Mango Shrikarani

I usually go for spicy side dishes with either rice and rotis or atleast sweet and spicy. But last year while on a vacation,I was surprised to see puris being served with thick mango juice and since I had heard of puri halwa combo in the Northern parts of India,I was thinking it was just a variation. But recently I read about Mango Shrikarani at Prathibha's space. 

Shrikarani or Shrikarni is a Karnataka style sweet side dish served with rotis. It like a chunky milk shake with mango pulp is mixed with chopped mango pieces and milk. Its easier to make and here is my version tried from Prathibha.

Ingredients:
Mango: 1 peeled and chopped
Milk: around 1/4 cup
Sugar: as per taste
Cardamom:1-2 pods crushed OR 1/4-1/2 tsp powdered

Preparation:
Clean and peel the mango and finely chop it. Mash half of the chopped mango pieces in a bowl.

In a serving bowl,mix in sugar and milk till sugar dissolves. Add in cardamom and give it a final mix so as to get spiced milk.

Fold in the mashed and chopped mango into this sweetened cardamom milk.

Chill till serving time.
Serve with rotis or puris.

I am no lover of mangoes,but inspite of this I relished this with rotis (just as I had done with puris). A cooling side dish in this hot summer.But yes,you can also enjoy it as itself just as a dessert.

This delightful side graces T&T:The Chef & Her Kitchen at SaviRuchi,an event by Lakshmi.

Tomato Mozzarella Tartlets

I am a bit scared of tarts.Somehow I have this belief that mine won't turn out nice.Somehow or rather MM:Topless Tarts by CookSister, tempted me to try them and this simple tomato one adapted from David Lebovitz did not let me down..I halved the original and made other changes as well and though it doesn't look as good as the original but definitely tasty it was.

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour: 3/4 cup
Butter: 6 tbsp cold (cubed and chilled)
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Egg: 1/2 or rather Ener G Egg: 3/4 tsp powder + 1 tbsp water
Ice cold water:1-2 tbsp

Tart Filling:

Parmesan Cheese: for a few sprinkles
Tomatoes: 1-2 sliced into rounds
Olive Oil:  1-2 tsp for drizzling
Basil: few leaves fresh/Frozen
Mozzarella: cubed/sliced as needed
Salt,pepper & /Italian seasoning: as needed

Preparation:

In a blender, mix together flour and salt. Add in the 1/2 egg or required Ener G mixed with 1 tbsp of water to the ice cold water and add to the blender. Give a mix so that the a dough starts to form.Put everything on a lightly dusted surface and gently form a dough. Chill for atleast 30 minutes. 

This chilling of the dough is not there in the original recipe. My dough was sticky(maybe I added more water) and got torn while rolling out. SoI rolled up everything and chilled the dough.

Take out the dough and roll it out on a floured surface.Once the dough is large enough to cover the bottom and sides of your tart dish, roll the dough around the rolling pin and unroll it over the tart dish.

Dock the bottom of the pastry firm with your fingertips,pressing a few times so as to make indentations.

Sprinkle parmesan cheese at the base as a single layer. The original used mustard as a base.I didn't have it and on googling found several recipes going for a parmesan layer.So I used cheese.

Top the cheese layer with tomato slices to get an even tomato layer.You can overlap tomato slices to get this.sprinkle little salt & pepper and olive oil on top of this and sprinkle basil leaves.
                                               

Top this with cubed/chopped/sliced mozarella.Sprinkle pepper,italian seasoning or whatever spices you have chosen.

                                           

 Bake in a preheat oven at 190C for 20-25 minutes or more until the crust is golden brown and the cheese has melted and browned to a nice crust. Within minutes I started baking, I saw that cheese has browned while the crust still needed few minutes of cooking,so I covered the top loosely with an aluminium foil and continued baking.

Take out let it cool for a few minutes then serve as a starter or entree or even as a snack.

                                           

It has a nice bisuity crust and was cheesy to the last bite. You can also call it Caprese salad tartlets as I have used the same ingredients. That name sure sound interesting and tasty just as the tartlets are.

You can also make the pastry few days ahead and freeze to be used later. As obvious,the tartlets are on way to MM:Topless Tarts at CookSister, an event by Meeta