Work and Chicken

I got a call around 10:30. 10:25 to be exact.
Call from work on weekends are bad. And I was out in departmental store with Dad.
Got home and started around 12:30.

Boy O Boy. I wrapped this up around 9PM.
No lunch - nothing.
Dad also - he had biscuits / chips.

I had a break around 6:30 which meant get dinner ready.

In the morning I had got some chicken. Afternoon maid had chopped some onions.

So in a pan heated some mustard oil and ghee. Then added onions and ginger garlic paste.
Then chopped tomatoes and a chopped potato.

Added some turmeric, red pepper, shahi jeera, coriander powder and let it fry a bit.
Then added the chicken. Let that fry for a bit. Added the drumsticks which I had not added with the chicken and also added the liver.
2 minutes and I added salt and water.

When the water was boiling, added some garam masala and ghee and a chopped tomato, covered the pot and heat went to low. Told dad to stir it every 5 minutes and I was back in the call.

After 10 minutes I came and shut the gas.

Night it was Chicken and Rice. And it tasted good.

Ridged Gourd fry - Jhinge bhaja

Last night I was delayed at work. I left around 8:25 and reached home around 9.
Needed something fast to cook.

Dad had called in the afternoon asking what to cook - tough to think when you are at work. Evening (rather night) at 9PM, I asked him to skin some jhinge.

I am not sure what they call it here in the local language. In Hindi, they call it Jhinga Tori. For me, buying it, means pointing and taking. And the size - in Delhi/ Kolkata, if they see a big jhinge it means its old and fibrous, and cannot be eaten.

Here it is different. The smallest one is probably 2 feet in length. And seedless.
People here snap the vegetable into two and based on how it looks inside they buy it. Not sure if they want a soft inside or a hard one.

What I did was chop the vegetable into bite size pieces. Chopped two onions.
In a hot wok, I heated some mustard oil, and then added some fenugreek seeds (methi). When the seeds were crackling in hot oil, I added the onion. When the onions were translucent, I added the vegetable. When it started releasing water, I lowered the flame, added salt and turmeric and chopped green chillies and let that fry.

And while this was cooking, I washed some rice and cooked that in the microwave.

Dinner done.

No Cooking days

Two days I did not have to cook. So far, what was there in the fridge, is nearly over. A little bit left, will probably last me today. Then have to think up something, for Thursday and Friday.

Saturday being Ekadashi, I wont have to do anything much, unless I want to wrap up for the week.

Power, Laptop and Cooking

Yesterday Power was a pain. Must have been a fault somewhere. The power went around 10AM and finally came at 5:30PM.

Then I thought I will cook and keep what I can, ready for the week.

So I cooked up Kumror chechki, kochu, bhindi bhaja, dal and saag. Quiet a bit.

For the kumro :

Morning I had soaked some desi chana - the dark small ones. Soaked them for 6 hours.
Then evening diced some pumpkin.
In a pan, heated some oil, fried some onion, then grated ginger, I was to add some panch phoran but I did not have that. So I added - cumin, shahi jeera, mustard seeds, black cumin, fennel and some fenugreek seeds.

Then two split red dry chillies.

Once this was fried, added the soaked chana.

Ten minutes of frying, then added the pumpkin.

Let that cook on low heat, covered.

For the kochu:

I had pre boiled and peeled the taro. Then in hot oil, fried some onions, ginger garlic, then added some tomatoes, turmeric powder, red pepper powder and then let that cook. When oil started leaving the sides, added the boiled taro. Let that cook, covered for 10 mins.

For the bhindi :

In a wok, fried some diced bitter melon, some pointed gourd (potol) and some onion and let that fry. Then added diced bhindi.
Let that cook covered.

For the saag:

Simplest. In a pan, added the spinach, some chopped eggplant, some radish, some boiled taro (saved 1 2 from the previous dish), then water, salt, turmeric, some oil and let that cook (boil) on low heat.

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Done cooking for the week.

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And my home laptop is not working. Not starting up. It tries to do an auto repair, and goes into a loop. Seems beyond repair.

Plan to do NOTHING today.

Sabzi over

Good. Again fridge cleaned out. Raw banana over. Rice over. Did not cook anything last night.
Today is the day.
Last night I had soaked rajma, with some dried peas (green and white), some chana and some horse gram.
Pressure cooking that now. Will decide what to do with it later.
And probably the arbi/ kochu/ taro. What to do with that - depends. Dad has gone to get some veggies. Once he comes home, depending on what he has got, will know what to cook.

I am impressed

My cooking is not bad.Everything came out well. The disastrous radish/ besan was good. I liked it. Today maybe some chapatti to go with the stuff instead of rice. Lets see.

Cooking

Cooking done. For the weekend. Yesterday it was left over musuri dal with a bit of onions and garlic. And then there was a fully niramish beet posto. Was not sure how to approach it. Just heated the mustard oil, added some kalo jeera, then 3 beets diced, salt and diced green chilly. On a low flame. Then water and cover. When the beet was nearly done, added posto.
Making the posto paste was something. Grinding in the mixie and then the mixture trying to come out of the mixie, that was something. But with the mixie yesterday, I had managed to grind pre soaked matar dal, the posto and then finally ginger and garlic. All in the fridge now, waiting to be consumed.
Today it was murgir jhol. Yesterdy wasnt bad, but not sure what it will turn out today. One hr for the murgi, with murgi bought yesterday and coated with salt and holud. And left in the freezer.
The murgi took nearly 8 hours to defrost at room temp. Then hot mustard oil, onion, ginger garlic, tomatoes diced, and then when it was fried, added the murgi and then let it be at low flame.
Will make bhaat early today.