Pepper Chicken

I learnt to cook chicken from my husband who taught me how to marinate chicken. His speciality in cooking is by using pressure cooker and his theory of cooking is "put all vegetables or non-veg in the cooker along with the masalas and let it cook for 3 whistles" . He is an expert in pressure cooker cooking. On the other side, I am always running away from pressure cooker which has whistles. It just scares the life out of me to hear the sound of the whistle and also because of all the reasons associated with the pressure cooker bursting because of the pressure. Anyways, I have somehow managed to overcome that fear when I want to cook my husband's favorite chicken curry, "Pepper Chicken". (Its a bit spicy though).

Ingredients:
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Chicken thighs or breasts

For marination:

1. *Soy sauce or curd or lemon extract: enough to completly coat the chicken pieces(*If you are using Soy sauce, accordingly reduce the amount of salt being added)

2. Crushed Pepper or powder: 2 tablespoons

3. Chilli Powder: 2 teaspoons

4. Coriander powder: 2 teaspoons

5. Turmeric powder: 1/4 teaspoon

6. Cinnamon powder (optional): a pinch

7. Wheat or Maida or Rice Flour: for making a thick gravy

8. Salt

For sauting with chicken:

1. Onion: 2 nos
2. Tomato: 2 nos
3. Grated ginger or paste: 2 teaspoons
4. Crushed garlic or paste: 3 teaspoons
5. Capscicum: 2 nos
6. Peanuts or Cashew (optional): a few
6. Coriander leaves for garnishing
7. Curry leaves: a few
8. Pepper powder: 1 teaspoon
9. Chilli powder: 1 teaspoon
10. Coriander powder: 1 teaspoon
11. Oil
12. Salt

Method:
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Clean the chicken pieces properly. Its a nice practice to clean it by soaking them in a mixture of water and turmeric. Clean all the cutleries used to handle chicken pieces before and after using them to prevent any contamination by poisenous bacteria.

1. With the help of a knife, make small slits in the chicken pieces before cutting them. This
helps the process of marination.
2. Cut the chicken pieces to bite size
3. Marinate chicken for one hour with the ingredients in the marinate section above
4. Meanwhile prepare the ingredients to be sauted by chopping the vegetables and arranging
the rest of the items.
5. Take a skillet or similar vessel and add 3 tablespoons of oil. Add ginger, garlic, and onions
and saute them until onions turn golden brown. Then add the rest of the sauting ingredients
except for pepper powder and add 2 cups of water and turn the heat to high and close the
vessel with the lid and wait until the water starts boiling.
6. At this point, add the marinated chicken pieces, along with the marinate in the marinating
vessel. Add water to cover the chicken pieces and stir to combine the
ingredients evenly. Close the vessel and wait until the ingredients start simmering.
7. Add the pepper powder when the ingredients start simmering and reduce flame to medium.
Stir uniformly. Cook until chicken pieces becomes tender and the insides of the chicken are
no longer pink.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve along with rice or chappathi.

Onion Pakoda

An all time favorite evening snack of mine. I used to love the sound of the oil spluttering when my mom used to put the onion dipped in batter into hot oil. It would always remain a sweet memory of my childhood, when me and my brother would eagerly wait in our room in the evening and pretend to be studying for some test in school, when mom would be preparing this snack. But my mom would satisfy our taste buds in between by bringing samples of the snacks in between. So here is the recipe which my mom passed on to me after my marriage:

Ingredients:

Onions: 2 nos
Gram Flour (Kadalapodi): 2 cups
Chilli powder: 2 teaspoons
Pepper powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Hing (Asafoetida): 1/4 teaspoon
Coriander powder: 1 teaspoon
Salt
Oil for frying

Method:

1. Cut onions into desired shape.
2. Make a thick batter (which is thick enough to foam a coat on the onions) of gram flour, chilli powder, pepper powder, hing, coriander powder, and salt.
3. Heat oil in a kadai. Test the temperature by dropping a small drop of the gram flour batter in the oil. If the batter starts spluttering, then the temperature is right.
4. Add the cut onions one by one and ensure that each onion is covered with a thick coating of the flour batter. Make more batter if the batter is not enough to coat the onions. If the batter becomes too watery or thin, add more flour. Make sure the spices added should also be proportionate to the flour added.
5. With the help of a tablespoon, put the onions covered with batter in the heated oil. Fry for 2 minutes or until the onion gets cooked inside.
6. Serve it with tomato sauce, pickle or green chutney

Curd Rice

Curd rice or Thairu sadam is an all time favorite of a South Indian. Its also good for health as curd is something that is light on stomach. I learnt to prepare curd rice from my father-in-law who is an expert in cooking. He had once packed curd rice for me on my bus trip to Bangalore and I ate it happily in the bus. After marriage, I learnt that my husband likes curd with anything and everything! So I went ahead to prepare curd rice for him which he loved. So here is my recipe for curd rice.

Ingredients:

Rice: 1 cup
Curd or buttermilk: 2 cups

For the tadka:

Oil: 2 tablespoons
Mustard seeds: 1 tablespoon
Cumin seeds: 1 tablespoon
Ginger (grated): 1 tablespoon
Urad dal: 1 teaspoon
Red chilli: 4 nos
Curry leaves
Pomegrenate seeds (optional) for garnishing
Dry grapes (optional) for garnishing
Coriander leaves for garnishing
Salt

Method:
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1. Cook rice with a teaspoon of oil. After it is cooked, wait till it cools.
2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a vessel for tadka, and then add the tadka ingredients one by one. Let them splutter. Saute until they turn golden brown.
3. Mix the cooked rice with curd uniformly and add the tadka at the end to the rice. Mix it well. Add salt at the end.
4. Serve it with mango pickle or fried chilli or papad.

Tamarind Rice or Puliyogre

Hello everyone, I am blogging after a long time...yes and this time, its with some of the recipies which I love to make most of the time for my husband. Let me start with Tamarind Rice or Puliyogre which is easy and quick to make (especially if you have cooked rice ready). I made Puliyogre for one of our family friends, who are from Bangalore, when they had come to our place. Though Iam not a Bangalorean, I like the Rice items prepared in Bangalore households. Here is recipe for Tamarind Rice or otherwise called as Puliyogre in Bangalore:

Ingredients
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Rice (preferably white rice) - 2 cups

For the puliyogre mix:

Tamarind extract (can be made by putting a small ball of tamarind, which you get in stores, in warm water until it becomes soft. Then you can make a paste consistency using your hand) : 1/2 Cup (can increase or decrease
depending on the tangy taste you want)

Cumin seeds (jeera): 2 teaspoons

Grated Jaggery: 1 tablespoon

Coriander powder (malli podi): 2 teaspoons

Cinnamon powder (optional): 1 teaspoon

Hing (asafoetida powder): 1/4 teaspoon

Red Chilli: 4 nos

Oil: 2 tablespoon

In a pan, fry the above items in oil for 2 minutes to remove the raw taste. Remove from fire and when it cools down, grind the mixture.

For the tadka:

Oil: 2 tablespoons
Turmeric powder: a pinch
Mustard seeds: 2 teaspoons
Urad dal: 1 teaspoon
Channa dal: 2 teaspoons
Peanuts: 2 tablespoons
Green chilli (optional): 2 nos
Curry leaves to garnish
Salt to taste

Method
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1. Cook rice with a teaspoon of oil. Wait till it cools.
2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a sauce pan. Add the ingredients for tadka (refer above) one by one and saute them until they turn brown or in other words lose their raw taste.
3. Add the puliyogre mix (refer above), to the sauce pan and heat for another minute.
4. Add the rice when it is cool and mix it very well with the ingredients in the sauce pan. But make sure that while mixing, the rice should not become a paste.
5. Serve with coconut chutney. Can be also eaten as an evening snack.

Different version:

Mango rice: You may use amchur powder or dry mango powder instead of tamarind extract to
make Mango rice.