Batica

Ever wondered how to make the batica? This coconut cake recipe is very easy to make. The Batica is a great accompaniment with your tea and is pretty easy to make. However, if you have no easy access to fresh coconut to try out this Goan batica recipe, you could try out the Batica with dessicated coconut.

Batica Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 kg semolina (rawa)
2 coconuts (preferably a wee bit tender)
500 grams sugar
6 large eggs
250 grams butter
1/2 table spoon baking powder
a pinch of salt (I used 1/2 level teaspoon)
Vanilla/Rose Water(Optional)

Method:

• Scrape the coconut carefully avoiding any part of the shell.
• Grind it into a fine paste.
• Cream the sugar and butter and beat until the sugar melts.
• Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating thoroughly.
• Add in the salt and baking powder.
• To the mixture add semolina, beating well after each addition.
• Blend in the coconut paste and keep overnight.
• If desired, flavour it with vanilla or Rose Water.
• Put the mixture in a greased flat baking tin. (Use two 9" cake tins or a bigger one depending on the size of your oven)
• Bake in oven until done depending on your oven. Bake for about 40-45 mins. at 180°C for each 9" cake tin.  I baked the whole quantity in a 12" pan for one hour on 200°C.

How to cook the Goan sausage

Goan sausages go well with pulao or even plain rice but they make for a tasty snack with pao. Chop the onion fine if you are making sausage rolls or sausage pao. Also, you can boil the whole string of sausages without taking off the skin but for sausage rolls or chourico pao, you will need to de-skin the sausages.

Ingredients:
¼ kg Goan sausages (I like the Homemade brand)

Onions - you can use the tiny ones if you are using them whole or use them finely chopped if you are using the sausage in chourico pao or sausage rolls.

Method:

•  Put the sausages skinned or not, in a pressue cooker with about three tbspns of water.
• When the cooker whistles, cook on simmer for 10 mins.
• After that, take off fire and let off steam.
• Add the onion and put on fire again.
• After the whistle, cook on simmer for 5 mins.

Colourful Jelly Art Dessert

If you remember I had shared the Striped Chocolate Jelly with you the last Christmas season. That was the first gelatin dessert I had ever tried out. That time I had melted the gelatin over a pan of hot water; but this time I did it a different and easier way. Read on to learn about it. I have been meaning to try this out for quite a while and so I finally decided to make this for our family Easter lunch. There were double helpings so I was pretty pleased. This dessert is light and not rich at all; ideal for this hot season.

Ingredients:
4 boxes jelly crystals, each in a different colour/flavour (You could also use just three if you'd rather have some more white than colour in it)
1 tin condensed milk - 450 gms (I used Amul's Mithai Mate; you may choose to use Nestle's Milkmaid)
2 sachets (10gms each) gelatin crystals
1/2 cup water
1 cup boiling water

Method:

• Make the jellies in 4 individual vessels as per the instructions on the box and  refrigerate.
• Once the jellies have set, proceed.
• Put half a cup of water in a bowl and sprinkle the gelatin crystals into it.
• Let rest for about 2 minutes.

• Pour the boiling water into it and stir till the gelatin is completely dissolved.

• Add the condensed milk and mix well.
• You may keep this in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes so that it cools.

• When the jellies are set, cut into cubes.

• If you want to decorate the top, you can slice the jelly and use moulds to cut out the desired shapes.
• Lightly oil a glass bowl.

• Mix together the different coloured jelly cubes into the bowl.
• Keeping aside some of the milk gelatin mixture to top the dessert in order to get a clean white finish, pour the rest over the jelly cubes.
• The jelly cubes will float and come to the surface.
• To avoid this you can pour some of the white mixture first and then let it set before adding some more and more.

• Finally top the dessert with the white mix that was kept aside. I'm afraid I almost forgot to do this so my dessert is not a full white on the top even before I decorated it.
• Refrigerate again and once firm, decorate as you wish. My little niece helped me with this.

• Take out of the refrigerator, after a few minutes, overturn onto a plate.
• Slice with a sharp knife and serve. 

Deviled Eggs for Easter

It's Easter time again and I have been looking for something different and in theme to make for our Easter family lunch! We came up with these adorable little hatching chickens and bunny rabbits; a great way of producing artistic deviled eggs in sync with the Easter theme.

Deviled eggs - hatching chickens

Deviled eggs - bunny rabbits and chickens

Ingredients:
11 eggs, hard boiled
1 green coconut, grated (only the white part) taking care to avoid the skin
1 cup grated cheese
1 big onion, finely cut into bits
1 big tablespoons full mayonnaise
3 small boiled and mashed potatoes

A pinch of salt
A pinch of pepper powder

For decoration :
1 carrot
1 capsicum
A few pepper corns

Method:

• Cut the eggs horizontally for the hatching chickens in the first picture and vertically for the bunny rabbits and the chickens in the second picture.
• Remove the egg yolks from their white shells and mix with all the other ingredients.
• Put the mixture in a piping bag, and pipe it out into the empty egg whites as seen in the pictures.
• Cut out the beaks and feet for the hatching chickens using the carrot.
• Cut bunny ears, nose and whiskers from carrot and capsicum.
• Cut some grass for decoration from the capsicum for the hatching chickens.
• Serve as a snack.

Goan Chicken Xacuti Recipe

The Goan Chicken Xacuti is very popular and a lot of people want to know how to make the chicken xacuti. So I am providing herein the recipe for chicken xacuti. I have recently shared with you the Goan xacuti masala recipe; like I said earlier this is not a spicy recipe and so can be included in regular everyday Goan meals.

Chicken xacuti Goan recipe

Ingredients:
1 chicken, cut into medium or small pieces as per your taste
2-3 tspns ginger-garlic paste
salt to taste
2 onions, cut fine
2 tomatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
Curry leaves
2-3 tbspns oil
Xacuti masala
Coconut juice (optional)
Corriander leaves, chopped (optional)


Method:

• Apply salt and ginger-garlic paste to the chicken and keep aside.
• In a vessel or pressure cooker, fry the onion in oil and add the chicken with a tbspn or two of water.
• Cook until done. I cook in the pressure cooker for 5 mins. or less on simmer after the first whistle.

• Put the xacuti masala in a heavy pan and add some water depending on how thick or thin you want your chicken xacuti to be. You may also substitute the water with coconut juice.

• Bring to boil and add the curry leaves, tomatoes and potatoes.

• When the potatoes are cooked, add the cooked chicken.
• Bring to boil and turn off the flame. 
• Garnish with corriander leaves.
• Serve hot with rice, pulao, chappatis or bread.

Recheiado Mackerel Fish

 The recheiado fish is a very popular item on the Goan menu and many a Goan have it for their lunch almost everyday.

How to make Goan recheiado mackerel

Ingredients:
Mackerels
Goan Recheiado Masala
Salt to taste
Semolina for coating
Oil for frying

Method:

• Slit the mackerels on the dorsal side and lift the bone up using a knife.

• You can discard the bone or leave it as is.
• Apply the recheiado masala to the mackerel as shown in the picture and under the bone too if you leave it in.

• Close the mackerel.

•  Coat the recheiado mackerel with semolina on either side.

• Shallow fry the recheiado fish on a non-stick griddle.

• Turn and fry on the other side.

• Drain on kitchen paper and serve.