Potato stuffed bread rolls : A Guest post

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Bread Rolls The Novice Housewife

A few weeks back Hetal from the beautiful blog Pretty Polymath asked me if I would be interested in doing a guest post for her series on favorite childhood food.

I thought the idea was brilliant and it gave me the opportunity to revisit one of my favorite childhood food that had somehow lost to healthier breakfast options. My mom’s recipe for bread rolls.

Growing up, we mostly ate healthy. Not much of fried stuff. My mom never even cooked maggi for us telling us it was bad for our brain. Of course, I was not too happy with that. We hardly ate junk, and hardly ate out. My mom would bake for us though- cakes, cookies, madeleines. And sometimes these fried bread rolls. Actually, these fried bread rolls featured quite a lot. I was a picky eater growing up and this was one of the few things I would eat happily and without cribbing.

Bread Rolls The Novice Housewife

The concept of a bread roll (not to be confused with dinner rolls) is pretty simple. Bread rolls are pieces of wet bread that is wrapped around a spicy mashed potato filling and then deep fried. If you think they sound good, wait till you try them. They taste amazing ! Kind of like a samosa, minus the rolling of the pastry dough, filling, shaping, and all that jazz.

There really isn’t much to the recipe and can be adapted to make different versions, and besides breakfast they are great as tea time snacks as well.

For the recipe for these bread rolls, please head on over to Pretty Polymath.

And also do check her blog for other bloggers sharing their favorite childhood recipes which include rice dumpling recipe, carrot-cabbage stir fry, Goli Baje and Hetal’s bottle gourd dumplings recipe.

Bread Rolls The Novice Housewife

Click here for the recipe for bread rolls. 

Blueberry and Sour Cream Loaf

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Blueberry and Sour Cream Loaf | The Novice HousewifeAmidst packing at my parents’ place and cleaning the refrigerator- attempting to use left over sour cream and a batch of blueberries, and flipping through the recipes July’s Indian issue of Good Housekeeping, this moist and flavorful Blueberry and Sour Cream Loaf was made.

When I told a friend of mine that I was posting the recipe for this loaf on the blog today, the question arose what is the difference between a sweet loaf and a cake. While I answered the doubt to the best of my knowledge, I wondered what the web had to say about it and did a quick google search to find the exact difference.

The most obvious difference is the tin used to make the baked good in question. Loaf cakes are always baked in a loaf pan, whereas cakes in other square or round tins. And even though both cakes and loaf cakes share similar ingredients, the ratio of flour, fat, sugar and the mixing methods are different and make a difference in the final product.

Blueberry and Sour Cream Loaf | The Novice Housewife

While quick breads (like banana bread, scones and muffins) are made by combining the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in the other and then mixing the two till just combined with few lumps, cakes are made by creaming the butter and sugar together (or by folding whipped egg whites into flour, sugar, yolks mixture- the chiffon method), lending a finer crumb to cakes. Thus, cakes are generally lighter than loafs and other quick breads. Kind of like the difference between a muffin and a cupcake, a cupcake being a mini cake and a muffin being a type of quick bread.

The Kitchn explains the difference between a cupcake and a muffin fairly well, and best to my knowledge that would be the difference between a cake and a quick bread (or sweet loaf).

Also generally, comparing various recipes, loafs are always with some kind of fruit in them, whereas cakes can be with fruit or not. 

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Garam Masala Tuesdays: Amritsari Kulcha

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Amritsari Kulchas with step by step photographs | The Novice Housewife Amritsari Kulchas with step by step photographs | The Novice Housewife

Before my grandparents moved to Mohali they were living in Jalandhar, a city in the northern indian state of Punjab. About ten minutes from our house in Jalandhar was this Gurudwara (the holy place where Sikhs worship) that my grandparents would go to regularly. Every afternoon, just a few feet away from the Gurudwara, a guy would come with his mobile cart and sell these amazingly thin, crispy yet soft Amritsari Kulchas. He would only come in the afternoon with the dough and filling prepared at home and would stuff and bake the kulchas in front of us, serving them in plates with his famous spicy chickpea curry. Our summer vacations were full of foodie adventures and my grandparents loved feeding us. These amritsari kulchas were a must on each of our visits.

Every afternoon, people would come during their lunch break and line up for a plate of this guy’s delicious Kulchas. He always came alone and stuffed the dough in front of you and baked it in his mobile tandoor to serve the dozens of people waiting next to his cart. Since he baked then and there, we would get piping hot kulchas laden with oodles of butter that would immediately start melting once placed on the kulcha. Not only were his kulchas to die for, but he made a delicious spicy chickpea curry and gave homemade pickle on the side. Eating them fresh out of his tandoor was the best option but generally we would get them packed for the whole family and eat at home. And stuff ourselves crazy. No wonder my brother and I would gain 5-6 kilos easily during the months of May and June.

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