Thai Chicken Fried Rice

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1. Jasmine rice/ short grained rice - 1 cup

2. Chicken boneless pieces - 1 cup 

3. Spring onions - 4-5 sprigs

4. Vegetable mix - (carrots, green peas) - 1/2 cup each

5. Eggs - 2

6. Garlic - 3 cloves

7. Soy sauce - 1 tablespoon

8. Oil - 2 tablespoon

9. Sugar - 1/2 teaspoon

10. Salt to taste

11. Pepper to taste

12. Cucumber slices and lemon wedges for garnishing

Method:

1. Wash and cook rice with 2 cups of water and set aside.

2. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan and add chicken pieces. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook until chicken is well done.

3. Move the chicken to one side of the pan and add another tablespoon of oil. Add minced garlic and fry for a minute. Add eggs and scrambled for couple of minutes. Then add thinly sliced green onions, carrots and peas. Mix the veggies with chicken and eggs and cook for 5 minutes.

4. Add soy sauce, sugar and cooked rice and mix well together. Check for salt and add if required.

5. Cook for 5 more minutes and turn off the flame.

Serve with cucumber slices and lemon wedges.

Egg Omelette with Cottage Cheese

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1. Eggs - 2 

2. Cottage Cheese - 1/2 cup

3. Onion - 1 medium

4. Green chillies - 1 

5. Oil - 1 tablespoon

6. Salt to taste

Method:

1. Take eggs, finely chopped onion, green chillies, salt and cottage cheese in a mixing bowl.

2. Beat everything together.

3. Heat a pan on medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil.

4, When the oil is hot, add the egg mixture. Cover and cook on both sides until well done.

Learn about the nutritional benefits of cottage cheese at wikipedia. 

Banana Chips

Ingredients:

1. Raw Banana/Plantain - 2 

2. Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon

3. Salt to taste - around 1.5 teaspoon

4. Oil for deep frying

5. Water at room temperature - around 3 cups

Method:

1. Take water in a large bowl and add turmeric powder and salt. Mix well to dissolve the salt.

2. Wash and remove the skin from bananas. 

3. Using a slicer, make thin slices of banana and put the slices in salted water.

4. Leave the banana slices in water for 30 minutes.

5. After 30 minutes, drain off the water and place the slices on paper towel/kitchen towel and allow it dry for 15 minutes.

6. Meanwhile heat oil for deep frying on medium flame.

7. When the oil is hot, drop the banana slices and fry until they turn crisp. Always maintain the flame on low-medium. Each batch should take around 20 minutes.

8. Once they are done, place them on paper towel to drain excess oil. Check for salt and if you think it is less, sprinkle little salt while it is still hot.

9. Cool them completely before you store in an airtight container.

Chickpea flour and Wheat flour burfi

Ingredients:

1. Chickpea flour/Besan - 1/2 cup

2. Wheat flour - 1/4 cup

3. Fine rava/semolina - 2 tablespoon

4. Butter - 4 tablespoon

5. Brown sugar - 4-5 tablespoon 

6. Salt - a pinch

7. Cardamom - 2 

8. Milk - 1-2 tablespoon

9. Oil - 1 teaspoon for greasing pan

Method:

1. Grease a plate/baking tray with oil and keep it aside.

2. Heat butter in a pan on medium heat and add chickpea flour, wheat flour and semolina. Stir continuously and fry until the flour turns light brown in color. Check if you get the bitterness of chickpea flour. If yes, continue roasting for few more minutes. Uncooked chickpea flour tastes bitter.

3. Once the flour is well roasted, add a pinch of salt, brown sugar, powdered cardamom and a tablespoon of milk. Mix well and check for sugar. Once the sugar melts, the flour mixture turns into a thick paste. 

4. Transfer this mixture into a greased plate and let it cool completely. 

5. Slice the burfi into desired shape and serve. 

Black Beans and Avocado Burger

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1. Black beans - 1/2 cup
2. Avocado - 1
3. Hamburger buns - 4
4. Onion - 1 medium sized
5. Garlic - 2-3 cloves
6. Pepper powder/Red chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon
7. Oil - 2 tablespoon
8. Salt to taste

Method:
1. Wash and soak black beans in water for around 8 hours.

2. Add around 2 cups of water and pressure cook for 5-6 whistles until well done.

3. Strain the water and separate the beans. This water can be used while making curries or rasam.

4. Allow the beans to cool completely and put it in blender for 30-40 seconds to make a course paste. Alternately you can even mash them with a fork.

5. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small pan and saute minced garlic and finely chopped onions until they turn translucent. Take a large mixing bowl and add bean paste, sauteed onions, salt and pepper powder. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Take a handful of this mixture, pat it into disc and set aside.

6. Heat a skillet on medium flame, place these patties and drizzle little oil over them. Reduce the flame to low-medium.

7. Cook for 4 minutes, flip carefully and cook for another 4 minutes.

8. Slice the avocado and keep it ready.

9. Now it is the time to assemble the burger. Take a bun, open the top half, place a bean patty, few slices of avocado and place back the top half. Serve immediately.

If you wish to eat after a while, you can add lime juice on avocado slices to prevent them from browning.

These bean patties can be made in bulk and stored in freezer. Whenever needed you just need to defrost it by heating on skillet/microwave oven.

Also try a different version of this burger made with red kidney beans/rajma.

Scrambled Eggs with Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese is fresh cheese curd. It is drained and not pressed, so some whey remains and individual curds remain loose. These are different from Indian Cottage cheese/paneer which is pressed to remove most of the whey.

Cottage cheese comes in three major varieties: small-curd, medium-curd and large-curd. Curd size is the size of chunks in cottage cheese.

These are excellent source of proteins. Each 1/2 cup of cottage cheese contains 12g of protein (source: wikipedia).

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1. Eggs - 2
2. Cottage cheese - 4 tablespoon
3. Butter/Oil - 1 teaspoon
4. Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Break eggs into a mixing bowl and add cottage cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.

2. Heat a pan on medium heat and add butter/oil.

3. Add the egg-cottage cheese mixture and scramble until the eggs are thoroughly cooked and some of the whey in cottage cheese evaporates. 

Stuffed Brinjal/Eggplant Curry - Andhra Style

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1. Indian Eggplants/ Brinjals - 5 small sized

2. Onion - 1 medium

3. Oil - 3 tablespoon

4. Chana dal - 1 teaspoon

5. Urad dal - 1 teaspoon

6. Curry leaves - few

7. Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

8. Jaggery grated - 1 teaspoon

9. Tamarind - small lemon sized, extract pulp

10. Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon

11. Red chilli powder - 1 teaspoon or as per spice level

12.  Salt to taste

To dry roast, you need:

1. Peanuts - 2 tablespoon

2. Dried red chillies - 3-4 

3. Coriander seeds - 1 teaspoon

4. Sesame seeds - 1 tablespoon

5. Fenugreek seeds/ Methi - 1/4 teaspoon

6. Coconut grated - 3-4 tablespoon

7. Cinnamon - 1 inch stick

8. Cloves - 3 

9. Cumin seeds/ Jeera - 1/2 teaspoon

10. Garlic - 3-4 cloves

Indian Eggplants

Method:

1. Wash the eggplants and make a slit diagonally with the stalk intact.

2. Heat 2 tablespoon of oil and fry these eggplants for around 5-7 minutes until the skin slightly softens.Keep them aside.  

3. Take an another pan, heat it on medium flame and dry roast peanuts until the skin turns brown color. 

4. In the same pan, add rest of the ingredients mentioned in "To dry roast" section and roast for around 10 minutes. Turn off the flame and allow the ingredients to cool down.

5. Grind the dry roasted ingredients along with tamarind pulp and salt(around 1/2 teaspoon) into a fine paste.

6. Stuff this paste into each of the eggplants and keep them aside. 

7. Take 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add chana dal and urad dal and fry until they turn golden brown in color. Add curry leaves and finely sliced onions. Saute until onions turn translucent. Add turmeric powder and red chilli powder and mix well. 

8. Add stuffed eggplants, any remaining masala paste, around 1 cup of water, grated jaggery and check for salt. Cover and cook on low- medium flame until the eggplants are well done. Check by piercing the eggplants with a fork.

Serve this curry with chapathi/rice.

Avocado Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1. Avocado (sliced and frozen)- 1 

2. Banana (sliced and frozen)- 1 

3. Unsweetened cocoa powder - 2 tablespoon

4. Cold Milk - 1 cup

5. Brown sugar - 3 tablespoon

Method:

1.Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.

2. Pour it in serving glass, sprinkle little cocoa powder and serve.

Bitter Gourd Curry | Haagalkayi Gojju

This is a Karnataka cuisine which I learnt from my friend Nivedita. 'Haagalkayi' means bitter gourd in Kannada and 'gojju' means curry. This is a coconut based gravy with a burst of different flavors: tanginess, sweet, spicy and no doubt bitter. This dish tastes best when eaten with hot rice and ghee.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1. Bitter Gourd - 2 medium sized
2. Urad dal - 1 tablespoon
3. Chana dal - 1 tablespoon
4. Sesame seeds - 1 teaspoon
5. Coconut grated - handful
6. Garlic cloves - 2
7. Curry leaves - few
8. Jaggery grated - 1 teaspoon
9. Tamarind pulp - 1/2 cup
10. Red chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
11. Sambar powder(any brand) - 1/4 teaspoon
12. Oil - 1 tablespoon
13. Salt to taste

Method:
1. Dry roast urad dal, chana dal and sesame seeds till they turn light brown in color. Keep them aside and dry roast coconut, garlic cloves and curry leaves for 5-7 minutes. Allow the dals and coconut mixture to cool down. Grind them along with sambar powder into a fine paste by adding little water. Keep the ground paste aside.

2. In the same pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil and add finely chopped bitter gourd. Fry for around 15 minutes on medium flame until they turn brown and crisp.

3. Add red chilli powder, grated jaggery, tamarind pulp and ground paste. Mix well and add salt to taste.

4. Let it cook for 5 minutes and then turn off the flame.

Bitter Gourd curry is ready to serve.