Stir Fried Karela ( Bitter Gourd) in a Chinese Sauce

If you thought Karela was bitter, think again. Karela is more of an exotic vegetable and I always thought it would be interesting to try to change the way people cook it. I have been wanting to try to make Karela in such a way so as to remove the bitterness out of it and make it Yummilicious.

All you got to do is slice the karela the way you like and then toss a bit of salt over it. Let it rest for a couple of hours and then squeeze the karela to let the water come out. Once this is done you are ready to cook it anyway you wish. I tried something different and even Sabrina enjoyed it a lot.

You need
2 big Karela’s – cut it and put around less than 1 teaspoon salt into the cut karela.
1 tbsp Chopped Garlic
1/2 Medium Onion – chopped fine
1 to 2 green chillies chopped fine
2 tbs Soya Sauce
1 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp Vinegar
½ cup Spring Onions sliced
Oil

Heat oil in a wok or any dish you prefer, add the garlic and onions and let it fry a bit, add the chillies and fry for another minute. Add the Soya Sauce, ketchup, vinegar and fry for another few minutes. Squeeze the water out of the Karela and add it to the Wok. Let it fry well and cook it for sometime until the vegetable is well done. Around 7 to 10 minutes. If the sauce mixture dries up add a little water to keep it moist and to prevent it from burning. Add Spring Onions and stir fry for another minute. Serve hot.

You can add oyster sauce and some brown sugar instead of ketchup.

Do let me know if you find the karela bitter.

Stuffed Brinjal (Manglorean Style)

10 - 12 small brinjal slit into 4 leaving the end intact

Masala for grinding & stuffing :

6 red kashmiri chillies

1 tsp Cumin seeds

4-5 whole black pepper corns

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp corainder seeds

6 tbsp peanut

5 Tbsp dessicated coconut

1 small ball of tamarind

1' pc of cinnamon

5 cloves

1 clove of garlic

Grind all the above coarsely. Now stuff the masala into the slit brinjals and keep it aside. Take 2 big onions and slice them. Take 5-6 Tbsp oil once the oil is hot put the onion and brown the onions, now add the masala which was reamining after stuffing the brinjals anf fry for 5 minutes on high fire . Add 1 1/2 cup of water, let it boil. Add the stuffed brinjals into the boiling gravy, put salt as per taste and now let it cook on slow fire for 20 minutes on very slow fire. The gravy will thicken. Enjoy it with white rice or chappati....

Fried Bread Fruit

Sabrina picked up this breadfruit from Lulu Hypermarket and I had no idea how to make it. Looked for some recipe but nothing seemed to be interesting. Thought I'll make it like normal vegetable but then finally its only me who has to eat it so I decided to fry it. Just marinated it with some masala, yoghurt and rolled it in breadcrumbs and fried it. Sabu said that it looks like Fried Chicken fillet. Adrian said don't bring this breadfruit ever agian. I was kind a ok with it as I eat anything. Check out the quick recipe. If you want to try something new try this.

Ingredients

1 Bread Fruit

4 Tbsp Yoghurt
1 Tsp Red Chilli Powder
1 Tsp Black crushed peppercorns
2 Tsp dry mango powder (Amchur)
1/2 tsp salt
Breadcrumbs

Method :
Skin the bread fruit and slice them . Now make the marination with yogurt, salt, red chilli powder, amchur, black pepper powder. Add the sliced breadfruit into the and leave for 15 minutes. Take one Egg beat it dip each slice of breadfruit in the egg batter and then roll it in the breadcrumbs and shallow fry untill golden brown...

Devil's Food Cake

It was my friend Carol’s birthday yesterday and she requested me to bake a chocolate cake. I do bake cakes but wanted to make something special for a special friend so decided to try something different so I went to the site http://www.cacaoweb.net and tried the devils’ food cake. It turned out good but not as per my expectations. I baked the cake, made the frosting , assembled it but still there was something missing. It didn’t look that beautiful so Adrian suggested to decorate it with some chocolate shavings and it looke much better. Check out the recipe @ http://www.cacaoweb.net/devilsfoodcake.html , bake it and put in your comments.