Easy Chicken Biriyani!

A colleague makes this very tasty chicken biriyani, her mother-in-law's recipe. She says this works well for mutton and vegetable biriyani too. The rice is cooked with the chicken, so it blends very well. Tried it out, it works! And the best thing is, all you need is one vessel, everything is done in that! I used a small cooker.
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Recipe from Sharmila

If you use Jeera rice, then add water in the ratio 1:1/2)

Ingredients: 

1. Cinnamon (pattai) 2 to 3 sticks
2. Cloves (Lavangam/Krambu) 5 to 6
3. Cardamom (Yelakkai) 2
4. Bay Leaf (Punnai ilai) 2
5. Cashewnuts 8
6. Big onions – 2 cut long and thin pieces
7. Tomato -2 cut into pieces
8. Green chilies – 5 (I used less, 3 big ones)
9. Ginger garlic paste 3 tea spoons
10. Coriander leaves little - remove stems and wash
11. Mint leaves one small bunch – remove stems and wash
12. Little turmeric powder
13. garam masala powder one tea spoon
14. Little Chilli powder to taste
15. Salt to taste
16. Oil and Ghee
17. ½ kg chicken
18. ½ kg basmati rice

 Method: 

1. Keep the cooker or thick bottomed vessel on stove and add oil. 
2. Once the oil is heated, add Cinnamon, Cloves, Cardamom, Bay Leaf, Cashewnuts and Big onions.
3. Sauté well.
4. To that, add Green chilies, tomato, Ginger garlic paste, Little turmeric powder, chilli powder, garam masala
5. Saute well.
6. Now wash the chicken and add to the mixture. Let it cook for 10 minutes.
7. Add water (1:2 portions - 1 glass basmati rice, 2 glasses water) and salt to taste.
8. Close the cooker and allow one or 2 whistles, for the chicken to cook.
9. In the mean time wash and soak the rice.
10. When the gas is released from the cooker, add rice to the mixture and mix it well.
11. Close the cooker with a plate. Note that the flame  must be kept high.
12. The briyani is ready for Dum, once you find that there is no more water in the cooker. (Keep an eye here, don't forget about it, the bottom will burn!)

Dum:

1. Remove the plate from the cooker, and close the cooker and put weight.
2. Keep the dosa tava, or any thick pan (in high flame) on the stove and place the cooker on the tava. 
3. Leave for 5 to 10 minutes and then remove the cooker form the stove.
4. Once the gas is released, remove the cooker and put ghee to the briyani and mix it without breaking the rice.
5. Fry the mint leaves in ghee and add, for flavour. Also add chopped coriander leaves. Mix well.
6. Serve hot.

Broccoli Parmesan Fritters

Haven't yet tried this out, but sounds delicious! Has the "sound" factor (crunch!) and the softness of cheese - heady combination.

A great way to make your child eat vegetables too. A little bit of oil for the outsides, but think of all the vegetable goodness inside!  I guess you can try this with other vegetables/leftovers too.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/06/broccoli-parmesan-fritters

Easiest Fish Curry Ever!

Easiest fish curry ever! And so tasty, with the sharp flavors of tamarind and curry leaves. Got it from here. Don't go by the picture, it's a lot tastier than it looks :)

 Ingredients 

• 5-6 pieces of fish (like seer, pomfret etc that can be cut into slices. Prawn may also be a good idea.)
• 1 tbl spn coriander seeds
• 1 tea spn cumin seeds
• 2 tea spns chilli powder
• A pinch turmeric
• 1 tea spn ginger (a thick piece)
• 1 tea spn garlic (a few pods, I used more garlic than ginger)
• 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract
• Oil
• 10-12 curry leaves
• Salt

Method:

1. Roast cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Cool, and grind. I am assuming that if you don't have the time, you could just use some good quality coriander and jeera powder!
2. Make a paste of ginger, garlic, tamarind, turmeric, the coriander-jeera you just ground, chilli powder, salt, with very little water.
3. Heat a little oil and fry the paste till the raw smell goes off. Now add 1/4 cup water, and add fish pieces. Add the curry leaves cut into two. Cover and cook till done. Taste gravy in between to see if you want to make it tangier with more tamarind. You can either make it slightly-gravy-ish, or cook until dry.

  

I made the mistake of not pre-grinding the coriander-jeera first - it doesn't grind well when you add it to the wet ingredients - that's why the masala looks a bit chunky!

Onion-Tomato Chutney

Here's the recipe for the chutney in the Oats dosa picture below - from my friend Venkat.

Ingrediants

1. Tomatoes
2. Onions
3. Tamarind Paste
4. Red Chilly powder
5. Turmeric
6. Salt

Method

1. Grind all the stuff in mixie.
2. Heat a little oil, add mustard and urad dal seeds.
3. Add the mixture and stir for 2 mins until the raw smell is reduced.

You can also add some ground nuts and channa dal to the mixture while grinding. I think this will taste great with some curry leaves and garlic in the mixture too!

Oats Dosa/Pancake!

Oats dosas by my friend Venkat, his attempt came out better than mine!

Call it dosa or pancake, a great way to get that blah-oats in and reduce your cholesterol levels, without lowering your happiness levels! And you also eat a green leafy vegetable in the bargain, and you won't even notice it!

I did not use any of the dry powders, it still came out well. Note that the batter has to be watery - you pour it in the centre of a hot non-stick pan, take it off the stove and twirl it until the batter spreads around. Can't twirl only your arm? Neither can I! Just twirl your whole body, it works - just make sure there are no family members with a sense of humour in the kitchen with you! If you've learnt Tai Chi, it helps, you almost get the feeling you're practising martial arts with a pan, not acting cuckoo in the kitchen.

After you have made one dosa, the pan will be very hot. Take it off the stove and wave it sideways a few times to bring it down to bearable heat, before pouring the next ladle of batter. May be wise to keep burnable objects, like people, out of the kitchen :)

Got it from here: http://food.sulekha.com/oat-pancake-id25353-39361-recipe.htm

Ingrediants

1. Oats Powder- 1/2 cup (Just powder the oats well in a mixie! - actually my friend Venkat made it without powdering, came out great he says)
2. Onion- 1/2 chopped finely
3. Tomato - 1/2 chopped finely
4. Finely Chopped Green chilli- 1/2
5. Kasoori methi- 1/2 tsp (dried methi leaves - great for diabetics, you get it in any grocery shop. Don't have it at home now? Be brave, go ahead and make the dosa without it, still tastes good!)
6. Coriander leaves- 1/2 tbsp chopped
7. Red chiili powder- 1/4 tsp (I didn't use any of these powders)
8. Turmeric powder- a pinch
9. Garam masala- 1 to 2 pinch
10. Salt
11. Water- 3/4 cup

Method

1. Take a bowl mix all the ingredients,add water to make it as a batter of pouring consistency.
2. Heat a non-stick pan, spread the batter to make it as a pancake,add oil/ghee if you want - not needed.Cook on both sides.
3. Serve hot with tomato chutney or mint chutney - or chutney powder and curd, or pickle....

Recipe for Venkat's onion-tomato chutney, the one in the photo, here.

Groundnut Chutney Powder (North Karnataka Style)

To think that I did not post this before! An easy way to get healthy groundnuts, garlic and curry leaves in, and goes well with chapathis and rice and as sandwich filling. See picture in the Palak Chapathis post below.

Ingrediants

1. Groundnuts - roasted, skin removed
2. Peeled garlic, as much as you can take :)
3. Red chilly powder  - choose a chilly that has a great colour, like the Kashimir chillies. They use the byedagi chillies in North Karnataka - such a brilliant red!
4. Curry leaves - washed and dried. One big twig-worth of leaves or less.
5. Salt

Procedure

Grind it all together in the mixie! Adjust salt, garlic, chilly, curry leaf according to your taste - highlight the flavor you want!

Palak/Methi Chapathis

A great way to get that green stuff in! And it doesn't taste as bad as it looks, it's quite nice!

Ingredients

1. A bunch of palak leaves - soak in salt water for a a while and clean well.
2. Atta (wheat flour), 2 cups
3. Jeera powder (Cummin), 2-3 teaspoons, to taste
4. Salt
5. Crushed garlic and green chilly (if you want)

Procedure

1. Grind palak in mixie well.
2. Add it to atta, then add jeera powder and salt, and some crushed garlic and green chilly. Add additional water if needed (add water in mixie and pour that water in here - conserve, conserve!) and mix into a soft dough.
3. Roll out chapathis!

My friend Rekha does it this way: "Take methi leaves fresh, take equal quantity of palak leaves, few strands of corriander leaves, wash and grind them into a fine paste in the mixer. Add this to the wheat flour with jeera , salt and green chillies. Make chapatis and have with plain curds. My son loves these chapatis."

You can have this with your regular vegetables/dal - or just chutney/chuney powder and curd. It does not have a very strong taste, so it is an easy chapathi substitute.

Orange Peel/Bittergourd Gojju

From my friend Roopa, her mother's recipe. I chased her for this for years, and finally made it with the bittergourd! Was nice, a good way of getting that bittergourd in. And it was pretty easy to make too.

 Ingredients

1. Orange Peels (washed & cut hapazardly either by hand or knife)
2. Oil (small ladle)
3. 2 green chillies
4. Mustard seeds
5. Hing
6. Tamarind Juice 2 small cups
7. Rasam Powder 4 to 5 Tbspns
8. Jaggery (almost 1 block)
9. Salt to taste

Procedure

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, green chillies & hing.
2. Once the mustard seeds split, add the orange peel and fry well on low flame (almost for half an hour).
3. Once the orange peel changes colour to saffron, add tamarind juice, salt, rasam powder and jiggery and mix thoroughly and let the whole preparation boil extremely well (all on low flame).
4. When the gojju is done, it will start separating itself from the pan – that’s your hint that it’s done.
5. Switch off the gas and let it cool. It can be stored in the refrigerator for close to 2 weeks.

Similar method for Bittergourd (haagalkai) gojju.

Tips for Soft Idlis

I have not tried this out, but sounds sensible! -

http://www.cilantroonline.com/2012/01/homemade-idli-battertips-for-soft-idlis.html

Katmandige

From Dimple, some Mangalorean recipes  - dosas, prawns, gullittu...

http://katmandige.blogspot.com/

Raw Garlic Chutney

From my friend Rekha, who is from North Karnataka:

 

"This is my mother-in-law's recipe for healthy bones, especially for women:

 

Ingredients

 

1. Garlic - 6 raw
2. Onions - 6 small (shallots, sambar onions)
3. Curry leaves - a bunch, fresh
4. Tamrind pulp
5. Red chilly powder - for this I roast dry red chillies at home and powder them in a mixer
6. Jaggery
7. Mustard seeds 2 tea spoons
8. Jeera - 2 teaspoons
9. Coriander seeds - 3 teaspoons

 

Procedure

 

1. You need to fry all the ingredients except the garlic. (Onions, curry leaves, seeds)
2. Grind all the fried ingredients.
3. Now grind the raw garlic seperately and mix it with the ground paste.
4. Add tamarind, jaggery, salt and red chilly powder as per your taste.
5. Fill it in a bottle and keep it in the fridge.
6. You can eat this  with chapatis, dosas and hot rice with little ghee.

 

This gives a lot of strength to the bones and helps reduce cholestrol
I have eaten this chutney though I hate raw garlic and believe me it has reduced my back ache to a large extent."