Delicious crab curry/masala

Ever since my childhood, I have loved seafood. I still remember the time my mom used to make crab curry at home, I used to love eating those. So I thought of making a crab curry myself.

There are few things we need to remember before cooking a perfect crab dish, properly clean, then break/dismantle crab and the most important part crab should be alive. I used the crab that we get from Chilika Lake(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilika_Lake). The seafood found there are of wonderful taste. 

There are many ways to kill a live crab, you can either break there legs or you can put them in boiling water( similar way we kill a lobster). 

 Ingredients I used for this crab curry were

          1. Crab

          2. Turmeric

          3. Red chili powder

          4. Salt

          5. Oil

          6. Onion

          7. Green chili

          8. Garam masala masala

          9. Bay leaf
    First clean the crab and then break them and keep aside. Once that is done, finely chop the onions and green chilies.Then heat the oil in a container, added a little bit of sugar in hot oil (this gives some color to the curry). When sugar is heated and starts bubbling, I put bay leaves into it. Then added chopped onions and green chilies. Fried them until the onions were golden brown. Once the onions were done, added zinger and garlic paste, turmeric powder, garam masala, salt and chili powder. Fried them till oil started coming out of the mixture. Then added the crab and stir it for some time until the color of the shell starts turning red, then you know that crab has been cooked properly. 

Mom's Special fish dish with mustard paste

This is one of my favorite dish, among all the dishes that mom prepares. I thought of sharing my mom's secret recipe with you guys, because everyone should be able to enjoy this yummy dish and not just us. 

Just words of caution for people who do not like the taste of mustard and mustard oil---> there is no other option for mustard oil or mustard. This dish cannot be prepared with any other alternative. 

Since childhood, I have been a big fan of non-veg food. My mom used to call me a cat, as I refused to eat if there is no non-veg item for that meal. What can I say,  I am perfect non-vegetarian J

Now, the famous - Mom's special fish dish.

Ingredients I used for this fish dish

          1. Rohu fish

          2. Turmeric

          3. Red chili powder

          4. Salt

          5. Mustard Oil

          6. Onion

          7. Green chili

          8. Tomato

          9. Garam masala

         10. Mustard paste

We had planned for a picnic, so my friend Supriya, Vinayak and their son come over to house apartment the night before. Supriya is a great cook, specially non-veg dishes, although she is a vegetarian, just like my mom ;-)

So, we were both busy cooking that night, well actually she was cooking and I assisting her. But this fish dish, I was preparing for the dinner.

I started with marinating fish with turmeric, salt and red chili powder. After that I deep fried the fish with mustard oil. I know everyone says to use refined oil(vegetable oil) for cooking and frying stuff… its good for health.. blah blah blah. But if you don’t cook fish with mustard oil, then you will never know the taste of fish. I am sure many people will agree with me and some will not.

So after fish were fried, I left them to cool down in an oil soaking paper.

Then I finely chopped onion, tomato and green chilies, then I mixed all of them with mustard paste, chili powder, little bit of garam masala, salt and mustard oil. Kept the mixture aside.

After fish was cold, I mixed fish with the onion mixture that was kept aside. After that I kept the entire mixture with slight oil in a pan and put the flame at slow. In between just made sure that it is cooking well and kept mixing it.

This dish cooks slowly, but I must say, worth the wait. Slowly everything starts mixing with each other and oil starts coming out of the mixture. The mixture starts to change color. The aroma itself is so mouthwatering. Actually just writing about it making me salivate :-P

Finally once the dish is done, serve it with rice and dal and enjoy the dish with your loved ones. 

Mutton curry for dinner .. after a long hectic day

Yesterday was a hectic day, with the horrible traffics and pot holes of Bangalore roads. I was completely frustrated and tired. But when my husband asked me what we should make for dinner, immediately I thought of making mutton curry. I got the recipe from my mom. The best part is, my mom doesn't eat non-veg but still cooks delicious non-veg dishes..

 Ingredients I used for this mutton curry were

          1. Mutton

          2. Turmeric

          3. Red chili powder

          4. Salt

          5. Oil

          6. Onion

          7. Green chili

          8. Garam masala/mutton masala

          9. Bay leaf

I started by marinating the mutton with salt, turmeric and chili powder. Kept it aside for about 20-30 minutes. 

Once that is done, finely chop the onions and green chilies.

Then heat the oil in a container, added a little bit of sugar in hot oil (this gives some color to the curry). When sugar is heated and starts bubbling, I put bay leaves into it. Then added chopped onions and green chilies. Fried them until the onions were golden brown. Once the onions were done, added zinger and garlic paste, turmeric powder, garam masala, salt and chili powder. Fried them till oil started coming out of the mixture. Then added the marinated mutton and stirred it for some time till all the water from mutton are dried. After that added water and pressure cooked it until they are tender and well cooked.

After having the mutton curry and roti, I almost forgot the stress of the day’s work and traffic J

Cold night, long drive and Chilly cheese fries at Rasta Cafe

My hubby says, I should make the blogs more interesting and should write in a manner than conveys the story. He says I should put the words like I decorate the plate of food. So I thought of sharing the food I had on my last birthday in Rasta Cafe.

That was the best birthday ever. Love you Sangy... you gave me a wonderfully memorable day. We started with movie for morning show, then had a arguably questionable lunch at Hyatt restaurant, but more about it in my other post. This one is about the food I had at Rasta Cafe.

After lunch, he gifted me with a dashing car :-) . which we took for a long drive with some more friends. It was a wonderful drive with friends, music and even rain.. it was beautiful.

We ordered some food, but the one which is worth sharing with you people is Cheese potato fries. It was super spicy( which I love), cheese was soft and creamy.The combination of chilly, potato fries and cheese was really mouth watering. We all were literally licking our fingers towards the end of that dish. In a cold night out in Rasta cafe, after having the cheese fries, we all were crying from our eyes and nose, but this tears were not tears of joy or sadness..... these tears were for only one reason.... yummy spicy food....

Although I was all teary and mouth was literally burning.. I will still order it again, next time I go to Rasta Cafe. 

Chicken biryani - made by me for the 1st time

It was August 8, 2011. Had invited few of our friends for house party. I remember being scared and tensed before cooking the dish. I had taken the recipe from my best friend's husband,thank you Deepak bhai for the recipe J

1st I got all the ingredients ready and cleaned. Then I was ready to cook and amaze :-P. It took me sometime and patience to cook as per the recipe. Of course my darling husband was there to help me. Before the guest would come I wanted to complete cooking.

All we needed is chicken, basmati rice, onion, ghee, salt, vinegar, lemon, mint leaves, biryani masala and other spices.

1st I start by marinating the chicken with lemon, ghee, mixture of mint leaves and green chilies, mixture of spices, biryani masala and salt to taste and left it to marinate for around 20-30 minutes.
Then I heat ghee in a pan and put the marinated chicken. Cook it for sometime until the chicken were done for about 90%. In between cook rice till it is 60-70% cooked. Once rice is done drain the water and mix lemon and salt. After that, in a different pan make a layer of chicken and rice.I also added food color mixed with milk to the rice in cylindrical way for looks :-p. After that covered the pan properly so that air doesn't come out. Kept the flame on low. Left it for 10-15 minutes. After that uncovered the pan and put golden friend onions on top of it. When I served the biryani with curd and onion raita, my friends were actually shocked and amazed that me(who didn't have a idea of cooking before marriage) could produce this yummy food.

I was very satisfied with what I had made, and this was the time which motivated me to cooking different style, and of course eating them J

My 1st taste of Lobster

Yummy Lobster:

This was one of my memorable trip. School and college friends, went for a Goa trip, before 1^st among us was going to get married. That was one fun trip to Goa. 3 days of fun, masti and tasty food  J .

We ate a lot of amazing, finger licking goan food. But Lobster was by far the best of all. After trying to find the location of the Anjuna beach for some time, we were able to find a shack. Immediately we all started ordering foods, as we all were hungry from full day roaming around in Goa. If I remember, we ordered sea food platter, crabs, prawns and chicken. Then one of our friends suggested trying lobster. So we went to choose the lobster from the tank. We chose the biggest one as we were quite big in number with hungry bellies :-P

Once all food came, we all jumped on food like we had not eaten for days. We all enjoyed this lobster. It was yummy and the goan masala that they had used was top class- spicy (the right amount), yummy, mouthwatering tasty. I am sure when I go Goa again, I am going to have lobster again and return hungry for more.