It has become a ritual in my family to have Whole chicken roast / bake for Christmas Lunch. Last year I had prepared the Indianised version of the same and it was a Murg Mussallam. Today, I have experimented with various herbs and ultimately resulted in this exotic herbed chicken roast. We loved the aroma the the dish once it comes out of the oven, and its 'melt in the mouth' texture is just awesome. Try it now and let me know your feedback!!
Ingredients
Whole Chicken - 1,
Fresh Red Chilli - 3-4 or as per taste
Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp
Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp
Dried Lemongrass - 4 inch
Grated jest of a lemon
Coriander leaves - a handful
Sweet Chilli Sauce - 1 tbsp
Green chilli sauce - 1 tsp
Turmeric - 1tsp
Salt and black pepper
Juice of a lemon
Combine the chilli, ginger, lemongrass, grated lemon zest, garlic and coriander leaves and whisk in your blender to make a rough paste. Smear the paste thoroughly over the chicken with salt and pepper. Put emphasis on the cavity.
If you have the chicken liver, put the spice paste onto the liver too and put it inside the cavity. Keep refrigerated overnight.
Next day, bring the chicken into room temperature first. Preheat the oven to 200 degree C, In your baking tray spread a big piece of aluminium foil. Then place the whole chicken over it.
Mix both the chilli sauces with 1 tbsp of white oil. Then brush this mixture liberally onto the chicken.
Cover the chicken with the foil completely in the form of a parcel.
Place the baking dish inside the oven and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. Untie the parcel and check the doneness of the chicken by passing a knife though the chicken. You will be able to see plenty of juices inside the parcel.
Remove the chicken from the foil alongwith the juice. You may thicken the juice as a sauce, I didn't, since we like the juice instead of sauce. Sqeeze the lemon juice over. Serve immediately with some Mushroom Pulao and chinese vegetable.
This is the outcome of Today's baking session and it is a nice, mildly sweet tutti fruitti bun. I have adapted this recipe from Urmi's blog, Ume's Kitchen. This Mother of cutest daughter in the world bakes wonderful cakes and takes orders too. So, next time you want your Birthday cake specially designed or want to gift a customized cake to your loved ones, you know where to look into. Posting this for the ongoing 'Know Your Bloggers' event organised by Kolkata Food Bloggers .
Ingredients:
Plain flour-2cups
Dry Yeast-1 tsp.
Tutti fruity-1/4 cup
Powdered sugar-1/2 cup
Salt-1 tsp.
Warm water-200 ml.
White oil -2 tbsp.
In a bowl take luke warm water, put dry yeast with a spoonful of sugar and keep covered in a warm place. I kept it inside the microwave with the light on. The mixture should become frothy within 15 minutes. If it is not, discard the liquid and start afresh. In another bowl mix flour, tutti-fruity, sugar and salt together.
Add yeast mixture water into the flour mixture and make a soft dough. Use white oil to glisten your palm.
Cover with a film and keep inside microwave for 45 minutes. The dough will double up. Divide the dough into 9 small equal balls and cover these with cling film. Keep it in warm place for 10 more minutes.
Preheat the oven at 190 degree C. Place these small balls on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.
Saw the image of this yummy profiteroles in one of the site and immediately decided to try my hands onto it. Yes, Yes, I know, I am a horrible baker, I have never tasted a profiterole in real life and not sure about how it should taste and blah blah blah,, still I was so much love with the photograph that I was dying to try them in my kitchen. So here they are, these tiny little goodies filled with whipped cream and a dash of chocolate sauce on top, yes, I was on the top of the world!! I need to work on the look a bit, and I think use of unsalted butter along with a pinch of salt would have yielded an improved taste, but nevertheless, I am very happy with the outcome, I must say!!
Ingredients
Refined flour - 1 cup
Eggs - 4
Powdered sugar - as required
Fresh cream - a cup
Chocolate Sauce - as required
Butter - 100 gm
For the Choux pastry: Take 1 cup of water in a pan, add butter to it and bring it to boil.
It should be an emulsion form. then add flour to it, remove the pan from heat and stir continuously to form a dough. Allow it to cool.
Whip the eggs in a bowl. Add one egg at a time and mix well to form a smooth batter (I have used 3 and 1/2 eggs to get the right consistency). The consistency of batter should be a just dropping one not either runny or thick.
Take a baking tray and spread a parchment paper and grease it. Now take an icecream scoop and a spoon. Take half scoop of batter and with the help of the spoon shape it a little and drop on the greased parchment.
Give it a egg wash and shape it a little round. Remaining 1/2 egg is used for this purpose. Preheat the oven at 200 degree C. Bake your pastry for 15minutes. You can see it risen quickly and looking like normal buns. Then reduce the temperature to 180C and bake it until golden brown.
Take out the baking tray from oven and make a small hole with back of a spoon to allow the hot air out. Now keep back the tray inside the oven and allow it to come to room temperature. Make sure that your oven is in switched off mode.
Whip a cup of cream till it forms soft peak. I have added a spoonful of sugar too.
Take the whipped cream in a piping bag and fill the choux pastry through the hole made. Put the pastry in a paper cup, squeeze some chocolate sauce and enjoy!!!!
A basic sponge cake which I was trying for quite sometime but could not achieve it to perfection. Finally got this exact recipe which gives you this silky smooth sponge cake. Enjoy this with your morning or evening cuppa or decorate with a rich chocolate ganache to celebrate joy of life. Sometimes achieving the basics is so hard!!!
Ingredients
Flour - 1 and 3/4 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Eggs - 3 at room temperature
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Butter - 75 gms
Vegetable oil - 50 ml
Vanilla Essence - 1 and 1/2 tsp
Milk - 1/2 cup
Sift the flour and baking powder in a bowl.
Cream butter and sugar using a hand blender. I always grind the sugar beforehand. Add oil and eggs one by one and continue mixing till smooth and fluffy.
Put away the blender and add flour gradually folding it into the batter until just combined. Add the milk bit by bit to loosen the consistency. It should be of ribbon-like consistency - not too tight and thick neither very liquidy. Add the vanilla extract and incorporate.
Preheat oven to 180ยบ Celsius and line a round cake tin with baking parchment. Butter the base and sides thoroughly.
Pour the batter inside the pan and bake for 25-28 minutes till a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to rest on wire rack for 10-15 minutes before unmoulding it.
I had a wonderful experience last weekend when we, the Kolkata Food Bloggers' have arranged for a first of it's kind Bake Sale event. There I met a bunch of talents and got the chance to taste their creations, and needless to say, they were super delicious. All the goodies are super soft, fresh from the oven and made with so much love that I am simply bowled out and started feeling guilty for not trying hard to improve upon my baking skill. So here is the result of that guilt feeling, my first ever Apple Walnut Cake, and it was like Hoo Hoo.... Though I am not completely happy with the texture, ( it should be a bit less crumbly, a tiny little bit) but it tastes heavenly. Thank you my friends from Kolkata Food Blogger group to give me the courage and assurance that this can be recreated in my humble kitchen.
Ingredients
Flour - 1 and 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2
Baking powder - 3/4 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Nutmeg powder - 1/2 tsp
White Sugar - 1/2 Cup
Brown Sugar - 1/4 Cup
White Oil - 3/4 Cup
Vanilla Essence - 1/2 tsp
Peeled and Chopped Apples - 2
Toasted and Chopped Walnut - 1/2 Cup
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree C. Prepare a loaf pan smearing oil and placing butter paper. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs and keep aside. Dry roast the walnuts and chop when cooled.
Combine the flour, nugmeg powder, two types of sugar, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.
Add oil, eggs and vanilla essence and stir gently until combined.
Fold in the apples and walnut.
Scrap the batter into the loaf pan and bake until a fork inserted at the centre comes out clean. I have done it for 50 minutes.
Ingredients
