Kitchen Basics - Jaggery

Jaggery – a very common sweetener used in Indian household.
Most of the times we need jaggery in small pieces. But we buy jaggery in big pieces. I have tried many techniques to get the jaggery to small pieces. Some methods includes keeping it on the floor wrapped in paper and nailing it with heavy objects, powder in the mixer etc.
I have also heard that breaking jaggery with jaggery will break it faster..
What works best for me like a charm is
Take the jaggery and use a peeler and peel it. This way you get small and uniform pieces and does not take too much time. Vola!! it is easy and you do not need a steel arm to do it!!
Try this method and tell me if it works for you too..

Sending this to Tell Your Kitchen Secret by Gayathri.

Eggless Reine de Saba or Chocolate Almond Cake

Reine De Saba (also known as Queen of Sheba) cake is a very rich chocolate cake. It has a chocolate cream icing and it looks picture perfect when decorated with the almonds. Nice color combination with almonds and chocolate contrasting each other. I got this recipe from the Baking Partners group and this cake was this month's recipe. The recipe is originally from the famous chef - Julia Child. As a honor to the cooking legend, posting her famous recipe on her 100th birthday. This cake is very delicate as it has very less flour and is little fragile when out of the oven. If you overcook it will NOT be creamy and rich. This cake is a challenge for me as I had to substitute many ingredients like egg, rum, cake flour, coffee, did not have an 8 inch pan which is the recommended size. So most of the ingredients are substituted!!! Generally in recipes if you are substituting one or two eggs, it is much easier than substituting 3 large eggs. Anyway I had a lot of good learning from this recipe and everybody loved this cake. This cake does not rise much like other cakes and is not much spongy but more rich, thick and densely chocolate. You taste chocolate, chocolate and chocolate!!!!.

Sprouts Pulao

Sprouts is very good for health – this is universally known. Generally sprouts is served as a salad. This is an interesting twist to the sprouts and the sprouts compliment the pulao and the pulao compliments the sprouts. A very colorful dish sure to appeal to the eyes. I am adding this recipe in time to celebrate Indian Independence day on August 15th. The dish has the tiranga colors - saffrons color, white color, green color, representing our flag. Could not find any blue color ingredient to add for the chakra. The amount of garlic and green chili can be adjusted to taste and preference. Serve this with curd, raitha or a spicy gravy.

Savory Oats Muffins

Think about oats in cooking and many people can relate to the oatmeal or the granola bar, which are yummy and sweet in taste. This recipe will use oats, oats and mostly oats and make a muffin, but wait.. this is not sweet!!!. So this is a muffin with oats which is savory in taste. I got this recipe from here and made a few changes. They are best when served warm or at room temperature with ketchup, spicy chutney or as is. I have used regular oats, if using quick cooking oats, then powder only the 3/4 cup and the other 1 cup can be used as is. This is a guilt free muffin and my kid loves it with ketchup. So it is a win win.. I can make a favorite, healthy, easy and quick breakfast. This can be eaten for breakfast, an evening snack, packed in lunchbox or eat on the go. This is a very healthy dish and can be made from start to finish in around 30 minutes.