Our Haven: November 2016

Admit it. We've all hidden our favourite food from family at least once... 😛

Hey guys! This delicious, mouthwatering and oh-so-amazingly satisfying food was first introduced to me by the lady who came to look after me & Ehsaan after my second delivery. I had delivered a week or so before Ramadan. So I got to try out quite a lot of wonderful snacks prepared by her for breaking fast for my husband and my mom (who had come along from Saudi to help me). This is like a mix of chicken samoosa, chicken puffs and eggs without all the excess oil of puffs.
It's soooo good I've made it quite a lot of times after that...

I make the filling with chicken. I dont like biting into onions so i cut them as small as possible before using it in the making the filling. No curry leaves either (again I don't like biting into them)
If you have chicken, big onion, maida, at least 3-4 eggs you're good to go...

This is how I made it:

Ingredients:

Chicken cleaned and cooked in pressure cooker with salt and pepper and then shredded once its cooled down.
2 to 3 big onions finely chopped
Half an inch chopped, crushed ginger
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped and crushed
Pepper powder to taste
Turmeic powder 1/4 tsp
Garam masala 1/4 tsp
1 cup Maida
4-5 eggs
Water
Oil
Salt to taste

I make the chicken filling the same as I would make for samoosas.

Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a sauce pan, add the chopped onions, crushed ginger & garlic
Let that cook for a minute or 2 until you see them going brown. Do be careful not to keep the flame too high which would burn them easily.
Add pepper powder, salt, garam masala and turmeric powder. Mix well
Now add the shredded chicken. Mix well. Check salt and spice. Add salt or pepper if needed
Cook for some 2-3 minutes on low flame and then keep aside.

Now there are two ways you can make the pathiri's/appam's one is the dough method and the other the batter method. I have only ever tried the batter one and as its so easy and tastes great I'm sticking to it.

Mix the maida, water, an egg and salt into a medium consistency batter... not too thick nor to runny.
now use a medium sized pan to make 8-10 appams. Cook on both sides
This is going to be thin and soft.
Keep aside...

Note: One thing you must keep in mind is the pan u are finally going to put all this in should not be bigger or smaller than the size of the appam.

Now what I did was I cooked this on my stove in my normal deep bottom sauce pan which I use to make curry. I first greased the pan with oil. Took my first appam and dipped it in a bowl with beaten egg+ salt. The appam should be fully coated with egg. This becomes the bottom-most layer. My appams were just the right size for the pan. On top of the appam I added the chicken mix. And then appam and so on till I used up all the appams. The left over chicken mix i stored in freezer to be used later. Whatever beaten egg was left over I poured over the top which seals up gaps between layers.
Then I covered it up with its lid and let it cook for 5 minutes on high flame and then 10 minutes on low flame. Turned it over and cooked the other side too. You have to take cake not to burn this and also while turning in over...

And there you have it, its done!! The above pics are of 2 different times I made them. In the last 2 pics I sprinkled some dried mint leaves powder on top...

Do try this! You'll love it I'm sure :)

This is one quick snack to make at tea time. If you are a lover of Indian street food then I'm sure you already know and love this!

According to wiki, "Puffed rice is formed by the reaction of both starch and moisture when heated within the shell of the grain. Unlike popcorn, rice kernels are naturally lacking in moisture and must first be conditioned with steam. Puffed rice can be created by heating the stem-conditioned kernels either with oil or in an oven"

I, ofcourse, did not try making it, but used a store bought one to make my masala puffed rice.

Roasted it in a pan with 1 tbsp oil, a little chilli powder, salt and chaat masala. (If you want the yellow colour to it, add turmeric. Also adding curry leaves while roasting gives it a good flavour).