Thanks to all who asked about my little boy, and also who sent us good wishes . We are overwhelmed by all the love shown by you. Thank you. He is doing good. We are getting adjusted to the busy schedule with baby. Having my parents here has been a great help. They have been managing everything in the house. I will be joining office back in another one month, so I thought of cooking something once in a while. I wanted to cook something very simple so that I don’t have to stand long hours in front of the stove. So that is how I came up with this pulav.
It is one of the simplest one pot chicken dishes. The pulav comes up absolutely delicious. Not much chopping and you can cook this using just with the standard things from the pantry.
Ingredients: 1 lb(0.45kgs approx) chicken 1 and 1/2 cups basmati rice 1 tbl spn ginger paste 1 tbl spn garlic paste 8-9 curry leaves 1 tea spn coriander-cumin powder 2 tea spns chilli powder 1 cup chopped onion 1 cup chopped tomato 2 tbl spn chopped coriander leaves A pinch turmeric Oil & Ghee Salt
Method: Heat oil and ghee, add onion, ginger paste, garlic paste, curry leaves and fry for couple of minutes. Add tomatoes, salt, coriander-cumin powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder, mix well and let it cook for few minutes. Add chicken, mix well and then add rice. Mix again. Add about 2 and 1/2 cups of water, cover and cook till done. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with a raita or on it’s own.
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 30mins
PS: I normally use chicken breasts for all my chicken dishes. They cook very fast. So if you are using any chicken that takes long time to cook, cook it for few minutes before adding rice to it.
Pictorial:
It has been a really long time since I baked something. There were many days when I wanted to bake something, but it was so hard to even just cook minimal things and get out of kitchen after long working days. I had plans of baking breads for my parents which were also kept on back burner till now. Finally this weekend I decided to stop thinking about it and actually bake these breadsticks. I am happy that I got to use the oven for for it’s intended use instead of using it as a extra storage place (yeah, there were many pans and skillets stored in the oven for past few months).
I used wheat flour and all purpose flour for these breadsticks. The herbs give an intoxicating aroma to these. Within few minutes of baking, the entire home filled with bread aroma. The breadsticks came out super delicious. My parents loved it, we all skipped dinner that day :).
Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups wheat flour 1 cup all purpose flour 1 tea spn active dry yeast 1 tea spn chopped fresh basil 1 tea spn dried oregano 1 tea spn red chili flakes 2/3 cup milk 4 tbl spn water 1/2 tea spn sugar 1 tea spn salt 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1 tbl spn olive oil + some more for brushing Garlic salt (or use fry chopped garlic)
Method: In a large bowl, take the luke warm water. Add sugar, olive oil and yeast. Keep it aside till the yeast becomes active (frothy). Now add both kind of flours, basil, oregano, salt, milk, garlic, chili flakes and knead into a dough. Leave the bowl covered in a warm place till the dough doubles in volume. (Approx 2 hrs). Knead the dough again. Shape into desired sizes. Cover with a plastic wrap and leave for another 1hr till the bread rises again. Preheat the oven at 400F for 10mins. With a brush, apply olive oil/butter to the breadsticks. Sprinkle garlic salt on top (or sprinkle chopped garlic and some salt). Bake at 400F for about 12mins till the bread is done. Serve while it is hot.
Makes 8 breadsticks
Pictorial:
