Stuffed Chilli

This is a dish that can be eaten either as a starter or an accompaniment in the main course. The slight heat of the chilli and the creamy sour stuffing makes it a delight on the palate. Here goes the way I made it..

Ingredients
8-10 big chillies, slit in the middle, seeds removed to be kept for use in the stuffing

For the stuffing
100 gms of paneer
Seeds removed from the chilli
Dry mango powder
Crushed green chillies as per taste
Salt as required, check if there is salt already in the paneer
Finely chopped coriander
Take all the above ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well

Method
Stuff each chilli with stuffing just enough so it does not come out while roasting. Heat a pan, keep the chillies in it, drizzle oil and roast on all sides. They are now ready to be served with roti or curd rice.








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                                                             Kashmiri Tamatar Paneer

An amazingly tasty dish that has colour taste and flavours, it has many versions to it. The are many recipes where no onion garlic is used in Kashmiri cuisine. The flavours that dominate here are cloves, cinnamon and cardamoms of both the variety. The colour has to be a deep red with the Kashmiri chilli and the taste, spicy. Amount of oil used is also a little more than we would normally use. So here goes my version of the recipe.

Ingredients
200 gms of paneer chopped into cubes, shallow fried lightly and put in a bowl of water
6 tomatoes pureed
1 piece of cinamon, 4 cloves and 3 green cardamoms, 1 black cardamom, mortar pestled
1 tspn of ginger powder
2 tsp of kashmiri chilli powder
1 tsp of fennel powder
1 tspn of garlic paste
Salt to taste

In a pan take oil of your choice, I used mustard oil. Add the tomato puree saute till it leaves the sides of the pan and then add the rest of the aromatics, stir to mix well and add the paneer. The gravy needs to be only made of tomato so no water to be added. Can be savoured with parathas, phulkas or any kind of roti.

                                                   
                                                          Kabuli Chana With A Twist

The chick pea curry is usually made in the Punjabi way, I have tried another way of making it. hope you enjoy making and eating it this way. So here comes my recipe...


Ingredients
1)
200 gms of chick peas or kabuli chana, soaked overnight and pressure cooked to 2 whistles with a pinch of soda and salt as per need, kept ready

2)
The ingredients below to be ground to a fine paste 
2 chopped onions
1/2 cup freshly scraped coconut
1/2 an inch of chopped ginger
1 tsp of mustard seeds
1/2 tspn of black pepper corns
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1/4 tspn of fenugreek or methi seeds

3)
1 large tomato and 1 tspn of chilli powder to be pureed and kept ready
1 tspn chana masala powder, I used everest

Method

In a pan take some oil, I used coconut oil but you can use any oil of your choice. Add the ground paste,stir and cook till it leaves the sides of the pan, now add the pureed tomato and chilli powder, salt to be added discreetly since we added salt while cooking the chick peas. Saute till the rawness of the tomatoes disappears, add chana masala powder. Cook for sometime. Add water if needed only. Garnish with coriander, eat with poori or paratha, freid chilli, tomato and onion roundels. 

         
                                                                    Mix Fruit Poori

This post is a total dedication to my grandmother whom we called Akka lovingly, who was an excellent cook. We all loved the savories and the sweets made by her.  Not only family but even friends would vouch for this. She will be always loved and missed. The memory goes... in my house the fruits which were bought would get all over when freshly bought and then a lone fruit would lie uneaten even after several pleas from her to finish it off. She would finally get fed up and mix some flour and semolina in it and make sweet rotis from it. This would just be polished off within minutes loaded with smear of fresh home made clarified butter...ghee...toop, call it what you want. The same happened with me too, 1 banana, 1 strawberry and 1 fig remained after all the rest were eaten. Then Akka came to my mind. Here comes my recipe with a little addition and a little indulgence!!

Ingredients

1 ripe banana, the big green variety mashed well
1 fig, grated
2 strawberries, the big variety, grated
1 tspn honey
A pinch of salt
2 tspn ghee
1/2 cup semolina
Whole wheat flour as required
Ghee or oil for frying, as per your wish

Method

In a mixing bowl take all the ingredients except the flour, mix all well, add flour bit by bit to make a firm dough for frying pooris. Do not keep the dough for long else it will get watery with the juices released. Now in a pan take either oil or ghee, heat it and make pooris like we would normally. The taste is awesome with the sweetness of the fruits and the little bites of the seeds from the strawberries and fig. These taste great as they are, better with a smear of ghee rolled, another option is to eat it with lemon pickle.

                                                     Lady Finger In Yogurt Marination

This is a dish which I watched on some cooking site and sorry to say that I forgot the name. Truly, the credit for this amazing preparation goes to that particular site. i tried it and loved it so sharing the recipe with you people. I felt it was very different and innovative. The recipe as below.

Ingredients

1)
250 gms of ladies finger chopped into medium sized pieces
1/2 cup of yogurt
2 tspn of ginger garlic paste
A pinch of salt

2)
2 onions finely chopped
1 tomato finely chopped
2 tsp of ginger garlic paste
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp dry mango powder
1 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste

Method

Marinate the chopped ladies finger in the ingredients given in 1) for about fifteen minutes and in apan take oil, add the marinated ladies finger, cook for about ten minutes and keep aside.

Now in a pan take oil and add the chopped onions, saute till golden, add ginger garlic, cook till the raw smell goes. Now add the ladies finger, chilli powder, dry mango powder, garam masala too. and cook till almost done, add salt carefully since there was salt in the marination. Add the tomatoes almost at the end and cook the vegetable for some more time, garnish with chopped coriander. Best eaten with pooris but you can eat with roti and parathas too.  

                                                                    Paneer Masala

A delicious cottage cheese curry, creamy, spicy and rich in taste. Great with roomali roti and naan. My recipe coming below.

Ingredients

a)
 250 gms of malai paneer cut into small sized cubes and sauteed for just a bit and kept aside

b)

1/2 an inch of chopped ginger
10 garlic cloves
10 cashews
2 green chillies
4 onions chopped fine
2 cloves
1 small cinnamon stick
8 peppercorns
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
Fresh coriander for garnishing

c)
3 tomatoes 

d)
1 tsp kasuri methi
3 tbsp of fresh cream

Method

In a pan take some oil and add the ginger, garlic, green chillies and cashews, saute till done, keep aside, now the onions and all the other spices mentioned need to be roasted well in the same pan, put all the above ingredients in a mixi jar to make a smooth paste remove and keep ready. In the same mixi jar take chopped tomatoes, make puree and keep aside.

In a pan take some oil, add the onion spices gravy, cook well, will not take too long since all the stuff has been roasted already, add the tomatoes, this will take a little time since it is raw, once cooked add the paneer, stir well, add the cream and the kasuri methi. Do not cook for too long because the paneer can tend to become rubbery. Your gravy is ready to be savoured now. 

                                                                        The Prasad

Prasad as it is called on the day of the Satyanarayan pooja. It is the halwa or the pudding made as an offering to the Lord. Made with lots of clarified butter and some aromatics. Here goes my mother's recipe. This one is never as good as the one she or my grandmom made...but keep trying is what one can do!! 

2 cups of semolina roasted in half cup of clarified butter till it leaves an aroma and gets a lovely golden colour
2 cups milk
2 cups of sugar or as per your taste
4 green cardamoms freshly crushed
A few strands of saffron
1/2 nutmeg crushed
 1 cup clarified butter for finishing off the dish

In a pan take three cups of water with the saffron, nutmeg and cardamom and keep it to boil, once it boils, add milk, it will soon boil, add the roasted semolina  bit by bit stirring continuously to see that it does not form lumps. Once everything gets mixed well with no lumps, add sugar, let it cook after mixing well, add 1 cup clarified butter, let it cook a bit. Now add the rest of the clarified butter. Keep covered to cook well till the pudding or halwa leaves the pan and you can see the clarified butter. Now this is offered to the Lord garnished  with roundels of banana and some holy basil leaves. This is eaten only after the pooja is done and that is why it called the prasad. Little is had after the pooja and then to your heart's content in your meal. Tastes too good with lime pickle.