Onion Mushroom Quiche with Wheat Crust

Quiche is a baked dish of French Cuisine. It has a crust as the base and the filling made with milk, eggs and cheese is baked over the crust. This could be the introduction, that i can give you based on wiki. but my definition to it is, Quiche will taste like a Rich Egg Omelette. Yes The filling in the quiche normally has eggs, milk and cheese which gives the omelette taste. But this Onion Mushroom Quiche Tasted the best, with spring onions in it. the butter infused mushroom, onions and spring onions makes this Onion Mushroom quiche an Unbeatable One.

Quiche, somehow i got fascinated by the name and the way it looked. and it leaded me to try my hands on it six months back. but i made the pie crust with wheat flour, which came out crispier and without any guilt, we were able to eat the quiche. Last Weekend, i decided to prepare the Mushroom Quiche with All Purpose Flour/Maida, and it came out as per its law. very flaky and acted as a soft base to mushroom filling. But I like the Wheat Crust, which was crisp and nice. and so you see me blogging this quiche after 6 months.

Ingredients for the Wheat Crust:

Wheat Flour - 2 cup's + 2 tbsp(for dusting)
Cold Butter - 100 gms
Salt - a pinch
Baking Powder - 1/4 tsp
Ice water - 1/2 cup

How to Prepare the Crust/ Pie Shell?

Have Wheat flour in a wide bowl. Add salt and baking powder to the wheat flour and mix well. Slice the cold butter into thin slices. add to the wheat flour and mix well, so that all looks like Bread Crumbs. After that add chilled water and mix all the flour together to form a dough. Basic rule here is to not knead the dough too much, because kneading may reduce the gluten content in the dough. hence you wont get any flaky crust. After kneading them to a pilable dough, wrap the dough with a cling film and refrigerate for atleast 30min to 2 hrs. Just before baking the pie crust, remove them from fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 5-10 mins.

Pre-Heat the Oven at 180C. Roll the Crust Dough by dusting some flour. roll them out evenly. then line it over the Tart Pan. Leave enough heights for the shell, as it may shrink after baking. Trim the extra dough with a kitchen scissor. Line the Shell with a aluminium foil sheet. add uncooked rice or some Rajma or Chickpeas to give some weight over the shell, so that the crust dont raise, while baking and hence it gets evenly baked.

Bake the Pie crust for about 12-15 minutes at 250C in the bottom wrack of the oven. after baking the crust to golden colour, remove the foil sheet with the rice or some pulses carefully. let the pie shell rest in wire wrack.

Ingredients for the Filling:

Mushroom - 200 gms
Onions - 2
Spring Onions (Green Part) - 1 cup (chopped)

Butter - 2 tbsp
Pepper Powder - 1 tsp
Salt to taste

Eggs- 3
Milk - 1 cup
Cheese - 2 tbsp grated [Mozarella or Cheddar cheese]

* I added comparitively less cheese, but usually the recipe will call for atleast 1/4 of cheese.

How to Prepare the Filling?

Heat Butter in a Pan, add chopped onion and fry it. then add chopped mushroom and spring onions and saute them along. add salt to taste and pepper powder and give a mix. Reduce the flame and close the pan with its lid and let it rest in slow flame for about 5 minutes. This is to make the mushroom mix absorb the flavour of butter.

Beat the Eggs and add 1 cup of milk to it and mix well. also add cheese and give a mix.

Assembling the filling over the piw crust:

Take the Baked Pie crsut and layer it with the onion mushroom mix. then add milk+egg filling over the mushroom's. Now carefully transfer to the oven's middle wrack and bake the Quiche at 180C for about 40 mins.

After 40 minutes, insert a toothpick in the centre of the quiche and check whether it comes out clean, to know, its fully baked. if its not baked, bake it for another 5 minutes.

After baking, remove them from oven and let it rest for 5 mins and them remove the quiche from tha tart pan, to serve.

Baingan aur Mirch ka Saalan

Life has so many challenges ahead for us now. Right from Career, School for the kid,  everything is still on hold, and we are really fighting hard to play it all smoothly from the pause mode. Hope everything will get smoother. Other than that, had bloggers meet, where i got a chance of knowing all nice bloggers and now i can call them as blog-friends. every blog-friend were so sweet and nice. then my kid got holiday's, so i need not tell you all, why i was not spotted here often.

Holiday fever caught us and cooking new dishes becomes my job. As a Brinjal Fan, i was longing to prepare this Baingan aur Mirch ka Saalan. i got this recipe from Nita Mehta's Cook in Minutes. it was really made in minutes.close to quarter of an hour, if i need to mention the duration.

If you think, that this Gravy is a Spicy Dish, then you are wrong. Its Tangy and Thick Gravy. If you need it to be spicier, add some chilli powder or have a bite of green chilli's then and there while having the gravy;)
The fried soft brinjals compliment with the tanginess of the gravy, and i think thats the uniqueness of the gravy.

Recipe Source: Nita Mehta's Cook in Minutes
Ingredients:

4 Green Chilli's
5 Purple Brinjal's - sliced in round shape's (refer picture)
Tamarind paste - 2 tsp's
Chilli powder  - 1 tsp
5 tbsp Oil
1/4 tsp Mustard
1/2 Onion - finely chopped
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Thick Milk - 1/4 cup or Fres Cream - 2 tsp's

To Grind:

2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp peanuts
1 tsp grated coconut
6 flakes of garlic
1 inch of ginger
1 tsp Cumin
2 tsp's of corriander powder
a pinch of turmeric powder
Juice of half of a Lemon

 Grind the above all together into a smooth and thick paste with 2 tbsp of water.

Method:

Heat Oil in a Thick Bottomed pan, add slitted green chilli's and fry them. after frying remove it from oil.
Then add round sliced Brinjal's to the oil and fry them for 5-7 minutes till they are cooked and turn into golden colour. once the brinjals are cooked remove them from oil.

add mustard, curry leaves to the oil and let the mustard splutter. now add frinely schopped onion and fry them till they turn translucent.

Now add the grounded smooth paste and mix with the onions. add 2 cup's of water and tamarind paste and bring them to boil.

Then add the fried green chilli's and brinjals to the pan and mix well. Let the gravy simmer for another 2-3 minutes. Then remove the gravy from the flame and add 2 tsp of fresh cream or 1/4 cup of thick milk.

Serve with Rice or roti's.

Mixed Bean Soup

The Climate in chennai is Chill, with lots of Rain. For this chill climate, nothing other than soup on table makes you comfortable. As me and my son love to have soup, i find different soups from other blogs and create it at home. two days back i soaked lots of beans to prepare these mixed beans soup and then searched at many blogs and found the prepation is more similar to Indian Curry.

Most of the recipe called for some broths, you can use vegetable broth or just go with plain water, like what i made. the other ingredients mentioned in the recipe are, Chilli Powder, Corriander powder, cumin powder and little curry masala powder. Now say, does'nt it sound like Indian Curry Ingredients?

Beans to Soak:
soak 1/4 cup of each beans overnight.

Kidney Beans / Rajma
Cowpeas / Kaaramani
Brown Chickepas
Chickpeas
Mochai / Hyacinth

Ingredients:

Onions - 2
Tomatoes - 2
Garlic - 3 cloves
Bay leaf - 1
Cinnamon Stick - 1 inch
Cloves - 2
Olive Oil - 1tbsp
Dried Parsley or Oregano - 1 tbsp
Water or Vegetable  Broth - 3 cup's

Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Corriander Powder - 2tsp
Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp
Curry Masala Powder - 1/4 tsp (optional)

Method:

In a Wide Pressure Cooker, heat a tbsp of oil, add cinnamon stck, cloves, bayleaf and saute them. next add finely chopped onions and fry them, on next, add finely chopped tomatoes , crushed garlic pieces and mix along with onions and fry them.

Add chilli powder, salt to taste, corriander powder, cumin powder and curry masala powder and mix well with the onion-tomato mix.

Next add overnight soaked beans to the onion-tomato-masala mix and give a mix. add 3 cups of water and mix well. close the pressure cooker with its lid and put on its whistle and let the cooker be on high flame till it whistles 4-5 times. switch off the flame and let the pressure releases and open the cooker.

Sprinkle some Dried Parsley or oregano and serve hot.

I served the Soup with some Wheat Foccacia. It filled our tummy very much. With all the beans you get the necessay protein and energy. wheat gives the needed fibre content. It was a simple and hearty meal together.

Dinner Knots

Iam trying to make breads or work with yeast since 2008 december, thats when i bought my Microwave Convection Oven. I was not at all satisfied baking breads in convection mode. then i got my OTG, which did'nt disappoint me. I keep on trying stuffs with yeast, rather than cakes. On one of my try, these dinner knots came out so so so Perfect for me. They turned out so soft and Flaky. Now its here to be presented for you All..

Ingredients:

Active Dry Yeast - 1 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Warm Water - 1/2 cup
Warm Milk - 1/2 cup
Olive Oil - 1/4 cup
Egg - 1 beaten
Sea Salt - 1/2 tsp
All Purpose Flour / Maida - 3 and 1/4 cup (divided)

Egg Glaze:

1 egg
1 tbsp of water
Sesame seeds for topping

Method:

Warm half a cup of milk and dillute half a cup of warm water. Mix Sugar and Yeast with the dilluted milk and mix with a spoon. try to mix as much so that the yeast and sugar gets dissolved. close it and keep aside for 5 - 10 minutes, till frothy layer is developed due the activeness of the yeast.

Now in a wide bowl, add 1/4 cup of Olive Oil, add beaten egg to the oil and keep whisking with a whisk. add sea salt and whisk vigorously. Now add the yeast mix and keep whisking.

Now add 1/2 cup of flour and whisk, keep adding the rest of flour as half cup at a time. when the whisk clogs with the dough, shift to a wooden spoon and mix. then start mixing with hands and knead the doough for atleast 5 minutes. add little olive oil in the end and knead it once.

Take a Bowl, grease it with olive oil and place the kneaded dough and cover it and rest it for 1 and half hours atleast so that the dough gets doubled in size.

Line the baking tray with baking sheets. Pinch a small portion of the raised dough and roll it like a rope about 7 inch long and 1 inch wide.Now Cross one side of the rope over the other to form a Loop. Now take a tip of  the rope that is on top and tuck it under and through the centre hole to tie loosely into a knot. One of the rope should pop up through the loop hole.

Place the knots on the greased tray, each 2 inches apart from each other and cover loosely with a plastic wrap and let it rise for 10 minutes.

Pre-Heat the oven at 190C for 10 minutes and bake the dinner knots for about 18-20 minutes. Beat a Egg with 1 tbsp of water and with the help of a brush, brush it on top of the knots. and sprinkle some sesame seeds over then keep them on oven in broil mode for 3-4 minutes to get the browning effect on top.

Then Remove from the oven and let it cool and Serve.

I served these Dinner Knots with Jam to my kid and we had it with Soup. It was all together a New Dinner Experience for us on that Day!