Chicken Momos

ashu’s Steamed Chicken Momos

Chicken Momo is a dumpling which is one of my favorite and hence a frequently made food in my kitchen. I make it using refined flour and boiled chicken that is seasoned with simple seasonings. I have already shared a couple other recipes of momos, but the chicken momos was not yet posted.

CHICKEN MOMOS

INGREDIENTS:

Refined Flour: 250 gm

Boiled Chicken: 250 gm

Green Coriander: 2 Tbsp

Salt: To taste

Pepper: For Seasoning as per taste

Water: 1 glass (as needed)

METHOD:

Boil/Steam the chicken (I used 1 chicken breast) in a pressure cooker or rice cooker for a single vessel or 15 min.

Take a bowl and make a medium soft dough of the refined flour to which a pinch of salt is added, and keep the bowl covered.

Shred the boiled chicken, add salt and pepper as per taste and the chopped green coriander. This will be our Momos filling.

ashuskitchen -Chicken filling for the Chicken Momos

Divide the dough into small balls and roll out thin circular puris. Spoon the chicken filling  on the puri, and then  bring together and close all the ends giving a twist before sealing at the top. I prefer to remove the excess dough at the top end.

We can give any shape to the dumplings, but I prefer the one seen in the pictures. The more one practices shaping and making the momos, the better the shape 🙂 . I like to make smaller shaped momos, easier to eat in a single or two bites. Also note, the thinner the outer coat, it tastes better, my personal preference here.

ashuskitchen-Chicken Momos

ashuskitchen-Chicken Momos kept ready for steaming

Brush the steamer basket with oil before putting the momos for steaming, this prevents them from sticking to one another or to the basket, and we can easily remove them without the filling falling over from torn momos.

Steam the momos for 10 minutes, until the flour cover becomes shiny.

ashu’s-Steamed Chicken Momos

Serve them hot with a dip of choice, I have served with the parsley pesto that was handy in my fridge. Click for the Parsley Pesto recipe here.  It tastes best with the spicy red chutney made of tomato and ginger. You can click here for this recipe.

ashu’s- Chicken Momos

As always I am happy to share with you all another of my favorite and nutritious recipe. Hope you would like to give it a try in your kitchen too. Do click the links below for my other momos recipes:

Kheema (Mutton Mince) Momos

Tandoori Momos

Happy cooking delicious food 🙂

Enjoy!

ashu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 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.

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!

 

 

Deep Fried Chicken

DEEP FRIED CHICKEN THIGHS

Sometimes we should allow ourselves to indulge in high calorie foods, for such times this dish would be good choice. As with any marinated dishes, the longer the marination time the better the flavour infused in the chicken. It tastes fantastic when served hot, with dip or sauce of choice, or one could eat it as it is. I would anytime prefer the homemade version of fried chicken compared to the one sold at the fast food outlets.

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken thighs-4 pieces

Egg-1

Refined flour/ Maida-2 Tbsp

Corn flour-1 Tbsp

Breadcrumbs- 1 Bowl (use as much needed)

Salt- To taste

Oil-For frying

Sauces for marination of chicken-Worcestershire and Tabasco Sauce (/chilli) -2 Tsp each.

PICTORIAL PRESENTATION:

METHOD:

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken thigh pieces.
2. Mix Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco (chili) sauce and coat the chicken pieces with this marinade. Keep it in the fridge for 60 min or so. (Skip keeping in fridge if short of time.)
3. Beat an egg, add salt, pepper, refined flour and corn flour, and make a medium thick batter to coat the chicken pieces. (chilli flakes/chilli sauce can be added to the batter if preferred.)
4. Dip the chicken thigh pieces in the batter.
5. Take the breadcrumbs in a plate. Cover the batter dipped chicken thigh pieces with the breadcrumbs.
6. Press the breadcrumbs on the chicken firmly so that they stick to the batter coated chicken.
7. Heat oil for deep frying the chicken pieces. Fry the breadcrumb coated chicken in hot oil for a minute or so and then reduce the gas flame to medium heat and complete the frying process. Ensure the chicken gets cooked without the outer coating getting burnt.
8. Serve the hot fried chicken with chilli sauce or tomato sauce.

Enjoy!!!!

ashu 🙂

Brown Sesame Chicken, a bitter sweet experience.

The fondness for greens once made me incorporate fresh fenugreek leaves into the chicken gravy and the taste lingered on. Since then I started making use of fresh leaves in some of my non vegetarian dishes. This particular recipe is a favourite at home and something that I loved creating the first time round. Whenever a dry chicken dish is desired, this is one of the recipes the kids too love. The fenugreek leaves impart the dish a light bitter taste, and the onions give it the sweet taste, hence a bitter sweet experience.

Brown Sesame Chicken:

Adding sesame to the dish lends it the desired nutty taste, as well as the crunch. It acts as a source of fibre too. Sprinkling dry roasted sesame on the dish, as garnish, gives it a more appealing and desirable look. Food that is appealing to the eye results in tingling the taste buds. Eating home cooked food that is made using the fresh herbs is always a satisfying experience. Go ahead, try making this recipe and find out if it holds true for you too!

Lets get cooking my Brown Sesame Chicken recipe:

Ingredients:                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Chicken- 800 g (washed and coated with little turmeric)                                                                                          

Onion- 2-3 medium sized

Fresh coconut- 1/2 grated (approximately 50 g)

Garlic- 5-6 cloves

Dry Kashmir chilli- 2 (It imparts a nice red colour.)

Red Chilli powder- 1 tbsp.

Garam masala (ground whole spices) – 1 tsp.

Salt- as per taste

Oil- 2 tbsp.

Fresh fenugreek leaves- 1 bowl (50 g)

Sesame – 50 g (Dry roasted)

Fresh green Coriander- finely chopped for garnish

Method:

The onions are chopped roughly and sautéed in pan with 1 tsp. oil till they are almost brownish in colour. The chilli should also be sautéed along with the onions in the pan. The fresh coconut too is cooked in pan till it is almost brownish in colour, taking care not to burn it.

These ingredients- coconut, garlic, red chilli and onion should be ground to a fine paste, little water can be used to get the fine paste.

 Heat oil in pan on medium flame, add half the quantity of roasted sesame seeds, and then the finely ground masala paste. Cook it for 5-7 min on slow flame, add the red chilli powder and salt, and keep for 1 more minute. The oil should leave the ends of the fried masala, then add the cleaned washed chicken to which turmeric was coated. Mix all the ingredients and let the chicken cook on slow flame, no water should be added. When the chicken is almost done, add the finely chopped fresh fenugreek leaves and mix so that it gets nicely coated with the chicken and the masala. The leaves need to cooked only till the raw taste is gone, hence should not be cooked for too long. They should be visible, as well as green in appearance. Put off the gas flame, then sprinkle the garam masala on the cooked chicken and mix.

Garnish it with freshly chopped green coriander leaves and sprinkle the left over dry roasted sesame on top of the cooked chicken.

Enjoy!

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 🙂