Lemon Garlic Chicken

This is a delicious and quick recipe, which is perfect for a busy weekday or weeknight meal. It requires a few ingredients and takes just about 20 minutes to make including the cooking time. The lemon and garlic are the main flavoring ingredients and they enhance the dish. A light meal which can be paired with a side salad or steamed vegetables, to make a complete meal. Our family (the meat eater wing) love this recipe and it has become a favorite.

This is one meal where I don't have to ask the kids to finish their food. It gets eaten really quickly. So without further ado, here is how you make it.

Also here is the link to the youtube video with detailed instructions. These will help those cooks who  who may be new to cooking chicken and have questions about handling chicken and determining when is it cooked completely (without making it rubbery), like I did several years ago.

Ingredients
For the chicken
1 pound of chicken (2 chicken breasts)
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil

For the sauce
1 heaped tsp all purpose flour
2 large garlic cloves (about 1 tsp grated garlic)
1.5 cups broth (chicken or vegetable) - can also use water if you don't have broth
1.5 tsp butter
2 tsp lemon juice/ half of a large lemon
lemon zest

Method
If frozen, thaw the chicken breasts. Then slice the chicken into two pieces, horizontally along the surface of the chicken. You will have 4 thinner slices of chicken after this. Pound the thicker part of the chicken if needed, so that the chicken breast is uniform in thickness and cooks uniformly.

In a plate, mix the all purpose flour, black pepper powder and salt so that the flour is evenly seasoned. Heat the oil in a skillet and once it is hot, dredge each piece of the chicken in the seasoned flour and place in the hot skillet. Discard the remaining all purpose flour mixture.

Cook the chicken on each side for 2-4 mins till the chicken is browned. To check if the chicken is cooked, use an instant meat thermometer and insert it into the thickest part of the chicken breast. If the temperature is greater than 165F (74 C), the chicken is cooked. Remove it onto a plate and prepare the sauce.

Add 1 tsp of all purpose flour to the hot skillet, and half of the butter and roast it for a minute. Scrape any of the browned chicken bits. Next, add the garlic and cook it for a min. Then add the broth to mix, and mix well. Then add the lemon juice and lemon zest. Let the sauce cook and thicken and then finish the sauce with the rest of the butter which will give it a nice sheen. Add the cooked chicken breasts back to the pan and let them heat through. Garnish with lemon slices and serve hot.

Tips
Thaw the chicken in the fridge. Do not keep it out on the counter to thaw. Best way is to thaw it overnight. You can skip the butter if you want this to be a lighter meal. I have used very little oil and butter and you can also choose to increase the quantities to make it a richer sauce.  Using a thermometer ensures that the chicken is well cooked and also prevents over cooking of the chicken breast. This is an easy way to ensure that the chicken breast does not become chewy or rubbery.
If you line the cutting surface with parchment paper, it makes cleanup quick and easy. Make sure to wash your hands and clean any surface which has been in contact with raw chicken to prevent cross contamination.

Fennel Pasta

I formatted my laptop recently and along with that deleted all the photos that had been stored on the machine over the past few years. These included ALL the photos that we had taken over the last few years. I panicked and called up my husband to report the terrible news to him.  That was when he gave me the good news that he had backed up the photos two days before and we hadn't lost all our photos. Whoosh! That was a terrible 10 minutes, while I tried to figure out how to retrieve the photos or what I could do. I am so glad that he had backed up the photos by chance and it is definitely a lesson in backing up data more frequently.
Well, so I still haven't gotten to moving the photos back to the laptop, but I did take pictures of some dishes I made recently, so I have something to tide me over for a while. This is a fabulous dish. It has a wonderful aroma and a very mild and pleasant taste.

I hadn't cooked with fennel before, well not the plant itself, just the seeds  I had a great time exploring this new vegetable. The fragrance took me back to the old days when we used to plant fennel in our backyard and wait for the plant to bear the tender seeds. Those seeds used to taste so sweet and delicious, we used to enjoy it. However, we never thought of using the actual plant to cook any dish. This was a pasta dish that was introduced to me by my sister-in-law made when I visited them this summer. It is a perfect pasta dish for summer! I absolutely loved it and she graciously shared her recipe with me. So here it is.

Ingredients
1 fennel bulb and its leaves (discard the stalks. See details in method below)
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon, zest and juice (optional)
1/2 packet of linguini pasta (about 16 ounces)
water to cook the pasta
salt
pepper
parmesan cheese

Method
In a pan deep enough to hold the linguini, take enough water to submerge the pasta. Add salt to the water, sufficient enough to make the water salty and then cook the pasta per directions on the package.

Cut the leaves off the stalks of the fennel and chop them finely. Do not use any stalks. Next, cut the large stalks off the fennel bulb and discard them. Then, divide the bulb into two and then remove the core of the bulb. Then slice the bulb into thin slices.

In a large pan (sufficient to hold the pasta), heat the oil and then add the fennel slices to the oil. Cook the fennel for about 10 -15 minutes till the fennel slices are cooked through and become soft. Cook on medium heat, so that they don't burn. The fennel slices are tough and will take some time to get cooked through. Next add the garlic and the fennel seeds to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes, till the garlic is cooked through. Then season a little with salt and pepper. Then add the cooked pasta to the pan and mix it all together. Next, add the chopped fennel to the pasta and lemon zest. Mix well. Add a little lemon juice and mix well. Cook for a minute or two till all the ingredients are well blended. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over it and serve hot.

Tips
You can cook the pasta till it is al dente if you wish or cook it for a few more minutes till it is softer. I prefer the pasta being at a softer texture. Al dente is when the pasta is cooked through, but it still has a bite to it. The fennel core is pretty obvious and can be seen as a triangle at the base of the bulb when you cut the base into two parts vertically. If you are confused, it will be the tougher, central part of the bulb which is difficult to cut through.
When you zest a lemon, remember to stop grating the lemon rind when you reach the white part of the lemon skin called the pith. This is the bitter part. The zest is just the yellow part of the rind.

Bisibele Bhath - A Rice Delicacy from Karnataka with a twist

Bisibele bhath is a speciality from Karnataka. It is a rice and dal preparation which is akin to "khichadi" another dal and rice preparation. My mom used to make this recipe when I was a child and I remember not really liking it because it had so many vegetables. She used to serve it with a lot of ghee (clarified butter) though, which used to make it finger licking delicious. Now that I am older and wiser, I understand the beauty of this dish. First, it is a one pot meal. Second, it has all the nutritional components, it has proteins from the lentils/dal, carbohydrates from rice and you can add many vegetables to it which take care of the vitamins and fiber aspect. And best of all, it is all cooked together with yummy spices in one single pressure cooker. It is a perfect dish for that very busy weekday and you can have the satisfaction of serving something healthy and good.

I make it in the fastest way possible and that is what this recipe is about. I use store bought spices. MTR brand's Bisibele Bhath masala is easily available in the Indian store and I generally have a packet of this at home. Next, I cut vegetables that I have on hand if I have time, or I open a pack of frozen mixed vegetables ( generally contains green beans, carrots, peas and corn) and use that. That makes it easy to cook and absolutely delicious too. The twist in this recipe is that I experimented with a new grain instead of rice this time. I replaced the rice entirely with quinoa and make the dish using the exact same method and I must say the result was amazing. If it had been a blind tasting, I couldn't have differentiated between the one made with rice and one made with quinoa. I am thrilled that I have been able to make this dish even healthier. The recipe and method stay exactly the same irrespective of whether you use rice or quinoa. So here goes.

Ingredients
1 tbsp ghee or oil
1/8 tsp mustard seeds
1/8 tsp cumin seeds
a pinch of asafoetida/hing
7-8 curry leaves
1-2 green or red chillies, to taste
1 onion, diced into small pieces
1 tomato, diced into small pieces
2 cups of frozen vegetables mix (washed) or you can cut fresh vegetables like potato, carrots, green bell pepper, green beans etc. into bite sized pieces
1 cup tur dal/pigeon peas
1 cup rice or quinoa
4-5  tsp bisibele bhath masala
1 tsp tamarind pulp (you can use store bought pulp or make fresh paste)
salt to taste
6 cups water

Method
Mix the dal and rice/quinoa and rinse the mixture 2-3 times with water and set aside.
In a pressure cooker, heat the oil and add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once they start to crackle, add the hing and curry leaves and chillies. Next add the onions and let them cook. Once they start to turn a little brown, add the tomatoes and let this cook till the tomatoes are cooked through. Then add the diced vegetables mix and stir. Let the vegetables fry for a minute and then add the dal and rice/quinoa mixture and mix all the ingredients well. Then add the bisibele bhath masala to this and again mix well so that all the vegetables and grains are coated with the masala. Then add the water, the tamarind paste and salt. Stir once and then close the lid on the pressure cooker and cook it based on how much time it takes to cook tur dal in your cooker. It takes about 3-4 whistles in my cooker. Serve this hot with ghee/clarified butter, accompanied with some raita and chips or papad.

Tips
Bisibele bhath when hot is runny and very soft. It thickens as it cools down.
Quinoa is rather small, so when you rinse it, it is difficult to drain the water using your fingers or a colander. So I use a tea strainer to catch the quinoa and drain the water.
To make tamarind paste from tamarind, soak a lime sized ball of tamarind in a little warm water (just enough to cover it). You can even microwave it for 20-30 seconds. Then squeeze out the pulp and use the tamarind. Cut the green chillies lengthwise, so they will be easy to spot and you can remove it later. I generally taste a little bit of the water to determine if I need to add more salt or spices when I make such rice dishes.