Baked fish wrapped in Turmeric leaves - My version of 'Nga-nam'

Last week was lot of fun, the extended Durga Puja holidays were fully utilised by cooking, eating and shopping. The other day on my way back from work, I dropped by INA market and bought my weekly quota of fish, what I absolutely love about INA is that the market never disappoints me and what is even more interesting is that INA market works like a mood elevator for me. I may sound a bit crazy but I'll choose to spend time at INA market over any of the swanky shopping mall in Delhi. 

To make my weekend interesting and food filled I decided to make baked fish and stir fried mixed veggies, so I bought 1 Kg of Red Snapper fish, Rohu, chives, Pui saag also known as Malabar Spinach, Black beans paste, Kikomon soya sauce and few other things. The final result of my exotic buy was very satisfying...baked fish is not a new recipe, Manipuri's love the 'Nga-nam' made mostly with smaller fish or 'Nga-kha' as we call it and never made with fish bigger than the little finger. But once I tried it with medium size fish and it was quite good. The recipe of the baked fish is below:

'Baked Fish wrapped in Turmeric leaves'

Ingredients:

1. 2 medium or small size Red snapper fish ( One can also use Pomfret, Tilapia or any other medium size fish)

2. Ginger Garlic paste- 3 spoons

3.Turmeric power- 1 tbsp.

4.Onion- 2 

5. Garlic- I whole pod 

6.Chilli powder - 1 tbsp (opitional)

7. 15-20 leaves of Awa Phadigom ( also know as Culantro/Mexican Coriander)

8. Mustard oil.

9. 4-5 Turmeric leaves (In case you don't have turmeric leaves use Banana leaves)

10. Aluminium foil

11. Salt to taste.

Steps:

1. Wash the fish properly, make small slits and pat dry using kitchen paper towel.

2.Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl ( Ginger garlic paste, Turmeric power, Chopped onion, Crushed garlic, chilli power, chopped awa phadigom, 1 tbsp mustard oil and salt). 

3. Smear some turmeric powder and mustard oil on the fish and also sprinkle some salt.

4. Cover the fish properly with the mixed ingredients and also put some inside the fish. Once done leave it for about 30 mins.

5. Pull out some aluminium foil and on it put a single Turmeric leave, now put the fish on it and put another turmeric leave on the fish, to save turmeric leave as it's always on short supply I had cut it neatly and covered the fish well with the leaves. Now wrap the fish with the aluminum foil, I used another layer of aluminum foil to fully wrap the fish. (Traditionally we use only the turmeric leaves to bake it but due to limited supply/availability of the turmeric leaves I used the aluminium foil to cover it fully and maintain the aroma)

6. Take a Tava and pre heat for 2-3 mins on high flame, add 1/2 tbsp of oil  and  put the foil wrapped fish on the tava, cover it fully with a plate or another container to maintain the heat. Turn the fish every 7-8 mins and cook on medium flame. It will take about 40-45 mins for the fish to get cooked. 

( One can also use an Oven to bake the fish but I prefer using the Tava, I find it more convenient )

Unwrap the fish after about 15-20 mins and serve hot with some simply yummy stir fried veggies and rice. Enjoy....

Chicken Rice and Raita for lunch

No excuses for not updating my blog again but here I am, trying to revive the blog again with a very simple and yummy recipe for a lazy weekend lunch. Easy to cook and yummy to eat is what I can guarantee from this recipe, the recipe was shared by one of my colleague 'SG' and I made it for lunch yesterday 'Chicken Rice, cooked with curd and kashmiri mirch powder'. This is quite similar to biryani but compared to biryani it's much easier to cook and as tasty as biryani.

Ingredients:

1. 500 gms chicken
2. 500 gm curd
3. 3 tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
4. Few strands of safrron
5. Green Cardamom- 5-6
6. 1 stick dalchini (Cinnamon)
7. 2 big onion
8. 1 Tomato (Optional)
9. Bay leaves
10. 1 tbsp garam masala
11. 2.5 cups of good quality basmati  rice
12. Salt to taste

Steps:

• Marinate the chicken with the curd, chilli powder and salt. Cover the marinated chicken and leave it for at least 1 hr.
• Wash the rice and keep it aside for about 15-20 mins.
• Heat a Kadhai and add 2 tbsp of vegetable oil, once it's smoking hot add the bay leaves and sliced onion, fry it it turns golden brown. 
• Add the marinated chicken and cook it on medium flame. Also add the cardamom, dalchini , garam masala and the chopped tomato.
• Stir the chicken every 5 mins and cook for about 25 mins. ( Chicken will get tender since it's marinated in curd)
• Since cooking rice on a Kadhai is not advisable, put the rice in a Rice cooker or a flat bottom pan,   add the saffron strands,  cooked chicken and add 5 cups of water (double the quantity of rice).
• Cook till the rice is done and serve hot with raita.

While it may not taste exactly like Biryani but this is easier to cook and as yummy as biryani. Pictures will follow soon.

Before the month ends

Weekend lunch- Pasta in green pesto sauce and Stir fried chicken

My plan to write at least 3 blog post has gone haywire...thanks to me getting super lazy and the crazy work schedule. Between shifting house, cities, travelling and juggling work I find almost no time for myself, it's sad that m not even able to write even1 blog post a month but before this month ends I had to write this post. I hate this when I find no time to update my blog. 

Couple of weeks back I was bored of eating the same food, so decided to cook something different and the result was Pasta cooked with green pesto sauce and Stir fried chicken cooked with bell peppers and Balsamic sauce. Making pasta was super easy but the chicken was not, I did googled for the recipe and thankfully had all the ingredients. The end result was satisfying but not as good as I had expected it to be, the chicken was not so tender mainly because it was overcooked but next time I will improve on the chicken and make it taste better. 

Europe on a budget

For the longest time I have been thinking to write this post, how to travel to Europe on a budget and by budget, let me make it very clear that I do not mean shoe string budget I mean a little over shoe string and not staying in hostels but hotels in good and accessible locations with breakfast, where to eat (cheap), tips to save money, what to buy as souvenirs and how to stay safe and out of trouble . 

Since I have traveled to many European cities alone,with friends and also with my husband I plan to cover these aspect of travel as well. Like if you are traveling with your friends, you may not mind staying in a hostel, in fact few of the hostels I have stayed were really good but having said that hostels have their own issues like the shared toilet being one of them which will be a BIG NO if you are travelling with you family, moving on as part of the Europe on a budget series I plan to cover  cities I have traveled  and enjoyed every moment of it. I will also be writing about day trips that can be done if you happen to live in a neighboring country. The following popular cities will be covered 

a) Paris

b)Barcelona

c)Lisbon & Porto

d)Belgium- Brussels, Antwerp & Brugge

e)Prague

f) Rome

g) Florence & Pisa

h) Venice

i) Netherlands- Amsterdam, Delft, Texel,Rotterdam & Den Haag ( Hague) of course

j) Geneva- Mt. Titlis, Interlaken

k) Germany- Cologne

l) Krakow & Warsaw

m) Luxembourg 

Keeping my target of writing 3 blog post a month I guess for the next 4 months this blog will be lively and I hope to write some interesting and informative post. 

Creation of the day or rather perfect copy - The perfect Sunny side up :)

Sunny side up on a Saturday morning

'That feeling when you create a perfect sunny side up' well in my case I feel happy and extremely satisfied  whenever I make something I really like and turns out perfect.....just the way I like it. Yesterday my sister sent me this link from FB which showed how to make sunny side up inside a perfectly cut bell pepper, so I decided to make it for breakfast the next day. The first thing which came to my mind after seeing those pictures was Godrej Nature's Basket store and Le Marche, two of my favorite food stores in Delhi, so I left work a little early and rushed to Basant Lok, where both the stores are and bought 2 bell peppers (1 red and 1 yellow) some organic eggs and few other things. 

This morning as soon as I woke up I had only the sunny side up and a perfect cup of chai in mind, so I made three of these, the first attempt was not successful but the 2nd and 3rd ones were perfect. The trick is to cut the bell peppers a bit thick and the tomato's really thin and also make sure you don't break the egg york because that will be the end of the sunny side up. I suggest you break the egg carefully in a small bowl and then put it inside the bell pepper and remember to cook on slow flame. 

The facebook link from where I saw these perfect sunny side up is mentioned below.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=596287397062788&set=a.189645094393689.47536.188289297862602&type=1&theater

Wondering Why?

From Active to dormant is how I should describe my blog. I started this blog purely to document my love for travel, cooking and eating of course :) and I do find myself looking up the blog very often to recall the ingredients and recipe of certain  dish I had made/created/invented . But over the past 2 years, ever since I left Agartala I find myself blogging less and lesser with every passing month, I should not be giving any excuse because the past 2 years have been the most active and busy years for me in terms of discovering different cuisines from around the world and also in terms of travelling.

The past two years has been really wonderful for me; I got married to the person who makes me happy & laugh with his happy ways always, was on sabbatical from work (a much needed and deserved break), completed an advance degree on development (next degree will be a Phd hopefully) , visited 11 more countries and just for the record I have visited Paris thrice and Rome twice, made some wonderful friends, discovered Dutch, French, Italian (The REAL Italian kind) ,African  and Latin American  food, learned few words of Spanish & many, many words in Dutch, discovered my hidden talent of organizing holiday on a shoe string budget, finding cheap tickets. One thing I really want to mention is, I cooked food for about 100 people for one event at ISS with 3 other wonderful people who lovesss to cook, the team included a French, Japanese, Nepali and Indian....the butter chicken, fish curry and kheer was loved by all. And the most important I discovered that I am bad or should I say horrible in cooking chicken....lol. The only good chicken curry I ever made was the Butter Chicken for the ISS event, but that was all thanx to the pre-mix masala, that chicken was a big hit.

So much activities in life and I failed to document most of it....ahhhh what a shame. But since I am back in India and re-adjusting life post ISS and my European Extravaganza I should and MUST start blogging again. 3 blogs a month is what I am targeting at, so 1 post every 10 days.....hmmm the target is achievable. All the best to me and happy blogging.