Tasty Treats: May 2009

Sev Puri

Being a foodie, one thing I miss a lot since coming to the US is Mumbai Street Food...I've to only mention the word and my mouth starts watering. I had my favorite vendors for all the dishes - pav bhaji, chaats, samosas and bhajjias,sandwiches, sweets and they all recognised me and I was such a regular that they would even give me extras, totally free!! In fact for a month before leaving for the US, I went all around the city eating at all my favorite places and saying goodbyes to my favorite 'bhaiyyas', I'm sure they miss me:)....

I have tried most of the places that serve Chaat out here, but I've never felt satisfied. So I've been planning since long to make something at home. Last week I had pani puri at a friends place, and it was just heavenly. Now I just had to have my second favorite dish too, so I made Sev Puri a couple of days back and surprised Manoj when he got back from work.....both of us skipped dinner so you can imagine how many puris we had.

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Mango Pudding

The mango season is here and I just cannot resist buying a few every time I visit the supermarket. The wonderful aroma of ripe mangoes, just draws me towards them. I really miss the Alphonso mangoes though, nothing compares to its taste but hey, something is better than nothing and I'm determined to enjoy the fruit as long as its in season.

The last batch of mangoes I bought were the best so far, they were bright yellow, juicy and so sweet, a pudding seemed like a great idea. After hunting for a while, I found this recipe at Flavor Explosions.

The pudding was a delight, tasted heavenly. The recipe was quick n easy and I didn't make any changes, but here it is anyway. Adjust the sugar according to the sweetness of your mangoes. I used fat-free evaporated milk and I think it could do with a little less amount of gelatin than mentioned for a better texture, so I've made the change below. Everything else was just perfect, I'm definitely gonna be making this often. The below recipe would make about 10 servings.

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Penne in a Creamy Pesto Sauce with Fresh Mozzarella, Grape Tomatoes n Chicken

Orchids, is my favorite restaurant in Chembur, Mumbai (that's where I'm from) and I really miss their food. I had a lot of favorites and I remember taking an awful lot of time to order as it was really difficult to choose one dish over the other. I love the choice of Italian food and one dish I ate often was the Pasta alla Genovese. This is one of the most popular Italian sauces, basically fresh pesto tossed with warm pasta. Their version was so creamy with lots of chicken.

This is my version of that dish and though not the same, it's just as creamy, rich n delicious.

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Zebra Cake

For this month's Taste n Create I was partnered with Ruth of Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. As usual I first went through all her chicken recipes and then the cakes and then the others, thats what I do whenever I visit a new blog. There are a lot of amazing recipes and I have some bookmarked for later. Anyways, I saw the zebra cake and decided to give it a try. We are going to a friends place in the evening and the cake would be perfect to take along. The cake is baking, as I'm preparing this post, so I'm just praying it comes out fine. I halved the recipe as I did not want any left over, as we are really trying to cut down on sweets:). I just hope I have the time to take a picture as I'm already running late...here is the recipe....

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Coriander Chicken

This wonderful recipe is one of Nimmi Paul's. For those who don't know her she has a cooking school in Kerala that's quite famous, even internationally. I have tried a number of her recipes and have loved each one. I got this one from the book, Savoring the Spice Coast of India. A wonderful fragrant dish, it tastes great with rice and rotis.

Ingredients:

2 tbs oil

1 big onion, thinly sliced

1 heaping tbs ginger garlic paste

2 green chillies, chopped fine

12 fresh curry leaves

4 tsps coriander powder

1 tsp black pepper powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

3/4 tsp garam masala powder

salt to taste

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

1/2 cup canned coconut milk

1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions till golden. Add the ginger garlic paste, green chillies and curry leaves and fry for 1 min.

Add all the spice powders and salt and roast for 1 minute. Then add the chicken to the pan and fry till the pink color disappears and its well coated with the spices. Take care that the spices do not burn.

Add 1/4cup coconut milk mixed in 1/2cup water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer till the chicken is cooked completely.

Remove from flame and stir in the remaining coconut milk and chopped cilantro.

Turn the flame to the lowest setting and cook till you see the first boil.

Remove from heat and serve hot.

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This is my entry to Potluck - Chicken hosted by Viki at Viki's Kitchen.

Also sending the below entries to the same event....

Chicken Biryani

Lemon Pepper Chicken

Chicken Manchurian

'For the Love of Chocolate' Round-up Part 2..

As promised here is the final part of the round-up. This was my first event and thanks to all you guys for making it such a success. Throughout the event I was just wondering how great it would be if the host could also receive a sample of all these yummy treats:), well, that's just wishful thinking. Now you guys can do what I've been doing throughout the event...scroll down and start drooling:)........

Thought I'd begin with my entries...

'Chocolate Walnut Bars'