Coconut rice – South Indian style.

Coconut rice is a very popular rice preparation from Southern part of India where coconut is found in abundance in almost every household. In south Indian cooking, anything and everything including gravies, dry curries, rice varieties, snacks, sweets etc mostly uses coconut in different forms at different stages of its maturity. Juice from the tender coconut is used as a refreshing summer drink and the flesh is scooped and eaten. Sometimes the flesh is blended along with the juice for a delicious drink. Mature coconuts are peeled, the shell is then cracked, and the flesh is then grated using a coconut grater, a handy tool designed specially for grating coconut. In the western countries, you might not be able to find the coconut scraper. In that case all what you can do it, place the whole coconut (Husk removed) on flame turning all sides for around 5 minutes. It works well on electric hobs as well. Due to high heat, the shell will loosen from the flesh and start to crack. Drain the coconut water off or drink if if you wish. Cover the heated coconut in a cloth and Crack open the shell using a rolling pin. Covering the coconut using cloth will prevent any mess that occurs while cracking the shell. The flesh can then directly be grated using our regular vegetable box grater and the flesh can be frozen infinitely.

Grated coconut in used in many dishes as it is to give a sweet bite. Mature coconuts are scraped for flesh which is then ground to extract milk which is used in many savoury dishes to impart a rich and sweet taste. It is also used in many desserts and puddings or payasams. It is also famous being used in cookies, tart and cakes. Coconut at later stage is sun dried where oil is then extracted from them and is used for everyday cooking and frying! Now for ease of use, you get coconut in all processed form - readymade coconut milk in cans, coconut in desiccated form and coconut powders that can be just mixed with hot water to produce coconut milk and even coconut cream. Freshly grated coconuts are also available widely in frozen form mainly in the Asian stores. All these processed form of coconut tastes good, but nothing would beat the fresh coconut taste. That’s just a general info for my non-Indian readers here. Here you go with yet another tasty rice preparation, which goes well with many vegetarian and non vegetatian curries equally.

South Indian Coconut rice

Serves 6

Ingredients:

3 cups Basmati rice (uncooked)

1 ½ cup freshly grated coconut

Salt as required

Water - to boil rice.

For tempering:

1/3 cup – ½ cup coconut oil

2 tsp Urad Dal

1 tsp Channa Dal (Bengal Gram)

1 tsp Black mustard seeds

2 pinches asafoetida

2 twigs curry leaves

4 whole dried Kashmiri red chillies, halved

15 Cashew broken or a handful of peanuts

Preparation:

1.Wash rice several times. In a large saucepan bring water to boil. Add salt and rice and give it a good stir to avoid forming of lumps. Keeping the lid open, cook rice till done. (You can boil water in a kettle, to ease up the process). Take the pan off heat and drain water off in a strainer or colander.

2. Meanwhile, Heat another large saucepan, large enough to accommodate all rice (you can use the same pan used for cooking to reduce washing up!). Add oil and when hot, splutter mustard seeds followed by urad dal, channa dal and cashew nuts.

3. When both dals and nuts start to take golden colour, add chillies and curry leaves and stir for few seconds. Add in coconut and stir well to coat all the tempered oil and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add asafoetida and mix.

4. Tip in the drained rice and mix well until the tempered coconut is evenly distributed all over the rice. Serve hot with any non vegetarian or vegetarian curries.

N.B: Make sure not to burn the lentils because that will impart bitter flavour to the rice.

Coconut Prawns with Spices

This is one recipe that I turn back to again and again when I am lost in thought on what to prepare for side dish! We, approaching the edge of being fully carnivorous, I have to come up with some non-veg side dishes to go with any vegetarian main course. This is one quick side dish that I prepare with some ready peeled prawns in the freezer. Very unexpected marriage of flavours happening in here, unlike the regular prawn preparations you may find in my blog and I have ever eaten. I found this recipe on pack of maggi coconut milk powder, made few lazy tweaks and here is the final outcome. Please refer to notes for the original notes.

Ingredients:

250g Cleaned jumbo king prawns

1 Tbsp oil (vegetable or coconut)

1 Large onion, grated (140g)

1 Large clove of Garlic grated

2 Dried Kashmiri chillies, chopped finely (optional)

½ tsp cumin powder

1 tsp paprika/Kashmiri Chilli powder

1 ½ Tbsp yogurt

Scant ¼ tsp cardamom, powdered

Scant ¼ tsp cinnamon, powdered

Scant ¼ tsp cloves, powdered

½ tsp crushed cumin seeds

2 Tbsp coconut milk powder
Salt - as required

Preparation:

1.Heat oil in a saucepan or frying pan. Add grated onion,grated garlic, chopped chillies, paprika or chilli powder and salt. Sauté until onions starts to turn golden.

2. Add prawns and curd. Mix well, cover and cook for around 8-10 minutes on medium flame until almost cooked.

3. Add coconut powder along with rest of the spice, stir well and cook for further 3-4 minutes until the gravy is almost dry and smothered in the sauce.

Notes:

1. The original recipe calls for pounding fresh spices and adding it at the end. If you are patient enough to pound the spices, roast 1 cardamom, 2 whole cloves and a small pieces of cinnamon stick and pound it fine. Add it at the end along with coconut instead of ready made spice powders. Freshly pounded spices give it a fresh aroma than the ready powdered spices.

2. Original recipe also doesn’t call for dried chillies. Adding dried chillies and chilli powder makes it really hot. So add paprika along with the dried red chillies or omit the dried ones as per your taste.

Aubergine (Brinjal/ Eggplant) Pickle

I am not a pickle person myself unlike many out there including my siblings! But aubergine pickle (Khanum Brand) which is a very sweet and mild pickle is an exception. It is just my kind of pickle, mild, sweet less tangy and it goes well with naan, chappathis and rice. I sometimes have it for dessert!!! I guess, I would be the first one (may be the only one) who devour pickle for dessert. Never had I fallen in love with any ‘Achaar’ aka pickle other than this sinful aubergine pickle of ‘Khanum’! I first had it at our friend Sajitha’s place where they offered it for one dinner on one of the many dinners she served us. Those were our golden days in Portsmouth; we used to meet them once in every while mainly on weekends and how much I miss those days now...Sigh. We really had fantastic time together.

You must be thinking, if I liked that pickle a lot, then why did I bother making one, right? These days I can’t find Khanum Aubergine pickle anywhere in the locality. I tried couple of other brands and I wasn’t happy at all. I was so desperate to have it and that was when the thought of preparing one popped up in my brain. This came out real good but not the taste that I was looking for. I intended to prepare a sweet pickle as the Khanum one, something that’s not spicy, less tangy and sweet. But mine tasted like a typical Kerala style pickle. I am sure many out there who enjoy pickles will love this too. It is so easy to make pickle and it is hassle free a process. Now I need to try my hands on making a sweet Aubergine pickle, which you might see later on this blog, hopefully!

Ingredients:

1 Large aubergine (250g)

To grind:

2 Tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 – 1 ½ Tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder

½ tsp turmeric powder

4 Tbsp vinegar

¾ tsp Black mustard seeds

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

Others:

½- 3/4 cup coconut oil (I used only ¼ Cup of oil)

1 Tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 twig curry leaves finely chopped

2-4 green chillies cut into thin rounds (optional)

8 Tbsp castor sugar

½ cup vinegar

¼ cup water

¾ Tbsp salt or as required

Preparation:

1.Cut the aubergines into 2 inch long fingers and leave them immersed in bowl of brine for around 3-4 hours. This will remove any bitterness and stain in the aubergine. Drain water; wash the aubergine several times to remove excess salt and pat dry in a muslin cloth or kitchen towel.

2. Grind together chopped ginger, garlic, chilli powder and turmeric powder to a smooth paste. Add mustard and fenugreek and just whizz once to crush them.

3. In a clean sauce pan, heat oil. Add crushed ginger and sauté it till it starts to turn golden. Add chopped curry leaves and green chillies (if using) and let it sizzle. Add the ground mixture and stir for couple of minutes (Make sure you do it in low flame to avoid burning of spices).

4. Add brinjal and mix well to coat the spices.

5. Add sugar and vinegar. Mix well, cover the pan and continue cooking till aubergines are cooked through.

6. Add salt and water and bring to boil. Adjust the salt if necessary.

8. Once the Pickle is cooled completely store them in sterilized jars.

As any other pickle, this pickle tastes better after 4-5 days, even though it can be had as soon as it is made. This pickle fills a 500 ml Jar.

Notes:

1. To sterilize jars, boil the jar and Lid for about 10 minutes. Take it out and let it dry completely without any water inside. Do not wipe the jar.

2. If you need more liquid for your Pickle you may use a little more of water than mentioned. But make sure you boil water after adding else the pickle won’t last long.

3. I haven’t used the green chillies here since my red chillies were really hot even being Kashmiri chilli powder!

Indian Style Roasted Chicken with Minced-meat Stuffing

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Hi all,

Here is one Delicious recipe that I tried couple of weeks back. It was served along with arabic bread, hummus and veggies thats were roasted along side the chicken. I found this recipe at http://www.about.com/ and edited the recipe as I went along. If you have any doubts on how to prepare the chicken you can have a peek at my Kozhi nirachathu. That recipe is quite a long one and the filling is made of egg masala. But here I used mince meat for stuffing and the preparation is straight forward without much complexity. If you wish you can use Kozhi nirachathu recipe completely and just change the filling

Ingredients:
1 medium size chicken – 1 Kilo
Marinade:

2 Tbsp/30 mls thick creamy yogurt
½ Tbsp ginger paste (Fresh)
½ Tbsp garlic paste (fresh)
2-3 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt

For the filling:
350g Mince meat (chicken or lamb)
1-2 Tbsp vegetable oil
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 medium onion (100g), sliced and chopped
2 tsp freshly minced garlic
1 tsp freshly minced ginger
1 ½ tsp coriander powder
1-2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
¼ cup frozen peas
2 green chillies (optional)
1 large tomato chopped (120g, ½ cup)
3 tsp lime juice
Salt to taste
Oil to drizzle over chicken prior to baking
Extra lime juice to pour over chicken while serving

Preparation:

1. Skin chicken and clean well. Make shallow slits on breast and thighs.

2. Mix well the ingredients for the marinade and apply it all over the chicken; inside as well. Refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour, preferable overnight.

To make the filling:

1.Heat a large frying pan or sauce pan and add oil. When hot, splutter cumin seeds. As soon as they splutter, add chopped onion with salt and sauté till it softens. Add green chillies (if using), ginger and garlic and sauté for a minute or two until the raw smell goes off.

2. Add all the spices (except garam masala) and sauté for a minute on medium heat until the raw smell goes off. Sprinkle little water if it starts to stick to the pan.

3. Add chopped tomatoes, cover and cook till it goes mushy.

4. Add the washed and drained mince, stir well to break up the forming lumps. Add green peas. Stir well, cover and cook till the mince is cooked well and you get a wet filling, which is like a thick gravy and not dry at all. No need to add water since the water will be released from the meat while cooking. Add garam masala, lime juice and chopped coriander leaves and cook for 3-4 minutes until all the flavours are well blended. Adjust salt if need be. Let it cool slightly.

5. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (180 degrees for fan assisted oven) 10 minutes prior to baking. Stuff the chicken with meat filling, as full as possible. Tie the chicken legs in away that it covers the opening part. Place the stuffed chicken on baking tray, which has been lined with a greased foil. Pour any leftover marinade on the chicken and drizzle generously with oil. Bake for around one hour, less or more as required turning once or twice in between and pouring the liquid from the tray all over chicken. To ensure if it is fully cooked, poke the thicker parts like breast or thighs with a skewer or knife. If clear juice oozes out from the poked area, then it should be cooked. Make sure you don’t over cook it, as it gets really dry and rubbery. Squeeze generously with lime juice all as soon as it comes out off oven over and serve warm with naan, parattas, rice, Tandoor roti, Chappathis, rice, Arabic bread (khubz) etc.

Notes:

Whenever I bake whole chicken, I normally place quartered onions, chopped vegetables like carrot and potato in the baking tray along with chicken, half way through baking. These vegetables absorb the flavours from the chicken and it is really yummy. I normally add loads of onion, roasted onions tastes fantastic.

150th post and a Zebra Cake in my Kitchen too!

Finally Shab’s Cuisine hits another milestone! It’s been more than two years that I have been blogging my recipes and thoughts and in here and I very much enjoyed every moment of it. I never ever thought I could go so far because I am not the kind of person who is so much dedicated to any hobby apart from blogging. I get all bored after a while and stop it and then forgot about it. But this blog which once was just started to save my recipes and a mere time pass has become a passion and more than that a place to virtually pour my thoughts! I never knew I even had love for cooking until I started this little space of mine! I guess it was hidden in me until I started a blog.

I have never bothered to learn cooking until I settled down completely with my husband, and I guess there are plenty out there like me. During my college days, all I used to do was carrying some dictated recipes of my mom to UK whenever I paid him a visit during my holidays. I thought cooking was so easy, that I could easily cook whatever is written in my book taken from my mom who always gave me approximated measurements. I never bothered to peek into kitchen those days when my mom used to cook for us. When I started cooking from the notes, I realised that it was not an easy thing to start with and I didn’t even know the very basic of cooking like know how much salt to add, how long onions to be sautéed for a simple curry and even how to boil rice! Even then, I turned my back on cooking and din’t bother to learn a bit. That was how much I hated cooking once! Later when I completed my studies and settled with my hubby, I felt that I need to learn at least basic cooking to survive. Started collecting recipes on bits and pieces of paper, and little books, diaries etc . I lost many of my precious recipes because those were scribbled on bits and pieces of paper which I left somewhere carelessly and got lost. I used to see so many blogs around and try many recipes with successful results and that was when I thought I also should start saving my recipes online after perfecting them to suit our taste! Started a blog for fun and here it is now! I still am not sure how far I will be going on with this, but as long as I have support from my readers and friends.

 

Initially I dint even know something like measuring spoons and cups existed, so all the measurements used to be taken down using regular spoons in my kitchen. I tried the same recipes with measuring spoons and it gave me different results. So I am trying to edit all the recipes using standard measuring spoons and cups.I have learnt so much from blogging, I am introduced to wide range of foods from around the world and fantastic foodies. I also prepare loads of them at home and try to perfect them as it goes. After the blog was started, I did watch too much of cookery programs which ate up so much of time once which I have reduced almost to none due to lack of time. But I still search loads of recipes, peek on many blogs, comment on as much as time allows me. The number of cook books on my shelves is also on tremendous increase and too are the vessels! My camera was upgraded from a simple but a high end point and shoot camera to a Digital SLR. I also believe that my photography (at least for the macro pictures) has become much better than before. Hasn’t it? I also try to collect anything and everything that looks good on pictures be it a shell, a ribbon, flowers, leaves or a piece of paper to make a better background for my pictures, but sometimes I take pictures in a hurry not giving importance for anything. I have also gained loads of wonderful friends and readers who are so inspiring without whom this blog would have far been dead. Thanks to all for the wonderful comments and inspiration. That really kept me going and still keeps me going.

Now, coming to the recipe, Zebra cake is one of the prettiest cakes on its own. It looks pretty as it is, without any frosting done. The cake is similar to the marble cake, but the patterns is zebra striped which make it look stunning. I have seen this cake baked on so many blogs, so this might not be new to many of you. I had prepared this quite a while back with half the amount mentioned in the original recipe and using a 6 inch pan. The result was perfect except for the sweetness part which was really low for our taste. For that reason, I added more sugar and a pinch of salt when I made it the second time. Last weekend we had a get together with our friends and I baked this cake and took along. I also made a simple icing to go with it that I prepared for Celebration chocolate cake. It tasted fantastic with the icing on and everyone absolutely loved it. I first spotted this cake on Farida Azerbaijani's Blog. Have a peek at her wonderful blog to get the original recipe. Here is my tweeked version of it to suit our taste.

Ingredients:

4 large eggs at room temperature

1 1/3 cup castor sugar
1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups+ 2 Tbsp plain flour

1 Tbsp Baking Powder

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup milk at room temperature

2 pinch salt

For icing,:

Refer Celebration chocolate cake.

Preparations:

 

1.Grease and line a 9 inch deep cake pan. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius 10 minutes before baking.

2. Combine sugar and eggs and beat on high speed around 8 minutes until it becomes thick and pale yellow in colour.

3. Add in milk and oil and beat for 30 seconds until thoroughly combined. Add in vanilla essence and beat again.

4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder and mix well.

5. Add this flour mixture to the wet mixture and beat just until combined and no dry flour is visible. Don’t overbeat the mixture after adding the flour since it will knock out the airy bubbles and result in a heavy cake.

6. Divide the batter into half. In one half of batter add sifted cocoa powder and mix well. Leave the other half plain.

7. Now pour 3 Tablespoons of plain batter in the centre of the pan. Pour 3 Tablespoons of cocoa batter in the centre of the white batter. Don’t spread the batter or wait to spread. It will spread by itself as it goes. Pour Another 3 tablespoon of white batter in the centre of cocoa batter and then cocoa batter. Continue pouring until all the batter is used up. I used separate spoons for both batter to make it easier. If you have a ladle that holds 3 tablespoons of batter, you can use that. Here, I used heaped tablespoon of cocoa batter and scant tablespoon plain batter, hence more prominent cocoa stripes and less white straps.

8. Place the pan in the centre of the oven and bake till done or when the skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. The original recipe mentions 45 minutes, but mine took 1 hour 5 minutes.

Once the cake is completely cooled, serve as required, plain or with whipped cream frosting or any icing. I did the same frosting that I did for celebration chocolate cake and it tasted just divine.

Pistachio and Cardamom Cookies

Is there anyone out there who don't like cardamom? I love the smell of the cardamom and try to sneak it in anything possible....You can add them in anything imaginable from cookies, Kulfi’s, tea, desserts, kheers, sweets, fudge and cakes to rice, curries, smoothies and even pickles!...anything and everything you could imagine. It is such a versatile ingredient with a very sweet smell, that it makes one of the best flavouring ingredients in most of the dishes especially for desserts. The other day I was preparing some Arabic Rice ‘Machbous’ and I ran out of cardamom powder and had to grind some fresh ones. The smell of the ground cardamoms left me craving for some cardamom cookies that we used to get back in India. I guess it’s the ‘Good-day’ brand cookies that are unavailable here or may be available in some remote unreachable Indian grocers.

 So I looked upon net for any recipes that uses cardamom and pistachio combo and came up with these. Oh my! The cookies were simply delicious and divine much better than I thought and I just loved it to core. Pistachio and cardamom paired perfectly. The texture was light and melt-in mouth type- not hard, not crunchy but very light texture, somewhat like a very good butter cookie. I have added more cardamom here than the recommended amount, but that’s up to you how much to add! The cookies had a light green hue from the pistachios which made it look soooo pretty! Since my son loves shapes, I cut them into different shapes to make it more appealing for him. I tell you, these are one of the best cookies ever and a definite keeper. I got around 28 medium sized cookies. You can view the original recipe which is double the amount given here.

I started taking the pictures when I started, then I forgot to take the pictures as I continued! So I just have two pictures that I captured in the beginning of the process until I mixed the sugar. Sorry about that, but I am sure you will be able to follow the recipe because it is a straight forward and a simple recipe.

Pistachio and Cardamom Cookies

Makes around 28 medium size cookies

Adapted from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

Ingredients:

½ cup pistachios

½ cup – ½ cup plus 2 TBSP castor sugar (Depending on the sweetness you prefer)

½ cup butter, at room temperature

1 medium egg

1 cup + 4 Tablespoons Plain flour, plus extra to flour the Rolling surface

3 Tbsp corn flour

1/8 tsp salt

¾ tsp freshly ground cardamoms

½ tsp vanilla essence

Granulated sugar to sprinkle on the cookies

Few pistachio halves for garnishing

Preparations:

1. Finely grind pistachios and sugar in a Grinder. You can leave it slightly coarse if you wish.

2. Cream butter and half of pistachio-sugar mixture till smooth using a wooden spoon.

3. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence and mix wel scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in remaining pista-sugar mixture and stir till smooth.

4. Sift plain flour, corn flour and salt in a bowl. Add the flour mixture to the above wet mixture and mix to form a soft pliable dough and is not at all sticky. You may add a tablespoon more if need be.

5. Pre heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line a cookie sheet with baking paper

6. Flour a clean surface and roll the dough using a rolling pin that is also coated with flour to avoid sticking. Roll to a thickness of 8mm-9mm and cut using floured cookie cutters to desired shapes. Lift it carefully using a palette knife or a simple knife and place on the cookie sheet. Slightly push a pistachio in the centre of each prepared cookie and sprinkle the cookies with coarse suagr crystals or granulated sugar. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes until the bottom edge starts to turn slightly golden. I baked for 11 minutes exactly, but the timing will differ from oven to oven. After cutting the first batch of cookies, there will be left over dough. Form it into a ball and roll it and flatten it again and cut into desired shapes until all the dough is used up. You can just make a ball and flatten it for the last bit of dough. Once they are baked, leave them in the sheet for 3-4 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool them off completely. Once completely cooled, store them in air tight containers. These are perfect with a cup of tea And if you prefer you can have it with cardamom infused tea!

Notes:

I have halved the original recipe. The original recipe calls for a large egg, and I substituted it with a medium egg. So I had to add more flour to make a pliable dough that I could roll. The dough was soft still, but manageable with the amount of flour of flour used. So I tried chilling the half part of the dough to make it slightly firmer and easier to roll without sticking. The result was exactly the same with no difference at all. So you may chill the dough and roll it.

You may use ½ cup of sugar if you like it less sweet, else add ¾ cup of sugar to make it sweet. I used ½ a cup of sugar here, but would love it slightly sweeter.