Chicken Masala (Serves 6)

Happy New Year everyone! Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday. I am glad to have put last year behind me and am looking forward to 2010 from a health point of view after the issues I went through last year.

We had a get together for the kids on Christmas day and a potluck dinner to go along with it. I made a quick chicken masala based on a recipe that was passed on to me from a friend of mine years ago. I have maintained the recipe for the most part while making fine adjustments here and there over time. It is a very simple affair and is sure to be a popular hit among your guests.

The recipe calls for a whole chicken including the bones, but without the skin. The natural juices of the chicken just give a fantastic flavor to this dish. I opted instead for chicken breasts only, losing a little bit of the flavor but staying on the healthier side of things. Let's get to the recipe then.

6 large chicken breasts (or 1 whole chicken cut up without skin)

4 tbsp oil

3 medium onions diced into 1/2 inch pieces

5 cloves garlic finely grated

1 inch piece of ginger finely grated

3 large tomatoes diced

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 1/2 tbsp red chili powder

1 1/2 tbsp chicken moghal powder or meat masala powder

one large bunch fresh coriander leaves finely chopped

juice from 1/2 a large lemon

Cut the chicken pieces into cubes and set aside, along with its juices. In a large heavy bottomed skillet, add the oil and as the oil is getting hot add the onions. Cook the onions on medium heat until they turn golden to dark brown, making sure you don't burn the onions.

At this point, add the grated ginger and garlic, turmeric powder, red chili powder, and the chicken moghal spice powder. If you can't find this specific powder you can use any meat masala powder, since the spice ingredients in most of the brands that make meat masala are common anyway (good brands are Everest or Badshah procured from any Indian grocery store). Stir well to mix the spices and the onions for a few minutes.

Now add the tomatoes and stir well. Cook on medium to low flame until the oil slowly starts separating from the vegetables. The chicken is added at this stage along with its juices, and then cooked on low flame until well done. You can add few tablespoons of water now and then to make sure the dish does not dry out while cooking.

After the chicken is done, turn off the fire and add the lemon juice. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or chapati. The dish in this form is dry and is great as an appetizer with alcoholic drinks. You can also add some water and heat it up and then eat it as a gravy with rice. Enjoy!

Health Rating: High

Note: If the chicken masala is too spicy for your taste, you can go easy on the red chili powder and meat masala powder by reducing them by 1/2 a tbsp each.

Dried Fenugreek Leaves Dal (lentils) (Serves 4)

A quick and refreshing dal (also known as Dal Methi) that can be had as a soup, or served with rice or chapati/tortilla.

3 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves

2 cups cooked yellow tuvar dal (look under the alphabet 't' in this link)

1 small onion finely chopped

2 tsp cayenne pepper (or red chili powder)

1 1/2 tbsp oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp salt (or according to taste)

1 1/2 cups of hot water

Pressure cook the tuvar dal and keep ready. As an alternative you can use store bought canned cooked yellow split peas or cooked green split peas.

Pour oil in a hot deep skillet. As the oil gets hot, add the cumin seeds, turmeric powder, 2 tsp cayenne pepper, onion, salt and 2 tbsp of dried fenugreek leaves (crush it before you add it). Reduce the flame to medium/low and cook until the onions are done and just starting to turn slightly brown. Make sure that the fenugreek leaves don't turn black.

Add the dal, and 1 1/2 cup of hot water. Cook until the dal comes to a boil. Reduce to a low flame and add 1 tsp of cayenne pepper, and 1 tbsp dried crushed fenugreek leaves. Mix well together and let it simmer for 5 more minutes. Serve hot.

Add 1 tsp of brown butter (ghee, optional) on top if you would like to enhance the flavor.

Health Rating: High

Baked Asparagus with Rosemary and Walnuts (Serves 3)

My wife and I love asparagus. We usually put it on a skillet with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and roast it till it's nice and slightly brown, and have it with pasta and sauce as a side dish. This time around I decided to bake it in the oven instead, and made some additions to the ingredients to make it more interesting.

It came out terrific, full of flavor and was devoured in no time at all, with the pasta playing catch up. Very simple to prepare, and extremely easy to eat it all up :-)

1 bunch of asparagus (2.25 lbs)

salt and pepper to taste

5 cloves of garlic

3 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

cayenne pepper to taste

2 tbsp walnuts chopped fine

1 1/2 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves chopped

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash the asparagus and cut off the hard end part of the stem which is very light in color, usually around 1 to 2 inches from the bottom. Smash the garlic cloves, chop into small pieces and set aside.

In a baking tray, lay the asparagus, covering the entire baking tray. Add the garlic, extra virgin olive oil, some cayenne pepper (based on your 'heat' index), walnuts, fresh rosemary leaves, and salt and pepper for seasoning. With your hands toss and turn until everything mixes well. Put the tray in the oven and bake until the asparagus is slightly brown, a little crunchy.

Serve warm with some great pasta and sauce, or just eat it as is. Although I didn't, you may sprinkle some dry grated cheese in the end to add more flavor if you would like.

Health Rating: High

Baked Cauliflower (Serves 2)

I wanted to turn around something quickly to go along with dried fenugreek leaves dal (yellow lentils) I had already prepared, as I was heading out to see a movie.

I ended up making some baked brussels sprouts from one of my old recipes, and also baked cauliflower mainly in the hope that my daughter will finally eat cauliflower. My daughter does not touch cauliflower made the regular Indian way.

This was ready in no time, and with no hard work at all.

1 medium cauliflower
salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp grated pecorino romano cheese

Pre heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut off the leaves and the stem from the cauliflower, and clean it thoroughly. Break the cauliflower into small 1 inch pieces by hand, lay the pieces on a baking tray, sprinkle salt and pepper to taste and drizzle olive oil on top. With a spoon or your hands, just mix it all together to make sure the cauliflower is well coated with the oil and seasonings.

Bake the cauliflower for around 15-20 minutes or so turning it over once, until it starts getting roasted.

Take it out of the oven, transfer to a platter, and sprinkle with grated cheese on top. Serve hot.

My daughter actually did eat some of it, and I was an extremely happy father.

Health Rating: High

Ingredient Substitute/s: You can add any cheese you prefer, or none at all. Also adding red pepper flakes will add some great flavor to this.

Portabella Mushroom & Broccoli Rabe (Serves 3)

My wife works close to the Bronx's little Italy (Arthur Ave.) in NYC. Since we had never been there, we decided to go check the neighborhood out, and have lunch at one of the local Italian restaurants there. Another big incentive for me was that Teitel Brothers, the biggest wholesaler and retailer of Italian grocery in Bronx is also situated there, and I wanted to stock up!

After roaming around the neighborhood for a while and building up an appetite, it was time to eat. We turned around Arthur Ave and came across this simple and nice little restaurant called GianTina's. We were lucky in that this place turned out to be really good food-wise, although I would expect a little more effort from a service point of view.

My wife and I ate like pigs and ordered a lot of good wine and great food, making sure we had some to take back home :-). My wife had a kind of spiral pasta with pesto and cheese, and I had chicken with vegetables and sausages cooked in a wine sauce, both of which were great.

What caught my eye while going through the menu was one of the appetizers, Broccoli Rabe with Portabella Mushrooms and I ordered that. It was one of the best tasting appetizers I have ever had, very simple in preparation which I found out by asking our waitress, but rich in taste due to the fresh vegetables and especially the extra virgin olive oil. The flavor of this dish stood out due to the bold tasting oil which took the taste up several levels.

Since then I have been cooking up this appetizer dish at home very regularly, which I want to share with you all here.

1 portabella mushroom
1 whole bunch fresh broccoli rabe leaves (store bought)
3 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic crushed with knife and chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the portabella mushroom into 1 inch long pieces and keep aside. Crush the garlic cloves with a knife and chop them.

Clean the broccoli rabe leaves well and cut the end portions out so you are left with the leaves and a little part of the stem. Chop the leaves up after this. If you would like to take some of the bitterness out of the rabe, put the leaves in boiling water for a few minutes, take it off the flame, drain the water and run cold water through it to stop the cooking process.

In a pan, heat the extra virgin olive oil, add the garlic and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the mushrooms, some salt and pepper and continue sauteing. Add the leaves at this point, season it with the salt and pepper according to your taste and cook just until the broccoli rabe leaves are done. That's it! Serve hot as a side dish to your pasta and sauce.

Oh, and by the way, after lunch we visited the Teitel Brothers store and I was like a kid in a candy store, wanting everything I saw. Law of the 'wife' was established immediately and I was brought to my senses :-). But I still got a stock of great extra virgin olive oil (Edda), oil cured olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh and aged cheese.

Health Rating: High

Ingredient Substitute/s: You can replace the rabe with spinach leaves, or the portabella mushrooms with regular mushrooms but the taste isn't the same as with portabella mushrooms. Ingredients are really what your imagination can come up with as long as they complement each other well.