Makha Butta with Ellipaya Miram

Makha butta or corn on the cob is one of my favorite food, prepared in any form. Whenever I see fresh corn in the stores, it reminds me of street side vendors back home. During the corn season, these vendors are every where selling fresh corn or roasted corn. They roast the cobs on coal in front of you and rub it with some salt and lime juice. It is simply delicious. It is even better when eaten with ellipaya miram or garlic chili powder in butter. Yesterday I picked put some fresh corn on the cob and this morning, corn was my breakfast. I wanted to grill it on the stove but in the last minute, I got lazy and boiled it instead. The combination of ellipaya miram with corn on the cob is heavenly. This goes to Sia of Monsoon Spice for her WBB – Summer Feast event.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• Corn on the Cob
• Garlic Butter Sauce
  • 3 tbsp Butter unsalted
  • 1 ½ tsp Crushed Garlic
  • 1 tsp Chili Powder (adjust to your taste)
  • Salt to taste

Preparation:

• Boil corn in a large pot with some salt. After the water boils, it takes about another 10 minutes for the corn to cook.
• In a microwave safe bowl, melt butter for 10 seconds. Add rest of the ingredients and mix them. Microwave for another 20 seconds and mix well. Thats it. Ellipaya miram is ready.
• Once the corn is cooked, drain the water and serve it with ellipaya miram.

Chicken Pakoda / Chicken Fritters

Chicken pakoda is my entry to the Hot and Spicy Pakora Contest hosted by A perfect bite...  I am reposting this recipe for the event.

Total time: 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb chicken cut into small pieces (boned or boneless)
• 1 ½ tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• 1 tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Garam Masala Powder
• 1 ½ tsp Coriander Powder
• ½ tsp turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp Lime Juice
• 1 small Onion chopped
• 1 Green Onion chopped
• 6 Green Chillies chopped
• 10 – 15 Mint Leaves chopped
• ¼ cup Cilantro chopped
• 2 tbsp Besan/Bengal Gram Flour
• 1 tsp Rice flour
• ¼ tsp Baking Powder/ Baking Soda
• 1 Egg
• Oil for deep fry

Method:

• Mix all the ingredients except oil to make a batter.
• Marinate for at least 30 minutes.
• Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the chicken pieces on medium – medium high flame.
• When pakodas turn golder brown, remove from oil, drain on a paper towel.
• Serve hot with any sauce of your choice; chili sauce , hot sauce.

Note:

• You can add some spinach to the chicken batter.

Spicy Egg Mushroom Rolls

Few weeks ago, when I was browsing the through the blogs, I came across Meeta’s blog What’s for Lunch, Honey?  She has a yummy blog and her spicy egg mushroom rolls caught my eyes. It is a quick and easy recipe and requires no before hand preparation. I made it couple of times and thought it would be a perfect entry for this month’s Monthly Blog Patrol and Nupur of One hot Stove is hosting it this month. The theme for the month of July is Less is More!  

Eggs + Mushrooms + Cumin Seeds + Chili Powder = Spicy Egg Mushroom Rolls

I followed Meeta’s recipe with couple of minor changes. She recommended 6 eggs and I used only 3 eggs. She seasoned her eggs with pepper and I used chili powder instead. The recipe for spicy egg and mushroom rolls is here.

This also goes to Tried and Tasted event hosted by Zlamushka.   

Tandoori Chicken

Who says we need a barbeque grill for enjoying grilled food? I don’t have a patio nor a barbeque grill. But I enjoy grilled food anytime of the year, whenever I am in mood for some grilled food. I use my oven to grill my meats and vegetables and sometimes I do it on the stove top in a grill pan or a griddle. When I saw this months Monthly Mingle theme Grill It!, hosted by Sig, I was hooray!!! I have at least two entries for this event.

My first entry is Tandoori Chicken, which I already have on my blog. I am reposting the recipe for this event.

Total Time: 2 ½ hours
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Marination Time: 2 hours
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• Marinade
  • 5-6 Chicken Drumsticks (1-1 ½ lbs)
  • 2 tsp Tandoori Powder
  • 2 tsp Chili Powder
  • Salt to Taste
  • 1 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • ½ tsp Garam Masala
  • ½ Lime or Lemon Juice
  • ¾ cup Yogurt
  • 1 tbsp Oil
• Oil to baste
• Onion Slices
• Lime Wedges

Method:

• Make incisions or big cuts on the chicken.
• Mix all the ingredients of listed under the marinade.
• Marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 450F. Arrange the chicken pieces on a grilling pan.
• Spray some cooking oil or baste the chicken with oil.
• Bake for 12 minutes. Turn the chicken, baste with oil.
• Bake for another 5 minutes.
• Serve hot with onion slices and lime wedges.

Note:

• Oven temperatures vary from oven to oven. Make sure you don’t burn the chicken or under cook it.
• I am baking the chicken here but you can use your grill to cook the chicken.
• You can use cut up whole chicken or only leg quarters or only breasts pieces. I personally prefer drumsticks.

My first Award

I am very happy to share with you an all, an award I received from Keerthi of Cumin Hut.  She awarded me with a “Yummy Blog Award“.  I am very pleased to acknowledge and receive this award.  Keerthi, I am glad you liked my blog and my recipes. Thank you very much for giving me this award.  I pass this on to Padma of Padma’s Kitchen, who in fact, has a very yummy blog.

Mango Pie

Mango Pie is an easy recipe to prepare. One of my cousin’s makes delicious desserts and is Queen of Desserts. She makes yummy souffles and I am adapting her recipe to prepare this pie. I wanted to send this to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle: Mango Mania event but some how I missed the deadline. This goes to Sweet Series: Cool Desserts.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani

Biryani is one of the most popular dishes in Hyderabad, India. To make Hyderabadi Biryani, the meat and the rice are cooked in an air tight pot on very low flame, so that the rice is cooked in the flavors of meat and gets the aroma of the meat. The meat gets the direct heat from the flame and the rice is cooked with steam generated by the air tight method of cooking, also known as Dum method. It is a length process but the taste is worth going thru the elaborate process.

There are two ways to prepare Hyderabadi Biryani. One is, precooked meat method and the other is raw meat method. In both the methods, meat and half cooked rice are arranged in layers, and cooked until the rice and the meat are fully cooked. For Chicken Biryani, I use the raw meat method and for Mutton Biryani I use the precooked meat method.

Total Time: 1 hours
Preparation Time: 30 minutes (excludes marination time)
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4-5

Ingredients:

• Marinade 
  • 2 lbs Chicken cut up into 2” pieces
  • ½ cup Yogurt
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • 2 – 3 tsp Chili Powder
  • 2 tsp Coriander Powder
  • 12 small Chilies split into two
  • 1 cup chopped Mint Leaves
  • 1 cup chopped Cilantro
  • ½ tsp Turmeric
  • Garam Masala Powder
    • 10 Pepper Corns
    • 10 Coves
    • ½ tsp Cardamom Seeds
    • ½ tsp Sahajeera or Black Cumin
    • 1” Cinnamon Stick
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • Salt to Taste
• 1 Large Onion sliced
• 1 cup Oil
• ½ tsp of saffron strands
• ½ cup milk
• 4 cups Basmati Rice soaked for 30 minutes
• Spices for boiling rice
  • 6 Cardamoms
  • 3 Cloves
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 1 Bay Flower or Biryani Flower
  • 1 tsp Sahajeera
  • ½ tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • 1 tbsp of Oil
  • First Full of Salt

Method:

• Clean the chicken and cut it into 2” pieces. Wash the chicken and squeeze all the water from it. This is very important that you squeeze all the water away from the pieces or put it a colander to let water drain away.
• Grind all the ingredients listed under garam masala to a fine powder.
• Mix all the ingredients of the marinade and marinate for at least 1 hour or overnight in the fridge.
• In pan heat oil and fry the onions until light golden brown.
• Soak saffron in hot milk.
• In a big pot bring water to a boil, add all the spices for boiling rice and mix well.
• Add rice and continue to cook until you get a one good boil, i.e rice should roll over with boiling water. It takes about 2 ½ – 3 minutes on my stove. Drain the rice and keep aside.
  

  One good boil after adding rice

• Now its time to arrange chicken and rice in layers, one layer of chicken and two layers of rice. In a heavy bottom sauce pan, pour ½ the oil at the bottom, arrange the chicken pieces and sprinkle some oil on top of the chicken.
• Arrange ½ the boiled rice on the chicken pieces, sprinkle some oil, ½ the fried onions and ½ the saffron milk.
• Repeat the above step for the last layer, I.e, arrange the last layer of rice. Spread the rest of the rice, sprinkle all the oil, fried onions and the saffron milk.
• Now, we need to seal the the container and make it air tight so that the steam doesn’t escape when we cook. In India, flour dough or a big cloth is used to seal the container and the cover together. Here, I use an aluminum sheet. take 2 sheets of aluminum foil (the sheets should be bigger than the diameter of the sauce pan) and place it on top of the sauce pan and then cover it with the lid. We will have aluminum sheets between the pan and its lid. Since we took the sheets bigger than the diameter of the pan, we will use that to seal the pan and the lid.
• Put a heavy object (motor pesto or heavy pan or skillet) on the top of the container, so that the steam doesn’t escape easily. 
  

  Cooking dum biryani with a sealed sauce pan and a heavy object on it

• Cook biryani for 8-10 minutes on high until stream escapes from the foil seal.  Then reduce the flame to medium low and continue to cook for another 20 minutes. 
 Let it sit for 10-15 minutes before opening it. 
• Mix the rice and serve it hot with raita or chicken shorva or mutton shorva.

 

Chicken Biryani

I am sending this recipe to Rice Mela.

Chicken Kebabs

Total Time:
 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 – 15 minutes
Yields: 20

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Chicken
• Chop or Grind
  • 1 Small Onion
  • 8 – 10 Green Chillies
  • ½ cup chopped Cilantro
  • 10 Mint leaves
• 1 tsp Garam Masala
• 1 – 1 ½ tsp Chili Powder
• 2 tsp Coriander Powder
• 1 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• Salt to Taste
• 2-4 Tbsp Oil

Preparation:

• Finely chop all the ingredients listed under Chop or Grind. I grind it in a mini chopper so that it is coarse.

Method:

• Mix all the ingredients except oil.
• I like to marinate the mixture for at least ½ hour. If you do not have enough time to marinate, go head and prepare the patties.
• Wet your hands with some oil and make round small meat balls and press it flat to make patties.
• Heat pan or a skillet with 1 tbsp of oil. When the pan is hot, transfer the patties to the pan and grill/cook them for about 3-4 minutes on each side until they turn brown. Chicken cooks very fast. You may need to do it in 2 or 3 batches.
• Serve hot with your favorite sauce. 

Corn Salad

Corn is my favorite food, prepared in any form.  I like boiled or grilled corn on the cob with garlic butter sauce, pan roasted corn kernels with garlic butter sauce, fried corn, corn fritters or corn garelu and corn salad in yogurt dressing.  Yes, corn salad in yogurt dressing.  This is my mother in law’s recipe and she use to make the yummiest corn salad I ever tasted.  In fact, i never eaten it anywhere except from her kitchen and have not seen it on anyones menu either.  I never asked her where she got this recipe from or how she came up with it.  Non the less, it is the delicious corn salad i ever tasted in my life.  Unfortunately, i never wrote down her recipe, but saw her prepare it couple of times.  So today, I decided to try it out and it came out very good.  Since yogurt is rich in protein, this recipe goes to Eat Healthy – Protein Rich Contest.  

Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 10 oz Frozen Sweet Corn
• 3-5 Green Chilies (adjust to your taste)
• 1 tbsp crushed Garlic
• Salt to Taste
• ¼ tsp Cumin Powder
• 1 cup Non Fat Yogurt
• 2 tbsp Fat Free Sour Cream (opt)
• Chopped Cilantro for garnish

Preparation:

• In a pan add frozen corn, green chilies, crushed garlic, salt and some water (approximately ¼ cup) and bring to a boil. Cook until water evaporates.  OR In a microwave safe bowl, mix frozen corn, green chilies, crushed garlic, salt and some water and microwave it for 3-4 minutes until corn is thawed and tender.
• When corn cools, mix rest of the ingredients and mix well. Garnish with cilantro and put it in the fridge until ready to serve.

Sorakaya Pachadi / Bottle Gourd Chutney

Sorakaya or anyapakaya belongs to squash family and is called bottle gourd in english.  In Indian cooking, it is used to make curries, gravies, chutneys or a dessert.  Sorayakaya pachadi is one of my favorite pachadis  or chutneys.  When making chutneys, whole spices are roasted in oil and ground to a fine paste with other ingredients.  The blenders in the US are not as powerful as the ones we get in India and I always have a problem grinding the ingredients to fine paste.  So, whenever i make chutneys here, I dry roast the whole spices, sesame seeds and groundnuts to fine powder, and add it to my oil roasted mixture.  If you are cooking this recipe in India or if you have very good grinder or a blender, you may substitute all the powders in the ingredient list with the whole ingredient and roast it in oil along with the chilies. This chutney is my entry for Vegetable of the Week hosted by Pooja.     

Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serving Size: 4-5

Ingredients:

• 1 small Bottle Gourd peeled and diced into 1″ pieces or 3 cups of diced gourd
• 2 tbsp Oil
• 10 Curry Leaves
• 12 – 15 Green Chillies cut into half (adjust to your taste)
• 3 cloves of Garlic or 1 small pod of Garlic
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1 tbsp Cumin Powder
• ½ tsp Methi Powder
• ¼ cup dry roasted Sesame Seeds Powder 
• ¼ cup dry roasted Peanuts Powder
• 2 tbsp Tamarind Paste or small lime sized tamarind
• ½ tsp Sugar (opt)
• Salt to Taste
• Cilantro for garnish

Preparation:

• In a suace pan cook sorakaya pieces with little salt and water until tender.
• In a pan heat oil, add green chillies, curry leaves and garlic.  When chillies change color, add rest of the ingredients and mix well.  
• Remove from heat and let cool.  
• To this mixture add ½ of the cooked sorakaya pieces and make a fine paste.  Add some water if required.  
• Transfer to a serving dish, add remaining sorakay pieces and mix well.  Taste the chutney and add more tamarind paste if you want it more sour.  If you used whole tamarind you can add some lime juice.     
• Garnish with cilantro and serve with hot rice or idlie or dosa.