Shrimp Cocktail... Beautiful way of presenting a normal looking shrimp starter

What a great way to present shrimps in a cocktail glass!! Fantastic starter to a delicious meal. 

Indian flavoured  chilli shrimps and walnuts topped over lettuce and three layered sauces ( chilli mayonnaise, yellow mango and green coriander mint ).

Here's the quick recipe:

First let's prepare our chilli shrimps. Here's the way.

1) Clean out the shrimps and add some salt and lemon juice to marinate these. Let it rest for 10 minutes. 

2) Meanwhile lets prepare the second marinade.

Take 8-9 dried red chillies and de-seed all of these. Put these in a bowl. Add some boiling water to the bowl. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes until the chillies  become soft.

3) Now transfer these to a hand pounder. Also add 4-5 cloves of garlic. Add 1 tsp whole coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp shahi jeera and some salt.

Pound it. Add some olive oil ( around 2 tbsp ) and 1 tbsp lemon juice. 

Mix it well. Our marinade is ready. Keep some portion aside for forming sauce. 

4) Transfer the shrimps in the marinade, let all the shrimps be covered well with marinade. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

5) Now add some oil in a heated pan andtransfer the shrimps onto the pan.

Fry these until golden brown on all sides and curled up. It hardly takes 5-10 minutes for the shrimps to cook. But also allow them to dry up. We don't want any moisture in stuffing. Once dried up, transfer the prawns to a bowl.

Now let's prepare our sauces. You can use sauce(s) of your choice.

1) We will use chilli mayo sauce as the sauce.

Just the left over chilli marinade you used in chilli shrimps. Add little mayonnaise and roasted cumin powder. Mix it well. Keep it aside.

2) We will use ripe mango yellow sauce as a second layer. 

Peel off one ripe mango. Cut it into small pieces. Add some salt, black salt, sugar and roasted  cumin powder, mint leaves and dry ginger powder. Blend it in a blender. Keep it aside.

3)we will use green chutney as a third layer.

Blend some fresh coriander, mint leaves, salt, roasted chana dal, green chilli, cumin seeds, dry mango powder, little lemon juice and some sugar.

4) we will use a bit of tomato ketchup on the top.

Cut some fresh lettuce leaves also.

Now let's start plating everything.

1) Take a cocktail glass.

2) Gently pour in the base chilli mayo sauce. Layer some lettuce leaves over it.

3) Now with a spoon, gently drop mango sauce from the corners and then towards centre. If you just pour it through a container it will get mixed up with the base sauce. 

4) Same way, gently drop green chutney from the corners and then towards centre.

5) Now top it up with few lettuce leaves. Now add some shrimps and roasted walnuts.

6) Rim the glass with a lemon slice and spinach leaves. 

Your shrimp cocktail is ready. Enjoy the lovely starter.

Cheers,

Shweta 

Shrimp Wellington.... Shrimps wrapped in a puff pastry in an interesting way..

This one is inspired from the famous Chef Gordon Ramsay's signature dish Beef Wellington. 

My shrimp wellington is basically shrimps (Indian red chilli achaari flavoured shrimps) with earthy mushroom & water-chestnut(cooked singhada) paste,  wrapped up in a shortcrust puff pastry and baked to perfection:-)

Felt totally in heaven after having the crusty puff with delicious flavours inside.. 

This dish is going to stay in my favorites for sure.

Here's the recipe.

First let's prepare the short crust pastry sheets... 

I followed a quick procedure to make pastry sheets. I know there are few lenghty procedures too which involve folding the dough with butter and rolling it multiple times. And refrigerate it each time you roll it. But that would take too long. So I chose an easier and quicker approach. I followed Chef Gordon Ramsay's short crust pastry recipe.

1)In a processor bowl, take 400 grams all purpose flour, 200 gms cold butter cut into fairly equal sized cubes, and a pinch of salt.

2) Process it for 15-20 seconds to form a bread crumb type mixture. I used a hand blender with dough hooks to do the same. Took a little more time to arrive at the required consistency.  

3) Now transfer the mixture to a big bowl. Make a well in between. Pour about 2/3 of 100 ml water in it. ( we will use approximately 100 ml water or more if required). Twist the flour with your hand from centre to oustide, tryig to mix the water well with the flour.

4) Add rest of the water again in the middle. Repeat the same procedure to mix the ingredients. See if it is still dry and needs water. If so add little more water and mix it.

5) transfer the dough on your working platform. Spinkle some flour on surface and on the dough to help in kneading.

6) Gently knead the dough by rolling it with your hands from all sides. Make sure butter does not melt. If so cling wrap the dough and referigerate it for 5-10 minutes to allow butter to stay cold. Knead it once again if needed. Now palstic wrap and let it rest in refrigerator until you are ready to use it for wrapping stuff. Meanehile you can work on preparing the filling for the puff. Keep it in refrigerator atleast for 30 minutes. This helps the dough and butter to stay intact.

7)When you are ready to roll out the pastry sheets,take the dough out on a floured surface. Cut the dough it into 4-5 parts.We work on a small part at a time. Rest of the dough should stay in refrigerator. 

Take a piece and roll it out as thin as a coin width using a rolling pin. I laid out the dough on a wax paper and covered it with a plastic wrap while rolling it out. That helped a lot to ease the process. Need to roll out equally across. 

8)Now cut it into a rectangle or any shape that you want for stuffing your favourite items.

9) Your pastry sheets are ready. 

Now let's work on the filling part.

Mushroom waterchesnut paste.

1) Remove stems from mushrooms (9-10). Randomly chop them. 

2) Chop water chestnuts too. Chop 2-3 cloves of garlic.

3) In a blender, blend mushrooms, garlic, salt and pepper.

4) Now add waterchestnuts and blend it one more time.

5) Now transfer this mixture to a heated pan and cook until the mixture dries out.

6) finally add few leaves of fresh thyme and tranfer it to a bowl. Let it cool down.

Chilli shrimps

1) Clean out the shrimps and add some salt and lemon juice to marinate these. Let it rest for 10 minutes. 

2) Meanwhile let's prepare the second marinade.

Take 8-9 dried red chillies and de-seed all of these. Put these in a bowl. Add some boiling water to the bowl. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes until the chillies  become soft.

3) Now transfer these to a hand pounder. Also add 4-5 cloves of garlic. Add 1 tsp whole coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp shahi jeera and some salt.

Pound it. Add some olive oil ( around 2 tbsp ) and 1 tbsp lemon juice. 

Mix it well. Our marinade is ready. Keep some portion aside for forming sauce. 

4) Transfer the shrimps in the marinade, let all the shrimps be covered well with marinade. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

5) Now add some oil in a heated pan and transfer the shrimps onto the pan.

Fry these until golden brown on all sides and curled up. It hardly takes 5-10 minutes for the shrimps to cook. But also allow them to dry up. We dont want any moisture in stuffing. Once dried up, transfer the prawns to a bowl and let it cool down.

Now since the stuffing is ready, let's start preparing our pastry puffs.

1) Keep few spinach leaves ready. 

2) Roll out a pastry sheet on floured platform. In the middle spread some(2-3) spinach leaves. Sprinkle some salt and freshly ground pepper. Now spread some mushroom water chestnut mixture over the spinach leaves. Now layer some shrimps over it. Now gain add a thin layer of mushroom mixture. Layer some spinach leaves. Sprinkle salt and pepper. 

3) gently spread some egg wash on the rest of the pastry sheet. ( beat one egg for this and add some salt.) 

4) Gently roll out the puff to form a rectangular puff as shown in picture. On the corners, do some egg wash and fold them to form a closed puff. Repeat the same procedure for other pastry puffs.  Refrigerate it for 5 minutes. Transfer it into baking tray now.

5) Using blunt side of knife, make some diagonal slits ( not actually making cuts) to form the blunt side of knife. Similarly do it from other side too to form a mat like pattern.

6) Egg wash on the top side of the puffs. Spinkrl some salt and freshly ground pepper over it.

7) Preheat your oven to 375°F and bake the puffs for around 20 minutes or until you see golden brown colored puffs. 

So your Shrimp Wellington is ready.  Serve it with some fresh salad and some sauce of your choice. I added some mayonnaise to the marinade mixture, along with some roasted cumin powder to make your mayo-chilli sauce. One puff is enough for a meal for one person :-). 

Enjoy the lovely meal with your loved ones. 

Cheers,

Shweta 

Spiky or Spicy ?? These are Spiky Chicken Sushi Rolls...

This is the idea that  occurred to me one night and I wanted to do it right away on the very next day. There were few thoughts in my mind like rolling chicken in cabbage and steaming it. But I had some doubts on whether that would look and taste great. So, what do I stuff in my chicken roll to give it a Sushi touch? Way back I had also seen Chef Vikas' Murg ke phool recipe, which fascinated me by its looks. So then I just took that concept and arrived at this dish.

Stuffed the minced chicken with the green smooth avacados, wrapped it in rice and steamed it.  Then these rolls were cut beautifully to give a sushi like appearance. Never thought rice when wrapped in a roll and steamed would give such a funky look.

Spiky Chicken Sushi Rolls:

Here's the recipe.

1) Keep 1 cup rice soaked in water for atleast 1/2 hour. We will usebit for wrapping our chicken rolls. Basmati rice might give a better look when steamed.
2) Peel off 1-2 Avacado. Cut it into long medium sized slices. Season it with salt and pepper. Keep it aside.
I used avacado because it is very delicious and soft even when raw and gives a beautiful texture and color to the rolls. You can take any other green or any colored vegetable to give a good look inside.
3) Let's prepare our chicken stuffing.
Take 1 cup minced chicken. Add finely chopped green onions(6 strands), finely chopped garlic(1 tsp), garam masala powder( 1 tsp), black pepper powder(1 tsp), oil 1 tbsp, corn starch 1 tbsp, salt. Mix these well. Taste it to see if you would like to add anything more. If so, add it now.

I added few more ingredients like finely chopped cabbage, carrot, onion, butter, chopped coriander, ginger, chilli powder, soya sauce, vinegar to give it a dumpling kind of taste. But it's optional :-)
5) Drain out all water from the soaked rice and spread it in a plate. This will make it easy to cover our rolls with rice.
4) Now since we are ready with all ingredients, let's start making rolls.
Grease your palms with little oil. Take some chicken mixture and flatten it. Put 1-2 avacado pieces in the middle, vertically. Cover the chicken mixture over it to form a oblong kind of roll. Repeat the same procedure for other rolls. Now dip the rolls in rice so taht all sides are covered.
5) Steam the rolls in a steamer ( the same we use for making dumplings/ momos) for about 10-12 minutes. Or until the rice is fully cooked.

The rolls are ready. Gently remove them from steamer and cut each into 2-3 round pieces. Plate it such that all the stuffed layers are visible. It gives a white flower kind of look.

Serve the spiky chicken sushi rolls with some garlic chilli chutney or any sauce of your choice.

When you find dumplings cliched, try this. It has an interesting look and is simple and easy to prepare.

Enjoy :-)

Cheers,
Shweta 

Giving an Indian twist to the Italian starter Bruschetta.. Chhena Bruschetta with Orange Marmalade Chutney

As I had my french bread ready, I was super excited to make some Indian style bruschetta. We all know bruschetta is an Italian snack. I have usually had the bruschetta topped with tomatoes. There could be so many other toppings. See how beautifully we can give an Indian twist to it.

This one is taken from Chef Kunal Kapoor's recipes from the Yellow Table. Love his simple and yet so delicious recipes. 

I have already cut my french loaf into medium sized breads to make bruschetta. 

So here's the indianized version of Bruschetta. Chhena ( soft paneer) bruschetta with orange marmalade chutney.  Also shared the recipe of my own version of orange marmalade. 

1) We will firstly make Chhena out of the milk. 

Take around a litre of milk. Let it come to boil. Now add the juice of 2 lemons and around 1 tsp salt.  Let the curd and whey seperate in the milk. Switch off the gas. Let the milk rest for about 5-10 minutes to cool down. Now strain out the chhenna through a muslin cloth. 

Remove all the moisture gently from the cloth. Now transfer the Chhena in a bowl. 

2) Add little fresh cream around 1/2 cup to it. Mix it well. Keep it aside. I also added a little sugar to it as I like a little sweet Chenna. :-)

3) Now let's quickly prepare orange marmalade chutney. If you already have orange marmalade then it will be super quick.

Take around 1 cup of marmalade in a heated pan. Add little water around 1/2 cup and add few thin strands of orange zest. ( peel of the orange zest and cut long thin strands from the same.) Add around 1 tsp of roasted ground cumin. Little black salt and normal salt as per taste. Heat it until the strands absorb the marmalade sweet flavor. Should not take more than 10 minutes. 

I made my own 'not so bitter' and quick orange marmalade as below.

Peeled the zest of 5-6 oranges. Seperated out the pieces inside, cut each into halves and seeded it out. Thinly cut out strands from the zest. Kept it aside. 

Blended the orange pieces in a blender with around 1 cup water. 

Now transferred the juice to a pan along with the strands of zest. Let it simmer until the strands became wilted and soft. Added around 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup honey then. You could add more sugar if needed. Let it simmer till it becomes semi thick like a raw mango pickle but it should be setting solid like a jam. Now transfer the marmalade in a clean dry container and put the lid on. 

This is my quick way :-) Authentic way involves cutting oranges along with the skin and cooking it till it becomes soft.  It takes a little longer and more sugar too.

4) Keep few fresh leaves of spinach or basil aside. We will be using it for our topping.

5) Now we have all ingredients for topping ready. Also our bread pieces are ready.

-Lets quickly roast our breads on both sides just for a minute.

-Now spread some olive oil with the help of a garlic clove on one side on which you would put the toppings.

-Keep the bread pieces in your serving plate.

On each piece, put 1-2 leaves of spinach or basil on the top. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over it.

-Top it up with a spoon or more of chenna mixture. Sprinkle little pepper if you wish. 

-Now pick out few strands of orange zest from the marmalade and top it up on the Chhena. Add more marmalade chutney if you need.

Serve it as a starter in your party. It's simple, quick and delicious. Everyone including children will love it.

Chhena here replaces cheeze in an authentic french bruschetta and orange marmalade chutney replaces the marmalade. That's the little Indian twist to the Bruschetta.

Don't forget to enjoy :-)

Cheers,

Shweta 

What a feeling!! Baking French bread in your kitchen...

I got a random thought of making bruschetta at home and a wonderful thought followed. How wonderful if I make my own italian bread for it. So I said why not make french baguettes at home. Yeah it's really satisfying feeling to bake your own bread. And when it turns out so gorgeous you want to do it again and again.

I followed Chef John's recipe completely to make french baguettes. Also saving it here for my future reference.
You will have a hard crust from outside and dense and chewy from inside just like a french baguette should be... :-).. Enjoy...
           

Here it is:

Ingredients

It makes 2 large or 4 small baguettes

1/4 teaspoon rapid rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water at room temperature
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
4 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed
1/2 teaspoon cornmeal, or as needed

Procedure

1) Place yeast into the bottom of a large mixing bowl and stir with water; mix in salt. Beat flour into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon until dough is thick and sticky and pulls flour from the side of the bowl, 5 to 10 minutes.

2) Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand in a turned-off oven until doubled in size, 12 to 14 hours. Dough will be bubbly and very sticky.

3) Place a silicone baking mat onto a baking sheet and dust generously with cornmeal.

4)Use a floured spatula to scrape dough out onto a well-floured work surface and dust dough with flour. With well-floured hands, pat dough into a rectangle and cut into 4 equal-size pieces.

5)Dust a piece of dough with flour and use your floured fingers to gently roll and stretch it out into a log about 10 inches long and 1 1/2 inches around. Gently transfer to prepared baking sheet. If desired, wipe off excess cornmeal with a damp paper towel. Repeat with another piece of dough. (Reserve remaining dough to bake later or prepare 2 baking sheets to bake all 4 at once). Dust loaves lightly with flour. Dust a large piece of plastic wrap with flour and drape plastic lightly over the baking sheet with floured side down.
Let loaves rise, covered, until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hour.

6)Move oven racks to the bottom and middle positions. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C) or as high as your oven will go. Place an oven-safe baking dish full of water into bottom rack of the oven.

7)Use a sharp kitchen shears to cut 4 or 5 angled slashes into the top of each loaf. Poke down the little sharp tips of dough left by the scissors. Spray loaves with water, using a spray bottle. I used a brush to apply water. I also sprinkled sesame seeds. But that's optional :-)

8)Bake in the preheated oven until baguettes are browned, about 15 minutes, spraying loaves with water after 5 minutes and 10 minutes. Turn the pan around on the second spraying.

9)Transfer baguettes to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature before slicing with a serrated knife.

When you cut the baguettes you will see that these have a hard crust from outside and are dense and chewy from inside.. just like an authentic french baguette should be... :-)..

Enjoy...

Cheers,
Shweta