Karaikudi Pepper chicken curry

The old year just passed away almost in a blink.To think back the last year has been a blessed one for me that i had my second lil angel in my arms last year.The older one and her growing up and many more pleasant instances and unpleasant but thats how life is meant to be no?

We bid good bye to this year in a few days and welcome the new year to look forward with hope and joy another 365 days filled with anxious moments and surprises.

Wishing you all a Very Happy 2014 from me!

We are enjoying our winter break and I just wanted to share this yummy recipe so i had added the pictures before i left to my drafts.

This is one super delicious recipe I highly recommend all my friends to try this.Its goes amazingingly well with all flavoured rice and flat breads especially kerala parotta.



You need

To marinate

Chicken 250 gms
Salt to taste
Pepper powder 1/4 tsp
Chilli powder 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Lime juice 1 tsp

To make the gravy
Onion 2 small
Tomato 2 small
Ginger garlic paste 1 tsp
Coriander leaves a medium bunch
Chilli powder 1/2 tsp
pepper powder 1/4 tsp
Dhaniya powder 1 tsp
Thick curd/yogurt 1/2 cup
Garam masala 1 tsp
Lime juice 1/2 tsp
Oil 2 tablespoons
Cumin seeds 1/2 tsp
Aniseeds/perumjeerakam 1/2 tsp
Cloves 2
Cinnamon stick 1

- In a pan, fry cumin, aniseeds, cloves and cinnamon seeds, now add onions let fry well., add ginger garlic paste.
- add the tomatoes and fry until soft.Add the chopped coriander leaves.Fry for a minute.
- add the pepper powder, dhaniya powder, chilli powder and fry till the raw smells go away.
- Add the garam masala now and fry well.
- Add the chicken cover and cook until soft.
- Add salt to taste.
- Add the beaten curd and stir well.
- Once the chicken is soft turn off the heat and add lime juice.

Serve hot with lime rice, ghee rice or any flavoured rice or naan, parotta.

Wishing you all lots of good memories and good occasions to celebrate with good food in the New Year.

Karaikudi Pepper chicken curry

The old year just passed away almost in a blink.To think back the last year has been a blessed one for me that i had my second lil angel in my arms last year.The older one and her growing up and many more pleasant instances and unpleasant but thats how life is meant to be no?

We bid good bye to this year in a few days and welcome the new year to look forward with hope and joy another 365 days filled with anxious moments and surprises.

Wishing you all a Very Happy 2014 from me!

Home made Garam masala

Garam masala is a very popular spice mix used extensively in Indian dishes.These days it is readily available in the stores but the freshly ground one does add that extra bit to your dishes. 

 How i make it :

You need

DHaniya/Coraiander seeds 1 tablespoon
Aniseeds/Saunf - 1 tablespoon
Pepper corns 1/2 tsp
GReen cardamoms 3
Black cardamoms 1
Star anise 1
Cloves 5

• Dry roast all of the above until the aroma just starts to come.
• Allow to cool and powder it.
• Store in air tight container.

  I got one small bottle full of garam masala.

Home made Garam masala

Garam masala is a very popular spice mix used extensively in Indian dishes.These days it is readily available in the stores but the freshly ground one does add that extra bit to your dishes. 

 How i make it :

You need

DHaniya/Coraiander seeds 1 tablespoon
Aniseeds/Saunf - 1 tablespoon
Pepper corns 1/2 tsp
GReen cardamoms 3
Black cardamoms 1
Star anise 1
Cloves 5

• Dry roast all of the above until the aroma just starts to come.
• Allow to cool and powder it.
• Store in air tight container.

  I got one small bottle full of garam masala.

Mutton and okra curry

We had an Iranian restaurant near my place in Dubai and it always had a buffet banner outside it.We used to wonder anyone can always have a discounted buffet offer.But this place was pretty good.They used to have a decent array of dishes and soft rotis.This curry is a beautiful blend of the meat and soft tender lady fingers.

On that menu i tasted this weird combination of a curry for the first time.I was confused if i should even taste it because the thought of bhindis and mutton wasn't too pleasing for me.But when i tried it, the taste was super.Iranian food tastes a lot like our Indian food and so we are bound to like it.

To make this curry you need

Mutton 250 gms
Onion 1 large
Tomato 2 small or 1 large
Small okra/lady finger 10 numbers slit in half lengthwise
Ginger garlic paste 1 tablespoon(1/2+1/2)
Salt to taste
Dhaniya/Coriander powder 1 tablespoon
Red chilli powder 1 tsp
Turmeric/haldi powder 1/4 tsp
Garam masala 1 tsp

- Marinate the mutton with chilli powder, ginger garlic paste, salt,lime juice and turmeric for half hour.Cook in pressure cooker until soft for around 10 -12 minutes.
- Fry slit lady fingers in a generous amount of oil until wilted and drain onto kitchen towel.
- Draining excess oil, in the same pan, fry onions until soft, followed by remaining ginger garlic paste.
- Add Tomatos and let it get really soft.
- Add coriander powder, chilli powder, home made/ready garam masala, salt and saute well.
- add the cooked mutton and let the water reduce.Add the fried lady fingers and stir once.Cover and let it cook until the gravy had coated the meat and lady finger well.

Serve hot with hot rotis or flat breads or pita bread!

Mutton and okra curry

We had an Iranian restaurant near my place in Dubai and it always had a buffet banner outside it.We used to wonder anyone can always have a discounted buffet offer.But this place was pretty good.They used to have a decent array of dishes and soft rotis.This curry is a beautiful blend of the meat and soft tender lady fingers.

Christmas Specials - Goodies

Savoury Goodies 

Rice Murukku/Chaklis

Moong dal Murukku/Chakklis

Sev/Omapodi

Ribbon Pakodas

Sweet Goodies 

Besan Ladoos

Kalkals

Badusha

Almond fudge balls

Rose Cookies (Recipe coming next)

Appams and Velam Appam - Lacy pancakes with jaggery

 Appams make festival special breakfasts and dinners. They make a good combination with easy stews and curries.I make them often because its easy to store in the refrigerator for daily morning breakfasts too.

These appams just have jaggery sprinkled over it but you have to take my word that it takes the plain ones to totally different level with just that speck of sweet sprinkled over it.The ones you see below are plain appams.

To make the basic appam batter you need


Raw rice/pacha arisi 3 cups
Idli rice/boiled rice 1 cup
Cooked rice one hand full or half a cup
Urad dal/ulundhu half cup
Grated coconut half cup
Coconut water (optional) of one coconut
Appa soda/baking soda a generous pinch
Salt 1 tsp or more


- Soak all of the above rices and dals together for 2 hours, now grind into a smooth batter in a blender adding the remaining ingredients.Add salt and a pinch of baking soda and stir well.
- Allow this batter to ferment for 8-10 hours.

To make the plain appams:

• Once the batter is fermented, check the consistency of the batter it has to be a little more runny than dosa batter.If its too runny it may stick to your kadhai/vessel.
• Heat the kadhai use a nonstick one if you want to reduce the hassles of sticking appams.Cover with a lid.
• Pour 1 large ladle of the batter to the centre of the kadhai and swirl the kadhai so it coats the sides of the vessel cover and cook until the centre is done for 2-3 mins on a medium flame.
• Repeat for all the batter as required.

To make the vellam appams :

• Same procedure as above just sprinkle scraped jaggery/ vellam to the centre of the appam cover and cook same way as plain ones.

Serve hot appams with chicken Chettinad curry, chicken stew or vegetable kurma or egg kurma or just plain milk or coconut milk.
Vellam appams are good to go as they are.

Some tips to get the appams right :

- If your vessel is nonstick then the appam will leave the sides once its cooked and the sides are crispy if not then pour some oil in the vessel you're about to use to make the appams over night.In the morning drain the oil, wipe the vessel with a kitchen towel rub a cut onion and then pour the appams.Hopefully it won't stick then and will be smooth making them.

- Instead of jaggery you can use palm jaggery or karupukatti too tastes good too.


Sending this to Lets Cook for Christmas @ Just not the cakes, Favorite Recipes:Christmas, Christmas Recipes

Appams and Velam Appam - Lacy pancakes with jaggery

 Appams make festival special breakfasts and dinners. They make a good combination with easy stews and curries.I make them often because its easy to store in the refrigerator for daily morning breakfasts too.

Jyoti's Guest post - Vegetable Lasagna

Friends can be life savers!Jyoti has come to my rescue when I'm having this winter shutdown my brain is always sleeping but i just can't stay away from the blog. So this is what friends do in times of need come to our rescue.Jyoti is my junior college friend we used to stay across the road i had to pass by her home to goto school. Even when we went to different engineering colleges we used to do combined studies, really missing those days.Now Jyoti is located in the US and is a beautiful mom to two lil pretty girls.

Vegetable Lasagna

Ingredients

Barilla Oven ready Lasagne (Choose the packet where no boiling is required)

Marinara sauce (3 cups)

Zucchini and yellow squash

Olive oil

15 ounce ricotta cheese'4 cups mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Step 1: Cook the squash

Peel and cut the squash (zucchini + yellow squash) and slice them into 1/4 inch circles. Cover with olive oil,  sprinkle salt and pepper and broil it in the oven for 10 minutes.

Tip: You can also saute these vegetables. Eggplant (Brinjal) or any other squashy vegetables can be used for variation

Step 2: Prepare the cheese mixture [While you prep, you can now preheat the oven to 375 F]

In a bowl combine ricotta, 2 cups mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Add 1 and 1/2 cup marinara sauce to the mixture

Step 3: Layer

Grease with oil a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. For the bottom layer, pour one cup marinara sauce and spread evenly. Top with 3 sheets of oven-ready lasagne. The sheets will expand while baking. Spread cheese mixture evenly on the lasagne. Next, add a layer of vegetables and finish with Mozzarella cheese. Repeat the pattern (Lasagne, cheese mixture, vegetables and mozzarella). Complete two sets. For the final layer top with three sheets of lasagne and pour remaining sauce, top with remaining cheese mixture and finish with mozzarella.

Step 4: Bake

Cover with foil and place in preheated oven, bake for 25 minutes. Once baked, remove foil and bake additional 5 minutes to brown the cheese.

Stepwise pictures :




Thanks Jyoti for the lovely picture and yummy recipe.

Jyoti's Guest post - Vegetable Lasagna

Friends can be life savers!Jyoti has come to my rescue when I'm having this winter shutdown my brain is always sleeping but i just can't stay away from the blog. So this is what friends do in times of need come to our rescue.Jyoti is my junior college friend we used to stay across the road i had to pass by her home to goto school. Even when we went to different engineering colleges we used to do combined studies, really missing those days.Now Jyoti is located in the US and is a beautiful mom to two lil pretty girls.

JustEat.in - A Review

One should not toil over food, one should Just Eat it!

There are days when all of us would agree to that now.



Surprised to hear that from a food blogger but I have my days too when I dread entering the kitchen forget cooking and then even going out to buy food seems like a punishment. Thats when Just Eat comes to your rescue!

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JustEat.in - A Review

One should not toil over food, one should Just Eat it!

There are days when all of us would agree to that now.