Grilled Chicken Sandwich & Chocolate Custard Pudding with a chocolate cake base topped with Whipped Cream - a perfect "ME" Lunch...

This one is for all the women out there who haven't had a "me" moment in a while... I look back at my life sometimes and see it seems to be always revolving around my family! I hardly cook myself mushrooms or paneer / cottage cheese b'coz I know there are no takers in the house. My husband and son will eat anything chicken and a few veggies here and there! So my meals are usually dictated by what everyone would like to eat. 


If any of the mother's out there have taken a moment to step back and look at their life they will notice their routine meanders around the child going to sleep and trying to fit in all household chores at that time, especially if you are a stay at home mom or doing their groceries while dropping their child to his / her various classes... have you ever gone for a pedicure and not wondered if your child has eaten or has your house-help finished all the chores??? 


Well, so last night I decided that I am going to have a "ME" day once a week and do something that only pleases me without thinking about anyone else and without feeling guilty about it later!


I know I am totally off the recipe bit but I am coming to it now... so well today, I went to the gym without worrying if the baby will miss me and that was a start! And I decided I won't eat his leftovers however hungry I am... since the baby fell asleep early - I made an easy grilled chicken sandwich for myself than I really enjoy eating and haven't eaten in ages. 


I had some leftover chicken from some soup I had made a couple of days back and shredded it to the bone. I had some hung curd from some mousse I had made yesterday and I wanted to eat something light and yummy - and this is what I came up with!


Ingredients:
1 cup shredded chicken
1/2 onion and 1/2 tomato finely chopped
5-6 jalapeños finely chopped
5-6 olives finely chopped
oregano, salt and pepper for seasoning.


Method: I sauté the onions and tomatoes in a bit of olive oil and then leave them to cool. I beat the hung curd with a fork and add the cooled onions and tomato mixture, jalapeños and olives to it. I seasoned it with oregano, salt and pepper. I sometimes add grated carrots to it also but I was out of it. I then added as much dressing I wanted to my shredded chicken and mixed it lightly.


I added the chicken mixture to my brown bread and grilled it in the toast maker using a bit of margarine. The result was a very nice light dressing for a yummy sandwich! 


By now, I was also craving something sweet and chocolaty and comforting. My husband is more of an ice-cream person and my son is more of a cake person. Well... since, today was my "ME" day I thought I will make myself this chocolate custard pudding that I have been thinking about for a while and whoever wants to eat it more than welcome. Yes, this is a slightly sinful pudding and has the texture of a mousse but since it has custard powder and milk and whipped cream I would like to think of it as a luscious pudding that slowly dissolves in your mouth.... 


Well there are the ingredients:

500grams Milk

40grams Pillsbury Custard Powder

1 tbsp Cocoa Powder (I used weikfield)

¾ cup cooking chocolate

2tbsp Sugar

½ cup low fat cream

1 box cake mix – chocolate

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

Method:

Bake the cake as per directions on the box. Cool on wire rack for about 20 minutes. 

Mix custard powder with half cup of milk and keep aside. Boil the remaining milk with chocolate, cocoa powder and sugar. When it comes to a boil add custard powder and stir continuously and stop it from forming lumps (like you are making a chocolate custard). Remove from heat and let it cool at room temperature. When the mixture is cool, add vanilla essence and whipped cream to this. Now keep the mixture in the freezer till semi-set in the bowl you have mixed it. remove it when it seems semi-set and whisk it a bit with a wire whisk so it kinda smoothens. Now you can assemble this in a big square glass dish or in individual glasses like I did coz I just thought it looked prettier - though you cannot differentiate the layers coz of the chocolate on chocolate! 

I took some liquor glasses and spooned some of the cake into the bottom. Then poured the whisked pudding into them. I topped it off with swirls of whipped cream. and sprinkles to make it a bit girly but you can dress it up more elegantly with a wafer roll or just whipped cream or have it as is!

So this was my extravagant lunch today... what the heck, there is always yoga and healthy salad for tomorrow!

Very Easy Thai Green Curry

This is an excellent recipe to put together at the last minute if you have people visiting or you are in the mood for spicy curry n rice combo and don’t want to have regular routine food. I was totally done eating the regular 'dal, roti, subzi' combo and put this dish together in literally 30 minutes including the chopping of vegetables et al. I made this with chicken and whatever veggies I had in the fridge but I am going to give you the recipe for what I usually put in my Thai Green Curry.

Ingredients:

400gm boneless chicken – cut into bite sized pieces

1 medium capsicum – thinly sliced (red, green or yellow)

1 medium onion – thinly sliced

1 small packet mushrooms – thinly sliced

200gm broccoli - florets cut into bite sized pieces

2-3 tbsp green curry paste (I used to make the paste from scratch but gone are those days...)

1 can Chaokoh coconut milk

2 tsp ginger-garlic paste

I added some peas and califlower to to my curry – other veggies that go well with this are babycorn and water chestnut but feel free to experiment.

Recipe:

Take 2tsp oil of your choice and add ginger-garlic paste and saute for a couple of minutes. Add onions and saute till pink. Then add all the other veggies, half the curry paste and a bit of the coconut milk (enough to soak the veggies) and simmer – my family likes the beggies to absorb the taste of the coconut milk. You can cook them less if you want thtem crunchy. Then add the chicken and remaining coconut milk and green curry paste. Add salt to taste and simmer for about 15 mins – make sure chicken is cooked thoroughly. Served with plain white rice or jasmine rice! This is a super easy and super fast recipe and never fails me :). You can always extra green paste to make it spicier and give it an added zing!

(Healthy) Butter Chicken

Indian cooking is done from the heart and I don't think measuring spices and quantities to the 't' can give you the perfect end result - so you can slack a bit on the measurements I have mentioned and keep tasting the gravy to make it your liking. Good indian gravies always smell as nice as they taste so if you start getting a wierd whiff of anything, stop and take a step back. Taste your gravy and see what's gone wrong with it. Also, I have never been able to stick to the original recipe of any cookbook coz the personal touch you add to the recipe will give it it's unique flavor.

Indian cooking as most people know also gives also a dense heady aroma of spices so I like to prepapre my dishes in advance so I don't smell like the dish. I remember my rommie in NY would get a bit annoyed when I cooked in our small apartment coz she felt her coats would smell of the dish I had cooked (as you can guess her coat stand was right next to our open kitchen)! You need a nice big ventilated kitchen to be able to cook gravy and curry dishes and always switch on your exhaust!

My recipe for the butter chicken follows. Feel free to email me for any clarifications... and pictures will follow soon. I don't think I should bother being apologetic about not getting pictures up soon enough because a baby at home keeps my hands rather full. It seems like a rather long list of ingredients but don't get daunted!

Ingredients:

500gm boneless & skinless chicken breasts – cut into bite sized pieces

Marinade

3-4 cups yogurt / curd (hang in muslin cloth for 30 mins) – Use 1 cup for marinade and 1 cup for gravy. Squeeze as much water out of yougurt as you can before removing from muslin cloth.
2tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2tbsp any tandoori chicken masala (Recommended: Roopak’s Chicken Mughlai Masala)
1 pinch turmeric powder
Pinch of salt

Chicken Makhani Gravy
2-3 tbsp oil, 1 bay leaf (tej patta), 1tsp dry fenugreek leaves (kassori methi), 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste, 1 tbsp sauted onion paste*, 1-2 whole dried red chili (kashimir mirch)
5-6 medium sized tomatoes blanched, peeled and pureed
1/2 cup tomato puree (ready-made)
2 tbsp cashewnuts (soaked in hot water, drained and ground into a fine paste)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp cream for garnishing
1tsp garam masala, ½ tsp red chili powder and ½ tsp dried coriander powder (optional)
¼ tsp sugar
Salt as per taste
1tbsp tandoori chicken masala (same as marinade)

Method:

There is prepration required to make this dish but if you plan a bit in advance you can prepare this in 30 minutes. It tastes great and is always great to have on the menu when tertaining and it isn’t too heavy on the waist. This can be made with chicken on the bone too but I prefer this with boneless chicken breasts.

Wash the chicken. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a big bowl. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge. (The chicken can be marinated overnight also).

Take a heavy bottom non-stick pan or non-stick pressure cooker. Add the oil – let it heat. Add the bay leave and stir for a couple of seconds. Now, put the sauted onion paste, ginger-garlic paste and red chili into your utensil of choice and saute for a couple of minutes. At this point I also add all the dry spices - garam masala, tandoori chicken masala, coriander poweder and fenugreek leaves and saute this further for a couple of seconds.

Add all the pureed tomatoes (first fresh and then ready-made) and sugar and cook till the oil starts separating from this mixture and the color turns slightly brownish.

Now spoon in the prepared cashewnut paste and stir for a few minutes till it has completely mixed in the gravy. Add about ½ a cup of water or keep adding more till you get a slightly thich gravy / curry.

Add the marinated chicken, 1/2 of the remaining hung yogurt and simmer till the excess water given off by the yogurt has evapourated and the chicken is almost cooked. Add salt to taste. Give this a whistle if cooking in the pressure cooker or simmer and cover utensil till chicken is cooked if using a heavy bottom pan. Incase you feel the gravy is not creamy enough - add the remaining yogurt.

Add the milk and keep stirring slowly and bring to boil. At this point do taste your curry and see how it tastes and tinker with it a bit to refine it! Remember to not overcook the chicken since the chicken breasts can become a bit chewy if they are.

Garnish with swirls of cream and enjoy!

TIPS:

If it’s too spicy and thick – you can a couple of tsps of milk and simmer it.
If your gravy is not creamy enough or it’s too spicy – you can a tbsp of yogurt.
If the spice level is a bit on the lower side – you can add more of the tandoori masala.
* I always keep a paste of well sauted (browned) onions in my kitchen and use it in all my gravy dishes. Instead of the sauted onion paste you can use a small finely chopped onion. After sauteing it - do puree it otherwise there will be onion pieces floating in the gravy. You can also elimitae the onion paste - but I think it adds flavor, color and a nice earthy taste to the makhani gravy.