Fish Fry | Meen Varuval

I wanted to try making fish for long and now that has happen.  Prepared this simple and most easy fish fry recipe for DH and settle myself with aloo gobi sabzi.    This must be the most healthy version of fish fry compare to the deep fried version, of course we call this recipe fry which literally doesn’t translate to deep fry here! 

So coming back to our recipe I tried it hoping DH will like it and he did, though he wanted me to grill it in oven but he was happy with the end result of this recipe.  You can use any fish variety though personally I like to use mackerele or vanjiram meen. The bottom line is I am happy that I venture out with fish recipes and hope to continue doing so. 

Ingredients: [Serves - 2]
Fish - 2 pieces/300gm ( I used Seer Fish/ King Mackerel/Vanjiram variety]
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp [ use less if you don’t like spicy]
Coriander Seeds Powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp [divided]
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Lemon Juice - 2 tsp
Oil - For pan fry
Salt - to taste

Method:
1. Clean fish and wash 2-3 times in running water.  Mix 1/2 tsp turmeric powder and 1/2 salt and rub over fish, let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then wash fish again 2-3 times in running water; this is to remove fish smell.
2. In a wide bowl or plate mix  all spice powder, lemon juice, ginger-garlic paste, salt, add 1 tbsp water if required.    Coat masala on both side of fish nicely and let it marinate for 30 minutes or more.
3. Heat a pan or tawa, drizzle oil and pan fry fish until both side turns dark brown and fish is cooked.

Our fish fry is ready, serve with lemon wedges and onion for that extra kick.
Variations:
1. Instead of turmeric, red chilli and coriander powders you can use 1tsp sambar or curry powder.
2. You can also deep fry marinated fish instead of pan fry.
Have a nice day ~~

Fuseli with Roasted Beetroot Pesto

If you follow my blog by now you must know how much I love beets (beetroot), thus having quite a decent variety of beetroot recipes here and the best thing - ‘ I am not a beetroot fan’ DH also likes beets now and brings it without fail on his every trip to Little India.  Always I will make beetroot dal of one beetroot and another one either beets masala or experiment recipe. This time I wanted to try something new and end up making beetroot pesto.

  This pesto was actually better than I thought, roasted beetroot flavour is amazing and lemon adds the extra zing plus helps to reduce beets sweetness. Cashew bring creamy texture to pesto as you can see in the pictures, I didn’t add cheese in pesto just used a little for garnishing.   Beets pesto can be serve along pasta or use as dip or as a spread over bread, making it a beautiful versatile recipe.  If you like me or want to try something different and interesting with beetroot then you have to try this ..oh ya it does taste just so wonderful. 


Ingredients: [Serves 4-5]
For Beetroot Pesto
Beetroot - 1 (around 300gms)
Cashew nuts - 1/2 cup
Chopped Garlic - 1/2 tbsp
Olive Oil - 1/4 cup [I used extra virgin]
Lemon Juice - 2 tbsp [divided]
Parmesan Cheese - 3 tbsp + for garnishing
Salt & Pepper - To taste
Water - 2-3 tbsp [if required]
For Pasta [ for 2 person]
Fuseli - 2 cups [ or use any variety of pasta]
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Water - To boil pasta

Method:
To make Pesto
1. Wash and roast beetroot over on stove top or boil it.

Or you can roast beets on oven.  If roasting in oven, slice beetroot, brush slices with oil and roast in 200C preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until beets gets cooked, turn beets slice in 10 minutes interval so it’s gets cooked properly.

~ If you roast whole beets it will take around 1hour+ to cook.
2. Take beets out of oven and let it cool, when it’s cool enough to handle peel skin and chop beets. [If your beetroot is cooked properly the skin will come out easily]
4. Add chopped beets and all other ingredients (reserve 1 tbsp lemon juice)  in a mixer or blender & pulse into smooth paste/pesto.  Add 2-3 tbsp of water if required to pulse into smooth pesto.  [ I added 2 tbsp water]. 
Looks how creamy and beautiful it looks, I just loved it

And our pesto is ready to use.

To cook Pasta
4.  Bring a large pot/pan half filled with water to boil, add salt, oil & pasta and cook as per instruction in pack or around 10-12 minutes in medium flame until al dente (cooked and tender to tooth).
5. Drain pasta and reserve 1/2 cup to 1 cup of water, rinse pasta under tap water, toss and keep aside.
For Assembly
You can place cooked pasta on a plate and add pesto on top, sprinkle little parmesan cheese on top.

OR add reserve water and pesto in pan, bring it boil, add cooked pasta, mix everything well.  Add reserve 1 tbsp lemon juice and off flame. garnish with cheese.  Let the pasta sit for 10 minutes before you dig in.

Have it with salad or soup to make it a filling meal.  You can serve this pasta along lemon wedge if anyone want to reduce beetroot sweetness.

Pesto stay good for 2 day if refrigerated.  And to know what I did with my leftover pesto, stay tune..I have something interesting to share
Have a nice day ~~

Baigan Bharta | Smoked Aubergine Chutney

I love baigan/baingan bharta and successfully converted DH to love this wonderful dish too thus I make this more than once a month.  This simple bharta goes well with roti, paratha, rice or even with idly, dosa but I love it with baati.   I have blogged here before baigan aloo bharata, though the recipe is almost similar but I had few pending request to blog to baigan bharta in specific and this time I thought of doing it, I wouldn’t take step vise picture but if you can refer to my baigan aloo bharta post for stepwise pictures.  You can also boil and make this bharta, @ my in-law place it prepared this way and it’s also knows as bhaata chutney but personally I liked only when the eggplant is smoked, it bring the wonderful smoked fragrance to bharta making it more delicious.  A perfect dish to try when you fire up your bbq grill.  Grill eggplant and make barta, you will love that. 
And before moving over to recipe Wish every Happy Tamil New Year.
Ingredients:
Eggplant/Aubergine - 1 medium OR 300 gms
Oil - 1 tbsp
Garlic - 1/2 tbsp [chopped]
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1 large
Tomato - 1 large
Green Chilli- 3 [to taste]
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Crushed Kasuri Methi - 1 tsp [optional]
Cilantro - 1-2 tbsp chopped

Method:
1. Wash, pat dry smear oil all over the eggplant (I forgot to apply the oil)
2.  Roast the eggplant in direct flame (medium to slow), rotating eggplant in all direct in regular intervals to gets it roasted properly.  Do this until you see the skin turns black and the eggplant becomes little soggy.  You can also insert a fork or knife in the centre of eggplant to check it's cooked well.
3.  Meanwhile finely chop onion, garlic, green chilli and tomato, keep aside.
4. Once eggplant roasted allow it to cool a bit, remove stem & peel of burnt skin and mash cooked eggplant.
5. In a pan heat oil add cumin seeds and let it crack.
[I used mustard oil for any bharta, you can use any cooking oil]
6. Add chopped garlic and roast until light brown, add chopped onion & chilli and fry until onion turns golden brown in medium heat.
7. Add turmeric and chilli powder and mix well.  Now add tomato and cook until soft, add mashed eggplant, salt, crushed kasuri methi and mix everything well.
8. Cook for 5-8 minutes in slow/medium flame or until everything gets cooked, add cilantro and off flame. 

Variations:
~ You can add 1/2 of garam masala along with salt to that extra kick.  
~ Kasuri methi is optional, you can skip it if you like.
Have a nice day ~~

Masala Vada | Paruppu Vadai

Masala Vada or masala vadai is one of those things that I make once in blue moon, urad dal vada or as we call it bada is more common in our place, I like masala vada as crunchy outside and soft inside it’s just perfect. and lucky for me I got the same effect too.   I made this for my in-laws on a weekend as they don’t know about masala/paruppu vade, as expected they liked it too.   And I thought it’s good to post this recipe for coming Tamil New Year, perhaps some motivation for me to make these beauties again.

Ingredients: [Makes 22-25 vadas]
Channa Dal/Bengal Gram - 1 1/2 Cups
Onion - 1 Large
Green Chillies - 3
Dry Red Chillies - 2
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Ginger - 1/2” piece [optional]
Salt - to taste
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Cilantro Leaves - 4-5 sprigs
Asafoetida/ Hing - 1/2 tsp
Cooking Soda - a pinch [sodium bi carbonate]
Oil - To deep fry

Method:
1. Wash and soak channa dal in water for 2 hours or more, drain water, rinse dal 1-2 times. 
2. Keep aside 1tbsp of soaked dal and grind remaining dal with green, red chillies,  fennel seeds, ginger into coarse paste.  Add 1-2 tbsp of water only if required.

3. Finely chop onion, curry leaves and cilantro, add with grinded dal, mix everything well with salt, soda, asafoetida and reserve 1tbsp whole channa dal. Make small lemon size ball from dal mixture and flatten between both palms to shape it like cutlet/tikki.

4. In a deep pan/wok heat oil for deep frying, drop carefully 4-5 vada in oil and cook in medium heat until both sides becomes nice golden brown. 

Serve hot/warm with tea/coffee or with meal. 

And incase you have leftover masala vada then don’t think too much just go ahead and make Vade Curry. 

Variations:
1. You can add mint leaves, it adds good flavour to these vadas.
2. Instead of onion, you can try adding cabbage.
3. If you don’t want to deep fry then try it in paniyaram maker/pan but that will be slight change in taste.
Have a nice day ~~

Restaurant Review: Secret Recipe

I wanted to write restaurant reviews for yeas now but it was not happening due to various reason.  Thanks to few friends with their persistent nagging I manage start product review and today long over due restaurant review.  We went to secret recipe to celebrate one of our friend’s birthday and I clicked the picture in the hope that I will write review! 

Secret recipe is famous for it’s cakes & ice cream and has branches all over Singapore, Malaysia, it’s not really a restaurant but cafe-bistro type place to sit and catch up with friends.  I personally felt their dinning menu is limited and very limited for vegetarian (okie, let’s be happy at least they have vegetarian items), they have also removed few items from menu since I lasted visited them.   But as I said the place is for cakes, ice cream, shakes which has good selection. 

We started with curried pumpkin soup (served with a bun), which was delicious, this was one of the best pick of day.  And inspired from this I make my own curried pumpkin soup. 



Also we order French fries, which was better than I expected, served with tartar sauce which was damn good.



I ordered Chicken Satay, which was a total let down.  Menu says it’s a must try, but I am saying just ignore this you are not going to miss anything great.  The satay was like deep fried chicken with no taste and another let down was peanut sauce! There was everything wrong about this dish.



Main course was simple, both my friends are vegetarian so they selected Oriental Style Soba served with chilli sauce (sauce was good though), one of them liked it and another one didn’t!  I tasted soba noodles and it was okie type. 



I ordered fish and chip, fish was very oil, I couldn’t finish my portion. Below average for me.



For drinks, me and one of my friend choose Caffe Latte, which was okie.  By the time it arrived it was already luke warm!



Our another friend is big watermelon fan so as always she ordered watermelon juice.  I guess it was good.



And now comes the best part, Desserts.  I knew exactly what we going to order.  Secret Recipe’s most famous cake is their Chocolate Banana cake.  It just so good and they serve very generous portion.  You have to try this and you will love it too.



Their another best cake is White Chocolate Macadamia, I always order these 2 cakes.   White chocolate with crunchy macadamia is just so delicious.



Overall, if you visit secret recipe for their cakes, ice cream and drinks and you won’t be disappointed.   We went on a weekday for late lunch so the service was good as there were not many customer, if you visit during rush hours you can expect delay in service, we went to Plaza Singapura Outlet.

For 3 people we paid 80SGD.
Secret Recipe’s official website

Have a nice day ~~

Open-Face Plum Cake Recipe

I made this cake for my in-laws and couldn’t post it due to my blog break, now what better than to post a cake before Easter and the fact that this cake is so simple; makes it more appealing.  I always like plum and decide to bake something with it this time.   After little search I end up at Martha Stewart recipe, a very simple recipe.  I have halved her recipe and made one cake. 



I liked this cake texture, it was just so perfect, plum juice flowing all over the cake making it look so pretty and it goes without saying everyone liked it.  So if you are looking for some easy and quick tea time cake with fruit then this is for you.  Before moving over to recipe…wishing everyone Happy Easter and long weekend. 



Ingredients: [ Serves -6 ]
Recipe Source: Martha Stewart

Plain Flour/Maida - 3/4 cup
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Sugar - 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Milk - 1/4 cup
Vegetable Oil - 2 tbsp
Egg - 1
Plums - 5-7 [ I used black plum]
Cinnamon Powder - 1 tsp
Cold Unsalted Butter - 1 1/2 tbsp [cut into small pieces]



Method:

1. Grease a 8” or 9” pan with 1/2 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of flour. Dust of excess flour from pan.  Preheat oven to 400F or 200 degree. 
2. Wash, halve and pit plums.  Make sure not to use very sour plums or over ripen plums.  I used black plums here, you can use red/black whatever you wish.



3. Shift flour, baking powder, salt and keep aside.  In a wide bowl add 3/8 cup sugar, milk, oil, egg and whisk well to combine everything.  Add 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder and mix.



4. Add flour in batches and fold gently.



5. Pour batter in prepared pan and arrange plums with cut side up, over batter.  Sprinkle remaining sugar, cinnamon powder over plums, dot with butter. 
~ I also inserted small pieces of plum inside pan, that’s why you can see red plum juice in cake.



6.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.  Mine took 40 minutes to bake.  Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack and cut in desire shape.



~ Cake taste better next day.  Look at the sauce on pan edges, so beautiful right? 



Would you like a bite?  And this goes to Radhika's I Love Baking Event..



Note:

1. Refrigerate and you can keep the cake for 1 day, more than that plum might get spoil or sour.
2. Try not to use very sour plums, it will spoil cake taste.
Have a nice day ~~

Adai | Rice and Lentil Crepe Recipe

I wanted to make Adai dosa for long time and it was not happening until I decided to make for breakfast during my in-laws stay here as I always run out of ideas for breakfast!  It was easier to make than I thought and tasted very good too, not to mention about the nutrition value adai has.  My in-laws also liked it very much and so DH, from then Adai is regularly getting features in my kitchen.



For those whom haven’t tried Adai or don’t know about this wonderful delicacy; it’s like dosa (thicker) made of rice & lentils and generally fragmented for very less period or not at all, so it’s more like chawal and dal ka chilla.  Generally served with Avial in Tamilnadu though it goes perfectly with any chutney, sambar or idly podi/powder.   Soft and cripsy adai taste very good.



Ingredients:
Raw Rice - 1/2 cup
Idly Rice -  1 cup
Toor Dal/Split Pigeon Pea - 1/4 cup
Channa Dal/Yellow Split Pea - 1/4 cup
Urad Dal - 1/8 cup
Fenugreek Seeds - 1/4 tsp [optional]
Dry Red Chillies - 8-9
Onion - 1 large
Chopped Cilantro - 4 tbsp (or more if preferred)
Chopped Curry Leaves - 2 tbsp
Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp
Grated Coconut - 2 tbsp [optional]
Oil - To make adai
Salt - to taste



Method:

1. Wash and soak rice and dals separately, soak fenugreek seeds with dal for 2 hours.
2. Grind rice with red chillies first to coarsely and then add dal and grind to smooth batter with little water, batter will be thicker than dosa batter.  Add chopped onion, cilantro and curry leaves, hing, salt, coconut ( I didn’t use) and mix well. 
3.  Heat tawa and spread a ladle full batter in circular motion like dosa, adai will be thicker than normal dosa.
4. Drizzle oil around adai and let it cook for 2 minutes, turn over others ide to let it cook and it becomes crispy.  Repeat the same for rest of batter.
Serve hot/warm with chutney of your choice.  It goes well with jaggery too.

We had it with coconut chutney with tea, a perfect breakfast I say.



Have a nice day ~~