This recipe is my mothers, and everyone loves it, its simple to make. I found this recipe in one of her old books and quickly wrote it down.

Ingredients
1 cup kabuli channa (Soaked in 3 to 4 cups of water for 10 - 12 hours), canned chickpeas can be used
1 tea bag or put 1 tbsp tea in a cheese cloth and tie it tightly
1.5 tsp fennel seeds/saunf
1.5 cups onion sliced
1/2 tsp black salt
1 tsp cumin seeds/jeera
1 tsp kalongi/onion seeds powdered
1 inch ginger, sliced
1 tsp garlic paste(optional)
2 tbsp thick tamarind juice (adjust to taste)
1 tsp ghee/oil
fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Drain the soaked channa.
   
2. Pressure cook it along with the tea bag, fennel seeds, black salt and 1/2 cup of sliced onions.
   
3. After 4 to 5 whistles or till cooked well, drain the channas and reserve the water. Discard the tea bag.
   
4. Heat the ghee, add the kalongi and cumin seeds.
   
5. Once they splutter add the sliced onions, ginger and garlic. Cook till the onions are transparent.
   
6. Add the drained channa and cook for 2 minutes.
   
7. Add the tamarind paste and 1/2 cup of the channa water.
   
8. Mix well.
   
9. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. The water would have dried up by now.
   
10. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with Baturas.
    

I am sending this to Think Spice: Kalonji hosted by Dee of Ammalu’s Kitchen, started by Sunita.

April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I so love cheese cakes and never would have made it at home if it was not for The Daring Bakers. I chose to make a Mango Cheesecake. I followed the recipe to the T and just added 1/4 cup of mango pulp. Will make this more often with different flavours. Thank you Jenny.


Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
   
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.
   
3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.
   
4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
   
5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.
   

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Some variations from the recipe creator:

• Lavender-scented cheesecake w/ blueberries - heat the cup of heavy cream in the microwave or a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Add 2 tbsp of lavender flowers and stir. Let lavender steep in the cream for about 10-15 minutes, then strain the flowers out. Add strained cream to cheesecake batter as normal. Top with fresh blueberries, or make a quick stovetop blueberry sauce (splash of orange juice, blueberries, a little bit of sugar, and a dash of cinnamon - cook until berries burst, then cool)
  
• Cafe au lait cheesecake with caramel - take 1/4 cup of the heavy cream and heat it in the microwave for a short amount of time until very hot. Add 1-2 tbsp. instant espresso or instant coffee; stir to dissolve. Add this to the remainder of cream and use as normal. Top cheesecake with homemade caramel sauce (I usually find one on the food network website - just make sure it has heavy cream in it. You can use store-bought in a pinch, but the flavor is just not the same since its usually just sugar and corn syrup with no dairy).
  
• Tropical – add about a half cup of chopped macadamias to the crust, then top the cake with a mango-raspberry-mandarin orange puree.
  
• Mexican Turtle - add a bar of melted dark chocolate (between 3 and 5 oz., to taste) to the batter, along with a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of cayenne pepper (about 1/8 tsp.). Top it with pecan halves and a homemade caramel sauce.
  
• Honey-cinnamon with port-pomegranate poached pears – replace 1/2 cup of the sugar with 1/2 cup of honey, add about a teaspoon or more (to taste) of cinnamon. Take 2 pears (any variety you like or whatever is in season), peeled and cored, and poach them in a boiling poaching liquid of port wine, pomegranate juice/seeds, a couple of "coins" of fresh ginger, a cinnamon stick, and about a 1/4 cup of sugar. Poach them until tender, then let cool. Strain the poaching liquid and simmer until reduced to a syrupy-glaze consistency, then cool. Thinly slice the cooled pears and fan them out atop the cooled cheesecake. Pour the cooled poaching syrup over the pears, then sprinkle the top with chopped walnuts and fresh pomegranate seeds.
  

Some variations from Jenny (from JennyBakes):

• Key lime - add zest from one lime to sugar before mixing with cream cheese. Substitute lemon juice, alcohol, and vanilla with key lime juice.
  
• Cheesecakelets - put in muffin tins, ramekins, or custard cups. Try baking 20-35 minutes, or until still a little jiggly, and cool as before.
  

Click here to view what the other fellow Daring Bakers baked.

Its been so long posting something, feels good to be back. In March 2009 the daring bakers decided to make lasagnas from scratch and I happened to make double the quantity of dough. I had lots of left over dough and was planning to make ravioli, tortellini's and freeze them and that's how I realized I could make Stuffed Dal Dhokli, which I has been my favorite ever since I saw it in The Spice Cafe. I love her pictures and I think that's what inspired me to cook this, though I never loved it when I was small. But now every time I have some extra dough of any kind and its getting stale I make this, sometimes with a stuffing and sometimes not. There was this once that I had to make Muruku's and I used All purpose flour instead of Rice Flour, so yeah they too landed up as dhoklis. This is such a versatile recipe and do not forget to add the peanuts, they are the best part.

Ingredients

Dhoklis

I used about 1/2 cup of Spinach Pasta Dough

The Usual Dhokli recipe is as follow, you can skip the stuffing and just use the dough or use any other stuffing of your choice:

Dough
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
1 tsp oil
water for kneading

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients except water.
   
2. Knead to a soft dough using the water.
   
3. Cover and keep aside till you make the stuffing.
   

Stuffing

1/2 cup boiled and smashed potatoes
1 green chili, chopped finely
a pinch turmeric powder
1/4 amchur (mango powder)
1/4 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp red chili powder
1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
salt to taste

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together and keep aside.
   

Assemble the Dhokli

1. Take a lemon size ball of dough.
   
2. Roll to make a 1/4 inch thick circle.
   
3. Using a cookie cutter or a bottle cap, cut small circles about 2 inch in radius.
   
4. Place little bit of the stuffing on each cut circle.
   
5. Close the sides of the circle over the stuffing and form a ball.
   
6. Flatten the ball to form a flat disc.
   
7. Continue the same till all the flour is used.
   
8. Cover and keep aside till the dal is made.
   

Dal Ingredients
1 cup boiled Toor Dal
1/4 inch ginger grated (optional)
1 tsp jeera
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 pinch hing / asefetida
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/3 cup raw peanuts
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
2 kukum flowers
2 tsp jaggery/gur
salt to taste
fresh coriander leaves for garnish
2 cups water
1 tsp ghee / oil
1 onion chopped and mixed with some salt and red chili powder

Method

1. Heat ghee and add the hing, the mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
   
2. Once they splutter add the tomatoes and ginger. Cook for a minute.
   
3. Add the dal with the 2 cups off water.
   
4. Bring to a boil.
   
5. Add the peanuts,red chili powder, turmeric powder, kukum, jaggery and salt.
   
6. Boil for 5 minutes.
   
7. Keep it on simmer and add the dhokli's.
   
8. Simmer for 10 minutes.
   
9. The dal dhokli is done once the dhokli float to the top.
   
10. Add the coriander leaves.
    
11. Serve immediately garnished with the onion.