Madurai chicken kuzhambu

Preparation time:10 mins
Makes 2 servings
Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1/2 kg
Shallots- 1 cup
Red chilly - 2
Green chilly - 4
Tomato- 2
Ginger Garlic  paste- 3 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves- few
Salt
Oil

To Grind:

Red chilly- 8
Coriander seeds- 11/2 tsp
Pepper - 1 tsp
Cashewnuts - 10
Grated Cocunut - 1/2 cup


Procedure:
1.Heat oil in a pressure cooker or pan and add curry leaves, red chilly and finely chopped onion.
2.Saute till onions are translucent., then add ginger-garlic paste and tomato.
3.Saute for few minutes , now add chicken pieces, turmeric powder and green chilly.
4.Add enough water, salt and the grinded paste.
5.Allow it to cook for 4 whistles if used a pressure cooker.

Serve hot with plain rice, biryani or idli / dosa.

Chicken Biriyani

Preparation time: 30 mins
Makes 2 servings
Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:
Chicken pieces - 1/2 kg
Biryani rice - 1 cup
Ginger- garlic paste - 2 tsp
Tomato - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1/2 cup
Bay leaf- 2
Cinnamon - 1/2 inch
Cloves- 4
Cardamom - 3
Cocunut milk - 1/2 cup
Lemon - 1
Salt
Ghee

To grind :
Green chilly - 10
Ginger - 1 inch
Garlic- 3 pods

To marinate:
Curd - 4 tsp
Garam masala- 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Ginger - garlic paste - 1 tsp
Salt


Procedure:

1. Marniate the chicken for half an hour.
2. Soak rice for half an hour.
3. Heat ghee in a pan, add bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.
4. Fry until a nice aroma comes.
5. Now add onions and fry until translucent.
6. Now add the grinded paste and saute for some time.
7. Add the chicken pieces along with marinated mixture.
8. When the chicken is half done, add tomato, cilantro and mint leaves.Mix well.
9. Now add the rice, cocunut milk and water.
10. Adjust the salt and add lemon juice.Cook till its done.

Serve hot with Onion raitha and Chicken Curry.

Note:
1.If you are using an electric cooker, Follow the procedure till step 8, (Allow the chicken to cook fully)and then transfer the contents of pan to cooker and follow the other steps.
2.You can also grind the chilly and ginger-garlic paste seperately, so that you need not grind it once again for marination.
3.The rice used in this recipe is seeraga sambha .You can also use basmathi rice, if the mentioned variety is not available.
4.If you are using a pressure cooker, don't wait for the chicken to cook, keep it for 4 whistles and simmer for 10 mins.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

We have this routine Friday evenings movie time at my BFF's place, its become so important for us that we try to avoid any other plans that might come up on that day. Five of us usually (sometimes the count increases to even ten) get together for the awesomest tea ever..So its become a ritual to have some appetizer or munchies for this evening..I get inspired on these days to make a dish as I have the guinea pigs ready for my experiment and thus this cake was made on Friday. We had to bid farewell to two families that friday and so it was even more special and had to be done right :) My oven and my ingredients didn't let me down this time and the output as you can see was as expected !! Below is the recipe for you to boost your confidence in baking.

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Makes about 15 slices and many gulped even before the actual dessert time.
Cooking Time: 1hr and 10 mins

Ingredients:

Butter - 1/2 cup or 1stick of butter
1 and 1/3 cups of Brown sugar
Pineapple slices - I got a tin from the grocery store here you can also try to use fresh pineapple - 9 slices
2 and 2/3 cups of All purpose flour
2 cups Sugar
2/3 cup Shortening
3 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 and 1/3 cups Milk
2 Eggs

Procedure:

• Heat oven to 350 F. I used a Rectangle deep dish baking pan (you can use even a square pan), Melt butter and spread it on the pan. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the butter. Arrange pineapple slices over brown sugar.
• In a bowl, beat the remaining ingredients with electric mixer if you have or a hand mixer or even a beater for about a minute scraping the bowl constantly. Beat even faster for about 3 minutes. The batter should be mixed well and you can pour the batter over the pineapple slices on the baking pan.
• Bake for about 50 - 55 minutes or till toothpick when inserted comes out clean. Immediately place a heatproof plate of about the same size as the pan over it, turn plate and pan over. Leave pan over cake a few minutes so that even the brown sugar mixture is on top, remove pan. The cake would be upside down now, the pineapple slices on top. 

You don't need to serve the cake. People will be running towards the cake because of the aroma once you take it out. Yummmmm !!!

Notes :

•  The number of pineapple slices on the cake will change depending on the size of the pan.
• Make sure not to let the cake get over burnt. If you know about the heat in the oven, chk within 40 -45 minutes too.

Spicy Orange juice

Preparation time: 10 mins


Ingredients:

Orange - 2
Ginger - 1/4 inch piece
Sugar (optional)
Ice cubes(optional)

Procedure:


1.Peel the oranges and discard the white part.
2.Blend all the ingredients in a blender.

Serve Chilled.

Note :
If you a citrus juicer, make orange juice seperately and mix with ginger juice.

Desi Grilled Sandwich

Preparation time:15 mins
Makes 2 servings
Cooking time :3 min


Ingredients:

Cucumber - 1
Tomato - 1
Onion -1
Capsicum -1
Butter - 2 tsp
Red chutney- 3 tsp
Chat masala - 1/4 tsp
Thick wholegrain Bread Slice - 4
Salt

Procedure:

1.Cut cucumber,onion and tomato into round shapes.
2.Chop capsicum finely.
3.Apply butter on a bread slice and place cucumber, onion, tomato and capsicum.
4.Sprinkle chat masala and salt.
5.Apply red chutney on another slice of bread and place it over the vegetables with chutney side facing inwards.
6.Place this in a preheated iron grill, close and cook until crisp.
Serve hot with Orange juice.

Red Chutney

Ingredients:

Onion - 1 small
Tomato - 2 small
Garlic - 1 pod
cumin seeds - 1 tsp
cilantro
Oil

Procedure:


1.Fry the above ingredients in  oil , allow to cool and grind with little water.

Note :
Chutney can be stored in airtight container for a week.