Assamese poached egg curry and two awards!

Blogging is such a great platform to expand the range of your culinary knowledge. All these events in the blogosphere encourage me a lot to try my hands at the multitude of unexplored areas and cuisines in the world. I should say that I had never thought of trying out a lot of the regional cuisines of even my homeland India. The RCI- North Eastern Cuisine event at Bhags Crazy curry made me do just that! I chose an Assamese poached egg curry as my entry to the event (tried to play it safe with eggs). But unfortunately, just before posting I double checked and my as luck would have it, Assamese cuisine is not included!! Anyways, back to the dish, I had no idea of how the finished curry would look like, since the cookbook didnt have a picture of the final dish. I was sceptical of how the curry would turn out but crossed my fingers and somewhat boldly ventured into a wide world where I had never gone before. I was not disppointed and the dish was not THAT different from the curries that I was used to. The differences were using fenugreek seeds as such in the egg curry, and also poaching the eggs on a bed of potatoes. This again has shown me that I need not be afraid of the recipes I am not familiar with, but should embrace it! Anyways, try out the recipe if you would like a change from the routine curries that you make. I am posting the recipe with the change in the ingredients measurement ( I only prepared 1/3 the recipe). Hope everyone likes it!

Morals of the story: Dont be afraid of unfamiliar cuisines, embrace it and experiment! Read the event details thoroughly before choosing the dish! :-)

Recipe (Serves 2):

Eggs - 2
All-purpose potatoes - 1 medium
Mustard oil - 2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1/4 tsp
Minced onions - 1/3 cup
Garlic - 1 medium clove, smashed
Ginger root - 3/4 tsp, minced
Serranos (green chillies) - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste
Water - 1/2 cup
Cayenne pepper/ Red chilly powder - 1/4 tsp

Method:

Peel the potatoes and slice crosswise into 1/2" thick discs. Set aside in a bowl of water.

In a shallow sauce pan, heat oil over medium-high heat until just beginning to smoke.

Remove from heat and let cool for a minute.

Return to medium heat and add cumin.

Saute for 20 seconds and add fenugreek and saute for 10 seconds.

Add onions and saute for a few minutes.

Add garlic, ginger and chillies and saute until the onions are golden.

Reduce the heat to medium-low if the mixture begins to burn before the onions are golden.

Add coriander and turmeric and stir until fragrant.

Pour water and add salt and return to a gentle boil.

Drain the potatoes and layer in the pan, making sure that they are covered with liquid.

Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender.

Break the eggs carefully over the top of potatoes.

Again, cover and cook until the eggs are set.

Sprinkle cayenne/red chilly powder on top.

Serve over rice.

Source: Complete book of Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani.

Tips:

1. I used Golden Yukon potatoes.
2. The mustard oil is heated and cooled because it has an element toxic to some people. Heating it to smoking point neutralizes this and makes it safe for cooking. (Courtesy: The original cookbook). I just used vegetable oil, and skipped the heating-cooling step.
   

I also have a few smiles to share! I recieved the Nice Matters award and my first "Good Chat Blog" award from EC of Simple Indian food. I really apprecaite your gesture EC, and thanks a lot for thinking about me while passing the smiles! I am so happy received these awards, one of them a first for me! Eventhough we really have not chatted a lot, I love the short but sweet comments that she leaves on my blog, and I just love taking part in the fantastic events that she comes up with! Thanks again EC! Both of them are coming back right at you!

I would like to pass on the Nice Matters awards to

Maheswari of Beyond the Usual
Cham of Spice-club
Jai and Bee of Jugalbandi
Rachel of Tangerine's kitchen
Srivalli of Cooking 4 all seasons
Suma of Suma's cuisine


I would like to pass on the Good Chat Blog award to

Ranji of Ranji's kitchen corner
Bhags of Crazy curry
Sig of Live to eat
Asha of Foodie's hope
Sukanya of Hot n'Sweet bowl

Hope you all would enjoy the awards as much as I did, passing it around! I dedicate mine to all my readers who made my blog deserve these awards!! Have a happy weekend!

PHEW!! Now, THAT was a big post! :-)

Chicken Korma and an announcement!

Hello friends, thank you for visting me today! I would like to announce the launch of a photography blog "Through the looking glass" by JZ (myself ;-)). This is basically a collection of pictures taken by my husband JM, the ones that I enjoy a lot. Please go over to the new blog and visit us at "Through the looking glass" and embrace it just like you all accepted Tasty treats! Thanks a lot for your support!

Through the looking glass

Today I am inviting your attention to another yummy blog. Most of you might be familiar with Annita's blog My treasure my pleasure. She was inactive for a few months now since she went to India for vacation. But the good news is she is back and hopefully will start blogging soon. Why I am so excited is that she was one of the few blogs that I was aware of soon after I first came to the US, with negligible knowledge in cooking techniques. Her blog was one of the biggest source of recipes which I had for reference at that time. Thus started my journey into the world of "cooking with the aid of the web". I should say her blog influenced my decision to blog, a lot. So here's another recipe from her blog which she found from Nabeela's Trial and error. Thanks to both of you!! The recipe can be found here. This is a tasty chicken curry with a rich gravy of cashews, almonds, yoghurt and roasted coconut. I always stick to the recipe when I am cooking something new, so it would be advisable to do that! :-)

Tip:

1. I would probably increase the amount of chilly powder. I prepared this sometime back, I guess I dont have any more tips for you that I remember.

Enjoy!! Good day to you all !! PS: If you like my blog, please dont forget to leave me a message, it really IS the inspiration to do more!

I am sending this Chicken korma to the Contest of the month June 2008 - Chicken over at Vandana's Cooking up something nice.

Almond-Pork Curry (Rogan Josh)

Well friends, the votes are in.......Dont know what I'm talking about? I was conducting a poll on my blog about the reader's favourite set of lemon rice pictures. And the winner is...Set 2 (Pictures 2 & 4) which, as many of you guessed, is my choice too!! Yaaay!!! I believe I proved my point, we should stick to what we do best. JM is the best at photography between the two of us and I guess food styling should be left to me! But to tell you the truth, I value JM's suggestions a lot, but sometimes, we do disagree!! That happens, right? Like a few readers mentioned, the pictures of rice in the bowl does look wholesome and would probably be how I would serve when I have guests over. Thanks a lot everyone who took a minute to participate in the poll, I had a lot of fun!!

Please dont forget to vote for my entry: Black forest cake at the "Great Cooks Community: Kid Friendly Cooking" event. I would really appreciate your support. Click on the link below and vote for JZ's black forest cake. For the original recipe, click here.

http://www.greatcooksblogroll.com/group/greatcookscountyfair

Last night I made "Rogan josh" at home. Until now I thought "rogan" meant lamb in some other language. After a bit of research on the net, I am as confused as ever. On wiki, it is mentioned that rogan means clarified butter and josh means fiery, hot or passionate! It is also mentioned that almost always it is made with lamb. But another site mentions that rogan means red. I am more inclined to go with rogan = red! If anyone knows the actual deal, please let me know. Anyhow, I was going through the Betty Crocker's Indian cookbook and the chef mentioned that lamb can be substituted with beef or pork. So I adapted the recipe to be made with pork. When I work on unfamiliar territories like this one, I usually follow the recipe as such. The speciality of this particular recipe was that it involved baking the meat in the oven for a long time and the meat came out succulent, moist and perfectly cooked! I just do not have words to explain how rich, creamy and tasty it was. I wish you all couldve had it!! As you all might know, this Kashmiri dish is a rich curry with almonds and cream, so dazzle the eyes of your guests with this "fit-for-a-king" recipe! Enjoy!

Recipe:

Lamb/Beef/Pork - 1 lb, cut into 2" cubes
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Red onion - finely chopped, 1/2 cup
Ginger - finely chopped, 2 tbsp
Garlic - 5 medium cloves, finely chopped
Slivered almonds - 1/2 cup, ground
Red chilly powder/ cayenne pepper - 1/2 tsp
Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp
Tomato sauce - 1/2 cup
Water - 3/4 cup
Fresh cilantro - 2 tbsp, freshly chopped
Whipping (heavy) cream - 1/2 cup

To grind together:

Cardamom seeds - 1/2 tsp
Whole cloves - 1/2 tsp
Black peppercorns - 1/4 tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp ( I used coriander powder)

Method:

Heat oil in a heavy pan over medium-high heat.

Add the cumin seeds and sizzle for 15-30 seconds.

Toss in the onions, ginger and garlic and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes or until onion and garlic are light brown.

Add the ground almonds, ground coriander, salt, red pepper, cardamom powder, ground cloves and ground black pepper.

Stir-fry for 1-2 minutes or until the almonds are partially brown.

Stir in the tomato sauce and 1/4 cup of water and reduce heat.

Partially cover and simmer for 4-5 minutes or until a thin film of oil separates from the sauce.

Stir in the meat and a half of the cilantro.

Heat oven to 300F.

Cover and simmer for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the meat is partially cooked.

Stir in the remaining water.

Spoon the meat mixture into an ungreased casserole/baking dish and cover with foil.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Uncover and bake for 45 minutes longer or until the meat is tender and the sauce is slightly thickened.

Remove from the oven and gently stir in whipping cream and cilantro.

Seve hot with rice or any Indian bread.

Source: Betty Crocker's Indian Homecooking, Recipes by Raghavan Iyer.

Tips:

1. I used about 2.3 lbs of pork. For this, I just doubled all the ingredients except salt.
2. I had less that a cup of almonds, so I used a few cashews to compensate.
3. I used store-bought 12 oz can of tomato paste which yields about 1 cup.
4. While adding water with the tomato paste (to simmer) I had to add more than what was mentioned in the recipe.
   

VOTE FOR ME, PLEASE!!

I had submitted my "Black Forest Cake" recipe for Great Cooks Community: Kid Friendly Cooking event. Please click on the link below to vote for me. I need as many votes as possible to win this challenge.

http://www.greatcooksblogroll.com/group/greatcookscountyfair


Please show your support by voting for JZ's Black forest cake. I would really appreciate your support! Thanks a lot.

Beef dragon for Fortune Cooking Contest

Beef dragon is a recipe that I saw on a cookery show sometime back when I was in India. I guess it could be called an Indo-Chinese recipe, more towards Indian. All I remember is my mother-in-law and I preparing this for lunch the next weekend. We were pretty impressed, but typical of men, the three men in the household didnt mention about it at all, until asked. We were infuriated and this recipe went on the back burner, until now. (BTW, the men also loved it). I was thinking of doing something different with beef when I found this recipe in my old book. It didnt mention the ingredient measurements, but I was pretty confident to work with what I had. We had grilled some steaks on the same day, so it was kind of a beef overload! When I got around to tasting it later in the day, it was awesome! I could finally recollect why we enjoyed it when we made it the first time. Atleast now, thankfully, I got a good review from JM. I loved it too!

I am sending this to Shriya's Fortune Cooking Contest at Spicy Tasty. I chose beef because it is the non-vegetarian choice given for Sagittarius (Nov 22- Dec 21). Eventhough my zodiac sign is not Sagittarius, it is special to me because four members of my family are Sagittarians - my lil one who was born in Nov, whose birthday almost always falls on or near Thanksgiving day, my husband and dad who share their birth dates (but born years apart, ofcourse!) and my brother who also is a Sagittarian. So what better zodiac sign to celebrate with!

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend! We just had a severe tornado warning in our area. It has just moved on farther to the Southern and Eastern areas. Hope no one gets harmed!!

Recipe:

Beef - 1 lb, cut into thin strips
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Corn flour - 2 tsp
All-purpose flour - 2 tsp
Green bell-pepper - 1/2 of a large
Yellow onion - 1/2 of a medium
Soy sauce - 2 tbsp
Tomato ketchup - 1 tbsp
Salt - as needed
Red color - a pinch (optional)

Method:

Cook the beef with a little bit of salt and a pinch of turmeric powder in a pressure cooker. (I put it on high heat for 3 whistles, took it off the heat and let it cool by itself)

Once cooled, mix the beef with the spice powders, all-purpose flour, cornflour, ginger-garlic paste and food color.

Keep aside for 30 minutes. ( I skipped this step :-) )

Fry the beef strips in oil until brown/reddish brown.

Slice the onions lengthwise to form long slivers.

Cut the bell-peppers lengthwise.

In a skillet, heat oil and saute the onions until tender.

Toss in the bell-peppers and saute until slightly soft, but it should still retain a crunch to it.

Add the fried beef and mix well with the onions and peppers.

Mix in the soy-sauce and the tomato ketchup.

Toss to coat evenly.

Serve hot with rice or Indian breads.



Tips:

1. The beef strips, when fried, should be slightly crisp. Do not over-fry or they will become hard and chewy.
2. Celery will also form an interesting pair with bell-peppers.
3. These would also go well as fillings for wraps.
4. Change the amount of onions and bell-peppers as desired. Next time, I would double their quantities.