I love October for being a fantastic season in all aspects. Its that time of the year when weather is pleasantly nice and the festivities add an alluring charm to wrap the year in good spirits. The rains have washed down all the dust away and the trees allay us with their new blanket in all shades of soothing green. Nip in the air may have to wait a little longer as misty mornings and chill evenings aren't here yet, yet the changing season reminds me that December is nearing and winter is close to beckoning, something we so much look forward to. Between these changing seasons, October beautifully envelops itself with festivities that makes it the best time for bonding with our family and friends. Indian festivals like Chaturthi, Dusshera, Diwali remind you that it's time you push aside all your worries, bury down your pressures, wrap up your tensions and move ahead to celebrate life with your loved ones, the time when festivals bring in joy and celebration and contentment to our lives.

And with all those festivals gone by and the ones we look forward to, I've have been on my toes all this month. I've been living out of my suitcase with lots of travel packed over weekends, spilling over festivals and the celebrations that have kept me busy through and through. A weekend getaway to Mysore, then to Hyderabad for work related meet, then to Mangalore for Dusshera, it's been one hell of a calender blocked month with me cruising places.

With all this up, my kitchen hasn't been the busiest place for me, unlike most of my weekends. I do hope I can throw my hands at cooking some sweet and savouries for this Diwali, while I have been fairly depending on my mom for her delectable festive goodies. With no elaborate cooking done by me this Dusshera , some Besan Laddu and the quick snacks I made for our Ganesha this Chaturthi, I hope I'll be get some time out to meddle in my kitchen this Diwali.

Yet, I can't seem to stay long away from my beloved oven. So I hopped over to bake another banana cake in quick desperation to baking, something which I did not intend posting here. If you take a peep into my drafts you'll be a little amazed to see the number of banana breads/cakes I have lined up, that I've had to forgo some. Infact, I've been planning to do a step-by-step for sometime now, yet haven't been able make time for that. The increasing number of requests for step-by-step have been pouring in. Keeping in mind it's eggless I am sure many would love to re-create them at home. Hope you like this one with big bites into nice chunks of chocolate chips. Delicious!

Banana Chocolate Chunk Squares

How to make Kashaya, Kashaya recipe

Yesterday marked the beginning of Navratri, a festival celebrated over nine nights and ten days, each day signifying the form of Devi or Shakti, followed by Vijayadashami or "Dussehra" celebrated on the 10th day. For many it may mean fasting, for others like me, it calls for feasting. Almost every year I look forward to this festival, for the delicacies my mom makes in bounty at home. Devi happens to be our moola mane devaru (ancestral home Goddess), so our ancestral Goddess is also offered with Pooja, flowers and variety of delicacies over all 10 days. Guests flood home, glass bangles offered to young girls and traditional food in varieties is home cooked by ladies and offered to the Goddess during the Pooja and then served on leaf to all the guests for lunch.

Despite settling in a metro city like Mumbai, the rituals were followed religiously at my paternal ancestral home, and they still continue to do so. While my mother's side were put up in a more rustic village home, where the village temple offered live tableau, cultural activities, traditional Poojas during Navratri time. During the time when the village went out of power, the light from mashaals and aarati brightened up the streets and the bhajans sung by devotees rang music to our ears. It was a common sight to watch tattiraayas (humans dressed in 7ft. puppets) and huLivesha (men dressed in tiger costumes) dance to the rhythms of dhols that brought life to the otherwise silent streets. When the lights from the aarati lit up the far end of the streets and faint hearing of dhols and bhajans pecked our ears we would run out on streets to be a part of that ceremony and dance along till it reached our home. By then the elders and ladies wait outside their house, holding a thali, often decorated with flowers, coconut, kumkum and diya for the Pooja. The poojari would patiently collect each thali, offer to the Goddess, break the coconuts and return them back to the ladies. Everyone on street flocked around the returned thali to take their quota of blessings. We never felt the need for any other form of entertainment as the vibrant culture and the simple pomp of village life kept us occupied.

Both the sides of my family were different in many ways. Never the less, the joy of celebrating the festival was the same in both my maternal and paternal ancestral homes and I surely miss them now.

One thing that almost seemed similar on both the sides of my family was this Kashaya, a herbal drink usually served instead of tea or coffee. Kashaya is a very popular drink in the South and considered a coolant in summer heat. I remember clearly the only time we had Kashaya was when we visited our relatives in villages or grandparent's home. Because it was healthy, soothing and loved by all. It had characteristic sweet and spicy flavors from jaggery and pepper. At times when we had bouts of cold or cough, my ammamma would spice it up with loads of ginger that could soothe the scratching throat. Not that kids liked it much, but yet we gulped it down with less choice as elders relished it. When we visited our relatives or they flocked home, Kashaya made it's warm presence felt. In between talks and summer heat, minus the fans or electricity, Kashaya gave a warm soothing relief which most elders enjoyed.

I do hope you will try the recipe I share and enjoy at home. Bring back your old memories and live them.

Kashaaya: Indian Herbal Brew

INGREDIENTS

For the powder:

2 cups coriander seeds
1 cup cumin seeds
1/2 cup fennel seeds
2 tbsp. black pepper

For kashaya:

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp. jaggery
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger or ginger powder (optional)
1 tsp kashaya powder

DIRECTIONS

Dry roast all the ingredients in low flame till mildly fragrant. Allow it to cool completely. Grind it into a fine powder. Store in an airtight container.

To prepare Kashaya, heat water along with the Kashaya powder, jaggery and ginger (optional) till it comes to a rolling boil. Allow it to boil for 2 minutes. Turn off the flame and add hot milk. Stir well. Strain through a muslin cloth and serve hot.

Blogging, in its beautiful entity has opened its doors to multi cultures and cuisines across world. It paves avenues to several dishes and new recipes that one had unheard of in the past, though using common day to day ingredients in various ways. Diverse flavors, myriad tastes, yet that homely touch of basic ingredients go into making of this stupendous cake belonging to another cuisine. Like, I had never known or heard of cornbread before, only until I discovered the joys of culinary blogging and blog-hopping. Makki ka atta or Cornmeal / Maize flour is quite commonly used in our Indian kitchens, especially in the North. You simply can’t miss Makki ki roti with sarson ka saag at a dhaba if you were in Punjab. Yet the same cornmeal used in our very own Makki ki roti is completely renovated to this cornbread, a native to American cuisine, one that most of us here have probably not tasted or heard of. That’s amazing since it gives me yet another healthy breakfast dish to add on to my list of ever hunting recipes for our mornings!

Thanks to the Native Americans, for we’ve got corn bread. But then history has it that its humble beginnings can be traced back to the Indians. We’ve used corn ground into meal and flour for years in our cooking and that became a part of our tradition. Owing to the benefits of corn, Westerners too adopted the practice of making corn bread and is said to have become popular around Civil War time as corn was plentiful and cheap.

Today’s recipe for Cornbread is inspired from a couple of recipes I hunted online. I pinned down a few recipes, tweaked some, attempted to miss out on eggs, aiming at a Cornbread that would result in a light and fluffy eggless Cornbread. The first time I made these, they hung between flavors of sweet and salt, also with a pronounced taste of baking powder. I knew instantly I messed up somewhere. On another attempt I tweaked a few more changes and it came out absolutely delicious. I used only whole wheat flour to keep it healthy. The bread is quite nice and nutty with a heady cornmeal aroma which we loved. And if you have a cast iron skillet, use them… it can’t get better!

Eggless Cornbread

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cornmeal (a little coarser grind if possible)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup honey (replace with maple syrup / sugar for vegan option)
1 cup milk, room temperature (replace with soy milk for vegan option)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. Paint the bottom and sides of your cast iron pan with butter or oil. Set aside. In a large bowl, measure out all of the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt), and in another smaller bowl, measure out all of the wet ones (honey, milk, oil). Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir them together till just combined. Now pour the whole mixture into your cast iron pan. Bake your cornbread for 30-45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean.

To make it vegan, replace honey with maple syrup or regular / brown sugar and milk with a vegan milk of your choice. Hope you make this one and enjoy the benefits of corn in your breakfast.

Ganpati Bappa Moriya!!!! Pudhchya varshi laukar ya!!!
Happy Ganeshotsav to everyone!!!!

Ganesh Chaturthi, the birthday of Lord Ganesh (Ganesha), the god of wisdom and prosperity was celebrated with full pomp and splendour across the country yesterday. As I walked down the street to our market place to pick up flowers and fruits for our Ganesha, the elaborate arrangements with lot of glamour, lighting, decoration made for Ganesha statues installed in street corners and the sight of people flocking in huge numbers to pay due love and respect to the Lord invoked that feeling of unity and revived spirit and faith in Ganesha.

History has it that that Ganesha loved sweets and had his weakness for modaks that he simply could not stop himself from eating them. Undoubtedly, on this day most homes make variety of sweets including the coveted modaks and laddus to please Ganesha. Unlike some of the other Indian festivals, Ganesha’s birthday is indeed an occasion for feasting and not for fasting.

I have been busy on my toes a week ahead of the festival to make sweets and savouries for my Ganesha too. Apart from the regulars of Modak, Nippattus, this year saw me making some delicious Besan Laddu and Kai Holige. While the tedious and daring first attempt at Kai Holige for me was not so easy, making the Besan Laddu was a breeze.

I would probably have this recipe posted yesterday, but then I badly wanted to stay away from being hooked to the system, internet and blogging. It's the quality time to be spent with my family and friends that mattered the most. Blogging can wait yet another day.

Besan Laddu

INGREDIENTS

1 cup besan (Bengal gram flour)
1 tsp. rava / semolina (optional)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup ghee
1/4 tsp cardamom (elaichi) powder
Fistful of chopped cashewnuts and raisins

DIRECTIONS

Melt the ghee in a kadhai, add the gram flour, semolina along with chopped cashewnuts and cook over a low flame stirring continuously till it is golden brown in colour. Turn off the flame and add the sugar, the cardamom powder and raisins to the roasted gram flour and mix well. Allow to cool slightly. While still warm, divide the mixture to roughly equal portions and shape into laddus. Allow to cool completely and store in air-tight containers. These stay well for couple of weeks, but I can't promise if your family will let you keep them so long!

Ganesh Chaturthi is a special occasion and so should be Ganesh Chaturthi recipes. Bring good luck and prosperity home this festival and celebrate the occasion with your family and friends. May ganesh bring you and your family tots of good luck and happiness.

Before being a mother, I was a carefree, outgoing and extrovert. You could tag me as bindass, tomboy kinds who did not let too much of emotional upheaval disturb my life. When friends and colleagues discussed on how motherhood changed their lives emotionally and practically, I chuckled on the sly. I said to myself, probably they didn’t know how to handle their emotions or maybe they were too excited about hype over motherhood. May be our movies and snobbish soap operas influenced them a lot. Little had I known I too would be trapped into this mesh someday.

I never believed I was one of those kinds who would cling to my baby or blurt out tears at the drop of hat. Before being a mother myself, I did not see myself connecting well with kids. Naughty kids at supermarkets irritated me to the core. I wondered why parents did not teach them how to behave well. (I was a naughty one myself and got enough punishment for that). I hated cranky babies. I wondered how difficult it should be to make a snobbish baby shut up. I blamed their parents latently… till I had my own, who cried till her throat wouldn’t give up. Unbelievable!

And then I despised beggars who carried their crying babies around and went begging for money in cue of sympathy. I never encouraged begging and mercilessly believed that one should earn the hard way rather than beg easy way out.

A strange thing happened last evening. I was at my tailor’s shop getting my jeans altered. Right next to this shop is a small mosque where the evening prayers were being offered. A mother sat at the entrance pavement to the mosque begging for alms. Perfecting the timing and a wailing baby in hand, I could figure out she seemed to be a regular there. She tried her best to pacify him by rocking the baby in one hand while the other reached out for alms. As I waited for my job to finish, I stood there observing. The baby wouldn’t keep quiet.

Had it not been the maternal instincts in me, I wouldn’t have moved an inch by this sight. As I stood waiting, a couple of thoughts raced my empty mind. Why would any mother hurt her baby only to earn a few bucks? Though the mother looked shabby, she seemed healthy and hefty (reasonably, if I had to judge by a beggar’s standard), while the baby undernourished. May be the baby was unfed and hungry. May be it had a stomach ache. My heart went out for the yelping baby as it cried incessantly. With pitiful thoughts, I reached out for a change and handed it over to her with a hope she would buy some food for her starving baby. She accepted it monotonously.

I walked back home, my mind unrest, wondering what led to this deed of mine. I was never the one who was stirred by these actions in the past. Beggars never took my first glance, forget a second one. Then why was I moved? Was it the wailing baby? Or was it the baby’s hunger? Was it hurt to cry for driving sympathy? Was it unwell and not cared for properly? Was it borrowed from someone else for begging? Or maybe it was just sleepy. Was I assuming? Was it my own maternal instinct that led me to worry for it? I don’t know. I thought of my own baby and cringed to her. I don’t know where these emotions come from, I had never known them before, but they have taken over me now… Motherhood is such a warm, embracing feeling, but it makes you act stupid at times. Forgive me if I say this, but it does.

I sought an instant rescue from these cluttering thoughts in these Classic Dark Chocolate Brownies, adapted from the cookbook Chocolate: Food & Music. It’s a one pot recipe and takes hardly any effort apart from microwaving the chocolate and butter, now if you call that an effort! The original recipe has it made from white chocolate, but then these cakey brownies are wicked, filled with love from butter, sugar and decadence from dark chocolate and can be even better. How about some walnuts for some nutty bites? Sinful!

Classic Brownies

Adapted from Chocolate: Food & Music

INGREDIENTS

115g unsalted butter
225g best dark chocolate
115g plain flour
75g chopped walnuts
2 large eggs
115g soft brown sugar

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Lightly grease a square baking tin.

Roughly chop the dark chocolate into small pieces and microwave about 175g of it along with the said amount of butter till molten, approx. 2 mins. When melted stir together and then set aside to cool slightly. Next whisk the eggs and sugar well and beat into the chocolate mixture. Tip the flour and chopped chocolate and walnuts, then gently fold together with a spatula. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake at 180 deg C for 25 minutes or till the brownies are just down. Take out of the oven and allow to cool, cut into rectangles and serve warm.

As a child I was hooked to story books which eventually graduated to reading novels in my teens. The classics as they are called, I was often lost in thoughts on reading Jane Austen’s novels which were mostly set in a backdrop of classic, opulent English setting of the Victorian era. The emotionally powerful stories vividly spoke about English lifestyle and their culture. As a petite girl, these stories often left me mesmerized in fantasy. The stories had women carrying an unequivocal English dignity and austerity, replicating a sophisticated class that was explicitly an emblem of the elite British culture.

Food often made masquerading appearances in these novels. Like the scenes where the English women walked in through the long corridors, sweeping their gowns as they passed by, the house maids poured in steaming hot tea from vintage kettles to tea cups held by their saucers and they sat by the fireplace in their lofty countryside mansions, overseeing acres of green pastures, speaking softly, elegantly, slowly sipping away their afternoon tea along with freshly baked cakes, warm scented scones and buttery biscuits. You bet, I’ve fancied being a part of this culture.

I often loved the way life appeared over there, chic & classy, at least from the way it was depicted in these books, albeit a nostalgia for something I did not really know as a fact but only experienced through these books. More often I dreamt of taking a trip to the English countryside, sipping that afternoon cup of tea and taking luxurious bites into those warm scones and biscuits.

I wonder at times what took me so long to bake these scones. Oddly, I’ve baked classic cakes and English teacakes on couple of occasions, but never made a start with scones. Glad I headed for a start and I loved the effort that went into making these. It was an afternoon that went fruitful in baking these scones and savouring them to our satisfaction. Here's another attempt at a step by step to help you with these Chocolate Chip Scones.

Chilled butter, grated and cut into flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Butter being rubbed into the flour mixture till it resembles coarse meal, similar to bread crumbs.

Cream poured into flour, while chocolate chips being thrown in and dough brought together with light hands. Dough being rolled to form scones.

Dough being cut out into scones using a biscuit cutter. Pressing the remaining scraps back together to form another piece. Brushing the scones with cream for that golden crust.

Look at those oven baked beauties. Pass me those golden, light and creamy scones for my tea please!

Chocolate Chip Cream Scones

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
Handful of chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.

Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl and mix them well. Grate chilled butter into this mixture. Using your fingertips, rub butter into the flour mixture till it resembles coarse meal.

A few larger butter lumps are totally fine. Stir in chocolate chips. Stir in heavy cream and mix gently using a fork until the dough begins to form. Transfer the dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead just until it comes together into a sticky ball.

Pat the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Using a rolling pin, gently roll it into a 3/4-inch thick circle. Dip the biscuit cutter in flour and cut out scones. With light hands, press the remaining scraps back together to form another piece (like what I did) and cutting until dough has been used up. The scones that are made from the remaining scraps will be little denser compared to the others, but they taste fine. Brush the scones with cream or milk for golden crust.

Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Here are a few notes to get some well risen scones:

Do not knead or over mix the dough, else it will come out tough. Handle it with light hands. Lightly dipped the biscuit cutter in flour to cut scones from the dough. Don't twist the cutter, or the scones may not rise evenly. Place the scones side by side on a lined baking tray so that as they rise the sides will keep up straight and even as they cook. Finally, scones taste best served with some clotted cream and any fruit preserve. Serve them warm with tea for your evenings.

The recipe here calls for a good dose of heavy cream, and perhaps could be the reason why they are good to taste! Undoubtedly, when you do bake things made of butter and heavy cream in them, the resulting bite would only melt in your mouth.

You do remember my recipe for Rough Puff Pastry don’t you? After those Chocolate Turnovers, these Pretzels were the outcome of that last bit of left over dough. I made quite a good sized batch of the puff pastry sheets that lasted in the freezer for over a week. Generally, Pretzels are yeasted, however its their characteristic shape that brings them their name. These Pretzels are hardly any effort and if I had to say just thaw the pastry sheet, cut, twist and bake, I would be knocked down for posting it here! So I jazzed it up a bit more by elegantly flavoring them with cinnamon sugar and baking them to crisp. That Aam Murabba glaze got them a complete makeover. Sinfully simple, yet deliciously yum!

Pretzel goodness baking in the oven with all that sinful butter oozing out of the dough

Puff Pastry Cinnamon Pretzels with Glazed Mango Jam

INGREDIENTS

1 sheet homemade puff pastry dough rolled, (or store bought)
1 tsp. homemade Aam murabba / Mango Jam
1 tsp. cinnamon powder
1 tbsp. powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix the cinnamon along with sugar and set aside. Roll out the pastry sheet dough. Cut 1 inch thick, 6 cm long strips. Using your forefinger hold one end of the strip, while you use your other hand to twist the strip 2-3 times, circling to bring both the strips close to each other. Place it on the baking tray, tucking the edges neatly underneath. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on them and bake in a pre-heated oven to 25-30 mins, till golden brown and baked.

Allow them to cool down for 5 minutes. While still warm, slather some mango jam or homemade Aam murabba.

Warm, crisp and sinful with that slash of some jam, enjoy them with your cup of tea!

If you thought why there were no updates here or if I went missing, let me tell you I was in my hometown recently. A nice long weekend spilling over Monday ensured another trip down to Mangalore. Long weekend spent in Mangalore during the Independence day followed by Eid gave us a well deserved break and good respite from daily chores of work and home. Adding to it, the fantastic coastal weather in Monsoons added a feather in the cap. If you've been down South visiting the coastal parts of Kerala and Karnataka during the monsoon you'll be smitten by the beauty of nature and vast greenery the rains bring in.

While in Mangalore, we often binge on dishes made with coconuts. Coconuts form an integral part of coastal cuisine since they grow in plenty in this region. With no doubts you can be assured that the juiciest and sweetest coconuts can be fetched from these coastal regions of our country. I have often shared my love and immense fondness for Tamblis in the past on my blog. I don't think I need to even stress saying that this particular soup / Tambli does list as one of my favorites. Pair it with a generous helping of rice, a papad or pickle to go with and you have the most humble meal for a warm afternoon.

Tambli: Fire Roasted Tomato and Fenugreek South Indian Soup

INGREDIENTS

1 large tomato
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp oil
1 tbsp fresh/frozen coconut
1 cup yogurt
3 red chillies
Salt to taste

For Tempering:

1 tsp. Oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1-2 whole red chillies
1 sprig of curry leaves

DIRECTIONS

Lightly oil the tomato and fire roast it on an open flame till the skin turns brown. Allow it to cool down. The skin will wilt as it cools, hence you should be able to peel them easily. Lightly roast the fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds and red chillies till you get the roasted aroma from them. Don't let them brown a lot as they will turn bitter and lose the taste. It takes about a min or two. Cool and grind them along with the roasted tomatoes and coconut. Lightly beat the yogurt and this paste to it. Tamblis are usually thin and a little runny in consistency. So adjust by adding extra water if required to bring it to thinner consistency. Add salt to taste.

Temper the Tambli by seasoning it well. Heat a tsp of oil in a kadai. Add mustard seeds. As they begin to pop, add in the red chillies and curry leaves. Let the curry leaves fry for half a minute or less. Pour this seasoning over the Tambli. Serve it cold over steaming hot rice.

I don’t generally enjoy Danish rolls, Croissants or Strudels elsewhere as much I do here at my workplace. I presume it has to do with the freshness. There’s a fabulous bakery named Chocolate by La Terrace that serves one of the best bakes I have ever had. I call them the best since their bakes are fresh, bodied with flavor and authentic. And their freshly baked Pineapple Strudel and Apple Strudel is to die for. Really. For a tiny bakery that serves 20000 odd employees, I think they are doing a fabulous job!

For my mid-mornings, the bakery serves me just the right kind of snack to go along with my cup of tea. As you make your pick from all the sweet and savory items on display, the background brims with brisk work by the bakers busy mixing dough, filling tart cases, brushing glazes, pushing trays to life sized ovens, it’s a sight which most would ignore to glance. Sure enough, their wicker cane baskets loaded with baked goods, full of cakes, pastries, tarts, rolls and breads will make you more hungry than when you came through the door. And that smell of freshly baked goodies is so intoxicating, it gives you an all high and stimulates your senses.

From the glimpse of the bakers working in the background, I have often seen them put together the pastry dough from scratch effortlessly and as it tempts me more often to be a part of that activity or at least, capture them on pixels, I know that possibility is far from remote. It’s a passionate bakers delight to watch sheets of butter encased into a massive mass of rolled dough, enveloped and passed through automated commercial rollers couple of times to form perfect pastry sheets, all neatly folded and piled up to be refrigerated for further use. The process takes hardly anything more than 10 minutes.

Prior to this, I had never seen a live action of pastry dough being made from scratch, even getting a glimpse of this is so heartening that it calls out for the baker in me. For some time now, I have been contemplating to recreate a similar pastry dough at home. Of course minus all that commercial equipment, it’s an ardent task, good enough to consume an entire day, consume all my muscle power and drain all the energies. But then isn’t that daring enough for a try?

I didn’t have enough time to make pastry dough, but Gordan Ramsay’s Rough Puff Pastry recipe is an awesome substitute. A good recipe for a keeper, especially when you want a quick, light flaky pastry in minutes.

Gordon Ramsay's Rough Puff Pastry Dough

Adapted from BBC GoodFood

INGREDIENTS

250g strong plain flour
1 tsp. fine sea salt
250g butter, at room temperature, but not soft
About 150ml cold water

DIRECTIONS

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Roughly break the butter in small chunks or grate them, adding it to the flour.

Rub the grated butter into the flour very loosely. You need to see lots of streaks of butter.

Make a well in the bowl and pour in about two-thirds of the cold water, mixing until you have a firm rough dough adding very little extra water if needed.

Handle very gently. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20 mins. in the fridge.

Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead lightly and form into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough in one direction only, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50cm. Keep edges straight and even. Don't overwork the butter streaks; you should have a marbled effect. Fold the top third down to the center.

Fold the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length.

Fold as before, the top third down, the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn roll out again to three times the length. Repeat again. Cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 mins before rolling to use. If the dough ceases to act, then place it in the freezer immediately. Work on it after 10 minutes.

The puff pastry dough can be kept in the freezer for over a month. To use, bring the dough out and thaw it. Roll it and use as required.

Chocolate Turnovers

INGREDIENTS

1 thick chunk of dark chocolate
Puff pastry sheet of 15x15 cm

DIRECTIONS

Roll the puff pastry sheet to about 10x10cm in length and width. Place a chunk of dark chocolate, placing it closer to one end at about 3cm away from the centre. Lightly mark the pastry sheet to half and flip over the other half of dough over the chocolate, gently pressing along the edges to seal the sides. Bake in a pre-heated over at 180 deg for 30 minutes or till its golden brown.

Note: I've used dark chocolate here for the filling. You may use milk or white chocolate too. You can make a fruit filling or any other filling for this recipe. For a savoury version, use any vegetable filling of your choice. You can make these into any other shapes you like.

Enjoy these Chocolate Turnovers over a hot cup of tea.