Snacks on Kitchen3N

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There is no rhyme or reason to this cake. It is neither healthy, nor a proper dessert. It is simply for chocolate lovers. It is a glorious use of a bland, high water content vegetable that lends it's moisture to the crumb of this perfect snack cake. It's blandness acts as a perfect palette for all the wonderful cocoa and brown sugar flavor to absorb. I've posted about chocolate zucchini cake before. This bread version is a bit heartier with whole wheat flour and almond flour - a little more substance to justify my classification of it as a snacking cake! I wasn't happy with any of the recipes I found online for chocolate zucchini loaf, so I made my tweaks, including adding chocolate chips, and voila! Perfection.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or 1 cup AP flour/1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup almond flour)
1/2 cup dutch processed cocoa plus extra for coating chocolate chips(if using natural cocoa, swap the amounts of baking soda and baking powder)
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
12 tbsp melted butter
1 lb zucchini, grated
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and lightly dust a 9inx5in loaf pan with cocoa powder. Stick in the freezer while preparing your ingredients.
Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Turn off heat and allow to cool down.
Wash and cut off one end of zucchini. Grate, not completely finely, but not in huge slivers either. Place a large sieve over a bowl and place grated zucchini there to drain while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (everything except the eggs, butter and chocolate chips). Whisk to combine, breaking up any large clumps. Make a well in the center and add eggs and butter. Mix with a wooden spoon (Bengali alert: I used my hands to mix this batter!). Add all of the zucchini and stir until combined. In a small bowl combine the chocolate chips with sprinkling of cocoa (maybe 1/4tsp). Toss to coat the chocolate chips with the cocoa. Add to the batter, gently folding in. Take the loaf pan out of the freezer and add the batter, spreading evenly across the loaf pan. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out relatively clean.*
Allow to cool completely before attempting to remove it from the pan.

*It won't come out completely clean due to the moisture of this loaf. A few crumbs are ok. You just don't want it to come out with wet batter.

Ramadan Round Up

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Ramadan is halfway over, but there’s still time to make some of my favorite recipes for this time of year! Going clockwise from the top left:

Citrus Quinoa Salad with Dates, Almonds and Mint - we consume a lot of dates during Ramadan. This recipe uses up any extra dates you may have in a salad you can feel good about eating at the end of a long fast!

Aloo Chop (Fried Mashed Potato Balls)

Sat, 18 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Traditional Bengali iftars are an exercise in how many different ways can we consume fried foods. Ground up lentils and herbs? FRY IT! Fresh sliced eggplant? BATTER AND FRY IT! Whole green chilis? FRY IT! Mashed potatoes? FRY. IT.

There’s been a backlash by my generation against the fried iftars of our parents’ generation:

Mini Turkey Pot Pies

Mon, 02 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Confession: I’ve never made an actual pot pie. Like with the flaky crust and roux (butter and flour mixture) thickened meat and vegetable filling. It just wasn’t something that was a regular on our dinner table. And given my zabihah-halal dietary restriction, ordering chicken pot pie at any ol’ restaurant just wouldn’t do. But, one day last summer (or was it two summers ago?) I was taking my New York-obsessed-child-prodigy of a niece around the city. After an eventful day of Top of the Rock, TKOs at Bouchon Bakery, and bumping into Naomi Watts in Soho, we were making our way through Chelsea Market and (I) decided we would have a well deserved sit down lunch at the green table.

Samboosa

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Samboosa, samosa. Tomato, tomahto. Either way - savory pastry stuffed with meaty goodness. A fellow homeschooling mom made this for a multicultural fair we had a few months back and it was so good I just had to recreate it. It is a traditional Omani recipe: ground beef infused with deep tomato flavor, spices, herbs and vegetables, enrobed in crispy fried pastry dough. Better than any of the samosas you’d find in Jackson Heights or any other South Asian enclave.

Mughlai Paratha

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Mughlai paratha is a traditional flatbread they serve in Bangladesh. It’s a rich dough, stuffed with eggs, cilantro, onions, chili peppers and sometimes ground chicken. It’s pretty hard to track down a recipe. This post is a culmination of verbal consultation with my mother, taste testing at Bengali fast food joints, and YouTube research. It’s a little bit ridiculous, I know, because it’s not exactly a 30 minute meal. There are several steps, practice and patience required. But I figured with the upcoming holiday weekend, we all might have some extra time to get in the kitchen (it’s cold outside!), roll up our sleeves, and maybe even involve the kiddies (my little ones LOVE getting their hands on the rolling pin and dough whenever they can). Also, there will no doubt be lots of leftovers that would work perfectly as a filling for these guys. This baby has been in the pipeline for a looooooong time. I’ve been meaning to make it for ages. I’ve been experimenting recently, since I’ve been getting to know my rolling pin a bit better (hello, pie season). I’ve tried making it with pizza dough (which was delicious but resembled more of a calzone than a traditional mughlai paratha) and all kinds of ghee to flour ratios and cooking techniques (shallow fry, deep fry). And this is the glorious, delicious result! Yes, that is my Fresh Tinted Lip Balm on my kitchen counter. Where else would it be? I would love to add more filling. It would make the paratha even more delicious. But I err on the side of less filling just to avoid leakage and it running all over the pan. You, though, are at liberty to experiment with as much filling as you’d like!For those of you who aren’t familiar with ghee, it’s delicious. It’s butter that’s been melted, milk solids removed. You do that by melting a stick (or two) of butter in a small saucepan, allowing the solids to drop to the bottom, then utilizing the melted fat on top. It’s slightly nutty and has a higher burning temperature than regular butter, which is what makes it so great for this recipe (among others: pancakes, mashed potatoes, and so on). So I hope you guys give this recipe a try! And don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t come out super thin the first time. Practice makes perfect!

Fruit Chaat

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I remember having fruit chaat for the first time at my cousin Lima Apa’s house. I was flabbergasted at how bright and flavorful a simple yogurt dressing made otherwise pretty boring fruit (green apples, red grapes). Since then, I use the dressing as a way to eat more fruits during the winter months. When the mangos are tart and the berries are lackluster. A quick toss, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly the fruit disappears!

Cranberry Relish (Achar)

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not a pickle/relish/chutney person. My husband is not a turkey-with-all-the-fixin’s kind of guy. So this is how I strive to compromise. You see, I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. It will be pretty small, just my family and his. But there are a few characters in this production who absolutely do not enjoy anything outside the rice and curry/biryani paradigm. So, my spread will look something like this: roast turkey (brined in buttermilk, stuffed with orange, garlic, thyme and sage flavorings), my mother in law’s khichuri, mashed potatoes, salad, either a green bean casserole or sweet potato dish, and this relish. I love cranberry sauce, but in order to make it more palatable for my husband, his brother, and my dad, I thought I’d prepare it according to the traditional Bengali method for achar (non vinegar based relish). It’s sweet, spicy, and tart all at the same time. Obviously cranberries aren’t available in Bangladesh, but they remind me of this other berry like fruit that they do use for achar. The result was pretty good!Mustard oil is not so common in American grocery stores, but if you’ve made the trip to an Asian grocery to get any of the other ingredients required in this (dried red peppers, pach forom), you’ll definitely find the mustard oil. The second it hits the heat, a wonderful aroma fills the whole house. If you can’t find it - don’t fret. Make it with vegetable or olive oil. The result will be a much more mellow relish. Then come all the other aromatics: pach forom, garlic, and red pepper. The seeds will start to pop once they get heated through…time to quickly add the other ingredients!When working with the red peppers, simply snap them in two with your fingers and dump all the seeds out onto the cutting board. Then, when you add them to the hot oil, stand back and prepare for a pepper onslaught on your sinuses! Make sure your vent is going and windows are open, otherwise you’ll find yourself and the rest of your family members in a coughing fit. At this point, I know what you’re thinking: this is really, really weird. And I’ll admit - it’s not for everybody. But if occasionally you find yourself longing for the sweet and spicy relishes of your childhood, this will definitely hit the spot! We would normally serve this with rice or luchi, but I’m sure it would be great on toast. You can make this with pach forom (which I’ve discussed before here) or with anise or fennel seed (which I actually prefer, since the black seeds in pach forom are a bit strong for me). Hope you try this if you’re looking to spice up the usual cranberry sauce! I would love to hear about your Thanksgiving traditions!

Homemade Granola

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Why not have breakfast in your favorite dessert bowl?

I am not crazy about oatmeal. Unless it’s steel cut. That I don’t mind for a weekday breakfast. But it can be time consuming. So, the other option is to make a nice big batch of this granola on a lazy Sunday (believe me, it does not take a whole lot of effort…a little babysitting while it’s in the oven, sure, but nothing over the top). And boom, you have breakfast ready for the whole week. Over yogurt, over milk, over ice cream as a midnight snack, it’s delicious. Can you buy ready made granola from the store with about the same amount of effort? Yes. Will it make your whole house smell like maple syrup and toasted coconut? No. Besides, like most foods when made fresh, it tastes better!I realize most people may not have all the necessary ingredients on hand for this, but if you make it just once, you’ll likely keep those items in stock for future cravings. It’s super customizable, too. Don’t have almonds? Use peanuts. Don’t have raisins? Use craisins. I don’t care for dried fruit in my granola so I just leave it out entirely. Just don’t skimp on the maple syrup or coconut.This is Alton Brown’s recipe. When it comes to basics, this guy knows what he’s doing.