Black Pepper Lamb Curry | Gosht Kali Mirch Recipe

 Are u a pepper freaky? Then am sure you will definitely love the recipe. If u doesn’t get lamb in your place, try doing with mutton (see notes). It can either be served with plain steamed rice or with roti/chapathi. I love to have with idli and dosa too. 

 

Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 10-20 minutes

Aval Payasam | Poha Payasam | Rice Flakes Payasam - Gokulashtami Recipe

Aval/ Rice flakes Payasam. I used Red Rice flakes which is store bought. You can also try with white either thin or thick rice flakes. This is one of the recipes which are made for Lord Krishna on Janmashtami. Since this is my first Krishna Jayanthi which I am celebrating alone, I made a simple payasam and wanted to share for the beginners as like me. Amma don’t have the custom of celebrating Krishna jayanthi, so I don’t know what to do for this occasion. I went through the Internet for the recipe and tried it for the first time. It was delicious and divine. 

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10-15 minutes

Garlic Rasam | Poondu Rasam Recipe

I love to make different types of rasam. I already have a post for spicy pepper rasam and tomato rasam, here comes another variety rasam… Garlic rasam!!! I purposefully I include lots of garlic in my recipes. Not because TH loves the flavor, it is very good when talking about health concerns. It has anti-cancer effect, relaxes digestion process, reduces blood pressure and the list goes on. Check out my few recipes with garlic as a main ingredient.

1. Garlic infused potato fry
2. Poondu milagu kuzhambu
3. Chilli-garlic pickle

Preparation time: less than 10 minutes

Cooking time: less than 5 minutes

Butter Chicken | Murgh Makhani

Butter Chicken or Murgh Makhani is made with the left over tandoori chicken in mild-spicy and silky tomato gravy. Because of the not-overpowering spiciness it is been loved by all, especially non-Indians. I can see lots of ready-to-serve packs of butter chicken in most of the stores here in US. They love to have the butter chicken with the plain tandoor naan which is also readily available. It can also be served with jeera rice and I served it with peas pulao.

You will be wondering, I haven’t tasted this butter chicken in any of the restaurants until I make it myself. After looking at the people here craving for butter chicken I thought of trying at home. The original recipe has cream and I replaced it with few cashew nuts which give a creamy texture to the gravy. Most of the restaurants uses tandoor chicken. Here am using the shallow frying method to cook the chicken. You can also deep fry the chicken. This is just a step to avoid the chicken oozing out excess water while cooking with the gravy.

Preparation time: 10-15 minutes

Cooking time: 20-30 minutes

More Kuzhambu | Mor Kuzhambu | Butter milk Curry - Without Coconut

The simplicity of the recipe makes me to do this kuzhambu again and again. If u have lots of sour curd in home and you don’t know what to do with dat? Here is the recipe to make use of that…. Mor/More Kuzhambu!!!  Am giving the basic recipe and you can improvise that by adding different veggies of choice. Mostly ladies finger (vendakkai), ash gourd (posanikkai), chayote (chou chou), taro root (seppankizhangu) are used in the recipe. 

Amma sometimes makes vadai and dunk it in the gravy. I love the taste of this kuzhambu when prepared with coconut oil. Try out the recipe and let me know ur reviews…

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 5-7 minutes

Chilli-Garlic Pickle Recipe

This is my first pickle recipe which I learnt from one of my friend in a surprise outing.  The simplicity of the recipe made me to try as soon as I reach home and more importantly TH loved it. 

Both of us were not a great fan of pickles. I always use store bought pickle mostly with a garlic flavor and use that for almost a year… but as soon as I make this chilli-garlic pickle, TH started using it as a side dish for almost all the dishes… let me know ur reviews about this pickle and  here comes the recipe…

Preparation time: 5-10 minutes

Cooking time: 20-30 minutes

Semiya Payasam | Vermicelli Payasam

This is one of the recipes which I wanted to post for long time. Since today is varalakshmi viratham I thought I can post it today itself. Vermicelli payasam/semiya payasam is an easy and simple sweet which amma used to make for each and every festival at home.  Everyone in my home loves it.

Indians have the habit of finishing off their meal with a sweet. The reason behind is, sweets help in digesting your food easily. So in every wedding feast there will be a sweet and most of the time it will be semiya payasam.

Vermicelli doesn’t require much time to cook. In this method we are roasting the vermicelli in ghee for few mins. So cook the vermicelli for just 3-4 mins in milk and allow it to stand for some time in the hot milk. This will cook the vermicelli further. Cooking for long time will turn the vermicelli to clump. 

Preparation time: 5 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

Tricolor Poriyal Recipe | Independence Day Spl Recipe

This tricoIor poriyal has three different colored veggies (carrots, beans and cabbage) and I have reserved this post for the Independence Day which we are celebrating today. Happy Independence Day to all the Indians !!! 

Ingredients

1 tbsp chopped onions

1 green chilli

2 carrots (finely chopped)

¼ kg French beans

1 cup chopped cabbage

2tsp moong dal

1tbsp grated coconut

To temper:

1 tps Oil

½ tsp mustard seeds

1tsp urad dal

¼ tsp channa dal

2-3 dry red chillies

Pinch of asafetida

How to make it

• Wash all the veggies and finely chop it and keep aside.
• Wash and soak the moong dal in a cup of water for 15 minutes and cook it till it turns soft.
• In a wok heat oil and temper the items given. Once the urad dal and chana dal turns light golden brown add the onions and sauté till it turns translucent.
• Throw the green chillies and sauté.

• Now add the chopped veggies one-by-one and mix well.
• Sprinkle some water to the veggies and allow it to cook further. Add salt at this stage and check for the spiciness.

• Cover with the lid and cook till the veggies turn soft.
• At this stage add the cooked moong dal and stir well.
• Switch off the flame and add the grated coconut to the veggies.
• Serve with steamed rice along with any kuzhambhu of choice.

Notes:

Take care not to overcook moong dal. I used microwave oven to cook the dal. It took about 1-2 mins for me to cook.

Rajma Masala Recipe | Red Kidney Beans Masala ( Punjabi Style)

Rajma Masala/ Red kidney beans Masala, which is very new to me and am not a great fan of this red kidney bean. So I rarely make recipes with rajma. Check out my recipe for Rajma pulao.

Rajma masala is very popular among the North Indians and I had tasted this recipe in a Dhaba in Manali. TH loved it and he wanted me to try it out.  Rajma takes a hell lot of time to cook. So it is always better to soak it overnight to make it soft. Pressure cooking after this step eventually reduces the time span for cooking. In this recipe I used milk and this is entirely an optional. You can also try adding cream to it which gives creamy texture to the dish. I served it with jeera rice and some sliced onions on top. 

Ingredients

½ cup Rajma (Red Kidney Beans)

½ tsp Garam Masala

Pinch of kasoori methi

1tbsp milk

Coriander leaves (to garnish)

1 tsp cumin seeds

Salt

1tsp oil

1tsp butter

To sauté and grind

2 cloves

¼ inch cinnamon

3-4 garlic cloves

½ inch of ginger

1 onion

2 tomatoes

2 tsp coriander seeds

4-5 red chillies

How to make it

• Wash and rinse rajma in running water. Soak it overnight atleast for 8 hours. Then pressure cook the beans until it turns soft. It took around 7-8 whistles for me. It depends on the variety of rajma you use. Reserve the drained water to make the gravy.
• Heat a pan with little of oil and sauté the items given. Allow it to cool at room temp and grind into a smooth paste with no water. Set aside.

• In a wok heat oil and butter and add cumin seeds when the oil is hot.
• Then add the ground paste and cook for 2-3 mins in medium flame. 

• Add garam masala to the paste and mix well. Cook for another 2 minutes.

• Add the reserved drained water to the paste and allow it to boil.
• Then add the cooked rajma to the boiling gravy and add salt to it.

• Cook by covering the lid and allow the gravy to thicken.
• Add milk at this stage and stir well.

• Crush kasoori methi in between ur palms and add to the boiling gravy.

• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with roti/chapathi.

Layered Chicken Biryani | Chicken Biryani Recipe

Chicken Biryani!!! ahhh … I love to taste biryani in each and every restaurant I visit. The first dish I order in a restaurant must be a biryani… I love the way of Muslims making their biryani. Since I lived in Triplicane area, we have so many Muslim neighbors and the day of ramzan it was a treat to our eyes to check out the preparation of their biryani. I grew up watching all this and finally tried it in my kitchen.

I have already a post on prawn biryani and mutton dum biryani. And here comes this chicken layered biryani.

Dum Aloo Recipe - For Roti, Paratha, Naan

I always loved to make trials with potatoes. Potatoes are the only veggie which will never ruin me when I try. I make different recipes with potatoes and the Spicy Potato Curry hits the maximum view count in my blog…

I saw a bag of baby potatoes in the market and I grabbed it to try another version of potato recipe. On a continuous search for a dum aloo recipe I finally got one which is very easy to make. Dum aloo is a kashmiri recipe in which the aloo/potato are slow cooked in a traditional dum style. But here I have used the aloo as such. The recipe is adapted from Tarla Dalal. 

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Pepper Kuruma | Milagu Kuruma

It was a hectic month and I really don’t find time to concentrate on my blog and the recipes. Change of location cos of TH’s job-shift, packing the things from there and unloading it here, searching for apartments and analyzing the things going on and on… oooops!!! Waaatta bad month it was.  

I try to post few recipes which I had in my list previously. One such recipe is this Pepper Kuruma. I usually make this for our week end breakfast along with hot idlis and dosas. This tastes exactly like Paya which we make with the leg of lamb. TH used to call this as Veg-Paya and he loves it.

If ur a pepper lover and I bet you will definitely love the recipe. This can even be served with plain steamed rice.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes