Miscellaneous Specials VIII

(Contd. from previous posting)

FalUdA and KESar Kulfi

Ingredients 

Rose syrup/RUh AfzA Takmaria/SabjA/FalUdA/Basil seeds Fresh creamy milk Chopped almonds and piStA nuts Sugar Corn flour vermicelli Vanilla ice cream/KESar Kulfi

3 tbs 100 gms 500 ml 2 tbs 150 gms q.s. 150 gms

Method

First prepare the rose syrup or RUh AfzA as discussed in our previous posting or else you can buy from the shop if readily available. Similarly you can buy or prepare vanilla ice cream. Soak the basil seeds (aka by other names as mentioned above) in water for an hour. Let us see how corn flour vermicelli or falUdA noodles are prepared. Dissolve 100 gms of corn flour in 100 ml water without any lumps. Add to this 500 ml water again and heat under simmered flame. Stir constantly for 15 minutes till the mixture turns thinner and becomes translucent. Put off heat and keep ready ice cold water in a basin. Over it hold a big holed strainer and pour into it this corn flour liquid. Just press the liquid by the bottom of a flat ladle. Alternately you can thicken the corn flour and use a savoury press to make needles to fall into the cold water. You can also fry the vermicelli in a little ghI and boil it in water and then strain under cold water to get separate noodles.  Some people use “Chaumin”, the Chinese noodles. Now take glasses required and pour the rose syrup/ RUh AfzA into them, place falUdA noodles and soaked seeds equally. Whip the milk and pour equally over them. Top each glass with vanilla ice cream or kESar kulfi and garnish with the chopped nut pieces fried in ghI.

 

          SabjA or Basil Seeds                           FalUdA Noodles

    FAlUdA

If you do not get KESar Kulfi readily, you can prepare it as follows:

Ingredients

Fresh creamy milk Castor sugar Powdered cardamom Corn flour Saffron strands

1 litre 100 gms ¼ tsp 1 tbs A few

KESar Kulfi

Method

First soak the saffron strands in a little warm milk as usual and keep aside. Remove lumps if any from corn flour, add the sugar and dissolve this in a little water. Heat the milk and when it starts boiling, simmer the flame and remove. Pour the milk gradually over the corn flour solution and stir simultaneously. Heat this over the simmered flame to reduce it to half the quantity and stir constantly. Thereafter put off the fire and cool. After it cools down, add the powdered cardamom and the soaked saffron strands with the milk. Mix thoroughly. Whip gently and either pour on a tray or into kulfi moulds. Freeze overnight or till the kulfi sets well.

(Concluded)

Miscellaneous Specials VII

(Contd. from previous posting)

Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients

Variation I 

Fully ripe sweet banana pulp Castor or powdered sugar Fresh orange juice Fresh lemon juice Fresh milk cream Fresh milk GMS CMC

1 cup 150 gms ¼ cup 1 tbs 1 cup 1 cup 1 tsp ½ tsp

Method

Mix GMS with a little milk and CMC with a little sugar and keep aside. Peel the banana and remove the pulp and blend it nicely. Keep the pulp aside. In place of lemon juice you can use ½ tsp citric acid crystals. Boil the milk and cool. Dissolve sugar into it gradually. Take a cup of banana pulp and mix to this and blend. Add to this the other ingredients and mix well. Follow the other procedure like freezing, whipping at intervals and finally freezing.

Variation II 

Fully ripe sweet banana  Fresh milk Fresh milk cream Almonds Cashew Nut fried in ghI Custard powder Castor or powdered sugar Citric acid crystals GMS CMC

2 Nos 500 ml ½ cup 5 6 2 tbs 150 gms ¼ tsp 1 tsp ½ tsp

BanAnA Ice Cream

Method

Mix the sugar with the custard powder without lumps and dissolve this in a little milk. Keep aside. Freeze the milk cream with a little sugar. Soak the almonds in hot water. After it is soaked well peel the brown skin and keep aside. Mix GMS in a little milk and the CMC in a little sugar. Keep them also aside. Heat the milk and when it starts boiling simmer the flame and add the custard powder cum sugar milk mixture gradually and stir constantly. After 5 minutes, remove from fire and cool. Peel the banana, add citric acid crystals and soaked almonds. Mix it well into the cooled milk. Whip the frozen cream and mix with this. Add the GMS and CMC. Whip all these and freeze for 30 minutes. Freeze again to whip after 30 minutes. Break the fried cashew nut into small pieces. Place the finally whipped mixture over the tray and garnish with fried cashew nut pieces. Freeze for 1 hour or till the contents become solid. While scooping ensure that each cup gets the topped nuts.

You can prepare ice creams from other pulpy fruits in similar manner.

Bread BAdam MalAi Ice Cream

Ingredients 

Fresh creamy milk Sweet milk bread loaves Castor Sugar PiStA and cashew nuts Cardamom powder Almonds KESar yellow colour powder Vanilla essence GMS CMC

1 litre 50 gms 100 gms 2 tbs ¼ tsp 2 A pinch ¼ tsp ½ tsp ¼ tsp

Method

Heat the milk to boil and reduce the quantity to half under simmered flame after it starts boiling. Put off the fire. Cool it down. Remove the crust from the bread and soak the white portion only in a little of the above reduced milk. Soak almond in water and peel the skin later. Mix GMS with a little milk and CMC with sugar. Keep aside. Now blend the soaked bread and almonds nicely and mix to the milk with sugar well. Mix other ingredients except the nut also thoroughly well. Freeze, whip in two intervals and finally freeze after garnishing the top with ghI fried nut pieces.  You can also use some saffron strands for garnishing.

Bread BadAm MalAi Ice Cream

You can use corn flour mixed in milk as well as a little MAwA (KhoA)in place of the bread but always add the milk to the corn flour or custard powder mix instead of the vice versa.

Jell-O Ice Cream

Ingredients 

Gelatine flakes Sugar Milk Cream Fresh Creamy Milk Water Vanilla essence PiStA green colour

50 gms 100 gms 100 gms 500 ml q.s. ½ tsp 6 drops

Jell’o Ice Cream

Method

For this type of ice cream you can use any essence and appropriate colour. All you need to remember is: Never mix dissolved gelatine flakes and the milk in hot condition but in completely cold condition since the milk otherwise would curdle.

Heat milk and let it boil. After ten minutes put off the fire and cool the milk. Add half the colour to the milk along with vanilla essence and milk cream. Freeze, whip twice at intervals. 

Dissolve gelatine and strain. Allow it to cool. Add the remaining portion of the colour to the dissolved gelatine and mix well.

Now pour the finally whipped milk mixture over the jelly prepared and freeze till it solidifies into ice cream.

(To conclude)

Jams, Morabbas, Squashes and Sauces XV

(Contd. from previous posting)

Tomato Ketchup

Preparation time: 45 minutes   Shelf life: 6 months if refrigerated

Ingredients

Ripe but firm tomatoes Onion Garlic Ginger Sugar Red chilli powder Garam MaSAlA Cumin seeds powder Black pepper powder Salt Citric acid crystals Vinegar (white) Sodium Benzoate Red colour

1 kg 25 gms 3 cloves ½ inch piece 100gms 1 tsp ½ tsp ¼ tsp ¼ tsp to taste 1 tsp 2 tbs ½  tsp a few drops

Method

Wash and clean the tomatoes well and blanch them in piping hot water for 10 minutes and then keep them in cold water for a few minutes. Peel the skin and mash on a sieve to remove the seeds. Collect the juice and segregate the pulp to be added to the juice. To this add grated onion, ginger after scrapping its skin, and mashed garlic. Grind in a food processor and strain squeezing the contents. To this add 1/3^rd of sugar and boil. Powder the garam maSAlA, cumin seeds and pepper after sautéing them and boil with red chilli powder adding a little water. Filter this and add to the boiling tomato juice mixture. After the whole contents thicken, add the citric acid crystals, remaining sugar and salt. Keep stirring constantly to enable the contents achieve the consistency of ketchup. Remove from the fire. Now add the colour, vinegar and sodium benzoate dissolved in a little water. Mix well and fill in the bottles after the contents cool, leaving head room as usual before closing with airtight lid.

Tomato Ketchup 

Variation

You can add one or two pieces of clove (Lavang), 2 bulbs of cardamom (Elaichi) and a small piece of cinnamon (Dalchini) to the spice group for more pep. In that case either you can omit garam maSAlA or retain it. If the contents or thin, you can mix a little corn flour in cold water and add to the contents to the boiling mixture just before removing it from the fire.

In all the preparations, always taste a little to adjust the deficient ingredients like citric acid, salt and sugar.

Tomato Chilli Ketchup

 Preparation time: 45 minutes   Shelf life: 6 months if refrigerated

Ingredients

Ripe but firm tomatoes White Onion Garlic Red chillies  (Medium) Coriander seeds powder Salt Vinegar (white) Corn flour Sodium Benzoate Red colour

1 kg 25 gms 2 cloves 15 1 tsp to taste 4 tbs 2 tbs ½  tsp a few drops

Tomato Chilli Ketchup

Method

Proceed as above to extract tomato juice with pulp without seeds. Make a paste of red chillies, garlic and onion with coriander seeds powder. Add all these with salt and boil for 30 minutes and strain. Mix the corn flour in a little cold water well and add to the above and boil all again simmering the flame till the contents become thicker. Remove from the fire. Add vinegar, sodium benzoate dissolved in a little water and the colour. Taste and adjust ingredients that seem to be deficient. If need be heat for some time and bottle after the contents become cold leaving head room before closing with airtight lid.

(Concluded)

Jams, Morabbas, Squashes and Sauces XIV

(Contd. from previous posting)

Tomato Sauce

Version II

Ingredients

Ripe but firm tomatoes Sugar Red chilli powder Clove (Lavang) Onion Cinnamon Garlic  Ginger Salt Citric acid crystals Vinegar (white) Sodium Benzoate Red colour

2 kgs 125 gms 1 tsp 4 1 (small) a small piece 6 cloves ½ inch piece to taste 2 tsps ¼ cup 1½ tsps a few drops

Method

Follow the above procedure exactly. Here you need to add onion after peeling and chopping along with ginger and garlic. Similarly, you need to powder the cinnamon and clove and add with sugar.

By increasing the quantities of chilli or garlic you can prepare Tomato chilli or tomato garlic sauce.

Tomato Red Chilli Sauce

Preparation time: 45   minutes   Shelf life:  1 year if refrigerated

 Ingredients

Ripe & firm tomatoes Red chilli (dried) Cloves Mustard seeds White vinegar Sugar Salt Citric acid crystals Corn flour Pectin (INS#440) Glacial acetic acid (INS #260) Sodium Benzoate Tomato Red colour

250 gms 50 gms 2 1 tsp ¼ cup 1 tbs to taste 1 tsp 1 tsp 1 tsp 1 tsp 1 tsp a few drops

Tomato Chilli Sauce

Method

Remove the stalks from the red chillies and grind with salt and sugar. Keep aside.  Prepare tomato puree by blanching in piping hot water for 10 minutes, placing in cold water, peeling the skin, mashing through a sieve to deseed and take only the pulp and juice and use a food processor to grind. Grind the cloves and mustard seeds and tie in a clean muslin cloth. Boil some water and place it this muslin pack. After the contents boil for 15 minutes, remove, squeeze the pack to extract the concentrate and then remove the pack. Wash the cloth and again strain the clove cum mustard liquid to get clear liquid. Boil the tomato puree, chilli-salt-sugar powder, clove-mustard liquid in water for 10 minutes with citric acid crystals. Keep stirring. Remove and strain. Boil now with corn starch and pectin dissolved in a little water till the entire sauce becomes thicker. Remove and when warm add vinegar, acetic acid, preservative dissolved in water and red colour. Mix well. Cool and then bottle tightly with a lid allowing head room as usual. Use after a week tossing daily once.

  Tomato Garlic Sauce

Note: If you replace chillies with garlic you can have Tomato Garlic Sauce and if you lessen chillies and include garlic cloves and garlic powder you can prepare Tomato chilli garlic sauce. This way you can prepare any sauce.

(To conclude)

Jams, Morabbas, Squashes and Sauces XIII

 

(Contd. from previous posting)

In this posting I am going to discuss with sauce and ketchup. Generally sauce is thinner than ketchup and without spices. I have seen in a factory that makes a famous brand of tomato sauce hardly tomato is used. What they use is raw papaya for pulp portion, add a few tomatoes and its essence plus colour. This is when the tomatoes are costlier than papaya! Here, however, I am going to discuss only the natural product as we did in other postings for having better taste to maintain health. The procedure will be the same for all sauces and ketchups and so are the ingredients. Some ingredients may be included or left as per the case may be and as per the choice.

Sauces

Mixed Vegetables Sauce

Preparation time: 45   minutes   Shelf life:  2 months if refrigerated

Ingredients

Mixed vegetables pieces* Green pumpkin or papaya Potato Onion Ginger Garlic Sugar Salt Red chillies Garam MaSAlA Cumin seeds Black Pepper Tamarind (or) Citric acid crystals** Vinegar (white) Sodium Benzoate Raspberry colour

200 gms 750 gms 150 gms 50 gms 20 gms 10 gms 150 gms 25 gms 10 gms 5 gms 5 gms 30 gms 100 gms or 1 tsp 2 tbs 1 tsp a few drops

     * Carrot, raw mango (or tomato), beet root, radish and green peas

   ** Take either tamarind or C.A. crystals but not both.

Method

Peel carrot, beetroot, raw mango, radish, green pumpkin or papaya, potato, onion, ginger and garlic. Remove the stalk of red chilli. In the case of tomato just blanch for 10 minutes in piping hot water and peel the skin. Pass the pulp through a sieve to allow the juice and flesh but not the seeds. In the case of other vegetables, pressure cook them and mash. Now mix the tomato juice, pulp and the mashed vegetables with 1 litre of water after adding sugar. Boil and keep stirring. Add tamarind extract or citric acid crystals. After a few minutes of boiling, strain to remove sediments and again boil. Meanwhile, powder the spices and boil separately. Strain this also and add to the boiling sauce mixture. Add salt and keep stirring till you get not very thick or very thin consistency say, like the sugar syrup. Remove from the fire, add the preservative dissolved in a little water, vinegar and colour. Mix well. Bottle when cool, allowing as usual some head room for expansion.

Mixed Vegetables Sauce 

Note: Never add the preservatives directly but after dissolving them in a little water.

To strengthen the shelf life and the thickness, the commercial preparations have emulsifying and stabilizing agents.  

Stabilizing agent             : Pectin (INS# 440); Maize starch (INS# 1422) or Corn flour, Arrow root powder, fine mustard seeds powder which contains lethicin.

Emulsifying agent             : Citric acid crystals, Glacial acetic acid (INS   #260)

Class II preservative          : Sodium Benzoate (INS# 211)

The famous sauces are tomato, tomato chilli and chilli garlic sauces. If you increase the chillies, the sauce becomes hotter.

Tomato Sauce

Preparation time: 45   minutes   Shelf life:  1 year if refrigerated

Version I

Ingredients

Ripe but firm tomatoes Sugar Red chilli powder Garlic   Ginger Salt Citric acid crystals Vinegar (white) Sodium Benzoate Red colour

2 kgs 250 gms 1 tbs 4 cloves ½ inch piece to taste 2 tsps 4 tbs 1½ tsps a few drops

 Tomato Sauce

Method

Wash and clean the tomatoes and blanch them in hot piping water for 10 minutes. Then drop them in cold water for 2 minutes and peel the skin. Mash over a sieve and deseed, allowing the pulp and the juice only. Chop the ginger after scrapping the skin and add to this strained liquid. Mash garlic after removing the skin and add along with chilli powder. Add water, sugar and citric acid crystals and cook stirring constantly, till the contents become smooth and sugar dissolves, allowing to boil for 10 minutes. Strain after it cools and boil again adding the salt, stirring till the contents become homogeneous and syrupy. Remove from fire and when warm add vinegar, colour and the preservative dissolved in water. Mix well and bottle when cool.

(To conclude)

Jams, Morabbas, Squashes and Sauces XII

(Contd. from previous posting)

Sometime we prepare cocktails of fruits as follows. Instead of tasting single fruit, we taste here mixed fruits.

Mixed Fruits Cocktail

 Preparation time: 45 minutes Shelf life:  6 months to 1 year   

Ingredients

Pineapple juice Orange juice Lemon juice Ginger juice Water Sugar  Cocktail essence* Colour KMS

400 ml 300 ml 250 ml   50 ml 1 Ltr 2 Kgs        2 tsp optional ½ tsp

* Cock tail essence is prepared by mixing 8 mls of pineapple, 6 mls of

orange and 6 mls of lemon essences together.

Now prepare the mixed fruit squash following the procedure for preparing squash exactly. When serve constitute adding water to the concentrated syrup water as explained for squashes.

Syrups

We had seen so far how fresh jams, jellies, morabbas and squashes are prepared from natural fruits. There are MNCs that advertise about their products stating that they prepare from original natural fruits without any chemical substances but it is not true. Hence it is better to prepare these at home to be sure.

Sometimes we may not have these readily available and exhaust the stock. In such cases, the syrups prepared will help us. These are nothing but artificial juices of the fruits. Here we take the required quantity of sugar with water and boil with a few citric acid crystals to get syrup of single thread consistency. The scum is removed by filtering over a fine clean muslin cloth and to this raw syrup we add appropriate fruit essence and colour to prepare the syrup of that fruit. Normally, the best ones are orange, lemon, rose, pineapple, raspberry, khus khus syrups prepared as above from their essences and colour.

1. Mango 2. Orange 3. Grape 4. Apple 5. Lemon 6. Raspberry

The famous Roohafza syrup is prepared as follows:

 

Roohafza 

Prepare sugar syrup as above. To this add 3% of Rose, 2% of Kevda and 1% of khus khus essences mixed prior hand together along with a few drops of either raspberry red or Tartrazine red colour. Shake well and refrigerate.

A number of drinks are prepared from this (Google and find) of which the following sharbat is very famous in Pakistan:

 Sherbat E Roohafza

To serve: 12 Preparation time: 15   minutes    

Ingredients

Finely crushed cashews Finely crushed pistachios Finely crushed almonds Saffron Cardamom seeds Sugar Milk Vanilla Essence Roohafza

25 gms 25 gms 25 gms a few strands ½ tsp ½ kg 1½ Ltrs     ½ tsp ½ cup

Sherbat E Roohafza

Method

Boil the milk to remove excess water and to become moderately thick. Cool. Add Roohafza and sugar to milk little by little and stir well till they dissolve. Taste and adjust sweetness by adding a little more sugar and Roohafza if needed. Add vanilla extract. Mix well and refrigerate overnight. Just 10 minutes before serving, take a little of the milk and mix in it the saffron strands well and add to the sharbat already refrigerated. Crush the nuts into a bit coarse powder after frying them in a little ghI powder the cardamom with a little sugar. Add these also and then serve. It is very tasty if you sip slowly.

(To conclude)

Jams, Morabbas, Squashes and Sauces XI

(Contd. from previous posting)

Marmalades

Marmalades are nothing but fruit jellies or jams with the peels of those fruits added to them in the form of annular rings, shreds or slices. Thus, we can prepare lemon, orange, mango, pineapple etc marmalades. The peels, slices etc are also to be added when the jams are jellies are boiling with sugar in the processing stages.

 

Marmalades

Squashes

Squashes are a concentrated form of fruit beverages. They are normally consumed after reconstitution with water to the extent of 3 to 4 times. But the taste will not be sweeter as such you may have to add some sugar before serving. They are preferred because of their ready to serve nature. Among the squashes Orange, mango, pineapple, lemon and grapes are the most commonly consumed in the order of preference.

Let us see how commercially the squash is manufactured. In the case of the famous “Noga” (Nagpur Orange Growers Association) brand Orange Squash, ripe fruits with loose skin are taken. The outer jackets of the oranges are peeled manually. The rag sticking to the segments is removed as it creates some bitterness in the juice if allowed to remain. The segments are passed through the juice extractor for juice. The juice is kept separately. In the jacketed vessels, sugar, citric acid and water are mixed together and heated. The solution is cooled and filtered through cloth. The clear syrup is mixed with the juice and stirred till a uniform solution is obtained. To improve the end product, small quantities of appropriate essence and colours are added finally, stirred to get a perfect homogenous mix. After mixing all ingredients, the preservatives potassium meta-bi-sulphite is to be added. The compound dissolved previously in small quantities of juice is added and mixed thoroughly. The squash is then filled in washed and sterilised bottles leaving about one inch space as head room. The bottles are then closed with airtight lid. They are then stored in a cool dry place. The product keeps well for one year without change in colour or taste.

In the same way, we prepare the squashes at home also not only from the above fruits but also from others. But there are slight differences that you may note as you read further.

For preparing squash we need 25% filtered/strained fruit juice, 40% sugar and 35% water, i.e. juice: sugar: water::5:8:7. The procedure varies from fruit to fruit for preparing juice.

As explained in the previous postings, extract the juice of the fruit according to the nature of the fruit, strain or filter as the case may be and measure its volume. Then add sugar and water in the proportion mentioned above. For instance, if the extracted juice measures 500 gms, then take 800 gms of sugar and 700 gms of water.

Keep the juice aside and do not add sugar or water to it. Instead, just add sugar to the water only as calculated, stir well and heat. Allow it to boil while stirring constantly. When it starts boiling, add citric acid and mix well. Remove from fire. Filter this sugar syrup with citric acid and add the filtered fruit juice to this syrup. If preferred, add suitable colour and appropriate essence. Out of this, just take 2 tablespoonfuls and mix thoroughly to it the preservative – potassium meta bisulphite (KMS) – and again drop it to the whole mixture of squash to mix again. Now fill up sterilized bottles or jars leaving head room for expansion before sealing airtight.

Remember that the preservative KMS is not added to all squashes but to certain fruits only. For the rest we use SB, sodium benzoate. This may be evident from the table provided below for ready reference.

If you have 1500 ml juice of the fruit, you may get 6000 ml of squash.

If the fruit juice is sour, then reduce the quantity of citric acid and if bland, increase.

  

                  Orange Squash                                Pineapple Squash

Grape Squash

 

                     Lemon Squash                                    Mango Squash

Fruit	Qty of juice	CA*	Sugar	Water	Colour	Essence	Preser vative**
Orange	1 Ltr	4 to 6 tsps	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Orange	Orange	KMS ½ tsp
Musambi	1 Ltr	5 tsps	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Orange/Tartrazine yellow	Orange + Lemon	KMS ½ tsp
Pineapple	1 Ltr	4 tsp	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Martazine yellow	Pine apple	KMS ½ tsp
Grapes	1 Ltr	4 tsp	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Light green black berry purple Martazine	Black currant	SB ½ tsp
Lemon	1 Ltr	-Nil-	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Lemon yellow	Lemon or lemon grass	SB ½ tsp
Mango	1 Ltr	4 tsp	1.6 Kgs	1.4 Ltrs	Tratrazine or Martazine red	Mango	SB ½ tsp
Blackberry	1 Ltr	4 tsp	2 Kgs	1 Ltr	Purple or black berry	Black  or rasp berry	SB ½ tsp

Note:

  *CA – Citric Acid Crystals

**KMS – Potassium meta bisulphite

**SB – Sodium Benzoate

(To conclude)