Mushroom Pepper Chili (It's Delicious!)

 You have no idea, how much have I fallen in love with this dish! Mushrooms have become the star guest on the grocery list, ever since this was made for the first time in my kitchen. And you know you like it a lot when you have already eaten most of it from the plate and still trying to go for the last piece (even though you know the other person wants it as bad.) J

And you will know why I am raving so much about this once you make it too. If you love Indo-Chinese food, go, get the mushrooms NOW! J . I am not sure if the exact same dish is served in restaurants, but I do know chilly paneer, chili chicken are similar in some ways.  But quite frankly, this beats them all. For one, it tastes good, second – it’s super healthy. Seriously, give it a try!

I write too much, cause I love sharing the story behind every dish/ recipe. And each time I try to just move on to the recipe, I recollect what else I wanted to share. J . Ok this recipe happened purely because one of my vegetarian friends told me that he eats this mushroom recipe at some place in Bangalore and it’s called Pepper Mushroom and raved a lot about it. And the name sounded so fascinating that I just made something assuming what 'could' it be like. So never know, I could be horribly wrong in replicating that recipe, but it sure does work for me!! J

And one last bit. I usually share recipes with my friends to get their reactions/feedback before posting here. And one of my very good friends/ critics, Shaan had this to say:

“Truly a great dish...esp if u love indo-Chinese cuisine! Pls pls post this and help poor souls like us..:-) we are enjoying it with d-coke! I added all three types of peppers as well...”

You need: (should serve 3 but with me around, it’s good for 2 only!)

Button Mushrooms – 8 Oz or 250 grams

Cornflour – 3 Tbsp

Rice Flour – 1 Tbsp (for crunch)

Salt – to taste

Pepper – about a tbsp. (fresh coarse ground)

Oil – about 2 tsp (can use more if no restriction J )

Ginger – 1 tsp grated, ½ inch cut into juliennes.

Garlic paste– 1 tsp

Onion – 1 no. medium (fine chopped)

Onion – ½ medium size (with layers cut into square shape)

Long green chilies – 5-6nos. (the variety that has absolutely no heat, slit them)

Small green chilies – 1-2 nos (slit and seeds removed, adjust to taste)

Capsicum/ Bell Peppers – 1 Nos (cut into squares, can use colored peppers too)

Dark Soya Sauce – 1 Tbsp

Vinegar – 1 Tbsp

Tomato Ketchup – 1 Tbsp

Lemon Juice – 1 tsp  (optional)

Spring Onion – only green part cut into 1 inch pieces (optional)

1. Dunk the mushrooms in hot water for a minute and run under cold water and decant all water. Let the mushrooms remain a little moist so that the flour mixture sticks well to the mushroom.
2. In a bowl, mix cornflour, rice flour, a 2-3 pinches of salt, and about a 1tsp of ground pepper and mix well. 
3. Now coat all mushrooms with the flour mix. I usually coat them well once and wait for a few min and repeat the process with the remaining flour that didn’t stick the first time. This helps as the first layer soaks all the moisture and then second layer sticks even better but will be a little dry-ish adding to the crunch.. 
4. In a wide non stick pan, add about 1 tsp of oil and pan fry the mushroom on medium high and then on low flame to make it crispy. Pan should be wide enough so that mushrooms have space to fry well, else the moisture will make them soft instead. And if you are generous with oil, you don’t have to worry about all this. J
5. Transfer the mushrooms to a plate once they are brown from all sides.
6. Also fry squarish shaped layers of onion pieces and the bell peppers (typically the kinds u get in chinese gravy) in the same pan and transfer to another bowl.
7. In the pan add remaining 1 tsp of oil. 
8. Add grated ginger and garlic paste and fry well. 
9. Now add fine chopped onions and slit green chilies both big and small. Fry till onions get translucent. 
10. Now add soya sauce, tomato ketchup and vinegar. Fry till a little dry.
11. Now add mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, ginger juliennes and give a quick stir and add the remaining freshly ground pepper.
12. And if you are adding the greens of spring onions, do it now. 
13. Serve on a nice looking plate and squeeze lime if you wish to add some zing!

 *I sprinkle very little, ready ‘very little’ water after I coat the mushroom with flour mixture the first time. This helps more flour stick to mushrooms. But be careful to not make it gooey.

**You can always be generous with oil while frying mushrooms. And infact mushrooms taste very good even as simple stir fry like this.

***If you are not sure about the tang bit, try squeezing lime juice on a small portion only. Only then on the rest if you like.

****The black pepper quantity can be adjusted to suit your liking.

*****I feel this recipe will work well with paneer and boiled potatoes too.  

Cham-Cham (Cottage Cheese-based, syrupy sweet dish)

Posting a Cham-Cham recipe when I am pretty upset with myself. How ironic is that now! Yeah, it’s been so long and I have been MIA. Not that I haven’t been indulging in good food, it’s just that I have focused only on indulging and been too lazy to take measurements of the ingredients, pictures and writing the recipe. Ok, I am only trying to tell myself what not to repeat next time around!

Isn't the name itself so cute - 'Cham - Cham'!! (pronounced chum-chum). Anyways, there were two reasons why I wanted to resume my blog with my all time favorite sweet Cham-Cham. One was that it’s nice to restart on a sweet note, especially if you have a sweet tooth like mine J . And second reason, is to welcome my newest niece - Niketa!

Ok just to give you some background, I just love sweets made from Chenna/ Paneer (Cottage Cheese). I just love the way most of them look so pearly white, delicate and elegant but once you bite into them, they just go burst with all the juices and the texture makes you want to chew on it as much as you can, but your mind wants you to just gobble it up so that you could pop another one into your mouth. Ah, sweets!

Ok. So it’s fairly simple. 3 simple steps. Make paneer/ cottage cheese, dunk it in light sugar syrup and cook, then chill in refrigerator and serve. To serve you could have many variations. I prefer it plain but many in my family like it with saffron flavored malai/ clotted cream topping with some dry fruits like pistachios or sliced almonds.

You can only guess how irresistible these were - while pictures were being taken, cham-cham's were disappearing! :)

You need: (makes 7-8 nos.)

For Cham- Cham

Whole milk -  1 Ltr  (1 Qrt)

Lemon juice – 2 (milk you get in  US takes some effort to curdle!!)

Sugar – 2 Cups

Rose/Kewra water – 1- 2 drops (optional if you like the essence)

For the Malai/Clotted Cream

Full  cream milk – 3 Cups (look for cooking cream)

Sugar – 2 Tbsp (adjust to taste)

Green cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

Saffron – a pinch soaked in 3-4 tbsp of warm milk for 20 min.

To garnish:  Sliced pistachios or almonds. 

1. Bring milk to a boil and add the lemon juice.
2. Keep stirring and boiling till you get lumps of paneer/cheese in pale green water residue. You will know that the cheese has totally separated from the water content.
3. Pour this mixture through a muslin cloth placed on a colander and run under cold water to remove any sour taste from the lemons.  Remove any lemon seeds that might have sneaked in somehow.
4. Squeeze out as much water as you can. You will know if its dry enough if you take a small sample between you both palms and rub for sometime and then when you roll it into a ball its smooth without obvious big cracks.
5. Now on a smooth clean surface, knead the paneer/cheese till it forms a crack free, clay kind of dough. This should take 5 min for a person like me who is a little challenged when it comes to muscle power. So pass on this job to someone who is more efficient.  J
6. Now divide this into 7-8 equal portions. Remember these will be almost double in size when they are ready.
7. Roll into small cylindrical shape and gently flatten them. Just enough so that they don’t start rolling when placed on a plate. No, taste will not differ if they roll, this example is just to tell you how gently should you press to flatten them a bit.  J
8. Now in a wide and deep pan boil 5 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar and stir to dissolve completely. The pan should be wide enough to accommodate chum-chums that will almost double in size. Please don’t make them fight for space and sugar syrup. J
9. Now add those paneer/cheese dumplings to the syrup and bring it back to a boil. Now reduce the heat to medium and cover the pot. Cook for 10 minutes.
10. Now flip the dumplings on the other side,  add rose or kewra essence if you wish to , cover and cook for another 15 minutes.
11. Now switch off the heat and keep it as is with lid on for another 10 min.
12. Time to remove the cham- chams from the syrup and transfer to refrigerator to chill.

To make Saffron Malai/ Clotted Cream:

1. In a heavy bottom pan bring milk to a boil. Now on medium low heat, reduce to half  stirring every now and then to avoid sticking to bottom.
2. Now add the 2 tbsp sugar, cardamom powder and saffron.
3. Reduce further to desired consistency. This will thicken a little more once cooled, so take that into consideration while adjusting the consistency.

To serve:

Serve cham-cham with almonds/pistachios or plain. Or drizzle cham-cham with malai and garnish with almonds or pistachios.