Khaman Dhokla - Indian Cooking Challenge

This months dish for Indian Cooking Challenge was Khaman Dhokla. Dhokla is a Gujarati dish and one of the healthiest snacks, almost guilt free. It's also so visually appealing with its bright yellow colour and all the garnish, just impossible to resist. I made this last week when I had a couple of friends over and we enjoyed every bite.

This is a wonderful recipe...do try it.

Palak Chicken

Heyy...hope you all had a great weekend. I really enjoyed mine. We had friends over for dinner on Saturday, it was a potluck I was hosting and we had some awesome food. Then on Sunday we had arranged a surprise baby shower party for a friend at Round Table, played some games and had great fun.

Cooking took a back seat except for my contribution to the potluck, which was the Chicken fry I had posted a while back. The rest of the meals we just managed with some leftover's from last week which also included Palak Chicken that I had made on Thursday. I love to add spinach to gravies in which they won't taste so obvious and I love the green color it gives any dish. This is one such dish I like to make often and it's really yumm.

Palak Chicken
Ingredients:

150 gms spinach

4 green chillies

2 lbs chicken

1 big onion

1 tbs ginger garlic paste

1 tomato

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp garam masala

1/2tsp cumin powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/4tsp turmeric powder

2 lbs chicken

salt to taste

8-10 curry leaves

Method:

Blanch the spinach and grind to a smooth paste along with the green chillies.

Heat oil in a pan and fry the onion till golden. Fry the ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute.

Add the tomatoes and cook till the oil separates. Add the masala powders and fry for a minute.

Add the chicken and mix well. Add the salt, cover and cook for about 5 mins. Add the ground spinach and curry leaves and mix well. Add some water if necessary.

Cover and cook on low heat till the chicken is done.

Check the seasonings and remove from heat. Serve hot with naan or chappatis.

Challah Bread

Last weekend we had been to NASA, something I've wanted to do ever since I got here, but it was such a disappointment. We had to wait in the car for over an hour to get through the gates and there was nothing to see. There were some games n all for kids, lectures about space missions and I could not catch a word of it, there was so much commotion in the tent. I was basically in a sour mood with it being so hot n all, I'm sure I've mentioned that I cannot stand the sun. But the day ended well, we were a big group and went to one of our homes and played games and stayed till dinner.We were really tired at the end and although I had promised I would get back to blogging by Monday I couldn't bring myself to write a post until today.

The oven in this apartment is even bigger that the previous one and I could not wait to use it. So it's great that I have been paired with Tania of Love Big, Bake Often for Taste n Create this month. She has got amazing recipes for baked goods, but the one thing that caught my eye was the Challah. It's been ages since my last bread and this was a braid, something I have seen in so many blogs.

I finally baked it yesterday and everything went so smoothly. The dough was easy and the braid was a breeze....lots of practice with my hair:-). You can get the recipe here.

I used rapid rise yeast as that was all I had and so I could avoid the first rise. I really wanted to take step by step pictures but the camera was still in the car after the weekend trip and so this was all I could manage after Manoj got back from work.

My bread browned within the first 15 mins, so I had to cover it with foil. Baked for 40mins and it was perfect. My home smelled heavenly for hours.

I prefer the bread warm and had some as soon as it had cooled down a bit.

Had some for breakfast today with some chole...Yumm!

Also sending this to Susan's YeastSpotting.

Lauki/ Bottle Gourd Dal

It's been a week at our new apartment and everything is unpacked and in place, but I'm not sure when I'll recover from all that weight lifting. I've never had a more strenuous workout:). Am not yet in the mood for any serious cooking and its just dal rice most of the days, something both of us love. Gonna laze around this weekend and I will be back to blogging full time next week. Lots to catch up!