Lasagne

Last night our daughter was in a mood to cook, especially since she had just finished a tiring Chemistry test. It reminded me of my own cooking experiments when I was her age. I started off with noodles and it was my Father who had to bear the brunt! Having grown up in a tea estate, I had the opportunity to see many cooks in action and was able to pick up some valuable tips. We had one from Tamilnadu who was an expert in Dosa and that is when I fell in love with Rava Dosa. It is from him I learnt how to make paper thin dosas and still do at home.

Anyway, after reading many recipes daughter told me that she is going to follow her own method! Like a seasoned cook did she tell me that! But with minimum or no help from me she did manage our dinner yesterday.

Lasagne

Ingredients

1. Lasagne sheets - 10-12
2. Chicken breast cubed - 1 no
3. Chopped red capsicum - 1 no
4. Butter - 2 Tbspn
5. Knorr bechamel mix - 1 packet
6. Pepper and salt - to taste
7. Milk - 1 or 2 cups
8. Shredded Mozarella Cheese - as needed
9. Olive oil - 1 tbspn
10. Pizza sauce - enough to layer

Method

Boil the lasagne sheets as per instruction and run cold water over to cool it. Separate them and place them on a plate. Saute the capsicum in butter and pour the bechamel mix that has been mixed well in milk. Let it simmer and thicken. Take the baking dish and spread the bechamel mix and top it with a layer of lasagne sheets. Spread a layer of pizza sauce. Repeat this until you have exhausted the sheets and the bechamel mix. You can also sprinkle the cheese if you care to. Top it with a final layer of lasagne sheets, sprinkle some cheese and drizzle some olive oil. Cover it with a tin foil and bake it for 25 minutes at 170 degrees. Remove the tin foil and bake it further until the top is browned a little. Take it out and let it cool before you dig in.

Tinned Tuna Tarts / Puffs

Finally I tried my hands in Puff making and succeeded! Of course the pastry was readymade and so the credit does not go entirely to me. I had picked up the frozen puff pastry from the supermarket hoping to make something out of it. It sat in the freezer for a while until I realized that it cannot be. I had some left over cutlet mix and stuffed the puffs with the same. I baked a few and fried a few and realized that frying it was silly :)  The next time I made a mix with tinned tuna and even this came out well. I made it in the form of tarts as well as shapes that I could conjure. 

Tinned Tuna Tarts / Puffs

Ingredients

1. 160gm tin white tuna - 2 nos
2. Chopped ginger - 1 tbspn
3. Boiled potato - 1 medium
4. Mix of herbs- 1/2 tspn each ( I used dried dill leaves, dried rosemary, kasuri methi)
5. Garam Masala and pepper powder - 1 tspn each
6. Cream Cheese - 1 Tbsn (optional)
7. Peas - 1/4 cup

Method

Stir the drained tuna, peas and ginger in a non stick pan until any water in it runs dry. Add the powders and mashed potato. Mix well. Turn off the heat and add cream cheese. Mix it again. Spread the mix onto the pastry if you are making tarts and top it with shredded cheese. (Used mozzarella). If you are making puffs, fill the centre with the mix and fold the pastry. Once it is baked it will form shapes. 

Peanut Cookies

This is an easy Cookie recipe which was voted very good by my colleagues. The recipe asked for butter or vegetable oil and I substituted it for the healthy coconut oil!

Peanut Cookies

Ingredients

1. Roasted peanuts, broken - 1/2 cup
2. All-purpose flour - 1-1/4 cups
3. Salt - 1/4 tspn
4. Coconut Oil - 2 Tbspn
5. Baking powder - 1/2 tspn
6. Egg - 1 
7. Brown sugar (I used Jaggery) - 1/2 cup (add more if you want it sweeter)

Waiting to enter the oven..

Out from the oven..please forgive the shape :)

Method

Beat egg and sugar well in one dish. Meanwhile mix the flour and baking soda in another dish and add the peanuts. Pour in the beaten egg and sugar and mix well. Add the Coconut oil until you feel it is enough to cut into cookies. Bake at 180 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until you see them browned.

Yam and Red Cow Peas Cooked in Coconut / Chena Vanpayar Thenga Aracha Curry

I still have the Yam that Hubby brought from Kerala. Last time when I made Mezhukkuparatty with it, I cut a few into cubes and froze it for later use. This is the first time I have done so and wondered how frozen yam would behave. (It behaved well :))

Chena Vanpayar Thenga Aracha Curry

Ingredients

1. Yam (Chena) cut into cubes - 1 cup
2. Red Cow Peas (Vanpayar) soaked in water for 30 minutes or more - 1/2 cup
3. Chilly powder and Turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn each

To Grind:
4. Coconut - 1/2 cup
5. Cumin seeds - 1 tspn
6. Green Chilly - 2 nos.
7. Shallots or small onions - 5 nos.
8. Ginger - a small piece

Method

Either pressure cook or boil the yam with the powders. Mash it a little and add the ground paste. Let it boil for a few minutes. Temper it with fried mustard sees, shallots, curry leaves and chilly flakes in coconut oil.

Enjoy with rice.

An easy Chicken Casserole for the lazy ones!

Some weekdays are thus; you are too lazy to cook elaborately and want to chuck everything into a dish and say voilà.  And that is exactly what I did and with much trepidation I presented the outcome to the hungry family. In no time they gulped everything up while I watched with much satisfaction. 

Now let me try to replicate the recipe here.

Chicken Casserole 

Ingredients

1- Chicken breasts sliced into medium pieces - 500 gm
2- Onions, finely chopped - 2 nos.
3- Carrot cut into cubes - 1
4- Potatoes cut into slices (it cooks better) - 3 nos.
5- Bell pepper (any color) seeded and sliced - 1 no
6- Garlic cloves, crushed - 5 nos.
7- Tomato paste - 2 Tbspn
8- Sour Cream - 2 Tbspn
9 - Knorr Chicken Soup Powder - 2 Tbspn
10-  Olive oil - 3 Tbspn
11 - Oregano/Thyme/Pepper flakes/Pepper Powder/Basil (Whatever is in your kitchen) - 1 Tspn each
12- Tomato chopped - 2 nos.
13 - Hot water - 1 cup

Method

Preheat oven to 180 C. Marinate the vegetables along with Olive Oil and ingredients 6,7 and 11. Use your hands to mix/coat the vegetables with the marinade. Now add the chicken and the rest of the ingredients.  (Ingredients 8&9 are optional but it does enhance the taste). 

Leave it aside for 10-15 minutes. Microwave this for 15 minutes and later bake it in your conventional oven for another 20 minutes or so after giving a gentle mix. Or you can use the conventional oven for 45 minutes while giving it a gentle mix after 20 minutes. Check if the chicken is well cooked. Serve and enjoy!
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Chicken in Garlic and Bell Pepper Sauce

Every time I cook chicken, I find that the ingredients are almost similar and you come with almost the same taste. (So my kids tell me!). But yesterday our son finally agreed that the chicken curry tasted different and was tasty. So here goes this recipe which has minimum spices.


Chicken and peas in Garlic and Bell Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

1. Chicken - 500 gm ( I used breast pieces cut into cubes)
2. Cumin powder - 1 tspn
3. Bell Peppers - red or green - 1 number
4. Chilly powder - 1 tspn
5. Green Chilly - 1
6. Vinegar - 2 Tbspn
7. Tomato paste -2 Tbspn
8. Tomato - 1 medium
9. Garlic - 6 cloves or more if you like the taste
10. Cream - 1/2 cup
11. Peas  - 1/2 cup (optional)

Method

Grind ingredients 3 -9 with vinegar. Fry the chicken and peas with cumin until it is dry. (You may add other vegetables too along with peas. It still tastes good and would be nutritious too)
Add the paste and fry for a while.  Now add 1 cup of water and cook for 10 minutes. Finally add the cream and let it simmer until the gravy has reached the desired thickness. Enjoy!

Banana Flower Stir Fry / Vazha Koombe Thoran

Once upon a time in Kerala, Carrots, Beans, Cabbage, Beetroot and such vegetables were unknown except in the high ranges. Housewives in Kerala took a tour around her backyard and came up with vegetables that would be transformed into nutrient packed "Thoran", "Mezhukkuperatty", Curries etc. There would be leaves from the drumstick tree, yam, spinach, stem of the yam plant: the choice was numerous. But now the backyard is forgotten and the TV has taken much of the spare time of every housewife. But the increasing fear of pesticides in vegetables has forced many to return to the old ways. I hear that the banana flower is now sold at a good price for those who don't have it their backyard. 

Talking about health benefits, banana blossom is beneficial for pregnant women, also very high in fibre. They contain saponins, which lower LDL ("Bad" cholesterol) and boost immunity.

So says Chef Shane who now works in Vietnam where banana flowers are used in salads and other preparations. He has many recipes with the banana flower.

Preparing this dish is easy if you know how to cut this "koombe" very fine or in malayalam we call it "kothi ariyuka". Have seen experts in this field and since I have always used the cutting board this art has never been practised. And now that one has food processors everything can be done in a jiffy.

Banana Flower Stir Fry / Vazha Koombe Thoran

Ingredients

1. Banana Flower / Vazha Koombe - 1 or 2 depending on the size

2. Garlic - 2 cloves

3. Small onions - 6

4. Green Chilly - 3 or 4 depending on your tolerance

5. Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tspn

Method

Cut the banana flower finely.

 Apply a little coconut oil on your palms and rub the cut mixture. This will pull the "kara" or the zap out. Mince the rest of the ingredients (leave some onions for tempering) in a food processor or your mortar and pestle. Mix everything and let it cook. Don't add any water but stir it occasionally until it is cooked thoroughly. Temper with mustard seeds, onions, curry leaves. 

Payyoli Chicken Fry

Yesterday being Easter, we had invited our friend and family over for dinner. Menu was most of the tried recipes except for one: the Payyoli Chicken Fry that I found at "Ammachi's Adukkala" a facebook group (67,674 members) which I should say must be one of the fastest growing group. Food is indeed an interesting subject and when foodies from different parts of Kerala group together you are bound to come across recipes that you have never heard of. I reduced the amount of all the ingredients, specially the chilly. Piriyan Chilly is the less hotter version of chilly and akin to Kashmiri chilly. 

Payyoli as you may know is a village on the North Malabar Coast of Kozhikode district in the South Indian state of Kerala.

Payyoli Chicken Fry

Ingredients

1. Chicken - 500 gm ( I used drumsticks and breast)
2. Piriyan Chilly - 100 gm (the recipe called for 200 gm!)
3. Ginger - 100 gm
4. Vinegar - 100 ml
5. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tspn
6. Coconut scrapped - 1/2 cup
7. Salt to taste
8. Curry Leaves - a few

Method

Marinate the chicken pieces with 50 ml Vinegar, Turmeric powder, 50 gm of Ginger and salt for 20 minutes. Pressure cook the chilly for one whistle. Cool this and grind this along with the ginger and vinegar. Take half of this paste and apply it on the marinated chicken and mix the rest with coconut and leave it aside. Heat a frying pan with coconut oil and spread the chicken. Turn it after 10 minutes and add the coconut mix and curry leaves. Since frozen chicken will have much water, it will take some time before the chicken comes out dry. Turn the chicken pieces occasionally until you get a nice aroma. It may take more than 30 minutes but the effort is worth it!