Fish Cutlet

Cod Fish Cutlets

Cutlets before frying
Here's how it goes at my house.

my duckie: I want fish. mamma!! I WANT FISH FRYYYYY!!!

me: ok, I will ask baba to go and get some from that shop which is 25miles drive away.

my duckie: no, i want it. fishieeeeeeeeee!!!

me: Ok, I will get some tilapia/salmon/cod fish for you. my poor kid, you wont know the enjoy of eating Arabian sea fish like pomfret, bombil, ravas, surmai and ghol..

So, I drive alll the way upto either meijers or jewel and pick up whatever fresh fish they have. Mind you, the fish we get here isnt exactly as fresh as the fish we get in India..I miss fresh fish.

So i get home some fresh cod and decide what to do. Curry making is out of question because duckie had demanded something fried. So I flash back to my office colleague who had gotten this absolutely fantastic ghol fish cutlets for lunch one day. I think I had gobbled up her entire lunch. So now thinking back and scratching my brain, I tried to remember the ingredients and the -procedure. Of course i trolled the internet too. What I did was an amalgamation of my preferences and few recipes tossed around.

The verdict: both hubby and son loved it. I froze some and fried them on a later day when I was in dire need of snacks.

Recipe:

1/2 lb cod fish, cleaned

marinate with:

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp tumeric powder

2 tsp ginger-garlic paste

salt to taste

1 large potato

1 tsp garam masala powder

handful bread crumbs

1 bunch green onions- only the green onions part, diced

handful chopped cilantro

oil for frying

Procedure:

Marinate the fish the usual way. Pressure cook the fish and the potato seperately. Drain water from fish. Heat oil, add cooked fish, garam masala and saute till fishy smell disappears. Add green onions, breadcrumbs, potato and cilantro. MIx well. Make small patties and dredge in rice flour. Shallow fry till brown and crispy on both sides. Serve hot with ketchup. Makes around 20 patties.

Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup...or stew

Almost a stew but not quite so a hearty soup...
I love chicken noodle soup. My fav is the one that someone else makes for me..:) But then that is true for any kind of meal.:) Chicken noodle soup is supposedly very good for your body especially when you are down with cold, flu and similar things. So i decided to make "my own recipe". I searched the internet high and low for different recipes, read quite a few books on soups and finally came up with my own version of Chicken Noodle Soup. I had warned S that this was a stomach-filling-as-good-as-any-meal soup but still he had to go and call it a stew. Though in hindsight, if it had been a little thicker, it would have been a hearty stew instead of a hearty soup. Well I liked it though and duckie loved it.
I made my own broth for this soup.
Recipe:
for the broth:
6 cups water
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
carrot trim ends
onion trim end
celery stalks
peppercorns, bayleaf, rosemary stalks
chicken pieces w/ or without bones.
Boil all the above ingredients together till the broth reduces to about 4 cups and the chicken is cooked. Discard the veggie bits and ends along with the chicken bones if any.
Soup:
4 cups chicken broth
2 carrots diced
1/2 onion diced
handful of peas
veggies like celery, beans, corn , bell pepper around 1/2 cup
rosemary 1 tsp finely chopped
black pepper and salt to taste
1/4 cup egg noodles or spaghetti
Boil all the above ingredients together till the noddles and veggies are cooked through and serve hot w/ or w/o a blob of butter. This soup is full of all the goodness of the veggies and chicken. Best cure for a sad wintry day.
Enjoy
Dipti!

Sabudana VAde

Fried Tapioca Fritters

Now thats a fancy name...fried tapioca fritters.
I prefer calling it as plain old sabudana vada. Generally prepared during mom's fasting, this delightful snack is one of my favs. I love eating this with plain ketchup. Again as all sabudana dishes go, this one is loaded with carbs and fried too. So double the danger, but so worth it:)

I love eating this snack on a rainy day and curling up with a good book while munching on it and mom refilling my empty plate. But gone are those days...now i have to prepare my own food and cant even sit for 2 mins alon forget curling up w/ a book. Duckie likes this and S loves this. He likes it with plain yogurt mixed with salt and sugar and roasted cumin seed powder.

Recipe:

1 cup sabudana soaked the previous day

3 potatoes boiled, peeled and mashed

1 cup roasted peanut powder

1/2 tsp red chilli powder

salt to taste

sugar to taste

1 tsp cumin seeds

Oil for deep frying

Preparation:

Mix all the above ingredients together and form lime size balls and then flatten them into patty.

Heat a heavy bottom pan preferably a kadai and heat oil in it. When hot, turn the flame to medium-low and deep fry sabudana patty in it 2-3 at a time depending on the size of the kadai. Fry till golden brown taking care that it doesnot get burned but is cooked all through the inside.
Serve hot with ketchup or yogurt.

If you want to serve as appetizers, make smaller size patties. The trick is too make sure that vadas are cooked properly from inside and serve them hot.

Enjoy,

Dipti!!