Vegetable Biriyani

This is an easy version of the vegetable biriyani. I prepare this in the rice cooker when I am lazy or short of time, otherwise in a wide vessel. This is one way to include a bunch of veggies in our meal.

Ingredients:

Rice:
         Basmati Rice              --   2 cups
         Water                            --   3 cups
         Ghee                               --   1 tbsp
         Cinnamon Stick         --   1
         Cloves                           --   2 – 3
         Cardamom                  --   1 – 2
         Whole pepper            --   4 – 5
         Cumin Seeds               --   1 tsp
         Bay leaves                   --   1
         Salt                                 --   To taste
         Fried Onions               --   ½ cup onions fried

Gravy:
         Onions                           --   1 medium size
         Tomato                         --   1 medium size
         Green Chillies             --   2 – 3
         Ginger garlic paste  --   1 ½ tsp
         Potatoes                       --   1 cup cubed
         Carrot                            --   ½ cup sliced
         Beans                             --   ½ cup sliced
         Soya chunks               --   ½ cup
         Turmeric Powder    --    ½ tsp
         Chilly Powder           --    1 tsp
         Garam Masala          --    1 tsp
         Mint leaves                 --   1 cup chopped
        Coriander leaves       --   1 cup chopped
        Oil                                     --   2 tbsp
Garnish:
         Cashews                       --   ¼ cup
         Raisins                          --   ¼ cup

Preparation of Biriyani:

                Heat  oil in a pan. Add the chopped onions, green chillies, ginger garlic paste and salt. Saute until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry well. Then  add the masalas and fry until the raw smell goes off.

               Add the veggies (you can use any veggies as per your wish.) and fry for some time. Add required water to cook the veggies to 60%. Add the mint leaves and the coriander leaves and cook until the water is evaporated. Keep aside.

  

              Wash and soak the rice for half an hour. Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan and fry  the chopped onions. Remove it into another vessel when done. Now fry the cashews until golden brown. Keep it along with the fried onions. Then add in the raisins and fry until they puff up and keep it aside. Then fry the spices for the rice in the left over oil for few minutes.

              If using a rice cooker, add the fried spices, salt and drained rice into the cooker. Also add the prepared gravy and let it cook until done,adding required amount of water as per your rice cooker.

   

              If preparing in a wide vessel, add the drained rice to the fried condiments and fry for few minutes say 3 –5 minutes. Meanwhile boil 3 cups of water along with salt in another vessel. When the water starts boiling, add the prepared gravy to the rice and mix well. Add the boiling water and the fried onions to the rice and water. Close it with a tight lid and let it cook until done. Stir in between to make sure even cooking.

                 Instead of adding the gravy to the rice, you can also cook the rice separately and mix it. If doing it that way, make sure that the veggies in the gravy are completely cooked.

               Garnish with fried cashews and raisins. Serve Hot.

     

Submitting this to Food palette series Orange hosted by Akheela.

Mushroom Masala with Soya chunks

Ingredients:

         Mushroom                   --   200gm
         Soya chunks               --   15 - 20 chunks
         Onion                             --   1 medium size 
         Green Chillies             --   2 –3
         Tomato                         --   1 medium size
         Ginger                           --   1 inch piece 
         Garlic                            --   3 -4 cloves  
         Turmeric Powder    --   1/4 tsp 
         Chilly Powder            --   1 tsp 
         Coriander Powder   --   2 tsp
         Garam Masala          --   1 tsp 
         Shredded coconut   --   1 cup
         Curry leaves              --   1 spring
         Coriander leaves     --   few
         Shallots                        --   1 small
         Red chillies                 --   1 –2
         Mustard seeds           --   1 tsp 
        Oil                                    --   2 tbsp
        Salt                                  --   to taste

Preparation of Mushroom masala:

           Boil a cup of water and leave the soya chunks in the boiling water for 10 – 15 minutes. Once it cools, squeeze it well and clean until it stops foaming. Cut the chunks into small pieces. Clean and cut the mushrooms into small pieces.

     

            Fry the coconut until brown and grind it into a fine paste.

           Add chopped onions, slit green chillies, chopped tomatoes, minced ginger, minced garlic, turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala and curry leaves to the mushrooms and soya chunks. Marinate and keep it aside for 10 – 15 minutes.

            Cook this on a low flame and add water as required for the gravy. Remember that water comes out of mushroom while cooking. When the mushrooms are almost cooked, add the ground coconut paste. Let it boil and then garnish with coriander leaves.

          Heat oil in a small pan. Splutter the mustard seeds, add the red chillies and fry the chopped shallots. Add this to the cooked curry.

         Serve hot.

Kuttanadan Chicken Curry

This  recipe is borrowed from Sarah’s Vazhayila. Thanks to Sarah for this wonderful recipe. I have made slight changes and here it is.

Ingredients:          Chicken                               --   1/2 kg
         Onion                                   --   1 medium size
         Green chili                         --   2 –3
         Ginger chopped              --   1 tsp
         Garlic chopped                --   3-4 cloves
         Crushed peppercorns   --   2 tsp
         Coconut milk                    --   1 cup
         Garam masala                 --   1 tsp
         Bay leaves                         --   1
         Cinnamon stick               --   1
         Cloves                                 --   1
         Star anise                          --   1
         Curry leaves                    --   1 Spring
         Oil                                         --   2tbsp
         Salt                                       --   to taste
Preparation of Kuttanadan Chicken curry
Clean and cut the chicken into medium size pieces.
Heat oil in a pan and add curry leaves,ginger,garlic, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, cloves and star anise.Saute it for a minute. Add chopped onions and green chillies and saute until they are translucent.
    
Add Garam masala and crushed peppercorns and fry for half a minute. Add the chicken pieces and mix it well.
    
Let the chicken cook. Add required amount of water depending on the amount of water coming out of the chicken. When the chicken is 95% cooked, add the coconut milk and simmer for another 10 minutes .
     
Serve hot. This pairs well with appam, idyappam, ghee rice etc..

Ginger Chicken

During my younger days, I remember seeing battoora and ginger chicken for almost every party, be it wedding reception or an engagement or a house warming…  But I do not know why or where this dish has disappeared nowadays. May be that was a seasonal trend :)

In those days, we had a chef – Velayuthettan, who used to some home almost every Sunday.  Whenever he comes home, he prepares one of his special dishes – either cutlet or fried rice or ginger chicken. My mom learned the recipe and techniques from him and she used to prepare this for us. At times, she also used cauliflower instead of chicken and prepared the veggie version.

Ingredients:
          Chicken                          --    ½ kg
          Chopped Onions         --    2 medium size 
          Garlic                              --    1 pod  
          Ginger                             --    1 inch piece
          Green chilies                --    2 or 3
          Corn Flour                    --    2 tsp
          Turmeric powder      --   ½ tsp
          Tomato Sauce             --   3 tbsp
          Soya Sauce                   --   1 tbsp
          Chilly Sauce                 --   1 tbsp
          Coriander leaves       --   a bunch
          Oil                                     --   as required
          Salt                                  --   to taste
Preparation of Ginger Chicken:

Marinate the chicken with soya sauce, salt, corn flour and ground green chillies for half an hour. Deep fry / grill in oven and keep aside. If you do not want to fry the chicken, you don’t need to add corn flour. Cook the marinated chicken, add water when required only if it gets too dry to get cooked. I fried it in my oven

    

Fry the chopped onions, ginger and garlic without oil. Let it cool and then grind the mix.

   

Heat oil in a pan and fry the ground mixture until golden brown. Add the tomato sauce and chilly sauce.

Add the fried / cooked chicken. Also add water as per the gravy required. Boil the mix until the sauces sticks on to the chicken.

    

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

This is the best with battoora or poori. Also goes well with fried rice, noodles, chapathi etc.

Arikadukka – Stuffed mussels

Back home, my mom prepares arikadukka whenever we get big mussels. The mussels stuffed with the rice flour mix and then fried in coconut oil… Have them hot with some tomato ketchup….. slurrrrpppppp…..

Last day, when we went for grocery shopping, we came across a bunch fresh mussels. AJ couldn’t resist himself from getting it. It was so small and preparing arikadukka out of it was supposed to be difficult. Or in my mom’s words, it is not worth the effort. But I decided to try it out just because of my craving...  Believe me, it was not that difficult and was definitely worth the effort. The bigger the mussels, the better.. But the small ones are equally delicious and yummy..

Ingredients:

             Mussels/Kadukka                                 --   30 – 45 small ones
            Rice flour                                                  --   1/2 cup  + 1 tbsp (if required for batter while frying)
           Water                                                         --   a little less than 1/2 cup
           Shredded Coconut                                --   1/4 cup
           Shallots                                                     --   2
           Green Chillies                                          --   3-4
           Fennel Seeds / Perumjeerakam      --   1 tsp
           Curry leaves                                            --   1 spring
           Chilly Powder                                         --   1 tsp
           Turmeric Powder                                  --   1/4 tsp
           Salt                                                               --   to taste

Preparation of Arikadukka:

Clean the shell of the mussels and split open with a blunt knife without breaking the shell. Remove any hairy kind of  material from it.

 

Take 2-3 mussels out of the shell and keep aside.

 

Grind the shallots, green chillies, fennel seeds, curry leaves and the shelled mussels along with a pinch of salt. Add coconut to the ground mixture and crush them. Just pulse in your mixer.

    

 

Boil the water and add the rice flour into it and keep stirring as you add the flour. Switch off the flame and let it cool a bit. Once you are able to touch it with your hands, knead into a smooth dough . Add the ground coconut mixture into the dough and mix well.

 

Check for salt and add if required, but remember that the mussels are a bit salty. Instead of using rice flour, you can prepare the dough using raw rice. Soak half a cup of raw rice for a couple of hours and then grind into a fine paste adding minimum amount of water.

 

Fill the flour mixture in each of the mussels, close them and tie it tight with a thread. Tying with the thread helps to keep the stuffing inside, without letting it move out when cooked. You can fill in more than what I have done and let the mussels be half open and then tie it. I reduced the filling in each as we concentrate more on the mussels than the stuffing, also the mussels were very small.

    

          Steam the mussels in a covered vessel until cooked (It took around 15 minutes for me.) 

          Remove the mussels from the shell and keep them aside.

     

Mix the chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt and a tbsp of the left over flour mixture(if you have any) , or 1 tbsp of rice flour with water and make a thin paste.

   

Dip the mussels in the batter and deep fry in oil. Drain on to a kitchen towel and serve hot.

 

Submitting this to Akheela's  Food palette series Orange

Celebration Chocolate Cake

Any one would love this moist chocolate cake.  This recipe is adapted from the Hershey’s site. I was in search of a chocolate cake recipe and landed up in Divya’s chocolate cake event. She has also tried this out and those pics made me drool. AJ is not a great fan of cakes, but this time he asked for more and also asked me to make it once again. An appreciation from his side is very rare and that happens only when he likes something very much. The whole credit goes to Hershey’s.

Now its his Bday today and I’ve prepared it once again. This time I had to make a larger cake and so I did sandwich a vanilla cake in between. I shall update the recipe of the vanilla cake later. The first pic is that of the Bday cake and the rest are that of the one which I prepared before. I know, I have to master the art of writing on cakes J J J

Ingredients:

     Cake:

           All-purpose flour          --   1 ¾ cup
           Baking soda                    --   1 ½ tsp
           Salt                                     --   ¼ tsp
           Hershey's Cocoa           --   ¾ cup
           Boiling water                 --   1 cup 
           Butter                                --    ½ cup + 2 tbsp 
           Sugar                                 --   2 cups 
           Eggs                                   --   3
           Vanilla Extract             --   1 tsp
           Milk                                    --   ¾ cup
           Dairy sour cream         --   ¼ cup  (I used thick yogurt)

     Filling:

           Heavy whipping cream --   200 ml
           Sugar                                     --   ½ cup
           Cocoa Powder                   --   3 tbsp
           Slivered Almonds            --   ½ cup

     Icing:

            Heavy whipping cream   --   100 ml
            Icing Sugar                           --   1/2 cup
            Semi-sweet chocolate      --   100 gm
     Rose:
            Vegetable Shortening       --    1/4 cup
            Powdered Sugar                  --    1 cup
            Water or Milk                        --    2 tsp
            Vanilla extract                      --   1 tsp
             Salt                                            --    a pinch

Preparation of the cake:

              Heat oven to 350°F. Grease three 9-inch round baking pans (I made in two pans and filled in 2 cup cakes as well) and dust with flour. Mix cocoa with boiling water in small bowl; stir until smooth. Set aside to cool.

    

             Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Gradually add cocoa mixture, beating well.

     

             Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; add alternately with milk and sour cream to butter mixture, beating until blended. Pour batter into prepared pans.

        

             Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to wire racks;Cool completely.

Preparation of the filling:

               Whip the heavy whipping cream until they form peaks. Fold in the powdered sugar and the cocoa powder. 

               Spread it over the first cake and then sandwich the other on the top. You can also sprinkle some slivered almonds on the whipped cream. I spread the same mix on the sides of the cake and also sticked on some almonds over there.

     

               This is a trick to stick the almonds on the sides of the cake. I have not yet mastered the art of spreading the icing on the sides of the cake. So any irregularity is covered up J

Preparation of the icing:

               Add the chocolate and sugar to the cream and keep it on a double boiler until the chocolate is completely melted. Let it cool and then pour it over the cake. 

      

Preparation of the rose:

                    Mix all the ingredients and make a rose. Check out this youtube video and get an idea. I do not know how to explain J.