Palak Paneer

This is one of my favourite items in the restaurant menu...I've tried it few times before, but could never make it to my satisfaction...few weeks back I tried this again, this time I've added some paprika and milk and the taste, texture, consistency was so good..I do not prefer to grind the palak to a paste, hence this looks a bit different from the one we get in hotels..Here goes the recipe,

Ingredients: (for 3 people)

1. Spinach - 3 cups (finely chopped)

2. Paneer cubes - 250gm

3. Onion - 1 (Sliced)

4. Tomatoes - 2 small (cut into chunks)

5. Green chillies - 6 (chopped)

6. Ginger garlic paste - 2tsp

7. Garam masala powder - 1 tsp

8. Salt - as per taste

9. Paprika powder - 1/2 tsp

10. Cashew nuts - 1 table spoon (soaked in warm water for 5min)

11. Oil - 2 tbsp

12. Ghee - 2 tsp

13. Milk - 150ml

14. Cinnamon stick - 1 inch long (break into pieces)

15. Cloves - 4

Procedure:

1. Take a wide bottomed kadai and heat 1 tbsp of oil.

2. Add the cinnamon pieces, cloves and fry for 30 sec.

3. Now add the onions, green chillies and saute until the onions are transperent.

4. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry until the raw smell leaves.

5. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes turn soft.

6. Turn off the heat and let this mixture cool.

7. Take this mixture in a blender. Add the soaked cashew nuts and grind to a smooth paste. Set this paste aside.

8. Now in a kadai (you can use the same original one) heat the remaining 1 tbsp of oil.

9. Add the chopped spinach and fry until the raw smell leaves (takes about 5min)

10. Now add the grinded paste to this roasted spinach.

11. Add salt, garam masala powder, paprika powder, milk and cook on medium for 5min. Add water if required.

12. Take 2 tsps of ghee in small kadai and heat it.

13. Fry the paneer cubes until golden brown.

14. Tranfer the paneer cubes into the gravy, mix well.

15. Cook on low for 2 more min and turn off the heat.

Serve hot with rotis/parathas.

Biscuit Brittle!!!

How does the title sound? Last time, during my visit to Hyderabad, attamma made this extremely easy to make, tasty dessert and me being a person with a sweet tooth, immediately fell in love with these cute biscuit brittles...I also found these on Nags Blog, attamma avoided cocoa powder, but I added this and followed Nags' recipe coz I loved to have chacolate color for my preparation.

Recipe is extremely easy, even kids can prepare this :D

Ingredients: (for 2 Bsicuit Brittles)

1. Marie Biscuits (I used rich tea biscuits) - 8

2. Milk - 1/2 cup

3. Coffee powder - 1 tsp

4. Unsalted butter - 1 tbsp

5. Powdered sugar - 1 tbsp (you can add more for extra sweetness)

6. Cocoa powder - 1tsp

Procedure:

1. Warm up the milk in Microwave and mix the coffee powder.

2. Now dip each Biscuit in this milk and stack 4 of them one above the other in a plate.

3. Make 2 such stacks.

4. In a bowl take the butter and warm up for about 30sec in the microwave.

5. Mix powdered sugar, cocoa powder with the butter and make a thick liquid like paste.

6. Pour this liquid over the 2 biscuit stacks and see that this paste covers all the stack uniformly.

7. Place the plate in the freezer for 1hr.

8. Break into 2 or more pieces and enjoy.

Store them in the normal refrigerator to consume later. Do not freeze them for more than an hr, orelse you'll have to test your teeth later :)

Baby Corn - Aloo Mughlai Curry

I've made this dish following a Khaana Khazaana kind of program - Aha Emi Ruchi in Mana Telugu TV channel. Tasted so good with rotis, so can't wait anymore to post this here. Thanks to Vijaya Rao (the lady who shares these recipes)...Here goes the recipe (I've used baby corn instead of paneer)

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes - 2 (Peel cut into cubes)

2. Baby Corn - 400gm (I used canned babycorn)

3. Onion - 1 large (chopped)

4. Tomatoes - 2 (cut into chunks)

5. Green/Red long chillies - 4 (sliced length-wise)

6. Milk - One cup

7. Garam masala - 1 tsp

8. Salt - to taste

9. Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

10. Cinnamon stick - 1 inch (break into tiny pieces)

11. Black Peppercorn - 10 (optional)

12. Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Take water in pan, add the potato cubes and boil for about 5min. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a wide bottomed kadai. Fry these boiled potato cubes for 5-6min until they turn to light brown in color. Remove the potato cubes and set aside.

3. In the same oil add the baby corn and fry for about 2-3min (you can skip this step). Remove from oil and set aside.

4. Now add the cumin seeds, cinnamon pieces, peppercorn. After 30sec add the onion and chilli pieces.

5. Saute until the onions turn transperent.

6. Now add the tomatoes, salt, garam masala powder and milk.

7. Cover and cook for 5min, till the tomatoes turn soft.

8. Remove the lid and add fried potatoes, baby corn and mix well.

9. Cook for another 2min and turn off the heat

10. Serve hot with Rotis/chapathis

Chinese Egg Fried Rice

I haven't been updating this blog since a while...lots n lots of other avagations are keeping me busy all these days..anyways I made few tasty dishes over the previous couple of months, took photographs and saved them in my lappy...I'll try to post them one by one over the next few days..this chinese egg fried rice turned out so good that hubby dear carried all the rice I made, to his work place to share with his colleagues...Recipe is simple..

Ingredients:

Rice - 4 cups (pre-cooked and refregirated for 2 hrs - cold rice doesn't stick and hence is good for fried rice items)

Eggs - 4

Grated Carrot - 2 table spoons

Boiled Peas - 1/2 Cup (Frozen will do - soak them in warm water for 10min)

Onion - 1 (sliced length-wise)

Salt - to taste

Pepper powder - to taste

Soy Sauce - 1 table spoon

Oil - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Heat a wok and add a teaspoon of oil.

2. Break the eggs into the wok, stir well. Fry for about 2min and set this scramble aside.

3. Heat the remaining oil in the same wok, add the sliced onions and saute for about 3-4min.

4. Now add the grated carrot and peas. Fry until the raw smell leaves.

5. Add the Soy sauce and mix well.

6. Now add the cold rice and egg scramble and mix thoroughly.

7. Finally season with salt and pepper. Serve warm.

My other version of Egg fried rice is here

Sorakaya Garelu - Bottle gourd cutlets

I learnt this recipe from my dear friend Swathi...This's so easy to make and tastes so good...I made it for breakfast today...it took only 30min to prepare this from scratch..Here goes the recipe...

Ingredients:

Sorakaya/Lauki/Bottle gourd - 1 cup (grated)

Rice flour - 1 cup

Onion - 1 small (finely chopped)

Green chillies - 3 (finely chopped)

Grated ginger - 1 tsp

Chana dal - 1 tbsp (soak in hot boiling water for 5min)

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 cups (to deep fry)

Procedure:

1. Heat the oil in a deep bottomed frying pan.

2. While the oil gets heated up, prepare the mix.

3. Take a mixing bowl, add rice flour, grated lauki, onion,green chillies, ginger, chana dal and salt.

4. Mix well to make a thick dough. DO NOT add water. Lauki itself has lots of water in it.

5. Make 10 lemon sized balls with the dough.

6. Reduce the flame to medium, wet your palms with oil and press the dough to the shape of a small pattie.

7. Carefully slide the patties into the pan.

8. Fry all the patties in batches on medium until the color turns golden brown.

9. Drain the excess oil with a tissue paper.

10. Serve hot with any chutney, they taste good on their own too.

I guess we can add grated carrot too for extra nutrition.

Chicken Curry

There are too many versions of chicken curry on the net. S and me cook this curry in our own versions. S uses the readymade garam masala powder and he also uses yogurt to marinate. I make my own masala with whatever ingredients I find in my Non-veg Masala cabinet. Today I wanted to make the masala with dhania seeds, poppy seeds, ginger,garlic and coriander leaves. I normally prefer fresh ground masala over the readymade one expecially when it comes to cooking non-veg and that too on a relaxing sunday...recipe follows,

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1kg (wash and cut into medium sized pieces)

Onions - 2 (grind into a smooth paste)

Salt - to taste

Red Chilli powder - 2 tsp (adjust)

Turmeric powder - 1 generous pinch

Oil - 2tbsp

For masala paste,

Poppy seeds - 2 tbsp (soak in warm water for 10min)

Dhania seeds - 1 tbsp (dry roasted)

Ginger - 1 piece

Garlic - 5-6 pods

Coriander leaves - 10 stems (chopped)

For garnishing,

Green chillies - 5 (cut lengthwise)

Curry leaves - 10

Chopped coriander - 1 tbsp

Chopped garlic - 1 tbsp

Procedure:

1. Make a smooth paste with Dhania seeds, poppy seeds, ginger garlic pieces and coriander leaves by adding little water.

2. Take a large mixing bowl. Add the chicken pieces, Onion paste, masala paste, turmeric powder and salt, mix well and marinate it for 30min.

3. After 30min boil the chicken mix on high until all the water evaporates. Chicken should be soft n almost cooked.

4. Take oil in a frying pan, add the cooked chicken mix, red chilli powder and fry for about 15min. Switch off the heat when the color starts changing to brown.

5.For garnishing heat oil in a small pan, fry the green chillies, curry leaves and garlic pieces until the curry leaves turn crisp.

6. Take the cooked chicken curry into a serving dish and garnish with the roasted green chilli mix and fresh coriander leaves.

Serve hot with rice or rotis.

Mushroom Pulao

I haven't been posting any of my recipes for the past 3 months...Well, I was busy during November...went to India for a holiday in December..I've come back to the UK in January but wasn't interested to try anything new in my kitchen....yesterday after so many weeks I tried to make pulao....Suprisingly it turned out so easy and tasty too...so I couldn't resist myself from posting this...Among the veggies my most favourite ingredients for rice items are mushrooms, capsicum and green peas....I had few mushrooms in my pantry and hence I made mushroom pulao for our lunch..Here goes the recipe...

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice - 3 cups (Wash and soak)

Mushrooms - 250gm (Cut into halves and boil in hot water with salt n turmeric for 10min. Set aside)

Red Onions - 2 (sliced lengthwise)

Green chillies - 4 (cut into pieces)

Coconut milk - 150ml

Egg - 1 (Optional)

Salt - to taste

Ginger garlic paste - 2tsp

Garam Masala powder - 2tsp

Oil - 1 tbsp

Procedure:

1. Drain the rice and add 6 cups of water and cook till 3/4th done in the cooker/rice cooker.

2. In a large frying pan heat the oil. Saute the onions and green chillies till onions turn soft.

3. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for about 3min.

4. Add salt and garam masala powder and mix well.

5. Add the boiled and drained mushrooms and cook for 3-4min.

6. Now break the egg(if you are using) into the pan and stir well till the egg gets cooked.

7. Now add the coconut milk and bring to boil.

8. Once the mixture is cooked well, add the 3/4th cooked rice to the pan and mix well.

9. Close the pan and cook on medium for 10min or till the rice is done.

Serve hot .Coconut milk adds a nice flavour to the rice. Tastes well with korma/gravy curries or just raitha.