Kheema Palak

In continuation with my earlier kheema preparations, today it is time to post kheema palak (lamb mince with spinach) recipe. My dad loved the lamb mince cooked with spinach and I have seen my mom cook it so often, but I have adapted it to my taste.  I do use spinach sometimes when cooking meat or chicken. We can give the gravy a nice aroma and flavour just by adding a few leaves to the masala paste when grinding the ingredients, and also a different colour.  As I like the natural colour of the vegetables, I tend to incorporate most of it in my dishes.

Spinach or any greens should not be cooked on high flame and also not cooked for a longer period. In this recipe, spinach is cooked only till it gets bit tender. With each bite we should taste the ginger and experience the spinach and onion crunch. The stock is added to make the dish little moist, it should not be watery thin. INGREDIENTS USED: 1 Bowl of finely shredded spinach

2-3 Spring Onions

4-5 Garlic cloves -finely chopped

1 small piece ginger- julienned

2-3 green chillies- finely chopped

250g- boiled lamb mince

1 bowl stock of boiled mince

1 small tomato- gas flame cooked, and pureed

Turmeric/red chilli powder/salt- as per taste

oil- 2 Tbsp.

Method:

Heat oil in pan, add the cumin, green chillies, garlic, ginger, and when this is cooked add the chopped green onion.

Then add the pureed tomatoes, mixing all the contents of the pan, then add the spinach to the pan and toss. Next add the turmeric, chilli powder and salt. Finally add the boiled lamb mince and mix everything. The meat should get evenly coated with the seasonings and all the other ingredients of the pan.

 Next add the meat stock, this is to keep the taste and make dish bit moist. Adding water will not bring out the desired taste as is obtained by adding the meat stock.

After adding the stock, simmer the sabzi for few minutes and then put off the flame.

Serving Options: This is a side dish, which is not spicy, so one can include it in menus which have a spicy gravy as the main dish. This can also be served with a vegetarian meal that includes dals, lentils, and other vegetables. One could even use it as a sandwich filling, but then cook it as a dry sabzi with all the liquid reduced or by not adding the stock at all. The eating choices are so many, decide how you would like to eat it. Preferred choice at my home is with hot fulkas or parathas (Indian bread types).

Have fun cooking and enjoy your meal.

ashu 🙂

Kheema Parathas

This is also one of the recipe that is extremely quick and easy to make, a not much effort needed types of recipe that could easily become your family favourite, hence maybe worth trying it out. Whenever I am cooking mince meat dishes or for that matter any recipe, I find it so amazing that the same meat or vegetable can taste so different by simply changing a few ingredients, or cooking it differently, and one can churn out so many dishes out of that one main ingredient. I like cooking food using fresh herbs, and try to keep the ingredients added list as small and simple, wishing to make the final result a tastier and more appealing one.

In this recipe, the meat is simply boiled and water is completely drained out of the cooked mince to which ginger, garlic, chillies, cumin, and spices are added and a filling is made, this is then filled inside a wholewheat flour dough ball, rolled, and baked crisp on a hot griddle.

I usually ask the butcher, at the supermarket, for removing all the visible fat layer present from the meat and then to make the mince, just to cut down on the fat. By adding these readily available at home ingredients, the recipe turns out to be one that is simply irresistible. The pictures below would help in understanding the cooking instructions better.

Ingredients:

For the minced lamb filling:   Minced meat 300 g

Onion 1 medium-sized, chopped finely

Garlic- 6-8 cloves

Ginger-small piece

Green chillies 2-3 (according to ones preference)

Cumin- 1tsp

Garam masala- 1tsp

Red chilli powder- 2tsp (as per ones taste)

Turmeric and salt.

Green onion leaves for garnish.

For the outer coating – Wholewheat flour dough.

Wholewheat flour – 2 cups

Water- as needed to make a medium soft dough.

Oil- 2 tbsp.

Method:

Coarsely grind the ginger, garlic, and green chillies together.

Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds and finely chopped onion and fry till onions are pinkish and then add the ground ginger garlic mix and fry.

Add turmeric, red chilly powder, salt, fry for 1-2 min and then add the boiled, water drained out, mince meat (kheema) and mix. Sauté, and make the filling completely dry.  Add the garam masala powder. Remove this filling from the pan onto a plate and cool. Use the spring onion greens for garnish.

Prepare the wheat flour dough.

Roll a small round puri of the dough ball, add the filling, and again roll to make a paratha. Bake this, on medium flame, on a griddle/pan, then smear it with oil, pressing on both sides and making the paratha crisp.

Now as you have reached the last snap, I am sure the snaps are mouth watering and you would love to try out the recipe to taste these irresistible Kheema parathas. These can be served with yogurt and mint chutney.

Note: We can sprinkle some chat masala too on the parathas as soon as we remove them from the tava.

Enjoy cooking.

ashu 🙂

Blueberry muffins

Hello to all the readers of my blog. I take the opportunity to thank all readers/bloggers who have liked my posts so far. As it’s a new blog, your likes give me lot of encouragement, and I am enjoying this blogging experience. Each blog post written so far has been a different experience, with something new thing learnt along the process in this wonderful blogging journey.

Continuing with the baking post, I am sharing the recipe of blueberry muffins that I baked yesterday evening, thinking of my dad, who always relished and loved the cakes that I baked. Thinking of him brings out a flood of memories and lots of cherished moments. Dedicating my blog to my dad, knowing his love for me, he will always be with me in this journey. He would have loved commenting and giving me valuable inputs to each and every post of mine, something which I am going to miss a lot. In the next couple of posts, I plan to recreate some moments for myself by cooking and sharing some of my dad’s favourite dishes.

Blueberry Muffins:

 Ingredients:

2 Eggs

125g unsalted butter, softened

200g castor sugar (powdered sugar would also do)

300g refined flour + 1tsp baking powder

100 ml milk

1tsp berry essence

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan-assisted. Line the muffin tray with paper cases.
2. Beat ingredients-sugar, eggs, butter, milk and essence in medium bowl on low-speed with electric mixer until ingredients are just combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the mixture is smooth.
3. 
4. Fold in the refined flour.
5. 
6. Drop rounded tablespoons of mixture along with the blueberries into the paper cases; bake for around 25-30 minutes.
7. 
8. Cool on wire racks.
9. 
10. Top with icing of choice or fresh cream with more berries on top. I prefer it plain with hot tea or coffee.

Enjoy.

ashu 🙂

Boiled Egg Sabzi

This is one of my favorite way of cooking boiled eggs to make a sabzi that the family enjoys for meals during travel, by either road or train.  Food is an essential part of travelling for my family. So much so, that they agree to come along based on the food available during long journeys! This recipe is just one of the few easy on-the-go recipes I use to satiate my hungry kids. Going through the pictorial depiction of the ingredients and method of cooking, you would agree with me how easy and yummy this simple recipe turns out. Go ahead and have fun cooking this, and do let me know your comments.

Ingredients:  

Boiled Eggs, Onions, Green Chilies, Tomato, Ginger, Garlic, Oil- 30 ml, 1 tsp Cumin, 2 tsp Red Chilli Powder,  Salt to taste and Sprig of fresh mint. Little water will be needed for mixing the ingredients.

Prepare the Ingredients for use:

I sliced the onions and chopped the tomatoes. Each egg was sliced into four. As the yolk is not preferred, I used yolk of only two eggs.

The cumin, green chilies, garlic and ginger were roughly crushed using mortar and pestle as we don’t need a fine paste.

Method:

Heat oil in a Kadai/frying pan and add the sliced onions to it.  Fry onion till pinkish in color.  Add the coarsely ground chilies and ginger garlic mix.  Then add the chopped tomatoes.

Cook the tomatoes for sometime, then add the turmeric, and chili powder and salt.

Then add the sliced eggs and little water to mix all the ingredients. Simmer for few minutes. Garnish with mint and green chili and serve either with paratha or roti or any type of bread.

The onion masala can be kept ready in the fridge to be used for later and thus by just adding boiled eggs to it the dish can be made in no time.

Enjoy.

ashu:)

Tandoori Chicken

I take this opportunity for wishing you all a very Happy New Year 2014. This is the first blog of 2014, so it had to be written on a special day. Today is a very special day for me as two awesome people, my elder sister and brother-in-law, are celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary. In this journey of my life, they are among the list of people who have always mattered most; their presence, association has contributed a lot, enriched this journey, and I definitely feel blessed to be related to them.

As every celebration calls for good food, hence I took the occasion to cook Tandoori chicken (grilled chicken) to celebrate this momentous event. This dish is a perfect blend of different spices, hung yogurt, and lemon, and the chicken needs to be well marinated to enjoy flavor of the spices with every bite.

I purchased the whole dressed chicken( 900 gm), a day in advance, coated the clean chicken with a mix of: 1 Tbsp Oil and some salt and garam masala.

Method: 

1. In a bowl make a marinade by mixing 3 tbsp of Tandoori chicken masala + 2 tbsp of hung yogurt + salt to taste + 1 tsp of red chilli powder + half lemon juice.
2. This mix is then coated over the chicken that has now been cut into 4 pieces, with the chicken legs and breast pieces deeply slit so that the marinade can be rubbed into each piece till it reaches the bone. Coat all the pieces with the marinade thoroughly.
3. Leave it to marinate for 5-6 hours or as I left it in the refrigerator overnight for best result/taste.
4. Heat the oven grill to 180 °C. Prepare tray by covering it with aluminium foil, brush the chicken with oil and arrange on the tray.
5. Grill the chicken for 30-40 min, depending upon the desired grill effect. After the first 15 min of grilling, check the tray and turn the chicken pieces over so the other side gets done evenly. Remove tray from grill when chicken is completely done.

Serving Option:  This can be served with sliced onion and tomatoes dashed with lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste or with yogurt mixed with ground fresh mint and salt to taste.

Enjoy.

ashu 🙂