Nepali Food: Timur Golveda Achar (Schezwan Pepper Tomato Pickle)

I haven't blogged for a few days now. I'm now traveling for work... leave early morning on Monday and get home on Thursday. The sad part is I don't get to see my husband everyday and don't get to cook and eat at home and finally sleep is all jacked. The worst part is delayed flight!

Anyways, before the trip I made fresh tomato achar/pickle with Schezwan pepper (Timur in Nepali). It's tangy and fresh and a great side for dinner or lunch. And it takes less than 5 minutes to make it :) Just roast some tomatoes (any kind, I like grape tomatoes) for about 2 minutes in medium heat. I do it so it gives some smoky flavor. You don't necessarily have to roast it, if you prefer fresh tomatoes!

Roasted Grape Tomatoes

In mortar, add a little bit of Schezwan pepper (1/2 tsp for 1 dry pint of tomatoes) and grind it. Make sure it is just a little bit of pepper as it is enough for flavor. Once I put almost 1 table spoon of peppers, and we could not even eat achar as it was so tangy that our tongues were kind of numb! Schezwan pepper/timur has a little bit of tongue numbing taste. It's good as long as you put jut a little bit of it in the food.

Schezwan Pepper (Timur) ready to Grind

After you grind timur, add it in the food processor. Add tomatoes, serrano peppers, fresh cilantro, salt, cumin powder, and red chilli powder in the food processor.

Tomato & Cilantro mix ready to Grind

Run food processor in low speed for a minute or so, until everything turns to paste. Chill the timur golveda achar (Schezwan Tomato pickle/salsa) in refrigerator and is ready to serve in an hour or so. If you want to serve it fast, put it in freezer for 10 minutes and is ready to eat :)

Ready to Serve Timur Golvedako Achar

Try it! It's easy, fresh, and yummy side dish and let me know your thoughts :)
Happy Weekend!

Nepali Food: Chicken Choila (Spicy Chicken)

I have been craving some spicy Nepali food for past couple of days but been a little too lazy to cook. It's College Football Saturday (Oklahoma State is playing) and spicy chicken choila sounded yum! A very close nerve-wracking game... Okstate won at overtime.... whewww!!! Go Cowboys!! :D Anyways moving on to the topic of cooking...

Choila is a Newari dish typically made with grilled buffalo meat. (Newar is one of the ethnic cultures of Nepal, inhabitants of Kathmandu historically) In Nepal, my mom and grandmas used to make choila often as it was everyone's favorite food. Everyone had their own style of making choila but I'll be sharing how I have made it since I moved to US.

Here in US, when you buy packaged chicken in grocery store it tastes bland (I'm sorry but that is how I feel). I normally buy meat in the local meat store. Meat from meat store tastes way better. If I am lazy to drive to the meat store I buy it in produce section in grocery instead of the packaged meat.

In Nepal, whenever we buy any produce we have to clean it for hygienic reasons. Here it's pretty clean but habit doesn't change. I thoroughly clean meat and veggies before cooking. After you clean chicken, pat it dry with paper towel. Pour some oil, salt, cumin, and coriander powder and rub it well. Grill the chicken for about 25-30 minutes at 300F.

Chicken ready to Grill

While the chicken is grilling, slice onion, chop ginger, garlic, peppers, and cilantro. You can use elephant garlic if you don't like harsher smell of garlic. It much sweeter than regular garlic and has subtle flavor. I normally add a variety of peppers whenever I cook but you can just pick one type. Mix slightly in a big bowl. If you don't have a grill, you can cook chicken directly on electric stove top but it'll be a little dry. Or you can fry chicken in a pan. After the chicken is cooked, take it out of the grill and put it in foil to soak up all the flavors!

Grilled Chicken

After it is cooled enough to touch, pull chicken apart. It doesn't need to be super shredded, chunky should be okay but it is up to your preference. Add chicken in pepper-onion mix. In a small pan fry the dried red chili (you can buy in Indian store for spicy ones or in any grocery store). When the pepper turn blackish, take it out of heat and add the peppers on chicken.

Fried Dry Red Chili/Pepper

Add lemon juice, spices (cumin, coriander, salt, red chili powder if you want to make it more spicy). Mix it well with hands. I say hands because choila will taste much more better when you mix it with hands rather than fork. Also, when you mix food with hands, the spices mix well and tastes better. In a small pan, heat mustard oil (for flavor) and add fenugreek. After the fenugreek blackens, add both fenugreek and oil in chicken choila. Add chopped cilantro and mix it with fork now as you don't want to mush fenugreek and cilantro. And spicy chicken choila is ready to serve!!

Yummy Chicken Choila

You can serve it as an appetizer in your party or as a side for rice. Try it and let me know your thoughts!!!! :)

Breakfast Resolved - Blueberry Muffin

It's been very gloomy for past couple of days. And certainly not warm enough to stay out in the balcony to enjoy the warmth for last few days of this year. Just wanted to be in bed curled up inside warm blanket, drinking some warm hot chocolate and some breakfast in bed. But have no fear, breakfast is here!!! (I had to say that :D) 

I found this power muffin recipe online but changed the recipe to my liking (and to my family's). It's easy to make and nutritious to eat, in my opinion!

Blueberry-Oatmeal-Quinoa muffin!!!! When you hear the name, it might not sound fun or yumm at all but trust me it is... I usually make it on Sunday evening and most of the time lasts until Thursday or Friday for me and my husband for breakfast.

Mix the dry ingredients; flour, sugar, oatmeal, quinoa, baking powder, baking soda and pinch of salt. Make sure the baking soda and baking powder is the right amount 1 teaspoon each...otherwise your muffin will be twice the size of the muffin pan... it does happen!!!!

Mix of Dry Ingredients

In a separate bowl, add melted butter and eggs. Beat the mixture well. Add greek yoghurt and vanilla extract. I recommend using greek yoghurt instead of non-fat greek yoghurt. The taste is way better with regular greek yoghurt. But if you prefer non-fat, you should definitely try it.

Mixture of Wet Ingredients

Add the mixture of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix it well. You can either use kitchen aid mixer if you own one or you can just mix it with spatula. Finally add blueberries or any kind of berries. I normally make it with blueberries but blackberry and strawberry muffin also tastes good. If you want to spice it up, you can use mix of berries like raspberry and blackberry. And if you love berries, add as much as 2 cups!!

Mixed and Ready to Cook Muffin Batter

Heat the oven to 350F. If you have aluminium or tin muffin pan, coat the pan with oil. I just bought silicon muffin pan and it's easy. You don't need to coat with oil. But make sure that when you put it in oven, you put it on top of cookie sheet or it will droop on the sides... telling from the experience!! Anyways, put the batter on the muffin pan and put it in oven.

Muffin Ready to put in Oven

Bake the muffin at 350F for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, turn off the heat and let the muffin stay in the oven for 5 minutes for golden brown top. After that, take the yummy muffin out and is ready to serve.

Yummy Blueberry Muffin

You can keep muffins in fridge or in oven after it cools and use it for the rest of the week. Make sure you don't put muffins are not in zip lock or plastic bag. It molds easily in plastic bag. So to keep it fresh, put muffin in fridge or oven and microwave it if you are serving the next day. Enjoy the muffin and let me know your thoughts! :)

Quick Dinner: Spicy Sausage/Hot Dog Chili

I have plenty of time right now as I am working from home. I have been thinking what to blog about all day long and couldn't decide on any thing. After a brief trip to the grocery store, I suddenly had an idea as I stopped in the middle of aisle to explain it to my husband! He supports all my interests so he was happy to hear what I had plan for dinner and blog!

We both love spicy food and also have grown few kinds of peppers. To use up the garden pepper before it went bad, I made some sausage/hot dog chili. Do not confuse with the chili con carne or chili. Talking of chili, the first few months at US, I saw chili in the menu. I was so excited thinking it was like what we get in Nepal. But it was such a disappointment and loss of 5 bucks.

Anyways, the sausage chili I am talking here is a spicy sausage dish. It is really easy to make and takes less than 20 minutes.

Steaming Hot Sausage/Hot Dog Chili

Dice hot peppers of your choice. I have home scotch bonnet and chenzo peppers grown in my tiny garden. I use them in most of my dishes!

Home Grown Scotch Bonnet and Chenzo Peppers

Dice onions, bell peppers and tomato. Get different colors of bell pepper. Red, orange or yellow and definitely some green pepper. I forgot to buy green bell pepper so I used poblano peppers. I recommend various colors of pepper because it makes the dish look beautiful!

Diced Onions and Pepper

Mince ginger and garlic as well. Saute turmeric, ginger, garlic. Add diced onions and all peppers. Colorful the peppers, better the dish. Add sliced hot dog/sausage and saute for few minutes around 5-7 minutes.

Sausage and veggies in the pan

Add hot sauce and tomato ketchup and let it sit in low flame/heat for 2-3 minutes and your sausage chili is ready to be served! You can serve this as an appetizer or side for rice! Enjoy the spicy dish :)

Momo Recipe

I feel like momo recipe deserves to be shared first! Sounds bizarre but I think I owe it to momo. As a Nepalese, I have had momo as long as I can remember. I love momo... steamed or fried, buff or chicken, expensive or cheap, restaurant or home-made... I love momo!

If you are wondering what momo is... it is dumpling; meat filling wrapped with dough and typically steamed. It is favorite food of Nepalese (almost all the people I know at least) and so far all the non-Nepalese friends that I have shared momo with, they all ask me when I'm making it next :)

Steamed Momo

I thought after moving to US, I would rarely eat any momo. But in past 6 years that I have been here, I have had more momo than I could imagine. Every time the weather is cold and brisk, all I can think of is momo... so much so that my non-Nepalese husband craves for momo when it is raining and cold outside.

I remember growing up in Nepal that making momo at home was a big day... a very time consuming all-day event with all extended families. But with all the "fancy" kitchen gadgets, it is much more faster and easier.

I typically start with "golveda achar" tomato sauce for momo. Saute turmeric, ginger, garlic, and onions until onions look translucent in medium heat. Add fresh peppers (any kind) and diced tomatoes. Sprinkle some salt, cumin powder, coriander power and red chili powder. Cook until all the tomatoes look cooked. Turn off the stove and add chopped cilantro and mix it with the sauce.

Golveda Achar (Tomato Sauce) In-Process

Put the tomato sauce in the grinder, add roasted sesame, a little bit of water (depending on how liquidy you want the sauce to be) and lemon juice. Let the achar sit until ready to be poured over yummy momo...

Ready-to-Eat Golveda Achar

While cooking the tomato achar, I normally start on dough to save some time. Talking about momo is making me hungry for momo... With kitchen aid, making dough has been a lot more easier. Add flour, a little bit of canola oil and water to make the dough. After thoroughly mixed, put the dough in plastic wrap and let it sit for a while so that the dough is soft when you roll it.

Flour, oil and water mixture forming dough

Now on to the meat filling. You can use any ground meat. I prefer mix of pork and turkey but chicken and bison are yumm as well! In a big bowl add ground meat, chopped onions, chopped cabbage, tomatoes, and a whole lot of spices. Mix it well with fork or hand. I prefer mixing with hand as it mixes all meat and spices very well...

Ground Meat mixed with Spices

Next you take the dough break it in some portion and make a rope. Cut the dough inch long and make a ball out of each cut. Flatten each ball to roll it in circles..

Flatten Dough Balls for Wrap

Roll the flatten dough balls into circles about 4 inch wide.

Rolled-Out Dough Ready for Wrap

Now we are ready to wrap. Take the rolled-out dough and put some meat filling and close the dough. You can wrap it whatever way is easier. I have made a gif from the pictures... looks funky! Just make sure that the wrap is closed.

Wrapping Momo

Wrapped Momo

Throwing in some more photos!!! :)

Momos Ready to be Steamed

Set wrapped momo on oiled steamer. After the steamer is full, put it over the water to steam. It takes around 10 minutes for momo to be ready. When you open the cover and touch the momo, if it sticky you need to cook some more but if it is not sticky, you can take it off the steamer and momo is now ready to eat :) Serve with golveda achar and some coke or wine!!

Yummy Momo!!

It took around 4 hours for me to make this batch with taking pictures and doing one thing at a time. If you buy the wraps from Asian stores, it takes around 1-1.5 hours in total. Without stopping to take picture, it takes around 2-2.5 hours. But it is worth it!!! Also if you have help from friends, it is more fun and less time :) Make some and let me know how it tastes!

First Thoughts!

I have been contemplating about blogging for months now! But as a typical Preety, I always found excuses to start. Oh! I cannot find the blog name, I suck at writing or just being plain lazy. Finally after months I really started focusing on blogging.

But I didn't know how to blog... correction: I still don't know how to blog!

I found a name I like and was finally available. What a relief! And just have been so lazy that I don't want to be laying around anymore. And as for writing, I will suck it up and as I go forward, there is a little chance that it will improve!!

I am very much looking forward to sharing my recipes (friends say they love my food but lets see...), photos, ideas for DIY and anything and everything I can come up... Here is to my very first blog and hoping to be followed by many more :)