Mutton Chukka

First meal after the wedding in a bride’s house has lot of significance and importance. It is all about impressing the new member of the family with lots and lots of food. Being a great cook, my mom was not an exception. She brought out the best from her kitchen for this first meal and mutton chukka stole the show. My mom has made mutton chukka for him several times after that and he says, the mutton chukka he had during the first meal in my place is the best.

During my parents visit here, many of our friends have tried my mom’s mutton chukka and demanded the recipe for that. So, as promised, here comes the recipe for Madurai special mutton chukka. The recipe below is using premade powders. It tastes even better if you can dry roast the spices and grind it fresh.

Ingredients: Boneless Mutton - 1 lb Sesame Oil - 1 tablespoon Mustard Seeds  - 1 teaspoon Curry leaves – 1 fist full Chilli Powder - 1 teaspoon Black Pepper Powder - 1 1/2 teaspoon Cumin Powder - 1 tablespoon Salt - as needed Method Clean and cut the mutton pieces into small bite sized ones In a pressure cooker, heat sesame oil. Once it is hot enough, add mustard seeds. Add curry leaves once the mustard seeds splutter ,add the meat. Give it a quick stir and add all the dry masala ingredients along with salt. Mix it well with the mutton. Sprinkle  little water and pressure cook it for a couple of whistles. After the pressure is released, cook the masala, until it becomes dry and all the oil oozes out. Serve it as a side dish for white rice or briyani.

PB&J Stuffed French Toast

I guess some of you must have noticed the change in the template of my blog. I have started playing around with the design of my post with background colors. I somehow felt, the orange background didn't go very well with other colors. So I am keeping it simple with a light background. I am still getting used to this template. Being so used to the orange background of My Recipe Congeries, few times, I kept looking at the pages, just to see if this is really my bog. Hope you all like it. I welcome any suggestions or comments on the new design.

Now to today's recipe...

How about a delicious hot breakfast, which actually tastes like dessert, but still being good for you? Yeah, it is french toast stuffed with all the goodness of peanut butter and jelly. The name might be a little long, but I promise, you can put this together in less than 15 minutes.

What could be better than a stuffed French toast for a breakfast lover? And if it is stuffed with peanut butter and jelly, it is a double bonanza. It makes a very good lunch box item for kids. You can go as creative as you want with French toast. You can stuff it with literally anything you eat. My next project with French toast would be chocolate stuffed version. I am sure my two chocolate monsters would love it. 

Ingredients: Egg  - 1 whisked with a splash of milk Sugar – 2 teaspoons Cinnamon – a pinch Peanut Butter – 1 heaped tablespoon Jelly  - 1 tablespoon Butter – 1 tablespoon Method Whisk together egg, milk, sugar and cinnamon and keep it aside in a flat bowl. Take a tablespoon of peanut butter and spread it in one slice of bread. Spread any fruit jelly of your choice in another slice of bread. Make a sandwich out of these two bread slices. You can either dip the whole sandwich in the egg mixture or make strips as I did for the little hands. If you decide to go with the second option, make 1 to ½ inch thick strips of the sandwich. Melt butter in a non stick pan over medium high, dip either the whole sandwich or the strips in the egg mixture to coat the slices and place in the pan. Turn the piece/ pieces in about 3 to 4 minutes or until it turns golden brown and cook the other side until it turns golden brown. Serve it with maple syrup.

More Kuzhambu with Cucumber

I wonder how our taste buds change as we get older. I still remember, my mom literally running behind me with a bowl of vegetables. Since, dad was a picky eater, mom would cook something every day that dad liked and that is how I survived. Being dad's little princess, I loved whatever he liked. Vegetables other than beans, potato and cauliflower were seen as inedible vegetables by dad and me. But slowly, I have learned to enjoy foods that I never liked before. And surprisingly, when dad was here, he ate everything whatever I cooked, even the vegetables that he never used to like before. I called home a couple of days back and mom said she is making cabbage paratha looking at the recipe I had posted. And today I found out that dad loved it and he asked mom to make it again for breakfast today  J

Growing up, I hated the taste of More Kuzhambu. But now, it tastes like heaven. We both loved the taste. I did not have any white pumpkins at home. So I added cucumber to the curry and it turned out great.

Ingredients: Cucumber - 2 cups (Peeled and cubed) Curd - 1 1/2 cups Water - 1 to 1 1/2 cups Salt - to taste Asafotida/Hing - 1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon Coriander seeds - 1 1 /2 teaspoon Channa dhal - 1 1 /2 teaspoon Red Chillies - 3 Coconut - 1 tablespoon Fenugreek - 1/2 teaspoon Thoor Dhal - 1 tablespoon Oil - 1 tablespoon Mustard - 1 teaspoon Curry leaves - few  Method: Soak toor dhal in water at least for an hour. To the boiling water, add peeled and cubed cucumber along with little salt and turmeric. Let it cook until the cucumbers turn a little soft. It should still be firm enough and not mushy. Dry roast channa dhal, coriander seeds, red chillies, coconut, fenugreek until nice aroma comes out. Make sure you do not burn any of the ingredients. Transfer the above content along with the soaked thoor dhal into a mixie/blender and make it into a fine paste. Keep it aside. Churn the curd with required amount of milk and dilute it. Add turmeric,salt and the grounded paste to it. Pour the mixture into a kadai and let it boil until the raw smell goes away. Add more water if the curry gets thicker during boiling. I let the curry boil for at least 20 minutes in low medium flame until the raw smell of the ingredients went off. In another pan, add oil and when it is hot, add mustard and curry leaves. Add the tempering to the curry. Serve it over piping hot white rice along with any crispy fries.

Mutton Kola Urundai / Mutton Kofta

For people who live in this part of the world, did you enjoy an extra hour of sleep yesterday? I got up at 6 o clock and few minutes later, I looked at my mobile where it said 5:05 AM.  I was so happy, that I got this extra hour all to myself.  Being a mom of a 3 year old, this additional hour all to myself means a lot. I bet many moms would agree with me on this.


Today’s recipe is Mutton Kola Urundai/ Mutton Kofta. This is my mom’s specialty. For some reason, I don’t have this recipe written in my recipe book and every time I want to make this Kola Urundai, I would give her a call and she will be more than happy to tell the recipe to me. I like to hear it from her rather than looking at the recipe book.  Another such recipe which I like to hear from mom is Mutton Chukka. I will post that recipe soon.



Ingredients:


1. Mutton Keema / Minced mutton – 2 cups
2. Grated Coconut – ½ cup
3. Roasted gram / pottukadalai – ½ cup (grounded)
4. Green Chilli – 4 -5
5. Saunf / Soambu – 1 tablespoon
6. Garam Masala – 1 teaspoon
7. Salt – as needed
8. Onions – 1 finely chopped
9. Cilantro – 1/4th cup finely chopped



Method:


1. Grind the grated coconut, green chilli, saunf ,garam masala and salt to a fine paste with very little water  using a mixer/ blender.
2. Add the ground meat to the blender/ mixer and grind it until all the ground masala mixes well with the meat.
3. Also add the finely chopped onions and pulse it a couple of times. This step is really optional. You can add the chopped onions to the ground meat in the next step if you do not want to pulse the onions.
4. Transfer the meat to a bowl. Add the roasted gram powder little by little. Do not add too much as it will make the koftas very dry. The meat mixture should still be a little moist.
5. Now add the chopped cilantro and mix it well.
6. Make kofta balls out of it. Rubbing little oil in your palms will definitely help this process. This measurement will give you approximately 25 koftas.
7. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry till golden brown.


Serve it as an appetizer.

Cabbage Paratha

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a fun filled Halloween.  We had “White Halloween” this year with snow  :-) .

Couple of weeks back, a very good friend of mine had given a mini food chopper and told me that it is very good for chopping cabbage for cabbage paratha. And she is right, the chopper is brilliant and the cabbage came out perfect for making parathas. Thank you dearie girl for the food chopper. I will be using it very often.

Sharmi’s website had square shaped cabbage parathas and I wanted to make mine in square shapes too. It looked lovely and tasted excellent. This recipe is definitely a keeper. A very good way to sneak in the vegetables. I modified her recipe a little bit and here goes my recipe for cabbage paratha.

Ingredients:

Cabbage- ¾ th cup

Atta/chappathi flour – 1 cup

Salt – as needed

Chilli powder – 1 teaspoon

Garam Masala – ½ teaspoon

Turmeric – a pinch

Ginger Garlic Paste – ½ teaspoon

Chopped cilantro leaves – few

Water – required to make the dough

Oil – as required

Method:

Take a bowl add finely chopped cabbage, atta, salt, chilli powder, garam masala powder, turmeric, ginger garlic paste, cilantro, make a soft dough by adding water little by little.

Since cabbage leaves out water, be very cautious in adding water. Let the dough rest for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Divide the dough into equal portions and make parathas  out of the dough. Pictorial illustrations for making square shaped parathas can be found at Sharmi’s blog .

Place the rolled out parathas in a heated tawa. Cook on both sides until you see golden spots.

Serve with Raitha and Pickle.