Mango Panacotta

 

               
           So I am back to blogging!! 
              ..... after a looong plunge into the vaccume. 
         To be honest, I cannot promise to post on a regular basis... I am caught up in the whirl wind of busy mother hood and seem to be more so, than most of you.. 
            Yuck!  I am just trying to make my point. After all, life is full of snafus and you cannot always expect  it to turn the way you planned.
           Some times it is hard to do the things you did with great aplomb before... Some times your mood robs you  off the enthusiasm..  and still some times you get a vigor from nowhere  to get on with your crazes like never before... It all depends on many many things..

            To cut the story short, I gave birth to a baby girl last month,masha allah..  yep! and she is just taking my breath away...:)

           So I thought I would share this simply yummy  dessert made with the king of fruits , to cheer my third mother hood..
          .. as I bask in the blooming glory of holding a baby again..
           ..as I see it smile and sob in its quiet slumber..
          .. as her eyes flutters as if in a breeze of heavenly wind..
          ... as I watch her brothers bend over her crib 
             and fuss about with words of sweet nothings..
          I simply sit back and think,it's time for dessert again.. :)

                                                                                                                                                                    

I made this Mango Panacotta with seasonal mangoes. You could also make it with canned mango puree. In that case you would need to cut short the amount of sugar in the recipe as most canned mango purees are already sweetened.

            I had posted a similar mango pudding some time back. Check it out, if you are interested.

The Recipe...

1 cup mango puree

1/2 cup milk

1 and 1/2 cup thick cream or whipping cream

6 tbsp brown sugar

7 g unflavoured gelatin

1/4 tsp each ground cinnamon and ginger

1/4 tsp saffron or cinnamon sugar

Method:

•   In a bowl sprinkle gelatin over milk and let stand for 5 minutes to soften.
•  Mean while in a sauce pan over medium heat, gently whisk together cream, sugar cinnamon and ginger. Heat just until bubbles form around the edge. Remove from heat.
• Stir in the gelatin and milk mixture, stirring to dissolve. Whisk in the mango puree.
• Pour the mixture into six ramkins or custard cups. Tap each dish on the counter lightly to release any air bubbles. Refrigerate until set or for about 2 hours.
• Unmold to serving plates, keeping the dishes in hot water for two minutes and then running a knife around the edge.
• Serve with saffron sprinkled on top. If you are not fond of the saffron flavour (like me) sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.It is nothing but powdered cinnamon and granulated sugar mixed together.  Enjoy!

Mango Lassi

         Another nourishing, soothing and cooling drink for the hot weather. Lassi is a drink made with yogurt and sugar and you can add any kind of fruits or spices to it according to your taste to make different Lassis. The sweet and sour combination is a twist to the ordinary milkshakes. Here I have prepared it using ripe seasonal mangoes and yogurt. A healthy and nourishing drink, rich in vitamins, good for children and adults alike. The addition of ginger juice make it more digestive and flavourful. Enjoy this delicious drink garnished with a sprinkle of cinnamon or cardamom powder.



Mango Lassi Recipe

Things you need:

(Yields about 3 cups)

2 ripe medium sized mangoes

1 cup yogurt

1 cup ice cubes

Sugar/ honey, to taste

2 tbsp fresh Ginger juice (optional)

Powdered cardamom/ cinnamon, for garnish

Method:

1. Peel, cut and cube the mangoes. Use mangoes with less fibre for best results.
2. Blend the mango cubes and yogurt in a blender. Add sugar, ice cubes and Ginger juice to it and blend to a smooth consistency.
3. Pour into glasses and garnish with powdered cardamom or cinnamon. Serve immediately.

Mampazha Pulisseri

         Some things never seize to charm you even if you have gone a long way from it. Even while living in very different situations or in an entirely different world they tempt you and churns you in a pool of utter longing. When talking about traditions, homeland, cultures and cuisines to which you were born into, the condition is no different. Being a Keralite I often get such pangs in my heart and longings to get near to my motherland, while living far away from it.

         Those longings to feel the breeze around your ancestral home, to smell the fragrance of those jasmines which grew in your mother's courtyard, to walk in utmost tranquility listening to the chirping of the local birds, to feel the coolness of monsoon as it hits your eyebrows and drips down your face, to inhale the smell of the soil as monsoon hits it for the first time... and of course biting into those exquisite tastes of home, as if there is no tomorrow...

         I know I am not alone in this guttural craving for mother land. I have seen lot of Keralites in the air port with baggages as big as a warehouse stock on their pursuit to 'take their home land' to where they live. I have often seen officers smiling at seeing the most unusual things in baggages like large earthen pots to huge jack fruits and yes, coconuts too. It some times end up in making the poor man or woman, untie and display the strange belongings of those baggages in front of everybody concerned, due to suspicion of bombs. It has often reminded me of the ants with a block of sugar (more than double their size) on their back struggling to reach their far away nests.

             So, it is mango season again. The time of the year when every mango tree in Kerala is abloom with a thousand mangoes and every urchin is busy climbing mango trees and eating as many mangoes their little tummies can have. If only I could go back to my carefree childhood of climbing mango trees and jump from them screaming when the 'puliyurumbu'(wild ants) start to crawl over you... Sigh!  This is the season when the homes smell of all the varieties  of mango dishes under the sun. But we seldom made Mampazha pilissery (made with ripe mangoes) at home. I was introduced to this lip smacking dish by one of my friends' mom. Later I used to have it from our hostel on every Wednesdays. It was the only day of tthe week, I ate rice with great relish and hunger.

         We get Kerala mangoes here from a local Indian supermarket. Last week we got  some ripe 'moovandan manga' (local Kerala mango) and I made mampazha pulisseri with it. My family enjoyed it so much that I thought I would share the recipe of this incredibly yummy, sweet and tangy curry.

Mampazha Pulisseri / Ripe mangoes cooked in coconut and yogurt gravy

Things you need:

3 ripe mangoes ( preferably local Kerala mangoes), skin removed
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1and 1/2 cups thick yogurt
For grinding:
3/4 cup grated coconut
2 to 3 shallots
1/4 tsp cumin seeds/jeera
1/4 cup water
For tempering:
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds/ uluva
1 or 2 dry red chillies
a sprig of curry leaves

Method:
 
1) Cook the mangoes in adequate  water with salt, turmeric powder and red chilli powder until soft.


2) Grind the coconut, cumin and shallots with water and add this to the cooked mangoes and mix gently.Allow to cook for a couple of minutes in low flame.

3) Blend yogurt with 1/4 cup of water and add this to the curry in low heat. Add adequate salt and remove from heat.

4) Heat oil in a pan. Splutter mustard seeds. Saute the fenugreek seeds, dry red chillies and curry leaves in it. Pour this seasoning over the curry and mix gently.

5) Serve hot with plain rice.

A travelogue and Mango Pudding

            A week long detachment from the blogging world and from my kitchen has made me a bunch of lazy bones. I know there is lot out there new in every body's blog and am so eager to find out the latest culinary developments. But I just doesn't get the nerve to get on the road. All I want to do in these nippy mornings is cuddle up as much nearer to the room heater as possible and bask in the memory of last week's eventful vacation.

           UAE is a place with innumerable wonders and Dubai is its heart which leave us non.plussed. Though the global recession stuck it with awful force, the past glory still reverberates in the atmosphere. From the world's longest musical fountain to the world's tallest tower, the extravaganza of luxury speaks its volume in every phase of Dubai.

Inside the Grand Mosque in Abudabi

Longest Musical fountain in the world, in front of Burj Khaleefa

'Burj Khaleefa'- the tallest tower in the world

The first metro train in the middle east

Burjul Arab

Fire works in the sky for the opening ceremony of DSF

         We found ourselves in the middle of the opening ceremony of Dubai Shopping Festival(DSF) and had half an hour long fire works in the sky together with various cultural processions by artists from around the globe to feast our eyes. Travelling from one wonder to other, I felt Dubai was on the run to gather the largest number of Guinness world records to its hat. That must have been when the blow of recession struck it unawares. You could easily imbibe the recession struck face of Dubai from the half way dropped projects of unusual sky scrapers and artificial island resorts.

         We visited many of our relatives in UAE and stayed with brother in law and family. My sister in law (Fathima Sinsi aka Sheri) is a great cook and she fed us with a wide variety of her delicacies. I must confess that I found myself weighing a couple of kilos more after a week of enjoying her food. So I thought I must post one of her recipes on the blog. Mango pudding was something the adults and children enjoyed alike and so I took particular care to ask her the recipe and took the pictures from Dubai when she served it.

Here is the recipe..

Things you need:

2 ripe mangoes seeded  and sliced
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp gelatin soaked in 2 tbsp of cold water
250 ml or 1/2 tin of condensed milk
2 tbsp chocolate grated (optional)

Procedure:

    Blend the mango in a blender adding the milk and sugar until well blended and pulpy. Dissolve the gelatin by double boiling method. Add this to the blended mango milk mixture. Add the condensed milk and stir well to form a uniform mixture. Pour this to a pudding dish and refrigerate for two hours. Serve after cooling garnished with chocolate flakes.

Recipe by : Fathima Sinsi