The kitchen queens

So, why are there no new posts? Hubby inquires.

Hmm, there is hardly anything I can actually put up. Food blogging is not an easy cup of tea! I put up my excuse. But the hubby (as hubbies are) is not letting me go just at that. He takes his dig, 'ego problem' , 'no one visiting your blog'. I tell him how I have not been taught to measure while cooking, one such important thing while writing a recipe. This I realize when I try out dishes from other food blogs.


For now, as a gesture of thanks and for my easy reference for later, I am going to list down recipes I have tried and enjoyed from the food blog universe, ever since my introduction to this heavenly part of the web. I have tried to put them in the chronicle order as they appeared on my dining table!

Matar Puri from Susarla's Kitchen

Food Lover's Chiroti Paratha (that I have come to call spiral parathas and make both aaloo paratha and gobhi paratha using her technique)

Food Lover's Tomato Chutney

Priya's Kadala Chana with a twist (where I do not add the coconut at all)

Sri's Methi Thepla
(my only twist is instead of ginger/garlic/chillies/cilantro paste, I add a little cilantro chutney which has ginger and green chillies, thats because I keep cilantro chutney handy for parathas and its quick use )

Sri's Pulaw
(again, I do away the GG paste and put just a little cilantro chutney, cause I had it handy and do not use garlic so extensively, however I am sure the pulaw did not become green)

Palak Paneer from Mahanandi
( I followed the recipe to the words except omitting to add the kajus all together, tasted heavenly)

Bhatura from Vee

Moong Daal Chilla from Ashwini's Food for thought

Hmm, I am hoping to try pineapple chutney and Aloo posto from Sandeepa's cook book soon!

Thats all for now!

Long live the kitchen queens.

Paneer Roll

The story first!

Last week I had bought flour tortillas thinking that they would make my loner's luncheon easy. Some quick wraps with leftover veggies, I had imagined. But I survived the week without needing to open the tortilla pack. And then on Friday when I bought Paneer to make matar paneer for a lavish Saturday lunch. Linus insisted we will have paneer rolls.

So, we will have paneer rolls, I chimed in. And then sat down to google. After reading a few recipes I settled to Tarla Dalal's recipe (available only to members of her site) and with a few variation thrown in, there it was a great paneer roll.

So here is how I did it:

Ingredients:

For the marinade:
1/4 cup of well beaten curd
1 teaspoon chilli powder (measurement alterable to taste)
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder (haldi)
¼ teaspoon Bengal gram flour (besan)
½ teaspoon chaat masala
½ teaspoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
½ teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste

1 cup Paneer cut into cubes
1/2 cup tomatoes (deseeded) cut into small cubes
1/2 cup capsicum diced
1 tsp oil
A little butter
1 Onion cut vertically
1/2 lemon
Tomato Sauce/Ketchup

For the wrap
4 flour tortillas

Tinkering in the kitchen:

• Mix the marinade items in a bowl and then toss in paneer and tomatoes . Leave it for 10 minutes.
• Heat oil in a non stick pan, saute capsicum for 2-3 minutes.
• Now add the paneer mixture and saute in high flame for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionaly.
• The filling is ready now.
• Take the tortilla and place it in a heated tawa with a little butter, flip sides add a little butter again. Take it off the tawa when it is nicely browned.
• Put the filling on the centre as shown in the picture, garnish with onion , squeeze a little lemon , a bit of tomato ketchup and then wrap it tightly. You can use tissue paper to hold it secure also.
• And then yum eat it or make another one!

As soon as we rolled the tortilla our temptation knew no bounds and we immediately had the first one. Hence the photo is the pre-rolled one!

My variation from the original recipe was using Tortillas instead of chapati. Not adding, ginger paste and garlic paste to the marinade mixture. And majorly my input was garnishing the roll with onion, lemon and ketchup.

Credits : Tarla Dalal for Inspiration
Linus for suggestion

A(nother) food blog starts

Hello !

I was almost tempted to write Hello World, the way one does while writing the very first program in any computer language. Well, here is my first attempt on food blogging, and thus the temptation of a programmer(an outdated one now!).

From an engineer to an MBA, a writer to a cook, I hope I can do justice to this food blog. I am a novice but I love cooking, I love trying out recipes. It was by chance that I landed upon a food blog. With the help of blog rolls I jumped and hopped all over the places. Sometimes as a ghost reader, sometimes putting my comments.

Having tried in these 3 months some 6 new recipes, I am not at all armed to write down my creations but I have now a raring appetite to try new recipes and post them. And I do tweak recipes and add my variation depending upon (un)availibility of ingredients.

May be this blog will not serve as much interest to other food bloggers who are great at their jobs, but at least it will serve as my online journal to recipes tried and tasted!

The next post will be about Kathi Paneer Roll, tried with variationn on saturday, credits to Tarla Dalal for the recipe and hubby for photos.