Mutton Liver Fry

Mutton Liver is said to be a very healthy dish. This has lots of medicinal values and are prescribed to patients recovering from various diseases. This has large iron content and are often prescribed for those with anemia. 

Apart from the nutrition side, this is very tasty too. One day, we suddenly had a great craving for liver and we searched in and around walmart and could find only Beef liver. As we hadn't tasted that before, we were a bit reluctant to get that. Later we found this in the Halal market and were so happy to pick it out. 

Ingredients:

Mutton Liver                          --   ½ kg

Shallots/Pearl onions              --    250 gm

Ginger                                   --    1 inch piece

Garlic                                    --    5 – 6 cloves

Green chillies                         --    5 -6

Tomato                                 --    1

Turmeric powder                  --    1 tsp

Pepper powder                     --    1 ½ tsp

Curry leaves                          --   3 springs

Coriander leaves                   --   few

Oil                                        --    2 tbsp

Salt                                       --    to taste

Preparation of Liver Fry:

Cut the liver into cubes and wash them atleast 5 – 6 times under running water. This will have lot of blood and make sure you clean almost completely. You will still find traces when emptied into another vessel.

Pressure cook the liver with salt, turmeric powder and pepper powder. I cooked it for 3 or 4 whistles. Do not add water.

 

Add oil into a pan and fry the thinly sliced pearl onions, green chillies, ginger and garlic until the pearl onions are translucent.  Add the sliced tomatoes and curry leaves and let it cook until the tomatoes are squishy.

 

Add the cooked liver with the excess water. Let it dry until the required gravy thickness is obtained. Optionally you can add coconut milk to get a thicker gravy.

Add the coriander leaves and a pinch of pepper powder few minutes before turning off the flame.

This goes well with appam, puttu, chapathi etc.

Aloo Capsicum

Ingredients:

Potatoes                              --    2 small size

Capsicum/Green Pepper      --    1 big

Onion                                  --    1 medium size

Tomato                               --    ½ of a medium size

Turmeric powder                 --    ¼ tsp

Chilly powder                      --    1 tsp

Coriander powder               --    ½ tsp

Cumin Seeds                       --   1 tsp

Mustard Seeds                    --   1 tsp

Oil                                       --   2 tbsp

Salt                                     --   to taste

Preparation:

Peel and cube the potatoes, cube the green pepper and tomatoes and thinly slice the onions.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Now add cumin seeds and potatoes. Fry the potatoes until they are half cooked. Frying will help the potatoes to retain their shape. Add sliced onions and sauté until they are translucent. Add tomatoes and let it cook.

 

Add salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder and coriander powder and sauté until the raw smell goes off. Add the cubed green pepper and required amount of water to cook the green pepper.

 

Cook on a low flame until the capsicum is soft; the pan closed with a lid. Adjust the amount of water according to the gravy consistency required.

Serve hot with rotis.

Chicken Cutlet

Ingredients:

Chicken breast                    --   1 kg

Onion                                 --   3 - 4 medium

Potato                                --   3 large

Green Chillies                     --   4 -5 

Ginger Garlic paste            --    2 tsp

Turmeric Powder               --    ¼ tsp

Chilly Powder                   --    2 tsp

Garam Masala                  --    2 tsp

Pepper Powder                 --    2 tsp

Egg white                          --    2 large eggs

Bread crumbs                   --    3 cup

Oil                                    --    to fry

Salt                                   --    to taste

Preparation:

Cook chicken pieces with salt and turmeric powder. Add water if required. Water will come out of the chicken pieces. Shred the cooked chicken, or slightly grind it in your mixer.

 

Peel and cook the potatoes until tender and mash it well. Keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion, green chillies, ginger garlic paste and salt. When the onions are translucent, add chili powder, pepper powder and garam masala and sauté it well for 2 minutes in low flame. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Add shredded chicken and mashed potato to the masala mix and mix it well with your hands.

 

Whip the egg whites until they are frothy. Make small balls out of the mix and flatten them in the required shape - round, oval etc. If the mix is watery (this depends on the type of onions and the water content in the chicken and mashed potatoes), you can add in required amount of bread crumbs into it until you get it in the required thickness. Dip it in beaten egg and roll in bread crumbs and deep fry each cutlet until they are brown. I did a kind of shallow fry to save oil.

 

Make sure you cook it on a medium flame. Drain in paper towels and serve hot with ketchup.

The above quantity yields around 45 cutlets. We made this as a packed meal for 11 of us during one of our long weekend trips.

Banana Choco Chip Cookies

The day before our last trip, AJ asked me to prepare something to keep munching on our way. I was happy to hear that as I was waiting for a chance to bake. After a long discussion, blog hopping and browsing, I came up with a recipe for choco chip cookies.

Straight away went to my kitchen and started measuring, and mixing the ingredients. I was then chopping the nuts to fold into the mixture. There I saw a banana. The skin was half yellow and half black in colour. I was sure that this would not stay good until we returned and both of us were not in a mood to it.

I remembered that the addition of banana in the cake make it softer and moist; then why not in the cookies? I did not go for a second thought, peeled its skin off and smashed it in the mixer. I was a bit tensed until it came out of the oven but was happy to see it in good shape and was happier when AJ tasted it. His comment was "This does not taste like normal cookies, but really good and great texture". He couldn't believe that I added the banana into it.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour                  --    1 ¼ cup

Baking soda                         --    1 tsp

Salt                                      --    ½ tsp

Unsalted butter                     --    ½ cup

Brown Sugar                        --    ¾ cup

Granulated Sugar                  --    ¼ cup

Vanilla Essence                     --    1 tsp

Ripe Banana                         --    1 medium size

Semi sweet chocolate chips   --    1 cup

Chopped Nuts                      --    ½ cup

Preparation of Cookies:

Sift together the all purpose flour, baking soda and salt. Do this around 3 - 4 times. This will help to mix the soda and salt evenly in the flour.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the baking tray with foil paper/ parchment paper. No need to grease it.

Mix together the butter, sugar and brown sugar until the sugars are completely blended. Add in the vanilla extract and mix well. Then add the banana, smashed using a fork or pureed in the mixer.

Add the flour spoon by spoon. Make sure that the first set is mixed well without lumps before adding the next one.

 

Fold in the choco chips and the chopped nuts.

Put a spoonful of the batter on the baking sheet, leaving some space in between. The cookies spread when they cook so make sure you leave enough space.

Bake the cookies for 15 - 20 min or when they turn brown. 

Let it cool completely before serving or storing.

Banana-Watermelon-Smoothie &Watermelon-Orange-Punch:

Ingredients:

Watermelon                           --    1 cup

Banana                                   --    1

Sugar                                      --   2 tsp

Milk                                         --   1 cup + ¼ cup

Preparation of Smoothie:

Freeze one cup of milk. I do this in my ice tray.

Remove the seeds from the water melon and blend it in the mixer.

Grind the banana and sugar with the ¼ cup milk. Now add the milk ice cubes and blend well.

Fill half of the glass with the banana milk shake and fill the rest with the watermelon juice. Serve.

The watermelon juice slowly blends into the banana and forms a wonderful drink. The above measurement serves 4.

Ingredients:

Watermelon                       --    1 cup

Orange                                  --    2 tangerines

Sugar                                    --    1 tsp (optional)

Preparation of watermelon – orange punch:

Extract the juice from the oranges. Remove the seeds from the water melon and blend it in the mixer.

Mix the juices and serve chilled.

I am sending these to the Sizzling summer hosted by SpicyTasty and Show me your smoothie hosted by Divya.

Tomato Rice & An Award

Though weekdays and weekends don’t make a difference, I am very lazy to cook on weekends; especially on Sundays. The Monday blues for AJ (yes.. my hubby..) starts right from Sunday eve and may be he transfers me a share J. That ends up in either tomato rice or curd rice in the lunch box for Monday.

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice                           --    1 cup

Water                                     --    1 ½ cup (Might change depending on the quality of the rice)

Tomato                                   --    2

Onion                                     --    ½ of a medium size

Green Chillies                         --    2

Ginger garlic paste                  --   1 tsp

Cumin seeds                           --   1 tsp

Turmeric Powder                    --   ¼ tsp

Chilly Powder                         --   ½ tsp

Garam Masala                        --   ¼ tsp

Curry leaves                           --   1 spring

Oil                                         --    2 tbsp

Salt                                        --    to taste

Preparation of Tomato Rice:

Wash the rice and soak it in water for 20 min.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds and let it splutter. Now add the sliced onions, green chillies, curry leaves and ginger garlic paste. Saute until the onions are translucent. Add the cubed tomatoes and cook on a low flame until the tomatoes are smashed. You can also use tomato puree instead of whole tomatoes.

Once the tomatoes are smashed, add salt, turmeric, chilly powder and garam masala. Fry until the raw smell goes off.

Add the drained rice and fry for a min. Then add water and mix it well. Close with an air tight lid and let the rice cook. If the water is of the correct quantity, the rice will be cooked perfectly in another 15 – 20 min. You can sauté in between to make sure that rice does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

 

Optionally, you can cook the rice separately and add the cooked rice to the masala. I do it this way; cooking the rice in the rice cooker, when I am lazy. This saves time and you do not have to keep your eye on the rice in the pot.

Serve hot with raitha.

Nithu of Nithu’s Kitchen conducted a guessing game and she awarded me for guessing the items in her ‘Best Out of Waste’ bouquet. Thanks a lot Nithu and sorry for being late to post this here in my space. The game was interesting and I shall definitely contribute towards the event following the game.

Beef Roast

Ingredients:

Beef                                      --   1 kg

Onions                                 --    1 big onion

Shallots/Pearl onions        --    250 gm

Ginger Garlic Paste           --    2 tsp

Green chillies                      --    5 -6

Turmeric powder               --    ½ tsp

Chilly powder                      --    2 tbsp

Coriander powder              --    1 tbsp

Pepper powder                   --    1 tsp

Garam Masala                    --    1 ½ + 2 tsp

Curry leaves                       --    3 springs

Coconut (thinly sliced)       --   ½ cup

Oil                                        --    2 tbsp

Salt                                      --    to taste

Preparation of Beef Roast:

Cut the beef into cubes and wash them atleast 5 – 6 times under running water.

Marinate the beef with salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander powder, 2 tsp of garam masala and ginger garlic paste. Keep aside for 15- 20 minutes.

Add finely chopped onions, 2 -3 green chillies and a spring of curry leaves to it and let it cook in a pressure cooker. I cook it for around 5 -6 whistles. Do not add water as water will ooze out of the meat.

 

Add oil into a pan and fry the thinly sliced pearl onions and rest of the green chillies until the pearl onions are translucent. Add the rest of the garam masala and the sliced coconut and fry well.

 

Add the cooked beef with the excess water. Let it dry until the required gravy thickness is obtained. Add the curry leaves and pepper powder few minutes before turning off the flame.

 

This goes well with parotta, puttu, chapathi etc.

You can also let it dry till until the beef is black (not burnt). This goes well with steamed rice and any curry.

Both the way, beef tastes better the next day or the day after.