Walnut Cake with Milk Chocolate Icing for 5th Blog Anniversary

It’s spring, the trees started showcasing their new sprouts, the daffodils in my backyard is in full bloom and we are so looking forward to some sunshine, some warmth and comfort when it started snowing heavy again throughout this week!! And it is bitter cold with wintry winds. Is winter not yet over?? It was quite warm with lots of sunshine couple of weeks back and I thought the winter gloom is over. But with the snow this week, it feels like winter is forever!

It’s again another year again, and Shab’s cuisine is an year older than last year. The blog turned 5 on March 11. March is the busiest of months for me as both the husbands and kid’s birthday falls on the same month, just a week apart. Lot of thoughts goes into planning each day to make it special and memorable, and lot of arrangements to be made. The blog was started between the two birthdays, so posting something or even planning something on that day is just of question, atleast for me. I am planning to do a giveaway soon, something edible, some thing that you will definitely be looking forward to, but I will have to plan it for another date, later in April or May after the hectic schedule. Can you guess what that is going to be? Stay tuned for that.

Have I mentioned about my new year resolution on cutting down on my baking? I have been doing good so far with minimal baking unlike usual.  But I will have to break all my rules when it comes to March. It is a celebratory month where my oven sees lot of baked goodies. Everything was working down a treat until I borrowed this amazing chocolate recipe book from the local library. I have been flipping that book ever since I borrowed it. Pages over pages of chocolaty goodness made me full, but this simple recipe had caught my attention enough to try. I had to bake it, it is just the occasion that I had to wait for.

That was when the neighbour called us girls over for a coffee morning. I then bought all the stuffs and baked it just before it hit the midnight, so that I could try and taste it before I took it over to her house the very next morning. Icing was done in a hurry in the middle of the morning rush, and getting the son ready to school and then shooting had to be done soon after dropping son off to school. I was so pressed for time, as I had to get ready before the ladies met together over the coffee table that morning.

The cake was well received by the ladies and went down well. It is a basic butter based recipe, it is a breeze to make and has lovely texture with a lot of crunch from the nuts. The walnuts impart lots of flavour to the cake and the simple chocolate icing works well with the cake. I think apart from chocolate icing, cream cheese frosting or coffee icing would work well with the cake as well. I am sure making this cake again, but I would try tweaking it by adding coffee to the batter and doing a different icing, but  I have to await another chance to bake again.

Walnut Cake with Milk Chocolate Icing

Preparation time: 30 mins

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

180g soft unsalted butter

½ cup, 100g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup, 150g plain flour

2 ½ tbsp, 25 g corn flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

60g walnut finely chopped

¼ cup, 60 ml milk

Icing:

125g milk chocolate

20g butter

40g walnut to garnish

Preparation:

1. Grease and flour an 7 ½ - 8 inch deep pan or line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180 ˚C/ 170 ˚C fan oven. In a bowl, sift together the plain flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In another bowl cream butter and sugar using an electric whisk until creamy and pale.

3. Add eggs, one by one until well incorporated.

4. Add in the flour mix in 2-3 parts, and fold it gently mixing milk in between.

5. Gradually add in the chopped walnuts and fold again.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until golden for about 35 minutes or a tooth pick poked in the centre comes out clean. Let it cool completely before turning out.

Make the icing when the cake is completely cooled.

1.Melt the butter with coarsely chopped chocolate over simmering water or in the microwave and continue stirring, off the heat, until lukewarm.

2. Place the cake on the rack and pour the warm chocolate mixture over it and spread it using a palette knife. I just iced the top, but you can ice the sides too and decorate with chopped walnuts.

Restaurant Style Chicken 65

It looks like it’s been a while that I posted some recipes here. I have plenty of recipes pending in my drafts, I am not sure when I am going to be done with all those. I am caught up with loads of stuff for the past couple of weeks and I am going to be busy for the coming weeks as well. So, I am hoping my posts are going to sporadic, until unless I prioritize blogging over several other things like I used to do before. 

 

Back home, Chicken 65 is one of the most popular starters in an Indian restaurant menu. They are not seen in the menus here somehow, but these are the ones we always order for the starters, if they are available. The Indian restaurants here have very different menus as that to India, something that not only taste different, but looks quite different as well. I have to agree to the fact that, Indian food in Indian restaurants back home tastes so much better than the ones in here.

There are many stories about the origin of this recipe, I am not certain with any of them though. I read that, it uses chicken that is 65 days old. Some says it is the 65^th recipe on some restaurant menu. Whatever the story is, all I can tell you is, this is a great, simple and easy chicken recipe with great depth of flavour.

I always believed that we can never recreate the restaurant-like food at home and this recipe proved me wrong. I was quite surprised at its outcome, as it tasted as good as the ones we get in the restaurants if not better. It is not only scrumptious, but equally easy and quick to prepare. The outcome is always juicy, tangy and spicy chunks of meat slathered in goodness! I have already prepared it several times, many a times it being the starters for the party and I got rave reviews for it. I usually prepare it with chicken breast, as it is easy for the little ones to eat, but they are more tasty and tender with meat on bone.

Restaurant Style Chicken 65

Serves about 12-15 as starters

Recipe adapted from Shashirecipes

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 mins

 

 Ingredients:

 2 lb, 900g chicken breast, or legs cut into small bite size portions, about 2 inches

 Marinade:

1 tsp minced ginger

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp black pepper powder

1 Tbsp coriander powder

1 Tbsp Red chilli powder*

½ tsp cumin powder

½ Tbsp Paprika**

¼ tsp turmeric powder

2 tbsp corn flour

2 large eggs

3 Tbsp lemon juice

few drops of red colour

salt to taste

Others:

½ of a large onion finely chopped, ½ cup

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic

2-4 green chillies

1 tsp pepper powder

2 strands of curry leaves finely chopped

2 tbsp coriander leaves chopped

Vegetable oil to deep fry

Preparations:

1. Marinate the chicken piece with all the ingredients listed under marinade until the chicken is evently coated and leave it in the fridge for couple of hours or overnight in the refrigerator for the marinade to seep in the meat.

2. Heat oil in a kadai or a large frying pan and pour enough oil to deep fry the chicken. Oil should not be heated to smoking high heat, but retained at a medium heat to cook the chicken pieces.

3. Once the oil is hot, add few chicken pieces in the kadai and let them cook for about 3-4 minutes undisturbed until the bubbles starts to come down. Using a slotted spoon, flip the chicken pieces over and cook for 3-4 more minutes. At a medium heat it just takes about 7-8 minutes to cook each batch, but check the doneness by taking out couple of pieces. Make sure it is cooked through and you don’t see any pink in the middle. Over cooking them can make it hard and chewy, so make sure you cook it for sufficient time to keep it juicy and moist. Once done, drain them in a kitchen towel to remove excess oil.

4. For the tadka, in another oan, add 2 tbsp of oil and throw in chopped onions. Once they trun golden, add in the ginger garlic, curry  leaves and green chilli and sauté for 2-3 minutes until the raw smell fades.

5. Add in pepper powder and coriander leaves and sauté for few seconds and then add the chicken pieces and mix well. Serve hot with rice, chappathis or naans or as starters.

Kerala Chicken Stew - Two Recipes

Chicken stew is one of the curries that I prepare ever since I started my cooking expedition. It has evolved much since then, as I improved much in cooking, and learned to balance the flavours and spices. I make two versions of it now, one being the easy, low fat version without using nuts and other one slightly richer version using ground nuts and thick coconut milk. The gravy is usually white, as no powdered spices are used apart from little garam masala. Curry gets most of its flavour from the whole spices that flavour the oil, along with onion, ginger and garlic. Even though the curry looks plain and white, it is very aromatic and full of flavour.

I usually use maggi coconut milk powder to make coconut milk, but if you could extract fresh milk from coconut it would be even better. You may use fresh, frozen or even desiccated coconut to extract the milk. I tend to be lazy when it comes to grinding coconut and squeezing all that glorious white milk off it, leaving behind extra pots and pans to wash. So almost always use Maggi coconut powder. You can also used canned coconut milk by diluting it with water to thin it out. I never use canned coconut milk in my cooking as I feel it has got a strong synthetic aftertaste.

This curry is usually served at home along with appam, ghee rice, pathiri, chappathis or even bread.

Kerala Chicken Stew

Preparation time:10-20 minutes

Cooking time:30-40 minutes

Recipe 1:

Ingredients:

1 kilo chicken

1 large potato,300g, peeled and cut into 2 “ pieces

2 large onions, finely chopped, 2 ½ cups

1 ½ tbsp grated ginger

1 ½ tbsp grated garlic

3 twigs of curry leaves

1 large tomato, 175g, cut into long strips

2 tbsp coconut oil/vegetable oil

5 cardamom

5 cloves

2 -3 2” piece of cinnamon sticks

1 tsp pepper corns slightly crushed or use it as whole

3 bay leaves

4-5 green chillies slit lengthwise

1/3 cup cashewnuts soaked in ½ cup thick coconut milk

½-1 cup thin coconut milk

½ tsp garam masala powder

1-2 tsp lemon juice

Preparation:

1.Wash chicken well and place It in a colander to drain of all the excess water.

2. In a wide non stick pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil. When hot add cardamom, pepper corns, cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon and cook for few seconds until it leaves aroma. (Heat is kept to medium as high heat burns the spices).

3. Add the chopped onion and salt and sauté until it starts turning golden. Add the chopped ginger and garlic and cook till the raw smell fades.

4. Add tomatoes, 2 twigs of curry leaves and sauté until tomatoes are pulpy.

5. Add chicken pieces and mix well and cook for 5-6 minutes.

6. Pour in the coconut milk, stir, and cook it covered on low heat until the chicken is half done, for about 10 minutes.

7. Add in the potatoes and cook till the chicken is tender and potato is cooked.

8. Add in cashew paste, remaining curry leaves, lemon juice, green chillies and garam masala. Gently heat to simmering point and take off the heat. Serve it along with ghee rice, appam etc.

Recipe2:

Ingredients:

1 kilo chicken

2 large onions,sliced thin, 3 cups

2 tbsp grated ginger

2 ½ - 3tbsp grated garlic (10 cloves)

3 twigs of curry leaves

1 large tomato, 175g, cut into long strips

2 tbsp coconut oil/vegetable oil

5 cardamom

6 cloves

3 2” piece of cinnamon sticks

2 tsp pepper corns slightly crushed

4-5 green chillies slit lengthwise

11/2 - 2 cup thin coconut milk

½ tsp garam masala powder

2 twig curry leaves

Preparation:

1. Wash chicken well and place It in a colander to drain of all the excess water.

2. In a wide non stick pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil. When hot add cardamom, pepper corns, cloves, and cinnamon and cook for few seconds until it leaves aroma. (Heat is kept to medium as high heat burns the spices).

3. Add the chopped onion and salt and sauté until it starts turning golden. Add the chopped ginger and garlic and cook till the raw smell fades.

4. Add tomatoes and sauté until tomatoes are pulpy.

5. Add chicken pieces and mix well and cook for 5-6 minutes.

6. Pour in the coconut milk, stir, and cook it covered on low heat until the chicken is fully cooked, for about 20 minutes minutes. Towards the end of cooking, add curry leaves, green chillies and garam masala. Gently heat to simmering point and take off the heat. Serve it along with ghee rice, appam etc.

Kappa Masala (Spiced up Cassava/Tapioca/Kolli kizhangu)

Everyone has certain area of expertise when it comes to cooking, isn’t it? I also assume that has lot to do with their palette. I have a very sweet tooth and I am more into baking cakes, pastries and desserts. That is my forte and I am aligned to making sweet things by default. But on the other side, there are people who make savoury goodies better than their sweet counterparts.

Like many of you being intimidated about baking, I should say, I am intimidated or rather not comfortable when it comes to traditional Kerala cooking. I am not talking about the Malabar cooking, but the traditional Kerala Sadya recipes and alike. I make few of them at home, but not the elaborate ones. These are the not the kind of dishes that were cooked at home regularly and I grew up eating. At my home, meat, fish , chicken, basically , any non-veg dominated our dinner table.  As of vegetable, it was just thoran of any kind, sambhar, pumpkin curry etc that we had.

Onam sadya was a something we usually get to taste when our neighbour aunty brings us in small containers or in restaurants during Onam. You would be surprised if I tell you I have never had onam sadya from India and probably the first proper Onam sadya that I had was for last year’s Onam, where it was served in a traditional manner on a banana leaf. It felt good, really good. I got to taste many things that I never had before and absolutely adored. I realized that there are things, vegetarian, that are very delicious. On that day, I decided to learn as many Kerala dish as possible and to make it a regular part of our meal.

That is when Nags of Edible Garden suggested cooking up a kerala dish every month and post on the blog. A bunch of food bloggers joined the venture at KeralaKitchen. Nags started it off with the first recipe being tapioca masala. If anyone of you want to join the Monthly Kerala Cooking, please join us. I thought it was a brilliant idea, with me already having plans to broaden my knowledge on kerala cooking, I hope this this joint cooking will motivate me further.

Coming to Kappa, again, it is not something we cook at my home a lot, but very popular vegetable in and around Kerala. At my place, it is occasionally made for evening tea. Tapioca plants are grown in plenty back home in the back yards and they yield quite well. But most of them are given away to workers, and few of them are cooked with coconut for evening tea. With nag’s recipe, it is prepared in a different way and it tasted great along with a cup of hot tea. It is garlicky and spicy and great along with evening tea. The chilli and garlic flavour domintes the dish, yet balancing the whole dish beautifully.

Living in the British land for a while now, our spice tolerance has come to bare minimum, and in spite of cutting down the chillies to three from five, we still found it quite fiery! So you may want to cut down on your chillies further down if your tolerance is as low as ours or increase to suit your taste.

Kappa Masala

serves 4

Adapted from Cookingandme

Ingredients:

½ kilo Tapioca/cassava/kappa/kolli kizhangu, cubed

5 cloves of garlic

2-5 whole dried red chillies

¼ tsp + ¼ tsp  turmeric powder

2 strands of curry leaves, chopped

½ tsp black mustard seeds

2 tbsp coconut oil

salt to taste

1 litre boiling water

Preparation:

1.Peel the tapioca and wash thoroughly.

2. Cut them into 2 inch cubes.

3. Throw them in to bowl, pour in 1 litre of boiling water, salt to taste and ¼ tsp turmeric. Cook till tender for about 10-15 minutes, but not mashed up.

4.While the tapioca is cooking, grind together dry chillies and garlic in a grinder or just crush them in a pestle and mortar.

5. Once the tapioca is cooked well,drain the water off and keep them aside.

6. To temper, heat a pan and add oil. When hot, add in the mustard seeds. When they splutter, add in the ground paste and chopped curry leaves and sauté on medium heat for a minute or so to get rid of the raw garlic smell. Add ¼ tsp of turmeric and more salt if need be and mix well.

7. Add in the cooked tapioca and mix well to coat the masalas. Serve along with some chutney or a spicy fish curry or on its own.

This Kappa Masala Recipe was adapted from Edible Garden, who is hosting the Kerala Kitchen cookout this month.