Chicken n Cheese Rolls

Come the Fridays (Oh yeah that's right, weekends are Fridays and Saturdays in UAE) and the desire to try out something new in the kitchen erupts. We desperately needed a snack to pump us out of our laziness into action! I had a chicken breast in my fridge and mozzarella cheese too. Well, Friday magazine also published a recipe of Beef and Mushroom rolls which came as my inspiration.
So it was decided, I am gonna make a roll and I am gonna bake it as well.

I made the Filo pastry for the rolls as well, I must say it came out pretty good - definitely worth a try.

Ingredients

For the Filo pastry

1. All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
2. Warm Water - 3/4 cup
3. Salt - 1/2 tsp
4. Olive oil - 3 tbsp
5. Corn Flour - for dusting

For the filling

1. Chicken - 200 gms
2. Onion - 1 big finely chopped
3. Garlic - 1 tbsp finely chopped
4. Parsley - a handful chopped
5. Pepper powder - coarsely ground
6. Tomato sauce - 1 tbsp
7. Mozzarella cheese - 200 gms
8. Salt to taste
9. Oil - 2 tbsp

Method

To make the filo pastry, take a bowl with sieved flour with salt. Gently add warm water, forking it out gently to let the moisture settle into the flour. Add the olive oil and bring together to make the dough. Make smaller balls out of the dough and roll it in corn flour. Place this on a tray and cover with a cling film. Allow this to rest for 1 to 2 hours.

Cook the chicken with a little pepper powder, salt and water.  Once cooked, shred the chicken into smaller pieces.

Heat oil in a skillet, add the chopped onion and garlic and saute it for 5 minutes.Add the shredded chicken, chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. Saute for another 5 minutes, Switch off the flame and add tomato sauce to this. Let this cool.

Back to the Filo pastry. Flatten the balls using a roller until thin and cut this into squares of 10*10 cms. Brush olive oil onto the surface. Layer it on cling films or plastic so that it does not stick to each other.

Place sufficient filling along the side of the square. Add cheese of your desired quantity. Roll it over once and fold in the top and bottoms of the square. Complete the rolling and stick the ends using a little water.

Pre-heat the oven for 20 minutes to 200 degree centigrade. Place the rolls on a greased baking tray with the outer rolled end facing the bottom. Brush the surface with egg white to make it crisp and give the baked rolls a darker shade. Bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees and then increase to 200 degree centigrade. Once cooked, transfer from the baking tray and serve with your favorite sauce.

Alternatively, you could buy Filo pastry and use the same stuffing. Instead of baking, it can be deep fried too. The choice yours:)

Fish Mappas/ Meen Mappas

Fish Mappas or Meen Mappas is a traditional Kerala recipe flavored by the addition of coconut milk. This is served along with appam, idiyappam or bread roll. 

My recipe is an adaptation of the one I had seen on cookery show - Shappile curry naville ruchiyum on television. I have tried this recipe a couple of times with different fishes like Karimeen and Vatta. It turned out the best with Neymeen/ King Fish which I made this time and we finally decided to put it up in the blog.

Unlike fish molly, mappas is a little tangy due to the addition of kudampali/ pot tamarind and blends well along with the creaminess of coconut milk. This recipe is now a favorite with us.

So, here you go - 

Ingredients

1. Fish slices - 9-10 pieces( I used King Fish - you may use karimeen or pomfret also)
2. Onion - 2 medium sliced lengthwise
3. Green Chilly - 4-5 slit
4. Ginger - 2 tsps chopped
5. Tomato -1 medium sliced lengthwise
6. Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp
7. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
8. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
9. Coriander powder - 2 tbsp
10. Coconut milk - 1 coconut
11. Curry Leaf - 1 sprig
12. Kodam pulli/ pot tamarind - 2 pieces
13. Coconut oil - 2 tbsp

Method

Being a Keralite, I am used to making fish curry in mann chatti/ earthern pot. It somehow gives me a feeling that I am home :) However, it is not mandatory to use one. Any pot would do. 

Heat the oil and add the fenugreek seeds. Add mustard seeds and when it splutters toss in the chopped onions along with the ginger. Saute it, till the raw smell goes away and add the green chilly. 

When the green chilly slowly begins to change color, add turmeric powder and coriander powder. Stir till the masala gets cooked. 

I usually take the milk from freshly grated coconut. You may use store bought coconut milk as well. 

For those using fresh coconut milk, you may take the milk twice - thick milk and thin milk.

Add the thin milk and once it boils, place the fish slices into the pot along with tomato slices and pot tamarind.

Bring this to boil and simmer it on low flame covered till the fish gets cooked. Then add the thick milk. Switch off the flame as soon as the gravy comes to a boil. Avoid stirring the fish curry once cooked as the fish being tender, tend to fall apart.

Garnish with curry leaves.

Does not take a very long time to cook and a perfect recipe for weekend get together with friends and family.

Lemon Cake with Honey Lemon drizzle

And it is a year already!

This blog was born with little or no idea how long it would sustain but here we are - Our first milestone!
And we intend to attain many more.
It has been a tremendous learning experience all along. We confess that we are not the experts, we experiment, trial and errors along the way and happy successes too.
We have presented our successes to you and learnt from our failures to better the food we present to you in every way.

My gratitude to all my family, friends and everyone of you for the encouragement through your constant likes and comments!

Cheers to one year of happiness through food blogging!

Lemon Cake with Honey Lemon Drizzle - that is our latest fad.

Here is the recipe for you -

Ingredients

For the cake - 

1. All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
2. Sugar - 1 cup
3. Vegetable Oil - 1 cup
4. Egg - 3 no.s
5. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
6. Baking powder - 1 tsp
7. Lemon zest - 2 lemons
8. Lemon juice - 2 lemons
9. salt - 1/4 tsp

For the drizzle - 

1. Honey - 1/4 cup
2. Water - 1/4 cup
3. Lemon juice - 1 lemon
4. Sugar - 2 tbsp

Method

Pre-heat the oven at 180 degree centigrade for 15 minutes. Keep your baking tray ready by greasing it. Sieve together the flour and baking powder and keep aside.

Take the oil and sugar in a bowl. Break open the eggs into the same bowl and whisk the ingredients together. Pour in a tsp of vanilla essence and once the ingredients have combined well, add the sieved dry ingredients along with salt and fold in the cake mix. 

Zest in two lemons (ensuring that you don't go in too deep) into the batter. Add the lemon juice taken from two lemons and fold this into the cake mix.

Transfer this to the greased cake tray.  Bake it for at 180 degrees till a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Baking time varies depending on the size of your oven so keep a tab.

In the meantime, bring together the ingredients for the drizzle - sugar, lemon juice, honey and water. Ensure that the water you use is warm. Mix well to form a syrup.

Prick your cake roughly to form holes for the syrup to seep in. Gently pour the syrup on the cake and let the cake absorb it. Keep the cake covered in a cling film for a day.

Add topping of your choice! We chose to have streaks of whipping cream across the cake as you can see in the photographs.

Happy Baking!

Spicy Egg Fry

In the hustle bustle of modern life, people find it difficult to cook up elaborate recipes. We look out of quick wins that soothe our taste buds after a stressful day. A couple of my bachelor friends requested for recipes that are quick and easy to whip up. So both the needs combined together, we decided to come up with some easy beginners recipes - that are soul satisfying in both the ways.

Here is a recipe with hard boiled egg that takes you a maximum of 5 minutes to make if you have boiled eggs with you. It is a spicy kick to the normal boiled eggs.

Ingredients

1. Egg - 2 no.s
2. Oil - 1 tbsp
3. Chilly powder - 2 tsp
4. Salt to taste

Method

Take 2 eggs in a saucepan with water just enough to cover the eggs and bring it to a boil. Simmer on medium flame for ten minutes and switch off the flame. Transfer the eggs to a bowl of tap water and let it cool. Peel the egg under running tap water - makes it easier for the shells to come off. Using a knife create slits on the egg so that the flavors can seep in.

Pour oil into a pan. Once the oil is warm, add a tsp of chilly powder. Just when the color starts to darken, add the eggs. Keep tossing the eggs in the oil, so that the entire egg is coated. Add sufficient salt and fry this for another 2-3 minutes on medium flame continuously tossing it.

Transfer this to a plate and devour it either as a snack in itself or along with bread of your choice.

You could drop the same eggs into a curry if you choose to make one or even add fried onions along with the eggs for an extra zing.

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

I have been wanting to bake cookies for quite sometime. The last two attempts of mine was futile and I decided to give it a go once again. This time around I was lucky. I managed to get the heat and the texture somewhere close to what me and those who ate my cookie would call it RIGHT!

Peanut Butter and banana are my favorite combination any day and any time. I had ripe bananas with me and I made my own peanut butter - so then that was decided. It is going to be a banana peanut butter cookie.

Here is my recipe for those who would like to try out the same.

Ingredients

1. All Purpose Flour - 1 and half cup
2. Banana - 4-5 small ones or one big
3. Creamy Peanut butter - 1/4 cup
4. Butter - 1/8 cup
5. Sugar - 1/2 cup
6. Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
7. Egg - 1
8. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
9. salt - 1 pinch

Method

Preheat the oven for 15 minutes.

In a bowl, mash the bananas. The riper the bananas, the easier it is to mash. Add in the peanut butter and butter along with the sugar. Stir it in well using a spatula.

Beat in the egg and vanilla essence. Once this has combined well. Sieve the flour into the bowl along with salt and baking soda. Fold it in.

Roll out into balls -sizes of your choice. Line a baking tray with butter paper and place the dough balls a little apart from each other.

Press down it down using a fork first horizontally and then vertically. That was my choice of design, you may bring in variations.

Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, rotating the tray half way through.

Once done transfer this to a cooling rack. You may store it in an air tight container and should last you a good two weeks.

You may also note - 

1. You may have questions over the consistency of the batter, it should not be too runny neither too thick. In case it is runny, add in a little more flour to adjust the consistency.
2. Sometimes, you may not be able to make rolls from the dough, which being the case you may scoop it out using a spoon and set it on the tray.
3. The baking time may vary depending on the size of your oven. So count somewhere between 12 - 20 minutes as the ideal bake time. Keep checking!!