Sunday, May 5, 2013

Cherry Blossoms - shining like the stars!!

Just an odd pic taken during an evening walk .. Wish the blossoms were a constant fixture, the world would be beautiful!

Mongolian cuisine - Genghis Grill

One way to beat my procrastination and long absences will be to make short quick posts! So here it goes...

I have had a chance to try multiple new cuisines in the last few months - thanks to colleagues, friends and of course my best foodie friend - dear hubby. One of the new cuisine in my palate is Mongolian.

You get to pick your meat, veggies and spice and sauce - literally! They give you a bowl and a small container for sauce. You pick the ingredients based on your choice - you can take as many and as much you can fit in the bowl. Before handing it to the grill master, you get to pick the carbohydrate (white rice, brown rice, pasta, fried rice) - and la voila, they grill the stuff in your bowl, mix it with the sauce and you have a healthy meal to enjoy.

Don't worry - no matter what combination you pick, it will taste good. For the less experimental, they have recipe cards for you.

I love it! The pic below is from Genghis Grill at Sterling, VA.


Saturday, May 4, 2013

'Choona Machcha' (Tiny fish)

Something I have loved since childhood. Luckily for me, unlike my mom who had to spend a good of amount of time cleaning these tiny beauties, I get them pre-cleaned. Of course, they lack the freshness since these are frozen. Hey, at least I get them here now!

Maa makes a nice curry of these, these frozen ones don't hold up as well in curry (failed attempt! :)), so went with deep-frying this time round. Hope you like these as much as I did!

Ingredients

I pack Frozen Tiny Fish pack (bought from NJ Indian store - contained about 50 fishes - From Bangladesh)
Rice Flour - about 5 tbsp or more, depending on how crunchy and well-coated you want it
Salt -about 1 tsp, as per taste
Turmeric - 1 tbsp, to cut away the fishy smell
Red Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp, again as per taste
Cumin-Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp

Method

Completely thaw the fish to room temperature.
Add all the ingredients and mix well.
Keep aside for 15-20 mins
Deep fry in high heat. It gets cooked in no time.

Enjoy with Rice/Dal as we did! It will be a good accompaniment in the Ofiya summer soul food 'Pakhala'.