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.