Last year in September when I visited India, my pachi (aayi’s sister) came to visit us. I asked her for some of her favorite recipes. She promised to send them in few days. Within few days, my cousin typed many of her recipes and sent it to me. Aren’t they very sweet? I have tried some of these and each have turned out great. This is one of those. A very simple chicken gravy – perfect for a weekday.
I made few minor changes to the recipe. I added some curry leaves at the end. I was really craving for some curry leaf flavor that day. I also marinated the chicken pieces for 30mins because whenever I skipped this, I ended up with some tasteless, rubbery chicken. I served it with some green parathas.
Ingredients: 1 lb chicken 1 cup tomato 1/2 cup onion 1/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut 1 tea spn garam masala 1/2 tea spn chilli powder 1/2 tea spn coriander powder 1/2 tea spn ginger garlic paste 1/2 cup yogurt Oil Salt 8-9 curry leaves (optional) 1 tbl spn chopped coriander leaves
Marinade: 1 tea spn ginger-garlic paste 2 tbl spn yogurt 1/4 tea spn chilli powder A pinch turmeric 1/4 tea spn salt
Method: Mix all the marinade ingredients, add them to chicken and leave it aside for atleast 30mins. Grind together ginger-garlic paste, tomato, coconut, chilli powder, garam masala, coriander powder, salt to a smooth paste. Take out the paste in a bowl, add yogurt and mix with a spoon. Heat oil and fry onion till they turn brownish. Add the paste and fry till oils separate. Add the marinated chicken, fry for few minutes. Add 2 cups water, cover and cook. Add curry leaves, cook for a min. Take off heat, garnish with coriander leaves.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 30mins
Pictorial:
We had a surprise baby shower for a friend today. She is having her second baby next month. We decided to have a potluck at another friend’s house. It was a great get together with lot of fun and laughter and great food. I made this cake and ragda patties for the party.
Like always, I was pretty nervous when I started this cake. This is the very first baby shower cake I made. The cake became a little hard, I am still trying to figure out what made it hard – I think it may be due to the old baking powder I used. But nobody seemed to mind it, they all loved the cake.
I wanted to make the decorations with the modeling chocolate (like the eyes for cookie monster cake ), but somehow it kept falling apart and I could not make the figures with it. So I made marshmellow fondant for the very first time. It tasted much better than the store bought fondant. It is so easy to make it at home and it gives a very fine finish. So I think I will be using it for all my cakes hereafter!.
I initially made the blanket in white color with blue dots. But when I put the cake saver cover on top, I think the top got stuck to blanket :(. So when I tried to open the cover, the baby and blanket came with it!. I should have been more careful. So I changed it to blue blanket with white flowers. I also added some shoes and a teddy bear made with fondant.
Here are the details of the cake with some useful links. I could not take step by step pictures as I was running short on time. The cake was prepared using the simple egg cake recipe. In between the layer, used whipped cream and spread some pineapple pieces(1 can of pineapple tidbits) on it. Used the juice from the can to soak the cake. Used store bought (Wilton’s) butter icing to cover the cake. Then mixed baby blue color in the remaining buttercream for the basket weave ( basketweave technique ). Made marshmellow fondant ( click for recipe here ) with half a pack of marshmellows. A lot remained. So I think only 1/4 the pack was enough for these decorations. Color the fondant with blue color. I referred this video to make the baby.
