Category: Non Vegetarian

Leek and Sausage Quiche

leek-and-sausage-quiche-recipe-french-quiche-recipe-how-to-make-quiche-quiche-recipeJump to Recipe | Print Recipe

Want to learn how to make leek and sausage quiche? This savory leek and sausage quiche recipe is easy to follow and super yum.

Good food always elevates my mind. It puts me in a good mood instantly. Yeah it’s not just desserts that do good things to your mood! For me, any indulgent food does that work. Okay certain healthier versions are good too. I have made quiches a zillion times in many variations. I find it so simple to add fillings of your choice to the pie crust and custard and have a new quiche ready in half an hour! This leek and sausage quiche is the latest variation I tried sometime back. It turned out pretty good.

Continue reading Leek and Sausage Quiche

Old fashioned Chicken Stew

chicken-stew-recipes-old-fashioned-chicken-stew-recipes-slow-cooker-chicken-stew-recipes-chicken-and-milk-stew-recipes-milk-recipes-1

Jump to Recipe | Print Recipe

The Old fashioned English chicken stew is the easiest chicken stew recipe you can make. Chicken, potatoes, carrots slow cooked in a buttery milk broth infused with aromatic sage.

There are some days when I want to make simple yet delicious dishes. These old fashioned chicken stew recipes have their own charm – they are easy to cook, just one pot meals with few ingredients but are so yum. You put everything together and forget about it for time. I like making these one pot recipes quite a lot because they are so much less hassle and saves a lot of time later for washing up. Continue reading Old fashioned Chicken Stew

Minced Chicken Kofta

chicken kofta, chicken kebab, recipe, Lebanese chicken kofta recipe, chicken kofta recipe, easy chicken kebab recipe, non veg recipe, grilled kebab recipe

Jump to Recipe | Print Recipe

The minced chicken kofta is an easy entrée or appetizer recipe that you can cook in a grill pan over gas. These succulent koftas made with minced chicken and assorted spices are easy, healthy and yummy.

Name me one person, from the Indian subcontinent who doesn’t like a kebab or a kofta. I sometimes go crazy on koftas. They are easy to make, soft, succulent and you can have them just like that – without a reason, without anything else! This is a fairly easy kofta recipe with minced chicken which I made on a grill pan over gas cooktop – so you don’t need an oven, a tandoor, or even any skewers! So if you are a beginner at the kofta and kebab journey – this should be your go to recipe.

Continue reading Minced Chicken Kofta

Crispy Baked Basa Fillet

Basa fillets with a crunchy breadcrumb topping gives the very healthy baked version of crispy fish fry.

baked basa fish, crispy basa recipe, basa recipe, crispy basa recipe, basa fillet

Who said crunchy fish has to be deep fried? Who said only way who can enjoy crispy fish is by having fish and chips? What if I tell you we’ll add the much loved crunch in the fish without deep frying – or any frying at all! Does that sound nice? I bet it does.  So here’s my take on the baked basa fillet in the crispy crunchy way. 

A few weeks back some of our relatives were visiting us and I wanted to serve up a nice dinner with fish, meat, desserts and all. I got some really fresh basa fillets from the local super market and was thinking what do I make with it – crumb fried fish or baked fish? Then I thought why not combine both! Continue reading Crispy Baked Basa Fillet

QUICK AVOCADO AND EGG OPEN SANDWICH

avocado2Band2Begg2Bopen2Bfaced2Bsandwich-1
I was famished this morning and didn’t have much time. This Quick Avocado and Egg Open Sandwich saved my day.
 
My house help didn’t turn up and my little munchkin wanted me to be with him. But this open sandwich is so easy to make that I got this done in flat 5 mins. Yes that’s all it takes.

LETTUCE, GRILLED TOMATO AND CHICKEN SALAD

lettuce-grilled-tomato-chicken-salad, salad,
Fresh salads are super good for your body and they look so appetizing. The Lettuce, Grilled Tomato and Chicken Salad is colorful, fresh and super yum. I made this for my breakfast today and made a healthy start to the day!
 
This #AtoZChallenge is making sure I am eating right this month.

Continue reading LETTUCE, GRILLED TOMATO AND CHICKEN SALAD

A to Z Challenge Day #17 – Q for Quiche

Hello people so we arrive on our Q day. Deciding an indulgent recipe with Q is a challenge in itself but here I am sharing a super easy recipe of one of my favourites – Quiche. Quiche (in case you don’t know) is a savoury pie sort of a thing with a meat or vegetable filling topped with a layer of custard. You can Google for more information.  

It is essentially a French Cuisine special. I love it because of its no nonsense taste and the fact that I can put fillings according to my taste!

The classic combinations are bacon and spinach or vegetable quiche or a simple chicken quiche. The one that I am sharing today has all that I like – onions, bacons, pork and chicken sausage as the filling.

Interesting? Okay now let’s hop into the recipe.
 
All that you need
 
For the Pastry crust
All purpose Flour – 21/2  cups
Unsalted butter – 1 cup (chilled and diced)
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Chilled Water – 7-8 teaspoon
 
For the filling
Onion – 1 chopped
Bacon – 4-5 strands
Pork sausage – 3
Chicken sausage – 2
Salt & pepper to taste
Smoked Paprika – 1 teaspoon
Shredded Parmesan Cheese – 3 tablespoons
 
For the Custard
Egg – 2 whole + 2 egg yolks only
Milk – 1 cup
Cream – ¼ cup
Salt & pepper – to taste
 
Let’s Get Started
 
Making the pastry crust [It is very similar to the pastry crust that I made for Apple Pie.]
 
Combine flour, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and make a coarse crumb with

your fingers

Add cold water and combine them together
You don’t need to knead
Take the dough wrap in a cling film and freeze for 15 -20 minutes
Take out from freezer and roll it into a round pastry crust.
Transfer in a pie/flan dish and blind bake.
 
 
 
Making the filling
In a pan fry bacon till brown
Take out some of the fat and in the same pan fry onion and the sausages till they are done. Add seasoning and smoked paprika.
 
Take out the sausages and chop them, chop the bacon.
 
Making the custard
In a mixing bowl mix milk, cream and the eggs. First the whole eggs and then the yolks.
Make sure the milk is in room temperature or else you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.
Add seasoning
 
 
Combining the Quiche
Spread the filling on the blind baked pastry crust
Pour in the custard mixture
Spread the shredded cheese on top
Now bake in a pre heated oven at 180 degrees for 35-40 minutes.
 
 
 
And your yummy quiche is ready. Enjoy with your favourite wine. 
 
And so let me know if you found it HOT or NOT?
 
 
 
 

————————————————————–

Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #17 – post starting with Q. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
I am also participating in this challenge from my writing blog and I’m writing fiction this time. Visit The Sunny Side of Life and show some love.
————————————————————–
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment below if you have liked the recipe and you want me to share some more recipes.

A to Z Challenge Day #1 – Apple Pie

Hello people… Howdy??

 
Are you ready for a month long indulgence?? I am so ready for it. And here goes my first recipe for the month long A to Z Blogging Challenge – its Apple Pie. I promised you indulgence, and indulgence it will be. As a kid I used to be a finicky eater and my mum used to find different ways of getting fruits in me. Apple pies, apple strudels and apple crumbles are those things that I enjoyed forgetting there was apple in them – which I quite didn’t like as a fruit (I still don’t like eating a whole apple) !
 
Okay I want to keep the post short and will have loads of photos. Let’s straight away go to the ingredients.


————————————————————————————
Level: Moderate     | Prep Time: 50 mins | Cooking Time: 55 mins
————————————————————————————

 


All that you will need for the pie crust (minus the apples)


All that you will need
 
For the pie crust
 
  1. Plain flour – 2 1/ 2 cup
  2. Salt – 1 teaspoon
  3. Sugar – 2 table spoon
  4. Unsalted Butter – 1 cup (chilled and diced)
  5. Cold water – ½ cup


All that you will need for the Filling
For the Apple Filling
 
  1. Apple – 4 large
  2. White Sugar – ¼ cup
  3. Brown Sugar – ¼ cup
  4. Lemon juice – 1 tablespoon
  5. Raisins/ Sultanas –  ½ cup
  6. Cinnamon – ½ stick grated
  7. Nutmeg – ½ grated
  8. Salt – a pinch
  9. Unsalted Butter – 2 tablespoon
  10. Cornflour – 1 tablespoon
 
Let’s get our pie rolling!
 
Prepare the dough for the pastry first because it will take some time. Steps are for piecrust  and filling separately so go through it carefully.
 
1. Sift in flour, mix salt and sugar in it in a large bowl.
 
2. Add butter and mix in with your fingers.
 
3. Add water and bring the dough together.
 
[There is no need to kneed the flour as you would do while making a bread or pizza dough. We don’t want the glutten to get activated. Mix the butter in gently with your fingers till you get light crumbles.]
 
4. Flour your work board/surface and gather the flour and butter crumbles and bring them all together.
 
5. When you find the dough’s coming together you are there.
 
6. Divide the dough in two halves, press them to make flat discs, wrap them in cling wrap and put in freezer for 15 mins.

 


 
[We will have a base pie layer, and a top layer, to add to the crunch.]
 
Unless it’s cold you won’t be able to roll them for your pie base.
 
7. After 15 mins, roll out 1 half of the dough that will make the base of the pie.
 
8. Put the rolled pie crust in a lightly greased pie dish and blind bake it for 12-15 mins in a pre-heated oven about 220 degrees C or 425 degrees F.

That is how you blind bake. Tip by Jamie Oliver


 
9. Take out and keep the pie dish in a wire rack once baked.
 
 
Apple Filling
 
While your pastry crust is bind baking start with your apple filling.
 
1. In a bowl add peeled and chopped apples, lemon juice (this will avoid discoloration), brown sugar, white sugar, raisins, salt, grated cinnamon and grated nutmeg.
 
2. Mix them well and leave it for half an hour.

Leave it till it leaves juices


 
That is the kind of caramel sauce you will get
from the apples

We are doing this to take out the juices, too much juice from the apple will make the pie crust soggy.

 
3. After half an hour, strain the juice from the apple and keep it in a microwave safe cup/bowl.
 
4. Add butter in that juice and microwave it for 3 minutes, you will get a wonderful apple caramel sauce out of it.

5. Add corn flour and this caramel sauce to the apple filling and mix well.
 
Arranging the pie
 
A good Egg wash with 1 whole egg will give you this
wonderful golden color

1. Arrange the apple filling in the pie dish.

 
2. Roll out the other half of the dough and cover the pie, sealing the edges carefully.
 
3.Take a knife and make several slits on the pie cover to let the steam come out.
 
4. Give it a generous egg wash with a pastry brush to get that lovely golden colour

5. Bake it in a pre-heated oven for 40 minutes at 220 degrees C or 425 degrees F.
 
And you are done with your Apple Pie.

Leave it on a wire rack to cool down a little



You are ready to dig in!


 
I like my apple pie warm, I always heat it up in the microwave before digging in. You can enjoy it with vanilla ice cream also, the combination is awesome.
So there was my first Indulgent recipe for the A to Z Challenge. Watch this space for some more super awesome indulgent recipes this month. Tomorrow it’s going to be Banoffee Pie for all pie and dessert lovers.
———————————————————————————————

Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #1 – post starting with A. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
I am also participating in this challenge from my writing blog and I’m writing fiction this time. Visit The Sunny Side of Life and show some love.

———————————————————————————————

 
Leave a comment below if you have liked the recipe and you want me to share some more pie/dessert recipes.
 

Product Review – Chingri Malai Curry with Hudson Canola Oil

Let me update on some more Bong food. ‘Chingri’, as we call the prawns, is very popular among Bengalis. We love batter fried prawns, prawn curries, prawn with vegetables and so many ways that we cook prawns. However, ‘Prawn Malai Curry’or ‘Chingri Macher Malai Curry’ takes the cake off when it comes to authentic Bengali Prawn preparation. Prawn is cooked in tomato & coconut milk without much of spices and has a very nice subtle earthy taste.

Sometime back I had got this Hudson Canola Oil for review. It came along with a quick recipe book which is quite handy. There must be lot of people who are unaware about this Canola oil. So I have some information about Canola oil. (This is from their website though).

What is Canola?
Hudson Canola Oil that I am reviewing here
Hudson Canola is a standard edible vegetable grade oil, a light oil with neutral taste and flavour. Hudson Canola can be used for all types, methods and varieties of Indian cooking: frying, roasting or grilling. Canola is neutral in flavour and aroma with no distinctive taste or smell.
Canola Oil is extruded from the seeds of the yellow Canola flower.
Canola Oil has the lowest saturated fat amongst all oils, very high monounsaturated fat, very high Omega-3 and rich Vitamin-E content.

Any ways, I have used it now and I am quite happy with the results. It’s light and doesn’t have any strong flavour. You can cook almost anything that you would otherwise do with vegetable oil or Sunflower oil. I have used it both for curries and frying and gives quite good result. It’s very popular in SE Asia. You can even bake with it. It’s a little costly than other ones but you can definitely give it a try.

Anyways let’s get started with our recipe

All that you need

  1. Prawns – 1 Kg (you can use white prawns, tiger prawns or any prawn which you like. Don’t take lobsters though. I have used white prawn here for this recipe. De-vein and clean them)
  2. Lemon – 1
  3. Tomato – make a puree of 4 large tomato – you can use canned pure as well
  4. Coconut milk – 1 cup
  5. Oil – 2 table spoon (I have used Hudson Canola Oil here)
  6. Salt – to taste
  7. Sugar – 1 teaspoon
  8. Cumin seeds – ¼ tspn
  9. Chili powder – ¼ tspn
  10. Cumin Powder – ¼ tspn
  11. Green cardamom – 1
  12. Ginger Paste – ¼ tspn
  13. Sugar – 1 tspn
  14. Greem Chili – 1
  15. Grated coconut – 2 table spoon
  16. Soaked Raisins & Cashew nuts – ½ cup


Let’s Get Started
  • Place the de-veined prawns in a bowl and marinate the prawn with salt and juice of 1 lemon. Mix well and keep aside for 15 mins.
  • Heat a table spoon of oil in a wok and fry the marinated prawns lightly till they turn opaque & orange.
  • Take out in a bowl and keep aside. This will ideally take you about 2 mins. Don’t overcook the prawn at this stage else it will taste like rubber.
  • Add another table spoon of oil in the same wok and add the cumin seeds, green cardamom and a slit green chili.
  • Add ginger paste, cumin powder and red chili powder and fry for a minute.
  • Add the pureed tomato and cook till oil oozes out on the sides of the wok. Add little sugar and salt to taste.
  • Add the seared prawns and mix them well with the tomato gravy.
  • Add the coconut milk and cook it in low heat for few minutes.
  • Add the soaked dry fruits and grated coconut and cook in low heat for a minute.

And that’s it you are done. Isn’t it just simple?
An authentic Bengali Malai curry doesn’t have turmeric, onions or mustard oil (which are otherwise quite common).
It tastes best with rice.
So cook and enjoy and let me know how you liked it.

Banana Muffin

Muffins can make me happy any time – little cups of joy. Last time I had shared a Blackberry Muffin recipe which I made with blackberry preserves. Last Sunday I was again in mood for muffins so thought of using up some fresh bananas. I also added some nuts for the extra crunch.
Banana muffins are really easy and very light. You can have it as dessert or even during breakfast.
What you will need

All-purpose flour – 1 n 3/4th cup (230g)
Granulated sugar – 3/4th cup (150g)
Nuts, finely chopped – 1 cup (you can use walnuts, almonds or cashew – I have used almonds here)
Baking powder – 1 teas spoon
Salt – 1/4th tea spoon
Cinnamon powder – 1 tea spoon (I make it fresh – gives that beautiful aroma)
Eggs – 2 (lightly beaten)
Unsalted butter – ½ cup (100g)
Ripe Banana – 2
Let’s get started

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C (350F) and line a muffin tray with muffin cups/liners
Lightly toast the chopped nuts in a dry pan and set aside.
The preparation is very easy. You need two separate mixing bowls for the dry ingredients & wet ingredients and then just mix.
Combine flour, nuts, baking powder, sugar, & cinnamon powder in a mixing bowl and mix them lightly
In another bowl mash up the bananas with a fork and add the beaten eggs
Add melted butter to this wet mix
Now lightly fold the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.
Take care that you are not beating it very hard you just need to fold it till all the dry ingredients are combined and becomes a chunky batter. No need to make it smooth like a sponge cake batter.
Now scoop the batter in the muffin cups and bake them at 180 degrees C for 20 – 25 mins.
Rest them on a rack once you take them out from the oven.
That’s it – the banana muffins are done.
Enjoy.
Tip: Insert a toothpick to check, if it comes out clean you are good to go.