Baby, it’s Hottt!!!

Hot Garlic Chicken

This is a super dish which can be cooked when you’re in a very good mood and feeling kindly about spending time in the kitchen. 

Children love this dish though it’s slightly on the hotter side.

So, you need to have fresh, boneless chicken chunks,about 500gms,which you need to marinade in 2 eggs, 2 tbsps of corn flour, some salt and some olive oil. Mix and keep aside for an hour.

While the chicken marinades, dice a bit of bell peppers,yellow, green,red whatever have you, mushrooms, spring onions, 3-4 cloves of garlic.

That done, make a paste of red chilli powder and and crush some 8-10 garlic cloves. 

As the chicken marinade gets done, deep fry them till golden brown. This can be done and over with in two batches.Deep frying is a skill which requires a lot of patience. It makes or breaks the whole game. So, I suggest, as your chicken deep fries keep giving it a stir here n a bit there while you’re at dicing your greens.

As the frying part gets done, heat a tbsp of oil in a separate wok, add your paste of red chilli powder and crushed garlic and let it sizzle.. once that done, add your diced greens and give a quick stir.

By this time your glistening, stir fried greens should look good enough to devour!🤗 

 Add the pre fried chicken with greens, fold n mix the greens over, add hot tomato sauce, mix again and it’s ready to eat!

Two things. You can choose to add gravy in it or you can keep it dry. If you’d like to add gravy, just add some corn flour, a tbsp mixed in a bowl of water and allow all of it to come to a boil..

Lay some chilled lettuce leaves in a beautiful plate, pour over your brown chicken delight and serve.

PS: This dish is impossible to stir up without some music on! I was listening to ‘I could fight on a wall’..Try it! ♥️

 https://youtu.be/kcCgal4s80k

Pure Protein!

Eggs rid of yolks!

This is pure protein, only egg whites sautéed in ghee a bit, alsi or flax seed, safed til or sesame seeds thrown in about a teaspoon each, greens like spring onions, garlic,ginger dredged with tastemakers like paneer masala, cinnamon powder , cardamom powder.. a little mint leaves on top.. will do wonders..!

This pure protein based food delight ( my son of 10 years,Arjun, announced it as a ‘burst of different tastes’ & my day was made!😀) is something I tried keeping in mind a very dear friend of mine,now a Corona patient.who has lost his appetite..This is in a bid to make food more palatable to their taste buds!

PS: As I read about it, I understood that Covid patients require a lot of proteins to compensate for their losing muscle strength..and inactivity due to being quarantined and therefore,sedentary!

Wish you all a speedy, strength building! ♥️

Chicken Spinach n herbs !

• Protein Punch!

  

  A delectable basic protein punch for the health watchers!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Method to muscle building :
  • boil your chicken with bay leaves, peppercorns, a cinnamon stick and some cloves of garlic in a pressure cooker.
  • strain it and keep the stock aside.
  • dice the chicken or shred it coarsely.
  • cut n splice up spinach leaves, ginger juliennes,capsicum, some parsley and roughly crushed garlic cloves.
  • In a spoonful of ghee, sauté together all of these. Sprinkle salt as per your taste, not too much though.

  
  

  
  
   Keep these in your kitchen cabinet handy.
• cinnamon powder
• green pudina raita mix
• oregano
• kasoori methi
• paneer masala
• sesame seeds
• flax seed

You can throw in these as and when you like without much thinking.They are all healthful and so good to taste. 

Have plentiful.Know your Proteins! ♥️

ख़ालिस छाछ !

Pure But Buttermilk!

A jar of Buttermilk everyday  to be had various times in a day! . At 12 , 4 and 10!

Method

Take half a glass of curd in a blender.

Add three glasses of water.

Add 3 scoops of your protein powder.

Add roasted jeera, 1 tablespoon.

Chop some mints, cilantro n ginger and drop in the blender.

add salt to taste.

 Blend in a jiffy . Less than 30 seconds!

It is ready! 

Benefits of curd !

A portion of curd in a bowl with either Sevia or roasted jeera, coriander seeds powder is great for health. In the form of छाछ, मट्ठा or लस्सी, it has immense health benefits.

 If it is home set, even better!

• It strengthens our teeth and bones because it has galore of calcium.
• it makes your skin and hair glisten
• it improves digestion
• it builds immunity

Curd. When your brain curdles and don’t know what to eat, Curd is the thing to eat. ♥️

Ahuna !

Champaran mutton

Champaran is a district in Bihar which is close to Nepal and north of Bihar.

Popularly known for the farmer uprising in 1917 .. the first Satyagrahi movement led by Gandhi against British indigo plantation owners, happened in Champaran.

That  and then there is Champaran mutton or ‘ मटका गोश्त’ a traditional speciality of Champaran which gives it its rightful place on the map of India. 

अहुना or मटका गोश्त as it is called is cooked on slow wood fire in a matka if you really want to cook it the vintage style.

Otherwise our good old LPG and a heavy bottomed तसला ( cauldron) with a lid would do. 

 I vouch for Champaran mutton.Its the quickest. You just mix up the spices, put it on flame n done. It is  absolutely finger licking and smacky in taste. I’d love it if you try this age old

‘बिहार बिसेस’!

Ahuna Mutton recipe (my version) (1/2 kg meat)

For garam masala mix

Dhaniya 2 spoons

Jeera 1 spoon 

Dalchini 1 inch PC

Nutmeg 1/4th 

Mace 1 PC

1 black cardamom 

5-6 laung 

4-5 small elaichi. 

Roast for a minute n grind coarsely

For onion marinade mix 

Hf kg onion, sliced 

Red chilli powder 

Salt

Haldi 

Garam masala (that we prepared earlier)

Broken dhaniya seeds 2 spoons 

dahi 3-4 tbsp. 

gg paste 1 big spoon.

hot mustard oil. 1/2 cup (that is smoked)

Mix, almost knead it together. Then mix half kg mutton. knead again. (Optional let it marinate for 30 minutes)

In the pot. (Off the heat) Put 2-3 whole garlic bulbs and 2-3 tej patta. Pour some smoking hot mustard oil on it. Let it sizzle. Put the mutton onion mix. Add half cup water.  Seal the pot. And put on dum. If, using gas burner, put the claypot on the tawa, not on direct heat. Let it simmer for an hour. Check on it. Shut it and let it simmer. It should take abt 1.5 to 2 hours to get completely done. Depending on the amount and mutton quality. Keep checking every 20-30 minutes. 

Done!

L

Recipe credit:

‘The Kitchen Script’ Barnali Rath. Food Vlogger. 

A Pizza, an Avalanche of Mutz!

It was Pizza time today.😅 Long overdue. My kids had been asking for a Zomato delivery and I had been denying them this treat. Afraid how many hands it will pass through before it reached us. 

Such is the Corona time!

So, we got the resources. I missed counting one main ingredient, which is, pizza sauce. So, my son came up with the idea of making Marinara sauce. It came out fine but under utilised.

The good old Kisan ketchup and Red chilli sauce takes over when I am running short of pizza sauce on many occasions.

We like to turn cooking into an art form.Mindful of texture, colour, cuts and spices that go. Gives us a high turning the mundane into exciting! Some pictures!

My blog cannot be complete without Arjun,my little one!

Pizza is done and ready to eat.♥️

Hot Soup in cold cold winter!

Talumein Soup

Drop some fleshy chicken pieces in the pressure cooker with pepper corns, garlic cloves 3-4, a bay leaf, a stick of cinnamon.Salt.

• Let it pressure cook till 4-5 whistles
• Wait till the pressure releases.
• Strain the chicken stock.
• Put the stock in a cauldron and allow to boil..
• Mix a glass of dissolved corn flour , 1tbsp. Continue to boil broth .
• Set aside premade noodles for use in your soup.
• Crack open an egg over the broth n mix vigorously till it turns into white membranes.
• In a wok stir fry a bit of greens. Cabbage, spring onions, garlic, ginger, boiled beans and carrots cut diagnolly and chicken shreds which were boiled to make stock .spend about 7-8 minutes sautéing.. add few drops of Worcestershire or soyabean sauce..

• once done, add these to the broth simmering at the side.

• Let it come to a boil.
• Add noodles in the end. 
• Add salt.
• Serve piping hot with chilli vinegar.

Protein Pass!

I’ve been talking about powerful protein! 

Just a picture today of my Breakfast!Love your day! ♥️

Health is Tough !

Pure Protein

As planned, my boiled chicken was waiting for me in the refrigerator. I’d thought my breakfast would comprise of pure diced n sautéed chicken with some cucumber. 

1. 
   
   
   As preparation to the dish, all you need is some 4-5 cloves of crushed garlic, a green chilli, cilantro, a handful and ginger, about an inch , crushed. Lemon is mostly an additive in my preparations. 
   For some reason, a marble mortar n a pestle, this size always perks me up and gets me going!
   Personal quirk : What am I cooking with is as important as the thing that I am cooking.
    I’ve come to realise that if given the luxury of time, I work best with aesthetics, tools and a process in place. I love internalising.
    It gives me immense satisfaction! 
   
   

Ah! The butcher’s knife. My Dad’s favorite.The wooden chopping board and chicken, in all its beige glory!

A bit of a digression here!

This is Kylie Kwong. An Australian food show presenter. An expert in Cantonese cooking .I have been watching her shows off and on on TLC and she’s brilliant. She works like a sorceress in her kitchen and churns out magical delights! I love the way, more than anything else,how she works with her hands and kitchen tools. How she tears her herbs, puts pressure on the butcher’s knife and all the while explaining with so much of compassion for her audience and objectivity so you don’t miss a thing.You can almost feel like you are her guest for the evening and  invited to soak in all the aromatic ambience and the dishes she’s so carefully brewed and made to apparate..almost by magic!

Trivia: Cantonese cuisine is one of the 8  traditional cuisines,Chinese cuisine derives its inspiration from.

Back to our pure protein.

Let the chopped garlic, ginger, cilantro and chillies splutter in a bit of ghee.

Add diced chicken and fold in the herbs.. Let it turn a little crimson and crispy but not too much.

Accompany it with a plate of thinly sliced cucumber.and relish your protein joint ! 

Final thoughts. Pursuing mindful nutrition can be tough so do it with a lot of love and attention! ♥️

Fulsome Awesome Fish!

Robust Rohu!

‘Rehu’ or ‘Rohu’  as it’s called in Bihar and Bengal is a fulsome protein food rich with Omega 3 fatty acid, iron,zinc and Vitamin C. 

It’s particularly good for children as it takes care of their recurring cough n cold. 

Fish, once a week is a good frequency to keep. With my children , I have tried to incorporate fish whenever and wherever possible.

My younger son, Arjun, learnt to eat fish at a very young age. Maybe 5 or 6 ?!

Yes,it’s an art to eat fish.. since the fine bones need to be removed dextrously..looks easy but takes years of practice to perfect this.

Trivia : There’s a common practice in Bihar that when a fish bone gets stuck in your throat you have a lump of cooked rice called ‘bhaat’ to push down that spikey, irritable bone down your food pipe.Always works! 😎

Rohu is a fresh water fish also known as Carpo fish or Labeo rohita. 

It’s a food rich in protein.

When you’re on a weight loss program, a meal containing just 2 pieces of well sautéed Rohu in ghee does the trick. Just a dash of lemon, a dredge of chaat masala, few sprigs of cilantro and you’re good to go! 

It’s smooth and  tender on your palate! Juicy n succulent! The skin around it turns crispy and especially a delight to munch on. My older one,  Adi, loves it! 

You can accompany your ‘Rohu’ with maybe thinly sliced cucumber or lettuce.

Think health, live fit ! ♥️

Aubergine Divine!

This is Baingan ka bharta.Or as some people might want to put it, Baingan ka chokha!

The aubergine mash! 

Our homegrown eggplant.The reason why they are called eggplants in the first place is because to a European it looked like goose eggs without the wine purple color. It was named in the middle of the 18th century. 

Most commonly cooked in the Bihari kitchen. A favourite palate teaser with dashes of mustard oil, a must in a Bihari kitchen cupboard.

 A complete tamsik delight with garlic, onion,lemon juice, coriander greens and green chillies. Its unmatchable in taste and usually had with bhaat, daal and simple aloo ka bhujia. 

Here goes the Google find... 

 This curious comestible (actually a fruit, but eaten as a vegetable) probably has more names in varieties of the English language than any other. That’s because it has been cultivated for a very long time and it has been widely transmitted across the world from its heartland in eastern and southern Asia (the Arabs introduced it to Spain from India as early as the eighth century AD, and the Persians took it to Africa).

The name of eggplant was given it by Europeans in the middle of the eighteenth century because the variety they knew had fruits that were the shape and size of goose eggs. That variety also had fruits that are a whitish or yellowish colour rather than the wine purple that is more familiar to us nowadays. So the sort they knew really did look as though it had fruits like eggs.

In Britain, it is usually called an aubergine, a name which was borrowed through French and Catalan from its Arabic name al-badinjan. That word had reached Arabic through Persian from the Sanskrit vatimgana, which indicates how long it has been cultivated in India. In India, it has in the past been called brinjal, a word which comes from the same Arabic source as British aubergine, but filtered through Portuguese (the current term among English speakers in India is either the Hindi baingan, or aubergine). Some people in the southern states of the US still know it as Guinea squash, a name that commemorates its having been brought there from West Africa in the eighteenth century.

Anyhow, ‘Baingan ka bharta’ is best had when it’s roasted and smoked black on naked fire.

Simmering hot coal would be most preferred if you have the luxury  of an old world, native life and an expanse of space and a scurry of manpower.

Baingan ka bharta is exotic when eaten with ‘Litti’.

( some other time)

Its great with puffed rice too.

And in regular meals. Hot and steamy.

So. you stoke a well rounded , well endowed Aubergine on fire with garlic cloves some 4-5 of them pushed inside randomly after some gashes.

Smoke it till it looks like a charred, limp, defeated version of its glistening, waxy deep purple self.

You leave no effort in making it look that way by making sure it’s burnt from all sides.

You immideately put it in cold water. Chip off it’s charred covering.. 

A word of caution : when you choose your aubergine, make sure it’s well examined. You have to look out for the seedy ones.You don’t want a seedy Baingan bharta on your table!

Phir kya hai?!

A generous dredge of mustard oil over it. 

A must have in Bihari kitchen.

Finely chopped onion, garlic, tomatoes, coriander leaves, green chillies salt and a good dash of lemon. 

Your Baingan ka bharta is ready to be devoured !

Courage is a muscle which needs to be exercised every goddamn day!!!

It begins with the four letter word starting with F!

                           F.E.A.R

What if?

• you are incapacitated?
• you lose your priorities?
• your children are left floundering?
• you die?
• that one single parent they had is dead?

Good news is I am here to stay..

WHATEVER it takes!

My kids are going to take shape under my wings and fly and how?! I don’t have no answer but I do have      the how’s.. and I’m working on it at my own pace.. :)

Burnishing till I blow out...♥️

 

Possible Protein !!!

Curd and Protein scoop in a jiffy.

Needless to say, protein builds muscles, helps in repair and wear and tear of the body. It’s the most overlooked nutrient we ingest.

Our daily protein intake should be equal to our body weight.

For instance,

my 81 kg should be = 81 grams of protein 

At least.

And more.

I scoop of protein powder promises 8gms.

Other ways Protein can be incorporated in your diet is by eggs ,6 gms.

lean meat - 53 gms ,

fish, shrimps, lentils,

almonds - 6 gms in one ounce

Oats - 11 gms

cashews, peanuts, tofu paneer, cottage cheese, milk et al.

Caution : Facts are Google based. I go by it.Beware of calories.

Disclaimer: my math is dubious

Yet. I get by.

Here,  my Protein shake contains

2 large serving spoons of curd

a 1/2 glass milk

roasted coriander powder about 2 generous pinch

salt a pinch, low.

a scoop of plant based protein.

Blend in a mixie

Pour in your favourite glass!

Voila! 

My 8 grams to the scaffolding!!! 😀

Baby steps to internal health! ♥️

Health on my plate!!!

At 46. At 82 kilograms. Widowed.Two boys.

Beginning to get very very health conscious.Concentrating on weight loss.Addressing joint pains and back inflammation ,bouts of migraine, low haemoglobin, tizziness, premenopausal symptoms.Focusing on being fit.😅😎

Aspire to inspire my children!☺️

Day 1

Started on a wrong note.Ooops! Must’ve only proteins. But having sautéed veggies and fruits too.

Nevertheless.

My Breakfast menu

2 scrambled eggs fried in saturated fat.

sauteed cottage cheese

 boiled cabbage,beans,carrots, garlic, cilantro sautéed in leftover minced meat n cheese and saturated fat or ghee.

1 whole pomegranate 

1 whole orange

cucumber with a dash of lemon

no Indian bread, no baker’s bread.

Done.

Feel health n happiness! ♥️

Dahi Handi with Kesar!

Dahi Handi with Kesar! 

This is my humble Dahi Handi and I look forward to setting curd every night in it because it makes the mundane,aesthetic in looks and divine in taste.. 

I love to engage with this terracotta utensil in an endearing way. This maroon red labour of sweat and love crafted by some potter in some remote village finds its place in a plush kitchen is a story in itself! 

I love how it feels and looks when its washed wet, fresh to behold the milky white liquid, stirred with the leftover curd,we know as a 'starter'. 

In our part of the country, Bihar,we call it 'जोरन' जमाना। Coloquilly speaking!  

This part is the crucial part as here, the secret of it holding the 'creamy white' lies. The milk has  to be lukewarm, such that as you dip your finger, just a hint of heat perks it up.Right temperature. Neither too hot nor too cold.Understanding this, comes with practice! 

 It's stirred with great care,swirling till your starter dissolves completely in milk. 

'केसर' ।

The name itself is so poetic. 

Here, I've added  strands of Kesar in my curd while setting it. Intending to add some color and health benefits into it. My sense of aesthetics and a pursuit to balance it with functionality leads me to investigate further. 

These threads of  crimson are the stigma of the flower, Crocus Sativus.

Kesar or saffron is a great antioxidant.

Widely used in dishes like Biryani, Srikhand, Mango lassi, Meethi Sevayian, zafrani pulav and many other dishes, these slender threads are very potent and have a long shelf life. 

They are very laboriously harvested and therefore, have their weight worth in gold, infact, more, quite literally. They are revered for their medicinal qualities in treating a plethora of maladies. They are said to be  an anti-depressant and a mood enhancer.Its said to cure Cancer,often reduces PMS in women  and works as an aphrodisiac! 

Well then. Get set, to set it,and go! ❤