Home Cooking Express

This time around the dish of choice is tender chicken thighs filled with a tasty stuffing made with soft bread, onions, crab meat, celery and some more things.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 a cup finely chopped celery
• 1/2 a cup finely chopped onion
• 1 (6 ounce) can lump crabmeat, drained
• 2 tbsp dry sherry
• 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 1/2 cups white bread cubes
• 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
• 6 boneless chicken thighs, with skin
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 tsp onion powder

PROCEDURE

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and onion and cook and stir until soft or for about 5 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat and season with poultry seasoning and pepper. Add the crab meat, sherry and bread cubes and stir until everything is well blended.

Preheat a grill to medium heat.

Lay the chicken thighs out on a clean surface with the skin side down.  Spread the crab meat evenly on top of each one. Roll up the chicken and secure with toothpicks.

Now place the stuffed thighs seam side down onto the grill and season with garlic salt and onion powder. Cover and allow to cook for 20 minutes to half an hour, turning it occasionally to allow it to cook. When the juices begin to run clean when pierced with a fork is when the chicken is done. It can now be removed from the grill ad served.

You can put a slightly smaller amount of bread cubes into the mixture if the thighs are small. You could also use breast pieces for this dish. They would work just as well.

• (0)

Liqueurs are sweet alcoholic beverages which are flavored with fruits, spices, flowers, seeds and very often even cream. The word ‘liqueur’ is derived from Latin where liquifacere means ‘to dissolve’. This has reference to the process of dissolving the flavorings that are used to make the liqueur. Liqueurs also are not allowed to age for too long. Today recipe is for an Irish Cream Liqueur which when made at home is better than those that are commercially available.

INGREDIENTS

A bottle of Irish whiskey

9 ounces of milk chocolate

2 cans of sweetened condensed milk

2 cans of evaporated milk

2 ½ cups of heavy cream and

1/4^th tsp of instant coffee

PROCEDURE

Pour a small amount of the whiskey into a large bowl. Then in the top of a double boiler, melt chocolate and stir constantly until smooth. Mix the melted chocolate along with the whiskey in the bowl. Slowly mix in the condensed milk and the evaporated milk. Add the cream and coffee along with the remaining whiskey and stir until an even mixture has formed. Don’t wait too long before adding the coffee as it may not mix well if put in very late.

Now pour this mixture into bottles of around 750 ml and store in the refrigerator. It tastes best if refrigerated for at least a month before serving.

Serve it in a glass with crushed ice and make sure to shake well before serving. You could always make your own additions to the recipe like adding more chocolate, putting in chocolate chips. Chocolate adds its own flavor to the drink so if you are a big fan of chocolate feel free to add more. After all whatever makes you happy is what you should do. This also tastes great when accompanied with ice cream.

• (0)

The stir fried beef in oyster sauce always comes out so perfect in restaurants and most people complain that it just isn’t the same when made at home. But that shouldn’t deter you from giving it a shot. Here’s how you make it:

INGREDIENTS (Serves about 4)

300-350 grams of beef steak

4-6 small dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked

1 pint of vegetable oil

1 spring onion cut into small sections

115 grams of snow peas topped and tailed

½ small carrot, thinly sliced

½ tsp salt

½ tsp soft brown sugar

1 tbsp soya sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp Chinese rice wine

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons thick cornflour paste

PREPARATION

Slice the beef against the grain into thin slices of a decent size and marinade for a few hours at least and overnight if possible. This will make the beef soft. Then squeeze all the water out of the mushrooms and discard the stalks if they are hard.

Heat the oil in a preheated wok until it is medium hot and then blanch the beef for under a minute, stir so that the slices are separated and remove as soon as the color changes. Drain. Remove the excess oil, leaving around 2 tablespoons in the wok, stir fry the vegetables, add the sugar and salt, continue stirring and then add the beef and oyster sauce. Make sure everything has blended well together before serving.

The dish isn’t that hard to make and marinating it overnight adds that something extra to the taste so I recommend that you allow it to marinate for as long as possible. You can always make a few variations later on to suit your taste.

• (0)

Buffalo wings are a great favorite with everyone these days. It hasn’t always been so though. Earlier chicken parts such as the neck, wings and back weren’t use in dishes but were used instead in soups and stocks to add flavor. They remained so until one day one enterprising restaurant owner came up with the recipe of buffalo wings.

The accepted date of creation of this dish is the 30^th of Octobey, 1964 when the owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York Teressa Bellissimo came up with it. She had to cook up a snack for her son and his friends and had a lot of chicken wings lying around. So she fried the wings and dipped them in spicy sauce. And so the buffalo wings were born, giving America one of its favorite snacks of all them that is served anywhere you go.

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour

1 tsp of salt

¼ tsp of cayenne pepper

½ tsp of paprika

20 chicken wings

½ cup of butter

¼ tsp black pepper

½ cup of hot sauce

¼ tsp of garlic powder

Combine the salt, flour, cayenne pepper and paprika in a bowl and coat the chicken in this dry mixture. Refrigerate for an hour.  Now melt the butter in a sauce pan and stir in the pepper, hot sauce and garlic powder.

Deep fry the chicken and drain on paper towels.  Place the chicken in a bowl and pour the sauce over it.  Coat evenly.  Serve with ranch or a blue cheese dip.

Buffalo wings are extremely yummy and very easy to make. They are the perfect appetizers to make and are especially good when guests drop in unexpectedly, which is often the case. So make this and I’m positive there aren’t going to be any complaints.

• (0)

Every Indian restaurant over the world whether in the United Kingdom, the U.S or Canada served kheema matar. This dish is a spicy dish made with minced meat and peas and is extremely popular in India. It is dry and is generally served with pooris or paranthas (Indian breads) but some people like it with rice. It uses very simple ingredients you will have lying around in your kitchen and doesn’t take too long to make.

INGREDIENTS

500 gm minced meat

1 tablespoon of cooking oil

1 medium onion chopped

4-5 cloves of garlic chopped

An 1 inch cube of ginger, peeled and grated

A few chillies, depending on your taste

1 teaspoon of ground coriander leaves

2 teaspoons of cumin (ground)

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

A handful of coriander

A teaspoon of salt

½ a cup of peas

1 teaspoon of garam masala (An essential Indian powder, spicy)

1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice

Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over a medium flame and when hot add in the onions and cook until golden brown. Now add the garlic and cook for a little while. Then add the minced meat, ground coriander, chillies, cumin and cayenne. Stir it well. The taste comes out much better if the spices blend. Once it is browned well add 150 ml of water and when it begins to boil, turn down the heat and leave it to simmer for half an hour. Check on it now and then.

Finally add the peas, salt, garam masala, lemon juice,coriander and 75 ml of water. Mix it well and allow it to cook until the peas are done.

Your kheema matar is ready. You can serve it with roti, parantha, poori or rice.

.

• (0)

Every mother knows how troublesome it can be to get kids to eat. How many people have spent their entire day running after their kids in an attempt to make them eat? The key to getting kids to eat is make healthy food in a way that is tasty and attractive to kids. That would mean putting in chocolate or cheese in a dish to make it yummy. Today’s recipe is something that combines apples with a lot of yummy things and makes it super tempting for the kids.

This recipe serves four on an average and takes around 10 minutes to prepare. The cooking takes around 50 minutes. You have a delicious and very healthy dish ready in an hour.

Apple Crisps

INGREDIENTS

4 apples- peeled, chopped and the cores removed

A dash of ground cinnamon

A dash of ground nutmeg

½ a cup of walnuts

½ cup of pecans

½ a cup of brown sugar

½ a cup of flour (all purpose)

4 tablespoons of butter (diced)

A pinch of salt

PROCEDURE

Make sure the oven is preheated at 350 degrees. Then put the apples in a baking dish and sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon. Cover with foil and bake for around 20 minutes. Then chop up a few nuts finely along with some short pulses.  Add in sugar and flour to the mixture and combine. Add butter to it so that a coarse mixture is formed. Now sprinkle this mixture over the apples. Bake for half and hour or until golden brown.

The kids will have no reason to refuse this. You could add a few variations to it if you feel the need to. This is one of those things which would gel well with other additions. Try a little chocolate sauce or pieces of chocolate in the dish.

• (0)

Everyone loves good cheesecake. The appeal of this delicious desert was even included in an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S where Rachel, Monica and the others eat cheesecake off the floor. There is even a restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory. Cheesecake comes in a variety of flavours the most popular ones being chocolate, peach, lemon and strawberry.  Cheesecake is not all that difficult to make though in many parts of the world most people treat it as a delicacy one has at a fancy restaurant.  This is how to make delicious strawberry cheesecake.

For this you need the following:

For the crust

1 cup of biscuits

2 tablespoons of powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons of butter

For the filling

19 ounces of soft cream cheese

1 cup of powdered sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon rind

¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract

3 eggs

For the glazing

1 cup of strawberries

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/3^rd cup water

For the crust stir together the powdered biscuits with the sugar and the butter to make the base in a pan. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees and then cool. Once the crust is baked reduce the heat to 300 degrees.

For the filling beat the cream cheese and add the sugar to make it fluffy. Add the lemon rind and vanilla extract and beat in the eggs one at a time.  Pour it over the base and then bake for an hour. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for a few hours.

For the glazing blend in the cornstarch and sugar in a saucepan and then add the strawberries and water. Cook it until it thickens. Stir.  Cool it before spreading it over the cheesecake.

Sit back and enjoy one of the world’s favourite desserts. For the health conscious you can always use low fat cream cheese or make it yourself using low fat milk.

• (0)

Another of my favourite recipes is baked potatoes with cheese. It is extremely simple to make and equally delicious. All of us love cheese and the combination of cheese and potatoes with a little bit of mint and coriander is extremely appetizing.

What you need for this simple dish is 6-8 potatoes, calculated at one and a half potatoes per person. So if you’re cooking for six people, you could make around ten potatoes. Going about this dish is extremely simple. All you need to do is to first boil the potatoes. Then once the potatoes are boiled you need to cut each potato in half and scoop out the centre. After that the mixture of cheese and other things needs to be put in the centre. 

For the filling in the centre you need to slice up mushrooms and sauté them lightly in butter. Thereafter mix the mushrooms and grated cheese. Add a bit of pepper (make sure you don’t add too much, it will surely ruin the taste),a bit of chopped coriander and a hint of mint leaves.

Put this mixture into the potato hollows. You can also add a bit of potato in the mixture in case you don’t want it to become too cheesy. Make sure the mixture doesn’t reach the top of the potato because cheese melts and you don’t want it to spill over. Also cut off the rounded portion of the potato so that it can stand on its own.

Next grease a baking tray and line the potatoes on it. Put the tray in the oven preheated at 200 degrees centigrade. It should be done within ten minutes, so just keep an eye on it while it’s cooking. Once it’s done take it out of the oven. You could add a bit of oregano on top or keep it as it is. You cheesy baked potatoes are ready to serve.

• (0)