Veg Spring Rolls

Hello, my Foodie friends........I hope you all are doing fine. As you know last month I started a new series where I'm sharing some fast food recipes which are available at our favorite food joints or restaurants like McDonald's, KFC, Domino's, etc. I have already shared some recipes like:

• Chicken Nuggets
• Egg Tawa Burger
• Pizza McPuff
• Veg Pizza

Slowly and gradually I'll be sharing some more recipes under this section. Today's recipe is Veg Spring Rolls. These are very popular Asian snack items which are often served as an appetizer in a restaurant and even on the street-side Asian food stalls.

Spring Tolls are crisp deep-fried snacks where spring roll wrappers are filled with spicy and crunchy stuffing made with veggies or mixed with any kind of protein. They are then deep-fried and served with a salad and a dipping sauce. There are two variations of Spring Rolls: Veg and Non-Veg. Today I'll be sharing the veg version.

In this blog post, I'll share a step-by-step process of HOW TO MAKE SPRING ROLLS? Starting from:

• MAKING SPRING ROLL WRAPPERS
• MAKING THE STUFFING
• FOLDING THE SPRING ROLLS
• FRYING THE SPRING ROLLS

Here, I'll make SPRING ROLL WRAPPERS from scratch but you can use store-bought ones too which would make the job much easier. But you can always make these spring roll wrappers and freeze them for 2-3 months and use them as and when required. One of the most important things to keep in mind while making the spring roll wrappers is HOW TO FOLD THE SPRING ROLLS? If you make a mistake in this step then the stuffing will ooze out from the spring rolls and they will become oily and soggy. 

So, let's make Veg Spring Rolls:

Spicy Chilli Potatoes

             

Hello Friends..... I hope you all are doing good. As we all know the summer season is here and along with that, all our kids are at home due to the summer vacation. It's always good to involve our kids in our day-to-day activities. All year round they are so busy with their studies and extra-curricular activities that it's hard to make them involved in the household chores.

Whether it's cleaning, dusting, cooking or washing make them involved. They can do their own bit and will learn gradually. My 3 year old loves to help me in the kitchen. Today, in this post I'll be sharing the recipe of Spicy Chilli Potatoes.

This recipe of Spicy Chilli Potato is extra special for me because I have made this recipe along with my 3-year-old son. He has helped me from peeling the potatoes, onions, garlic to adding the sauces in the dish. This is a very simple recipe which can be made in a jiffy.

You can also make this dish if you have any guests at your home and can earn some brownie points.

So, without any further ado let's begin with the recipe:

Steamed Momos with Momo Chutney

           

Hello Foodies.........Today in this post we will be talking about a delicacy which is very popular in our neighboring countries as well as in the North-Eastern part of India. Yes, you guessed it right I'm talking about MOMOS.  

India is embraced by so many countries so its quite natural to inherit the flavors of that delicacy in our local cuisine too. Momos are small flour-based dumplings steamed or pan-fried and stuffed with either veggies, meat or a mixture of both. They are usually served with spicy red momo chutney or sauce.

Momos are native to Nepal, Tibet, Northern India, and North-Eastern India but these cute little beauties are equally popular in other parts of India. If you walk down to any of the street food joints or hawkers you can find many variations in the filing, folding technique and even the way the Momos are folded. 

The most common and popular form of Momo is the Steamed version but you can also ask for Pan Fried Momos, Schezwan Momos, Tandoori Momos, Chilli Momos, Chocolate Momos, and the list goes on.

I like to make Momos from scratch starting from kneading the dough, making the filling, preparing the Momo Chutney, shaping the Momos and finally steaming them. I know it's a lengthy process but it's worth the effort. The Momos are shaped in a number of ways but I find this way very easy and quick to make. 

So, without any further ado let's start with the recipe:

Chilli Idli

            

India is a very diversified country and its diversity can not be seen in art, culture, language but also in food too. The diversity in food can be seen in its look, taste and even in the way it is cooked. One dish can be different in its look, taste and the process of cooking in different parts of our country. That's how diversified our country is and we Indians are definitely proud of it.

Have you ever tried Fusion Dishes? Fusion Cuisine doesn't fall under any particular cuisine style and has played a part in innovations of many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s. It's really very innovative and at the same time challenging to fuse elements of different culinary traditions into one style of cooking. I usually try to experiment with some traditional dishes and give them a new look and feel. 

Today in this post I'm going to blend together two different cuisines which are way apart from one another, one is South Indian cuisine and the other one is Chinese Cuisine/ Ind0-Chinese Cuisine to be very specific. If you love these cuisines then you'll definitely love this recipe.

If you're wondering how to cook Idlis which are soft and fluffy then I have got your back. I have already posted the recipe of Idlis which you can read here (click here). So, let's begin with the recipe:

Soya Manchurian

           

Hello my Foodie Friends.....hope you all are keeping well. Do you love Street Food? Well, there are hardly any person who doesn't love Indian Street Food. There is so much of variety available in the street food that if we go from one region to another we can find a different variety of street food altogether.

The one thing apart from the regional street food which is common in every region is the Indo-Chinese cuisine. We all love it, isn't it! Whether it's a Chowmein, Chilli Chicken, Fried Rice or Manchurian we start drooling whenever we hear these names. 

Every Restaurant, street side hawkers and even every household has its own variation of making any Indo-Chinese dish. Today's post is Soya Manchurian which is a very healthy Indo-Chinese dish.

We all know the benefits of including Soybean in our diet. Soybeans have a wealth of benefits, including their ability to improve the metabolism, help in healthy weight gain, protect heart health, defend against colorectal cancer, and reduce the effects of menopause. They improve digestion, promote bone health, protect against birth defects, increase circulation, decrease the risk of diabetes and generally tone up the body.

We all struggle to feed healthy to our kids. Since, kids love Indo-Chinese cuisine so you can prepare Soya Manchurian and offer them. I'm sure they will love it too. You can also serve it as a starter when you have guests coming your way.

So, let's begin with the recipe:

Masala Macaroni

            

Hello Peeps....hope you all are doing great. We ladies have one common problem and i.e. what to pack for lunchbox? Especially if you have a toddler or a picky eater kid then this problem is much more daunting. 

We as a mom often struggle what to pack for kids lunchbox or what to make in breakfast which is healthy and well as filling. Our conscience will never allow us to pack store bought so called "Healthy Snacks" for them. Moreover if you have a picky eater at your home then whatever you pack in our kids lunchbox they often bring it back home.

The solution to this problem is giving something which is healthy and as per their liking. Here, in this video we will be making Indian Style Macaroni. Kids love Pasta and since it is loaded with veggies you can pack this in their lunchbox without any guilt.

So, let's begin with the recipe:

Gobi Manchurian

             

Hello Peeps......Hope you are doing great and relishing the cool summer beverages this season. I know many people who doesn't like the Summer season; well they have their own reasons for not enjoying this particular time of the year. If you ask me I love Summer season for many reasons; first and foremost being relishing upon the King of Fruits and i.e. MANGO and the other reasons are you can wear some colorful, light, easy breezy summer dresses.

If you're looking for some summer recipes than I have bunch of them on my blog. You can find them here (click here). One of the irritating thing we ladies hate to do face during the summer season is being in the kitchen but at the same time you can't compromise your family's health by eating outside and taking carryouts.

So, if you want some easy peasy snack items to munch on while spending quality time with your family then I have got you covered. Today's recipe is Gobi Manchurian. It's a very popular street food and a different version of Veg Manchurian or Chicken Manchurian. I have already shared the recipe of Veg Manchurian on my blog. You can find it here. (click here).

It's very easy to make and requires very less prep time. So, if you have some guests coming or you want to enjoy some quality time with your family then make this Gobi Manchurian and enjoy the time with your friends and family members.

So, let's see how to make Gobi Manchurian:

Chicken Satay with Homemade Peanut Sauce

             

Hello my Foodie Friends. Hope you all are doing great. As an Indian we all love Indo-Chinese cuisine. Whether it's Noodles, Chili Chicken, Fried Rice, Schezwan Noodles, Manchurian we love them all. These dishes are not authentic Chinese food but they are adopted to the taste buds of the localite people.

For me personally I love Thai food more than the Chinese food. Bangkok is mentioned as one of the best street serving cities in the world. It is also known as the Street Food Capital of the world. Thai cooking gives importance to lightly prepared dishes with strong aromas and a spicy edge. They give lot of emphasis to food's appearance, smell and texture. 

In this post we'll share the recipe of a very popular street food which is Chicken Satay. Chicken Satay is a very common Southeast Asian dish where seasoned, skewered and grilled meat is served with a tangy peanut sauce. It is a dish from Indonesia; and popular in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

Making this mouth watering dish has two parts first grilling the seasoned chicken and then the sauce.Chicken satay is served with a creamy and tangy peanut sauce. For that we need roasted peanuts.

Schezwan Egg Fried Rice

           
             

Schezwan Rice is one of the most loved dishes in Indo-Chinese cuisine. You can find this dish in almost every Menu Card of Indo-Chinese restaurant. If you love a little spicy food I'm sure you will love this dish too. 

The prime ingredient of this recipe is the: Schezwan Sauce. If you have it handy then making Schezwan Rice is like a child's play. I like to add lot of veggies to my Fried Rice. You can make this recipe completely Vegetarian or add protein of your choice. This time I added Eggs. 

Butter Garlic Shrimp/ Prawns

            

Hello Foodies.....hope you'll are doing great. One combination which always go hand in hand is Butter and Garlic; it's assumed that their match is made in heaven. 

Any recipe which calls for Butter add a clove of garlic to it and that dish will go a notch up; and into this combination if you add Shrimp/Prawns toh in our desi language we call it "Sone Pe Suhaga".

As you all know that we have taken a step forward and moved our blog to YouTube so going forward you can watch our videos on YouTube. Since we are budding YouTubers so you can find few of our recipes from the blog there but slowly and gradually we'll try to add all the recipes including the new ones. Just give us some time.

Coming on to today's recipe i.e. the Butter Garlic Shrimp is a very simple recipe and just need few minutes to cook and believe me it's a complete crowd pleasing appetizer. So let's jump right into the recipe:

Singapore Style Black Pepper Chicken

                    

Hello Foodies, Hope you'll are doing great and feasting your favorite dishes during this time of the year.

Today I'm back with one of the most loved recipes of the Chinese or I must say Asian cuisine and i.e. Singapore Style Black Pepper Chicken. It's hot, it's spicy and completely irresistible. If you love spicy food then I'm sure you'll love this recipe too.

Since, this recipe is on the spicier side I would recommended you to adjust the spiciness according to your taste buds. So, without any further ado let's get started:

Pad Thai/ Phad Thai

            

We just love Thai food, if you ask me to choose between Chinese and Thai food; I'll always go for the later one. So, today I thought of sharing a recipe which is one of my favorites whenever I think of a Thai Cuisine. Yes, it's none other than Pad Thai.......a famous Thailand street food. 

              

The Asian store in my neighborhood carries so many sauces which always compels me to pick and try each of them; but thanks to the Chinese/Thai script which restricts me to do so and I always stick to the basic ones. 

When it comes to Thai food I love their Chicken Satay, Dumplings, Spring rolls, Tom Yum Soup, Basil Fried Rice, Pad Kee Mow and the list goes on. Although (for novice like us) Chinese and Thai cuisine have a very minute difference but I love the flavors of Thai cuisine.

Pad Thai or Phad Thai it's a stir-fried rice noodle dish commonly served as a street food and at most of the restaurants in Thailand. Preparing any kind of noodles is a time taking process because it needs a lot of pre-cooking time but the actual cooking time is very less. Just fry the protein & veggies add sauces and noodles. Stir fry them for few minutes and you're served. 

So without further ado let's start with the recipe of Pad Thai.

Kung Pao Chicken

Hello Peeps......hope you all are doing good in this scorching heat. This year we the Kolkatians too are facing the harsh summer heat. Usually we don't face such kind of summer. So, what you all are doing to beat the heat? I usually drink lot of water to prevent myself from getting dehydrated.  

Moreover, I like to keep my refrigerator stuffed with some homemade drinks and Ice-cream. Ohhhhh....I love ice-cream like a kid. I know you don't need to be a kid to indulge yourself in a scoop of ice-cream. A helpful advice to all my calorie conscious friends, sometimes it's fine to treat yourself with a scoop. Your tastebuds kindda like it.

This time I'm posting the recipe of Kung Pao Chicken. I made this dish few weeks back and managed to click few pics. This recipe is an American-Chinese Dish but I adjusted it to please our Indo-Chinese tastebuds. 

Kung Pao Chicken is a quick and easy Chinese dish which is ready to serve in less than 30 minutes. The best thing I like in this dish are the roasted peanuts, most Chinese restaurant use the aromatic mouth numbing Sichuan peppers. They give a different flavor to this dish along with the dried chili peppers that I always find irresistible.

The best part of Chinese Cuisine is that you can tweak it the way you want. It's not necessary you need to follow the recipe as it is. You can add or subtract the ingredients to your liking. 

So, let's begin with the recipe:

Recreation of Dynamite Shrimp

Time flies……...it’s been a year since we are back from US and living in India. In this one year I did lot of things starting from decorating our new home to learn absolutely new recipes. I always appreciate people exploring new things and implement the same in their and other's daily life. Its an awesome feeling.

When we were in the US we used to dine out very often and our favorite restaurant would be “Buffalo Wild Wings” which is a sports bar with 360 degree view of TV's being installed even in the restrooms. They are specialized in making Chicken Wings. Being there, I had a fear of not getting same Chicken Wings here in India but I was actually wrong. I found few shops like Spencer's and Republic of Chicken who sell just speciality wings and guess what I have re-created that dish at home (recipe here).

Apart from gobbling Chicken Wings one of the other restaurants we used to love is “P.F.Chang’s” which is a Chinese Restaurant adjusted to American Cuisine. It’s no secret that most American Chinese food restaurants serve dishes that have been adapted to please the Westernized American palate. My husband introduced me to this restaurant and one of the dishes we used to love there was “Dynamite Shrimp”. Though I’m allergic to Shrimp I couldn’t resist myself to this mouth watering dish. So we restricted ourselves to this restaurant and used to visit there very rarely.

Dynamite Shrimp is made from deshelled and deveined shrimps coated with corn flour-egg mixture and then deep fried. Finally, these fried shrimps are dipped in a sauce and served over bed of lettuce.

We used to love this appetizer. My only complain was about the portion served as it was too less compared to the price. Maybe we used to feel so because of our love for Shrimps.

I always say that being a foodie is a boon and a curse at the same time. You get to know about so many different  varieties of food from different cuisines but if you love those dishes you’ll be craving for that dish to death.

My love for Dynamite Shrimp did something like that to me. From last few weeks I was so much craving for that dish that I started looking for the recipe and tried them all but couldn’t match the flavors. Finally I got my hands on this recipe and trust me it is very much close to the restaurant style or “P.F.Chang’s” style “Dynamite Shrimp”. Do give it a try and let me know your honest opinion on my recreation of Dynamite Shrimp.

Schezwan Rice

Few days back I took a day off from work and utilized it in the best possible way I could. I did whatever I had planned for that day but amid of all the chores, suddenly a thought ran through my mind - What to have for lunch? Well, I opened my Fridge and found some cute little veggies peeping through the vegetable basket. 

After seeing those I thought of preparing Noodles (usually that's the best option I get when I want to finish off my veggies). But with the flick of mind I thought why not Schezwan Rice! It was completely impromptu preparation but the end product was so palatable that I couldn't resist the blogger inside me to click few pics to blog. 

Schezwan Rice is one of the most loved dishes in Indo-Chinese cuisine. You can find this dish in almost every Menu Card of Indo-Chinese restaurant. If you love a little spicy food I'm sure you will love this dish too. I'm not a full-time spicy food lover but I do like it sometimes. It's hot, spicy and completely irresistible. 

The prime ingredient of this recipe is the: Schezwan Sauce. If you have it handy then making Schezwan Rice is like a child's play. I like to add lot of veggies to my Fried Rice. You can make this recipe completely Vegetarian or add meat of your choice. This time I added few shrimps. 

So, let's start with the recipe: 

Veg Manchurian

We both love Chinese food but we all know that Chinese cuisine varies according to the geographical regions. India has its own variety of Chinese cuisine known as Indo-Chinese. I have already posted a recipe from this cuisine: Chilli Chicken. You can have a look.

Few days back my Sister-In-Law came to our place with her cute kids. The kiddos asked me to make something from my blog (they consider my blog as their menu card :)) 
The younger one requested me to make Chilli Chicken but the elder one wouldn't like Chicken that much so I thought of making Veg Manchurian for her and Chilli Chicken for the younger. That way both were happy :)

Veg Manchurian is a very popular Indo-Chinese dish and a complete party pleaser. It can be served as an appetizer or as main course with fried rice. The veg balls or fritters are made up of chopped vegetables and then dipped in the sauce. It can be made in two ways: with or without gravy. We like the later one which is also known as Dry Veg Manchurian. (If you want the gravy version add vegetable broth to the sauce)

For the sauce I haven't used Ajinomoto as it has adverse effects on health so you can enjoy yummy Veg Manchurian without giving any second thought. So, here's the recipe:

Chilli Chicken

Chinese Cuisine is extremely popular all over the world but at the same time its taste varies across the geographic regions and India is no different. One reason could be that Chinese restaurants try to modify their dish according to the local place and available ingredients but keeping the basic essence same.

In India too we have our own variety of Chinese cuisine known as Indo-Chinese. The recipe which I'm sharing today is called "Chilli Chicken". You may not find this recipe in the menu card of any authentic Chinese restaurant but Indian restaurants offering Chinese food in or outside India is incomplete without this recipe. Chinese restaurants do have a similar kind of dish known as "Kung-Pao Chicken" which looks somewhat like Chilli Chicken but taste wise it's very different.

We both like Chinese and Thai cuisine a lot that's the reason we would love to have noodles, soup etc for dinner once a week. Yesterday was that day when I made Chilli Chicken and paired it with Egg Chowmein and Tomato Soup. A lazy, rainy night is perfect for Chinese food as it takes very less time for preparation and cooking; making happy "me" and so is my family :) 

We like the dry version of Chilli Chicken from it's gravy counterpart so here I'm posting the recipe of the same. So, let's begin with the recipe: