Jalapeno Poppers

Ingredients:

• 10/15 thick jalapeno peppers.
• Ricotta cheese (part skim)
• Whipped cream cheese.
• 1 fresh tomato - finely chopped.
• Fresh parsley leaves - 1 bunch.
• Onion powder.
• Garlic powder.
• Cardamom / cashew powder.
• Paprika.

Method:

• For each of the jalapenos, make a long slit with a sharp-bladed knife. Don't cut into halves, but make sideways cut at the ends to open them up (H shaped cuts). Scrape out the seeds and wash them.
• Soak them in a mixture of 3/4 parts vinegar and 1/4 portion of olive oil. Leave for 5/6 hours.
• To make the stuffing, mix ricotta cheese and whipped cream cheese (in 2:1 ratio), finely chopped tomatoes, chopped parsley leaves and the spices (garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cardamon powder).
• Drain the jalapenos of the vinegar and dry them. Fill in the stuffing carefully with a spoon or knife.
• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the stuffed jalapenos in the pan so the open side stays up. Spray some cooking oil on them. Bake for 20 to 25 mins.
• They are ready. Serve with tomato sauce or salsa.

Honey Glazed Chicken

Honey Glazed Chicken

Serves 3 persons as a starter.

Ingredients:

• Chicken brest : 500gm (lean boneless cut)
• Honey (1/3 cup)
• Soya sauce (1/4 cup)
• Lemon (3 big ones) : crushed into juice
• Seasme seeds (til) : 3 spoonful
• Seasme oil (2 tsp)
• Red chili : 1 piece cut into stripes crushed
• black pepper : 4/5 seeds

Procedure:

• Mix the lemon juice, 1 tbsp of soya sauce and salt. Marinade the chicken well with this mixture for 4-5 hours (or better, overnight in the fridge).
• Defrost the marinaded chicken, bake in microwave at high temp for 5 minutes. Thus the chicken is half-cooked.
• Meanwhile make a mixture of the rest of soya sauce, honey, crushed pepper.
• Heat oil (seasme oil, but I couldn't managed it so used ghee or clarified butter). Roast the red chili stripes and seasme seeds until the seed start getting brown.
• Immediately pour the mixture into the pan and simmer for 2-3 minutes so that it starts thickening.
• Now add the baked chicken into the pan, and cook at low flame for few minutes. Keep checking and turn off the oven just when the gravy is thick enough. This will becom a sticky layer when cooled. Transfer into plate while hot.

Note : Do not cook the chicken for too long. This often renders it dry from inside. Better reduce the gravy by simmering, and after that add the chicken and quickly finish in 4-5 minutes.

Matar Paneer

Here goes one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. The quantity serves 4 persons.

Ingredients:

• Cottage cheese (Paneer) : 500 gm
• Green Peas : 250 gm
• Onion: 2 large ones
• Tomatoes: 2 large ones, or 1/2 cup puree
• Oil : Sunflower or other white oil for cooking
• Salt and sugar
• Cumin seeds : 2 spoonful
• Curd : 3 tbsp
• Green chili
• Ginger and garlic : as per taste, or ginger-garlic paste (2 tsp)
• Spice : turmeric, cumin powder, red-chili and coriander powder
• Bay leaves : 2 leaves
• Cardamon (2 pieces), Cloves (3) and Cinnamon stich (two 2" ones)
  

Method:

1. Cut the cottage cheese into 2-inches cubes, remove excess moisture using papers, and apply with a powder made of salt, turmeric powder and little red-chili powder. Keep for marinade.
2. Boil the peas with little salt and sugar added to the water until they become tender. Discard the water.
3. Heat 3-4 spoonful of oil in a non-stick pan. When it stars smoking add bay-leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamoms, then the cumin seeds. They will start sputtering. Soon after that add the coarsely chopped onions. Keep stirring until the onions get transparent ans golden brown at the edges. Take out the content (discard bay-leafs) and keep aside.
4. Now add heat more oil in the non-stick pan and fry the paneer cubes, until they get little crispy brown at the surfaces. Keep them aside.
5. Blend the fried onions (that also contains cardamom, cinnamon, cloves) with chopped green chilies and 2 scoops of curd, coriander and red-chili powder, little salt, half of the cilantro leaves. Make a fine paste out of these contents.
6. Heat little oil at high flame, add little more cumin seeds and ginger-garlic paste (or finely chopped ginger and garlic). Keep stirring continuously. Add the chopped tomatoes (or 4-5 spoonful of tomato puree) and stir the mixture for a minute. Then add the boiled peas and saute for few minutes.
7. Next add the onion paste paste made previously, and cook for 5 minutes. Finally add the paneer cubes and rest of cilantro leaves and mix well, cover with a lid and cook at low flame covered with a lid for 5-10 minutes.
8. Serve hot, garnished with fresh cilantro leaves.

Mango Halwaa

Mango Halwaa

(Sweet Mango Dessert)

Ingredients:

• Ripe mangoes : 2 big sized ones.
• Khoya (dried whole-milk) : 500gm - loosely crumbled.
• Dry fruits : Cashew, almonds and raisins.
• Aam papad (dried mango sheets/solid) - this is also known as 'aam-satva' in Bengal. Cut into small 1" cubes.

• Whole Cardamom - 5/6 pieces, crushed.
• Bay leaves - 1 or 2 pieces.
• Ghee or butter - 4tbsp.
• Sweetened Condensed Milk (Milkmaid) - 3-4 tbsp, mostly for garnishing (Optional)
  

Procedure:

• Peel off the mangoes, separate out half the quantity of mangoes, consisting of only solid pulp (which will be cut into small cubes), the rest half consisting the leftover pulp and the juice, is transferred into a mixer and blend with 3-4 cashew nuts and 2tbsp sugar into smooth paste. Now cut the separated pulps into small 1" cubes. Again from this, take out a handful of them for external garnishing at end.
• Cut or break the cashew nuts and almonds (take cashew nuts 3 parts and almond 1 part) into halves lengthwise. Heat butter/ghee in a pan. Saute them (I learned almonds shouldn't be roasted, so only cashews) and take out carefully before they start browning.
• In the same pan heat ghee/butter again to high flame. When it starts smoking, add the bay leaf and crushed cardamoms and keep stirring. Soon after that add the mango puree (bended paste), and simmer for few minutes in low flame.
• Them add the crumbled khoya gradually and keep stirring so to mix it into the hot mango mixture. Stir for few more minutes until the khoya mixes uniformly with mango paste.
• Spare some roasted cashew-nuts and raisins for final garnishing (we have already saved some mango cubes from the pulps). Now reduce the flame to minimum and add the mango pulp cubes, aam-papad cubes, almonds, raisins and roasted cashew-nuts. Keep stirring for another one or two minutes before turning off the oven.
• When it cools down, transfer to serving tray / plate, garnish with few cubes of mango, raisins and roasted cashew-nuts. Optionally you might also spread a spoonful of condensed milk to give it a nice look. Mango halwaa is ready !!
  

Pineapple Chicken

Pineapple Chicken

Ingredients :

• Chicken - 500gm - preferably breast pieces.
• Pineapple - 1 whole one, peeled off.
• Mustard - black mustard - 4 tbsp.
• Soy sauce (black) - 1tbsp.
• Ginger garlic paste - 1tbsp.
• Green chili - 2 finely chopped.
• Spices - cumin seeds (1tsp), turmeric (3tsp), red-chilli powder (1tsp).
• Butter / ghee / cooking oil - 2tbsp.
  

Procedure:

• Wash chicken pieces and brush with only salt and turmeric.
• Cut the pineapple into small cubes. Take out one or two this circular discs (along width of the pineapple) for garnishing. Cut the rest into small pieces. Again divide that into two halves.
• Make a paste for marinade as well as gravy. Take half the chopped pineapple pieces, mustard, soy sauce (1tbsp), salt and turmeric powder and 1 pinch of red-chili powder. Blend well in a mixer into a smooth paste. Mix the chicken into this and marinade for at least one hour.
• Heat oil/ghee in a pan. When about to smoke add two cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds, ginger-garlic paste, chopped green chilies. Stir few minutes. Add the chicken with the gravy/marinade onto the pan. Stir for few minutes. Add the rest of the chopped pineapples, cover the pan with a lid, and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes at low flame.
• Transfer into serving bowl, garnish with the pineapple slices. Serve with breads. The quantity serves for two.

Chicken Stew

Chicken Stew

Chicken Stew

This is probably the easiest and lightest chicken recipe I know of, which is healthy too as it contains lots of vegetables. Specially, if you are conscious about your health, this would be ideal. You might choose lean meat for this. The whole procedure is quite simple and takes very little effort to make it.

Ingredients :

Main:

• Chicken - 500gm - preferably breast pieces.
• Onion - 1 big piece or 2 medium sized - finely chopped.
• Carrot - 2/3 ones - chopped into around 1" cubes.
• Potatoes - 2 medium sized ones - cut into 8 pieces each.
• Beans - 10 sticks - cut into 1" wide pieces.
• Tomatoes - 2 pieces - cut into 4 pieces each.
  

For cooking :

• Butter / ghee / cooking oil - 2tbsp.
• Cornflour - 2tbsp - to thicken the gravy.
  

Spices :

• Bay leaf - 2 leaves.
• Cloves - 3/4 pieces.
• Black pepper - 6/7 whole peppers crushed.
• Ginger-garlic paste - 1tbsp.
  

Procedure :

Wash chicken pieces and brush with only salt.

Heat ghee/oil in a pan (kadaai), when about to smoke add the bay-leaf, and the rest one by one in same order. Then add the chopped onions and stir to transparent.

Add all the vegetables from the main ingredients section, and saute for few minutes. Add chicken too and mix well with the vegetables. Transfer the whole content into pressure-cooker, and necessary water with the cornflower powder dissolved in it, and cook up to 1-whistle.

Serve hot with roti's or bread.

Laau Chingri

Laau Chingri / Jhinga Lauki ki Saabji
(Shrimp Bottle-gourd Curry)

Ingredients :

• Bottle-gourd (Laau or Lauki) - Half of one big sized.
• Shrimp - 500 gram (washed and peeled).
• Bori - 5-6 pieces (can avoid this if you don't have stock)
• Tomato - 1 big and fresh.
• Green chili - 1 or 2 pieces.
• Garlic (or ginger-garlic) paste - 1/2 spoonful.
• Spices : 1 bay leaf, Cinnamon Stick (two 1" pieces), whole Cumin seeds (1-tsp).
• Dry Spice powders - Cumin and Turmewric powders. Red-chhili (optional, not recommended).
• Salt and Sugar - to taste.
• White cooking oil (sunflower or groundnut oil).

Pre-Process :

• Wash the shrimp, drain off dry, and marinade with salt and little turmeric powder for at least half an hour.
• Cut the bottle-gourd into small stripes.
• Cut the tomato vertically into 8 pieces, and the chili into 3-4 slits.

Method :

• Heat oil in a non-stick pan. Fry the bodi's and take out aside.
• Add the bay leaf, cinnamon sticks and cumin seeds. When it is about to sputter, add the tomatoes and green-chilies. Saute for 3-4 minutes.
• Add garlic (or ginger-garlic) paste, powdered spices. Then add the shrimps and keep stirring carefully. Add little salt. Cook for 4-5 minutes.
• Add the bottle-gourd and sprinkle some sugar (sugar also makes the bottle-gourd tender quickly), and mix well with the rest of the stuff. Stir for 1-2 minutes.
• Cover the lid well, and let it cook for 5-10 minutes. The bottle-gourd itself gives out a lot of water (if it is fresh), so no need to add water.
• Add little more salt if required. Adjust the quantity of gravy by allowing it to boil out after opening the lid.Just 1 or 2 minutes before finishing, crumble the fried boris and add mix them.
• Done !! Serve with white rice.
  

Note :

• Avoid turmeric powder for a nice light colour. Except only 1-tsp in marinading the shrimps, do not use turmeric in cooking.
• Do not add water if the bottle-gourd is fresh. It gives out a lot of water when cooked under lid.