Curried Mustard Greens

Once again, I have another foreign ingredient from Ralphs. Once again, it is green and very leafy like all my other vegetables, but it has a distinct smell and texture to it. It was mustard greens, and I definitely did not know what to do with it.

I could have sauteed it in butter and garlic like what I typically do with all my vegetables and throw it as some sort of side dish, but for the mustard greens. I wanted to make it the star of my dinner.

My Indian friend told me that mustard greens can be combined with tomatoes and make some sort of curry with the right assortment of spices. He did not know exactly what those mysterious spices were. Instead, I thanked him for the idea and proceeded to start a mad science experiment with my spice cabinet.

Curried Mustard Greens


Ingredients
1 batch Collard greens (10 leafy goodness)
1/2 cup Plain yogurt
1/2 small Yellow onion
1/4 cup half and half
1 tbs Garam masala
1 tbs Curry powder
1 tbs Coriander powder
1 tsp Grated ginger
1 can Tomato paste
2 tbs Butter
3 cloves garlic
Salt and pepper

Prepwork
1. Boil water
2. Wash and finely chop the mustard greens
3. Finely dice the onion and garlic
4. Grate the ginger into a paste
5. Throw mustard greens in the boiling water for 5 minutes to allow it to cook
6. Drain the mustard greens

Instructions of mystery
1. Add butt into a pan
2. Toss in garlic, ginger, and onion and cook for about 1 minute or until onions are translucent.
3. Add tomato paste, half and half, and yogurt.
4. Mix well and add garam masala, coriander, and curry powder
5. Add in mustard greens and cook for 4 minutes

In those 6 simple steps, you make a great dish that might make your whole apartment smell like spices xD.

Bets served with my Asian favorite: rice ...

Indian Butter Chicken.

Today, there was a civil engineering career fair, and it was quite busy. I talked to a couple recruiters and learned that human resources representatives are harder to talk to than the engineers. Quite tired after that. I hope one of those companies will ask for an interview.

Anyways ..

I was in the mood for Indian food, so I asked my co-worker Shaan for an Indian dish to cook. He told me that butter chicken is a really delicious dish. Despite the amount of calories and fat in it, I've decided to make it. After reading several recipes, I have decided to experiment and invent my own "butter chicken" suited for the Chinese taste... meaning something my dad would eat.

Butter Chicken



Ingredients for the chicken of many smells

Part1: The Chicken!

2 Chicken breasts
30g ginger garlic paste (About 3 Tablespoons)
1 Tbs cayenne chilli pepper powder (add more if you like spicy)
1 Tbs coriander powder
2 Tsp garam masala (see my basics tab)
1/3 cup Yogurt
1/4 Lemon
Salt (to your own high blood pressure's desertion)

Prep your station!

1. Cube the chicken into 1 cm blocks
2. Put all the ingredients in a bowl
3. Mix well with the chicken
4. Marinate for an hour

While the chicken is being marinated, time to prep the sauce.

Part 2

Ingredients for the sauce

6 Tomatoes (I used 4 and decided needs 2 more)
1 Onion
2 Tbs cumin
1 Tbs coriander powder
1 Tbs cayenne chilli pepper powder
2 Tbs fennel seeds
3 Tbs rice wine
30g ginger garlic paste (About 3 tablespoons)
1/4c cream
4 Tbs of butter
2 Tbs garam masala
1 Tbs ketchup
2 Tsp sugar
Salt (til yum tastes good)

Prep the gillion ingredients
1. Dice onion
2. Dice tomatoes

Cooking the spicy chicken

1. Oil up the pan on high
2. Cook the chicken until almost done
3. Set the chicken aside in a container and leave the juices inside the pan
4. (code mode)

If pan not burnt Then
go to step 5
Else
Rawr FAIL ERROR ... wash up or continue
End If

5. Reduce any excess liquid until it almost reaches the bottom of the pan
6. Add in onion, cumin, ginger garlic, rice wine, coriander powder, red chilli powder, fennel seeds, tomatoes
7. Simmer until tomatoes are super cooked and mushy
8. Transfer everything into a blender
9. Blend until everything is well blended

Now putting it all together!

1. Put the 4 tbs of butter in the pan
2. Add the sauce and whisk
3. Add ketchup, sugar, and garam masala
4. Add the cream and simmer until hot
5. Add in the chicken and whatever juices that have come out while the chicken was resting
6. Cook until the chicken is done
7. DONE and ready to eat with rice

Man that took awhile to post... Enjoy!

Indian Basic Ingredients

Garam Masala

This is a must have in making Indian food. During my research about Indian food, I have often encountered this ingredient.

Here is my variation of it:

Ingredients

3g Cardamon powder
3g Corriander powder
3g Cumin powder
3g Cloves
3g Cinnamon
1 tsp Black pepper

Note: I did the spices by weight because volume is so hard to determine the proportions. Invest in a scale!

Instructions of awesomeness

1. In a skillet dry roast the mix on medium low heat
2. Turn off heat when you smell an aroma of goodness

Note: There should never be any smoke coming out and be careful about heat control. Burning this will cause it to taste really bitter >< .

Ginger-Garlic Paste

Another ingredient that I found useful is garlic-ginger paste. According to my friends, it can cure any sickness because of the natural properties of ginger and garlic. Reminds me of when my mother makes this Chinese soup when I get sick that has a ton of ginger and garlic.

Ingredients
Equal weight of garlic and ginger
Salt
Water

Easy instructables

1. Chop the ginger into small pieces
2. Add ginger and garlic into a blender
3. Add some salt and enough water to get the blender going
4. Blend into a paste

Alternative method
1. Use a mortar and pestle to mash it up