Almond Crusted Cat Fish

We got CatFish fillets this week-end as I had my eyes on 1 of the receipes that I saw on LiveToEat Blog. The link for that can be found here

Here is what I did:-

I dry roasted 4 pieces of cardamon, 2 sticks of cinnamon, 10 red chillies, 1tbsp of fennel seeds and then ground them in a blender with 5-6 whole almonds, 1 tbsp of lime juice and salt to form a paste. 

I applied this paste liberally on the fish and kept it in the fridge for 40 minutes to marinate. Attached is my marinated fish pics. 

40 mintues later I heated oil in a kadai and fried the fish. First 5 minutes covered, then turned and cooked for another 6-7 minutes. I felt the masala lacked little salt and hence while frying I spinkled salt and red chilli powder over the fish. Once it was nicely done I removed it on a plate. Rightly as Sig mentioned in the original post you get pieces of fish sticking to the kadai which you do not want to waste, so I added cut onions, curry leaves, salt and powdered almonds. Fried them well and poured it over the fish. 

The almonds gave it a very crunchy taste. Had this with some rice and dal. It was truly delicious :)

Chana Cabbage Pakoda - A Healthy Option

I made this Chana Cabbage Pakoda and decided to submit it to Susan for My Legume Love Affair-EIGHT Helping.

Ingredients:- Chana Dal (2 cup)

Cabbage (1/4th)

Besan- 3 -4 tbsp

Oil

Salt, red Chilli Powder as per Taste

Ginger, Garlic as per taste

Cilantro leaves.

Here is what I did:-

Boil the Chana dal for 2 whistles. At the same time heat the cut cabbage in 3/

4th kadai water. Add salt to cabbage while heating. After 10 minutes strain water out of the cabbage and keep it aside. Now to the cabbage add the chana dal, ginger, garlic, salt, red chilli powder, a little besan and cut cilantro leaves and mix. Roll them into balls.

Heat oil in a kadai. I normally dont like to deep fry, hence I use little oil and fry the rolled up balls in them, take them out once they are brown and well cooked.

I am also sending this to the Healthy Bite Event

Your tasty pakodas are ready.

The link to the event is here

Healthy Spinach Soup

It was a Friday nite and that meant no tiffin for the next day. I had a little dosa batter left and so I quickly made 3 dosas for hubby. I had to eat something too and as we had just got some spinach from Rainbows I decided to try a Spinach soup receipe that I had seen on the net.

Here is what I did:-
Ingredients - 1/2 plate spinach leaves (well washed)
1/2 onion
3 pods garlic
1/4th cup milk.

Heat oil in a kadai, once hot add garlic pods. Once garlic gets a little brown add the onions, salt and sautee. Now fill this with 3/4 cup water and add the spinach leaves. Heat till spinach and onion leaves are tender(about 7 mins). Blend this to liquid in a blender. No need to add extra water while blending.
Remove the water from the kadai. Add this spinach puree and 1/4th cup milk, salt and pepper to your taste and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Server this healthy and tasty appetizer in a bowl.
I had my nutritious soup today, you can try it too, very simple and tasty.

I submit this to the Weekend Herb Blogging.Link to the site is here. Link to Susan's website is here

Brushetta - A Quick Snack

This Fri evening after we returned home from office I wanted to fix up a quick snack for hubby and the snack had to be something of bread as we got that lots now. Also the shelf life of bread not all that long I had to fix up something.

Not wanting to make the usual ghee toast I tried a something different yet easy.

Here is what I did:- Take 8 pieces of bread and set them out on a baking tray. Coated them with garlic paste. Dropped a few drops of olive oil and then added some cheese on top.

These went in the oven to be baked at 350F for 14 minutes.

As they were getting baked I made the toppings, cut 1 finely chopped tomato, mixed salt, pepper and oregano.

Once the bread was crisp and out of the oven I topped them with these toppings and some cilantro leaves and served them to hubby dear who gobbled them up as fast as he could.

This goes to the bread mania event by Bayleaf. Find the link here

Quick Weekend Eat!

It was Friday evening and after lazing till 9 Gopi tells me we have to go to the casino in an hour. We needed to eat and I needed to cook something real fast. 

I rumaged in the fridge and found some (leftovers) califlower and capsicum staring right into my face.

I would be throwing them anyway if I would not use them today and so I quickly made a crispy capsicum and cauliflower crunchy veggie which went very well with some hot chapatis.

Here is how it went:-

In a kadai, heat some oil , once hot add some cumin seeds, add the cut cauliflower and capsicum, sprinkle some salt, pepper, some soya sauce and let it cook for a few minutes.

That's it-- your dish is ready.

I am sending this Crispy Capsicum Cauliflower dish to the Receipe for the Rest of Us- Dinner Theme. ALso linking to the One Page CookBook"

I am also sending this to the JFI:Cauliflower event here.Link to Indira Mahanandi's post

Fresh Pasta :)

Now that I have also started blogging along with the cooking, it gives me great pleasure to make things on my own rather than use ready made shop material. I would love to bake my own cakes, pastries, pav, naan, bread ........the list is endless and sooner than later it will all be in my blogging site. Oh Yes!!
Feb 1st 2009 was the Super Bowl Sunday and as I wanted to watch the match I thought of making pasta. Ah ha not ready made boil pasta and add the sauce, but actually make the pasta.(inspired by one I got on the net) So here is how my version went:-Ingredients:-
All purpose Flour - 1 cup
Eggs - 3
Salt
Butter
Pepper
Cheese(optional)
Olive Oil

First I took 1 cup of flour and made a well. In that I added 3 eggs and salt. Then with a fork I mixed the egg first, then slowly mixed the flour with the egg. Then I kneaded the dough well for about 5 minutes. It was a little dry and so I added some olive oil, mixed for some time and then kept it for an hour covered with a wet cloth.
After 1 hour I rolled it into thin sheets and then cut with a knife. That's all, my fresh pasta was ready.
All I had to do was put it in boiling water for a few minutes with salt and it was ready to eat!
For the sauce I took some butter and melted it, added some cheese and pepper to this.Took this in a bowl and added th cooked pasta , tossed with some more pepper.

My pasta was not very spicy, you can try the pizza sauce I made and use it here or ready made pasta sauce.
However you do it , it would be a great eat :)