Chakka, jaca, jackfruit……

Jackfruit is one of those fruits whose seeds also can be used in a variety of dishes. My mom makes a yummy roast (semi-gravy), replicating chicken gravy with it. So when I bought a few jackfruit pieces for my son, I decided to use the seeds in a fry. Why not the whole fruit, you ask? - well, if I was in my hometown, it would come in no form other than a full jack fruit. Here, though there are shops which sell the whole fruit, cleaning and disposing off the rest after the fruit arils and seeds are taken is a trouble.

Did you know that jackfruit gets its name from Portugese word jaca, which was derived from its Malayalam name of the fruit, chakka? One more reason to be proud of my mother tongue J

So I checked the recipe with my mom and made my own version (yeah, as usual ;)). Since my family preferred it to be a dry dish, I made it as per the recipe below:

Recipe

Ingredients

Jackfruit seeds – 10 to 15 Nos.
Potato – 1no. medium sized (optional)

Onion – 2 nos. (1 roughly chopped, 1 thinly diced)
Green chilli – 1 no. (chopped)
Ginger Garlic paste – 1 teaspoon
Tomato – 1no. (finely chopped)
Cumin  seeds – 1 tsp
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – 2 tsp
Pepper powder – ½  tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Coriander leaves – few sprigs, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Asafetida – a pinch
Oil – 2 tbsp

Preparation

• Pressure cook the jackfruit seeds with a bit of salt, turmeric and asafetida. If you are adding potato, add after 1 whistle or cook it separately. 
• Tip: Upto how many whistles should the cooking happen really depends on the texture of the seeds. If they are really dry, you would need upto 3 whistles). 
• While the seeds are cooking, grind together the roughly chopped onion, chilli and coriander powder into a paste.
• Heat oil in a pan. 
• Add cumin seeds and ginger garlic paste. 
• Once the raw smell from the paste goes off, add the cut onions and the chopped green chilli. 
• Add salt (careful with the quantity as we already added some salt while cooking the jackfruit seeds).
• When the onions become translucent, add the tomato. Let it cook till it starts releasing oil. 
• Add pepper powder.
• Add the ground paste and mix well. This needs to cook for some time till all the raw pungent smell of the onions go off from the paste. If you prefer to, you can add more oil.  
• To this, add the cooked potato and jackfruit seeds. Mix well with the masalas. Let the mix get to a beautiful roasted form.
• Tip: You can add a little water at this stage if you need this dish in a gravy form – best if you can use the leftover water from cooking the seeds.
• Add chopped coriander leaves and curry leaves.

Garnishing Note: Served with hot rice or appam or roti, this is a warm dish that will fill your heart. 

Bread in the making…..

Necessity is not just the mother of invention; it is also the trigger for your actions in daily life. A necessity made me do an action today that I would have put off (read as have been putting off) due to lack of time – well, you know that’s what I call it ;)

I baked wheat bread at home J and the trigger – the controversies about the ingredients in the store bought bread.

Like most households these days, we have bread for breakfast atleast two or three days in a week –with omelet, with veggies, with cheese, with ketchup, with spread. My kids have it too. Suddenly all these discussions come up about some potential cancer causing ingredients in the bread. They also say that the major bakers have stopped including this in their products. But how do I know? I am an ordinary person who checks the date of expiry and some key ingredients in the products – I don’t check out each single chemical used in them and this news is enough for me to panic. So I did.

I decided to give wheat bread a try - with my better half helping with motivation and with the microwave settings, I was all set J I would like to post the recipe I used here because this attempt at baking makes me worry-free about my family’s health and it is a double bonanza that it made me really happy and proud of myself as a person J Knowing there are a lot of people who are probably in the same boat as I am, I hope this recipe helps you also try baking at home. Wish you a happy baking time J

Recipe

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour – 3 cups

Dry active yeast – ½ tbsp

Sugar – 1 tbsp

Salt – 1 tsp (vary according to preference)

Water – 1.5 cups almost

Oil – 2 tbsp

Milk – 3 tbsp almost

Preparation

• Mix the dry active yeast and sugar in about 1.5 cups of warm water.
• Once the yeast is active (about ten min or so), mix it with the flour. Add and mix salt, oil, milk (2 tbsp) and water (water quantity is based on the dough texture – knead till you feel the dough is sticky, but airy enough).
• Brush the dough with the rest of the milk and leave it for about 1.5 hours.
• Once you see the dough has risen well, punch a few holes to let it deflate.
• After this, ideally you should be placing the dough in a greased (can be with butter or oil) loaf pan and leave it for an hour more. Since I didn’t have a loaf pan, I used my cake moulds. If you aren’t really worried about the shape of your bread (as seen in the pics), you can use the cake moulds you have at home. Close the mould with a lid.
• Tip: Just remember to not use up the entire space of the mould – the idea is to give the dough enough space to rise.

      

Before rising

After rising

• Preheat the oven at 220 degrees.
• Place the moulds in the oven (I kept both the moulds together) and let it bake for about 25 min, check the bread (you can use a fork to prick the dough and check if it is cooked). If not cooked, keep it for another 5 min. 
• Once the bread has cooled down, it is ready to serve.

                                             

                   

This is my first attempt at baking bread at home, so made this as a plain wheat bread. Plan to include nuts, garlic, oregano next time round. Keep you posted J

Garnishing Note: That’s for you – bread in the making – or should I say bread in the baking!!