From Your Kitchen To Mine #6

I decided to use bread in two different ways for The Iron Chef edition of Nupur's Blog Bites.

The first recipe, one for Malai Toast, is now a family favorite. It's something I've been making regularly since I first came across it on Richa's blog some 3 years back.

The only change I made here was to use yogurt with a splash of buttermilk instead of the malai mentioned in the original recipe. I also smear the batter on both sides of the bread slices and cook till it gets a nice crispy crust.

We love having this for breakfast over the weekends. It's something that's really simple and tasty and can be made at a moment's notice if you have the ingredients on hand. The recipe calls for ingredients that I always have in my kitchen. I cannot think of a better way to make use of a loaf of bread, leftover or otherwise.

The second recipe is from Kanchan's blog. Kanchan, very creatively transforms stale bread into this tasty snack in her recipe.

Here's how I made this-

I ran 5 slices of bread through the food chopper to get coarse crumbs. Next, I threw in a chopped onion, a few green chillies, a small bunch of coriander leaves, some salt and pepper, and pulsed the ingredients a couple of times. Then I added one beaten egg to the whole thing and mixed well. I added a little bit of flour too since the “dough” had become a little sticky at this point. This mixture of ingredients gave me 6 balls. I flattened these balls of the mixture as much as possible and cooked them till done.

Thanks for sharing your recipes, Richa and Kanchan!

Some more ways to enjoy bread:

Baked Eggs And Vegetables In Bread Cups

Pappa al Pomodoro (Tomato And Bread Soup)

Roti John

Bombay Toast (French Toast, Indian style)

Cocoa Brownies

I’ve tried a lot of different brownie recipes in the last few months, but my all-time favorite recipe continues to be this one that I spotted on Dessert First almost 2 years back.

I made these cocoa brownies last night inspired by what I saw on Nupur’s One Hot Stove. Nupur, in turn, had been inspired by something she’d come across on Smitten Kitchen. I’ve made a few changes to the original recipe. The ingredients are listed in the order in which I’ve used them in the recipe.

Ingredients:
(For 20 brownies)
8 Tbsp butter
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
Salt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp instant coffee powder (dissolve this in 1-2 tsp water)
½ cup all-purpose flour (I had to use whole wheat flour or roti flour here as I realized that I had no APF only when the batter was almost ready!)
¼ cup sun-ripened cranberries
½ cup walnuts, chopped (reserve a few pieces for sprinkling on top of the prepared batter)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8-inch square baking dish with foil and grease well.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter and chocolate. Add the cocoa powder, sugar and salt to the butter-chocolate mixture. Mix well. The mixture will be a little gritty at this point.

Next, add the eggs, vanilla extract and coffee. Mix well again.

Dump in the flour, cranberries and chopped walnuts and stir together gently until all the ingredients are just combined.

Transfer the batter (it will be really thick) to the baking dish and spread as evenly as possible.
Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 min, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.