Egg curry the Pakistani way

Not in the mood for something really simple to eat and in no mood whatsoever of slogging in the kitchen for some elaborate meat dish. So what does one do? EGGS ! You can jazz these up and make it exotic. But most of the egg curry dishes I had in my recipe books, needed coconut in some form or the other. Well I dint have any at home.
So I figured, if I searched for cuisines up north in Asia, I would get people cooking curries, without easy access to coconut.:) And this is where I stumbled upon a few Pakistani egg curry recipes.
This egg curry recipe is nice and simple and it ended up tasting awesome too. We had it with some soft bread and then again with rice and we were done. All satisfied!

Let me share this one with you. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Serves: 3 to 4 people
Level: Medium

Ingredients:
1.5 tsp cumin seeds
1.5 inch cinnamon
3 cloves
3 green cardamoms
4 black peppercorns
1 large onion, sliced lengthwise
1 medium tomato, roughly chopped
1/2 cup yogurt
1 large potato, peeled and chopped
2 tsp red chilly powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1.5 tsp ginger garlic paste
Salt to taste
4 boiled eggs
Coriander to decorate

Method:
Step 1: Heat 3 tblsp oil in a pan. Add in the cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, peppercorns and cumin seeds. Stir for a min. When cumin seeds change color, add in the sliced onion and fry till they turn brown. Drain and cool.

Step 2: In a mixer bowl, add the the onions from step 1, tomatoes and yogurt and blend into a fine paste. Keep aside.

Step 3: In the same pan, add in the turmeric powder, red chilly powder,coriander powder and ginger garlic paste to the remaining oil. Stir them around. Add 5 tblsp water to make sure the spices dont burn. Cook till it leaves oil. Add in the potatoes and stir well for 2 to 3 mins. Add in water, till the potatoes just submerge and cook covered till the potatoes are almost done. Stir occassionally. Add in the paste from step 2. Stir well and boil for 5 to 6 mins.

Step 4: In a serving bowl, add the boiled egg, slit or full and pour the curry over it. Decorate with coriander and serve.

Serve hot with bread or chapatis or rice.

Now, 1 medium tomato gives this curry a slightly tangy flavour.
So if you are not a fan of tangy flavour, reduce the tomato to 1/2 a medium or just 1 small tomato.

I thought this curry was just fine, whereas Alok thought it could be better with a little less tangy flavour.
So just thought of giving you a heads up on this..:)

Happy cooking everybody!

Sugar Cookies

The simplest, the cutest and the yummiest cookies, I've come across.
Not soft, not rock crunchy..just right...
As my granny always says, these are just "khushkhusheet". :)

I have always been a fan of baking, and was very keen on learning cookies. They look so cute and the house smells like sweet heaven when these are in the oven.
And its just fun to see your creation mould itself into delicate beauties in the oven.
Believe it or not, I still keep the oven light on when making cakes and cookies and it always bring a smile to my face to see them baking.

These cookies are really down right basic.

If you are not so sure about your baking skills, maybe these cookies are a good start. Requires very little ingredients and very little time. And like most other cookies, bakes in under 15 minutes. What more could you ask for?

Serves: Makes 40 medium sized cookies
Level: Simple

Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour/all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup clarified butter (ghee)
1 tblsp milk (or as required)

Method:
Step 1 : Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Take a large bowl. Drop in the clarified butter and sugar and whisk it well till the batter is light and fluffy. I used the electric whisk here. Makes life simpler.

Step 2 : Slowly add in the plain flour, in parts. Do not add the entire flour at one go. You need to do this in parts, whisking continuously and making sure it all blends in together. By the end of it, you will have a soft crumbly mixture.

Step 3: Get your hands in the mixture and start clumping it together, so it forms a dough. The key is, to try to get a smooth round ball without cracks with the dough. If it is difficult to form that, add in milk, 1 tblsp at a time. I had to add a total of 2 tblsp to get my mixture right this time. But it can vary. The lesser, the better the crunchier.

Step 4 : Roll the dough into equal sized discs and place them on a cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 mins. You have to keep an eye on it. When you see the base of the cookie, getting brown - You Are Done! Place the cookies on a wire rack till cool and then store it in an air-tight container.

Serve with tea.

You can also modify these cookies by adding 1/4 tsp cardamom, or cinnamon. Even 1 tsp of vanilla essence tastes really good.

You can add store bought ghee for this recipe. I've used homemade clarified butter here.

While baking these, keep the cookies a bit apart from each other as they expand while baking.

Enjoy!

Tortilla Wraps

A lazy sunday...getting up late....no mood to cook...no mood to go out to eat...what does one do??
If you are just like me...you would love these wraps..:)

Well, even if you are the ALL TIME CHIRPY lot, you will still love these wraps.

These wraps are a great brunch idea..and you can let your imagination go wild with these.

I change the fillings for these wraps all the time..afterall, you cannot have the same leftovers on all Sundays!!

So this is my current version of wraps..

Serves: 3 - 4 people
Level: Easy

Ingredients:
Potato filling:
4 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
Salt to taste
1 tsp chaat masala
4 green chillies, finely chopped
1/2 bell pepper, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped

Others:
1 packet tortilla,any kind
Cheese, any to taste
Green chutney, to taste
Cooking spray

Method:
Step 1 - Heat a flat pan. Keep it on low heat during the entire process. Place a tortilla on the pan (no oil) and let it cook for a min. Spray some oil on top of the tortilla. We just want to cook it a little. Do not let it brown or puff up. Turn it over and let the oiled side face the pan.

Step 2 - Immediately, add the potato mixture. Smear the green chutney and sprinkle the cheese. Do this on one side of the tortilla, like in the picture above.

Step 3 - Fold the tortilla, and let it slightly brown on both the sides.

Serve warm with some ketchup.

Now you can make any number of variations with this one..

1) You can add scrambled eggs/egg bhurji to these wraps.
2) You can replace the green chutney, with some hot salsa.
3) You can make minced meat/kheema wraps.
4) You can make paneer bhurji wraps.

5) Well...you can add in any of your leftover veggies to these wraps.

You can place the filling in the center and then wrap the tortillas from both the ends..to have a different style of wrap..

Pepper Chicken

Finally back in action...

Well, shifting isint an easy task...and now that we have almost!! settled down in our new place, thought I should work on my blog again.

This got me wondering what I would like to start off with?..something not too elaborate..tasty..and yet different. Had some chicken legs waiting in the refrigerator..so I finally decided on making this simple "Pepper Chicken".

I was asked to make this recipe by a cousin of mine, for my blog. But was just lazy to search for my old recipe book in all those bags and get all the ingredients together.
But once it was done...I was wondering what took me so long??...!!..

Here is how you make it..

Serves: 2 people
Level: Easy

Ingredients:
6 chicken legs
3 tsp peppercorns
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 medium onion, slit long
1 medium onion, minced
1.5 medium tomatoes, minced
Salt to taste
Coriander to decorate
Dash of lime juice

Method:
Step 1 - Heat 1 tblsp oil in a pan. Add the peppercorns, cumin seeds and long-slit onions and saute till it all turns brown. Do this on a medium flame. Not too high heat and not too low. Cool this mixture and grind it with some water to turn it into a smooth paste.

Step 2 - Heat oil in the same pan and fry the minced onions, till they turn pink. Then add in the minced tomatoes. Fry this till it starts oozing oil from its sides.

Step 3 - Add in the smooth paste from step 1 and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 4 - Add in the chicken pieces and salt and cook till the chicken is well done.

Serve hot, decorated with coriander and a dash of lime.

This dish can be made into a gravy dish, by doubling the quantity of ingredients for the same amount of chicken and adding some water at step 4.

Step 2 can be dangerous!! with all the water content in minced onions and tomatoes splattering around. So just keep it covered most of the time and carefully stir it occasionally to make sure it doesnt stick to the bottom of the pan. Be safe..

This dish needs to distinctly taste like pepper. So if you think your pepper is too mild, add some more to the dish. You can adjust the taste of pepper before incorporating the chicken in the dish too.

Hope you enjoy this one.

Happy cooking.