Lisa's Chicken Caesar salad

This is my JFI Green Leaves entry is Caesar's salad using Romaine lettuce. The original dish was created in 1924 by Italian chef Caesar Cardini at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. Nowadays there are many variations.

2 small heads Romaine lettuce, torn or cut roughly

1/4 cup, freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

2 Chicken breasts; cooked and sliced

handful of stoned black Greek olives

1/2 cup Cardini's Caesar's Dressing

Put the lettuce in the salad bowl .
Sprinkle with the dressing and the cheese. . Toss well, Top with the chicken and olives.
Sprinke some more cheese and dressing
Enjoy
We left out the croutons as we were low carbing!!

Stuffed Aubergines / Brinjals / Eggplants

This dish was inspired by Indira at Mahanandi. I had intended to make aubergines stuffed with peanuts, but we had run out of peanuts, so I decided to make aubergines stuffed with chickpea flour. However instead of flour I used ground thick sev or ghatia, as flour cooked this way tends to taste a bit raw. In this case we start with cooked flour.

Ingredients

10 small round aubergines
5 small potatoes cut in quarters
1 cup ghatia / thick sev; ground
1 cup yogurt
2 cloves garlic minced
2 chillies minced
1 tspn grated ginger
2 tspn coriander / cumin powder
1/2 tspn tumeric
1 tblspn oil
1 tspn mustard seeds
1/2 tspn cumin seeds
-54 curry leaves
2 tomatoes; liquidised
1 cup water
Salt to taste

Method
1. Wash and dry the aubergines; make 2 cuts to form a cross in the middle to the stem
2. Mix the ground sev, yogurt, tumeric, coriander and cumin powders, ginger, garlic and chilli paste and salt to make a thick paste
3. stuff each of the aubergines with the paste and set aside
4. heat the oil in a pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds, and curry leaves, let them pop.
5. Gently place the aubergines in the pan, lower the heat and cover the pot. let the the aubergines cook for about 10 minutes.
6. add the potatoes, and the water, simmer for about 30 minutes, so that the potatoes and aubergines are cooked.
Serve with chapati or rice

Kitchro / Kitchdo / Haleem

We make this dish about once a year, as it is very time consuming, We usually make it after Navroz khushali to use up wheat roji. This year we made it for Shaheen and Mohsin's majlis last Wednesday.

Ingredients
3 cups pearl barley
1/2 cup wheat
1/4 cup of each split chick pea, split mung beans, split tuwar, and masur dal
3/4 cup rice
2 lb lamb; cut into bite size pieces
8 cloves garlic; minced
5 inch piece of ginger grated
6 chillies; minced
Juice of 3 limes
2 tblspn oil
1 stick cinnamon, 3 cloves, 3 pods cardamom. 1 tspn cumin seeds
3-4 tomatoes; blended
8 large onions; minced
2 tbs dhana jeero
1/2 tsp tumeric
salt to taste
1 large bunch coriander, blended
1 tspn garam masala

Method
1. Soak the pearl barley, wheat, and the various dals overnight.
2. Boil them separately and blend to get a porridge like consistency, keep aside. Boil the rice and keep aside.
3. Marinate the lamb with garlic, ginger, chillies and lime juice.
4. Boil the lamb in 2 cups of water with salt
5. Heat the oil, add the cumin seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, add the onions and fry until they are almost carmelised, add the tomatoes, cook for about 10 minutes, add the coriander, cumin and tumeric powders, stir for about 3 minutes, add the pearl barley, wheat, dals and rice, mix well.
6. Add the meat and stock to it and mix well let it cook for 10 minutes, add the blended coriander and garam masala and cover and simmer for a further 15 minutes. The consistency should be like porridge ; add some more water if neccessary.
Serve with a green salad

Dhokri / Dokhra / Dhokli

Ingredients
2 cups semolina
1 cup gram / chickpea flour
1 1/2 cups yogurt
1 3/4 cups warm water
2 tbspn oil
juice of 2 limes
3 cloves garlic; minced
2 inch ginger; grated
3 chillies; minced
Eno fruit salt 1 tspns per dhokra. Eno is composed of Sodium bicarbonat and citric acid aproximately 50% each
1/4 tspn tumeric powder
1/2 cup coriander leaves
salt to test
for vaghar
1-2 table spoon oil

2 tbspn sesame seeds
1 teaspn mustard seeds
4 curry leaves
3 - 4 green chillies cut into 2 piece lengthways.
2 tblspns chopped coriander
1 tblspn desicated coconut




















1. In a big bowl, place the semolina, gram flour, garlic, ginger, chilli, tumeric and salt.
2. Add the yogurt, lime juice and warm water and mix well, leave for 1 hour
Add the oil and mix well. This should give you a fairly runny batter.
3. Take a 9 inch tin, grease and place in a steamer or a saucepan.
4. Take 1 cup of the mixture, add 1 tspn of Eno to it and mix well, pour into the greased tin. Steam for 12 minutes.
5. Repeat until all the batter is used up. (I made 4)
6. Cut the dokra into diamond shapes, and place into a large dish.
7. Temper with the sesame seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves and chillies.  Heat the oil, add all the seeds, curry leaves and chillies, let them cook until seeds are brown and pour over the dhokra.
8. Garnish with the coriander leaves and coconut.
9. Serve with a tomato or cocoonut/coriander chutney.

Mixed Pickle (marcha, gajar, tindora keri) / (Chillies, Carrots, Tindora and green Mango)

Recently I had dinner at Rani's in Finchley, the best Gujarati restaurant, they had pickled tindora with mustard, so I thought I would try it. It is based on my Chilli Pickle posted earlier.

Ingredients
4 oz chillis
4 oz tindora
2 carrots
2 green mangoes
1 tablespn salt
1 tablespn hulled and roughly ground mustard
1/2 tspn tumeric
2 tbspn oil
4 tbspn lemon juice

Method
1. Wash and dry the vegetables
2. Cut the vegetables into long slices (see pic)
3. Mix with salt and leave overnight
4. Arrange the vegs on a clean tea towel, let then air dry overnight.
5. Place the vegetables in a large bowl, take a small jar add the oil, lemon juice, mustard seeds and tumeric to it.
6. Close the lid and mix, pour onto the vegetables, mix.
7. Put the pickle into clean jars, close the lid.

The pickle is ready to serve!

Chicken Korma

Ingredients
1 chicken cut into small pieces (12-16)
500 gm pk of yogurt
3 cloves garlic; minced
2 inches ginger; grated
3 green chillies; minced
2 tblspn oil
1 tspn cumin seeds
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves
3 pods cardamom
4 large onions; minced
2 tomatoes; minced
8 small potatoes (optional)
2 tblspns ground almonds
1/2 spn tumeric
2 tspn coriander and cumin powder
1/2 tspn garam masala
1 tbspn chopped coriander for garnish
salt to taste
Method
1. Marinate the chicken in 3 tbpsn of yogurt with the garlic, ginger and chillies
2. Heat the oil in a pan, add the cumin seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, let them fry for a minute or so and add the onions.
3. Cook the onion (stirring often) till they are brown, add the tomatoes, cook for a few minutes and add the tumeric, cumin and coriander powders.
4. Add the chicken and potatoes, stir, lower the heat and let it cook.
5. Add the ground almonds, salt and rest of the yogurt slowly a bit at time stir carefully as not to break the chicken pieces as they get cooked.
6. Add the garam masala
7. garnish with chopped coriander

Gundh / Goondh Pak

This is a Khoja version of Gundh Pak, it is a very nutritious. It is often especially made for nursing mothers, in which case it is made with dried ginger, dill seeds and Kantlo spices as well. This recipe is Firoz's recipe


1 lb ghee
4 oz gundh
1 lb whole meal flour (Chapati flour)
1 lb gur / jaggary
1 small tin (200ml)  evaporated milk
8oz milk powder
8 oz sliced almonds
1 tspn cardomom
1/2 tspn freshly grated nutmeg
4 oz descicated coconut




for decoration
1 tablespn sliced pistachious
1 tablspn sliced almonds

Method
1, Heat the ghee and fry the gundh pieces until the pop, remove and set aside.
2. Fry the flour in the same ghee, until its browns and has a sweet aroma, add the gur or jaggary, stir until it melts.
3. Remove from heat and add the milk powder and the evoporated milk, coconut, almonds, nutmeg and cardomom.
4. Stir well and add the fried gundh
5. Place the mixture on a greased baking tray, flatten and smooth the surface.
6. Decorate with the sliced nuts.
7. Cut the pak into squares, and remove gently. Place in an airtight container to store.