Italian Herb Baked Chicken Breasts

ashus-Baked Chicken Breasts

In continuation with posting of the recipes from the Tandoori platter that I had cooked for lunch last week, sharing here the recipe of the baked chicken. (You can check picture and the recipe links at the end of this post)

I am very fond of Tandoori food and it is a favorite food at home, the meat or vegetable may change but the Indian spices used for marination always remain same. But my Jr was after me for a long time to make something that is grilled but not using the Indian spices. Having tasted the recipes using chicken breast in some fast-food joints here, I decided to use the home available ingredients and dish out something new for him. As I stock up on my dried herbs, I have an Italian herb mix that I had asked my hubby to bring for me during one of his tours to Rome. It is my most favorite herb mix, it gives the Marinara sauce that I make at home for my Pasta dishes the perfect taste. Sharing with you all what I made the other day and it was the most delicious baked chicken meat that I ate.

BAKED CHICKEN BREASTS

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken- 2 chicken Breasts

Garlic- 2 cloves

Olive oil- 2 Tbsp

Bread crumbs- 75 gm

(Readymade) Italian seasoning mix- 2 Tbsp

Grated Parmesan cheese- 2 Tbsp

Salt- To taste

Note: Ingredients of the Italian seasoning used were-dried Garlic, Tomato, Oregano, salt, Onion, Carrot and Celery.

ashus-Italian seasoning mix

In case you do not have readymade seasoning available, then you can make a homemade mix of dried Oregano, basil, red chili flakes, salt, pepper, and dried onions, and garlic. If dried garlic is not available then simply increase  the garlic cloves used in the recipe to 3 or 4 in number, depending on the size of the cloves. We want to impart garlic flavor to the oil, but it should not be too strong.

ashus-Italian Herb Baked Chicken

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.

Clean and wash the chicken and pat dry using a kitchen towel or tissue.

Poke the chicken flesh with a fork, this will enable the oil and herb marinade to penetrate inside.

Take a small sauce pan, heat olive oil and then add crushed garlic cloves and the herb mix and switch off the gas flame. One could also use butter instead of oil, but my choice is always olive oil.

Mix the bread crumbs with the Parmesan cheese and a pinch or two of the herb mix. Season lightly with salt.

Apply the herb olive oil to the chicken meat, it should be rubbed well so that the flesh is drenched with the herb mix and oil. Leave it to marinate for 15-30 mins.

Note: (If in hurry to eat, bake it without marination time 🙂 )

Coat this herb oil drenched chicken flesh with the bread crumb mix.

Grease a baking dish with the herb oil and put the coated chicken breasts and let the dish then go into the oven for baking. Bake for 30-40 min.

ashusrecipe-The breadcrumb coated chicken meat is ready to go into the oven.

The chicken should be turned once so that both sides are evenly baked. It takes around 30-40 min for the chicken to get cooked. Once it is cooked, I turned on the top grill function of the oven for giving the chicken surface a grilled appearance. Grill it for 10 mins so that the top coat of the bread crumbs get crispy and gave the bite the perfect crunch.

The chicken was well cooked, perfectly marinated, with crispy outer coat. I also baked few baby corns and carrot cuts along with it.

Go ahead and try out this Italian herb seasoned baked chicken dish from ashusktichen 🙂 .

Alternative to oven: In case one does not have an oven, then use a frying pan to cook the chicken. Heat the pan and add 1 Tbsp oil to it and let the chicken cook in the pan for sometime and then only turn. Later tossing and turning it from time to time gives it a crispy outer coat.

If you would like to check out other recipes from the Tandoori platter picture below, do click the links (in red) given to open the recipe posts.

ashus-Tandoori Platter

ashus Tandoori platter- Tandoori Paneer , Tandoori Prawns, Tandoori Gongura prawns.

Using the ingredients that are available at home one can always dish out something new and interesting with just a bit of motivation. Hope you all liked this simple chicken bake and would go ahead and give it a try. Happy Baking 🙂

Enjoy!!

ashu.

 

 

 

Tandoori Paneer

ashus-Tandoori Paneer

Last week, as already mentioned in my earlier posts, I had made a tandoori platter for my lunch. It had lots of Tandoori prawns, Paneer, Ghongura prawns and also baked chicken breasts. A sudden snag in the laptop functioning resulted with me having to take a forced break from my writing and posting up the remaining tandoori posts. Finally, after a gap of couple days, the laptop snag is corrected and now it is functioning fine and here I am completing the few posts that were well due last week, yeah I had made a mental note of posting them :).

ashus-Tandoori Platter

For this tandoori paneer recipe I used the cubes of paneer.  I prefer to buy fresh paneer for making any dish, but always keep a packet or two of paneer in the freezer for those occasions when I get sudden urges of cooking paneer dishes  and cannot go to the supermarket to buy.  The packaged paneer cubes come handy when we are adding few cubes to a recipe, mixing vegetables and paneer, or adding few cubes to any potato filling etc. Keep paneer packet in the lower compartment of the refrigerator overnight, it gets thawed well. One can also empty the contents of the frozen paneer packet and keep on the kitchen platform for an hour or so and the cubes easily get thawed and can then be readily used for cooking. One could also use the thawing function of the Microwave for that matter, but I never go for this option.

TANDOORI PANEER

This is yet another simple and a quick recipe. You need paneer cubes, lemon juice, whole soaked Kashmiri Chili and Tandoori masala for this recipe. In case the store bought masala is not available at home you can use a mix of red Chili powder, coriander powder, chaat masala, garam masala, and cumin powder. You can either make a paste of the soaked Kashmiri chili and dried masalas as I have done here or can simply use the dried masala mixed with oil and lemon. If you have Kashmiri chili powder you can add a teaspoon of it to the dried masala, lemon and oil and use it as the marinade. Sharing here the method in which I made a wet paste of the chili and masala and ground it to smooth in a Mixie pot.

INGREDIENTS:

Paneer cubes: 250 gms

Kashmiri Red Chili: 2 no

Tandoori masala powder: 2 Tbsp

Lemon: 1/2

Olive oil: 1 Tbsp

Salt: To taste

Turmeric: 1 Tsp

Note: You can use any cooking oil of choice.

METHOD:

Soak the Kashmiri red chili in hot water, they are easier to grind after soaking as they become soft.

ashus-Soaked Kashmiri Red Chili

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C on the grill and oven setting.

Grind the Kashmiri chili along with the Tandoori masala powder, salt, lemon juice and some oil.  Adding oil helps make a smooth paste and we can easily coat this paste on the paneer and keeps prevent paneer from drying up in the intense heat of the grill. Keep the marinated cubes in fridge for 30 min before grilling, you can avoid this if are in a hurry to eat. The marinated paneer cubes taste better if we allow the marinade to soak in.

ashus-Paneer cubes and the tandoori marinade.

Put the marinated paneer cubes in the preheated oven for 10- 15 minutes, tossing in between, so that all sides are grilled to perfection. The oven time depends upon the oven used at home, use self discretion, do not over grill the cubes as they toughen and then taste like rubber.

ashus-Tandoori Paneer cubes

These paneer cubes were bit crisp on the outside and soft inside with the perfect blend of tandoori masalas, Yummy was my Jr’s comment!! 🙂

NOTE: In case you do not have a grill or oven at home, you can use a fry pan to cook the paneer. Heat the frying pan, add cooking oil of choice and put the marinated paneer cubes and cook on medium-to-slow flame, taking care not to burn them. Cook the cubes for only 10-15 min, turning/ tossing once so that both sides become crisp.  Do not cook for long as the paneer will harden and become rubbery. (I have used smaller cubes and hence the time needed for grilling was less, and the grill/oven was already hot.)

SERVING: Serve the piping hot grilled paneer cubes with a mint yogurt chutney/dip. You can check out ashus Yogurt dip recipe in the Archives.

Check out other Tandoori recipes in the Archives.

Enjoy!

ashu

Baked Wheatflour Thalipeeth

Ashu’s-Baked wholewheat flour Thalipeeth

Thalipeeth is a flat bread made of a mix of multigrain flours, mixed with dry spices and onion and cooked on the gas stove in a frying pan. It is one of the most loved Maharashtrian breakfast recipes. This multigrain flour mix called as Thalipeeth Bhajani is sold in some grocery stores and also some people make it at home by mixing the pulses and wheat and getting it ground in any nearby flour mill. Most often I do not have this flour readily available at home to use and hence I always make this baked version using only wholewheat flour. We can add Gram flour and rice flour too along with the wheat flour, but for making this thalipeeth I always use only wholewheat flour, it is always readily available and I prefer this taste.

This thalipeeth is the baked version and the dough is made medium soft. Instead of making plain wheat flour fulkas and sabji, one can make this as a wholesome meal alternative.

This is a nutritious and healthy recipe, I have added ingredients to make it one. Using wholegrain and nuts increases the fiber content in the diet. The sesame, and groundnut and flaxseed chutney also adds the nutty taste. The flaxseeds are also good source of fiber and also has the Omega -3s. The fiber or roughage in diet is the undigested part of the plant food that helps with proper bowel movements, forms the bulk of the stools, absorbs water and softens it. It aids to relieve constipation.  The caraway seeds too aid in digestion. I have added freshly ground paste of green coriander, green chilies and garlic, and added chopped onions and also greens of spring onions. Yogurt is also added that has milk proteins as well as calcium.

Ingredients to make baked atta thalipeeth

BAKED WHOLEWHEAT FLOUR THALIPEETH

INGREDIENTS:

Wholewheat flour: 350 gm

Onion: 1 big

Spring onions: 1 Bunch (small)

Green coriander + Garlic + Green chili paste: 1 1/2 Tbsp

Curd: 2 Tbsp

Carom seeds: 1 Tsp

Sesame Seeds: 1 Tbsp

Ground Groundnut + Flaxseeds chutney: 1 Tbsp

Red Chili Flakes: 1 Tbsp (optional)

Dried Thyme: 1 Tsp

Water: 200 ml (use as required)

Oil: 50 ml

Turmeric: 1 Tsp

Baking Powder: 1/2 tsp

Salt: To taste

METHOD:

Using few coriander leaves, 1-2 green chilies, and 1-2 garlic cloves make a roughly ground paste. You can add roasted groundnut and flaxseeds to this mix while grinding. I keep groundnut and flaxseed chutney ready in my house.

Chop the onion and spring onion greens finely. Assemble all the ingredients required for making the dough.

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Grease a round pie dish with oil and sprinkle with the dried thyme herb and groundnut chutney.

Greased pie dish for making baked thalipeeth.

Mix the wholewheat flour with all the ingredients shown in the pic, add the turmeric, salt, 1 Tbsp oil and using water make a medium soft dough.

Ingredients to make Baked Wholewheat flour thalipeeth

Spread the dough on the pie dish and press firmly so that we get an even flat thalipeeth. I have shared this recipe using a square oven tin, click here to check that recipe.

Ashu’s-Baked Thalipeeth

Bake this in the preheated oven at 200 deg C for 40 min or until the Thalipeeth is cooked and the sides appear crusty. (Note: Oven used in houses are different, hence the oven timing may be a little less or more, use self-discretion).

Apply a coat of oil on top once it is half cooked.

Mid way remove the pan from the oven and apply a coat of oil on top. This gives a shine, does not make the top dry, and also makes it crusty.

Ashu’s-Baked wholewheat flour Thalipeeth

This is how it should be after it is removed from the oven. Serve it with a dip of choice or with the parsley pesto as seen in the picture.

Ashu’s- Baked Wholewheat flour Thalipeeth served with Parsley Pesto.

Click here for the Parsley Pesto recipe. You can also search the archives for my Tomato dip recipe.

I added Tandoori mushrooms and Baked mashed potatoes to the menu to make it a complete meal keeping in view the demand for mashed potatoes from my Jr.

Ashu’s-Baked mashed potatoes, tandoori mushrooms and baked Thalipeeth dinner menu.

One could also add vegetable or Chicken soup to the above menu. This is one of the baked dinner menus made last week and the family enjoyed it. The freshly made parsley pesto dip added a more enhanced, tangy & herby flavor to the thalipeeth.

Go ahead and try making this ashu’s baked version of the  Maharashtrian recipe of Thalipeeth, and have a happy baking time in your kitchen :).

Enjoy.

ashu.

Tandoori Momos

Ashu’s Tandoori Momos

Any new dish or menu that I really like always invariably results in getting prepared in my kitchen. Do any of you readers share this habit of mine? Today’s recipe is one such new dish that I happened to taste this year.

I have already mentioned how Momos (click on it to see the momos post) happen to be a favorite dish in my household. And have also shared the fond memories of eating steaming hot momos in candle light, because their was a power outage, at the humble homely restaurant in Nagarkot during our Nepal tour in 2011, in that previous post. Do click on the link to read about that.

Now coming back to this post, I came across this word Tandoori momos in February of this year, and was quite intrigued and wondered what and how they must be. And just the following weekend I saw the name mentioned in a takeaway menu card of a local restaurant and immediately ordered them. They were the most amazing spicy momos I ever tasted. Momos, until then, that I always made at home were with no chili or spicy and just used herbs to season the meat or vegetables used. But the tandoori momos are The dish to eat if you like tandoori style cooking, I have simply fallen in love with this dish. I  highly recommend it if you have not yet tasted them.

The tandoori food like- tandoori chicken or fish etc sold in restaurants or eateries use the orange food color, but I do not use any color in my recipes and hence the color is not the typical orangy reddish that is so typical of tandoori chicken, but then homemade is always the best, with the freshest ingredients and always freshly made.

Today I share with you my recipe of the month –Tandoori Momos, I have made it per my taste preference. This might differ from any original tandoori recipe, but I am sharing here ashstyle cooking!! So here you go-Chicken Momo recipe, Tandoori style.

TANDOORI MOMOS (CHICKEN)

INGREDIENTS:

Boneless Chicken: 350 gm

GingerGarlic paste: 1 Tbsp

Green Chili paste: 1 Tsp or Red Chili Flakes: 1Tbsp

Chopped Green Coriander & Mint: 1 Tbsp

Salt: To taste

Refined Flour: 350 gm

Garam Masala: 1 Tbsp

Tandoori Masala: 1 Tbsp

Chaat Masala: 1 Tbsp

Cooking Oil: 2 Tbsp

METHOD:

Grind the chicken flesh with the ginger & garlic and green chili pastes. Or one can directly add the whole chili, ginger and garlic (2 small cloves of garlic, 1-2 green chili and small piece of ginger can be used) to the chicken and grind together. Add the salt and chopped coriander and mint leaves and mix well. Our momo filling is ready for use.

(ashuskitchen)Tandoori momo filling

Make a medium soft dough of the refined flour. We are not adding any salt to the flour, as we will be using the spices to coat. Make even-sized small balls of the dough and roll out a small circular puri.

(ashuskitchen)Tandoori momo outer cover

Fill the chicken stuffing and close the ends as shown in the picture. Make all the momos and keep ready. Do not forget to apply oil to the steaming bowl/plate in which the momos are to be steamed. This prevents the steamed momos from sticking to the bowl or one another after they are steamed.

(ashuskitchen) Chicken momos kept in steam basket

Steam the momos for 10 minutes in a steamer. If you are using a pressure cooker for steaming purpose, then do not keep the whistle.

(ashuskitchen)Steamed Chicken Momos

Take a small bowl and mix the garam masala, tandoori masala and chaat masala with oil. Apply this spice paste on each steamed momos and place them on a lined baking tray.

(ashuskitchen)Tandoori momos-The spice coated steamed momos

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C, with the oven & grill setting, and then bake/grill the momos for 25-30 mins or until they are baked. Over grilling might burn the outside coating, and hence do check them and use own discretion for oven time and remove once they look baked and grilled.

Do not keep the baking tray very close to near the grill as the intense heat from the grill might burn the top cover and the momo might be still half baked. Keep the tray in the middle shelf of the oven.

Vegetables and momos ready for baking/Grilling

I also made tandoori vegetables to go with this dish, our dinner menu that night in the last month, March month.

ashuskitchen- Tandoori momos (Chicken)

ashuskitchen- Tandoori momos (Chicken)

ashuskitchen- Tandoori momos (Chicken)

The spicy outer coat and the mildly seasoned chicken filling compliment each other and we get a taste that is the best and makes us reach out for more momos. We had a great dinner time in my household when I made these, though a couple of them did get a bit over grilled, resulting in a hard outer coat, but nevertheless it was a good meal time, all were finished, even the slightly burnt ones too 😁.

Ashuskitchen’s Tandoori Vegetables

Hope you all must have enjoyed the pictures and maybe you might like to give them a try. Do let me know what you think of the recipe in the form of your comments. Have happy mealtimes, and a great Sunday ahead.

Enjoy!

ashu.

Vegetarian Dough Balls: Recipe 2

Yummy vegetarian Dough Balls

Thank you to all who have appreciated and liked my yesterdays post of Vegetarian Dough Balls: Recipe 1. (Click here for the recipe.)

Today I am posting another recipe of Dough Balls, but with a different filling inside. As mentioned in the previous post the choice of filling makes as many varieties of the Dough balls as we choose to experiment. Small changes in ingredients gives each recipe the necessary twist and makes it unique in its own way. It is sometimes the simple ingredients available in the refrigerator that are sufficient to give us a complete new dish, we just need to let our imagination led us to create. I believe this is true  in our day to day life too, one must not get into the routines of following the same pattern, we should always keep room for some change. To explain better giving an example, the same settings in the house over a long period makes it very dull and unappealing, and just a shift of position of the same furniture, and/or of the wall hangings, paintings, or even adding fresh indoor plants gives the same old room a complete makeover. For this one needs to make it happen, and unless we do not make the changes one would not know the difference it makes. Try it out for yourself and notice the change it brings. For me, adding lots of green indoor plants works the magic, makes the room more fresher and just makes the whole environment a more happy place.

The current recipe uses vegetables and cottage cheese. I was asked by my vegetarian friends to post vegetarian recipes too, this is for all those friends and my readers. I loved experimenting with these ingredients and the result was loved by all who ate, and sharing here I wish to spread this happiness to all of you who would give it a try.

Baking is a joy that needs to be experienced, I know how fast the baked dishes disappear from the plates, but the aroma that fills the house lingers on. These moments are the simple pleasures of life.

VEGETARIAN DOUGH BALLS:

INGREDIENTS:

Pizza Dough: 500gm (Please click here for the dough recipe).

Carrot: 1

French Beans: 100 gm

Green Peas: 50 gm

Onion: 1 Small

Cottage Cheese/Paneer: 150 gm

Oil: 1Tbsp (for cooking the vegetables)

SEASONING:

Salt: To taste

Chili Flakes: 2 Tsp

Black pepper powder: 1 Tsp

Dried Oregano: 1 Tsp

Mint Chutney: 1 Tbsp

METHOD:

Dice the Paneer and Carrot into small pieces. Finely chop the onion, and cut the French beans.

Heat a pan or Kadai over gas flame and add little oil and put the cut vegetables and peas and cook for 10 min. Add the seasonings and mix well. Add the grated/diced paneer and mix. Remove the pan from the gas stove and empty the contents into a bowl. As this cools add the mint chutney and mix well. (Recipe of the chutney to follow in the next post.) This is the filling for the dough balls.

Veg Dough Ball filling

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.

Knead the pizza dough and make small balls of equal portion. Roll out each dough to form a circular shape puri and spoon 1-1/2 Tbsp filling in it.

Roll out the dough

Filling

Close the circular ends together giving it a ball shape. Let all the ends of the circular shaped dough meet, pressing firmly to join so that they do not open when getting baked and spill out the filling. Brush each dough ball with some olive oil or any cooking oil.

Dough Balls ready for Baking

Keep all the dough balls on a greased baking tray or tray lined with butter paper and put in the oven that is preheated to 200 deg C and bake for about 30-45 min, or until they are baked to perfection. The baking time would depend upon the size of the dough balls made. One can apply Olive oil again after they are half baked, this ensures they do not look dry. I applied oil after the baking was complete.

Baking in process

Vegetarian Dough Balls with the dip.

I served these baked delights with an oil dip. Recipe of the dip will be my next post, do visit again and check it out and leave your thoughts about the posts.

Have fun baking and enjoy these warm comforting vegetarian snacks and spread the happiness to your family members.

ashu

Vegetarian Dough Balls-Recipe 1

Early November I had a get-together at my place with my girl friends coming over for a lunch meet, our monthly fun-time together. When it is party time at home, I always believe in making and/or serving food that is a bit different from the routines. This is one of the dish that was served as a starter or finger food. It is a tasty and much appreciated recipe and I am glad to share it here with you all.  As I started writing this post and was writing the title, I thought for a moment to decide on a different name, but I have always called these flavor filled yum bites by the name Dough Balls and hence I thought it was the most appropriate name and am going to stick to it. Dough Balls that I make are essentially made of pizza dough and are filled with filling of our choice. This gives us a lot of scope to experiment and we can have many varieties of the same dish but each bite becoming a different  eating experience.

Italian food is favorite food at home, and Pizza is something that is welcome at any given time of the day. Pizza is my weakness, something that is difficult for me to resist, yeah even on  days when I am consciously watching the calorie intake. It was a time before I started the blog that I had tried making something different of the left over pizza dough, and my familiarity with Indian tea-time snacks Samosa and Kachori had led me to try filling the pizza dough with a chicken filling and shape it like a ball that was later baked. The kids had absolutely loved it. Thus the new snack got added to the list of my homemade recipes. (Check out my Instagram for the pictures of the homemade recipes).

I make use of the pizza dough for making Pizza, Calzones and these yum Stuffed Dough Balls. You can check the Calzone recipe here.

Salads using bell peppers are a favorite and to make a filling for stuffing these dough balls using the different colored peppers gives it a very appealing and colorful appearance, not to forget the sweetish taste they add. It is healthy eating to incorporate colorful vegetables in our diet, and by using the different bell peppers we are adding color, taste and texture to the filling. Using the personal favorite cheeses and adding a dash of the seasoning of chilli flakes and dried herbs makes a very delectable bite of these yum baked goodies.

To make these we need the pizza dough.

CHEESE AND BELL PEPPERS STUFFED DOUGH BALLS:

INGREDIENTS:

Pizza Dough: 500 gm (Please click here for the dough recipe).

Bell Peppers: 1 small each (Red/Green/Yellow)

Onion: 1 small.

Cheddar Cheese: 100 gm

Paneer/Cottage Cheese: 50 gm

Parmesan Cheese: 50 gm (optional)

NOTE: As I love Parmesan cheese, I try to make use of it very often.

SEASONING:

Salt: To taste

Chili Flakes or black pepper powder: 1 Tsp

Dried Oregano: 1 Tsp

METHOD:

Grate the cheeses. Finely chop the Bell peppers and onion. Take a bowl and mix the cheeses and the chopped vegetables and add the seasoning. Season according to personal taste. Mix well. Our filling is ready for use.

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.

Knead the pizza dough and make small balls of equal portion. Roll out each dough to form a circular shape puri and spoon 1-1/2 Tbsp filling in it. Close the circular ends together giving it a ball shape. Let all the ends of the circular shaped dough meet, pressing firmly to join so that they do not open when getting baked and spill out the filling. Brush each dough ball with some olive oil or any cooking oil.

Roll out the dough

Dough balls ready for baking.

Keep all the dough balls on a greased Aluminum foil or baking tray  and put in the oven that is preheated to 200 deg C and bake for about 30-45 min, or until they are baked to perfection. The baking time would depend upon the size of the dough balls made.

Cheese and Bell Pepper stuffed Dough Balls

Serve these dough balls with sauce or dip of choice. I had made three dips/chutneys to serve for my house party: Mint Dip, Red Chili Chutney, and Plum Chutney.

Homemade dips/chutneys.

I am not very happy with the picture quality of the snaps but when cooking for a party and trying to finish up the baking work, I could manage only with this quality. My friends appreciated the appetizers that I served them and loved eating these yummy cheesy bites of delight.

If you are a pizza lover and a foodie like me then I would strongly recommend giving this recipe a try in your kitchen, it is not a complicated recipe and worth all the efforts that goes in home cooking. I believe it is always a fruitful experience to eat something unusual occasionally, and one does not necessarily have to enter the restaurants for that. Cooking at home gives us the opportunity to eat right and make use of the best products and minimize or eliminate the artificial products and flavors used in packaged, frozen, or processed foods. When we have control over what we are feeding to the body, we are on the correct path by being more responsible for the welfare of our health. It is rightly said: Health is Wealth.

ashu

 

Marrow With Chicken Stuffing

The marrow squash, a vegetable that has a mild taste and is closely related to Zucchini. I had never eaten this vegetable in my home country, though we do have other vegetables that resemble it and do have somewhat of a similar taste.

Here it is seen in abundance in the supermarkets, with lot of people buying it. Finally, I thought it was about time for me to find out the taste of this marrow vegetable, and I tried cooking it the usual way that I cook other vegetables on a daily basis. None of us liked the bland taste and hence I discontinued buying. But as I like Zucchini, I gave this vegetable another try, but this time tried a different cooking method. I had some leftover tandoori chicken from the previous day that I thought of using for stuffing the marrow and this is the new recipe that I came up with.

For making this recipe select small marrows so the taste would not be too watery, bland. The spices/masala coating of the marrow adds the tandoori taste to the vegetable and the grilled chicken with cover of breadcrumbs and cheese adds the texture and flavour to make the bland vegetable a good grilled dish. If you are interested to try out something different from regular cooking, then maybe you could try out this dish.

This can be a good choice of vegetable for people on diet. To reduce the calories from the dish the butter and cheese should be omitted or reduced, but I liked adding these ingredients.

Marrow With Chicken Stuffing:

Ingredients: Marrow-4 no. (small)

Breadcrumbs-½ bowl

Butter-1 tbsp

Marrow Filling: Grilled/Tandoori chicken- 4 Medium pieces

Tomato-1 small, finely chopped

Onion- 1 small, finely chopped

Salt & Pepper for Seasoning.

Masala/Spices: Chat masala-1 tsp

Turmeric- ¼ tsp

Red Chilli powder-1 to 1½ tsp (as per requirement)

Garam masala- ¼ tsp

Dry Coriander powder- 1 tsp

Yogurt-2 tsp.

Salt to taste.

METHOD:

Wash and dry the marrow, and cut them into halves. Remove the flesh from inside to make a cavity for the stuffing.

Mix all the spices, salt, and yogurt together and apply this mixture on the insides of the marrow, and keep aside.

Shred the grilled chicken pieces and mix the finely chopped onions and tomatoes to it. Season it with salt and pepper.

Use the chicken mixture as stuffing inside the marrow. Press the stuffing firmly.

Mix the butter into the breadcrumbs to make a moist mix. Cover the stuffed marrow with this breadcrumb mix, pressing firmly so that the coating stays firm in position. Place them in a tray or on rack and bake them in a preheated oven at 180°C for 30 min or until the marrow is cooked.

Remove the tray from oven and top the breadcrumb mix with grated cheese, I used mozzarella cheese. Return the marrow into the oven and bake just enough to melt the cheese.

Bake the marrow a little more if you like them very soft.

Happy Baking. Friends do let me know what your thoughts are about this dish.

Enjoy!

 

 

Feta Cheese and Spinach Calzones

Pizza loving people like me and my family can never say no to a Calzone, the folded form of a pizza. The first time I saw Calzone mentioned was in the menu card in Pizza Hut. Anything that I like has to be compulsorily cooked in my kitchen, obviously it has to be as per my specification and taste. Thus the seed for Calzone making was planted in my mind.

One afternoon, my son’s friends were home for a school assignment, I made these feta cheese calzones as snacks for them and they turned out to be an instant hit with the kids. From then onwards it is a baking dish that the kids look forward to. After writing the homemade pizza post, this recipe has to follow. Surprisingly it is not a very difficult dish to make, but does need some planning in advance for the dough making. I use the pizza base dough for making the Calzone. The filling can vary according to our taste and preference. I like to make it using feta cheese and spinach. Feta cheese is the brined salty crumbly cheese which perfectly goes with boiled/steamed spinach. As the cheese itself is salty, no seasoning is required in the mixture. Let’s get making the yummy Calzones.

FETA CHEESE AND SPINACH CALZONES:

INGREDIENTS FOR THE BASE:

Refined flour(Maida)- 3 cups (300g apprx), Active dry yeast: 5-7 g (1 tsp heaped), Water: 30 ml (lukewarm), Sugar : 10 g(2 tsp), a pinch of salt, Oil: 2 tbsp Olive oil.

METHOD TO MAKE BASE:

Mix salt to the refined flour. Take water in a bowl and heat to make it lukewarm and dissolve the sugar in it. Add the active dry yeast to this bowl of water. Cover the bowl and keep aside to let the yeast dissolve and the liquid to become foamy.

Take 3 cups/bowl of refined flour in a big bowl. Mix the foamy liquid of yeast with the flour. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to the flour. Mix the flour, and form a soft sticky dough of the flour. Knead the dough and place it in an oiled bowl and cover with a plastic wrap/cling and keep aside for 45-60 min approximately or till the dough rises to double its size. Knead the dough again for couple minutes to make it soft. This soft dough is used to make the calzone. (Check the homemade pizza post for detailed pictures.)

FILLING INGREDIENTS:

Feta cheese- 100 g

Spinach- 150-250 g

I steam the spinach in my rice cooker for couple minutes instead of boiling the leaves in water. This retains the dense green colour of the leaves and also the nutrients and vitamins. For this little quantity of spinach 2-3 min of steaming is enough.

METHOD TO MAKE CALZONE:

1. Preheat the oven to 220 C.
2. Take a small portion of the pizza base dough, make a ball and roll it to form a circular base for filling the feta cheese mixture. Try not to roll the base too thick, it tastes better with a medium thin coat.
3. Place the filling -mixture of crumbled feta cheese and roughly chopped spinach. Close the ends using water or milk to seal. I used a mould to get small perfectly shaped calzones.
4. Brush the top with egg wash or milk, it gives a nice shine to the top coat. (I have used egg)
5. Bake the calzone in a pre- heated oven at 220 C for 20-25 min or till they are evenly baked on both sides. After 10 minutes of putting them in the oven, turn them over to ensure both sides are evenly cooked.

If you have reached reading till the end, I am sure you would agree with me that it is a very easy recipe. Go ahead and try it out and find out if your family loves it as much as my kids love it.

Serving  Tip: Serve these yummy calzones with hot green chilli sauce or Tabasco sauce.

Enjoy!

Homemade Pizza

Pizza, a food loved by almost all family members, young and old. This was my dad’s favourite too, he always looked forward to eating this at home. The early or first pizza preparation done during my growing up days at my parents house was using a readymade pizza base, but not any more. Though the readymade base seems an easier option, but baking the base at home is also easy, though it needs a bit of planning ahead. As the base uses yeast, so it needs some time before we can put the dough in the oven.

Use of fresh ingredients makes pizza eating an experience in itself. The freshly baked pizzas eaten in Italy were the most cherished moments of that vacation. But I am yet to master the pizza base flipping in air done by the pizza chefs that I witnessed in Italy. Baking it fresh at home for dinner becomes a meal that is looked forward to by my pizza loving family. The best part of the home baked pizza is that each family member’s pizza topping specification is met. The thickness and crustiness of the base can also be done to one’s own preference. The tomato sauce is perfect to my taste, a bit of chilli and garlicky taste. The toppings choice could be endless depending upon our taste. In this post I have used both chicken, that was sautéed and cooked with spices to make it taste tandoori style, and also used only bell peppers and onion in the vegetable style pizza. Let’s start noting the ingredients and method to start with baking the pizza base.

HOME BAKED PIZZA :

INGREDIENTS FOR THE BASE:

Refined flour(Maida)- 4 cups (400-450g apprx), Active dry yeast: 10 g (2 tsp), Water: 50 ml (lukewarm), Sugar : 15 g(1 tbsp), a pinch of salt, Oil: 2-3 tbsp Olive oil( any oil would do, but best is olive).

METHOD:

Mix salt to the refined flour. Take water in a bowl and heat to make it lukewarm and dissolve the sugar in it. Add the active dry yeast to this bowl of water. Cover the bowl and keep aside to let the yeast dissolve and the liquid to become foamy.

Take 4 cups/bowl of refined flour in a big bowl. Mix the foamy liquid of yeast with the flour. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to the flour. Mix the flour and form a soft sticky dough of the flour. Knead the dough and place it in an oiled bowl and cover with a plastic wrap/cling and keep aside for 45-60 min approximately or till the dough rises to double i’ts size. Knead the dough again for couple minutes to make it soft. This soft dough is used to make the base of the pizza.

Let’s make the tomato sauce for the pizza.

TOMATO SAUCE FOR PIZZA:

INGREDIENTS: Ripe red tomatoes-3 nos (blanched), Long red chilli-1, Garlic cloves- 2-3, Onion-1 small.

METHOD: Boil water in a pot and add the tomatoes (give it a cut) to it. As the tomato skin gets torn, remove the tomatoes from the water and peel out the skin. Chop these blanched tomatoes roughly, chop the chilli, onion and garlic and grind to a smooth sauce consistency. Add red chilli powder if a more hot sauce is desired and salt as per requirement.

PIZZA TOPPINGS:

INGREDIENTS: Chicken-250-350 g (Sautéed in little oil with spices, red chilli powder and salt to get tandoori flavour), Bell peppers, olives, shredded mozzarella cheese, and dried oregano.

Prepare and keep the toppings ready as shown in the picture.

PIZZA BAKING:

Preheat the oven to 220-230 deg C.

Take some portion of the pizza dough, form a ball, and using extra flour roll the dough ball to make a circle of desired thickness, but make sure not to make it too thin. Using a baking tray, bake this circular pizza base at 220 deg C in a preheated oven for 10 min. Remove the tray from the oven and top the base of the pizza with the freshly made tomato sauce, and all the required toppings- the bell peppers, onion slices, olives, tandoori chicken, mozzarella cheese and sprinkle the oregano herb on top. Insert the tray with the pizza  into the oven again and bake till done, cheese melted and the base is crusty. Remove from oven and cut into slices and serve hot. The snaps show both the veg pizza and also the chicken pizza. Go ahead give it a try and enjoy the home baked pizza meal. Though it would seem a time consuming recipe, but once you do it, it turns out a very easy recipe.

Do give it a try and find out how the experience turns out for you and your family. Enjoy!!!

Tips:

I used a pie dish to make the chicken pizza. Roll over the circular base to the pie dish and press the edges and bake.

Mushrooms, broccoli, corn etc can also be added to the vegetable pizza, the choice is endless.

Whole wheat flour could also be used along with refined flour, but the taste is little different.

Baked Thalipeeth with Spicy Tomato Chutney, my alternative for a Pizza Dinner.

Most of us are fond of eating pizza, I am no exception. Pizza is something the kids would never say no and possible would eat almost regularly, every day, only if I allowed it. When the mood is for eating pizza, but to avoid the frequent intake of refined wheat flour and yeast to make the pizza base, for those evenings this is my quick menu to satiate the pizza hungry kids. My mother used to make something similar to this recipe but used the regular gas stove for cooking, but I baked it and the family was happy with the final product. It does not take very long time for making this recipe, except for the baking time.

Thalipeeth: Thalipeeth is a type of flat bread, a dish from Maharashtra state in India. Though typically it is made of multigrain flour mix, but for today’s dish I am using only wheat flour as the main ingredient.  It is mixed with onions, spring onions, green chillies, seasoned to personal taste and baked to get the desired crunch and crispy taste. An extremely spicy tomato dip/chutney is served along with it.

Ingredients For Thalipeeth:

Whole Wheat flour-3 cups (300-350g)

Oil: 3 Tbsp

Onion: 1 large (finely chopped)

Spring onions: 1 cup (finely chopped)

Green chillies: 3-4 Medium sized (finely chopped)

Green Coriander: 1-2 Tbsp (finely chopped)

Carom seeds: 1 Tsp. (Ajwain)

Flaxseed: 1 Tbsp (I use it, its a good source of fibre and omega-3 essential fatty acid)

Sesame seeds: 1 Tbsp

Salt: To taste

Turmeric powder: 1/2 Tsp.

Curd: 2 Tbsp

Baking powder: 1/2 Tsp

Water: As required to make a medium soft dough.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan assisted. Grease a square baking tin, I used a brownie baking tin.
2. Sift the wheat flour and baking powder together.
3. Take a clean, dry bowl and add the sifted wheat flour. To it add the finely chopped onions, spring onions, chillies, coriander,  the three types of seeds mentioned above, salt, turmeric and curd.
4. Mix all the ingredients of the bowl thoroughly. Add 2 tbsp oil to it and mix well.
5. Using the required quantity of water make a medium soft dough and knead well.
6. Taking the greased baking tin firmly press the dough inside the tin. Press with fingers to get even thickness on all sides.
7. Brush the top of the dough with oil and drop few drops along the walls of the tin.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-35 minutes or till we get golden brown crust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One can enjoy this dish with chilli sauce or a curd dip, but I prefer the tomato dip. Recipe of the tomato dip follows.

Spicy Tomato Chutney/Dip:

Ingredients:                  

Ripe red tomatoes- 2 Large

Onion-1 small

Green chillies- 2-3 (spicy variety)

Garlic-2 cloves

Salt/ red chilli powder/ turmeric- As per taste.

Oil- 1-2 tsp.

Mustard seeds- for seasoning

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan and add the mustard seeds, chopped green chillies, garlic and onion. Sauté till they are soft.
2. Then add the red chilli powder, turmeric, and salt.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till done.
4. Remove from heat into a bowl and cool.
5. Blend this in blender to get the smooth dip.

Tip: If one does not wish to use a blender, then you can add a little water to the tomatoes and cook them to a very soft and saucy consistency.