Indian Style Chicken Nachos

Nachos are a Northern Mexican dish consisting of tortilla chips covered with meat and cheese based sauce. Though nachos are mainly served as a snack, it can be served as a fulfilling main dish if the ingredients added on the top of tortillas are more in quantity. Since I love nachos very much, I decided to try it out at home using Indian spices. Hope you all will like my version of nachos. 

Please don't forget to check out other cool recipes like this:

Pizza Bombs

Chicken Mole Poblano

Stir Fried Prawns in Chilli Garlic Soy Sauce

Croutons

Falafel Fritters

Falafel Wrap

Pizza Bombs

I got the concept of this recipe from Tasty videos, but I tweaked the recipe a bit according to my convenience of ingredients available at home at the time. I have prepared these mini beauties couple of times now, and what pleases me most is seeing my otherwise choosy and fussy 2 year toddler polishing these mini bombs off, 3 or 4 at a time, happily without complaint.  Nothing makes me more happy other than seeing my son delightfully devouring food cooked by me. I am one happy mom !  

Chicken Patties

Summer is beautiful and salubrious in the USA and since I have lighter courses over summer semester, I am trying to fully enjoy my summer by travelling, getting together with friends and family, and cooking. One important part of any get-together is food. Without appetizing food, any occasion does not get the spark needed, because people bond over foods, and discussion and conversation get intense over good delicacies. Some of the snack items that rev up any evening gathering are Egg Devil with Mutton Keema, Alur Chop, Kolkata Egg Roll, Bhetki Fish Fry, Chicken Popcorn and Chicken Spring Roll. However, one item that was missing from the list until now is Chicken Patties. 

 

The preparation of Chicken Patties involves less hassle. If one has all the rightful ingredients at home, one can put the dish together within no time. If in case, you love the recipe of Chicken Patties I posted, please don't forget to leave a comment.

Mixed Pakoda

Looks like we will not have any respite from this age-long winter snow warning being there on this Sunday. Every time when the temperature escalates a bit, my hopes for a pleasant summer get high but all my excitements come to a naught when few days later the mercury again goes back to minus. It's sheer frustrating.

 

Last Thursday when a mild rain soaked the sky I slipped into a nostalgia for many a rain washed bygone days spent across the busy streets of Kolkata, the moment calling for some celebration my way through savoring the snacks ideal for such rainy evenings - pakoda. I had a wee tot of vegetables left over in the fridge which perfectly fit into making a batch of mixed pakodas. They are so yummy that I bet you cannot stop at one. I used the veggies that were at home right at that moment; you may mix and match the same way with whatever remnants of veggies left from your cooking.

Capsicum Chop - Capsicum Fritters

Thanks guys for your support. Because of you, the number of page like of my page on Facebook has shot up to around 700 now. I will really appreciate if you share my page or the link of my blog on your timeline to get your friends around to vote for me. That will be freeeeeaking awesome !!

Right now the weather in Ohio is pretty depressing. Starting from day before yesterday, the sky is overcast with occasional spells of rain lingering throughout the day. I damn hate such weathers. I know rain seems romantic for some, but believe me continuity of anything for long just nips the excitement, and right now I am fed up with the winter of US hook, line and sinker waiting patiently for the arrival of sunshine. In order to lighten up the somber mood triggered by the bad weather outside, I planned of cooking Capsicum chop last evening.

 

 

Capsicum is called Capsicum in India, but folks in US address it as green pepper. In fact they call anything that adds to the heat quotient as pepper; black pepper, green pepper, red pepper, bell pepper and the like, but I wonder how one would distinguish between capsicums and the normal green chillies that we use in our preparation if we use synonymous terms for all of them. I am sure if I would have called Capsicum and green chillies both as 'green pepper' in the list of ingredients, my readers would surely be at loss. No doubt, why English is a funny language, twisted and convoluted in usage from country to country.

Capsicum Fritters make astounding snacks for the rainy evenings. Typical in Bengali fashion, we took the fritters with puffed rice. I guess the practice of consuming puffed rice with anything deep-fried in oil came into practice in Kolkata because deep fried stuff are conducive to forming of gas and acidity, puffed rice on the other hand helps beat down the gas. So the two make a good combination.

Fore more recipes on snacks, please click the links below:

Chicken Pakoda

Cauliflower Pakoda

Stuffed Bread Pakoda

Corn Paneer Fritters

Narkel Posto Boda

 

 

Chicken Spring Roll

Strong wind howling outside throughout the day since morning, so bad that couple of times I opened the door to check if anybody was knocking. The lawn in front of our apartment that even yesterday was blanketed in thick sheets of snow now is wiped clean by the wind. It seems heavy wind besides threatening to blow one away does the job of a sweeper at times. In the everlasting quietude of our neighborhood, the constant wailing of the breeze sometimes makes me jump out of my skin for the hissing and whooshing remind me of the sound played in horror movies in the background. A lonely damsel rambling about in a dense forest, lost or perhaps sleepwalking, the rustling of leaves and creaking of twigs or a branch of a tree intensifying the suspense when suddenly a disembodied spirit makes its presence known nearby, very very nearby, almost close to breathing upon her neck.....oooops...I can feel goosebumps surfacing on my skin.

 

 

I recall when I was barely a child, about 8-9 years old girl with pigtails; I visited my auntie's place in Agartala with family during summer vacation. There one night I watched the horror movie Evil Dead 1 and after that for nights after nights I used to feel scared of going anywhere alone even to the toilet. At night, squeezed in bed between my parents, I would hold my father tight with eyes shut and bury myself from head to toe under the blanket, inordinately sweating due to the damp humid summer temperature and counting 1 to 10 forward and backwards waiting for sleep to rest on my face. Horror movies used to intrigue me quite a bit during childhood days, the fad continuing even I went to the university but slowly with time I realized the futility of getting unnecessarily scared by watching a slew of horror flicks. I mean what's the point of watching a movie that frightens the wits out of you putting you on edge for several days after the nightfall ? Movies are meant for entertainment, right? No fun out of getting uncalled for fear at the cost of a price.

 

 

Back to the recipe, Chicken Spring Roll is one of the favourite snacks of mine I fascinatingly enjoy. I wanted to try it for a while and recently I bumped into a very interesting recipe of the same in a blog called Steamy Kitchen where the blog owner Jaden Hair very beautifully illustrated the recipe step by step. I was thoroughly impressed and I decided to try it. Although I added few spices of my own to jazz it up, but more or less I hewed to the recipe she followed.

Cauliflower Paratha - Phulkopir Paratha

Our Saturday began with watching movies in the afternoon; first one in the lot was 'The Deadman' starring Johnny Depp. I am a huge Johnny Depp fan trying to catch all of his movies but that the act of choosing 'Deadman' was a terrible mistake I realized half an hour through the movie when my hubby started snoring away, the slow theme of the movie having lulled him to sleep. Struggling to keep eyes open over an hour, I too finally gave into the soporific effect and fell asleep. So people suffering from insomnia instead of sedatives may try watching 'The Deadman' because it is sleep-inducing, the title appropriately befitting the movie for it really makes people dead, dead in sleep...lol

 

 

For night there were two movies in the checklist, one was 'Chinatown' starring Jack Nicholson and 'Charade' starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Both were breathtaking to watch. Fraught with gripping suspense and quandaries to solve, both the movies kept us on edge till the final climax. It was 2 hours past into midnight when we finally hit the sack.

While we entertained ourselves watching movies back to back, our menu for the night consisted of something special - Cauliflower Paratha. Little different in making from the conventional parathas, where the parathas are rolled out with the stuffing inside, this paratha is first rolled out before being filled with the stuffing and each morsel of this crunchy paratha is pure pleasure, reminding you of the taste of Alu - Phulkopir Singara.

 

Chicken and Spinach Donut

Few weeks back I wrote about how I could not tell rice flour and all-purpose flour apart because of their identical look and messed up a dish using rice flour in place of all-purpose flour confusing the two. Anyway, since then the jars of both the ingredients are kept on separate shelves with labels attached for clear identification. But what do I do when my husband keeps a glass I normally use while cooking to add water into the dishes filled with sprite on the kitchen top? Confusion is bound to happen, isn't so? as both sprite and water look alike. Just imagine my horror when I discovered that the potato curry I made with the effort of half an hour was on the brink of tasting disastrous just because what I added into my curry assuming water was actually a water look alike cold drink. My husband wanted to sip something cold after coming back from office, so he filled the only glass he caught hold of, rest being washed in the dishwasher, with sprite which he drank half and left the remaining on the counter top and went about his work, while I came into the kitchen to cook dinner. I set on to cooking Bengali aloo curry during which I felt the need to add a dash of water and there the glass containing sprite was within my reach, I grabbed it and plop it went. 

 

But here is the twist. Nothing what I was expecting happened, the taste having turned out exactly what potato curry tastes like with no trace of sweet tasting cold drink anywhere. The reason is cold drinks carries a lot of carbon-di-oxide diluted with water which just like water, if cooked, evaporates completely. Thank god, the dish meant to be dry in consistency and that's why the amount of cold drinks added was less and cooked till gravy dried up, I wonder what would have happened if the curry required gravy. Then the taste of cold drink infused gravy would have tasted nothing short of cough syrup and combined with potatoes and spices....well the very imagination bringing the pukish feeling back.

Alu - Phulkopir Singara

It was almost a daily routine for us while in Kolkata to have 2 singaras with a cup of tea or coffee 

in the evening. In Bangalore, not that too often but at least once a week, we would hop on to Hal 

Market to buy our share of bliss - singara, mochar chop, alur chop and the like. Each morsel of 

piping hot singaras were pure pleasure, one of the reasons why I found losing weight so difficult 

that time. Not that I am not struggling with weight still, a tad overweight is a byproduct of being 

foody after all  :)

Regarding the recipe, the filling of singara is very easy in preparation especially if you are

conversant with Bengali way of cooking. The filling varies a lot from one region to another; the

singaras sold in Kolkata differ a lot in taste from the rest of India. But more or less, the preparation

technique of putting the filling inside a pastry sheet and deep frying is similar everywhere. In case

you are not comfortable with kneading you may buy the readymade spring roll pastry sheet readily

available in the market. In fact readymade singaras are also available in packets. You just need to

bring them home and deep fry. So you may either grab the readymade pastry sheet or you may

knead pastry dough mixing together all-purpose flour, salt, a pinch of cooking soda or baking soda

 with required amount of water, the discretion is yours. For the convenience of time, I always prefer

 the first option over the other.

Narkel Posto Bora - Coconut Poppy Fritters

Narkel Posto Boda is a delicacy in Bengal, sold at overpriced rates in some restaurants across Bengal

and outside. I remember shelling out 200 rupees for a plate of 8 of these bodas two years back in

Bangalore. Posto is expensive compared to many other culinary ingredients; hence anything cooked

 with posto is a pricey affair. But if you manage to cook posto delicacies at home, you will feel fewer

pinches in your pocket. 

 

Narkel Posto Bora is one of the items I like to eat with a combination of rice and plain Butter

Masoor Dal. Although, you can have it as snacks in the evening with a cup of tea, but in Bengal it is

better served as an accompaniment to rice and dal. 

Narkel Boda - Coconut Fritters

Who would have thought Kolkata would witness such sharp drop in the temperature to 8°. If the

temperature plummets further below, Kolkatans sure would have to lock themselves up at home.

Right now here in Ohio, the climate has turned a little better with the Sun visible up in the sky

every day and the temperature hovering round 0° in the morning and sometimes going up a tad

over that. So I am happy in a way that at least I am able to make the short walking distance from

our apartment to the gymnasium without feeling the cold running through my bones. 

In India, Khichuri is ritual in almost every Bengali household during monsoon. But since there is no

 monsoon season in US, I plan to cook khichuri in winter instead. After all, what more can you

think of other than eating when you are cooped up within the four walls of your home. So I cooked

Semolina Khichuri few days back and teamed it up with freshly fried crispy coconut fritters. I

know these days grated coconuts preserved in Ziploc packets are readily available in the market,

but mark my word; nothing can substitute the refreshing flavor of fresh coconut. Therefore, I will

 recommend anyone planning to cook Coconut Fritters for using freshly grated coconut.

Piyazi - Onion Fritters

I invited a couple of friends tonight for dinner and at the last moment without any solid reason they

called off the program saying they are not coming. I wonder how some people could be so

irresponsible, even if they would have informed at least few hours before, I would not have made

such huge arrangement for dinner. Now we would have to eat all of these for next 7 days. I am

thoroughly pissed off, not in a mood to write anything pleasant really.

The recipe of piyazi was waiting a long time now in the draft. In Bengali we know onion by the

 name of "piyaz". So as the name implicates, 'Piyazi' is onion fritters. We usually either have onion

fritters in the evening as snacks or have them as accompaniment to eat rice with dal. It suits both

the occasions perfectly.

Corn Paneer er Chop - Corn Paneer Fritters

Yesterday was Friday and Friday night calls for a celebration of food. We usually hop onto a

restaurant or cook something special at home on Friday nights. When I used to work, Fridays held a

 special charm for me because it brought emancipation from work for next two days. So keeping in

with the past trend, still me and hubby spend Friday nights with the same enthusiasm.

Corn Paneer er Chop is a perfect treat to be had on Friday evenings for snacks. It goes so well with

kasundi or yellow mustard sauce. The tanginess of the mustard sauce blending with the sweetness

of corns and paneer contribute to a wholesome foody affair.

Paneer Chilli

Mackinac Island located in Michigan State is a picturesque place offering breathtaking views of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Hardly 4 hours distance from our place, we made the trip to Mackinac in Easter break this year. I envy people who have their cottages in the island. I imagine it must be a wonderful experience to live in an island blessed with such tranquil and serene natural beauty. I wish I had a house there where I could take a retreat at times escaping the monotony and drudgery of my day to day life. If anybody is interested in reading more about the island, you may view the following page: Mackinac Island Trip.

In Kolkata I used to make paneer chilli pretty often in the evening as snacks. It surprises me why I took so long to post the recipe of Paneer Chilli here; I guess I was too busy trying my hand on other unusual dishes of paneer that it skipped my notice. Anyway, better late than never. Enjoy!!

 

Alur Chop - Potato Fritters

There are many in Kolkata whose evenings will remain dry without a bite into alur chop. At one point, I was very regular to a small makeshift stall nearby our home that sold lip-smacking evening snacks like alur 'chop', Beguni, Egg Devil and pakodas of different varieties. Yes, I know it was not a very healthy habit to munch on deep fried oil greased fritters every day, but then I used to be rail thin and no matter what I ate nothing stuck to my body, no trace of weight :) ....the reason being I used to be very much physically active, always walking and scurrying around. The student life in India is pretty stressful with relentless academic pressure, tuitions, classes, homework; you don't have a moment of respite. Managing all at once is not easy, added to fact of my home being far from my college and all tuitions were scattered around the city. So I was on the move all day long.

 

Anyway, I was talking about that makeshift chop stall and the chop maker whom I used to devour with my eyes in amazement at his skill of catering to about 30-50 customers at once, one after another in practiced hands. Most of the time while returning home from my English tuition class, I would stop by the stall waiting at least half an hour in the queue to get my turn to place order. Awestruck, I would stare at the man dipping perfectly shaped potato discs into a bowl of batter and deep frying them in a giant metallic wok blackened with burnt marks accumulated over the years. The beautiful smell of the freshly fried 'chops' would stir turmoil within my stomach arousing an urgent desire to satiate the craving. To give a final touch he used to add a sprinkling of rock salt (bit noon) on to the potato 'chops' before wrapping them into a paper packet. Each morsel of the steaming hot 'chops' was truly divine.

Bread Patties with Mozzarella Cheese

It's shocking when few dozens of school children die helplessly at the hand of a deranged man armed with a firearm, but what's more astonishing is in spite of such frequency of mass killing incidents involving guns, people of US are so adamant of their right to own guns. In a country which is comparatively safer than many other countries in the world, I find the possession of guns by its civilians completely redundant. After all, gun is a weapon used in war and it being owned by normal people would only lead to more of such massacres. It's been not even a year we have come down to US and within this 10 months, this is the 5th gunfire incident killing innocent lives that came to our notice. Shocking!!

 

 

Getting back to the recipe, Bread Patties with Mozzarella Cheese is a tasty snack to be savored with a cup of coffee in the evening. Don't make them, however, with fresh breads, few days old breads being ideal to make good patties. The breads I used were seasoned with sesame seeds which lent the patties an extra crunch. You too like me may use seasoned breads or if you like keeping it simple, use simple white breads. They turn out equally nice. 

 

 

Egg Potato Mughlai Paratha

 

Anadir Cabin is a small shack at Esplanade in Kolkata with a very humble setup famous for its Mughlai Parathas. My Esplanade visit on any errand would always end up eating at Anadi's. Its soft yet crunchy exterior with mushy stuffing inside melts in your mouth. The following recipe is of a Mughlai paratha I have concocted out of my own perception with the ingredients I felt are used in Anadi's Mughlai. It turned out really lip-smacking and my husband was full of praises.

If you have tried out EggChicken Mughlai Paratha at home, then Egg Potato Mughlai Paratha is another version sure to win your heart.

 

Kolkata Egg Roll

I could not wait to finish the book "the Hunger Games", brimming with suspense and twists at every turn of the events, that I stayed up late for couple of nights just to complete the reading while the movie made on it generated an opposite reaction. I could not wait for the movie to end. It was so bad and pathetically warped out of storyline. Though I have always enjoyed reading books more than watching the movies based on them, no other movie proved to be this much disappointing. I was cursing myself to spoil the lingering impression of fulfillment that reading a good book leaves in mind by watching a thoroughly downgraded cinematic adaptation, poorly cast and directed both, that totally ruined the feel-good factor. I don't know why some people choose to make such hollow image of a great book. It's sheerly outrageous and unforgivable.

 

Back to the recipe, Kolkata Egg Roll is a very popular street food in Kolkata. All across Kolkata, there are roadside stalls almost at every junction possible selling egg rolls, chicken rolls and egg chicken rolls like hot cakes. Your visit to Kolkata remains incomplete without a dig into the rolls. 

For more egg recipes, click the links below right away:

Chamatkari Kaju Egg Curry

Spinach Potato Omelette

Peyazkoli Diye Dim

Dimer Halua - Egg Halua

Stuffed Bread Pakoda

Jaspal Bhatti's sudden demise in an accident is really shocking. His shows on Dooradarshan in early 90's were hit in our home, our entire family gathered in front of the TV just as his shows were on air. Barely a child then, I don't have much recollection about the subjects covered in his shows that were based on socio economical problem of a common man projected in a satirical way, but the smiles brought forth by Jaspal Bhatti's natural facial expression and wittiness were infectious. Whether or not I understood the depth of the issues concerned, the playfulness with which the issues were dealt with in a humorous way never failed to tickle me pink. It's sad how the life of a person bringing smile to everyone's face met such a tragic end.

 

 

It's pathetic when people die in accidents. At least for people dying natural death due to illness, their family members get some time to mentally prepare themselves for the inevitable but passing away of someone hale and hearty just like that in a matter of few seconds is very difficult coming to terms with.

Stuffed Bread Pakoda is one of the many items I find myself at ease while preparing, especially when the guests arrive unannounced. It does not take much time, hardly 30 minutes and you have a fulfilling snack ready for serving.

 

 

Paneer Ka Chilla - Paneer Pancake

I had a great Saturday this weekend. We went to Columbus for a get together with my hubby's old friends, all from the same alma mater. It was a fun filled day spent amid food and talks with a crowd of Bengalis for company after a long time. The best part of the entire menu was the box of baklavas that caught my notice the very moment it was placed on the dining table. Usually I don't allow my husband to bring baklavas at home, simply for my inability to resist temptation at the very sight of them. So today, I indulged myself the unalloyed pleasure that each bite of baklava provides pretending to be ignorant of the calories involved, for one time. It was sinful totally :)
 

The recipe I am posting today is not of baklava by the way. It's of Paneer Ka Chilla that I recently learned from a friend. Chilla in English means pancake. Paneer pancake is quite versatile in preparation. You may toss various ingredients into it....egg, spinach, milk and semolina apart from the ingredients I have already touched upon. As I fancied, I pureed the tomatoes and mixed it into the batter, but in case if you prefer tomatoes in the filling, then chop them into bite size pieces and add them into the mixture for the same.