Kerala Recipe - Simple fish fry

Here is a simple recipe to prepare fish fry at home.

Ingredients:-

Fish - 3
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Chilli Powder - 2 tbsp
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Garlic pods - 5
Thick Tamarind Juice
Salt - As required
Curry leaves - a handful

Clean the fish and keep it aside.

Take a wide vessel and mix turmeric powder, chilli powder and crushed ginger, garlic and salt with little water. Make it to a fine paste and marinate the cleaned fish.

Squeeze out the thick tamarind juice and apply evenly on the marinate fish and keep it aside for 30 minutes.

Heat a frying pan with oil and arrange the cleaned curry leaves on the pan as shown in the picture.

Now keep the fish one by one and apply little oil on the top and cover it with a lid.

Allow the fish to cook for five minutes in low flame and switch off.

Wait for 2 minutes and then turn the fish to the other side. Cover and cook for five more minutes in low flame.

Switch off the flame and serve hot.

Moru kaachiyathu / Easy moru curry - Buttermilk curry

An easy recipe which you can prepare if you are really lazy and not in a mood to prepare any curry. This moru curry and rice is very good combination. This is very easy to prepare and the ingredients required are as below.

Buttermilk – 500 ml
Onion Sliced – 1
Ginger –  1 small chopped
Green chili – 2 chopped
Dry Red chili – 1
Turmeric powder –  1/2 tsp
Mustard – 1/4 tsp
Fenugreek – 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves
Salt
Oil

Heat oil in a pan & splutter mustard & fenugreek seeds. Add red chili, green chili, onion, ginger, curry leaves. Fry it for 2 minutes. Add turmeric powder & salt. Mix well.

Add this mix into the buttermilk and stir for a few minutes. Its Ready :)

Tips:-

Use small onions for better taste.

You can add buttermilk directly to the seasoning without switching off the flame. But in this case you should be very careful and stir continuously to avoid curdling. Stir continuously until the steam comes out. Don't let it boil and switch off the flame. 

Plain Paratha - Daily Indian Flat bread

This "plain paratha" is an advanced version of Chapati :-) I first tasted this dish at my in-laws place Kanpur and I liked it so much that I usually prepare paratha for dinner instead of chapati.

Ingredients:-

Aatta / Chapathi dough
Oil - As required

If you are a beginner in cooking then read my post How to Knead aatta to prepare perfect dough. Once you prepare the dough then prepare small balls of the dough and keep it aside.

Roll the paratha into a disk of 3-4 diameter. Apply oil in half of the disk and fold the paratha as shown in the picture. Now apply again on the half portion and fold again to half to make it a triangular shape.

Now sprinkle some wheat flour on the double folded dough and roll into a triangular or square shaped parathas.

Heat a pan and keep this paratha on the tava. Cook both sides and apply oil on both sides. Once the paratha is done then remove it from tava.

Serve hot with any sabji of your choice.


Tips:-
If you use more oil then the paratha's will come out very soft.
You can replace oil with ghee for better taste. But If you are health conscious then I recommend you to use only refined oil.

Women's day special potluck Recipe - Mutter Paneer

Mutter Paneer is one of the easiest and tasty dish you can prepare for any special occasion. I have made this for a potluck party at office on this women's day.

The ingredients required for making Mutter Paneer are as below. This will serve 8-10 people.

Paneer cubes- 400gm (Used Milky mist paneer)
Mutter - 250gm (Used Safal's frozen green pea's)
Onion chopped - 3 big
Tomato chopped - 2
Garlic pod - 8
Ginger - 2 inch

Salt - As required
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 3tsp
Coriander Powder - 2tsp
Garam Masala Powder - 1 tsp
Oil - 2 tsp or as required

Garam Masala  :-
Cinnamon -1 inch piece
Cardomom - 1
Big Elaichi /Big Cardomom - 2
Dry red chilli - 2
pepper - 4
jeera - 1 tsp
cloves - 3
Bay leaves - 1

Coriander leaves - For garnishing

Preparation:-

Grind chopped onion garlic and ginger together in a blender. Make a smooth paste and keep it aside. Grind tomatoes and make it to puree and keep aside.

Heat the cooker and pour oil into it. Add garam masala's such as cinnamon, Elaichi, Big Elaichi, Dry red chilli, pepper, jeera, cloves and bay leaves. Saute it for one minute to get the nice smell of the masala.

Add the onion-ginger-garlic paste into it and saute. Saute till the paste turn color to light brownish and add pureed tomatoes. Stir for 3 more minutes.

Add  turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder and salt into it and stir for a minute. Pour little water into this mix and cover the cooker and cook for sometime. Stir it in between.

Once you see that the oil is getting separated then add the mutter. Saute for 5 minutes and add the paneer cubes. If the gravy is too thick then you can add little more water. Add garam masala.

Pressure cook in low flame for about five minutes or till first whistle. Switch of the flame. The gravy is ready. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Tips:

If you like a little bit creamy taste then add some milk cream on top of the curry before adding coriander leaves.

Fry the paneer cubes in little ghee before mixing with the gravy. This gives a golden color to the paneer and little crispiness also.

For the milk cream just take the malai from the milk. Boil milk and keep it covered for an hour. Now you can see the malai formed on top of that.

Happy Women's Day dear Ladies - March 8th 2014

Wish you all wonderful ladies a happy women's day.

                                  

Stuffed Capsicum / Bharvaan Shimla Mirch

This is a very delicious side dish for parata or roti. I just love this dish and here I will give you my version of stuffing the Capsicum. You can use any vegetable of your choice and follow this recipe. Soon I am planning to try stuff chicken in Capsicum, will update if it comes out well :)


                                         A snap of the dish we are going to prepare

Now back to the topic, the ingredients I used to stuff the shimla mirch are as below.

Bell Pepper/Capsicum/Shimla Mirch - 2
Green chilli - 2
Ginger chopped - 1 small piece
Garlic cloves chopped - 3
Onion chopped - 1 small
Potato/Aaloo boiled and peeled - 1 Big
Tomato sliced - 1
Carrot chopped into very small pieces - 1 small

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
Salt - As required.
Oil - 3 tbsp
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves

Preperation:-

1. Cut the top of the capsicum and scoop out the centers very carefully. Remove al the seeds and clean it with water.

2. Mash the boiled potatoes and keep it aside. Also chop Onion, Green chilli, Tomatoes, Carrot, ginger and garlic.

3. Heat a kadai and add 1 tbsp oil into it. Add fennel seeds and allow it to sputter.

4. Add chopped onion, garlic, green chilli and ginger and saute for 2 minutes.



5. Once the onions are soft add carrot, mashed potatoes, tomatoes, salt, turmeric powder, green chilli powder, coriander powder and stir well. Allow it it cook for 3 minutes and switch off the flame.

5. Add coriander leaves to the prepared masala and allow it to cool for sometime.

6. Now take the cleaned capsicum and start filling the masala mix in it. Don not over fill the masala.

7. Now cover the capsicum with the top which we cut and removed in step 1. Take a thread and tie the top and the filled capsicum together so that the masala wont come out while cooking.

8. Heat a kadai with 2 tbsp oil and keep these stuffed bell peppers in it. Cover the kadai with a lid and cook in low flame for 5 minutes. Now turn the capsicum and cook till all the sides are cooked well. If you see that it is getting stuck in the kadai then add little more oil and cook.

9. Switch off the flame and serve hot with parata or roti.

Tips:-

Try to use small capsicum for this recipe as it will look good when you serve it. Here I have used medium sized as I didn't get small capsicums.

Add green peas, paneer etc to the stuffing to make this dish more tasty.

Methi parata - Fenugreek leaves Parata

You can find methi leaves very easily in this season at any vegetable shop. Here let us see how to prepare healthy methi parata.

Ingredients :-

Methi leaves - 1 bunch
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Salt - As required
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Water - For kneading the dough
Oil - for making parata

Remove the leave stems and clean and chop methi leaves and keep it aside.

Heat a kadai and add chopped methi leaves, salt and turmeric and let it cook for 3 minutes. Switch off the flame once the leaves get soft and reduce the quantity into half.

Take a wide pan and mix wheat flour and cooked methi leaves into it. Knead the aatta with water. Follow the steps How to knead aatta if you are new to cooking.

Once the dough is ready cover it and keep it for 15 minutes. Now make small ball of dough and start making chapatis out of it. Heat a tava and cook the chapatis in medium heat with little oil.

Serve hot with Curd or Achar or any curry of your choice.