Persian Mulberry Tut

These are such a treat! Easy, tasty and pretty. We used to have two mulberry (sahtoot) trees in my house when I was a kid. I enjoyed making these while remembering the uncounted mulberries we used to eat.

I saw these mulberry sweets in the book "Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies" by Najmieh Batmanglij.  Also, a recipe of these appeared in Los Angeles Magazine from the blog My Persian Kitchen. The detailed step-by-step instructions can be found on the blog. I made couple of changes in the recipe. I decided to use almond meal instead of the almonds in the recipe to decrease one step :)

Ingredients:

1 cup + 2 tablespoon almond flour/meal (Use the meal that is prepared after peeling off the almonds, you can also use dry almonds and prepare the almond meal in a food processor.  I like the JK Gourmet Almond Flour which I buy through Amazon)
1 cup confectioners sugar (Use 3/4 cup if you don't have very sweet tooth)
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
2 tablespoon rose water (If you are using 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar, only add 1.5 tablespoon of rose water to begin with and add more if desired)
1/4 cup granular sugar
Slivered pistachios ~ 30 pieces

- Mix almond meal, confections sugar and cardamom powder.  Add rose water and pulse couple of times in a blender until mixture comes together. The mixture shouldn't be too dry or too sticky. If you find it sticky, you can add an extra tablespoon of almond meal.

- Take a small portion from the mixture and roll the mixture in to conical shape with hand and taper at the end as shown in the picture to give mulberry shape. You can make almost 30 pieces from this mixture. Approximate length of the mulberry tut is about 1.5 inch.

- Now, roll each piece in the granular sugar and put a single slivered pistachio at the fat end of the mulberry tut.

- Wait couple of hours before eating them. They also taste great after a day.

Baked Apple Chips

Vendor's at the farmers market in Santa Barbara often sell baked apple chips and persimmon chips. However, those are not a very common in Ventura's Farmer market. After seeing a post about apple chips on The Italian Dish blog, I decided to bake them. I absolutely adore The Italian Dish blog and have tried many recipes from the blog. In fact it is my "go-to" blog for italian recipes.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
1 large apple
2 tablespoon brown sugar
3/4 tablespoon cinnamon (I used less cinnamon than suggested by The Italian Dish)


- Preheat oven to 225 F
- Slice apple into thin slices (as thin as possible 15-20 slices per apple)
- Lightly coat the apple slices on both the sides with the sugar and cinnamon mixture
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the apple slices on the baking sheet
- Bake for an hour
- After an hour, flip the slices and bake for another hour
- Remove from oven and cool them for some time and store in airtight container.

Variations:
- Make these chips with any fruit e.g. pear, persimmon etc.
- Eliminate brown sugar and cinnamon for a plain apple chips taste

Shakarpara "sweet little devils"

Shakarpara's are often made during diwali festival in north India, with every family having a favorite recipe  which has been passed down to them through generation.

For diwali this year, I wanted to make something traditional. Natural step was to ask MIL for her amazing shakarpara recipe.  For the last five years, I have always got two boxes from her upon departure, one full of home made mathri (my favorite), other of shakarpara (S's favorite). Five years back I was not a big fan of Shakarpara and S. was not a big fan of Mathri. Now, we both love mathri and shakarpara!

Also, did I tell you ? In addition to thanking my MIL for the recipe, I have to thank two gadgets without which this would have been very difficult. These are my new electronic weighing machine for kitchen and Kitchenaid stand mixture. I resisted electronic weighing machine for years. S kept suggesting that I should get it. Finally, he gifted it to me on my birthday. I am not exactly sure if it was a gift for me or him:) By doing so, he saved himself from the "last minute weight to cup conversion through google for various ingredients"- that were forced on him often in the crisis state. Jokes apart, this is really handy and totally worth it. Now I can easily make european and indian recipes without worrying about the conversion.  Thanks S.

Second thing that has made my life super easy for making mathri and shakarpara is the kichenaid stand mixer. The key to fluffy mathri and shakarpara is the kneading process. More you knead softer they turn out to be. Well stand mixer can knead for you as long as want :) This was gift  from my dear sister (thanks didi !). I also enjoy it a lot for making dough for pizza, naan, puri etc. Its quite handy if you are making anything at large scale:)

Now time for the shakarpara recipe:

Ingredients:

500 gm (1/2 KG) all purpose flour (Maida)

150 ml oil for kneading (2/3 cup)

~ 3/4 cup warm water
oil for frying (~2-3 cups)

For syrup
1 and 1/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup water 

- Add all purpose flour and oil in the stand mixer and mix/knead on low setting for 15-20  minutes
- Add little warm water (about 1/4 cup) at a time to make a tight dough (you will need little water so add slowly)
- Leave it covered for 15-20 minutes
- Divide the dough into four equal parts
- Roll out one of the parts into 1/4 inch thickness
- Cut parallel lines in the circular part and then perpendicular (at an angle) lines to make small pieces out of the rolled dough
- Heat oil for frying in a kadai/deep pan on low-medium settings and place all the pieces once the oil is hot and let them fry for  10-15 minutes until golden brown color and remove with a slotted spoon on a paper towel
- While first batch is frying, roll out the second ball of dough and cut into pieces
- Repeat for 3rd and 4th ball
- Let them cool in a wide pan

  Syrup
   - While frying the fourth batch of shakarpara,  start making the syrup
   - add 1 1/4 cup sugar and 3/4 cup water in a pan and place it on medium heat
   - Once the mixture starts boiling reduce heat to low-medium setting
   - Make 2 taar chasni (sugar syrup) by heating it on low for 20 minutes
   - Meanwhile spread the cooled fried shakarpara in a wide pan and spread the sugar syrup on it.
   - Mix the sugar syrup and shakarpara gently and quickly with spoon for five minutes to  evenly coat  them with sugar syrup
   - Leave the mixture open for 30 minutes and then let it cool covered over night and the next day your shakarpara are ready to be eaten. Pieces might stick to each other so gently separate them.

Enjoy your shakarpara with Tea or as is!

Almond Brittle (Badam ki chikki)

This recipe is quick yet very complicated. It is extremely easy to mess up while caramelizing the sugar. After failing couple of times while caramelizing the sugar, I finally found a recipe to make it consistently (most of the times!) It surely brings back the memories of "chikki" (Peanut brittle).

Handvo/Handwa - Gujarati Appetizer

Gujarati food, in particular the appetizers Khaman, Dhokla, Khandvi and Handvo are quite unique both in terms of cooking method as well as taste. After getting a really good recipe for Sooji Dhokla from my friend-Isha (which I have made zillion times with exceptional results each time), I was eager to try Khandvi and Handvo. Khandvi is perhaps the quickest (Stay tuned for a post on Khandvi!) while Handvo is the most time consuming.

Nani ki Mathri

My all time favorite snack in Indian cuisine is Mathri and as you can imagine, I have tried to sample them in every possible chance. One can make different variation's of mathri with varying proportion's of all purpose flour(Maida)/oil/water. However, it is indeed quite difficult to make the "soft" mathri's which melt in your mouth. Mathri's made by my naniji-in-law fall in the category of "melt-in-mouth" and are undoubtedly the best I have tried so far. Enjoy this recipe from Naniji: