It happens very regularly with me, I see something on one of the foodblogs and I get this craving to make it myself. I try to suppress it as much as possible, but sometimes, the cravings take the upper hand. If I have to blame someone for my latest craziness – it is Sig because of her lovely event Grill it . I have seen grilling in all its forms on Food network which I watch almost all day (when I get time). But it was till Sig started with this event, I never thought of buying a grill pan for me. Not only she announced this event, she started posting absolutely mouthwatering dishes one after the other (check here , here and here ). Finally I lost the battle and decided I had to buy a grill pan if I had to sleep well.
I bought a tiny cast iron grill pan – on one of my grocery shopping trips where I just wanted to buy yogurt, I thought of having a look at grill pans. I stopped near that isle for close to half an hour trying to convince myself against buying the pan. But in vain. I finally bought it (Ah, did I mention, I forgot to buy yogurt and returned with just the grill pan??). Anyway, that’s how my grilling madness began.
Now it is this situation in my home- I grill anything and everything on this pan , which by the way is the only cast iron pan I have. I hate cast iron because of its weight. I know it is good to use these pans compared to non stick, but I never owned or liked cast iron pans because of their weight. Since we keep moving from place to place, I feel things keep adding up. So when I showed it to V, he didn’t know why in the world I had decided to buy such a heavy pan.
This is one such dish I prepared last week. Very easy to make and very delicious. I don’t miss those fancy Italian restaurants anymore :).
Pasta same as this recipe . Only changes I made are – did not use lemon in the sauce. Added sun dried tomatoes, olives and basil as garnishes after the pasta got ready.
Grilled shrimp: 20 medium sized shrimps 1/2 tea spn black pepper powder 1/2 tea spn salt 1 tbl spn lemon juice Olive oil
Method: Clean the shrimp. Add pepper, salt, lemon juice to shrimp and leave it aside for about 45-60mins. Arrange the shrimps on skewers and grill them on a hot grill. Serve with the pasta.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 20mins
Gas gase or khus khus or poppy seeds are supposed to have a cooling effect on the body. Until recently, I had not seen any recipes which had this spice as the main ingredient. I heard about these for the first time from my Kannada colleagues. I found this recipe in a Kannada book, since I love tamblis (they are fast, easy and tasty), I prepared this. It tasted great, a very nice change to everyday gravies.
Ingredients: 1/2 cup poppy seeds 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract 3-4 red chillies 1 cup yogurt A pinch turmeric 1″ piece ginger Salt
Method: Roast poppy seeds for few minutes(this step is optional but gives a nice aroma). Grind to a smooth paste with ginger, red chillies, tamarind, turmeric, salt. Cook the paste for few minutes. Now take off the heat and add well beaten yogurt(this can be done after the paste cools to room temperature). Do not heat/reheat after adding yogurt. Serve with rice.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 10mins
