Indian butter chicken - murgh makhani

Indian food is easier to cook than you first might think.

This is my second Indian dish ever I have made in my life. The first one was dahl. Indian kitchen is so much full of flavors and it is actually easier to cook the food than you would think. This butter chicken is only one version that exists in the world so there is no one right recipe for this one.

Marinate for chicken:

600 g chicken fillets
3 dl buttermilk

Marinate at least 8 hours in buttermilk. Also youghurt
works very well.

Slice or dice the chicken. Marinate the chicken in buttermilk for at least 8 hours. After this add the spices listed below:

2-3 minced garlic cloves (or 2 tsp garlic paste)
2 tsp ginger paste
1 dried red thai chili in flakes
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp lemon juice

Continue marinating for couple of more hours. Did you know that calsium makes the meat tender and prevents it drying when cooking?

Grill the chicken pieces until they are
cooked.

After the chicken pieces are marinated grill them for 10-15 minutes or until they are thoroughly cooked.

Sauce:

1 clove of minced garlic
2 tsp of ginger paste
2 cardermom pods
3 coriander seeds
1 bay leave
2 cloves
3 tsp garam masala
2 tsp turmeric
1-2 dried red thai chili in flakes
1 dl tomato puré
2 tomatoes
juice from half a lemon
100 g butter
3 dl cream
1,5 tbsp sugar

Ingredients for the sauce.

Cook the minced garlic and ginger paste for couple of minutes in small amount of butter (1 tbsp) on medium fire. Break roughly the cardermom pods and coriander seeds. Add the cardermom pods, coriander seeds, bay leave, cloves, garam masala, turmeric and chili flakes on the pan. Mix well.
Add the tomato puré, diced tomatoes and lemon juice. Cook on medium fire for couple minutes. Add 100 g of butter piece by piece. Add the cream. Mix well and pour the sauce to another pan through a sieve. You can use a spoon to get all the sauce through the sieve so that only the spices and tomato skins are left on the sieve.

Add the butter in pieces.

Sieve the sauce to another pan so that
you will get a smooth sauce.

Now let this sieved sauce to cook on low fire for 5 minutes and then season with salt and sugar. Add the chicken and cook for another 10 minutes on low fire.

Finally add the chicken and let the sauce to simmer for
another 10 minutes on low fire.

Serve with rice that is cooked with one cinnamon stick, 2 cardermom pods, couple of cloves and fennel seeds.

Cook the rice with cinnamon, cardermom pods,
cloves and fennel seeds.

Serve the butter chicken with naan bread,
mango chutney, raita and jasmin rice.

Pumpkin soup with lemongrass

You can add the chilis already in the start or
then as a topping to the soup.

I usually buy pumpkins on Halloween but now I wanted to try pumpkin soup made of bottle pumpkins.

I had one pumpkin but I guess it was roughly a kilo.

Colourful ingredients.

1 kg bottle pumpkin
(half a red chili)
2-3 thumb size slices of fresh ginger
1 stilk of lemongrass
2 shallots
2 garlic cloves
2 carrots
olive oil
juice of a half a lemon
salt
pepper
1 l vegetable buillon
0,5-1 dl cream

Cut and slice all the vegetable and dice the pumpkin. Cook with olive oil on a medium fire chili, ginger, lemongrass, shallots, garlic and carrots for 2 minutes (do not let the vegetable to burn). Add the diced pumpkin and cook for couple of more minutes. Add the vegetable buillon and let it boil on medium fire until the pumpkin is cooked.

Boil the vegetable until the pumpkin is
cooked.

Use a hand mixer to make the vegetables into a smooth puré. Add the cream according to your taste. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

I also had fried chicken and pumpkin seeds in this soup but this is optional.

Raspberry cheese cake

The raspberry cheese cake suits perfectly your
coffee table.

I baked my first cheese cake ever in 2015 and since then I have learned what works and what does not work. I now know for instance that fruits like kiwi, mango and pineapple breaks the structure of gelatine. This I learned in a hard way when my kiwi cheese cake just fell apart in front of my eyes.

This recipe is for raspberry lovers and in the wait of summer it is a good choice.

Base:
225 g Digestive biscuits or oat biscuits
100 g butter

Filling:
25 g raspberry gele powder
2,5 dl boiling water
3 dl sour cream
200 g Philadelphia cream cheese (natural)
1,5 dl powder sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
3 dl cream

Topping:
0,5 dl boiling water
2 dl raspberry coulis
4 gelatine sheets
fresh raspberries

Crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter. Place the biscuit base on a cake pan with removable bottom. Put the cake pan in a fridge.

Cook 2,5 dl water and mix the raspberry gele powder. Mix well and let it cool down.
Mix sour cream, cream cheese, powder sugar and vanilla sugar well together. Whip the cream until it is firm. Mix the cheese mix together with whipped cream. Pour carefully the cooled raspberry gele while mixing the filling all the time.

Pour the filling on top of the base and let it be in the fridge around 5 hours.

Put the gelatine sheets in cold water for 5 minutes. Rinse the sheets well and put them in boiling water, mix well. Prepare raspberry coulis by cooking 2 dl water and 1,5 dl sugar until the sugar disolves. Cool down the sugar water and add around 400 g fresh raspberries (don't use frozen berries). Mix well with a hand mixer. Pour the raspberries through a sieve (you may use a spoon to push it through) so that all the seeds are left in the sieve and only smooth raspberry coulis is left. Add the raspberry coulis to the gelatine and mix well. Pour the mix on the top of the cake. The gelatine will congeal in couple of hours.

Use a spoon to push the coulis through the sieve.

Let the cheese cake to be in a fridge over night
for the best result.

Remove the cheese cake from the cake pan. You may need to use a knife to the sides when removing the cake from the cake pan. Decorate with fresh raspberries.

Decorate for instance with raspberries and
mint leaves.

Oven baked aubergines

Perfect for Sunday lunch.

You don't always need meat to have a tasty lunch or dinner. This aubergine wonder is really tasty. I had one aubergine per person but for some it could be too much :)

Simple ingredients.

1 aubergine
tomatoes
mozzarella
feta cheese
thyme or rosemary
salt
pepper
olive oil

Cut the aubergines lengthwise. Fill in the cuts with tomato and mozzarella slices. Sprinkle feta cheese on top. Season with salt, pepper and thyme. Pour some olive oil on top.

Cut the aubergines lengthwise and fill in
the cuts with tomatoes and mozzarella.

Remember to put some oil in the oven casserole.

Bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes in 200 ºC.

I made 2 aubergines for lunch.

Hasselback chicken with spinach and feta cheese

This is going to be my new favorite dish!

With the sweet potato fries a perfect match is hasselback chicken with feta cheese and spinach filling. The filling can be basically anything but I chose to use these ingredients. For instance instead of feta cheese you can also use ricotta.

For 2 persons:

2 filets of chicken
200 g spinach
50 g feta cheese
salt
pepper
paprika powder

Make small cuts to the chicken. Add salt and pepper, make sure you also have salt and pepper in the cuts.

Make sure the salt and pepper also goes in the cuts of the
chicken.

Cook the spinach in olive oil. Notice that the spinach will shrink so it is up to you to decide how much spinach you will use. Add the feta cheese to the pan and cook as long as the cheese has melted with the spinach.

Spinach will shrink when cooked.

Cook as long the cheese melts and you can mix the ingredients
together.

Stuff the spinach-feta mix into the cuts of the chicken. Have some paprika powder on top. Finally have cheese on top. I used gruyère in this recipe but you may also use white cheddar or similar.

Cook in 200 ºC for 30-35 minutes.

Cook the chicken in 200 ºC for 30-35 minutes.

Serve with sweet potato fries and yogurt dip.

Sweet potato fries

From one medium sweet potato there is enough for 2 people.

  This recipe is just wonderfully easy! All you need is a sweet potato and it is enough for 2 persons.

Fries:
1 sweet potato
1 tbsp rosemary
olive oil
salt
pepper

Yogurt dip
2,3 dl greek yogurt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp fresh chives
salt
pepper

Cut the sweet potatoes and put into a bowl. Add some olive oil and then rosemary, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Place the sweet potatoes on an oven tray and cook the fries for 25 minutes or more in 220 ºC.

Leave some space between the fries.

For the yogurt just cut the chives and mix all the ingredients together. Let the yogurt to be in a fridge about an hour.

Enjoy :)

So tasty with chive yogurt dip.

Chili-salsa

And the dinner continues and what would tortillas be without a good salsa?

With right ingredients homemade salsa is the best.

One pot of chilantro
3-4 tomatoes
0,5 - 1 red onion
1 green pepper
2 red chilis (fresh or dried)
2 limes
olive oil

Cut the tomatoes in half and press the juice out of them. Dice the tomatoes, onion and green pepper. Cut the chilantro and chili. Mix all the earlier mentioned ingredients in a bowl and press lime juice on it. Pour some olive oil and season with salt.

To prevent the extra liquid in salsa remember to press the
juice out of tomatoes.