Chicken Tear Volcano!!!

It's very cold in Vienna, Austria today. I feel like cooking something very hot! And I do mean very very hot!! Let me warn you this dish is not for faint hearts. I bet, this will be most spicy dish you would ever taste. If you are scared already then go back and check out some of my other recipes :-). 

Hmm you are still reading... That means you are among few of those brave hearts :-). So let's proceed further at your risk :-). 

This dish is all about spices, spices and spices and yes the flavors as well. It's like fire in the water. One of my friends would describe this dish as voodoo chilies and nuclear waste :-). Yeah its that spicy...

If you dare to cook it, you can serve it with vegetable rice/ pulao. Or eat it with Indian bread, naan. I cooked vegetable pulao today in a pressure cooker. Pulao recipe is for some other day. 

So let's get to it. Here is what you need. 

Ingredients 

• Lots of red chilies. I took 7. 
• Lots of green chilies. I took 3 big ones. 
• 1 tsp red chili powder 
• Ginger 2 inch piece. 
• 1 tsp Ginger and garlic paste.
• 3 medium size tomatoes.
• 2 medium size onions. 
• 1 bell pepper.
• 1 tsp Cumin seeds.
• 1 tsp Cumin powder.
• 1 tsp Coriander powder.
• 1 tsp Chicken masala.
• 6-7 chicken legs. 
• Salt to taste.
• Cream.
• And some guts :-).

Method 

• Chop onions, red chilies, green chilies, ginger piece in a chopper/ mixer. 
• Heat up a pan. Add 3 to 4 tsp olive oil. 
• Add cumin seeds. Let them crackle. 
• Add ginger and garlic paste. 
• Saute them for few minutes. 
• Add chopped onions and chilies. Fry them till onions become translucent. 
• Chop tomatoes in mixer. Add tomato paste. 
• Add chili, cumin and coriander powder. 
• Add salt to taste. 
• Cook them in covered pan. 
• Add chicken legs in the mix. 
• Mix them well. 
• Cover the pan. And let it cook till chicken becomes tender and soft. 
• Keep mixing them in between so that it does not stick. 
• Add cream and lemon juice. 
• Mix them well. 
• Cook it for some more time. And that's it. 
• You will be left with chicken pieces floating in tomatoes paste.

Let's Plate up

Plating Technique

• Take rice in a small bowl. Fill it till top and flatten it with spatula.
• Dump the bowl up-side down on a clean plate.
• Keep it like this for a minute or two, so that rice could take its shape.
• Remove the bowl.
• Take out the chicken pieces and decorate in a pattern on the side. 

If you find it very spicy add a bit of a sugar to pacify the spices. Serve hot with rice or pulao or Indian breads. 

You can also serve with plain curd, or flavored yogurt to control the spice level.

Hey #MNoExpert but I hope you will like it. Please share how your experience turns out to be :). 

Cheers. 

Raspberry Chicken Toasties

After learning from different sources. And after presenting tried and tested recipes, I think it is now time for some new invention. Don't you get bored sometimes trying same old routines and habits. I sure do :).

I won't be surprised if after this recipe, people will start to compare me with Einstein. 

Huh... you might say.

Wait... please don't close the browser I know what you are thinking. But please hear me out :). 

The other day I was watching a documentary on Albert Einstein. I got to know he used to think physics in his mind to come up with theories. On similar lines I thought this dish in my mind. Ahem ahem... please still don't close the browser. 

I will shut up now and share the recipe :)

But this time, I was so happy with the outcome, that I will show you the dish first and then we will talk about how to prepare it.

Since Valentine's Day has just gone by, so I am still licensed to you use a lot of red :).

Let's Plate up

Ingredients

• Shredded chicken and mayonnaise mix. Refer this to see how to prepare this mix.
• Pringles. Any flavor of your choice. I like sour cream and onion. 
• Whole grain bread. 
• Olive oil or butter. 
• Raspberry. Or any fruit of your choice. 
• Any bread spreads of your choice. I used cottage cheese spread. You can use one or many. 
• Olives. 
• Green chili. Chopped. 

Method 

• Toast the bread in olive oil or butter. 
• Cut the bread slice into half.
• Apply cottage cheese spread evenly. 
• Crush few Pringle's chips by hand. 
• Toss the crushed chips over the spread. And apply evenly.
• Toss shredded chicken and mayonnaise mix.
• Put a raspberry and copped green chili on the corner. 
• Put a small slice of an olive as per taste. 
• And that's it.
• I forgot to put an olive in the corner though (this proves I am no Einstein after all!)

Hey I am no expert, but I do hope that you will like it. Please try and share with your loved once. And please let me know how it turns out for you.

Cheers

Chicken n Mayo sandwich - The accidental Valentine's Special :)

Just to remind you it's 14th Feb today. I roll out of my bed this morning totally forgotten that it's Valentine's Day today. I forgot because I was thinking more about Arvind Kejriwal's sworn in cermony. He is Delhi's newly elected cheif minister. And I was thinking about tomorrow's India's world cup first match and that too against Pakistan. It is going to be a craker!!

I am sure real men can now understand why I forgot the Valentine's day but the bigger question is can girls understand?

More over can my wife understand? Answer is a simpe NO!! Hence the panic :). 

What do I do, I asked myself? In such a short notice how can I give her a very nice Valentine's gift?

And therefore I named today's dish - An accidental Valentine's special :). 

Here is what you need:

Ingredients 

• Boiled boneless chicken. 
• Mayonnaise. 
• Black pepper. 
• Salt to taste. 
• A piece or two of strawberries - its a must if you want that that your wife should spare your life ;). 
• French salad dressing (optional). 

Cooking Process 

• Boil chicken in a pressure cooker. Add some salt as well. 
• Once boiled. Grate the chicken. 
• Add black pepper, Mayonnaise, french dressing, salt to taste.
• Mix the dressing well. 
• Toast the bread with butter. 
• Spread the chicken paste on bread and cut into traingles. 
• Decorate it with strawberries. 
• Here is how the chicken mix should look like. 

Let's Plate up

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Enjoy it with your loved ones. The Valentine's day and this dish :)

Palak Paneer - Popeye's Favorite :-)

I was thinking hard about how to introduce my next recipe and I suddenly remember my 2+ year old son watching Popeye's the sailor cartoon and going nuts over it. 

He reminded me of my childhood when my younger brother and I used to see and wonder how Popeye quickly ate a whole big jar of spinach when in trouble and quickly gained strength. Why wouldn't he, now I say. After all Spinach comes on top of the list of world's healthiest vegetables!

Spinach is rich source of Iron, Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin B2, Potassium, Copper, and the list goes on and on.

I think everyone should eat this vegetable at least twice a week especially the kids. 

Today I will show you my first hand attempt on cooking a very popular Indian dish Palak Paneer (Spinach and Cottage Cheese).

Here is how the whole process go.

Ingredients

• Fresh Spinach, roughly 400 gms. Rinse it through clean water.
• 2 tsp ginger paste.
• 3 tsp garlic paste.
• 1 tsp cumin seeds. 
• Cottage Cheese 200 gms cut into small cubes.
• 1 onion finely chopped.
• 1 tomato finely chopped.
• 2 tsp red chili powder (adjust as per taste).
• 4 green chili finely chopped.
• 1 tsp garam masala.
• 1 tsp black pepper.
• Salt to taste.
• Butter or Cilantro leaves to garnish.

Cooking Process

• Take water into a deep pan. Bring it to a running boil.
• Pour spinach and boil it for 2-3 minutes.
• Take spinach out and make a fine paste of boiled spinach in a mixer. Take it out and keep it aside.
• Chop onion and green chilies in a chopper.
• Take a separate pan on medium heat.
• Add olive oil, or refined oil, or butter or desi ghee.
• Add cumin seeds. Let them crackle.
• Add finely chopped onion and chilies. Saute till onion change its color.
• Add ginger and garlic paste.
• Mix them. Saute them well.
• Toss the finely chopped tomato. 
• Add salt and red chili. Mix them well.
• Cover the pan and let it cook on slow heat. Keep giving them a gentle mix in between.
• Once oil separates out, add the spinach puree into it.
• Mix them well.
• Add garam masala and black pepper.
• Add cottage cheese cubes.
• Mix them well.
• Cover the pan and cook it for 10 minutes.
• And that's it.

Let's Plate up

Hey I am no expert, but I do hope you will like this dish. Please give it a try. As always your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Cheers

All American Chicken and Italian Pasta Salad

India is a land of culture, cast and creeds. A lot of religions live together with peace and harmony. Or at least try to :-).

It is election time these days in Delhi. Even in politics different parties with different ideologies often join hands to form government.

With that in mind, a person from the largest democratic country in the world will show you how to mix up different ingredients from different countries to come with a killer dish which my wife and I fondly call - All American Chicken and Italian Pasta Salad :-). It is our wedding anniversary tomorrow, so I had to bring her name :-).

BTW it was her invention :-). And I am trying it for the first time.

Lets get to it. 

Ingredients:

• Kidney beans canned - ready to eat.
• Corn canned - ready to eat.
• Any pasta of your choice - penne, fusilli.
• A small size onion finely chopped.
• Chicken boneless. Cut into small chew able pieces. Vegetarians can skip chicken. Or add boiled eggs. Or add any other veggies of your choice. For example bell pepper, capsicum, cottage cheese etc.
• 1 large tomato chopped. 
• Salsa sauce. Generous quantity.
• French salad dressing. Generous quantity.
• Mayonnaise. 
• Salt to taste.
• 2 tsp Garam Masala.
• 2 tsp Black pepper.
• Salad leaves (optional).
• 1 tsp Sweet chili sauce (optional) to taste.
• 1 tsp Red chili powder.
• 1 tsp Sugar or honey.
• 3 tsp curd.
• Peanuts in generous quantity. 

Cooking Process: 

• Boil pasta in boiling water. Should not take more than 20 minutes.
• Either cook the chicken pieces in a pressure cooker or grill them. Should not take more than 20 minutes.
• Mix them together in a bowl. 
• Add all other ingredients.
• Mix them well.
• Refrigerate it for an hour.
• That's it. Eat cold.

Let's plate up

Hey I am no expert but I hope you will like it. As always your comments & feedback are most welcome :-). 

I tasted it, but my wife cooks it better than me. You guys know why I wrote this ;-). 

Happy Wedding Anniversary sweetheart :-).

Chicken Haleem

Recently, I started receiving some encouragement messages from friends, colleagues and family on this new blog post series. People started sharing their feedback, opinions about the blog. I thank you for that. 

Among all the emails/messages that I received, one of them reminded me about my trip to USA back in 2008. I must admit, at that time, I did not even know how to cook rice in a rice cooker!! :-). I remember how my ex-colleague and a dear friend Stephen Fuqua (here is his blog) showed me how to cook rice for the first time :-). I can not even explain how happy I was seeing those perfectly cooked rice!

Even, in today's recipe I will use rice :-). I would like to dedicate this recipe to Stephen to show him how far I have come since then :-). I wish he could taste it as well :-).

Also, just in case you are wondering what does Haleem means? It means soft in English. So today we are going to cook Chicken Soft :-).

Ingredients:

• 400 gm boneless chicken.
• Few pulses of your choice i.e. Red lentils, Bengal gram split (Channa Dal).
• 500 gm curd.
• 3 finely chopped onions. 
• 3 finely chopped tomatoes.
• Basmati Rice, half a cup or less.
• Oatmeal, half a cup or less.
• 2 Bay leaves.
• 6 Cloves.
• 2 tbs turmeric powder.
• 2 tbs red chili powder.
• 2 tbs coriander powder.
• 2 tbs cumin powder.
• Cumin seeds.
• 5-6 green chilies finely chopped.
• 2 Cinnamon.
• 6 tps butter or Desi Ghee.
• 3 tbs Ginger and Garlic paste.
• Garam masala.
• Cashews.
• Lemon Juice.
• Rose petals (optional)
• Salt to taste.

Cooking Process:

Chicken, Pulses, Oatmeal, Rice Mix

• Heat up the pressure cooker.
• Add 2 tps refined/ olive oil/ desi ghee.
• Add bay leaves, Add cloves.
• Add raw chicken into it. Stir well.
• Add 1 tbs red chili, 1 tbs turmeric powder.
• Cook it for 5 minutes.
• Add raw pulses and oatmeal. Mix well.
• Add enough water to cover them.
• Close the pressure cooker and cook it for 30 minutes on low heat.
• We need to over cook, so that every thing gets mashed up with each other.
• While it cooks, lets prepare the tempering.

Onion, Tomato, Curd Mix

• Heat up a pan.
• Add 4 tps refined/ olive oil/ desi ghee.
• Add cumin seeds, let them crackle.
• Add chopped onions. Cook till they turn brown.
• Add ginger and garlic paste.
• Add salt to taste, red chili, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder.
• Add green chilies and tomatoes paste. Mix well.
• Cook it for another 10 minutes.
• Add cashews.
• Add curd. 
• Add lemon juice.
• Add garam masala. Mix them well.

The real Mix

• By this time, the tempering is ready. And so is chicken mix.
• Empty the pressure cooker contents into the tempering slowly and gradually.
• Keep mixing them well.
• Add some butter.
• Keep mashing them and keep mixing them till desired consistency.
• And that's it!

Let's plate up:

Chicken Haleem - 2nd Attempt

Chicken Haleem - 1st Attempt

This dish can also be made up with mutton. However I have only tried with Chicken yet. And it tastes really awesome. Hey I am no expert, but I hope you will like it :-).

As always your comments are welcome.