Easy Coriander Masala Chicken

Recipe 

Ingredients 

Chicken – 500 gm (10-12 small pieces) 

For marination 

Curd – 2 tbsp 

Crushed black pepper powder – 1/2 tsp 

Salt – to taste 

For masala 

Onion sliced thinly – 1 large 

Green chillies – 3 slit longitudinally 

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tbsp 

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp 

Coriander powder – 1 1/2 tbsp

Garam masala – 1/2 tsp 

Salt – to taste 

Hot Water – 1/2 cup

Coriander leaves – to garnish 

Cooking oil – 2 tbsp 

Steps 

1. Marinate chicken with ingredients under marination and keep aside for atleast 30 minutes or overnight. 
2. Heat a kadai and add in cooking oil when hot. 
3. Then add in onion and sauté till medium brown in colour. Add green chillies and ginger garlic paste and sauté for 1-2 minutes 
4. Now add in turmeric powder, coriander powder and salt. Mix well and sauté till the raw smell goes. 
5. Then add in marinated chicken pieces to this and mix it.
6. Cover and cook for 10 minutes on medium flame. Then open and add in garam masala. Continue to cook  till chicken falls off bone. 
7. You may add hot water 1/2 cup or so and cook for 3-4 minutes if you want a semi gravy or roast consistency. 
8. Switch off flame. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot. 

Easy Peasy spicy chicken fry

A quick easy yum recipe if you want to have a Chicken fry in minutes. It pairs well with Rice, Chapati or on its own as a tasty snack.

Here is the Recipe 🙂

Recipe 

Ingredients 

For marination

Chicken – 4 large drumsticks (500g chicken) 

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp 

Kashmiri chilli powder – 1 tbsp

Chilli powder – 1/2 tbsp

Crushed black pepper powder – 1/2 tsp

Fennel powder – 1/2 tsp 

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tbsp

Lemon juice – 1 tbsp

Salt – to taste 

While shallow frying

Coconut oil or cooking oil – 5-6 tbsp 

Onion – 1/2 sliced thinly 

Curry leaves – a sprig 

Green chillies (optional)- 3 slit longitudinally 

Steps 

1. Marinate the ingredients listed under Marination and keep it aside for 30 min atleast or overnight for best results.
2. Heat a kadai and add in oil when hot. Fry the chicken pieces in oil on a medium flame for 8-10 minutes turning sides. 
3. Add the sliced onion, curry leaves and green chillies when half way through with the frying. 
4. Increase the heat to high after 10 minutes to brown the surface of the chicken and then switch off flame when done. It usually takes 3-5 minutes on high. 
5. Serve hot 🙂 it goes well with rice, chapati or even on its own as a snack. 

Airfried Drums of Heaven

This is a IndoChinese dish I have always craved for. During college days used to have this from a take away joint nearby and it was always a favourite. Have been wanting to try it at home too but the deep frying kept me to keep delaying it off. So this time I decided to try it with Airfried Chicken Lollipops and they came out quite well. 

Sharing the recipe here with all of you. 

RECIPE

Ingredients 

For the Marinade

Chicken Lollipops – 8 in no 

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tbsp 

Black pepper powder – 1/2 tsp 

Kashmiri chilly powder – 1 tbsp 

Chilly powder – 1/2 tbsp 

Salt – to taste 

Soy sauce – 1 tbsp 

Chilli garlic sauce – 1 tbsp 

Tomato ketchup – 2 tbsp 

Cornflour – 1 1/2 tbsp 

Egg – 1 

For the gravy sauce 

Onions finely chopped – 1 large finely chopped 

Green chillies finely chopped – 3 

Garlic finely chopped – 1 tbsp 

Ginger finely chopped – 1 tbsp 

Soya sauce – 1 tbsp 

Tomato ketchup – 2 tbsp 

Chilli garlic paste – 3 tbsp 

Cornflour – 1 tbsp 

Hot water – 1/4 cup to mix the cornflour to make a slurry 

Spring onions finely chopped – to garnish 

Steps 

1. Marinate chicken lollipop pieces with the ingredients listed under marinade. Set aside for minimum 1 hour and then air fry it 
2. Heat a pan/kadai and add in oil when pan is hot. Now add in chopped onion, green chillies, ginger and garlic and required salt. Sauté for 5 min till onions turn soft. 
3. Add in soya sauce, tomato ketchup and the chilli garlic paste. 
4. Now mix cornflour with warm water well till it’s all dissolved in it. 
5. Then add this mixture into pan. Mix well. It should be a semi runny consistency.
6. Lastly add in the Airfried chicken lollipop pieces and mix well. Switch off flame in 2 minutes 
7. Serve hot 

P.S – Instead of air frying you can also deep fry it if you wish to in cooking oil/bake it.

Making of homemade grape wine part 3

Finally after the prep shots and stories, here it is. The final outcome and the product right in front of my eyes😍 I must say I am excited and thrilled to have not messed it up and yes it tastes divine 😋😋 Fully worth the wait and effort. Yay Lejna and Cicily we did it after almost 40 days 😬🥳💪 so so proud of us for having taken up this task with lot of uncertainties. All thanks to our master plan we can enjoy drinking homemade grapewine this Christmas season (hopefully if it lasts till Christmas day😂)

The recipe for the wine has been adapted from our family recipes. So we consider it truly precious to have inherited those recipes from our grandmas cookbooks and having the pleasure and joy of trying this many decades old recipes. Also seeing the product right in front of our eyes makes us feel closer to home in this otherwise difficult year when many of us are spending this festive season away from our loved ones and families. So if food or a drink can take us closer to the feeling of Home, why not?😊❤️

I did add spices (cinnamon and cloves) to the ingredients while soaking the grapes as I like my wine having a nice spice punch and personally don’t prefer the really sweet tasting wines. Also neither me nor hubster likes plum or fruit cake so plum/fruit cakes won’t sell in this household (yes yes you heard it right)😅 hence baked a Date and Walnut cake to go with the wine. So it’s wine and cake after all😊❤️ and it’s definitely a divine combo. 

I know it’s a bit too late to try this for Christmas this year but hoping it will be helpful for those of you who wants to try it out later. Well after all you don’t always need a reason or occasion to enjoy good homemade wine 😊💕

Recipe 

Ingredients 

Grapes – 2 kg 

Sugar – 1.5 kg 

Wheat grain – 1/4 cup or 1 handful 

Yeast – 1 teaspoon

Boiled water (warmed to room temperature)- 1.5 litre 

Cinnamon (optional) – 4-5 sticks 

Cloves (optional)- 10 in number 

Steps 

1. Put all the above in a pot (earthen pot or Bharani or glass jar cleaned and dried well before use) after squeezing the grapes well by hand or in a mixie pulsing it gently. 

2. Close the pot with a cloth and tie it.

3. Make sure that 1/4 th of the pot or jar (top portion) should be left empty. 

4. Mix daily (around same time) with a wooden spoon for 20 days. Make sure that the sugar also gets mixed completely within 5 days.

5. On the 21st day, filter the wine using a Muslin cloth and put the filtered wine in the same jar (make sure you clean and dry the jar well with no moisture content) for another 15 days to settle and clear. You may now close the jar with its lid.

6. After 15 days you can pour out the wine into bottles using a funnel gently from the pot so that the sediments settled in the pot below will not get mixed up with the wine.

7. If the wine doesn’t have much colour, you can caramelise sugar and add into it.

8. You may also keep the wine chilled as it can be tastier when chilled.

Making of homemade grape wine - part 2

We started the wine making process by soaking all the grapes and other ingredients.. Initially the crushing of the grapes and mixing all the ingredients was therapeutic I must say. The divine smell of the grapes and everything mixed together in itself was so captivating. 

I must say that this is one of the most lengthy and patience testing process I have ever taken up till date in the kitchen considering I am someone who likes to always take on the easiest and quickest recipes and short cuts in cooking as well to get the dish done immediately. The task of daily mixing was something I wasn’t sure if I would keep upto but big hugs and thankful to Mr P who religiously did it on many days and even on the days I completely forgot about it. 

The fun discussions with my wine buddies/partners in crime Lejna and Cicily added more excitement to the process. We would share our daily mixing stories and pics with each other and also sort out our queries between us or ask our parents who had better experience with wine making who happily answered our doubts each time. We ourselves did lose patience many a times and even used to taste a bit from the wooden ladle after mixing on some days. We eagerly waited for the day we could strain the wine and keep it for resting after almost 3 weeks. 

The wine making process is indeed an experience and truly enjoyed every bit of it. Looking forward to trying to make many more different types of wine. If not for Lejna and Cicily, I would have missed out on this fun experience this Xmas season so a big thanks and hugs to both of you💕

Making of Homemade Grape wine

It was a few weeks ago that my dear friends Lejna and Cicily kindly asked me if I would like to join with them to try and make homemade grape wine this year for Christmas. Neither of us were fully sure about the outcome then but we decided we will do this together starting at around the same time so that the journey and process would be more fun whatever be the end result. We dug out a few of our family recipes tried and tested by our grandmothers and mothers/aunts and decided to set forth with this adventure. 

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Sourcing the grapes we thought would be a easy task but alas it wasn’t for me. We wanted seeded grapes for the wine as it’s said to add more structure and flavour to Wine than seedless grapes. It wasn’t easy finding seeded grapes in UK supermarkets but finally as I was about to give up on it, atlast found Black Seeded variety. And there we were all ready to start the process. Thus in early November we started off our wine making process. 

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Can’t think of a Christmas celebrated back home without some homemade grape wine. Even though I have tasted a few homemade wines, grape wine still remains a favourite. I still remember Ammachi (grandma) used to store different types of wine throughout the year in bharanis (earthern jar) in our storeroom. It’s taken out on special occasions when guests arrive or for Christmas and we would long to get a sip or taste the wine. So sweet are the memories and stories about Homemade wine and so making this ourselves at home this year brought back all those nostalgic memories.

(To be continued)

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P.S Green grapes wasn’t used in the wine making. 

Fudge Oreo Brownies

Hope all of you are in the Christmas cheer. Well Christmas has been associated with some baking always back at home. Amma would start baking cakes for the festive days ahead. Last weekend I too did start with some baking and one of those was these lovely chocolatey fudgy brownies. Brownies are always a favourite and love baking them fresh. Brownie and icecream is a favourite combo as well. So here’s sharing the recipe for all of you as well. 

Recipe adapted from here Youtube Irene magazine Oreo brownies

RECIPE

Ingredients 

Brown sugar (I used dark) – 1 3/4 th cup 

Melted Butter (unsalted) – 275g 

Plain flour – 1/3 cup (80 g)

Eggs – 4 in number 

Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Cocoa powder – 100 g 

Oreo cookies – 15 broken into small bite sized pieces 

Oreo cookies – 10 (each broken into 2 or 3 bigger pieces) 

Salt – 1/2 tsp 

Steps 

1. Take a large baking bowl and first add in brown sugar and the butter and microwave it for 90-120 seconds and mix well till combined. 
2. Now add in the eggs one by one and mix each time. 
3. Then add in the flour into the mixture and mix well followed by vanilla extract, salt and cocoa powder till batter is well combined. Do not mix excessively. 
4. Now add in the bite sized Oreo cookie pieces and fold into the batter mix. 
5. Grease a square tin and place parchment paper over it. Pour the mixture into it and arrange the rest of the bigger Oreo cookie pieces on top. 
6. Preheat oven to 180C/350F for 10 minutes and place this pan into it and bake for 45- 55 minutes