New Year Cake

Wishing you all a happy and delicious New Year.
Making a cake is the easiest you can do if you have an oven. Being a lazy cook i usually rely on Betty Crocker cake mix for making cakes. The mix is so just perfect that none of my cakes has been a failure. This is one thing i am confident in making. You have different varities of betty crocker cake mix, but my all time favourite is french vanilla. All you need is water,vegetable oil and eggs.
Heres how it goes.
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease the bottom of a 13*9 baking pan.
11/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
Mix eggs,water,oil in a bowl and add the cake mix. Make sure there are no lumps. Pour the mix into the pan and bake for about 30 minutes and you have a beautiful and tasty cake.Buy the frosting and just apply it as per your artistic talent. Your guest would be impressed. Since i discovered betty crocker , all my families bday cakes has been made at home. All those who have access to betty crocker , should try it. Because its easy and its all that you look for in a cake. And just to be clear , i am not paid by betty crocker to promote them. I just love their product so much that i cannot stop talking about them.

Potato Stew

The first thing that comes to mind when i think of stew is the morning smell of onion and curry leaves being sauted in ghee. How i loved to wake up to that smell. My mum used to make paper thin dosas with stew. That combination rocks. However i havent mastered the art of typical dosa, i dont know the batter never rises..Maybe its the climate here. Anyway that dint prevent me from making stew. Stew goes well with bread and chappathis and i dont mind having it with ghee rice as well, or just having stew alone..So here goes the recipe

3 Medium Potato
2 Onion
2 Chilly slit in half
1" ginger chopped
2 cloves
a small pc of cinnamon
1 cup coconut milk
salt to taste
pepper pwd to taste
2tbsp ghee
curry leaves to taste

Peel the potatoes and cut them in small cubes. Chop one onion and cut the other in long thin strips. Put potatoes, chopped onion, chilly,ginger,cloves,cinnamon and salt in a pan and add enough water to cover them and turn on the stove. Once the potatoes are boiled, mash the potatoes, not neccesarrily a clean paste, and add the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Off the stove, add some pepper powder and keep aside. In another pan add the ghee and fry the long thin strips of onion till they are brown. Then add the curry leaves and fry them slightly. Add this to the potato pan and voila u have the potato stew.

Have a grt time with the stew...

Chicken Varatti / Chicken fry

Hope you all had a merry Christmas .
Now its the time for one of my favorite recipe.
I like it because of two reasons, 1) its chicken and 2) its spicy and 3) its easy to make. Now that makes three reasons ..anyway we r not dealing with maths here. So here goes the recipe.

1/2 kg chicken(doesn't really matter that it has to be exactly 1/2kg)
1 big onion chopped (i like onions with chicken so i usually put more, so its up to you, you can have 2 medium onions as well).
3-4 small green chillies (if u r using jalapeños, u need may be 1-2, i prefer the small chillies that r really hot )
1/2 " ginger chopped
3-4 garlic pods chopped
2 tbsp diced tomatoes (optional)
1tbsp tomato sauce(opt)
1tsp soya sauce(opt)

To marinate chicken u need
1tsp salt
1tbsp lemon juice (u dont have to have fresh lemon juice, i always used the lemon juice available in lemon shaped bottles in walmart)
1tsp turmeric pwd
1tsp chilly pwd
1-2 tbsp coriander pwd
2tbsp chicken masala
curd (optional, u can use curd if you dont have lemon juice, but i prefer lemon juice for chicken varatti)

Now heres the method. It would be grt if you buy boneless chicken. In either case cut the chicken to small pieces, an inch would be grt. The smaller the pieces, the more gravy on each piece and hence its tastier. So cut the chicken and marinate using all the powders mentioned above. It like adding all the spices that you find in your kitchen. Anyway marinate it for at least 1/2 hr. The more time you marinate, the more flavor gets into the chicken. While you marinate the chicken , chop the onion, ginger, garlic and chillies. Add 2 tbsp oil in a skillet or a non stick pan and saute onion, ginger, garlic and chillies till the onion turns pale/slightly brown. Now add the marinated chicken and saute. You need not add water. Water comes from the chicken. If you think its getting dry you can add a tbsp oil.But in most cases that wont be required. Stir occasionally and let the chicken fry in the pan. Stir occasionally, you dont need to burn your chicken. Once the chicken is brown on all sides, you may taste it and if thats good enough you can stop there. Or else you can add some diced tomatoes/ tomato sauce/soya sauce and get a slightly different flavor. I have tried adding all, adding one sauce and not adding any and i loved it each time. And also you can add some chopped chillies at the end, just a minute before you turn off the stove. It gives a good contrast to your recipe and it wont make the dish spicy.