Tasty easy yummy chicken biriyani

Finally I am back after a long one year gap from blogging..... Yes its almost a year and I couldn't post anything new in this blog. But I am amazed to see the number of visitors and lovely comments which forced me to start this blogging again :) So friends lets start this second phase of journey with a chicken biriyani, everyone's favorite and yummy... Lets start!!!!!!!!!!!

Biriyani is one of the easiest dish and most of us's favourite. So if you have guests at home or you want to make a special lunch on a sunday try this easy yummy recipe.. This is very easy variation of chicken biriyani which can be prepared in less than 30 minutes.


The main ingredients are as below.

Marination:

• 
  
• Chilly powder – 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder – 1/2  tsp
• Pepper powder – ½ tsp
• Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
• Salt
• 
  

Masala for chicken

• Onion – 3 medium size, finely sliced
• Ginger & Garlic paste – 2 tbsp
• Green chilly – 6
• Tomato – 2
• Coriander leaves – a handful
• Pudina leaves - a handful
• Yogurt – 4 tbsp
• Biriyani Masala – 1 tsp
• Cloves - 2
  Cinnamon stick - 2
  Cardomom Green - 2
  Cardomom black - 2 (optional)
  Fennel Seeds - 1 tsp (optional)
• Water – ½ cup
• Oil/Ghee
• Salt

Rice preperation

• Basmati rice – 2 cups
• Water – 4 cups (as per the rice)
• Lemon juice – 2 tbsp
• Cloves - 2
  Cardomom Green - 1
  Bay Leaves - 1 (optional)
• Salt - As required

  Oil/Ghee - 2tbsp / as required

Marinate the chicken pieces with the above mentioned ingredients and keep it aside. 

Cut onion into thin slices, tomatoes and keep it aside. I prefer to use green chilies as it is. If you like to cut the green chilies you can cut it and keep it aside. Grind ginger garlic and make a fine paste out of it. Also clean a handful of pudina and coriander leaves and keep aside. 

Method to prepare Rice:

Cook basmathi rice in water with  cloves,cardomom, bay leaf, salt and oil. Drain the water once the rice is almost 70% cooked and keep it aside.

Method to prepare biriyani Mix:

Heat kadai and pour oil/ghee in it. Add cashew and raisins to the oil and fry them. Keep it aside

Add onion slices to the oil and saute till they are brown and crispy. Keep them aside.

Once the onions are done we will prepare the masala for chicken. First add garam masala's like bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, Fennel seeds into the oil. Saute for a minute and then add the remaining sliced onion and saute till the onions are soft.

Add the ginger garlic paste and green chillies and saute till you get a nice aroma. 

Now add tomatoes and saute till its soft. Now add salt, biriyani masala and the marinated chicken pieces and saute for a minute. Now add a glass of water and cover the Kadai and cook for around five minutes.

Once this is ready add coriander leaves and mint leaves and saute for a minute. Stir it for a minute and add curd into this mix. Stir it continuously till the oil get separated from the masala. Check the salt. Switch off the flame once the gravy gets into a thick consistency.

Layering and Steaming the biriyani:

Now take a wide kadai and first pour some of above prepared chicken mix into it. Layer it with some of the cooked rice and sprinkle little bit powdered garam masala (I used Everest). Garnish with deep fried cashew, raisins and onions. Cut lemon and squeeze little bit on top. Now again layer with biriyani mix and then rice. Repeat this step until all the rice and biriyani mix gets over.

Optional Step:- Take a kadai lid and seal it with aatta on the edges in a way that when you cover the kadai with this lid the steam will not go out of the kadai. If you are in a hurry then just cover the kadai with lid and follow the remaining steps.

Now cook this on a medium heat for two minutes and then put a tava on the gas stove and keep this kadai on top of that. Cook in a low flame for 10 minutes and switch off. Remove the lid after five minutes and enjoy the tasty yummy chicken biriyani with your favorite raita or pappad.

Here is our biriyani picture.. Have a look :) 

Stuffed Bitter Gourd / Bharwan Karela

It's almost two weeks break from blogging and I am feeling very lazy to write anything new. But at the same time I want to share this wonderful recipe with you which I believe is the favorite for very few people. :-) Can you guess the vegetable??? It is the Bitter gourd and I just love to eat it. 

This recipe includes stuffing of spices inside the bitter gourd and shallow fry with very less oil. This is similar to the Stuffed Bhindi Recipe with little variations. By this method you can reduce the bitterness of the vegetable and many non-bitter gourd lovers will also love this recipe.

Before filling the spices you have to scrap off the upper skin of Bitter gourd/Karela with a peeler/knife. Clean properly with water and rub some salt and keep it aside. This will reduce the bitterness from the vegetable.

The ingredients required for stuffing is as below.

Karela/Bitter gourd - 4

Chilli Powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Coriander Powder - 3 tsp

Amchoor Powder - 2 tsp

Garam Masala - 2 tsp

Salt - As required

Twine / Thread - To tie the karela

Onion - 1 Medium

Ajwain - 1 tsp (Optional)

Oil - For frying

Heat oil in a pan and add ajwain seeds and let it splutter. Chop the onions add to the pan and saute till brown in color. 

Mix all the above powders in a wide bowl and add them to the fried onion and saute for two minutes. Grind it in a mixer to get a smooth paste; this step is optional, you can use the mix without grinding also.

Take the karela and slit each one vertically without breaking or cutting into two halves. Now with a spoon, scoop out the seeds and make space for the filling. Take spoon full of the above prepared onion and spices mixture and fill inside the karelas.

Now tie the karelas tightly with a thread to avoid the masala's coming out while pan frying. Repeat the steps and fill all the karelas.

Heat a wide pan with little oil and arrange the stuffed karelas on it. Shallow fry both the sides till the karela become brown or dark in color.

Serve hot with chapathi/Parata. Don't forget to remove the thread before having the tasty stuffed karela.

Mango Milk shake - A refreshing drink for summer

Mangoes are one of the best fruit you can get during the summer and everyone loves mangoes:). I still remember the childhood summer vacation days when we used to sit under the mango tree and wait for the wind to blow to get the sweet ripe mangoes. Now we don't have the luxury to have such fresh mangoes but still we can get tasty mangoes form market :)

The mango milk shake is one of my favorite and it is very easy to prepare. Somehow my kid doesn't drink the milk shake so as an alternate I pour them into Popsicle maker and keep it in fridge and she just love to have it.

So here we can see the simple steps to prepare the mango milk shake.

Ripe Mango - 2 Medium

Chilled Milk - 2 cups

Sugar - for taste

Horlicks powder - 1 tbsp (Optional)

Ice cubes

First take 2 medium sized mangoes and cut the it into small pieces. Blend the mango pieces into a thick paste by adding little milk. Then add rest of the milk, sugar, 4 ice cubes, Horlicks (optional) and blend it for few seconds.

Pour it into glasses and add ice cubes on top if required. If you like to prepare the Popsicle, you can pour the same mixture into the Popsicle maker and refrigerate it.

Tips:-

Add some more milk if the consistency is too thick.

Add vanilla ice cream on top to make it Mango Ice cream milk shake :)

Grill Pan Chicken fry @ home

The Grill pan is one of the best cookware I bought recently. You can use very less oil for frying and it will not stick to the pan also. Its a worth buy.

Marination is very important to prepare the grilled chicken. The chicken has to be marinated and refrigerated for at least 8-10 hours before preparing.

Take thick curd to marinate the chicken, if the curd is watery then pour it in a muslin cloth and squeeze out all the water.

So here is the method to prepare the tasty tawa grill chicken.

The Ingredients required are as below:

Chicken Pieces - 500gm (Cut into big pieces as shown in picture. Here I have used 2 leg pieces)
Thick curd - 1/2 cup
Salt for taste
Butter
Crushed Red Chilly / red chilli powder - 1 tbsp
Garam Masala - 1 tbsp
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
little soya sause
one lemon juice


Mix thick curd and all the ingredients mentioned above in a bowl to make it a thick paste. Add the chicken pieces to this mix and coat evenly.

Transfer it into an aluminium container or airtight container and freeze it for 10 hours.

Heat the grill tawa with 2-3 drops of oil. Keep the chicken pieces and fry it in medium flame.

Fry both sides till its done.

The juicy grilled chicken is ready to serve. Enjoy the taste :)

Paneer Tikka Masala

Today's post is about the delicious paneer tikka masala. I have been planning to write this post from past three days, but just felt lazy to write it down. :) As today is Friday I thought of sharing this so that you get an excellent dish recipe for the weekend... hmmm

I still remember the first time I tasted paneer, it was when I went to Calicut for an exam with my father and I had it at the very famous "The paragon restaurant". Hmm.. I think I just liked it that time. But now I just love paneer dishes and try to prepare as much paneer variety as possible. 

This recipe is a combination of many paneer tikka recipes which I got from the internet. This is really easy to prepare and very tasty also. This is a must try if you are a paneer lover.

Ingredients required for preparing this dish are

Paneer - 200g (Milky Mist Paneer)
Onion - 1 medium
Tomato -1 medium
Capsicum -1 medium

Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Powder- 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Garamasala - 1/2 tsp
All Purpose Flour /Maida - 1 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds  - 1 tsp

Lime Juice  - 1 lime
Kasoori Methi - A pinch
Thick  Curd - 3 tbsp
Salt - As required

Tomato Pure - 2 tomatoes
Oil - As required
Water - 2 cup

Onion Chopped - 1 big

Cream Fresh /Milk
Coriander Leaves - optional

Cut Paneer, Onion, tomato and Capsicum in big cubes and keep it aside. Take a bowl with thick curd and add Chilli powder, salt, kasoori methi, lemon juice and oil, mix well. Add the paneer cubes to it and mix well. Now add the onion, tomato and capsicum cubes to this and keep it aside for 15 minutes.

Heat a wide nonstick pan and add very little oil(say 1tbsp) and add the marinated paneer and veggies and fry both sides till done and keep it aside.

Heat oil in a kadai and add cumin seeds and once they splutter add the chopped onion and saute for a minute. Here we don't need to saute till the onions are brown in color. Add turmeric powder, salt, ginger garlic paste, Maida and saute for two more minutes. 

Add tomato puree followed by coriander powder,cumin powder,red chilli powder and mix well. Let it cook for five more minutes or till you can see the oil gets separate. 

Add enough water and allow it to boil. Add water such that you get enough gravy after you add the paneer and veggies.

Add the cooked paneer and veggies to this gravy and allow to cook for next 3 minutes. Add garam masala powder also to the gravy. Add cream to this gravy as required. I added milk as the cream was not available at home. Now cook this mix for about 3 minutes and switch off the flame. 

Garnish with coriander leaves. The tasty paneer tikka masala is ready :)

Tips:-

While frying paneer, onion , capsicum and tomato; add tomato at the end to avoid it getting overcooked.

This dish goes well with Jeera rice or butter naan.

Easy Vegetable Cutlet with beetroot potato and peas

Cutlets are my all time favorite vegetable snack. But somehow I never tried preparing them at home. This was my first attempt to prepare vegetable cutlet and YESSS... it came out very well :)

So here comes the ingredients and method to prepare tasty vegetable cutlets at home.

Beetroot : 1 

Potato : 3 

Green Peas - 1 cup

Finely chopped Onion : 1 big 

Ginger (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Garlic (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Green chilli (Chopped) : 3

Turmeric powder : 1 tsp

Coriander Powder : 1 tsp

Red chilly powder : 2 tsp

Pepper powder : 1 tsp

Garam Masala : 1 tsp

Bread crumbs & Rava mixed: 1 cup

Maida mixed with water  : 2 cup

Salt : As required

Oil : for frying

:- Pressure cook the potatoes and beetroot. Microwave peas or you can pressure cook it with very little water till done. Peel the potatoes, beetroot and add peas and mash all of them together. Keep it aside.

:- Take a bowl and mix Maida and water together to form a smooth paste. This should not be a thick paste (watery consistency).

:- Mix Bread crumbs and rava together in a plate and keep it aside for coating the cutlets. Rava will give extra crispiness to the cutlets.

:- Heat oil in a pan and add green chilies,ginger,garlic and onion.Saute until onion turns golden brown. Add chili ,turmeric,coriander,black pepper and garam masala powder.Saute for 2 minutes. Now add mashed vegetables and salt to it mix well and cook for 3 more minutes. Allow this mixture to cool.

:- Now roll out small portions of the mixture into small sized ball and flatten them between your palms to give it shape.

:- Dip each cutlets in the prepared batter and roll in breadcrumbs-rava mix making sure that all sides are nicely and evenly coated.

:- Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the cutlets in medium flame ,turning once in between. Once done transfer to a kitchen tissue.

Serve the tasty cutlets hot with tomato Ketchup and tea.

Tips:-

You can use egg mix instead or Maida.

You can add chopped coriander leaves, carrot and beans to the veg mix.

Seer or King Fish Fry / Ayakoora fry

Seer fish/ayakoora tastes good if you fry it or prepare curry. This is very easy to clean and easy to eat as well. :)

This is a very simple recipe. The ingredients required are as below.

Seer Fish/King Fish/Ayakoora - 500gm (3 pieces)

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Chilli Powder - 3 tsp

Salt - As required

Water - 1 tsp

oil - for shallow fry

Take a bowl and mix turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt with little water to make it a thick paste. Apply this paste on both side of the fish pieces and keep it aside for half an hour.

Heat a pan with oil and once the oil is hot arrange the fish pieces in the pan. Fry the fish on both sides and serve hot with rice and curry.

Tips:-

Mix 1 tsp corn flour to the turmeric-chilli paste to make the fish fry crispy. 

You can add ginger-garlic paste to the mix.