Silky Chicken Kebab

The last post for this month's blogging marathon. And next month we have the mega marathon coming up. Looking forward to it. 

Meanwhile I tried this silky chicken kebab. Now that I have a new oven, I have all the reasons in the world to try new kebab recipes. I took this recipe from a book named "Indian" - a collection of over 100 essential recipes. Strangely this book doesn't have an author associated with it. It just says Love Food. I tried this particular recipe because it looked like actual kebabs we get in restaurants with skewers attached. I followed the recipe as available in the book and didn't make any changes. Try it out. Its very easy.

Ingredients:

Cashew nuts - 50 grams
Thick cream - 2 tbsp
Egg - 1
Boneless chicken breasts - 400 grams
Ginger-garlic paste - 2 tbsp
Green chillies - 2 (finely chopped)
Coriander leaves - few (roughly chopped)
Garam masala - 1 tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp (for brushing)
Butter (melted) - 25 grams
Salt - to taste

Method:

• Put the cashewnuts in heat-proof bowl, cover with boiled hot water and leave it to soak for 20 minutes.
• Drain the cashewnuts and put it in a food processor or mixer. Add the cream and egg and process the ingredients to a coarse mixture.
• Roughly chop the chicken breast to very small pieces.
• Add all the remaining ingredients, except the oil and butter. Mix until smooth and evenly mixed.
• Transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 30-50 minutes.
• Preheat the grill to high. Pre-soak the wooden skewers lightly with oil. Have a bowl of cold water ready.
• Divide the chilled mixture into 8 equal sized portions. Dip your hands in a bowl of cold water - tis will stop the mixture sticking to your fingers when you are moulding it onto the skewers.
• Carefully mould each portion onto a skewer forming it a 15 cm/6 inch sausage shape.
• Arrange the kebabs on the prepared rack and cook in the pre-heated grill for 5 minutes.
• Brush with half the melted butter and cook for a minute more.
• Turn over the kebabs in the rack and cook for further 3 minutes.
• Brush the remaining melted butter and cook for a further 2 minutes.
• Remove from heat and leave the kebabs to rest for 5 minutes.

Silky chicken kebabs are ready!! You can serve them as is in the skewers or slide them off the skewer with a knife. Serve with mint chutney and lemons.

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Simple veg kebab

For the topic kebabs I had initially planned for 3 non-veg recipes. But then on the day of Janmashtami I didnt feel like posting a non-veg recipe. So tried this simple veg kebab. The recipe below is my own. Just tried with a few vegetables and the taste was awesome. We can also use these as patties in burger I believe. This will be an ideal quick snack also.

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2 big

Vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, peas, capsicum) - 1 cup

Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp

Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp

Chat masala powder - 1/2 tsp

Green chillies - 2 nos

Coriander leaves - few

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

• Boil the potatoes. Once cool, peel off the outer cover, mash them and keep it aside.
• Finely chop the vegetables. Boil them such that they are half cooked. I microwaved them for 3 minutes.
• Pulse the vegetables in a mixer. just pulse them 2 or 3 times.
• Mix the pulsed vegetables and the mashed potatoes.

 

• Add the powders, salt green chillies and chopped coriander leaves. 
• Mix well into a homogeneous mixture.
• Make small round patties.

 

• Heat a dosa tava and add 2 tbsp oil. Place the patties on the tava and fry them on both sides.

Easy Veg Kebab is ready!! Serve with mint chutney and tomato sauce.

Notes:

• You can also add some bread crumbs to make it more crispier.

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Sweet Somas

I have heard often about this sweet recipe named SOMAS and have also tasted it in my childhood days. But I personally am making it for the first time. And this year I am posting this as the janmashtami special.

I am not sure if this sweet is made for janmashtami. But most of the households have this as a must for diwali sweets. My mom hasn't made this at home. So I just searched for a few recipes online and came up with my own version. I increased the sugar levels than those posted in the blogs. I felt since  sugar is used as a filling inside a dough, it needs to be on the higher end so that the dough taste and the sweet taste compensates each other. And the sweet turned out to be delicious.

This is very easy to make. I made the filling in excess and stored it in fridge and repeated the dough making and somas making for 4 days :-)

Ingredients:

For the outer layer

Maida/all purpose flour -  1 cup 

Corn flour -  1 tsp 

Oil -  1 & 1/2 tbsp 

Salt -  A generous pinch 

For filling

Pottu kadalai / fried gram dal - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Coconut,grated - 1/2 cup

Cardamom/Elaichi - 1 

Method:

• Mix flour,corn flour, salt and oil well. Then sprinkle water to make stiff dough. Needs only near 1/4 cup water, so careful while adding water. Keep aside for at least 2 hours. 
• Grate coconut and dry roast well till the moisture evaporates. Fry in medium flame for 5 minutes until it becomes dry and wafts nice aroma. Don't let it become brown.

• Grind the fried gram dal first into a coarse rava like powder.
• Grind sugar into a fine powder with cardamom.
• Take the ground fried gram dal, sugar powder and cooled roasted coconut in a mixing bowl. 
• Mix well and keep it in a airtight container. 

• Now again knead the dough to smooth. 
• Divide into small equal sized balls. Roll each into thin pooris.
• Now spoon 1 or 1 & 1/2 tblsp of the pottukadalai powder into this and grease well the sides of the poori with water. You need not fully grease, half of the sides is good enough.
• Cover it or merge the 2 halves of the circle and seal the sides well. 
• Repeat the process for all.

• Keep covered until you deep fry.
• Deep fry in hot oil in medium flame both sides flipping in between, until golden in colour. You can fry 3 – 4 per batch. Or how much ever your kadai/oil holds. 

Sweet SOMAS is ready!!!



Notes:

• The powder made for filling can be made ahead and refrigerated. Its nice to eat it as such.
• When greasing with water, make a broad sealing to ensure that it wont open up while deep frying.
• Dough should be stiff to get crispy outer layer, so add water carefully and accordingly.

Beef Kebab

The second category for this month's blogging marathon is Kebabs. Actually i took up this category because there were no other categories left. But then I ended up making some very good kebabs.

I did some research on kebab since I was not sure what a kebab means. I have always thought only non-veg recipes would fit into kebab categories. But my blogging marathon friends were posting vegetarian recipes also. Some of the kebab recipes were deep fried, some were shallow fried, some were baked, some were grilled. So what is the base of this kebab?

From my research I infer that the word kebab originated in the middle east and meant some meat + vegetables - grilled on skewers. But over time this has evolved. Kebab dishes can consist of cut up or ground meat or seafood, sometimes with vegetables; cooked on a skewer over a fire, or like a hamburger on a grill, baked in a pan in an oven, or as a stew; and served with various accompaniments according to each recipe. These days even fried foods which contain meat and vegetables are called kebabs. 

I here started with Beef Kebab - a deep fried snack item with ground beef and some vegetables. This can also be baked I guess.

Ingredients:

Beef - 250 grams

Potato (boiled) - 2 big ones

Onion (finely chopped) - 1 big

Capsicum (finely chopped) - 1/2 or 50 grams

Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp

Green chillies (finely chopped) - 2

Coriander leaves - few

Salt - to taste

turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Oil - to deep fry

Method:

• Cook the beef with salt and turmeric powder until soft. I pressure cooked the beef for 5 whistles. Beef generally takes a longer time to get cooked. 
• In pan add 1 tsp of oil. Fry the shopped onions and capsicum until they are half cooked.
• Once the beef is cooled down, grind it in a mixer. Just pulse it twice or thrice.
• Mash the boiled potatoes. Add the ground beef, fried onions and capsicum, salt, garam masala powder, chopped green chillies, chopped coriander leaves. Mix well.
• Make small patties. I made little long oblong shapes just for a difference.
• Deep fry in oil until golden brown. 

Beef Kebab is ready!! serve with tomato sauce and mint chutney!!

Notes:

• The cooked beef already has salt. So add remaining salt accordingly.
• I generally cook 1/2 kg - 1 kg beef and keep some aside to make cutlets or kebabs.
• You can coat the patties with little corn flour diluted in water and coat them with bread crumbs and they deep fry. This will give a good crunchy texture. 

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Methi Thepla

I tried methi thepla for the first time and fell in love with it. This would be an ideal recipe to use in travels since the theplas stays fresh for a long time. For kids, we can just apply jam and roll them and pack it for lunch. This way we can also give them some healthy food which otherwise they won't eat.

I understand that the subtle difference between methi thepla and methi paratha is that in thepla we add little gram flour along with wheat flour. Also we add little curd or buttermilk to the thepla while mixing. This thepla comes out really soft and also stays soft for a long time. I had it without any side dish. But I served it along with chakka varatti and tomato sauce. Thakkali thokku would also be an ideal combination for this.

Ingredients:

Wheat flour - 1 1/2 cup
Besan / gram flour - 1/2 cup
Methi leaves - 3/4 cup
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Garam masala powder - 3/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Salt - As needed
Oil - 3 tbsp
Butter milk / curd - As needed

Method:

• Remove the methi leaves from its stem,clean it and chop it finely.
• Add the chopped leaves, wheat flour, gram flour, salt, turmeric, garam masala powder, coriander powder, chilly powder, jeera and oil and mix well. 
• Add required butter milk to make a soft dough, just like we make for roti/chappathis.
• Make equal sized balls and roll to thin rotis.
• Heat a tava, sprinkle little oil and just toast the rotis like we usually do for chapathis.

Methi thepla is ready!! Serve with raitha and pickle of your choice.

Notes:

• In case you are adding curd instead of buttermilk then add a portion of curd and a portion of water.
• Separate the leaves and take only the the leaves for making thepla. I took the stem also and the chopped stem comes in the way of rolling the theplas. So better to avoid it.

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Thengai sevai | Rice string hoppers with coconut

The second recipe that I have come up with is Thengai Sevai - easy to make breakfast item. Kids will love this because I have cheated my nephew saying this is another form of noodles :-)

In olden days sevai was made at home. My mother and my grand-mother used to make it. I am not sure how many of us are making this sevai at home in today's generation since a lot of ready made sevai is available today. I shall try to make this sevai at home and post the recipe later.

For the below recipe I used MTR ready made rice sevai. Concord rice sevai is also very famous in south India. The packet says to add the instant sevai to boiled water and keep it for 5 minutes. I additionally also steamed it to get a softer result. Do try it out.

Ingredients:

Cooked sevai – 2 cups
Coconut – 3/4 cup
Salt – As needed

To Temper:

Oil – 1 tbsp
Mustard – 3/4 tsp
Urad dal – 1 tbsp
Cashew nuts – 6
Asafoetida – A generous pinch
Green chilli – 5
Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Method:

• Soak ready made sevai in hot water along with little salt for 5-7 mins. Drain water completely and steam cook it, by placing in a greased idli plate for 2 mins or until done. 
• Heat oil in a pan and temper the items under 'To temper' table in order. Add curry leaves, asafoetida and finely chopped green chillies once the cashew nuts turn golden.
• Add grated coconut and give it a stir in medium flame for a minute. Sprinkle little salt.
• Add cooked sevai and mix well. Switch off the flame.

Serve with chutney or a nice gravy of your choice.

Notes:

• Don't skip the cashewnuts. It gives a nice flavour to the dish.
• We can add gram dal also to temper.

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Chow Chow bath

I am just starting with this month's Blogging Marathon and I have chosen Kid's friendly breakfast recipes to start with. Today I will be blogging about Chow Chow Bath.

I heard this recipe name for the first time after I started living in Bangalore. Initially I thought this is a rice item made with the vegetable chayote (chow chow, bangalore kathrika). Later I got to know that in Karnataka a combination of rava kichadi and kesari is served and this combination is called chow chow bath!!

I guess we can serve either rava kichadi or rava upma for this recipe. We call it kichadi if the rava is cooked with vegetables, tomato and lots of ghee/ oil with more water. And upma if the water ratio is less and simple without any vegetables or tomato. Here both the recipes are made with lot of ghee.

When I tasted this, it felt awesome to eat this savory khara bath and sweet kesari bath side by side. And with coconut chutney, its just out of the world. Do try this out for your kids breakfast and I am sure the kids will love it!!

I am posting a recipe how to prepare this together. You can check out the individual recipes in the links below

Rava upma

Rava kesari

Coconut chutney

Ingredients:

Rava (roasted) - 1 cup

Onion - 1

Tomato - 1

Carrot - 1

Beans (chopped) - 1/4 cup

Green chillies - 5

Ginger, chopped finely - 2 tsp

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Salt - As needed 

Water - 5 cups

Ghee - 1/4 cup

Sugar - 1/2 cup

cardamom powder - A pinch

Cashew nuts - 7-8 nos

Raisins - 10 nos

mustard - 2 tsp

curry leaves - few

tamarind - a pinch

Method:

• Grate coconut, chop all the vegetables needed for the khara bath / kichadi.
• First grind the coconut chutney. In a mixer jar add grated coconut, ginger, pinch of tamarind, green chillies and salt. Add little water and grind it into a smooth paste.
• In a kadai, pour 1 tsp ghee. Fry the cashewnuts and raisins and keep aside.
• Add 1 tsp ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add mustard and curry leaves. Once the mustard splutters pour 1 tbsp of this to the coconut chutney.
• In the remaining ghee add the chopped onions, green chillies and ginger. Fry until the onion turns translucent. Add all the remaining chopped vegetables. Fry for a minute. Add 2 cups of water. 
• Add salt and allow the water to boil.
• Parallely heat another kadai. Add 2.5 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiled add 1/2 cup of rava. Mix well. Lower the flame. Close and allow the rava to get cooked.
• Meanwhile in the other kadai, water would have boiled. Add 1/2 cup rava, mix well. Cover and cook until all the water is absorbed.
• In the second kadai -  the rava would have cooked now and would be in a semi-solid consistency. 
• Add the sugar, keep the flame in medium and stir well.
• As soon as you add sugar, the rava mixture will again become watery and you may notice 2-3 lumps again formed. Stir well as in a way to mash those lumps.
• Open the first kadai. the rava kichadi would be ready now. Add 2 tbsp ghee, mix well and keep aside.
• To the kesari, stir well for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ghee, cardamom powder and the fried cashews and raisins. Mix well and switch off flame.

Chow chow bath is ready!! Serve 1 cup of kichadi, 1 cup of kesari  and 1 cup of coconut chutney. I served it along with banana.

Notes:

• You can add food color to kesari to give it an orange color. I generally avoid adding food color.
• Both the kichadi and kesari should be made with lots of ghee and more amount of water to get a soft texture.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#67