Bachelor Chicken Biriyani

For the last recipe in this series I would like to post a chicken biriyani which I made in cooker. I would like to call this bachelor chicken biriyani.

In finland we get to buy small chicken pieces. I bought these and actually thought of making a chicken gravy and plain rice. But then I had time constraint - had to leave for office. So thought of making an avasara rice (hurry-burry rice) and the result was awesome. I repeated this dish for 3 other days during my stay and also repeated in India for H. He enjoyed it thoroughly. This would be an ideal "special" lunch box recipe

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup

Chicken pieces - 1 cup

Onion - 1 no

Tomato - 1 no

Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Biriyani masala powder - 2 tbsp

Coriander powder - 1 tbsp

Chilly powder - 1 tbsp

Green chillies - 2 nos

salt - to taste

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Coriander leaves - finely chopped

Method:

Wash the rice and keep aside. Slit the green chillies and chop the vegetables.

In an electric cooker, add ghee in the vessel. Once the ghee is hot, add the ginger-garlic paste, slit green chillies and chopped onions. Fry for about a minute.

Add the chopped tomatoes, all other powders except rice. Mix well and stir for another minute.

Next add the rice. Add 2 cups of water and the required amount of salt.

Close the rice cooker and leave it aside to cook.

Once the rice cooker switches off itself - don't open the cooker immediately.

Open the lid after 10-15 minutes and gently fluff up the rice.

Short-cut chicken biriyani is ready!!!! Enjoy with papad and raita!!!

Note:

This biriyani can be prepared in pressure cooker also!!!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54

Baby Potato Fry

Another very frequently made side dish during my Finland stay was this baby potato fry.  A store near the place where I used to stay sold baby potatoes in a cheap rate.  I had taken all possible powders to make mixed rices. So puliyodharai or karuvepilai podi rice and baby potato fry was my usual lunch box. Heres how I used to prepare it.

Ingredients

Baby potatoes - 250 grams
salt - to taste
turmeric powder - 1 tsp
chilly powder - 1 tbsp
oil - 2 tbsp

Method

In a big vessel pour water and add the baby potatoes. Let it boil for about 15 minutes. Alternatively you can cook the potatoes in cooker.
let the potatoes cool. Then peel the skin.
coat the peeled potatoes with a mixture of salt, turmeric powder and chilly powder.
After about 5 minutes, heat a tava and add oil. Once the oil is hot add these potatoes and fry for about 5-7 minutes.

Hot potato fry is ready!!!

Enjoy them with ghee rice or curd rice or any other mixed rice.


Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54

Egg Burji

This week I have chosen Easy school recipes / Single serve dorm recipes / MW recipes for BM #54.

The moment I took this topic I remembered of my days I spent in Tampere, Finland. I have given my travel experiences in Mir's blog. 

I have been to this country often for my official purpose. The first time when I visited this country - I had just started with non vegetarian food. So I was not comfortable with the food that was served in my office / hotel. So I started cooking on my own. The kitchen items available to me were electric cooker, microwave, one induction stove and 2-3 vessels. So i feel the recipes I invented there would be ideal to the theme picked up for this week. 

I am starting off with egg burji. This was my savior most of the days - made with very few ingredients. I used to just cook rice, buy curd and make this egg - burji and used to have the heavenly curd rice with egg burji :)

Ingredients:

Egg -2 nos

Oil - 1 tsp

pepper powder - 2 tsp

Onion - 1 no

Salt - to taste

Method:

• Beat the eggs along with salt and pepper powder.
• Chop the onions finely.
• Place a tava on the stove / induction. Add oil. Once the oil is hot add the chopped onions.
• fry the onions until they turn translucent.
• Add the beaten eggs. Keep stirring so that the eggs don't stick to the bottom of the tava.
• Scramble the eggs as per your liking. I like it slightly dry.

Note:

• I have given the recipe exactly as I tried it with lesser ingredients and available resources. We can add green chillies, garam masala powder, tomatoes, grated carrot, ginger-garlic paste etc to enhance the flavour.
• This would be great lunch-box accompaniment to mixed rice, phulka, bread etc.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54

Pazham Pori

The last in line for this week's BM is another famous fritter from Kerala - Pazham pori. In simple terms this is banana bajji again made from the nenthram pazham variety of plantains. In my younger days - I used to travel to Kerala in train from Maharashtra. The moment train crosses Kerala border we can hear "pazham pori - pazham porichadhu" in trains. My mom was a very big fan of this fritter. And I never knew that it is very easy to make at home.

Ingredients:

Banana (etha pazham) - 2 nos

Maida - 1 cup

Rice flour - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 1 tbsp

Turmeric Powder - a pinch

Water - 1/2 cup

Salt - to taste

Oil - to deep fry

Method:

Peel the plaintains and slit it lengthwise.

Mix together maida, sugar, salt, turmeric powder and rice powder.

Add water enough to make a liquid paste and mix well. The consistency should be that of bajji batter.

Heat the oil in deep bottomed pan. 

Take pieces of plantain and dip in batter one by one.

Deep fry until golden color.

Banana Bajjis are ready!!!! Enjoy with a hot cup of tea

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54

Kuzhi Paniyaram

For the second day of one-bite fritters in this BM I would like to present kuzhi paniyaram which is a famous house-hold snack in Tamil Nadu. This is a very easy snack and can be easily made with left-over dosa batter.

It can be had plain or with some lip-smacking chutney.





Ingredients:

Left-over idli batter - 1 cup
Onion - 1 no
Green chillies - 2 nos
Coconut (grated) - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - to fry

To temper:

Oil - 1 tbsp
mustard seeds - 1 tsp
channa dal - 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - few

Method:

• Chop the onions and green chillies finely.
•  In a kadai, add oil and add the mustard seeds, channa dal and once the channa dal turns nice golden colour add the chopped green chillies and onions and fry the onions turns pink.
• Add a pinch of salt to this.
• Add this to the batter and mix well.
• If you are adding coconut bits add at this stage.
• Heat the paniyaram pan an add oil in each holes.
• Pour the batter with a spoon.
• Keep in a medium flame.
• Flip this with the help of a fork or the wooden stick.

Serve hot with coconut chutney or spicy red chutney!!!!

Note:

You can also make this with freshly prepared batter.
The leftover batter can be used for making dosa as it comes very great.
You can replace green chillies with red chilli powder also.

Kayappam

Kayappam is actually a sweet bonda. This is a very easy snack recipe famous in kerala.
This week for BM I have selected One-Bite Appetizers and I felt this would be the apt one to start with.

The main ingredient of this snack is the famous nenthram pazham plantain variety of banana. But guess this snack can also be made with ordinary yellow bananas



Ingredients:

Banana             4 nos peeled;
Cardamom       2 no.;
Maida               3 tbsp
Sugar                2 tbsp
Salt                   one pinch;
Water                as needed;
Oil                    for frying

Method:

• Grind banana with cardamom, sugar and salt.
• Make in to a fine paste using a mixer. 
• Optionally we can smash banana with hand as well, but a mixer would give a fine paste, which helps in preparing very soft bonda. 
• Add maida to the above paste and mix well with hand, making sure that the mixture is thick. If needed add little water.
• Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is boiling hot, drop a small quantity of the above mixture with your hands. 
• Deep fry until the color turns brown. Take out once cooked and keep it aside until the oil is drained.Your banana bonda - kayappam is ready to serve !!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54

Patnam Pakodi | Indian Cooking Challenge

This time I forgot about the Indian Cooking Challenge. I suddenly remembered on 14th afternoon and then made this snack in a haste. Since I took this challenge at the last moment I didnt spend time on researching this recipe. Just followed Valli's words.

Honestly we both didn't enjoy this snack much. First reason is that this snack has absorbed more oil when compared to ordinary pakodas/ bonda etc. I think it might be because of the rice flour we add. We should probably add it in lesser quantity just for the crunchy feeling because raw rice absorbs more oil. Another problem I faced was the balls disintegrated after putting into oil - not immediately but after 2-3 minutes. Then I guessed that probably oil should be smoking hot. SO i carefully put the balls in the oil when the oil was smoking hot and then after about 3 minutes reduced the flame of the oil so that the insides cook well.

Nevertheless this is a good evening snack to be enjoyed. I served with hot cup of tea.

Ingredients Needed:

Rice Flour - 1 cup

Fried Gram / Roasted Channa Dal powder - 1/4 cup

Bengal Gram flour / Besan - 1 tbsp

Ghee - 6 tsp

Cooking Soda - 1 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Finely chopped onions - 1/4 cup

Finely chopped ginger - 1 tsp (optional)

Finely chopped cashew nuts - 1 tbsp

Finely chopped coriander leaves - 1 tbsp

Finely chopped green chillies - 2 nos

Salt to taste

Red Chilli powder -  1/2 tsp

Oil for deep frying

Method:

• Melt ghee and take it in a small bowl, add cooking soda and rub with hand till it turn in to frothy.
• In a mixing bowl, take the chopped onion, ginger, green chillies, curry leaves, cashew nuts.
• Add flours, cumin seeds, red chilli powder, salt mix well to combine every thing. Add the melted ghee as well.
• Sprinkle little water and make a dough to make balls, make balls and set a side
• Heat oil in a small kadai and when its hot, drop in the balls gently and cook on all sides. till they turn to a golden colour.
• Drain through a slotted ladle, and remove on to a kitchen towel.
• Serve with tea/coffee 

Note:

The pakodis needs to be cooked in medium flame otherwise the insides won't cook properly.

Instead of making them into balls, we can also make them like pakodas.

Chakka kuru Koottu

This is another famous side dish again for rice made with the chakka kurus (jackfruit seeds).
It seems in earlier days there were only 2 ways of using this chakka kuru. One was that these chakka kurus were dried completely and then powdered and stored and used in drinks or along with kanji in the rainy season.

The other way was to directly roast it in flame and eat it similar to cashewnuts. I haven't tasted both ways yet. I made this koottu in the normal way added a lot of vegetables along with chakka kurus. I served it with rice but I personally had it with chapathis and loved it. IT was a delicious accompaniment for chapathis since I made it little semi-solid.

Ingredients:

Chakka kurus (jackfruit seeds) - 1/2 cup
Other vegetables - 1 cup *
Coconut (grated) - 1/2 cup
Jeera seeds - 1 tsp
Red chillies - 2 nos
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp

To Temper:

Oil - 1 tsp
mustard - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few

Other vegetables - carrot, peas, cucumber (vellari)

Method:

• Pressure cook the vegetables along with salt and turmeric powder. Add very little water since other than chakka kuru - the other vegetables would ooze out water.
• Grind the coconut, jeera and red chillies with little water.
• Once the pressure is released, open the cooker and add the ground paste. Mix well and check for salt.
• Boil the mixture. I did not add more water since I made this as a side dish for rice. If required more water can be added to dilute it into a gravy.
• Temper with the ingredients given under "To Temper".

Koottu is ready!!! I Served it with rice, rasam and appalam.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#52

Chakka kuru manga curry

Yesterday when I posted chakka kuru upperi, most of them commented saying they are used to chakka kuru curry. Yes of course this is a very famous curry in the summer season since chakka (jackfruit) and manga (raw mangoes) are available in plenty!!!

I added drumsticks to the curry to make the curry more interesting. This is a very fabulous curry - just serve it with rice and a thoran of your choice. We also love to have this curry with dosa since it has a nice tangy flavor.

Ingredients:

Chakka Kuru (jackfruit seeds) - 1 cup

Drumsticks - 2 nos

Ram mango - 1/2 

Coconut (grated) - 1/2 cup

Garlic - 4 pods

Green chillies - 2 nos

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

To temper:

Oil - 1 tsp

mustard - 1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seeds - 1/4 tsp

Curry leaves - few

Method:

• Chop the drumsticks, chakka kuru and raw mango.
• Pressure cook the chakka kuru and raw mango together with salt and turmeric powder for one whistle (add 1 cup water). You can alternatively cook it in stove top also in a closed container with enough water.
• Microwave the drumstick pieces for about 4 minutes so that they are 75% cooked. I find that when drumsticks are pressure cooked, they become very mushy and break. So I microwave them so that they don't lose the shape.
• Meanwhile grind the grated coconut, garlic pods and green chillies into a fine paste by adding little water.

• Once the pressure is released, open the pressure cooker, add the ground paste, cooked drumstick pieces and 1/2 cup water and mix well. Check for salt and boil the gravy. When the gravy starts bubbling up from the sides switch off the stove.
• The gravy will thicken after some time so make it a little diluted.
• In a kadai pour oil, add mustard seeds. Once mustard splutters add the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. Pour this on the gravy and mix well.

Chakka kuru manga curry is ready!!! Enjoy with rice and a thoran of your choice. Pappadam will be a good accompaniment.

Note:

You can avoid the garlic in this curry.

This curry can also be made without raw mango. In that case for sourness add sour curd with the coconut and grind.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#52

Chakka Kuru Upperi

This week for BM I have selected "Seasonal produce on spotlight" and the sesonal veggie that I have selected is Jackfruit. Surprised!!! how can a fruit be a veggie? Well in kerala the raw form of Jackfruit is largely used as a vegetable. But for this week's BM I will not be sharing recipes of raw jackfruit rather I will be sharing recipes of jackfruit seeds. Isn't that interesting?

Jackfruit seeds has a lot of medicinal properties which is probably unknown to many people. It is high in protein, has some anti-cancer nutrients, it has lot of vitamin-A so good for eyes. It seems powdered jackfruit seeds can help get instant relief from indigestion. Offlate I also heard that powdered jackfruit seeds are promoted to lower diabetes.

In general, the seeds are gathered from the ripe fruit during summer, sun-dried and stored for use in rainy season in many parts of South-Indian states. The jackfruit seeds can be used from raw jackfruit as well as ripe jackfruit. When the seeds is removed it will look very shiny. Keep it in sun for a day and you will see a thick white coating. Remove this coating just before you cook the jackfruit seeds. Or else store it in a dry place. The jackfruit seeds attracts fungus - so remember to store it in a dry place.

Ingredients:

Jackfruit seeds - 1 cup
Coconut - 2 tbsp (grated)
Oil - 1 tbsp
mustard - 1/2 tsp
Green chillies - 2 nos
Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

Remove the skin of Jackfruit seeds. Cut them lengthwise.

In a pressure cooker Add the jackfruit seeds, one cup water, salt and turmeric powder and cook for one whistle.

Note: Jackfruit seeds don't ooze out water unlike other vegetables. They consume water while cooking.

Grind coarsely coconut, jeera, green chillies.

In a kadai, add oil and mustard seeds. Once mustard splutters, add the curry leaves and the ground coconut. Fry for a minute.

Add the cooked jackfruit seeds, and mix well. Ceck for salt and cook for 2 minutes over medium flame.

Chakka kuru upperi is ready!!! Serve with rice and sambar or any other gravy.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#52

Sev Khamani | Indian Cooking Challenge

This is my first recipe for the Indian Cooking Challenge. This time we have a authentic gujarathi recipe. And this is also the first time that I am making an authentic gujarathi recipe.

We enjoy gujarathi sweet recipes but are not a fan of savoury recipes that contain a lot of besan. Somehow eating a lot of besan based dishes gives us stomach problems - probably because we are not used to it.

We liked this recipe though. The end result was very colorful, yellow, red and greens - lovely color combination. H said seems like Gujarathi upma :-) Yes the texture definitely looks like upma.

The recipe is given in Indian Cooking Challenge blog but I also had a look at the recipes for this available in internet. Actually this Khamani sev is most of the times made with left-over dhokla. Or channa-dal is soaked and made into a batter. There were few recipes with besan But I followed the recipe made out of besan.

Ingredients:

For Khamani:

Besan - 1 1/2 cups

Sooji (Rava) - 1/4 cup

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Sugar - 1 1/2 tsp

Lemon juice - 2 tbsp

Ginger - 1" piece

Green chillies - 2 nos

Oil - 2 tbsp

Water - 2 cups

Eno fruit salt - 2 tsp

To Temper:

Oil - 1 tbsp

Mustard - 1/2 tsp

Jeera - 1/4 tsp

Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp

Garlic - 5 pods (finely chopped)

turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Nylon Sev - 1/2 cup

Pomegranate pearls - 1/2 cup

Grated coconut - 3 tbsp

Coriander leaves (chopped finely) - 3 tbsp

Lemon juice - 1 tbsp

Method:

Make a fine paste of ginger and the green chillies.
Mix the besan, sooji, salt, sugar, ginger-green chilly paste, lemon juice and oil. Make a batter similar to that of bhajji batter with the water.
Place a steamer on gas with enough water.
Grease a thali or a small bowl. I used a bowl.
Add the ENO fruit salt to the batter and mix very well. You should see some bubbles
Pour the batter in the Thaali / bowl, and place it in the steamer.
Close the lid and let it steam for 10-15 minutes.
Check with a knife if done, the knife should come out clean.
Once it is cooled, crumble the kamans.

In a kadai pour oil. Add the mustard seeds.

Once the mustard splutters add Jeera, asafoetida, chopped garlic. Fry well until the garlic turns sligtly brown.

Add the turmeric powder and simmer the gas.

Add the crumbled khamans and mix well. Switch off gas.

Transfer into a bowl or serving plate.

Garnish in layers with - coriander leaves, pomegranate pearls, nylon sev, grated coconut.

Drizzle lemon juice on top and serve.

Poori Masala

Poori is our all time favorite and we enjoy it with only aloo masala. This combination is famously called poori masala or in tamil - poori kizhangu

Now poori can be easily made for breakfast on a weekday but we like to take it hot - straight from the pan. So mostly i plan poori for weekends, since we generally pack our breakfast. And weekend breakfasts are kind of brunch. We generally get up late and I plan for a heavy lunch with 4-5 items. So breakfast would be just milk and cereals and so on. So I plan an early dinner with poori masala,

I know most of us know how to make poori. But I think this post could help a bit beginners who struggle to  puff the puri/ poori. The recipe for masala is already posted.

Recipe cuisine: Indian
Prep time: 5 minutes
Standing time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Makes: 8 pooris

Ingredients:

Wheat flour - 1 cup
Water - 1/4 cup + as needed
Salt - As needed

Method:

Take flour and salt in a bowl and mix well.

Warm the 1/4 cup water and add water little by little while you mix the flour to resemble a crumbly mix. Then carefully sprinkle 1 or 2 tblsp water to gather to a dough.

Keep aside covered for 15-30 minutes and then again knead to make it smooth with out any cracks.

Divide into equal sized balls (8). Roll out into circles. Not too thick, not too thin.

Heat oil in kadai, until fume just starts to come. Then keep it in medium flame and drop the rolled poori in the oil carefully. Oil should be enough to immerse the poori.  Gently press the poori with the laddle when it tries to float on the top. This will make it puff well. Turn over and cook for another 30 sec or until golden spots appear on the poori.

Notes:

• Adding little sugar helps in turning the poori to a nice golden colour. Also enhances the taste. But I don't follow this.
• I have heard from my Mother that adding a tbsp pf rava/ semolina/ sooji gives crispier poori.
• Keep oil in kadai enough. It is important in puffing poori.
• Keep oil always hot. Then only poori will puff. So manage your oil temperature accordingly high/low/medium
• Adding a tsp of ghee while making dough also gives a nice flavor.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#52

Naan without yeast | Indian flat bread

The mega marathon just got over in the Blogging Marathon and we are back to our routine blogging. So in BM #52 the first theme I have chosen is weekend special dinner.

Yes weekend dinners are special. Being a working woman, weekend I get ample time to plan and cook food. So I try to do something different and most of the times the menu turns out to be on the heavier side. Also, most of the blogging marathon dishes are planned in weekend.

One weekend I tried this Naan. The point with Naan is that the dough needs to rest for a minimum of 3 hours - so can't plan it in a weekday.

Ingredients

Maida/All pupose flour - 2 cups
Fresh thick curds - 1/2 cup
Milk,warm - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Baking powder - 3/4 tsp
Cooking soda - 3/4 tsp
Melted Ghee/Butter - 4 tsps

Method

Sieve maida with baking powder and cooking soda for 3 times.( to ensure even mixing) take the seived flour in a bowl and make a dent in the centre. Pour milk,curd,salt,sugar in that dent.

Mix well after a minute,gather the flour with your finger tips and dont knead hard.Keep aside covered for 2-3 hours. (U can keep upto 7-8 hours)Knead the dough softly at the time of making and make even sized balls.The size should be larger than our chapatti making ball.

Dust the rolling platform generously with maida and roll it and pull one edge to make a tear shape Apply water on top of naan and turn over it to the hot tawa so that the water applied part sticks to the pan

Cook covered in medium flame and after a minute if u open,u could see it has puffed up.Now turn the pan upside down and cook the otherside on direct flame till the other side becomes light golden in colour. If u r not comfortable in this u can simply take and put the naan in direct flame as u do for roties ,otherwise also u can turn over it in tawa itself and cook. Its your choice.But cooking in direct flame sure gives a good finish to the naan. Apply butter/ghee over both sides and serve hot.! I served with tomato kurma.

Coriander Naan:

After rolling the naan - put some chopped coriander leaves and little till seeds. Press it with your hand slightly and sprinkle little water and cook it on the tawa. While putting it on flame put the other side of the naan which doesn't have the coriander leaves on flame.

It is coming very very soft and please do try it and tell me how it came!!!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#52

Fire up your oven - recap

I had a wonderful month of blogging and learnt lots in terms of baking.  Since this was my first attempt at participating in a mega marathon, I did not pick up any sub themes. Just picked up few recipes and tried it. I decided to participate in this marathon only in the month of march and by april end I was able to complete the 26 dishes needed!!! Its rightly said - "Where there is a will, there is a way"

Here's the recap

Indian tea shop butter biscuits

Mulberry Muffins

Carrot Muffins

Chicken Tikka

Pizza | How to prepare pizza base

Eggless Jam Biscuits

Pizza Sticks

Chocolate chip and cocoa biscuits

Eggless wheat bread

Baked gulab jamuns

Egg puffs | How to make puff pastry sheets

Dinner Rolls

Buns

Newyork style pizza

Chocolate chip muffins

Pound cake

Veg Puffs

Hyderabadi chand cookies

Banana coconut muffins

Eggless paneer spinach muffins

Dominoes style stuffed garlic bread

Stuffed bread roll

Baked Upma

Stuffed Bun

Baked Vada

Masala Peanuts

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51

An InLinkz Link-up