36 - No Ginger No Garlic Chicken Roast

Back to recipe blogging! And it feels goooood! A year or more of procrastination, and now its time to be back with a bang.

This is definitely the easiest chicken recipe I have come across. So lets get straight to it.

Ingredients

500 gm chicken 

1 large onion, sliced

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 1/2 tsp chilly powder

1 tsp black pepper powder

2 1/2 tbsp oil

a few sprigs of curry leaves

salt , as required

Preparation

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the curry leaves.Then add the sliced onion. Saute till brown. Add tomatoes. Stir and cook till the tomatoes are well done and squishy. Add the turmeric powder, chilly powder and salt. Stir for a minute and then add the chicken. Stir for 2  minutes. Cover and cook on low flame. Stir occasionally. When the chicken is almost cooked, remove the lid and stir and cook till the gravy almost dries up. Now form  a ring with the chicken, and in the hole in the middle, heat the rest of the oil. Add the pepper powder to this oil. Cover this with the chicken and continue to roast  till it is dry. Add more pepper , if you require. Switch off the flame and keep it closed. 

Serve hot! Enjoy!!

14 - Diwali Special - Murukku

I know this post has been long overdue. Diwali was 2 weeks back!! But better late than never.

So this is one of the things that I tried out this time for diwali. And it was a success (frankly, I was very sceptical) . :)

Ingredients

3 cups rice flour, sifted
1 cup urad dal flour, sifted
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp asafoetida
oil for deep frying
salt to taste

Preparation

In a shallow pan, heat the oil.
Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add butter and water to this mix , little by little, until the dough is ready, not too tight, not too loose.
Take the murukku press and use the plate with the star shaped hole.

Drop a lemon sized dough in it.

Place the dough filled murukku press right above the hot oil. Squeeze the dough right into the oil. Be careful to not press too much dough into the oil. This might cause the oil to bubble out of the pan. Also, over crowding will reduce the temperature of the oil, which will in turn make the murukku soggy.
Fry it until its light golden colour. Drain onto a paper towel.
Cool and store in air tight containers.

Enjoy!! :)

4 - Whole Wheat Baked Samosas

A while ago, someone on twitter asked me to try and make a healthier version of samosas , and let him know. This has been pending for a long time , and today is when I got around to trying them. And surprisingly, they turned out good. Not the real thing, obviously, but definitely tasty. So for those of you who like samosas, but want a healthier variety, here goes.

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup yogurt
salt to taste

4-5 potatoes
1 cup frozen peas
1 onion, chopped
1 inch piece ginger, grated
1 garlic clove , chopped finely
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp curry powder
salt to taste
1 tbsp oil
PAM spray

Preparation

Mix the flour,salt and yogurt and knead together to form the dough.
Boil and peel the potatoes.
Heat oil. Add cumin and let it splutter.
Add the ginger, garlic and the onions. Saute until the onions are soft.
To this, add turmeric powder and curry powder. Saute.
Add the frozen peas and cook. Remove this from the flame and add the potatoes to it. Mash it all together well.

Preheat the oven to 220 C. Divide the dough into 12. Roll out each piece into a circle. Divide the circle into 2 semi circles. Take 1 semi circle in your hand, fill it with 1 tblsp of the potato mixture and fold from both ends to form a triangle. Crimp the edges together. Do the same with the other semi circle.

Like this make samosas from the remaining 11 pieces.

Spray a cookie sheet with PAM cooking spray ( or any other cooking spray). Place the samosas on this sheet and cook in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove. Reduce the temperature to 180 C and cook them again for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve and Enjoy! :)

3 - Easy Chicken Rolls

This recipe has been lying around with me for so long now. I just couldnt find the right time to try it out. So today being a lazy, lay around at home doing nothing saturday, I thought this would be perfect for lunch.

So, heres the recipe!

Ingredients

8 Tortillas

500 gms boneless chicken

2 large onions

1 inch piece ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 large tomato - chopped

1 tsp garam masala powder

salt to taste

2 eggs - beaten

1 lemon

green chutney

oil

Preparation

Grind together 1 onion, ginger and the garlic. Heat oil in a pan, and add the onion paste to it.

Once it browns, add the chopped tomato. Cook this till the tomato turns soft.

Add salt and garam masala powder, and saute for a minute.

To this, add the chicken. Cover and cook on a low flame till the chicken turns tender and dry. Remove from the flame and keep aside.Squeeze some lemon juice into this according to taste.

Thinly slice 1 onion and mix this with the green  chutney. Keep this aside.

Beat the 2 eggs and add a pinch of salt and pepper.

At serving time, heat the tawa, add a little oil and fry the tortilla on one side only. Do not turn.

Pour 2 tbsp of beaten egg on the tortilla and flip it over to cook the egg. Remove from tawa, keeping the egg side up.Sprinkle 1 tsp of lemon juice on the egg coated side.

Arrange the chicken filling on 1 end of the tortilla. Sprinkle some of the onion-green chutney mix on the filling.

Roll the tortilla forward tightly.

Now, Enjoy! :)