Kalakand

As a child I hated anything sweet. So much so, that whenever someone would offer me chocolates as a child I would politely thank them and hand it over to my mother or father (they both are major sweet lovers). People often commented on how odd it was, but I would steer clear of anything even slightly sweet. Give me some spicy samosas or chips over sugar anyday.

That was then, not sure if having a baby permanently blew some nerves or what, but since the day my daughter was born two years ago, I crave sweets. Halwas, cakes, gulab jamun, cookies… even a teaspoon of sugar if nothing else is available!

Anyway, I am always on the lookout for simple yet delicious Indian Sweet recipes. The Kalakand from Sandeepa's Bong Mom's Cookbook fit the bill perfectly. This was one of the first recipes I tried from any blog and I make it quite regularly. Only 2 ingredients and takes exactly 18 minutes, don't need to refer to the original recipe more than once - what more can I ask for? I have made this so many times that I almost think of it as my own recipe.

Ingredients:

Condensed Milk

Ricotta Cheese

(both ingredients should be of 1:1 ratio, I use 1 can condensed milk and use the same can to measure the ricotta cheese)

1/2 tspn cardamom powder (optional)

Sliced almonds or pistachios sliced for garnishing on top (optional)

Method:

Pour the condensed milk and ricotta cheese (and cardamom powder if adding) in a glass container and mix well. (try to make sure the mixture only half fills the container so it does not overflow while heating)

Microwave 5 minutes on high, mix well, Do this 3 times (so you have heated for 15 min)

Then heat for 1 or 2 min and mix well, till you find the mixture has dried siginficantly and has a kalakand-like texture. Make sure there is some mositre left as it gets a little drier on colling down.

Cut into squares, garnish with sliced nuts and enjoy!

I made this hoping it would be my entry for MBP-Sweets hosted by Coffee. But I completely forgot that the deadline was the 20th of the month, so I was way too late for the event. Nevertheless, I loved the excuse it gave me to make this delicious sweet and to eat it too!

Dimer Devil or Devilled Eggs Bengali style

I have been having trouble with blogger lately. It would just not let me upload any photographs. Not being very blog-savvy, I have been struggling with this for a couple of weeks now. I haven’t figured out what is wrong but do find using firefox instead of IE allows me to at least post to my much-neglected blog.

Bikeler jol-khabar or The Evening Snack on weekends had always been something to look forward to as I was growing up. My mother being a working mom of her generation, would usually cook something yummy for our family snack. Then the adults would sit down for their evening cuppa and the kids would attack the goodies. I hardly remember a weekend when we did not have friends or family over for at least one day. I really miss that here in the US. Everyone always seems so busy, it is very rare that I am surprised with an evening knock on the door from a friend or neighbor without calling in advance. So I thought of making something "jol-khabar"-ish for the family and relive some old happy memories.

Ingredients:

4 hard boiled eggs

4 -5 large potatoes boiled and mashed. (Needs to be enough to cover 8 egg halves)

2 red chillies (add more if your taste buds allow)

1 large onion, sliced.

2 cups besan or pakora mix

salt to taste

oil for deep frying

Method:

Fry the red chillies and keep aside

Mash the potatoes and red chillies together. Add salt to taste.

Fry the onion slices till they turn brown and mix well with the potato-chillies

Cut the boiled eggs into half lengthwise. (Back in India this is usually prepared using the whole, egg, I decided to reduce our egg-intake for the snack) Cover each egg-half with the potatoes as shown in the photo below.

Add a little water to make a batter with the besan. This should form a thick coating so don’t add too much water.

Dip the egg-potato ovals into the besan paste and coat well.

Deep fry in the pre-heated oil.

Enjoy with some ketchup or in my case home-made tomato-achar.

On a side note: I was surprised to find something called Devilled Eggs here in USA and how different it was from the Bengali version of Devilled Eggs. I love the American version too, but that I'll make some time later.