Bajara Chawal (Steamed Rice - Indian Style)

Here is a delicious rice dish that can accompany any gravy-like servings, not bland like white rice, and not intense as Biryani.

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 cups (soaked in water for an hour)
Oil - about 2 tsp
Onion - 1 medium
Cinnamon Stick - 1/2
Cardamon - 4 pcs
Garlic Ginger Paste - 1 1/2 tsp
Coriander leaves - one handful (Finely cut/minced)
Turmeric Powdder- 1/4 tsp
Green Chilli - 1
Mint Leaves - 2 or 3 leaves
Hot Water - 4-5 cups (but heat 6 cups)
Salt - To taste

Slice onions and add it to pot after heating oil, once onions turn golden/brown, add the Cinnamon stick & Cardamon, then ginger garlic paste and cook for a while till the raw smell disappears. Add coriander leaves and in a minute, add turmeric and then chili.

Now add the water and salt, bring to boil then add the rice, adding mint as well. now cook in a high flame till the rice is about 3/4 cooked, if water evaporates too quickly (and water level goes below the rice), then add more hot water, taste for salt in the process.

Once rice is cooked 3/4 and water level has gone down about 1cm below rice level. set to low fire, cover the pot (better by adding some weight so that the steam will not escape) and cook for another 5-7 minutes. after that you can turn off the fire but keep the lid closed for another 5 minutes before serving.

Bon Appetit

Black Pepper Chicken (Kali Merchi ka salan)

Been sometime since I last posted anything, close to 8 years to be precise!
Circumstances and bachelors life has forced me back into the kitchen (for better or worse). and here again another recipe!

Black Pepper chicken:

Ingredients:
- 1 chicken cut into pieces (1000 gm or so)
- 2 medium sized onions
- 2 handfuls of coriander leaves
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1 tbsp. ginger & garlic paste
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tbsp. black pepper powder (you can add more later if you want it more spicy or more hint of black pepper)
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp lemon juice

Direction
1. In a grinder the onions and coriander leaves into a smooth batter with a bit of water.
2. Heat the oil and add to it the ginger & garlic paste and sauté for a mintue or two until the raw smell goes away then add to it the grinder onion and coriander leaves and add to it the coriander powder, turmeric powder, salt and the black pepper powder and cook for two minutes then add the chicken and let it cook. 3. After the chicken is thoroughly cooked add the lemon juice and garam masala and serve hot with either rootie or rice.

Side note, you can add water if you want it more watery and you can add yoghurt if you wish to make it more thick gravy. 

p.s. I got the recipe from my sister.

Potato & Eggplant Dish

This is a totally vegetarian recipe, when you get bored of all the mutton, beef and chicken, this is your heaven :)

Servings: 3

Ingredients:

2 1/3 tbsp Cooking Oil

1 Onion (small-medium size) cut into slices

1/2 tbsp Ginger & Garlic Paste

1/2 tbsp Coriander Powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder

3 Tomato (big size) cut into cubes

2 Potato (medium size) cut into 2-3 cm cubes

4 Eggplants (medium size) cut into 4-5 cm cubes

3/4 tbsp Salt

Method:

Start by heating the oil in a cooker, after that add the slices of onion, let it fry till the color becomes brown, add the ginger/garlic paste, coriander powder and turmeric powder, after a while add the tomato cubes, cook it for while, using a spoon, smash the cubes of tomato into the bottom and side of the cooker (just to take out the juice from the tomato faster).

After that add the potato, cook it for about 10-12 min, add 1/4 tbsp spoon salt, and keep stirring. Add the eggplant, and then add another 1/4 tbsp salt. stir slowly (the texture of eggplant is lighter compared to potato), cook for a while and then add the 1/4 tbsp salt, taste it after a while, you might want to add more salt. you will be cooking for another 12 min after you add the eggplant. After that, there is your dish :)

while serving, you might want to add some coriander leaves on top of your dish.

Note: Great and simple dish, i really love the texture and taste of eggplant.. umm, delicious :)

i have some pictures, will be adding it later when i have access to my camera, I am writing this from my workplace (its break time in here).

Bombay Chicken Biryani - Farouq

A few weeks ago, Adnan offered me a position as co-editor for his blog; being a foodie / food lover, I willingly accepted his offer not knowing what I was getting myself into. Hahahhaha. While juggling work and school, I managed to cook Bombay Biryani on a Saturday morning within a short period of time, it actually took me less than an hour and half to cook a tasty biryani. This isn’t my first attempt therefore not many mistakes took place in this endeavour of mine. Please also take note that I improvised here and there to make up for lack of ingredients.

I was introduced to biryani at a very young age (like many Malays). The Johor Biryani or rather Beriani Johor is very much popular because it is known to be very rich and tasty. Beriani Johor is classified into a few categories such as Beriani Muar*, Beriani Gam, Beriani Dam and many more. I’ve also tried the Bengali Biryani, South Indian Biryani and also the normal Desi Biryani. I’ve yet to try the Lankan Biryani, haven’t had the opportunity, but soon inshaAllah.

Unlike Adnan I grew up here (Malaysia) and America (but my love for food knows no boundries), therefore the meals I make aren’t usually authentic neither conventional; because the ingredients I’d add into my cooking would be a mix of Malay and American spices. So please don’t feel offended if I add shrimp paste or rosemary into this biryani, hahahhaha. Plus everything has to be spicy, well almost everything, the spicier the better, that’s my motto.

To make this delicious dish, you would need the following ingredients:

1. Chicken Biryani:

- 4 pieces of chicken breast cut into small pieces

- Some onions (depends on the size really, because if it is really big than 1 would be enough)

- Oil (please use either vegetable or olive oil, don’t yall use that nasty palm oil ok)

- Tomatoes (4 to 5 cut into cubes)

- Green Chillies

- Ginger

- Garam masala

- Chilli Powder

- Paprika

- Turmeric Powder

- Coriander Powder

- Kurma Powder

- Times

- Fresh Cilantro

- Fresh Oregano

- Salt

Pour the oil into a pot, heat it up until it becomes reasonably hot. Then dump in the onions into the pot. Sauté the onions until they become golden brown. After you get the onions to turn golden brown, you will get this amazing aroma of cooked onions; that is the cue for you to put in your tomatoes. Leave your tomatoes to cook for approximately 4 minutes. After that, dump in your chicken breasts along with the abovementioned spices namely garam masala, chilli powder, paprika, turmeric powder, coriander powder, kurma powder, times, salt and also green chillies. Leave them to cook for about 8 minutes. Once chicken is cooked, turn off the heat and put in fresh cilantro and oregano.

Voila chicken briyani ready!!! Well not really!!!

2. Biryani Rice:

- Rice

- Turmeric Powder

- Salt

- Cloves and Cardamoms (as much as you like J)

- Tomato Puree

- Olive oil

Since this isn’t the conventional biryani, you can just cook it in a rice cooker. The conventional way on the other hand would require you to boil the rice until it became half- cooked; you would then pop the half-cooked rice placed on top of the chicken biryani into the oven to be cooked all the way through (I’ve tried this a few times and the rice wasn’t cooked all the way through). The non-conventional way however would only require you to dump in all the above said ingredients into a rice cooker. You might wonder, why put in turmeric powder and tomato puree, well the answer is simple, I couldn’t find any saffron, so I improvised by replacing with turmeric powder for color and tomato puree for flavor.

After the rice is cooked, mix it with the chicken biryani, and for presentation sake, put some fresh cilantro along with fresh oregano into the biryani. If you have mint leaves, cut them up into small pieces and dump it in the rice for more flavour, and of course it’ll give the biryani more color.

There you have it, your Bombay Biryani.

chicken manchurian

Hi ppl, i have another great recipe today, you making it a unique way, and you will get a unique taste, i took some pics from my Camera, sadly i still didn't find the usb cable yet.. but anyway..

The recipe consists of 4 stages, i will go stage by stage mentioning the ingredients and the methods.

Stage 1:

1 Chicken cut into pieces.

5-6 garlic cloves finely chopped or even smashed

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp white flour (if its raw white flour, usually you will purify it by filtering it, i used the filter we use for tea =.=)

1 egg.

Add everything above (except the chicken) and mix well, after its liquid, pour into the chicken, and mix again to make sure every piece gets the gravy.

Now take out a large frying pan, pour oil and heat it, fry the chicken till the color becomes brownish/golden. and take out, put aside.

Stage 2

4-5 cloves garlic, cut in lenght

Fry it till it becomes brown/dark brown and put aside.

Stage 3

2 Capsicum (cut into medium square shapes)

2 Carrot (cut round slices)

Start by frying the carrot (since it take longer for the carrot to soften), after a while add the capsicum, fry for a while and then take them out and put aside.

Stage 4

7-8 tbsp tomato ketchup

4-5 tbsp hot sauce.

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 cup water

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

pour everything in one bowl, and mix. put aside

Stage 5

2tbsp Cornflour powder

2 tbsp green onion cut into piece (you can take this by taking one green onion, and start cutting it into small piece, you will get roughly 2 tbsp)

Mix the cornflour with water and put aside.

Now put the chicken back into the frying pan, give it enough heat, and now add the gravy of stage 4, fry for a while, now add the cornflour/water mix (stage 5) , fry for a while, add the capsicum, carrot (stage 3) , green onion and fried garlic (stage 2). keep frying for while.

Bingo, you have your dish :)

*Comments,

i won't lie to you, i only did this for quarter of chicken, i was doing some testing, and if this turned out great, then i will have to cook about 2 chickens for a party on this weekend, err never mind that..

Taste was Great.. it had a mix fried chicken, little bit of barbecue taste, little bit of sweetness, plus the cooked veggie really added some flavor.

Recommendations

* You should try this recipe :)

Mutton

I honestly don't know what is the recipe name, lol.. but its one of those indian recipes full of spices :)

1 kg mutton

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp salt

1/4 cup oil (5 tbsp)

2 dry red chilli (big)

5 dry red chilli (small)

1 tsp mustard seed

3-4 cloves (the small rocket shape spice :D )

1/4 tsp red chilli

1/2 tsp zeera powder

1/4 tsp black seed

1 tbsp brown sugar (if you using whit, use 3/4 tbsp)

1/2 tsp somf

2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

4 tbsp lemon juice

250 gram curd/yogurt

Bois mutton with salt and with 1 cup of water in a pressure cooker, close the lid of the cooker, take one whistle and then turn off the fire. let it cool and let the steam escape for a while, now open the cooker, separate the mutton from its water/mutton soup

in another cooker, heat oil, now add mustard seed, small and big chilli, cloves, cook for a while now add the mutton, after that add the rest of the ingredients except the lemon juice and the water you got from mutton boiling.

Cook for a while and now add the lemon juice along the water. now cook on a medium/slow fire till the water starts to look more like a gravy.

Enjoy the Meal :)

*Notes

I used 1/2 kg mutton, so what i did was i just slashed every ingredient by half (except water) but apparently, the spice was too much, and it was a bit too spicy, which should be fine if you like spices. But the taste was gooood :)

*Suggestions:

If you don't like spices, then just reduce the red chille powder, and the dry red chilles, both big and small.

Masoor ke Daal

its been a while since i last posted, so here is something on the run.

As you know, there are many types of daal, this is for Masoor daal. this is one of the basics that almost every "indian" house will have 5 times a week at least.. this consists of 2 rounds.

Round 1

1 cup (170 ml) masoor ke daal

1 1/2 onion (medium sized)

2 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp red chilli powder

2-3 tomato (depends on size)

2-3 cup water

3/4 tbs salt

Cut onion and tomato into small pieces, smash garlic, now add all of the above in one pot and cook for a 12-15 min.

Let it cool, after that put what you cooked in a grinder, and mix it till everything becomes liquid. (or is it called a blender.. not sure =.=).

now put everything back in the pot, taste for salt, if you need more then add. keep on low fire.

Round 2

2 tbsp Oil

1/2 onion (slices)

1/2 tsp zeera seed

6-8 karya patta

while the daal is slow cooking, prepare a frying pan. heat oil, now add the onion, then zeera seed, then the karya patta, heat for a while, now put everything in the daal pot, and close the lid of the pot (this gives a nice aroma, and a unique taste, this is one of moms special tricks) and now turn off the heat from the daal pot. don't open the lid till 10 min later. and enjoy the glamorous taste of the daal :)

FYI: i am cooking lamb now, don't know what is the recipe name, but inshallah will put it up later after i have done cooking it and tasting it.