Stuffed Bitter Gourd / Bharwan Karela

It's almost two weeks break from blogging and I am feeling very lazy to write anything new. But at the same time I want to share this wonderful recipe with you which I believe is the favorite for very few people. :-) Can you guess the vegetable??? It is the Bitter gourd and I just love to eat it. 

This recipe includes stuffing of spices inside the bitter gourd and shallow fry with very less oil. This is similar to the Stuffed Bhindi Recipe with little variations. By this method you can reduce the bitterness of the vegetable and many non-bitter gourd lovers will also love this recipe.

Before filling the spices you have to scrap off the upper skin of Bitter gourd/Karela with a peeler/knife. Clean properly with water and rub some salt and keep it aside. This will reduce the bitterness from the vegetable.

The ingredients required for stuffing is as below.

Karela/Bitter gourd - 4

Chilli Powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Coriander Powder - 3 tsp

Amchoor Powder - 2 tsp

Garam Masala - 2 tsp

Salt - As required

Twine / Thread - To tie the karela

Onion - 1 Medium

Ajwain - 1 tsp (Optional)

Oil - For frying

Heat oil in a pan and add ajwain seeds and let it splutter. Chop the onions add to the pan and saute till brown in color. 

Mix all the above powders in a wide bowl and add them to the fried onion and saute for two minutes. Grind it in a mixer to get a smooth paste; this step is optional, you can use the mix without grinding also.

Take the karela and slit each one vertically without breaking or cutting into two halves. Now with a spoon, scoop out the seeds and make space for the filling. Take spoon full of the above prepared onion and spices mixture and fill inside the karelas.

Now tie the karelas tightly with a thread to avoid the masala's coming out while pan frying. Repeat the steps and fill all the karelas.

Heat a wide pan with little oil and arrange the stuffed karelas on it. Shallow fry both the sides till the karela become brown or dark in color.

Serve hot with chapathi/Parata. Don't forget to remove the thread before having the tasty stuffed karela.

Mango Milk shake - A refreshing drink for summer

Mangoes are one of the best fruit you can get during the summer and everyone loves mangoes:). I still remember the childhood summer vacation days when we used to sit under the mango tree and wait for the wind to blow to get the sweet ripe mangoes. Now we don't have the luxury to have such fresh mangoes but still we can get tasty mangoes form market :)

The mango milk shake is one of my favorite and it is very easy to prepare. Somehow my kid doesn't drink the milk shake so as an alternate I pour them into Popsicle maker and keep it in fridge and she just love to have it.

So here we can see the simple steps to prepare the mango milk shake.

Ripe Mango - 2 Medium

Chilled Milk - 2 cups

Sugar - for taste

Horlicks powder - 1 tbsp (Optional)

Ice cubes

First take 2 medium sized mangoes and cut the it into small pieces. Blend the mango pieces into a thick paste by adding little milk. Then add rest of the milk, sugar, 4 ice cubes, Horlicks (optional) and blend it for few seconds.

Pour it into glasses and add ice cubes on top if required. If you like to prepare the Popsicle, you can pour the same mixture into the Popsicle maker and refrigerate it.

Tips:-

Add some more milk if the consistency is too thick.

Add vanilla ice cream on top to make it Mango Ice cream milk shake :)

Grill Pan Chicken fry @ home

The Grill pan is one of the best cookware I bought recently. You can use very less oil for frying and it will not stick to the pan also. Its a worth buy.

Marination is very important to prepare the grilled chicken. The chicken has to be marinated and refrigerated for at least 8-10 hours before preparing.

Take thick curd to marinate the chicken, if the curd is watery then pour it in a muslin cloth and squeeze out all the water.

So here is the method to prepare the tasty tawa grill chicken.

The Ingredients required are as below:

Chicken Pieces - 500gm (Cut into big pieces as shown in picture. Here I have used 2 leg pieces)
Thick curd - 1/2 cup
Salt for taste
Butter
Crushed Red Chilly / red chilli powder - 1 tbsp
Garam Masala - 1 tbsp
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
little soya sause
one lemon juice


Mix thick curd and all the ingredients mentioned above in a bowl to make it a thick paste. Add the chicken pieces to this mix and coat evenly.

Transfer it into an aluminium container or airtight container and freeze it for 10 hours.

Heat the grill tawa with 2-3 drops of oil. Keep the chicken pieces and fry it in medium flame.

Fry both sides till its done.

The juicy grilled chicken is ready to serve. Enjoy the taste :)

Paneer Tikka Masala

Today's post is about the delicious paneer tikka masala. I have been planning to write this post from past three days, but just felt lazy to write it down. :) As today is Friday I thought of sharing this so that you get an excellent dish recipe for the weekend... hmmm

I still remember the first time I tasted paneer, it was when I went to Calicut for an exam with my father and I had it at the very famous "The paragon restaurant". Hmm.. I think I just liked it that time. But now I just love paneer dishes and try to prepare as much paneer variety as possible. 

This recipe is a combination of many paneer tikka recipes which I got from the internet. This is really easy to prepare and very tasty also. This is a must try if you are a paneer lover.

Ingredients required for preparing this dish are

Paneer - 200g (Milky Mist Paneer)
Onion - 1 medium
Tomato -1 medium
Capsicum -1 medium

Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Powder- 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Garamasala - 1/2 tsp
All Purpose Flour /Maida - 1 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds  - 1 tsp

Lime Juice  - 1 lime
Kasoori Methi - A pinch
Thick  Curd - 3 tbsp
Salt - As required

Tomato Pure - 2 tomatoes
Oil - As required
Water - 2 cup

Onion Chopped - 1 big

Cream Fresh /Milk
Coriander Leaves - optional

Cut Paneer, Onion, tomato and Capsicum in big cubes and keep it aside. Take a bowl with thick curd and add Chilli powder, salt, kasoori methi, lemon juice and oil, mix well. Add the paneer cubes to it and mix well. Now add the onion, tomato and capsicum cubes to this and keep it aside for 15 minutes.

Heat a wide nonstick pan and add very little oil(say 1tbsp) and add the marinated paneer and veggies and fry both sides till done and keep it aside.

Heat oil in a kadai and add cumin seeds and once they splutter add the chopped onion and saute for a minute. Here we don't need to saute till the onions are brown in color. Add turmeric powder, salt, ginger garlic paste, Maida and saute for two more minutes. 

Add tomato puree followed by coriander powder,cumin powder,red chilli powder and mix well. Let it cook for five more minutes or till you can see the oil gets separate. 

Add enough water and allow it to boil. Add water such that you get enough gravy after you add the paneer and veggies.

Add the cooked paneer and veggies to this gravy and allow to cook for next 3 minutes. Add garam masala powder also to the gravy. Add cream to this gravy as required. I added milk as the cream was not available at home. Now cook this mix for about 3 minutes and switch off the flame. 

Garnish with coriander leaves. The tasty paneer tikka masala is ready :)

Tips:-

While frying paneer, onion , capsicum and tomato; add tomato at the end to avoid it getting overcooked.

This dish goes well with Jeera rice or butter naan.

Easy Vegetable Cutlet with beetroot potato and peas

Cutlets are my all time favorite vegetable snack. But somehow I never tried preparing them at home. This was my first attempt to prepare vegetable cutlet and YESSS... it came out very well :)

So here comes the ingredients and method to prepare tasty vegetable cutlets at home.

Beetroot : 1 

Potato : 3 

Green Peas - 1 cup

Finely chopped Onion : 1 big 

Ginger (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Garlic (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Green chilli (Chopped) : 3

Turmeric powder : 1 tsp

Coriander Powder : 1 tsp

Red chilly powder : 2 tsp

Pepper powder : 1 tsp

Garam Masala : 1 tsp

Bread crumbs & Rava mixed: 1 cup

Maida mixed with water  : 2 cup

Salt : As required

Oil : for frying

:- Pressure cook the potatoes and beetroot. Microwave peas or you can pressure cook it with very little water till done. Peel the potatoes, beetroot and add peas and mash all of them together. Keep it aside.

:- Take a bowl and mix Maida and water together to form a smooth paste. This should not be a thick paste (watery consistency).

:- Mix Bread crumbs and rava together in a plate and keep it aside for coating the cutlets. Rava will give extra crispiness to the cutlets.

:- Heat oil in a pan and add green chilies,ginger,garlic and onion.Saute until onion turns golden brown. Add chili ,turmeric,coriander,black pepper and garam masala powder.Saute for 2 minutes. Now add mashed vegetables and salt to it mix well and cook for 3 more minutes. Allow this mixture to cool.

:- Now roll out small portions of the mixture into small sized ball and flatten them between your palms to give it shape.

:- Dip each cutlets in the prepared batter and roll in breadcrumbs-rava mix making sure that all sides are nicely and evenly coated.

:- Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the cutlets in medium flame ,turning once in between. Once done transfer to a kitchen tissue.

Serve the tasty cutlets hot with tomato Ketchup and tea.

Tips:-

You can use egg mix instead or Maida.

You can add chopped coriander leaves, carrot and beans to the veg mix.

Seer or King Fish Fry / Ayakoora fry

Seer fish/ayakoora tastes good if you fry it or prepare curry. This is very easy to clean and easy to eat as well. :)

This is a very simple recipe. The ingredients required are as below.

Seer Fish/King Fish/Ayakoora - 500gm (3 pieces)

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Chilli Powder - 3 tsp

Salt - As required

Water - 1 tsp

oil - for shallow fry

Take a bowl and mix turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt with little water to make it a thick paste. Apply this paste on both side of the fish pieces and keep it aside for half an hour.

Heat a pan with oil and once the oil is hot arrange the fish pieces in the pan. Fry the fish on both sides and serve hot with rice and curry.

Tips:-

Mix 1 tsp corn flour to the turmeric-chilli paste to make the fish fry crispy. 

You can add ginger-garlic paste to the mix.

Watermelon Special Recipe for the summer days

This season watermelons are available everywhere. Watermelon is one of the best fruit you can have during summer days.

This is a simple recipe which you can prepare at home and have it whenever you feel to have something cold and tasty.

First cut the watermelon into half. Now peel the watermelon and cut it into small chunks using a knife. Place this in a bowl and cut all the remaining pieces into very small chunks and mash it using a spoon.

Once you can see small pieces of watermelon and juice in the bowl, add some sugar according to taste and cover the bowl and refrigerate for an hour.

Serve chilled and enjoy.

Bhindi Bharwan / Stuffed Okra

My first attempt to prepare bharwan bhindi and it came out so well that I became a fan of this dish :) Try this out friends, its really an awesome recipe.


Ingredients:-

Okra/Bhindi/Vendakai - 500 gm
Oil - 3 tbsp

Ingredients for Stuffing:-

Dry mango powder  -  1 tbsp
Coriander powder - 2 tbsp
Red chili powder - 2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Salt  - As required

Preperation

1.  Wash, wipe dry and trim both the ends of the bhindi (okra).

2.  Slit each bhindi vertically without breaking or cutting into two halves.
3.  Mix all the spice powder in a bowl with salt. mix well.
4.  Fill each bhindi with the spice mixture.

5.  Heat oil in a pan. Keep the stuffed bhindi as shown in the picture and cook on low flame till done. Stir in between and turn it and cook both the sides.
6.  Sprinkle garam masala at the end. (This step is optional.)

Serve hot with chapathi or rice.

Tips:-

1. To make this dish is dry and cryspy, wipe the washed bhindi well and there should be no trace of water left. You can dry them with a kitchen napkin and arrange them on a news paper for half an hour to make sure that all the water is absorbed by the paper.

Easy Egg fried rice recipe / Indo-Chinese Recipe

Egg fried rice is one of my all time favorite and easy to prepare dish. Recipe dedicated to all fried rice lovers :)


Ingredients:-

Cooked Rice - For 2 people. (You can use basmati rice or white rice. I used basmati rice)
Chopped vegetables - 1 cup (I used beans, carrot, capsicum)
Onion - 1
Green chillies - 2
Garlic pod thinly sliced - 2 tsp
Ginger thinly sliced - 2 tsp

Pepper powder - 1 tbsp
Chilli flakes - 1 tsp

Soya sauce - 2 tsp
Chilli Vinegar - 1 tbsp
Chilli sauce - 2 tsp

oil - as required
salt - as required.

Egg - 3

Take a vessal and beat the eggs and add pepper, salt and chilli flakes to it and keep it aside for at least 10 minutes. Chop the onion, vegetables and green chillies and keep it aside.

Cook the rice with little oil and salt in it. Don't over cook the rice else it will be sticky. Once the rice is cooked spread it in a wide plate and let it cool for sometime.


Heat a kadai and pour 1 tbsp of oil and add the egg mixture and stir continuously. Once it is done remove from heat and transfer to a bowl. Egg will cook very fast it will take only 1 or 2 minutes.

Heat the same kadai and pour oil into it. Add thinly sliced ginger garlic and saute till it change color slightly. Add chopped onion and saute for a minute. Add green chilli followed by chopped vegetables, salt and pepper powder. Let the vegetable get cooked for 2 minutes. The vegetable should be crunchy so don't cover it while cooking.

Add the prepared egg to this mix and add Chilli vinegar,  soy sauce and chilli sauce to this mix.  Mix properly.

Check salt and pepper. If required add as per taste. Add cooked rice to this and mix well.

As a last step add green spring onions and mix well.


Switch of the flame and cover the kadai and let it rest for five minutes.

Now serve it hot with sauce or any manchurian of your choice.

Aloo gobi Gravy / Aloo gobi Rasedar / Cauliflower Potato Curry

This dish comes under the everyday curries list. This is one of the simple and tasty curry you can prepare and have with phulkas, Chapati or rice. This dish is prepared with very less masala and oil. The main advantage of making this dish for dinner is that you can prepare sandwiches for next day breakfast with the left over curry  :-)

Ingredients required:-

Cauliflower – Separated into small florets (handful)

Potatoes – Diced – 2 

Tomatoes chopped – 2

Onion chopped – 1 

Ginger – 1 inch piece

Garlic pods – 3

Coriander powder – 1 tsp 

Green chillies –  1 

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp

Red Chilli powder  – 1 tsp

Cumin Seeds – 1 tbsp

Salt As required

Oil

water 1 cup

Preparation:-

1. Chop onion, garlic, ginger and green chilli and make it into a smooth paste using a blender and keep it aside.

2. Chop tomatoes, grind it to puree and keep it aside.

3. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and add cumin seeds into it.

4. Add ground onion paste to this and saute for 3 minutes.

5. Once the onion turns to light brown color add the pureed tomatoes to this and saute.

6. Saute this for 4 more minutes or till the oil separates.

7. Add turmeric powder, Chilli powder, coriander powder and salt and add little water and allow it to boil. Stir in between and cook till the oil gets separated.

8. Once this masala is ready add the cauliflower and potatoes to this and saute for 3 minutes.

9. Add 1 cup water or enough water to cover the vegetables.

10. Pressure cook it in medium till 2 whistles.

11. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with roti, parathas or rice.

Tips:-

You can add peas also to this gravy.

Add more chilli powder if you like to make it more spicy. With the above measurement the gravy will come out medium spicy.
Make sure that the cauliflower is cleaned properly. Do wash and clean cauliflower and put it in hot water (add pinch of turmeric also) for sometime.

Kid's Special :- Spinach Soup

Spinach Soup

Ingredients:-
1 tsp ghee
½ tsp jeera
3 black pepper corns
2 garlic cloves
½ chopped onion
½ tsp chopped ginger
1 bowl of cut spinach
½ potato
½ carrot
½ small beetroot (Here I have added one big beetroot so the color of the soup turned red :-))
Salt
2 Bowls Water


Preparation:-

Heat ghee in pressure cooker.

Add jeera, black pepper corns, garlic cloves, chopped onion and chopped ginger.

Saute for a minute and add 1 bowl of cut spinach, potato, carrot and beetroot.

Saute for 3-4 minutes and also add salt to taste.

Add 2 bowls of water to this and pressure cook for around 10 minutes on medium.

Puree this once it is cool. Strain and serve warm to kids.

Note:-
You can add little cream for better taste.

Pakoda Kadi Recipe / Besan Pakoda kadhi - Gram flour and yogurt curry recipe

Besan pakoda kadhi is and easy and tasty dish made up of gram flour and yogurt. Kadhi and white rice is one of the best combination. 

For Pakode 

 1 cup gram flour /besan

 ½ teaspoon turmeric powder

 1 teaspoon chilli powder

 Salt as required

 water as required

For Kadi

 1 cup yogurt, preferably sour

 1 teaspoon Fenugreek / methi seeds

 ½ teaspoon turmeric powder

 1 teaspoon chilli powder

 1 red chilli broken into pieces

 curry leaves 1 spring 

 Asafoetida / hing  A pich

 salt to taste

 Oil

For seasoning

 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

 Ghee 2 tsp

Prepare Pakode

Mix gram flour, salt, turmeric powder and chilli powder in a bowl with little water. Mix it well and add water to make it to a thick paste, which requires for making pakode.

Heat kadai with oil (say 6 table spoon) and pour spoonful of batter one by one to the hot oil. Fry until turn into nice and crispy golden brown in color and drain on oil absorbent paper and leave to cool.

Prepare Kadi

Take a bowl with the yogurt and add 1 tbsp of gram flour and mix well. You can mix it using a blender to get a smooth paste. Add 1 cup of water, salt, red chilli powder and turmeric powder and mix well.

Heat 1 tsp oil in a kadai and add methi seeds, broken red chilli and curry leaves. Saute for few seconds until methi seeds turn to light brown color. 

Add the prepared yogurt mixture to this and stir continuously. If the mix is getting thick add some more water. Boil it for 3 minutes and stir in between. Add a pinch of hing to kadi. Switch off the flame and add the prepared pakodas and keep it covered for 2 minutes.

The kadi becomes thick after you add the pakodas, so make sure to keep a watery consistency before adding pakodas.

For seasoning

Heat a small kadai with ghee and add the cumin seeds to it. Once the cumin seeds splutter add this mix to the kadi and serve hot with rice.

Tips:-

This curry must be served immediately else it will become very thick and mushy.

If you are not serving kadi immediately then do not add the pakodas to the curry. Add pakodas only at the time of serving. Keep 4-5 pakodas in the serving bowl and add the curry on top of that.

Kerala Recipe - Simple fish fry

Here is a simple recipe to prepare fish fry at home.

Ingredients:-

Fish - 3
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Chilli Powder - 2 tbsp
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Garlic pods - 5
Thick Tamarind Juice
Salt - As required
Curry leaves - a handful

Clean the fish and keep it aside.

Take a wide vessel and mix turmeric powder, chilli powder and crushed ginger, garlic and salt with little water. Make it to a fine paste and marinate the cleaned fish.

Squeeze out the thick tamarind juice and apply evenly on the marinate fish and keep it aside for 30 minutes.

Heat a frying pan with oil and arrange the cleaned curry leaves on the pan as shown in the picture.

Now keep the fish one by one and apply little oil on the top and cover it with a lid.

Allow the fish to cook for five minutes in low flame and switch off.

Wait for 2 minutes and then turn the fish to the other side. Cover and cook for five more minutes in low flame.

Switch off the flame and serve hot.

Moru kaachiyathu / Easy moru curry - Buttermilk curry

An easy recipe which you can prepare if you are really lazy and not in a mood to prepare any curry. This moru curry and rice is very good combination. This is very easy to prepare and the ingredients required are as below.

Buttermilk – 500 ml
Onion Sliced – 1
Ginger –  1 small chopped
Green chili – 2 chopped
Dry Red chili – 1
Turmeric powder –  1/2 tsp
Mustard – 1/4 tsp
Fenugreek – 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves
Salt
Oil

Heat oil in a pan & splutter mustard & fenugreek seeds. Add red chili, green chili, onion, ginger, curry leaves. Fry it for 2 minutes. Add turmeric powder & salt. Mix well.

Add this mix into the buttermilk and stir for a few minutes. Its Ready :)

Tips:-

Use small onions for better taste.

You can add buttermilk directly to the seasoning without switching off the flame. But in this case you should be very careful and stir continuously to avoid curdling. Stir continuously until the steam comes out. Don't let it boil and switch off the flame. 

Plain Paratha - Daily Indian Flat bread

This "plain paratha" is an advanced version of Chapati :-) I first tasted this dish at my in-laws place Kanpur and I liked it so much that I usually prepare paratha for dinner instead of chapati.

Ingredients:-

Aatta / Chapathi dough
Oil - As required

If you are a beginner in cooking then read my post How to Knead aatta to prepare perfect dough. Once you prepare the dough then prepare small balls of the dough and keep it aside.

Roll the paratha into a disk of 3-4 diameter. Apply oil in half of the disk and fold the paratha as shown in the picture. Now apply again on the half portion and fold again to half to make it a triangular shape.

Now sprinkle some wheat flour on the double folded dough and roll into a triangular or square shaped parathas.

Heat a pan and keep this paratha on the tava. Cook both sides and apply oil on both sides. Once the paratha is done then remove it from tava.

Serve hot with any sabji of your choice.


Tips:-
If you use more oil then the paratha's will come out very soft.
You can replace oil with ghee for better taste. But If you are health conscious then I recommend you to use only refined oil.