Safna's Cook Book

Ingredients Chicken - 500 gms Onion - 3 nos Tomato - 2 big Ginger garlic - 2 Tbsp Green chillies - 3 nos Garam Masala - 1 T sp Kashmiri chilli powder - 1 Tbsp Pepper powder - 1 Tsp Coriander powder - 1.5 Tbsp Cardamom, anise, cloves, cinnamon - 1each Salt - to taste Oil - 5 tbsp Preparation Heat 2.5 tbsp of oil in a pan and add sliced onions. when onions becomes translucent, add chopped tomatoes, green chillies & ginger- garlic crushed. When the veggies are partially done, switch off the flame & let it cool. Grind this to a smooth paste. In the same pan, add 2.5 Tbsp of oil and add ground masala. When the oil starts to separates from sides, add all spice powders one by one. Saute till raw smell goes off. Add cleaned chicken pieces and mix well. Pour one glass of water and cook for 25-30 minutes. Tangy chicken curry is ready to be served with chapathi, rice or Naan.

Ingredients Boiled Rice(Ukda rice) - 300 gram Cashew nuts - 200 gram Peanut - 100 gram Grated Coconut - 1 no Jaggery (Gud) - 300 gram Preparation Clean the rice in running water and drain it. Heat a kadai & roast it till golden brown in colour. Popping of the rice stops when it is ready. Similarly, dry roast cashews & peanuts. Remove peanut skin and allow this to cool. Grind cashews, rice & peanuts separately. Melt jaggery with 1/4 cup of water. Sieve rice powder to remove coarse pieces out. Add ground cashew,  peanut & coconut to this. Add melted jaggery and mix everything nicely. Take Modak mould and start shaping it. Our yummy jaggery modak is ready.

Festivals bring colours to your lives and  and festive season begins from August till December in India .  Starting with Ganesh Chaturthi on the cards, lined up with Navarathri & Deepavali.Sweet delights play a main role in these celebrations.Traditional steamed Modak's are something we all loved to eat during our childhood days.These Modaks are offered as naivedya to Lord Ganesha during the ten day celebration of the Ganesha festival which starts coming week. Its often referred to as "Indian Sweet Dumpling" because of the same method of cooking like dumplings.  In Kerala, we call this as Kozhukatta which is made in the same way like Modak with sweet stuffing made with coconut, jaggery, ghee & cardamom. Modak is the most popular delicacy made in Maharashtra during Ganesh Chaturthi and here it is called as Ukadiche Modak. Every year we can see different variants to this sweet in the market like Mango Modak, chocolate Modak, Motichoor Modak etc. I am here with the...

Mishti Doi is a traditional Bengali dessert made with milk, sugar and curd. Mishti in Bengali means sweet and Doi means dahi, so its also called sweet Dahi. It is prepared by thickening milk by boiling until it is reduced to half in quantity.We can set this in two ways: First is to ferment the milk overnight and second one is to steam the mixture. Earthenware is preferred as a container to make mishti doi as it contains porous walls to thicken the yoghurt and provides right temperature for the growth of the culture. We can add cardamom flavour or kesar flavour for a fragrance.Sugar can be replaced with date molasses or jaggery.Do try this delicate sweetened curd that makes a great dessert. Ingredients 1.Milk - 1 litre 2.Sugar - 3/4 cup 3.Curd - 1/4 cup Preparation 1.Boil 1 litre milk in a deep Kadai. 2.When it starts to boil, add 3/4 cup sugar to it. 3.Simmer the flame and reduce the milk to half.Let it rest for 8 minutes. 4.Caramelise 2 tbsp sugar with 1/2 cup water an...

Ingredients Grated Coconut - 2 cups Dried Shrimps - handful Raw Mango -  3/4 cup Dried red chillies - 6 nos Curry leaves - few Salt - to taste Oil -  2 Tbsp   Preparation Wash dried shrimps to remove excess salt and remove impurities if any. Heat oil in a pan and add dries chillies.Fry for few seconds and keep it aside. In the same pan, add dried shrimps and fry for 5 minutes stirring continously and turn off the flame. Grind together coconut, red chillies, shrimp, raw mango, salt and curry leaves into coarse paste.  Unakka Chemmeen manga Chammanthi is ready. Serve with steamed rice or rice porridge.