Oven Roasted King Fish Steak

Both me and my husband love Fish compared to chicken or other nonveg items. But the grocery store we visit do not have much variety in fish, so we always end up buying tilapia fillets, not that its not great or anything, but we get bored of it sometimes.The past few weeks I found some king fish steaks which were very tempting, but the size of it made me think, morever I have not tasted king fish before..it looked more like 'vanchiram' in our place.But this week I decided to give it a try and brought back a nice beautiful piece of king fish steak.
Since the piece was very thick, I decided to roast it in the oven, as I do the chicken sometimes.
It turned out good and we both enjoyed it.
So here's how I did it.

Ingredients:
1 King fish steak (large)
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp sombhu/fennel seeds powder( optional)
1tsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
salt to taste

Method:
Mix all the ingredients and make a paste.
smear oer the fish on all sides, and allow it to marinate in the refrigerator for minimum 30 mins
Preheat the oven to 425F, place the fish in a tray covered with foil
bake for 10 mins on each side and then broil for 3 mins on each side.

Enjoy.

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Vegetable Lasagna

Vegetable Lasagna

I love Italian food, especialy pasta of any kind.I used to think Lasagna as this one great Italian dish which is very complicated to make.One day I came across a program by Giade De Laurentiies in the FoodNetwork about Individual vegetable Lasagna which made me completely change my opinion about this particular receipe.I like her way of presentation, she usually narrates the process slowly and in such a way that you feel like trying it immediately , if you have all the ingredients with you.That weekend I got some lasagna pasta and all other Ingredients needed.However I tailored the receipe to suit my convenience..hey thats how new receipes are born right.
There are a few things that I changed from the original receipe
Firstly The Original receipe calls for home made sauce, but I didnt have the patience to make the whole pasta sauce my self, So I took the store's help and bought some Prego pasta sauce.
Secondly I changed white beans to our favorite Rajma/kidney beans.
And the main change is I made the Lasgna in a whole casserole, rather than individual ..Other than that the procedure is the same.

Since this dish contains more vegetables , spinach, and beans its very wholsome and filling meal in itself. I have decided to send in this post for SweetNicks ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday event

Here is the receipe.Hope you enjoy this ...

Ingredients

1/2 bottle of Prego Pasta sauce
8 strips Lasagna Pasta
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup sliced Onions
1 cup chopped and cooked spinach
1 cup rajma soaked for 6 hrs and cooked /1 can kidney beans
1 cup shredded mozarrella cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Method: Preheat the Oven to 375F

• Stir fry chopped onions, carrots and zucchini and keep aside
• Stir fri one cup spinach unil cooked and keep aside
• Cook Rajma in a pressure cooker and keep aside
• Cook the pasta in a deep vessel as per the cooking instructions on the packet
• Now Take a casserole dish and spread 3 tsp of pasta sauce at the bottom.
• Place the Lasagna pasta in single layer.If the pasta is too lengthy for your casserole dish, you can cut according to the size of your dish.
• Over this layer spread the stir fried vegetables.spread 3tsp of saue over the spread.

• Now again place a layer of pasta sheets.
• Over this layer spread the spinach and rajma beans.Spread 3 tsp of the sauce over this.



• Now place the final layer of pasta over the rajma and spinach spread.

Spread the sauce liberally over the pasta at this stage








Sprinkle the cheeses well over the Sauce.
Place the Casserole in the Oven and bake for 20 mins or until the cheeses melt and turns a little bit golden.
Cut and serve.

A Food Bloggers Meme around the world

A Food Bloggers Meme around the World

Ashwini of FoodforThought has tagged me for a Meme.Since this concept was very new to me, I had to look up what a 'Meme' is and had to trace back to priya's blog to understand the whole concept of it.Now Iam so excited that I got up around 4.ooam to do my Meme.
hmmm..Its Fun Isnt it...

1.Please list three receipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try

Pushpa's Prune muffins
L2C's Bottlegourd curry with milk
Indira's Mango Halwa

2. A Food Blog in your vicinity.
If I have had the oppurtunity of doing this Meme a couple of days back the answer to this question would be Aswini of foodforthought, but then the answer now is nobody that Iam aware of.

3. A Food Blog (or more) located far away from you.

Pushpa's Culinary studio from Bern, Switzerland
Vkn's My Dhaba from Kuwait
Sailu's India Cuisine from Andhra pradesh, India

4. A FoodBlog (or several ) you have recently found

Being a recent food blogger myself, all other blogs are recently found by me.
But anyway Iam listing down the ones I have found after creating my blog.

• Cooking Medley
• Saltnpepper
• My Rasoi
• krishnaArjuna
• Pushiva'sCulinaryStudio
• Vineela'sCooking
• SaffronHut

5. Any People or Bloggers you want to tag with this meme.

Pushiva's culinary studio - Pushpa

SpiceIsRight - GM

Indian Food Rocks - Manisha

Veggie Noodles - Chinese style

Whenever I have very short time in my hands for preparing lunch, I will always opt for Noodles. What better way to add tons of vegetables and flavour to your meals than Noodles.Ofcourse you can make fried rice , but Noodles cooks much faster than rice.You cut up your favorite vegetables by the time the noodles are done, and then stir fry everything in high heat..boom your noodles are done.
I make two types of Noodles, one using the Indian spices, and the one using Chinese sauces.I love the chinese variety as its completely different from our regular curry taste, but you have to have the right sauces to come up with the right taste.The main ingredients for good chinese noodles are soy sauce and chilli sauce.The trick lies in the chilli sauce, we need to select the hottest variety rather than the sour ones from the International aisle in the grocery store.
The chilli sauce I use is nothing but the soaked red chili flakes in oil.I dont have the name of the sauce right now, but I will try to get the name and update this post.
Now here's the receipe

Ingredients:

1 packet regular egg noodles or you can use the Noodles from your top ramen packets.
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp chilli sauce/ chilli garlic sauce (I used the sambal olek which is the malaysian chilli sauce variety, its extremly hot)
1tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1tsp chopped green chillies
2 tsp sesame oil

Vegetables
2 cups broccoli florets.
1 cups carrot strips
1 cup capsicum strips
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup Onion cut into strips
1 cup chopped spring onions.
1 cup chinese sprouts (optional)

Method:
Cook the noodles as instructed in the package, filter the water and then run it under cold water
Stir fry the Broccoli florets in a pan without oil, with just a sprinkle of salt.Keep it seperate.
Heat up the sesame oil in a wide bottomed pan /wok
Add the chopped garlic, ginger and green chillies
Now add the onions and the fry well in high heat, now add the capsicum,carrots and the sprouts(op), strir well.Now add the soy sauce and chilli sauce mix well for two minutes.
Now add the Cooked noodles and stir well to coat all the sauces.Now check the salt and spice level, you can add more salt or chilli sauce depending on your taste.
Now add the chopped spring green onions and stir fried broccoli to the noodles and stir well.

Serve piping hot!!

Note: Sometimes I save the extra chilli sauce that we get from the chinese take out and use for this noodles and fried rice. This sauce is great for this noodles.

Prawns varuval/fry

This weekend I made Prawns after a very long time.The taste of the prawns/shrimps that we get here nowhere matches the taste of those we get in India, I dont know why, may be because they are precooked, anyway..because of this we have stopped eating shrimp for quite a long time. Still once in a while when I get the cravings to eat shrimp we would get the uncooked ones from the store in small amount.
When we were kids, my mother used to make a dish called prawn thokku on sundays, which we would always prefer to eat with just white rice and rasam.The combination of rasam and this thokku is absolutely delicious.
I wanted to do the same this weekend... so made prawn thokku, sambhar and rasam for the weekend lunch.

Ingredients:
Prawns/Shrimp - 1 lb
1 mediun sized onions
1 medium sized tomato
1 tsp chilli pwd
1 tsp sombhu powder (fennel powder)
1 tblsp minced garlic
few curry leaves.

Method.
Clean and wash the shrimp.Sprinkle with turmeric pwd, mix and keep it aside
In a pan add 2 tsps of oil, when the oil is hot add garlic, onions, curry leaves and fry well.
When the onions is golden brown, add the chopped tomatoes and fry till oil seperates.
Now add the chilli powder, sombhu powder and salt. add 1/2 cup of water and close with a lid.
When the gravy is bubbling, add the shrimp and mix well till its coated well with the masala.
reduce the flame and allow it to be cooked for 5 mins or till the gravy thickens.
Switch of the stove and garnish with cilantro.