korma desi style

Guys its a Super Sunday and how can I miss the joys of cooking indoors and that too my favourite. I wish the week days convert to only Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays, there might be some red eyes for me from my corporate brothers, guys I swear my wishes were only for my appetite and not anywhere near related to your working hours.

To be frank when I go for outdoor eateries the last thing I would check out is for a korma dish, as I am a least korma lover but when I saw the dish being prepared over the television I gave a thought about it and finally decided to make the recipe to give it a twist of my own.
                             Though there are several ingredients that goes into the dish but since one of my friend mentioned that my ways are being easy to adapt for beginners I would say to him , my friend this is the easiest dish you have ever made and the most exotic to your taste buds. The only thing to keep in your mind is that you should have all your required condiments ready and that it you are ready to make the best dish till date.

Ingredients

for marinade
500gms mutton
curd 150gms
ghee 150gms
red chilli powder 2tbl spn (if you need it hot or add your desired amount)
ginger paste 1 1/2tbl spn
garlic paste 2tbl spn
garam masala 2tea spn
coriander powder 1tea spn
cumin powder 1tea spn
black pepper whole 3gms
green cardamom whole 3-5pcs
cloves 5-7
shahi jeera 1/2tea spn
nutmeg,mace/ javitri powdered
tumeric 1tea spn
salt to taste


the ending
crisp onions 150 gms
cream (my twist)
coriander leaves

Procedure

 As I promised you this will be the easiest dish from your fire, so here it is.

Remember to make the whole marinade in the pot you will cook it. After adding all the ingredients mix thoroughly and as always a marinade is kept for some time don't keep it that way, yes am right the whole thing will simply go on fire for about an hour. All you need to do is add 1 liter of water to the mixture and finally cover it. Go take rest or a drive, come back in an hour to find your dish almost ready. When its done add the crisp onions and add some cream to thicken the mutton juice a bit. Serve hot with naan/ roti or even rice. Garnish with coriander.

Things to remember: The longer it takes the better it tastes.
Cook in slow fire always.
The amount of ghee used must be high to avoid burnt bottom.

There is no need to worry about the tenderness of the mutton because it will be cooked it its own juices.

steamed tandoori

I love it when its a wednesday or a friday, bottomline is I get to eat non-veg. Yup my family I forgot to tell you guys are a bit inclined to religious believes so my eating habits are limited to few days a week when it comes to a non-veg menu. Though my pops and I have no problem at all in engulfing non-veg every day but there are times when we gotta listen to mom, after all the boss of the house.Since its a friday and I got my chance today I will skill myself to a new menu for lunch.

My new dish name might be a bit brow raiser, yet at the same time it is quite delicious, I can bet on it.
Tandoori Chicken derives its name from the fact that the chicken is cooked in a Tandoor, an Indian clay pot heated to high temperature. This gives it a distinctive flavor to the chicken apart from the fact hat it is  marinated in yogurt and spices. The spice blend used for the chicken also takes from the Tandoor, and is called Tandoori Masala. Its quiet ironic in a way that Tandoori chicken, that gets its name from "Tandoor" has become a household recipe, without the Tandoor. You can grill it in your oven, barbecue or steam it.


If you are someone who swears by the dish, and you don't have an oven, don't have a barbecue, what do you do? You can steam it. The fact is. Trying this method is also not bad and even more healthier than the traditional clay oven tandoor.

There are some basic reasons to it. One of the important thing is the texture. Steaming results into a very juicy and succulent chicken. The beautiful stock that's formed due to steaming makes it easier to serve, besides that I think its much easier to pack things in a foil, leave it to steam to do the rest of the work. The only thing you need to do is open the foil at the table to relish the juicy steamed chicken. I love it when the face is hit by a sudden steam and the aroma of the spices even before it gets into the mouth.




Ingredients
1 kg Chicken thighs

2 Red onions (sliced)
1 Tomato ( sliced)
3 tbsp Tandoori Masala
1/2 cup Yogurt
1 tsp Black pepper powder
 2 cloves
7-8 Garlic pieces
1 inch Ginger
Red chilli powder
Salt to taste

Tandoori Masala
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp cloves  powder
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg 
1/2  tsp mace powder
1 tbsp cumin  powder
2 tbsp ground coriander powder
1 tsp fenugreek powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp green cardamom powder
1/2 tsp mango powder
1 tbsp red chilly powder
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric powder

You can also use some drops of oil if you want.
 


You could use the store bought tandoori masala. I'm sure many of you would prefer doing just that. My only problem with store bought tandoori is masala is the aroma of freshly ground spices will definitely be missing.

The same spices can be used to make the Garam masala, but we just do not use the mango powder,sweet paprika, ginger and garlic powder.

For the tandoori masala I freshly grind whole spices but ginger powder, garlic powder, sweet paprika, turmeric, red chilly powder and mango powder are ready grounded ones from the market.

You can try out the same with red meat, pomfret, any kind of meat of your choice and please do let me know the result. I will soon try it out with the pomfret and mutton and let you know.

caramelized nut muffins

Its 4 o'clock in the evening and I always wonder what new take will be good for a good snack in the evenings, one day it was enough of cookies, enough of cakes, biscuits finally tried myself with muffins, of course not like that, my guide was the idiot box, yup that's true.
I always hated it when my mom used to buy bakery products for near by shops as the thought always caught me that if they can then I can. With the help of some dedicated people of the culinary world and definitely with my mom's useful tip I learnt the basics of baking and had my take on one of the famous westernized bakery product and gave a simple twist of my own. 

Ingredients
1 Cup all purpose flour
½ TBSP baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 cup whole milk
¼ cup melted butter
1 medium egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Vanilla extract
Cashew nut 10 gms
Peanut 10 gms
Raisins 10gms
 ¼ cup jaggery
¼ cup butter

Procedure
1. Sieve together the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
2. Melt the butter in microwave at full power for 1 minute.
3. Beat the egg lightly, add milk, 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla and beat lightly.
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and keep stirring with a whisk to avoid lumps.
5. Don’t over beat the mixture as it will lead to dry muffins.
6. In a muffin tray arrange paper muffin liners and drop in spoon full of the batter in each cup. Leave some space in the cups for the batter to rise while baking.
7. In a pan caramelize 1/4 cups of sugar and add the nuts and raisins.
8. Let the mixture cool down.
9. Drop few caramelized nuts and raisin on each muffin cups.
10. Pre heat oven to 180 degrees and bake the muffins for 30-35 minutes at 180 degrees.
11. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack
12. Melt the butter and jaggery in a pan till soft.
13. Pour the jaggery sauce over each muffin for that extra sweetness…

*jaggery (gud) can be used to caramelize instead of sugar as it is much better than sugar.

shahi paneer

The dish is very famous throughout the length and breadth of this country. The name says it all, how exciting to find myself interested only for the dishes for the Nawabs, first biryani, tandoors, and now paneer.  It is quite true that the Mughals ruled this country for some reason and one of the reason that I find is that they gifted us with such exciting delicacies. Such dishes have not only cemented their places in Indian hearts but also been reformed to various forms depending upon various regions. Every place has its take on these traditional dishes.

       I do not simply understand the method to do something the same old way, the way it was inherited to us. For sure I would like to add a twist of my own and try out the traditional “Shahi Paneer”, What? Yeah, you might be wondering that how a non-veg lover like me landed his experience on vegetarian! For those who of you might have forgotten let me remind you that my quest to win over my moms’ appreciation is still on and as she is completely a vegetarian I had to do it.

      It’s been a year that I left Bangalore in search of a job after my graduation, as everyone does. I did everything just the way everyone does but the only thing that I didn’t do was go out spending on costly eateries rather preferred cooking for myself and who else was there to taste other than me! I remember that I also used to pack it as my lunch of my office, that includes a bit more than required as my colleagues used to love the way I did it. So let’s start with,

Ingredients:

250 gms. paneer (cottge cheese)

3 tbsp. ghee or butter

1 onion chopped into strips

1/2" piece ginger chopped fine

2 green chillies chopped fine

4 tomatoes chopped fine

2 cardamoms crushed

1/4 cup beaten curd

1/2 tsp. red chilli powder

1/2 tsp. garam masala

salt to taste

1/2 cup cream

2 tbsp. tomato paste

To garnish:

2 tbsp. grated paneer

1 tbsp. chopped coriander

Procedure:

Chop the paneer into slices.

Heat half the ghee. Add onion till golden brown.

Then add chopped ginger, green chilli and cardamom and fry for 3-4 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for 7-8 minutes until tomatoes are completely cooked, covered it if required.

Add curd and cook for 5 minutes.(always add curd by turning down the flame else the curd might split)

Add 1/2 cup water.

Blend in a mixer till smooth.

Heat remaining ghee, add gravy and other ingredients except milk and paneer.

Boil to get a very thick gravy.(adding cream to it will definitely make the gravy thick)

Add the milk and paneer slices and boil for 3-4 minutes.

Garnish with chopped coriander and grated paneer.

*ghee can be replaced with olive oil, you know why am saying this.

*adding cream is also optional which you can replace with tomato sauce.

Am telling you cooking away from your own kitchen is really very difficult, I understood this only when I cooked back there in Bangalore. This was the first dish I prepared and since I was dying out of hunger didn’t think of a photo, but I promise the next time I try this out will definitely upload some clicks. Since blogging is new to me I have learnt that photography is equally important as the dishes.