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. 

Healthy No Fuss Walnut Brownies

Healthy because it uses olive oil & no fuss because the batter ready in no time!

I feel this was the first greatest hit way back in 2010 when I first started baking. Pradeep likes brownies and he loves to pair it with vanilla ice cream. So once during my usual recipe hunt, I bumped into a real cool and easy recipe for walnut brownies. Since then it has been my go to recipe whenever we had to satiate out sweet tooth!

The best part of this recipe is that you need not beat the batter for a long time. Light hand mixing is all it requires! The original recipe calls for butter, however I have substituted olive oil for it. The recipe also had fudge topping, which I often skip when I make these black beauties often. It still has all purpose flour and sugar, so you can limit your portion intake.

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1/2 Cup

Cocoa powder - 6 tablespoon

Brown sugar - 12 tablespoon

Walnuts - 1 Cup, slightly crushed

Eggs - 2, lightly beaten

Olive oil - 130-140 ml

Preparation

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree C.

2. Heat a sauce pan, mix together the oil and cocoa powder. Switch off when well mixed.

3. In a mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add in the sugar and beat with hands to combine. (this does not require vigorous beating, just light beating would do)

4. Add the cocoa mix and walnuts, blend in. 

5. Sieve in the flour and fold in, do not beat.

Cooking

6. Grease a baking pan and pour the batter in. Bake for about 25 minutes.

Serving

7. Let it cook completely. Cut into pieces and serve with ice cream or as it is.

Steamed Shrimp & Sausage Wontons

For my love for wontons and all things Chinese!

2 years of stay in Singapore has made me a wonton and dim sum addict! I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even as a mid day snack. We shifted base to India this February and since then I haven't had a sight of these or anything Chinese. Well, I remember going to a restaurant called Mings Palace at Gateway, but you cannot expect anything close to authentic Chinese here. 

So my urge to eat wontons grew day by day and last week, I finally went ahead and made it. I had some shrimps and a couple of sausages in my freezer which I had to use up. And that day we were having soup for dinner and I thought wontons would go well with that and could make the meal complete and filling; which it did! 

Ingredients

For the wrap

All purpose flour - 1 Cup

Salt to taste

Water enough to knead the flour into dough 

For the filling

Shrimps - a dozen, cleaned, deveined, and cooked with a bit of turmeric powder and salt

Chicken sausage - 3, 4 inch length, cut into small bite size pieces, cooked

Onion - 1 medium, finely chopped

Garlic - 6 cloves, crushed

Dried red chilies - 2, crushed

Olive oil - 2 tablespoons

Preparation

1. Make the dough for the wrap (roti dough consistency) and form about 10, 1 inch balls out of it. Roll out the dough into a neat circle of about 3 inch diameter. Keep aside.

Cooking

2. Heat oil in a sauce pan. Add onions and fry until golden brown. Add the garlic and chilies; saute for a while. Add the cooked shrimp and sausage, mix well to combine. Switch off the stove.

3. Hold the rolled out wrap in your palm, in a conical way and put the mix in it. Bring together the edges to cover the filling and twist to lock. Repeat the process for the rest

4. In a steamer (I used idli maker), place the wraps and cook. It should be done in about 10 min or as per your steamer settings.

Serving

5. Serve with ketch up, or if you aren't lazy like me, with the spicy tomato chili sauce, which is the authentic way to eat this.

Improvisation Ideas

You can go totally experimental with the filling idea. Next time I am even thinking of spicing up the wrap; what say?

Healthy Vegetable Quiche

Healthy because I used a whole wheat crust and vegetable filling

December, till now, has been packed with events, at home as well as work. Things mostly kept me busy on all working days and I was happily lazy, sleeping most of the time and having fun with friends on weekends! And yes, I have been cooking quite a lot. The facts that it has been easily 9 days since I blogged was actually hitting on me and today I just made up my mind to put up a post that I have been holding back for a while now. It took me a great deal of determination to put together this blog again and I am not not planning to let this go to sleep mode this time!

Vizag Navy Ball got over leaving behind the realization that I have put on weight! Yes, now officially, I belong to the healthy lot (I am sure my old buddies would have hard time digesting this fact). Seeing all those beautiful youngsters walking the ramp for Navy queen, it really had me thinking that I am good the way I am but may be a few pounds less. No, I haven't taken an oath as such, nor have I decided to go on a weight loss new year resolution but yes, I am deliberately trying to make healthier versions of the dishes I love to eat. So probably, you will see many healthy dishes along with some not so healthy ones.

So the other day, after my work, I was sort of too hungry and quite unlikely that day I didn't have any snacks in store. When I am hungry, being tired is not something that will hold me back from cooking, so I diligently spent some time browsing for recipes and bumped into quiche recipe. The original recipe called for all purpose flour crust and butter, however, as I wanted something that would make me (and my hubby) feel less guilty I made my own experiments and to say the least, the output was yum!

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour - 1 Cup

All purpose flour - 1/4 Cup

Olive oil - 100 gm

Cooked mixed vegetables - About 1 Cup (I had some leftover carrot and potatoes stir fry, which I used along with a bunch of spinach leaves lightly tossed in a heated pan about 1/2 a minute or so)

Chicken sausage - 1 of 4-5 inch length, sliced and cooked (optional)

Low fat shredded mozzarella cheese - 10 tablespoon

Eggs - 2 beaten

Water as needed

Salt to taste

Sugar to taste

Preparation

1. In a bowl mix cooked vegetables and sausage (if adding). Keep aside. I did not add salt to the filling because the stir fry and sausage already had salt in it.

2. Prepare the crust by mixing together the flours, salt, sugar and olive oil with enough water until it forms a firm enough dough which can be rolled out (like as you would for roti)

3. Make 1 inch balls and roll it out. Using a lid or a sharp vessel top of about 3 inch diameter, cut the rolled out dough, so as to give it neat edges.

Cooking

4. Preheat oven at 180 degree C.

5. Line a muffin pan with muffin lines/paper cups and keep the cut out rolled dough in each mold. This recipe would make about 5-6 quiches.

6. Spoon out the beaten eggs equally into the molds followed by the filling. Top with cheese (about 1 1/2-2 tablespoon cheese for each quiche.

7. Pop it in the oven and bake for about 15 min or until the cheese melts and crust is firm. 

Serving

8. Serve hot as am evening snack or starter for parties!

I loved it and this dish doubles as an easy way to use up your veg or non veg leftovers!

Mock Spanish Paella with Prawns and Sausages

Why mock, because I did not bake it!

Of all things why Spanish and why paella? Even I am wondering why! I remember having seafood paella from a restaurant in Singapore but then I did not enjoy it much. Now that's even more contradicting! 

I had prawns and sausages and wanted to cook up something different, especially for Sunday lunch as Pradeep was coming back home after a week. Thus I bumped into this Spanish Paella recipe which I have tweaked to my convenience. A decent main course to serve for social gatherings.

Ingredients

Chicken sausages - 4 long ones, sliced

Prawns - 1/2 kg, cleaned, deveined, cooked (specifications given in preparation section)

Onion - 1 medium, chopped

Garlic - 5 cloves, crushed

Dried chilies - 3, chrushed

Tomatoes - 2 medium, diced

Basmati rice - 1 cup

Broth or stock - 1 cup (I did not have any store bough broth so I made my own)

Vegetable soup mix - 1/2 cup

Black pepper - to taste, freshly ground

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Coriander leaves - a few springs

Salt to taste

Preparation

1. Cook the prawns in 2 cups of water with a pinch of turmeric, salt, pepper powder and a few springs of coriander leaves. Once the shrimp is cooked half way through drain about 11/2 cup of the broth and keep it aside. Let the water be absorbed and prawns be cooked completely.

2. Wash rice and soak it in water for about 10-15 min

Cooking

3. In wide mouthed cook and serve pan, put the sliced sausages and dry roast until browned.

4. Add oil to the pan and put onions and cook until golden brown. Add garlic & dried chilies and saute for another 2 min.

5. Add the tomatoes and saute it until well combined, for about 5 min.

6. Drain the soaked rice and add it to the pan. Fry for about 1-2 min, until the rice turns translucent and pour the soup mix. Mix well to combine.

7. Pour in the broth, check salt and adjust as needed. Cover with a lid and cook until most of the water evaporates. Around 10-15 min. 

8. Open the lid, add in the prawns, give it a nice stir to combine. Cook in simmer for about 5 min. Switch off when rice is fully cooked and water has evaporated.

Serving

9. Fluff up the rice with a fork. Serve with side dish of your choice. I serve this with Pan Roasted Pearl Onions in Yogurt Sauce. It tasted yum!

Pan Roasted Pearl Onions in Yogurt Sauce

For the love of pearl onions and the need of a perfect light side dish...

The other day I was frantically looking for some nice but light side dish to go with a Spanish Paella recipe that I had bookmarked. I went through a lot of salads, with or without dressings, stir fries and what not! All my research said that paella is good to be served as it is but I just wanted some side dish to go with it. Finally I bumped into a roasted quail recipe, which was served with a pearl onion sauce. I found it interesting, and thought should try something similar.

This is mild, with a dash of red wine flavor! 

Ingredients

Pearl onions - about 15-20 whole, peeled, cleaned

Garlic - 4 cloves, crushed

Green chilies - 2 medium, crushed (I wanted to use dried chilies but didn't have any in store)

Salt to taste

Sugar - 1 to 2 teaspoon (optional)

Red wine - a dash

Yogurt - 5 tablespoons, with no lumbs

Olive oil - 2 tablespoon

Cooking

1. Heat oil in a pan and roast the pearl onions in medium heat until they turn golden brown.

2. Add crushed garlic and green chilies, along with salt and saute for 1-2 minutes.

3. Sprinkle sugar over and add in a dash of red wine. Stir to combine.

4. Simmer, add yogurt and mix well so that it is well combined.

Serving

5. Sauce is ready and serve with food of your choice!

Improvisation Ideas

Next time I will replace green chilies with dried red chilies

I would also add in some fresh cream to make it more creamy!

Curried Papaya Soup

An easy healthy dinner soup to whip up in no time!

Well, today I had practically nothing to do and hence ended up baking a cake, a slice of which made me feel I shouldn't gorge much for dinner. So I thought of cooking a soup, which is filling and   contains 0 guilt factor!

I like papayas when they are not too ripe and when the crunchiness still remains. What I had, had crossed the stage and I didn't know what to do. So I as usual searched online for papaya recipes and among the many that popped up was of a soup! Well, a papaya soup was new to me but in no way was it a bad idea. The recipe had a twist that I liked. So I just went ahead and made this soup, which is a bit different from the original, but carries the secret as it is.  Also, I had made a similar tasting soup using carrots a few days ago, so I think this curry powder thing goes well with all sweet veggies!

Ingredients (this recipe serves one)

Papaya - 1/4th of a medium sized, cut into chunks 

Onion - 1 small, chopped finely

Garlic - 5 cloves, crushed

Ginger - 1 inch piece, cut and crushed

Carrot - 1 medium, chopped finely

Curry powder (secret ingredient) - 2 or 3 tablespoons (as per taste)

Olive oil - 2 tablespoons

Whole milk - 25 ml 

Pepper - 1 teaspoon, freshly ground

Water - 1 cup 

Salt to taste

Cooking

1. Heat up oil in a wide mouthed pan and saute the onions until golden brown. Add crushed ginger and garlic and saute for a min or two taking care the garlic doesn't burn. 

2. Add the carrots, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper powder, 2 tablespoons of curry powder and salt to taste. Fry for about a couple of minutes.

3. Add the milk, 1/2 cup water, simmer and cook with lid on for 10 min or until the carrots are soft.

4. Add the cut papaya and mix in to just heat it up. Simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove from stove and let it cool.

5. In a food processor, add the soup mix and blend well. Add water as needed to attain the consistency you like. I added the other half now.

Serving

6. Return the blended min to the pan. Heat in low flame for a bout 2-3 min. Check the salt and add more spices as needed. I added my 1/2 teaspoon of pepper powder and 1 tablespoon of curry powder at this stage. It is not necessary but if you like the task you can.
7. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with ground pepper and dried cilantro. 

Happy light dining! :-)

Improvisation Ideas

Next time I may just double the milk and some dried chilies, because I would want it more spicier.

Freshly made croutons will also go well with this (i was just too lazy to make it)