Crispy Salmon in 10 minutes

Salmon is a very flavorful fish native to north atlantic and pacific ocean. If cooked right, it can beat any other fish in flavor in my opinion.

This recipe is a super quick and easy to make. When you want to impress a guest with your fish cooking skills, this is the one dish you can make, which is less work but outcome is restaurant style. Very few ingredients and most of all salmon is the shining element here.

So please enjoy the recipe. Do leave me comments or suggestions if any down below. Happy Cooking everyone!!!

Ingredients:

1 piece of salmon
sea salt to taste
crushed black pepper to taste
2 tbsp oil

Recipe:

1. Take a salmon piece. Put it skin side up on your cutting board. Press it from two sides, such that it rolls up a little. Now cut the salmon, with half an inch deep cuts and as close together as possible. These cuts help in making salmon skin crispier.

2. After cutting, add salt in each cut and everywhere else on salmon. Sprinkle some crushed black pepper on top.

3. Heat a pan over medium heat with 2 tbsp oil in it. Once oil is hot, place salmon in a pan skin side down. While placing the salmon, press it on top for 2-3 seconds. This prevents fish from shrinking as soon it touches hot surface.

4. Now let it cook and do not touch in between. You can tell the fish is cooking by the amount of change in color of the flesh. Once flesh is cooked (means turned white from pink and generally takes 4-5 minutes) two-thirds of the way, gently turn the salmon over.

5. Once you see, color change is evenly white all over (takes around 2-3 minutes), switch off the heat. Take the pan out of heat and turn the salmon over again, making skin side down as before until you serve it.

6. Serve it with any side dish you like. I served it with stuffed portobello mushrooms.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Stuffed mushrooms is a kind of dish which fills you providing all the good nutrients in the vegetables. It is a highly experimental dish. You can use different kind of mushrooms and variety of bold or traditional fillings.

This one I have combined the traditional and bold approaches in my filling, doing a little experimentation with flavors and thankfully they turned out awesome tasting. Traditionally, stuffed mushrooms have eggs and bread crumbs but I avoided both of them and replaced it with potatoes to work as a binding agent. If you want, you can go via traditional route and replace potatoes with eggs and bread crumbs for the crunch.

Either way, these are a must have party starters if you use button mushrooms, else a meal in itself with portobello mushrooms. Giving you a whole range to experiment with, start cooking these. You and your guests will love these.

Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions down below. Happy Cooking Everyone!!!!



Ingredients:

2 portobello mushrooms
2 small boiled potatoes - mashed with a fork roughly
2 spring onions - finely chopped
1 small onion - finely chopped
1/4 cup bell pepper (red and green) - finely chopped
4 green beans - finely chopped
1/4 cup zucchini - finely chopped
2 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tsp oregano leaves
4 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste
crushed bell pepper to taste

Recipe:

0. Preheat oven to 350 F.

1. Take portobello mushrooms, remove the stem and clean the inside of the mushroom as much as you can. Use spoon to do it and use light pressure such that you don't damage the mushrooms.
Note: Wash the mushrooms before hand and tap them dry. They should not be wet while you are making stuffed mushrooms

2. Chop the mushroom stem and inside of mushroom into very fine pieces.

3. Take mashed boiled potatoes in a large bowl. Add all the vegetables, cheese, spices and salt/pepper to taste. Mix everything well together and add 1 tbsp oil to the mixture and gently mix again.

4. Coat the mushrooms with olive oil.

5.  Fill the mushrooms with the mixture in a mound shape, i.e. a little bit higher than mushroom edges.

6. Place the mushrooms in a baking tray lined with aluminium foil. Drizzle 1/2 tbsp olive oil over each mushroom and place it in the oven for 25 minutes.

7. Once cooked, take it out and serve hot with coriander-olive oil vinaigrette drizzled over or as a side dish with crusted salmon

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Stir fry vegetable linguine

Ideally noodles are made, well with noodles :D. But since I didn't have any on hand, I thought of trying linguine which I did have. And as I experimented, it turned out pretty well.

It is a well balanced and perfectly al dente combination of stir fry vegetables and linguine. Giving it a chinese twist with soy and chili sauces. They fit perfectly well and tasted awesome.

Please give this experiment a try. It will for sure leave an awesome taste. Please leave any comments or suggestions you might have. Happy Cooking Everyone!!!!




Ingredients:

1 handful linguine - for two people
6 cups water
1/4 cup thinly sliced onions
1/4 cup thinly sliced bell peppers (I used green and red)
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp ketchup
1 tsp green chili sauce
1 tbsp garlic paste
salt to taste
crushed black pepper to taste
2 tbsp oil

Recipe:

1. In a large deep pan with a lid, boil 6 cups water. Once boiling, add linguine and 1 tbsp oil. Cover the lid and let it cook until al dente. Once cooked, strain it in strainer and keep it aside.
2. On high heat, in a non-stick pan add 1 tbsp oil. Once oil is hot, add garlic paste. Cook it for about 30 seconds or until golden brown in color.
3. At this point, add all vegetables and stir fry them. Do not over cook as we want them to still be crunchy to bite.

4. Once cooked, add linguine to it. Add soy sauce, green chili sauce and ketchup to it.
5. Mix everything well together. Add salt and black pepper to taste and switch off the heat.
6. Server hot with gobhi manchurian or eat by itself.

Gobhi(Cauliflower) Manchurian

Gobhi(Cauliflower) manchurian, a chinese dish which is now adapted in India and embraced with whole heart in every part of the country. Everyone eats and make it in their own way. We can use the same manchurian gravy with many different things like mushrooms, mix vegetable etc.

This serves as a very good starter in any party, or a meal if served with fried rice/chowmein etc. It is a super simple, quick and easy recipe to make and win the hearts of your guests.

Enjoy making these. Please leave any suggestions or comments you might have down below. Happy cooking everyone!!!!!




Ingredients:

2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp corn flour/corn starch
1 cup water
6-7 florets of cauliflower - washed and patted dried
1/4 cup chopped green onions - stem and leaves separated
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp green chili sauce
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tbsp ketchup
salt to taste
crushed black pepper to taste
oil for frying + 1 tbsp oil


Recipe:

1. In a mixing bowl, add all purpose flour, corn flour, salt and pepper to taste. Add water slowly and mix the mixture until no lumps remained. It should be thick pouring consistency like pancake batter.

2. In a deep pan, add oil for frying. Heat the oil over medium heat. On other hand, add cauliflower florets in the batter and coat every single floret properly.
3. Once oil is hot, add the coated florets in the oil. Fry them over medium heat, as we want them to cook from inside too.
Note: Do not cook them over high heat as it may cause florets to get browned from outside and raw from inside. We want them to get cooked from inside and just get a very slight brown from outside.
4. Once cooked, take them out in a plate lined with paper towel.
5. In another pan or wok, add 1 tbsp oil and heat it over medium heat. Once hot, add ginger-garlic paste and fry them until cooked for a minute.
6. At this point, add green onion stems to it. Saute this for a minute.
7. After a minute, add soy sauce, green chili sauce, ketchup and vinegar. Cook the sauces for 30 seconds.
8. After 30 seconds, add 1/2 cup water and let it cook for about 2-3 minutes or until it is reduced to desired consistency.

9. Add salt as per taste. Keep in mind that soy sauce is already salty so add accordingly. Switch off the flame and add green onion leaves on top.
10. Right before serving, mix cauliflower florets in the gravy. Garnish with green onion. Serve hot with stir fry vegetable linguine.

A Quick Vegetable Soup

Soups are in general a way to eat different vegetables in a tastier way. And vegetable soup for me is the one soup where I can eat lots of veggies without thinking which one I don't like or which one I do like. I put as many veggies as I can or whatever is available with me at that moment. I always keep vegetable broth handy, just in case if I crave for vegetable soup or any soup for that matter.

Vegetable broth can be used in many other ways. You can use it for making rice/pulao in case you want to elevate the flavor profile of the dishes. Vegetable soup for me is a heart warming soup which
reminds me of love and comfort.

This is a very simple and quick recipe, which you can make in less than half an hour and enjoy on a cold evening or any time of the day for that matter :). Give it a try.

Please let me know if you any suggestions or comments down below. Happy cooking!!!!


Ingredients:

1 small onion - finely chopped
6 cherry tomatoes - cut in halves
7 baby carrots - finely chopped
2 green onion sticks - finely chopped
1/8 cup peas - par boiled
1/8 cup corn - par boiled
1 celery stick - cut in small cubes
31/2 cups vegetable broth - try to use low sodium one, else it leaves behind a little bitter taste in the end
2 tbsp coriander - finely chopped
11/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 inch ginger - thinly sliced
salt to taste
Freshly crushed black pepper to taste
1 tbsp oil

Recipe:

1. Add oil in a deep pan and heat it over medium-high heat.
2. Once oil is hot, add ginger. After 30 seconds, add onions and saute them until translucent in color.
3. Add this point, add carrots, celery stick and green onion stem part. Saute them until half cooked.

4. Add tomatoes, peas and corn. After 30 seconds, add vegetable broth, salt and pepper to taste. Boil this over medium heat for 15 minutes or until you reached the consistency you want for your soup.

5. After 15 minutes, close the heat and add coriander and lemon juice.
6. Serve hot with croutons or just like that. :)

Rasgulla or Cottage cheese balls in sugar syrup

I am going to do this piece as a write up for a change instead of writing it as a recipe. Reason for it is, it had and has been a long and tedious process of making mistakes and learning from it when I made these.

I rather have a very interesting story of being nailing it down on my first attempt and then forgetting of how to do it. Failing on all my further attempts of achieving the success I tasted for the first time. It was a long journey, but I never lost hope and keep trying whenever I get chance to do it. And my poor hubby has to pay for all the failures, as he is the one who did all the tasting :D :P.

Anyways, after so many failures, I came across a post in my facebook foodie group by Garima Sarolia Narera (her blog link for rasgullas: https://cafegarima.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/rasgulla/). Thought let my try few variations which she suggested. After trying, it turned out good. But I think I might have missed few things or probably did it wrong that is why was not perfect.

But finally, in this attempt I almost nailed it. It was a moment of bliss which made me recall my first successful attempt and let me forget all my failures in between. Although Garima has perfectly written her blog post mentioned above on how to make these beauties, I thought of writing this again to help myself not to forget the steps I had to go through to reach this point.

Without further ado, presenting to you detailed step by step process of making these beauties called "Rasgullas".

Ingredients:

1/2 litre full fat milk
3 cups sugar
5 cups water
1/2 cup curd
1 tsp cardamom powder
pinch of saffron strands
2 tsp pistachios - cut into thin silvers
1 large bowl filled with room temperature water
5 lt pressure cooker or any large bowl.
muslin cloth - I know not an ingredient but can't do without it :P

Recipe:

0. Line a strainer with muslin cloth. Put this over a large enough bowl which can fit your strainer on top of it and set it aside.
1. Take 1 litre of whole milk.
Note: Avoid taking any other type of milk, be it skimmed/2%/1% or anything else. First of all, you wont get same amount of chenna out of them and taste won't be very great.

2. Boil the milk over high - medium heat. Keep stirring it, else it might stick at bottom of the pan.
Note: If possible use a thick bottomed non-stick pan.

3. Once milk starts boiling, start adding 1 tbsp yogurt at a time and stirring the milk in between additions of yogurt. Keep adding until chenna starts to separate out. At this point, stop adding yogurt and switch off the gas. Strain it using strainer lined with muslin cloth.
Note: Now to separate chenna, I used to use lemon juice. And that works perfectly fine. But I used to get a little bit of lemon flavor in my rasgullas, even though I used to wash the chenna properly. So as Garima suggested, I started using curd/yogurt, and it worked wonders.
Advantages: 
a. No more lemon taste in my rasgullas now.
b. No extra step of washing my chenna after straining it :)

4. Let it cool for 5 minutes, so that it won't be as hot when you touch it. Close the muslin cloth and tie the knot on top tightly. Hang this over the tap or cabinet handle for around 20-25 minutes.
Note: Do not let it hang for more than that. Because if you do, it will start to dry up more than you want it to and will start turning into paneer.

5. Once cooled and dried a little after 20-25 minutes, take it out of muslin cloth on a flat surface. I used normal large plate/thali. Texture should be a little crumbly but still wet enough so that it doesn't feel dry or dehydrated.

6. Now its time to do the labor. Start pressing it with heels of your palm and slide it on the plate with small smooth motions. Keep doing this until chenna comes together in a dough like structure. It took me around 12 minutes to reach that stage.

7. Once done, make small balls out of the dough. Keep in mind, they will be double in size, so shape them accordingly. On the other hand, take a 5lt pressure cooker or similar size utensil. Add 5 cups water,1 cup sugar and 1 tsp cardamom powder to it. Heat it over medium heat and let it come to a rolling boil. Do stir it in between until sugar gets dissolved, else it might stick at bottom and caramelize.

8. Once water starts to boil, add rasgullas in it and cover it with a heavy and large enough lid (Do not use cooker lid). Let them boil for 12-15 minutes. Check once in between at half way mark around 6 - 8 minutes.
Note: In order to check if they are done or not, at 12 minute mark, take out one rasgulla and put it in a glass of room temperature water. If it sinks down, that means it is cooked perfectly.

9. Once cooked, carefully and gently take the rasgulla's out in a big bowl of room temperature water.

10. Add 2 cups sugar in remaining sugar-water syrup and let it come to boil again. Let it boil for a minute. After a minute, close the heat. Let it cool for about 2-3 minutes. Add saffron strands to it then.
Note: Do not add saffron strands when it is boiling. Saffron tends to leave a bitter taste when added in boiling liquids.

11. Take ragullas out of water, squeeze them gently to take extra water out of them and add these to sugar syrup. Let them cool to room temperature. After that put it in refrigerator for atleast 4-5 hours.
Note: Please do not eat rasgulla's when they are hot. I know you will be tempted to eat them as soon as they come to room temperature. But trust me, I am speaking from personal experience, they taste precious after 4-5 hours of refrigeration time. So control yourself for this one time and let them "Chill Off" by themselves for some time :D.

12. Server them cold. Garnish them with pistachios on top.

Vanilla Almond Biscotti

Biscotti is an Italian name for any cookie. Its called biscotti as 'bis' means twice in italian. So anything, baked twice is called biscotti. But everywhere else, this version of cookie is treated as biscotti.

I love these. But buying it from outside, even a small box costs a lot. So I try to make them at home as much as I can. And it gives me reason to experiment with flavors too. So far this is my favorite flavor.

So presenting to you all, Vanilla Almond Biscotti. It is a perfect tea-time snack. Cruncy and delicious. Soak it in your tea, like any other biscuit and eat it.

Do leave me suggestions or comments below if any.


Ingredients:

11/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup almonds
2 eggs
1/3 cup unsalted butter - at room temperature


Recipe:

For Almonds:

1. Pre-heat oven at 350 F.
2. Place almonds on a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper. Keep in mind almonds should be in a single layer.
3. Bake these for 9-10 minutes or until almonds start to change color.

4. Take these out. Let them cool to room temperature.
5. Once cooled, chop them roughly.

For Biscotti:

1. Pre-heat oven at 350F.
2. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.
3. In a standing mixer with paddle attachment, add butter and sugar. Mix them until combined into a creamy mixture.
4. Add eggs and vanilla essence to this. Combine until a smooth mixture is formed.
5. Now add all the dry ingredients except almonds. Mix everything until just flour is incorporated fully. Do not over mix it.
6. Add almonds and mix for 15 seconds so that they are incorporated in the mixture.
7. This mixture is going to be sticky. Do not worry about it. Spread some flour on the counter and take the mixture out using a spatula.

8. Dust your hands too with flour. Now start combining the dough, till it is not sticky anymore. Do not over do this, because if you do this longer than mixture will again become wet and you need to add more flour..
9. Cut this into two pieces, and shape each of them in a rectangular bar shape. Place it on the sheet and bake them for 35 minutes.

10. After 35 minutes, take these out and let it cool to touch about 15 minutes.

11. Once cooled, cut into 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick diagonal slices.

11. Place them on baking sheet in a single line and bake it for 9 minutes. After 9 minutes, take it out and turn them over. Bake it again for 9 minutes. Take it out and let it cool to room temperature completely.

12. Enjoy it as a tea-time snack or anytime of the day you want :)