Hagued....

Three days of living in The Hague and I must say me and my fren "CD" and "SS" are trying our level best to make it as homely as possible...the first day CD and me had "Ready to eat' packed Rajma Chawal...which was not bad but good either and I felt really bad thinking what the hell am I eating...Day 2 we had Rice, dal and scrambled eggs which made me a lil happy and Day 3 we had fish and chips for lunch and for dinner we had  my fav. mixed vegetable and Rajma curry with rice. The best part about all our kitchens is its equipped with all the item we need for cooking esp. the electronic items, pots,pans, plates etc etc. 

Food and travel wise its sure going to be one of the best years of our lives....Rome tops the list in "Must Visit Places" but a trip to IKEA store@ Delft  is what I am really lookin fwd to nxt week. Happy staying in The Hague to me .... enjoy and keep the blog alive n make it as informative as possible. 

This months and the month before- a Foodventurous Month....

I haven't written anything since a long time...I was busy settling down n setting the house. The previous month and this month I have had some of the best food one can ever eat...here in Bangalore I had "Thai Red Curry Chicken"- twice...Andhra Thali at Nando's which was really yum...lunch platter at UB city...Crab curry  at Coconut Grove all in Bangalore...Tender roasted duck at Nanking, Delhi...celebration for submission of Phd theses of my dear fren "AN"  she loves to have duck curry and this one was sure the yummest she ever had. 

The best vada-pav in Pune...all thanks to my husband and Pune is his city  n thankfully he knows all the awesome food joints...my husband very recently realized  that just like me he's a total foodie and along with me he's discovering the love/art of cooking. During my last trip to Pune....we had invited few people for dinner and I discovered that I can sure make really good Manipuri chicken curry...I invented it all by chance..the trick was to cook it on low flame and the only masala I used was the "Kangla- Machal Apouba" (I'll upload the recipe in another post).

Even if m from home I still got to eat my fav. Manipuri seasonal vegetables....all thanks to my mom, she sent Ou-soi, O-morok, Maroi-Nakuppi & Napakpi, Yendem, Loklei and Se-bott....for foodies like me..I know I'll always manage to have my fav. food...anywhere in the world...with my stock I made Ou-soi ooti, Ou-soi-kangsu, Yendem eromba, Maroi nakuppi kanghou, Ou-morok metpa with chicken liver....which m sure most manipuri's can die for...

This month and the month before....its been an foodventurous month for me....chicken has been specialty and I'll make sure my foodventurous continues.... 

Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

I am on a cooking spree these days, and m really into Thai Cuisine, yesterday I made Thai style Mango & Onion salad with fish sauce...me and my husband had it with Deep Fried Red snippier fish... it was not as good as we expected it to be. Just two days back we saw this programme in TLC- Planet Food  the programme was about Thailand cuisine  hosted by Merriless Parker and were totally hooked on to it till the end of the show...it was a late nite show so the next morning  me and my husband decided to make some of the dishes...we went to the Spar supermarket and bought all the ingredients to make Thai Style- Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk...after google searching for the correct recipe and after tweaking it to suit our taste  we made it for lunch today and it was  really...really  yumm....the rating according to my husband is 8/10 which is not at all bad for a first amateuresh attempt. Try it if you love Thai food.

Ingredients

• 500 gm chicken (curry pieces)
• 3-4 tbsp red curry paste
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 Onion (finely chopped)
• 100 ml coconut cream
• 200 ml coconut milk
• 200 ml/1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp fish sauce.
• 10-12 cubes of brinjal (optional)
• 3-4 spring onions( finely chopped.)

Method:

• Take a Kadhai (non stick kadhai) and heat it ,add coconut cream to the hot kadhai. Add the red curry paste and mix it well with the coconut cream cook for 2-3 mins.
•  Add the chicken & cook for 15-20 mins on low flame till the chicken is tender.
• Add the coconut milk, chicken stock  & bring to the boil, cook on low flame and simmer.
• Add fish sauce, spring onion & salt to taste.
• Serve hot with plain rice. (  We had it Manipuri Rice yum yum...)

Red Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk

 Serve hot with Manipuri Rice

Manipuri style pasta with Chicken Lolipop

Manipuri style* Pasta- Fusilli with Chicken Lollipop

One week of living in Bengaluru n I am loving the food experience... I love the Spar supermarket, my weekly trip to buy groceries always make a hole in mine n my husbands pocket. The other day we had gone to Spar we ended up buying  pasta, chicken lollipop, sausages,olive oil, all kinds of salad dressing, sauce, sweets and what not....this made me super happy thinking about all the cooking n eating...so for dinner I made Pasta-Fusilli in a very Manipuri style and my husbands fav. deep fried Chicken Lollipop...yesterday dinner was real yum and I do plan to make it again.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Pasta.
• 2-3 Spring onion.
• 1 cup chopped Cabbage.
• 5-6 Green Chillies.
• 10 Garlic clove.
• 1 Onion.
• 1/2 Cup of grated cheese.
• 2 Eggs.
• 3-4 tbsp Olive oil.
• 1 tbsp Dark soya sauce.

Method:

• Boil 4 cups of water in a pan and add the pasta when it comes to a boil. Add 1 tbsp of salt in the water.
• Cover the pan and once the Pasta is done drain the water.
• Heat a wok and add the olive oil and fry the chopped garlic, onion, slit green chilies, chopped cabbage and spring onion. Once done fry the eggs with the veggies & add dark soya sauce.
• Add the pasta and salt, mix all the ingredients. Fry for 5 mins.
• Add the grated cheese and cover the wok. Let the cheese melt.
• Serve hot with Chicken Lollipop. Yummmm I am hungry already...

Serves: 2

Cooking time- 30-40 mins

* In Manipur esp. in Imphal, Pasta is very popular as Macaroni, cooked with onion, cabbage, chilies and dark soya sauce. Sometimes mixed with eggs and chicken.

Pomfret Fry- Simple and yummy recipe

The other day I had gone to the near by super market to buy our monthly grocery. My husband suggested we have pomfret fry for dinner so we bought 4 pomfret fish, it was expensive but worth every single paisa spent. Once home I didn't wanted to marinate it with just salt and turmeric so thought of something interesting...the result .....was a new and super yummy pomfret fry recipe

Ingredients:
- 2-4 Medium size whole pomfret fish.
- 2 tbsp of garlic and ginger paste.
- 1/2 tbsp red chili powder.
- 2 pinch of turmeric powder.
-3-4 tbsp Mustard oil.
- Salt to taste

Method:
-  Wash the fish properly and make 3-4 slits.
-  Prepare a paste by mixing all the ingredients and coat the whole fish with the paste.
- Leave the marinated fish for 30 mins.
- Take a non stick fry pan and add mustard oil once its smoking hot fry the fish.
-Serve hot with onion rings and chat masala.

Preparation time: 50 mins including the 30 mins of marinating the fish.
Serves: 2-3

Rediscovering Imphal n around

I am home for almost 2 months this time and have time to visit places I always wanted to visit, like the Loktak Lake, Sendra, Keibullamjao National Park (the natural inhabitant  of Sangai) and also rediscover Imphal city on foot and this happened last week when a fren of mine (V) who's a accessories designer from Kolkata had come to source traditional shawls and other textiles from Imphal, V makes lovely bags and other accessories from Naga shawls. Earlier she did some sourcing from Nagaland Emporium but seems they could not supply the quantity she required, I suggested that she shd come to Imphal and see the Ima Keithel.

V bought a lot of shawls and Phanek (Tradtional Wrap-a-round), with her I explored the market n had never explored the New Ima keithel in that way....interacting with weavers and sellers and trying to understand how the whole market functions was the most interesting part to me. I took pictures and met some interesting woman sellers who can sell Ice to an Eskimo. We also visited some wholesale dealers in the market who's main function is to supply yarn n give advance cash to artisans, the handloom sector in Manipur is highly disorganised in an organised manner.  

My fren "V"  must have bought 50 items all together and m looking fwd for all of them to be turned into a  different utility products.