Gastronomic tours with Swiss Cheese

Ok, Pea soup isn't necessarily the most exotic dish around, but I really like it on a cold day, and I think I've found a combination of ingredients that go well together, so here goes.

Note that my recipe isn't vegetarian, but it's easy to modify for a vegetarian version. The following makes two cups.

Ingredients

• ½ Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp ginger & garlic paste
• 1½ cup chicken stock (use vegetable stock for a veggie option)
• ½ cup water
• 1 Tbsp goat cheese
• 1 Tbsp mint leaves chopped up
• 1½ cup peas (I used frozen peas)
• ¼ tsp salt
• Freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Heat the butter in a saucepan
2. Lower the heat and add the ginger & garlic paste and fry for 10-20 seconds
3. Add in the stock, water and salt and turn up the heat
4. Before it comes to a boil, add in the goat cheese and stir till it dissolves
5. Once the mixture starts to boil, add in the peas. If frozen, add a few at a time to avoid a sudden change in temperature
6. Bring to a boil again and lower heat to medium
7. Stir in mint leaves
8. Turn heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes
9. Serve with croutons

Some people don't like their peas whole. If you don't, then put the mixture into the blender after step 7.

It came out better than I'd expected. The goat cheese and mint flavours worked well together.

I've tried this recipe a few times now, and I think I'm getting better at it. I've also made some of my own tweaks to suit my taste. It's probably not Chicken Marsala any more, so purists might not like me using the name, but hey, they don't have to eat it if they don't like.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients (serves 1):

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  
• 1 chicken breast - skinless and boneless
• 1 cup of sliced mushrooms
• 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
  
• ¼ cup sweet Marsala wine
  
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• ¼ cup pitted prunes (just for effect)
• 1 sprig of parseley

You can also add one small onion chopped up, which can be mixed with the garlic and mushrooms. Depends on your taste. I didn't use one because my onion sprouted.

I also made some couscous to have the chicken with, but you can use rice or mashed potatoes as well. Follow the instructions on the packet to make enough for one person.

Method:

1. Start by heating the oil in a slightly deep non-stick pan on medium high.
2. Fry the chicken breast for about 2 minutes on each side until it's lightly brown on both sides. While this is happening, heat up the chicken stock and wine to slightly above room temperature. 20 seconds in the microwave is generally enough.
   
3. Move the chicken to one side of the pan, and add the mushrooms and garlic (and onion if you have one) to the other side.
4. Fry the mushrooms until tender, but not too long that it turns brown. Stir often.
5. Add the wine, and bring to a boil. While this is happening, mix the salt and all purpose flour into the chicken stock. Mix it well into a paste.
6. Add the chicken stock mixture and bring to a boil again.
7. Add prunes, and reduce heat to low.
8. Cover and cook for 12-15 minutes until chicken is fully cooked (see that there are no pink portions inside)

Also cook your rice or couscous alongside the chicken so that it's ready at around the same time.

Serve chicken on top of couscous, add sauce, mushrooms and prunes over it allowing it to drip off to the side. Garnish with parsley.

Enjoy.

Let me know how it works out for you.

This one's my own invention, prompted by one of Tahir's incessant cries of, "I'm still hungry". I call it Chatpatta chicken because it tastes almost like Bhel Puri, and is ready in just about 10 minutes.

To start with, we don't actually cook any chicken, but use pre-cooked chicken sausages. Chicken salami works too. I also added in a bunch of mushrooms for fun.

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 4 large chicken sausages (frankfurter sausages are good, but a little firmer)
• half a packet of mushrooms, washed well
• optionally, 100gms soya nuggets (cooked, but this will add some 20 minutes to preparation time).
• half a cup of bhelpuri sauce (you can make this or buy it readymade)

Remember, for bhelpuri sauce, the taste is in the tamarind.

Procedure:

1. chop up the sausages and mushrooms to a manageable size
2. heat up a wok/kadai on a medium flame.
3. Drop the mushrooms and chicken (and soya nuggets if you have them) in, stir around for a couple of seconds, and then add the sauce.
4. Mix well, turn to low flame and cover the Wok.
5. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 5 minutes.
6. Open the lid, mix around a bit more.
7. Serve hot, eat with Appams.

Had prawns. Had idea what. Had no idea how.

Decided that I wanted to make either sweet and sour prawns or garlic prawns, but didn't know how to make either. Called up dad. He gave me a rough recipe over the phone. All quantities were "to taste", so I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

• Prawns (200gms)
• Tomato Ketchup (to taste)
• Pineapple Juice (to taste)
• Salt, Sugar, Chilli Powder, Ginger Garlic paste
• Vinegar (optional, again, to taste)
• Soya Sauce (1 tsp)
• Corn flour/Maida (refined wheat flour)
• Carrots, cauliflower, spring onions (quantity as you see fit)

Method:

1. Chop up carrots into longish slices (diagonally is nice). Break onions into petals.
2. Keep prawns ready (not frozen or cold, should be at room temperature)
3. Mix tomato ketchup and Pineapple juice, adding to taste in a saucepan
4. Heat on low flame
5. Add salt, sugar, chilli powder and ginger-garlic paste
6. Mix in some corn flour or maida to increase thickness. Stir continuously to avoid forming lumps. Keep stirring until it turns translucent.
7. Add in vinegar if necessary for taste and soya sauce.
8. Add in prawns
9. Add in carrots
10. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously. Boil for about 5-10 minutes depending on freshness of prawns.
11. Simmer to get rid of excess liquid if necessary.

I made a few mistakes though. I used frozen prawns and they weren't completely defrosted when I put them in, so they didn't cook completely. The sauce however turned out well.

Other options:

Pre-boil the prawns, or deep fry them in a batter made out of maida/corn flour and bound with egg (you can use just the egg white if you don't want the yolk).