Deepavali cookout at home - 2

So the final day of Deepavali and the brother and I need to eat again, but this time, we decided not to have anything fancy (notice that although I do all the buying, cleaning, cutting, cooking, etc, I just said we...somethings not right, I think I'm not getting enough from this deal). So, good old white rice along with some chicken was the 'order' of the day (that's what my brother does...he orders, and I comply like a dud!).

I still had some coconut milk from the the experiment on day 1 and so decided to incorporate that into the dish. I made a marinade out of coriander, green chillies, and garlic, and marinated the chicken in it overnight (actually it was marinating for almost two days :) ). Oil into the pan, tossed in some more chopped garlic, cumin, and green chillies, fried it a bit, and then in went the chicken. After a few minutes, I added the coconut milk to the pan and cooked over a low flame until the chicken was nice and tender. I should have made a career out of this, although, coming to think of it, I'm not that old yet, so I guess there's still hope :)

The end product

Another angle

Family cookout

So the second night of Deepavali saw the brother and I go to a cousin's place for a family get together. And in Bunt families (as with families of most communities in India), this involves food, and a lot of it. So here's a sample of just some of the things that were on display. The usual "kori-rotti" and "neer dosa" that most people associate Mangalorean cuisine with WAS NOT there, and I'll let y'all know that Mangalorean cuisine isn't just kori-rotti and neer dosa. There's a whole lot more, and although essentially rice-based, there are soooo many dishes that are made.

Chicken biryani

A flat, dry rice cake

Chicken stew

Idlis

Chicken curry

Some kind of payasa

Another sweet stuffed with coconut & jaggery

The last dish, a sweet, is a little unique in it's prep method. The other 'shell' is made from rice. The rice is mashed into a paste and smeared on turmeric leaves. Once this is done, it's filled with grated coconut and jaggery and then it's folded in half and steamed. This is one of the several rice-based sweets we have, and although we had only a fraction of the dishes here, t'was still a superb night of fun, food and frolic.

Coming up, Deepavali cookout at home part 2.

Deepavali cookout at home - 1

Mom wasn't in town for Deepavali and it was time to flex my culinary muscles again, so here's what I did. I wanted to have rice, but not plain rice. So I decided to cook something, and a little differently - without a pressure cooker. So I quickly sauteed some onions, red capcicum and garlic in a wok and tossed in some rice and quickly stir-fried it for a couple of minutes.

I then seasoned the entire mixture and poured in coconut milk, and further seasoned it with some Thai seasoning that I had. Once I got the ration of rice : liquid right (I made the balance by adding water), I sliced in a couple of chillies and covered the wok with a large cover. I think it took about 10 minutes, but keep popping the cover off after 10 mins to check when it's done - you don't want this thing drying out on you.



After the rice was cooked, garnishing was done with a little chopped coriander. Now all I needed were some spicy prawns.


I don't quite know what to call this rice, but for now I'll just call it yummy. The chillies I added turned out to be duds - they weren't spicy at all, which in fact turned out to be a blessing because the rest of the flavours stood out, and the coconut milk just made it soooo freakin' yummylicious.

OK I'll call it Thai coconut-milk flavoured rice (sorry, imagination not working here).

Rice - 1 cup
Coconut milk - 2 200ml packets + water to make up the difference
Red capcicum - 1/2
Onion - 1 large
Garlic - 3 cloves, sliced
Thai seasoning - how much ever you want until it tastes right
Coriander - for garnishing
Salt & pepper for seasoning

So now for the prawns. I got back to sauteeing the rest of the onions, a little tomato, and some garlic.


To this, I added about 3/4 teaspoon of cumin, and then added some prawns that were marinating in chilli powder, lemon juice, ghee and some salt. Cook on a high flame for about 4 minutes or so or until they lose their transparency and become opaque, and voila...

...this is what you end up with. I couldn't have enough snaps taken of this :)



I won't call these the typical Mangalorean prawns, so we'll just say spicy prawns.

Prawns - 250 grams

Tomato - 1/2
Onion - 1/2
Garlic - 3 cloves
Chili powder - 1 teaspoon heaped
Lemon juice from half a lemon
Cumin - 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon
Ghee - 1 teaspoon (for marinade), 1 tablespoon (for cooking)
Salt to taste

Marinate the prawns for at least an hour in the salt, lemon juice, chili powder, and ghee. Heat pan with ghee and cook onions, tomatoes, garlic and cumin, and add the prawns and cook until done.

Thus ended part 1 of the cookout. Day 2 saw us head to our cousins place where there was a family get together, which meant more food :)