Cong You Bing / Chinese-style Spring Onion Pancake with Ginger Dipping Sauce

Cong You Bing is a Chinese-style unleavened flat-bread, commonly referred to as Spring Onion Pancakes. It uses very few ingredients and is quite easy to prepare and yet has a very remarkable flavour. The dough is a combination of water, salt and flour. This combined with sesame oil, spring onions, salt and pepper and then being toasted in very little oil creates a delicious snack. The recipe here is from a Chinese colleague from years back.

Prawn Pakora/ Prawn Fritters

Pakoras, also known as Bhajias, are a very popular fried snack in India. Ask any Indian, and this unbelievably addictive fritter is always associated with the cool monsoon weather. It is not very uncommon for Indians to sit down with a hot cup of tea in the verandah, enjoying the beautiful monsoon rains and munching into some crispy pakoras. Originally, a tea time snack, pakoras are nowadays served as an appetiser in an Indian food menu.

Char Siu Bao/ Chinese BBQ Pork Bun

Char Siu Bao is a Cantonese bbq pork filled steamed bun and is the most popular street food in China. Char Siu is bbq pork and Bao is covered or wrapped. Pork meat is marinated in a maltose-hoisin-rose wine sauce and then grilled over the bbq to a charred, savoury, sweet perfection. Then are then chopped and filled inside a yeast-dough, shaped into buns and steamed. They are served hot, straight from the steamer.

Garlic-Herb Chicken, Spinach and Spring Onion Pizza

Friday evenings are synonymous with lazy evenings. You simply want to gather round with your family for a long chit chat or sit in front of the television to watch some exciting movies. More importantly, you want to wind down yourself after a hectic and heavy week.

Aloo Tikki: Potato Cutlets

Aloo Tikki is a North Indian street food, prepared with mashed potatoes, some herbs and spices. It is a very popular snack found in Chaat stalls. It is usually served with tamarind sauce and coriander-mint sauce and also at times relished, topped with chick peas, yoghurt, onion, green chilly sauce, tamarind sauce, coriander-mint sauce and sev to make a complete Chaat.

Spicy Beetroot Cutlet

Who has been to the Indian Coffee House and not fallen in love with with their spicy, crunchy beetroot cutets. It is the only place I've been to that serves beetroot in almost all their vegetarian dishes and their beetroot cutlets are my favourite.

Egg Cutlet/ Spicy Egg Fritter

There are some recipes that you go back to again and again, simply because it is very simple. Some of these recipes come handy, when you have some unexpected visitors home for lunch or dinner, and you want to come up with a good spread on the table.

Indo-Chinese Chilly Fish

Today's Chilly Fish is inspired by the classic Indo-Chinese recipe; is excellent for entree' and can also be served as a side dish with fried rice. It is very similar to the Indo-Chinese chilly chicken and is a seafood lovers dream food. It is best prepared with any firm white fish fillets like Snapper or Barramundi; but be sure that the fish is fresh. I personally feel that seafood recipes are totally lost when you prepare it with the frozen varieties.

I prepared this a few weeks back when some of my friends came home for lunch. And I learnt something on that day. Maintaining a blog and cooking for friends cannot go hand in hand. Well! At least for me that is true. The issue here is more than often you take double the time preparing your dishes because you are cooking and trying to write down the recipe at the same time and then also left with very little time to take some good clicks. So you end up compromising yourself with not so satisfactory clicks - which is so very evident in my snaps here. So I've decided to distance the two; I either cook for my blog or I cook for my friends - but never together at the same time. Hopefully, I will find the time for both.

Makes: 5 - 6 serves
Preparation Time: 30 minutes + time to marinate
Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Note:- Fish fillets, onion, capsicum should all be cut into the same size cubes

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg firm white fish fillets like Snapper or Barramundi, cut into cubes

Dry Marinade

• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• Salt to taste

Wet Marinade

• 1/2 cup corn flour
• 1/4 cup plain flour
• 2 - 3 tbsp beaten egg
• 1 - 2 tbsp lukewarm water
• Salt to taste

Remaining Ingredients

• 1 medium sized brown onion, cut into cubes
• 1 medium sized brown onion, finely chopped
• 3 green chilly, chopped (adjust to taste)
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 green capsicum, cut into cubes
• 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 2 tbsp cooking oil + extra to fry fish
• 1 tsp pepper powder (adjust to taste)
• 1/2 tbsp paprika powder
• 3 tbsp Fountain red chilly sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce (adjust to taste)
• 1 1/2 tbsp hoisin sauce or tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp chinese five spice (may be substituted with Indian garam masala)

Method
1. Marinate fish with dry marinade, cover and refrigerate for two hours. Mix all ingredients for wet marinade and make a thick marinade to coat fish well. Add few more teaspoons of water if the batter is too thick. Deep fry fish until cooked.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add garlic and green chilly and toss till it turns colour into light brown. Add chopped onion and celery and stir for 2 -3 minutes until onion softens. Now add paprika and pepper powder and stir for 1 minute. Add diced onion and toss for a few minutes until it softens. Then add all the sauces and chinese five spice together and mix well. Finally add fried fish pieces and capsicum and keep tossing for a few minutes. If the sauce gets too dry add a few tablespoons of water. This will allow the sauces to mix well through fish pieces. Remove from fire and toss in chopped spring onions.

This is a dry preparation and can be served as an entree'.

To serve as a side-dish for fried rice add half a cup of water, bring to boil and add 1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 4 tbsp of water and mix well. This will give you a little extra gravy.

Seekh Kebab - The Meat With A Hole

Yes! The meat with a hole! And that is exactly why I like it. Not because it is boneless, but because it has a hole in it - the Seekh Kebab. Seekh Kebabs can be made with any minced meat but I always vote for minced lamb - even when lamb is not one of my favourite meats; or at the very least minced goat meat/ mutton.Seekh Kebab originated from Persia and folklore has it that it was a dish invented by Persian soldiers by using metal swords to prepare meat over open fire. Another story is about the invention of cooking methods using very little to no water due to scarcity of water in the deserts; this giving rise to cooking meat in different ways directly over fire.

Gourmet Pizza: Caramelised Onion, Mushroom and Sausage with Basil Pesto

Pizza (pronounced peetza) is an open pie of Italian origin, which has a bread like base and is traditionally covered with toppings like seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, meat, spinach, mushrooms, onion and olives. Pizza is the most versatile Italian dish that is now "not Italian" at all. There are countless varieties of pizzas available in restaurants and in every individuals' house. The toppings and the base can be varied according to one's choice and preference and is considered an easy Friday meal by most families with children.

Potato, Garlic and Rosemary Focacia

Focaccia is an Italian bread that is topped with herbs and other ingredients. Which made me ask the very next question - how is it different to pizza which is also as an Italian bread with toppings. And yes! The main difference lies in the topping. Focaccia is usually topped with herbs, olives and/or dry vegetables and finished off with olive oil. It can be served with dips or soups or by itself, dipped in some good quality olive oil. Whereas a pizza is topped with sauces, meats, vegetables and cheese and is actually made on a focaccia dough before the dough could be made a focaccia. Also, a focaccia may be eaten hot or cold while a pizza technically was meant to be eaten hot (though nowadays you have a myriad of options for cold pizza too).

2 in 1 Dough: Pizza/ Focaccia Base Dough

Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best and if it serves more than one purpose, well, you've hit the jackpot. That is what I felt when I got this recipe. And believe me when I say that the texture of this dough looks, feels and tastes totally different for a pizza and focaccia. The same dough used as a pizza base gives you a soft and chewy pizza base and whereas for focaccia it helps you to enjoy a base that is soft and chewy on the inside, yet slightly crusty on the outside.

Pizza dough - risen, knocked down and ready to be rolled out

Murg Malai Tikka/ Chicken Malai (Cream) Tikka

I grew up believing that Tikka always has to be red or orange in colour. Though traditionally these colours were attained with the use of turmeric powder or chilly powder, modern chefs have indulged in the extensive use of food colours for this purpose. And for this very reason, foods with strong colours usually eat on my appetite. So whenever I come across food with little to no colours I am very eager to try it out and if they have the perfect flavours, I seek to unfold its mysteries.I was acquainted with this Murg Malai Tikka from Cafe Saffron, South Morang, more than a year back. Surprised at seeing the almost colourless chicken, I knew I was bound to like it. (Not sure if they still serve the same tikka now).

HLT Mini Quiche

Quiche (pronounced 'keesh') is a French style egg custard, consisting of an egg-cream/milk mixture, cheese, fillings and some spices and is usually baked in a crust. It comes from the Lorraine region of France. The French detest the use of cheese in quiche because it is not meant to be there. However, the non-French have tailored quiche to always contain cheese and that is how I learnt to bake it too.

Prawn Cocktail with a Spicy Twist

Last week, I received an invitation from Roha of Hydrebadi Cuisine to take part in the Romantic Candle Light Dinner Event. The theme was exciting enough, and with our Wedding Anniversary just round the corner, the event got me seriously thinking. Aware of the fact that 'the' dinner cannot be romantic with our little ones lurking around us, I searched the Internet for ideas on how to set up a Candle Light dinner at home - mind it, a romantic one too.

Vol-Au-Vent: Creamy Chicken and Avocado

Ah! Finally back with another post. It was crazy here for the last 4 weeks with the children falling sick and not attending school and then preparing for our Onam Celebrations with friends, which we always celebrate at least a month late. Now all done and packed, I hope to get back on track; with work, cooking, home works and activities. Before anything else, I wanted to get done with a post. So when some of my friends came over for dinner on Friday, I decided to make best of the opportunity with something simple - Vol-Au-Vents with a Creamy Chicken and Avocado filling.

San Choy Bao - Chinese style Lettuce Cups

San Choy Bao is a classic Chinese dish; a nice, refreshing, light meal that can be served both as an appetiser and a main course - a dish that is equally loved by young ones and old alike. Crispy, ice cold lettuce cups filled with a warm flavourful filling of minced turkey and vegetables makes it a balanced nutritious meal. It is quick and easy to prepare and at the same time a fun dish because it involves a little bit of playing and messing around - you have to assemble the ingredients to make your own cups to chomp down!

Sweet Boli

This post is part of Onam and Sadya. The recipe below will be enough to serve 6 - 8 people for Sadya. Measurements are only approximate.

Boli is a flat bread stuffed with mashed lentils that has been sweetened with sugar. Boli, as it is known in Kerala, have different names in different parts of India; Holige in Karnataka, Bobatlu in Andhra Pradesh,

Easy Toasted Garlic Bread

Yes. That is it. A simple easy garlic bread recipe that you can make with any bread loaf in your pantry and escape that last minute rush to the supermarket for the ready-made ones, when you are just about to sit down and enjoy a big bowl of hot soup. Oh! But that is if you have butter, parsley and garlic at home or at least at your neighbour's and you can borrow it. Otherwise, the drive to the supermarket still looks inevitable. But, won't it be nice to make some garlic bread at home, adjusting the amount of butter, garlic, herbs and salt and grill or bake it to your liking than being forced to eat what the supermarket has to offer you.

Vegetable Cutlet (Kerala Bakery-Style)

This is how I ended up preparing Kerala bakery-style vegetable cutlets at home.

We, my friends and I, threw a baby shower for two of our 'latest' mums-to-be two weeks back and decided on a potluck. I chose to make vegetable cutlet for entree` and roughly estimated that 5 cups of mixed vegetables and 1 1/2 cup of mashed potato should make me at least 25 vegetable cutlets. But it was only when I made the cutlet mix that I realised my estimates on mashed potato had gone terribly wrong and I didn't have any extra potatoes in the pantry. Battling with going ahead of making cutlets with the mixture I had at hand against running to the supermarket for potatoes and being late for the party, the vegetable cutlets that is so common in bakeries in Kerala came to my mind. Well, why not use their most important ingredient?...... Bread Crumbs...... It may not be perfect but that was the best choice I had.