Fish Kolambu/ Meen Kolambu

I cannot stress myself how much I am missing blogging and cooking these days. Since its Christmas holidays here I am at my own liberty now and I have been telling myself that I should make an extra effort to seize this opportunity and update the blog as much as possible and tada..here I am with the a spicy fish curry I have been cooking over and over again for a long time.

I was introduced to this fish kolambu   many years ago from Chennai. I went there for a short trip and food was definitely the best thing I enjoyed the most.  I went crazy exploring the cuisine and one thing which I loved the most was this fish kolambu. I remember trying to recreate it after the trip and in spite of being novice the kolambu tasted great, but back then I was not a blogger and like many other recipes I didn’t save the recipe anywhere and completely forgot about it and never made it again. Couple of month’s back I was in the mood to make a different fish curry and I came across this fish kolambu in vahrehvah. The recipe was quite simple and I had all the ingredients handy and after many moons I made it again and I have to say it brought back all those reminiscence of Chennai! I have been making this curry for quite some time now and every time I postpone clicking the picture for next time. Even today was not a great day to click it, it’s so dark outside and lighting was so poor but now I don’t fuss much about photography, lighting or styling. In fact I have lost touch in styling it and the making it presentable too, but I promise whenever possible I will take an effort to update the recipes with better pictures!

Ingredients

Fish – 500 gm

Onion – 2 medium ( make a paste )

Tomato - 2 Small (blanched and pureed)

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp

Garlic pods (crushed) – 4- 5

Green chillies (slit ) – 2

Mustard seeds – 2 tsp

Fennel seeds – 1 tsp

Cumin seeds – ¾ tsp

Fenugreek seeds – ½ tsp

Curry leaves – few

Cumin powder – ½ tsp

Red chilli powder – ¾ tsp

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp

Coriander powder – 1 ½ tsp

Tamarind (gooseberry size) – soaked in  ¼ cup hot water

Sesame oil – 2 tbsp

Water

salt

Method

• In a chatti/ claypot or saucepan add sesame oil and sputter mustard seeds
• Add cumin, fenugreek, fennel seeds and crushed garlic.
• Once garlic becomes golden brown add slit green chillies and curry leaves.
• Add onion paste and saute for 10 minutes.
• Add ginger garlic paste and when the raw smell goes add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, coriander powder and saute for a minute or so.
• Add tomato puree and finally add tamarind water, water, salt and bring the sauce to boil.
• Simmer the sauce for 25 minutes until oil separates.
• Add fish to the sauce and cook for 5- 10 minutes. 

Enjoy ! 

Rocky Road Bars

Hope you all are gearing up for Christmas and New Year.  Do you have the tradition of exchanging Christmas gifts to you near and dear ones? Well, I didn’t actually until I moved to U.K. The only time I exchanged gifts was when we played the game of Christmas friend/ secret Santa in school and college and that was the most exciting bit for me during those days. Now exchanging gifts is like a tradition for me especially for my close friends. This year we kicked of our Christmas ritual a bit early. BY “WE” I meant my fun gal gang, Nisha( My kitchenantics),Gayatri ( mummyandme ) and Suchi (Kitchen karma). We met for a Sunday brunch to exchange gifts in a cosy place!

We were all so excited about the whole gift thing and couldn’t wait for it. I have to say I was really gobsmacked to see all gifts ! They were all home- made and they were all packed and wrapped with so much love! Perfect gifts in all sense .. Gayatri took a lot of effort by giving us a  basket full of homemade goodies. Homemade panettone, chocolates, mulling syrup, garam masala salt and stolen! That was the first time I ate  stolen and panettone ever and I couldn’t stop eating it!

Picture courtsey - Gayatri

Suchi’s homemade body scrub and lip balm came in cute bottles with personalised label and I just couldn’t stop admiring them. I took my lip balm to work and showed it off to my work mates and they all went cooing and awing seeing it! Suchi also gave a bag of cookies which were bursting with flavours…I took it to work and shared it with my friends and they couldn’t stop with just one.

Nisha gifted us  home made candles in a pretty vintage cup along with some bath bombs in three diffrent flavours! I am saving those cuties for Christmas holidays to have a spa day!

My spa gifts from Nisha and Suchi !

And now coming to my gift …..it was a small  bag of rocky roads and  I packed them in a vintage kind of tins J . Due to time  constraint that’s all I could do this year but next year I am going to be super organised and plan ahead. If you would like to surprise someone with some homemade edible gifts try these rocky roads, they are so easy to make and tatses yumm too :) 

Here goes the recipe ..

 (Recipe adapted from Nigella )

Ingredients( makes 24 bars)

Rich tea biscuits – 200 gm

Marshmallows – 100 gm

Dark chocolate (70 % cocoa) – 300 gm

Butter ( unsalted) – 125 gm

Golden syrup – 3 tbs

Cashewnut chopped -2 tbs

Raisins – 2 tbs

Icing sugar (for dusting)

Method

• Place the biscuits in a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin taking care to leave enough biscuit pieces to bite too.
• Melt butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a saucepan.
• Measure and save ½ cup or 125 ml of the melted mixture for later.
• Add marshmallows to the saucepan and mix.
• Add in the biscuit crumbs and pieces together with cashewnuts and raisins and fold in.
• Transfer it into a 9 inch square foil tray and spread it evenly as possible.
• Pour the reserved melted chocolate on top and smoothen it.
• Refrigerate for few hours or overnight.
• Dust it with icing sugar and cut them into pieces.                                                                       
  

Malabar Mutton Biriyani

Every night   just after winding up everything  and just  before hitting bed I get some free time, a nice 1 hour for me and that’s the only time I really get to sit down and do things I like. Even though I always think I should make  the time useful and do a  post here I don’t get into that mood and I rather spend the time watching TV or  trying to finish  a book which I borrowed almost a month back from the library. Some days I just don’t do anything and just spend time in social media and that’s it pretty much it, so until I find motivation, my  blogging is going to take a back seat I guess.

These days more than cooking I find shooting it rather challenging. If it’s a weekend our day usually start very late and by the time lunch / dinner is ready we are usually so hungry so if I take the camera out for taking pictures with a hungry child and hubby, it would be like putting myself into trouble, so to be safe I don’t take that risk !Anyway few weeks back when   I made this  mutton biriyani  I  took some extra effort to take pictures to blog about it. We don’t eat mutton much and hardly buys mutton at home as we tend to avoid red meat as much as we can, so I didn’t have a trusted mutton biriyani recipe with me .That's when I came across this recipe in  Kothiyavunnu and decided to give it a go. It’s an awesome recipe and have made this few times now and every time  it went down as a treat for us  !

Recipe adapted from - Kothiyavunnu

Ingredients

For rice

Biriyani rice/ Jeerakasala rice/ Basmathi rice – 2 cups ( I usually use Jeerakasala rice for all my biriyani's which I bring from Kerala )

Onion – 1 ( thinly sliced)

Water drained from cooked mutton – 2 1/2 cups

Boling water – 1 1/4 cup

Lime juice – 1 tbs

Cinnamon stick – 1

Cardamom – 4 pods

Cloves – 4

Ghee – 1 tbs

Oil – 1 tbs

Salt

For Mutton masala

Mutton – 500 gm

Onion – 4 ( sliced lengthwise)

Tomato – 1

Cinnamon stick – 1 inch thick stick

Cloves – 3

Cardamom pods – 3

Bay leaf – 1

Star anise – 1

Peppercorns- 1 tsp

Green chillies – 15

Ginger – Thumb size piece

Garlic – 4-5 cloves

Red chilli powder – ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp

Yogurt – ½ cup

Water – 1 cup

Lime juice – 1 tbs

Salt

Ghee – 2 tbs

Oil – 2 tbs

Mint leaves - few

For garnishing

Fried onions- Handful

Cashewnut halves – 2 tbs

Golden raisins – 2 tbs

Ghee – 2 tbs

Coriander leaves

Method

Make a paste of green chillies, ginger and garlic in a mixie and keep it aside.

Marinate the mutton with above paste along with chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt, yogurt and whole garam masala and keep it as long as you can(preferably overnight ) or at least for ½ an hour.

In a thick bottomed saucepan/ wok add ghee + oil and sauté the sliced onions until it’s nicely browned.

Add in chopped tomatoes and cook until it’s mushy.

Add the marinated mutton, salt, mint leaves, 1 cup of water and transfer it into a pressure cooker and cook  for 4-5 whistles.

Once the pressure is released drain the 2 1/2 cups of water from mutton and keep it aside.

Cooking Rice

Soak the rice for ½ an hour, drain and keep it aside

In a big pan add oil+ ghee and add the whole garam masala and sauté for a minute.

Add in the sliced onions and sauté until soft.

Add the rice, salt, lime juice and fry the rice for a minute or so.

Add the mutton stock, remaining water and bring it boil.

Cover and cook the rice until done.

Layering

In an oven proof dish spread a layer of rice evenly.

Add mutton masala on top; continue layering until all rice and mutton masala is used up.

Cover the dish tightly with a lid or seal it with maida and dum cook it in a preheated oven of 180 degree C for 15 minutes.

Garnishing

In a small pan add ghee and fry cashewnuts until golden brown and raisins until plump.

Open the biriyani pot and garnish the biriyani with fried onions, cashewnuts, raisins and some chopped coriander leaves.

Kaju Katli/ Kaju Burfi/ Cashew burfi for a Happy Diwali and a Chai party announcement !

Its Diwali again and I am super thrilled about it for many reasons. School is splitting up for a half term break and I am going to get a one week break from work and secondly I am looking forward to my social life with Diwali potluck and parties.  The School I work is a multi -cultural school and we do give importance to all festivals and this term the focus is on Diwali. Children are having mehendi design competition which I thought was really cool. My son also goes to same School and he has designed a cool Mehendi which he is hoping that he will win. No matter how many times I tell him it’s not winning that matters but taking part is he really won’t listen and always wants to win !! Anyway coming to topic , I wanted to give my collegues something special for Diwali and after asking my blogger gals they suggested that Kaju Burfi. I am so happy that I made this as they are so easy to put together and tastes so yummy !

Before I go to the recipe let me  draw your attention ( particularly London peeps) to an Indian Chai party the Bloggers Buzz is hosting at the end of November, a traditional tea party with an Indian twist. The tickets are going on sale soon and are limited so I suggest don’t waste the opportunity and buy them as soon as you can. Talking about venue, its Jenius Social conveniently located for all. I promise you that  it’s going to be a fun afternoon with lots of good food , festive games, mehendi corne, dance and music !! If you would like read more about the event head onto Mykitchenantics, Nisha has more details about the event.

Ingredients 

Cashew nuts – 1 cup

Sugar – ½ cup+ 1 tbs

Water – 1/4 cup

Ghee – 1 tbs

Rose water – 1 tsp 

Method

• Powder cashew nuts in a mixie with 1 tbs of sugar
• Place sugar and water in a saucepan and keep it on a low flame until the sugar has dissolved.
• Add in the powdered cashew, keep stirring it until the mixture thickens and comes together, might take up to 7-10 minutes.
• Remove from fire and add rose water, ghee  and  transfer it onto a big mixing bowl and knead it.
• Transfer the dough to a greased plate and flatten it. Place a grease proof paper on top and roll it thin (3-5 mm thickness).
• Peel of the grease proof paper and let it cool.
• Once completely cool, cut them into diamond shape. 

Mathan Erissery/ Pumpkin Erisserry

This is a long overdue post, I was hoping to post this for Onam but I couldn’t post it.  There was so much going on past few weeks, after school activities with my boy, three birthday cakes which I made neck to neck and a wretched flu which kept me drowsy for almost a week and finally a full time job alongside the studies!  I don’t want to waste my time nagging here, so l will get straight to recipe, but before that let me thank some of my friends who support and encourage me to keep blogging and who take some time to give positive feedbacks about the recipes which they tried from my blog. That is the only reason why I try to update my blog as much as I can.

Coming to the recipe, Mathan erisserry is usually made with pumpkin and black eyed beans but I find the combination with cherupayar/mung tastes much better than traditional black eyed beans version, so now I usually make my erisserry with cherupayar . I always make this erisserry  for Kerala Sadya as we all love it.

Ingredients

Pumpkin – 250 gm

Cherupayar/ Mung – ¼ cup

Grated coconut – 1/2 cup + 2 tbs

Shallots/ Kunjulli – 4 number

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp

Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp

Salt

Curry leaves

Mustard seeds

Whole red chilly

Coconut oil

Method

• Soak Mung/ cherupayar overnight or at least for few hours and pressure cook it for 1-2 whistles adding little water.
• Make a coarse paste of ½ cup grated coconut, shallots and cumin seeds.
• Cube the pumpkin into medium sized cubes and cook it in a saucepan adding little water adding red chilli powder and turmeric powder.
• Add the cooked mung and coconut paste to the cooked pumpkin and cook for a 2-3 minutes .
• In a small pan add some coconut oil and sputter mustard seeds, add in the 2 tbs of grated coconut, whole red chillies and curry leaves. Roast coconut until brown add the tempering into cooked pumpkin.

Palada payasam

Hope all my Malayalee friends and folks had a good Onam this year. Every year I plan to post my full sadhya recipe menu and recipes in my blog beforehand but I think I am jinxed for some reason as  I never get to post recipes on time before the festivals. Like every year I made a good spread of Kerala recipes for our Onam sadya but sadly I couldn’t get my hands around the camera to click any pictures except this Paysam. So here I am a wishing everyone belated festive wishes with a special Pal Ada payasam I made. It’s better to be late than never isn’t it J

Ingredients ( serves 3-4)

Ada –100 gm

Milk – 4 cup

Evaporated milk – 1 cup (optional but recommended, substitute with milk if not using)

Sugar – ¾ - 1 cup ( according to your sweetness)

Boiling water – 1 ½ cup

Cardamom powder – ¾ tsp

Ghee – 1 tbs

Cashew nuts – 1 tbs

Golden raisins – 1 tbs

Method

1. Boil water in saucepan and turn off the flame, add the ada to the boiling water and cover it and leave it for 30 minutes, strain the water. Keep the ada aside.
2. Boil milk in a thick bottomed pan and add the strained ada to it.
3. Cook the ada for 30-40 minutes stirring it every now and then.
4. Add the evaporated milk, sugar and cook until sugar is dissolved.
5. Add cardamom powder and remove from fire.
6. In a small pan add ghee and roast cashew nuts until brown and raisins until they are plump. Add this to the payasam.

Chocolate Tiramisu Cake

It was my sister’s birthday on the  weekend and since she was with me this time I decided to make it special for her. I asked her to choose the cake and she wanted a chocolate cake which is soft like a pastry/dessert cake with some fresh cream or something similar. I brain stormed for a while and then came up with this Tiramisu cake which she happily approved. I have made Tiramisu as a  dessert several times with sponge fingers and that’s one of my favourite desserts and I knew if it’s a Tiramisu cake it will be even better and I was right. It was utterly delicious and she absolutely loved it and we all finished the cake even  before I could take a picture of the cut slice to show you all the beautiful thin layers which I was really proud of.To be honest  it was the first time my hands was so sturdy to cut such thin layers to make the 4 layered cake.

 Recipe source  for sponge- BBC good food

Recipe for fillling - My Tiramisu dessert and here

Ingredients  - serves ( 8-10)

For the chocolate sponge ( I use 200 ml cup)

Plain flour- 100 gm( 1 tbs less than I cup)

Sugar – 140gm ( ¾ cup)

Butter – 50 gm /1/4 cup (melted)

Cocoa powder – 25 gm

Eggs – 4 large

Baking powder – ½ tsp

Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Salt – pinch

For the filling( cooked egg version)

Egg yolks – 3

Caster Sugar – 2 tbsp + 1 tbs

Icing sugar / powdered sugar – 8 tbs or as per your sweetness

Tia maria or any coffee liqueur – 4 tbsp( 2+2)

Coffee-  ½ cup( dissolve ½ tsp instant coffee in ½ cup of boiling water)

Whipping cream – 500 ml

Mascarpone cheese- 250gm

Grated chocolate – 1/3 cup

Vanilla extract – 1tsp

Method

Making the cake

• Measure flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt in a mixing bowl and keep it aside.
• Beat eggs with sugar and vanilla extract until its thick and trebled in volume for about 5-8 minutes.
• Sieve the dry ingredients from mixing bowl to the egg mixture and fold in gently.
• Add in the cooled melted butter and gently fold in.
• Divide and pour the batter into two 8 inch cake tins and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 10-12 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Cut  each layer horizontally into two and you will get 4 layers of cake.

Making the coffee

• Dissolve ½ tsp of instant coffee powder in ½ cup boiling water, add 2 tbs of coffee liqueur, 1 tbs of sugar, vanilla extract and keep it aside.

Preparing the filling

• In a heat proof bowl place three egg yolks, add 2 tbs of sugar and 2 tbs of coffee liqueur and place it over a barely simmering pan of water and beat with and electric beater for about 5-8 minutes or until its thick and volume has trebled.
• Remove from heat and let it come to room temperature and then add mascarpone cheese and beat.
• Whip double cream with icing sugar until soft peaks are formed.
• Fold the whipped cream to the cheese egg mixture.

Assembling the cake

• Place the first layer of cake on a cake board and brush it with prepared coffee, let the cake soak the coffee.
• Spread the filling on top of it and sprinkle some grated chocolate on top.
• Repeat the same for the other 3 layers.
• Decorate the cake as you like. I placed some sponge fingers on the side and did a small piping on the border and centre.
• Chill the cake until its ready to be served.