Usha's Recipes

Vegetable Fried Rice

Ingredients:

1 cup Rice

¾ cup carrots, thinly sliced

¼ cup green beans finely chopped

¼ cup capsicum, thinly sliced

¼ cup green peas (frozen)

¼ tsp white pepper powder

Salt to taste

Ajinomoto (optional)

½ tsp vinegar

2-3 green onions finely chopped

1½ tbsp oil

Procedure:

·         Wash rice and cook with 2 cups of water in a cooking vessel or rice cooker.

·         Spread the boiled rice in a platter and cool down.

·         Heat oil in a wok, add carrots, beans, capsicum, peas, salt and stir fry for 3-5 minutes on high heat.

·         Add white pepper powder, ajinomoto and combine. Add rice (completely cooled) and combine well to mix with the remaining ingredients.

·         Add vinegar and adjust salt accordingly and toss the contents well for 2 minutes and remove from heat.

·         Garnish with green onions and serve hot.

Chicken-65 

Ingredients: 

Boneless Chicken pieces – ½ kg

2 tbsp corn flour

Salt to taste

½ tsp pepper

1 egg

Oil to deep fry

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp ginger minced

1 tbsp garlic minced

4-5 green chilies finely chopped

2 stands curry leaves

1 tsp ginger garlic paste (optional)

Food color – red(optional)

Salt to taste                                                                               

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp pepper powder

1 tsp chili powder

2 tbsp water

·         Mix corn flour, salt, pepper, red color, egg and add chicken pieces to the mixture and allow to marinate for at least 20 minutes.

·         Heat oil in a kadai, gently place few pieces (depends on size of kadai) of the marinated chicken pieces and fry on medium heat until golden brown color.

·         Remove fried chicken and drain on a paper towel.

·         Fry the remaining chicken pieces in the same way.

·         Heat 1 tbsp oil in another pan, add cumin seeds, chopped ginger garlic fry for a minute

·         Add chopped chilies, curry leaves, ginger garlic paste, salt, cumin powder, pepper powder, chili powder and saute for a minute.

·         Add 2 tbsp water, food color and fried chicken pieces and mix well to coat the chicken pieces with the spices.

·         Serve hot with tomato sauce.

Chekkalu (Rice Crackers) 

Rice flour mixed with ginger and few spices to make dough and deep fried in oil is our all time favorite snack. Curry leaves give a nice flavor to this chekkalu. My mom does this chekkalu in bulk and keeps in an air tight container, which lasts for up to one month. This got few variations; I followed my mom's version.

Ingredients: 

Rice flour - 2 cups

6-7 green chilies

2" ginger piece

1 tbsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp butter

2-3 strands of curry leaves

1/2 cup chana dal

Salt to taste

Luke warm water

Procedure:

·         Soak chana dal for about 2 hours and drain water.

·         Blend ginger and chilies together to make paste.

·         Roughly tear curry leaves and mix with the flour.

·         Add salt, cumin seeds to the rice flour and mix well.

·         Add butter, dal, and chili-ginger paste and mix well without forming lumps.

·         Add small quantity of Luke-warm water (add little by little) and make dough.

·         Dough should be tight and not like chapatti dough.

·         Grease oil to the hand and make 6-8 small balls out of the dough.

·         Grease oil to a plastic sheet and flatten the balls to thin chekkalu with the fingers.

·         Heat oil in a kadai, and gently place 6-8 chekkalu depends on kadai size and fry them.

·         Turn the chekkalu, and fry the other side until medium-brown color.

·         Remove chekkalu from kadai and drain the excess oil.

·         Repeat the same for the remaining dough.

·         Let them cool for an hour. Then keep them in an air-tight container.

Note:

·         If you place chekkalu in oil, it should soon come up to the surface and float, otherwise the oil should be heated a bit more.

·         If the oil is too hot, it will change the color of chekkalu to dark brown but not cooked inside.

·         These should be fried on medium-high heat.

·         chekkalu should crack at the edges while flattening, if not the dough is too soft, Add a tbsp of rice flour and mix well.