Pasta with Prawns

This is a quick and light supper. Didn't want to make anything too time-consuming so opted for this pasta with prawns combination.

How to make Pasta with Prawns

Ingredients:
1 cup macaroni or any other pasta of your choice
½ cup prawns
2 carrots, cut fine
3 spring onions, cut fine
salt to taste
oil for stir frying

Method:

• Cook the pasta in boiling water with salt and a few drops of oil and drain. Keep aside.  
•  In a non-stick vessel, add a little oil.
• Fry the prawns, take out and keep aside.
• Fry the spring onions, take out and keep aside.
• Fry the carrots.
• Put all the veggies and pastas together and toss.
• Bon Appetit!

Konkan Dudi Bafad (Bottle Gourd)

Konkon Dudi Bafad is made with coconut juice like many other Bafad Recipes like Cauliflower Bafad and Long Green Beans or Vaal Bafad.

Konkon Dudi Bafad

Ingredients:

1 small bottle gourd/konkan

Coconut juice, thick and thin, of 1/2 coconut

10 medium sized prawns 

2 onions, chopped fine

salt to taste, approx. 1 tspn.

2 tomatoes, chopped fine

2 green chillies, slit

5 flakes garlic

1 tspn cumin seeds

1 tblspn oil

 
Method:

• Cut the bottle gourd into cubes and keep it aside. 
• Fry the onion in a non-stick cooking pan.
•  Add the prawns and keep stirring.



How to make konkon dudi bafad

• Add the tomato.

Bafad recipe for bottle gourd

• Add the green chillies.
• Add the thin coconut juice and bring to a boil.
• Add the cut bottle gourd pieces.

Konkan Dudi bafad preparation

• Simmer with lid closed until cooked.
• Add the thick coconut juice, pounded garlic and cumin seeds and bring to a boil.
• Take the konkon dudi bafad off the fire and serve with chapatis or rice.

Beef Pork Chicken Stew

Stew made using chicken, beef and pork was served at the weddings some three decades back long before the buffet meals came into the picture. The pork, beef and chicken stew was served in a quarter plate with a triangular slice of bread, neatly trimmed and it was oh, so tasty. This tasty stew of three meats is not seen very often today and even if it is, might not bring back the memories of the stew of old.

Delicious Stew of Pork, Beef and Chicken

Ingredients:

¼ kg boneless pork

¼ kg boneless beef

¼ kg boneless chicken

5 carrots2 potatoes
15 round beans
1/2 cup green peas
1 capsicum
2 big onions, chopped
8 pepper corns
4 cloves
4" piece of cinnamon
1/2 glass milk
1 level tbspn corn flour
2 green chillies, slit
salt to taste
3 tspns ginger garlic paste
3 tspns salt or as per taste
6-8 tbspns of tomato ketchup
1 cup macaroni

Method:

• Cut each of the three meats into one inch pieces and apply salt and ginger garlic paste keeping them separate.
• Fry the onions in a pressure cooker, add cloves, cinnamon and pepper corns. Add a little water if required.
• Add pork and cook till done.
• Take out the pork, add beef and cook till done.
• Take out the beef, add chicken and pressurize for 5 mins. after the whistle on simmer.
• Dice the carrots, potatoes and capsicum.
• Put all the cooked meats and the above vegetables along with the green peas in a vessel with the gravy if any.
• In the milk, add the cornflour, stir and add to the mixture.
• Add another glass of water, the green chillies and tomato ketchup or as per your taste.
• If you would like some extra gravy you could add some chicken stock.
• Stir occasionally and cook with lid on until vegetables are done.
• Boil a cup of macaroni (for 6 to 8 mins in pressure cooker on simmer after whistle) and add to the above.
• Your stew is ready to be served. Bon appetit!!

Chicken, Beef and Pork stew

Canapes (Baskets / Forminhas)

Canapes or fish baskets or just plain baskets as they used to be called once upon a time are great to serve as apperitifs with a variety of fillings. Fish baskets because they would normally be filled with a fish filling. Forminhas is the Portuguese name for canapes. You can choose to deep fry them in oil or bake them. What is bad for health is always tasty so the fried ones are definitely tastier but it is ok if you indulge once in a while. Only don't do it too often or you will have to watch out for that pot belly. ;) Ha Ha!! So if you have been looking for a forminhas receita or canape recipe you have certainly come to the right place. These are often served at wedding receptions as a snack and at parties; they have become a very popular snack but most often people buy them and add their own filling. You can now make your very own canapes or forminhas.

Canapes

Ingredients:
½ kg maida

1 egg

2 spoons ghee

1 level teaspoon salt

Water

Method:

• Knead all the above ingredients well using enough water to form a dough. 
• Roll out into as thin a sheet as you can. 
• Prick with a fork. 
• Lower part of the sheet into each mould so you get sufficient depth and cut using the edge of the mould. 
• Pile in groups of 8 to 10 and deep fry turning slowly or else place each mould on a baking tray and bake.

Serve the canapes or forminhas with a suitable canape filling like Russian salad. You will also find a mayonnaise recipe on my blog.

Choon

Choon so called in the local Konkani language is basically a mixture of grated coconut and jaggery, preferably palm jaggery over sugarcane jaggery. The palm jaggery is supposed to be good for health and is better for diabetics while the sugarcane jaggery can be harnful. The palm jaggery gives the choon a nice dark brown color while the sugarcane jaggery will give more of a yellowish color. We use more of the plam jaggery and very rarely do we use the sugarcane jaggery but you will find a chikki recipe with it some time soon on my blog.

How to make choon

Ingredients:
1 coconut, grated (taking care to make sure there is no skin)
4 small pyramids of coconut jaggery

Ingredients for choon

Method:

• Pound the jaggery so that it breaks down into a mass.
• Mix with the grated coconut so that there are no individual pieces of jaggery remaining.

Use this in many preparations that you will find on my blog here like the patolleos and many more.