Butter | ashstylegourmet's Blog

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!

Today being Christmas, I decided to bake a cake using dry fruits and a cup of red wine.

Ingredients:

1 Bowl each of Raisins, Apricots, FigS, Dates, Mixed peels, and Sultanas

½ bowl of Almonds, ½ bowl of Walnuts.

1 cup of Red wine.

25 gm Butter/2 tbsp Castor sugar (use fine sugar)

225 gm Unsalted Butter

225 sugar: Firmly packed Dark brown Muscovado sugar

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1-2 tsp spice ( I used nutmeg/cinnamon/clove/pepper/cardamom )

250 gm All purpose flour (Maida)

5 eggs.

Method:

Chop and combine all the raisins, sultanas, dates, figs, apricots, and mixed fruit in a bowl.
Place the castor sugar in a thick sauce-pan over slow heat until sugar melts, add 25 gm butter and 1 cup of wine . Stir it.
Add the 225 gm butter, the brown sugar, and the mixed fruits, and stir so all gets mixed, bring to boil and remove from heat.
Transfer this into large bowl, stir in the bicarbonate of soda and cover the bowl to let it stand overnight at room temp. (pic#5 show how it looks)
Pre-heat the oven to 150 °C (fan assisted). Grease and line the cake tin with parchment.( I used 2 cake tins, different shapes)
Beat eggs in a bowl, add the spice to it and then mix it with the fruit mixture. Add the nuts. Fold in the all-purpose flour into the mixture.(pic#6 shows the batter after adding the eggs)
Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 1 hour and 30 mins.
Cool the cake on wire rack.

Fruit juices can also be used as an option instead of wine. The Muscovado sugar imparts a nice color and flavor to the cake, hence I used it for this cake. I had fun baking it, go ahead and try it out.