Exciting Recipes with goodness of Almonds

Hello and welcome Back! Your friend Prabhasini is back and as promised in my last article - Almonds-your best friend today, I will share with five exciting recipes with almonds as ingredient, adding both taste and health to your diet. So grab your chef's coat and let's begin...

1. Lapsi - Almond Pithe - It is said that anything good should begin with a sweet treat. So, the first recipe is a sweet dish. To prepare it, you need
For the lapsi-almond balls -

• 5 to 6 tablespoon almond paste
• cottage cheese 1 tablespoon - make sure water is drained out from it completely
• khoa 1/2 tablespoon
• crushed cardamom powder 1/2 small tablespoon
• baking soda 2 pinch
• grated coconut 1 tablespoon
• flour one and half tablespoon or as required as your proportions
• sugar as per taste

For the syrup you need- 

• whole cardamom 8 to 10
• 2 cups of sugar
• 4 cups of water

Method: First you need to prepare the sugar syrup. To prepare it you need to pour the water and sugar in a vessel and put it to boil. Split open the cardamoms on one end and drop them inside to boil as well. Check whether the water turns sticky and has a sugary taste. Once that stage is reached, take it off the flames and set it aside to cool down. This syrup has to cool down completely for making this recipe properly.

Next, take a bowl and pour the flour in it. Mix it with refined oil or ghee whatever is available with you. Then, mix all the other ingredients needed for the lapsi-almond balls. Keep kneeding the dough until it becomes soft and pliable. Next, make one ball out of the dough, and shape it round / square / triangle or any shape of your choice. Heat oil in a pan. Drop that one ball into the oil. If the ball remained intact - yippee!! Continue frying more balls. If the ball breaks and comes apart - add more flour and refined oil / ghee to the dough, and knead well. 

Next, when the balls turn golden brown take them from the pan and drop them in the sugar syrup. And repeat this process for every batch of balls.

Serve when it has cooled down. Your lapsi-almond pithe is ready.

2. Almond - Paneer - To make this you would need :

• whole fenugreek seeds 7 to 8
• one pinch of mustard seeds
• paneer 400 to 500 gms
• tomato 1 or 2 nicely chopped
• garlic cloves 3 to 4
• ginger 1/2 teaspoon 
• 8 to 10 almonds finely chopped 
• green chilli - 3 to 4
• few curry leaves as per taste
• salt to taste
• olive or mustard oil

Method : Heat oil in a pot. Sequentially, add fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and garlic cloves to it. Stir constantly until golden brown. Simultaneously, in a separate pot or pan, fry the chopped almond and make a paste of it. Next, add the almond paste to the pot with garlic and seeds. Keep stirring. Add paneer ( cut into small pieces ), green chilli, sliced tomatoes to it and toss well. Next, mix turmeric powder and salt to it as per taste. Add half cup water and allow it to simmer on low heat. Add curry leaves now. When water dries up, stir and toss well again. Add ginger now, and then, take it off the flames. Keep a lid on it to let the ginger essence set in.

Serve hot with rice or chapatti.

3. Aloo matar Rassa - To make this you would need :

• 750 gms peas ( shelled ), 
• 500 gms tomato
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 2 onions finely chopped
• 2 tablespoon ghee or oil
• salt to taste
• a bunch of coriander leaves

Grind to a fine paste : 

• a piece of ginger
• 3 red chillis
• 2 cloves
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed
• 8 pepper corns
• 1 inch stick cinnamon
• a large cardamom
• almonds 15 to 20

Method : Boil, peel and halve the potatoes. Heat the oil and fry the onions till golden brown. Add peas, bayleaves, turmeric, grounded paste and salt. Stir for a few minutes. Add the potatoes. Stir again. Add chopped tomatoes and a cup full of water. Simmer till the peas are cooked completely. Serve garnished with coriander leaves or any other way of your choice.

4. Mince meat cutlets : To make this delicious cutlets for accompanying your evening tea or coffee you need : 

• 1/4 kg minced meat
• 2 large potatoes
• 2 large onions
• 1 bunch coriander leaves
• 1 egg
• 6 green chillis
• 10 almonds
• 1 pod garlic
• a small piece of ginger
• 4 to 5 cloves
• a small piece of cinnamon
• bread or biscuit crumbs ( bread crumbs taste better but it is upto your choice )
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• salt to taste 
• oil for frying
• two containers which can be put inside pressure cooker together.

Chop onions and coriander leaves and keep aside. Chop almonds. Beat eggs and keep aside.

Place pressure cooker on stove with 1and 1/2 standard cups of water in it. ( For 6.5 and 7.5 litres cooker, senior and elegant model cookers, use 2 standard cups of water ).  Place mince meat in a container with ginger, chopped green chilli, salt, turmeric powder and half cup of water. Place potatoes in another container. Place both the containers inside pressure cooker and cook for 15 minutes. Remove the containers when cooled and keep aside. Drain water from mince meat. Peel and mash the potatoes and add to the minced meat. 

Heat a little oil and fry cloves and cinnamon. Remove from fire and grind them into a smooth paste. Add to mince meat and mix well.

        Heat oil in a  preett skillet. Add chopped almonds, coriander leaves and chopped onions. Add mince meat mixture to it and fry for 15 minutes. Remove from fire. Divide into even sized balls and flatten each ball. Dip in beaten egg and coat evenly with breadcrumbs. Shallow fry in oil until golden brown in colour. Garnish and serve hot.

5. Masala chicken - To make it you would need :

• 1 kg chicken cut into pieces (you can also use boneless pieces for ease )
• 500 gms onions
• 1.25 kg ghee
• 500 gm tomato
• 500 gm green pea
• 1 cup thick tamarind juice
• 1 piece ginger
• a bunch of coriander leaves
• 8 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• 15 almonds
• 1 tsp black sesame seeds
• 1 tsp poppy seeds
• 8 pepper corns
• 6 cloves
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cardamoms
• 2 tsp sugar
• salt to taste

Method: Wash, clean and simmer the chicken with enough water covering the entire quantity. Boil together with a piece of ginger and 6 garlic cloves. Meanwhile, grind ginger, turmeric, almonds, sesame and poppy seeds, pepper corns, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom making the masala. When the chicken becomes tender, keep it aside along with the stock. Boil the green peas. Chop onions and tomatoes. Take a pan and pour some oil in it. When the oil is hot, add onions and fry until light brown colour appears. Now put the grounded masala and fry well. Add chopped tomatoes and sugar with 2 tea cups of the stock prepared. Simmer till the gravy thickens. Now, add the chicken, cup full of tamarind juice and salt to taste. Let it boil for another r5 minutes. Add the green peas and leave for few more minutes. Now remove from heat. Serve hot. It tastes best with poori or chapattis or roti.

That's all for now. I hope all of you are eager and excited to try these lip-smacking recipes. And, they are really easy to make. 

Do try them and send in your reviews to aamiprabhasini@gmail.com

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you can scroll down the page and leave your message in the message box at the right sidebar. I would be eagerly waiting to hear from you. 

Meanwhile, stay tuned as I would be back with more articles on a variety of topics. Till then, enjoy cooking and eating. Stay healthy happy and safe.