Fiery Prawns Ghee Roast

My Prawns Ghee Roast rocked at lunch today.

Took the recipe from here -
http://www.mangalorean.com/recipes/recipearticle.php?k=20&articleid=1427

But I had to change the recipe a li'l as Mom felt that the amount of chillies was a li'l too much in the recipe and tamarind wasn't necessary as we were anyway adding lime and curds for sourness.

Here is what I did

- Marinated half kg of prawns with juice of half lemon, 1/2 tbsp pepper and 1/2 tsp turmeric overnight.
- Ground long red chillies (about 10) , 1/2 tsp coriander seeds , 1/4 tsp each pf cumin and fenugreek seeds and 8 garlic flakes into a paste with a li'l water.
- Roasted the marinated prawns with 2 tbsp oil for 6 mins (3 mins each side).
- Separately roasted the ground masala with some oil for 10 mins.
- Added salt , roasted prawns , 2 tbsp curds to the above masala and cooked for 2 more mins on low flame. The masala should have a thick consistency by now.
- Final touch : 3 tbsp ghee :). Mixed well and served hot.

And here is it.















I know I know . I need to work on the presentation.
But I am not a fan of coriander garnish and did not want to waste lime wedges just for visual effects

Happy Budday

I had the quietest birthday of my life yesterday. For the first time I did not spend a paise on b'day treat .

In Chicken Manchow Soup

I love Chicken Manchow Soup .
Whenever I go out to dine , my meal always starts with Chicken Manchow soup unless there is a daring friend that wants to try some new variety of soup .
But there is one small worry about having Chinese too often - the harmful ingredient monosodium glutamate or ajinomoto that gives all chinese dishes that wonderful tangy flavor. So when I came across this Chicken Manchow soup recipe that did not include ajinomoto , I wanted to try it out.

Only 1 ingredient seemed inaccessible. Chicken stock - 4 cups.
Now where would I get chicken stock in Mangalore. I went to the best supermarkets in the city hunting for chicken stock.
The first stop was Nilgiris in Kankanady. Nopes . no chicken stock . But I found Maggi Chicken Stock tables.
"Free of Preservatives" was stamped in bold on the tiny pack. I just had to add those 2 tablets to 4 cups of water. Perfect . The rest of the ingredients were easy .
1 tsp each of finely chopped ginger , garlic ,green chillies .
1 tbsp coriander
2 tbsp each of cabbage , capsicum , mushroom , french beans , carrots and spring onions .
1 tsp pepper .
1 tsp soy sauce (I skipped this ).
4 tbsp cornflour mixed well in 1 cup water.
1 cup cooked chicken pieces

I got all my ingredients ready .
After stir frying the ginger, garlic and green chillies for 2 mins I added all the veggies and pepper and stir fried for another 2 mins.
Then added the chicken and the chicken stock and brought it to boil.
Tasted a little . Wow it was good.
It dint need salt . That Maggi stock had enough salt.
Last thing - to add that cornflour mixed water.
And my soup was ready :)
Tasted just like the the soup in those swanky restaurants.
That too with no Ajinomoto and Soy Sauce.

I gave myself a pat on the back and started cleaning up.
The maggi stock packet was lying there. I was about to throw it away when out of curiosity I searched for the ingredient list.
And there printed in minutest of font in the inner fold of the packet, among the list of ingredients , was this -
flavor enhancers (monosodium glutamate , disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate) :-X

Here .. for you , for you and for you . Happy ?

The Ayodhya verdict was delivered in exactly the same way elders would resolve family issues in India.
i.e ensuring that there is compromise from each party and keeping the future in mind.
Dont think that a legal course in any other country would end in each party having to share the land they were fighting for.

Wasnt it nice of her..

Last friday I was alone in my cubicle at around 9 PM , slogging on a defect fix. Someone had switched of the cubicle fan . After 6 the AC is switched off in our office and ceiling fans are to be used. I just wanted to be done with the fix soon and going all the way across the room to switch on the fan seemed too much of a trouble . So I was sitting there , fighting the discomfort , trying to get my code to work when R passed by. She was done for the day and waved me a bye . I smiled a bye and sat back to complete the work when I felt the fan start . I looked up. It was R. Nice to have such teammates around.