Chicken Tikka - Oven Style

     Just an heads up. The story behind this recipe is very very (actually BIG very) bad one. Better you can move to the recipe portion directly or if u still like to read, please dont blame or scold me, you can go ahead, i dont want to stop you anymore!!
     My wooden skewers was sitting idle for long time so only to use my skewers(!), decided to prepare this for our Sunday lunch. I can understand your thoughts. Without further wasting your time, lets move on to the recipe.

ALL YOU NEED:

Boneless Chicken	1/2 kg
Diced Onion	1 1/2 cup
Diced Tomato	1 cup
Diced Capsicum	1 cup
Red Chilly powder	2 spoons
Kashmiri Chilly powder	1 spoon
Turmeric Powder	Pinch
Coriander Powder	1 spoon
Cumin Powder	1/2 spoon
Garam Masala	1/2 spoon
Hung Curd	1/2 cup
Salt	To taste
Oil	To grease

To Marinate:
     Cut and clean boneless chicken into small chunks or nuggets size. Now take a wide bowl. Add red chilly powder, corainder powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder, kashmiri chilly powder and required salt, mix well. Now add hung curd (strain the curd in strainer to get thick hung curd) and a tbsp of oil. Mix well. Make sure the masala should not be watery. Once done, add all the chicken pieces, mix well until the masala coats the pieces evenly. Let it sit for 4 hours. Parallely soak the wooden skewers in water for 1 hour, just not to get burnt while baking.

METHOD:
     Preheat over for 450 F. Meantime, take the skewers, stack the chicken pieces, onion, tomato and capsicum until it reaches the level. Repeat the process until the marinated things are placed in skewers. Take the grilling plate or baking tray, cover it with aluminium foil. Line up the skewers by shaking the excess masala. if any. Make sure there are some space between each skewers. Just spray some oil on top of each. Now place it in the middle rack. Close the oven. Strictly NO PEEKING, in-between (Bcos i will do this :) ). Let it cook for 20 mins. Now open the oven and toss the skewers to the other side and spray or grease some oil. Close the over, again some-more 10 mins to cook. Once done, turn the settings to "Broil" mode. Let it be in for 5 mins and again toss it to the other side and keep it for another 5 mins. Put off the oven. Take out the oven tray and serve hot with mint chutney garnished with lemon and sliced onions.

Check my oven baked Paneer Tikka and Tandoori Chicken too.

Note: You can marinate chicken even with store-bought tandoori chicken masala (I prefer Everest Brand) with hung curd, by skipping all those dry powders. You can follow same method with Paneer.

- Sangeetha Nambi

Salmon Puttu

     The most favorite dish of mine in seafood is "Shark(Sura) Puttu". Whenever i visit my mom's place, this is a mandatory dish which i need for Sunday's lunch. Now coming to this recipe, this was my second try. First time i tried with shark/sura and now with Salmon fish. Was bit skeptical to try this, as the fishy smell during steaming process will completely ruin the place but still ignoring all those thoughts finally tried this for my sunday's lunch.

ALL YOU NEED:

Salmon fillets	5 Nos.
Chopped Onion*	4 Nos.
Chopped Ginger	3/4 cup
Chopped Garlic	3/4 cup
Red Chilly powder	2 spoons
Coriander leaf	To garnish
Turmeric Powder	Pinch
Green Chilly	4 Nos.
Curry leaf	1 twig
Urad Dhall	1 spoon
Cumin Seeds	1/2 spoon
Mustard	1 spoon
Oil	4 spoons
Salt	To Taste

To Steam fish:
     Take clean and washed filltes. Grase idly plates with oil generously. Now arrange the fish fillets and close the lid. Steam it for 15 mins. After 15 mins, let it cool down. Later on, scramble it finely and add turmeric powder, red chilly powder and salt, mix well evenly. Let it sit for a while.

Method:
     Heat 3 spoons of oil in a pan. Add mustard, when it splutters, add cumin seeds, chopped green chilly and curry leaf. Immediately add chopped ginger and garlic, saute it for 3 mins. Now add chopped onion and pinch of salt. Saute it until it become translucent. Then add scrambled fish, saute it for 15 mins until it becomes dry. Adjust with salt. As a final touch, add coriander leaf and give a quick saute. Enjoy hot.

Note:* I used medium sized onions. Add more ginger to avoid fishy smell. If you need more spicyness, add pepper powder at the end. Same method you can follow with shark/sura.

- Sangeetha Nambi