Watermelon Bars

These are simple bars made using watermelon juice and agar agar flakes.Agar agar or chinagrass or simply agar is a vegan equivalent to gelatin .It is available in powdered and flakes form.Agar is the Malaysian word for jelly and it is obtained from seaweed.It is a gelatinous substance but is plant based only unlike gelatin. I had obtained unflavoured agar agar in flakes and made these melon bars or jelly just to see how they work compared to the normal gelatin we use.They worked much better than expected.

Ingredients:
Watermelon Juice: 1. 25 cups
Water: 1.25 cup (1/2 + 3/4 cup)
Sugar: 4 tbsp+/-
Agar Agar Flakes: roughly chopped 5 gms unflavoured (white)

Preparation:
I blended almost 1.25 cups of watermelon with little water to obtain around 1.25 cups of juice which I strained and kept aside.You can also use storebought juice as well.

Roughly chop agar agar flakes and soak them in 1/2 cup of water for atleast 15 minutes.

In a sauce pan,heat 3/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar and stir well till the sugar dissolves.Squeeze the agar agar flakes and add them to the sugar water mix and simmer till the agar agar dissolves completely stirring continually.This takes just 5-7 minutes.

Once clear liquid is obtained,remove from heat ,and add the watermelon juice and mix well.

Pour the mix into serving bowls or a big container or any dish of your preference.Let it attain room temperature.Then chill it in the fridge till serving time or for atleast 30 minutes.

Serve by cutting into bars or any shape if you have chilled in a single big container.Else simply handover the invidual bowls just as you would do for a jello dish.

I inverted the container onto a plate,cut into bars....

Since I did not want to serve it simply as such,I served it with sweetened whipped cream and garnished with chopped roasted almonds.

This made the dessert plate look great and the taste was exactly 'jello"-ish.

I had actually used 1.5 cups of juice while making this jelly.While taking pics,I found that after 15-20 minutes,it started becoming watery very slowly.On chilling again,it stopped liquifying.One reason is it was extremely hot that day and I took pics in afternoon.Another more plausible reason is that the amount of juice was more.So if using 1.5 cup of juice increase the quantity of agar flakes to 1 gms more. Also instead of agar flakes which requires soaking and can be slightly messy,you can use powdered agar agar around 1-2 tsp (updated on 13th Aug,09: and not 1 tbsp) equivalent to 5 gms of flakes.

Also rather than making the water sugar mix,you can directly add sugar while blending the melon.In this case,simply boil 3/4 cup of water and then add chopped,squeezed agar flakes and continue the recipe.Also honey or agave nectar or any other sweetener can be used or even avoided depending on the sweetness of your melon.

Agar sets much faster than gelatin and requires very less chilling time compared to it.Agar has has health aspects as well.It reduces the body heat and is said to control bad cholestrol.It is supposedly rich in calcium,iron,minerals etc.You can also find some info here

The lovely and extremely delish watermelon bars are off to Monthly Mingle:Marvellous Melon an event by Meeta and currently hosted at ChewOnThatBlog

Pizza Margherita

Pizza Margherita is a simple Pizza made of mozarella cheese,basil and tomatoes-white,green and red colours to represent the Italian flag.This is a classic pizza that was first prepared in Naples in honour of the Queen Margherita who was visiting Naples at that time and had been named after her.It was also the first time that mozarella cheese was used in making pizza.

I had earlier bookmarked Mario Batali's recipe for this but had completely forgetten about it.While seeing Soma's pizza margherita recipe ,I was reminded of this and decided to plunge in pizza making.I halved Batali's recipe for the pizza dough and made a delicious pizza margherita.

Ingredients:
Pizza dough:
All Purpose Flour: 1.5 cups + more as needed

Active Dry Yeast: 3/4 tsp

Warm Water: 1/2 cup
Sugar/honey: 1 tsp
Salt: 3/4 tsp
Extra Virgin olive Oil: 1.5 tbsp

Marinara Sauce:
EVOO: 1 tbsp
Red Onion: 1 small chopped
Garlic: 2 cloves
Tomato Puree: 1 cup +
Fresh Basil: few leaves
Salt & Pepper: as per taste

Preparation:

Pizza Dough:

Stir the water, oil, sugar, and salt in a cup until the sugar dissolves. Whisk the flour and yeast in a large bowl, make a well in the center and add the liquid . With hands/wooden spoon stir the flour into the liquid to make a rough dough. Pull the dough together into a ball and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes, using more flour if necessary to keep from sticking. Form into a ball and put on a lightly oiled bowl. Brush the tops of the dough with oil (rotate the dough ball within the bowl), cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to rise at room temperature until doubled, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Marinara Sauce:

Heat oil in a pan,add finely chopped onions and crushed garlic and saute till the raw smell goes.Add in tomato puree,salt,pepper,fresh basil and bring to a boil.Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.Adjust salt & pepper.

Pizza:
Punch down the dough and let it rest for atleast 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400F by placing a pizza stone (baker' stone) in the lowest rack.Now I do not have a pizza stone,so I placed a baking sheet lined with foil in the lowest rack while the oven preheated.

Put the dough ball onto a worksurface and using the heel of your hands (not fingers) stretch it to a circle,rotating the dough in between presses.You can make it as thin as you want or as far as you could before your patience runs out.Normally 1/8th inch thick pizza is required.

Spread the sauce on the pizza in a thin, even layer, making sure to leave a 1/4-inch border around the edges of the pizza. Season with salt and pepper. Top with the mozzarella. Normally sliced mozzarella is preferred.I used both shredded and sliced.(The pics are not so perfect as I was sure the from-the scratch pizza would be a failure,but was surprised that turned out pretty well.So much for my confidence in myself)

Slide the pizza onto the baking sheet and bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the bottom of the crust begins to brown.

Remove from the oven, tear the basil leaves and scatter over the pizza. Slice with a pizza cutter and serve immediately.

The pizza was heavenly delicious and perfect especially this was the first time I made te dough from scratch.I never expected basil to taste soooooooooooooo good.

Another alternate way to make this is to avoid the sauce and simply layer the tomato and mozzarella slices alternately thus avoiding the marinara.

UPDATE on Aug 06,2009: This was meant for Weekend Wokking:Cheese, an event by Wanderdering Chopsticks and hosted by healthy and lovely blogger Yasmeen of HealthNut.Though I missed the deadline,dear Yasmeen has been kind enough to accept this very late entry.So the simple yet delicious Pizza Margherita is off to join the delicious dishes in WW:Cheese roundup . Some things are better late than never.Thanks Yasmeen.