Say Thai food and the first thing that comes to mind is the ubiquitous Green Curry followed closely by Tom Yum Soup or Pad Thai or Red Curry or Chicken wrapped in pandan leaves. Take any Thai restaurant anywhere in the world and you will most certainly find these few dishes on the menu, no matter that in some places, they don't quite taste like the "real" thing!


Thai cuisine is one of our favourites and one that we turn to very often. We love the spicy and zesty flavours, combined with the very aromatic herbs that almost do a tango on the tongue! Oh yes, I will say this again, we simply love Thai food.

In a city I studied in, I would sit in a rather run-down restaurant with the boyfriend, holding hands and whispering sweet nothings. However, as soon as these were put on the table, the hands were hastily disentangled to grab these and sweet nothings gave way to shouts of 'repeat the order'.


In a city that gave me my first taste of financial independence, ever so often, I'd eat these at the railway station on my way back from work. The trains would come and go and with each passing minute, the crowds would swell. Each passing minute meant getting even a toehold in the train became increasingly difficult but even that concern didn't deter me from eating one.


In a city that I moved to soon after marriage, I stood on a street corner with my boss who was discussing the market, our targets and sales strategies. I was new to the bank and knew I had to respond with something intelligent but after one bite of these, the only intelligible thing I managed to say was "boy, these are so delicious!"


I knew them as kathi kebabs in Pune, frankies in Mumbai and egg rolls in Calcutta. In other parts of the world, they are also called shawarmas or burritos or tacos or doner kebabs or simply (sandwich) wraps.


No matter what you want to call them - I call them kathi kebabs - the basic premise is the same: a flat bread folded over some stuffing that has been drizzled over with some sauces/dressings.







'Out of sight, out of mind' best describes my relationship with them kathi kebabs. When they were easily available, I couldn't have enough of them. When they were not, I didn't seem to miss them at all.

However, when I saw these egg rolls on Sandeepa's blog early this year, the craving to eat some right away had me in its grip. Her post convinced me that I could make egg rolls at home. They seemed so easy to make and looked so inviting that I lost no time in making them!

In the pictures that follow, you'll notice that I've used (leftover) chapatis to make the kathi rolls - it is the only time I've taken pictures, so that is what you see here - but pay heed to Sandeepa's suggestion and use frozen parathas - I normally do - they make a world of difference to the final taste.

Before you make the kathi rolls, there's this little bit of pre-preparation that you need to do.


Pre-preparation:

1. Marinate 1 boneless chicken leg (cut it into bite sized cubes) in 3 tbsps of yogurt + 1.5 tsps of garlic paste + 1 tsp of ginger paste + 1 tsp of chaat masala + rock salt.

Heat oil in a pan, fry half a sliced onion till it turns pink, add the marinated chicken and saute on a high flame till the chicken is cooked. Alternatively, you can even grill the chicken in an oven at 200 deg C.

2. Make the onion salad - slice an onion, to it add some chopped green chillies, chopped coriander leaves, rock salt and sugar. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and mix well.

3. Make the chapatis (Indian flatbread) or parathas or any other flat bread you choose to use.

Once your pre-preparation is done, making the kathi kebab is really quite simple:

1. Whisk together 1 egg + 1 tbsps of milk + a pinch of salt. Heat oil in a pan, pour the whisked egg. When the egg starts to cook around the edges.....

2. Put the chapati on top. After a minute....

3. Flip it over. Cook for another minute and then take it off the pan.






4. Put in the stuffing:


First, line the onion salad in the centre. Top it with the chicken kebabs. Squirt some sriracha chilli sauce or any other sauce of your choice.

(Nowadays, I make kathi kebabs to use up leftover food - chicken/mutton curry works brilliantly in these. Simply de-bone the meat and add curry in place of the sauce. Leftover paneer jalfrezi also tastes fantastic).







5. Fold and wrap the rolls in paper (you will ignore my rather messy looking paper napkin, won't you?), top with some more onion salad (keep lots of breath freshners handy) and chomp away!

Kathi Kebabs, inspired by Sandeepa's egg rolls, are my entry to Nupur's Blog Bites 5: Sandwiches and Wraps.



Speaking of events, Sra is hosting our food fiction event , 'Of Chalks and Chopsticks: 3' . So, spin her a yarn that has food as its main star and send it over to her on srablog{at}gmail{dot}com

For once, I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking. After all, a picture is supposed to speak a thousand words.

Believe me, I am not short of words. In fact, I can wax eloquent about how delicious this pasta was.

But, I'd rather let the pictures do the talking.

I'll confess that I was rather uncertain about substituting fettuccine for spaghetti. But that was the only pasta I had in my pantry. And so it had to do. Not that I had any complaints with the final result.

Like I said, I'd rather let the pictures do the talking.

Admittedly, mine may not be the classic way of cooking pasta. I like to toss my pasta into the sauce and let it sit in it for a while so that all the flavours are well abosrbed and every strand of the pasta is evenly coated with the sauce.

Yes, I'd rather let the pictures do the talking.

However, this much I'll certainly say: the husband who is not quite fond of pasta licked his bowl clean. Really.

Unfortunately, no pictures of that!!

Ingredients:

for the sauce:
Onion - 1 large, finely chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves, finely minced
Bay leaf - 1

Crushed tomatoes - one 14.5 oz tin
Chicken mince - 500 gms

Red wine - 75 ml
Chicken stock - 250 ml
Mixed herbs - 2 tsps ( I use McCormick's Italian seasoning)
Crushed red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp
Low fat cream - 50 ml

Olive oil - 2 tbsps
Salt
Sugar - 1 tsp

for the pasta
Fettuccine : now unfortunately, I just eye balled this!
Chicken stock cube - 1, optional

Method:

Heat oil and toss in the bay leaf, garlic and onions. Saute until the onions turn pink.

Next, add in the mince in 3 batches, frying for 2 minutes after every addition - or until the mince loses its raw colour. Once you've added all the mince, stir fry on high heat for about 5-7 minutes.

Then, add the crushed tomatoes and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.
Pour in the stock and the wine and bring to a boil. Drop the heat to the lowest setting and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the mixed herbs, salt and sugar and simmer for another 15 minutes after which add the cream and turn the gas off. Remember the bay leaf we put in? Toss that out.

Cook your pasta as per the intructions on the package; I normally cook mine with a splash of olive oil and a chicken stock cube - believe me, this does wonders to the taste.
Drain the cooked pasta and then toss it into the sauce. On very low heat, let the pasta and the sauce cook together for 2 minutes before you serve it.


No, I will not say a word about how yum the pasta was - the pictures should tell you everything!





Sending this off to Chaya of Sweet and Savoury who is hosting this week's Presto Pasta Nights, event started by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.

In the last 10 years, we have moved 4 cities and 8 houses. One of the great things about moving is the forced spring cleaning that happens - every single time, we are aghast at the clutter (particularly paper clutter) that we accumulate, vowing each time to be more careful 'this' time!

But there was this one box that moved with us from Bombay to Calcutta, then back to Bombay, and from there to Dubai - unopened. We knew what was in the box - some scraps of very precious memories - and therefore, never needed to de-clutter it. Every successive packer would simply add another cover layer of cardboard on the box, write our names and the new destination and the box would be on its way.

When we were moving out of Dubai, the urge to leaf through those scraps of memory was irrestible - afterall, there is something delightfully exciting and amusing as well to look at yourself many years later!

Somewhere amongst things such as my class X autograph book, Terradaze's annual class photograph, greeting cards and a dried rose (testimony to the first flush of love), summer training project reports, our first salary slips, I found this recipe.

A colleague at work would bring this chicken korma for lunch; everytime she brought it, we would descend on her lunch box...like, well, greedy crows. Somehow, I had completely forgotten that on my last day at work, she had scribbled this recipe on the back of my final settlement statement!

This is now my to-go chicken curry recipe. It requires absolutely no marination, no grinding of any masala and yet, it tastes like I have sweated in the kitchen to make it. Creamy(without the cream!) and flavourful, every spoonful will be licked off the plate!




Chicken Korma

Ingredients:

Chicken - 500 gms, boneless
Onions - 3, chopped
Ginger paste - 1.5 tsp
Garlic paste - 2.5 tsp
Whole garam masala: Bay Leaf - 1, Cinnamon - 1" stick, Green cardamom - 3
Cashewnut powder - 2.5 tbsps
Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Masala powders: Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp, Garam masala powder, chicken curry masala - 1 tsp
Low Fat Milk - 1 cup
Saffron - a pinch, soaked in a tbsp of milk
Salt - to taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp, chopped

Method:

Heat oil and add the whole garam masala. After a minute, add the ginger garlic paste, stir till fragrant. Next add the chopped onions and fry till lightly browned.

Now, add the chicken and fry on high flame till the chicken is half done. Lower the flame.

Mix the masala powders, salt and the cashewnut powder into the yoghurt and add this mixture in 2 batches to the chicken. Fry till the chicken blends well with the yoghurt and the oil separates.

Now, add the milk, the saffron milk and 1 tbsp of coriander leaves to the chicken, cover and cook on a low flame till the chicken is done. Lastly, add the remaining coriander leaves and the sugar and simmer another 5 minutes.

Serve with rotis or jeera rice.

Sending this to Viki's Potluck - Chicken. And though I normally don't send in archived posts to events, these - Chicken in Oyster Sauce and Slow Roast Chicken - are my favourites and so these go to the potluck as well.

Kebabs, the finest finger foods one can ever think of, have a not so glamourous origin. Scarcity of cooking fuel meant there was a need to effectively cook meat. Legend has it that kebabs owe their existence to medeival Turkic soldiers who used their swords to grill meat over open field fires (source - Wikipedia).

Of course, from those medieval fires to modern day cuisines, the humble kebab has come a long way and undergone a lot of tranformation - imagine Persian cuisine or Lucknowi cuisine without kebabs!!

I like kebabs for one simple reason - you can make them well in advance and freeze them; just grill them when the craving for something delicious strikes! And so, I am always on the lookout for newer kebab recipes.

When I first concocted the recipe for Berry Pulao, little did I know that the kebabs that went into it would end up being one of our favourites! So now, whenever I make Berry Pulao, I make sure I make some extra kebabs - these are so delicious and delicately flavoured that if I didn't make extra, they would never make it to the pulao!!

As a result of all the visions she kept having over all these years, Arva had become obssessed with Chinese food. She kept going to every Chinese restaurant she could find, kept cooking Chinese food and had an enviable collection of chopsticks - all in the hope that something would trigger a recall - but until now, nothing had worked. All that had happened was that she could whip an excellent Chinese meal at the drop of a hat.



Chicken in oyster sauce

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken - 500 gms, cut into cubes
Onions - 2 , cut into cubes and separate the slices
ginger and garlic, 1 tbsp each, finely minced
Bell pepper - 1.5 (I used a mix of red, yellow and green for a better look), cut into cubes
Mushrooms - 6, sliced
spring onion, for garnish
oil - 1.5 tbsp

for the marinade:

oyster sauce - 1 tbsp
soy sauce - 1 tsp
red wine vinegar or grape flavoured vinegar - 1 tbsp

for the sauce:

(these are approximate measures, since I eye -balled these)

oyster sauce - 3 tbsps
soy sauce - 1 tbsp
red wine vinegar - 1 tbsp
brown sugar - 1 tsp
red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp (or as per your spice tolerance level)
cornflour - 1 tsp, dissolved in a little water

Method:

Whisk the marinade together and add to the chicken. Let the chicken marinate for about half an hour.
Heat oil and stir fry the ginger, garlic and half the onion on high flame for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and cook till done. Set aside.

While the chicken is cooking, mix the ingredients for the sauce together.

In the same pan, add a little bit of oil and stir fry the mushrooms, followed by the remaining onions and the bell peppers. Cook for a minute - you want the onions and the peppers to retain their crunch. Add the cooked chicken and stir for a half a minute. Make a well in the middle of the pan and add the sauce. Cook till sauce starts to bubble and thickens. Since all the sauces contain salt, taste at this point and then add salt, if needed. Garnish with spring onions and serve hot with rice.

Red - the end (continued from part 1 and part 2)

The abortion was scheduled a week hence. It was an agonising time for Arva. The visions kept recurring, yet she felt unable to share it with Raghav. Though he was extremely caring, Arva knew he was actually very unhappy with her decision and this was causing a considerable strain in their relations.

For just a few moments, she was actually tempted to go ahead with the pregnancy, just for his sake. But those were fleeting thoughts and here she was now in the OT. Arva looked around her as the doctors and nurses buzzed about in the procedure room, their movements so well co-ordinated and seamless. "This is it," she thought. "There's is no going back now..." Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud clanging noise - one of the instrument trays had fallen to the floor.

And then it came back to her. The memory came gushing out as if someone had opened the floodgates.

They were at a Chinese restaurant. Arva, all of 8 at that time, had encountered chopsticks for the first time and was absolutely intrigued at the prospect of eating with them. Her excitement was, however, somewhat dampened though by her normally gregarious older sister who appeared extremely anxious about something. "Here didi, from me to you, with love. The pretty waitress in red let me keep these," she said to her sister, handing her the chopsticks, hoping to humour her.

That night, she was woken up by the sound of muffled sobs. Curiously, she walked to the source of the sound - the bathroom. Curiosity quickly turned to horror when she saw her sister in the bathtub, curled up in pain, her pyjamas completely stained in blood, the bloody chopstick in her hand clanging as it fell to the floor. "Mama," Arva had screamed.

Lying here in the hospital, as the long suppressed memory returned and the horror of her sister's actions and the reason for all those visions now became clear to her, Arva saw the doctor moving in to start the procedure.

One year later....

She was returning to her desk after a year. So much had happened in the last one year, so much that she had to share with her colleagues. "My my, look at you Arva! You are looking absolutely gorgeous. Who would say that you had a baby just few months ago,"gushed Divya.

The end.

Gosh no, I am not talking about the song! I am talking about those Thursday nights ages ago when my sister and I would wait for an electricity cut. Waiting for an electricity cut...did i just say 'waiting for electricity cut'? Well, yes.

Electricity cuts were pretty much the norm almost every Thursday evening in the small town that I grew up in. Like everyone else, for the longest of time, we hated those electricity cuts as well. It meant missing the weekly Chhayageet* on Doordarshan* (after all, back then we didn't have too much of a choice in TV programs, did we?).

But one day a dhaba* opened in the vicinity of our house. And one such Thursday, when the power was out, my dad went and got some tandoori chicken from there. Sitting there in the balcony, with a few candles burning, the smell of kachuaa chaap, Vividh Bharati* belting out some hindi songs, eating the succulent chicken was an amazing experience.

Soon our attitude to those much hated power cuts changed. Now, we'd wait for the power cut - it wasn't as if papa wouldn't have bought the chicken any other day if we'd have asked him to - but there was something magical about eating it on the power cut nights.

And even now, whenever I eat tandoori chicken, no matter where I am or with whom I am, my mind goes back to those lovely Thursday tandoori chicken nights.

Ingredients:

Chicken - 6 legs, skinless

for the marinade:

Juice of 1 lemon
Thick yoghurt - 1/2 cup
Cream - 3 tbsps
Ginger garlic paste - 2 tbsps
Red chilli powder, tandoori chicken masala, salt - to taste
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Orange colour - a few drops
Oil for basting

Coal - 1 large piece
Ghee - 1 tbsp

Method:

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade and let the chicken marinate for at least 6-8 hrs (the longer, the better).

Just before grilling, heat the coal till it becomes red hot. Place in a small steel bowl and place the bowl in the centre of the vessel with the marinating chicken. Pour the ghee on top of the coal and when it starts smoking, cover the vessel tightly for about 5 mins. This gives the tandoori chicken a lovely smoky flavour.

Grill till the juices run clear as per your oven/microwave instructions.

I serve this with a spicy onion salad. Just slice the onions, add salt, sugar, lime juice, chopped green chillies, coriander leaves and mango pickle.

(*chhayageet - a weekly programme featuring songs from Bollywood movies broadcast on the national TV channel Doordarshan.

Vividh bharati - radio channel

kachuaa chaap - mosquito repellent

dhaba - small open air restaurants, usually found along highways catering mainly to truck drivers)

Roast chicken is something I love to eat. Except that I didn't quite roast the chicken (I would actually cook the it in a large pan on very low heat). You see, I was actually quite worried about ending up with a burnt, charred skin. Or with meat that tasted, well, like a piece of cardboard in the mouth.

But that was till yesterday. I finally roasted a chicken in the oven and ended up with a roast that was just slighly crisp on the outside and utterly succulent on the inside, with all the natural flavour of the chicken intact.

It is all to do with the science of cooking, it seems. Roasting essentially is the use of dry heat to cook. During oven roasting, hot air circulates around the meat and therefore, it follows that too much heat squeezes out the moisture (juices) too quicky (before the proteins have started to break down) and that is when the roast ends up being dry.

In slow roasting however, the juices are released steadily and so, the shrinkage of the fibers in the meat is a lot lesser. Result, you end up with meat that is juicy and has an inviting pinkish tinge to it, instead of a dull grayish brown look. Moreover, it requires virtually no basting!

Ingredients:

Chicken 1.5 kgs (skin on)
Butter 30 gms
Garlic 3 cloves, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
Onions, cut into quarters, sprinkled with a generous tsp of sugar
Salt and pepper powder
Potatoes, carrots and any other veggie you want
Herbs of your choice (I used parsley)

Method:

Wash the chicken and pat it dry thoroughly, outside and inside. Melt the butter in a small vessel, pop in the garlic and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Let cool. Squeeze the lime juice (don't discard the squeezed lemon wedges), salt and pepper into the butter garlic mixture. Rub this marinade over the outside and inside of the chicken. Stuff the onions and the lemons slices into the cavity of the chicken.

Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for atleast 4 hrs. The longer, the better.

Preheat the oven to 175 deg C for 5 minutes. In the meantime , make a few slits in the veggies and toss them in salt, pepper, herbs and a little olive oil. Throw them into the roasting pan. Place the chicken breast side down. By doing this, while cooking, all the juices will flow to the breast which is the driest part of the chicken.

Cover the pan loosely with aluminium foil and roast for 30 mins (you are doing this so that the cold chicken is not subject to the heat directly, thereby drying up the outside - if you bring the meat to room temperature before you begin cooking, you can skip this part).

After 30 mins, remove the foil and let the chicken cook for a further 60-75 mins. Do baste your chicken once after 30 mins with the juices that flow out. After about an hour, insert a skewer into the thigh, if the juices run clear, your chicken is done.

Now, turn the chicken breast side up, turn up the heat to 200 deg C and roast till it gets a lovely brown colour.

Let it rest for about 10 mins before serving, doing this ensures that the juices that had initially just flowed down to the breast while cooking are redistributed evenly.

In the meantime, prepare the red wine sauce.

Open the wine bottle, taste the wine. Nice? Well, pour yourself a glass.

Heat a tbsp of butter. Add a clove of minced garlic and half an onion(chopped). Fry till the onion becomes soft and pink. Add the chicken stock from the roasting pan and bring to a boil.

Add 1/2 a cup wine - no, not to your glass, to the pan - but yes, feel free to top up your glass as well - and bring to a boil. Adjust the seasoning (salt, pepper, paprika). Add a tsp of cornflour (dissolved in some water) and cook till sauce thickens. Drain your glass.

No, I don't have pictures of the sauce. And I don't have pictures of how the chicken looked when it was carved and plated. You guys understand, don't you?

salt to taste

Sometimes, I get this wild urge to eat something (no, no, this is not pregnancy - just the cravings of a total foodie). This time round, it was berry pulao. The thought of the soft fluffy rice, the succulent meat and the tart berries had been making my mouth water incessantly over the last few days and there was precious little I could do but continue drooling.

Because the only place I know of that serves berry pulao is Britannia restaurant in Ballard Estate in Mumbai.

Some restaurants go on to become landmarks in a city. Britannia restaurant , to me, is one such. While I was working in Mumbai, we used to go there regularly for long lunches on Friday afternoons, stuff ourselves thoroughly....and well, burp our way through the rest of the day. They serve many delicious Parsi dishes but their berry pulao (an Indianised version of the Iranian Zereshk Polow) is legendary.

I couldn't just sit and drool...I had to do something about it. And since no Mumbai trip is on the cards anytime soon, I decided to try making berry pulao at home.

The only hitch - the recipe is a closely guarded family secret and no amount of googling threw up any kind of result. I decided to improvise my own recipe.

The other hurdle - the key ingredient - the berries (dried barberries or - zereshk in persian) is not something I could find in Singapore, though believe me, I walked up and down the lanes and by-lanes of Arab Street and Little India in search of the berries. I substituted it with cranberries which look similar and have a lovely tart taste as well.

I used a mix and match of 3-4 different recipes and here's what I came up with...

Recipe for berry pulao:

1. Making the kebab:

Ingredients:

300 gms chicken mince

for the marinade:

1 onion finely chopped, juice drained off
1 small clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp rose water
1.5 tsp anardana powder
1 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 egg
1 tsp garam masala powder
salt to taste
saffron infused ghee (toast about 20 strands of saffron, crumble them, add a tbsp of water and a tsp of sugar and let it stand for about 15 mins. Then add 2 tbsp of melted ghee).

Method:

Mix all of the above together and let it marinate for atleast 6-8 hrs.
Shape into flat discs, or if you have skewers, shape as you would seekh kebabs. Drizzle some saffron infused ghee and grill till the chicken is cooked tender. ( I grilled mine in the microwave for 18 mins on the grill setting). Keep basting with the saffron ghee frequently - atleast 3 times.
Cut into bite sized pieces.

2. Making the chicken curry:

Ingredients:

3 chicken thighs

for the marinade:

1 onion sliced and shallow fried till golden brown
1 tsp each ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp red chilly powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1.5 tsp saffron water (10-15 strands of saffron toasted, crumbled and seeped in 1.5 tbsp water and 1/2 tsp sugar)
1 tbsp ground almonds
1 tsp rose water
4 tbsps yoghurt

Method:

Marinate the chicken in the above marinade for 6-8 hrs.
In a vessel, heat 1 tbsp oil . Brown the chicken for about 5 mins on high flame, then add the remaining marinade and about 1/2 a cup of water and cover and cook on low flame till the chicken is tender. It is important to cook the chicken with as little water as possible, and as the oil used is very less, you will have to keep an eye out to prevent any burning.
De-bone into large chunks and set aside.

Making the pulao:

Ingredients:

1 cup rice, soaked in lukewarm salted water for about 4-5 hrs
3 tbsp dill, finely chopped (berry pulao doesn't use any dill, but I used it as I like the flavour it imparts)
3 tbsp cranberries
chicken kebab and chicken curry (cooked before)
2 tbsp onion, fried golden brown
1 tsp saffron water (same method as above)
2 tbsp oil
1.5 tbsp melted butter or ghee
2 tsp almond slivers, lightly roasted (optional, I skipped these)

Method:

Boil 2.5 cups of water with a tsp of salt. Drain and wash the soaked rice, add it to the boiling water and cook till it is just about done. Strain, rinse and drain the rice. Let it sit for about 5 mins.

Take about 5 tablespoons of the drained rice and mix some saffron water so that the rice turns a lovely yellow.

Bring 1/4 cup water and 2 to 3 tbs oil to boil in a large vessel. Spread 1/3 of the white rice and layer the chicken kebabs, the curry chicken chunks, half the dill, and some cranberries. Repeat the layers finishing with the reamaining white rice and all of the saffron rice. Top this with the fried onion, cranberries and almond slivers (if using).

Cover and steam for about 5 mins. Open the lid, poke some holes through the pulao and pour the melted butter. Cover and steam once again for about 15 mins on very low flame.

Open. Serve. Eat. Mmmmm......


This is my entry to the Rice Mela hosted by Cooking 4 all seasons.

(PS: I have actually written this post with a very heavy heart - here I am writing about a landmark restaurant in Mumbai when so many others have been subject to militant attack).

Update: I am also sending this to Original Recipes Round Up #6 hosted by Lore.