Simple Roast Veggies.

Simplest and quickest burst of color that you can eat!
As long as you have a half decent oven or grill.

Disclaimer on that photo above! 
Its the starting grid, not the finished product!
I clean forgot to grab that on the camera

Writing this can scarcely take longer than the dish prep!

Grab some assorted veggies you like and slice & dice them up. Any shapes you like, but dont leave anything thicker than a centimetre each.

I started with
mushrooms – halved
yellow & red bell peppers – 1 inch squares
carrots – cut into small batons
onions – peeled and quartered; and then separated a bit with my hands
garlic pods – half a doz; just hammer them under the top of your wrist – no need to peel these.
some basil leaves – shred into two pieces.

Get all these into a deep bowl. Sprinkle some salt or sea salt, crushed pepper, dry basil powder, and a generous couple of tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Mix well in the bowl, and then lay out flat on a baking tray or earthenware plate.

This shd take no more than 12-15 mins in a pre-heated oven at moderate heat – which means no more than 175° celsius. I prefer to do them at 150° though. Take a pick, but watch the veggies every now and then!

Incidentally, the basil leaves will burn. So don’t shred them too small. Just discard them before serving.

Clearly these go well with quite a wide range of mains. And they work well as part of a warm salad with some fresh crunchy lettuce!

Enjoy them!

Home Made Tandoori Chicken.

This is the easiest blog post I will ever write! A literal cut-paste job, since this is really step 1 of making butter chicken at home.

The Tandoori Chicken for me though is the best way to do and eat chicken. I remember, not long ago when we lived in the tandoori chicken infested north of the country, P and I would just order in some with no agenda. It would get eaten for dinner, then the leftovers would go into omelets, onto pizzas and work as wonderful stuffing into sandwiches (just a bit of hung curd blended with shredded tandoori chicken! Double Yum!).

Let’s get started

One chicken, cut into curry size pieces. Make some deep cuts in the chicken with a sharp knife

1 tbsp oil

Curd half a cup

Garlic – 6 pods mined 

Ginger – 1″ piece mined

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Zeera (Cumin) powder 

1tsp Chilly powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric

1 tsp Dhania powder

So, get your oil and cup of curd, beat it lightly and blend in all the spices as well as the minced garlic and ginger. Rub this marinade all over your chicken, cover the dish and leave inside your refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours. (Get your chicken out from the fridge at least 30 minutes before you’re going to roast it).

Heat your oven to the max (mine goes to 240ºC), pile your marinaded chicken onto the slotted tray and get this into your oven. Remember, the marinade will drip down to the oven floor…. so if you want to avoid a mess later, do put a large piece of foil on the oven floor.

This needs 12-15 minutes. Do keep an eye on the chicken, since each oven has variable cook times to my mind. But your olfactories and a visual check will surely tell you when it’s done. I tend to do this about 15 mins, which cooks the chicken fully, but I still turn the chicken around and put back in the oven for 3 minutes to brown the undersides.

That’s it. The Tandoori Chicken is ready!

(yes, that’s a copy of Bombay Times to make mopping up easier!)