Healthy Masala Oatmeal Upma

A great way to spice up your otherwise bland upma!

Having to get up in the morning to find your way into the kitchen and make your own cup of tea/coffee is such a boring way to start your day! To add on to that what if you have to get the breakfast ready before 7.30 AM. I so dislike this and for the same reason, mostly Pradeep leaves for office with just tea or tea with toast or a couple of fruits, although he prefers to start off the day with a healthy meal. Although I have, many times, displayed my unwillingness directly and indirectly to do that, some days you feel so lovey-dovey and wouldn't mind spending 30 min in the kitchen making a nice breakfast for him. So this recipe is the outcome of such a morning breakfast!

I had plans to cook suji upma, and started with spluttering the mustards. When I opened the kitchen cupboard to take suji, I saw some oatmeal in one of the containers, barely about 3/4th cup. There was a quick change of plan and thus I made oatmeal upma.

Ingredients

Quick cooking oatmeal - 3/4 cup

Onion - I medium, finely chopped

Carrots - 1/2 medium finely chopped

Olive oil - 2 tablespoon

Mustard seeds - a pinch

Urad dal - a pinch

Curry leaf - 1 spring

Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon, freshly ground

Garam masala - 11/2 teaspoon

Lime - 1 juiced

Salt to taste

Sugar - 1 teaspoon

Water - enough to sprinkle to help cooking the oats

Coriander - to garnish

Preparation

Heal oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds and add urad dal. Add the curry leaves, onions and carrots and cook for a couple of minutes, until onions are golden brown and carrots are almost cooked.

Add turmeric, pepper powder, garam masala and salt and fry until oil separates.

Add oatmeal and mix well to combine. Sprinkle water enough to wet the oatmeal (so that the upma is not too dry) and keep stirring for a couple of minutes. 

Add sugar and stir well. Switch off and squeeze the lime over the upma and mix well.

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve warm.

Quick Butter Chicken (From Leftover Chicken Roast)

Best way to use up roast chicken leftover post holidays!

Holiday cooking is sure to leave you with quite a lot of leftovers. This Christmas we also ventured out and tried making something that probably was out of our reach - a whole chicken roast! Well, I wouldn't say it was a total disaster, but yes we have to work on it. The marinade was great, and the output was also decent enough! 

We are just two and we had half of a whole chicken still left after the Christmas lunch, which we chopped into curry size pieces  and stored in the refrigerator. Today, one day after Christmas, was the right time to put the leftover to use. As the chicken was already marinated, roasted and chopped, I felt it was best to make butter chicken than anything else. Moreover, butter chicken is supposed to be Pradeep's favorite!

If starting from scratch, making butter chicken is an elaborate one. You have to first marinate the chicken with spices and curd, leave it for an hour or more and then roast it either in the oven or in a pan. The process may take anything between 30-60 minutes, apart from the marination time. I was lucky enough that I had the chicken already marinated, roasted and chopped. So this made my job easy and the dish was ready in less than 30 min.

Ingredients

Chicken - 0.4 kg, pre-marinated and roasted, cut in curry size pieces (I used simple lemon, ginger-garlic, pepper and olive oil marinade)

Butter - 3 tablespoons (the dish is called butter chicken so I did not want to substitute butter with anything else)

Whole spice mix - 1 teaspoon (mix of cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon and bay leaf)

Onions - 1 medium, coarsely ground

Ginger garlic paste - 2 tablespoon

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Salt - to taste

Chili powder - 1 tablespoon

Garam masala - 1 tablespoon

Tomato puree - 150 ml (of 2-3 medium sided tomatoes)

Kasuri methi - 1 tablespoon

Sugar - 1 teaspoon

Fresh cream - 4 tablespoon

Preparation

1. If using leftover, dry heat the chicken pieces in a pan for a few minutes. Keep aside.

Cooking

2. Heat butter in a wide mouthed pan, add the spice mix and onions; fry until transparent. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry for a couple of minutes.

3. Add turmeric powder, salt, chili powder and garam masala. Mix well to combine and fry for another couple of minutes.

4. Add the tomato puree and let it boil. Add in the chicken pieces and if you feel the gravy is too thick, pour in 1/2 a glass of water, or as much as you wish. Let it cook for a couple of minutes.

5. Add the cream and mix well to combine, but do not let it boil. Sprinkle sugar and kasuri methi and switch off the stove

Serving

6. Serve hot with naan or tandoori roti.