Here is the pepper chicken recipe, finally! I’ve been getting requests for this recipe for a long time. Though I came across many recipes, I didn’t find any of it interesting to give it a try. I’m glad to say, the search ends here! Last time when I went to Kerala for holidays, I happened to see a cooking show featuring this recipe. It was a sunday and I was just lazying around, lying down on the sofa, surfing the channels. The moment I heard the word ‘pepper chicken’ on TV, I just jumped out of the sofa, got hold of a piece of paper that I could find and started writing down.

Sometime ago, when I was planning to cook chicken, I thought of this one and started searching for the recipe, but couldnt find. To top it, I wrote it down on a tiny piece of paper. How I wish everything had some kind of button or code attached to it, so that we can give it a ring just like the mobile phone & find it instantly! Dont you think so? Anyways… a few days later, when I opened my recipe diary, some bits of paper fell down. Tada! It was the pepper chicken recipe…

Though I started with the recipe on paper, I ended up with something totally different. It wasn’t intentional, but it happened just like that. Anyways, I’m happy with the end result. I loved the colour, the flavour… Let me tell you, it  turned out quite spicy! You will get the sharp taste of pepper in the first mouthful itself. So please feel free to adjust the spice level to suit your requirements. Since this is a dry preparation, you can use this as a starter also. Btw, I somehow got the feel of a ‘thattukada’ (street food) food from this, may be because of the spiciness and colour of the dish.

Hope you’ll also enjoy this and wish you a spicy weekend ;)

Here goes the step by step pictures…

Marinate the cleaned chicken pieces with salt, pepper powder & lemon juice…

Crush the whole black pepper & keep it aside…

Heat oil in a pan & cook the onions, till it turns dark brown…

Add grated/crushed ginger & garlic, green chilli & curry leaves to the browned onions…

Add masala powders…

Add soya & tomato sauce…

Add 1/4 cup water to the masala…

Add marinated chicken pieces to the masala…

Add 1/2 cup water & let it boil…

Cover & cook till the chicken is done…

The chicken is cooked…

Add curry leaves & roast it a bit more…

 

I’m very excited to post this recipe! This is the first recipe with a full set of step by step pictures – a recipe picture tutorial :). You remember the survey we took some time ago? Step by step pictures topped the list of features desired on this blog. This was something I never thought of doing. So thanks for your suggestion! As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a person who is passionate about taking photos. I like it, but don’t love it. But since you asked for it, I decided to give it a try. Though I’m not promising this for all the recipes. Sometimes I completely forget about it and at times I remember it only half way through the cooking. Anyways, I’ll try my best to keep it going. I’ve kept the size of the pictures small, because already there are some complaints that this site takes time loading. I dont want to test your patience any further ;)

I’ve posted fish cutlet recipe before, but this recipe is somewhat different from that. Canned tuna is something I stock up in my kitchen cupboards. I mainly stock it for two reasons… there is no hazzle of cleaning the fish and it gets cooked in a jiffy. I think there is a mixed reaction for the canned tuna. Some people like it, while others just dont. But let me tell you something, if you make this cutlets, its hard to tell whether its tuna. With all the spices and masala it almost, well I said almost.. tastes like chicken. Btw, if you cant stand the taste of tuna, you can try this recipe with chicken also. I’ve given the details in notes section of the recipe.

Other thing about the recipe is that, this is more like bakery style cutlet recipe. If you check out my previous cutlet recipes, you can see that there are no masala powders other than garam masala. But if you’ve tried the bakery cutlets, you can see that the filling is a bit yellowish in colour and you get more masala taste. Though I’m a big fan of homemade cutlets, I like bakery cutlets too, just for the different taste. After all, you know my love for bakery food ;)

This is the first time I’ve tried adding veggies to tuna cutlets. I got this idea from my aunt, Tesschechy. I happened to take some tuna cans for her. She wanted to make tuna cutlets for a family get together. But since she had to feed an army, she added some veggies and oppikalfied (adjusted) the qty for the whole bunch. I liked it very much and wanted to try it since then. Also this is one of those snacks/appetizers which you can make ahead. It sure comes handy when you are lazy to cook ;)

Here is the step by step pictures:

Canned tuna

Boiling the potatoes..

Cooking chopped onions, ginger & garlic, green chilli & curry leaves…

Adding grated carrots & chopped beans..

Adding masala powders..

Adding tuna pieces..

Mixing tuna mixture & boiled potatoes..

Cutlet mix is ready..

Shaping the cutlets..

 Egg white batter & bread crumbs for dipping & rolling the shaped cutlets..

Ready to fry/freeze…

Patties in between layers of parchment paper..

Here is the recipe:

 

Shall we start the new year with a spicy curry? I was actually confused whether to post something sweet or something spicy. Since the last two posts were in the sweets/dessert category I’m going with the spicy one. I hope you’ll also like it.

Wish you & your loved ones a wonderful & blessed 2012!

About the recipe… I got it from my aunt’s recipe book. Honestly, I dont know whether this is authentic/traditional Chicken Korma recipe. For all I know, it tasted yum! And that is my biggest criteria! In my perception Korma is something which has a thick gravy. In that way, this curry fitted the bill perfectly and the taste was great too. So here goes the recipe…

 

Do you believe in impression management? Hhhmm I’m not quite sure whether I’m for or against it. I mean, I’m against faking & portraying myself as something which I’m not but at the same time I dont want total strangers to see the meaner side of me ;) So, that puts me somewhere in the middle. As per Jose, that’s a no man’s land, because you can’t be lukewarm. You should be either hot or cold.

Anyways, what I was trying to say is that, if you want to impress somebody with your cooking skills, this recipe is a sure bet. I’ve posted quite a few prawns recipes, but prawns roast was the one which did the impression management trick for me with the guests. I was slowly getting bored with it. That’s when this video appeared on my FB page. This is my friend Ligy’s mother-in-law’s recipe. The original recipe uses crab, but I wanted to try with prawns. I checked with Ligy & she gave me a green flag for the prawns & you see the end result here.

I dont know whether I’ve told you this before… when I try certain recipes, I’m kinda restless till I post it here. Of course, I like all the recipes that I post here & I just dont post recipes for the sake of it. But with some recipes, I’m so excited with the outcome that I just wanna share it with you at the earliest. So go ahead and try this!

I’ve got  requests for Crab recipes & I guess this recipe should solve that. A big thank you to Ligy & her MIL for sharing this wonderful recipe. Btw, this post is named as crab roast (though I’ve used prawns) to avoid confusing it with the prawns roast recipe posted earlier. Hope I didn’t confuse you more ;)

Please visit epathram to see Malayalam version of this recipe.

Here you go…

After seeing the picture of the Mocha Chocolate Chips Cupcake in FB, one of my friends, asked whether I have cupcakes n stuff on a daily basis. Its one of those questions that I get asked very often. Because of this blog, most people assume that I cook extravagantly on a daily basis. Let me set the record straight. I like cooking but I dont like slogging in kitchen day in & day out. Given the option (which is once in a while), I prefer to eat out! If by chance you come unannounced to our place, I’ll end up serving you a pile of “Takeaway”-Menus to choose from ;)

Though I like to cook more variety, I or rather we prefer the usual Kerala fare on a daily basis. Mostly when we go for trips, I’ll be all excited to try the different food varieties & eat all exotic dishes. But after two days of the trip, I’ll start craving for some choru (rice) n kachimoru (buttermilk curry) – plain and simple.

Here is the recipe:

 

Hellooo, how are you? Yep, its been almost a month since we met. First things first… we went to India for a small holiday. However this gap between us wasnt planned. I was hoping to catch up with you in between, but it didnt work out. Anyways, now I’m back in Bahrain & the first thing I wanted to do was to just pop in here & say a quick hi to you. I’m sure you are in a joyous mood with all the festive celebrations. We also had a gala time back home, though it was a very hectic trip. I wanted to collect some recipes for you as well, but all I did was eat, eat & eat more! Haa… how I like it when somebody else has to bother about all the cooking nuances & my role is to just relish those wonderful dishes. Just thinking about it now, makes me hungry & miss all those home cooked food :(

Ok, now let me ask you something…. Was chilli chicken the first thing that you used to order in a restaurant during your school/college days? During my school years, fried rice & chilli chicken was the most happening couple. So whenever we dined out, it used to be the standard menu. I remember my brother even getting angry at us, me & my cousin sisters, for ordering the same thing again & again, instead of trying out something new. Fast forward to present, my preferences have changed, but I still miss those deep dark red coloured chilli chicken that I used to have from Kerala hotels.

Btw, I’ve noticed something, most of the newly married girls, at least the ones I know, learn to cook fried rice & chilli chicken even before learning how to cook the basic everyday stuff. I was also included in that category ;) Were you also like that or are you planning to be like that? I’ve tried different versions of chilli chicken, but I wasn’t completely happy with any particular recipe. I always compared it to the taste of chilli chicken during my childhood days & I felt something was missing. Finally I got this recipe from one of Jose’s aunt. Its not exactly like what I used to have, but we both liked it very much.I think the ground green chilli gives a distinct flavour to this dish. So for the time being, I’m ending my search for chilli chicken recipe here.

Hope you too will like it, here is the recipe:

Above is the picture of Chilli Chicken made by Ramya, based on the above recipe. Thanks dear :)

 

Let’s just pretend that there wasnt a small break in between the posts. After all, without the game of the pretending, its kinda impossible to deal with the stuff around you, right? While we are still on the game of pretending… for the past few days, I was pretending that I didnt have a food blog at all! There’s no MariasMenu, no dotcom, nothing…. I just wanted to cook, without worrying about teaspoons & tablespoons, without worrying about how to plate the dish, without worrying about whether I’ll get the right color in the photos, without worrying about what to write as intro etc etc..you get the picture, right? I guess, now that phase is over and I’m slowly switching back to the blogging mode. There is a reason why I did that, but I’ll tell you about it later ;)

About this recipe…somehow I’ve a soft corner towards recipes that have ‘roast’ as its surname. Yeah, I do love their family. They usually have a thick bonding between the ingredients (read thick gravy) & some how I like that strong bonding thing ;) I’m referring to the Kerala style roasts here. One of my fav recipes here is the prawns roast, I just love it. So when I saw this chicken tomato roast, I was sold instantly & it didnt disappoint me. I do hope you will also like this.

 

(Btw, we had some issues with our comments section lately. Though we fixed it, I might have missed a few comments in between. So if you havent got a reply yet, please do buzz me again, ok?)

Here goes the recipe: