Szechuan Stir Fried Chicken

While grocery shopping I bought this months' cooking light magazine. Their cover was 25 chicken recipes, but most of them were just pan roasted chicken, something you cant eat with rice. We are big on rice and want rice for dinner. So I finally found one recipe that can be served with rice. Its was a nice cold day with some stir fry, white rice and green tea.

Prep Time - 5mins    | Cooking Time  - 20mins   | Yield - 3 people

Ingredients
3 tblsp dark sesame oil
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 tblsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tblsp rice vinegar
2 tblspn chilli paste (I used sambal oelek)
2 tsp cornstarch
1lb skinless boneless chicken cut into bite sized pieces
1 yellow red pepper, cut into strips
1 red pepper, cut into strips
1 green pepper, cut into strips
1/2 vertically sliced onions
1 tblsp freshly minced ginger
1 tblsp freshly minced garlic
1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

Combine 2 tblsp sesame oil and the next 5 ingredients in a bowl. Heat wok over medium heat. Add remaining 1 tsp sesame oil swirl, add chicken stir fry for 2 minutes. Remove chicken from pan. Add yellow bell peppers and the next 5 ingredients through garlic. Stri fry for 1 minute. Add the broth mixture cook for 30 seconds or until thick. Return chicken to the pan and cook until the chicken is done. Serve this with a scoop of white rice garnish with peanuts.

Thai chicken soup

Both M and I have caught a bad cold, the weather has been fluctuating here for the past couple of days. Its warm and sunny and by evening its gets really cold, like numbness in your fingers cold. So I decided to make thai chicken soup. I mainly used lemon grass known for its ability to aid pain relief as well as antibacterial and antifungal properties to add flavor to the soup. We just slurped the soup through some very tense episodes of '24' and went to sleep.

Prep Time  - 10mins   | Cooking Time  - 1 Hour   

Ingredients

2 cans low sodium chicken stock

4 cloves garlic finely chopped

1 inch ginger finely chopped

1 large onion cubed

1 celery root diced

1 carrot diced optional

2 cups shredded cooked chicken

1/2 cup shittake mushrooms chopped

1 tblspn freshly ground pepper

2 tblspn finely chopped basil

1 block of egg noodles

2 stalks of lemon grass finely diced

1 tblson olive oil

In a dutch oven heat oil, add the ginger, garlic, onions, celery root,carrots and sweat it. Add the chopped basil, lemon grass, mushrooms and chicken and saute for 5mins. Now add the chicken stock mix throughly reduce flame. Add the pepper and add salt only if necessary. The chicken stock usually contains salt so check taste and then add salt. Add the noodles and mix. Cook this on low heat for 40mins. Garnish with peanuts and serve.

Carrot Halwa

Im finally back on track cooking and blogging. Work, travel has kept me busy



Ingredients

7 carrots grated
1/3 cup ghee
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tblsp powdered cardammom powder
3 tblsp chopped cashew
3 tblsp raisins

Heat ghee in a pan, add the grated carrots and fry. Now add sugar stir and cook for about 5 mins. You will see the color changing a dark orange, now add the cardamom powder chopped cashew and raisins and cook for another 5mins. Add the milk and mix throughly and fry for another 5mins. Serve hot with chopped pistachio and vanilla icecream

Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Ganache

A simple chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache. Its a very basic recipe but very delicious and yummy. The one thing Ive leart about baking is following the rules. Make sure the ingredients and measurements are to the dot. Butter for any kind of baking has to be at room temperature I usually leave mine overnight. This applies to the eggs also. Most baking recipes calls for eggs at room temperature helps maximizing volume when beating. A quick way to warm eggs to room temperature is to place them in warm water for 10-15mins or else leave them out for 30-60 minutes...

Prep Time - 30mins  | Cooking Time - 30mins  | Inactive Time  - 1 Hour  |Yield - 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

16 ounces unsalter butter at room temperature
1 Cup Sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
16 ounces chocolate syrup (Hersheys)
1 tblspn vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour

For the Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream
6 onces good semi sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp instant coffee powder
unsalted pistachios for decorating (optional)

Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. Preheat 325 degree F.

In a bowl, take sugar and butter beat this until light and fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time and continue beating. Mix the chocolate syrup and vanilla extract. Using a spatula, mix the flour slowly and combine throughly.

Using a ice cream scooper scoop the batter into muffin pan and bake for 30mins. Dont overbake. Let it cool completely.

For the ganache, using double boiler method, cook heavy crea, coffee and chocolate chips until smooth and warm. Dip each chocolate cupcake and garnish with pistachio.

White Chocolate Cherry Bark

A creamy crunchy treat for days when I get stuck in traffic or need a quick snack. A total of 137 calories and 7gms of fat.

Ingredients
2 tblspn sliced almonds
1/3 cup dried cherries chopped
1 cup small pretzels sticks broken into 1/4 inch pieces
1 package premium white chocolate chips

Place almonds in a skillet on high heat. Cook until lightly browned. Combine almonds, cherries, pretzels in a bowl. Set aside half the mixture. Using double boiler method melt the white chocolate. Add the pretzel mixture and stir well. Spread chocolate mixture evenly on pan lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle remaining pretzel mixture evenly. Freeze for 10 minutes, break into small pieces.

Strawberry Tuxedo

Another Valentines Day treat. This is one recipe Ive wanted to try for a very long time and Ive failed twice. As you can see the picture, my lines are very bad. Couple of reasons 1. I got over excited and did a quick job. 2. I was too tired and my hands were pretty shaky. Im going to do this another time and im going to get the lines right.

Ingredients
24 strawberries, fresh
6 Ounces White Chocolate
8 Onces Dark Chocolate

Wash and dry the strawberries. Melt the white chocolate in doule boiler. Dip the strawberries in white chocolate holding the stem shake off excess. Place on a piece of waxed paper to let dry. Now melt the dark chocolate, dip the strawberries in at 45 degree angle from both sides shake off excess and waxed paper to let dry. Fill a piping bag with melted dark chocolate and pipe the bow tie and buttons.   

Fenugreek Paratha - Methi Paratha

Everytime I go grocery shopping, other than spinach, cilantro and mint its difficult finding fresh greens. The store keeps them in the fridge and everytime I reach for them they look limp and not so crisp. I finally had some luck finding some very fresh fenugreek leaves. One thing about greens is that they reduce to nothingness as you cook. I bought about 4 bunches, used some for the paratha and some Im going to make a sabji with besan. Thats on another post...I served this with the Kadai Chole

Prep Time - 1 hour  | Cooking Time - 5mins

• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup fenugreek leaves washed and patted dry
• 5 tbsps vegetable/ canola/ sunflower cooking oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• Salt to taste

Put the flour, fenugreek, 1 tbsp of cooking oil, cumin seeds, turmeric and red chilli powders and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add water, a little at a time to this mixture, and knead to form a medium-soft, smooth dough. Keep aside for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into golf ball-sized portions and roll between your hands till they are smooth and without cracks. Very lightly flour a rolling board or clean counter surface and roll each ball into a circle of 7-8" diameter (5-6mm thick). Heat a griddle and fry the parathas one at a time like this: Put a paratha on the griddle. The paratha is done when both sides are crispy and golden brown. Serve with chilled yogurt and your favorite pickle or chutney.