Guava Cocktail

Guava Cocktail, its refreshing and tasty cocktail with guava, vodka, mint leaves and lime juice. Its time to say bye to 2017 so its a perfect time to make this cocktail and have party time with friends and family. If you want to avoid alcohol please omit vodka and proceed with other ingredients. So here is recipe for you all to try. 

Idi Chaka Sambar / Tender Jackfruit Sambar

Tender jack fruit sambar, deferent from usual sambar and a variety dish with Jackfruit. It’s cooked tender Jackfruit pieces in roasted coconut gravy with mild spices.  I liked this hope you all will love this. Here is recipe for you all to try. 

Sambal Udang / Sambal Prawns

Sambal Udang / Sambal Prawns, Malasian sambal prawns. Its spicy and aromatic dish goes well with rice. Sambal is a spice paste, in this dish we are adding that paste and stirring with prawns. I have added sambal chicken recipe earlier. Here is recipe for you all to try. 

Spicy Vegetable Bread Pola / Spicy Vegetable Bread Cake

Spicy vegetable bread pola,as you all knew pola is a malabar delicacy. I already shared some other varieties of pola. So today I am sharing bread pola stuffed with spicy vegetable masala. There are deferent ways of making this recipe. Here is my version of bread pola recipe for you all to try. Its good to serve as an evening snacks or you can pack for kids lunch box or to pack for picnic snacks. Hope you all will like this.

Here is link for other polas which I tried Chicken Pola , Kai Pola .

Mutton Varutharachathu ( Mutton In Roasted Coconut Gravy)

Mutton Varutharachathu, thick and spicy gravy with roasted coconut and spices. When you cook this, the aroma of all spices stays whole day in the kitchen. All spicy food lovers will love this. And for a change I tired a new combination kappa(tapioca) with this mutton curry, its an awesome combination, we liked it. So here is recipe for you all to try.

Chicken Potjieoks With Spices and Coconut Milk

Chicken Potjieoks With spices and Coconut Milk, potjieoks is uniquely South African and traditionally made around an open fire preferably in the company of good friends or with a family members. So its a delightful and memorable meal. The best meat to use for potjiekos is what is known as stewing beef, sinewy and gelatinous cuts of beef which become deliciously tender when simmered for a long time, developing a strong meaty flavour. Other meat such as venison, mutton, chicken and even fish make ideal potjies. 

Last friday I got a chance to make this Potijeoks. It was my husbands year end office party and had Potijeoks competition. We decided to make Chicken potjieoks with our Kerala stew touch. It became flavorful and delicious , we got first place in that competition😊. 

Potjiekos (literally meaning pot food) has been part of South Africa’s culture for many centuries – since the days of the first settlement at the Cape when food was cooked in a black cast-iron potjie pot hanging from a chain over the kitchen fire. Later the black pot accompanied the pioneers who moved into the country. As the Victorian era unfolded, so the delights of the bubbling black potjie pot made way for magnificent oven roasts, and later still the traditional braaivleis in the 1950’s and 60’s. The re-emergence of potjie in the late 1970’s coincided with the increase in meat prices at the time, and it was then that food magazines and books started publishing articles on potjiekos cooking and potjie recipes.

It is believed that the potjie came from the Dutch ancestors of the South Africans, who brought with them heavy iron cooking pots which hung from hooks over the open hearth. These cast-iron pots retained heat well and could be kept simmering over a few embers. Rounded, potbellied pots were used for cooking tender roasts and stews as they allowed steam to circulate instead of escape through the lid. The flat-bottomed iron pans heated more quickly and were used to bake crusty loaves of bread in Dutch ovens. 

What sets potjiekos apart from these traditional cooking methods, is the fact that it is cooked outside. When the pot was moved from the kitchen hearth to a fire in the open bush, it became a potjie and part of the South African cooking heritage. The most common potjie is the rounded, potbellied, three-legged cast iron pot.

The fire is an important part of creating a culinary potjie masterpiece. Unlike a braai, the choice of wood or charcoal does not make much difference, as long as you can regulate the heat. That is done by adding or removing coals once the potjie is heated up. Timing is also very important, apart from the time the potjie needs to become cooked you have to factor in the time it takes for the wood or charcoal to become coals, so in most cases you will have to start long before serving. 

Here is my version of Chicken Potjies recipe for you all to try. 

Kovakkai Rice / Tindora Rice / Ivy Gourd Rice

Kovakkai Rice / Tindora Rice / Ivy Gourd, flavorful, simple and quick rice item. Ideal for  lunch box or for a lazy day lunch or for dinner. We both likes Kovakkai / Ivy gourd, so used to buy whenever available and used to make variety dishes out of it. When I made this we both liked it very much. Ivy gourd has lots of health benefits and nutritional values, it has iron, vitamin B2 and support to prevent kidney stone, fatigue, protects the nervous system. So try to include this vegetable in your diet. Here is recipe for you all to try.

Chicken Drumsticks In Cherry Tomato Gravy

Chicken Drumsticks In Cherry Tomato Gravy, its a nice and medium gravy dish with chicken drumsticks and cherry tomatoes. We have some cherry tomatoes in the garden. Used in salads and in pastas and still had few, its still coming also. Birds also started having that, thought let it be they also has a wright to have that. Then also some were there, so decided to make a chicken gravy with this. So used our regular spices and made this flavorful dish. So here is recipe for you all to try.

Spinach Rice / Palak Pulao

Spinach Rice / Palak Pulao, simple and healthy dish with cooked rice and spinach. Its apt dish to pack for kids and adults in their lunch box. Im sure kids will love this dish with some raita.

Spinach is nutritious green and this is the perfect way to add this green in your diet. Spinach has the possible health benefits diabetes management, cancer prevention, asthma prevention, lowering blood pressure, bone health, good for healthy skin and hair and promotes regularity. So you can include spinach weekly once in your diet. 

Please dont over cook the spinach. So here is recipe for you all to try.

Pasta With Minced Beef Sauce

Pasta with minced beef sauce, its a great and flavorful meal. Italian cuisine is one of my favorite cuisine, always have stock of pasta and other Iatlian seasonings, sauces etc.. This is the first time i tried pasta with minced meat and I liked it. Here I used Orecchiette pasta, brought from Italy. Orecchiette, from the Italian words "orecchio" (ear) and "etto" (small), is an ear-shaped pasta originating in the beautiful southern region of Italy. If you dont get that please use any other pasta which you have. Here is recipe for you all to try.