Tempering Rice... A quick one!

Recently I got to know the difference between a sequel and a franchise movie. If there are only two parts then its a sequel however if its 3 or more parts then the movie is a franchise. 

For example Alien, Fast and Furious movies are franchise where as Harold & Kumar is a squeal with only two parts (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay). 

You might be wondering where I am getting at :-)? Well, its my third blog on cooking recipes that means my blog is now a franchise, right? Kidding :-).

Since its the third recipe, you need three things for this one: 

1. Cooked Basmati Rice 
2. Tempering and 
3. A good music play list :).

So let's get to it.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp Cumin seeds.
• 2 inch piece of ginger, cut into fine julienne.
• 2 medium size onion, finely chopped. A chopper would be preferred.
• 3 large tomatoes, finely chopped. A chopper would be preferred.
• 3 green chilies (adjust according to your taste).
• 2 tsp red chili power (adjust according to your taste).
• 1 tsp Cumin powder.
• 1 tsp Coriander powder.
• 1 tsp turmeric powder.
• 1 tsp black pepper.
• Lemon Juice.
• 3 tsp Olive Oil, Refined Oil, or Desi Ghee.
• Salt to taste.
• Frozen/Fresh peas.
• A glass of Rice.
• Peanuts (optional)
• Tomato ketchup (optional).
• Garam masala to garnish (optional).
• Coriander leaves to garnish (optional).

Cooking Process:

We will cook rice and tempering separately and in the end we will mix them well together.

The Rice

• 1 glass of raw basmati rice, well rinsed with tap/filtered water till they are clean.
• Put it in microwave safe bowl.
• Add some salt, peas and cumin seeds.
• Add two glasses of water and cook it. I cook it for 20 minutes in microwave on Medium High. You need to look out for your microwave settings.
• While it cooks lets get to tempering.

Here is how it should look:

The Tempering

• Heat the pan, add olive/ refined oil or Ghee.
• Add cumin seeds, let them crackle.  
• Add onion with green chilies.
• Add ginger julienne.
• Add salt.
• Let the onions change its color.
• Add tomatoes.
• Add all the dry spices i.e. red chili power, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder
• Mix well. Cover the pan and cook it well. 
• Keep stirring in between.
• Roughly cook it for 15 minutes.
• Once its done add peanuts, tomato ketchup, garam masala, black pepper, lemon juice. 
• Cook it for another 2-3 minutes.

Here is how it should look:

The Mix

• Buy this time your rice will be ready.
• Pour the cooked rice into the tempering bowl. No need to change the bowl.
• Mix well.
• Cook it for another 5 minutes. 
• And that's it.

Final Product

Tempering Rice

Hey I am not expert, but I hope you will like it :). As always your comments are most welcome. And also don't forget to close off your play list :).

Chicken Rice but not Biryani !!!

OK, so keeping in line with the theme of this blog, where I show how a dish turns out to be if you cook it for the very first time. Yesterday I tried a hybrid version of Biryani :-). By hybrid I mean, it was not a proper Biryani rather an attempt to finish up my left over vegetables and raw chicken :-). And yet you get a good night dinner out of it along the way :-). Mind you I also cooked it for the first time!

I also learnt a few lessons as in what veggies should be used for this dish and what all veggies should be ignored.

Prerequisites

• Pressure Cooker is a must for this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 tsp Cumin seeds.
• 2 medium size onion, finely chopped.
• 2 Bay Leaves.
• 4 Cloves.
• 3 green chilies (adjust according to your taste).
• 2 tsp red chilies  (adjust according to your taste).
• 2 tsp Cumin powder.
• 2 tsp Coriander powder.
• 1 tsp turmeric powder.
• 1 glass of raw rice, well rinsed with tap water.
• 3 tsp Olive Oil, Refined Oil, or Desi Ghee.
• Whatever veggies/meat left in your fridge :-). I had green paprika, frozen peas, yellow bell pepper, roughly 200 gm boneless chicken.
• You can use carrots, cauliflower, egg plant, any chicken or pork.
• Salt to taste.
• Sweet Chicken Sauce (optional).
• Butter to garnish (optional).
• Garam masala to garnish (optional).
• Coriander leaves to garnish (optional).

That's how the preps should look

Cooking Process

• Heat the pressure cooker with olive oil, refined oil, desi ghee for few minutes.
• Add cumin seeds. Let them crackle.
• Add bay leaves.
• Add onions to fry.
• After about 2 minutes, add just the chicken pieces. Since it will take long to cook.
• When onions start to change its color, add dry spices i.e. salt, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric, cloves etc.
• Add rest of the cut veggies.
• Add sweet chicken sauce.
• After few minutes, add raw rice.
• Mix them well.
• Pour 1 and 1/2 glass of water. Since chicken will also ooze out some water, thus this much water is sufficient.
• Put the cap on and make sure there is no pressure left in cooker, by lifting its whistle for few seconds.
• Cook it till 3 whistles blow. For first whistle put the gas on high, after first whistle put it to lowest possible heat.
• It should take roughly 20 minutes for 3 whistles.
• After 3 whistles, vent out all the steam.
• Let it sit for cool down.
• That's it, open and your dish should be ready!
• Plate it out and put some garam masala, butter, copped coriander leaves to garnish.
• Serve with curd.

Final Product

You might say it does not look like an awesome dish like they show in other professional shows. And that's exactly my point is when you cook it as a new cook, dish might not come out like a "profy", rather its like this, a bit naive, a bit immature :-).

Hey I am not expert, but it was a great dinner for me :-).

Lesson Learned

• Try to put some hard veggies, so that they stay well with rice and chicken. Like carrot, cauliflower etc.
• Since I used very soft vegetable i.e. bell pepper and paprika, they were kind of dissolved in the dish. But that's my lessons learned, while trying a new dish.

Curd Chicken - Indian Style!

Since it's a brand new blog, I was thinking hard what shall I put up as my first recipe. Shall I put a very fancy dish or should I stick with a very basic dish? That's the dilemma I was in. And then I decided to put up Curd Chicken, here is why.... :-)

I tasted this dish for the first time at my maternal uncle's place. And I must say I loved it since its first bite. This is a very simple and straight forward dish without any bells and whistles. All you want to do is put up all the ingredients and just wait for it to all cook up. You won't need much of skills or labor for this one, but you certainly need time! Cause this dish might take up 50 to 60 minutes to get ready. There are two variations of this dish one is white chicken and the other one is red chicken. In this post I will show white chicken.

Let's see what we need:

Ingredients

1. 500 gm any Curd
2. 700 gm Boneless Chicken
3. 2 tsp Black Pepper
4. 2 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
5. 2 tsp Fenugreek Leaves (Kasoori Methi)
6. 3 tsp Olive Oil
7. 2 tsp Butter.
8. 250 gm Fresh Cream (Optional)

Marination

• In a bowl, pour curd.
• Add salt to taste.
• Add black pepper.
• Add ginger garlic paste.
• Beat up the curd.
• Toss in the boneless chicken.
• Mix Well.
• Refrigerate it for 3-4 hours. If you don't have time, then at least keep it for 30 minutes. The more you marinate the better the chicken is going to get blend in with the mix.

Cooking Process

• Heat the pan, with 3 tsp Olive Oil, or Refined Oil, or Desi Ghee.
• Put the entire marinated chicken into the pan along with curd.
• Give it a good mix.
• Put the pan on medium heat. And cover the pan.
• Let the chicken fry in curd and olive oil for 20 minutes.
• Keep giving gentle stirs in between.
• After 20 minutes, take off the pan cover.
• Cook it for additional 20 minutes without the cover. Or until the gravy becomes really thick.
• Dry up the curd, so that we are left with chicken and some heavy gravy.
• Add cream (optional)
• Put in the Butter, Garam Masala, some more Black Pepper and Fenugreek leaves. Cook it for more 10 minutes.
• That's it.

Final Product

I am no expert, but I hope you will enjoy it :-).

Inspiration

I am no expert! But I am ready to learn.... :-)

I was watching a video on youtube on how to cook a particular dish. They made it really look very simple to cook. Then I started wondering that there could be a lot of people just like me who are very new to cooking. They must be looking for a place where they can find easy to cook recipes. Especially how a dish comes out to be if you cook it for the very first time.

So I thought I should start a youtube channel just to share my experiences on how a dish turns out to be when I cook it for the very first time. This way I will keep following my hobby of cooking and perhaps help a few people along the way.

But for now I found writing a blog post easier than starting and managing a youtube channel. I will start a youtube channel as well, but for now I will start with some blog posts.

My home is in Delhi, India. I have been living out of India since past couple of years now. And when you are away from home you gotta have some cooking tricks up your sleeves :).

Enough of sharing where I got my inspiration from.

Hey, I am no expert!!! But lets get cooking... :-)