Vegetable Samosas

Samosas are a traditional Indian snack, that are very popular in all Indian households. They are delicious pastry parcels usually filled with a spicy vegetable filling and deep fried until golden brown and crispy. Samosas are commonly served with tangy tamarind chutney and green coriander chutney.

Samosas sizes and their fillings differ from state to state of India. Where as in the state of Gujarat samosas are dainty little pastry triangle filled with peas and potatoes,carrots they will differ in the state of Punjab where the Punjabi samosas are larger and primarily filled with a potato filling only. In other states cabbage, paneer-Indian cheese, fried fruits and nuts and also lentils are used as a filling too.

There is a very precise art in folding the samosas which although can be tricky is not too hard to master as practice makes perfect. I remember as a child my mum and aunts used to fold some 300 samosas for our family gatherings It was almost like a production line.Samosas are also commonly sold by street vendors and its a favorite street food for all Indians.

This month I created a step by step pictorial on how to make the perfect samosas. You can read all about my samosa recipe at the Foodies 100 site where I have written a guest post all about making these delicious samosas.
You can read the recipe for my Gujarati Style vegetable samosa here. Please do drop by the Foodies 100 website to check out the easy recipe with step by steps pictorial instructions.

Submitting to:
Lets cook for Dad event by simplyfood.

Giveaway Tickets to Foodies Festival Alexandra Palace

Foodies Festival Brings Outdoor Summer Feast to Alexandra Palace, July 3,4,5

Foodies Festival, the UK’s biggest celebration of food and drink, comes to Alexandra Palace for the first time this summer, transforming the grounds into a foodie heaven 3,4,5th July with celebrity chefs, new food and drink theatres, artisan producers and more street food than you can shake a satay stick at. 

Highlights will include:

·         A New Tasting Theatre 

·         The Cake & Bake

·         The Street Food Avenue 

·         Artisan Producers Market 

·         BBQ Arena 

·         Childrens Cookery Theatre,

·         Live music and entertainment

Tickets:

Tickets are on sale now at www.foodiesfestival.com or by calling 0844 995 1111

Friday adult day ticket £12.00 (£10.00 concession)

Saturday or Sunday adult day ticket £15.00 (£13.00 concession)

3-day adult ticket £25.00 (£18.00 concession)

Friday VIP ticket £45.00*

Saturday or Sunday VIP ticket £48.00*

*VIP tickets include a welcome glass of bubbly, access to the VIP tent with private bar and refreshments throughout the day, priority entry to food and drink masterclasses, a goody bag and a showguide.

 

All children aged 12 and under go free to all Foodies Festivals when accompanied by an adult.

Open times:

Friday 3^rd July: 11am – 8pm

Saturday 4^th July: 11am – 8pm

Sunday 5^th July: 11am – 7pm

As always Foodies have given me three pairs of tickets to give away to three lucky readers here.   

How To Enter:

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc.
• Leaving a blog comment is mandatory and failure to do so will void any other entries.
• Closing date - 30th June 12.00 am

 *Terms and conditions

1. This competition is open to UK residents only who are over 18 years of age .

2. Complimentary tickets are valid for one day only at the Alexandra Palace Show

3. Tickets are non transferable. One pair of tickets per winner only.(Winners will be able to pick up tickets at the venue from the ticket office on the day of visit.)

4. Complimentary tickets obtained through this offer may not be duplicated.

5. All tickets will be scanned on entry to the show

How Rafflecopter works:

·        You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box.Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.

·        Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.

·        Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 

·        Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.

·        For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 

·        For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 

·        If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.    

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce

In April I had the opportunity to collaborate with Onken yoghurts to create a simple and quick recipe video using Onken natural Yoghurts. I made simple chocolate chip pancakes with strawberry sauce that are not only easy to make but they are low fat and taste absolutely delicious. This is my first video experience and I had a very exciting time filming it. I am sharing the recipe below with the video as it would be the perfect Father's day treat to make for Father's day this Sunday.

 Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce Video

print recipe

Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce

by Nayna Kanabar June-23-2015

Light fluffy chocolate chip pancakes with a lovely summery strawberry sauce.

Ingredients:

• 180g Plain Flour
• 60g Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 handful Chocolate chips
• 240 ml Natural Onken Yoghurt
• 160ml Skimmed Milk
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• Sunflower oil spray
• 400g Fresh Strawberries
• 2 tablespoons Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

Method:

1.Sieve the flour and baking powder in a bowl and stir in the sugar.2.In a jug add the egg, vanilla essence, yogurt, milk and butter and whisk together.3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients to form a dropping consistency batter. 4.Reserve a few chocolate chips for garnish and stir in the remaining  chocolate chips into the batter.5. Spray a pan with oil and heat it on medium heat, next spoon some pancake batter into the pan to form a 3 inch pancake. Wait for small bubbles to form. 6.When the batter starts to set, flip the pancake and cook under side.7.Repeat for the remaining batter, spraying the pan with oil in between pancakes as required8.To serve, stack the pancakes and spoon over the strawberry sauce and sprinkle some more chocolate chips.9.Dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of Onken yoghurt and remaining strawberries
Strawberry Sauce
1.Reserve 6 strawberries for garnish and hull the remaining strawberries and chop them into small pieces.2.Add the sugar, strawberries and lemon juice to a pan and simmer for 10 minutes until the liquid thickens. Remove from heat and cool.3.For a smooth sauce, blend the sauce, or alternatively you can use it as it is with chunks.

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 35 mins Yield: 12-15 Pancakes

Submitting to:

 Lets Cook for Dad event by simplyfood

Massala Hut restaurant Review

Massala Hut, a modern Indian restaurant located in central London close to Euston and Warren Street. It is situated on a quiet street in a commuter’s area and predominantly positioned so that it’s convenient for corporate and business lunches and socialising after work. Set on two levels the restaurant is furnished in a contemporary style. The main seating is on street level and the downstairs area is mainly hired out for events, weddings and parties.

The restaurant was moderately busy on Friday evening when we visited but we were greeted and seated immediately. The menu was vast with lots of variety of the various regional dishes suitable for both vegetarian and non vegetarian too. However although there were lots of vegetarian starters and vegetarian side dishes, the choice of vegetarian main dishes was limited. This did not cause a problem as the waiters said that any vegetarian side dishes could be made as a main course. 

We munched on fried and roasted poppadum’s with a selection of condiments and sipped drinks while our starters of chilli paneer, onion bhajis and vegetable samosas were being prepared. We chose not to consume alcohol although there was a fully stocked bar. The restaurant serves halal meat and can also cater for people who want gluten free or have nut allergies which is an added bonus.

The starters arrived fairly quickly, they were individual sized portions and  well presented. All three were really delicious; we relished them with pleasure while enjoying some Indian music playing in the background.

For the main course we selected the saag aloo; a delicious potato and spinach curry, tarka dhal which is a blend of lentils tempered with ginger, garlic and spices, all were served with pilaf rice and garlic nan which was super fluffy and beautifully cooked. The portion sizes were generous and the food was piping hot.

We enjoyed the main course too, all the dishes were well cooked, they were a little on the mild side for the Asian taste and we think the taste is catered keeping in mind a western palate.

The dessert menu had some delightful desserts and we were tempted to order the ferrero rocher icecream and the strawberry sundae, both were delectable and completed our meal wonderfully.

Our dining experience at Massala hut was enjoyable, the staff were helpful next time and friendly and very attentive. We would most certainly visit again and take the opportunity to sample some different dishes on the menu.

Score 11.5 /15

Service - 4.5/5

Food - 3.5/5

Ambiance -  3.5/5 

                           

We were guests of Massala hut and would like to thank them for their generous hospitality. All the views and opinions expressed in this post are of our experience and honest.

Cookie bars~Secret recipe club challenge 15th June

Secret recipe club

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. For the month of June my assigned blog The Painted Apron by Jenna Meon .Jenna is an artist nad you can see the creativity in her blog posts.I really enjoyed browsing through all the recipes but I fell in love with the heaven in a cookie bar recipe, and immediately decided to make that. The only changes I made were that I drizzled some white chocolate and added smarties to the cookie bars .

print recipe

Cookie Bars

by Nayna Kanabar June-15-2015

Delicious melt in the mouth cookies that will leave you wanting more and more.

Ingredients

• 2 cups Plain Flour
• 3/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 10 tablespoons Melted butter
• 2 cups Light brown sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla Essence
• 12 oz Chocolate chip
• 1/4 cup Flaked Almons
• 4 oz White chocolate chips
• 1 handful Smarties

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C2.Line a 9x12 baking tray with grease proof paper.3. In a bowl sieve together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt.4. In another bowl add the vanilla, melted butter, eggs and sugar and whisk together.5. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds into the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients to it.6. Mix together the ingredients and spread them into the prepared baking tray.7. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes until slightly brown, do not over bake cookies should be chewy in the center. Remove tray from oven and leave to cool.8. Melt some white chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. Fill a icing bag with the melted white chocolate and drizzle some white chocolate over the cookie bake. For additional touch sprinkle some smarties over the bake and leave the chocolate to set. 9. Once set, cut the cookies into squares and transfer to a serving dish.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 35 mins Yield: 20 small bars

An InLinkz Link-up

Submitting to:
Lets cook for DAD event by simplyfood

Tidbits from my Pantry and a giveaway

I always love receiving food parcels and food presents especially if the items are unusual and from different countries. This month I have received some really unusual food gifts with very different textures and tastes.

A friend came from Vietnam and brought me a box of Green bean cake. Upon opening there were little gold coloured boxes and when opening them there were little smaller boxes wrapped in gold foil. Inside were immaculately cut 1 cm cubes of Green bean cake. The texture was like  halwa  and powdery. The taste was very unusual almost grainy and decadently sweet.

My next item that I received were some really delicious salted pistachio nuts from Morocco, They were simply delicious and so moreish.

Unlike some cheap pistachios these were very easy to crack open and the flavour was crisp and salty.

I also received some banana chips and some Japanese rice crackers these did not travel across the world but they were given to me by my patient at work, I think they may have come from an oriental supermarket somewhere.

I have always eaten salty banana chips but these were sweet banana chips. They had a subtle sweetness to them and were slightly thicker than the normal salty banana chips I had eaten in the past.

I have never eaten Japanese rice crackers, the packet had a selection of different crackers in all shapes sizes and textures. They had a sesame seed seasoning, they were savory to eat and made  perfect nibbles with a glass of wine.

My last food parcel was from Love Marlenka, they make very unusual Armenian honey cake using traditional old Armenian recipe.All the cakes are free from artificial colours and preservatives.

In the parcel was Marlenka Dortek cake a honey mini cake A delicious layered cake drizzled with honey and chocolate.












Marlenka snack bars made from the moist honey cake with a sweet soft filling in the centre.The cakes are called cocoa mini snack .The filling inside was a most like buttercream but slightly runnier.The cake bars had an outer covering of dark chocolate.

The parcel also had a box of Marlenka honey nuggets with cocoa.These were small balls of cake rolled in cocoa with a soft creamy filled centre.They had a very moist and spongy texture almost like cake balls.

Love Marlenka have been very kind and they have agreed to send one simplyfood reader a parcel of their cakes to sample. They will include:

• A box of Nuggets
• A mini box of Napoleonky
• A honey snack

How To Enter

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc
• Please read the rules they form the terms and conditions of this Giveaway
• Giveaway open to UK residents over 18 only.
• Closing date – 3rd July 2015 12.00 am

How Rafflecopter works:

• You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box. Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.
• Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.
•  Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 
• Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.
• For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 
• For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 
• If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Roundup of Lets cook with Peas

Thankyou to everyone who sent in the awesome recipes.

Here are all the delicious recipes:

An InLinkz Link-up