Whats Cooking!!!!

When I was in 5th grade our family moved to Rourkela, which started series of transfers for my dad because of his job and so did my love for pani puri. My had introduced me to pani puri and since that day I have been madly in love with this road side snack. There was not a single day when i won't stop by the pani puri stall on my way back home from work. Even the pani puri wala knew me ;) After moving to the States you get everything but still the taste of road side pani puri is just no in the well decorated plates at sit in cafes. So I started preparing it at home. I never attempted on preparing the puris at home, and if you have Indian grocery around where you live I would suggest just buy readymade puris as its easier and quicker :) The trick to a tasty pani puri is real yummy water and aloo. So here goes my recipe. Ingredients: Pani: Tamarind: Size of a lime. Jal Jeera: 1/4 tsp Chilli Powder:1 tsp Green Chilli: 2-3 crushed (adjust according to how spicy

In four years of engineering I spend lot of nights traveling from home to hostel and back. We had only one govt bus every night taking us back and forth between the 2 towns. It would stop at Chilika Dhaba in Balugaon a small town. They served the most delicious crab masala. Everything in the menu was delicious.  So today I tried to recreate the yummy crab masala, it was quite close, still would love to go back to the place and enjoy the authentic crab masla at the Chilika Dhaba. Ingredients: Crab: 2 legs ( I used the precooked crab legs that I got from costco, but you can use fresh crab) Cinnamon : 1/2 inch stick Bay leave: 1 Cardamon: 2-3 whole Onion: 1 medium finely chopped Ginger Garlic Paste: 2 tbsp Tomato: 1 medium finely chopped Red Chilli Powder: 1 tbsp Turmeric Powder: 1 tsp Coriander Powder: 1 tbsp Cumin Powder: 1/2 tbsp Meat Masala: 1 tbsp Salt : as per taste Oil: 2 tbsp Procedure: Thaw the crab legs. Add a pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp of turmeric p

An authentic Oriya cuisine, Pakhala Bhata is a traditional food that originated in the temples of Lord Jagannath. A widely consumed dish in Orissa, Pakhala consists of cooked rice fermented in water. It is such a relief in hot Orissa Summer. My mom's day does not start till she had some pakahala with fish or saga bhaja. It provides relief from heat stroke in summer.  There are a few versions of this :  Dahi Pakhala Zeera Pakhala Garam Pakhala Basi Pakhala My favourite being the dahi pakhala. Garam pakhala provides relief in case of dry cough.  Here is the recipe for Dahi Pakhala Bhata Ingredients: Rice: 1 cup Cooked Water: 1 bottle filtered and chilled  Curd:1/2 cup Salt as per taste Cucumber: 1 peeled and cubed Green Chilli: 2 crushed Procedure: Add chilled drinkable water to the rice enough to soak it completely. Let it cool down completely. Add curd to the rice and water. You can always adjust the quantity as per your taste. Add crushed g

For couple of days I have been craving fried food like onion rings, chicken tenders and cheese sticks. The last time I had these items the quantity was so less that I was left craving. So I decided to make some at home.  Here is how I made my chicken tenders. Splatter alert, there would be a lot of splattering while cooking the chicken but the taste is  really worth the post cooking cleaning. So lets get started. Ingredients: Chicken Breast: 1  All Purpose flour: 1 cup Egg: 1 large Bread Crumbs: 2 cups Salt To taste Red Chilli Powder: 2 tbsp Oil For deep frying. Procedure: Rinse and pat dry the chicken breast. Lay it on the counter between 2 layers of plastic wrap and gently pound until they are about 1/8 inch thick. Then cut it into strips of your desired size. Heat oil in a pot. In the meanwhile mix the all purpose flour, salt and red chilli powder in a large shallow dish. In a large shallow dish beat the eggs. Pour the bread crumbs in another sha

Its the beginning of a hot hot summer. The season of coolers, cold coffees, slushy and lemonades has started. The mint in my garden is flourishing like never before so I decided to use some in my lemonade and it was as  refreshing as it was yummy. Ingredients: Water: 1/2 cup (hot) Lemon: 4 ( juiced) Sugar: 1/2 cup Mint Springs: 6-7 Ice Cubes: 2 cups Procedure: Mix the sugar in the hot water till it is dissolved. Place the ice in a blender, to it add the lemonade and mint leaves and blend till all is blended and slushy. Pour into 2 glasses and garnish with a mint spring and serve. Enjoy this cold refreshing drink and enjoy the summer. Till then happy blogging Rakhee

Last weekend we went to a Indian restaurant named Aachi Aappakadai and after a long time I tasted some real good food. We have been to a lot of restaurants but only few serve real great food. If you love non-veg as much we do, this is a great place to get some. Spice alert though, the food is really spicy, specially the Chilli Chicken. We also had some yummy chicken chettinad, chef special shrimp and mutton biryani. I would be trying to prepare the chicken chettinad soon. But I didn't, rather I should say I couldn't wait to try and prepare it. So I went ahead and tried it and should I dare to say it turned out great. Ingredients: Mutton: 8-10 pieces with bone  Basmati Rice: 2 cups Curd: 2 cups Ginger Garlic Paste: 2 tbsp Coriander Powder: 1tbsp Cumin Powder: 1tbsp Red Chilli Powder: 2tbsp (adjust as per taste) Green Chilli:2-3 Slit Salt: As per taste Mint Leaves: 1/2 cup chopped Coriander Leaves: 1/2 cup chopped Fried Onion: 2cups Cloves: 4 Cardamon: 4 Sa

During the four years of engineering we learned a lot of stuff, nah am not talking about principals of physics and how to create a circuit board, am talking about life and friendship.  The friends you make in those years are like family away from family. We have our egos, jealousies and fights but we still love each other.  In my case I learned to speak a better version of Oriya, also the fact that I hate doing the dishes ;) , how to make maggie and realized that you don't have to be fair to have admirers LOL. We used to use a small pocket immersion rod to make maggie and tea and that too with stolen electricity as we were not allowed a plug point.  On the rare occasion the cooks would let us use the gas in the kitchen we would pounce at the opportunity, well not me because I was quite ignorant. My friend Rasmita and Amrita were the best cooks in the bunch. So this recipe was created one such day, when Amrita  tried to make sandwich but the bread crumbled and she mixed i