I do not like this very much for the reason that it is very hard to digest atleast for me.On the contrary many people like it for its taste. In fact this is my husband's one of the favourite dishes too..
To make this dish there are two ways - 1. Prepare the masala powder yourself
OR
2. Use readymade bisibele bath powder.
I shall list the ingredients separately for masala powder and for the bisibele bath itself so that the entire recipe is modularized and is handy to pick and prepare.
Ingredients for the masala:
Channa dal (kadale bele) 1 spoon Urad dal (uddina bele) 1 spoon coriander seeds (dhaniya or kottambari beeja) 1 spoon Red chillies of two varieties - one for spice (4 in no - guntur menasinakayi) and the other for colour (8 in no- byadagi menasinakayi) (You can reduce chilli quantity if you do not like it to be very spicy) Grated dry coconut about 4 spoons Cloves (lavanga) 4 in no Cinnamon ( chakke) small stick of abt 1cm
Procedure for masala powder preparation: Dry fry all the ingredients one by one in a pan on medium heat until they turn light brown and have aroma. As you fry them, pour them back into separate containers and spread them so that they cool down. For frying chillies you will have to use 1 tsp of oil.
Add chillies and coconut into mixer and grind it into powder. Now add fried channa dal and grind. Next add urad dal and coriander seeds and grind it into powder. Then add cloves and cinnamon and grind them again into powder.
Alternatively, you can grind each ingredient separately and mix them at the end.
The powder should be a little coarse. It should not be fine powder.
The masala is now ready.
Ingredients for bisibele bath
Carrot -1No Beans - about 50g Potato - 1 No (medium size) Groundnut - a fist full salt 1 spoon oil 2 spoons asafoetida ( hing/ ingu) a pinch mustard seeds (1 spoon) Rice - 2 cups toor dal (togari bele) 1cup
Procedure: 1. Wash the vegetables and dal separately. 2. Cut the vegetables into small pieces. 3. You should boil rice, vegetables and dal. For this, pressure cooker / rice cooker is the best. Boil the rice and vegetables separately. Add 1/4 spoon salt to vegetables and dal before you boil. OR You can also boil rice, vegetables and dal together. Sometimes, it turns into a paste when you boil them together. 4. Let the boiled ingredients cool down (Allow Cooker to cool down for 15 minutes after 3 whistles) 5. Take a pan and add oil/desi ghee on medium heat. Ghee gives very nice aroma and adds to the taste. 6. Add mustard seeds and wait until they start splurting. 7. Add a pinch of asafoetida (hing/ingu) 8. Add ground nuts and fry them in oil ( Alternatively, you can boil them with vegetables but that leaves husk smell in them) 9. Add boiled items(rice, vegetables and dal). 10. Add a cup or two cups of water as the mixture will harden and the water evaporates. 11. Add salt and masala powder and allow it to boil for 15-20 minutes. Keep sauting while its boiling. Otherwise it will burn at the bottom. 12. Optional - garnish the dish with finely chopped coriander leaves and coriander leaves.
The dish is ready to serve. The dish has to be a little watery and it should not be too hard like lemon rice and should not be like lumps.
The dish can be served (by adding more ghee on top) with boondi and that gives it the ultimate taste.
I made it right after 3 times of unsuccessful trials.
Everytime I made, I used to think a lot of ghee will make it more tastier and thus ended up having besan burfi instead of laddu :)
so here I unveil successful story behind nice and tasty besan laddus
Ingredients:
1 cup besan (gram flour or kadale hittu as called in kannada) 1 cup sugar three fourth of a cup ghee
Procedure: Take a wide mouthed vessel like a pan/kadai and pour ghee. Let it heat for about 2-3 mins on medium heat. Now pour the gram flour little by little while continuously stirring so that there are no lumps of flour.
Fry the flour in ghee till the flour turns light brown. It may appear to you as a paste or like kheer. Dont worry. Thats perfectly fine unless you have not exceeded the proportion mentioned.
Once the flour changes its colour, switch off the heat and allow the mixture to cool so that it is just warm (may be about 10 minutes or so).
Now add the sugar and mix well. When you mix the sugar, the mixture becomes solid and is no more like a paste.
Also add the dry nuts and grapes to this. I generally prefer frying nuts and grapes in ghee till they turn brown before I add it to the mixture. Frying nuts in ghee gives them good aroma and taste.
Now make laddus of preferred size and serve them.
Tips: 1. You can use a seive to filter out lumps in the flour before you add it to ghee. This will make sure that there are less lumps in laddu. 2. In case the mixture is still like a paste, keep this in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. Remove it from the fridge and make laddus/balls of convenient size.
It was in March that we went to Calais – precisely March 6, 2010
The trip to Calais is certainly memorable as it was my last drive on Mercedes A180. Just few days before I returned the car in return for a brand new Audi A3, this trip as usual was unplanned. We only planned it an evening before. The inspiration or the reason to go to Calais was a suggestion by my colleague Navneet who had been there before. He also told me that there is a small hill standing on top of which you could see part of Dover. All fascinated, we searched for this hill without any more clues. Unfortunately we could not list it in any of the websites. We could hardly jot down any places of interest. So we decided to drive and find the place asking the local inhabitants about it.
So we set out as usual at 8am from home with Subhash and Swapna who were closer to our old house in Brussels. The route suggested by GPS was different to me as I never drove in that region of Brussels before. On our way near Oostende, we filled our car tank. It was indeed sunny. But the temperature was around 3°C and real feel of 1°C. You can imagine how cold it can be in the sea shore. We were unprepared for this cold in spite of weather forecast. We only wore normal jackets to beat the cold. Luckily we did carry woollen caps in our bag.
We reached the city centre and parked our car. While passing by my car’s mirror hit a man’s elbow and he yelled. He infact had parked partially on the road and partially on the pavement. Of course, I admit it was my mistake and that I should have bypassed him. But I was still afraid to go out of my lane and that he was blocking me. Anyways no damages made to anyone except my car mirror. It started swinging again. Least did I know that I could fix it myself and it was an adjustment of the mirror itself. I was just apprehensive of how much I would be fined when I return my car.
Not worrying too much about this, we just went around the city centre and enquired at the tourist information office on how to get to the sea.
I parked my car on the street off the main road where parking was free. We then strolled around. We walked towards the sea and saw that there was some parking there. We went around all the restaurants close by in search of vegetarian food. Unfortunately none of them had anything except salads. So we had to rely only on the Italian restaurant especially on pizza. We went to the Italian restaurant there. Believe me the pizza was so tasty. The macaroni with cheese prepared in Mediterranean style was so yummy. It almost matched Indian style of preparation. Subhash suggested us to try a tiramisu which is Italian desert. This restaurant had homemade tiramisu on the menu which was tempting us to try after the yummy main course. With our mouth watering we waited for the tiramisu. It was served cold and the taste still lingers on our tongue. Haven’t found so yummy tiramisu till now. Talking about the best ever food outside of Italy, we got out of the restaurant.
We came back and went in the car to the sea. As we got out of the car, we realized that the wind was so cold and was forceful enough of blowing us away with it. We walked only a few steps and felt we badly need our caps. Fortunately I had ‘em in my bag. We wore and went to the sea. The water was very cold and not inviting us to get into the waves. There were people with their sea-gliders on the sea. Wonder how they managed themselves. Then we thought of walking along the land stretch and go till the end.
As we walked along we saw a lot of people with their fish nets. They were fishing for fresh fish and perhaps getting ready for barbeque. Sometimes I feel how funny it is and sometimes I feel it is realistic to do one’s own job.
Well the constant cold breeze did not let us be there on the tip of the land for long and so we returned.
We then went to the city centre and looked around to do some shopping. There weren’t enough interesting offers and we only spent 30min.
We thought of buying a foldable cycle for Srikanth and decided to drive back before the shops in Belgium close on Saturday. So we came back to Brussels at around 6pm. That was a short day trip to Calais. Next time we go there, I am sure I will get the address of that hill J
This was one of our most unplanned trips I must say. So unplanned that I even did not know where we were going to stay, what we are going to see and how we are going to commute. I did not know anything till I actually experienced it. Having someone like Subhash who had made quite a lot of research on all this helped us. So this time it was Subhash, Swapna and Subhash’s parents who joined us. Different team this time hehehehhe. We booked our flights only four days in advance in the non-peak season on wizz air. We booked our tickets on Sunday evening for a flight that departs Saturday morning. Still we got a very good price. It was only 60eur per person. Indeed we had planned for Prague September last year. Unfortunately wizz air proposed a different itinerary and we had to cancel it. Never mind this time it was a good experience too. It was just a day visit on the weekend to Prague. We had to book our flights so that we get the cheapest possible deal. So we chose to depart on Saturday first flight and return by Sunday morning flight. We also booked our hotel for 6 of us in single room. This also worked out cheaper for us as it came upto 12euro/person/night. Perhaps that’s called planning :)
Wizz air leaves from the Charleroi airport and not the Brussels national airport. So we had to drive abt an hour to get to the airport. We woke up at 4am and started from home at 5 to get to the airport by 6:30 as we also had to pick up Subhash and his family. We reached the airport and circled the parking lot twice on the first floor. We then went down to lock parking and found a place luckily. Then we went in and got the visa check done. We cleared the security check and went to the gate to wait for over an hour. There is nothing much to do in Charleroi airport. We took hot chocolate to spend some time.
The flight was on time and we reached Prague also on time. Subhash had already researched on what would be the cheapest means to go around. With 100 CZK, you get a day pass valid for 24hrs from the time you first swipe in. That was enough for our whole trip. We bought that and we then took a bus to the city centre. From (Dejvicka) there we took a metro line A to muzeum and then a tram to the hotel where we stayed. I don’t remember the tram number or the stop name (may be 9) as I hardly participated in any planning. We got to the hotel and said we want to park off our luggage. As the hotel staff and the men were busy in that, I went into a shop opposite to the hotel and bought a big bottle of water to quench our thirst. None of us had anything for breakfast. We were ready for a brunch. Aunty was diabetic. She had her food pack ready with tablets in Swapna’s hand. As she had it and got ready, we parked our luggage and went to the stop again (with very less weight now) to go to Himalayas – the Indian restaurant that serves food at very low price. To us, it was low for the fact that we even could not get samosa for the buffet price. It was still not 12 when we went there and the restaurant would only open at 12. So we went to the shopping mall which was within few yards. We did our first shopping there. I and Swapna bought same shirt as we like the colour and design. Then it was around 12:30. We went to the restaurant and this time he was open. That was a very small restaurant which in all probability encouraged take away. There were only 8 chairs and 4 tables in the restaurant. We ordered for 4 thali, a mango lassi for me, banana lassi for Srikanth, mango lassi again for uncle, Subhash and salt lassi for aunt. For vegetarian thali, the restaurant had served more vegetables than rice. For south Indians, this is not so happy go situation. But I was very happy for that. I always liked more vegetables than rice :) What was worth mentioning is the lassi. The lassi was made out of fresh fruit and not the flavor like how it is done everywhere in Europe. We could feel the fruit pulp in it. We were full and left with a heavy stomach feeling that we will not be able to walk. It was very hot weather out there. The temperature was around 36° C.
Prague is full of churches and museums. Neither of these are interesting to us. Hence our first plan was to go to the castle. So we took a tram 5 to the castle foothill. Then another tram think it was 22 to the castle entrance. Then after visiting the castle, we walked through the streets to see the goldsmith house along the golden lane with number 12 or 14. There are some important buildings through the stroll. Then there is a vineyard also as we descend. There are some viewpoints which give you a better picture of the valley. We came down and took a tram to the mini Eiffel tower – Petrin tower. Unfortunately there was some march going on to create awareness against AIDS and hence the tram was diverted to another part of the street. We got down elsewhere and got to see some other buildings the names of which are still unknown to me. We rested on the lawn for a while and then looked at the city map we had. We gotta know that we were close to the old town and astronomical clock. So we went there and took some pictures. Then we were in need of water and coffee. We were close to Charles Bridge. On our way from astronomical clock to Charles bridge we were passing by souvenir shops. We did some souvenir shopping too. Of course most women are glad to do some shopping. Then we bought some water and the men went in search of Mc.Donalds our favourite coffee spot following the direction board signs. They came back while we waited with some water. They could not find it and so we decided to walk across the Charles bridge. As we got out on the other side we saw the lesser town bridge tower. We could also find Mc.D. While Subhash went to get more water for us, we went to Mc D and got ourselves some coffee. All of us had some coffee/ice cream and walked to the other side to get to the tram stop. We now took the tram to the Petrin tower. We got down and took cable car to the top of the small hill on which the tower is built. We went up and saw the tower took some pictures to add to our memory, rested for a while, had some snacks with cola and water. It was a very very tiring day with hot temperature. Also because we had woken up quite early in the morning and a lot of walk through out tired us. It was almost 9pm then. So we decided to return to the same restaurant and have some food before we get to bed.
We then went to the hotel at around 11pm to hit the sack and finally get some rest. We woke up the next morning to get ready to leave and say ‘bye bye prague, see you again :)’
We reached Brussels on time and drove back home. Only when we were walking towards the parking place, we realized that we had parked in normal parking and not lock parking. Overall it was a very satisfying tour for us. In this one-day journey, we came across some buildings which might have been of touristic importance. As I said before, Prague is full of museums and churches. So you will have to prioritize what you want to see and what is of interest to you in the days that you have reserved for the city. If you want to see all of them, I bet you need atleast a week.
We all did enjoy this trip to Prague. Hope you too will enjoy it.
It has been close to three months since we've been there. It was april and during easter. I have always wanted to pen down my feelings and experiences. Here goes my narration - read on :)
Shwarzwald, Deutscheland
Hmm… name itself sounds unfamiliar.. right?! If I say Black Forest, Germany then it sounds quite familiar… An interesting place with picturesque scenery and chirping bird sounds. This thick forest gives us false impression of Alps range. We too were deceived by this range of mountains. Believe me Alps is atleast around 130 km from south black forest.
It was a plan that just struck our mind two weeks before easter. We had not planned anything for long weekend of easter. Casually during our discussion about which places could be interesting for a 3 day drive/tour, we came up with places like black forest, Paris, Amsterdam etc. Most places that passed through our thoughts were the ones which we already visited. So we decided to drive to Black Forest, Germany. We began our hunt for so called “Low Cost” Hotels and found one that was apparently close to Stuttgart but in the outskirts. We hardly had one week time left and really no time to search and research for best rooms. But our dear friend Swetha (house-wife) spared all her time in the world to find us a better place in Black Forest. Swetha and Chaitanya were the other couple who accompanied us (me and my hubby Srikanth) on the entire trip.
Fortunately during her search through the websites and blogs she found a very interesting place in the south of black forest. This holiday home was in the middle of the forest. I mean it. It was in the interiors of the black forest. It was in a remote village where you can hardly find any buses. Car is the only means of reaching it. If you too have this comfort, then I bet you cant get any other best deal for stay. The cost was 40 euro per night for four people. We could use kitchen for preparing dishes too. The holiday home is run by Erika Rombach and her husband. It is located near Furtwangen.
As usual, we plan to leave early and end up little later than planned. We had planned to leave at around 8 and left at 8:30am from our new apartment in Brussels. We were joined by our usual companions whom I should say we get along very well with. Perhaps it is the age group and likes and dislikes that really matter. Anyways, Swetha had prepared lunch and packed it for the noon so that on our way we do not starve like in Luxembourg on Christmas weekend. How can I forget Christmas trip to Luxembourg huh!!?? The drive was about 8 hours and we were expected to arrive in Furtwangen-Neukirch at 4:30pm. We were there almost same time. We had a break on our way in a picnic spot. We had carried water and cola also with us. Co-incidentally we did not find many fuel pumps or parking places on our way to the black forest. So it was indeed good planning. The weather was cozy to drive too. Mrs. Erika Rombach was waiting for us as we had told her about our arrival in advance.
Erika Rombach is a very good lady who hosted us with a very warm welcome and guided us on what could be seen close by. If you are at any hotel/holiday home in Black Forest as a tourist, I suggest you to make the best out of it. As a tourist, we pay tourist taxes with which we can avail free local bus transport, free entry to certain listed museums and the Gutach waterfall.
So lodged in, parked our luggage; filled up forms for tourist discount coupons and we were set to explore. Chai seemed a bit more normal or perhaps he doesnt show off which only he can tell. But Swetha was so excited about the place and she was overwhelmingly happy for her find that it really paid her well. This was our second trip to natural scenery jointly after Petite Suisse and Luxembourg in December. To me, the drive itself was so good along the country side and the hilly region. The curves reminded me of Western Ghats in India. The road to Agumbe/Mangalore/Kukke Subrahmanya is mostly similar. Till now I was only a back seater who only slept most of the travel time. Now it was my turn to drive and was so enjoyable. I really did not know that it’s such a fun to drive in the curves. My husband though enjoying the nature was as usual skeptical about my drive. He is all time alert.He relaxes only when it is a highway or straight long drive without exits or turns. Let me emphasize that my drive is not pathetic but my parking in narrow space is :). When it comes to my parking even Chai volunteers to step out and guide like in India.
So we started off with the waterfall called as wasserfall in german. Gutach waterfall is supposed to be the highest waterfall in Germany. No wonder the water was as fresh and roaring as in the waterfalls in India. Its more safe here as nobody is allowed to get into water. Probably it is preserved. There are small wooden bridges that take you closer to the falls. Here you can feel the water sprayed onto your body. It was scintillating experience though these falls aren’t as big / huge as Jog Falls in Karnataka. It had been a long time since we ever saw a waterfall in Europe.
After the waterfall we thought of a bit of shopping as chai wanted to get a cuckoo clock for his best friend Nagesh (how can I forget this guy’s name as chai keeps referring to him many times). We were also waiting to try the schwarzwald-kirch-torte that’s the black forest cake. We wanted to try the authentic cake in its homeland and hometown. We were a bit hungry and the restaurants surrounding the waterfall were inviting enough. So we first went around the souvenir shops but could find nothing as the shops closed there by 5pm on Saturday. Then we went into the restaurant next to the falls and ordered for a black forest cake with cherry wine (that’s the authentic one). It was tasty enough for me though. My husband did not like the taste of it. Chai was ok eating it too. But Swetha who is against even 1ml of alcohol did not like it from the moment she gotta know that it has cherry wine. She somehow managed to eat some of it disliking the ingredients. We started kindling each other and it was so funny all the way until we drove back to have some rest in our holiday home.
It was not so tiring for me to drive all the way. But indeed I had to rest to be able to drive the next few days along the mountains through the curves amidst nature. We went back and made some dinner and happily slept.
The next morning we woke up late (by 7am) got ready, had some breakfast and were ready to go to the Lake Titisee. We went there by 10am. Had a stroll and it was so cold out there. We went into some of the shops looking for the cuckoo clock. The prices there were not inviting Chai to buy one. So we decided to have food and then go to Gutach waterfall again and buy one clock.
We went to one of the shops close to the museum there. The clock maker was the member of the carver’s association. He explained to us the difference between man made clock and machine made clock. The mechanical clocks and the whole concept was well explained. As he was explaining to us about it, Swetha felt he is trying to be smart and make us buy one. Without falling to his words she was wandering around looking for a clock for herself to gift her mother. Looked like she was irritated by his marketing tactics even more when chai bought one J
The clock that chai bought for his friend was too good in its looks. It was elegant beaming the antiquity in it. I am not sure if it was one of those that had to be manually reset every month. In the cuckoo clocks you have 2 weights. One of them sags and the other goes up every day when the cuckoo comes out each hour. You need to manually pull it back either daily/weekly/monthly. Based on the carving niche and this fact the cost of the clock is determined.
With that we concluded our shopping and went to a Chinese restaurant for a good dinner. The guys were not ready to have at home though we had plenty in store. We went to a Chinese buffet in I think Furtwangen. Can’t remember the exact location. I had head ache and could not eat anything. I only took hot water to drink. Rest of them had buffet which indeed had a lot of vegetarian options.
Later I also vomited the cake that we had during the day. According to chai it was the nauseating feeling from the long drive along the curves. I still did not want to eat anything. Then we left the restaurant to get back to our holiday home. Something happened here. Unforgettable experience. Chai was telling me that he can drive as I looked tired to him. I did not let him drive fearing the fact that he doesn’t have a valid driving permit. As we started, I did not realize that the headlights were not on. We drove by the city centre as we had parked in a neighboring street. I did not realize that there was a police van following me. I did not even notice a STOP on their van. I simply stopped thinking they are following me.
They verified our passports, residence cards, my driving permit, my company car papers and fortunately they told me that as the head lights were not on they were suspicious of us. After they verified the documents the lady police told me that I was not supposed to drive in that area whereas in Belgium I could. Then we told them that the gps did not show us the route to get out from there to where we stayed. The police guided us in getting out of the place to the main street. From their words it did not seem that they are going to fine me. Till now, I have not received any bills.
Anyways we got back to the holiday home driving through the dark curved streets. No lights on the streets; but just the reflectors to guide us through the curves. Had to be awake with eyes wide open. We reached our holiday home and rested. Next morning I was all fine to drive back to Brussels.
To add to our surprise, when we slept it was a clear night. When we woke up, we were in a pool of snow. It was all snow covered with Easter trees seeming like Christmas trees to me.
This morning the guys took the bath first. You know why? The ladies had emptied hot water the previous day and they did not take bath as it was ice cold water and not so hot weather out.
The guys prepared the breakfast and even ate it before we came to have breakfast. They could not wait so long after bath to have their breakfast. Pity them. So after having our breakfast, we checked out and headed back to Brussels via Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe palace is one of the tourist attractions around the black forest. So we went to Karlsruhe, parked our car close by and then went to the palace. It was huge indeed. It was picturesque. The palace has now been converted to a museum. Museums do not interest us much. But Chai and Swetha went in to see and came back in abt 20-30 min while we waited out having a pleasing sunny weather outside. With the passing clouds in between it did become cold sometimes.
Then we wanted to have lunch somewhere. We could nt locate a good Indian restaurant close by. So we found another Chinese restaurant in Karlsruhe. Remember, I told you about buffet dinner last night. They all wanted me to taste it. So we went in and all three of us had buffet except Srikanth. He wanted to have veggie fried rice which is his favorite Chinese food. So all done by 3pm, we started back to Belgium.
With a lot of traffic and sunset view from the car, we safely dropped them in Antwerp had food at their place, came home and slept. That is the end of our black forest trip. Worth mentioning is the fact that the nature is still preserved with not much human intervention. The drive along the hilly areas, beautiful valleys, waterfall all this seemed like a Heidi story to me (of course south of black forest is close to Switzerland).
