Fun with Indian food

2012-05-26T09:16:00.001-07:00

2012-04-13T08:05:00.001-07:00

Vegetables cooked in coconut-cumin sauce(Aviyal)

2010-05-04T02:43:00.001-07:00

This is again version 4.0 of the traditional aviyal that I absolutely love! Its mild and easy to prepare without many number of ingredients. You would certainly need a pack of frozen vegetables (500g), coconut powder(150g) from an Indian shop(coconut powder is not the same as coconut milk powder), turmeric(1 teaspoon) and cumin and green chilli and salt per your requirement. I usually use one green chilli per 500g vegetables and I use the frozen pack of trio vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and fresh tomatoes ( the usual vegetables in this dish are tropical but yeah that will mean that vegetables have travelled lengthy miles to get into your dish).

Additionally, you would need 2 table spoons of thick yoghurt ,1 table spoon oil (coconut oil is the oil that I prefer for a strong coconutty flavor, but you could use other oils or a knob of butter) and a few curry leaves.

How to..
Cook the veggies (with moringa if you are using it –refer tips) with a little bit of water with enough salt and turmeric and when its done but not too mushy add coconut powder-crushed cumin-crushed- green chilli-a few curry leaves. Simmer for 3 minutes. Add fresh tomatoes cut lengthwise and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Pour 2 tablespoons of yoghurt and switch off the flame. Now add the oil on top to garnish with curry leaves and stir in gently.

Tips

Curry leaves and green chillies can be frozen for more than a month. So you don't have to walk in to an Indian grocery every time you want Indian food.
Moringa is a vegetable (looks like drum stick and therefore it is also called by that name) which adds traditional flavor to the dish, so if you do walk in to Indian shop buy this vegetable for this dish. If you buy too much of it , it can be frozen as well.

Chicken Tikka – Low Glycemic Version

2010-04-19T14:44:00.001-07:00

The diet freak inside me tried to innovate more Indian-chicken recipes in a low cal version. This one is made of chicken breasts and for this you would need one more exotic ingredient, Chickpea flour.
Recipe is for 500 g chicken breast filets cut into cubes ( please don't worry about the exact shape!). I am watching big bang theory these days and I feel like I need to be really clear here!
Marinade
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon cumin powder
chopeed cilantro- 2-3 springs
Ginger garlic paste- 1 teaspoon (you could just crush 2 cloves of garlic and a one inch piece of ginger).
1.5 tablespoon of chick pea flour(besan)
Mix these into a paste in 100 g thick yoghurt along with chickpea flour ( roast this flour in a nonstick pan for a while before putting this in the marinade). Thoroughly apply this over the chicken pieces and marinate in the refrigerator for a good 4 hours time. A good substitute for chickpea flour is white flour, but that's not low glycemic.
Cook this in medium heat with 2 tablespoons of water.

There are two ways to serve it. Once it is cooked and slightly thick gravy is formed, add a dash of lime juice and a few springs of cilantro.It can be served with chapatti, rice or naan. That is really a low calorie version. The other version is good to be served as a starter, where the cooked chicken is fried in a few tablespoons of oil.. Try it for yourselves. Either way, it's easy and tasty.

Salmon in curried coconut milk

2010-04-14T04:12:00.000-07:00

A generic version of a fish curry which is very popular in kerala. I should mention that the orginal may have come from my mother, my mother in law or my sister.

For this curry you would need

Salmon 500g

Onion -1

Ginger – 1 inch piece thinly sliced

Garlic -2 cloves crushes

Green chilli-1

Curry leaves a few

Chilli powder(mild) 1 teaspoon ( you can reduce it to half a teaspoon or none if you do not want chilli )

Turmeric poweder- 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder- 1 teaspoon

Salt -enough

Lime juice- 1 tablespoon

Tomato-1 small

Coconut milk(Creamy) 200 ml

Oil for shallow frying the fish. (If you take a nonstick pan, take just enough oil to reduce fat in the dish)

Garam masala 1 teaspoon

Crushed black pepper 1 teaspoon( it can vary according to the spice tolerance , I always add more of this)

Step 1. Make a paste of chilli powder, lime juice, coriander powder, turmeric and a dash of oil with appropriate amounts of salt. Apply this paste to the fish pieces and keep refrigerated for say 30 minutes.

Step 2

Shallow fry in a pan , when both sides are browned lightly and when the fish appears to be cooked well, take it from the pan and drain it in a paper towel

Step 3
In the same oil, saute' sliced onions , ginger, garlic, green chilli and curry leaves. When the onion starts to look transparent, add 100 ml of coconut milk and let it boil. Put the fish pieces in this sauce and let it simmer for a while with garam masala and crushed black pepper.

Add chopped tomatoes and the rest of the coconut cream, stir in without breaking the fish pieces and switch the flame off…. Decorate with a few curry leaves.
It tastes heavenly with basmati rice!!

Tuna with coconut - Meen peera

2010-04-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

When I married man from coastal Kerala, I should have known that I should be prepared to cook fish everyday! I had to adopt this recipe from my sister to have an easy Kerala meal with parboiled rice and Fish ( yes, vegetables too). Without much blah blah, my sister's meen peera for all of you! I really love the flavor of dishes with coconut and therefore in the blog you will find a lot of recipes with coconut. Screw those who said coconut increases cholesterol!! It was all bad publicity. Coconut and coconut oil in moderate amounts actually promotes health(I read somewhere, but please google for more information).
200 g Tuna(drained)
Mustard seeds -1 teaspoon
Fenugreek seeds-1/2 teaspoon
1 red chilli( you can skip it, if you want without much change in the taste)
Kokum- 3 big slices ( this is a tamarind kind of condiment and it tastes sour. I haven't seen this in Indian stores here, so I suggest some alternatives)/juice of 1/2 a lime/ tamarind paste 1 teaspoon.
Coconut- fresh or desiccated – 1cup fresh/ around 150 g desiccated coconut.
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Grated ginger-1 tablespoon
Garlic cloves chopped-1/2 a tablespoon
Curry leaves- 1 spring
Step1
Crush together the coconut,turmeric powder, green chilli, curry leaves and ginger-garlic. We don't expect a paste here. Crush coarsely in a mortar and pestle. In a pan pour a tablespoon of oil and add seeds and let it splutter. Add red chilli, fish and the crushed mixture to it. Toss well.

Step2
If Kokum is added, soak it in ¼ cup of water or microwave high for 2 minutes and pour this mixture to the stovetop mix. And let it simmer for 6-7 minutes, we are done!!
You could substitute this step with lime juice and ¼ cup water or tamarind paste and ¼ cup water.
We aim at a fairly dry end product, so keep it on stove until the water evaporates.

Chicken Khorma(Kuruma)

2010-03-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

This one was in the closet for a while now and today I guess I can make it into a post.I am trying to upload some photos with this post. But please forgive the fact that, I forgot to take the picture of the served dish before people actually devoured it.

This recipe is based on the recipe by Thangam Philip.(Modern Cookery for Teaching and the Trade: v. 2).I added a few more ingredients as I needed to spice and colour it up a bit more.
For this you would need
1 skinless chicken cut -1.5kg
To grind into a paste:

poppy seeds(khus-khus) 100gm
Grated coconut- fresh/dessicated -300 gm
Green chilli-1
Red chilli-1
Coriander seeds(dhania)-2 table spoons
Cashew nuts-150 grams
Onions- 2 small ones.

Grind this into a smooth paste and keep aside.

For the pan
2 onions and coriander leaves(2-3 springs)
1 green chilli-sliced
Ginger chopped- 1 tablespoon
2 tablespoons of oil/ghee
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Beaten Yoghurt- 300 ml

Heat a pan and heat 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the sliced onions,ginger,green chilli and coriander leaves and saute this until it looks like the above picture. Add the paste into this pan and fry for a couple of minutes. Add chicken into this mixture along with half a teaspoon turmeric

To this mixture add beaten yoghurt and salt and cook until done.

The end product looks like this

Decorate it with cilantro.. As you see which i didnt do, guess who was on the run to feed the baby.
Enjoy it with Indian breads or rice!! A simple recipe. Very yummy.

Free rice

2010-02-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

Did you know about this site? www.freerice.com
Where you can increase the vocabulary of your English and donate food grains. Please play!!

Chicken curry with coconut milk

2010-02-23T05:38:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

Chicken pieces (medium sized) – 1 kg
Ginger – ½ inch piece – minced
Garlic – 1 whole – minced
2 large onions – diced
Tomato – 2 medium sized – diced
Green Chilli – 2 medium sized – diced (add more or less depends on your taste)
Coriander leaves /cilantro– a small bunch
Coconut milk – 1 cup (200 ml thick creamy coconut milk)
Garam masala – 1 tbsp
Cumin powder – 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder – 1 tbsp (substitute with red paprika powder instead, chilli is very hot)
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tbsp
Crushed blackpepper(1/2 tsp)
Oil – 3 tbsp
Salt to taste

Method

Sauté ginger and garlic in oil till light brown over low heat. Add diced onions and sauté till the mixture turns brown and oil separates from onion-garlic-ginger sautéed mixture. Add the dry ingredients (cumin, coriander, red-chilli, and turmeric) to the onion-garlic-ginger mixture and sauté for a minute. Add diced tomatoes and green chillies to the mixture. Sauté for a minute and add cleaned chicken pieces to it along with crushed black pepper. Add salt and cook( without water if possible, because chicken will have water in itself, else in the minimum hot water possible) when the chicken is done, add coconut milk. Remove from the heat.

Have fun......

Chicken curry and Chapati

Preserving cilantro/coriander leaves

2010-02-22T02:44:00.000-08:00

Wondering how this experiment works out for the better. Yesterday I got this big bunch of cilantro from the 'punjabi' Indian shop and I didnt want to throw away stuff which gets wilted at the end of the week. So chopped them finely and filled the icecube tray with it and poured water over it. I have nice cubes in zip lock bag now.I did not try that in a recipe yet, but will let you know the result!! ( original source lies somewhere in the internet, google if you want it, and there are more ways of preserving it!)

Fun week!

Prawn Roast

2010-02-19T08:37:00.001-08:00

Ingredients
Prawns(Chemmeen) – 500 gm
Oil - 2 tbsp
Onion(big and sliced) – 1 no
Ginger-garlic paste - 2 tsp
Chilly powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala(without cumin) - 1 tsp
Black pepper(crushed) - A pinch
Salt – According to taste
Tomato - 1 no(small; cut into small pieces)
Coconut milk(thick) – 1 tbsp
For marination:
Chilly powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala (without cumin) - A pinch
Black pepper(crushed) - A pinch
Salt
Method
Step 1
Mix together the ingredients for marinating and keep the prawns in it for half an hour or more in the refrigerator( If you are a planner, you can leave it overnight in the fridge. Or if you are freezer savvy like me, go ahead and marinate 1 kg of course with double the ingredients, and keep 500g in the freezer. Here I recommend deep freezer. I promise this recipe is good!!)
step 2
Shallow fry these prawns in oil, but make it rather quick. Frying too much would result in'hard to chew' prawns. What we want really is juicy ones.

Step 3
Sauté the onions in the oil used for frying prawns till the colour of the onion changes. Add the ginger garlic paste and sauté again till the fresh smell of the paste goes away( for the newbies in kitchen, it would be around 3-4 minutes on high flame with continous stirring). Add the dry spice powders to this and and fry well. After 2 minutes add black pepper and salt. Chopped tomato goes now and sauté well. Finally, add the coconut milk. When it boils, reduce the flame.Add the fried prawns and let it simmer for 3 minutes. Garnish with cilantro!! If you are interested in knowing how to keep cilantro to make it ever available in the kitchen , go here http://keralamcurry.blogspot.com/2010/02/preserving-cilantrocoriander-leaves.html.

Easy, Yummy and goes well with rice, chapatis or naan! Photos will come soon!

Vegetable Biriyani

2010-02-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

Things you will need

4 cups uncooked Basmati rice

1 1/2 cups chopped vegetables (Potatoes, Carrots, Cauliflower, Peas and Beans)

1 chopped Onion

1 diced Tomato (cubes)

1 bunch Coriander
5 cloves Garlic
1 1/2" piece of Ginger
5 to 6 Green Chillies or per your taste, which is optional as it makes the biriyani hot.

1 tsp. Garam Masala (you get it in Delhaize or Indian shops) - this is a mix of spices

2 Bay leaves

1 1/2 tsp. Cumin seeds

2 tbsp. Oil/Butter/Ghee

9 cups Water or more if required to cook rice and vegetables. Method :
Step 1
Grind to Paste : Coriander, ginger, garlic, green chillies.
step2
Heat oil, add cumin seeds and bay leaf. When the cumin seeds start sizzling, add garam masala and chopped onions. Saute until the onions turn golden brown. Then add the ground paste. Mix well. Saute well for 3-4 minutes. Chopped veggies goes into this mix which will give it a nice flavour. Tomatoes are saved for later. After five minutes, add rice, allow it to simmer in this mix for a while.
Step3
Transfer the contents to a electric rice cooker/microwave rice cooker/ or ordinary stove top rice cooking vessel. Add the 9 cups of water and salt and let it cook. Mix in the tomatoes when rice is half done.

Serve topped with cilantro(coriander leaves), and yes its a complete vegan meal with Raita!!

Using Left over rice as a luxurious dessert..

2010-02-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

So what do you all do with leftover rice? I just found that I throw away too much food stuff to an extent to be called a sinner. So I vowed to make left overs into dishes.. Here is one I tried with white basmati(cooked rice).

1cup basmati rice
1 cup milk
condensed (sweetened)milk from Nestle -2-3 table spoon
cardamom powder -1/4 th teaspoon- or cardamom pods -4
cashew nuts-roasted
Raisins-a few

In a sauce pan cook the cooked rice together with milk until it becomes slightly creamy and then add condensed milk, mix it and leave it on low heat for a while. When it becomes creamy delicious looking add the spice nuts and raisins.

Serve it cold or warm..

Chilli Chicken without much chilli

2010-02-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

Ingredients
1 kg chicken breast filets
2 tbsp soya sauce
2 tbsp green chilli sauce( I used red sweetened chilli sauce from delhaize)
salt according to taste
black pepper according to taste
3-4 chopped green chillies
1 tbsp choped garlic
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 egg
2 medium onions diced
1 capsicum or green pepper diced
Oil(any vegetable oil, but i prefer the flavour of peanut oil) - 5 tablespoons or more
Directions
Step1 : Marination

Combine the chicken cut into bite size pieces in soya sauce, egg, salt, pepper, flour, cornflour, half garlic and chilli sauce for 1 hour. Use 1 Tablespoon soya sauce and 1 tablespoon chilli sauce.in the marinade. Cover it and keep it in the refrigerator for 1 hour or more(more is better!)

Step 2 : Frying
Shallow fry the chicken into tender cooked pieces in peanut oil. This frying can be done in a deep fryer. As i did not have one, I just used a pan. Lay out the fried chicken in a tissue paper to absorb some excess oil. ( Tip for healthy eaters, it can taste much the same with shallow frying, anyhoo, I prefer deep frying. )

Step 3:
Use the remaining oil to saute green chillies, chopped ginger and chopped garlic . After 2 minutes add green pepper,onion and salt and stir fry in high heat. Add the remaining portion of the sauces and chicken and stir-fry until the onion-pepper to tender crispy.

Garnish with coriander leaves , spring onion etc if you have it in store, else just enjoy it that way.

Being a high calorie dish on itself because of the frying, I recommend it with white rice. Delicious with chapatis and parathas as well! Yum Yum..

Note: green chillies can be hot so take care in using them!