Spicy Curry & Tandoori
Okay so I made an awesome dinner tonight. I don’t want to brag but … yeah it was awesome.
I made Tandoori Tikka Chicken and Cauliflower Curry. I took pictures and want to share the recipes with you now. These recipes come from a cookbook that was given to my mother from a friend. It’s called ‘Calorie Kitchen: Simply Saffron A Taste of India’.
Tandoori-Tikka Chicken
- 3 chicken breasts, boneless skinless, cut in half
- 1 cup yogurt
- 1 small can tomato paste
- 1 cup chopped fresh coriander
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp. garam masala
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. coriander-cumin powder
- 1/4 tsp. turmeric
- 1 tsp. red chili powder
- 1 tsp. garlic paste
- 1 tsp. ginger paste
Cominbe all ingredients except chicken and mix well. Pierce the surface of the chicken and dip in the mixture, coating well. Marinate overnight in the fridge. Remove chicken from fridge 1 hour prior to cooking.
Preheat the oven to 360F. Arrange chicken pieces on a flat oven tray and broil, uncovered, for 60 minutes or until chicken is cooked and turning crispy. Discard marinade.
My variation: I just poured the marinade over the chicken and stirred it all around, rather than dipping each piece. Time saver. Also, I preheated the oven to 360F as indicated, then cranked it up to ‘Broil’ setting on my oven. I broiled the chicken for maybe 20 minutes per side, till cooked through and browning.
Tandoori-Tikka Chicken and Cauliflower Curry
Cauliflower Curry
- 6 cups cut-up cauliflower
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced finely
- 1 green chili, sliced lengthwise into 2
- 2 Tbsp. fresh chopped coriander
- 1/4 tsp. red chili powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. black mustard seeds
- 1/4 tsp. fenugreek seeds
- 1/2 tsp. coriander-cumin powder
- 1/8 tsp. turmeric
- 1 tsp. canola oil
- 1 tsp. garlic paste
Heat oil in medium saucepan and add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, and sliced chili. Cover and cook on high for 1 minute until seeds start to pop. Do not burn.
Remove from heat to reduce splattering and add tomatoes, cumin, red chili, and garlic. Reduce heat to medium and return pan to heat. Cover and cook masal for 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add cauliflower, 1/4 cup water, and chopped coriander. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes until cauliflower is tender yet firm. Adjust water to desired consistency.
Enchiladas Verdes
I love salsa verde. I love it hot, I love it cold. I love tomatillos. It’s amazing that up until now I’ve never taken the opportunity to actually work with tomatillos in recipes. Well, that all changed. I decided to make enchiladas verdes from a recipe I found online at AllRecipes.com.
Mine turned out different than the pictures from the website. I think it’s because I chose to wrap mine in a baking dish, spoon the remaining salsa verde, add the remaining onions and cheese then broil to melt. Then I sprinkled with cilantro.
Overall, the result was amazazing. Except, the bottoms of the enchiladas did get a tad bit soggy. So…I tried again a week or so later. Same problem, even after crisping up the tortillas even longer. I guess that’s why the recipe suggested making 3 per person right on their plates… I still liked having them in a baking dish, and I don’t mind them being a bit soggy, they are kind of messy to begin with.
Here’s my Enchiladas Verdes:
slightly spicy, tangy from the tomatillos, and so tasty
Potluck-a-licious
I love me a good potluck dinner. Lucky us, there’s a potluck dinner as part of a friend’s wedding tomorrow. I am bringing 2 lasagnas. My recipe is pretty top secret.
But I am not really here to talk about top secret recipes or lasagna. I wanted to talk about potlucks.
I’ve taken the liberty of compiling what I consider to be some of the best reasons to love potluck dinners:
The abundance of food. A potluck supper is a lot like a buffet. Except it isn’t Chinese food. You can take as little or as much as you want. You can go back for seconds and there will probably be more there than when you went for firsts.
The variety. You can take a bit of everything, go for the old favorites like perogies, lasagna, meatballs, etc. You can effectively eat food from almost every corner of the world if you have the right mix of potluck food-makers.
The intrigue. There’s always going to be a few dishes where you aren’t quite sure what exactly it is, or even what is in it. There is something about taking a scoopful of mystery casserole, or trying the jellied concoction layered with meat that adds to the excitement and experience of potlucking it. Maybe you’re into the mystery desserts – although rarely can you go wrong there.
The pride. This is probably going to make me sound so snobby and (gasp!) conceited but I am going to be honest here. I actually love to make outstanding, even if its difficult or complicated, dishes to bring to potlucks. I want to look impressive. I want people to be excited to eat the food I bring. There is nothing sweeter than taking home a completely cleaned out dish which was empty long before the crowd could go back for seconds.
So tell me, what is your signature potluck recipe?
Working with what ya got
Considering I love to cook you’d think that one of my priorities would be making sure my kitchen was totally blinged out and gourmet. How I wish it were.
Maybe soon enough I’ll get my dream kitchen.
In the meantime, for the past 4 years I’ve been making-do. I am not so good with the whole square footage measuring stuff, but I would guess my kitchen is less than 100 sq ft. I have a 24″ electric stove that runs a bit hot in the oven, but overall works good. I am also blessed to have a fairly large fridge compared to other suites in our apartment building.
Three or four years ago my husband brought home an old harvest gold portable dishwasher. It has a butcher block top which has added to my useable work surface greatly. Plus, now I don’t have dishpan hands.
Why am I showing you my piddly almost pathetic kitchen?
I guess to make a point. You don’t have to have a gourmet kitchen in order to make good food. I don’t even have nice dishes or fancy pots and pans really. I would be willing to wager that there are a sad number of homes with gourmet or beautiful kitchens that go unused or are underused.
Take a look at my gourmet kitchen:
Now I am not saying that I would take my current kitchen over a gourmet kitchen. Let’s be honest, I’d trade up any day. Hopefully when we decide to buy a house it will have a great kitchen space, or potential to renovate and make the kitchen of my dreams.
Make your own cookbook – I did
We have a friend getting married this weekend. I am totally looking forward to the wedding. We haven’t had an opportunity to get our dance on in a very long time. Last week I attended the wedding shower for the bride.
I don’t want to brag or anything but I think my gift was the bestest ever.
I made a personalized, customized cookbook with my very own recipes (and a few from the future mother-in-law) using lulu.com. The book turned out amazing. I was so thrilled with the results.
Here’s a bit of how it worked out for me.
First off, I came up with the idea a bit late in the game. I should have attempted creating the cookbook sooner than 1 week before the shower. Even so, after spending some long hours in a row to get the book done in time to publish and ship the result was pretty spectacular.
I had some troubles figuring out the images when creating the book. It’s not that it was the fault of the lulu software at all. It was purely user dumbness, or the lack of not reading simple directions. Once I got the images figured out the book creation was quite smooth. They have specific templates for cookbooks which made it even easier to create.
Because of my late start I had to choose a faster shipping method, which cost quite a bit more than I expected to pay. But, it was well worth the extra cost since the book arrived the day before the shower, in time for me to oogle it and show it off to my friends before wrapping it up as a gift.
I highly recommend using Lulu.com for your cookbook creation projects. The cool thing with Lulu is that you can actually sell your books there too. I haven’t looked into that a whole lot at this point but for those serious foodies out there that might be a neat option.
For your viewing pleasure…a picture of me with my first ever in print cookbook ‘Food That Tastes Good’.
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