Corn Palak Rice in Pressure Cooker

Ingredients

• ½ cup corn,
• 1cup spinach (finely chopped)
• 1 onion (chopped in small size),
• 1cup basmati rice
• 5-6 black pepper corns,1-2 cardamom,3-4 green chilli,1/2tsp of jeera/shahajeera,
• 1-2 tsp oil & salt to taste
• 2 cups of water

 Method

 In pressure cooker pour oil.

 Add cardamom, onion, jeera, greenchilli, peppercorns.

 Fry for sometime till onion gets translucent.

Put corn & rice. Fry for 5-6 minutes. When rice gets sticky with each other & its colour become white, pour water.

 Put spinach, salt &( sugar1/4 tsp .totally optional bcoz this is my twist). Stir & cover it.

 In medium heat only 1 whistle is enough.

After that keep it out of oven. Let all vapour settle down.

Open it & transfer it to serving bowl immediately.

Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 cauliflower,
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 inch piece ginger
• 4-5 green chillies
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• ½ tsp of garam masala pwd
• 2 tsp- 1 tbsp amchoor (preferably)/ lemon juice

Directions

Cut only the main stem of cauliflower about ½ inch.

Put the whole cauliflower straight into a container with boiling water wait for 3-5 min .

Take out from water & pat it with tissue to dry.

Make a paste of garlic, ginger and green chillies with curd. Keep aside.

Add in spices- coriander powder, turmeric, cumin powder, garam masala pwd,oil and salt, to the paste. Mix well.

Add in the amchoor/ lemon juice.

Marinade cauliflower with that paste & keep for 30 min into the fridge.

Preheat oven to 35o F.

Transfer the cauliflower into an oven proof dish.

 Sprinkle oil in between baking on cauliflower. Bake for 20 minutes, till cauliflower is tender & brown.

Clear Vegetable Soup with Poached Egg

As it was off day for both of us got up from bed  at 10am,. It was too late to have any heavy meal as breakfast.

So we decided to have clear vegetable soup….& it was superb.

Ingredients;-

• Carrot ,cucumber, green beans, cauliflower, potato or sweet potato, lettuce or spinach ,sweet corn,  celery stalk, capsicum, pumpkin, peas, coriander leaves & tomato (I wrote all what we can use. But it is up to your choice & availability)
• Salt , lemon juice & black pepper powder  as per taste.
• ½ tsp grated garlic & green chilli
• ¼ tsp of butter for each bowl of soup.(optional but in that case mix 1 tsp of butter during boiling the soup.)
• 1 egg for each bowl of soup.

At first cut the vegetables in cubes or as per your choice. Don’t grate it.

Pour maximum water in a big container & put all vegetables with garlic & chilli paste, except  pumpkin & tomatoes. Add little salt to it.

When the veggies are half done add both, pumpkin& tomatoes.

Allow them to boil till it is done. Serve into the soup bowl. Put ¼ tsp of butter/margarine to each bowl.

Then boil water for poach in a separate bowl. When the water is boiling slowly break a egg into it. Within 2-3 minute it will be done.

Slowly take out from water with the help of spatula & keep on top of the veggies inside the soup bowl.

I sway it will make you full but you can have your next meal happily.

Nasigoreng (Malay fried rice)

Ingredients:-

• 1 cup rice (soak it for 30 min)
• 1 egg
• 1 sausage (sliced)/boiled sliced boneless chicken
• Very thinly sliced carrot, capsicum, green beans
• 4-5 prawns
• Green onion (piyaz sak/piyaz koli) 1-2 bunch
• ½ medium size onion
• 2-3 garlic pods
• Red chilli
• 2-3 tsp of Sweet soya sauce (if you don’t have, mix little sugar syrup with normal soya sauce)
• 1tsp crushed black pepper
• 1-2tablespoon of oil

 In a big pot, boil water & then put all rice with l/2 tsp of salt. Remember that in pot enough water should be present that rice could boil freely. Drain water when it is done approximately 90%. Try to make it cool. It is always good to use left over rice or boiled rice kept in fridge.

In a mixer grinder make a paste of onion, garlic & chillies. Add ½ tsp of oil to make the paste smooth.

In a wok pour oil to fry sausage & 1-2 red dry chillies. Take out sausages from wok & keep aside.

Now put the puree into the oil & fry nicely till the raw smell of onion goes off.

Add vegetables, prawn, chicken and green onion to it. Stir for a while. Then add rice,sausages & soya sauce to it.

Stir it nicely in a medium to high flame. Add salt & black pepper as per the taste.

Make an egg poach….. Definitely oil fried.

Garnish nasigoreng on a plate garnishing with green onion & poached egg.

Believe me you can have it with fried prawn papad/ soya papad/any papad……it is quick but awesome recipe.

Pasta Salad

Ingredients:-

• 1 cup pasta (any type, except spaghetti)
• 1 ½ cup mayonnaise
• 2cups boiled mixed vegetables like carrot, peas, potato, broccoli, sweet corn, and bell pepper/capsicum
• 1 boiled egg or 50 gram boiled boneless chicken (optional). You can add both.
• ½ tsp sugar                                                             
• Salt as per taste
• 1 tsp olive oil/melted butter/margarine
• Crushed black pepper
• Water for boiling pasta & vegetables.

Boiling pasta is the main part of this recipe. So do it carefully.

How to do!!! Here the way.

In a big container pour more water during boiling, so that pasta can move freely  inside the pot.

Now let the water boil. Add salt to it. Then put pasta.

After adding pasta you can see that intensity of boiling get slow for few minutes. Within 5-7 minutes again it starts to boil. Wait for 2-3 minutes like that & drain all water. Thoroughly wash the pasta with normal water. Keep the pasta into a sieve that all water can drain out.

In a big bowl put all vegetables & pasta.

Mix & stir mayonnaise, sugar, 2 pinches of salt, Olive oil & pepper in a bowl.

Then pour this mixture into the pasta & vegetables.

If you wish you can add little dry / fresh basil or parsley leaves. It gives it a different  touch which we both like.

Orange Prawn

Ingredients:-

• Medium size prawn 500gm (cleaned & deveined, try to keep the tail)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup Maida/ corn flour
• Salt as per taste
• 2tsp crushed pepper powder
• 1tsp ginger paste
• 1tsp orange zest
• 1tsp lemon juice /vinegar
• ½ cup orange juice
• ½ cup oil for frying prawns
• Sugar as per taste.
• Water ¾ cup
• Thinly sliced ginger & roasted sesame seeds  for garnishing

Firstly dry prawns after cleaning. Then go for marinating the prawns.

 For marinating mix prawn, pinch of salt, lemon juice, half of crushed pepper, egg & flour in a bowl.

Pour oil into oak. Wait till it is hot for fry. Then fry the prawns.  Do not put all together. You can fry 3-4 at a time as per your oak size.

After frying prawn in same oil put ginger stir for few second & add the water.

Let it boil. Then pour orange juice into water. When it will boil add all fried prawns & sugar as per your taste (because this dish tastes little tangy with sweet orangey flavour).

Add orange zest. It increases the orange flavour & makes it really yammyyy.

Make batter of 1-2tsp of flour with normal water in a separate small bowl.

Slowly add that batter into the prawn and stir it very carefully till it turns into thick gravy. It will go with rice & noodles very well.

If you want it could be use as starter. In this case dry all gravy that it makes a nice layer on prawns.

Serve it hot after garnishing with roasted til/sesame seeds & sliced ginger.

Journey to God……….or anything you wish,… starts with one small step at a time. HE doesn’t expect you to run the mile — but HE promises to give you strength to go the distance…….after a long time again I have restore some energy to start my blog. It was closed with a full stop since last few years.

 Oh horrible……’The life of Kolkata’ did not allow me to scratch a single letter after that end……….Though it is too late but now I am at the point from where I can restart………..yeepeeeeee.

Butter flies don’t know the colour of their wings,
but human eyes know how nice it is.
Likewise Jeet doesn’t know how good inspirational he is, but I know how enthusiastic & energetic he was to renovate my blog…….

‘Kuch suru se pehle kuch meetha ho jaye’…..so I started with Orange cake. You won’t believe that I have an orange market inside my fridge. Daily we drink orange juice, honestly said that maximum times he only helps me out. So, started to make many things with orange juice…..hehehe. One more recipe by orange-Orange Prawn.

Hope Bengali taste buds will accept it.

Orange cake

Ingredients:-

• 1 ¼ cup of flour
• 3 eggs
• ¾ cup of orange juice (fresh / bottled)
• ½ cup of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of vanilla essence
• 1tsp of fresh orange zest

First grease the baking pan by applying oil & flour. Keep aside.

Preheat oven to 180 degree C for 30 min. .

It is always better to separate the yolks from white portion & whip the white part with ¾ cup of sugar to make it stiffen. It makes the cake light & spongy. Egg white & yolk separates very easily when it is cold.

Sieve flour & baking powder in a separate bowl & mix nicely.

Then one by one ingredient (rest of sugar, oil, orange juice & zest, egg yolks, vanilla essence pour to flour & mix gently.

Now is the time to fold the batter & stiffen egg white together. If desire then in this stage nuts & raisins can be added. But remember nuts & raisins to be coated by little flour. Otherwise all will set at the bottom of the cake.

Pour the mixture into the baking pan.

Bake it in 180 degree C for 20 -30 minutes on the middle rack of oven.