Baked Chicken

Here's another easy one. I remembered about the picture only after we'd eaten it up!

Preheat your oven at 180F (medium oven).

Chop onion rings and garlic and cover the bottom of your baking dish with these.

Place the chicken pieces on this bed of onion and garlic.

Put more onion rings and garlic on the chicken; crush rosemary, peppercorns and sprinkle all over. Also sprinkle some salt.

Pour olive oil to coat all the chicken pieces and onions nicely.

Pour in a cup and a half of pineapple or orange juice.

Bake for 45 mins (keep checking to see if it's becoming too dry, turn the chicken once in a while and add olives towards the end)

I cooked about 5 pieces of a giant grandfather chicken (much better to get a smaller, more succulent bird) for which I required 2 large onions and 5 large cloves of garlic.

Tomato Sauce

So, this was a really good tomato sauce I made the other day and it's easy peasy. Remember to be generous with all ingredients and slow-cook the sauce for a long, long time. It helps a lot if your kitchen is stocked with fabulous raw material (I happened to have some great olive oil and fine grade olives).Blanch about 7 medium sized tomatoes, cool and blend and keep aside. Chop three medium sized onions: first halve, then cut half rings, then make fine bits of the rings.Chop plenty of garlic finely: I use about 5 cloves, sometimes more depending on the size. Chop half a large carrot into tiny cube bits like the onions.Pour plenty of olive oil in a saucepan (enough to cover the onions nicely) and also add in a tbsp of butter.Cook the onions on a high flame and keep stirring till they are nice and translucent NOT BROWN. Add in the garlic and some piri piri or dried Goan red peppers midway and cook away till the onion and garlic are soft and cooked.Add in the blended tomato, the carrots, as much as mixed herbs as you'd like and half a chicken stock cube, salt and several crushed pepper corns.Add in a bit of water depending on how thick or thin you'd like your sauce, cover and cook on sim for about 30 minutes. That's it! Add chopped olives once the sauce is cooked, cook your pasta and keep some grated Parmesan or Grand Pardano on the side.Yenjoy!

mushroom risotto

risotto

olive oil and butter
1 or 2 onion chopped
1 or 2 celery stick chopped
garlic (2,3,4 cloves as you like) chopped
cup of risotto rice (or paella rice if no can do)
splash of white wine
stock - home made - we use chicken - lots of/ with water
bay leaf (we believe fresh is better)

olive oil
mushrooms
onion
garlic
green chilli
splash of white wine

parmesan cheese

1. in one pan (heavy bottom) fry up the onion garlic chilli and mushrooms slowly, till they are dark and have let off moisture

2. in another pan (similar ) fry the onion garlic and celery slowly till softened. add the rice and fry till it goes translucent

3. add the wine to the rice which should boil off quickly, stirring the rice. then gradually add the bay leaf and the stock bit by bit stirring, letting the rice absorb the stock, until the rice is softer, but not completely mushy - al dente.

4. mix the mushrooms for a bit.

5. put on plates, and grate parmesan over the top, with black pepper, and maybe a little bit of posh olive oil.

6. serve warm, rather than hot - it makes a big difference.

anything can be added instead of mushrooms, the risotto base is fairly standard.

PADWALKAI WARKA

'Padwalkai' is Kannada for 'Indian Snake gourd'. .. the long green gourd which i have'nt managed to find in London yet, not even at the Taj Stores on brick lane. Padwalkai Warka is what i miss most when i think of home food... and reason enough for this wonderous recipe to be my first contribution on this blog.and because i cant cook it here, instead of pictures of the dish i have for you a drawing of akka when she was very small.. another true warka lover.
Padwalkai Warka is a very local dish from 'Konasagara' (literal translation: sea of buffaloes'!), the village my father comes from. It was when my mother married my father and went to the village (she was 17 and this was 46 years ago), that she was taught how to make this dish. It is best eaten with ragi balls, with a bit of pickle and fried chillies on the side. It is also wonderful with white rice.


So here's the recipe:

1 snake gourd: Peel this strange wonderful vegetable, cut it open and deseed it.
Cut it into small-medium pieces. ( to give you an idea of small- medium:about 2.5 cms roughly)

In a small bowl, pour a little bit of water for soaking in the following ingredients:
6 pods garlic
1 spoon whole black pepper
chopped ginger
4 green chillies
2 spoons raw rice
1 spoon ghasghas

Keep the bowl aside and let these soak in a bit.

Heat some oil in the pressure cooker.
Fry in a bit of mustard seeds, curry leaf and few pods of chopped garlic.
Put in the cut gourd and fry it for just one minute.
Pour in 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of milk (coffee cup)
Pressure cook this for just one whistle.
Open the cooker and mash up the cooked gourd.
Add salt to taste and a little sugar (quarter tea spoon)
Put 1 table spoon of fresh grated coconut into the soaking bowl mixture, and grind all the bowls ingredients in the mixer.
Mix the ground mixture with the cooked gourd and give it one more boil.
Check for salt and spice. If more spice is desired split a fresh green chillie and drop it in.

Eat with hot steamed rice, pickle and papad.

and think of meg.

with love.