Mamma's Chicken Masala

Its April finally! I'm due in two weeks people and i hope this baby sticks to schedule and doesn't make me wait. Well with baby on the way I have my mom here with me. She made this really yummy chicken curry which tasted just like they make in the restaurants. It tastes great with rotis or nans. Its a bit tedious to put together but hey it can be made on a day when you have a bit more time. Try it out, its really good. I find it tastes better the day after its been made which allows all the sauce to nicely soak into the chicken.

Ingredients

1 pound chicken pieces, preferably bone in

Marinade
1/2 cup yogurt
ginger paste 1 tsp
garlic paste 1 tsp
corriander powder 1 tblsp
Cumin powder 1 tsp
chilly powder 1 tsp
turmeric 1 tsp
salt to taste

For the sauce
3-4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon
black pepper -5-6 seeds
1/2 cup grated coconut
1/2 tsp saunf/fennel seeds
1 tblsp khuskhus/poppy seeds
1 green chilly

Other ingredients

One large onion
3 tblsp tomato paste

Method
Mix all ingredients of the marinade together. Add to chicken and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile dry roast spices and poppy seeds. Then add coconut and roast for about a couple of minutes. Grind together all ingredients of the sauce using as little water as needed to make a smooth paste. Heat oil in a pot. Add one large chopped onion and fry till golden brown. Add tomato paste and fry. Cook till oil floats to the top. Add chicken without the marinade and fry till chicken brown a bit. Add the marinade slowly in batches cooking for a minute or two between each addition. When the chicken is half cooked, add the coconut gravy paste with 1/2 cup water and cook till chicken is completely cooked. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve with nans.

Plum Compote

Like many new expectant parents Nits and I finally succumbed and got our costco membership:hey have to save on those diapers! So as is all too common while shopping at these wholesale stores, I ended up with way more stuff than I needed. We bought this giant box of plums and it was taking forever for us to finish them off before they went bad. Finally I took the last half a dozen or so of the plums and made a nice compote out of it. I added rose water to the compote, a unique idea from 101 cookbooks, one of my favorite food blogs. This compote goes so well with toast, sweet and tangy and the rose essence makes it even better.

Ingredients

Plums 6, washed, and cut into pieces
lime juice 2 tblsp
Rose water 2 tblsp
Sugar: same quantity as plums (I had 1 cup diced plums and I used 1 cup sugar)

Method
Dice plums. Place in a bowl. Add sugar, lime juice and rose water. Let it sit for 30 minutes.

Add the plum mixture to a deep bottomed pot. Boil on low heat. Remove any froth as it forms. Once it stops foaming, remove from heat, add to jar and cool.

Almond Biscotti

Finally a post after all these days. Now that I'm in the middle of my third trimester I have slowed down so much. I get so tired after work, all I want to do is put my feet up and lie on the couch. This has resulted in procrastination on making stuff and posting it. Well, last week our friend Danielle threw me a really beautiful baby shower. All our friends from work came and we had so much fun. I got beautiful gifts and i'm so grateful for all the love people showered on us and our lil one. Anyway, I wanted to thank Danielle and her girls for the beautiful shower. I saw this really cute cookie jar in target the other day:colorful and bright, something the girls would love. So decided to fill it with something homemade. Since Danielle is not a big fan of simple sugars, I decided to make a healthy cookie and whats better than the traditional biscotti. Using no fat, low sugar and lots of toasted almonds this indeed is a very healthy yet delectable treat. Biscotti is a twice baked cookie that is great for dunking in coffee. So here is my recipe:

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped
1 tsp almond extract (for a more intense flavor add 1.5 tsp)
1 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup sugar (maybe 1 cup if you like it a little sweeter)
3 eggs
dash of salt
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Preheat over to 300 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Beat eggs with almond extract and vanilla essence. Add slowly to dry ingredients mixing with an electric mixer. Add almonds and continue mixing until a dough forms. Flour your hands and surface and form the dough into logs. This recipe will make two logs about 10 inches long. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place logs on the sheet and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove and let it cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack.

Transfer to a cutting board and use a serrated knife to slice the biscotti diagonally.

Place each piece on the baking sheet and bake again for 10 minutes on each side. Remove from oven and let it cool. A nice touch is to dip each end of the biscotti in melted choolate and letting that cool to get chocolate dipped biscottis.

Meg's Irish Soda Bread

Here is a guest recipe. Andy, my bay mate, sent me this recipe over the weekend. His wife Meg made this bread and sent me pictures et al. It looked so good I had to post it right away.
Here's the recipe in Meg's words:

No Knead Bread

Hey everyone. I know I know i've slowed down to a crawl here. I've actually been cooking everyday but haven't made anything new that hasn't already been posted. I have nver made bread before. This recipe came to me from Gareth. Its actually a very popular recipe posted in the New York Times. Check it out here . There is also a youtube video of making this bread. I'm not much of a baker. I love breads but never ever ventured to make some on my own fearing all the kneading etc. This is an extremely easy recipe...it takes some time just for the dough to ferment and rise but is soooo easy its definitely worth a try. The bread is really really good.
I'm posting some of the pics of my bread making but not the recipe since the article has it. Unlike the recipe and as shown in the video I used my oven at 500 degrees instead of 450. Also, for some reason, maybe I didn't use enough flour on my towel, the bread stuck to the towel before baking and I had too pull it off losing a little bit of dough with it. This happened to Gareth too so I warn you to use maybe a thinner cotton towel that will easily come off. I also stored my dough after rising in the fridge and baked it the next day. That was fine too. I sincerely hope you try this one.

Yes we can

On this historic day let us welcome the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack H Obama, and wish him the best in his task ahead. As residents of this country we should understand and acknowledge our duties and responsibilities to assist in the rebuilding of a peaceful and prosperous nation and world. Yes we can!

Peas Paranthas

I love stuffed paranthas. It reminds me of my dad. He loved stuffed paranthas and being a vegetarian he always ordered this in any Indian restaurant. I can't believe he left us so early in life. Jan 16th was his 61st B'day. Happy B'day Pappa....this is for you. I remember him everytime I makes paranthas and can almost see him at the dining table waiting eagerly. I wish you guys had known him...he was such a sweetheart. The most important thing I learnt from him was always see the good in people and see the positive side of life whenever you're down. I read this food blog a couple of days back where the author was so called "venting" but she said such mean things about such trivial issues with her co-workers that I was shocked. However hard or long your work day was what bitterness do you hold within you that makes you say such terribly nasty shallow things about people who mean no harm. There's a thin line between venting and being downright mean. What a waste of blog space!! After reading her post I thought of my dad and his sweet outlook on life...because of it he was a happy man. Remember people keep the happy thoughts in, throw out the bad ones and use that "hate" word sparingly. Well I have totally digressed from my main point...here is the recipe for paranthas stuffed with peas in my dad's memory.

Ingredients
2 cups peas, cooked in water
2 green chillies
1 tsp cumin
salt to taste
Dough recipe

Grind together the cooked peas, green chillies and cumin with salt to form a thick mixture. Roll out the whole wheat flour dough into a 2 inch thick 6 inch diameter circle.



Add a spoon full of peas mixture in the centre. Fold the dough over it and seal the edges to form a ball. Flatten the ball in some flour and roll gently using flour to prevent sticking or tearing. This can be hard especially since the peas mixture is mushy. I just rolled a much thicker dough than normal and it was still good. So roll the paranthas thick so as to not tear the dough and spill out the filling. Heat a pan. Place the parantha on it. Lightly brown on one side. Turn over. Add oil to the browned side and flip again to bring a golden brown glossy colour. Cook this way on both sides. Do not press the paranthas too much as this makes them hard. Serve hot with yoghurt.