Coconut Paratha - Narkel Parota

 

Summer has finally set in in US. Summer here is really beautiful with the sun being up in the horizon till wee hours into the evening. It's one of a kind experience to have your dinner watching the sun set down. Since winter here is mind-bogglingly frustrating forcing one to confinement, summer opens the sought-after gate for all the sinful escapades winter deprives one of. To bask in the moments of summer, we packed our bags and made the first trip of this season to NY again, this time mainly with the purpose catching up with my sister in law who will be getting married very soon. Last few days have been really relaxing with food, hearty conversation and travels to exotic locations occupying our hours, but nothing comes without a hitch. My husband fell sick on the trip which kept me on my toes for one day and we changed our itinerary to reach home safely. For the first time in my life I drove for hours on congested busy highway from NY to Ohio due to my husband not being properly fit for driving because of sickness, though he took charge of the steering wheel once in a while to give my eyes a little respite. Driving for hours is quite strenuous on nerves and eyes I must say, but it honed my driving skill.

 

Anyway, the recipe of this paratha has been waiting in my draft for few weeks...this paratha tastes really good with pickle or curd but please take care not to add too much of water while preparing the coconut stuffing else the paratha might fall apart during the making.

Yogurty Chicken

 

There is a particular cosmetic counter in a mall here where I buy cosmetics of a particular brand. What is very common about the cosmetics stores in India and here is the sales girls at the counter just try to shove products in your hand, so you go there to buy a regular face cream and you come back home buying a host of other things that you didn't have any plan of buying, credits to the marketing ability of the girl behind the counter who with her sweet smile and convincing but pushy marketing skill sell you products that you have no need of. While shopping in the malls in Kolkata many a time I have had experience of a sales woman coming behind me and showing me this and that dress of her choice to convince me how good that would look on me. Now I have been seeing myself on the mirror for years and I have little if not much sense of what I look good in and since in a mall the dresses are all over the place in front your eyes, you really don't need any help in choosing a dress for yourself unless you are very confused and ask someone for help. But it's really annoying when the girls don't leave you alone to pick your choice.

 

 

In US, thank God, you can shop your clothes at your own free will without a sales girl trying to shove a dress in your hand, but can't say the same thing while you go shopping for cosmetics. So as I said in the beginning, I buy cosmetics of a particular brand in a mall here and now every time I go there to buy the face cream, she shoves something or the other in my hand so persuasively that I can't say no. I have this problem of not being able to say no to people from childhood. Though not as bad as I was before in saying no, now I manage to utter the negative word once in a while but in front of someone being so pushy with her sweet smile and warm hospitable behavior, I simply find myself dumb and so out of the feeling that I would disappoint her if I don't buy any of the products she is trying so vehemently to sell, I end up buying cosmetics that I had no plan of buying while entering there.

 

I am sure many are there like me who similar way get influenced by the marketing skill of the sales girls and buy things not needed. I wish I would know how to evade the extra unnecessary purchase without disappointing them.

 

Back to the recipe, this is a very simple yet fantastic preparation of chicken. Make sure to cook it using butter. The buttery flavor boosts up the taste to a great degree.

Shahi Mutton

Last week went pretty turbulently for me. My system went for a toss, thanks to my husband's over enthusiasm. All the hardware devices started malfunctioning including the USB ports, speaker and audio device and then a defect in motherboard was detected repairing which would equal to the price of a new laptop. So I preferred to go for a new laptop instead. It is baby pink Vaio. I just can't take my eyes off it. The earlier Vaio was turquoise blue in color and while buying that 2 years back I was looking for a pink color but due to its immediate unavailability, I settled for the blue. Anyway my dream of owning a pink laptop has finally fulfilled. I have this fetish for pink. I have plenty of pink dresses, tops and I usually go for pink lipsticks and my nickname 'Pinky' also finely fits into fascination with pink. So though I was very sad after the blue Vaio got damaged, I am equally happy now for the new possession.
 

 
Okay, so today I am going to post an awesome recipe of mutton that I have been planning for ages to post but somehow due to time constraint could not make it. Anyway, better late than never. Enjoy the mutton and let me know if you have any query.

Paneer Bhapa - Steamed Paneer

Sorry Friends. Lately I have got little busy with my freelancing projects and hence my posts are not as frequent as were earlier, but thanks for your patience. Today I am going to post one of my favorite paneer preparations. It is my favorite not because it is very tasty, but because it is very hassle free.
 

Paneer Bhapa is a dry paneer curry cooked through steaming. If you have a steamer at home, you may use that to get this dish right or else you may follow the traditional technique of steaming, put all the ingredients together in a tiffin box tightly closed with a lid and then place the tiffin box inside a pressure cooker and pour 1/2 glass of water around the tiffin box to bring about steam. Now snap the lid of the pressure cooker in place and cook until 1 whistle. Don't open the lid immediately, let the pressure come down to room temperature and then open the lid. This paneer curry tastes best with rice, mainly because I have used mustard oil. I have seen my mother pouring raw mustard oil into the dish as final touch. The raw smell of mustard oil adds a pungent flavor to the dish which we Bengalis like. But you may cook the dish using white oil if you want to enjoy it with roti and as final touch, you may add ghee.

Tetul Diye Elish - Tamarind Hilsa

 

 

 

Monsoon was the only season when hilsa used to flood the market. We have grown up seeing that trend only, waiting for a year after the end of one monsoon for another to take a bite into hilsa fish. But these days, thanks to the much improved refrigeration technique hilsa is available round the year. At least here in US we get hilsa all the time and the quality is outstanding.

Not wasting much time in dabbling, let’s get on to the recipe which is pretty innovative with tamarind pulp adding to the flavor.
 

 

Chicken Guacamole Sandwich

Few weeks before I shared the recipe of guacamole and few days after that of Turkey Guacamole Wrap and few days later the recipe of Turkey Bacon Guacamole Sandwich. Yes it is true I am increasingly growing fond of guacamole. So here goes another lip-smacking mind-invigorating recipe of Chicken Guacamole Sandwich, one of the best sandwiches I have tasted so far. This sandwich is so good that you can actually consider serving it in restaurants. Seriously!!

 

Sweet Oat Pancake

The weather last week was very beautiful with clear weather and the sun glowing red into the late evening sky, a telltale sign of summer approaching. In fact the mercury went up a bit putting my excitement high and I went out to bask in the sunshine pulling on a flimsy jacket over a top on last Sunday, but the last two days of murky weather with heavy wind howling and growling in full might occasionally accompanied by bouts of rain dampened all my feelings of enthusiasm before even they could take shape. With the way things going, looks like I need to stay sheltered in the cocoon of my home this weekend for the mighty gales make the feel-like temperature go up by few degrees.

 

 

Anyway, it's been long I have not posted anything new of oats.  This sweet oat pancake will remind you of French toast. This recipe originally was featured in biggest loser recipes, but they did add no butter and very less sugar, which I kind of modified in my recipe of the same. Having come to know of butter being good fat, I have become very fond of butter, not that I used to dislike it anyway but these days I am eating butter without guilt.

Green Goddess

The season of mango is in, summer. This is that time of the year when trees become laden with mango blooms. The most beautiful thing of summer is the abundance of ripe mangoes. Mangoes of different types, shapes and sizes deluge the markets of Kolkata during these two-three months period of extreme weather. I am very fond of mangoes, both ripe and raw ones. I could eat 2-3 ripe mangoes at one go when I am in mood and the mangoes are deliciously succulent, but sadly outside Bengal or abroad, the quality of mangoes are not as good as those of Bengal.

 

 

 

West Bengal with its humidity and extreme climate offer perfect ground for mango cultivation. The sweet juicy fleshy mangoes of Bengal is a great miss here, though mangoes are on sale in US market all over the year, but the quality of taste and juiciness come nowhere near to that of West Bengal. Few times over tempted by the external good looks of the mangoes specked with perfect combination of crimson, orange and yellowish tinges, I bought a good many mangoes that resulted in disappointment for the taste being blandly sweet or tart. Later on, I used them for making custard as I couldn't relish them uncooked.

After the same experience repeated time and again for couple of times, I finally have settled myself on only buying the green mangoes; at least I won't keep vain hope of them being sweet and succulent while buying and the pangs of disappointment will be less. The following is recipe of a juice enjoyable during those scorching summer afternoons when the body thirsts for something cool and sensational to keep itself from dehydration.

 

 

Sweet Potato Curry with green peas

Sweet potatoes are extremely rich in nutritional benefits. Anti-flammatory, anti-oxidant sweet potatoes have many nutritional values some of which can be obtained only through cooking sweet potatoes by steaming or boiling. Though in our part of the world sweet potatoes are extensively used in making only desserts, the variety of flavorsome sweet potato recipes found over the internet manifests its versatility.

 

 

The below recipe is not mine. I got it from madhurasrecipe.com. When the first time I tried it, it came along very well winning compliments from all. Next time I added few ingredients of my own to give the dish an extra zing. A must try out for all health freaks and sweet potato lovers.

Korola Bhaji - Bitter Gourd Fry

Not many people are fond of bitter gourds I know. I also don't like bitter gourds that much unless cooked in a stylish way with a spiked-up taste and flavor. In fact, I don't have any fascination for eating anything tasting bitter, but there are people I know including my mother, father, sister, mother in law and so much as my husband going gaga over these bitter tasting veggies, putting me to question what secret taste is there that they like these veggies so much. Ya, I know they are healthy, but c'mon eating every day something bitter at the beginning of every meal is too preposterous for me and surprisingly, I have never seen my father giving these bitter tasting veggies a miss any day of his meal.

 

 

There was a time I even wouldn't consider putting korola into my mouth but after marriage when my mom in law introduced the taste to me through her wonderful magic of a dal preparation Uchche Diye Moong Dal, I began acquiring a taste for it. I realized korola or uchche or bitter gourd is not so bad as I used to think it would be. The bitterness is tolerable and if you can cook your curry fashionably with mixing and matching few taste boosting ingredients, bitter gourd tastes really nice.

The below recipe of Korola Bhaji or Bitter Gourd Fry is one example of how can even bitter gourd tweak you taste bud. It usually goes very nice with rice and dal, but you can become little adventurous by enjoying it as snacks with a cup of tea or coffee. I bet the combination would be an innovation.

 

 

Banana Blue Lagoon

The name 'Blue Lagoon' reminds me of the first adult film I had seen years ago starring Brooke Shields in her adolescence. It was a beautiful film, a mash up of love and innocence found in its pure form unalloyed by any external influence.

It was in a restaurant in Kolkata where I was taken by a pleasing sensation of epicurean delight at the very first sip of this aphrodisiac mocktail. On our return journey from Mahabaleshwar we came across a lush winery and vineyard in Panchgani where among a ceaseless selection of choice beverages and drinks, we picked up a bottle of concentrated blue lagoon specialty drink. It was very easy in preparation; one has to add measured cup of chilled water into 2 or 3 tsp blue lagoon essence and the drink would be game for serving.

Banana Blue Lagoon deviates a little from the regular blue lagoon in taste and flavor. Of course, as the very name suggests, it is a novel concoction of banana, coconut milk, lemon and soda with few cubes of ice adding to the savor, a perfect combination to win you praises.

 

Chickpea Sandwich

In US, everything is organized and put in proper order. You just need to look out and starting from road directions to grocery stores, banks, market place everything is well-directed and arrayed in designated places. You will not see grocery stores lined up in and around housing complexes as are common in India. Proper positioning of items in designated areas definitely is a good idea, but at times while cooking something if you remember of an ingredient for immediate use; you won't get the thing available within walking distance right in your neighborhood. You need to take your car out and drive few miles to avail the ingredient. This makes things like grocery shopping hasslesome for people like me who don't function with organization and only remember things at the last moment. Another drawback for things being arranged in specific order of places is nothing being within walking distance, the tiny bit of agility we acquire by walking down few blocks while heading to a grocery store is out of option here. Life becomes very sedentary and dependent on driving. As life becomes sedentary, a lot of uncalled for health issues crop up. No doubt why obesity is a big problem here because unless you are conscious of what you eat and stir your body into a routine exercise, chances of putting on weight even maintaining a normal diet is high.

 

I have become extra cautious about my diet after coming over here. Whatever you eat seems to cling on to your body unless you visit gym regularly but for many working people, heading to the gym every day is not a viable option always.

Anyway, sandwich is considered to be healthier than many deep fried items and now that I have become a tad conscious about what I put into my mouth, I have taken a fondness for sandwiches. So here goes an awesome chickpea sandwich for you.

 

Grape Juice

My husband has this quirky averseness towards fruits because of which I cannot make fruit salad sort of stuff for the fear that he won't even put them into his mouth, but prepare something juicy and he will gulp it down. That is why most of the time when fruits are brought home, I usually make juice out of them so that both of us can relish it together or else the responsibility of polishing off the fruits raw and diced is left entirely on to me.

 

So these grapes were shelved in the refrigerator for quite some time now and before they began to grow stale, I wanted to make use of them. The idea of making grape juice clicked my mind and since I wanted to avoid adding sugar as grapes are already quite sweet in flavor, I rather packed a punch by adding a blend of chat masala and kosher salt. If kosher salt is not readily available, you may use black salt as substitute.