Curry leaves and onion chicken

This is one of my inventions, a chicken that is cooked in a wok, but without gravy or heavy spices, a East meet west type of dish as I refer to them. What's more it's an easy one to pull and it taste subtle and great.

Ingredients:
2 onions sliced
2 generous handful of fresh curry leaves
2 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 table spoon mustard oil
1 whole chicken cut in pieces

How to:
1) heat the oil in a large wok, and once hot, trow the cumin seeds and sliced onion.
2) Once the onion turn translucent, throw in the curry leaves, you should have a thick mix of onion and fragrant curry leaves, stir briefly and once the curry leaves turn soft, add some salt and the chicken pieces, stir again, add a little water and cover letting it cook on high flame.
3) Cook until chicken looks done to the middle, add water if you see the chicken go dry, add salt if needed and sprinkle with a meat spice mix (I used chicken masala)
4) Serve hot with your choice of vegetables and rice.

Mint flavoured green pea puree

Purees are not just for babies or those having teeth proble, they are one inovative way to have your daily servings of vegetables, and because it has been mashed, it means the flavouring ingredients blend better with the vegetable without using too much oil as a binder. What's more that can be made in a jiffy.

Ingredients:
3 cups of frozen green peas
3 small red onions
1 tbs butter
1 handfull of fresh mint leaves
2 hand full of fresh coriander leaves with the stem
2 garlic pods
salt to taste

How to :

1) In a big pan, melt the butter and cook the onion until translucent but not browned, then add the peas and a little water, salt, let it cook
2) Put the mint, coriander sprigs and garlic pod in the mixer/blender and grind to a coarse "paste", add the mix to the pan, and stir in, rinse the blending jar.
3) Once the peas look cooked and there is not too much water remaing (ideally there should be close to none) Pour the content of the pan back in the blender's jar and blend to a paste.
4) Serve hot

Makes a wonderful side dish, do keep your hand firmly on the lid of the blender while blending the hot peas, as the steam has the tendency to push the lid off the jar.

Breakfast Bagel

Bagel is a type of bread that is quite popular in New York, but while the quality in other places might be discussable, this is a bread that is found in many place including in India if you know where to look. The recipe uses a Bagel, but really you can use any other bun bread you like.

Ingredients :
1 Bagel or Bun
1 egg
2 table spoon leftover pasta tomato sauce
A little butter

How To :

1) In non-stick pan, heat the butter, slice the bread in half and put the inside down in the melted butter, toast until golden brown and set aside
2) In the same pan, break the egg and scramble with a wooden spatula, add the two table spoon of pasta sauce and mix.
3) Put the egg mix on the lower portion of the bun. and cover with the top portion like you would do with a sandwich or burger. Eat warm.

Cranberry and pomegranate muffins

A variant on a classic blueberry muffin recipe, if you can't find cranberries substitute it by pomegranate. Also once cooked the bits of pomegranate will look a bit blueish, this is normal.

Ingredients

100g dried cranberries
150g pomegranate seeds
125g butter
4 eggs
140g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoon fresh thick cream
2-3 table spoon thick curd (plain yogurt)
350g plain flour (maida in India)
1 tablespoon (generous) baking powder
Icing sugar for dusting.

How to

1) In a mixing bowl, place the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla essence, curd and sour cream, mix well together until you obtain a soft cream like substance.
2) sift the flour and baking powder and add to the mix and fold in the pomegranate and cranberries, mix until obtaining a smooth batter.
3) Grease a muffin tray and dust with flour, preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius and bake muffins for 20 minutes
4) Take out of oven, let it cool in the tray for a couple of minutes and transfer to a wire rack to continue the cooling process. Dust the muffins with icing sugar.

This mix can easily make 12-16 muffins depending the size, they freeze very well and can be thawed later on.

Apple Chutney

In India, Chutneys are a type of spicy jam that is served along with food and would be what is closer to the "Sweet and Sour" sauce we eat in the west with spring rolls or Asian dishes. Chutneys can be made with about any fruit and vegetables and are a kind of preserve. Here is a recipe for an Apple version, loosely inspired by the recipe found a in a Swiss culinary magazine called "Betty Bossi". I had dried cranberries to use, but if you can't find them were you live you can easily substitute them by just pomegranate.

Ingredients :
1kg peeled and chopped apples
100g dried cranberries that have been soaked for a while
1 pomegranate
The zest and juice of two oranges
3 onions finely chopped
3 garlic cloves peeled and chopped
300g sugar
1 Cinnamon stick or 2 teaspoon Cinnamon powder
1 ts salt
1 table spoon crushed peppercorns
2-3 cloves
250-300ml vinegar

How to:
In a big pan (do not take a tin one or a copper one but prefer a non-stick, stainless steel or cast iron one) put all the ingredients except the vinegar.
Add half of the vinegar to the mix and bring to a boil, once boiling, reduce the heat a little and let it simmer while stirring from time to time. Once the mix thickens a little add the remaining vinegar and let it simmer some more until the mix thicken, you can gently break the apple chunks with a wooden spoon while stirring.
Once the mix is thick without being sticky, immediately poor (the mix should be pipping hot) in clean heated glass containers and put the lid on tight and let it cool down.

The unopened jars should be then stored in a dark cupboard and will remain edible for months, once a jar has been opened it should be put in the fridge, but still can last several months.

Mint Iced Tea

There is nothing like a glass of Iced tea to keep one cool on a hot Summer day, but not only are store bought ones pricey, they are also ladden with extra sugar. It's very easy to make you own at home, and you can do it with any tea and any flavour, here is one made with regular tea, limes and mint.

Ingredients :

1.5 litre water
2 handful of fresh mint leaves
2-3 limes
3 table spoon sugar or to taste
3 tea spoon of your favourite tea

How to :

1) put the water, sugar and mint leaves in a pan, and bring to a boil

2) Once boiling, remove from fire, add the tea leaves and the lime juice to it and let it cool completely, filter after a few minutes though if you don't want a too strong tea flavour (you can put the tea in the freezer for an hour or two to cool it faster).

Serve chilled and enjoy

Curry tofu and noodle

An Asian inspired recipe which I found (and twisted quite a bit) in one of my chineses cuisine cookbook, the original recipe is green curry and chicken, but I didn't have any at the time so I did something else.

Ingredients :

1 pack egg hakka noodles (ramen type noodles work great too)
1 pack firm tofu
1 medium zucchini
1 medium eggplant (2-3 small Indian brinjals)
1 bunch of spring onions
1 cup (200ml) coconut milk
1 heaped table spoon Tum Yum curry paste (or one individual pack)
2 teaspoon garlic paste
2 cups chicken stock
2 table spoon of each chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) and chopped basil leaves
salt to taste

How to :

1) Chop all your vegetables and tofu into bite size cubes and keep separately, roughly chop the spring onions as well.

2) In a wok (kadai), heat 2 tables spoon oil and stir fry the tofu until golden brown, remove from wok and set aside, add one table spoon of oil to the wok and stir fry the spring onion and garlic paste for 1 minute.
3) Add the eggplant and zucchini and stir fry for 2 minutes more adding some salt
4) Pour the chicken stock in the wok, cover and cook for 5 minutes
5) Add the tom yum paste, coconut milk and tofu, and bring to a boil
6) Once boiling, add the noodles (dry) and cook until the noodle are soft.
7) add the coriander and basil leave, and serve.