Stuffed Mushrooms

I wanted to try this recipe, for a very long time, but somehow keep on postponing it. When our blogger friend, Shama, announced, the event, with mushrooms, I decided, I should try this one for sure and today evening, somehow I managed to prepare this and was in a hurry to take the photos, as it started raining here heavily and I felt the photos were not as satisfying as I thought. Soon would be posting another set of photos. I tasted stuffed mushrooms, when I went out for a office dinner and that was the first time and fell in love with it. It is very easy and tastes awesome. All stuffed mushrooms vanished within 5 minutes. Here we go to the recipe...

Ingredients

• Fresh Mushrooms / White button mushrooms - 1 packet
• Extra virgin olive oil - 2 tsp
• Onion - 1 (chopped finely)
• Garlic - 5 cloves (chopped finely)
• Dried Basil - 1/2 tsp
• Oregano - 1/2 tsp
• Pepper - 1/4 tsp (freshly crushed coarse pepper)
• Salt - 1/2 tsp ( or as per taste)
• Mozzarella cheese - 2 tsp
• Parmesan cheese - 4 tsp
• Butter - For brushing the mushrooms and for greasing
• Chilli flakes - for garnishing

Method

• Wash the mushrooms and slowly cut the stems.

• Remove the inner part of the mushrooms, slightly and try to make a hole, so that stuffing can be done easily.

• Chop the mushroom stems finely, as shown. Use the inner part of the mushroom along with stem.

• In a wok or kadai, add the oil.

• When oil becomes hot, add the onions, followed by garlic.
• Saute the onions.

• Add in the chopped mushrooms, basil leaves, oregano. Saute for a while.

• Add in the pepper and salt.

• When the mushrooms are cooked, remove from heat, transfer the content to another bowl and add the mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese, when the stuffing is bit warm itself and mix nicely, so that they become a thick stuffing for the mushrooms.

• Preheat the oven to 160 deg C.
• Now take one mushroom and fill the mushroom holes tightly, with the prepared stuffing and do the same for other mushrooms.

• Now, place the aluminium foil, in the baking tray and grease it with butter. 
• Arrange the Stuffed mushrooms and brush it with butter.

• Top the Stuffed mushrooms, with some more parmesan cheese and bake it for 15 minutes or until, mushrooms becomes little smaller in their sizes.

• Garnish with some more cheese toppings and chilli flakes and serve hot.

Note:

• If you need more spicy, you can increase the quantity of pepper.
• You can top with mozzarella cheese instead of Parmesan cheese.
• If mushrooms, roll while arranging in the baking tray, slightly, cut and flatten the bottom part of the mushrooms with knife.

This goes to the event Fast food - Mushroom Event

Spicy Country Chicken Kurma / Naatu kozhi Kurma

After reading a article about the broiler chicken effects from FB, now i try to use mostly country chicken only. Though they have less flesh, our family started liking its taste now a days. So here is the recipe, which I prepared yesterday.

Ingredients
To marinate

• Country Chicken - 1/2 kg
• Chilli powder - 3 to 4 tsp
• Coriander powder - 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Salt - 1 tsp

To grind

• Grated coconut - 4 tsp
• Poppy seeds - 2 tsp
• Fennel seeds - 1 tsp

For gravy

• Oil - 3 tsp
• Cloves - few
• Cinnamon stick - 1 inch
• Fennel/Saunf - 1/2 tsp
• Star Anise - 1
• Ginger garlic paste
• Curry leaves - few
• Dry red cillies - 2 
• Onion - 1 big
• Tomato - 1 
• Salt - as needed
• Coriander leaves for garnishing

Method

• Wash the country chicken and mix with chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, salt and leave it aside for 1 hr.

• In a mixer grinder, add the grated coconut, poppy seeds and 1 tsp fennel seeds and little water.

• Grind to a smooth paste

• Set it aside

• In a pan, add oil and when hot, add fennel seeds, star anise, cinnamon stick, bay leaf and cloves

• Add onions and saute for a minute adding salt.

• Add dry red chillies, currry leaves and fry for a min and ginger garlic paste.

• Again saute the onions till it becomes soft.

• Add tomato and saute again.

• Add the marinated chicken pieces.

•  Country chicken, takes more time to cook and so, add more water and let it cook till the chicken becomes tender.

• Now addin the coconut paste and add some more water and allow to cook for another 5 min.

• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice.

Note:

I have added more chilli powder while marinating the chicken itself. if want to reduce, you can reduce the chilli powder while marinating and add it later as per your taste.

Quinoa Payasam / Quinoa kheer / Payasam Recipes

I never heard about quinoa until I came into the blogging world. Hope many of you also like me. First time I saw this in Mustafa Centre, but did not buy as I have no idea what to do. After that I searched net and came across some great recipes. I saw many of our friends trying this payasam and I too thought of trying the sweet recipe first, which also suits for my event.

Ingredients

• Quinoa seeds - 1 cup
• Water - 2 cups
• Salt - a pinch (optional)
• Milk - 3/4 litre
• Sugar - 1.5 cups (adjust accordingly to the sweetness)
• Nuts - few cashews, almonds, pista
• Raisins - few
• Few strands of saffron
• Ghee for frying the nuts - 1 tsp

Method

• Wash and cook quinoa with 2 cups of water and salt in the pressure cooker for 3 whistles.

• In a small pan, add ghee and fry the nuts and raisins and keep aside.
• In a wide pan, add the milk and saffron and allow the milk to boil.

• Now add in the cooked quinoa and sugar and let it cook for 5 minutes.

• Add the fried nuts and raisins, give a stir.
• Healthy and delicious quinoa payasam is ready to be served. 

Note: 
Quinoa can be cooked without the pressure cooker also, but takes more than 10 min.
Salt is optional. We used to add a pinch of salt as we feel it enhances the taste.

This goes to my event Dish name starts with Q