Onion Bhaji and Hariyali Chicken Biryani

Onion Bhaji 

I prepare these kind of bhaji very few times as I always loved those Crab style bhajis more than these. But when I felt like eating these last weekend, I prepared them and turned out quite well.

Ingredients

2 Onions

1/2 Cup Bason

1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Finely chop onions and add the salt to it. Keep aside for 5-10 minutes
• Add Bason, corriander leaves- finely chopped, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, jeera powder and mix to form the paste. Add water if needed.
• Heat the oil in a pan, and add a spoonful of it into the paste.
• Mix the paste well and fry the Bhaji's of small size to crispy brown colour.

Notes

I normally apply salt to onion and keep aside as that helps in seperating water and then the paste doesnt loosen after some time.

Since I add the heated oil I dont use eating soda, heated oil is good enough for giving crispiness

Hariyali Chicken Biryani

I wanted to eat something chatpata and hence had prepared Pani Puri. So i had plenty of pudina remaining. So was frozen chicken waiting for being cooked in freezer. Ajoy wanted to eat biryani and I wanted to get over the freeze items... Thats when this recipe was born :) and became super hit for its different taste and fragnance :)

Ingredients

6 Leg Pieces of Chicken

2 Cup Basamati Rice

1/2 Bunch of Pudina

1/2 Bunch of Corriander Leaves

2 Green Chillies

2 Cinnamon Sticks

1/4 Spoon Black Pepper

4 Cloves

4 Cardamoms

1/2 Cup Ghee

3 Onions

1 Tomato

1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste

4 Spoon Curd

1 Spoon Red chilli powder

A Pinch of Turmeric Powder

Salt to taste

Method

• Marinate chicken with red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garlic paste and curd and keep aside for couple of hours.
• Warm around 6 cups of water and soak the rice in it and keep aside for half an hour.
• In a mixie grind pudina leaves, corriander leaves, tomato and green chilli to fine paste.
• Keep aside 2 spoon of ghee and heat remaining ghee in a pan.
• Chop one of the onion into thin slices and fry it to light brown colour into the ghee. Keep aside.
• In remaining ghee from frying, add cinnamon, black pepper and remaining onions - grated and cook them till light brown in colour.
• Add this mixture to mixie along with green paste and grind again to smooth paste
• In same pan add this ground paste, 1.5 cup of water and marinated chicken and cook till completely dry with stirring in between. Add salt to taste and keep aside.
• While chicken is cooking, drain the water from the rice, cook it with another 2 cups of water and salt to taste till almost done. Drain the water and keep aside for cooling down.
• Heat 1/2 spoon of ghee and add cloves and cardamom to it. Fry them for a minute on low flame and then add this ghee to the rice and mix well.
• Grease a thick bottom pan or cooker and layer the rice and chicken mixture alternating. Also add fried onions in between while adding chicken.
• Cook on low flame for 15 minutes and serve hot

Notes

I had leg pieces of chicken so used them all but you can substitute it with equal grams plus little more of normal chicken pieces too.

Here the electric stove has variations of 8 degrees so I used 2 for cooking the layered biryani instead of my usual cooker on top of tawa and a layer of potato down the biryani. So if you are using regular stove you would need to follow same procedure so that biryani doesnt burn.

Tandoori Paneer Pizza And Tri Colored Rice

Tandoori Paneer Pizza  

My favorite dish :) esp paneer flavor.. and I so miss it here. Well there is a food chain which has paneer pizza available here but then I really didn't like the flavor. So i had been meaning to prepare this since ages and finally made it yesterday. It turned out quite nice. I also did little r&d and found out how to do wheat base rather than all maida base - little healthier version :)

Ingredients

4 Cup Wheat Flour

2 Cup Maida

400g Paneer

2.5 Cup Mozarella Cheese

1 Cup Parmesan Cheese

1.5 Cup Milk

5 Spoon Curd

2.25 Spoon Active Dry Yeast

1/2 Onion

1/4 Cup Dried Tomatoes

4 Sweet Bell peppers

1/4 Cup Olive Oil

2 Spoon Butter

1/2 Spoon Sugar

2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Garam Masala

2 Spoon Tandoori Masala

1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste

1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste

1 Spoon Basil Leaves

Salt to taste

Method

• Warm a cup of water, add sugar and active dry yeast. Still well, wrap up with the clinging film and keep aside for 10 minutes to let yeast activate
• In a plate mix wheat flour, maida, olive oil, melted butter, activated yeast and salt to taste
• Add milk and knead the soft dough. Keep it in a large bowl covered with clinging film for around 2 hours to double in size.
• In a bowl, mix curd, garlic paste, ginger paste, jeera powder, corriander powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste.
• Marrinate the cubed paneer with this curd mixture and refrigerate it till the time pizza dough is doubling up
• When the dough is doubled up, divide it into two portions and spread it on pizza pans
• Spread parmesan cheese, grated mozarella cheese on top of the pizza base
• Spread the cubed paneer pieces, bell pepper slices, onion slices and dried tomato evenly on top of it
• Sprinkle basil leaves
• Preheat oven to 400F/200C
• Bake the pizza at 400F/200C for 25 minutes

Notes

While activating yeast, the water should be luke warm - just warm to touch otherwise if too hot the yeast would burn up. To know if yeast is activated you need to see if foam is present in the yeast-water-sugar mixture.

When I baked pizza i found that one of the pizza was really risen well and other one was also rised but not as much as the other one. So I binged ;-) a bit and found that the while baking pizza we should be baking only on upper shelve the middle shelf doesnt have enough heat and hence the pizza doesnt rise well in that section. Well tip for me for next time.

Tri Colored Rice

Well, I know its been long since I posted here but I was on a little break from cooking for few weeks. I was busy with work and tired to cook everyday. When I was in India, I use to get this rest when I use to go to pune almost everymonth. Both my mom and mother in law were sweet enough to feed me without doing anything at all :) God.. I miss those days.. Now I had to take this break and rely on MacD/Subway/TacoBell/Husband's cooking once in a while. But now I feel fresh and motivated for cooking again and foremost bored with all the above items.. So here is the new dish that I tried. The recipe is something that I just thought of giving shot and kept on adding ingredients as I felt like. But I am stunned at the outcome. So easy, nutritious and yet good looking dish.

Ingredients

9 Cup Almost cooked Rice

2 Tomatoes

Handful of Corriander Leaves

3 Handsful of Spinach

1 Green Chilli

1 Spoon Corriander Powder

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoom Garam Masala

Roasted Cashews for garnishing

Ghee

Salt to taste

Method

• Add salt in the rice, divide into three parts and keep aside.
• In a mixie grind tomatoes to form the puree. Keep aside
• Grind spinach, corriander leaves and green chilli adding minimal water in it. Keep aside
• Boil the Spinach-corriander leaves puree and let it cook till almost dry and thick enough
• Add corriander powder and 1 part of the rice in it and let it cook and dry completely.
• Add couple of spoons of ghee and mix and cook for another minute. Keep aside.
• Boil tomato puree
• When the puree starts to thicken, add red chilli powder, garam masala and 1 part of the rice.
• When the rice is done and dry sprinkle couple of spoon of ghee and keep aside
• Arranage the rice parts in the rice dish and garnish with the cashews

Notes

When grinding spinach i added little water and only 1/3 of spinach at first. When it was pureed I added another part of spinach and pureed it. That saved me with using extra water and while cooking the spinach wasnt over cooked and didnt have to wait too long for it to thicken.

I boiled rice and when it was almost done, just removed the excess water and ran through cold tap water so that each grain separates out from each other.

Mangana And Paneer Biryaani

 Mangana

One of my favorite sweet dish, so much so that every Saturday mom use to make this for lunch and i always looked forward to it. Finally I decided to make it on my own, off course with the recipe help from mom. I modified it a little bit though.

Ingredients

1 Cup Harbara Daal

3/4 Cup Jaggery

1/2 Cup Cashews

1/2 Cup Raisins

3 Cup Milk

A pinch of Cardamom Powder

Salt to taste

Method

• Pressure cook the harbara daal by adding 1.5 cup water over 4-5 whistles.
• Add jaggery, cashews, raisins, cardamom powder and salt and cook over medium flame for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool down
• Add milk to the cooled mixture and serve

Notes

Isnt it simplest sweet dish ever :) The taste is amazing esp because of jaggery, daal and dry fruits.

You can use coconut milk instead of normal milk but since mom uses milk I used same.

Paneer Biryaani

Last week I made this but didn't get time to post it. Long time ago Anuja had asked me about preparing the biryaani with something veg. I remember she mentioned that she doesn't want it with paneer but I just couldn't help but make it with paneer. So sorry for fulfilling your wish only half way through but this recipe is just for you. Hope you get to try it and like it :) It turned out a simple affair and yet very delicious. This one is inspired by Spicy Biryaani recipe but I modified it little bit so as to take Paneer taste into account.

Ingredients

3 Cup Rice

400g Paneer

4 Tomatoes

3 Onions

2 Potatoes

1 Cup Cashews

1/2 Cup Almonds

8 Cinnamon

15 Cloves

15 Cardamons

1/2 Spoon Poppy Seeds

1/2 Spoon Black Pepper

1 Spoon Jeera

1/2 Spoon Saunf

1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste

1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste

1/4 Cup Curd

1/2 Cup Milk

2 Pinch Saffron

8 Spoon ghee

4 Spoon Butter

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Cut the paneer into cubic pieces
• In a bowl, mix turmeric powder, red chilli powder, ginger paste, garlic paste, curd and salt to taste.
• Add cubed paneer pieces in it and mix well so that the marrination is completely covering the pieces. Keep it in dry, cool place for around couple of hours.
• Soak rice in warm water and keep aside
• In a pan add butter and shallow fry the paneer pieces to light brown tinge over medium heat. Keep them aside
• In same pan, in same butter, add 4 cinamon, 5 cloves, black pepper, poppy seeds, jeera, sauf, corriander powder, almonds and 1/2 cup cashews and roast it over low-medium flame till light aroma feels the air. The masalas would be light brown by now.
• Add one diced onion and cook till onion turns light brown. Let the mixture cool down.
• In a mixie grind 3 tomatoes and keep aside.
• Grind the above cooked masala with remaining tomato to form fine paste.
• In a pan, add 2 spoon of ghee and this masala and roast for a while.
• Add tomato puree and salt to taste in it and cook till the gravy thickens
• Add paneer pieces and cook till the gravy dries completely. Keep aside.
• Pressure cook potatoes, cut them into slices after removing their cover and keep aside.
• Warm Milk, add saffron and keep aside.
• In a pan, boil water and add the soaked rice. Cook till almost done.
• Drain remaining water and run it through cold water.
• In a small pan, heat 4 spoon of ghee and add 4 cinamons, 10 cloves, 15 cardmom and salt to taste. Roast for couple of minutes and add it to the rice. Mix well and keep aside.
• Cut the remaining 2 onions into thin slices.
• In a Pan, add little oil and fry the onions onto medium-high flame till they are light brown in color. Keep aside.
• In same oil, fry the remaining 1/2 cup cashews and keep aside.
• Grease the cooker with 2 spoon of ghee and layer biryaani. Spread the potato slices to cover the cooker bottom first. Spread 1/3 of rice, then spread a layer of half of paneer masala, sprinkle some cashews, and browned onions.
• Do the same layering again (Rice, masala, cashews and onions) and then cover it with remaining 1/3 portion of rice.
• Sprinkle Some more cashews and onions, keeping aside a few for decoration.
• Make few through and through holes through the layered biryaani with the back of spatula.
• Spread the saffron milk in them.
• Cover with the lid and pressure cook over low heat for 25- 30 minutes.
• Garnish with left cashews and onions and serve.

Notes

I used 1 layer of rice 1/2 paneer and then again another layer of rice with rice from just 2 cups of raw rice. Also used half quantity of cashews, onions and garnishing spices. Stored the remaining half portion of paneer masala for later use this week. I just had to do the rice and onion portion again and could quickly make the dinner. Helped on the hectic day a lot. :) And it tasted even much better as well because of storing masala for few days :)

I always use the potato layering to cover up cooker so that the biryaani doesnt get burnt while pressure cooking it. I am speechless for that idea, helps a lot.

Also stored the marrinated paneer in fridge since it was quite hot here. But i think even in other time thats a better way so that it dries even further and the marrination sticks to paneer.

Dates Peacan Chocolaty Brownies And Whole Spices Veggie Pulav

 Dates Peacan Chocolaty Brownies

Just few weeks back I had got lots of choco-chips and Peacans from the costco. Thinking I could bake some cakes, muffins. So today when payesh that I made last week was getting over, I thought it would be nice to make these brownies for dessert hoping they would last for week.. But frankly, they have turned out so well, I wonder if they are going to last even till monday :) We already have had 2 pieces each :)

Ingredients

80g Dark Chocolate bar

1.5 Cup semi sweet choco-chips

3 Cup Powdered Sugar

1.5 Cup Maida

1 Cup Butter

1 Cup Dates

1 Cup Peacans

3 Eggs

1 Spoon Vanilla Essence

Salt to taste

Method

• In a glass bowl, add dark chocolate, 1/2 cup semi sweet choco-chips and butter and microwave for 1 minute. Stir well.
• Microwave for 30 more seconds and stir well. Keep aside.
• Sieve maida couple of times and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 375F/190C
• In a big bowl add eggs, powdered sugar, vanilla essence. Beat for 5 minutes.
• Add in above made chocolate paste, maida and salt to taste. Mix lightly, just enough to make it consistent paste.
• Add in remaining 1 cup of chocochips, dates and peacans chopped. Again mix it lightly.
• Grease a pan and pour in batter into it. Bake the brownies at 375F/190C for 35 minutes.
• Serve with ice-cream, topped with chocolate sauce and some nuts chopped finely.

Notes
I normally microwave chocolate to melt it - works wonders :D, but if you don't have microwave, you can boil water in a pan and keep a bigger bowl on top of it with chocolate and melt it over low heat. Be careful not to over heat the chocolate or it would spoil the taste and feel of the chocolate.

Whole Spices Veggie Pulav
I like black pepper a lot. Not powdered one but whole ones or the crunchy ones, like in papad. Since we moved here, I have been having only garlic papad instead of the spicy one that I normally like. Blame it to Ajoy ;-) for he likes that one or on me that I am bored to serve two different varieties to both of us. But then yesterday I said - that's about it. I have to have those black pepper by hook and crook and that's how this recipe came up :) It was huge hit and I am going to make it again sometime soon.


Ingredients
2.5 Cup Rice
2 Cup Cauliflower florets
2 Raw Bananas
1 Medium sized Eggplant
1 Potato
1 Cup Mutter
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper
1/2 Spoon Jeera
4-5 Cloves
4-5 Cardamom
A pinch of Saffron
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

• In a pan bring water to boil and add rice. Cook the rice over high flame, with constant stirring till its done.
• Strain remaining water from the rice and keep the rice aside.
• In another pan, heat oil and fry cauliflower florets, egg plant pieces and raw banana slices. Keep aside.
• Fry mutter for a second and keep them aside too.
• Grate potato and fry them making in chunks to get crispy hash brown like chunks. Keep them aside too.
• In another pan, heat ghee, add cloves, cardamoms, black pepper, jeera and let them splutter.
• Add rice, fried cauliflower, eggplant and banana slices. Stir it and let is cook for couple of minutes.
• Heat a spoon and add saffron crushing it a bit. After it starts sending nice aroma, mix in rice lightly.
• Add in salt and stir for another minute. Serve by garnishing it with fried muttor and crispy potatoes.

NotesI wanted rice to be white and yet give that saffron filled rich aroma and hence I didnt put it while making rice but added it at last minute. I used black pepper in abundance as you already know the reason about it too :) but i didnt use much of cardmom or cloves, because I do add it to some of the vegetables or chicken/mutton dishes and also because I dont like them as much as black pepper :) So adjust spices according to your taste. The above portions worked wonders for me and right now enjoying even during lunch while writing this. yummy.

Pineapple Fried Rice

These days Thai is one of my preferred cuisines when eating out. Fried rice is must and if it has pineapple then its like sone pe suhaaga :) But its been while i cooked thai at home, so today I decided to make this rice instead of normal pulav.

Ingredients

3 Cup Rice

3 Cup Broccoli

2 Cup Pineapple

1 Cup Carrot

1 Cup Celery

1 Red Bell Pepper

1 Onion

2 Green Chillies

1/4 Cup Soya Sauce

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Soak rice in water for half an hour
• Bring water to boil and add rice to it. Cook till its almost done. Strain and keep aside
• Heat a pan and add onions, green chillies, carrots, celery, broccoli, bell pepper. Stir well and cook till the raw smell of vegetables go away and they seem to be half cooked.
• Add in pineapple, soya sauce and salt to taste. Stir for a minute.
• Add the cooked rice and stir well. Fry for 2-3 minutes and rice is ready

Notes

Soya Sauce does give the salty taste to the rice, so while adding salt be careful to consider that.

Crabs Pulav

Recently we started getting the crabs from Costco. The first thing I made was this Pulav, an impromptu attempt to make something quick yet tasty. It turned out such a hit that we craved for more for days.. So this dish these days makes appearances in our meal quite regularly.

Ingredients

1.5 Cup Rice

300g Crabs Meat

1 Cup Curd

1/2 Spoon Red Chili Powder

1/2 Cup Black Pepper Powder

1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

A pinch of Cinnamon Powder

A pinch of Cloves Powder

Salt to taste

Ghee

Method

• Mix in curd with red chilli powder, black pepper powder, coriander powder, jeera powder, Cinnamon powder, cloves powder and salt to taste.
• Add in the crab meat to the mixture and keep aside for hour or two.
• Soak rice for half an hour.
• Boil water and add in rice. Cook till rice is almost done. Keep aside.
• Heat ghee and add the crabs-curd-spices mixture and on medium heat cook till the crabs are done and the mixture separates from the ghee.
• Add in the cooked rice and mix lightly. Sprinkle salt to taste.
• Cook for a minute or two. Serve with raita.

Notes

Here we get big crabs, we got around 1.5lb = 0.7Kg and then after washing removed the meat from the shell and used the meat. If the shell is too hard or crabs or small try with shell.

To get the crab meat out from shell, we cut the shell with sharp knife and take the meat carefully out.

Veg Biryaani

I had been making this for a while now, but its only yesterday that I actually managed to click the photos. So here I am posting this recipe, esp for all my vegetarian friends who are craving for Biryaani.


Ingredients
3 Cup Rice
350g Bhendi
250g Small Eggplants
250g Carrots
2 Raw Bananas
4 Potatoes
4 Onion
3 Tomato
2 Spoon Pudina Leaves
10 Garlic Cloves
2 Spoon Grated Ginger
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Almonds
1 Spoon Dry Coconut
1/2 Spoon Poppy Seeds
2 Dried Red Chillies
1/4 Spoon Saunf
1/4 Spoon Black Pepper
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Corriander Seeds
3/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Cardamom
2 Cloves
3 Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Milk
A Pinch Of Saffron
Salt to taste
Ghee
Oil

Method

• Pressure cook 2 potatoes
• Soak rice in warm water for half an hour.
• Soak poppy seeds and keep aside
• Fry the whole egg plants, bhendi, peeled and diced bananas, 2 potatoes, and carrots and keep aside.
• Boil a pot full of water and add in the soaked rice. Cook till almost done Let the extra water drain completely through sieve.
• Heat a spoon of ghee and add in cardamoms, a cinnamon stick, cloves and salt. Add it to the rice and keep it aside.
• Heat oil and add in finely chopped 2 onions. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
• In same pan heat another spoon of oil and add in jeera, red chillies, coriander seeds, black pepper, saunf, dried coconut, cinnamon, 1/4 cup cashews and almonds.
• Add in garam masala, red chili powder, poppy seeds, pudina leaves and earlier fried onions. Cook till spices start spreading aroma.
• Let the mixture cool down and then adding the chopped tomatoes grind it to fine paste.
• Heat the ghee and add in the ground mixture. Fry till oil separates
• Add in all fried vegetables and salt to taste and cook for couple of minutes. Keep aside.
• Warm the milk with safron and keep aside.
• Deep fry the thin sliced onions and cashews till they are crisp and light brown in color. Keep aside
• In a greased cooker layer the sliced boiled potatoes, then 1/3rd of rice, 1/2 of vegetable, again 1/3rd portion of rice, remaining half of the vegetable and remaining portion of the rice.
• With big spatula make through and through wholes in the layer and sprinkle the safron milk.
• Let the cooker sit on low heat till the pressure builds up. Garnish with the earlier fried crisp onions and cashews. Serve hot with raita.

Notes
Instead of cooking vegetables in gravy i added fried vegetables to the gravy. The taste was awesome and i could make sure that none of the vegetables are underdone or overdone.
I also wished I had those baby potatoes instead and could use them whole deep fried instead of diced ones.