Prawn fry

Ingredients
10-15 medium sized prawns
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp turmeri paste
1 tsp chilli powder
lemon concentrate
salt

1 potato sliced into rectangular pieces
1 onion cut into sqaure chunks
oil


Procedure
Marinate the prawns with the masala and salt and keep it aside for about 1/2 an hr.
Take oil in a tava and fry the marinated prawns in it.
Add onion once the prawns turn red and fry it more.
Add potatoes in the end and fry till they are cooked.
Do not add water at any instant.
Do not cover the tava while cooking.
The potato slices might get a bit burnt at the edges but that's how it is supposed to be.

Instant and wonderful prawns. The original recipe was with tiny shrimp called "karandi" and fried on an iron tava. Nothing can beat that!

Chicken Biryani

Thanks to Sharad for this wonderful authentic biryani

Ingredients

3 chicken legs

Marination
2 tbsp curd
1 tsp chicken masala
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp chilli powder
pinch of salt

Rice
2 cup rice (washed)
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
1 tsp ghee/oil

Masala
1 large onion cut lengthwise
1 tomato diced
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 tsp coconut
cloves
cinnamon
bay leaves
pepper
coriander powder
cumin powder
chicken masala
chilli powder
turmeric powder

Procedure

1. Marination: Mix the ingredients for marination and coat the chicken pieces with the mixture. Keep it aside.
2. Rice: Heat oil/ghee in a deep pan. Fry the bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon stick in it. Put washed rice and fry it for a few minutes. The aim is to half cook it. Add double water as the rice to the pan, cover it and keep it on a low flame. Or else transfer the rice to a microwave bowl, add water and microwave it till half cooked.
3. Masala: A cooker is best suited for cooking biryani. Add oil; later add pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf and fry them. Add the onion and fry it till it completely loses its stiffness. Add garlic, fry some more and then add the tomato. Fry it till the tomato is cooked. Add the coconut and fry some more. Once done, let this mixture cool and then grind it to a paste in the mixer.
4. Take very little oil and add 2 tsp chicken masala, 1 tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp cumin powder and some salt. Take care not to burn the masala. Once fried, add the ground paste to it and fry some more till it is mixed properly. Add the marinated chicken and fry it again... add some water if required.
   
5. Add the half cooked rice over the masala as a thick even layer. For shahi biryani types, put fried cashew pieces, deep fried onion, chopped coriander over the rice. Add 1 tsp of ghee and kevda essence around the edges.
6. Close the lid and let it cook at a low flame for 10 mins.

Voila! Biryani ready!!
I guess for the veggies the chicken can be substituted by vegetable chunks.

Yet another nice quote

Sometimes you build walls not to keep people out but to see who cares enough to pull them down

A view from my window

The most beautiful thing to watch is the transition from winter to spring. The snow vanishes and the cold doesn't bite as much as before, and suddenly you hear a small bird happily chirping away on a still naked branch. Its spring time! Like the silver lining which slowly but steadily starts increasing on a dark cloud.

the view from my window is really like the world captured in a big photo frame. The vast expanse of the sky in all its various hues.. streaked by clouds glowing in the light of the setting sun. The tops of the trees, still bare look like fractals emerging from one corner of the window, trying to take over the entire sky. Right next to the trees to the left, is the tower of local church, with its cross standing high in the sky as if to halt the advent of the dark forces (the trees) from taking over. And to the extreme left in far distance, Minneapolis downtown. Not too big and not too small, with the right amount of beautiful designs gracing the skyline, its a beautiful sight to watch at night.

Its everything that matters in this world seen in a 6ft x 4ft window - money, God and nature in whichever order of preference you want them to be.