Chettinad Pepper Chicken

Ingredients:

1. Chicken pieces - 1/2 kg
2. Ginger - 1/4 inch
3. Garlic - 8 cloves
4. Black pepper - 4 tsp.
5. Grated Coconut - 1/2 (or 1 side)
6. Oil/vanaspati - 50 gms.
7. Trurmeric powder - 1/4 tsp.
8. Cinnamon - 1/2 inch piece
9. Cloves - 3
10. Water - 1 cup
11. salt as per taste
12. Ghee - 2 tblsp.

Method:

• Grind together ginger, garlic, black pepper and coconut.
• Heat the oil and roast cinnamon and cloves.
• Put in the chicken pieces and the ground masala and saute.
• Add 1 cup water and let it cook for 15 minutes.
• In a heavy bottomed pan add the ghee and when it is hot put in the cooked chicken pieces and fry till crispy.

Source: Vanitha Magazine

Goan fish curry

Ingredients:

1. Fish pieces - 8 pieces
2. Dried red chillies without seeds - 1/2 cup
3. Onions - 1/4 cup
4. Cumin - 1/4 tsp.
5. Ginger - 1 inch
6. Garlic - 1
7. Turmeric - 1/2 tsp.
8. Fried coconut - 3 tblsp.
9. Vinegar, salt - as per taste
10. Tamarind (Vallan Pulli) - 1 full tsp.
11. Coconut milk - 3/4 cup

Method:

• Grind ginger and garlic together. Grind onion separately.
• Grind red chillies, cumin, tamarind and turmeric powder together.
• Grind the fried coconut to paste.
• Heat oil and saute onions until brown then add the ginger garlic paste and further saute it until brown.
• Now add the chilli, cumin paste and saute.
• Add the fish pieces , salt and vinegar. Cover and cook.
• When fish pieces are half done, add the coconut paste with a little water.
• Before lifting off the fire add the coconut milk and let it cook until the gravy is thick enough for your choice.

Source: Vanitha Magazine

My passion

Jotting down recipes was a passion since my childhood days. I used to watch my mother collect recipes from books and telling us that she will give us these recipes when we are married of. Anyway, she forgot all about it but I started following her footsteps. I started buying recipe books. Going to the library became a routine. I used to go and search for cooking books and look at all the wonderful colours food can offer us.

The only hurdle for me during my childhood days in reading these recipes was that they were all in malayalam. Being brought up outside kerala, malayalam was not my strong point. This hurdle fell off to some extent when my grandpa started teaching me malayalam alphabets whenever I went to kerala to visit him. Gradually, I started joining the letters together and started reading.

Everytime I go back to India, my mother keeps all the vanitha magazines for me to take the recipe section back to South Africa. While going through these sections, I thought of those people like my daughter who does not know to read malayalam but would like to try these recipes. So, here comes the motivation for my blog. I tried to contact malaya manorama for permission but did not get any reply. All the recipes in this blog are the recipes from different issues of vanitha magazines. I hope this blog would help those who have a passion for cooking.