Paneer Shahi Korma

This has been a very cold winter here so far. News papers are boasting it as one in a life time event, perhaps happening here after year 1960.And we are expecting white Christmas this year.
Not the kind of weather I would say I enjoy but then I like to see white snow everywhere. So, all is fair. I clicked these pictures last week when it was snowing here.

Now if you have enjoyed the pictures, then shall we move to the recipe for this post..

I always have a fascination towards Mughlai cuisine. Although, I must admit that I like to indulge once in a while with that much of spices and cream or nuts. But when I do, I make sure I use it generously. This recipe is like many other recipes out there in net. But I was very much making a much improvised version of Julie Sahni’s recipe from her cooking book “Classical Indian Cooking”. Although, I have put the spice content to some higher level.
This is an excellent party menu-recipe when you want to satisfy your vegetarian guest. Richness of the gravy and the flavour of paneer make it a winner, but then Kormas are thought to be like that. I have clicked the pictures in night, so the not so clear image. Initially, I thought I will be clicking with the left-over paneer shahi korma next morning with bright sunny light, but we hadn’t any left-over. It was all gone, even my picky-eater daughter couldn’t resist it with that much of spice.
Here to the recipe

Paneer Shahi korma

serves-3-4
Recipe Requirements
2 -3 medium size onions
4-5 garlic
1 inch ginger
Seasoning
5-6 tsp of grounded coriander
2-3 tsp of grounded red pepper
1 tsp of grounded turmeric
1-2 green chilies slit in between
Salt as per taste
About ¼ cup of cooking oil
1 cup plain yogurt lightly beaten
15-18 almonds
Method
Soak about 15-16 almonds in some lukewarm water. After about 20-30 mints, peel the skin and then transfer to the food processor jar or kitchen grinder whatever you have.
Make a smooth paste in a heavy duty processor with the following ingredients
Blanched almonds, 2-3 onions, about 1 inch ginger and 3-4 fat garlic, 4-5 tsp grounded coriander powder, 2 tsp red pepper powder, turmeric powder, green chilly and some water + some oil.
Heat up a saucepan, add in 4-5 cloves, and add in the above prepared paste. Fry it well for 8-10 mints at medium high flame.
Add in about whisked 1 cup yogurt. TIP-Adding yogurt in batches to the sauce reduces the chances of curdling the sauce; gently fold in yogurt about 2-3 tbs one at a time probably at a very low flame, stirring continuously so that it gets all incorporated to the sauce. Never hurry this step.
Add about 1 and half cup of lukewarm water depending on the gravy you want. If you want thick gravy adding 1 or perhaps ¾ cup of lukewarm water is sufficient.
Cover it and cook it at low for 15-20 mints. Make sure to check in between so that the gravy/sauce doesn’t get stick at the bottom of the pan.
When the sauce has just started to become thick, then add sliced paneer pieces and take it off from the flame.As you add paneer, it has a tendency to soak up the gravy. So it’s better to keep some gravy otherwise at the time of serving, the gravy will dry up.If you wish you may add cream or butter at the time of serving.
Serve with warm cooked rice or naans.Enjoy!!

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Enjoy your stay in Spice and Curry and Happy Cooking.

Homemade Granola Cereal

Today was one very cold, wintery day and yesterday it even slightly snowed here. I like to sit and see through my glass window with a cup of coffee and a good book if possible ,these pretty white snow flakes slowly flowing with zephyr and finally hitting to the ground.Nature has beauty in every move it takes.I was little skeptical of going out in this cold, but this fellow was all smiling at me.

 And yeah I was rightly motivated to go out attending all daily obligations that life has offered me.If he can, so can I !!


What could have been a boring grey day for me, turn out to be a pleasant, dazzling day. I was asking myself the entire day do I need reasons to cook or not to cook. You know the tussle between my Good and my Bad. Well, a feeble voice inside me echoed to go ahead and make the most out of the day. So, here are some of the pictures I clicked while it was slightly snowing out here yesterday.And as I am writing this in night, it's snowing outside today also.Hope to see some more snow tomorrow morning when we wake up.

Snow showers just starting to come down.

Speeding up with the wind

and flowing with  gutsy.

Finally, ending their long journey as water droplets on my balcony glass shield.

Love the pattern here.

My day began, packing two lunch boxes in the early morning hour, which probably was not what I had planned the previous night, keeping in mind the snow shower weather forecast earlier. And you all know we Bengalis are like that, we are always at extremes. So, when it’s winter we shiver merely seeing snow on TV. Correct me if I am wrong. It was like one busy morning for me. Although, I prefer to plan things ahead when I pack two lunch boxes at one go. Those of you who have school going children and office going husband, probably can identify with my dilemma or rather complex situation here. Imagine the daily dramas in the early morning, you seem don’t seem to like it. Yeah you are not alone my friend.
One thing that I rather have started taking seriously is checking weather forecast after we moved here. Now, those of you who have spent half of your life or growing up years in India or are probably born in 80’s.If you can relate to those old DD days. And if you remember, how news readers would read aloud some stereotypical lines about weather forecast at the end of each session. Remember the good old  INSAT-1B Satellite , and it’s not so reliable forecast!!
Things have become savvy these days with so many private news channels and many more new satellites for fool-proof weather predictions.So, there has been a prediction of a very cold winter season this year here.  Let's see if we can see some snowy white clad trees, houses and roads this year too.

But this post is not about weather reporting or discussing my family. Well this post is about a recipe which is simple but yet very healthy.

It’s been quite a long time that I have saved this home-made granola recipe in my draft. But couldn’t find an appropriate time to post. And I must say this has been a great discovery for me. Now, I don’t see a reason why I need to get boxed cereals from supermarkets.
If you are like me, a fan of doing things from scratch then, I would say to give it a try once. And if you think oats are healthy, of course they are healthy. Then you have good reasons to make it.

Home-made granola cereal recipe

Adapted from Betty Crocker-Here

Ingredients
3 cups of rolled oats
¾ cup of flour
Your choice of any nuts
I prefer using some almonds+walnuts- approx 1 cup
1 tsp of salt
½ cup of vegetable oil
½ cup of honey
½ cup of water
1/4  cup of sugar or as you prefer

Method
Preheat oven at 150 deg C or 300 deg F
In a mixing bowl beat honey, oil and water.
Crush almonds and walnuts with rolling pin over a cuting board.It should make approx 1-1 ½ cup of nuts.
Now prepare the dry mixture.
Before you go further let me write that this recipe originally have called for old-fashioned or rolled oats which is groats that are steamed and rolled out.
But I have used super fast or quick oats for this recipe,dont get confused with quick Quaker oats which is not what I have used.Super fast or quick oats are instant oats which are partially cooked and then they are rolled in.So, they need to be rehydrated.And we can consider more this to be oatmeal.
Old fashioned oats will tend to be more chewy and more likely to retain the goodness of oats.Choose what works best for you.
now to further steps
Mix oats, nuts, flour and salt.TIP-If you wish you may add any other seeds also like-sunflower seeds.
Now mix gently the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.Mix well .
Now spread this mixture evenly in two baking trays.I  would say line up a foil or grease paper.Trust me it reduces the amount of work you will be doing at the washing sink.
Line up two shelf in the oven.Line the rack on second and last shelf.
Place one baking tray on the upper rack and other on the lower rack.
Bake for 15-20 mints .Then take out and stir it well.
Now shift the trays so that the upper rack tray goes down and the lowers rack tray comes on top.Bake again for 12-15 mints stirring in between.Keep an eye on it and check if they turn out barely golden.Take them out immediately.

Let it cool off before you keep them in air tight containers.This batch of home-made cereals remained fresh for one week and it was sufficient for our morning breakfast.
Have it with cold milk or warm milk what ever way you prefer.

If you have time then I would suggest baking it even at low temp of 135 deg but then increase the time for baking. This way they turn out even crunchier.
And if you wish you may just top it over your favorite ice-cream also. Yum!!

Happy Cooking Friends

Kosha Shorshe Murgi- Hot and Spicy Chicken in Mustard Sauce and It's being four years of blogging

This blog is four years old now. For these past four years there have been some very active moments and some very dull moments as well. Even sometimes I thought that’s it, this is my final post and I was almost, well about to retire from active food blogging. But my better half always thought otherwise, although I must mention, he hardly has time to check what goes here so leave alone helping me in updating this blog. He has always inspired me to continue writing here, whenever I thought that it’s high time I should call my day here. I also somehow managed to keep working and updating the recipe index here on a regular basis.So, let’s hope that this blog continues to see many more sun shining days ahead.

And also let me take this big opportunity to thank every reader who have stopped by to read recipes here.And have become a great part of my life.Thanks to all of you who have liked this space and tried recipes from here.Without you all it wouldn't have meant anything to me.Thank You All Dear Friends.

There is literary no contribution from my better half as far as recipes are concerned here. So, when he came up with a recipe for chicken and made it too, I was kind of floored. Last time he made something on a similar genre was this –Hearty Fish Curry which was way, way back perhaps in 2008.

And I am writing it in bold and urging you all please read it in bold – I am still smitten. So, this sudden rush to post this recipe, although I have few other recipes lined up for publishing .It’s like breaking a protocol and gate-crashing but I am glad I am doing this.No regrets what so ever. And this is just a perfect way of celebrating four years in blogging which ironically was in October.But it's never late when you decide to acknowledge things.

I asked him to write down this recipe and his thoughts for this post, but he declined and said it’s your space and you should run your show also. Will you all please leave messages so that I can convince him to write something here in future?
Alright then my better half S says “Chef always doesn’t cook regularly but they do give instructions for a keeper recipe”. And I was kind of puzzled when he said he is going to make Kosha Shorshe Chicken. What Shorshe chicken, I mean I have heard shorshe mach,shorshe ilish, shorshe chingri and shorshe begun, shorshe dharosh and what not but never ever in life shorshe chicken. I thought may be he is joking or something weird or some creepy crawlies went inside his brain or probably he is overworked in the office. No, but I was wrong for good reasons.

When we were just starting to make it, he was not satisfied. He told me you haven’t defrosted the chicken earlier, not enough time for defrosting, so it’s not tender, and then how can chicken soak up the marinating juice. Wow! Did he mention marinating of chicken? And I thought this fellow doesn’t know how to make simple omelets.
Anyways he said it’s better to marinate the chicken prior of making this recipe. And he suggested using baby chicken or Cornish hen for this recipe. If you wish you may cut and divide into 4-5 big pieces. He suggested that since baby chicken has rather soft flesh, the cooked meat will be tender and bursting with flavors.
He further added if you have time, marinate the chicken overnight. What goes into marination? Lots of mustard oil, salt and red pepper powder and crushed red chilly flakes. And he said do not rush up and the entire cooking would be done on low flame and slowly.

Ok, if you forgot to marinate the chicken overnight, like the day we were making it. Just marinate for 1-2 hrs prior of cooking the chicken. But this time, he suggested marinating the chicken with the paste that you will be making for the gravy. But I said let’s go without marinating the chicken and fry the gravy first and then add chicken pieces which he seemed to agree later on. But he told me to write here specifically that marinating the chicken prior of cooking, is the key part for a tender and juicy chicken.
Since we were using Home-made mustard powder that I made it in bulk earlier, we used up that at the time of frying the chicken pieces with the paste. However if you are working with fresh mustard paste, I would suggest to add at the end.

Now to the recipe for

Kosha Kaju-Shorshe Chicken

Recipe Requirements and detail procedure

For the paste
4-5 medium size purple onions
7-8 fat garlic cloves
1*1/2 inch ginger
10-12 cashews
4-5 dry red pepper ( small ones which are very hot and spicy, which we call in Bengali” Dhani shokno lonka”)
1-3 tsp of fresh crushed red pepper
3-4 tsp of coriander powder
1-2 tsp of turmeric powder
3-4 heaped tsp of mustard powder
1 medium size tomato
3-4 tbs of mustard oil (a must for this recipe)
Salt as per taste
Crush some “ gota garam mashla” or whole garam masala like—mace, nutmeg,black cardamom, cinnamon and cloves with rolling pin and add it at the time of making the spicy paste.
Grind all the above in a mixer-grinder to a smooth paste.
Since we were using big pieces of chicken so, we used our pressure cooker pan. But if you have proper materials, then use a large thick bottom wok/or dekchi in Bengali so that you can fry well the chicken pieces.
Heat up approx 2-3 tbs of mustard oil and about 2 tbs of butter.
Add the prepared paste.
Now at high flame stir/fry the paste for 8-10 mints. When it starts to dry up a little bit, add about one ladle full of water.
Add marinated chicken pieces to the fried gravy. If you have marinated the chicken pieces with red pepper powder earlier, then adjust the spice level at the time of making the masala paste in mixer-grinder.
Fry it well on a high flame, stirring in between till the oil separates out and the color of gravy changes to somewhat dark and becomes thick just coating well all the chicken pieces or in Bengali “makha-makha”.
Now add approx 1 cup of water. Lower the flame and let it simmer slowly for 45-50 mints.
At the time of serving, I would suggest to warm it a bit more. Have this kosha shorshe chicken with rice piping hot. I haven’t tasted anything delicious as such this for ages now. And my mouth is watering remembering that delicious lunch we had last Sunday.
And it tastes even more flavorful the next day. Keep some left-over to enjoy next day.
Note-
My better half suggests using baby chicken or Cornish hen for tender juicy chicken.
Marinate the chicken overnight.
You can replace cashews with peanuts, but that would be altogether a different recipe. Be prepared for another variation with peanuts.
Cooking oil should be mustard oil; no other oil can compensate the flavour of shorshe chicken.

Wish all of you a very nice weekend.Happy Cooking.

Narkol Diye Brussel Sprouts- Spicy Brussel Sprouts stir/fry with Coconut

I must admit that one thing which we keep wishing is, the weekend holidays. But the moment with it comes, it’s gone also. I mean you start off getting late on Saturday, and then you realized that half of the day is gone while you were sleeping and being lazy. Saturday and Sunday means, late breakfast which is more or less is a sort of brunch for us and then we head out for some outings.
My hubby dear S doesn’t like to spend his Saturdays in home. Even I say that noops I am going to spend time in home. He would say you always spend time in home, its’ just that you need to get some fresh air also. And you have the entire weekdays to spend in home. Outings are good for your mind and body as well. A kind of person he is and as far as I have known him, I would say he likes to take his back-pack and leave out as soon as it’s holiday or weekend. He has very much mellowed down after our daughter is born, become more serious and a pro-active, possessive father too.
And the kind of bond these two shares, I mean there are particular times when I am not even allowed to enter their space. They would go out for dating sans me and would eat doughnuts and pastries, a way of expressing freedom, love in their own terms I guess. I do think every father-daughter relationship is like that a kind of special bonding.
Sometimes if they are in good mood, they would bring some for me also but that’s those rare occasions.
Most of the travel account that you read here are solely his ideas. He comes up with all ideas and then we plan accordingly. My contribution is only taking some snaps for my blog which he finds sometimes astonishing. But would patiently wait till I finish taking some snaps before we hop on to other place. He doesn’t believe in face book and twitter. He would say why I want to keep track of those friends/batch mates whom I have forgotten or lost account after passing school, college etc. If they were that much of important in my life, I wouldn’t have lost account of them in first hand. So, when I opened a face book account, yeah I have finally managed to do so. He was smiling and said you are also in peer pressure which was a very soft way of telling me you also succumbed to these modern social networking sites!!. I couldn’t disagree on that even I wished to.
I must say, the kind of happiness blogging gives me; face book hasn’t still allured me. I am there but still can’t figure it out much. I find true comfort here interacting with you all.

Now, to the recipe for the day.
Brussels sprouts are these cute little cabbages, green and a very healthy option of having a vegetarian stir/fry. Those of you, who read this blog regularly, know my inclination towards simple vegetable stir/fry. I finely chopped Brussels sprouts and then made a dry stir/fry with coconut. I do think that if I had some soaked brown chick peas or chana , that would have been even better. This dish was well eaten by my picky-eater daughter and Hubby dear also. We had it with rotis.


Narkol diye Brussel Sprouts

Recipe Requirements and Method

Half a packet of Brussels sprouts or approx 2 large cups of Brussels sprouts, chopped as finely as possible.
About half a cup of fresh coconut scraps or very small pieces
For the tempering
1 tsp of panch phoron
2-3 dry red peppers
1 tsp of turmeric chowder
2 tsp of red pepper powder
Salt as per taste
1 tsp of sugar
2-4 tbs of cooking oil
Method
Chop Brussels’ sprouts finely.
Now heat up a pan, add oil, and temper it with panch phoron, dry red peppers.Tip-I would suggest to use " Shokno Dhani Lonka",  or small extra hot dry red peppers for that spicy kick in this dish.Or you may use fresh crushed hot dry red pepper available here in packets.
Now add fresh scraped coconut or coconut pieces.Tip- if you are working with fresh coconut.Soak them overnight in water, the other day use your wooden rolling pin to break the outer hard covering.It's much easier this way to handle the coconut.One of my South Indian friend here told me to try it this way.And yeah it worked very well.So, dont need to think about the left-over coconut pieces.Simply freeze them in zip-seal packets with date written.Stays fresh for months.I have still two batches of zip-sealed coconut in my freezer which I will be using up to make Narkel nadus and some fish curries.

Add the chopped Brussels’ sprouts, add all the seasonings
Red pepper powder, turmeric powder, salt and sugar.
Fry well for 7-9 mints at medium –low flame or till Brussels sprouts shrinks.
Now if you wish you may add some soaked black gram peas or brown gram peas.
Cover it and cook further 5-6 mints at low.
Open the lid, and stir/fry it well.
Add 1 tbs of butter and 1 tsp of black pepper powder.You may add about 1 tsp of sugar, but it's not necessary.
Serve with rice or roti what ever way you like to have it.

Happy Cooking Friends

Pear Pancake- Quick and Easy Breakfast

You wake up in morning, and the first thing you do is, see outside your window. And this view greets you in the morning.

Well usually it will leave you thinking about the weather adversity here. But everything has something beautiful to offer, it’s the way how you perceive it.

This dense fog would remind me of train journeys back in India especially during winters. The lonesome train running on tracks, steaming through, cutting through the dense fog around it.
Passing by vast green fields, brick homes, ponds, peoples, villages and rivers and running ahead to reach the destination on time.

Now don’t get me wrong if I try to catch a glimpse of that bygone era. Here train journeys are pretty boring and mundane, no “tamasha” or hip-hop happenings or even some comical/interesting fellow passengers.
Back home while travelling in trains, whether you are travelling in Rajdhani or Shatabdi or whatever train you are boarding on. You would always be greeted on early mornings by the “Chaiwalhas” irrespective of your skin color, cast or religion. For him every one is, well, a customer only and he must sell his “Chai” to them.

Even if you try to sleep, covering your head, ear and yourself up well with your sheets/blankets or whatever you have for that matter, the typical sound they make while selling their tea “Chai- Chai”, will leave you craving for hot “Chai”. Such is the temptation that you will have to then reach out for your purse to search “Khuchro/phutkar/chiller” or cents/penny in English. A cup of “Chai” costs around Rs 10 these days may be.

And if you still manage to skip the temptation and have a little bit of sleep, the neighboring passenger would wake you up. And it’s the rule if you like early mornings make sure others don’t sleep late especially in trains.
And if you try to use the bathroom, don’t ever go near to it unless you are in dire needs. The sight of some pot-bellied gentleman brushing teeth will leave you, grumbling in tummy or even worse throw up. And even worse or good, worse for you and of course good for him, he will smile- 32 inch smile ,with all teeth out and say “Bahanji, aap pehle kar lein, hum baad mein brush karenge.” And this La Belle Femme would fume over for mentioning her as "Bahanji". And then she would generally hold back her strong emotions like "kadak chai ".And would generally give a feeble smile holding up semi-digested food in her mouth.
Children especially wake up early and try to sit near the windows. But then we were like that too when we were kids, isn’t?
When “Chaiwallahs” have taken the exit route from the narrow high way.Here comes another round of vendors’ selling peanuts, bhel and Jhaal muri wrapped in old news paper.

And yeah I warn you, don’t ever think about hygiene etc when you want to try out that spicy bhel or tempting jhaal muri they have to offer. Perhaps, one of the best, I have eaten bhel or jhaal muri is always on traveling in trains or perhaps just outside the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata or may be in the adjoining parks of India gate in Delhi. I tried to recreate that flavor many times in home, but I failed.
The entire journey would be one happening place and so many fascinating things will keep captivating your attention. Many of the fellow passengers would be busy playing cards. These days people can be seen sometimes working on laptops with back-ups and many of them listening to I-pods (India you have arrived well much before the commonwealth games). Some even try to face book and tweet through their Blackberries or Strawberries whatever...(See, I have been using these two social net-working sites as verbs, so you can imagine the impact these two have these days)
Well that was a small glimpse of a bygone era. Yeah, it seems ages here where I am sitting right now and typing these words. Some memories never fade away. They keep coming back to you.

Life is sometimes all about recalling all the memories that you have stacked in your mind.
 You stop for sometime, recall the past, pause for few moments, you cry or smile whatever and
Then shrug off and move on to cherish more ahead in life.
But you never live in past, and that’s the way it should be.

Alright then, now it’s the time for the recipe for the day
This is the season when pears are available here plenty. Now, you all know pears can be made into jams or jellies, or in cakes or muffins. Well, since the mood that I am in these days. I try to cook in jiffy.
Using the fruit in pancakes has always worked out well for me. Here you can see- Banana Pancake , Cherry Banana pancake .

And now it’s the time for Pear pancake.
Recipe is very simple
Pear Pancakes

Recipe requirements and procedure
1 -2 pear preferably good quality and organics
1 cup of self raising flour
You can use plain flour but then don’t forget to add baking powder also then.
1 egg
About half cup of milk or enough to make the batter
1 tsp of vanilla essence
You can use cinnamon powder in place of vanilla essence for that cinnamon flavor.
Mash well pears wih fork, and then add egg, flour and milk.
Mix together all gently.
Heat up a heavy cast iron skillet/tava.
Drizzle some oil, rub well all over.
Now add 1 tsp-2 tsp of cooking oil.

Scoop out one full ladle of the batter and smear it well like small rounds.
Let the bubble form. Flip the side if you see bubble.
Cook another 2 mints.Each pancakes takes approx 3-4 mints at medium flame to cook.
Serve hot with butter or maple syrup or honey or even condensed milk.
About 1 cup of self raising flour makes approx medium size 5-7 pancakes.

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Happy cooking friends