Chettinad Sausage

The day I was making this chettinad recipe, my husband as usual was poking his nose in each and every ingredients....."are you going to make a paste of the onion?"..."will you fry the onion first?"...."is it necessary to use cinnamon?" and so on.........Actually he does not like the taste of raw onion....though I assured him that the onion would not be a problem...he was not fully convinced...so he kept his eyes on what I was doing with the ingredients. But as the cooking started and the aroma of the masalas started to come out.....he was the one to go crazy over it and was looking eagerly to taste it......and it was my turn to poke him ..:)

Ingredients:

1. Chicken sausages- 7
2. Curry leaf- 15
3. Coriander powder- 1 large tbs
4. Red chilly powder- 1 tbs
5. Turmeric powder- 1/2 tbs
6. Cumin powder (roasted)- 1 tsp
7. Salt to taste
8. Cinnamon- 1 stick
9. Hing- 1/2 tsp
10. Green cardamom- 2
11. Bhuna garam masala- 1/4 tsp
12. Ginger-garlic paste- 1 large tbs
13. Onion- 2
14. Tomato- 1
15. Green chilly- 2
16. Roasted cumin seed- 1 tsp
17. Nawabi mutton masala- 1/2 tsp
18. Garlic- 2 cloves
19. Olive oil
20. Roasted coriander seed- 1 tbs

Procedure :

First cut the chicken sausages into small pieces and keep aside. Now in a blender blend 1 onion, 8 curry leaves, cumin seed, cumin powder, ginger-garlic paste, cardamom , cinnamon , turmeric , red chilly, coriander powder , roasted coriander seeds and 1 tbs oil. Do not use water to blend it. If needed add some more oil. Now marinate the sausages with this paste and add salt. Marinate for 4 to 5 hours. Now heat oil in a non stick kadhayi and add the marinated sausages. Add the left over of the marinade. Fry them on medium flame. 

In a separate kadhayi heat 2 tbs oil and add chopped onion , green chilly, curry leaves and garlic. Fry them until onion turns brown. Add the chopped tomato , ginger paste and cook over low flame until the tomato gets mashed up a little. Add half a cup of water and add little turmeric , coriander powder , hing , mutton masala and cover it. When the sausages are fried properly and they start sticking to the base, remove them from the flame and add to the tomato-onion mixture. Cover and cook for 5 to 8 minutes until the water dries up. Check the salt level and sprinkle the bhuna garam masala and turn off the heat. Serve the hot Chettinad Sausage with rice or paratha.

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Winners of What's on your kebab platter event

Hi guys....sorry for making you wait for such a long time to announce the result of the wonderful event What's on your kebab platter. As you know it has been a big celebration time for the Bengalis , the famous Durga puja, which kept me busy. Without any delay let me tell you the names of the winners:

Best Pic Awards:

Veg Kebabs:

1. Kaveri of Palakkad Chamayal.
2. Harini of Sugar n Spice.

Non veg Kebabs:

1. Akheela of Torviewtoronto
2. Amina of Amina's Creation

Top contributor:

Raksha of Raksha's Kitchen

Best dish:

Veg kebab:

Uma of My Kitchen Experiments

Non-veg kebab:

Siddhi of Cooking Dil Se

I will mail the awards to the respective winners. And now the two lucky winners (Uma and Siddhi) have won a vegetarian and non vegetarian cookbook respectively.

Congratulations to all the winners and once again thanks a lot to all the participants for making my event successful.

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Tri color maza

A simple dessert recipe, for the day when you don't want to stay for a long time in your kitchen. Simple yet tasty Tri colored dessert.

Ingredients :

1. Chocolate syrup- 1/2 cup
2. Gelatin- 3 large tbs
3. Cheese (grated)- 2 tbs
4. Cream- 2 large tbs
5. Milkmaid- 2 tbs
6. Strawberry sauce- 2 large tbs
7. Water- 1/2 cup

Procedure :

Take chocolate syrup , strawberry and cream in different bowls. Grate the cheese in the cream bowl. Add milkmaid to the cream bowl. Now heat water with the gelatin and keep stirring so that the gelatin gets dissolved completely. Now add 3 tbs of the gelatin water to each of the bowl ( chocolate , cream and strawberry). Mix well. Pour them in different molds and cover them with cling film. Keep them in the freezer for 2 hours and they are set!!

Just put the molds in warm water for a minute and take the desserts out of them.

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2. My diwali my way


Also check out the roundup of the event : What's on your kebab platter.

Re-issue of Passport experience @ Bangalore PSK

I have already given you the detailed description of my passport experience. This is the experience of my husband who recently filed for his passport. This August , 2011, I had taken an appointment for his passport application. The online form submission was same as in my case , but the only difference was that this time we did not upload the documents with the application. 

There was another change in the slot booking. Now you can book only the next day's slot. It is mentioned in the website that the booking starts from 8:00 a.m. sharp. But my research (mind you...I did a lot of searching before this application) told me that the ideal time to get a slot is around 8:40 a.m. First day I just checked whether I can get a slot or not , and I logged in at 9:00 a.m. and I got the slots available from 9:45 a.m onwards. On the second day I logged in at around 8: 30 a.m. and got the 9:00 a.m. slot for him. Yuppie...

He actually applied for the damaged passport , because his passport had some problem with the visibility of his picture. He was asked by the immigration officers whenever he had traveled outside India , to change his passport. So we collected the documents required for the damaged passport re-issue case. The list of the documents are :

1. Old passport 

2. Address proof ( he took bank statement and letter from the bank)

3. Age proof ( his board certificate)

4. Affidavit in the format of Annexure L.

5. Appointment letter

Apart from this he took his degree certificate , my passport (as it already had the Bangalore address) and phone bill.

He reached there 8:15 a.m. and found out that 9:00 a.m is no more the first slot of the day , it is 8:30 a.m.!! But when the government officers (the GO and VO) don't come to the office before 10:30 a.m. why do they keep slots so early!! He was lucky as he was allowed to go inside passport office with the 8:30 a.m. slot. There were 3 to 4 counters where you will have to hand over the documents that they will ask. They will keep those documents in the file and give it to you. In that counter he was told that his passport does not fall under damage category as nothing was damaged according to them. So they asked him to apply for a new passport for address change and spouse name addition. So he did not submit the affidavit. As the bank statement was quite huge , they told him to give xerox copy of the first and the last page only. No age proof was required. Only the marriage certificate was asked to be given.

After that counter he had to go to the A counter which was again the same as in my case. All these were done at around 9:00 a.m. , then began the endless wait for the verification and granting officers. This time there was a change. There were 4 VO counters and 3 to 4 GO counters ( in my case there were only 2 VO and 1 GO....you can imagine the long queues at that time ). The VO officers started coming after 9:30 a.m and the GO came after 10:30 a.m. So it took 3 hours to finish everything. He was free by 11:20 a.m.
The next day onwards the website showed that his passport has been granted on that day and will be dispatched soon , but after 2 to 3 days , the status message changed as the date of the passport grant changed. I got a little worried but waited patiently. And on the 10th day after his application being submitted , the passport was dispatched by speed post and it was in my hand on the 11th day. He was in the office so I collected it from the postman showing him the old passport of his. I think the passport seva kendra is getting better day by day.

Batura Recipe

How many of you are a true fan of chole bature?? Have you ever tried a large plate of hot chole bature in a food joint after watching a movie?? I always love it :)....When the plate arrives at my table , I always think that I won't be able to finish it , its always such a huge and puffed one!! But I always end up proving myself wrong :P.....I finish the whole plate without even thinking about the dripping oil. Today I am going to share the batura recipe with you, check it out.

Ingredients :

1. Maida- 2 cups
2. Suji- 1/2 cup
3. Sugar- 1 tbs
4. Salt to taste
5. Oil- 3 large tbs
6. Yeast- 2 tbs
7. Curd ( a little sour one)- 4 tbs
8. Water- a little more than 1/2 cup
9. Oil for deep frying

Procedure :

First of all heat the water in a pan , do not boil it , just make it a little warm (a little steam should come out of it). Add the water to the yeast and keep it aside for 10 minutes. This will activate the yeast. Now in a bowl sieve the maida so that no lumps is formed. Add sugar , salt , suji and oil. Mix well and add the curd to it. Knead it properly and try to gather all the maida in one place. Add the yeast water and knead again the dough. The dough should be soft. Now cover the dough in a wet cloth and keep it inside a casserole overnight. This will keep the dough warm and help the dough to raise. 

Now heat the oil in a large kadhayi. The oil temperature should be perfect otherwise the batura will not puff properly. Take medium size ball from the dough ( before this knead the dough once more for a minute) and roll it with the help of dry maida. Make it thin. When the oil is ready , add the rolled batura in such a way that it does not get folded. With the help of you spatula , press the batura a little below the oil level , this will help the batura to puff. It feels so good when the baturas puff in such a nice way......is not it?

Fry both the sides until they turn little brown. Take them out of the kadhayi and keep on paper napkin to remove excess oil. Serve it hot with masaledar chana ( the recipe is in my draft :)).

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