Chicken (or paneer) tikka bites

Nothing too fancy here. Chicken or paneer, marinaded, spiced up and cooked. Perfect as an appetizer/snack. I also use it as a filling when I make my ‘gourmet quesadillas’ – something I have not yet blogged about, but that is coming up.

Here’s what you need:

• 1 lb chopped chicken breast
• Yoghurt
• Olive Oil
• Vegetable Oil
• Coriander powder
• Cumin powder
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Cardamom powder
• Clove powder

Here’s how to do it.

1. Chop the chicken breast into bites sized pieces and put in a container.
2. Cover it with yoghurt (just enough yoghurt to cover the pieces), 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 heaped teaspoon coriander powder, 1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin powder and pinches of clove and cardamom powders.
3. Mix it all thoroughly. Leave to marinade in the fridge for 2 hours.
4. Heat vegetable oil, sauté 5-6 bay leaves and as they turn brown, remove them.
5. Lower the heat to medium.
6. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade (It is alright if some marinade comes with it – just not too much). Fry lightly in the oil, stirring frequently, not letting it burn.
7. Add ½ teaspoon black pepper and salt to taste while there’s still some liquid, mix quickly. Lower heat and cook until the chicken is cooked through.
8. The bites can be served up as an appetizer, or a part of another dish.
9. The chicken can be replaced with paneer. If you want to use a non dairy marinade base, use lemon juice.

 

Paneer – Vegetable Whole Wheat Enchiladas

A word of caution: these are not super authentic Mexican enchiladas. Not that I don’t love me some good, authentic Mexican (or even Tex-Mex) dishes. Let’s just say this is merely my homage to the enchilada!

Here’s what you need:

• 1 chopped large onion
• 2 chopped green peppers
• 2 chopped red peppers
• 2 chopped squashes
• 5 chopped tomatoes
• 400 grams of paneer
• Shredded cheddar (or any other cheese you like. Queso blanco?)
• 8-10 whole wheat tortillas
• 1 ½ teaspoons garlic paste
• 4-5 bay leaves
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• ¼ teaspoon red chili powder
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• Olive oil

Here’s how I do it:

1. Sauté the onion on high then medium heat.
2. As onions turn translucent, add the garlic paste and the bay leaves and cook in.
3. Add the tomatoes, cook to a mush.
4. Remove the bay leaves.
5. In a different pot, sauté the vegetables.
6. Add the vegetables to the onion-tomato mixture.
7. Add about 400g bite sized chopped paneer and the spices (Cumin powder, coriander powder,red chili powder, black pepper and salt).
8. Now we need to cook the paneer, vegetables and spices in together. Stir the spices and paneer in gently, cook on high heat, then medium till the paneer is cooked through and the spices are ‘infused’ through the paneer and vegetables. Add water if there isn’t enough.
9. (Tip: If the spice mix seems a tad dull, add ½ or so teaspoon sugar).
10. The cooking should have evaporated the excess liquid.
11. Cook 8-10 medium whole wheat tortillas on a skillet in olive oil, browning them lightly. Ensure they don’t harden.
12. Put some paneer-vegetable mix into each cooked tortilla and roll it up. Place the tortillas side by side into a lightly greased oven-safe pan.
13. Top with shredded cheddar (or any other cheese of choice) and cook in an oven heated to 300 F for 5-10 minutes or till the cheese is just melted. Serve immediately, garnish with fresh cilantro leaves.
    
14. An epilogue of sorts: it’s fun to replace the paneer with ground, cooked turkey too if you want to go the carnivorous way.

 

The simplest dal

Dal. It’s probably the food memory any Indian person has growing up. So it was with me. The inevitable pressure cooker whistles, the smell of dal being ready and roasting ghee and spices: it is so well ingrained in my memory, that anytime I even recall it I think of lunch.

For most vegetarian households in India, it is the prime provider of protein. Dal – the generic Hindi word for lentils – are healthy, have lots of fiber, protein and in India at least often taken for granted. So much so, that dal is the taken for granted, staple food on almost every meal’s plate. If you would take it to a pot luck, you’d be frowned upon (Well, we make this everyday!). Nonetheless it is one of my favorite dishes and quickly becoming one of Sarandipitea’s as well.

I could go on and on, but here’s the wiki link and it’s pretty good.

On with the recipe: this recipe will work with most dals. It’s just the cooking time you have to vary a bit depending on how much time that dal takes to cook. You can vary things up any which way like: add whatever spices you want, or even add vegetables. This recipe, is absolutely the simplest version. I am writing this one keeping the most commonly used dals in North India: arhar (or toor), masoor (matka or sabut)

The idea is simple: cook the dal separately in a pressure cooker. Cook the chaunk and mix.

Ingredients: (For about 4-6 servings)

For the dal:

• 2 cups of dal (arhar/matka masoor/sabut masoor)
• 2/3 teaspoons of tumeric
• 1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

For the chaunk:

• A generous teaspoon of ghee
• 3/4 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 1/2 teaspoons of red chilli powder
• A generous pinch of asafoetida (hing)

Method:

Dal:

1. Wash the dal thoroughly
2. Add and mix the dal ingredients (dal, salt, tumeric)  to the pressure cooker. Close properly, cook on high heat till you can smell the dal. On mine, this takes about 2-3 whistles. Take off the heat and let it pressure cook the dal.

Chaunk:

1. Heat the ghee on high in a frying pan and as the ghee heats, add some cumin seeds.
2. When the cumin seeds start browning and crackling, add the asafoetida powder and red chilli powder, mix them in for an instant and remove from heat.

Once the pressure has subsided – open the pressure cooker and mix in the chaunk to the dal.That’s it!

 

Toor dal with beet greens

So with the last thing I made, http://bitesandsips.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/winter-risotto/ I was left with bunches of beet greens. The internet mentions them being all nutritious so I felt I should use them. I recall that my mother used to make arhar (toor) dal with spinach – and I used to love that.

The only difference between making regular arhar dal and this is really the beet greens. I just washed them really well and removed the leaves from the stems. Finally, I just tore the leaves into smaller pieces with just my hands and cooked them with the dal and spices.

 

Chicken and vegetable curry

This is usually what I end up making when I feel like making chicken curry. I add plenty of vegetables too – whatever is in season. If I can find them, I add cashew nuts too. Again, a nice big pot is awesome. And oh – it gets better the next day. I like eating this with either some freshly made naan, or rotis, or tandoori rotis, but it goes well with rice too.

You will also need a large pot that can withstand a lot of heat and can be covered.

Here are ingredients for oh, about 6-7 people:

What goes in the marinade:

• A little over a 1 lb of chicken, say 1 1/4 lb (washed, chopped into bite sized pieces)
• 1 box of plain yogurt – the 32 oz one (I usually get the fat free one, you can experiment with yogurt with fat content too)
• 1 heaped teaspoon or equivalent of ginger paste
• 1 heaped teaspoon or equivalent of garlic paste
• Vegetable cooking oil

The other main bits:

• Olive oil
• 3-4 medium tomatoes
• 2 medium bell peppers
• 2 medium yellow squashes/zucchini
• A handful of cashew nuts (a pretty optional ingredient, but when I do add it, I prefer unsalted)
• 2 medium (yellow) onions. The red ones tend to be smaller, so if prefer those, get 3-4.

The spices:

• 2 heaped teaspoons dessicated coconut powder (usually found at Indian stores, but this is optional)
• Salt to taste, about 1-1 1/4 teaspoons should be good
• 2 teaspoons of cumin powder or cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons of coriander powder
• 3/4 -1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of red chilly powder (to taste)
• 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• Keep sugar handy

Now remember, the bell peppers and squashes were the veggies I found when I was making this recipe last, but you can add other vegetables too, or in place of them. Peas and potatoes are popular choices. I don’t usually add them – I am getting enough carbs from the rotis/naan and enough protein from the chicken and yogurt. So the veggies – what and how much, is your choice. As mentioned above, cashew nuts and the dessicated coconut powder are optional but I like them. Cashew nuts add a nice crunchy supplement. The dessicated coconut powder is flaky and soaks up the curry/sauce and adds nice texture to the dish, and also is slightly sweet, helping enhance the other flavors in the dish.

Ok, so let’s get to work:

1. Chop up the chicken, sprinkle about 1-2 teaspoons of cooking oil over the chopped pieces. Add the garlic, ginger and dump the yogurt over all of this and mix it all up thoroughly.
2. Put the whole thing in a box, close it and put it in the refrigerator for at least one and a half hours. Two hours is preferable.
3. Prepare the other stuff: chop the  onions and saute them in some olive oil until translucent. If you are using cumin seeds, add those with the onions and saute them until they pop. For this recipe, I prefer using cumin powder though – mostly because I don’t want the slightly bitter crackly seeds in the sauce.
4. Chop squashes, bell peppers and saute these as well.
5. Chop the tomatoes, add to the sauteed mix. You can add the juice of the tomatoes in as well. Mix it all well and lower heat.
6. Add some boiling water to a small bowl and let the cashews sit in that. This will soften them, getting them ready to absorb the spices.
7. When the chicken has marinated, add the whole thing, yogurt and all to the sauteed mix of onions, tomatoes, vegetables. Mix it all up thoroughly and bring back to high heat.
8. Drain the cashews add them to the mix.
9. Add all the spices and mix thoroughly. Do not yet mix the sugar or coconut powder.
10. Cook on heat heat till there are big bubbles, then cover and keep cooking on high heat for another 5- 10 minutes, returning occasionally to stir.
11. Add the coconut powder and mix thoroughly.
12. Uncover, cook on low to medium heat for a few more minutes. Taste to see if the chicken’s cooked through and also – of the spices have ‘gone/through’ the chicken well.  When this is done, that’s when you can stop the heat.
13. Taste the dish a bit – if you feel the spices aren’t vibrant enough, add a bit of sugar. That should help. The obvious things I am sure I don’t need to mention – say the lack of salt et al!
14. Serve with some sort of Indian leavened bread – my favorite is Tandoori roti these days and/or rice.

 

Dal Makhani

Beans soak for 8 hours before cooking

This is one of my favorite dal dishes. Dal is the generic word for lentils, makhani means buttery. So literally, this dish means buttery lentils and it can definitely be made with a lot of butter and cream and can get a tad heavy. It needn’t though, and the recipe below is light on the fats. It is basically black gram lentils (whole urad dal) and kidney beans (rajma) cooked with tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cream and a few spices. So it’s pretty rich in protein and fibre.

This dish is originally from the north Indian state of Punjab and like most Punjabi dishes, is a hearty dish – even if you do not use that much cream. This is mostly because the whole urad lentils and kidney beans together are fairly heavy pulses. The ginger in the dish definitely helps counter the heavy feeling one may have after eating this. So don’t be miserly on the ginger in it!

Some notes before you start:

1. While you can cook the black gram lentils + kidney beans in a pot of some sort, a pressure cooker works wonders.
2. Make sure you really clean the black grams and kidney beans before starting to cook, since often these are really dirty. Put them in a strainer and let water run through, while you use your hands to clean through the grains.

Finally, this is a dish that requires some amount of preparation and takes longer to cook than most other dal dishes, but when well made, it’s a real treat! It’s best served with tandoori breads – like tandoori rotis or naans, paranthas or even with rice.

Here are ingredient portions for 2-3 people:

• A cup of black gram lentils (whole or sabut urad dal)
• 1/3 cup of kidney beans
• 3 medium tomatoes
• Olive oil or vegetable oil (your choice of cooking oil)
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger or 1 tablespoon ginger paste
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic or 1 tablespoon garlic paste
• 1/3 cup heavy cream, or more to taste
• Red chilli pepper powder to taste
• 1.5 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1 heaped teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 heaped teaspoon coriander powder
• A few cilantro leaves, to garnish (if you want to be that fancy)
  

  Cooking the pureed tomato with a little oil, to thicken it

And this is how we do it:

1. Soak: mix the lentils and beans in a large pot, cover with water to at least twice, thrice the height of the lentils and beans and soak overnight. Eight hours is good.
2. Clean: after soaking, clean the mixture as described above.
3. Pressure cook: Add the cleaned up lentils and beans to a pressure cooker, add 1 1/3 cup water, 1 teaspoon salt and mix thoroughly. Close up the pressure cooker. Cook up to 6 whistles (your pressure cooker might be different). Take off heat after the whistles, let it sit till the pressure comes down.
4. Puree tomatoes: Wash and quarter tomatoes, blend. (You might need to add a wee bit of water to get the blending going).
   

   All done!

5. Heat a little bit of olive oil or vegetable oil in another pan, add the ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander and as it starts crackling/browning add the pureed tomato. Mix thoroughly. Cook on high heat, stirring occasionally so the volume comes down and the puree gets thicker. The paste will go from pink to red.
6. From the pressure cooker, add the softened up, cooked lentil-bean mix to the pan with the thickened tomato puree. Mix thoroughly. If upon opening the pressure cooker there was too much liquid left, drain it, but do not drain away all of it. You might even want to keep it in a glass nearby to use in case you need more liquid to cook in later.
7. Mix the tomato puree + spices with the lentil – bean mixture thoroughly, add the red chilli powder, remaining salt if needed and mix thoroughly, stirring occasionally. Cook on high for a while and then lower the heat to medium.
8. Add the cream and mix in thoroughly, cook on medium heat and let it simmer. Later shut the heat, let the excess liquid evaporate. Mix it up thoroughly before serving.
9. And yeah, if you want it to look fancy, sprinkle those cilantro leaves on top before serving.

 

Paneer Jalfrezi+

Well, the plus is because this is my take on paneer jalfrezi, which is a familiar dish in Indian restaurants. But as is the case with most Indian restaurants, the version there tends to be too red, too tomato-ey, sometimes too spicy and definitely too oily, with a nice little layer of oil on top.

So mine’s gonna look different: this time I even took a pic of how it came out!

Here we go: this is probably going to feed two hungry, or three not so hungry people. Pair this up with a light riesling (yeah, pretty stereotyped here, I am afraid!). Add naans or chapatis to eat this with!

Ingredients:

• Vegetable or canola or peanut oil to cook in
• 2 medium onions
• 1 teaspoon of garlic paste, or equivalent cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of ginger paste, or equivalent amount of fresh ginger
• 1-2 medium bell peppers or a large one
• 1 large or 2 medium sized tomatoes
• 1 large or 2 medium sized (yellow or green) squashes
• 1 pound of paneer, fresh if possible.
• Spices: 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1/3 teaspoon turmeric powder, 1/3 teaspoon red chilly powder (preferably Indian, and quantity to be adjusted for taste), 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon coriander powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

Method:

1. Alright, start off with the usual frying of onions till they become translucent, the cumin seeds till they crackle and pop, then the ginger and garlic too so they release their flavor into the oil. After they’ve been cooked in a bit, lower the heat.
2. Add chopped tomatoes with the juice, fry till they get nice and smushy. Raise the heat back up first, then lower it so things don’t burn
3. Add the bite sized chopped bell peppers and then squash, raise the heat a bit to help them cook a bit faster and then lower it so they don’t burn.
4. Add all the spices, mix ‘em up well with the rest of the food.
5. Raise the heat, add chopped bite sized paneer, mix it in thoroughly.
6. After cooking the mixture above for a while, add some water (not too much, say, the water should be under the level of the food by an inch, half an inch inside the pan), raise the heat on high.
7. Cook on high till the mixture comes to a boil, keep stirring and let it cook on high for a few minutes.
8. Lower the heat to a slight simmer and cover and let it cook till the paneer cooks through. Occasionally check on it and mix the whole thing up.

Last thoughts: the cumin seeds add a nice crunchy feel but you can omit them or reduce them in quantity if you don’t like that sort of thing. Also, I added the squash since I like squash and I also like to add lots of veggies to my food.The traditional jalfrezi does not have that.You can add peas and or corn too – they add volume and a wee bit of sweetness. These would go in between steps 5 and 6 above.

 

Kind of Veggie Korma.

This is yet another plenty of veggies in the same meal kind of dish I love making. I like thinking of it as Veggie korma, but it’s way different from what you’ll encounter at Indian restaurants.

Ingredients

• Peeled, washed, chopped carrots (6 medium sized)
• Shelled, washed Peas (1/2-3/4 lb)
• Peeled, washed, chopped (normal white/yellow) potatoes (4 medium sized)
• Washed, chopped green beans (1/2-3/4 lb)
• Raisins (1 snack box – 1.5 oz)
• Spices:

1. Salt
2. Mustard seeds
3. Turmeric
4. Coriander powder
5. Red chili powder
6. Chopped ginger/ginger paste

Other stuff:

• Grated, dessicated coconut (about 3-4 tbsps)
• Plain yogurt (3/4 – 1 box : a box is about a liter, right?)
• Vegetable oil/cooking oil as you like

Method:

1. Start up: In a big, non stick pot, add 1 to 1 and a half tablespoon of cooking oil. High heat. When it heats up, add a handful (ok ok – don’t panic – here, a handful = 1 tbsp or so) of mustard seeds. They should start crackling if the oil is good and heated. Keep frying them till most of them have changed color. Do not let them burn either (this will be evident if they start smoking/blackening)

2. The first veggies: Add the chopped potatoes, green beans and carrots. (they go in first since they take the longest to cook) Admire the sizzling sounds, and then use a nice non scratching wooden spatula/stirring spoon to stir them up with the mustard seeds.

3. The spices: Add one and a half teaspoons of salt, one and a half teaspoons of coriander powder, 1/3 teaspoon turmeric, 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder (or less or more depending on how hot you want it), 1 level teaspoon of ginger paste and mix it all up real well.

4. Consolidation: Keep stirring for about 3 minutes or so. Add some water = a little less than what would cover up the entire mess in the pot. Lower the heat, cover the pot after making sure nothing is burning at the bottom of the pot and come back after a 5 minutes or so. (come back sooner if you are paranoid like me and want to keep reassuring yourself that nothing really is burning at the bottom of the pot and the water is not all gone.

5. Peas and raisins: Add the peas and raisins in now, stir them in well, probably a little more water – cover (keep doing this till your veggies have cooked/softened – but obviously not gotten mushy – we do not want that to happen)

6. Almost there: When things have almost cooked, and very little water remains, add the grated coconut and stir it in real well. Turn the heat back up and cook with the grated coconut for a couple of minutes on high heat. Add the yogurt (more sizzles), cook for another two-three minutes.

7. Serve with your choice of flatbread or rice.

 

Mulligatawny Soup/Stew

In general, I love making big pots of food that have lots of stuff in them, keep well and are tasty! It’s a throwback to the good old grad school days, but even during these days of working it’s useful to have leftovers around, eh?

Usually I make such dishes when friends are around, that adds to the fun in the kitchen. Especially if they bring wine with them and we cook and drink wine at the same time.

My friend Nilima came up from the city a few weeks back and we made Chicken Mulligatawny soup/stew.She asked me for a recipe, and this is an attempt to nail ‘a recipe’ down. This is hard for me since I never remember exactly how I make anything – so try the recipe below at your own peril! Sadly no pics at the moment.

Traditionally, the name and origin is from Tamil Nadu, India. The literal translation is ‘pepper water’ and I am told in early days of the Raj, the Brit cooks needed to throw the kitchen sink into a dish to feed their burgeoning armies and this hearty soup was born. Now, there are tons of variations – both in terms of whether it’s a thin soup, a thick one or even thick enough to be a stew; and even in what the ingredients are. So presented below is pretty much my take on it.

And oh, if you are a Seinfeld fan, you might remember this soup was immortalized in the Soup Nazi episode.

Ok, so here it is:

Ingredients: (should be able to feed 4 folks with a good appetite!)

• 1 pound of chicken (preferably boneless chicken breast)
• 2 medium white/yellow onions
• 1 medium green apple
• 1 pound of carrots (about 4-5 carrots)
• 1 pound of celery (4-5 sticks)
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 green squash (if you’re a veggie overdose kinda person, like me)
• 1 cup basmati rice
• Spices:

1. 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2. 1 tablespoon cumin powder
3. About 1 tablespoon salt (but obviously vary to taste)
4. 1.5 tablespoon coriander powder
5. 1.5 dessicated coconut powder
6. 0.5 tablespoon (Indian) red chilly powder
7. 0.5 tablespoon black pepper
8. 1 teaspoon garlic paste (or equal in cloves)
9. 1 teaspoon ginger paste

Putting it together:

1. Ingredient preparation step: Chop the chicken, carrots (washed, peeled), celery (washed), bell peppers, green squash into bite sized pieces. Chop the onions and the green apple thin/small
2. The saute step: Saute onions till they soften/brown/become transluscent. As they are doing so, make a little space in the middle to add the garlic and ginger and saute that with some more oil. Make another space for cumin seeds to saute those too – till they start crackling and brown. Don’t let anything burn. If they do, mix garlic, ginger, onions, cumin seeds all up, let them saute together.
3. Prepare the veggies and meat: Sometimes microwaving the carrots with some water for 3-4 minutes will make them soft enough to cook through better. Saute the celery, bell peppers, green squash in another pot. Saute the chicken in the first one (with the onions et al). Once the veggies are sauteed enough, throw them into the first pot.
4. Spice it up: Add the spices. Cook it all together for a bit, mixing it all well together. Stir. No water yet.
5. Add the rice and green apple, mix it too, stir.
6. Add slowly a couple of cups of water, mix, bring to boil.
7. Let it boil for 4-5 minutes.
8. Lower heat, cover and let the whole thing simmer for a while. Keep returning once in a while to ensure nothing’s getting burnt.
9. As water gets absorbed, taste, adjust for salt/spices.

It’s all done by the time the water is absorbed. Make sure the rice is cooked and that the chicken is cooked through.

And oh – to make it entirely veggie, you can replace the chicken with chick peas (in which case add 1 tablespoon of dry mango powder to the spices), or any lentils in general.