffron milk.

Cook on low for a little while stirring with egg beater. When cooked, add some ghee and stir. Adding ghee at the end after cooking is over will keep the sheera soft and bring a rich flavor without using relatively huge amounts of ghee.

Variations

You can add some chopped mangos or pineapples to top the sheera.

Calories

Dutch Pancakes with Apples (Pannakoeken)

I never really liked the pancakes served at numerous diners. The were light, fluffy, soft and pretty much needed to be soaked with syrup to taste like anything. Then i tried these dutch pancakes and decided that if am going to have pancakes then i am going to have these ones. These pancakes are not light and fluffy but are very custardy and dense, they are not thick and soft but are infact thin and crispy on the edges. The apples make are a good fruity addition and cinnamon just goes great with the apples.

Ingredients

(Makes 1 large pancake)
Half cup milk
1 egg or equivalent egg beaters
1/2 cup all purpose flour (I would like to try this with wheat flour someday!)
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 table spoons sugar (This helps to make our pancakes be crispy)
pinch of salt.
1 Apple
Non Stick cooking spray
Light Pancake Syrup
Cinnamon Grinder / Powder
Powdered Sugar to sprinkle (You can use a mixture of cinnamon sugar instead)

Method

Warm the milk in microwave. Stir in sugar, pinch of salt and vanilla essence. Whip the egg and slowly add to the milk whipping continuously. Add the flour and whip to make a pourable thick batter.



Slice apple into thin slices as shown.Heat a round pan with slightly tall edges on medium heat and when hot spray some non stick cooking oil. Add apple slices and light fry each side for couple of minutes.



Do not overcook the apples, cook enough just for them to change their color and caramalize a bit. Set Aside onto a plate.



Heat same pan on medium heat and check hotness by sprinkling little water on it to see if it sizzles. Spray oil when pan is hot and then lift the pan up and pour some batter and do a round swirling motion to let the batter move around and coat the complete pan. Add the rest of the batter at the centre. And swirl pan around to get an even spread not too thick. Place the pan back and continue heating on medium without disturbing the pancake.



As the pancake cooks, the top will start going dry and might puff up from trapped air. Loosen the pancake from sides and keep pressing down on the pancake as it cooks when it starts to swell up with trapped steam. This is to make sure the pancake is golden brown evenly and crispy.



Check the underside of the pancake and if it crispy and brown, spray just a bit of oil on the top side and flip the pancake.



On the side you just flipped up, lay the apple slices like pizza toppings. Cook on slightly lower heat because the drier side gets crispier faster. Cook till pancake is crispy and slide onto the plate.



Add Pancake syrup in an outward spiral starting from the centre. Grind Cinnamon all over the pancake and using a collander sprinkle powdered sugar.



Cut into individual portions using a pizza cutter and serve.

Variations

You can try wheat flour with a pinch of baking powder. Different toppings can also be tried like bananas.

Calories

Flandango

Flandango also known as flan / creme caramel / caramel custard is a spanish dessert. This is a quick and lower calorie version using cholestorol free egg beaters.

Ingredients
1 5 fl oz evaporated milk (unsweetened condensed) 1 tub original egg beaters (no yolk cholesterol free) equivalent to two large eggs. 2 corningware 70z/200ml soufflé/flan/custard/crème brulee cups (ceramic, unglazed, straight edge, ridged) 1 tea spoon brown sugar or white sugar sprinkled with some water drops for caramelization 8 tea spoon white sugar for custard half tea spoon vanilla essence

 Method

Microwave 1tsp sugar with half tsp water in each custard cup for 1min then 10 sec intervals till sugar is caramelized.

Heat milk for 1.20 seconds in the microwave. In another cup take egg beaters liquid and a egg whip. Pour warmed milk into this cup in a slow trickle while continuously whipping the egg beaters liquid to infuse warm milk. Do this to avoid the eggs from getting scrambled and cooked because of sudden mixing with hot milk.

Add 1 tea-spoon vanilla extract and approx 8 tea spoons sugar and mix till sugar dissolves.

Pour mixture in cups slowly over the caramelized sugar.

Take hot tap water in a sauce-pan and pour it in a big baking pan in a oven pre-heated to 350deg farenheit. Place cups in this pan so that water climbs up close to the edge of the cups but not completely. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

If flan is done in the oven, it will be overdone on your plate. Usually the top just about starts getting a color, so stop just before you think flan is done and leave the flan in the baking tray for a while with stove door open. If you insert a tooth pick it should not come out wet. Take out and refrigerate at least six hours. Insert knife at edge of the cup, hold the knife, and rotate cup against the cutting edge of the knife without moving the knife.

Then give the cup a bit of a jiggle to loosen the flan from the sides. Place a serving plate face down on top of the custard cup and then invert and give the back of the cup a thwack and jiggle it a bit and lift.

Enjoy!

  Calorie Count

Eggs 60

Milk 200

Sugar 140

Total 4 serving, two custard cups (Desserts always for splitting with someone J).

Per person 100

Variations You can use Fruit preserves, Agave Nectar, Jams as a substitute for caramelized sugar.