Orange Chocolate Truffle

The holidays have always been a time when a little indulgence isn’t too bad.....especially if the treat is a rich and creamy chocolate truffle.

Named based on their resemblance in appearance to the French mushroom like fungus, Chocolate truffles have become identical with comfort and extravagant flavor experiences.

By definition, a truffle is considered a chocolate confection with a ganache center enveloped in milk , white or dark chocolate or simply cocoa powder.

The Swiss version of the truffle contains melted chocolate, cream and butter and is rolled into cocoa powder. I came across a simpler version of the recipe for the Swiss Truffle in Extending the table: A world community cookbook by Joetta Handrich Schlabach.

I added some ingredients along, and modified the recipe I originally set out with. The outcome has been very satisfying.

Orange Chocolate Truffle

I prefer something fruity in a truffle than ganache, nuts, coconut, caramel or toffee. So as an adaptation of the flavors in Terry’s Chocolate orange I added a few drops of orange liqueur and fresh orange zest to give these homemade truffles an additional burst of flavor.

A little orange zest certainly goes a long way with chocolate!

Ingredients

4oz semisweet chocolate
4 oz milk chocolate
4 table spoons heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon oil (sunflower/vegetable) or 1 tablespoon butter, unsalted
3-4 drops orange liqueur
¼ teaspoon fresh orange zest
Cocoa powder

Method:

Melt together in a double boiler semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate and cream , over low heat. Stir with a wooden spatula continuously till the chocolate melt.

( I used a stainless steel bowl placed on a water bath in a saucepan on low heat as my double boiler, to melt the chocolate and cream.)

Add butter and stir till it melts and blends well into the mixture. Add orange liqueur and orange zest, mix well, remove from heat.

Pour the mixture into a tray sprayed evenly with oil or cooking spray.

Allow to cool to room temperature for 5- 7 mins.

Refrigerate for 3-4 hours.

Finishing touch....

Spread evenly 2-3 tablespoons (heaped) of cocoa powder on work surface.

Remove the refrigerated mixture. Scoop a teaspoon full and make a small ball using fingers.

(The chilled mixture was a hard at first, but very easy to scoop with a spoon. Rolling it between palms or using fingers actually provided the heat to soften it)

Roll the ball into cocoa powder. Tap off excess cocoa powder. Store in container.

Repeat to make truffles of the remaining chilled mixture. Refrigerate up to 3-5 days.

(This recipe makes about 30-35 truffles, shape: as in the picture. The truffles have a short shelf life so its best stored in a refrigerator and consumed within a week .)

Truffle
Chocolate Truffles

Toor Dal Soup with Chicken

I have always been an ardent fan of the Mulligatawny Soup, but have been successful to a very limited extent to cook it myself at home and create the same flavor as that in restaurants in India. So I modified my list of ingredients and made a soup as an adaptation from Mulligatawny. My end product – something more than a soup and lighter than a stew. It's a satisfying meal by itself. And we’ve always loved having this during Fall and Winter.

Ingredients

2 teaspoons cooking oil (Canola/Vegetable)
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 Red pepper, cut lengthwise or julienned
¼ teaspoon cumin-coriander powder
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon turmeric powder (You could go easy on the Turmeric if you wish to)
¼ cup fresh or frozen peas
½ cup cooked Toor Dal
¾ cup low sodium chicken broth
¼ teaspoon lemon juice
½ cup water
¼ cup grilled chicken (cooked) cut into ¼ “ cubes ( I used store bought)
Salt to taste
Chopped fresh cilantro to garnish

Method

Heat oil in large pan. Sauté garlic, ginger, peas, grilled chicken and red peppers with tumeric and cumin-coriander powder, for 5-6 mins.

Blend cooked Toor Dal to a thick pulp in a bowl. Add to this pulp, chicken broth, water and lemon juice. Mix well.

Pour this into the sautéed mixture. Add salt to taste and cook on low heat, covered, for 7-8 mins.

Remove from heat, add freshly ground black pepper. Mix well. Garish with fresh cilantro. Serve hot.

This recipe serves 2-3.

If you prefer to avoid chicken, then you could add a tablespoon or two of cooked brown rice. I avoid chicken at times and add a table spoon of cooked brown rice. Plus I load it up with peppers- red, green and orange. At times I also add water or decrease the quantity of Toor Dal to reduce the consistency (like in the picture).

I came across JFI: Toor Dal hosted by Linda and decided to contribute this.

Pan De Higo ( Spanish Fig Bread)

Last week I was at TomTumb to pick up a few things for a party at home. I had picked up some dips and was looking for some vegetable crackers to go with it. Something that seemed different caught my eye - it was called – Spanish Fig Bread- by Matiz (Extremeno). It didn’t seem a bit like bread, rather looked like a bar of ground fig. I turned the package over to read the list of ingredients; it read ‘Figs, Honey, Walnuts, and Spices’. Quite interesting I thought, and picked it up. Priced at less than six dollars, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to experiment with it.



I got home and googled it as usual, using "Spanish Fig bread" and "Pan De Higo". I came across several links and some even mentioned that it goes well with wine. We usually have a bottle of Merlot or Pinot Noir at home, as we love adding it to food, more so to spaghetti and fettucine; so,without thinking twice, I decided to serve the combination for the evening.

Our guests loved it and so did we, though all of us were hesitant at first to try it with wine. There were so many different suggestions of how else to eat it,that it almost became the theme of our dinner.



I’m not quite sure why its termed as a “bread”; its more of a chunky fig fudge than a bread. The tiny pieces of blanched walnuts tasted mild but the figs and the spices for sure were stronger. The texture is more firm than a regular fig bar. And it goes absolutely well with parmigiano-reggiano , when served together with red wine. I would guess its a good palate cleanser as it breaks monotony of the salty cheese. In all, it wasn’t a bad choice at all, and its certainly great to be included in the holiday basket.

I found the recipe at Gildedfork really neat, if you do plan to try this one out.

For those of you who would like to try it out, its for sure its available at Tom Thumb (check the aisle/racks where they have dips). I also came across this product at the following links:

Cheese Supply

Matiz Espana

(I’m not very familiar with these sites, but just found them on Google. Please confirm the validity before you order)

This post is a part of Chow From The Food Aisle.

Chow from the Food Aisle

There have always been those times when I have just picked up something from the grocery aisle as a part of dinner, more so when we have friends or family over. It’s either been due to time crunch or something that I felt was attractive and could certainly add that extra pizzazz.

With so much going on in the food blog world, I have been thinking of a forum, for a long time now, where you could know about products that are ready to use but unique in what they offer…something that comes handy when you throw a party or need to send out as a gift of appreciation. This is was actually what got me into documenting details on food including the store bought stuff.

After having spent a long time in the ‘planning stage’, these entries are, at last, getting to see the light of the day on the chow chronicles. With the holiday season here I imagined this would be the perfect time to include this element - for, a little help from the grocery aisle can go a long way!

If you think there would a food item/food product that you found useful or interesting and would like to share with the rest of us, do feel free to email them to me. I’d be glad to include them.

Chow
-Eskay

Gajar Poli with Potato & Rice Chakli

This Diwali I decided to experiment a little with sweets and savories. I wanted to give them a slight twist from the regular ….but still have the festive spirit. I decided to enlist all the goodies I had eaten during Diwali. From the list, I decided on making Ubbati ( Obbatu/Puran Poli). I have been gorging on the left overs from the coconut ice cream from the weekend, and didn’t want to shoot up my cholesterol any further:) , hence was looking around for substitutes for coconut. I found the traditional Konkani recipe that calls for mixing Channa Dal and Jaggery for the filling, but it sounded too labor intensive. That's when I stumbled upon Gajar ka halwa on my list. Yeah! You guessed it right…I asked myself why not use this for the stuffing…and that is exactly how I landed up with my version of Gajar Poli. I made a very dry version of the halwa for the stuffing.

Savories are as much a part of the fesival as are sweets. I began skimming pages of Jaya V.Shenoy's "Dakshin Bharat Dishes" and came across this recipe for Potato Murku. I wasnt sure if it would turn out crisp, so I did a mish mash of recipes with Potato Murku and the one on a previous page - Rice flour Murku ( both can be found under the same section of the book). The Chaklis..a.k.a Murkus came out quite crunchy and the flavor of potato stood out.

Trust me, both of these are super easy..super simple…take very less time…and pretty decent too! This Diwali give it a try.

It was fun experimenting, so I thought I'd contribute this to Vee's JFS: Diwali .

Gajar Poli

For Stuffing:
2 ½ cups Carrots, chopped
1 ½ cups Milk
2/3 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Cardamom powder
1 tablespoon Almonds, blanched and finely chopped
1 tablespoon Clarified butter ( Ghee)

Method: In a food processor blend carrots and milk to a thick pulp. Heat clarified butter in a pan, add the carrot-milk pulp , sugar and cook together on low heat by stir continuously for 5 mins. Add almonds and cardamom powder, mix well. Cook on low heat, uncovered till dry. Remove from heat, set aside.

For the dough:
2 cups All Purpose Flour ( Maida)
3 tablespoons Oil ( Canola or Sunflower Oil)
A pinch of salt
A pinch Saffron soaked in 1 teaspoon water
Water as required

Method:
Mix all the ingredients with water. Knead well into a smooth non-sticky dough. Set aside for an hour.

To make Polis:
Flatten out small balls of dough. Place a teaspoon ( heaped) of filling in the center. Fold corners of the dough to center, engulfing the filling. Roll and flatten out into small–circular-thin polis. Cook on low heat using a griddle /crepe pan. Serve hot.

Potato & Rice Flour Chakli

Ingredients
2 ½ cup Potato flakes
1 teaspoon Chili powder
2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
2 tablespoon Unsalted Butter
½ cup All purpose flour (Maida)
2/3 cup Rice flour
A pinch of Asafoetida
Water as required
Oil for deep frying (Canola or Vegetable)

Method:
Sieve together All purpose flour and rice flour. Mix salt, cumin, butter and warm water. Add to the potato flakes, mix well. To this add the sieved flour mixture,asafoetida and knead well into a dough. Make sure that the dough is stiff and not watery. Make balls of the dough and add into the Chakli press ( choose the one with star shaped mould) and prepare small chaklis. Keep them 1” away from each other on parchment paper. Heat oil in a wok, add chaklis into the oil one by one. Deep fry till golden brown, by turning over a couple times. Allow to rest at room temperature and then store in air tight container.

Learnings: My first batch, I added them while hot into the air tight container..I realized they don’t remain crisp by doing so. Best way: bring chaklis to room temperature and then store.

On Bee's suggestion this picture my entry to the November Edition of Click. Thank you Bee!

Ginger in Syrup topped on Homemade Coconut Ice-cream

I came across Sunita’s blog on Jai & Bee’s JugalBandi. She has some really cool recipes and pictures up. I was especially impressed with her spice theme for the month and just decided to participate and give it a try.

Driving back from work, I thought to myself, how different could ginger be served, than in a curry, buttermilk, tea or pickle. I had tried “Candied Ginger” during the Holiday season last year, so thought of incorporating something more on those lines...a combination of spice and sugar....something different yet so “Gingery”:)
That’s when I felt an amalgamation of coconut and ginger would probably be cool....and came up with this ... Ginger in Syrup topped on home made Coconut Ice cream (That’s a mouthful....aint it:) ). I had never come across this before, so was paranoid about this experiment and decided to try it over the weekend.

I kept the ingredients a secret from my husband, and requested him to be the “Critic”. I was keeping my fingers crossed hoping he wouldn’t grade it a 1 (on a scale of 0-10, 10 being the best). To my surprise, his reaction on the first bite was “Is that Ginger!!!...the coconut does bring out the ginger. It’s flavorful! ” What astonished me the most was he helped himself to a second serving...and that to me was a sign that my ginger- coconut combo worked in harmony.
Perfecto!

So here you go....my contribution to Sunita’s Spice of the month Ginger.

Ingredients for Ginger in Syrup

½ cup Ginger, julienned
4-6 teaspoons sugar
½ cup water

Method:
Heat sugar and water in a wok. Add Ginger, stir continuously and bring to boil. Cook till the syrup condenses and becomes thick and sticky.
Pour over home made coconut ice-cream. Serve.
Enjoy!

Note: Make sure the syrup is warm. If you leave it to room temperature for a long time, it may solidify. In that case, add 2 teaspoons of water and heat on low for a few minutes.

Ingredients for the Coconut Ice cream

( After googling and skimming through a bunch of recipes for this I came across this website on which I based this version of the Coconut ice-cream )

2 cups Coconut cream (canned)
1 tablespoon Coconut powder
1 cup water
2 eggs beaten
2 eggs- Yolks only, no whites
1 teaspoon Coconut essence (Picked this up from a Asian grocery store)
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar

Method:
Roast coconut powder, without oil on low heat for 4-5 min, till light brown. Mix in Coconut cream and water in the wok and heat while stirring continuously for 5-6 min. Make sure you do not boil this mixture. Whisk together beaten eggs, egg yolk, essence, sugar and salt in a bowl. Boil the mixture, over a water bath (double boil over water). Blend in the warm coconut cream-water mixture into the above mix. Stir continuously till the mixture thickens and turns sticky. Remove, pour into a metal bowl and cool to room temperature. Freeze for about 1.5 hrs. Remove and beat into a smooth mixture (I used a hand held blender). Re-freeze for about 4-5 hrs before serving.

Top with the Ginger in Syrup!