Tarun Kapoor is executive chef at Doha’s Horizon Manor Hotel. Send your feedback to:
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Flourless chocolate cake: This is baked without using flour and it is a gluten free chocolate cake recipe for the ones who are sensitive to gluten. But it’s not the way it sounds, this cake was specially formulated for the chocolate lovers without the addition of flour, so you get to taste and enjoy the rich taste of chocolate. The best thing about a flourless chocolate cake is that it’s easily one of the best chocolate cakes as there is pure chocolate and no flour, the resulting cake is much denser and richer in taste.
The cake seems to have originated in France. It was prepared by one of the chefs while creating something better for his special guests. Although the cake had minimal amount of flour but the guests mistakenly called it a flourless cake. Later on the flour was completely left out making it a real flourless cake.
Chocolate flourless cake
Ingredients
Yield- 1 kg cake
Unsalted butter 200g
Dark chocolate 400g
Eggs whole 8 no
Castor sugar 100g
Vanilla extracts few drops
Method
Melt butter and chocolate on a double boiler until all the chocolate is dissolved, keep aside the mixture.
Separate the egg white and yolks, and whisk egg whites to stiff peak.
Whisk egg yolks and sugar till the sugar is dissolved.
Gradually add the yolk mixture to the egg white and combine.
Add this mixture to the chocolate and butter mixture, combine with a spatula using cut and fold method.
Ensure not to over mix the mixture as this will remove all the air from the mixture, making it heavy and dense.
Pour the mixture in a cake ring lined with baking paper.
Bake in a preheated oven at 170 degree C for 45- 55 minutes.
Check by piercing a knife in the cake, if it comes out clean, the cake is cooked.
Remove from oven and allow to stand at room temperature.
Demould and portion into desired size, garnish accordingly and serve.
Kulcha
The popular flatbread from Indian cuisine needs no introduction. The flat breads occupy an important place in the Southeast Asia countries like, India, Pakistan and Nepal. Kulcha is made from refined flour, commonly known as maida, with some raising agents like baking powder and a stuffing which can be made of potatoes or mixed vegetable or minced meat to name a few. In a layman’s language you can call a naan filled with some filling as kulcha. The kulcha quickly gained popularity among the masses due to the ease of cooking it over stove tops or in a tandoor, whereas naan only required a tandoor to cook. The most famous among all the kulcha is the Amritsari kulcha which, as the name suggests, hails from the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India. It mainly consists of spiced mashed potato filling in the refined flour dough cooked on griddle or tandoor served with dal makhani and yoghurt.
Masala kulcha
Ingredients
For dough
Flour (maida) 600g
Yoghurt 4 tbsp
Milk 1 cup
Yeast 1 ½ tsp
Sugar 1 tsp
Baking powder ½ tsp
Ghee 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
For filling
Potato 500g
Cottage cheese 200g
Ajwain ½ tsp
Red chilli powder ¼ tsp
Coriander leaves ½ cup
Ginger, chopped 1tsp
Green chilli, chopped 1tsp
Salt to taste
Oil 4 tbsp
Method
Mix yeast and sugar in lukewarm milk and keep aside for an hour.
Sieve flour and baking powder, and add salt and ghee and yoghurt, mix well.
Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture and knead to a smooth dough.
Keep the dough covered for 1 hour with a damp cloth.
In the meanwhile, boil potato and mash them once they are cold.
Grate the cottage cheese to the mashed potato and add the remaining spices and mix well to make the stuffing for kulcha.
Divide the dough into equal sized balls and flatten then using rolling pin.
Using a spoon, scoop out the prepared mixture and fill in each flattened dough.
Flatten the dough ball again and cook on a greased hot plate.
Turn over to colour evenly and till the sides turn golden brown.
Serve hot with choice of pickle and yoghurt.
Note: You can also cook the kulcha in tandoor clay oven fired with charcoal to get the authentic taste of kulcha and also to enjoy the smoky flavor of charcoal in the bread.
