A Special Thank You to You! :)

We would like to thank each one of you for all the support and love you have given us over the last two years. From a tiny blog, for me to document my mothers fabulous recipes, the blog has grown to a website dedicated to putting good goan food on the table in your home, wherever in the world you may be :)

Goan food has gotten people from USA, Dubai, UK, Canada and definitely not the least, India, stirring up our wholesome goan cuisine in their kitchens. Apart from that we also recently launched our Goan food delivery in Mumbai, which unfortunately we have pulled down 80% of the items and raised the prices due to the inability to cope with your demands :)

Thank you for such a response and we shall soon put up a first come first serve basis for fresh cooked products and send an email out when we launch a new item, so don't forget to subscribe. We also will start a telephone service where you can place orders over the phone.

Our first priority has always been authentic goan recipes, we have not forgotten all you people who love our recipes. For you we have something special. Most of you may be tired waiting for a recipe, or you don't get your comments responded to on time. (I'm sorry but my wife and I run around 7 different websites by ourselves, its tough)

We have set up a page on facebook where you can start a discussion about a particular recipe, get help from the goan food community and even get to know the line up of recipes before they are put up on this site. What are you waiting for become a member of the Goan food community today!

You can also become a member of the goan food community on facebook and twitter at any time by clicking the coffee cup icons on the right hand side of the blog!

Thank you all for your support and ill see you on facebook, have you checked what's the next recipe coming here yet??

Patoleo : the August 15th Goan Sweet

Patolleo or Patoleo, pronounced at pathayo, is a Goan sweet prepared for the feast of the Assumption of Mary. The time when the first corn is offered for a good harvesting season. Lets learn how to make the Patoleo!

Patolleo Ingredients:

1/4 kg Goa red rice, or boiled rice (big fat unpolished rice)
1/2 a Coconut grated
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Pyramids Goa Jaggery
6 Cardamoms
Turmeric Leaves also known as Haldi Ka Patta
3/4th Cup Water

First we need to add the coconut to the jaggery and set it on a slow fire.

Add the 3/4th cup of water to the coconut and jaggery and stir it occasionally.

While thats on the fire, you can wash and clean the turmeric leaves.


Wash the rice and put it in the blender with a little water.


Once its ground to a paste pour it out into a vessel and get ready to keep it aside.

Don't forget to occasionally stir the jaggery and coconut mix :)

Now add the salt to the rice and put it on a slow fire.

While thats getting down clean the cardamom by removing the insides and getting rid of the outer covering.

Crush the cleaned cardamom into a powder, as fine as you can manage to.

Add the cardamom to the coconut and jaggery mix, that will end up being the filling for the Patolleo.

Mix the cardamom evenly in the coconut jaggery by stirring it up.

In the meantime your rice should be nearly done, when it thickens enough and begins to leave the side you'll know its ready.

Once its done allow it to cool off a bit, and then knead the rice dough.

This is my 92 year old grandmother teaching you to make a patolleo, take a small ball of the dough.

Line it along the main vein of the leaf and flatten it towards the sides.

The thinner the rice the better, the more the stuffing the yummier :) Stuff the patolleo with the jaggery and coconut mix and then fold the leaf as shown.


Once all patolleos are sealed you reach the final step, time to turn up the steam.

Ge out your steamer, that may look something like this, fill it up with water.

Place your Patolleos in the steamer, as much as you can get in there, theres no problem if one is on top of the other.

The Patoleos have to be cooked for around twenty minutes in the steamer before they are done.

This is what comes out of the steamer after twenty minutes.

The leaves give the rice a lovely flavor and the jaggery with coconut makes the patoleo sweet and wholesome, can also be made as a tea time snack :)

Here's another Goan sweet that we hope you enjoy making!

Goan Food Delivery Service!

We are happy to announce the opening of the Goan shack. If you are hard-pressed for time and can't prepare your favorite Goan dish, then simply contact us and we will deliver the authentic home-cooked Goan food to your home!

At present the menu comprises all the favorite Goan dishes and will expand with time. Each item will be prepared with top grade ingredients to produce the renowned Goan taste and a very important ingredient, lots of love.

Currently we deliver only in Mumbai but plan to expand to other cities in future, depending on viability. There would be a small delivery charge and since its just on a trial basis we deliver this food only on weekends, so its good for parties, family gatherings or your weekend lunch!

Please bear with us until we can serve you better! To get your weekend treat you can click buy goan food! For assistance and order related queries you can use the order inquiry chat, located in the sidebar just under the subscribe by email section! If the light is green, means we are available for chat!

Pass on the good news to all your friends and family members living in Mumbai, cheers and thank you for all the love and support!

Crab Xacuti

While we were in Goa, if you recollect the market visit where we clicked a picture of those delicious goan sausages, we also came across some lively crabs, pun intended. They were still well moving about, anyway we managed to get 8 crabs for Rs100, that was a pretty good deal.

Would never get a price like that in Mumbai and tough to get them so fresh. Anyway, a friend of my mothers called Roslyn, wanted to prepare this dish for us, so here comes the next recipe, the Crab Xacuti. A special thanks to Roselyn for her help with this recipe :)


Anyway, although Roslyn used a ready to mix Xacuti masala, you can always refer to the Chicken Xacuti recipe to get the authentic goan xacuti masala.

Ingredients:

Crabs
1 Coconut
4 - 5 Pods of Garlic
2 Onions
Curry Leaves
Coriander
Green Chillies
Small Ball of Tamarind

If you don't have a ready to mix Xacuti Masala, you need these ingredients for the masala below, and follow the procedure from this recipe.

6 Red Chillies (Kashmiri Chillies)
1/2 Scraped Coconut
2 Teaspoon of Cloves
1 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
8 Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Jeera
1/4 Teaspoon Methi Seeds
1 Tablespoon Khus Khus
1 Teaspoon Badee Saunf (Moti Saunf)
4 -5 Flakes Garlic
1 Table Spoon Corriander Seeds
1/2 Teaspoon Til
1/2 Onion
Although Roslyn used a ready mix, the dish turned out really tasty.


Firstly you need to wash the crabs and snap their claws, remove the really thin ones if you don't want them in the dish. But it sure will add some flavor at least.

To snap the claws you need to hold the crab with one hand and twist and pull the claws with the other.

After your crabs are done you need to put them on the fire with enough water to just cover them, boil for 15 minutes.

While thats getting done, work on the masala, crush the pods of garlic, chop the onions and keep them aside.


Grate one coconut and add the garlic to it.

Add a teaspoon of the Xacuti masala to the coconut, remeber if you are making your own masala following the other recipe, you will use only half a coconut here as there would be half in the masala, also you would need to add more masala than a teaspoon around 1/4th of the masala and no garlic.

Roslyn's dish uses a lot more coconut and the masala is a ready mix, so it misses the original xacuti colour. But it did taste really really good as well :) If you want the authentic colour, use less coconut with the chicken xacuti recipe.

In the mean time saute the onions, garlic and curry leaves, add some of the masala to the saute and fry it.

By this time, your crabs should have boiled and hopefully cooled down for you to begin splitting them open.

Split the crabs by pulling on the top and lower halves,you can clean out the meat and throw out some of the shells if you like.


Keep the eggs and other edibles in some part of the boiled crab water that you can use to cook with the

The lower part of the crab abdomen can be split in to two further halves if desired, I do not know why, perhaps the masala is absorbed much better.

Add the crabs to the saute.

Add the xacuti masala, to the dish and let it come to a boil with occasional stirring.

Add the water that you kept aside with the eggs and edibles.

Bring the dish to a boil and let it simmer for a few minutes.

You'r Crab Xacuti is ready, sorry no pictures for splendid photography as, we were in Goa. After Roslyn made the dish my wife and I went walking through Panjim doing some photography, drove all the way to Dona Paula and from there connected back to Bamboli. Scenic and beautiful in the monsoons :)

Add the coriander for garnishing and presentation. I do hope you enjoy the crab xacuti, will have our next recipe up soon!