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.

Living your nightmare

90% of my nightmares are related to teeth... the rest I don't remember. I am terrified of dentists. I dream of my teeth falling off. And 3 weeks ago, that dream/nightmare came true. A much waited, much wanted, very much anticipated India trip turned into a medical trip. Three days into my dream vacation and my left cheek got swollen. The trip to the dentist confirmed my fears.. it was time to get rid of my excess wisdom (teeth). They apparently had no space to erupt normally and hence were coming out crooked. And since they had not yet erupted they would have to be surgically removed by cutting through the gum. The words "surgery" and "dental" in the same sentence were enough to send me into shock. 4 teeth to be removed in 1 surgery. The dream vacation had suddenly become a nightmare.

In the days till the surgery, I was behaving pretty much like a person enjoying the last few days of life. In my case, I ate n ate n ate (after all, eating good Indian food is one of the most important things to do on India trip :D). And this time my mom was actually encouraging the eating :D.

The D-Day was Monday, 12th January. By then I had mentally prepared myself (watching all the medical dramas had helped me I guess). The trick is to not attach much importance to it. The world wasn't going to stop. Everyone has to face it at some point in life. On a medical scale it is termed a "minor surgery". There will be anesthesia. The injections are but a needle prick. The pain later is unavoidable but then there are painkillers. And it will eventually go away. Its not a life-death surgery... people have gone through worse.

So I was all set to face the surgeon. And he too did not take much of my time. 4 teeth in under 40 mins..I didn't know our teeth can be removed that easily. The surgery was as painless as could be under local anesthesia. The only messy thing was dealing with the blood after the surgery.

But like after any tooth extraction..it was ice cream everyday for the first 2-3 days. The painkillers were doing their job properly and other than having a swollen face and eating food at 1/2 the normal speed I was doing fine. It was weird initially to feel the stitches inside the mouth but even that was ok after 4 days.

In all, it wasn't as scary as I thought. Everyone including my dentist thought I was brave to have 4 wisdom teeth removed at once. At least after this experience, I wont try to hide any tooth aches or find excuses to postpone visits to the dentist anymore.

Bitiya badi ho gayi!! (Courtesy Tamba)