Prawns Grilled Sandwitch

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Happy New Year to everyone :) Mine was quiet one as I was/am jetlaged a way lot to stay awake even till 9pm :) Guess this recipe would be special because I started working on this last year and the final dish was ready this year ;-) This was kind of impromptu one on demand of special breakfast by Ajoy


Ingredients
14-16 Bread Slices
400g Cleaned Prawns
1/2 Cup pickled cucumber
4 Spoon Curd
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
1/4 Spoon Chaat Masala
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Cup Butter
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix curd, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, black pepper powder, jeera powder, garam masala, chaat masala and salt
• Slice the prawns into smaller pieces and add them into above curd mixure, mix well and store them in fridge for 4-6 hours.
• Heat a flat pan and add 1/4 cup butter and marinated prawns
• Cook on high flame with constant stirring till the masala turns dark brown in color and dry out. Keep aside.
• Make sandwitches by spreading pickled cucumber and prawns cooked earlier between two slices of breads
• Grill them with remaining butter and serve hot

Notes
Chopping prawns into smaller pieces would help in avoiding it being pulled in a single bite :)

25 Random Things About Me

I was tagged by Amruth and Naveen for writing the 25 random things about me. Well I gave it a thought and slept over it :) *remembers a dialog from last episode of Grey's Anatomy* And here is my list:

1. I am in absolute love with Abhi-Niki from Dill Mill Gayye so much so that I make video mixes, write fictional scenes on these characters. I am loving this creative side of mine :)
2. I like doing something creative after office may it be cooking something new, painting a glass or pot or knitting. Though I end up picking first option most of the time because it is like one arrow 2 birds :)
3. I am a Lost fan and cant wait for the finale season and the topping to it is I would be watching it live in HD :)
4. I love hiking and when it comes to hiking I can never find it enough :) Dil always maange more.
5. Discovered love for cycling after coming to Redmond. Absolutely love coming back from work by cycle (Again 1 arrow 2 birds:)) or cycling on weekends on Sammamish River Trail
6. I prefer having lunch by desk while browsing some cooking recipes, reading blogs, long mails and fiction updates. I finish lunch quickly and yet feel rejuvenated for post lunch work :)
7. When it comes to following rules I would want to do it with absolute precision esp driving rules. I hate when people speed, drive rash and make mistakes. Well once in a while I too make a mistake and I cant forget that mistake easily :)
   
8. I miss Hussain Sagar Drive very badly especially after late night movie.
9. I am a music freak but then I can tolerate only certain type of songs which includes old hindi and few new ones which have some meaningful lyrics and soft music.
10. When I am listening to music, I start of singing along without even realizing. So its absolute torture for people around me when I am listening to songs
11. I love playing antakshari and the best ones have to be with Milind during our Niagara-NY and Florida drives in 2002.
12. I hate playing dumbsheras and I am bad at it. :)
13. I am afraid of dogs (well is that an understatement)
14. I believe Indian railways should award me for being their loyal customer for years. I have record of traveling Hyderabad -> Pune -> Hyderabad over every weekend for almost 3-4 months continuously.
15. I never tried English music as a teen and now I adore my music collection so much so that I don't feel like giving it a chance.
16. I can eat chaat items or anything chat pat items at any time of the day. :) Everyday stuff including rice-chapati-bhaji kind of takes low priority over the chatpat items
17. The best paani puri I have had till now is from a person who use to sit next to then newly opened MK Ahmad on CMH Road, Bangalore.
18. I am scared of dentists and nurses who give injections. Probably thats one reason I am totally for homeopathy.
19. I dont know since when but as long as I can remember I hate hot Tea and cant drink even a sip. But was introduced to Ice Tea by Kushal and you can say as much as I hate hot tea I love the Ice Tea.
20. Ever since I started watching english dramas I cant watch hindi ones without fast forwarding through them :) The current favourites are Castle, Grey's Anatomy and Flashforward. Also planning to give a chance to V which premiers tonight.
21. I am FRIENDS fan. Each character was unique and they maintained the traits, behaviors and habits for them throughout 10 seasons. The fun with friends was never been so close to real. Have already watched it twice in order. The random episodes if are airing I can watch any number of times. Wish they could create same magic again.
22. I have started playing Farmville on Facebook or you can say I started using Facebook for playing Farmville :) I liked that game so much so that I play on Ajoy's behalf too :)
23. I love rains and the drizzling rain is the topmost favorite. I like hiking, cycling or just taking a walk in drizzling rain :) Foggy weather is another favorite one and it gives heavenly feel to this otherwise earthy world.
24. I love playing fussball.. I havent played it much but I really enjoy it a lot. Our own fuss ball table is on its way and cant wait to play late night cames on fridays
25. I am more of listening person than talking one :) I can listen to absolutely anyone anytime than talk and when it comes to stage talk or group talking I am the worst case of shy attitude. Though I can be little better with close friends and family. So don't be surprised if I prefer write/mails/blogs over phone calls or social meetings :)

The rules for the above tagging buisness is:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. If I tagged you, its because I want to know more about you.

So even though I do not have so many people to tag but I would tag:
Ajit, Ajoy, Atul, Michy, Milind, Nandy, Nitin, Piyush, Prashant, Sameer, Vaidehi, Vishvesh

Kalakand

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today morning when I was just thinking about making some sweet, suddenly thought of Kalakand I had when Mehul had taken us to temple for his new car's puja. I searched a little bit for the recipe and found that its very easy one. Oh but when I actually made it, I knew though the recipe is simple, it does take a long time to get to the final product. Especially boiling the milk to half and then drying it completely.


Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
1 Cup Sugar
3 Spoon Vinegar
1 Spoon Pistachio
A drop of Kewada Essence
A Silver Leaf

Method

• Boil half of the milk.
• Mix Vinegar with 3 spoon water and add it to the boiling milk.
• When the whey separates completely remove it from the stove and strain it
• Wash it through running cold water
• Put it in the muslin cloth and drain the water. Keep it aside under the heavy pan
• Boil remaining milk till half in quantity
• Add in the curdled milk stored aside in it and cook over medium flame till the mixture thickens
• Add in sugar and kewada essence. Cook till the mixture thickens completely.
• Spread the mixture on the plate, apply the silver leaf and garnish with chopped pistachios
• Let the mixture cool. Cut it into cubes and serve

Notes
I tried using non stick pan to boil the milk to half but it didn't work well. So I transferred it to the aluminum pan. It works best for making the sweet.
While boiling down the milk, you need to stir it constantly and vigourously so that it doesnt stick to bottom or sides of the pan.
05Nov: I tried using 2 galons of milk instead of 2 litre today which is approximately 8 liter and I had terrible time boiling down the milk to half and even after adding paneer. I totally missed the fact that since its boiling of the milk the time taken would be increasing and wont be a marginal increase. So be aware if you are making it in bulk. Its too much of work. And it made approximately 16 pieces of sweets with 2 liter and we finished it so fast that I had to make it again :) and thats how I thought of making it in bulk so that we can give it to few others too :)

Berry Nutty Chocochip Cake

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Well this time around in Cosco I found fresh cranberries and since I love cranberry juice I thought of buying that packet and trying it out.. The first bite of cranberry and I was sure that I cant have it as it is and have to make something out of it. And then after searching for lot many recipes, none were appealing enough to try out. That is when I decided to try my own one from the few ones I read.


Ingredients
2 Cup Maida
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Cranberries
1 Cup Choco Chips
1 Cup Mixed Nuts
1 Cup Grapes
1/2 Cup Melted Butter
1.5 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Spoon Baking Soda
1 Egg
4 Spoon Chocolate Sauce
Salt to taste

Method

• Chop the mixed nuts, cranberries and mix them with choco chips and keep aside.
• Sift through Maida, Baking Powder, Baking Soda and Salt couple of times.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the loaf pan/any other baking pan with butter
• In a large bowl, take this sift through mixture, add in sugar and mix well
• Add in melted butter and mix with hands to form a crumbly mixture
• Grind grapes in the mixie to get its juice. Add in the mixture in bowl
• Add egg and nuts-berry=chocochip mixture. Mix well.
• Pour the batter in the previously greased pan and bake it in the oven over 350F/180C for 45 minutes.
• Let the cake cool down and then sprinkle the chocolate sauce over its top and serve.

Notes
Dont worry if the batter isn't of flowing consistency, its normal. The batter in this case is more of a moist thick mixture.
I already had the mixed nuts bottle at home so I used that one, but you can combine any kind of nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts.

Thick Poha Chivada

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Chivada (Mixture) in general is weak point for all most everyone i guess :) This one is very common preparation we end up preparing. Even more than one with thin poha (though i like that one too).


Ingredients
2 Cup Thick Poha
2.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Sesame Seeds
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Cup Peanuts
1/4 Cup Pootane Daal(Chanaa Daal)
1.5 Spoon Sugar
7-8 Curry Leaves
4 Spoon Cashews
4 Spoon Raisins
1/4 Spoon Mustard
A pinch of Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Roast jeera and sesame seeds over low flame for around 3-4 minutes
• Dry grind jeera, sesame seeds and sugar to form fine powder
• In a big pan, mix the above powder, 2 spoon of red chilli powder, cashews, raisins and salt to taste. Mix well
• In a pan heat oil over medium flame
• Fry pohas in small batches by adding them in another strainer (steel or aluminium one) which is dipped in the hot oil
• Drain them on the kitchen towel and keep adding them to the above masala mixture when 2-3 batches are on towel. Mix well
• When pohas are fried completely, strain out the remaining oil and heat it in a pan (around 2-3 spoon)
• Fry groundnut till they turn reddish in it. Keep them aside.
• In same oil, add mustard and let it splutter.
• Add Asafoetida, curry leaves and futaane daal(chanaa daal) and roast it for around 2 minutes.
• Add in fried groundnuts and remaining 1/2 spoon of red chilli powder and add this mixture to the chivada mixture prepared earlier. Mix well.

Notes
Use litte oil at a time and add some more oil when half way though. The oil turns black after frying poha, so it would help in reducing the remaining quantity that we need to throw away.
Using strainer helps in taking out pohas easily after they are fried.
I drained the fried pohas over kitchen towel so that it can soak out oil, but one must make sure to transfer them to masala mixture when it is warm and before it cools down

Chakali

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This time for Diwali I decided to prepare some faraal - snack items prepared especially for Diwali. So the preparation started with getting recipes from mom. When I looked at recipe for chakali, I just couldn't believe it is going to be so easy to make it and yet so quick. I had fun preparing this one and it tasted awesome. Item that is my and ajoy's favorite.


Ingredients
2 Cup Rice Powder
1 Spoon Maida
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Sesame Seeds
1/4 Spoon Carom Seeds
1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix rice powder, maida, sesame seeds, carom seeds, red chilli powder, salt in a plate
• Add in the butter and mix well.
• Make a soft dough ball (not too tight, not too loose but soft consistency) by adding water to it and kneading it well
• Knead half portion of it and put it in chakali maker.
• Heat oil on high
• Turn the heat to medium, make chakalis from the maker on a plate and transfer them to the oil.
• Fry from both sides till light red in color
• Repeat for remaining ones, making sure oil is hot enough before adding chakalis to the oil.
• Let it drain the oil on the kitchen towel, cool it and store it in air tight container

Notes
If you are using homemade butter, then wash it with cold water before use.
The chakalis should be taken out before they turn completely reddish as the color darkens after removing and cooling it down.

Tandoori Chicken

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

One of the best starters we both love. In hyderabad I use to prepare this with Everest Chicken Tandoori Masala but this time I made it with my mix of masalas. It tasted awesome.


Ingredients
6 Chicken Leg Pieces
3/4 Cup Curd
2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Spoon Ginger Paste
2 Spoon Garlic Paste
4 Spoon Lemon Juice
1/2 Spoon Chaat Masala
2 Spoon Oil
1/2 Cup Butter
Salt to taste

Method

• Make horizontal cuts on the chicken pieces
• Apply 2 spoon lemon juice and 1 spoon red chilli powder to it and keep aside for 30 minutes
• In a bowl mix curd, garlic paste, ginger paste, 1 spoon red chilli powder, 2 spoon lemon juice, garam masala, oil and salt
• Apply the above marination to chicken and store in fridge for 4-5 hours
• Preheat oven to 395F(200C)
• Melt the butter and sprinkle some on the chicken and bake it for 15 minutes
• Turn the chicken to face other side and sprinkle more butter on both sides. Bake for another 15 minutes
• Again turn the chicken and sprinkle remaining butter and bake for another 10 minutes
• Sprinkle chaat masala and serve with onions rings and lemon wedges

Notes
Instead of leg pieces you can use 700g mixed pieces as well.
In restaurants, they use color to make it look reddish but I didnt have it neither did I intended to use it.
I baked it over this bakeware set. It helps in dropping off extra marination, butter in the tray.