GRILLED CHICKEN & SMOKED CHILLY CURD WRAP - fake but healthier Shawarma!!

Thanks everyone for voting me to the top 9 on FOODBUZZ.

My little girl loves chicken shawarma...in fact that’s probably the only source of chicken she eats (horribly choosey about food. *Sigh!!*) So, in an attempt to make something similar at home, I have been improvising for some time now. I have been trying to make a healthier version of this also because it’s one of things I too crave for 24x7...hehe...I just totally love Chicken Shawarma Sandwich.

For those of you who don’t know what a shawarma is....I’ll quote from Wikipedia: Shawarma is shared by many country variations. In Greece, it is called gyros, meaning "turned". In Armenian, it is "Tarna", literally meaning "to turn", and in Turkish it is called döner kebab, which in turn means "turning kebab".

In our part of the world, it’s basically a rotisserie grilled chicken (with fat dripping all over) sandwich with french fries, garlic sauce and sometimes veggies or pickles rolled in pita bread.

My version has chicken minus fat plus some veggies and a yummy spicy sauce but tastes almost like shawarma and much healthier too.

Now, genuinely speak, you will love this sandwich even if you haven’t tried shawarma J. It’s a nice healthy and quick recipe to whip up! And I promise, every one of you who tries it will love it!!

I am usually very patient with my food while clicking my shots but today, I just couldn’t resist taking after 4-5 shots and (As you can see below) I ended up eating half of the sandwich even before I finish taking picture!!

In the recipe, adjust the quantity of vinegar to your taste and don’t leave out any ingredient! It’s a complete treat J.

And by the way, you can convert this into vegetarian by replaing chicken with eggplant and french fries!! I'll be posting a vegan version of this wrap very soon.

The exciting part of our sandwich is the smoked red chilli curd. You’ll love it!!

Have fun cooking!!

Spinach & Pepperoni Pizza with a hot 3-cheese sauce!

Thanks everyone for voting me to the top 9 on FOODBUZZ.

To break free from the seafood jinx, I decided to do a spinach pizzaaa!!! Well, before I go blah, blah and blah, blah, blah, let me give due credits J to the inspiration for this dish - Momchef’s Spinach pizza. I have tried her version and it rocks! Then I came up with this version because Mr.Aj can’t imagine pizza without meat! So I stacked away some pepperoni in for his sakeJ. I used fresh spinach instead of canned. Either is fine. Just make sure to get rid of all the water content. And my sauce is entirely different!

The sauce is something I have wanted to share from some time now. This is my personally devised and current favourite pizza sauce and it goes with any sort of topping too! I have tried it with tandoori chicken pizza, spicy sausage pizza and minced meat pizza....even with just cheese, olives and tomatoes for topping. But it never fails to impart a unique delicious flavour to the pizza. And of course, it makes my pizza spicy. Don’t bother adding green chillies in case you are one of the “not-hotties”J.

If you want the perfect flavour, make sauce on the previous day and let it refrigerate overnight. You store for future use. It will last up to 12 days in the refrigerator. Take care to store in an airtight container after cooling to room temperature.

This time the dough is a little different from the last pizza I posted and crust is thin but soft and I polished it with the pizza sauce before baking, which gave it a good piece of flavouring. The egg is optional while making this dough. Add a teaspoon extra honey if you are opting out of egg.

PRAWN & BASIL RICE FLAVOURED WITH NUTMEG!!

Thanks everyone for voting me to the top 9 on FOODBUZZ.

As the seafood venture continues...here’s presenting a one dish meal - prawn and basil rice J I love the smell of basil leaves...well who doesn’t?

Last week, I asked Mr.Aj to pick up a bunch of fresh basil leaves on his way back from work. And guess what!! He got me a pot full of basil plants (soo sweet!!) J Therefore, now I official grow it at home.... well I have to admit - never been into gardening and personally i don’t consider myself a good gardener either but my basil seem to be doing fine so far....Thank God!

So how’s the new look for Cardamom hills? Liked it? I am working on the alphabetical order for the index. I’ll put it up soon J Thanx for the feedback everyone!

Now, let fall in love with prawn and basil rice....Ah!! What can I say! Make it and you’ll put it in your monthly menu, I promise J

I tried this with both basil and mint. The basil version has very fresh feeling. Take care not to overcook the basil though.  The mint version had more of a biryanish taste because I added the mint right after the tomato and not towards the end. But then it’s you choiceJ.

I am not ranting all over the place today...leaving you with the recipe, until next time, Chao!!

WHITE TUNA CROQUETTES - Romancing the leftovers!!

Remember I told you there were some leftovers from the last post “WHITE TUNA & COUSCOUS IN POTATO SHELLS" seasoned with some Italian inspiration!!” Here’s what I did to them...

Finely chop an onion and sauté in little oil. Throw in some chopped green chillies, which is optional. You could add pepper instead, if you like light seasoning. Add the tuna and couscous, which was about 2 cups. Mix well.

A little over 1 cup of mashed potato was left from the scrapped out shells. Threw those in too...and mix well again.

Roll into croquettes. Beat an egg. Dip croquettes in it and roll in bread crumbs.

Bake at 220⁰C till golden colour (around 20mins) and serve with your favourite dip!! And in case you need ideas on dips, keep coming back to cardamom hills, I have some coming soon J

You could make these with any leftovers be it fish, meat, poultry, veggies anything.

I made Tuna and Gouda cheese croquettes before. In case you need more ideas and the some measurements, check in thereJ!

For another leftover idea check out this rice dish i did before- Curried Prawn Rice.

N finally, how did you guys like my new index page? Should I categorize the recipes? Gimme some feedback fellow foodies!! Another question i wanted to ask was, are my pictures too big? Should I reduce the size?

That’s all for now!! See you next time with another seafood special J!!

Lots of luv,
from MJ's kitchen somewhere in the middle of the world J

WHITE TUNA & COUSCOUS IN POTATO SHELLS seasoned with some Italian inspiration!!

Another fishy recipe.....I think this week is going to be seafood seasoned here at Cardamom Hills because this post is followed by a leftover creation from the tuna I used for this one. The next recipe, one which I made today and is in waiting is a prawn dish (I won’t tell you what it is! Wait for itJ) so I guess we’ll just call it seafood week!

Coming to our dish for the day - potato shells filled with white tuna and couscous seasoned with some basil, oregano, garlic, etc....etc....Except for the jalapeno, the flavours are all Italian inspired. In the pictures, I garnished it with black olives and some balsamic reduction which brought in some awesome flavours. So if you really want to enjoy this dish, have it with the same garnishJ.

I did not oven bake my potato shells. Instead I boiled whole potatoes, halved them, scraped out the some flesh and baked them for 5mins. The reason being, I read recently that baking for long drains out a large percent of vitamin C present in potato skin (That’s your nutrition fact for the day!! J). The white tuna I used was fresh....cooked the fillets with some salt, garlic and jalapeno paste in minimum water. But canned tuna is just fine. I goofed up at one point. If you noticed, the mozzarella on top burnt. My little one came hunting for me just as the oven went beep. By the time I finished with her and came back to transfer the stuff into a plate, the damage was done!! I hate it when the mozzarella burnsL.

Oh! And yea, I had left over tuna, couscous and the potato scraped out of the shells...now can you guess what I did to them?? Let’s see how smart my foodie buddies are J and if you ain’t able to guess, wait until my next post...hehehe....

Leaving you with the recipeJ. Happy cooking!!

MINT SEARED SALMON SALAD!!

Thanks everyone for voting me to the top 9 on FOODBUZZ.

Salads are plenty at home but seems like they don’t always last to be captured into my blog! Therefore I decided we will do green beauty today with a dish n dash of green salmon cubes J...now I am making salmon sound liquorish!! Hehehe....I said green because, we are going to sear it with mint and camouflage them into our salad to make the world believe that it’s a green salad....ok, ok! I’ll stop goofing around J.

Let’s get to our salad and its dressing. It’s a total crunch experience with broccoli, salad onions and red bell pepper. But of course, there is the juicy minty salmon too. And the best and my favourite part - the dressing - a fine one with sour cream, mint, a splash of buttermilk and a dash of lemon juice.

Take care not to overcook the salmon...that will spoil all the fun L and we, the good people don’t want to do that! Do we??

By the way, in all my fuss making, I forgot to mention that it’s a healthy and vibrant seafood salad J...so enjoy!!

Ingredients:

RED MEAT CURRY - LAL MAAS: “RAJASTHAN's ROYAL LAMB CURRY”

Thanks everyone for voting me to the top 9 on FOODBUZZ.

I guess, all of you have been wondering “where the hell did she disappear!!” Well, first, I wanted to kick start 2011 with a dish that would really tell you what’s the secret ingredient that I totally love in my food which is(That’s my new chilli pepper font, I found on the net...funky rite?  J)

Another reason that I delayed my post was waiting to get my foodbuzz publisher status before posting, but seems like the process is going to take more time....so I’ll move on!

Now that I am done with all the justifying, let’s move on to our recipe today. There is a tiny story behind this.

 I watch this food and travel show on tv. Whenever its advertisement airs, there is a clip of the host gobbling down a huge piece of meat, straight from a potfull of red, thick, luscious, spicy and totally drool worthy meat curry J. My mouth watered every time I saw him eat that huge juicy chunk. So I googled and googled and found the video of the episode that aired this clip. AND that is how I found - ‘Lal Maas’ that literally translates to ‘Red Meat’.

This is a royal dish from the Rajputani Kitchen. The Rajput Kings of Rajasthan were known to be fierce hunters and lovers of meat. They had amazing culinary skills too! I’ll do a detailed post on Rajput cooking some other time. But, I have to admit that cooking and reading about this one dish has totally evoked my interest. I need to do some more research on facts or fiction to tell you more.  

Something about these royal dishes that caught my fancy was, none of the authentic recipes had tomatoes because at the time, these veggies were not grown or for that matter it was unknown in this region....you see, we are roughly talking about an era around the 10^th century. Wow! Now, that’s what I call truly rustic!! J

Another interesting thing about their dishes is that everything is prepared in pure ghee/ clarified butter because the region is a desert and water is scanty. But don’t worry, since water is not scanty for me, I used only 2 tablespoons of ghee in place of a whole cup....imagine so much oil that meat would float over it...hehehe....I bet Mr.Aj wouldn’t touch it!! Infact, most of us won’tJ.

The recipe here is an adapted and modified version of Lal Maas from Prashad by Jiggs Kalra, a famous Indian Chef and food critic.

I won’t call it absolutely authentic. But this is the closest I could get. The main deviations from the original recipe are:

1. I have used powdered spices plus whole (original has only whole spices)

2. Replaced dried red chillies with red chilli flakes due to personal worry that meat won’t have enough flavour.

3. Reduced amount of ghee from 1 cup to 2tbsp and instead of deep frying onions golden brown, I sautéed them brown.

By the way for those of you who don’t know what is Clarified butter or how it’s prepared, please check this post from my dear friend Susan’s blog, Chacko’s Kitchen- “How to prepare clarified butter?”

Now I’ll leave you with The ROYAL RED MEAT CURRY J!!

Ingredients: (serves 6)