Change

OK I changed the look of my blog.Black was a little bit depressing.So what do think of the new look?Let me know okie?

Also, I put in the advertisement thing.If you click on it I get money...........as simple as that.

Ok continue reading.

PS: There is a snow storm tomorrow so I'm thinking there will b lots of cooking tom....watch out for new stuff.

Flan

Ok before I made this thing I didnt know 2 things...

1. Flan is a super-easy to make Mexican sweetdish

2.There are things called evaporated milk which is available in cans.I looked up Wikipedia...turns out its a milk in whic 60 percent water has been removed.That means...if you boil milk for real long, till it turns real think, thats evaporated milk.Ok?

So lets get started

You need:

3/4 cup sugar

About 250 ml evaporated milk

About one can condensed milk (Milkmaid).I dont use the entire can.I cheat and pour it on the dish and leave a lot behind so that I can lick it off as I cook...I know.I am disgusting....but I cant help it.I LOVE milkmaid :)

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Put the sugar into a heavy bottomed dish (that you will be using later to bake in, so make sure its oven safe) spread it evenly and heat the dish.Directly over gas.So that the sugar starts melting (caramelizing).Make sure you stir the sugar occasionally.Once the sugar melts it will start turning brownish.Dont let it burn...just brown.Remove from heat when it becomes that colour and leave it to cool.With a spoon coat the sides of the dish a little with the syrup.

Now put the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it well.Put this mixture over ther caramelized sugar (be sure that the sugar is cold).

Now put this vessel in a water bath.You know...bigger vessel with about 1 inch boiling water.

Now bake this entire thing for about 45-50 minutes. I had a liitle bit of mix left with me so I tried making that in simple water bath..instead of baking it.Turns out, it doesnt work.Not in the same time anyways....maybe it will if you boil it longer.But boiling for over an hour is a pain...and i firmly believe in 'save energy save life'...so make life more comfprtable.just bake this thing.

After the mixture gets all firm remove it carefully from the water bath.Cool.

Put the flan in the fridge for minimum 4 hours before serving.

To serve just invert the flan onto the serving dish.There will be liquid in the dessert so make sure the serving dish isnt a flat plate ...

Ps: I found the dish a bit TOO sweet for my taste.So well adjust accordingly.Just the caramelizing sugar though.Nothing else.

Buttermilk Roast Chicken

ok so the picture looks sad....there are just 2 peices there.The thing is we forgot to take pictures and we realised this only when we had these 2 peices left

Anyways here's what I used :

chicken..drumsticks preferred but you can use any fleshy chicken i suppose.6 pieces is enough for 2 people :)

1 cup buttermilk....curd and water in equal parts.mix well.thats Indian buttermilk i suppose.Thats what i used anyways.

Vegetable oil.

Garlic

Chillies

Salt

Ground cumin...jeera.

Maple syrup (now the thing is...since i bought this syrup i have a big bottle of it....the concept of small bottles is unheard of in the US....pity; but ya...since i have this bottle the next few days i ll b making a lot of things which has maple syrup in it)

So this is what you do:

Put the chicken drumstick and the buttermilk together in a bowl and mix.put a little bit oil to it.Now peel 2 garlic cloves...2 pieces of garlic and smash it.I saw Nigella do it with a flat part of the knife so i do the same.you can use your fist if you want...but i strongly advice against it.So after you smash the garlic once put it in the bowl too.Now chop the chillies real fine and put it in.Salt to taste and about 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup (yes I had to buy a bottle of it for 1/2 tbsp) put it all in and mix well.

Cover it up and put it overnight in the fridge.If possible stir it once in between.

Ok here'e the thing.The book I was reading from asked me just to pick the pieces up and roast it.But there seemed too much of buttermilk mix to waste...so well,,,i went ahead and poured it all in....

anyways so preheat oven to 425 degrees farenhiet.line a baking dish with aluminum foil.put everything (chicken mix i mean) in.pour in a little oil over the chicken.Roast for about 30 minutes.

Serve.We had it without anything else...oh ya I had maaza and Mono had White wine.but well...no food side dish.

Yummm

Banana Smoothie

A super breakfast for lazy people like me..for people who wake up 15 minutes before they have to leave for work.And for those who can bare squeeze in time for breakfast.

All you need is a banana, sugar to taste, chocolate powder and a blender.

Put all of it together and blend.

Have it cold.

Its tasty and its filling.No more rushing to work with nothing in the stomach.

I refuse to put up pictures for this one.

Spicy Pork Stir Fry with Green Beans

Now no one thought of a combination of pork with beans....but Mono insisted we make this and we did....my only condition was that we wouldn't leave the beans uncooked like half the dishes here in the US are...instead we will completely cook the beans and that's that.he agreed and this is what it turned out to be

ingredients

1. 3 tablespoon soy sauce

2. 1/4 tbsp black pepper (the recipe called for white pepper....i swear to god i hunted for it....for so long that the department store people said 'miss we are closing for the day' ....so well black it was!!)

3. 1 pound ground pork (yes...since i have come to the US i too have HAD to convert to pounds....but mono gave me a rough estimate, 1 pound is about 1/2 a kg, 0.453 kg to be exact...but 1/2 kg works fine for me).And yes, the very rude guy in the store told us that he had run out of ground pork, so we bought boneless ones and put it in the mixer.....the mixer got spoilt in the process but yeah we got semi-ground pork....alls well that ends well :)

4. 1/4 cup chicken broth

5. 3 1/2 tbsp hoisin sauce......i wish i could find a replacement for this one...but well i have not met a Chinese/Japanese guy till now so till then.....no replacement.

6 1/2 tsp red pepper....we didn't have one so we replaced it with chili powder...we probably did it all wrong :D

7. 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

8. 1/2 tsp cornstarch

9. 1/2 cup peanut oil

10. green beans (the recipe says 12 ounces...but that's beyond my mathematical part of the brain....so how-much-ever you want)....cut into 4 inch pieces

11. 3 tablespoon thinly sliced garlic

12. 1 1/2 tsp dark Asian sesame oil ( i didn't know what Asian sesame oil was so i went to the Asian aisle of the store and picked up the sesame oil there....dunno how that made any difference)

See the LONG ingredient list?? that's what happens when you leave your regular cookbook and move to another one....in my case it was from Nigella Lawson to Emeril Lagasse...whose book we bought on a whim....its called 20 40 60...good book....cuz the 2 things that we have cooked from it are pretty good....only thing is that he uses a lot of fancy ingredients which may not be very simple to obtain if you were living in small towns in India :)

Anyways back to the recipe

Combine 2 tbsp of soy sauce, pepper and the ground pork.Mix well and set aside.In another bowl put in the chicken stock the Hoisin sauce chilli powder, rice vinegar, corn starch and the remaining soy sauce.Mix and set aside this one too.Then heat a pan and add the peanut oil.Heat the oil till it smokes then put in the green beans till it wrinkles (kina chauris mariche, aafnai raaga le.............i dunno where there one came from.just popped into my head.something my dad used to say...its about black pepper...'why did u get all wrinkled black pepper?" "because of my anger (heat)"....something you would tell a person who gets angry all the time....anyways.i diverted again).Add in the garlic, after the garlic is golden add in the pork mix and cook till its cooked...ie till its no longer pink.Lastly add the sauce and bring it to a boil till it thickens....put the green beans back to the dish once the sauce thickens.and drizzle the sesame oil over it and then cool..Serve with the jasmine rice below..

Good dish...very filling.very tasty.

Aromatic Jasmine Rice

I know I said I would make things that everyone would be able to cook.....but well I HAD to try this out because it had something called Jasmine Rice and it sounded soooo Aladin...Actually I thought Jasmine rice would be scented like Jasmine or something.I dunno what I thought, but for all who are concerned...its an aromatic rice.Somehow the aroma reminded me of the rice we got from our villages back home....locally known as 'busty ko chamal'...but with longer grains....a bit like basmati rice.but the jasmine rice had a stronger aroma...

Anyways so here is what i used...

2 cups jasmine rice (but like i said, you could probably replace it with any aromatic rice)

About half an inch of ginger...grated.

Grated zest of 1 lime

1 1/2 cup of coconut milk

1 1/2 cup chicken broth

salt to taste

1 tbsp chopped cilantro/coriander....i love cilantro in my food so i was extra generous with it

Put everything except the cilantro and cook like you would make normal rice...not in a pressure cooker though.garnish with cilantro.

Serve with the pork dish that is next in the blog....

Its good.Trust me it is.

Mint flavoured baked Chicken (and potatoes)

Ok this started off as Mono's receipe...but since i worked hard on it I will put it up as mine...

I used

1.Chicken...drumsticks without the skin will be good.however we used all parts of chicken that had meat in it :)...about 3/4 kgs

For the seasoning

mint...about 3 fistful of leaves

coriander....about 1 fistful

half an onion

about 2 inch long ginger

4 big garlic cloves

salt to taste

make a paste of the seasoning stuff. coat the chicken with it.leave it in the fridge for about 15 minutes.then bake it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (of course after pre-heating the oven). after 30 minutes..remove turn the chicken around and then bake it again for 20 minutes.thats it...the chicken was YUMMY...we dipped it in curd while having it.

ps: after we coated the chicken with the sauce we had some left over sauce...i had a bright idea of cutting large potatoes into 4 long pieces (with the skin) and baking that too...baking takes only about 30 minutes.these were equally heavenly...no marination was needed.

ps : note that no oil was used in the cooking process (apart from the little that was used to line the baking pan)....so that means this food was low cal.....yahoooooo

Hot Toddy

I am back....after a long long long time.

Now today i plan to put up around 5 receipes...i will not guarantee pictures in all 5 :)

The first one was something simple....for all people who suffer (i mean this word..real suffering involved) from common colds frequently

You need :

1 cup bourbon/rum...get prepared to be drunk cuz this goes in neat,

1 tablesppon honey

1 teaspoon lemon juice

skin of a lemon,,,the size of a 2 rupee indian coin

1 clove

put the liquids in a saucepan.heat it.pierce the skin of the lemon with the clove and put it in the saucepan.make the drink HOT.be careful though....it didnt happen in my case but since there it alcohol in the saucepan it MAY flame up.dont let that happen.

drink it.and go off to sleep.

mono swears by this drink..the morning after he always says "honey it really works....see there i am cured" (this is usually followed by a deep 'nasal' inhalation.....which is clear surprisingly)...i do think he exaggerates a little cuz it involves alcohol.....men will afterall always be men :D