Check point

Last week, i have been cooking but not finding time to update blog.

I thought a checkpoint is needed to check how far am i from my target.

Deadline: Shoot yesterday(22 march)
Recipes: 28.

Recipes posted: 18
Recipes done, but not posted: 4

6 recipes less....so i am extending deadline to 27, to post all recipes and also finish 6 recipes.

Colorful Beetroot rice

Beetroot is least favorite vegetable in our house. Even if i make, i end up eating everything as other wont even be ready to taste.

I want to impress my family with something new with beetroot and i tried beetroot rice.

Ingredients:
1- beetroot
1 cup boiled rice
1/4 cup cashew nuts
2 green chillies
1 onion
1 tbs chana dal (optional)
curry leaves
oil
coriander leaves (optional)

Peel and grate beetroot.



Add 1 tbs oil to non stick pan, add chana dal and cashew nuts. Fry them until cashew nuts start to brown. Take care not to burn cashew nuts.

Add finely sliced green chillies, onion, curry leaves. Fry until onion becomes transparent.



Add grated beetroot and fry until beetroot cooks properly.


Add coriander leaves, salt and rice. Mix delicately so that rice remains separated and does not become paste.

This rice tastes heavenly.



Happy cooking :)

Super Quick potato fry

To be frank, i never did anything as fast and tasty as this recipe. My husband said he feels like eating potato fry. I was absolutely exhausted and my kid was pestering me to play with him.

Then i remembered reading this quick recipe on internet and gave it a try

Ingredients:
2 potatoes

oil,salt, chilli powder, coriander powder

peel and dice potatoes. fry potatoes will be crisp and will cook fast if potatoes pieces are little smaller in size. add oil,salt,chilli powder, coriander powder and any spice u use while making fry.

mix properly, throw them onto oven tray. Fry them for 15-20 minutes under 150C.
Check in between to see of fry is done. So simple!

I had my doubts about this recipe, but once seeing how easy and tasty it is, this became a regular.
Now i want to trying this recipe with all kinds of veggies and see how it comes.

Keep experimenting :)

Healthy palak soup

I am not a big fan of palak, but knowing its benefits, i cook it at-least once a week.

Here is a recipe i got from my mom-in-law which is so simple to make you need not struggle to include palak in your diet.

Ingredients:

palak (Spinach) - 1 bunch
tomato -1
onion - 1

oil, spices, salt pepper as required.

Clean and cut palak, add cut tomato and onion to it. Add a cup of water and boil until palak looks cooked. Takes about 5 minutes.



Now grind the boiled palak and add water as per the consistency you like for the soup.


Take a pan, add 1 tbsp of olive oil, add few spices like bay leaf, 2 cloves. Once you get spice aroma, add palak mix.

Add salt and pepper as per you taste and let the soup cook on low flame for about 5 minutes.


Serve it with some fresh cream.



My son liked it and made my day :)

woow rasmalai

My head said, "really...you want to try Rasmalia? it will definitely hard to make"
My heart said, "whats the fun without trying new things in life...even if we fail"

Rasmalai is famous Bengali desert.

Rasmalai needs two things, rabdi and has rasgulla.


Recipe Rabdi

Its very simple to make and itself can be served as desert with fruits.

Ingredients:
Milk - 1/2 kg
Sugar - 1/2 cup
cardamom powder - 1/8 tps



Take a shallow non stick pan, Add milk. Boil milk under low flame whisking it slowly with wooden ladle. It will take about 1/2 hr for milk to become thick. Add sugar and cardamom powder and boil milk until sugar melts completely.



You can use this in many deserts. Add it ti gulab jamoon, double ka meeta, kheer or fruits.



Recipe Rasmalai

I never thought making rasmalai is simple. It is definitely lengthy but simple to make.

Ingredients:
Milk - 1/2 liter
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Almonds - 4
lime/vinegar
ice cubes
water - 3 cups

Boil milk in a bowl. Curdle milk by adding either lime juice or vinegar to milk slowly and mixing it properly into milk. Once milk curdles, immediately switch off stove and add ice cubes.
This stops the further cooking of milk.



Strain the milk in a soft cloth and extract the cheese. Hang this cheese in the cloth for sometime so that all the water drains.



Place the cheese along with the strained cloth on a kitchen towel and rub it for 2 minutes.
This will allow in removing any excess water and also making the cheese into smooth dough




Make small disks from the smooth cheese dough.



Add 1/2 cup sugar to 3cups of water and boil it. Once the sugar melts, take about 1/2 cup water into a shallow bowl and keep it aside.



Add the cheese disks to the boiling sugar water. Make sugar water is boiling and is on high flame, otherwise cheese balls will break. Cook the cheese disks for 5 minutes. They will bloat to double their size.



Take them out of boiling sugar water and add them to shallow vessel which has sugar water taken before. Let them cool.

Once cooled, take them out, press slightly and add them to rabdi.

Rasamalai is ready. Sprinkle coarsely ground almond powder to it.



My family finished them so quickly, i regretted making recipe with 1/2 liter.Next time i should make with 3 liters of milk.

karnataka special: akki roti

I am cooking but not getting time to update the blog, getting delayed mostly with uploading pics.

When i shifted to Bangalore, i was introduced to many wonderful dishes and akki roti is one of them.
This recipe is from one of my office friends.

Akki roti will be great with onion chutney and i got this amazing chutney recipe from my mother in law.

Lets start

Recipe Akki roti

Ingredients:

rice flour - 4 cups
fresh coconut
green chillies -2
onion -1
salt
water



Coarsely grind some fresh coconut,green chillies and onion. I usually dont measure these, you can roughly take it as 1 tbsp of each when ground.

Take flour in a big bowl, add little salt. Now add the ground paste. Mix properly.



Boil water and add little by little to the flour mix while mixing it. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.



Now take a clingfoil/plastic wrap, place it on table and apply oil to it. Take little dough (golf ball size), place it on cling foil and spread the dough with your hand until you get thin roti like in the picture.


Apply oil to your figures so that dough does not stick to your hand. If its your first time, its better you take little dough and make small roti's.

Heat the akki roti on both sides properly on a non stick tawa/pan.

You can have them just like that.

Onion Chutney:

Akki roti tastes even more delicious with onion chutney.

Ingredients:
Onions -3
Garlic pods -2
red chillies -10
cumin - 1/2 tbs
tamarind extract - 1 tbs
salt - 1/2 tsp
oil
mustard - 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - 5


Heat oil in non stick pan, add 1 tsp oil. Add cumin seeds and red chillies.
fry them for a minute and keep aside to cool.



Soak little tamarind and extract Juice. You can also use a store bought tamarind extract.
Now coarsely grind onion,garlic pods, red chillies, tamarind extract.

Add little salt to this onion paste. Add a tbs of oil to the same pan and add mustard seeds and curry leave. add onion mix to the pan. Fry for 2-3 minutes and onion chutney is ready.


You can eat this chutney with any kind of roti, idly, dosa and also rice.

Enjoy :)

Hot n Spicy Chicken Tandoori

One of the favorite and famous Indian dishes is chicken tandoori. I tried so many varieties of chicken, but never dared to attempt this thinking that it would be very complex to make.

I usually refer to vahchef Sanjay Thumma for Indian recipes. When i saw his video for this recipe, i felt foolish that i did not try it before.

Lets start...

Ingredients:
Chicken - 500 gms (leg are thigh pieces are ideal)
yogurt - 5 tbs
ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
lime - 1
pepper powder - 1/4 tsp
coriander powder - 1 tsp
red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
cumin powder - 1 tsp
turmeric - 1/4 tsp
salt
oil - 2 tbsp

The ingredients might seems a lot, but once you have them the process of making is very simple. Adjust the spices according to your taste. You must be really careful of how much chilli powder and salt you are using.

Make 2-3 deep long slits on each so that all the spices go into chicken and flavor it perfectly.

Take 1/4 tsp chilli powder and 1/4 tsp salt into small cup. squeeze half lime into it and mix it to make a paste.

Apply this paste to chicken. First apply it into the deep cuts you made and then remaining paste to entire chicken pieces.


Now add curd to a big bowl. Add remaining chilli powder, pepper powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder, turmeric and salt. Squeeze half lime into it and mix properly to make a thick paste.



Add chicken pieces to this mix and apply the paste to chicken. Make sure you apply the paste to the slits you made on chicken. Once the paste is uniformly applied to chicken pieces, add oil and make sure all pieces are coated with oil.


Preheat oven to 200 C. Place chicken pieces over an over tray and apply remaining paste over them. it will take around 20 minutes for chicken to cook properly in oven.



Enjoy yummy n spicy chicken tandoori.