Chicken and Potatoes in Spicy Coconut milk curry

I had marinated some chicken tenders and frozen away half of them, to use later. I was wondering what to do with those.I sometimes feel the 'roasting-grinding' part of the masala for the curries is too tedious.Wanted a semi thick spicy and delicious curry,but without the hard work :) This one turned out perfect!! Spicy coconutty curry with tender pieces of chicken and potato cubes. Made a delicious weekend meal!

Ingredients:
1.5 cups Chicken tender cut into large cubes
1 large potato cut into large cubes
1 can coconut milk
1/2 onion chopped
4 tsp Yogurt
2 tsp Chicken curry masala powder (store bought)
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1-2 tsp red chili powder
2-3 Dried red chilies
few curry leaves
Oil
salt

Method:
1) Marinate the chicken pieces in in yogurt, red chili powder,salt and chicken curry masala for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
2) Heat some oil, add the chopped onion fry till translucent. Add the ginger garlic paste, dried red chilies and curry leaves. Add the potato cubes and saute. Cover for few mins till potatoes brown a little.Add the chicken and saute for few more mins.
3) Add the coconut milk, salt, black pepper and mix. Cook on medium flame till the chicken and potatoes are tender.
4) Serve hot along with Rotis/ Chapatis or Rice
Enjoy!

'Tom yum/kha' like Thai soup

Winter is here and so are the winter blues. Along with that came the colds and coughs and sneezes. What will make you feel better than a warm bowl of steaming hot soup? I love Thai food and the flavors that go in there.However I do not carry all the thai specific ingredients in the pantry at all times. I had the coconut milk...but not the galangal, thai basil, kafir lime etc that belong in the soup. This is my version...with common items in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:
1 can coconut milk
1/4 cup thinly sliced carrots
few broccoli florets
1tbsp green onion leaves
2-3 mushrooms thinly sliced
2-3 ginger slices (about 1 inch long)
1-2 green chilies sliced
2-3 tsp Maggie Hot and sweet sauce
1/2tsp Sambal Olek chili paste
1/2tsp sugar
salt
1/2tsp oil
Cilantro to garnish

Method:
1) Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a pan, add the carrots, mushrooms and broccoli.Saute for 1 min. Add the ginger slices and green chilies.
2) Add the coconut milk, rest of the spices and warm on low flame till warmed through.
3) Serve hot and garnish with green onions and cilantro

"Everyday Cooking"- Thai Green Curry

Thai food can be easy to prepare and tasty if you take some help from the 'store'. For last weeks party, I did just that...... and the Green curry came out to be perfect and so much easier!!! I bought the canned 'coconut milk' and the 'Green curry paste'. While it would be good to know and learn, what all spices go in the green curry paste, I decided to keep the 'learning session' for the next time and go ahead and use the canned green curry paste!

Ingredients:
2-3  cups canned coconut milk
1-2 tbsp canned Green curry paste (First taste it! If it's too spicy add less or if you like spicier, add more)
1/4 cup each-square cut pieces of  red pepper, green pepper, yellow pepper, onions, bamboo shoots, baby corn, Tofu, green beans,mushrooms etc
1tbsp black Raisins
chopped cilantro for garnishing
oil
salt

Method:

1) Heat 1 tbsp oil, Stir fry the veggies and tofu on high heat.
2) Add the coconut milk, green curry paste and mix. DONE!! That's it!

3) Add salt as per taste and let it simmer for few minutes.Add the raisins and chopped cilantro.
4) Serve hot with Jasmine thai rice

"Around The World in 30 Weekends"- Weekend 5= Thailand

Dish Name: Sangkaya mapraw (Thai Coconut Custard)

Saturday had a great time with some friends in Syracuse.They bought this 'huge' house in suburb of Syracuse and had invited us and few other friends for a dinner party/house warming party. It was great to meet everyone and toast for our friends new house.My friend 'O' had made yummy Gujju (Gujrati) food and had quite a spread...as she always does- Undhiyo,Pooris,Fried Potato, Shrikhand, Khandvi, Rice, Daal, Papad, different kinds of chutneys and pickles...etc etc.I am going to make some on these soon and blog about them too.

But today's blog is about my 'Weekend culinary travel around the world'.Last week was Diwali...and I missed making food for this segment.Today I thought about traveling to Thailand.What do you first think of ....when you think of Thai food? For me..its the Spicyness, the coconout milk and the peanut sauce in the dishes.
Whenever we go to Thai restaurants, we order the Tom Yum/Tom Kha soup and the spring rolls as appetizers. We are half full there itself.Then 'M's favorite main course is 'Pad Thai' (he never even wants to look at the menu card and orders the same everytime! ) and I go with anything that has peanut sauce...I like the Rama noodles,the cashews tofu/chicken and ofcourse all the curries.By the time we finish with this...there is hardly any room for dessert! So,believe it or not....I have never had Thai dessert before! And so, I decided to make one myself for this segment.
This one seems pretty easy and I had all the ingredients to make it.Lets see how it comes out ....and tastes!
It came out well,nicely set and tender. I did have problems flipping it out on a plate and actually one of them broke in the ramekin. So I did not try stunts with the other one!
It definately tasted like our known egg pudding....but ofcourse with 'coconutty' taste from the coconut milk.The green lime zest gave a nice aroma to the whole dish.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
3/4 cup Coconut milk
1/3 cup white sugar
1tbsp light brown sugar
1tsp Vanilla extract
1/2tsp Lemon zest for garnishing

Method:
1) Blend together eggs,sugar, vanilla,coconut milk.Do not beat.Just mix till well blended
2) Boil water in a pan and pour it in a oven safe baking dish till about 1/3 full.
3) Preheat oven to 300F
4) Pour the egg-coconut milk mixture into oven safe ramekins till 3/4 full.
5) Place the ramekins with egg-coconut milk mixture into the baking dish with hot water.
6) Place in oven and bake about 35-45 mins till the custard sets.
7) Garnish with lemon zest.
8) Chill and serve cold.