Home made Dahi or Yoghurt

Home made yogurt tastes much much better than the store brought one. It also saves you some money. And once you get it right, its super easy to set it at home.

Ingredients:
Milk - half ltr
Yogurt - 2 tsp

Procedure:
1. Boil the milk and keep aside.
2. Take the Yogurt in a casserole and stir it well. Keep it aside.
3. Once the milk is warm, add the milk to the yogurt in the casserole and stir nicely.
4. Keep this untouched and undisturbed for 10 hours or overnight.

The delicious Yogurt is ready.
When refrigerated , it can be used for 3-4 days

Tips:
1. The yogurt added should not be cold. Keep 2 tsp yogurt outside for some time before milk.
2. The home made yogurt serves as the best yogurt to prepare the next batch of yogurt.
3. If you don't have any home made yogurt, you can add 2 tsp Greek yogurt instead.
4. Make sure that the milk is boiled well before adding it to yogurt. Half boiled milk does not give good results.
5. I had a  problem boiling milk on hot plate. I apply ghee to the bottom and sides of the milk container and then add milk from boiling. This prevents milk from burning at the bottom. If you have a gas stove, you can skip this.

Kadhi-Pakora

Kadhi is prepared by cooking besan together with the curd.
Pakora is the onions fritters and prepared by deep frying the onions and besan mixture.
Once the Pakora are ready, drop them in the curry to prepare the delicious kadhi pakora.

Ingredients:
For the Kadhi
Besan/ Chickpeas flour - 2 tbsp
Curd/ Yogurt - 2 cups
Ghee/ Clarified butter - 1 tbsp
Jeera/ Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sauf seeds - half tsp
Ajwain/ Carom seeds - half tsp
Methi dana/ Fenugreek seeds - half tsp
Hing/ Asafoetida - pinch
Green chillies (chopped) - 3
Chili powder - half tsp
Sugar - 2 tsp
Salt - as needed

For the Pakora:
Besan - 3 tbsp
Onions - 2 small
baking soda- one fourth tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Ajwain - 1 tsp
Salt
Oil for deep frying

Procedure:
For the Kadhi:
1. Take a mixing bowl, add the yogurt , sugar and the besan and mix them well and keep it aside. Make sure that besan does not form any lumps.
2. Take a wok, add ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, ajwain, saunf, hing and green chilies.
3. Next add chilli powder and finally add the besan - yoghurt mix.
4. Add sufficient salt and water.
5. Let it boil uncovered on a medium flame for around 10 mins

For the Pakora:
1. Take a mixing bowl, Add all the ingredients and mix well. Add water as required.
2. The mix should be of correct consistency. Add more besan as required.
3. Keep oil ready for deep frying.
4. Once the oil is hot, add 1 tsp of oil to the besan mixture. This is called "mohan" and it makes the pakoras crsipy.
5. Drop the besan mixture using a spoon in the oil and deep fry it till light brown.
6. Drain the excess oil on tissue paper.

Drop the ready Pakora in the Kadhi mixture. Garnish with Coriander leaves.
The Kadhi-Pakora is ready to serve.
Serve it with hot fulkas or rice