Alu Tikki Taco with Salsa and Mint chutney

For the indian that I am I haven’t experimented with too many indian whole30 compliant recipes. There are a few reasons why indian food is not going to work for me.The first being that the food combinations are too deeply entrenched in my mind that It won’t feel like a novelty but a compromise and secondly the spices don’t support eating just the curry or meat and third everything indian contains yoghurt or lentils. This is what I told myself for the past 20 days while on my whole30 program.

But how the proverbial light bulb switches on with an idea, I realised that my assumption is just that, an assumption.Indian food can be customised to be whole30 compliant.My craving for Chat made me think of how I can customise the Alu Tikki Chat to suite the whole30 standards.Alu Tikki is a indian potato patty which is eaten with curd and various chutneys or with Chole Masala which is a chickpeas curry.

As always I started with a different plan in my mind but ended up somewhere else all together.I was going to bake my alu tikki and eat it with mint chutney but I obviously didn’t stop with that,as apparent in the pics. I had made some salsa just cause I had fresh jalapenos and I had bought some fresh iceberg lettuce on a whim. I originally wanted to make some sort of a mexican Taco inspired dish with it but finally decided to mix the cuisines and make my own Alu Tikki Lettuce Tacos!

My suggestions for this recipe-Its a great party food so you dont have to restrict yourself to this only while on whole30. If you are not on whole30 use flour to bind the patties. Any kind of salad veggies can be used in this dish so experiment away.

TOMATO SALSA

INGREDIENTS

• Tomato-1-Chopped
• Onion-1-Chopped
• Lemon juice-1 tbsp
• Jalapeno-1-Chopped.
• Cilantro or Coriander
• Salt to taste

RECIPE

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Let it sit for a few minutes before consumption to let the juices flow.

Eat with LITERALLY anything!

 

MINT CHUTNEY

INGRIDIENTS

• Fresh Mint-1 cup
• Raw Mango-1/2/Dry Mango(Amchur)-1 tsp/yoghurt-1 tbsp(if not on whole30)
• Green Chilli-1(thumb sized)
• Garlic-2 cloves
• Salt to taste

RECIPE

1. Throw all the ingredients in a blender with some water and blend for few minutes.

EAT with LITERALLY ANYTHING!

 

ALU TIKKI LETTUCE TACO

INGREDIENTS

• Potatoes-Boiled-2
• Onion-1/2-Chopped
• Binding Agent-Almond flour-1 tbsp/ground almonds-5-6/flour(if not on whole30)
• Coriander
• Iceberg Lettuce
• Radish-1-sliced
• Chilli powder-1/2 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Lemon-1
• Ghee-1 tbsp

RECIPE

1. Mash the boiled potatoes.Add chopped onions,Binding agent of your choice,coriander,salt,chilli powder and few drops of lemon.
2. Make small balls out of the potato mash.
3. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. Butter or oil the baking tray with ghee so the tikkis don’t stick to the bottom or use a butter paper.Place the balls on a baking tray.
4. Brush the balls with ghee and bake for 20-25 minutes till the tops are brown.
5. Tear the 2-3 lettuce leaves and place them together to make a sort of bowl or a taco.
6. Place the Radish,Salsa and Tikkis in the lettuce bowl.Drizzle the mint chutney.

 

Serve with a Lime wedge as it is or Roll it up and eat like a burrito or a taco!

 

 

Day 9 with Cashew Lemon Chicken and a bonus Chicken Masala Recipe

 

Day 9 was much better than the weekend…i hardly felt I was on some sort of diet…I think it’s the weekends when I have to be extra strong!!! But yesterday was better because of another event!!! I know my friend who introduced me to this is kicking ass in whole30 because he is in US where you have so many readymade substitutes!!   We used to cook together when he was in India in fact we have a post together on foodcow- Chicken Biryani with Balaji Ravishanker.He knows how difficult it is to do this in India and so he wrote a mail to whole30 to tell them about my Indian journey and they want to put one of my posts from their instagram page!! Small victories!!A shout out to Balaji Ravishankar for the awesome friend that he is!!

Today I tried on a couple of clothes which had stopped fitting me and I am surprised that I can close the buttons now!! The reason I stopped baking and hence stopped being active on my blog was not only the insane work pressure but also cause I was eating the goodies I baked and gaining an inch a post!..But one area where whole30 has already changed me for the better is in thinking only unhealthy food is tasty and pretty!! The image of health food in my head has already transformed!!!

Today I can say wholeheartedly drinking your coffee black .IS .NOT.HARD.

Day 9 was great in terms of flavors but I have realized I don’t like chicken thighs…I prefer the chicken breast cut much more…I made a very very creamy Lemon chicken with cashew sauce..if not on whole30 and feeling like a lot of carbs you can add cream to this recipe..I also figured the taste of whole rosemary in the sauce isn’t that amazing so I decided to blend the sauce after I cooked the chicken in it for extra silkiness!

Cashew Lemon Chicken

INGREDIENTS

• Chicken Thighs-3
• Cashews-6
• Lemon Juice-1 Lemon
• Dried Rosemary-1/2 tbsp
• Chili flakes-1 tsp
• Onion-half chopped
• Oil-1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

RECIPE

1. Soak the Cashews in hot water for 20 minutes.
2. Marinade the chicken in salt and lemon juice for 10-15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile chop the onion and heat the pan for cooking.
4. Add oil and when it is hot add the onions. Cook the onions till translucent. Remove the onions from the pan or move them towards the outside.
5. Add the chicken and brown both the sides.
6. Make a paste of the cashews and add to the cooking chicken.
7. Add Rosemary, salt and chili flakes.
8. Cook the chicken in the sauce for 10 more minutes. Check whether it’s cooked by cutting into the thickest part. It should be moist and white in color. If it is still pink it needs more cooking.
9. Remove the chicken and set aside. Take the gravy and blend it to make smooth gravy.
10. Pour the gravy over the chicken and Serve with grilled zucchini.

 

I am also posting a bonus recipe of the starter that I took to the party on the weekend. I took this dish to the weekend house party so that i can stay whole30 compliant..This is a very fast version of chicken and can be ready in a matter of seconds. I usually keep a mix of the marinade spices listed below in a jar and use it for fish fry.This recipe is also whole30 approved and is a great party food!

Chicken Masala

INGREDIENTS

• Chicken breast-2
• Parsley for garnish
• Tomato puree-3 tbsp
• Oil-1/2 tbsp

Marinade

• Turmeric-1/2 tsp
• Coriander powder-1/2 tsp
• Cumin powder-1/2 tsp
• Chilli-1/2 tsp
• Salt to taste

RECIPE

1. Slice the chicken breast into small bite size pieces
2. Add the marinade spices and rub the chicken pieces well. Set aside for 10-15 minutes.
3. Heat oil in a pan. Add the chicken and sauté till the pieces turn slightly brown.
4. Add the tomato puree and cook for 3-5 minutes.
5. Garnish with parsley or coriander.

 

 

Whole30 quote “it’s not hard.dont you dare tell us this is hard.Quitting heroin is hard..Beating cancer is hard..Drinking your coffee black .IS .NOT.HARD”

Malibu Calamari(Squid) by Abhishek Sudhakar

For a guy who loves to keep his own bar at home, and has access to good food and good alcohol, it is inevitable that some time or the other you will try your hand at making that one special dish that you call your own with obvious “hints” of alcohol in it. Having a wife who loves to cook is an added advantage and frankly I was more interested in the preparatory steps for this dish than what I thought the final dish would turn out to be. So last Sunday, I finally decided to try my hand in the kitchen and was adamant to do it my way from start to finish. I love seafood and while prawns are my all-time favourite, calamari has always had this mystery around it. I have never had home-made calamari and this was my shot at making it and claiming it to be my own little recipe. Buying calamari from the meat store nearby is actually not as easy as it sounds. You firstly have no idea why there is more blue stuff falling out of the squid than red stuff and then of course you invite the surprised/stunned stare of the other customers at the store who are there to buy just “normal” meat. So I get back home and immediately youtube a video of how to clean and cut up squid and that was pretty easy. Here are the ingredients that I used:

Calamari- 0.5Kg

Ginger garlic paste – 1 spoon

Oil – 2 spoons

Cut chillies – 2

Turmeric – 1 tablespoon

Salt – to taste

Lemon juice – 1 lemon

Malibu rum-1 tablespoon

Garam masala – 1 tablespoon

So here are the easy to follow steps to get this done :

• Cut up the calamari in rings – thinner the better
• Mix up all the ingredients above except the lime to make a lovely marinate
• Apply marinate on the calamari and mix well and store at room temperature for half hour
• Add oil to a pan and heat for 30secs.
• Add the marinated calamari to the oil and sauté till the marinate sticks to the calamari and stops sticking to the pan
• The trick is to keep flicking the pan to ensure that both sides of the calamari get enough masala on them.
• And now for the secret ingredient – Malibu coconut rum.
• Add ideally a little more than a cap full of the rum onto the pan about half way into the sauté to give it that perfect balance of the coconut flavour and of course that distinctive taste of rum
• Serve right out of the pan and best coupled with some chilled Rose wine/Beer.

Cheers

Chicken Biryani by Balaji Ravishanker

The FOODCOW had a VISTING Cook

This FOODCOW is my very good friend, someone I have known for a long time, from the time in school where I had been stealing food from her lunchbox and now I am being fed with literally all her experiments and GUYS I am not complaining at all, because the stuff she makes is quite bloody brilliant even though she calls them experimentation!!! If u guys have been reading her blog and drooling over what she makes, then I have been one of them who have been tasting it!!!:D

But all that she’s been making are either Confectionaries or continental kinda food, so I thought, why not, on this lazy Sunday afternoon, relieve her of her usual duties and cook one of my favorite delicacy…..”THE BIRIYANI”.I usually make the chicken biryani because its much simpler than the mutton biryani which needs the meat to be cooked at the right temperature, then added with the rice and thus more time consuming.

The Chicken biryani which I make is even more easier than what people usually think as it consists of 2 separate processes one of them being the marination of the chicken with all the required biryani masalas  , spices and the other were the rice is just about half boiled. First the Chicken needs to be marinated with masalas,  oil , curd, green chilies, onions, tomatoes, mint leaves, coriander. The best thing is to marinate the chicken over night so that the masala oozes into the meat properly. Second, is the boiling of the rice. Basmati rice is preferred and the tricky part here is that the rice just needs to be half cooked and not under or over cooked. Half Boiled rice when pressed with the finger should break but should not get mashed. Thats when the water has to be immediately removed so that the rice doesn’t cook more in it.

Now comes the process were you combine both the rice and chicken to make the biryani. A Biryani vessel or a big Non stick round vessel which should be deep enough is required at this point. You need to make 4 layers.First, Put all the marinated chicken in the bottom layer, Second layer add some of the half boiled rice…Third Add mint and coriander leaves, deep fried onions, some yellow color mixed in milk and some ghee, Forth add the rice again with a topping of ghee and leaves, fried onions. Close the vessel either by pasting wheat flour dough around the circumference on the top or by putting a cloth over it so that it can be closed without allowing any steam to escape. Leave on medium flame for 20 to 25 minutes. The result is the most mouth watering biryani as you can ever eat…

A few things to note..The onions can be shallow fried and the same oil can be used in the marination..The half cooked rice really doesn’t look cooked at all so you need to do the crush test as suggested..And even though the time to cook seems less,the chicken gets cooked nicely cause of the pressure on it..

 

Makes-for 5 very hungry hogs!

Ingredients

Basmati Rice-3 cups

Chicken-800 gms

2 tablespoon of milk with a pinch of yellow color

1 cup mint leaves and coriander

3 onions

Marinade

Salt –to taste

Curd-1/2 cup

2 Tomatoes-cut in small pieces

Garam Masala-2 Table spoons

Chilli powder-1 table Spoon

Green Chillies-cut

4 cloves,2 pieces of nutmeg,2 cinnamon sticks,3 Bay leaves,

1 cup of coriander and mint leaves

2 Tablespoons oil

1 table spoon Ghee(optional)

Coriander powder-2 tablespoon

1. Cut the onions in small pieces and fry it in oil till brown.
2. In a big bowl add chicken and fried onions and rest of the marinade ingredients.
3. With your hand gently mix all of it and refrigerate for 1 hour to overnight.
4. In a deep pan boil water and add the rice. Let it cook for 10 minutes or till rice is half cooked
5. Strain the rice and keep aside.
6. For layering take a deep vessel with a lid. Add the chicken first.
7. Add half of the half boiled rice and level it.
8. Add the mint leaves and coriander spreading it over the rice. Next add the fried onions and level again.
9. Add the rest of the rice.
10. Over the top layer sprinkle the milk with color around the rice evenly.Add the ghee on top of it.
11. Cover the vessel with a cloth and over that put the lid.If the vessel does not have a lid then it can be covered with flour.
12. Cook at medium flame for 20-25 minutes or till the rice on top looks cooked enough.

Enjoy with curd!!:D

Photos curtsy Abhishek Sudhakar