Thai red curry noodle soup..

What to cook? is a more difficult question for me than who landed  a rover on Mars, specially for weekday dinner. Someday you do not feel like picking up the knife, pots and pans and to cook. Eating out may be a solution, but I avoid that on weekdays as much as possible and try my best to prepare something fresh and healthy for my kid.

To do this, I usually plan ahead. During weekend, I plan for the weekdays meal, and it really helps. I buy things accordingly on  the weekend and stick to my plan. Yes, at times I  do slip,  may be due to health issues or just lack of energy. But mostly I  try to follow my laid out plan.

Thai basil fried rice...

I love one pot meals. A balanced dish with lean meat and carbohydrates with a simple crunchy salad perfectly suits my mid-week dinner plan. Last Wednesday I prepared fried rice, but not the usual one. It was Thai style fried rice. (Here you can check my better than take out fried rice recipe.)

When it comes to Thai food, first thing comes to our mind is the explosion of flavour from lemongrass, kaffir lime, thai basil, holy basil, and the strong sharp smell of fish sauce and of course the heat from fresh red chilies.

Mango Relish...

I know it seems like ages since I  last posted something on my blog. Our move from US to India  and the whole bit about getting things  back on the groove was one of the reason why I went into this hibernating mode. Thanks to my well wishers and friends who mailed or messaged me to inquire my well being and kept my morale up.

Orange Chicken

Though not an authentic Chinese dish, but very popular in American restaurants, Orange chicken can be found in every single Chinese restaurant in the US. This Hunan style dish is flavored with orange juice and spiced up with dry red chilies. So it was Orange chicken for my weekend dinner. I adapted it from Rasa Malayasia's orange chicken recipe, and it came out very well.

Ingredients needed to make Orange Chicken:

• Chicken breast (cut into cubes): 200 gm
• Dried red chilies:7-8
• Orange zest(minced):1/2tsp
• Garlic (minced):1tsp
• Ginger julienne: few
• Spring onion (chopped):only the white part:1tbsp
• Oil for deep frying

Note: When using orange zests, only use the orange part, do not use the white part of the orange peel, that will make your dish bitter.

To marinate the chicken:

• Orange juice:1tbsp
• Ginger (grated):1tsp
• Chinese rice wine:1tsp(can be substituted by dry sherry)
• White pepper powder:1/8tsp
• Salt a pinch

For the Orange Sauce:

• Freshly-squeezed orange juice:1/4cup
• Dark soy sauce:1tbsp
• Chinese rice wine or dry sherry:2tsp
• Sesame oil:1/2tsp
• Rice vinegar:1tsp
• Sugar:4-5tsp
• White pepper powder:1/8tsp(can be substituted by 1/4tsp of black pepper powder)
• Corn starch:1tsp
• Salt to taste

For the Batter:

• Flour:4tbsp
• Corn starch:2tbsp
• Baking soda:1/2tsp
• Egg:1
• Cooking oil:1tsp(preferably peanut oil)
• A pinch of salt

How to make Orange Chicken:

1. Wash the chicken pieces and pat dry with a kitchen towel. Cut into bite size cubes. Marinate the chicken with all the ingredients under 'To marinate the chicken'. Cover with a cling film and marinate for 30min.

2. Mix all the ingredients for the 'Orange sauce', cover and keep aside. If the orange is sour then you will need more sugar, where as if the orange is sweeter then use less sugar. Just taste and decide.

3. Mix all the ingredients for the 'Batter'. Heat oil in a pan. Dip the marinated chicken pieces in the batter, shook off excess batter and deep fry till nicely brown and crispy. Keep them on plate lined with paper towel. Keep heat to high and do not over cook the chicken, that will make the chicken hard.

4. In a wok heat 2-3tsp oil. When the oil is hot add garlic and julienned ginger and dry red chili. Cook for 1 min. Add the chopped white part of the spring onion, cook for 1 min. Add the fried chicken and orange zest. Mix well. Keep the heat to highest through out the cooking.

5. Add the orange sauce, cook till the sauce thicken. Transfer to serving plate and garnish with julienned orange zests and green part of spring onion.

Above is the image I clicked more than a year back, when for the first time I cooked orange chicken in my kitchen.

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Til-kumro

Pumpkin with sesame seeds

Kumro (pumpkin) is a very common vegetable in Bengali kitchen. No we don’t carve them to a jack-o-lantern, but eat them. Even the flowers of pumpkin (kumro phool) and the soft young leaves (kumro saag) are also eaten with great pleasure. Pumpkin can be cooked in various ways; be it simple batter fried (bason diye bhaja), or some mixed vegetable mish-mash (chochhori), or a non-veg dish (with hilsha fish head). Here in  the US,  we get pumpkin regularly in the market, but unfortunately miss the kumro-phool bhaja (pumpkin flower) and kumro saag (leafy part of pumpkin). In Kolkata, my home town the ripe pumpkins are sweet and red-orange in color, here I need to add sugar to my pumpkin preparations.

Today I have made some simple fried pumpkin with sesame seeds, flavored with curry leaves and hing (asafoetida). It is a very easy, quick and tasty side dish to go with rice and dal (lentils).

Ingredients

• Pumpkin: (Cut in cubes): 2 cups
• Curry leaves: 10-12
• Mustard seeds (Rai Sorse): ½ tsp
• White sesame seeds (Sada til): 1tsp
• Grated ginger:1/2tsp
• Red chili: 3-4
• Asafoetida (hing): a pinch
• Salt
• Turmeric powder
• Sugar
• Oil

Procedure:

1.Wash and peel the pumpkin and cut into cubes.

2.Add oil in a pan. I used canola oil. You can use any other oil, like mustard or oilve or any vegetable oil.

3.As the oil is hot reduce the heat and add curry leaves, black mustard seeds, red chili and a pinch of hing.

4.As the mustard seeds spatter add the pumpkins. Add salt and turmeric powder. Add grated ginger. Mix well.

5.Cook till the pumpkins are cooked, but take care the pumpkins should not become mushy. Add sugar. Check the seasoning and adjust accordingly.

6. Add the sesame seeds. Cook for 1-2 min in high flame.

Serve it with some steaming hot rice and a bowl of musur/masoor dal(red lentils).