Chicken Briyani - A easy breezy way

When I was India, making Briyani was meant only for special occasions. All the ingredients had to be bought on the day and everything was made fresh from scratch. Those were the days when my mom used to write a long list of groceries and my dad would go around the market, hunting for each and every item. After the invention of cell phone, there used to a call every now and then, for the left out items and the items that weren't available. What makes it so special is theBasmati rice. This is one of the costliest rice which is used for its fragrance and long grains. It tastes so good with its aroma and the ingredients of the recipe. I made the vegetable briyani and onion raitha for my hubby the first time when he came to visit me after our engagement.

But after coming to the USA, making any Briyani is an usual affair. Everything is available to us, either frozen or fresh and all we need to do is the cooking. Briyani available here is the export quality aged briyani. The fragrance of which is felt mildly even when washing it. And the rice is available in big bags, and frozen meat and vegetables, which means I don't have to plan anything in advance. So here goes the very easy recipe of Chicken briyani


Ingredients

• Basmati rice - 3 cups
• Chicken - 1 lb
  
• Bay leaf - 1
• Cloves - 4
• Pepper - 4
• Cardamom - 2
• Cinnamon - 1 stick
• Fennel Seeds - /2 tsp
• Onion - 1, chopped
• Tomato - 1, chopped
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli powder - 2 tsp
• Dhania powder - 2 tsp
• Garam Masala - 1 tsp
• Green Chillies - 2, slit lenghtwise
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste

Method

I did the rice and the chicken separately and then mixed them together. But it could also be done together in the pressure cooker. But the proportion of the water is all what matters. For cooking in a rice cooker the proportion would be 1:1.25 cups of rice and water. In case of pressure cooker, the ratio 1:1 would do just fine. (This proportion might vary as per the cooker). Heat oil in a sauce pan. When hot add the fennel seeds, bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom. After they are done, add the rice and fry for a minute. This will ensure that the rice does not stick to each other and gets burnt at the bottom. Transfer this rice mixture to the rice cooker and add water. Add salt required for the rice and allow to cook. After its done, use a fork and fluff the rice. The fork will not break the rice but at the same time will help to separate the grains.

Heat some oil in a pressure cooker. Add the fennel seeds when hot. Once they are done, add the chopped onions. When they turn translucent, add the green chillies and tomatoes. Keep cooking till the tomatoes are soft and everything becomes a paste like consistency. Add the chicken at this stage. Add the turmeric powder, chilli powder, dhania powder, garam masala powder and salt. Add 1 cup of water and close the cooker. This water would be enough for the chicken as both the chicken and the tomatoes ooze water of their own.

Once the pressure subsides, add the chicken pieces to the rice cooker and once again mix everything well using a fork. Take extra care that you don't break the rice grains. Allow it to cook a little more, so that the gravy of the chicken infuses its aroma to the rice and everything becomes dry in the process.

This is an awesome delight with a simple onion raitha. Try it, You'll love it!!  I am sending this to "The potluck - Chicken" event hosted by Viki

Kadamba Sambar / Saadam - A tasty re-creation!!

It was yet another lazy thursday afternoon. The skies are cloudy and its raining outside. I wanted some thing hot and tasty apart from the regular sambar, when I came across this recipe of the Tasty Palettes. The extra work was the grinding of the ingredients for the sambar podi, but it was totally worth at the end. It went great with rice and hey, I didn't have to cook any side dish. I thought it would be a good recipe for the Tried and Tasted event hosted by Curry Leaf. (She is the host of Zlamushka's idea). The recipe is all the more same except that I did not add the coconut milk, as my hubby and me are not a fan of coconut. It is pretty much the same but I take the delight to post my work in my blog. I hope the photos that I have taken does much justice as with the original. So here goes...





























Ingredients

• Mixed Vegetables - 4 or 5 cups (Okra, Brinjal, Carrots, Peas, Bell Pepper, French Beans or simply any different vegetable that is available to you)
• Tomato - 1, chopped
  
• Tamarind - 2" inch diameter ball
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Thuvar Dhal - 3/4 cup, pressure cooked
  
• Dhania powder - 1 table spoon
• Asafoetida - a heavy pinch
• Salt to taste

Spice mix

• Channa Dhal - 2 tbsp
• Urad Dhal - 1 tsp
• Red Chillies - 6
• Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp
• Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Oil - 1 tbsp

Roast the spice mix ingredients, except oil and coconut. Cool them and grind with coconut to a smooth paste.

Seasoning

• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Method

Dissolve the tamarind in water and take the pulp of it. In a deep vessel, boil tamarind, salt, turmeric powder, tomato and the mixed vegetables till the vegetables are soft and fully cooked. Add the cooked dal, dhania powder and the spice mix and allow to boil for another 5 minutes, till the flavors combine. I have added dhania powder here since I did not have the Dhania seeds as mentioned in the original recipe. Add the Cilantro, Asafoetida and cook stirring occasionally.

In a pan, heat oil and sputter mustard seeds. Add this seasoning to the sambar. This is served with rice. Make a porridge of the rice and pour in generous amounts of this sambar. This is goes great with appalam or simply chips. Try it.. Its a great recipe!! Thanks Suganya :))

Tomato Rice - The best indulgence

The most easy and tasty dish you do with a tomato is the tomato rice. Whenever I am given a choice to prepare dishes using tomato, the first thing that comes in my mind is either a Tomato Rice or Tomato Soup. Also Tomato rice is kinda special to me as this was the first dish ever prepared by me. Till my college days I haven't done much of cooking, apart from the simple tiffins that I make. The first time I wanted to cook, I did a Tomato Rice. I got the recipe from internet when I was studying second year or so of my college. It turned out so aromatic that every one wanted to eat it. But when they took the first bite, everyone's tounge was burning!! It was hot.. I pretty much did not know the exact measurements and somehow ended up with a lot of chillies

When I look back today, its a long way that I have come. As of today, I have known at least 5 different ways to cook this recipe. But I could not get the same taste and aroma that I get using the first method I discovered. After my marriage, when my hubby's friend was coming home for dinner, I did prepare this same dish and it was a great hit. I remember when his friend asked for the same tomato rice the next day also. I am dedicating this special recipe to my love, my hubby. He is the reason why I am constantly exploring new recipes and ways (Don't we all do it to impress our men??) I am also sending this special recipe of my mine to the Fall In Love with Food: Tomato event hosted by my friend Sanghi of Sanghi's Food Delights!




Ingredients

• Tomatoes - 4, chopped (Big)
• Onions - 1, big
• Cloves - 4
• Basmathi Rice - 3 cups
• Mint leaves - 10 or 12 (OPTIONAL)
• Cashew - 5, broken
• Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
  
• Oil - 3 tablespoons

For Grinding

• Ginger, Garlic paste - 2 teaspoons
• Cloves - 4
• Cinnamon - 1" piece
• Onion - 1/2
• Coconut - 2 teaspoons (shredded)
  
• Red Chillies - 6
• Pepper - 4

Method

Wash the basmathi rice and fry them in oil for a couple of minutes. This ensure that the rice will not stick to each other. Also it will help to cook faster with out the bottom part getting burnt. Though this is an optional step, I would recommend doing this as it would be helpful later. Heat oil and add fennel seeds, cloves and the broken cashew nuts. When the nuts have browned, add the onions. When the onions have become light brown, add the chopped tomatoes and fry till they become soft. When they are soft and looks like a paste, add the ground mixture and fry for a couple of minutes.

At this stage, check for the red chillies. If you think this heat would be enough for the recipe, continue for the next step. Else add some chilli powder and dhania powder at this stage. Again cook for some time, till the raw smell of the powders are gone. Your paste should look like this at this stage.

You can transfer this paste to an electric rice cooker or cook with the pressure cooker. If you are using a pressure cooker, mix the paste and the fried rice. Add water in the ratio 1:1.25 for rice:water. Give about 2-3 whistles, depending on your cooker and turn off. As with the electric rice cooker, add the rice and water to the vessel and add this paste and cook till done.

This recipe is served with simple onion raitha. It tastes great with raitha than any other side dish. Do try this recipe and drop in your comments. Bon Appetite!!

Dal Rice

Dal Rice - This brings back our childhood memories when our moms would serve us this Dal rice full of ghee. I had the privilege of my mom feeding me two days before my delivery. I felt so comforting. This is one of the comforting food of south India. It is so high in proteins due to the dhal and the ghee provides the fat. Feed it to your toddlers of 18 months or more, they would just love it. It would be the right balance of nutrients that would burn up and keep them active. When you give a vegetable as the side dish, it completes the vegetables also. What more can be done is, finely chop the vegetables like carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, etc and pressure cook them along. So they would not know their veggies getting in. As for the adults, they would love it with potato fry, brinjal gosthu, kovakkai poriyal or simply fried appalam. Might be the adults can avoid the ghee and go along with the oil if they are diet conscious. A very simple dish that can be done in a very few minutes.



Ingredients

• Toovar Dhal - 1 cup
• Rice - 2.5 cups
• Asafoedita - 1/4 tsp
• Onion - 1 big, chopped finely
• Tomato - 2 big, chopped finely
• Green chillies - 4, slit length wise
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
• Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp
  
• Oil - 2 tsp
• Salt to Taste
  

Method

First of all lets have a look at the measurements. We want this rice to be more like a porridge. So we want the rice to be really well cooked in such a way that when we smash it with a "mathu" or give it a good stir, it would blend out evenly. It should look like the Pongal consistency. Having said that, we achieve that with a proportion of liberal water. I mean about 3 or 4 cups (depending on your pressure cooker) of water to 1 cup of rice and lentil. This will not only boil the rice thoroughly, but will also give a watery texture to it. If the rice is too thick, reduce the consistency by adding hot water.

To the pressure pan, add all the above ingredients, except oil, mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Add water appropriately and pressure cook them. According to your pressure pan, the number of whistles would normally vary. By I would like to give around 5 whistles, which would render the rice nicely cooked.

Once the pressure subsides, open and give a nice smash with "mathu". At this stage, even if you would give it a stir, the rice would break down. Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and cumin seeds. After they had sputtered, turn off the heat and add it to the rice. Again give a quick stir.

Note: If you are serving this to toddlers, you might want to add Pepper powder instead of the green chillies to control the heat. Also you can sputter the cumin seeds in ghee and add it to the rice.

I am sending this recipe to the Tasty bites for toddlers event hosted by PJ of Seduce your taste buds.

Bitter Gourd Thokku

Bitter Gourd, is not a favourite of anyone; Be it kids or the adults. You simply cannot sell the bitter gourd dishes because they taste bitter. It would be a shame to waste such a nutritious fruit just for its bitter taste. Yes! Its a fruit which is known to us as a vegetable. But though we cannot get rid of its bitterness, we sure can minimize it. The goodness of this fruit is all here.

At last the time has come for me to cook this fruit before it rots. It has been a week since I bought this gourd and I kept postponing to cook it (you know why). So now I have to cook it in a way that I have to get rid of the bitterness and also infuse some flavor to it. So here's the recipe.

Ingredients

• Bitter Gourd - 3 big, peeled
  
• Tamarind - a 1" ball size
• Jaggery - 1 or 2 tsp
  
• Onion - 1, finely chopped
• Tomato - 1, finely chopped
  
• Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Dhania powder - 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil - 2 table spoons

Method

Heat oil in a sauce pan. Add fennel seeds till aroma arises. Now add the chopped onions and fry till translucent. Next add the tomatoes and cook till they all combine to become a fine paste. Now add the Bitter gourd. The Bitter Gourd cooks very easily when peeled off. So add water till it is all immersed. Now add some tamarind pulp and jaggery. Keep stirring so that the jaggery does not stay as a lump and stick to the bottom. Add or minimize the jaggery according to the bitterness of the gourd. When dissolved, cook over medium heat so that the tamarind pulp gets absorbed. This tamarind will be helpful to minimize the bitter taste of the gourd.

When the gourd has become softer, add the chilli powder, turmeric powder and dhania powder. Add salt to taste and allow to cook till the raw smell of the powders is gone. Keep cooking till the required consistency is reached. This would be a great side dish for rice.

Peas Potato Soup

What would warm you up on a cold morning than a good hot soup. Not only are they healthy, they make good appetizers. Serving a soup as a start for get togethers, not only fetches you time for arrangements and last minute catch ups but they kindle the hunger of the guests. Apart from soups, serving ginger and lime juice will also help kindling the hunger. Here is a soup that I have made with peas and potato. The potato acts as a natural thickening agent and will not require any corn flour for thickening. So, here goes the recipe


Ingredients

• Peas - 1 cup
• Potato - 1 big
• Onion - 1 medium
• Corriander leaves - a handful
• Ginger Garlic paste - 1/2 tsp
• Water - 3 cups
• Pepper - 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
  
• Oil - 1 table spoon (or butter - 1 table spoon)
  
• Sour Cream - a dollop (optional) (for garnish)
  

Method

Cut the potatoes and onions very finely. If you have ginger garlic paste, you could use that. Otherwise, chop 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and about 1/2" ginger very finely. In a sauce pan, heat oil or butter. If you are diet conscious, use oil. Otherwise butter will give the soup richness to your soup. When hot, add the onions. When the onions are half cooked, add the ginger garlic paste. When the raw smell of the paste goes, add the chopped potato, peas and the coriander leaves. Add about 3 cups of water (or till the vegetables are submerged). Allow them to cook on medium fire. Since the potatoes are finely chopped, it would not take long before it cooks.

When they are soft and cooked, filter out the water and transfer the vegetables to a mixie jar. Blend the vegetables to a soft consistency. Transfer this to the sauce pan and add the water that you had drained from the vegetables. Add the pepper and the required salt and heat to a boil. check for consistency. If the soup is too thick, add some more water.

I am sending this recipe to the SWC: Soup event (originated at Cooking station) hosted by Neha of Tasty Recipes blog.

Aloo Tikki - Kids Food

Kids are the ones who always make you invent one recipe or the other. They simply cannot eat the same food everyday. I guess, I should have troubled my mom just this same way and I simply do not get the patience as her. Truly, our moms are our real heros. She managed everything and for me just the start of responsibilities seem so huge. My kid is just 10 months old. But never the less, I would like to learn as many new dishes as I can. Because I know for sure that these will come handy in a few months. So I tried and cooked this 'Aloo Tikki' for the first time. It is a very simple and good tasty snacks too. The potatoes makes a good filling and since this dish does not require much oil, its pretty healthy too.

I was so impressed with the photograph of 365 days of pureVegetarian, that I decided to follow the recipe to start with my aloo tikkis. But I have not used the bread crumbs as given in the original recipe. So here is how I did my aloo tikkis















Ingredients

• Potatoes - 2, boiled and smashed
• Peas - 1/2 cup, boiled and smashed
• Ginger - 1" finely grated
• Red Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
• Garam masala powder - 1/4 tsp
• Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp
• freshly ground Pepper - 1/4 tsp
  
• Salt to taste
  
• Oil for frying

Method

Boil and smash the potatoes. To these smashed potatoes add the required salt and freshly ground pepper. Smash it to such a consistency that you can knead small balls out of it. Next slightly smash the peas too and add the ginger, red chilli powder, garam masala powder, cumin seeds, salt to taste. Add this to the kneaded potato mixture and mix well.

Make small balls out of this potato mixture. Flatten these to patties and fry them by just drizzling some oil. When the skin turns brown, flip to the other side. When they are nicely browned on both the sides, remove from the pan. Serve hot with ketchup or with chole masala.

I am sending this new recipe I have tried for the 'Kids food event' hosted by Trupti of 'Recipe Center'. Trupti is the guest host of MBP of the Coffee of Spice cafe

Drop in your comments and suggestions to improvise

Masala Vadai - Make your day special

It was just another weekday, but I soaked Channa Dhal as I was kinda tired of eating vegetables everyday for lunch and dinner. Vadais are done, especially down in south, only for important festivals or celebrations. A good meal with vadai and payasam is considered really very authentic and when they are served, it means its a very important day (signifying a festival or an important day). But there is an illusion, atleast if not for everyone atleast for me, that it is always kinda hard to make vadais. But it is very easy and simple. All the magic done is with your fingers and palm when you shape them. Anyone can master it with practice. Believe me, it was that easy I did it right jus the first time. My hubby is a real sucker for these vadais and might be this is just the second time I am cooking vadais in USA. Try it; its very easy!!

I think this would be a good recipe to post for the "My Legume Love Affair: 9th helping" being hosted by Laurie. Here is a link to the Host line up for further assistance

Ingredients

• Channa Dhal - 1 cup, soaked for about 3 hours
  
• Onion - 1 big, finely chopped
• Ani seed - 1/2 tea spoon
• Corriander leaves - a handful
• Green chillies - 4 or 5
• Ginger Garlic paste - 1.5 teaspoon
• Asafoetida - 1/2 tea spoon
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig
• Oil to fry
  
• Salt to taste

Method

Before you can start this easy recipe, soak your channa dhal for about 3 hours. After 3 hours when you give a bit of pressure with your fingers, they would crumble. Now you know that this is good to go. To you blender, add the Green chillies, Ani seeds, corriander leaves, curry leaves, asafoetida, Ginger garlic paste and salt as required. Give it a quick blend. Blend it coarsely. Now add the soaked channa dhal and again pulse it. This vadai calls for a coarse blend. It would be great if there were still some whole grain while some are broken a bit and some are smashed very well. This texture will help you mould your vadais, so try not to add any water. If you feel that its too dry for your blender, jus add a little water, such that it is still in a consistency where you can mould them with your fingers.

Once you have finished with your blending, transfer to another vessel. In a wok, heat some oil. Now touch some water in your fingers and in your hand. Some people prefer to apply oil to their hands. Now grab some portion of the batter and make a small ball of it. Now gently flatten it with your fingers such that it becomes a good round shape. Try to take it out from your palm to your fingers and slip it into the pool of hot oil. When you see a nice brown color, you can turn to the next side. Keep doing this till you get nice brown color on both the sides and the vadais are crisp.

These vadais are eaten with the authentic meal. But if you enjoy them as chat food, you can do so by eating them with chutney or ketchup. Enjoy!!