Bhuna Gosht

Last weekend my husband and I went to downtown for grocery shopping. After shopping, with heavily loaded bag we got into a taxi and somehow my husband managed to guide the driver to the nearest metro station Xiaobei to get back home. The guy was so surprised and happy to see my husband speaking broken Chinese ;).
While trying to explain about the metro station, he nodded for some reason and asked whether we are going for dining. We were confused and was checking GPS all the way till we got there. When finally we got down in the right destination we realized huh!! That's what he meant.. I guess he thought we are from  middle east countries and we are heading to have dinner at Arabic street..
The street is full of Arab restaurants and stores.We'd no idea such place exists in Guangzhou.. We bookmarked the place to reach out again for Middle east cuisines. But we did go through a store selling imported foods from Arab countries. As our days shopping had over, we just had a look around. But one thing caught our eyes lying on the bakery was Pita bread. I'd heard many recipes of Pita bread but never got a chance to use them. So quickly i grabbed one pack. The next day we made sandwiches with pita.
With 2 more breads left and we both were craving for spicy meat dish for long, I decided to cook "Bhuna Gosht" to have with pita breads. Its not traditional but pita bread is very similar to Naan bread. So went very well with Bhuna gosht.
Bhuna Gosht is all about spices. Mutton is slow cooked with loads of spices for hours. The slow cooking process gives the brown color to the dish. It takes 1-2 hrs to cook the meat along with all the spices. But its worth the wait.  It is rich and Lip smacking delicious. It can be made easier by using pressure cooker. But there is no room for taste when you hurry up for this dish. My advice is to make this recipe when you have plenty of time and mood of cooking something special for your tastebud....  I love the Bhuna gosht recipe from "ecurry" and this recipe has been adapted from them with slight variation.

Creamy Tricolor Rotini Pasta Salad

 Always I find fun to make salads. No matter what I have in my hand, it may be pickled veggies or fresh ones, meat or veg, Pasta or Tuna, creamy dressing or Vinaigrette I use to enjoy throwing in whatever available.. So here is one of our favourite pasta salad. Since I made this accidentally,  I have used very few ingredients. Usually I use a combination of yogurt/sour cream and mayonnaise for dressing. Though I haven't used yogurt here, I managed to make it creamy and taste the same. 

Pavakka Theeyal/Kaippakkai Theeyal/ Bitter gourd curry

Another vegetarian dish from Kerala "Kaippakkai Theeyal". Kaippakkai meaning "Bitter gourd". You could also use vegetables like yam, pearl onion, raw mangoes, eggplant in place of bitter gourd. It's a curry made with roasted spices,coconut and the vegetables are boiled in tamarind water.  

When we hear the name bitter gourd most of our face changes to no no mode..  But trust me, this

recipe is full of flavours. From sourness from the tamarind, sweet from coconut & jaggery, to slight bitter from the bitter gourd makes this dish delicious.

Pepper Chicken / Kozhi Milagu varuval

Black pepper is one of my favourite ingredient, especially when used in Non veg preparations. I am posting Pepper chicken recipe with a touch of Kerala tadka. The taste totally rely on the fresh ingredients we use to prepare. So I have used fresh ingredients wherever I can. This is definitely a treat to your taste bud. We love to have pepper chicken along with rasam and rice. However it can be also served with Indian bread. Nothing is as heavenly as an ice cream after this peppery meal.

Thai Pineapple Rice

Thai cuisine always been very close to my heart next to Indian food. You will notice similarities between them in few dishes but entirely different when it comes to cooking. More similarities can be seen with Chinese cuisine.



Two years back, one fine day during our trip to Beijing we decided to book our lunch at Thai restaurant "Banana leaf". That was our first ever try to Thai food. We gathered some points before walking into the restaurant like lists of famous dishes, never miss items on the menu etc.. We were determined to try Green curry. papaya salad, one fried item and one of their well known dessert whichever available in menu. As expected, the menu covered most of the famous dishes from Thai. When we looked upon rice section we found "Thai Pineapple Rice" and the picture attracted us more. Couldn't stop ordering the pineapple rice even it was not in our list. It got our thumbs up not only for its presentation also for its outstanding flavours.

From then on we have become its fan and somehow managed to discover the ingredients that it had. My husband have tried cooking Pineapple rice in so many ways to bring its flavour. Honestly, it took him more than 6 trials to get that authentic taste. Finally he succeeded in obtaining the same flavour. So here is his own customized recipe for "Thai Pineapple Rice". Thanks to him. I love this particular recipe from him very much.

Kerala Chicken Curry with Cheratta Puttu / Nadan Kozhi Kuttan with Cheratta puttu

I have come up with one of the highly popular and most desirous recipe from Kerala"Puttu" (Malayalam). Usually served for breakfast along with "Chickpea curry". "Puttu" is a dish made by steaming rice flour using cylindrical vessel and so the shape of puttu is cylindrical. It is called "Kuzha Puttu"(Kuzhal = Small Cylindrical pipe). Another way of steaming puttu is by using half coconut shell which is called "Cheratta puttu" (Cheratta = coconut shell). Nowadays  some variation of puttu uses wheat, rava, whole grains etc.. Also you can find readymade flour for making puttu. On the other hand, the accompaniments also varies widely. Most common is chickpea curry, banana and palm sugar. Also goes well with any other curries and non veg curries.