Tortilla Wrap

Tortilla wrap with fresh tomato salsa and a mouth watering shredded chicken filling is to die for. My first attempt at making the whole recipe ground up was an absolute winner and my family loved it. I have made the tortilla myself cause I like to keep it very rustic and if you are adventurous too go ahead and give it a try. But if you are unsure you can always get the machine made tortilla (very monotonous) available in stores.

Ingredients:

Tortilla-

Corn (Maize) flour - 1 ½ cup

All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 ¼ cup

Oil - 4 tbsp

Warm water

Salt to taste

Salsa-

Cucumber - 1 small, peeled and diced

Tomato - 2, de-seeded and diced

Green Chilly - 1, de-seeded and finely chopped

Garlic - 2 cloves, finely chopped

Onion - 1 medium sized, chopped

Lemon juice - from ½ a lemon

Salt to taste

Filling-

Chicken breast - 300 gms, cut into strips of

Red bell pepper - 1, roughly cut into small pieces

Onion - 1 large, sliced

Garlic - 5 medium sized cloves, pounded

Black pepper powder - 1 ½ tsp

Balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp

Sugar - a pinch

Oil - 4 tbsp (I used olive oil here)

Salt to taste

Garnish-

Cheese

Jalapenos - 4 to 5, chopped

Method:

Salsa-

Mix all the ingredients except salt. You can add the salt just before you assemble the wraps (Salt will make the veggies shed out its water content and will make your tortilla soggy).

Tortilla-

In a bowl, nicely mix corn and the all purpose flour. Add the oil and salt to taste. Add enough water to make a soft dough. Keep it aside for 5 minutes. Make balls out of the dough and then roll it into tortillas of around 9 inches dia. On a hot pan, cook for about a minute on each sides (one thing to take care of is to make sure the tortillas are not over cooked, they tend to become hard). This batch will fetch you 5-6 tortillas.

Filling-

Add salt and pepper powder to the chicken pieces and let it stay for about 5 minutes or so. Heat oil in a pan, put the chicken. Cook till the chicken is tender. Leave the oil in the pan, take out the chicken. With a knife and fork, roughly shred the chicken pieces. Meanwhile, in the same oil that we cooked the chicken, thrown in the onion. Saute till they turn translucent. Add garlic, cook till the garlic gives off its aroma. Add sugar and salt. Add the bell pepper and saute for about 2 minutes. Now add balsamic vinegar and the shredded chicken. Cook for another minute or so and switch off the heat.

Now to assemble, take the tortilla (re-heat the tortilla on a pan if you feel the tortillas are cold) and spoon in a bit of salsa and the shredded chicken filling as in the picture above. Garnish with some jalapenos and grated cheese on top. Wrap the tortilla and heat on a hot griddle on both sides for cheese to melt and create the fusion of flavours.

Do post your comments and requests.

Popcorn Prawns

Weekends are here, enjoy your movie with a bowl of popcorn prawns and ice tea. Thought of having a twist to the popcorn prawns by covering it with coconut instead of the usual bread crumbs. The result turned out to be too good to resist. The light sweetness and crunchiness of coconut is pure bliss and I would suggest everyone to try out this very simple recipe.

Ingredients:

For the marinade-
Prawns (Medium) - 500 gms, de-veined, cut to 2 cm chunks

Lemon juice - from 1 medium sized lemon

Coriander leaves - ¼ cup, finely chopped

Red chilly powder - ¾ tsp

Salt to taste

For frying-

Egg - 1, beaten, add ¼ tsp of salt to this

Dried coconut - ½ medium sized coconut, grated

Cornflour for patting the prawn chunks

Oil for deep frying

Method:

Mix in a bowl, lemon juice, coriander leaves, chilly powder, salt. To this add prawns, mix and leave it for 15-20 minutes.

Coat the prawn chunks in the corn flour, pat it to remove any extra corn flour. Dip into the egg and coat it with grated coconut. Deep fry on medium flame for around a minute till they are golden brown. Do not over cook the prawns else they become rubbery.

Enjoy popcorn prawns. Try out and let me know how it turned out for you.

Pudina Paratha

Ingredients:Wheat flour - 2 cups
Chickpea flour (besan) - 1 cup
Coriander leaves - ¼ cup, chopped
Mint leaves - ½ cup, chopped
Oil - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Water
Ghee

Method:In a bowl, mix wheat and chickpea flour. Add oil, salt, mint and coriander leaves. Add enough water to form a soft dough. Make balls out of the dough and then roll it to form chapatis around 15 cm diameter. Cook on a hot tava, drizzle some ghee, and cook until both sides are well done.

Mutton Rogan Josh

Here's another mutton recipe inspired from the Kashmiri delicacy Mutton Rogan Josh. There are quite a lot of variations from the original recipe. Hope you enjoy the recipe.

Ingredients:
Mutton - 500 gms
Oil - 4 tbsp
Onion - 400 gms, finely sliced
Ginger paste - 1 tbsp
Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Cloves - 4
Cinnamon - 1 inch
Black cardamon - 2
Bay leaf - 1
Kashmiri chilly powder - 2 tbsp
Fennel powder - ½ tbsp, lightly roast the fennel seeds before grinding
Dry ginger powder - ¾ tbsp
Curd - 250 ml, beaten
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Water
Salt to taste

Method:

Heat oil in a pan, add all the dry whole spices (cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, bay leaf). Add sliced onion. Saute till onions are browned (take care not to burn the onion). Now add ginger and garlic paste, saute for a minute or so. Add the mutton, saute for 2 minutes on high flame. Add water just enough to cover the mutton, add salt. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes on medium flame or until the mutton is cooked. Top up with water if you feel water has evaporated during the cooking process. Now, in a small bowl, dissolve the chilly in some water and add to the mutton, mix thoroughly. Now add fennel and ginger powder, mix thoroughly. To this add curd, adjust the seasoning. Cook for another 5 minutes or till the sauce thickens. At this point, add the ghee and switch off the heat.

Enjoy mutton rogan josh with rice or naan.