Spicy Chettinad Chicken Fry / Chettinadu Kozhi Varuval

We have had an overdose of chicken lately for the past few weeks which made me try out some special chicken dishes and thus ended up with this wonderful recipe. I learned this one from a TV show in which some famous Chettinad ladies showcased their family recipes. At that time I wondered how few red chillies can bring spiceness to the dish, but I should warn you, It was really really hot and awesome. I generally try to avoid Chettinad dishes because of the grinding of the spices involved( as I dont have a smaller mixer), and also because of the amount of coconut involved( as I try not to use coconut in our diet). But after trying out this recipe I started searching for chettinad recipes for each and every vegetable that I had in my refrigerator and the whole week was like a chettinad fiesta. In this process I also stumbled upon Solai's chettinad kitchen blog, very nice blog for people who love spicy food with some fabulous recipes.
Here is the recipe for Chettinad Chicken Fry:

Ingredients

Chicken - 1/2 kg

For Marination:

red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp

lemon juice - 1sp
For frying

red chillies - nos

cinnamon - 1 inch piece

cloves - 2 nos

fennel seeds/sombhu - 1tsp

chopped garlic - 2 tsp

chopped ginger - 1tsp

1 medium onion finely chopped

few curry leaves

salt to taste
Method:

Wash and marinate the chicken pieces with chilli powder , turmeric, ginger garlic paste,salt and lemon juice for atleast 1/2 an hour or overnight.

In wide pan heat few tblsp of oil.

Add cinnamon, cloves, curryleaves, sombhu and redchillies to the hot oil.

Give it a stir for a minute and add the chopped onions, garlic and ginger. Fry till translucent. Now add the marinated chicken pieces, stir well, add 1/2 cup of water and close with a tight lid. Cook in medium flame for 10 mins. Open the lid, stir well , check for salt and cook till the water is absorbed(approc 10 more mins). Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Special Note:-Alternatively you can cook the marinated chicken first by adding them to a pot of boiling water along with cinnamon, cloves for about 6-7 mins.Strain well and reserve the liquid for making soup. Then follow the above process by adding little amount of water. Both method works well.

Some pictures of the Chettinad Chicken Kuzhambhu/Curry and Pepper Rasam that I made on the next day for lunch.

Kodhumai/Wheat Rava/Cracked wheat Uppuma and Coriander-Peanut Chutney

This is a very simple and filling meal which makes its way in to my kichen atleast once a week. Usually I make this uppuma for dinner whenever I make sambhar for lunch, so that I need not put extra effort for making any chutneys.Sambhar and wheat rava uppuma are a classic combo. But yesterday for a change I made this coriander - peanut chutney to go with this delicious uppuma, which equally tasted good.
Change is always good right..

Wheat Rava Uppuma

Ingredients:

Wheat rava/cracked wheat - 2 cups

water - 4 cups

1 tsp mustard seeds

1tsp urad dhal

1 tsp channa dhal

1 tsp chopped ginger

2 green chillies, slit

1 medium onion chopped

few curry leaves

Method

Dry roast the Rava in a pan without oil i medium flame for atleast 10 mins

(Do not avoid this step , as it reduces the raw smell of the wheat a lot)

Heat a tblsp of oil in a non stick pan/kadai.

Add the tempering ingredients mustard, urad dhal, channa dhal and curry leaves when the oil is hot.

When the mustard pops add the onion , chillies and ginger, fry till onion turns translucent

Now add the water and salt to taste.Close with a lid and allow it to boil.

When the water is boiling, slowly add the wheat rava and stir well. Reduce the flame to medium , close with a tight lid and cook for 10 mins.

Stir well, reduce the flame to very low, close with a lid and cook for another 10 mins.

Coriander peanut chutney:

Ingredients:

1 bunch of coriander leaves

1 handful of mint leaves(optional)

1/2 cup of roasted peanuts

2 green chillies

1/2 tsp tamarind paste

1 garlic pod

Method:

Grind all the above ingredients with the required amount of salt

Make the tempering with mustard , urad dhal, curry leaves and pour over the chutney.

Stir well and serve.

Bhoondhi Laddoo - A Diwali Treat

Made these yummy ladoos for Diwali from my mother's recipe. Though there are different forms of ladoos, bhoondhi ladoo has been my favorite, especially I love the ones from Adyar Ananda Bhavan... I didnt have any special laddle for making them, so used the regular slotted laddle (Jalli karandi) a slightly bigger one. The initial rounds of bhoondhi came out just fine but the final three batches got messed up, as they began to clog together. Probably the heat got reduced or the batter became too thin/thick , I am not sure, but who cares I got enough bhoondhi's to make 25 ladoos. I added chopped almonds and raisins instead of the traditional cashews, not that I dont prefer them , I realised that I ran out of cashews at the last minute, but the almonds tasted equally good and balanced out the sweetness of the ladoo.

The recipe is very simple and it hardly took 1 hour for me to finish . Hope you all give it a try.

Ingredients:

2 cups gram flour

a pinch of salt

a pinch of cooking soda

for the syrup :

3 cups of sugar (for each cup of flour 11/2 cup of sugar)

1 cup of water ( for each cup of flour 1/2 cup of water)

few cardomom pods

1 drop of yellow food colour (optional)

1 cup chopped almonds/cashews

1/2 cup raisins

Method:

- Take few tsp of ghee and fry the almonds and raisins as we do for payasams. Keep aside.

- Take enough oil in a wide bottommed vessel(atleast an inch thick)

- Mix the flour soda and salt with enough water , just enough to resemble Idli batter.(The batter should not be either too thick or too thin).

- Once the oil is hot(keeping the slotted laddle over the oil) , spread a laddle full of batter over the slotted laddle in circular motion. The bhoondhi's will fall in the oil.

- Fry them for 2 mins , take them out and drain in a paper towel.The bhoondhi should not become crisp.

- Repeat the same with the remaining batter.

- Switch on the other stove and heat the sugar and water in parallel. Add the smashed cardomom pods to it.

- Allow it to boil and reach the single string consistency i.e., if you touch and release the liquid between your fingers it should form a string.

- At this point switch of the stove and mix the bhoondhi, and fried almonds and raisins.Give it a stir with a wooden spoon, close with a lid and allow to cool for few minutes.

- While its still warm , make it to lemon sized balls.

Note : If the mixture gets cooled after sometime heat for a minute in a a Microwave.

If you do not have a microwave, Sprinkle some warm milk as you make the balls

This recipe makes 25 - 30 medium sized ladoos.

Sending these yummy laddoos to the following events:

Sweet series host at Mom's recipes

Diwali Dhamaka event at Purva's blog

Sweet Celebrations HOsted by Mansi at Fun and Food Cafe

FIL - Ghee Hosted at Sanghi' Food Delights

Pineapple fresh cream cake

I have been planning to make this cake ever since I saw the recipe in "Passionate about baking". The fear of Icing the cake with whipped cream or for that matter any Icing has kept me away from these kind of cakes. Finally I mustered my guts and baked this cake for my Husbands birthday who is an ardent lover of pineapple desserts.
The cake turned out soft and spongy, but the Icing scared me Initially.I baked the sponge at 2.00am in the night (wanted it to be a surprise you know!), and thought of Icing it early in the morning. But when I started Whipping cream, dont know what happened, the cream started to curdle after 6 mins, probably because I whipped it at high speed. I was totally disappointed as I didnt have any more cream left in the fridge.

With few adventures later somehow made the Icing and decorated the cake by evening. The cake tasted too good , and I have already made plans for making it again.The step by step proceure and the tips in the recipe helped me a lot.

My little prince also turned two this September.We celebrated with a small gathering of friends and collegues. I managed to prepare the dinner with some help from neighbour friends. Wanted to share the dinner menu with you guys. Here are some pictures..

Appetizer:

Veg Cutlet

Main course:

Idlis
Vada curry and coconut chutney
Tomato rice sevai
Rice
Vegetable biriyani
Peas -jeera pulav
Curd rice
Curries
Chicken curry
Egg curry
Eggplant curry with Peanuts

Potato Fry

Fryums and Sago Vadam and Onion Raita

Dessert:
Carrot halwa

Brownies

Icecream

Yummy Vanilla Cupcakes

Iam back from a month long break...We had three good weeks of vacation in India, and then back here I had to prepare for my kids second birthday.It went on very well last week, though hard to believe that my tiny one is growing so fast.Will post the pictures of the menu in the next post.But before that I wanted to publish this post that was sitting in my drafts for a long time.The auto scheduler didnt work for me !!!

Have tried several recipes for vanilla cupcakes from diferent sources, but didnt quite turn out well. So I stopped making them for a while until I saw this recipe from "Passionate about baking" . Made it thrice since then , and every time it baked beautifully and was yummy.

Without taking much of your time here is the recipe:

I didnt make any changes to the original recipe, just made them with large muffin pan instead of the mini ones. Made 12 cupcakes.

Source: Passionate about Baking

Ingredients:

Flour – 2 cups

Baking Powder – 2 tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Butter – ½ cup

Sugar 1 ¼ cup

Eggs – 2

Milk – 1 cup

Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190deg C.
Grease well muffin trays.
Sift together flour + baking powder + salt 3 times. Keep aside.
Cream the butter and sugar well on high speed until light and fluffy.
Beat in vanilla essence, followed by eggs beaten in 1 by 1.
Now beat in flour and milk alternatively till well incorporated.
Put about a tsp full in each muffin casing, about ¾ full, as it will rise.
Bake at 190deg C for 10-15 mins till golden brown.
Remove immediately and cool on racks.

Apple cinnamon muffins

I had bookmarked this recipe from Baking bites long back but didnt get to it.Whenever I think of trying this recipe either I will be short of apples or the apples will not be fresh.Since Iam travelling to India on a three weeks vacation Iam planning my menu everyday such that no vegetables or fruits are left out in the refrigerator.Veggies I can manage, but fruits ! with only three days left there is a lot of fruit (peaches,cherries, pears, apples)to be finished thanks to the visit to the farmers market..So dont be surprised if there is an other post on something with peaches.(ya I have a bookmarked recipe of peaches too..)

I didnt use the recipe as such, made a few changes like avoided eggs and used milk instead of buttermilk.I also used whole wheat pastry flour.The result was soft moist and delicious muffins.

Recipe adapted from Baking Bites

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract ( I used vanilla sugar)

1 cup milk

2 cups diced apple

3 tbsp coarse sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnomon

Method

Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.

In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar , melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla.

Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and milk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter.

Stir in diced apple.Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each to the top, or slightly over.

In a small bowl, stir together coarse sugar and additional 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Sprinkle generously over muffins.Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Mine made 9 large Muffins.



The theme for this month's Think Spice event hosted by Sunita herself being "Spiced sweet treat" these gorgeous Apple Muffins spiced with cinnamon and ginger makes their way to the event.

Easy breezy salmon curry

I try to cook fish almost twice a week.Mostly it is salmon and rarely it is some other white fish. We all know that Salmon is one of the richest source of omega 3 fatty acids and it reduces bad cholestrol.

But Salmon doesn't fit in the usual south Indian 'meen kulambhu ' that we prefer (somehow it makes the fish rubbery) I reserve that dish for some trouts or any other fish from the market. So I always make this quick and delicious curry to be relished with white rice or roti's.

Its a must try recipe for people who love to eat salmon.Even if you dont like (like I used to be ) you will start liking it after this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 - (15 oz) salmon strips cut into cubes.(you can also use frozen ones)

3 cloves of garlic finely chopped.

1 onion finely chopped

1/2 cup of tomato paste

1/2 tsp turmeric power

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp whole peppers

1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds(optional)

1/2 tsp fennel seeds/powder(optional)

curry leaves

Method:

Take 2 tblsp of olive oil in a flat bottommed vessel.

Add the curry leaves, whole pepper, fenugreek and the fennel seeds when the oil is hot.

Add the chopped garlic and onions and fry till the onion turns translucent

Now add the tomato paste, turmeric powder, coriander powder , chilli power and salt.

Add half cup of water and mix well.Close with a lid and allow it to boil for 10 mins in a medium flame.

After the raw smell o the tomato paste disappears, add the salmon pieces , gently give it stir, reduce the flame to low , cover and cook for 10 more mins.

Note:

The gravy should be thick. So cooking in the low flame after adding the fish is a must to avoid burning. Adjust the salt and spice to your taste, before adding the fish.

Sending this curry to the Spotlight "FISH" event hosted at APPAYAPPAN. Its her first event and I agree with her that there is less spotlight on the Non veg dishes in the blogosphere.Its wonderful to see a collection of fish recipes at one place. Hope to see more spotlights in the future.

Cherry cake

Baked this beautiful cake past weekend with some leftover cherries from the farmers market.

Browsed a lot of recipes from the net and finally settled on the one from Joy of Baking.

I followed the recipe as given, but had to replace the sugar with brown sugar, as I realised that I ran out of white sugar, after beating the eggs.

But the cake baked beautifully and was delicious.I made this in the evening and the cake plate become empty by the time we had tea.

Ingredients:

1 pound (454 grams) fresh cherries, pitted
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup (150 grams) brown sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup (80 ml) milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).

Butter and flour an 9 inch (23 cm) spring form pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
Rinse, dry, and pit all the cherries. Cut the cherries as desired.

Take about 1/4 (about 15) of the cherries (to be placed on the top of the cake during baking) and cut them in half.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl , beat the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored (about 3-5 minutes).

Add the melted butter, milk, vanilla, and lemon zest and beat just until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Gently fold in the whole pitted cherries.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
Bake for 15 minutes then remove from oven.

Quickly arrange the remaining cherries, cut side down, on the top of the cake.

Return the cake to the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the cake portion comes out clean.
Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of softly whipped cream.
Makes 8 - 10 servings.

Source : Joy of Baking

Eggplant curry with Peanuts for JFI

This is a delicacy which my mother makes often.I relish this dish just with plain rice and a tsp of ghee.This is also a great side dish for any spiced rice such as pulav, biriyani, jeera rice etc.,

Here is the recipe

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant

1 handful of roasted peanuts , ground into a coarse powder.

1 medium onion chopped

1 small tomato chopped

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp turmeric pwd (optional)

1 tsp whole pepper

1 tsp cumin/jeera seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp urad dhal

1 tsp channa dhal

1 tsp tamarind paste dissolved in 1/2 cup of water

curry leaves optional.

salt and oil to taste.

Method.

Wash and cut the brinjal or eggplants into 1 inch long strips.

Take 2tblsp of oil in non stick kadai/pan.

Add the mustard and wait till it splutters.

Now add the urad dhal, channa dhal, pepper , jeera and currey leaves.

Once the dhal is brown, add the onions and fry till translucent.

Add the eggplants and fry nicely till it shrinks in size, now add the tomatoes, chillipowder, turmeric, and salt. Sprinkle some water, reduce the flame and close the pan with lid.

Allow it to cook for 8 10 mins, and then add the tamarind juice(1tsp paste dissolved in 1/2 cup water).

Increase the heat and stir well till all the juice is absorbed.

Now add the coarse peanut/groundnut powder , chopped coriander leaves, stir well to combine and switch of the stove.

Note:

• Always add the peanuts, only when all the water is absorbed and the curry is almost dry. Otherwise the dish will become very soggy.
• As a variation you can also add 2tblsp of shreded coconut with or without the peanuts .
• Roasting the brinjal in more oil (20r 3 tblsp more) and allowing the brinjal to cook in the oil will definitly enhance the taste even better i.e. if you are not worried about the extra calories or fat that bringa along with it :).

This is a great dish to prepare for potlucks, get together's or any party for that matter.

Iam sending this to ths months JFI conceived by Indira hosted at 'The cooks hide out'

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