Moroccan holiday bread

By each passing week, I am getting more and more confident in baking bread. I baked this moroccan holiday bread last weekend and it came out really good. I actually made it for Monday morning breakfast, but it got over within 1/2 an hour of coming out of oven. I adapted this recipe from Deeba's blog. The original recipe called for 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1/4 cup maize/corn meal. I instead added 1 cup all purpose flour and 1/2 cup maize flour. When I was kneading the flour, it was very sticky, so I added more all purpose flour till the dough came to a kneadable consistency .(around 1/4 to 1/3 cup)I also substituted milk with soy milk. Procedure wise, I changed a bit here and there.

Ingredients to make a loaf of Moroccan Holiday Bread

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All Purpose flour: 1 1/4 cups
Maize/Corn meal: 1/2 cup(I used maize flour)
Active dry yeast: 1 tbsp
Lukewarm water: 100 ml      
Soy milk: 100 ml
Sugar: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Sesame seeds: 2 tbsp(White or both black and white)
Olive oil/Refined oil for oiling the bowl and brushing the bread(optional)

Procedure
1. In a pan, heat soy milk to scalding and allow it to cool.
2. In a separate large bowl, mix together the flours, salt and the seeds.(keep few seeds for topping)
3. In a bowl combine the water, yeast and sugar and allow it to sit for 5 to 10 minutes. The yeast will become frothy.(If it doesn't, the yeast isn't active and its not worth proceeding any further.)
4. Once soy milk has cooled, add yeast mixture and soy milk to flour mixture and mix well.(Initially I added 1 cup APP flour, but the dough was very sticky and unmaneagable. So I added around 1/4 
to 1/3 cup APP flour which brought the dough to the right consistency)
5. Transfer the dough to a kneading surface and knead for 5 to 7 minutes and put into a well-oiled bowl and let rise for 1 hour or till it doubles in size.
6. After 1 hour, punch down and form a loaf and flatten slightly.
7. Place it on an oiled baking sheet(I lined the baking sheet with with butter paper instead of oiling) and allow to rise for 1/2 hour.
8. Preheat oven to 170 degree C(the original recipe called for 200 degree C)
9. Brush the top of the loaf with water, sprinkle seeds on top, & bake for 25 to 30 minutes until it's golden or a tooth pick inserted in the centre comes out clean.( I added water in the baking tray that came with the oven and place the baking sheet with the loaf on it)
10. Remove from oven, brush the top with olive oil and have it warm or once it is cooled down.

We had it with jam and it tasted too good. It was soft and at the same time a bit crunchy, I think because of the maize flour.
This is my entry to Priya's Cooking with seeds-Sesame Seeds event.

Vegan sandwich bread

This is the healthiest, easiset and the best sandwich recipe I have come across so far. This bread recipe is a keeper for beginners like me. There are 2 things that I learnt from baking this bread. a)Reduce the oven temperature by atleast 30 to 40 degree C if the recipe is from US.(their oven is entirely different from my OTG) b)Do NOT get tempted to slice the bread as soon as it comes out of oven. Leave the bread alone overnight and then take pictures of it gloriously.(though I knew this before, I implemented it this time. :-))
The bread looked hard from outside, but it was very soft from inside.(almost like the store bought wheat bread) I did not shape the bread properly, so the loaf was not uniform. I made this bread specially to make "bread pudding topped with strawberry compote" the recipe for which I will share in the next post. If you want to try out the pudding right away, do checkout Vaishali's blog..thats where I got the recipe.
Here is the recipe for sandwich bread as adapted from here..

Ingredients to make 1 medium sized loaf as adapted from here
Soy milk: 1 cup(I used the plain one)
Margarine or Oil: 1/8 cup(I used sunflower refined oil) 
Sugar: 1/4 cup + 1/8th tsp
Salt: 3/4 tsp
Lukewarm water: 1/8 cup
Active dry yeast: 1 tsp
All purpose flour/Maida: 1 1/4 cup
Wheat flour/aata: 1 1/2 cup

Procedure
1. In a bowl combine the water, yeast and 1/8th tsp sugar and allow it to sit for 5 to 10 minutes. The yeast will become frothy. (If it doesn't, the yeast isn't active and its not worth proceeding any further.)
2. Take oil, 1/4 cup sugar and salt in another bowl and keep aside.
3. In a separate pan, heat soy milk to scalding. 
4. Pour the milk into oil-sugar mixture.
5. After the soy milk mixture has cooled, add the yeast mixture to it. 
6. Then add 1/4 cup APP flour and beat about 200 times. I did this with a big spoon.Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes. 
7. Add 1 cup each of APP flour and wheat flour and beat well(I did this too with the sppon), then begin to mix with your hands.
8. If the dough is very sticky add the rest of the measured flour or enough to produce a consistency of dough that can be turned out onto a floured board.( I used the granite slab in the kitchen to knead the flour)
9. Knead for 5 to 7 minutes, and put into a well-oiled bowl and let rise for 1 hour. 
10. After 1 hour, punch down and form a loaf. 
11. Place it on an oiled loaf pan and allow to rise for 1/2 hour. 
12. Preheat the oven to 160 degree C(the original recipe called for 190 degree C)
13. Brush the top of the dough with some oil and place the loaf pan in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until the top is beginning to brown. (I also inserted a skewer in the centre and checked that it came out clean.)
14. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool completely.

Enjoy the fresh homemade bread with jam, as a sandwich or as bread pudding which I did.

Vegetable mayo french roll sandwich

I once again made Arundhati's french roll and as usual, it came out flawless. This time I made vegetable mayaonnaise salad adapted from here and sandwiched it between the french roll. The result was a very delicious vegetable mayo sandwich. It was not only delicious but also very filling. With just two french roll sandwiches for each, we were full.

I have already given the recipe for french roll here.

Here goes the recipe for vegetable mayo salad.

Ingredients to fill 8 french rolls.

Vegetables: 1 cup (Carrot, cucumber, capsicum and tomato cut into small cubes.)
Coriander Leaves: 1 tbsp (chopped)
Pepper powder: as per taste
Salt to taste
Eggless Mayonnaise: 3 tbsp (vary the quantity if needed to bring the salad to almost spreadable consistency)

Procedure

Mix all the above ingredients together.

To make the sandwich

1. Cut the french roll into two halves.
2. Apply mayonnaise salad on one side of the roll and keep the the other half on top of it.

This is a very good breakfast recipe. Instead of frech roll ordinary bread can also be used.

Aloo tikki Pav/French roll

I made this Pav a while ago following the recipe provided by Arundhati and it came out so well, I desperately wanted to make it once again. But I did not make any side dish to be eaten with Pav at that time and we just applied the left over cake icing on the pav and ate.

My parents have come and so I made this Pav once again..Though the left over icing is still there(:-)) I wanted to make something else as side dish.. Thought of making bhaaji, but I did not have the required ingredients..Then thought of making the vada that is given with pav, but that is deep fried and did not want to make that too.

Suddenly an idea stuck, why not make aloo tikkis that can be sandwiched between the pav and eaten…Generally if I make something new, I search the food blogs for recipe..But for these aloo tikkis that I wanted to make I did not search the net and thought of making it on my own because I had very minimal ingredients and I would not be able to do justice to the original recipe even if I made.

So here goes the recipe for Pav and aloo tikki

Pav

Original recipe from Arundhati’s blog.

Ingredients

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All purpose flour/Maida: 600 gms(this time I used equal quantities of wheat flour and maida. Initially I used only 500 gms. But it was very sticky, hence I added some more till the dough became workable which was another 100 gms.) Dry active yeast: 1 tbsp Sugar : 2 tbsp Water: 350 litres (some more to sprinkle on the dough if it is too dry.) Refined Oil: 2 tbsp Procedure

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1. In lukewarm water add yeast and sugar.In 15 minutes, there will be a layer of yeast froth formed.If this does not happen, the yeast isn’t active and the dough might not rise.) 2. Then add the yeast water to half the quantity of flour and mix well.(I generally make the batter using hands only, ie: don’t use spatuala or ladle) 3. Now add the remaining flour little by little and keep mixing. Water might not be sufficient and some water can be sprinkled to bring the dough together.I also added 1tbsp of oil during this stage. This is when I added the extra 100 gms of flour making the overall quantity to 600 gms. 4. Bring the dough to a kneading surface(it’s the granite slab in the kitchen for me) and knead for 15 minutes.(I knead for 15 minutes, but the original recipe called for kneading around 10 minutes) 5. Apply another tbsp of oil all over the dough and cover it with a thin cotton cloth and allow it to raise for 1 hour and until the dough doubles in size. 6. Deflate the dough gently and make around 12 balls of equal size and place the balls in the baking tray. See to it that they don’t touch each other Cover the tray with a thin cotton cloth and allow the dough to rise for another 45 minutes. 7. Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees C. 8. Place baking tray in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. 9. Apply butter on top of the pav as soon as it is removed from the oven.

Aloo tikki

Ingredients

Potatoes:  3 large, boiled and mashed, to make 12 tikkis, equal to the number of pavs
Red chillie powder:  a little less than ¼ tsp. We generally don’t eat spicy stuff.According to individual taste more can be added.
Chat masala powder:  a little less than ¼ tsp
Salt to taste
Masala powder:  a little less than ¼ tsp
Rusk:  around 10 pieces nicely ground
Sooji:  1 tbsp Refined oil to shallow fry the aloo tikkis

Procedure

1. Mix all the above ingredients except rusk with the mashed potatoes.
2. Make 12 balls of equal size.
3. Flatten each ball with the palm and smother both sides of the ball in the rusk powder and shallow fry in a hot tava by applying some oil.

To make aloo tikki pav

1. Cut the pav into two halves.
2. Keep one tikki on one side of the pav.
3. Put some sauce on top of the tikki.(Can add onion, tomato, chutney etc too) and keep the other half on top of it.

Delicious aloo tikki pav is ready. This recipe could be a good choice for small b'day parties.

Note: Though my family members liked the wheat taste in the pav, I prefer the original maida pav.