A Palace of Illusions - Book Review

My understanding of Mahabaratha was quite different UNTIL I read this book. Of course I liked Arjuna, the born warrior for  his charming nature and Karna for his loyalty. Then I started this book. Page 5, and I already know its time to forget all the straightforward telling of this epic and get to know the untold, forgotten, crumbled perspectives of the unsung heroes.

No wonder Divakurani’s re-telling paints the characters more human than they are and makes you run the  scenes on your mind as you read between lines. My favorites were the Draupati’s suyamwara, her first encounter with Karna and Arjun and her thoughts during the great war. The way Draupati’s speaks from the deepest part of heart are just beyond mere thoughts. For it sows a seed of thoughts in our minds too! There are many snippets where I paused and re-run the scene in my mind and was wondering what would I do if I were to be in that position. The more I wonder the more the book spoke to my soul. Draupati - Karna parts was quite a surprise but who am I to judge the depth of a woman’s heart or the captivating re-telling?

Loved this book to pieces and it immediately became close  to my heart as I kept reading. On finishing this book, I couldn’t wait for Divakurani to come up with a similar book on Ramayana. For who else has a better-story to tell than Sita herself?

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Garlic butter rice and Lemon chicken

Recently, I have been drooling and dreaming about all those butter recipes I surf online. I blame the harmones :P I was checking out garlic bread and guess what popped out? Why not try something similar with rice? And here is the delicious result! :)

Garlic butter rice 
Ingredients: (Serves 1, cook time - 15 minutes)
Garlic - chopped 1 1/2 tablespoon
Salted butter - 1 tablespoon
Scallions/ Spring Onion leaves - 1 tablespoon chopped
Chicken broth - 400 ml OR Maggi Chicken broth powder - 1 cube
Basmathi rice - 250 gm

Soak the rice in water for 10 minutes. Meanwhile mealt the butter in a pan (prefer a pan with a lid).
Add th chopped garlic to it and sauté it in low flame so that you dont burn it. After 2 minutes add the chopped onion leaves and saute it for 3 more minutes. Now add the chicken broth or 400 ml of water. If its water, add the maggi chicken broth powder cube to it and let it dissolve in high flame. Taste it to check salt. A little salty a lot better. Now add tge stained rice and close cook it for 10 minutes in medium flame. Remember we are donr going to drain it at the end to if you feel like the water is not observed completely by the end of 10 minutes, open it inbetween and stir it one or twice. Ideally for this measurement the water will be observed completely. At the end stir it and slowly spread it inside the pan so that they dont stick to each other. The butter added earlier not adds to the flavour, but also makes sure that the rice is not sticky. Don’t you feel the aroma yet? :)

Lemon chicken 
Ingredients: (Serves 1, cook time - 10 minutes)
Boneless chicken - 100 gm diced
Pepper - 1 teaspoon
Salt  as needed
Lemon juice - 1 teaspoon
Chopped coriander - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 1 tablespoon

Heat the oil in the pan and saute the chicken cubes for 3 minutes. Now add salt and pepper. Stir it well so that the chicken pieces get coated. Close cook it for a minute. Add a little water and lemon juice to it. Stir well and close cook it for it for 5 minutes in high flame. Once ypu see the water kind of forming a thick layer around the pieces add corriander and give it a final stir. There you go! :)

Serve them hot side by side and let the food do the talking :)

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Tangy Chicken Curry

What makes you more happy than a perfectly cooked dish? Well, mostly there isn’t any but at times repairing a messed up dish and finally getting an awesome new dish out of it! Especially when you want to get the best of two recipes and end up with a kitchen disaster at 2 PM, all you are left with is the option to resurrect the leftover. But all those who wander are not lost right? :)

I wanted to try Punjabi  dhabba style chicken curry but didn’t like the tomatoes in the recipe so trued to replace it with curd. 

Ingredients:

Onions - 3 finely chopped 

Curd - 500 ml (thick, I used Milky Mist)

Butter - 2 tablespoons 

Dry Red chilly - 3 

Cinnamon- 1 inch

Cardamom- 1

Clove - 2

Dry methi leaves- 1 tablespoon 

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tablespoon 

Lemon juice - Squeeze 1 and a half lemon

Coriander leaves - 2 tablespoons chopped

Chicken - 300 gm (bonesless the better)

Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon 

Garam masala- 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder- 1 tablespoon 

Cumin powder - 1 teaspoon 

Chilly powder- 2 teaspoons ( + as required)

Salt - 2 teaspoons ( + as required )

Oil - 2 tablespoons 

Method:

Heat the kadai. Melt the butter and oil. Add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, red chillies and let them splutter. Once its done add onions and fry them with little salt. Wait until they are golden brown and then add ginger garlic paste. Stir them until the raw smell is no more. Now add curd to it and stir them well. Leave it a minute and then add turmeric powder, garam masala, cumin powder, coriander power, chilli powder and salt. Stir them all so well and close cook it for 5 minutes. You will see the curd blending in with all the spices and changing texture. Add the methi leaves and mix it well.

Dice the chicken pieces so that the flavour will be absorbed all within. Add the small pieces of chicken and stir them. If you see that the chicken pieces are not coated with the masala add a little water and let them boil in the open kadai for 10 minutes so that the raw chicken smell changes. Add the lemon juice to it and mix it well. Check for salt and spices. Once everything kind of tastes correct, close cook it for 15 minutes. Stir it often in between so that they dont settle at the bottom. Finally garnish it with corriander before serving.

Unlike dhahi chicken or the dhabba style chicken, you will find that this curry tastes sour and tangy in addition to the spicy flavour. It goes very well with rotis or plain briyani. 

Until the next experiment... 😊

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South Indian Rasam (The one served at weddings)

That’s one weird title I agree 😄! Hey but guess who loves slurping the rasam at south Indian weddings? Me! I am that person who skips sambar to directly have rasam. No wonder I tried learning what magic spices do thay add that it tastes this heavenly!! After a hell lot of surfing multiple cookery books and websites I finally came across that secret recipe from Anitha Pushpavanam Kuppuswamy’s youtube video.

Believe me, that was it! I tried it right away and to my surprise it came out extraordinarily awesome!

Rasam powder: (This is the key! Don’t mess up the proportions)

Tur dal - 200 gm
Black pepper corns - 75 gm
Fennel seeds - 75 gm
Coriander seeds - 30 gm
Asafoetida powder - 10 gm
Turmeric powder - 10 gm
Dry red chillies- 15 - 20
Curry leaves - a hand full

Dry roast them all individually except turmeric powder for 2-3 minutes with continuous stirring. Roast the asafoetida powder also so that it gives the aroma. Dry roast the fresh curry leaves such that they loose the water content and becomes dry. Make sure you dont dry roast the pepper corns way too much else it will start tasting bitter. Once all of them are dry roasted, grind them into fine powder and store them in an air tight container to lock the aroma :)

Rasam:

To pressure cook for 6 whistles:
Big ripen tomatoes finely chopped  - 2
Garlic pearls - 4
Coriander leaves - 1/4th of a hand full
Curry leaves - 6
Green chilli- 1
Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
Tamarind- 1/2 of gooseberry in size
Water - 300 ml

Once the pressure subsidies, open the cooker and mash the tomatoes in case if you didnt chop it finely. Add 5 more semi crushed garlic pearls to it and add 3 tablespoons of the prepared rasam powder without lumps. Let it boil in high flame for 10 minutes. Add 1/4th teaspoon of sugar or jaggery. Temper mustard seeds in 2 tablespoons of oil and add to it. Garnish with a 1/4th hand full of fresh coriander on top of it.

Serve hot with boiled rice (basmati my fav) and spicy potato fry (use chicken 65 masala and pepper powder instead of chilli powder) as sides.

You are welcome! :)

I was so keen in trying that I forgot to take pictures. Will upload them when I prepare again :)

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Chicken Pasta

This recipe actually goes in four parts -  the chicken stock, the pasta, the vegetables and the white sauce. We'll go one by one. Following recipe serves 2.

1st part - Chicken Stock

Ingredients:
Chicken breasts - 150 gm
Carrot - 1 (Peeled and sliced)
Garlic - 12 cloves chopped
Maggi Chicken stock powder - 1 cube
Water - 750 ml

Heat a pressure cooker and let the water boil. Add the chicken breasts pieces, Maggi stock powder, garlic, carrot and pressure cook it for 10 minutes. Once the pressure is down, open the lid and filter the stock water. Store the chicken pieces for later use. Discard the carrot and garlic pieces. The stock is ready! :)

2nd part - Pasta

Ingredients:
Pasta - 150 gm ( I used the Penne pasta, the tube shaped one)
Oil - 2 tablespoon
Salt - 1 teaspoon

Boil water in a deep pan and add oil and salt to it. Stir until the salt dissolves and add pasta to it. Let it cook until the pasta gets cooked 3/4th. Usually that would take 10 minutes if you close cook it. Once you feel it soft, drain it and let it cool. Discard the water. Pasta is ready! :)

3rd part - White sauce

Ingredients:
Butter - 1 tablespoon
Milk - 100 ml
All purpose flour/ Maida - 2 tablespoon
Parsley (dried) - 1 tablespoon
Onion - 1/4th
Clove - 1

Melt the butter in a pan and add the flour in low flame. Stir it until no lumps and add some milk to it. On stirring you'll see the mixture getting thickening. Add in rest of the milk, the parsley and the onion with the clove pierced in it. It adds onion flavor to the sauce. Let the mixture boil for 2 minutes. Now remove the onion and clove and keep the sauce aside. The white sauce is ready! :)

4th part - Vegetables

Even though its chicken pasta, adding vegetables don't hurt do they?

Ingredients:
Carrots - 2 finely cubed
Garlic - 15 cloves finely chopped
Beans/ French beans - 3 finely chopped
Broccoli - 50 gm finely chopped
Butter - 5 tablespoons
Italian seasoning - 1 tablespoon
Coriander/ Parmesan cheese - to garnish
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste

Add butter to a pan, and saute the garlic, carrot, beans, broccoli. Close cook it for 10 minutes. Stir it often so that we don;t burnt them or make it crispy. Add pepper, Italian reasoning and stir again. Once its completely cooked, shred the chicken pieces that we store from the chicken stock and add it to the vegetables. Let them blend by stirring for 2 minutes. Now add the chicken stock to the vegetables and let the contents boil for 5 minutes in high flame. Close cook it as we don't want the chicken stock to evaporate. Once its well cooked, add in the pasta. Pasta should be immersed int the water content.  Since the pasta is already cooked 3/4th, close cook the contents for 5 minutes. Stir it so that the contents mix well with one another. Now add the white sauce and stir the pasta well so that the contents gets thickened. Keep stirring for 2 minutes. Check salt and add if necessary. We will need to check salt at last as the chicken stock powder we added earlier and the paste itself will contain salt. Make sure its saucy while you finish cooking it. Garnish with coriander or grate some Parmesan cheese on the top while serving. Finally, the chicken pasta is ready! :)

Loved this recipe? Let me know in comments below. :)

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Crab Masala

I generally don't touch crabs and manage from cleaning to cooking with a serving tong. Reason? Its the moving limbs that freak me out :P But I don't mind eating it later. Reason again? Food or fear - food forever :P

Ingredients 
Crab - 1 Kg
Pearl Onions - 15
Pepper - 10 to 15 corns
Turmeric - 1 teaspoon
Salt - to taste
Green chilly - 4 to 5
Cumin seeds - 1 tablespoon
Garlic - 10 cloves
Ginger - 1 inch peeled
Gingelly oil - 4 table spoon

Clean the crabs and cut into half so that the flesh can get soaked in masala. Grid the pearl onions, pepper corns, green chilly, ginger, garlic, cumin seeds, turmeric and salt to a fine paste. Don't add too much water as crab itself will give out the water. Once ground, heat a heavy kadai with 2 tablespoons of oil. Saute the fine ground paste for a minute or two. Add crabs to it. Stir it well so that the masala doesn't get burnt and also the crab gets coated evenly. Close cook it for 5 minutes. Open the lid and watch for the consistency of the masala, if it doesn't look like the one in the picture above, add 2 table spoons of gingelly oil, stir and close cook it in high flame. The watery nature changes and ends up as a lip smacking, finger licking crab masala! :)

Grab a nut cracker and break the heavenly flesh out of it. Don't forget to lick the shells as well. :)

Oh did I mention that I got this recipe right the first time itself? This is to assure you that so will you :)

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Rosa's Pizza

On Jan 2016, we waited on a pizza shop's corridor in Philadelphia to escape the spine chilling wind. Thanks to the guy who went in before us, the aroma urged to me to peep through the half open glassdoor. The first thing that got my attention is the color blocks on the wall.

I ll never remember the color of the walls but not the smiles in the vibrant sticky notes. At least, thats how I recall Rosa’s Pizza. (http://www.rosasfreshpizza.com/). Their one dollar pizza slices are highly welcomed for the cause they serve. Cant help clicking all around. On that cold day, I couldn’t realize whether its the warmth of the pizza or the writings that put a smile on my lips. Yes, love is in the air :)

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