Butter Chicken is among the best known Indian foods all over the world. Its gravy can be made as hot or mild as you like so it suits most palates. Also commonly known as Murg Makhani, Butter Chicken tastes great with Kaali Daal (black lentils), Naans and a green salad.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg boneless chicken skin removed
• Juice of 1 lime
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to suit your taste)
• 6 cloves
• 8-10 peppercorns
• 1" stick of cinnamon
• 2 bay leaves
• 8-10 almonds
• Seeds from 3-4 pods of cardamom
• 1 cup fresh yoghurt (must not be sour)
• 3 tbsps vegetable/canola/sunflower cooking oil
• 2 onions chopped
• 2 tsps garlic paste
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 2 tsps coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 can (400g or 14 oz) of tomato paste
• 1/2 litre chicken stock
• 2 tbsps kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 3 tbsps unmelted, soft butter
• Salt to taste
• Coriander leaves to garnish

Preparation:

Mix the chicken, lime juice, salt and red chilli powder in a large, non-metallic bowl. Cover and allow to marinate for 1 hour.
Heat a flat pan or griddle on medium heat and gently roast (stirring frequently) the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, bay leaves and almonds till they darken slightly. Cool and add the cardamom seeds. Now grind into a coarse powder in a clean, dry coffee grinder.
Mix the yoghurt, above whole spice powder (from previous step), coriander, cumin and turmeric powders together and add them to the chicken. Allow to marinate for another hour.
Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium heat. When hot, add the onions. Fry till a pale golden brown in color and then add the ginger and garlic pastes. Fry for a minute.
Add only the chicken from the chicken-spice mix and fry till sealed (chicken will turn opaque and the flesh will go from pink to whitish in color).
Now add the tomato paste, chicken stock, kasuri methi and remaining part of the yogurt-spice mix to the chicken.
Cook till the chicken is tender and the gravy is reduced to half its original volume.
Melt the butter in another small pan and then pour it over the chicken.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with Naan and Kaali Daal.
For an authentic and traditional cooked-over-the-coals flavour: When the Butter Chicken is cooked, make a small bowl shape with aluminum foil and place it on top of the curry (*floating* on it). Heat a briquette of charcoal on an open flame till red hot and gently put the charcoal in to the aluminum foil bowl. Cover the dish immediately. Remove the cover just before serving, discard the foil bowl and charcoal and serve. The curry will be infused with a smokey flavor

Once I started making the fruit pie, it has become my family favourite dessert. Any kind of seasonal fruits can be used for the filling. This cool, rich dessert uses fresh strawberries with vanilla filling taste great & perfect for parties too.

Ingredients :

For the sponge :

1. All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cups
2. Baking powder - 2 1/2 tsp
3. Sugar - 100 gms
4. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
5. Eggs - 4 medium sized
6. Cooking oil - 3 tbsp
7. Vinegar - 2 tbsp

For the Vanilla cream :

1. Vanilla flavoured custard powder - 80 gms
2. Milk - 250 ml
3. Sugar - 20 gms

For the filling :

1. Strawberries - 1 kg
2. A little sugar if necessary

For the glaze :

1. 1 Sachet red cake glaze
2. 2 tbsp sugar
3. 250 ml water

Method :

For the sponge :

1. Grease the pie tin & line with baking parchment. Preheat the oven about 180 C.

2. Sieve together the flour and baking powder. Add all the rest of the ingredients one after the other and whisk until you have a smooth, even mixture. Bake for about 15 mins.

For the vanilla cream :

3. Make a custard with the custard powder using milk & sugar, following the instructions on the packet. Leave to cool. And pour over the base.

For the toppings :

4. Wash the strawberries & cut them in halves. Sprinkle the strawberries with sugar, leave to stand briefly and then arrange on the base.

For the glaze :

5. Make the glaze with glaze powder, sugar and water, following the instructions on the packet. Then spoon over the strawberries. Leave the glaze to set and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Enjoy baking :)

Source: Cooking With Swapna

As i told earlier, i prepare myself multigrain flours using barley,quinoa,pearl millet,oats and vice versa, last time when i prepared barley flour myself, there were some finely grounded barley meal which was sitting silently since few days in pantry to be cooked as anything.. Finally i prepared this wonderful looking, colourful pudding with those leftover over barley meal along cooked beets and condensed milk..Needless to say this pudding tastes super fabulous,yummy,healthy and simply catchy..We enjoyed having this delicious pudding warm, loved it..My teddies named this pudding as rose pudding, very perfect name na!...

Ingredients:

• 1/2cup Barleymeal or 1/4cup Whole barley
• 1cup Beets (cooked &chopped)
• 2cups Milk
• 1/2cup Condensed milk
• 1/2tsp Cardamom powder
• 1tbsp Ghee
• Few almond flakes

Method:
Cook the barley meal with milk until they get cooked completely,meanwhile grind the cooked beets along with the condensed milk as fine paste..Add the grounded paste to the cooking barleymeal, cook for few seconds, finally add the ghee,cardamom powder and put off the stove..

Serve warm topped with almond flakes..Enjoy..

Source : Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Cant believe its already our last day of blogging marathon, its gonna be three weeks am running blogging marathon with my other buddies with three different themes, needless to say you guys would have already noticed that i couldnt stop posting sweets throughout this week as i choosed Indian sweets as theme for this week of blogging marathon...Thanks to Srivalli, i enjoyed running three weeks of blogging marathon thoroughly..

Most of us know that i love wholegrains very much, after oats and barley my favourite whole grains are quinoa, i tried making many bakes and fusion dishes using this wonderful grains.. I wanted to make some laddoos with this grain since a long that too as a quick and easy laddoos which goes for easy breezy preparation, finally tried them yesterday by combining quinoa and yellow cornmeal together, these quick laddoos turned out super delicious, if you like rava laddoos you will definitely love this cute looking quinoa and cornmeal laddoos surely...I couldnt stop munching this beauties,yep they were quite addictive and delicious..Am so happy to see these quinoa laddoos vanished within few hours...I went for a coarse powder of quinoa for making this laddoos if you want to make smooth laddoos, just grind them more or else sieve the grounded powder..Watever this laddoos are our recent family favourite..

Ingredients:

• 1/2cup Quinoa
• 1/2cup Cornmeal
• 1cup Sugar
• 3nos Cardamoms
• Few cashew nuts
• 2tbsp Ghee
• Milk (as per need)

Method:
Roast the quinoa & cornmeal separately for few minutes in a warm pan until a nice aroma comes out...Grind the roasted quinoa,cornmeal,cardamoms,sugar together as a fine or bit coarse powder,meanwhile heat the ghee and roast the cashew nuts until its turns golden brown, add the grounded powder to the hot ghee and nuts,springle the milk as per need and make medium sized balls from this mixture..Store it in a air tightened box..

Enjoy!

Source: Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

I'm not so fond of greens but like to have once in a while. Moreover , here in US, we don't get variety of greens as we get in India. I've already posted one recipe for keerai kadaiyal with minimum ingredients . Long time back while we ( me n Savi )were chatting ( mostly about food ) ,I'm told abt her mom's recipe using tomato and tamarind juice. I've never used these ingredients in kadaiyal and so immediately tried her recipe, this time using mustard greens. Really tasted awesome , never thought mustard greens would be this much yummy when done right with the right ingredients.... I really relished a lot..

Source : Savitha's Mom

Ingredients :

Spinach / any greens -- a bunch
Green chillies -- 2 nos. (acc to taste)
Tamarind juice (diluted) -- 1/4 cup
Tomato -- 1/2 no. (chopped)
Garlic cloves -- 2 cloves

Seasoning :

Oil -- 1 tsp
Dry red chillies -- 1 no, broken
Vadagam (kuzhambu vadagam ) -- a handful
Else use Mustard seeds -- 1/2 tsp , Cumin seeds -- 1/2 tsp

Method :

• Chop the spinach and add all the other ingredients. Mix well. Cover the pot and cook until it's done. ( might take 5 to 6 minutes)
• Blend the boiled greens using a hand blender to a semi -coarse paste using hand blender / mixie.
• Heat a pan seperately with the oil and do the seasoning with vadagam / ( if using )Mustard seeds n cumin seeds and with broken dry red chillies. Transfer to the mashed greens and mix well. U may also grind the greens after the seasoning part, I like grinding the seasoned vadagam in keerai kadaiyal..very flavourful..
• Njoy with hot steaming rice with a tsp of ghee drizzled on top..

Sending this to BOOKMARKED EVENT by Priya n Aipi

Happy eating guys,
Shanavi

Source: Kitchen Secrets

Nannari is a Summer Special herb from Nature. It Cools down the body heat. There are Plenty of Good things about this herb. It Reduces Pitta dosha from Your body. To Sum up, its best to have during Summer, as it avoids de-hydration. Nannari Syrup is available at all stores, i remember seeing it on Nilgris dept.store. I could have bought one bottle, but the challenge for the food blogger is to try it out, isnt it. Hubby got some Nannari root from Naatu Marunthu Kadai. Googling helped me to land on Jayasree's Recipe. i also referred few other recipe and tried it out.

Recipe for Nannari Syrup:

Ingredients:

• Nannari Root - 50 gms
• Water - 2 cups + 1 cup
• Jaggery / Vellam - 150 gms
  

Method:

Take a Stone Mortar and Pestle. Crush the roots with Pestle twice or thrice, the root will loosen up and you have to remove the inner part (white part) of the root.

After Removing, Take the roots in your mixie jar and grind them just for a second. its just to break the roots into small pieces.

Boil 2 cups of Water in a vessel, remove from flame and instantly add the grinded roots and close the vessel with its lid. Leave the Vessel un disturbed for 5 - 6 hours. dont open in between, as you may release the steam. Let the Roots infuse Water

After 6 hours, Strain the roots away. strain with a muslin cloth. Keep the water aside.

Add 1 cup of water to a Pan, Add Jaggery and melt the jaggery and filter it. now heat the filtered jaggery water. slowly add the root infused water to the jagger water and let it boil.

Boil for about 10 minutes in slow flame till they reach single string consistency. remove from flame and let the Nannari Syrup Cool Down.

Store the Nannari Syrup in a Sterlised Bottle and you can keep it in fridge and use it.

How to Use Nannari Syrup:

* You can make Nannari Sarbath
* You can mix the Syrup with Tender Coconut Water
* You can mix with Milk
* You can prepare Jigarthanda

Recipe for Nannari Sarbath

Ingredients:

• Lemon - 1
• Nannari Syrup - 3 tbsp's
• Chilled Water - 1 Cup
  

Method:

Extract Juice from the Lemon and mix with Water and add Nannari Syrup to and Mix well. Serve chilled. its better to take this sarbath in empty stomach.

Notes:

* The Roots can be put in Clay Pot of Drinking Water.
* With this Root, kuzhambu can also be prepared.
* Nannari leaves can be used for making thuvaiyal.

Soure about Nannari - My Domestic Helper. I Tell you what, She is Wikipedia for me and also the best Naturopathy doctor. to be noted, she never stepped school.

Nowdays, pravin badly need something to munch something when he back home from office. That too when he is little early, I need to do something little heavy & quick snacks. Yesterday, I had some leftover sweet tamarind chutney & tortilla chips. Finally, both the combination with some more ingredients turned out to be a delicious chaat for evening. Addition of mint chutney will add more flavour & taste to the chaat. Perfect snack for evenings.

Ingredients :

1. Tortilla chips - 1 cup (randomly broken)
2. Curd - 1/4 cup
3. Sweet tamarind chutney to taste
4. Green chutney to taste
5. Finely chopped onion - 1 small sized
6. Chopped tomato - 1 small sized
7. Boiled potato cubes - 1 small sized
8. Boiled chick peas - 1 tbsp (optional)
9. Chat masala to sprinkle
10. Dry mango powder to sprinkle
11. Sev to garnish
12. Corriander leaves to garnish

Method :

1. In a serving plate, arrange the broken tortilla pieces.

2. Sprinkle onion, tomato, potato & chick peas first.

3. Then sprinkle some lassi, tamarind chutney, chaat masala & dry mango powder.

4. Finally, garnish it with corriander leaves & sev before serving.

Happy eating :)

Source: Cooking With Swapna

Steamed Rice Rotti.

Leftover rice or steamed plain rice is kneaded into soft dough along with rice flour. Onion, cilantro and spices are also added to the leftover rice mixture and spread it on a flat pan into somewhat thin rotti. Cook the leftover rice rotti till it turns golden brown and serve it with any pickle of your choice.
Makes: around 2 Steamed Rice Rotti.

Ingredients:

• Leftover Rice or Steamed Rice 2 Cups
• Rice Flour 4 – 6 Tbsps
• Onion 1
• Green Chiles 1 – 2
• Cilantro a Handful of Leaves
• Salt to Taste
• Lemon Juice 1 Tbsp

Method of preparation:

Peel and finely chop the onion.
Wash and finely chop the cilantro leaves.
Remove stems, wash and finely chop the green chiles.

Warm up the rice for a minute if necessary.
In a mixing bowl, add leftover rice, rice flour and salt.
Knead the mixture well into a soft dough.
Add a few splashes of water if necessary to wet the rice flour.
Add the chopped onion, green chiles, cilantro leaves and lemon juice to the dough and knead again.
Divide the dough into two portions.

Heat a flat pan on medium heat.
Place one portion of the rice mixture on the pan and spread it with wet finger into somewhat thin rotti.
Pour around quarter teaspoon of oil around the spread rice rotti.
Cook till the bottom turns golden brown and turn on other side.
Cook again for couple of minutes and remove from heat.
Repeat the same with remaining portion of the rice mixture.
Serve steamed rice rotti with any pickle of your choice.
Notes: Make sure to knead the leftover rice mixture well.

Source : Talimpu

It has been ages i prepared dishes with raw papaya, last weekend i got a wonderful opportunity to pick some fresh raw papaya from Indian grocery...Back home, i peeled their skin and freezed some papaya chunks in freezer for further uses, also i prepared this super quick,healthy and easy breezy kootu with raw papaya and methi leaves, we enjoyed this thick and delicious kootu with hot steaming rice and spicy potato roast...I prepared this healthy kootu with a wonderful spicy powder using some flax seeds and oats with usual spices, which turned out this yummy kootu more healthier and i completely skipped the coconut which i usually add in most of my kootu recipes...I prepared this healthy kootu through pressure cooker which helped a lot for quick cooking and this dish gets ready in less than 20minutes, a quick and healthy kootu to enjoy without any guilt...

Ingredients:

• 1/2cup Toordal
• 1/4cup Channadal
• 1no Onion (chopped)
• 1no Tomato (chopped)
• 1tsp Ginger (grated)
• 2cups Raw papaya (chopped)
• 1/4cup Methi leaves (frozen)
• 1/4tsp Turmeric powder
• Salt
• Oil
• 1tsp Mustard seeds+Urad dal
• 2nos Dry red chillies
• Few curry leaves

To roast & grind:

• 2tbsp Coriander seeds
• 1/2tsp Fenugreek seeds
• 4nos Dry red chillies
• 1/4tsp Asafoetida powder
• 1tbsp Toordal
• 1tsp Flax seeds
• 2tbsp Rolled oats

Method:

Dry roast all the spices, rolled oats one by one and grind as fine powder,keep aside..Heat enough oil in a pressure cooker,add the chopped onions,chopped tomatoes,grated ginger,saute everything until the veggies get well cooked..Meanwhile wash the toordal,channadal together and keep aside..

Add the chopped raw papaya to the cooking veggies, saute until the veggies gets partially cooked, add the methi leaves and cook for few seconds...now add the washed dals with turmeric powder and salt,add enough water and cook for three whistles..

Once the steam get released, add enough freshly grounded spice powder to the cooked veggies-dal mixture, bring everything to boil..Meanwhile heat enough oil in a pan, fry the mustard seeds,urad dal,dry red chillies,curry leaves until they turns brown, add this tempered spices to cooked kootu and put off the stove..

Source: Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Curry leaves are highly valued as a seasonings in the Indian cooking. My mother always insist me to have the curry leaves along with the dish as it gots its own medical values. And this kind of thuviyal is the best way to serve the kids & people of all ages. It taste great with rice & idlies too.

Ingredients :

1. Curry leaves - 1 cup
2. Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
3. Urad dal - 1 tbsp
4. Tamarind pulp - 1 tsp
5. Salt to taste
6. Red chillies to spice (arround 3 to 4)
7. A pinch of hing
8. Oil - 1 tbsp

Method :

1. Heat oil in the pan, add urad dal, hing, red chillies and curry leaves. Saute till little crispy.

2. Add grated coconut & fry it for a min till light brown in color. Allow it to cool.

3. Grind the coconut mixuture along with the tamarind & salt to taste to smooth paste.

Serve it with rice.

Sourece: Cooking With Swapna

GORUCHIKKUDU/GUVAR BEANS CURRY

Goruchikkudu Curry:
Prep time : 15mts
Cooking time : 20mts
Serves : 3
Cuisine : Andhra


Ingredients:

• 1 lb Guvar beans (chop them into 1 inch size pieces)
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustards
• few curry leaves
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 green chillies (adjust, slit them length wise)
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp ginger garlic paste
• 2 medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
• salt to taste
• 3 tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method:
1. Chop beans into 1 inch size pieces, boil them in hot water for 10 minutes or till slightly tender and drain them and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a thick bottom kadai, add cumin seeds and mustards, let them splutter on low heat.

3. Add curry leaves, green chillies and chopped onions, saute till transparent on low heat.

4. Add turmeric powder and ginger garlic paste, fry for few seconds. Add boiled guvar beans , mix, covered, stirring between, cook for 5 minutes.

5. Add chopped tomatoes and salt, mix well, covered, stirring between, cook for more 10 minutes or till done.


6. Add finely chopped coriander leaves and turn off the heat.

7. Goes very well with white rice and also with chapati.