Mutton Chettinad

Chettinad style recipes originates from the Chettinad region in Tamil Nadu. Its one of the most aromatic curries from South India and is a culmination of variety of ground spices. It has the most distinct flavour among all the Indian curries one would have tasted. Yesterday I tried out the recipe with mutton. My preparation turned out to be quite delightful with the home crowd :).

It has a bit of sweetness coming in from the onions with a light tangy flavour from tomatoes. Though the recipe has a whole gang of spices in it, every bite seems to brings an unique flavour experience. The best accompaniment to this dish would be steamed rice, but it goes well with dosas as well.

Ingredients:

Mutton - 750 gms, cut into medium chunks, boneless preferred but not necessary

Ginger - 2"

Garlic - 10-12, medium sized, if large cloves 5-6 should do just fine

Onion - 2 medium sized, finely chopped

Tomato - 3 medium sized, finely chopped

Curry leaves - 1 string

Shallots (small onions) - 110 gms, peeled

Cinnamon - 2"

Cloves - 4

Cumin seeds - ½ tsp

Fennel seeds - ½ tsp

Pepper corns - 1 tsp

Black stone flower - 1 tbsp, Its a kind of fungus (look for it in google images)

Marathi moggu - 3, i don't have the English name (look for it in google images)

Star anise - 2

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric powder - ½ tsp

Oil - 3 tbsp + ⅛ cup

Coriander leaves (optional) - ⅛ cup, roughly chopped

Salt to taste

Method:

To prepare the marinade, grind all the ingredients into a coarse paste except onion, tomato, curry leaves and oil. Add mutton to the paste, mix thoroughly, add salt and keep it aside for around an hour.

In a pressure cooker, heat 3 tbsp of oil, add the mutton and keep stirring for a minute. Put the lid on and pressure cook till one whistle on high flame and two on medium flame till just done (no need to add water).

In a pan, heat ⅛ cup of oil, throw in the curry leaves and chopped onion. Add some salt and cook till onions are translucent. Now add the chopped tomatoes. Cover and cook till the tomatoes are pulpy. Add the mutton from the pressure cooker, mix thoroughly. Cook on high flame for 5 minutes (I'm assuming there is some water in the cooked mutton or else add ½ cup) with lid on. Adjust the seasoning, simmer and cook for another 10 minutes with the lid off. Optionally you can garnish with coriander leaves.

Mutton chettinad is ready. Enjoy this unique recipe with your loved ones and don't forget to write in your feedback and comments.

Classic White Bread

Simple and easy to do recipe for a perfect sandwich bread. The aroma coming out of the hot oven baking your bread is simply intoxicating and I just love it. Hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I loved baking it

Ingredients:

All purpose flour (Maida) - 3 cups

Water - 1 cup, luke warm

Milk - ½ cup, luke warm

Oil - ¼ cup

Active dry yeast - 2 tsp

Sugar - 2 ½ tsp

Salt - 2 tsp

Method:

In a bowl, add milk and water, dissolve the sugar and yeast in it. Leave the yeast mixture for around 10 mins. Whisk in the oil, add salt. Take flour in a large bowl, form a well in the middle, add the yeast mixture little by little, keep mixing the flour with the help of a fork. You can also use a hand blender with kneading attachment. If you feel the mixture is quite loose, cover it with a damp towel and leave it for couple of minutes before you start working on it again. Dust a flat surface with flour and knead the dough thoroughly on the surface to activate the gluten. Do this for around 4-5 minutes. Leave the dough in a bowl, cover it with a damp cloth for 3 - 4 hours (depending on the weather; yeast requires warm and humid surrounding conditions to do its thing and rise the dough). Your dough would have now doubled (or even more) in size. Dust a flast surface and knock out all the air from the risen dough, knead it couple of times and then get it into the desired shape. Lightly grease the bread tin. Place the dough into the tin. Cover the tray with cling wrap and leave it to further rise for around 2 hours. The dough would have nicely risen by now.

Pre-heat the oven @ 180º C. Bake the bread for about 40 minutes. Once done, take it off the oven, brush some oil on the top to avoid a hard crust. Take the bread out of the tin and on to a wire rack for cooling.

You can make your favorite sandwich or simply settle down with jam/peanut butter/nutella.

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche with baby Potatoes

Another classic French recipe from the Smoking Tava, Quiche is an open faced pastry-crust (shortcrust pastry) filled with savory custard and meat or vegetable filling. In this recipe I have used Spinach, mushroom and baby potatoes but you can go wild with your imagination and make your own filling. This is my first attempt and I'm quite impressed with the outcome.

Ingredients:
Shortcrust pastry-
All purpose flour (Maida) - 200 gms
Butter - 100 gms, chilled, cut into cubes
Egg - 1 medium sized, beaten
Pinch of salt

Filling-
Baby potatoes - 4-5, peeled and boiled until just done
Button mushroom - 150 gms, sliced
Spinach - 200 gms, large leaves with stalks removed.
Eggs - 4 medium sized
Double cream - 250 ml
Dried chives - 1 tsp
Chilly powder or Cayenne pepper - ½ tsp
Black pepper powder - 1 tsp
Nutmeg powder - a pinch
Parmesan cheese - 25 gms, grated
Olive oil (cooking) - 2 tbsp
Lemon juice - from ½ lemon
Salt to taste

Method:

For the shortcrust pastry, add flour, butter and salt into a food processor and run it briefly. Add half of the egg and run it again. Add more egg, just enough to make the mixture moist and to bring it together. On a flat work surface, make a ball out of the mixture and then flatten it until its around 1 cm thick. Wrap it in a cling film and place it in the refrigerator for around 30 mins. Pre-heat oven to 180º C. The pastry needs to be blind baked first before we can add in the filling. Line a 9 inch tart tin with the pastry and then with a layer of foil or butter paper. Fill with baking beans or dry pulses/rice (so that the edges of the pastry are held together and does not fall in). Bake in the oven for about 20 mins or till the pastry is just dry. Take out the foil/butter paper, brush the inside of the pastry with the leftover egg. Place it back into the oven for another 5 minutes. Once done take it out and let it cool.

Now prep the filling - Put spinach leaves in boiling water, just as the leaves turn slightly dark and still green, take it off and immediately put in cold water. Squeez excess water and shred the spinach leaves into small bits using your hands.

Heat a pan, add olive oil. Now add the mushrooms, let it sweat out all the water, add ¼ of the black pepper and salt. Saute till all the water has been evaporated. Now sprinkle some lemon juice. Take it off the flame and let it cool down completely.

In a bowl, beat 4 eggs, add cream, chilly powder, black pepper, dried chives, parmesan cheese, nutmeg. Nicely blend the mixture. Add spinach to the cream mixture. Slice the boiled potatoes around ½ cm thick. Spread the potato slices on the pastry almost covering the bottom. Evenly spread the mushroom. Now spoon in the creamy spinach mixture until the pastry is about 95% filled (the mixture may rise further because of the eggs). Bake in the oven @ 180º C for about 40 minutes until its golden brown and is just set in the center. Remove from the oven, allow it cool for around 10 minutes.

Pav Bhaji - Indian Street Food

I have lived in Mumbai for almost 23 years of my life and like any other Mumbaikar am a total sucker for Vada Pav, Misal Pav, Ussal Pav, Dhabeli, and Pav Bhaji. I have had tried several recipes for making pav (bread, also known as laadi paav) bhaji (healthy vegetable mash with aromatic spices), but none of them have come this close to match the flavours and aroma of a busy Mumbai street "Pav Bhaji Thelawala" (hawker selling Pav Bhaji on a cart, typically outside railway stations, parks or right on the beach). I have done some improvisation here to make the recipe as authentic and flavourful as possible. Hope you like the recipe as much as I loved cooking.

Ingredients:

Tomato - 800 gms, chopped

Coriander leaves - ½ cup, chopped

Ginger garlic paste - 2 tbsp

Kashmiri chilly powder - 2 ½ tsp

Green chilly - 4-5, roughly chopped

Potato - 300 gms, boiled, peeled and roughly mashed

Green peas - ½ cup, if frozen, thaw. If dried peas, soak overnight to re-hydrate

Capsicum - 2 medium sized, de-seeded and roughly cut

Cauliflower - 200 gms, grated

Kasuri methi (Dried fenugreek leaves) - 1 tbsp, crushed on palm of your hands

Pav bhaji masala - 1 tbsp

Butter - 175 gms

Turmeric powder - ½ tsp

Asafoetida powder (Hing) - ¼ tsp

Onion - 1 large, chopped

Lemon juice - from 1 medium sized

Salt to taste

Lemon for garnishing

Water for cooking vegetable

Laadi pav

Butter for toasting pav

Method:

Heat a large pan, throw in tomatoes, potato, green peas, capsicum, green chillies and cauliflower. Add 1 tsp of kashmiri chilly powder, 1 tbsp of ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder, ¼ of the butter. Add little water to cook the veggies on a medium heat. With the help of a masher, keep mashing the vegetables. You can add some water if the mixture gets too dry.

Once the vegetables in the mash are almost unrecognizable, add ½ tbsp of pav bhaji masala, salt to taste and ½ of the chopped coriander leaves. Mix thoroughly, continue to mash them. Once the mixture is totally mashed, lower the heat.

Heat the remaining butter in a pan, lower the flame, add ¾ of the chopped onion, 1 ½ tsp of kashmiri chilly powder, 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste, ½ tbsp of pav bhaji masala, kasuri methi, asafoetida, ¾ of the remaining chopped coriander leaves, lemon juice. Though I have avoided adding color, you can add red food color to the mixture (bhaji on the street shops add color to get the definitive red bhaji). Saute for few seconds and then add this mixture to the vegetable mash. Cook the mash for a minute or two and we are done.

Now, lets assemble. Slit open the batch of 4-5 paav from the middle, in a hot pan, add a butter, pinch of pav bhaji masala, sprinkle a little coriander leaves. Place the pav over the butter mixture and toast them lightly on both sides.

Garnish bhaji with remaining chopped onion and coriander, serve with the toasted buttery pav and a wedge of lemon.

Enjoy the mouthwatering pav bhaji. Please leave your comments, they inspire me to carry on.