Dinner on Kitchen3N

Samosa Cake

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is the story of how a typo turned into an entree. In Whatsapp group of fellow moms, coordinating the dishes of a potluck, someone offered up a Samoa cake. Misreading that for "Samosa Cake" many of the moms jumped at the prospect: "Samosa cake?! What's a Samosa Cake?! I want to try it!!". After clarifying the mix up, some ideas were thrown around as to what a samosa cake would look like. I immediately thought of layers of phyllo dough stacked with a samosa meat mixture, baked and cut in slices. When I looked up for recipes that would meet these requirements, I pulled together elements from a Borek recipe (Turkish layered meat pastry), an Egyptian meat pie, and the filling from a Yemeni Samboosa. There are cubanelle or italian frying peppers here for flavor, often seen in Turkish recipes. There's tomato paste from the samboosa recipe, an ingredient that is necessary for any red meat dish, in my humble opinion. And the whole layering and baking technique pulls from Egyptian meat pie recipe.

Turkey Korma

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I woke up the morning after Thanksgiving like I imagine a runner feels the morning after a race: like I got hit by a truck. A whole week of groceries, prep, planning culminating in an evening with loved ones and good food. It was EXHAUSTING and I was happy to do it. But even after the last doggy bag was packed, we had quite a bit of turkey left over. It's been our breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then last night, I recalled my friend Biny of #binyskitchen saying how she'd use her leftovers for turkey pot pies. Now, pot pies don't fly here, but South Asian flavors do. I thought I'd cook some of the leftover turkey in a cream sauce with spices and frozen peas (to make it the slightest bit healthy) and the gang inhaled it! So here's how I created it. Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients. If you ever want to make South Asian food at home, you need these in stock. Fine to use a "garam masala" mix if you don't have the last 5 spices. I wouldn't use a curry powder to sub the first few spices, as that has turmeric and chili powder and would change the flavor of the korma. What is korma? Any meat/seafood/veggie dish cooked in a cream or yogurt or nut paste sauce. Simmered with warm spices (not the spicy spices) and slightly sweet. Chicken korma was my favorite dish growing up, but only reserved for special occasions, like Eid or birthdays. Hope you enjoy this recipe!

Ingredients

1/2 onion, diced
1 tbsp ghee or butter
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garlic/ginger paste*
1 cup turkey/chicken broth or water
2-3 cups cubed turkey breast
1 cup frozen peas
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp clove
1/8 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup half & half

Directions

In a large saute pan, heat ghee or butter over medium high heat and add onions. Cook until onions are translucent and lightly browned around the edges. Add the cumin, coriander and garlic/ginger paste. Stir, then slowly add the broth or water. Scrape all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan and allow mixture to simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Add the turkey, peas and remaining spices. Stir to combine then add the milk and half and half. Let simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and serve with rice or quinoa.

*You can sub garlic/ginger paste with 1 clove of garlic AND a small (maybe 1/2inch) piece of ginger minced or pressed through a zester.

Tandoori Chicken

Sat, 14 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My mother, who is a great cook, simply gets green with envy at my oven utilization. She boasts to her friends how I simply toss a few ingredients together and put them all into the oven and set a timer on. No babysitting, freeing up your hands and mind to take care of the dishes, clean up a wee wee accident (what? that’s not a constant in your day to day?) or whatever else you might need to do. People in Bangladesh just don’t have ovens (or they didn’t at least when she was growing up), so the only method of food prep she’s ever known was stovetop. Luckily, I grew up in new york. I’ve used my oven to satisfy my sweet (and savory) tooth since I was a kid. So, given the craziness of everyday life here, it’s good to have a few of these marinades up your sleeves that you can prepare the morning of or night before, and toss in the oven half an hour before dinner time. I made these homefries to go along with the chicken. The bag said they’re a good source of potassium. Yay for good carbs! Salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and olive oil. 425 for 25 min. Wow! The spice mix is a little tricky to put together but I highly recommend it! There is a small amount of nutmeg (compared to everything else in it) but the flavor really comes through! The flavor is more vibrant than any Shan mix you may buy (and minus the preservatives). Just spend a little bit of time one afternoon or evening to prepare the mix and you’ll have access to delicious tandoori chicken any time! I’ve actually had it sitting in my cupboard for a while (over a year) because I wasn’t crazy about the recipe that went with the mix, but I tried my hand at creating my own recipe more recently and I was blown away! I integrated a few tricks I picked up from Smitten Kitchen, namely her recipe for Buttermilk Roast Chicken. One: that 1 tbsp of salt in the marinade achieves the same effect of brining your chicken. Two: a little bit of sugar goes a long way when roasting chicken. I never was a fan of sweet/savory flavor combinations, but the amount of sugar in this recipe doesn’t make the chicken sweet, rather helps keep all the flavors balanced. Another thing that’s helped my cooking recently is raw ginger. I’ve always had an aversion to it. The times I would bite down on a piece while eating haleem. The sharp, unpleasant flavor it adds to drinks. So I kind of carried that into my cooking, only using small pinches of the milder version, ginger powder. But when I started using the real deal, something amazing happened: the foods I cooked reached new heights. Like, can-compete-with-my-mom heights. I used to attribute the difference in our foods to the type of salt we use (she uses table salt, I use kosher or sea salt), thinking perhaps what she uses (or the volume of it) amplifies the flavor in a way that kosher salt doesn’t. But now I really believe ginger to hold the key. It adds a depth, a warmth, that is hard to achieve with black pepper or chili powder. All in all, ginger, nutmeg, tender fall-off-the-bone meat all knocks this recipe out of the park.

Pastitsio

Wed, 16 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve already written about Pastitsio. But since it didn’t exactly get its close up last time, I figured it was time for a redo. Pastitsio, btw, is a baked pasta dish, layered with meat sauce, bechamel and parmesan (or kasseri). Even though there are a few steps (and several pots and pans) required to make this dish, the flavor is out of this world. It all started when I bought some ground lamb on impulse. Tired of chicken or beef or beef or chicken, I reached for the lamb. Then days passed as I’d open the freezer door, stare at it to figure out what I could do with it (meatballs, kebabs), then close the door again. Then I decided, it was time to remake this lovely casserole. I had to buy some ground beef anyway, as the combination of the two types of meat helps mellow the strong flavor of the lamb. The cinnamon and lamb is such an unlikely combination, but it just works. Along with the thyme, garlic and oregano, the aromatics perfume the whole house. This time though

Haleem

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Warning: this post isn’t about finding the mother of all haleem recipes. I’m not even gonna say it will give your grandma’s a run for her money (though it’s darn good). No, this post is about accessibility. Haleem is not an enigma. Sure, there’s barley, wheat, lentils, even dried papaya. But you don’t have to go out of your way looking for ingredients you don’t usually stock your pantry with. Nor do you have to run to Jamaica or Jackson Heights, or wherever you go for your fix. Instead, you pick up a box of Shan’s Easy Cook Haleem mix and get ready to wow the salwars off your friends and family.

Mashed Eggplant (Begun Bhorta)

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I feel like most people, when asked what their favorite vegetable is, would say corn or butternut squash or potatoes (though I bet they actually like the salt and fat that comes with the potatoes). Or perhaps mushrooms. But not me. I. Love. Eggplant. Stewed with tomatoes (imam biyaldi). Simply fried with salt and turmeric (chaak bhaji). In a curry with the insanely boney hilsa fish. In the Sicilian sweet/savory relish known as caponata. In every way except babaghanoush (sorry, haters gon hate). Or this way: charred over an open flame, peeled then mashed with simmering onions, tomatoes, garlic and spices.

Bengali Chicken Curry

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There is no coconut milk in your chicken curry if you are Bengali. There is no curry paste or any other amalgamation of ingredients someone else deems necessary for your comfort-in-a-bowl chicken curry. There is only your mother, your childhood, the pieces of white meat that no one ever wanted, the potatoes that you cared for only on some days, the jhol (broth) that was literally chicken soup for your soul (but only the first day, after that it just got too cardamom-y), and the leftover bones that you LOVED to chew on as you churned out every last drop of flavor but NEVER admitted to doing outside of bengali circles.

Your Mama's Goat Curry (almost)

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted this blog to be part-South Asian cooking primer, part musings on Mediterranean/American/Italian cuisine and part dessert food-porn. I haven’t had much opportunity to cook South Asian food post baby no.2, mainly because I’ve been blessed with my mom’s good old home cooking most of the time.

But since it was Eid ul Fitr and my mom ran off to the homeland for a month, I got a chance to whip up some of the good stuff. The stuff that when I asked my husband to give a taste, rolled his eyes back and said “THIS is what makes the world go round”. Now, I won’t take all the credit. It’s a pretty standard curry recipe: onions, garlic, spices - with the exception of tomato paste. That’s a nifty little trick I learned from my mother in law. Intense tomato flavor and meat tenderizer in one. But it’s the meat that makes all the difference. Goat meat, very popular in the subcontinent, not so much in the states - is so flavorful, so tender. Though not as overpowering as lamb can be. I usually get ~3lbs from the shoulder/ribs/foreshank area.