spaghetti carbonara

I love spaghetti carbonara for several reasons. Its simple, takes less ingredients, has creamy texture and mainly it has pork :)

Spaghetti carbonara we used to get in our restos loads it with cream and lot of cheese and its not real carbonara, infact they simply toss spaghetti in white sauce and thats it :|

Authentic carbonara demands "guanciale" which is cured meat made from pork cheeks/jaw, and adding cream is strictly forbidden. I replaced "guanciale" with bacon, other than that I used all authentic ingredients along with authentic way of doing it. But ofcourse this is my way of doing it so I don't call it 100% authentic but its pretty close  for sure. Atleast it does not have loads of cream and cheese.

This recipe is enough for 2 people

Ingredients:
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Bacon strips cut in small pieces
- Spaghetti pasta (fistful)
- 2 eggs + yolk of 1 egg
- Half a cup parmesan cheese/pecorino cheese (grated)
- Fresh crushed black pepper
- salt to taste

Method:
- Bring water to roaring boil and add salt to it (this is for cooking spaghetti). Once its boiling add in spaghetti, do not put oil in it, spaghetti won't stick if we keep stirring.

- In a separate bowl whisk eggs, black pepper, salt and grated cheese together, this is our sauce.

- In a pan, add little olive oil and bacon and keep sauteing till bacon is cooked through.

- Keep check on spaghetti, we need to sync timing of spaghetti and bacon.

- Once bacon and spaghetti are well cooked, turn of flame.

- Drain spaghetti and add it to pan, and toss a little bit to lower its temperature.

- Add in egg sauce in pan and keep stirring without breaking spaghetti and make sure eggs does not
become scrambled.

- This makes spaghetti creamier, once all spaghetti is well coated its done.

- Garnish with some more pepper and cheese and serve :)

chicken in cream sauce

This is a very simple and yet very tasty chicken recipe I came across over Internet. Thanks to my friend Nilesh who tagged me so that I could watch and re-create it.

This is my try to re-create it.


Ingredients:
-2 whole Chicken breast pieces
-1 lemon (cut in 4 pieces)
-Sliced onions Julian style big chunks
-Finely cut leeks/spring onions (original recipe has leeks)
-Salt n black pepper for seasoning

Recipe:
-Apply salt n pepper on chicken breast and put little oil over them,
make sure chicken is nicely coated.
-Add little oil (5ml) in pan and then add lemon pieces, add chicken breasts to pan
and pan grill them 5 mins each side.
-Once nicely golden brown from both sides keep it aside in aluminium foil.
-In same pan add onions along with spring onions and saute well, add 1 cup of white wine
and transfer chicken breasts back in pan and cover it to ensure chicken is cooked through.
-Uncover pan, make sure only half wine has left in pan adjust seasoning and remove lemons from tongs (Else it makes cream curdle)
-Now add warm/hot cream to pan and give a nice stir and turn off gas. Its necessary not to cook after adding cream, just keep it covered after giving a stir, else cream gets curdles and ruins texture of sauce.

Serving:
-prepare rice bed
-Carefully put chicken breast on it/or you can cut in thin  slices
-Pour nice creamy sauce over it

Chicken hotdog

One of friend Sushil tagged me on FB for a post of cheese filled hotdog, as I watched video and way cheese was oozing out of hotdog. I immediately went out and bought stuff needed to make them.

Ingredients:
500 gms minced chicken
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp chaat masala
1 tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chilly powder
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp garam masala powder
1 egg
1 medium sized onion finely chopped
4-5 cheese stripes (cut cheese block into stripes of 10x10 mm thick)
1 cup bread crumbs


Method to prepare marinade masala:
- In a frying pan saute onions over medium heat with ginger-garlic paste.
- Mix garam masala powder into mixture and saute till onions are cooked/tendered.
- Turn heat off and let it cool to room temperature.

Method to prepare marinade:
- In a big bowl, add all dry ingredients along with tamarind paste and mix well till smooth paste is formed.
- Now add prepared onion masala and mix well.
- Mix in minced chicken and egg to this mixture and knead mixture with hands to mix it nicely,
so that all chicken is nicely get marinated.
- Add bread crumbs to this mixture and knead mixture well.
- Add more bread crumb as needed till mixture starts holding well when pressed in hand.

Method to prepare hotdogs:
- Make 5-6 round shape portions of above mixture and start rolling them into cylindrical shape
- Make sure it is not very thin so that else they will tend to break while wrapping them.
- Place cheese stripe at one end of rolled out mixture and start wrapping like a roll.
- Use little oil to seal off edges from both side and smooth out outside edge.
- Our hotdogs are ready.


Grill them till they are cook Or they can be finish on frying pan as well. They are ready to eat when cheese starts to ooze out of it a bit. Serve with hotdog bread.


Tips:
Do not make very thin mixture for wrapping else cheese will ooze out while grilling, or hotdgos might break in half while transferring to/from grill or pan.
One can use same recipe to make burger patties/chicken cutlets as well :)

 

Grilled chicken burger

It was Wednesday and I had super craving for eating a nice non-deep fried burger which is hard to find where I live. So I decided to make one for myself.  After putting little efforts I was happy to realize its so simple to put a juicy chicken burger. Here is my version.

Ingredients:

Marinade:
chicken thighs 1 piece
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp oil
2 tsp mix herbs

Spicy caramelized onions:
1 tsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cumin seed powder
1/2 tsp coriander seed powder
1 tsp red chilly powder
1 medium onion cut in julienne style

Sauce mix:
Mayonnaise + Worcestershire sauce  + chilly sauce (as per taste)

Topping:
cheese slice, jalapenos and as per choice.
and most important burger buns :)

Recipe:
Preparing marinade:
- rub salt, black pepper powder, garlic paste and herbs nicely on entire chicken thigh, I often prefer to puncture chicken thigh with knife tip many times so that marinade sticks nicely to eat and makes its way in deep chicken muscle. Also helps cooking faster.
- sprinkle oil on top and coat chicken nicely and kept aside.

Cooking:
- Take a frying pan and put it on medium high heat. Cook chicken nicely till flesh separates from bone.
- take out chicken and cover in aluminium foil.
- In same pan add all ingredients for spicy caramelized onions, and saute them nicely until they are nicely coated and becomes little tender.
- Take off from pan and keep aside.
-Warm up burger buns in this pan, so tat they will soak up all this good flavor nicely.
- Put aside burger buns.
- Shred chicken using forks and knife. Take a portion of this shredded chicken and put in pan,
add cheese slice on top.
- Apply sauce mix generously on burger buns
- As soon as cheese melts, carefully transfer chicken+cheese on burger bun (don't worry melted cheese helps shredded chicken stay together)
- Add your favorite topping, add caramelized spicy onions and enjoy your burger.

You may choose to put more sauce mix on top of chicken, one can adjust hot level by varying chilly sauce and chilly powder.

Cashew chicken creme

Its was lazy sunday and i was just back from night journey from kolhapur. Although I decided earlier to get some food delivered at home, but suddenly my craving for chicken took over :)

To be honest, I came up with recipe on my own and on the fly, since we were on holiday for couple of days,we had almost no veggies at home, so I came up with recipe which has less ingredients.

Recipe is enough for 1 chicken whole leg, one can increase ingredients as per need. Chicken leg was almost about 250gms with bone in. And this chicken taste best with bone in.

chicken creme

Ingredients:
10 -15 cashew nuts (soak in warm water for 2-3 hrs)
1/2 medium sized onion finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1 green chilly finely chopped
pinch of garam masala
1 tsp all purpose flour
2 cups of milk (read note below)
Salt and black pepper as per taste

Method:
- Cut chicken thigh in 2-3 pieces and keep drumstik as is. Make slits on drumstick. Rub salt and black pepper powder nicely all over the chicken with some oil. Keep this aside for hour or 2.
- Make a fine paste of cashew nuts, ginger, garlic and green chilly and set aside.
- Take a deep, thick bottom but narrow mouth pan. Add some oil and place chicken pieces one by one in it. Grill them till they become golden brown from both sides.  or about 5 mins on each side.
- Remove chicken pieces and wrap them in aluminium foil till we prepare gravy.
- In same pan add little oil and start saute onions till they are translucent or turns pink in color.
- Add in cashew paste and saute well, add in garam masala powder add in dash of water and scrape of any paste that might have stick to pot.
- Add 1 tsp all purpose flour to this mixture and create smooth paste.
- Add in chicken pieces and make sure,they get coated well with this paste.
- Add in 2 cups of milk or add in milk till all pieces are submerged in milk.
- Bring to boil on medium heat, and then put lid on and cook on lowest flame for about half hour.
- Chicken is done when flesh starts separating from drumstick bone.
- Indulge in your creation :)

Notes:
1. Milk amount depends upon chicken qauntity and pot size. Rule of thumb is chicken should be completely submerged in milk.
2. This recipe receives hotness from pepper and green chilly, increase quantities as per your taste, but it taste great with less hot,else hotness shall overpower cashew flavour and that we don't want to happen.
3. Use same pan for saute chicken and cook,so that all goodness of chicken juices are retained.
4. Slow cooking involves lowest flame setting, a higher flame will change chicken texture to rubber like substance. Turn off heat as soon as flesh near leg starts pulling away. Thats the best sign of perfectly cooked chicken.
5. After adding milk, it appears to be curdled,but don't worry as it starts thiken up,that effect shall go away.
6.We have used salt in marinade so adjust salt in gravy accordingly.

Chicken Cutlets with classic onion sauce

 

How about having steamy cutlets made with flat wheat bread and chicken sausages, topped with melted cheddar cheese and classic onion sauce? Well here is recipe for the same :)

Cutlets:

Ingredients:

1 Chapati (finely grinded)

1 egg

1 chicken sausage

1 tsp vegetable oil of choice

Salt and pepper to taste

Spices of your choices as per taste (1-2 Tsp)

1/2 cup Breadcrumbs

Cheese slices

Method:

- Mix all ingredients except breadcrumb very well and knead with hands for about 3-4 minutes.

- Take a small portion and press in hands, if it holds shape then your mixture is ready.

- Start adding breadcrumbs and mix again and check whether mixture is holding shape.

- Once mixture starts holding shape, stop adding breadcrumbs and prepare small balls of mixture.

- Flatten them with hands, dust them with all purpose floor and then shallow fry till golden brown on one side.

- Once first side is golden brown, flip it over and spread cheese slice on top, and fry till other side becomes golden brown.

- They are ready to serve

Cutlets served with onion sauce

Classic onion sauce:

1 cup onion (chopped in long strips)

3 tsp butter

1 tsp all purpose floor

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper for taste

Method:

- In thick bottom pan, melt butter.

- Add in onions and saute till they get caramelized and turned into nice brown color.

- At this stage add in all purpose floor and make sure its mixed well.

- Start adding water 2 tsp at a time, each time making sure nothing stick to pan and mixture is well combined.

- Once all water is in, stir well and add salt, pepper, chilly powder (optional) and bring to boil.

- Once mixture starts thicken up, turn off flame and sauce is ready.

Fish shaped stuffed bread

I had seen these amazing fish shaped stuffed bread on facebook community Chef at Large. So I wanted to try them ever since. As my bread recipes were failing miserably due to lack of patience and good yeast, I was not keen on wasting good stuffing on failed bread :P

I believe I can bake an acceptable bread now, so I gave it a shot. I am just going to refer recipe for standard basic bread, and so not going to write it down again. But going to post recipe for stuffing and how to achieve desired shape.

What is required:
1. Basic white bread dough => http://vinitsjoyofcooking.blogspot.in/2015/07/basic-white-bread.html
2. Stuffing

Stuffing:

Ingredients:
1 chicken sausage finely chopped
1 medium sized onion finely chopped
1 small tomato
1 tsp garam masala
salt and black pepper for taste
1 tsp oil/butter
1 tsp all purpose flour

Method:
- Saute onions till they become brown.
- Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, garam masala and saute well
- Add chicken sausage and make sure chicken is cooked through
- At this point add all purpose flour and make sure all mixture has gone dry
- turn of flame and let this be cooled down to room temperature.
- Make sure stuffing is dry, else it will make bread dough saggy and ruin everything


Preparing fish shapes:

- Divide bread dough in equal shaped balls and roll them out on nicely dusted surface
- Now cut flatten dough in angular stripes as shown in pic

- Put mixture in the center, I applied little tomato sauce, but then I realized its making dough saggy,

so avoided it later. 

- Start folding  stripes in alternate fashion as shown in pic

- Now your fish is ready, transfer it carefully on dusted baking tray
- Let it rest and rise again for hour.

 - Lightly brush with milk/egg white, put sesame seeds/herbs on top
- Bake in 180 degree celsius pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes or top becomes brown

-  Take out from oven and let it cool on rack.
- Garnish and serve while its warm