Chicken Biriyani

Ingredients:

To marinate for 1 hour:
500 g chicken cut into pieces,
2 tbsp thick fresh curd,  1 tbsp ginger garlic paste,
1 tsp red chilli powder,
1 tsp salt
Grind together:
3 cloves,
2 cardamoms,
1 inch cinnamon stick,
2 inch ginger,
10 cloves garlic,
a small bunch of coriander leaves
For seasoning:
1 tsp cumin seeds,
2 cloves,
1 inch cinnamon stick,
1 big bay leaf,
3 green chillies
Others:
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
Salt as reqd
2 big onions thinly chopped
1 tomato finely chopped
1 1/2 cup rice
1 cup coconut milk
2 cup water
Garnish:
Mint leaves and cashews fried in butter

Cooking Method:
1. Heat oil in pan, and splutter the seasonings.
2. Add the ground paste and saute for 1 min
3. Add chopped onions and tomatoes and fry well
4. Add turmeric powder, coriander powder and red chilli powder and saute for 1 min
5. Add marinated chicken and required salt and saute for 5 mins
6. Add coconut milk and bring to boil
7. Transfer the contents to an electric rice cooker and add rice and water and cook till done
(if you use pressure cooker, the ingredients can be fried in that itself and then covered with lid and cook for 3 whistles)
8. Garnish and serve with raita

Sakkarai Pongal

This is a special sweet rice made every year on Thai Pongal Day - The Harvest festival of Tamil Nadu, India. It falls in Mid-January usually on January 14th, when the farmers make their first harvest of the year. This dish is usually done in pots and boiled but since most of us live in cities, it is not possible to make it the traditional way nowadays. The easier procedure follows.
Pongal usually tastes great with raw rice. However in case you don't have raw rice, parboiled rice can also be used, but avoid other varieties of rice.

Ingredients:
Raw rice -  1 cup
Green gram dhal - 1 tbsp
Jaggery (crushed/grated/powdered) - 2 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Water - 4 cups
Ghee - 1/4 cup
Cashew - 10 (break into small size)
Raisins - 20
Cardamom - 1 (peel the skin and crush the inner part)

Method:
1. Boil rice and dhal together with 4 cups of water in a pressure cooker till it is extra soft. DO NOT ADD ANY SALT
2. Take a big frying pan and boil 1 cup milk in it.
3. Once the milk boils, add the cooked rice to it and mix well. Add 2 cup powdered jaggery to it and mix well. Cook till all jaggery melts and is absorbed by the rice. The mixture must be in a thick porridge consistency. (it will thicken rapidly once it cools down). Remove it from flame.
4. Take 1 table spoon of ghee in a pan ans fry cashews and raisins in it. Add it to the rice mixture. Add crushed cardamom and the remaining ghee and mix well.

Tasty yummy mouth watering sakkarai pogal is ready to eat.

Carrot rice

Ingredients:

1 big carrot grated
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cumin and mustard seeds
A pinch turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1/3 cup rice (i always use par boiled rice for all my recipes)
1 cup water
1/2 tbsp oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pessure cooker and splutter mustard and cumin seeds.
2. Add the grated carrots, garam masala, turmeric powder, salt and saute well for few minutes.
3. Add washed rice and water in 1:3 proportion and close the lid and pressure cook till the rice is soft and well cooked.

Mashed drumstick

Kids dont know to eat drum stick. They end up in discarding them half way through. Kids will sure love this easy and lipsmaking drumstick mash and eat it a lot more than what they might eat if served with the peel.

Ingredients:

4 long fleshy drumsticks
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp pepper powder
salt as required
A pinch of asafoetida
Oil for seasoning

Method:

1. Boil the drumstick with salt till it is too soft and breaks on touching.
2. Remove the flesh and seeds and keep them together in a bowl.
3. Heat little oil in a pan and splutter mustard and cumin seeds. Add the cooked flesh and seedsof drumstick and add pepper powder in it and saute for a minute in low flame.
4. Add a pinch of asafoetida, sprinkle water and let it cook til the water gets absorbed.
5. Serve as side dish or mix with rice and serve.

Kids corner!!

Kids dont eat what we eat, some dont even eat what they are supposed to eat.. My 2.5 year old son is a visible example to me when it comes to "most picky eaters" or even "non eaters"(lol). For parents who are worried about how to make your kids eat, or what food they will like, or even new mothers who are not sure how to wean their babies, I have some nutritious as well as delicious recipes which the kids will certainly like.
To be sure, i have tested most of my recipes on 10 different picky eaters (all my nieces and nephews) from 1.5 year old to 10 year old all who have likings for different foods, and my recipes really worked on them (and on my son too, who usually hides in his tent or starts screaming whenever the word "food" is mentioned LOL. He actually started eating food now!) So i guess this will help your kids too!

2-step-vanjara meen fry, seer fish

This is my Mother-in-law's "easy to cook tasty to eat" recipe. Though i dont eat fish i am tempted to include this recipe as all people praise her on this dish.

Ingredients:
Seer fish - 10 slices
Chilli powder - 1/2 tbsp
Rice flour - 1 tbsp
Salt - as required
Oil - to deep fry
Optional - turmeric powder - a pinch

The 2 step Method:
1. Mix chilli powder, rice flour and salt (turmeric powdre if using) to the fish slices and marinate for 2 hours. (DON'T REFRIGERATE)
2. Deep fry the slices in low flame till the fish is well cooked and crispy.

Serve it with anything or eat it as a main dish too.

Capsicum paneer STEP BY STEP

Here is a very tasty and attractive dish, made with paneer or tofu and tri colour capsicums as the major ingredients. Sometimes this dish is also called as Kadai Paneer in India where only green capsicum is used and soya sauce is avoided.. The three capsicum varieties and soya sauce makes this a mixed cuisine dish. It can be taken as side dish for any item, or if you like it, just savour it as a salad too...

Ingredients:

green, Yellow and red capsicum 1 each

2 big onions

2 big tomatoes

Also need:

200 grams diced paneer or tofu

2 tsp cumin powder

1 tbsp pepper powder

2 tsp coriander powder (dhania)

(If you dont have any of these powders just dry roast a tsp of each seed and crush them into fine powder)

1 tbsp soya sauce

Salt to taste

Oil to fry

A full bunch of fresh coriander leaves

Method:

1. heat oil in pan, fry onions with salt added to it. (be careful with qtty of salt used as the soya sauce also contains salt in it)

2. Add the capsicums and saute for 3 minutes

3. Add tomatoes and saute for another 3 minutes

4. Add cumin, pepper and coriander powder and mix well

5. Add soy sauce and mix well, close lid and simmer for 5 minutes

6. Add paneer/tofu cubes mix well and simmer with closed lid on medium flame for another 3 minutes.

7. Mix well once, add finely chopped coriander leaves and remove from flame. (i have used little coriander leaves as i am using tri colour capsicum, if you use only green capsicum add more leaves to it along with some raw onions and raw tomatoes both chopped finely, while removing from flame.)