Without any doubt, mango and chicken are quite compatible. I have once had mango chicken at a Thai restaurant in Omaha, NE, it was delicious and since then I had been getting constant craving for the same. I had the feeling that it was big time I succumb to my irresistible craving for mango chicken. Last weekend, I had bought half a dozen of really good and fresh ripe mangoes with the sole intention of making mango chicken. The mangoes were really sweet and juicy that I couldn’t stop eating it while cutting them and I got little worried whether there would be any mangoes left to make the dish. I did have to scream at myself to stop eating the fruit and focus on preparing my favorite dish.

Before making this dish as usual I had to surf through the internet for some ideas and tips for making mango chicken. I smoothly landed on About.com website and saw a recipe for mango chicken with really good reviews. I had all the ingredients and so tried it at once. It was in deed very easy to make this dish. It only involved only 3 main steps: making the mango sauce, frying the chicken and combining the mango sauce and the fried chicken. I was so impatient to taste this dish and greedily tasted some while it was simmering on the stove. There was an outburst of flavors in my mouth: spicy, tangy, juicy, sweet and the mango flavor. The taste was just phenomenal, and of course I felt this dish to be better than the restaurant ones. The preparation method for this dish is quite flexible you could adjust almost everything according to your needs.  If you want more spice, add more of chili paste; if you prefer to have more mango taste, add more of the mango sauce etc etc; the end result will be absolutely delicious.

Mango Chicken

Ingredients:

For frying chicken:

• Chicken breasts, skinless and boneless, cubes- 2 or 3
• Rice flour or all purpose flour- 1/2 cup
• Salt- 1/4 tsp
• Oil- 1/4 cup or more for shallow frying

For making mango sauce:

• Mangoes, ripe and sweet, cubed- 2 no’s
• Chili paste (sambal oelek) or dried whole red chilly- 1 1/2 tsp of chili paste or 1 red dry chilly
• Soy sauce, low sodium- 2 tbsp
• Rice vinegar- 1 tbsp
• Fish sauce-  2 tbsp
• Lemon juice- 2 tbsp
• Brown sugar- 1 tbsp
• Garlic, chopped- 3 cloves
• Ginger or galangal chopped- 1 1/2 inch slice
• Lemon or lime zest or kaffir lime leaves-  zest of 1/2 lemon or 2 kaffir leaves
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp

Other ingredients:

• Red bell pepper, cut into long strips- 1
• Cilantro, chopped- 2 handful

Preparation:

• Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.
• Coat the chicken with the flour.
• Place a large cooking pan over medium heat, add oil.
• Place the coated chicken over the oil and shallow fry in 2 batches till it turns golden in color.
• I used rice flour and the chicken turned really crispy. You could use all purpose flour instead.
• If you want you could add more oil to fry it.
• Transfer to a paper towel and keep aside.
• In a blender, add all the ingredients to make the mango sauce and puree to a smooth paste.
• In the same pan used for frying the chicken, pour the mango sauce and add the red bell peppers to it.
• Combine well and let the sauce come to a boil.
• Add 1/4 cup of water to thin it down.
• Let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Red pepper shouldn’t be cooked well, it should have a crispy texture.
• Add the fried chicken, combine well and cook for a minute.
• Have a taste and adjust the spice level and salt level.
• Sprinkle the chopped cilantro over the mango chicken.
• Remove from the stove and serve on a serving bowl.
• This goes well with Jasmine rice or Basmati rice.

Tips:

• I find using red peppers gives a nice flavor and color to this dish, so make sure to use red peppers only.

Pickles have been a staple delicacy for many centuries and each cuisine has its own speciality pickles. Pickling is a process of preserving food in salt water, some times vinegar and oil are also added. The concept of pickling started many centuries ago, obviously to preserve food to consume during off seasons and was eaten a lot by sailors.

In India, pickle is very famous and is served as a side dish with almost all meals. When you are in an Indian grocery store, you could find one whole isle devoted just for pickles. There you will stand intrigued and perplexed by the different varieties of pickles. You will come across pickles made out of vegetables, meat and sea food. Most common vegetarian pickles are made using green mango and lemon as these are abundantly available in India. In fact, each state in India has its own way of making pickles and so you could find South Indian pickles and North Indian style pickles.

In my hometown, Kerala Rice porridge along with pickle has been a comfort food and is served in most of the houses. Pickle has both the spice and sour flavor which alone can enhance the taste of any food you eat. This is the sole reason why it is served with all kinds of meals, even if it is a non-veg dish.

If you serve a meal without pickle to your guests in Kerala, they will immediately raise the question ” Do you have any pickle???”

There are a few benefits of eating pickles, like it can increase your apetite, they are low in saturated fat and cholesterol, good source of iron, vitamin A and fibres. However, too much intake of pickle is not good for your health as it is high in sodium and acid. So, intake it in a moderate amount and enjoy the kick for many years…

Green Mango Pickle

Ingredients

• Green Mango, diced small- 4 no’s

To combine:

• Red chilly powder- 1 1/2 tbsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Salt- 1 tsp

For sautéing:

• Vegetable oil- 1/3 cup
• Mustard seeds- 2 tsp
• Cumin seeds- 1 1/2 tsp
• Dry Red chilly- 4 no’s
• Fenugreek seeds- 1 tsp
• Garlic, chopped small- 5 cloves
• Asafetida- 2 pinches
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig

Other Ingredients:

• Sesame oil- 1 tsp
• Vinegar- 1/4 cup

Preparation:

• Cut the green mangoes into small, discard the seed.
• Combine the red chilly powder, turmeric powder and salt, keep aside.
• Place a non-stick pan or skillet over medium heat and add oil.
• When the oil gets hot, add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• Add cumin seeds, dry red chilly and saute.
• Immediately add the chopped garlic and stir fry till it starts to turn golden in color.
• As soon as the garlic starts to turn light golden in color, add fenugreek seeds and saute for a second.
• If fenugreek seeds stays long in the oil it will impart its bitter taste, to avoid this I added it towards the end.
• Now, add the asafetida and curry leaves, fry for a second.
• To the these add the combined spice powders: chilly powder, turmeric powder and salt.
• Combine it and don’t let it burn.
• Immediately add the diced mangoes and combine everything well.
• Stir fry the mangoes for a couple of minutes.
• Pour the vinegar and stir fry the pickle.
• Taste the pickle and add more salt if needed.
• Finish it off with sesame oil.
• Remove from the heat and let cool down.
• Sterilize your canning jars and dry them well before storing the pickle.
• When the pickle has cooled down, store it in the jar and close it air tight.
• Pickle should stand for at least 24 hours for  before serving so that all the flavors will get into the pickle.
• As days go by it will taste even better.
• After you start using the pickle, store it in the refrigerator so that you can use for several weeks.

Tips:

• I have reduced the amount of oil used for frying, if you want you could add more oil.
• Adjust the amount of chilly powder and salt according to your needs.
• Pickles are supposed to be spicy and salty.

VGYO smoothies represent Violet, Green, Yellow and Orange colored healthy smoothies…

The truth: I was hoping to make VIBGYOR smoothies and ended up with VGYO. The idea of making VIBGYOR smoothies had been tuning in my mind for a while. This was not an effect of seeing a rainbow. The last time I had encountered a rainbow was during my camping trip at Starved rock, IL in the summer of 2008. Since then, I haven’t seen one. Is it because it’s banned in my place? or does this mean that I don’t look at the sky these days?

When I decided to go with this VIBGYOR idea, I never thought that I would end up making VGYO smoothies instead. My whole idea was to make healthy fruit smoothies. However, while attempting to make these, I found that it was nearly hard to achieve indigo and blue colored smoothies with the fresh fruits. I tried a few of the blue and close to blue colored fruits like blueberries, purple grapes and plums, when they were blended I didn’t get a blue color, but got more of a violet color. Hence, I dropped the indigo and blue colored smoothies. Now, you must be thinking what happened to the red color. I knew it was quite easy to make red colored fruit  smoothies with watermelon or strawberries. Without much reasons, I skipped this too.

If I had added color I could have gotten the blue and indigo color. My goal wasn’t to make artificial colored smoothies, but to make healthy and refreshing smoothies.

VGYO Smoothies: for Violet color: Pomegranate; for Green color: Kiwi and Apple; for Yellow: Mango Lassi; for Orange: Cantaloupe.

Yes, I do have a favorite among these smoothies, hands down my favorite smoothie is Mango Lassi. I doubt if there is any Indian restaurant without this. Believe me, making this in your own kitchen is easy and fast.

Fruits Used:

Pomegranate Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Pomegranate seeds- seeds from half of the pomegranate

• Milk- 1 1/2 cups
• Sugar- 3 tbsp or as required

Preparation:

• In a blender, combine all the above ingredients.
• Strain the milkshake to discard the seeds.
• Serve the drink by topping with some pomegranate seeds.

Kiwi and Apple Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Kiwi, ripe- 2

• Apple, cored, seeds removed and cut in wedges-2
• Sugar- 3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Place these ingredients in a blender and puree to a smoothie constituency which will be thick and fibre rich.
• You could also make this in a power juicer to remove the fibre and for just the juice.

Mango Lassi (My Favorite)

Ingredients:

• Fresh ripe Mango or canned mango pulp- 1 ripe mango  diced or 1/2 cup canned mango pulp
• Yogurt- 1/4 cup
• Milk- 1/2 milk
• Sugar- to taste, if you are using sweetened mango pulp, avoid adding sugar. Taste the lassi and add accordingly.

Preparation:

• Put the above mentioned ingredients into a blender.
• Blend it until smooth.
• Pour into individual glasses and enjoy.

Cantaloupe Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Cantaloupe, rind removed, seeded and cubed- 4 cups
• Lemon juice (optional)- 1 tbsp
• Sugar- according to your needs

Preparation:

• Put the cubed cantaloupes, lemon juice if using and sugar if needed into a blender.
• Blend until smooth and you will get thick and fibre rich smoothie.
• You could make this in a power juicer as well, to discard the fibre and for getting just the juice.

Tips:

Difference between Blender and Juicer:

Blenders do not separate the juice from the fibre, while Juicers do so.

Nothing’s more inviting than the aroma of just-baked homemade goodies…

For these holidays, if you are looking for something different to bake other than the usual cookies, then you have landed on the right blog post. I am sure you must have tasted or at least heard of chocolate whoopie pies and pumpkin whoopie pies. Now let’s think totally out of the box and make whoopie pies with a totally different ingredient other than chocolate and pumpkin. How about we make whoopie pies with fresh ripe mangoes, doesn’t this sound interesting? Even I felt quite interesting when this idea struck me after a few days of thinking and searching for creative and different recipes using fresh mangoes.

The National Mango Board is running a contest in Foodie Blogroll and has challenged the foodies to post an original recipe using fresh mangoes. As soon as I saw this contest, I wanted to participate in this contest, as mango is one of my favorite fruits and I grew up eating lots of mangoes. Hence, I challenged myself and thought of the different ways of making some original recipe out of fresh mangoes. Since it’s Christmas season, I wanted to make something sweet and creamy. I suddenly felt whoopie pies would be a good one to have and I added fresh mango pulp while making the batter. I’ve never tried baking whoopie pies at home and so I was really excited to make this for the first time in my kitchen with mangoes. With all confidence I baked the mango cakes and was totally blown away when the mango cakes actually came out pretty good from the oven. Then I made the creamy frosting and generously smeared it between the mango cakes.

The mango cake was really soft and velvety; the rich frosting gave an extra creamy kick to the whoopie pies.

Mango pulp: Blend slices of ripe mango with little water to make thick mango pulp.

Mango Whoopie Pies:

For making Mango mini cakes:

Ingredients:

• Fresh mango pulp or canned Mango Pulp- 1 cup
• Butter, unsalted, melted- 1 stick, 6 ounces
• Light brown sugar-1 cup
• Eggs, large at room temperature, lightly beaten-2
• Ground cinnamon- 1/4 tsp
• Baking powder-1 tsp
• Baking soda-1tsp
• Pure vanilla extract -1 tsp
• Salt- 3/4 tsp
• All purpose flour-1 2/3 cups

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 35o F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar.
• Whisk in the eggs, mango pulp, ground cinnamon, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• Fold in the flour into the above batter.

• Drop 12 moulds of batter, spaced evenly, onto each cookie sheet.

• Bake until sparingly to the touch, about 10 minutes.

• Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

For making Frosting:

• Cream cheese, chilled-4 ounces
• Confectioners’ sugar-1cup
• Butter, softened-1/2 stick
• Vanilla extract-1/2 tsp

Preparation:

• Using an electric mixer, cream the softened butter with the cream cheese.
• Mix in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla extract on low speed.
• Then beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Making the whoopie pies:

• Spread the flat side of one mango cake with the cream cheese frosting and top with another mango cake. Repeat this with other mango cakes.

Tips:

You could make pumpkin whoopie pies, by substituting pumpkin puree for mango pulp.

Not one scoop, two scoops, but many scoops of homemade mango ice cream you can devour and none is going to stop you…

Whenever I get the craving for mango ice cream, I rush to the nearby Indian restaurant. I still don’t understand why is it hard to find mango flavor in most of the Ice cream store. They have all kinds of flavors but mango. For me, mango and strawberry are my all time favorite ice cream flavors. Mango is one such fruit I had eaten a lot while growing up, this is because this particular fruit is immensely found in my home town, Kerala. Mango trees are found in the backyard of almost all houses there. My grandparents backyard is packed with mango trees, they have varieties of mangoes each named differently, I can’t remember the names at this moment. I have had pretty much all of them and it was amazing how each variety tasted differently from others. Besides making desserts, smoothies, lassi with mangoes, we even make savory dishes with them. Both the raw and ripe fruit can be used for making different dishes.

When I visited my cousin last month, after the sumptuous dinner, she opened her dessert suspense, it was my favorite mango ice cream. I couldn’t believe it was homemade as it tasted just like restaurant style. When she started saying about the ingredients it had and the preparation method, I was even more stunned. All these years I had thought that making an ice cream in my kitchen is beyond my expertise, as it needed ice cream maker and other super ingredients. Hence I never cared to even peep into that section. So for me, ice cream means Haagen-dazs, in fact any brand would work for me as long as I get the ice cream taste. But after the successful attempt at making homemade mango ice cream, I don’t think I will ever have to rush to any restaurants or store if I get the craving, I can make it in my own kitchen with all confidence and I get to devour not one scoops but many scoop of ice cream.

This recipe is inspired from Show Me the Curry. This is the quickest and the easiest ice cream you could ever make. And the recipe calls for easily available ingredients.

Ingredients:

• Mango pulp- 30 oz can
• Sweetened Condensed milk- 14 oz can
• Whipped topping- 7-8 oz ( I used Kraft, Cool Whip)
• Fresh Mango diced- 1 cup (optional)

Preparation:

• Combine mango pulp, condensed milk and whipping cream using a whisk until evenly incorporated.

• Pour the mixture into a glass dish or bowl, close with its lid.

• Freeze it for 2 hours ( Initial freezing)
• After 2 hours of chilling, take this out and put the diced mangoes into the mixture and combine everything with a spoon.
• Again freeze it for another 4-5 hours or until it sets completely.

• Voila, mango ice cream is ready, you could scoop this in your favorite cones or in a bowl, top with whipping cream, nuts of your choice, garnish with diced mangoes.

Tips:

• For healthy version, use fat free condensed milk.
• You can keep this in the freezer overnight, so that you can avoid peeping into the freezer every now and then, checking whether it is ready to gobble
• This is a Make-Ahead Party Dessert.