Fruit Custard

I love custard since my childhood, and I can eat it at anytime of the day. Also, you can prepare this dessert at anytime of the year. More the fruits, more rich will be the taste.

Let's have a look at its preparation.


Cooking and Preparation time (including cutting the fruits): 45 - 60 minutes.

Serving: 5 - 6 people

Ingredients:

1) Milk: 750 liters

2) Vanilla Custard Powder: 3 - 4 tea spoons

It comes in different flavors such as strawberry etc.; however. I am going to use Vanilla flavor.

3) Sugar: 4 - 5 table spoons

The best thing about preparing desserts at home is that you can always control the level of Sugar. Generally, I prefer less sugar than the normal.

Let's see the fruits now

1) Strawberry - 5 - 6 pieces

You can chop them.

2) Orange Pulp 1.5 oranges will be enough

3) Pomegranate - Half will suffice

4) Apple (Chopped) - 1

5) Banana - This goes extremely well in a custard

Procedure:

Take a vessel with a heavy base.

Please note that it is very important for the vessel to be heavy from the bottom, else the milk along with the custard will stick at it.

As the milk is getting boiled, in the mean time, please take a bowl and add the custard powder in it. Now add 5 table spoons of cold milk in the custard powder and mix it properly.

We never add custard powder into the boiling milk as the powder might leave some bubbles and might not get dissolve properly; hence, to be on a safer side, we mix it in the cold milk in a small bowl.

Mix it properly until it looks like the image below.

Make sure that there are no thick custard powder bubbles. Now once the milk is boiled, put the burner on slow flame and add this custard.

Put the burner on high flame and wait for a boil. Alongside, stir it properly.

You will notice that the color will change in some time.

When you see the boil, add sugar, cook it on slow burner for 10 - 15 minutes. After that, remove the vessel from the stove and let the custard cool down. After sometime, keep it in the refrigerator.

Serving time:

Now chop all the fruits and put them in a bowl.

Please note that perform this step only at the time of serving this dish. When you want to eat custard, chop the fruits and add custard into it which you refrigerated sometime back.

As mentioned in the ingredients section above, I am using the following fruits.

Put all of them in a big bowl.

They look yummy!!!

Once the Custard gets cold in the refrigerator, add it on the top of the fruits.

And your delicious Fruit Custard dessert is absolutely ready. You can also garnish it with some jam which you can put at the center of the bowl while serving.

In case you feel while eating that the sugar is less, you can always add Amul Milkmaid on the top of it. Trust me, it will enhance the taste. 

Enjoy this delicacy and do let me know your feedback. I would love to hear experiences from you.

Rajma Masala

One of the biggest and the most famous Punjabi Delicacies - Rajma Masala. If you ask me, I simply love Rajma Masala, and this dish is something which we are preparing from the generations. I would say that almost every Punjabi in the world loves this dish, and not only Punjabis, this dish is loved by non Punjabis as well.

It looks that this dish is difficult and takes much time; however, it is not like that. Yes, the cooking takes some time, but the preparation is simple.

So let's quickly have a look at its ingredients and preparation.

Cooking Time: Near about 60 minutes

Serving: 3 - 4 people

Ingredients:

1) Rajma: Two cups or the most simple way is to measure them with your fist. For example: if you want to cook for 4 - 5 people then take four fists of Rajma (shown in the below image) and that would be more than sufficient.

There are two kinds of Rajma:

1) The first category is shown in the above image.
2) The other category is little brown in color where the Rajma is not dark maroon as shown above.
   
I would prefer dark maroon as it gives more color and taste.

2) Hing (Asafoetida): Half a tea spoon

3) Cumin (Geera): Half a tea spoon

4) Cardamom - 3, Cinnamon, and  three cloves - (Optional)

5) Chopped Onions - 1, Ginger - 20-30 grams and Green Chilies

6) Three Tomatoes - Make their puree

7) Garlic - 3 - 4 big cloves (Chopped)

8) Turmeric powder: 3/4 of a tea spoon

9) Coriander Powder: 1.5 tea spoons

10) Garam Masala: Half a tea spoon

11) Coriander leaves for garnishing

12) Mustard Oil: 2 table spoons
13) Salt: 1 tea spoon


Procedure:

Boil the Rajma: It is very important to soak Rajma in the water for 6 - 7 hours else they will take lot of time to get boil. Hence, the first step is to soak them for 6 - 7 hours..

Now put them in the cooker, add the water (2 - 3 times of their quantity), and put them on the burner. After 3 whistles, put them on slow burner for 35 - 40 minutes.

Alongside, let's prepare the masala.

Preparation of Masala:

Take a Vessel or a pan and add some oil into it. Once the oil is heated up, add Hing.

Health tip: I always prefer Mustard oil as it is very healthy, I do not use refind oil at all; however, you can use any type of oil to prepare the red gravy. 

After a minute, add Cumin seeds.

Now, the next step is optional. To bring more flavor into the Rajma Masala, you can add Cardamom, Cinamons, and cloves; however, if you want to add them, perform this step after adding the cumin.

Add grated Ginger and chopped Green Chilies.

After two minutes, add chopped onions. You can also grate onions in a grinder which will give a much fine texture of the gravy; however, they take lot of time and effort to get brown.

Cook them for ten minutes on slow burner. Once they are brown, add tomato puree, chopped garlic, Turmeric powder, Coriander powder, Garam Masala and salt.
Add 1/4 of a glass of water as we need to cook the ingredients.

Cook this masala for 15 minutes on slow burner. Once the water is all dried up, you will see something like this.

Add the boiled Rajma into this Masala.

Wait for a boil.

Now cook them on slow burner for 15 - 20 minutes. It actually depends on your taste of gravy. If you want a thick gravy then let the water get dried up, and if you want a tad diluted gravy them you can add more water and then cook it on slow burner for 15 - 20 minutes.

And here you go!!! Your Rajma Masala is absolutely ready. It looks like it is very difficult to make this dish, and it takes lot of time; however, it is not like that :-). It is very simple to cook; you just need the right proportion of the ingredients.

Eat it with rice and Raita. Yummy!!!!!!!

Please let me know your feedback, and I would be very eager to hear something from my readers.