I had been making this for a while now, but its only yesterday that I actually managed to click the photos. So here I am posting this recipe, esp for all my vegetarian friends who are craving for Biryaani.


Ingredients
3 Cup Rice
350g Bhendi
250g Small Eggplants
250g Carrots
2 Raw Bananas
4 Potatoes
4 Onion
3 Tomato
2 Spoon Pudina Leaves
10 Garlic Cloves
2 Spoon Grated Ginger
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/4 Cup Almonds
1 Spoon Dry Coconut
1/2 Spoon Poppy Seeds
2 Dried Red Chillies
1/4 Spoon Saunf
1/4 Spoon Black Pepper
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Corriander Seeds
3/4 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Garam Masala
2 Cardamom
2 Cloves
3 Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Milk
A Pinch Of Saffron
Salt to taste
Ghee
Oil

Method

• Pressure cook 2 potatoes
• Soak rice in warm water for half an hour.
• Soak poppy seeds and keep aside
• Fry the whole egg plants, bhendi, peeled and diced bananas, 2 potatoes, and carrots and keep aside.
• Boil a pot full of water and add in the soaked rice. Cook till almost done Let the extra water drain completely through sieve.
• Heat a spoon of ghee and add in cardamoms, a cinnamon stick, cloves and salt. Add it to the rice and keep it aside.
• Heat oil and add in finely chopped 2 onions. Fry till translucent and keep aside.
• In same pan heat another spoon of oil and add in jeera, red chillies, coriander seeds, black pepper, saunf, dried coconut, cinnamon, 1/4 cup cashews and almonds.
• Add in garam masala, red chili powder, poppy seeds, pudina leaves and earlier fried onions. Cook till spices start spreading aroma.
• Let the mixture cool down and then adding the chopped tomatoes grind it to fine paste.
• Heat the ghee and add in the ground mixture. Fry till oil separates
• Add in all fried vegetables and salt to taste and cook for couple of minutes. Keep aside.
• Warm the milk with safron and keep aside.
• Deep fry the thin sliced onions and cashews till they are crisp and light brown in color. Keep aside
• In a greased cooker layer the sliced boiled potatoes, then 1/3rd of rice, 1/2 of vegetable, again 1/3rd portion of rice, remaining half of the vegetable and remaining portion of the rice.
• With big spatula make through and through wholes in the layer and sprinkle the safron milk.
• Let the cooker sit on low heat till the pressure builds up. Garnish with the earlier fried crisp onions and cashews. Serve hot with raita.

Notes
Instead of cooking vegetables in gravy i added fried vegetables to the gravy. The taste was awesome and i could make sure that none of the vegetables are underdone or overdone.
I also wished I had those baby potatoes instead and could use them whole deep fried instead of diced ones.

Today morning Ajoy demanded something fancy and new for breakfast. After thinking for a while I came up with this :) It was tasty and we had it as brunch instead :)


Ingredients
4 Cup Finely diced Paneer
4 Potatoes
3 Spoon Corn Flour
1 Spoon Ginger
3 Green Chillies
5 Garlic Cloves
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Cook the potatoes in pressure cooker.
• In a mixie grind ginger, garlic and green chillies with 1/4 cup of water to fine paste.
• Heat oil in a pan and turmeric powder and the paste in it and saute for couple of minutes
• Add the diced paneer and salt it in it and cook till paneer is done well. Keep aside
• Peel off the potatoes and mash them to fine paste.
• Add in corn flour and salt to taste and knead to nice dough
• Make lemon sized balls and press down to make cups.
• Fill these cups with spoonful of paneer we made earlier and add close and flatten it
• Heat oil really well and fry till brown on all sides. Serve hot with ketchup

Notes
While frying the pattice, the oil should be really hot otherwise the potato coating will stick to the bottom.

Its been a while since I made any chicken dish.. It was always Ajoy who ended up cooking chicken or mutton which obviously is exactly of one type. Gravy remains same and chicken or mutton changes :) So today I thought probably i can make some chicken dish to surprise him. What would have been better than his favorite roll.


Ingredients
500g Boneless Chicken
2 Cup Maida
1/2 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Big Onion
1 Cup Broccoli
1 Cup finely diced Tomato
1/2 Cup Tomato Ketchup
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Black Pepper Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Grated Ginger
8 Garlic Cloves
Salt
Oil

Method

• Mix in maida, wheat flour, salt and couple of spoon of oil and add in water and knead the dough well. Keep aside.
• Dice the chicken into small cubes.
• Heat oil in a pan and add in the chicken cubes. Cook stirring it occasionally
• When chicken turns white in color, add in grated ginger, turmeric powder, red chili powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, garam masala and pepper powder and cook till masalas start to leave aroma
• Add in tomato ketch up and cook further for 5 more minutes.
• Add in diced tomatoes and salt and cook till chicken is done completely stirring occasionally. Keep aside
• Heat a shallow pan with a spoonfull of oil and add in sliced onions, diced garlic and brocoli and cook till they are completely done. Add in salt and a pinch of pepper powder and stir well. Keep aside
• Beat the egg and put it in wide pan.
• Make a small lemon sized balls of the dough and roll thin roti
• Dunk the roti into the egg only on one side and then put it on the hot tawa with the non egg washed side down
• Sprinkle few drops of oil on to top of the roti and flip it and cook till both the sides are done. Put it on a plate
• Spread couple spoon of chicken we made earlier in the middle as one line. Add in half spoon of onion-brocolli mixture on it.
• Fold the roti from the bottom and then folding the left side on top of the mixture and roll tightly to cover the mixture completely. Serve hot with ketchup or just like that.

Notes
I wanted to keep the rotis light so instead of putting a complete egg on top of each roti i chose to egg wash one side and that worked well. rotis were light and the taste of chicken came out really well.

Recently i started watching food network and some programs are really good.. One of them is Cup cake wars.. I was amazed at how people come up with their own recipe and create those beautiful cupcakes. So here i my share of mix and match inspired cup cake.


Ingredients
4 Cup Maida
3 Cup Dates
2 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Cream
1 Cup Icing Sugar
1.5 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Lemons
1 Spoon Baking Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
Salt to taste

Method

• Grind a cup of dates in with the milk to form smooth paste. Keep aside.
• Whip sugar and butter using hand mixer till mixture is smooth and fluffy
• Add eggs and blend well to get smooth mixture.
• Sieve Maida, Baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
• Add it to the butter, sugar - egg mixture in portions alternating with milk-date mixture, beating well with each addition.
• Add in remaining 2 cups of dates - chopped and a lemon's peel grated and as well as its juice. Mix lightly till combined.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Line the cupcake pan with the cupcake paper cups and fill each of them to 2/3rd with the cake batter
• Bake the cakes at 350F/180C for 25 minutes. Keep aside to cool down completely.
• Add cream in a bowl and mix it with the icing sugar.
• Whip it using hand mixer on low speed till the cream becomes fluffy and stiff
• Scoop it on each cup cake or decorate using piping bag. Garnish with grated lemon peels.

Notes
I created a cone that i made from the parchment paper and piped the icing on top of few cakes and scooped the icing on others. So making cone is alternate to using piping bag :)
While whipping the cream its better to use hand mixer as its easy, fast and reliable. :)