Zaiqa

Upma is an another Indian dish which can be had as a snack or can even be had as a filling breakfast.  

Tip: Indian cuisine is versatile. Simple techniques and and a marriage of various kinds of spices and flavors makes the Indian cuisine flexible and sapid. Indian women know very well to use the left overs and whip up delicious meals using them. One such dish where I usually use the leftover curries is Upma. If the left over curry is a dry dish, I often mix it in the preperation of the Upma which makes it even more delicious and healthier. And if the left over curry is thin (soupy) in consistency, then I use it to serve along with Upma.  

Upma – Semolina cake, served along with leftover Colocasia/Arvi in a tangy sauce

Upma is comfort food for me. It is a filling healthy breakfast to start a new day, quite easy to prepare and gets prepared swiftly. Upma Rawa or Semolina or Sooji is available at many Indian stores very easily.

Serves – 4

Upma – Semolina cake

Ingredients:

• Semolina/Sooji/Upma Rawa – 1 1/2 cups
• Canola oil – 3 tbsp
• Black Mustard seeds – 2 tsp
• Whole dried red chilli – 1 
• Small Green chillies – 4, finely chopped
• Fresh grated ginger – 1 tbsp
• Fresh or dried Curry leaves – 10
• Urad Dal – 1 tsp
• Moong Dal – 1 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
• Yellow Onion – 2, large, finely chopped
• Salt – 2 tsp or to taste
• Water/Chicken or Lamb Stock – 3 1/2 cups
• Lemon juice – 3 tbsp
• Cilantro – 1/2 cup, finely chopped
• Fried Cashewnuts – 1/2 cup, chopped

Method:

• In a non-stick saucepan at medium heat, pour oil and as soon as it gets warm, throw in the mustard seeds. Cover the saucepan with a splatter screen and as soon as the seeds begin to pop, add in the green and red chillies, dals, ginger, turmeric and curry leaves. Saute them for 3 minutes and later add the chopped onion and salt to it. Let the onions sweat out a little. Fry them all for about 5 minutes stirring it continually. Add the Upma Rawa and fry the whole mixture for 5-8 minutes more again stirring frequently (if you have any dry curry left-overs, you can add it too at this stage, read the notes above)
• Now pour the water/stock and mix throughly to that no lumps form. Reduce the heat to low and cover the saucepan. Let it cook for 3 minutes more. 
• Remove from heat and add lemon juice, cashewnuts and cilantro. Fluff and mix it all using a fork and spoon the mixture into whatever molds you like, press the mixture well. Invert them onto warm serving plates and serve them for a yummy breakfast. 

Suggested Accompaniments: I and my family enjoy it along with Lemon/Lime or Mango pickle prepared Indian style, or with any thin (soupy) leftover Curry/Saalan. I also love to savor it along with Khatti Dal. My Mother used to serve it us when I was a kid along with a handful of shallow fried groundnuts. 

This goes as an entry to the event, Click Yellow for Bri, being held this time as a Cancer Fundraiser by Jai and Bee for Briana Brownlow.

This also goes all the way to Raaga of The Singing Chef for the WBB#23 Express Breakfast Event she is holding this month.

Luv,
Mona

This is one of the dishes that I prepare when I do not have much time to spend in my kitchen. These creamy prawns with scallions get prepared quite quickly and contain all the goodness.

Hari Pyaz aur Malai wale Jhinge – Shrimp with Scallions and Cream

Prawns are my favorite among the Seafood. These little crustaceans are devouring. In this dish I have used hari-pyaz/scallions and light cream along with some other ingredients as well, each one of them imparting their own special flavor to the dish, but keeping the flavor of the prawns the dominant.

I have also used the Salan Masala which I came across from the cookbook Regional Indian Cooking by Ajay Joshi and Alison Roberts. This masala has now become a very important ingredient in many of my daily recipes and I find it very flavorful. I’m sharing the recipe of the masala with you all which I found in the cookbook.

Salan Masala

Makes about 2/3 cup

Ingredients:

• Dry Dessicated Coconut – 1/3 cup
• Sesame seeds – 1 1/2 tbsp
• Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp
• Cinnamon stick – 1 insh piece
• Whole cloves – 4
• Green Cardamom pods – 6 green
• Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
• Red Chilli powder – 2 tsp
• Turmeric – 1 tsp

Method:

• Dry roast the coconut and sesame seeds at medium heat until golden forn 3-4 minutes. Set aside to cool, then in a spice grinder, grind it to a fine powder. Transfer to a bowl.
• Add coriander, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and cumin to the same pan. Dry roast at medium heat, stirring, until fragrant, 4-5 minutes. Set aside, cool and gring to a fine powder. Add to the coconut mixture along with chilli powder and turmeric. Stir well to combine.
• Transfer to an airtight container. Store in refrigerator forupto 6 months. Use a clean dry spoon each time to us ethe masala to prevent mold from forming.

I usually get frozen prawns as they are easy to keep and are available for me to prepare and have them whenever I want. You can even use fresh prawns if available. I miss all the freshly available food in abumdance in India so much. Here, I do not get most of my Indian ingredients, and miss many of the Indian delicacies.

Hari Pyaz aur Malai wale Jhinge – Shrimp with Scallions and Cream

Ingredients:

• Fresh or Frozen Prawns – 400 gms, deshelled; tails, legs and veins removed
• Canola Oil – 2 tsp
• Scallions – 3 cups, chopped with both the green and white parts
• Tomato Paste – 2 tsp
• Red Chilli Flakes – 1 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Salt – to taste
• Light Cream – 2 tbsp
• Lemon Juice – 2 tbsp
• Grated Ginger – 1 tsp
• Salan Masala – 2 tsp

Method:

• Pour oil into a large frying pan with lid at medium heat and as soon as it warms up, add the scallions and saute them for 3-5 minutes. Add tomato paste, red chilli flakes, turmeric, salt and shrimp. Mix, cover with lid and let it cook for 3 minutes.
• Later, add light cream, lemon juice, grated ginger and salan masala. Gently mix well and cover and let it cook for 5 more minutes. Serve warm.

Suggested Accompaniments: It tastes wonderful along with warm Rotis, or Basmati Chawal and any Vegetable side dish.

Luv,
Mona

The Rice shortage had severly affected my family’s dietary lifestyle. Rice is a staple food for me and my family. Nowadays, we rely on other sources as rice has become too costly here in Canada too and because of its unavailibility. I hope and pray that Rice will be available very soon again in the markets in surplus amounts.

A few days back I got my hands on the cookbook Regional Indian Cooking by Ajay Joshi and Alison Roberts. After a moments of spending my time browsing through the recipes of the book, I knew I will be trying out some dishes as the recipes and presentation pleased me a lot. The recipes were easy to follow and described and divided the different Regional Indian Cuisines very well.

Kashmiri Lamb Qorma

I tried the following recipe from the this cookbook and modified it here and there according to my tastes. I and my family enjoyed it, as it was very delicious and I mostly liked it because I found it very simple to prepare. I put the meat to cook for about an hour and then went on with my other house chores and activities and later came back to finish the dish which took me not more than 30 minutes and did not require any laborius techniques or ingredients for the preparation. 

Kashmiri Lamb khorma

Ingredients:

• Boneless Lamb Meat – 650 gms, cut into 2 cm approx cubes
• Tumeric/Haldi – 1/2 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Water – 3 cups
• Unsalted Butter – 3 tbsp
• Green Cardamom pods/Sabut Elaichi – 4
• Cloves/Laung – 6
• Whole Cinnamon Stick/Dalchini Sabut- 2 inch piece
• Aniseed/Saunf – 3/4 tsp, powdered
• Red Chilli powder – 2 tsp
• Fresh grated Ginger – 1/2 tsp
• Tamarind concentrate – 2 tsp

Method:

• In a saucepan, combine lamb, turmeric, salt and water. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, uncovered, until meat is very tender, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Drain meat, reserving cooking liquid. Set meat aside.
• In a heavy-bottomed frying pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, aniseed, chilli powder, ginger and tamarind. Reduce heat to low and stir until oil seperates, 2-4 minutes.
• Raise heat to high, add meat and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes to coat meat with seasonings. Stir in 1 cup reserved stock, reduce heat to low and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes to blend flavors. Serve immediately.

Kashmiri Lamb Qorma in a pan 

Suggested Accompanimeant: Basmati Chawal or Paratha or Naan or Coconut Rice.

Luv,
Mona

I will never forget what I went through on April 30, 2008, those moments of acute angst!

It was one of the most dreadful days I had ever faced. Like everyday when I had logged into my wordpress account (I was posting an entry to Click-Au Naturel!) I noticed there were so many error messages saying that my ‘wp-posts’ and ‘wp-categories’ table has somehow suddenly crashed and they were all nothing but Greek and Latin to me. That gave me moments of panic and fearfulness, I was not able to post anything, my ‘entire blog’ had crashed and I had no idea how I would rectify the mess. It was all horrible. I quickly mailed some of my contacts including couple of bloggers and the company which hosts my blog and WordPress for help. Everyone was with me supporting me and asked me to have faith. I had given up my hopes and thought I had lost it all, my blog, which I had built with deep and ardent affection.. all my love..

My hubby too was upset for me and he tried to help me by every possible way. At around evening, he opened my blog on a browser window and voila! my blog was all alive, and everything was working. When I saw that, my happiness knew no bounds and I was so happy, thrilled and relieved. I was all in tears and very gratuful to those who quickly worked on my blog. I pray and hope that no blogger has to face this ever in their life!

Right now I am so much more in love with my blog. I have put in so much effort to build up this website, which sort of defines me and is a medium to express my love for cooking with the world I live in. This is when I was thinking of the precautionary methods we all bloggers should be ready with every moment for situations like these and I found some very informative posts here, here and here. I request all the bloggers to always maintain a backup of their entire blog, a database backup and a backup of their actual blog on a very rugular basis, may that be daily, weekly, or monthly or after every new post they publish.

Anyways, Life is back to normal again, and I thank my God immensely. I had been to the grocery mart a few days back and saw these very beautiful looking Bottle Gourds and I quickly bought them home. I had not ever before seen such cute little brightly colored bottle gourds in my life. I was sending these to the Click – Au Natural Event yesterday when it all happened!

Two Kaddu or Bottle Gourds 

I was in the mood of experimenting in my kitchen and I searched my refrigerator for ingredients. I found some Halal Chicken Sausages, Frozen peas ..  and I quicky came up with this idea and it was one brightly colored and appealingly delicious curry. We had it along with Roti.

Khush-Rang Kaddu Ka Saalan – Bright Colored Bottle Gourd Curry 

Ingredients:

• Bottle Gourd – 1, approx 400 gms, peeled and cut into quarters
• Chicken Sausages – 4
• Frozen peas – 2 cups
• Canola Oil – 2 tbsp
• Dried or Fresh Curry leaves – 4-5
• Ginger – 1 inch, finely chopped
• Yellow Onion – 1, large, sliced thin
• Salt – 1 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder – 2 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/3 tsp

Khush-Rang Kaddu Ka Saalan – Bright Colored Bottle Gourd Curry 

Method:

• Pour oil into a saucepan at medium high heat and as soon as it warms up, throw in the sliced onion, as they begin to brown up, add the chopped garlic and chopped chicken sausage and curry leaves and stir fry it for a minute more.
• Add the quartered bottle gourd, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric and pour in some water and cover the lid. Let it cook until the bottle gourd is tender (You can add more water if needed, but do not add too much water, the curry should be pretty dry when done).
• Open the lid and add the frozen peas and let it cook for 5 minutes more. Taste and check it if the spices are adequate for your taste and add more if needed. Remove it from heat and Serve it warm.

Suggested Accompaniments: You can have these with any kind Rotis for a filling meal and a cup of flavored yoghurt.

I’m glad I got my entire blog back and am very very thankful to my hosting company who worked on retrieving my blog and bringing it back to life and in action again! I’m thrilled!! 

Luv,
Mona

Today is the first official day of Spring here and the forecast nowhere shows such signs. It will be remaining cloudy with a few showers of snow and the temperatures remaining in ‘minus’ for some more time. There are a few signs of sun only the next week, which again are not very consistent. I hope Spring arrives very soon. Winter has been too beautiful, loved it so much, but i admit it gave many problems to my dear hubby.. the shoveling, the problem with car and snow troubled him a lot. I am waiting for spring, then summer, mainly because i can take my grill out, and also plant a little vegetable garden inshallah. So looking forward to it..

Speaking about planting your backyard with plants and herbs, ginger is the simplest. Whenever i see some rhizomes with buds, i just plant them in a pot, keep it well watered, and in some time i see the pot full of ginger rhizome. It comes very useful to me, and it keeps fresh in the soil.

Adraki Murgh – Ginger Chicken

I prepared this dish with these fresh ginger rhizomes. And it is also one of the quick non-vegetarian dishes that i prepare quite often in my house. Today i share with you the procedure of how i prepare Ginger Chicken. I believe the flavor of chicken goes very well along with ginger. They are made for one another. The sharp pungent taste of ginger, the sweet flavor of onion, and chicken is this dish is perfectly delectable. Irf loves this dish.

Adraki Murgh – Ginger Chicken

Serves:6-8

Ingredients:

To Marinate-

• Chicken Boneless Breast Meat/Murgh – 800 gms, washed, pat dried and cubed into bite size pieces
• Ginger juliennes – 3 tbsp
• Garam Masala – 2 tsp
• Yogurt/Dahi – 3 tbsp
• Red Chilli Powder/Lal Mirch Powder – 2 tsp
• Salt/Namak – 2 tsp
• Turmeric/Haldi – 1/3 tsp

Other Components-

• Cloves/Laung – 3
• Canola/Sunflower Oil – 3 tbsp
• Curry leaves (fresh) – 6-8
• Yellow Onion – 1, large, thinly sliced
• Scallions/Hari Pyaz – chopped, for garnishing
• Ginger juliennes – 1 tbsp

Method:

• In a bowl or a resealable plastic bag, marinate the chicken with the ingredients under the heading ‘To Marinate’. Let the chicken marinate for about 2-4 hours in the refrigerator. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and bring it to room temperature atleast an hour befor you plan to cook it. (Remember this always)
• Later, heat oil in a non-stick heavy bottomed pan at medium high heat and throw in the cloves and thinly sliced onions. Stir fry it till the onion is lightly browned. Add the curry leaves and saute it for just a minute more.
• Add the marinated chicken and mix it well with the sauteed onion mixture. Close the lid for about 15 minutes. Later, open the lid and stir it gently, being careful not to break the tender chicken pieces.
• Let it cook uncovered for a little more time, till it is quite dry. Garnish with the ginger juliennes and spring onions.

Suggested Accompaniments: Parathas or Naan or Pulao..

Luv,
Mona