pumkin scones

I love pumpkin season, although I live in the desert and we don't celebrate thanks giving. But my home town is known for its heavy use of pumpkins, so I think it might be my DNA acting up (chuckle ).

Pumpkin scones makes 6 

Ingredients:

• • 2 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp powdered  nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp cloves, ginger
  • 6 tbsp cold butter, cubed
  • 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 1 L egg

• sugar glaze

  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp milk

• spiced glaze

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 to 2 tbsp milk
• 1/4 tsp powdered cinnamon
• Pinch powdered ginger
• Pinch of powdered cloves
• Directions
• 
  
• Mix all the flour and other dry ingredients, then rub the butter and flour mix together until it takes the consistency of bread crumbs.
• 
  

Add in the pumpkin puree, milk and egg, with a wooden spoon mix in the flour/butter, and dump the whole lot on a lightly floured surface, knead the dough until it just come together (make sure that you don't work the dough too much otherwise you'll end up with tough scones).

shape the dough into a disc that is 1-2 inches thick and then slice it like a pizza into 6 equal pieces, place them into a baking sheet and bake at 180 C for 12-15 minutes   
let it cool a bit before you glaze it

for the glaze:
dissolve the sugar into the milk completely  add the spices for the spiced glaze. cover the scones with the spiced sugar glaze and then pipe over it the plain sugar glaze in a zigzag pattern .

enjoy with a cup of coffee :)

• 
  

The bread budding of the Arabs: Um Ali

Every Ramadan my mother will announce that she "at last" found the perfect recipe for Um Ali. While she still searches for the perfect recipe I found mine, when it comes to cooking I follow the motto " if it ain't broken , don't fix it", if it tastes good I stop my search. The only change I made is that I don't use raisins, I never have been a fan of them as a child and I still don't like them much. 

Potato filled flat bread: aloo paratha

 For a long time my family always have had paratha plain and only accompanying keema, sometimes we will be "adventurous" and eat it with some egg and cheese. But it was always plain unfilled, and never homemade.
when I graduated from the university I was unemployed , so I started exploring cooking and world cuisine, and started learning more about types of bread and cheese etc. And there was a world of parathas to explore. but of all the types out there, aloo paratha stole my heart; it's a carb feast: bread filled with potato, perfect.


I personally don't like my potato filling to but overly spiced , for a more authentic paratha check the recipe from the source

Aloo Paratha Adapted from ( Manjula's Kitchen) 
makes 6
Ingredients

[Dough:]
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup water 
Pinch of salt

[Potato Filling]
2 medium potatoes, boiled
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
2 tablespoons chopped parsley or coriander
1/2 teaspoon garam masala 

Directions:
Mix the flour and salt, and add the water bit by bit and mix until a soft dough is formed, knead it on a lightly  floured surface for 5 minutes, let it rest for 10 minutes 

divide the dough and roll it into 6 golf sized balls and cover with a wet tea towel and again let it rest for 10 minutes while you prepare the filling.
for the filling, mush the potatoes with the salt, herbs and all the spices, and divide in 6 balls that are slightly larger that the dough balls.

now to make the bread, take one dough ball and flatten it a little with your hand and then place the filling ball in the middle and wrap it with the dough, try to cover the filling completely, roll it a bit. press it to form a disk and roll it with a rolling pin untill it's as thin as possible, the filling might poke out of the dough but it's a;right.

heat a frying pan, once it's hot enough (drops of water should sizzle) place the paratha and fry for few secons, once it starts to puff flip and press it to let the air out. prush it lightly with oil (or ghee) and flip while pressing the air pockets few times to get an even colored bread.
enjoy it with milk-tea

how big is your mouth

Ever since I started cooking, my golden rule was "never handle meat", the mere thought of cooking meat scared me, I always had this feeling that cooking meat needs some talent and experience, once I see a recipe that calls for meat I sigh and flip the page. One day I was craving beef burgers and my mum was out, so I had to summon my courage and make my own burgers; after flipping in some cookbooks and scraps of magazines I decided to use a recipe in James Martin's easy British food , but I did some modifications and 'till now I made burgers with the same recipe four times, and every time my family ask " when will be the next time you make more", hah~.

so yesterday I made some, and as always I remembered to take a picture after I started to eat, a trend is starting.

Beef burgers (Mai's way)

(makes 6 good sized burgers)

1 Fry the chopped onions in a little oil to take off the rawness.
2 Mix the minced beef with the onions, chopped gherkins, mayonnaise, mustard, Tabasco... then season well with salt and pepper.
3 Take a ball of the mixture and shape it into a burger then make a small indentation in the middle of it, put the cheese in it and enclose it and reshape into a burger.
4 Put in the fridge to firm for a 30 minutes.
5 Fry in a hot saucepan for 6 minutes on each side, for a well done burger, if you like it medium done cut out the cooking time to 4 minutes. If you are lazy (like me) you can just throw it in a 190C oven for 45ish minutes or less, and they will be perfect, just remember to splash some olive oil on the burgers before you pop them in the oven.


Ingredients
2 small onions, finely chopped
700 g minced beef
8 Gherkins (pickled cucumbers) chopped
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp mustard
splash of Tabasco, depending on how hot you want it
slat and pepper
6 slices of cheese, fold each to make a slice that is similar to a coin in size