Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Prawns Olathiyathu
I am enjoying a few days at home with my folks with all the worries regarding the chores of a house behind me. Waking up late with no hurrying up to make breakfast or rather any meal is a luxury now before I get back to the old grind. I cannot say enough of the luxuries I enjoy. Guess there's no place like home!
What I have for you today is a recipe for Prawns courtesy my mother. Her recipes are the only ones I blindly eat not thinking twice of whether I would like it or not. This is a recipe for Prawns Olathiyathu. This is similar to another recipe of Amma's featured on this blog. The recipe is the most popular recipe according to the stats. So here's another one that is equally delicious. It is spicy, so adjust the ingredients accordingly. This recipe features Cocum while the older one uses tomatoes.
Prawns – 1 kg
Small Onions – 2 ½ cups (thinly sliced)
Green chillies – 2 nos (slit)
Curry leaves – 4 sprigs
Ginger – 1 ½ tbsp ( finely cut)
Garlic – 1 ½ tbsp ( finely cut)
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Chilli powder – 2 tsp
Coriander powder – 1 ½ tsp
Pepper powder – 1 tsp
Cocum – 2 pieces (small)
Mustard – ½ tsp
Cooking oil – ½ cup
Salt – To taste
Fish sauce – 1 tsp ( optional)
Clean the prawns and drain in a colander.
Crackle the mustard in a pan when the oil is hot.
Sauté onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies and curry leaves.
When it is golden brown, add in chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and pepper powder. Mix well and sauté until the oil comes out.
Add in the cocum pieces, prawns and salt. Add fish sauce (optional) and mix well.
Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
Mix well and transfer to a serving dish.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Strawberry Mousse
Chennai is always associated with being a hot city. And the heat is so unbearable now that nothing can give you a total respite from it. Work on the other hand has been exhausting my time.
Anyway to beat the heat and to keep me from not going insane,I made these little shots of mousse made of berries. The berry here being strawberry. A mousse is an easy dessert to make are very pretty when all done.A great dessert when entertaining your guests and equally neat for a small family. This chilled dessert makes use of buttermilk. The tartness that his lends to the creamy dessert is inexplicable.
Moussehoholics beware! This dessert can be very addictive. Any flavour can be substituted for the strawberries here. The original recipe is for a mango mousse. Since the strawberry season out here is coming to an end, this is what I did for my last dose of strawberries.
Recipe (Adapted from Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth
)1T unflavoured gelatin
2T cold water
1C Whipping Cream
1/2 C half-and-half( I used 60 ml of light cream and 60 ml of whole milk)
1/2 C buttermilk
1/2 Sugar
1/4 C strained strawberry pulp
1T Vanilla Extract
Strawberry slices for garnish
Since I was serving them in these shot glasses I did not grease them. You could also use ramekins that have been greased and turn them out on serving plates after the dessert is set well.
Sprinkle gelatin in cold water. Heat whipping cream, cream, milk, buttermilk, sugar and strawberry pulp in a saucepan and let it simmer. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the gelatin and the vanilla extract until well blended. Transfer to the glasses. Cover and chill for 5 hours. Top with garnish and serve for a lovely chilled dessert to cool you down. In my case, a respite from the heat!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Methi Malai Murgh/ Chicken Flavoured with Fenugreek and Cream
My days fall into two categories. One where I wake up all happy and excited and the other being days where I wake up grumpy. The former being a result of no special reason though. The grumpy days want me doing nothing. Cooking, a daily experiment for me is a toil on such days. Those days are when I want to get the task done really quick and go back and curl up in bed.
However on the happy days are when I don't mind doing anything or everything that requires all my time and energy. One such happy day was when I made this chicken curry. Not that this recipe is an elaborate one. It has methi/fenugreek leaves in it. And I must mention I have been wanting to make this recipe for a long time now and whenever I purchase these little bundles of greens, I have always woken up grumpy except for this very time! Owing to that reason, I resorted to growing these and there was someone or the other who delightfully plucked these off when these were ready not once but both the times. I am yet to catch the culprit. For now am I am done growing these for the pilfering hands :)
What you need for this Methi Malai Chicken are:
Recipe adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor. The only changes I made are of not using spring onions.
Chicken - 1kg (Cut with bones)
Yogurt-1 C
Fresh Cream-1/2 C
Onion-2 medium sized ones -Sliced /or 1C
Fenugreek Leaves- washed, drained and chopped-2 C
Green Chillies-4 chopped
Ginger Garlic Paste-2T
Coriander Powder-2T
Turmeric Powder-1t
Black Pepper Powder-1t
Garam Masala Powder-1t
Salt
Oil-5T
Water- 1 C
Make a marinade of yogurt, turmeric powder and salt. Marinate the chicken for an hour.Heat oil, add saute the onions and the green chillies.When the onions turn translucent add in the methi leaves. Cook this for about 5 minutes on medium heat and then add the chicken. Cook on high heat until they are half done. Lower the heat and add in the spice powders. Add in the water. Cover and cook on low heat until the chicken is done. Stir in the garam masala powder. Just before taking it off the stove stir in the cream. Check the seasoning and serve it hot.
A wholesome and rich gravy flavoured beautifully with fenugreek and cream.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
The secret recipe club is my motivation for this post Every month a partner is assigned and you make a recipe from their space without letting them know. Read about this club at Amanda's. I was assigned an amazing blog, Barbara Bakes. The fact that it was a baking blog was even more interesting.
This blog soon became my tea time companion. I was spending most of my time at tea reading her archives. With lovely pictures, recipes and text, it sure is a pleasure to read. Among a dozen recipes I wanted to try, the thick chewy chocolate chip cookies was the chosen one.
Therecipe itself was an easy one to put together in less than 20 minutes. I like my chocolate chip cookies soft and chewy rather than the harder ones.It requires you to bake them at 400 degrees. I was apprehensive that it would result in burning them. I am glad she mentioned that chewy cookies were a result of high temp. and not baking at a low temp. She had attempted it at both temps .She had adapted the recipe from the Sunset Magazine. I halved the recipe and followed her exact recipe. The batter however was very thick and I added 1/4 C of milk for a smoother batter. The cookies were baked for 8 minutes and they do remain soft in the centre but do take them out and let them stay on the tray because they would continue to bake on the pan. The cookies did not spread, were chewy and perfect but mine would rather suit a title chunky chewy chocolate chip cookies.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Garlic rolls without Eggs
I followed her exact recipe. Made no changes except for reducing the amount of coriander leaves. The rolls rose well the first time, the second time and baked well to yield beautiful very soft flavourful rolls. Here is the link to the recipe. Try it, this is a foolproof recipe!
These rolls have been yeastspotted.
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