Please potter about the site and check out the new features. If you have any problems, you know where to find me.

Get your taste buds ready, I’m back in business.

How have you been? I’ve missed hearing from you all so much!

The post A Whole New World appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

I’m redesigning a brand new KO Rasoi. Not that there’s anything wrong with the one I hold so close to my heart right now, but I want to add more functionality and give you all a better site to potter about.

Before this, I had looked into getting it done professionally but I’m such a fusspot and very particular about things. It has to be just right.

I will be popping back from time to time, adding a couple of new recipes here and there but until the new site launches, I hope you can bear with me and stay tuned for our bright new future together.

In the meantime, if you’re at all interested in my daily musings, food-related chit chat with just a little of the real, unedited Sanjana thrown in, follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook. Would love to see you there.

The post Gone, But Not For Long appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

The post Eggless Wedding Cakes appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Did I just refer to myself in the third person? Sorry.

Ever wanted to know my earliest kitchen memory? Or perhaps what elements define real Gujarati cooking? If so, please take a quick peek at my interview with food blogger extraordinaire, Sabjimata.

Keep your eyes peeled for my simplest ever Gujarati potato curry in the next recipe post.

The post Sanjana’s Q&A with Sabjimata appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Happy Thursday, readers. You’re probably wondering why on earth I’m posting on a weekday. No, I don’t have a day off to chillax with a steaming cuppa chai. Sob.

Ingredients

200g milk chocolate, chopped finely
120ml double cream
2-3 tsp framboise liqueur
Raspberries and icing sugar to decorate

For the shortbread

125g butter, room temperature
180g plain flour
1 tsp lemon zest
2 drops of lemon extract (optional)
65g caster sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top of the shortbreads

Method

1. To make the puddings, heat the cream in a saucepan until just before boiling point. Remove from the heat.

2. Add the chopped chocolate and framboise liqueur to the cream. Stir the mixture very gently until all of the chocolate has melted.

3. Pour into small ramekins (they’re very rich!), top with a few raspberries and allow to cool. After around 20 minutes, place the ramekins in the fridge until 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve.

4. To make the shortbreads, preheat the oven to 150°C.

5. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon zest and essence.

6. Sift in the flour and roughly combine. Using your hands, bring the mixture together to form a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

7. Remove from the fridge, roll out on a floured surface to around 3-5mm in thickness. Cover the disc in cling film and return to the fridge for a further 15 minutes.

8. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter (or any other cutter you may want to use), cut out your shortbread shapes. Place on a greased and lined baking sheet and, using a fork, prick holes into your shapes. Cut larger holes in the top if you wish to tie them with a pretty ribbon once cooled.

9. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for around 12-14 minutes.

10. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Tie with ribbon, if using.

Note: Don’t let your shortbreads brown too much (a little golden tinge around the edges is fine). If you find they’re overbrowning, turn your oven down and bake on the bottom rack for a little while longer.

Dust the puddings with icing sugar immediately before serving.

The post Eggless Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Puddings appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

2010 was such a fantastic year for KO Rasoi and I think the recipes which attracted the most attention from you guys deserve to be featured again. The spotlight will be shone on the most viewed and searched for recipes on KO Rasoi last year.

Collecting this data gave me such an insight into what you’ve been looking for and what whets your appetite. It also taught me a few things about myself, mostly that I’m a cheesecake freak and have no self control. Like me, you love your paneer and you love desserts. High five.

Put your seatbelts on, this is going to be a mouthwatering visual rollercoaster. I’m not entirely sure if you’ll be able to handle it, actually.



The post KO Rasoi’s top 10 recipes of 2010 appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Sorry about the OMG. As a ‘proper’ food blogger (giggles), I wouldn’t usually promote the use of such abbreviations, but there are times when the OMG and only the OMG will suffice. Except when it’s obligatory to apply the ZOMG, of course.

 

It’s safe to say that seeing my name, words and photographs printed in a beautiful full-colour book among the likes of top food bloggers is utterly surreal – and also very humbling (bragging rights aside). I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who supported me throughout the selection process and believed in me. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll see my name and recipes in print again. You’ll definitely be the first to know.

Order your copy of the Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook here or here if you live in the UK. Amazon stocks copies of the book and you can get it delivered no matter where you are in the world. Buy the Kindle edition here and I’ll love you forever, I promise. Once it lands on your doorstep, grab a cuppa coffee and find me and my recipe on pages 94-95. There’s also a little snap of my darling mug (not the one you drink out of) in the back pages among all the beautiful people.

Enjoy.

The post OMG. KO Rasoi was published appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

1. Almost one third of respondents (29%) eat paneer once a week, with a cool one in ten of you (10%) making it from scratch every time. The second most popular answer was ‘once a month’ (27%) and 5% of you eat paneer more than once a week (which makes you my kind of people!). A small percentage of you (2%) never eat paneer and more than a third (37%) of respondents admitted that they never make fresh paneer at home. I believe that everything delicious is good in moderation- especially when it’s made from scratch, as long as you don’t get carried away and have a seven day paneer binge (that’s not to say I don’t dream about it).


2. More than three quarters of the people surveyed (81%) were vegetarian (probably because this is a vegetarian blog) but it’s nice to see that KO Rasoi has a following of not just veggies, but meat eaters too. Those who do eat meat were asked if they prefer paneer as a source of protein better than their favourite meat. Interestingly, just over two thirds (65%) of people do! Paneer is a great source of protein (although cheese proteins may not be as complete as animal proteins) it’s great to know the omnivores who visit KO Rasoi enjoy the paneer recipes as much as the vegetarians.


3. Some things that come to mind when you think about paneer are: ‘delicious’, ‘filling’, ‘chilli paneer’, ‘versatile and easy to cook’, and my personal favourites, ‘calories’ and ‘fat’. A huge thanks going out the guilt-trippers among us!


4. Eating out is a great time to treat yourself to a paneer dish. I asked you whether or not your local Indian restaurant has paneer as a choice on their menu. A large proportion (85%) replied ‘yes’, with 50% of those respondents saying that they order paneer every time. I think that 50% of people may have been reading this blog for too long- my bad habits must be rubbing off on you!


5. Below is a graph showing the Top 12 Best Paneer Dishes chosen by you!

The post The Paneer Survey- Results appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

This November, KO Rasoi was featured in the Diwali issue of the Urbanite ezine. Namaste to any new readers from Urbanite- you’re presence is much appreciated.Urbanite covers a whole range of exciting subjects from Food and Drink to Health and Education news. It was a huge honour to have been asked to contribute to the magazine by the wonderful Trix of Tasty Trix, cookery editor for Urbanite. Boy does she have an awesome job!

I submitted some information on Diwali, its history and culinary traditions and some comments on modern Indian cuisine. Trix was very innovative with her approach to nouvelle Indian food, using Indo-Chinese dishes as a basis to her article. Read about her dining experience at Mirchi Wok, Columbia with a few comments from yours truly scattered here and there in her article ‘Shubh Diwali!’


However, I also have a simple little recipe for a lovely Diwali sweet today. They are little bites of heaven, not too sweet and incredibly moreish. It is a variation on the Malai Khaja recipe contributed to Urbanite and so simple that even the kids can get involved in the kitchen!

(makes around 16-20 burfis)


Ingredients
3 cups fresh paneer, crumbled. Homemade paneer recipe here
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup ghee
1 tsp cardamom powder
Pinch of saffron

3 food colours of your choice
Oil to grease your tin


Method


1. Heat the ghee in a large non-stick pan. Add the paneer and condensed milk and cook on a medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until the mixture resembles dry-ish, crumbly paneer and a little shiny ghee is visible around the mixture.


2. Turn the heat off and add the cardamom and saffron. Divide the mixture into 3 equal portions.


3. Quickly mix in each food colour in to the divided paneer mixtures. It is easier to do this when the mixture is still hot and may require some elbow grease (not literally) to distribute the colours into the mixtures evenly. I advise bribing potential helpers.


4. Grease a medium sized circular, square or rectangular baking tin or burfi tray with some oil (not butter or ghee). I recommend going for a tray that is at least 5cm deep and not too large; perhaps around 6X8 inches. I used two round mini cheesecake pans to cut mine into little triangles, for they are ‘cheese cakes’ after all.


5. Press one colour mixture firmly into the bottom of the tin; compact it in as much as you can. Repeat for the other colours. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to cool in the fridge for a couple of hours.


6. Slice into pieces and watch the smiles light up the faces of your loved ones this Diwali!


Enjoy the rest of your Diwali celebrations. Why not join my Facebook page and tell me how you and your family celebrated?


You can also sign up to the free Urbanite Food and Drink Ezine here

The post Sweet, Sweet Diwali appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Great news. No, not great news. Amazing news.

KO Rasoi’s recipe for Melt in the Mouth Paneer Kofta has been selected as one of the top 100 entries for the Foodista Best of Food Blogs competition. The recipe will feature in a full colour cookbook which will be published by Andrews McMeel Publishing this October. I’ll give you more details as and when I find out information.

How exciting is this for us?! The little veggie blog is taking baby footsteps and I like where it seems to be heading.

Cooking, eating, writing; these are the things that I can use to escape in to a world where my passion for food roams freely and relentlessly. Rather like a starving gerbil on Shandy.

What I would like to do most is thank you all for such wonderful feedback and supportive comments. You are the people that make KO Rasoi shine, not other things like scrummy cheesecakes (although, those are yummy and almost as attractive than you are). Stop blushing.

Moving swiftly on…

In order to celebrate this exciting newsflash we have daal. Don’t make those sighing noises I used to make when I was little and had to eat daal, because this isn’t just any daal. It’s three lentil daal.

And I don’t have to justify that because it tastes marvellous and it’s good for you!

Celebrate the colours of India and happy times with this delicious three lentil daal (triveti daal). These lentils are widely available in all good supermarkets and Indian grocers.

Ingredients
(serves 4-6)

100g moong daal (mung bean daal)
100g urad daal
100g toor daal (pigeon pea daal)
1 ¼ litres hot water
1 large onion, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece ginger, minced
2 hot green chillies, minced, (or to taste)
1 tbsp ghee (or oil)
2 star anise
1 small cinnamon stick
5-6 curry leaves
1 tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp asafoetida
200g tin of chopped tomatoes
½ tsp turmeric
½ cup coriander, chopped
Salt to taste

Method

1. Wash the three daals together and boil in the hot water until tender. Hot tip: Adding a pinch of bicarbonate of soda to your boiling water will make the daal cook quicker. If your daal mixture is too dry add a little more water but do not drain any water from them. Set the cooked daal aside.

2. Heat the ghee/oil in a large pan and add the mustard seeds. Wait for them to pop, then add the onion, garlic, ginger, chillies, asafoetida, curry leaves, star anise and cinnamon. Cook until aromatic.

3. Add the tomatoes, turmeric and cooked daal mixture. Simmer for 5 minutes and season with salt. Remove from the heat and add the coriander. Remember to remove the cinnamon stick and star anise before serving.

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