Air fryer is a boon for weight watchers and diet conscious people. Its been almost five years and I have tried cooking almost everything in the air fryer. My girls are mostly on low carb diets and that’s what inspired me to try new vegetable side dishes to complete the otherwise protein rich platter. To try today’s dish my ingredients are: 250 gms of longitudinally slit okra into four 4 tbsps of rice flour 1/2 tsps each of turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, kashmiri red chilli powder, dried mango powder and salt to taste 1 tbsp of oil. Procedure: Cut each okra into four long pieces after cutting off the top. Coat the okra with the spices,salt and oil. Put it in the air fryer basket and set the air fryer at 200 for 10 mins. After 10 mins shuffle the okras and let it cook for 5 mins. Your dish is ready to serve.
Also known as gobi musallam is one of the tastiest vegetarian recipes and can be served as a centre piece on your dining table. I have made its steps fairly easy for beginers . Ingredients Whole cauliflower 750 gms Tomato puree 200 gms Curd 100 gms Bay leaves 2 Turmeric powder 2 tsps Curry powder 1tsp Chilli powder 1/2 tsp Garam masala powder 1/4 tsp Kasoori methi 1/4 tsp Onion paste 200 gms Cashew paste 100 gms Tomato sauce 1 tbsp Ghee 2 tbsps Oil 1 tsp Water 1/2 cup Salt to taste.
Serves 6
Procedure
Make paste with 1 tsp turneric powder, 1/4 tsp chilli powder, 1/4 tsp salt and 1 tsp of oil and keep aside.
Wash the cauliflower thoroughly under running water and check carefully to get rid of any dirt or small insects trapped inside.
After which apply the paste on the cauliflower and ensure it is coated wirh the spices. 4.Turn on the flame of the gas on high and place the spiced cauliflower on the flame directly and roast it carefully on all sides to get charred marks all over.
Keep it aside.
Put the pressure cooker on medium flame and add bay leaves , onion paste, tomato paste and cashew paste. Fry it very well.
Then add all the powdered spices and fry.
Now add tomato sauce and curd and fry.
Add salt and fry and add the whole cauliflower. Make sure to coat it with the masala on all sides.
Add water and then put the cauliflower with the flower side down.Put the lid and cook on low flame for two whistles. After which turn off the gas.
After removing the lid turn the cauliflower upside down inside the cooker and then bathe it with the spices and juices released while cooking.
Now add ghee, kasoori methi and fry till the masala dries up. Serve.
Rice kheer holds a very important position in our festive celebrations mainly because of the fact that India is an agricultural country . This is served as a dessert and in Bengali households it is compulsory to serve rice kheer as a dessert after offering it to Gods as proshad on birthdays. Each home has its own recipe and my recipe has been made easy for youngsters to keep this in their menu .This measurement serves 6 people . Ingredients:
1 litre milk reduced to 750 ml by boiling
100 gms of rice previously soaked for almost an hour
A can of milkmaid or sweetened condensed milk
2 bay leaves
2 green cardamoms
25 gms of chironjis
25 gms of cashews broken into two halves
25 gms of almond slivers
Few strands of saffron
Procedure:
In a heavy bottom pan take 1 litre of milk, add bay leaves and cardamoms and keep boiling it on low heat till it reduces to 750 ml.
Strain the rice and add it to the boiling milk on low heat. Keep stirring at intervals of five minutes till the rice looks cooked. Take out bay leaves and cardamoms.
Then, add the dry fruits and saffron and cook it further. At this stage, add a full can of condensed milk and stir well till everything comes together.
Stir well and pour into your serving bowl or individual bowls. Keep it in the fridge and serve cold.
This is very warm evening snack that takes care of even your dinner, if you are a poor eater, of course.It has rustic feel to it and can be packed as a lunch too. The ingredients I added are the ones that I had in my fridge so leave it to your imagination and palate . One foot long sandwich would suffice for an interesting evening snack for three .
Ingredients
1 Garlic bread from my local bakery
Iceberg lettuce torn roughly
5 Cherry tomatoes roughly chopped
10 Green or black olive slices
Few roughly chopped barks of cheddar cheese
Sweet onion dressing
One ripe avocado roughly mashed with one tsp of lemon juice ,olive oil and salt
2 sliced jalapenos for heat
2 eggs scrambled on the fire with a dash of milk, pinch of pepper and salt and few chopped spring onion greens.
Procedure
1.Cut the garlic bread into two horizontal halves keeping one end of the bread attached.
Spread sweet onion dressing on both the halves on top of which make a bed of lettuce leaves. 3.Spread scrambled eggs, mashed avocado,cheddar barks, olives, jalapenos,cherry tomatoes layer by layer. 4.Generously drizzle sweet onion dressing. 5.Take a sandwich paper or cling wrap and wrap the whole sandwich tightly. 6.The idea is to not let the ingredients spill out of the sandwich while eating.
Cut the sandwich into number of pieces you want to. 8.Wrap it in a sandwich paper before serving.
Yummy and absolutely visually delightful presentation.
2 tbsps of garlic, carrots, spring onions, pakchoy or cabbage, sweet corn kernels, green or red chillies.
10 medium sized fresh prawns deveined and cleaned 4.One egg white
1 tsp of butter or oil
2 tbsps light soy sauce 7.1 soup cube
Salt to taste. Procedure
Finely chop all the vegetables .Take oil in a wok and on high heat add garlic and chillies. Saute and before it burns add prawns and saute. Then add all the veggies one by one. Stir fry for a minute and add the stock, soy sauce and the soup cube as well. Reduce the flame and do not cover it. If you cover, the veggies will lose their colour and crunch. Cook for two minutes and add egg white by sitirring the soup with a fork as you add the egg white. Add salt only if required because the stock, soup cube and soy sauce would already have added enough salinity. Serve hot.
This is an Italian rice ball recipe but it is easy and hassle free because you can use leftover rice . I would’nt go for any particular measurement because it is for you to decide the size of the balls and also how much quantity of rice you have. Look for some vegetables like carrots, beans, cabbage, coriander leaves,green chillies, coloured peppers .Chop the veggies very fine and if you want to add sausages and salami,chop them really fine. Combine rice and veggies ,salt to taste, Italian spice mix and tomato sauce. Make rice balls and stuff small cheese squares in the centre. Dip them in egg batter and coat the balls with bread crumbs. Deep fry and serve with salad of your choice. Ideally mint raita or even tomato salsa really goes well. It is time to try Italian rice balls with Indian mint raita and Mexican salsa and make it an international recipe. You can make it totally vegetarian by omitting egg batter and replacing it with refined flour batter.
This recipe is my way of having good food with tastes across the world fused into one platter. Actually it is great way to empty your pantry before going shopping for the next.
My daughters are on a low carb diet while my husband and I love to have little rice. This worked very well for all of us and had a grand meal. My daughters omitted rice but gorged on the rest of the spread.
This recipe is a result of my severe sweet cravings
during lockdown. At times in the evenings, I love to have a small serving of sweet Boondi with puffed rice. This drove me to the experimental spree and it turned out pretty well.
Makes enough for 4 small snack bowls
Ingredients 1 cup of Besan (chickpea flour)
1/4 tsp baking soda
Few drops of good edible red colour
1 tbsp oil +oil to deep fry
For sugar syrup :
1 cup of sugar dissolved in 1 cup of water with one whole green cardamom. Boil these together for five minutes and keep aside.
Procedure :
Mix besan with 4 tbsps of water. Water has to be added slowly and mix with a whisk. Add 1 tbsp oil, mix well, cover and keep it to rest.
After half an hour, remove the cover, add baking soda and mix well.
Take oil to deep fry in a deep dish and heat it to a moderate temperature. It should neither be very hot nor less hot. The theory is, as soon as you put the drops in oil it should start frying.
It hardly takes a minute or so for the drops to be ready to take them out from the oil.
The kitchen tool used for this is the same as the ones used to deep fry things. The steel ones with holes and is called jhanjhri or chaanta in bengal. It is available online and is known as boondi jhara.
As soon as the oil gets suitably hot, take a ladle of Besan batter and put it on the boondi jhara and hold it just on top of the wok and use back of a flat serving spoon to spread it, So that the small drops fall in the oil and starts to fry.
This whole process has to be done on medium flame. After one batch of frying is over, wash and wipe it dry the jhara to get ready for the next batch.
When the last two batches remain, add few drops of red colour and mix well in the batter. Repeat the same process and fry all. Keep it one bowl.
Now take the lukewarm sugar syrup and add all boondi together and let it soak for five minutes after which pour everything over a sieve and leave. Let the excess sugar syrup drain and now your sweet Boondi is ready. Store it in the fridge. It stays good for almost a month.
This is one of the most loved Indian recipes and I have always been asked for the recipe. Today I am sharing my way of making this. This particular recipe varies from kitchen to kitchen as to how many spices to be added or how to knead the dough. It would actually depend on your scale of measuring your spice level. People in some states India like it very flavoursome and spicy while some like to keep it mild. Likewise, when I recently made it for a few non- Indians, I kept it really mild with salt, pepper, butter and a few Indian herbs namely mint, coriander leaves and kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves). The result was awesome and people loved it.
Preparing this recipe will come in three stages namely kneading the dough, making the potato filling and final assembly.
Makes 8 parathas
Ingredients for the filling
1/2 kg potatoes boiled, drained and mashed without lumps
2 tbsps Tomato paste
1 tbsp of Spice blend of dry roasted and powdered spices namely cumin seeds, coriander seeds, red chillies(Combine and roast all the spices in a wok, powder them and take one tbsp of the powdered spice)
1 tbsp each of finely chopped coriander leaves, green chillies finely chopped, freshly grated ginger, fresh mint leaves.
I have tried making this with dried coriander leaves, mint leaves and green chillies. You can always use dried herbs if you don’t find the fresh ones.
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste
1 tsp Butter
Procedure for the filling
Take a micro waveable glass bowl. Peel the boiled potatoes and mash them with a fork till there are no lumps. Now add all the spices that suit you. Omit the ones you dont have or don’t want to incorporate. Add tomato paste, butter and salt and if you are adding dried herbs this is the time to do so. But don’t add the fresh ones at this stage. Mix them well. Microwave on high for two to three minutes by pausing after a minute and mixing again with a fork to ensure uniformity in cooking. Add fresh herbs now. Mix well and keep aside.
For the Parathas
Ingredients
250 gms of wheat flour
100 gms of refined flour
2 tbsps of oil or ghee (clarified butter)
1 tsp salt
Water as required to knead.
Procedure:
Add the dry ingredients to the kneader and run it once to mix everything. Now, add water and run it. The kneaded dough is ready. Cover it and keep it.
The final assembly
Take your dough and roll two rotis half the size of normal roti.
Keep one aside and the other on the rolling board.
Take out two tbsps of stuffing and spread on the roti on the rolling board leaving the sides.
Take the second roti and put on top of the stuffing sealing all the sides with your hands.
Then roll both the rotis together dusting it with flour so that they dont stick to the rolling board.
Put the non- stick tawa on the burner and let it get adequately hot.
Keep oil or ghee or melted butter in a bowl with basting brush .
When hot, turn the flame to medium and put the paratha on it.
Press gently with a spatula to make sure every part of the paratha is cooked uniformly.
This should take you around 3-4 mins.
Flip it and let it cook on the other side too.
When both the sides look cooked(when there are brown spots on both surfaces), brush oil or butter or ghee on both the sides and fry on high.
It will puff up, once it is cooked.Take it off the heat and serve or store in a bowl with lid. Make sure to line the bowl with a padded cloth in the bottom and on top.This prevents the parathas from turning soggy.
Serve with pickle and yogurt.
I have an easier version though. Knead 500gms of flour with grated boiled potato, finely chopped coriander, green chillies, ajwain powder, red chilli powder, salt to taste, oil and garam masala powder and water. Let the dough rest for a while. Roll the chapatis and cook on a tawa .
This recipe is very useful when you have very little chicken in your freezer yet you want to make a snack. It really goes well with evening tea or coffee. Indians really love their savory snacks.
Makes 12 kababs
Ingredients 1
1/2 cup Bengal gram dal or chana dal soaked in 1 cup of water for two hours
1/2 cup of breast boneless chicken chunks
1/2 of an onion
1 peeled clove of garlic
A small piece of peeled ginger
1 dried red chilli
1 bayleaf
Salt to taste.
Ingredient 2
1/2 cup of boiled and chopped potatoes
1/4 cup of finely grated carrots
2 eggs
1/4 tsp garam masala powder
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsps finely chopped coriander and mint leaves combined
1 tsp of finely chopped green chillies.
Procedure
Put ingredient 1 in a pressure cooker. Cook for two whistles.
Wait for the mixture to cool down. Then blend it and empty onto a bowl.
Add one egg and ingredient 2( except the second egg) and mix it properly.
Make round patties and dip in egg and shallow fry on both sides till it turns light brown.
Aromas of My Kitchen 