Appam and Mutton Stew

Usually for appam I like chicken curry, this time for a change I made mutton stew and surprisingly this combination was excellent. Mutton is not much liked dish in our family compared to chicken and if I happen to cook mutton some day I end up eating most of the meat pieces, so fearing that I dont cook often. Same way in this dish the gravy got over pretty fast and only the meat pieces were remaining. This recipe is from  my old recipe collection which  I totally forgot that I had one such collection. I tried hard to recollect from whom I got this recipe but in vain my memory is totally lost on that as this is more than 10 yrs old collection and I feel really bad that  I am not able to thank the person who gave me this awesome recipe. Here is the recipe...   

For Appam 
Ingredients
Raw rice and idli rice (par boiled rice) should be of equal ratio. I used raw rice 1and 1/2 cup and idli rice 1 and 1/2 cup 
Urad dhal - 3 tsp
Salt as required
Coconut Milk - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1tsp

Method  
Soak the rice and urad dhal over night or for 6 hrs and grind to a fine thick batter and add salt and set to ferment  for 8 hrs.
When you are ready to make appam , pour the coconut milk, baking powder and 1/2 tsp of sugar and set for 5 mins and consistency should be little watery than the dosa batter.
Using appam pan , make   appams and serve with anything of your choice or with this mutton stew.

Mutton Stew

Ingredients
Mutton - 1/2 lb
Potatoes - 1 big cubed
Onion - 1 chopped
Green Chilies - 3 slit
Ginger - 1"
Cinnamon - 1", Cloves - 4, Cardamom- 2
Curry Leaves - 6
Coconut Shredded - 1/2 cup - extract the milk
Coconut oil - 1tsp
Salt as required

Method
Pressure-cook the mutton with salt till tender. Reserve the stock.
Heat oil in a pan and add the cinnamon, clove and cardamom and add onion, ginger and chilies and stir and add potatoes and add the mutton stock and cook until the potatoes are half cooked.
Add the cooked mutton and cook for 10 mins in low flame.
Add the coconut milk and bring to boil and remove from stove. Garnish with Cilantro and serve hot with appams.

Vegetable Kurma for Idiyappam

Kurma is the one great magic side dish goes very well is many dishes like chapathi, idiyappam, pulao.  Whenever I think of idiappam only kurma comes in mind for the side dish, I dunno I love this combo very much. Though making kurma and idiyappam is very time consuming, the final taste and praises from the family members are worth the efforts. I made this special dish on the day of diwali and I am very glad as every one liked it. What gives us more joy than when every one in our family likes and eats well the dish we prepare, so this made me more happier on the special day. Almost every one knows to prepare this vegetable kurma but still I wanna share my way of doing this recipe. 

Ingredients
Vegetable of your choice Chopped - 3 cups ( I used cauliflower, carrot, peas, beans)
Coconut shredded - 1/2 cup
Cashew - 2 tsp
Poppy Seeds - 1 tsp
Onion - 1 medium chopped
Cloves - 2 , Cinnamon - 1" , Cardamom - 2
Ginger Garlic Paste - 2tsp
Coriander Powder - 2 tsp
Chili Powder - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 3tsp
Salt as required

Method
Microwave poppy seeds and cashew with little water in small bowl for 30 secs and grind  together with coconut to a fine paste and set aside.
Heat oil in a non-stick pan and add cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and you get a nice fragrance add onion and saute for few mins. 
Add ginger garlic paste and stir well. Add all the dry powders and splash little water if required.
Add all the vegetable and some water and cook coved in a low flame until vegetables are cooked. 
Add the grinded coconut paste and cook for 5 mins, garnish with cilantro and serve with idiyappam.

Idiyappam /Rice Noodles

I love this idiyappam and kurma served at Saravana Bhavan restaurant,the tastes is really wonderful. This is a supposed to be a kerala dish, served usually with kadala curry, and trust me that is one of the best combination. If you live in coimbatore you get this ready made idiyappams  made freshly every day morning and evening so whenever you feel like having you can have it avoiding all the hard part of soaking and grinding and more and  sometimes you can also use the rice flour and reduce the job by skipping the  grinding and mixing part, but the hard  way gives you  really very soft idiyappams compared to using the rice flour, harder way always yields a good result.  My boy loves this dish and I did this after a long time and he almost started dancing after he took a first bite. This really gave me more joy but if I do again I doubt he would like it. This is the base for making the different variety of tasty sevai.

Method
Soak the 2 cups Idli Rice for 6 hours and grind to a thick paste of batter.
In a non-stick kadai add 2 tsp of oil and add the grinded batter and keep stirring until its turns soft dough and when touched the dough shouldn't stick to your hands.
You can also use the rice flour and skip the above step and directly mix with hot water. Take a small dough and put in a idiyappam maker and press in a greased idli plate and stream cook like idli for 5 to 10 mins or until done. 
Serve with kurma or using this you can make lemon sevai, tomato sevai or plain onion sevai.

Hot Buffalo Wings

When I first heard the name it sounded very weird to me, then I learnt the it was named after the their city of origin Buffalo, New york. This is usually made with the chicken wings coated with a spicy hot pepper sauce  but in some places they make it as boneless too. They usually have a heat index for this dish from very low to extreme heat, I havn't tasted the neither extreme nor the low heat ones, the medium ones really tastes good. Now Pizza hut is also serving this wings ..yet to taste. They are delicious, easy recipe and very tasty appetizer and are great when you get a hankering for something hot and unable to decide, try this Hot Buffalo Wings. This is usually served with celery so did I.  

Ingredients
Chicken Wings - 10 to 12
Butter - 3 tsp
Paprika - 2 tsp
Cayenne pepper - 1tsp
Franks Red Hot Sauce - 4 tsp
Salt as required

Method
Cut off the wing tips and Cut wings at the joint.
Create a marinade by mixing together the melted butter and all other ingredients. 
Take 2 tsp of this marinade and mix with the wings in a zip loc cover and keep refrigerated for 2 hrs. 
Place the chicken in a oven safe plate and broil in medium temp in the oven for 15 mins on each side. 
Remove from oven and baste with the remaining sauce. Serve with blue cheese or ranch and celery.

Chicken and Mushroom Curry

After the success of egg and mushroom curry, I made this another great dish using mushroom and chicken and undoubtedly even this was also great. In this dish mushroom didn't do any magic, there was not much of any difference in the taste by adding it other than getting the mushroom pieces in between the chicken in your each mouth, which I liked. Mushroom works very well with any combination, no complaints so far from my family. This dish can be prepared using only chicken. This goes well with rice and may be with chapathi too.

Ingredients
Chicken boneless thigh - 1/2 lb
Mushroom Chopped - 2 Cups
Onion - 1 chunks
Garlic - 6 cloves
Ginger - 1"
Clove - 4
Cinnamon - 1"
Tomato - 3 Chopped
Coriander Powder - 2tsp
Cumin Powder - 1tsp
Chili Powder - 1tsp
Tuemeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt as required
Oil - 3tsp

Method
Blend together onion, garlic, ginger, cloves and cinnamon to a fine paste.
Heat oil in a pan, add the onion paste and stir for few mins.
Add all the powders and mix well.
Add tomato and cook closed in a reduced flame for 10 mins.
Add the chicken and cook for 10 more mins and add the mushroom and cook for 30 mins in low flame and stir inbetween. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with rice. Enjoy!!

Egg N Mushroom Curry

This is a fabulous side dish. Though the combination sounds weird but it does work, the taste was excellent. Actually I tried this combination for fun as me and my hubby loves mushroom a lot and I had some few mushrooms left after making the mushroom stuffed omelette and used it for this dish and surprisingly this dish was delicious. This dish is so easy and quick to cook and can be served as a side dish for chapathi, or any flavored rice.

Ingredients
Boiled Egg - 4
Mushroom Chopped - 1 cup
Bell Pepper - 1 sliced
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1tsp
Onion - 1 chopped
Tomato - 2
Coriander Powder - 2 tsp
Chili Powder - 1tsp
Cumin Powder - 1tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 2tsp
Salt to taste

Method
Heat oil in a non-stick pan and fry onions until brown.
Add ginger and garlic paste and stir well. Add tomato and cook for few mins.
Add all the spices and a splash of water to avoid burning of the spices. Cook for few mins.
Add pepper and mushroom and cook in low flame, stir in between.
Slice the eggs to 4 pieces each.
When mushroom and pepper starts cooking add the eggs and cook in low flame, keep turning the eggs to coat well with the gravy. Garnish with cilantro. 
Enjoy this dish chapathi or even plain rice.

Sunny's Shrimp Biryani

My hubby hates seafood, he is okay with fish but he can't tolerate the smell of shrimp and crab, unfortunately those two are my favorite, even my boy loves shrimp. Usually on friday my hubby has team lunch in office, no need to pack lunch for him, so all fridays has become shrimp day for me and my boy till he started going to kindergarten. When going to pre-school he comes home by 1' o clock and if its friday while going to school he would remind me to prepare shrimp for lunch. Now in kindergarten he comes only by 4'o clock so me not getting any chance to prepare shrimp for couple of months. He likes only gravies with shrimp or just fried shrimp and biryani is out of question. My hubby is ready to eat shrimp w'out the smell of shrimp. I don't know, what a shrimp dish would be w'out the smell of shrimp and best way is he not eat shrimp.
I was planning to prepare this shrimp biryani for a quite long time but due to my laziness of preparing just for me  kept on delaying this, my choice was always simple either curd rice or maggi noodles for lunch on fridays. This time I dissipated my laziness and prepared this shrimp biryani and had great lunch all by myself. Each mouth made me wonder how can people not like shrimp!!! I saved some for my boy to eat after coming from school and to my surprise he really enjoyed it. Its always hard to say which food they like or dislike, its keeps changing. Already I made this dish 3 times within a week time, so I give the name sunny's shrimp biryani.  

Ingredients
Basmati Rice- 1/2 cup
Shrimp - 1 cup
Cloves - 2
Bay leaf - 2
Cinnamon - 1/2" stick
Cardamom- 1
Fennel seeds / saunf - 1/2 tsp
Tomato - 1 medium chopped
Onion - 1/2 of 1, chopped
Green Chilies - 2 slit
Mint and cilantro chopped - 1 cup
Ginger Garlic paste - 1tsp
Coriander Powder - 1tsp
Chili Powder - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 2tsp
Salt to taste

Method
Soak rice for 1/2 an hour and boil the rice till its fully cooked. Clean and devein the shrimp. In a non-stck pan heat oil and add clove, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf and fennel seed. Add onion and green chilies and saute for few mins and add ginger garlic paste and tomato and add all the dry powders and add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp is fully cooked and the gravy is dry. Add the chopped mint and cilantro. Now add the cooked rice and mix and eat with onion raita.