Mrs. J's favorite favorite foods

 I talked to Jerusha Aunty(Ms.J), and I asked her what are your favorite foods. She told me happily that her favorite food was kal-kal, dried fruit cake, and biryani. 

Here are the favorite dishes and recipes from grandpas friend

Kal-Kal: 

First, add all the dry ingredients like All purpouse flour, rice flour, rava, powdered sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. 

Next, you want to blend two eggs in a an electric mixer. 

Then, add the eggs with dry ingredients. 

Add some ghee. 

Mix it well adding 

Mix the dough well by adding coconut milk until the dough gets soft. 

Take some small pieces of dough and make it into balls. 

After you have made it into balls you want to flatten it with a fork. 

Heat some oil in a pan and add the kals-kals you made. 

Put the flame on medium, and let them fry for about 5-7 minutes. 

When the kal-kals turn golden brown you want to remove them from the pan. 

Biryani: 

One type of  popular biryani is Hyderabad dumb biryani. 

Here I am giving the recipe of egg biryani: 

This is a short recipe, later I will be updating it with a detailed recipe. 

 For biryani care should be taken to get the best basmati rice. 

A lot of spices will be required but the most important are bay leafs, fresh mint, and fresh cilantro. 

For egg biryani boil the eggs, peel the shells, and keep them ready. 
If you are using chicken or mutton best to marinate it with some yogurt and ginger garlic paste, turmeric, and cumin coriander powder, chili powder, and a little bit of mint and cilantro chopped. 
Marinate it for at least an hour or over night. 

Wash the rice two to three times and then soak it in water for half an hour. In a big pot, take lots of water, and add whole spices to it like a couple bay leafs, elahchi,  cardamom, a couple of cloves, and special spices like star anise, whole nutmeg, and black cardamom. Add salt and bring to boil. Remove the water from the soaked rice and add it to the boiling water. There will be more water than enough to cook, and water will be drained once rice cooks up to three fourth. Take care so that rice is not completely cooked, and this is a ver important step in making dumb biryani.  

Drain the rice and put it aside. In a thick bottom pan, add ghee(clarified butter). Put chicken or mutton if using. 

Then add fried onions. If not using marinated meat and just making egg biryani then add some diced onions, ginger-garlic paste and saute for 2-3 minutes and then add some diced tomatoes, coriander cumin powder, little bit of garam masala and any biryani masala powder if you would like along with some red chili powder. Saute a little more and  add mint and cilantro leaves. Then, add boiled eggs. 

Now add the drained rice, you can top it off with more cilantro, mint leaves, and fried onions, and a few more spoons of ghee. If you have access to saffron then soak it in hot milk for a few minutes and then add it on the top.  Close tightly with a lid and let it cook until the rice becomes completely cooked. You can also make a tight seal with either alumium foil or dough or cloth. 

Fragrance dumb biryani is ready. Serve it with yogurt, cut onion, and lemon in traditional way. 

You can substitute egg with tofu, paneer, or vegetables for different variations. 

Plum Cake

Kema Puff: 

First, make keema. 
Take ground meat or you can use minced raw jackfruit if you are going to make a vegetarian vertion tofu, or paneer. 

In a pan take a little bit of oil and minced tofu or paneer or ground meat. 

Add ginger garlic paste, turmeric, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric, and little bit of mint and cilantro leaves. 

Add diced onion and tomato if you would like to. 

Saute it until it is complteely cooked and becomes a little dry. 

Take pastry sheets and put a little bit of oil. 

Put two spoons of cooked mixture and fold the sheets. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes or air fry for 10 minutes. 

Adjust the timing according to your oven. 

Upma with potato and beans: 

Make the upma seasoning:

Put the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad channa dal, red chili and curry leaves on the pan and let it sauté for one minute. 

If you are using diced onions add them now, then add water and then let it come to boil. 

Then add the sooji and mix it without lumps(This is very important)

Then close the lid and let it cook(it may take around 10 minutes.)

Open the lid and mix again and turn off when done. 

You can add cashews, carrots, green peas, beans, or poatos as per your like. 
At the end you can garnish it with cilantro. 

While eating you can serve with pickle or chutney as per your like. 

Sandwiches  with canned fish and lime

Ragi Porridge 

It was sprinkled with sugar.

Ragi Putu: 

It is has coconut and sugar. It is also grinned and it has fresh dry fruit. 

Kabobs and mixture: 

Nice goat kabobs were made. The kabobs were done on the bonfire in the evening. 

chicken with potato and peas was a type of stew eaten with chapati. 

Here is the link below if you want to know how Kal-Kal is made:

https://youtu.be/rekxhQdcf8o