Make your monsoon delicious

Sheetal

After running out of breath in suffocating heat, a breath of fresh air is what monsoon offers in the form of rain bearing clouds. While we stay away from everything hot in the summer season, right from chai to jalebi, monsoon sure brings out the child in us and we try to soak it all in, especially the foods, from hot to cold, pretty much like the mercurial weather.  

 Our traditional Indian sweets represent the best of each region. Soul foods that are best enjoyed while binge watching your favourite shows. We know many restaurants and street food corners look quite tempting, yet hygiene remains a concern of many out there. But, this monsoon, let us indulge in some lip-smacking dishes made from the ingredients present in kitchen shelves. 

Baked Eggless Donuts

It is something that mothers at some point must have thought of trying at home rather than ordering it on Swiggy or Zomato.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup flour
• ¼  cup of sugar
• 1tsp baking powder
• ½  tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 3/4 cups milk
• 1tsp vinegar
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• Vanilla glaze
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2tsp pure vanilla extract

PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and sprinkle 2 donut baking pans with flour. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, add milk and vinegar. Allow it to thicken for 5 minutes. Mix cold butter and vanilla. Gradually insert dry material until it is evenly combined without lumps. The slurry will be smooth and sloppy. Put the tape in the piping bag. In the finished donuts baking pan, make the batter full, around 3/4. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

In for delicious ghevar?

This special Indian sweet for saawan is indeed irresistible and these days you can find ghevar almost everywhere. The good news is that our chef shares an easy recipe with which you can make this dish easily at home. 

• 2-3 cups refined flour
• 50gm ghee
• 50gm milk
• To fry, ghee
• 1tsp lemon juice
• 2 cups sugar for sugar syrup
• 4-5 green cardamom (peeled)
• Make a powder of green cardamom after peeling it. 

Method

• In a big bowl, pour ghee and a few ice cubes. Whisk them together until ghee converts into creamy consistency. After that, remove the ice cubes and again whisk the batter till smooth.
• Once ghee looks like cream, add the refined flour and milk to it. Mix everything well together till it becomes smooth. Now to dissolve the lumps, add water in small portions. In this smooth batter, add lemon juice and follow.
• Heat enough ghee in a huge pan to fry ghevar. It has to be piping hot. Pour a spoonful of mixture into this hot ghee. Batter will splatter into the ghee then again pour some batter in thin stream into it. You can make this ghevar as thick as you want.
• Prepare some sugar syrup alongside and drizzle sugar syrup gently on the top of the ghevar with a spoon.
• Take some rabri and pour it evenly on the top of your ghevar. Sprinkle some chopped pistachios and saffron strands. Taste your crispy creation.

— Executive chef Rakesh Kumar from Gopal’s Sweets

Double ka Meetha

Ingredients

• 8 slices of bread sliced in triangles
• 2tbs khoya 
• 500ml milk
• 1cup sugar
• 1pinch cardamom powder     
• 1pinch chopped almonds                                             
• 1pinch silvered pistachios     
• 250gm ghee
• 10 strands of saffron
• Silver foil for garnish

Method

Take a pan and put ghee in it to heat. Fry the bread slice triangles in the ghee until they are crisp and golden brown in colour. In another pan, boil some milk until it thickens to half the original quantity and then add khoya, cardamom powder and saffron. Remove from flame and put the rabri aside to cool. Take a separate pan and add sugar, water, cardamom powder and boil it to make sugar syrup. Apply ghee on the bread toasts and soak in this sugar syrup. Put the soaked bread toasts in a plate and pour rabri mixture on top of it. Garnish with chopped dry fruits and silver foil and serve hot.

— Chef Naveen Handa, executive chef, JW Marriott Chandigarh

Mithi mithi jalebi

In Bharat, Salman talked about this monsoonal delight and one must agree that every Indian loves jalebi and some like to double the sweetness by eating it with rabri.

Ingredients

• 3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup corn flour
• 3/2 pinch baking soda
• 2 cup sunflower oil
• 2 cup thickened yoghurt (curd)
• 1/2 cup ghee
• 3 cup sugar
• 5 strands of saffron
• 1/2tsp powdered green cardamom
• 3 cup water
• 4 drops rose essence
• 1/2 teaspoon edible food colour or a pinch of turmeric

Method

For making this easy dessert recipe, mix all purpose flour, corn flour and baking soda in a bowl. Now, add ghee and orange food colour in the above mixture. To make a thick batter, add curd and water. Mix well until it is thick but has a pouring consistency. Keep it aside for 8 hours or overnight. Put this batter in a ketchup bottle with a nozzle. Now, heat the oil in a pan over medium flame for deep frying. Make round spirals of batter by squeezing the bottle. Fry jalebi on both sides till golden and crisp. Dip in warm sugar syrup for half a minute. To make the sugar syrup, heat water in a pan over medium flame. Add sugar and mix until fully dissolved. Simmer the syrup until it attains one string consistency. Add saffron, cardamom powder and rose essence. Stir well.

 —Chef Sharad Nautiyal