Chicken Kosha

The Singapore Haze has become bad to worse now. Its been 4 days now & my poor little fella is in house arrest. My cutie pie is very understanding & is self entertaining himself with all the toys around. In spite of keeping all the doors & windows closed our home has a burnt smell. The air is totally contaminated & we just hope that it reduces soon. Our only worry is our child's health. Hubby says lets go back to India for a week & come. We are still deciding on that & hope things get better here soon.

Yesterday Hubby was working from home. Since he was home, I thought of making some curry as he LOVES curry. I have been thinking of making this famous Bengali Kosha from a long time. Finally that day was yesterday:) I made it & it was finger licking good. Kosha means slow cooked in Bengali. Traditional no liquid is added in this recipe & also no tomatoes. While doing some research on the net, I saw a lot of people have different version of Kosha. I finally went a ahead with making one that I liked on You tube by Kalyan in India food Network. His was made with Mutton & I altered my recipe according to chicken. I have not used any water other than some yogurt. The flavours in it was amazing & it definitely tasted yumm. This is a must try for all curry lovers. Since I have a very demanding taste bud, I try & venture out on making different curries. This is how I made it

Ingredients:

• 1 Kg Chicken cleanes & cut into medium pieces
• 3 Onions chopped & pureed (Paste)
• 3 Tbsp thick yogurt
• 1 Inch cinnamon stick
• 4 cardamoms
• 4 cloves
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 Tbsp Minced Garlic paste
• 2 Tbsp Minced Ginger paste
• 1.5 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbspn coriander powder
• 1 Tbspn Cumin powder
• 1/4 Tspn turmeric powder
• Salt as per taste
• 3 Tbsp Oil
• 2 large Potatoes sliced &  Pan fried
• 1 tspn Sugar
• Coriander leaves to garnish

Directions:

1. Make a paste of yogurt, Chili powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder & marinate the chicken with this paste. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 to 4 hours. The longer the better.
2. In a Pan add 3 Tbsp of oil, 1 tspn sugar & keep sitting it until the sugar has browned (caramelised)
3. Add in the Cinnamon stick, bay leaves, cloves, cardamom, Onion paste to this & keep sauteing for about 3 to 5 mins.
4. When the Onions turns pink, add the marinated chicken, salt & give it a good mix.
5. Now cook this on low flame for about 20- 25 mins. Keep sauteing in between & do not add any water.
6. When the chicken is almost done, combine the Pan fried Potatoes & give it a good mix. Close lid & cook for another 2 mins. Turn off the flame & garnish the dish with coriander leaves. The dish is ready.

Note:

• The sugar is caramelised to give a nice golden colour to the curry.
• If you want more gravy then you can add tomatoes.
• Traditionally mustard oil is used. Since we don't consume Mustard oil, I used the regular sunflower oil.

  
 

Tayo Cake

 

Zion's Birthday is on 15th June, since 15th fell on Saturday we kept the school party & friends party on the 14th. Zion has a lot of friends in the Condo & I thought of inviting his friends in the evening for a small Birthday celebration. I decided to make Tayo cake & add in some figurines from the Barnyard cake. Since this party also was on the same day as school party, I was left with limited time. Making Tayo cake was really easy. I baked & frosted the cake the previous night. The cake was sitting in the fridge & it was easier for me to come back from school & just do the fondant decoration. Thankfully the animal figurines were not attacked badly in Zion’s school. Adding farm animals was an instant idea & just went with the flow. If you have a closer look at the cake you will realise that it’s very shabbily doneJ The school party was at 3pm & by the time I got back home it was 4. I was left with only 1.5 hours to do the fondant decoration. I was again very happy with the way the cake looked. My hubby was feeling so proud & kept saying that you are really very creative. He couldn’t believe that in such a short time I would make it look so good. Now it sounds like self-praise right? Hehehehe…

Well the evening party also went on well. Zion along with his friends danced on Gangnam style song. Zion was very excited to see “Tayo the little Bus”cake. He in fact was very unhappy when we cut the cake. He kept screaming oh no… Tayo, tayo…… poor fella kept re-joining Tayo’s head back to the cake. LOL:) After the cake was done I called this cake " Tayo the little Bus goes on a picnic to Barnyard with Farm animals":) For the Barnyard cake I had some idea on how I wanted it to turn out but for this one it was all instant imagination. I can say more like a cut copy paste style with all that repetition of farm animals:)

 

How I made the cake:

1. I baked a Vanilla pound cake in 9 inch square pan. For Pound cake recipe click here.  The cake turned out 2 inch in height, it’s a very short cake & that’s what I wanted. I cut the cake into 3 piece vertically & just layered one on top of the other. So I dint so any shaping:) This was very easy.
2. On each layer I filled some Vanilla butter cream icing. & crumb coated the entire cake with Butter cream.
3. The fondant I have used here is again Home made fondant. I used edible black marker on Tayo for the black colour windows.
4. The Pond water is made from Wilton edible gel.
5. I piped the green grass from the left over whipped cream that I had.
6. If you want to know more about cake decoration & more details on the cake, Join my group budding cake decorators on face book. Click here to join.

 

Barnyard Cake

I can’t believe that my tiny little boy is already 2! I still remember how little my baby was. He was just as big as 1 ltr pepsi bottle. Most of you already know that my lill boy was born 5 weeks earlier than the due date. Today my super active toddler is all grown up & running all around. He has already mastered all skills that are needed for him to outshine. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family & the last 2 years as a full time mommy has been super fun. 

My first fondant decorated cake was Zion's 1^st Bday cake. The theme was Jungle safari & I was really happy with the outcome. (Click here) However there was a lot of scope for improvement & over this last 1 year I have learnt a lot on my own in cake decoration.  Baked & decorated so many cakes for my friend’s parties. I never knew that this field would make me so popular.

Coming back to today's post, I had decided that for Zion’s 2^nd Bday I have to make a very special cake. The ideas kept changing in my mind. My son’s fav Cartoons are Team Umi zoomi & Tayo the little Bus. I initially thought that I will make Team Umizoomi cake, but later changed my mind & decided to go ahead with Barn yard cake. Why Barn yard? Coz farm animals are the topic of discussion in Zion’s school for this semester. I thought it would be great idea to make this cake for his school celebration as all the kids would love to see these animal figurines.

I dint want to bake a lot of cake & waste. Hence I decided to make the Barn house with rice cereals & for the bottom I made a 9 inch round vanilla cake.  The cake was more than enough for 25 people. Every child including teachers loved the cake. It was such a joy watching all the kids enjoying eating it. The teachers were all praises & couldn’t believe that it was home made. Both my hubby & I had gone to the school for the cake cutting. Z was acting like a leader in class & I could see that he was trying to show off that it’s his cakeJ. He was after the tractor & had already eaten one tractor at home & now was game for another one too:)

 

I Baked a Vanilla Butter cake very similar to my Pound cake, with some extra butter in it. The cake had a 3 layer filling of Chocolate Butter cream icing. I definitely don't have any step by step tutorials for this. Please feel  free to ask me if you have any questions.

 

For Pound cake recipe click here.  I baked 2 batches of cake to make it this tall.

Chocolate Butter cream recipe:

300 gms Butter (I used Amul Butter)

7 - 8 Cups sifted Icing sugar

1/4 cup heavy Whipping cream

1 Tspn Vanilla Essence

1/4 cup +2 Tbsp Coco powder

Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Make sure butter is at room temperature & not very soft.
2. In the bowl cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes with an electric beater on medium speed.
3. Add 7 cups icing sugar one cup at a time. Once the icing sugar is well mixed add whipping cream, coco powder and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. (for 3 to 4 mins) If you feel the frosting consistency is not right, then add in some more icing sugar.
4. With a spatula fill each layer with 1/2 inch frosting & crumb coat the entire cake with this icing.
5. Let the cake rest in the freezer for 10 mins until the crumb coat sets.
6. Now remove cake out & do the final frosting around 1/2 inch thick on the outside.

 

Note:

1. Most of the figurines were made out of home made Marshmallow fondant. For recipe click here
2. The figurines were made 4 days in advance & I put them in a air tight container.
3. Rest of the fondant that I used for decoration was home made Fondant. I just followed Veena's recipe for this. Check her site here for the recipe. This fondant turned out so good & tasty. I could eat the fondant just like that. This is the best fondant I have ever tasted. Thanks Veena again for sharing your recipe.
4. The Barn house is made of Rice cereal. I just used 5 cups of rice cereals & 2 cups of marshmallow to make this. Pop the marshmallow in the microwave for 1 minute until its melted. Now mix in the rice cereal & make it a soft dough. Now you can shape it to any shape you want
5. To make the farm animals, I watched some tutorials on youtube. Pig Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prawn curry

So finally I am back to blogging after a small gap. The last 2 weeks have been a really busy week for me. One I have been busy with my son' s2nd bday celeration & other is I will be starting work after 2 years of gap. So now its "Corporate2kitchen- kitchen2corporate"

Now coming back to todays post. This is an old dish that I made a week ago. As mentioned in my earlier posts, You already know that I am a great fan of Shrimps. Found these in the market after a long time as these are not very frequent visitors. The moment I spot them & I buy them immediately. These gets sold really fast. Shrimps have a natural sweetness & they taste good anyway you cook them. Just the salt & pepper is enough to season & this will still taste delicious. This curry is a very easy recipe & I have used the basic spices in this. Just the chili powder & turmeric powder. Just these 2 spices are enough to season this & make it delicious. BTW there are many other seafood which has natural rich flavour so overkilling them with lot of masalas/spices will spoil its natural taste.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg cleaned shrimps
• 1 onions chopped small
• 1 big tomato chopped
• 1 Tbsp minced ginger
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 1 Tbsp Red Kashmir chili powder
• 1/4 tspn Turmeric powder
• Less than 1/4 tspn tamarind paste
• salt as per taste
• 1/4 Tspn sugar
• 3 Tbsp of thick coconut cream or milk
• 1/2 cup of hot water
• Coriander leaves to garnish
• 1 Tbsp oil

Method:

1. In a pan add oil fry ginger, garlic, onions until translucent for about 3 to 4 mins
2. Now add in the tomatoes, chili powder, turmeric powder, salt & fry until fat separation. The tomatoes need to become totally soft.
3. Now add in the tamarind paste, shrimps & cook this for about 2 to 3 mins.
4. Combine the coconut cream, sugar, hot water & bring this to a boil for about 2 mins.
5. Turn off the flame & garnish it with coriander leaves.

 

A small tip when cooking seafood:

 when making certain seafood dishes make sure you dont kill the natural goodness with overpowering spices. Keep it simple & it will taste good.