Kashmiri Chicken

Kashmiri Chicken is a favourfula and also a colourful chicken recipe. As the curry is so intense in flavour i prefer serving this dish with some plain Basmathi rice or with Jeera rice or Coconut rice to taste the real falvours of this curry. U could make this dish as a gravy or semi dry or a dry dish as per your taste. If you prepare  as gravy add more yogurt or cream or cashew nut  paste of your choice.
If you want this dish to be prepared dry keep the vessel open and cook till the gravy reduced and coats the chicken well.

This is my favourite chicken recipe even my family favourite dish too. I felt this is perfect for Christmas as it has nuts and dry fruit in it. This recipe is so simple and easy to prepare with limited ingredients. So try this recipe and let me know the results.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Cuisine: Kashmiri
Serves:3-4

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken- 1/2 Kg (half chicken)
Oil- 3+2 teaspoons
Jeera- 1/2 teaspoons
Cinnamon, cardamom, clove and Bay leaf- each 3
Onion, very finely chopped/grated-1 large
Ginger garlic paste- 1 tablespoon
Kashmiri Chilli powder- 11/2 teaspoon(U could use normal chilli powder too)
Coriander powder- 1 1/2 teaspoon
Garam masala powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Thick Yogurt/ curd (less sour)- 2 tablespoons
Cashew nuts- 10 nos
Raisins- 1 teaspoons
Coriander leaves, chopped- 1 tablespoons

PROCEDURE:

• Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan and keep the chicken and sprinkle little salt and roast the chicken till slightly brown on out side. Now chicken might not thoroughly cooked through. Remove the chicken with any cooked pan juices and set aside.
• Heat 3 teaspoons of oil in a pan and add jeera, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and bay leaves fry till you get the flavour of garam masala.

• Add the finely chopped/ minced onion and cook with a pinch of salt till soft now add the ginger garlic paste and cook till the raw smell leaves.
• Add the chilli powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder and saute for a minute.

• To prepare the gravy add a cup of water (if you use chicken with bone add little more water) and allow to simmer the gravy till the oil separates on top.
• Now add the browned chicken with any pan juices collected and mix with the gravy and close with a lid and cook till the chicken is cooked through.

• Now open the lid and allow the water to slightly evaporate and cook a minute or two.
• At last add the yogurt and mix well and switch off the gas.(Do not cook longtime after adding yogurt the curry tend to curdle)

• You could add a tablespoon of cream or cashew nut paste to make it more rich. But it is optional
• Slightly roast the cashew nuts and break them into small pieces. Sprinkle chopped cashew nuts, raisins and coriander leaves on top of chicken curry.

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Tutti Frutti Cookies

Celebrating Christmas with friends and family is a joy. Especially with the special food prepared for Christmas. Kids love food to be colourful especially when come to christmas. One such kids friendly and a party pleaser recipe is Tutti frutti cookies which is perfectly apt for christmas.

So colourful and tasty easy to make cookies. I have shown here to make this cookies without using any cookie cutter. So simple to make you could use cookie cutters too to make this cookies. You can make this cookeis and store a day or two prior to the Christmas party.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Makes: 20-22 nos

INGREDIENTS:

All purpose flour/ Maida- 1 ¼ cups
Baking powder- 1 teaspoon
Salt- pinch
Butter, softened- 1/2 cup
Sugar, powdered- 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence- 1 teaspoon
Milk- 1 tablespoons(optional; add if the dough is dry)
Tutti Frutti- 1/2 cup

PROCEDURE:

• In a bowl beat the butter till fluffy and add the powdered sugar and beat well.
• Now add the vanilla essence and beat well.

• Mix all purpose, baking powder and salt together using a whisk in a bowl or pass the mixture through a strainer/ sieve to uniformly mix together.
• Add quarter cup at a time and mix well like wise add all the dry mixture into the butter and sugar mixture and make a dough.

• Now add the tutti frutti and knead well and make a long cylinder out of the dough.
• Wrap the cylindrical dough with wax paper or cling film and twist the edges like a chocolate paper or fold them tightly.

• Keep this in a plate and chill them for about 3-4 hours until they become hard.
• Once they become hard to touch unwrap the dough and cut them using a knife into small roundels.

• Arrange the cut cookies in a baking tray lined with wax paper.
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees for 10 minutes and transfer the cookies and bake them for about 15-20 minutes or the edges of the cookies starts to turn golden.

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Meat Loaf

In my home all are big fan of chicken as it is low in fat when compare to other meat. So i always make Roast chicken for week ends and for some festivals. This time i wanted to try some thing new in chicken which i have not made earlier and i finally decides to make my long awaited meat loaf recipe using chicken.

Meat loaf is generally prepared using Minced beef and sometimes with chicken. Mostly chopped bacon is added with the meat, some times eggs are kept at the middle of the loaf. Some people like with the sauce on top of loaf and some don't. I prefer making this in chicken as it is less in fat content and keeping eggs inside and topped with a tomato sauce. When i saw the recipe here i was bit confused because it is bland in taste for Indian palate and i have added spices and herbs of my choice to give little more taste and flavour to suit my taste buds.

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken/ Beef, Minced- 1 Kg (or) Chicken Breast- 3 (1 Kg)
Onion, chopped-1 big
Garlic cloves, chopped- 3 big
Red chilli powder/ Paprika- 1/2 teaspoon
Pepper Powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Salt- to taste
Thyme- ¼ teaspoon (add herb of your choice)
Oregano- ¼ teaspoon
Egg-3+1
Bread crumbs- 1½ -2 cups
Oil- 3 teaspoons
Butter- 1 teaspoon

For the Tomato Topping:
(You could use simply tomato ketch up or Barbecue sauce too as topping)
Tomato ketchup- 1/4 cup
Mustard sauce- 1 tablespoon
Chilli powder/ paprika- 1/4 teaspoon
Pepper powder- 1/4 teaspoon
Lemon juice- 1 teaspoon

PROCEDURE:

• If you do not get minced chicken cut the chicken breast into pieces and mince them in a blender. Grease hand with little oil and transfer the ground chicken in a bowl.(If you have minced chicken skip this step)

• Hard boil 3 eggs in water for about 8-10 minutes and keep them in cold water for sometime and peel them; set aside.

• Heat oil  and butter together in a pan and add the chopped onion and add a pinch of salt and cook till soft. Add the chopped garlic and cook them for about a minute or two.
• Now add the chilli powder/ paprika and swich off the gas. The raw taste of chilli powder goes when cooked in the hot oil; Allow the mixture to cool.

• In the meat bowl crack and add the egg, cooked onion mixture, thyme, oregano and season with pepper and salt; mix well.

• Now add the bread crumbs and mix well. If you feel sticky grease hands with oil and mix well.
• Divide the mixture into two halves.

• Take a loaf tin or baking tray and keep the one half of the meat mixture and level the base of the loaf.
• Then keep the 3 boiled eggs as a row on top of meat mixture. Top this eggs with another meat ball and spread to cover the eggs. Do not press well to seal. Just cover the eggs with the meat mixture.

• Preheat the oven 180 degrees for 10 minutes and bake the meat loaf and for about 30 minutes.
• Make the tomato topping by mixing tomato ketchup, mustard paste, chilli powder/paprika, pepper powder and lemon juice.

• Spread the topping using a spoon and keep the loaf tin and bake them again and for another 15 to 30 minutes till the skewer inserted comes out clean.

• Allow the loaf to cool for about 15 minutes, then cut the loaf like thick bread slices and serve.

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Stained Glass Cookies

These cookies are wonderful for Christmas especially to hang them in the Christmas tree. They are cheap to make and very appealing cookies than other costly decorations on Christmas tree.
Liked by Kids because of the colours and the filled candies. Even adults love these cookies the cookies are crisp and the candy part is bit chewy and so flavourful. I have used mixed falvours in each cookies i could taste all the individual flavours in that cookies.

You could used mix of colours/flavours in a single hole too to get different tint for the colours. I have used here green apple, berry, mango and cola flavour for my cookies. You could use the flavours and colour of your choice.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Makes: 25-30 nos

INGREDIENTS:

All purpose flour/ Maida- 1 ¼ to 1½ cups
Baking powder- 1 teaspoon
Salt- pinch
Butter, softened- 1/2 cup
Sugar, powdered- 1/2 cup
Egg yolk-1 (optional;Vegetarians use 3 tablespoons of milk)
Vanilla essence- 1 teaspoon
Crushed candies/ lollipops (different colours and flavours)- as required

PROCEDURE:

• Keep the candies inside a polythene bag and crush the candies using a rolling pin. Keep them in separate bowls.

• In a bowl beat the butter till fluffy and add the powdered sugar and beat well.
• Now add the egg yolk (optional) and vanilla essence and beat well.

• Mix all purpose, baking powder and salt together using a whisk in a bowl or pass the mixture through a strainer/ sieve to uniformly mix together.
• Add quarter cup at a time and mix well like wise add all the dry mixture into the butter and sugar mixture and make a dough. 

• Using hand roll the dough into a ball. Chill the dough by wrapping in a cling film or wax paper for about 30 minutes. (Divide the dough into two balls for easy chilling process)
• Once the dough is chilled roll the dough in to a flat sheet using rolling pin.

• Using cookie cutters of your choice cut the cookies as desired.
• Transfer the cut cookies on a baking tray lined with wax paper.

• Now cut the inside of the cookies using desired small cookie cutters or plunger cutters or bottle caps.(This is important not to cut the inside of the cookies before moving into the baking tray, you might loose the shape of the cookie while transfer)
• Using a skewer keep a hole on top of all cookies to pass the thread over it and hang later on.
• Fill the cut holes with desired colour or flavoured crushed candies. Donot over fill the candies.
• Fill the small holes with powdered candies and big holes with small pieces of candy.

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees for 10 minutes and transfer the cookies and bake them for about 10-15 minutes or the edges of the cookies starts to turn golden.
• Once the cookies are removed from oven do not remove them from the wax paper. Cool the cookies thoroughly then remove them. (Melted candies takes about 5-10 minutes to cool down and set)
• Tie with thread and hang on the Christmas tree or tinsel. 

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Double Chocolate-Chip Cupcakes

Chocolates are very special for Christmas. We used to prepare many desserts made out of Chocolates such as cakes, brownies, drinks..etc for Christmas. This is a popular cup cake generally liked by all without any age difference and it is commonly available and easy to make. I used to make Chocolate cup cakes usually many times and could not able to post due to one or the other reason. But this time i wanted to post some basic recipes too for this Christmas so that everyone can bake some yummy treat for this Christmas.

This is an easy to bake yummy chocolate chip cup cakes without any effort. You could use milk or dark  semi sweet chocolate chips for this recipe. These cup cakes are perfect for parties to eat with out any mess. Could be made and stored a day or two prior to the party and  can be used.

Preparation Time:15 minutes

Cooking Time: 15-20 minutes

Cuisine: Continental

Makes: 12 nos

INGREDIENTS:

All purpose flour/ Maida- 1 ¼ cups

Cocoa powder- ½ cup
Eggs-2 (or) (Yogurt- 1/2 cup for egg less version)

Oil- ½ cup

Sugar, powdered- 1½ cups

Baking Powder- 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda- 1 teaspoon

Salt- 1/4 teaspoon

Hot milk- 1/2 cup

Hot water- 1/2 cup (If required)

Chocolate chips (semi- sweet)- 1/2 cup

PROCEDURE:

• In a bowl beat the eggs with oil till fluffy and pale mixture.
• Then add the powdered sugar and beat well till frothy.

• With the all purpose flour add the cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; sift/ sieve well by passing though a strainer two times to get a uniform mixture.
• Add in the sifted dry ingredients into the wet mixture and fold well using a spatula.

• Now add the vanilla essence and hot milk and mix well.
• Add some hot water if needed to dilute the cake batter to a semi solid pouring consistency.
• Add the chocolate chips and mix well.

• Line the cup cake tray with cupcake liners.
• Fill the cup cake liners 3/4 with batter. Sprinkle some more chocolate chips on top.

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees for 10 minutes and bake the cup cakes for about 15-20 minutes or skewer / knife inserted at the centre comes out clean.

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