This is another dish that I cooked from Coorg special. This is a very simple dish to make and turns out lip smacking good. I love such simple dishes when I am making a big spread. It helps to increase the number of dishes ;).
Ingredients: 1/4 kg chicken 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 1/2 tea spn red chili powder 1/4 tea spn cumin powder 1/2 cup onion 3-4 strands coriander leaves 1/4 cup tomato 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 tea spn pepper powder 1 tea spn chopped ginger 4 green chilies 1 tbl spn lemon juice Oil Salt
Method: Add turmeric, salt and red chili powder to chicken pieces and keep aside. Heat oil and add chopped green chilies, ginger, garlic, onion till onions turn brownish. Add tomatoes and fry for some time. Add chicken pieces, fry for about 5mins. Pour about 1/2 cup water, cover and cook till chicken is almost done. Now add cumin powder, pepper and cook till chicken is completely done. Now pour the lemon juice and cook till all water is absorbed. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.
During my Engineering college days at Belgaum, we had a few senior students who were ultimate singers. Even though I don’t call myself as a music lover, I particularly liked the songs of one person. Some of us called him Junior S.P.Balasubramanium(a famous playback singer). After college, I heard from few common friends that he is taking his singing very seriously and working towards a career in it along with his job of software engineer. Since I didn’t know this person personally nor I had any kind of contact with him, I didn’t hear about him for couple of years.
Then one fine day, my husband V told me that he met Sunil Koshy in social networking site orkut. Apparently they knew each other well in college. They had met after a long time. I think V told him about my site and he sent me an email saying he liked it a lot. I can’t say how happy I was to get his feedback. We exchanged a few emails/chats. Well..the irony of whole situation is, I didn’t know he was from Kerala all this time. In the college, the most popular song he sung was “Karunada taayi sada chinmayee“(this is a Kannada song) and I never realized he didn’t know to speak Kannada.
Finally, after his all friends pushed him enough, he has started a music blog. I feel very honored to know such an amazing singer. If you are a music lover, watch out his blog. There are just couple of songs as of now, but he will update it soon.
Here is one song that I absolutely love. We wish him a very bright future. Please leave your feedback here or at his blog, let him know how you like the song. Thanks.
He is a foodie and he said he will bring two of his favorite Kerala dishes for me from his mom. This is the first one he got for me. This is traditionally made with fish(I used catfish here, but I think traditionally it is made with King fish). I tried it many times, first time I made with shrimps and second time I made it with fish. Both were too good. It has become a regular at my home now. I make a big batch of it and refrigerate on weekends. During week days, when I am very tired to cook anything, I love to eat this with curd rice. Yumm…It has a very great aroma of curry leaves and ginger. Give it a try, it tastes great.
Here is the picture of fish version
Ingredients: 1 lb cleaned shrimp or 1 lb fish cut into small pieces 2 tea spns chili powder 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 2 tea spns + 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn methi(fenugreek) seeds 1/8 tea spn asafoetida powder 2-3 green chilies 1 tbl spn ginger finely chopped 20-25 curry leaves Oil 1 tbl spn vinegar Salt
Method: Apply chili powder, salt and turmeric to the fish/shrimps and keep it aside for about 15-30mins.
Then heat a little oil and fry till they are done. Keep them aside.
Heat a little oil and fry mustard seeds (2 tea spns) and methi seeds. Just before taking out of heat, add asafoetida. Grind them to make a powder. Heat a little oil and add remaining mustard seeds. When they start popping, add chopped chilies, ginger and curry leaves. Fry for about a minute. (Sunil had mentioned adding chili powder again at this stage, which I ignoredbecause I had already added a lot for marination). Add the ground powder, vinegar and if required, some salt (be careful while adding salt since the shrimp/fish has it already). Mix and then add shrimp/fish and close the lid (I closed the lid to seal in all the flavors of curry leaves and ginger). After about a 1-2mins, take out the lid, mix well and take off heat. Cool to room temperature and store in air tight container. It can be consumed immediately. I have refrigerated it upto 2 weeks and the taste went on increasing day by day (I think this remains good for a long time).
Preparation time : 30mins
PS: Make sure all the vessels that are used for making/storing this pickle and the mixer are completely dry. Any moisture spoils the pickle.
In India, we were frequent visitors to Nandini restaurant. This is the place where we became huge fans of Andhra food. We loved the normal vegetarian thali, which according to us, was a comfort food. The other thing we absolutely loved there was their chicken dishes. Since hubby is not a great fan of chicken with bones, we would always pick up some boneless dish. After a while, our staple chicken order was for an extremely flavorful pepper chicken. It used to be very hot and would have a strong curry leaves flavor to it.
Now after two years in US, I have forgotten how it is supposed to look, but the taste still lingers on my tongue. Every time I buy chicken, hubby’s request comes for this dish. So this time, I thought of recreating this dish. Since I wanted a strong pepper and curry leaves flavor to it, I kept it very simple. It came out to be absolutely delicious. Try this at least once to know what I mean.If you have Kashmiri red chili powder in hand, use it for a bright color. Increase the amount of heat if you can tolerate more. It tastes great when savored with lemon juice sprinkled on it.
Ingredients: 1/4 kg boneless chicken A pinch turmeric 1 tbl spn thick yogurt 1 tea spn ginger paste 1 tea spn garlic paste 1/2 tea spn chili powder 1 tea spn pepper powder Oil 15-20 curry leaves Salt
Method: Apply ginger-garlic paste, chili powder, 1/2 tea spn pepper powder, salt, yogurt to chicken and leave it aside for about 2-3hrs. Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is steaming hot, add the marinated chicken. Cook for 5-6mins from both sides (do not add any extra water). When the chicken is almost half done, add 1/2 tea spn pepper powder, curry leaves (cut into two), cover and cook till chicken is completely done.Serve hot with lemon wedges.
This delicious butter chicken was on my to-do list for a long time. I think this is one of the staples of Indian restaurants outside India. I have eaten in atleast 10 different Indian restaurants in last 2 years and each and every one had this on the menu. That may be the reason, this is known to all non-Indians over here. Last month, we had been to a lunch party and one of my colleagues said his favorite Indian dish is butter chicken. That itself speaks its popularity. I love butter chicken too, but some restaurants really mess it up.
Butter chicken is called as Murgh makhaniin Hindi. There are many different recipes for this dish. Everyone seems to follow their own recipe for it. I followed my favorite chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s simple makhani gravy recipe and changed few things. I had very little hopes of getting a perfect butter chicken. But when it got ready, it was so delicious, I could not believe I actually had prepared it. Kasoori methi really gives it a very great flavor to it.
Marination: 1/4 kg boneless chicken pieces 1/4 cup thick yogurt 1/4 tea spn ginger paste 1/4 tea spn garlic paste A pinch turmeric Salt
Apply all the ingredients to chicken pieces and keep aside for about 1hr.
For Gravy: 1/2 cup finely chopped onion 1/4 tbl spn ginger paste 1/4 tea spn garlic paste 1 cup tomato paste (Cook 2 big tomatoes in water and then grind them to smooth paste) 1 tbl spn cashews ground into smooth paste (optional) 1 tea spn kasoori methi 1 tea spn garam masala 1/2 tea spn chili powder 1/4 cup fresh cream 2 tbl spns butter 2-3 strands coriander leaves Salt
Method: Heat 1 tbl spn butter and fry the marinated chicken till it is 3/4th done. Take out on a plate and keep aside. Heat remaining butter and add onions, ginger, garlic, fry till onions turn translucent. Add chili powder, garam masala and kasoori methi (slightly roast the methi to make it crisp, crush the kasoori methi using palms to make a powder). Add tomato paste, salt, cashew paste, chicken pieces. Cover and cook till the gravy thickens. Pour cream and cook for 1-2mins. Serve hot garnished with coriander leaves.
Coorg or Kodagu is one of the most beautiful places in Karnataka. Just before we moved to US, we had been to Madikeri. This has some of the breath taking sceneries with very beautiful water falls. For some reason, whenever I hear the name Madikeri, I think of the beautiful Kannada song Madikeri sipayee from film Muttina haara. As far as I remember, that was the film that gave me a glimpse of this beautiful paradise on earth. Coorg cuisine is as popular as its nature. I found this article about this cuisine in my recipe collection.
As I have mentioned many times, I don’t cook chicken very frequently. But last week we had a special guest. This person is a food blogger and one of the bloggers who has been blogging for a long time now (even though this foodblog has been hibernating for last few months). Even though I am pretty comfortable creating big menus for my guests, I get all nervous when I cook for an expert. Finally I decided to make 2 chicken dishes, one fish, one shrimp dish and some vegetarian sides, pickles, salads. Now, deciding which particular chicken dish I was going to prepare took me a very long time. I spent about 2hrs going through all my recipe collection. Since I wanted a chicken with gravy, I was almost hitting a dead end in anything I shortlisted, mainly because I knew our guests didn’t like coconut a lot – even though they had told me its perfectly fine if I cook something with coconut. It was like whatever I did, finally I would stop at this particular recipe. The name “Coorg” in the title has that effect on me. So even though it had coconut, I decided to make this. To go with this, I made yellow flavored rice.
Well..in all this, I had least expected my hubby to appreciate this gravy. I was very happy when this flavored rice and gravy was a hit combination. He even asked me to make it again (considering he never says that for any chicken dishes, it was a huge compliment). As far as my guests are concerned, they loved it. So I guess I will be going back to this recipe again and again.
Ingredients: 1/2 lb chicken pieces 1 tea spn red chili powder 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 1/2 tea spn coriander seeds 1/4 tea spn cumin seeds 2″ piece cinnamon 4 cloves 1/2 tea spn poppy seeds 7-8 strands coriander leaves 1/2 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 tea spn chopped ginger 2 green chilies 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/4 cup chopped tomato 1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut Oil 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract or 2 pieces of tamarind soaked in warm water Salt
Method: Apply red chili powder and turmeric to chicken pieces and leave it aside. Grind together coriander-cumin seeds, ginger-garlic, green chilies, coriander leaves, cloves, cinnamon, poppy seeds. This is called raw masala. Roast(without oil) coconut till it turns slightly brownish. Grind it to a smooth paste. Heat a little oil and fry onions. When they turn slightly brownish, add tomatoes and fry for sometime. Now add raw masala and fry till the raw smell goes off and a nice aroma comes out of it. Now add the chicken pieces, salt and fry for about 5mins. Add 2 cups of water, cover and cook till chicken is tender. Add the ground coconut, tamarind extract and cook for about 7-8 mins till the curry thickens. Serve hot. I served it with yellow flavored rice and chapathis.
At my native, people add shrimps and clams in many different gravies. But I never knew cabbage and shrimps could be paired. When my aayi told me about this, I said, “you must be kidding!!!, shrimps with cabbage? how does that taste?”. So instead of arguing with me, aayi went ahead and prepared this. Ohh it was so tasty.
While growing up, I had a very strong dislike for cabbage. Apart from cabbage vada, I would not eat any dishes that had this vegetable. That must be one of the reasons I don’t remember eating this gravy. Now that I have started liking cabbage, I simply loved this combination. The shrimps give a very nice aroma as well as taste to it. Try it to know what I am talking about.
Ingredients: 1 cup shredded cabbage or shredded radish 3/4 cup toor dal 1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut 5-6 red chilies 3/4 cup chopped onion 3/4 cup shrimps 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract or 1 piece tamarind A pinch turmeric 1 tea spn coriander seeds Oil Salt
Method: Cook toor dal with turmeric in pressure cooker. Similarly cook cabbage and 1/4 cup onion. You can cook both together in pressure cooker, use bottom vessel for the dal and topmost vessel from cabbage-onion. Heat a little oil and fry coriander seeds. Grind them with coconut, tamarind, red chilies. Heat a little oil and fry remaining onion till they turn brownish. Add shrimps and fry till they become white. Add the ground paste, salt, dal, cabbage-onion. Cook for about 5-6mins. Serve hot with rice.
There are few days when no matter how much you try, you can’t get yourself to do something. We are having a horrible weather here, sometimes too cold and windy. So all I want to do these days is sleep :). So I have been not keeping up with my pace of one recipe every alternate day. I could not even work on so many improvements which I wanted to do to the blog. Anyway, I am hoping to get adjusted to this weather soon. When the weather is this bad, all I can think of is some hot and spicy dish prepared by aayi. One dish that is lingering in my mind is this spicy shark gravy.
This is one of my all time favorite recipes. Its been sitting in my drafts for a long time now. Aayi had cooked this for us when she visited us 3 months ago. I had posted the traditional shark gravy recipe sometime ago. This recipe with garam masala is one of my aayi’s creations. Since shark pieces look/taste something like chicken, she makes this. At my home, we all like this more than the traditional recipe. Its absolutely yummy. We love to eat this with chapathis.
Ingredients: 15 pieces of shark (mori) 1 tea spn coriander seeds 8 cloves 1/2 inch cinnamon 3/4 tea spn fennel seeds(badishepi) 3/4 tea spn shah jeera 4 peppercorns 1 tea spn poppy seeds 1/2″ piece nutmeg 4-5 red chilies 1 and 1/2 cups frozen/fresh coconut 3/4 cup chopped onion 1 tea spn ginger-garlic paste 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes 3-4 strands coriander leaves Oil Salt
Method: Heat oil and fry coriander seeds, cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, shah jeera, peppercorns, poppy seeds, nutmeg for sometime. When they are half done, add red chilies and fry for sometime. When a nice aroma comes out, add 1/4 cup onion and fry till onions turn slightly brownish. Add coconut and fry for about 3-4mins. When it cools to room temperature, grind this to a smooth paste. Heat oil and fry remaining onion till they turn brownish. Add ginger-garlic paste, fish pieces and fry for about a minute. Now put tomato pieces, fry for a second and then add masala and salt. When it starts boiling, garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with rice or chapathis.
At my home, everyone is a huge fan of eggs. While growing up, eggs were a treat for us. We didn’t have the eggs in refrigerator always(like I do now), but whenever we wanted to eat them, my dad would buy fresh ones from stores. I still remember this thin guy (one of dad’s patients) who used to bring us very fresh eggs occasionally as a gift. Our favorite among all egg dishes was this delicious egg curry.
I have been playing with this a lot, but nothing can be compared to this original one that aayi makes. She usually serves this with chapathis for breakfast (yes, chapathis were/are breakfast items for us since we are mainly rice eaters). Somehow this is one of my all time comfort food. Even though I make this very often, I don’t seem to get bored of it. Whenever this is made, I usually eat few bites more than my normal. I absolutely love this.
Method: Heat oil and fry cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, nutmeg, caraway seeds, pepper, red chilies till nice aroma comes out. Add garlic, 1/4 cup onions and fry till onions turn slightly brownish. Now add coconut and fry for 2-3mins. Grind these together to a smooth paste. Heat little oil and fry remaining onions till they turn brownish. Add the tomatoes and fry for 2-3 mins. Pour the coconut paste, salt, little water to bring it to thick gravy consistency and cook till the paste starts boiling. Remove the shells off the boiled eggs and cut into half. Slowly slide these pieces into the gravy and cook for another 2mins. Serve hot with chapathis.
I loved Chettinad dishes a lot when I was in India. It was on the menu of almost all the non-veg restaurants there. These dishes are spicy and very tasty. I started missing these when we moved to US. I haven’t seen it on the menus of any Indian restaurant here. So, when one of my readers asked for this recipe, I was more than happy to try it. But then, I had to wait for few days to cook it. I finally cooked this when I had invited one of my friend for dinner. It came out very good.
Ingredients: 8-9 chicken pieces 1/4 cup chopped onion 1/4 cup tomato 3-4 red chilies 5-6 black pepper A pinch turmeric 1 tbl spn lemon juice Oil 3-4 strands coriander leaves 2 tbl spn fresh/frozen coconut 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 1/2 tea spn coriander seeds 1/2 tea spn fennel seeds(badishepi) 1 tea spn poppy seeds 3-4 cloves 1″ cinnamon 1/2 tea spn each chopped ginger and garlic 8-9 curry leaves Salt
You can add more pepper if you want it to be hotter.
Method: Heat a little oil andadd cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, red chilies, cloves, cinnamon, pepper. Fry for sometime and then add coconut. Fry till a nice aroma comes out and the coconut turns slightly brownish. Grind it to a paste with ginger and garlic. Heat oil, fry onion and curry leaves. When they turn brownish, add the paste and fry for about 1min. Add chicken pieces, fry for a minute. Add tomato, turmeric, salt and half cup water. Close and cook till done. Pour lemon juice, garnish with chopped coriander and serve.
Last few months have been no-chicken days at my home. I got many requests for chicken recipes, but both my husband and I absolutely didn’t want to eat chicken. So these days I cook it only when we invite someone for lunch/dinner. Now the problem with that is, it is very difficult to take pictures when I am cooking some elaborate meal for guests and all that I want to do after cooking is, just sit down and take a deep breath. Taking pictures on these days definitely looks like a big chore to me. But since these are the only times when I cook chicken, I have no choice and most of the time, the pictures come out blur as the above picture.
Anyway, after that rant, let me come to this dish at hand. This is supposed to be Chicken stew from Kerala. I have adapted this recipe from theindian. The main thing that attracted my attention to this dish was the vegetables used in this dish. It has a coconutty taste to it because of the coconut milk used in it. The whole spices give a very good aroma to the dish. Both our guest and we enjoyed it a lot.
Ingredients: 7-8 chicken pieces 1 tea spn fresh ginger-garlic sliced into thin pieces 1 and 1/2 cups coconut milk 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 6-7 curry leaves 1″ cinnamon 1 cardamom 1 bay leaf 1/2 cup chopped onions 1/4 cup chopped potatoes 1/4 cup chopped carrots 2-3 green chilies 1/2 tea spn garam masala Ghee Salt
Method: Heat ghee, add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add curry leaves, cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaf. Fry for a min and add onions, ginger, garlic. Fry till they turn slightly brownish. Add marinated chicken pieces and fry for 1-2mins. Add potatoes, carrots, coconut milk, green chilies, salt. Cover and cook for about 12-15mins till the chicken and vegetables are tender. Now sprinkle the garam masala and mix well. Serve hot with rice or rotis.
