Nutty, crunchy and yes it’s slightly bitter…

Besides blooming flowers, sprouting green leaves, chirping birds and drizzling rain, another good thing about spring is that I get to see and buy a lot of variety of greens at farmers market or at regular grocery stores. The view of fresh greens itself is soothing and refreshing to my eyes. Every time I go to the farmers market, I get astonished to see new varieties of greens that I have never seen or tasted before. Last weekend, I came across rabe rapini which has vibrant green leaves with green buds which closely resembles to broccoli florets. I had no idea how it would taste nor its origin, yet I bought it as I love to try new veggies.

From Wiki, I learned that these greens are quite common in the cuisines of Southern Italy and China and are related to turnip family. It has a nutty, bitter and pungent flavor. I wasn’t that happy to read about the bitter part. Nevertheless, I did give it a whirl.

I stir fried the rabe rapini along with garlic, small onions and flavored it with soy sauce, finished it off with sesame seeds and peanuts. I wouldn’t say that it was totally bitter free, but the addition of brown sugar did help to cover up the bitterness to an extend. The truth is that it is a good source of Vitamin A, C, K, potassium, calcium and iron, may be this will encourage you to try this green.

Peanut Rabe Rapini Stir Fry

Ingredients:

• Olive oil- 2 tbsp
• Garlic, chopped- 3 cloves
• Dry Red whole chilly, slightly crushed- 2 no’s
• Small onions, chopped- 6 no’s
• Rabe Rapini, washed thoroughly- a bunch
• Water- 3 tbsp
• Soy sauce, low sodium- 3 tbsp
• Brown sugar (optional)- 1 1/2 tsp
• Sesame seeds- 2 tbsp
• Peanuts, roasted- 1/4 cup
• Salt- if needed

Preparation:

• Wash the rabe rapini thoroughly under running water and pat dry it.
• Place a skillet over medium heat, add olive oil.
• When the oil gets hot, add chopped garlic and saute till it is aromatic.
• Add dry red chilly, saute for a second, add small onions and saute till it turns light golden in color.
• Add the rabe rapini, add water and cook covered for about 5 minutes.
• Open the lid, stir fry the greens, let the water dry out.
• Add soy sauce, stir fry for a couple of minutes.
• Add brown sugar and combine well.
• Taste and add salt if needed.
• Sprinkle sesame seeds and roasted peanuts over it, stir fry for a minute.
• Serve warm as a side dish.

I am not a huge fan of beef but my husband is, in fact a die hard fan. So, I have to cook beef in my kitchen at least once in while. My husband loves steak with mashed potatoes and we make this quite often. So the other day, I wanted to make something different with beef. I had no clue what to make and ended up making this. This recipe fits into the criteria of “on the spot recipe”. I have tried this couple of times already. I am sure it’s going to take a while to get bored of this dish.

I added whole red chilly to the oil to give the dish a spicy flavor and stir fried the thinly cut beef till it started to brown along with the veggies. You get to taste beef and veggies at the same time from the same dish. Now, this is what I call as my kind of dish!

Spicy Beef Stir Fry

Ingredients

• Beef, stew beef cut thin long or thin cubes- 1/2 lb
• Olive oil- 3 tbsp
• Whole red chilly- 3 no’s
• Garlic, chopped- 3 cloves
• Carrots, cut thin long- 2 no’s
• Green beans or French beans, whole- 12 no’s
• Lemon grass, fresh or dried, cut long- 3 inch 3 cuts
• Soy Sauce- 4 tbsp
• Ground pepper- 1/2 tsp
• Red wine vinegar or white vinegar- 1 1/2 tbsp
• Green onions, chopped- 1 stalk

Preparation:

• Place a non-stick pan over medium heat, add olive oil.
• Add the whole red chilly and saute for a second.
• Add the garlic and saute till it starts to get golden in color.
• Add the beef, cover the pan with its lid and cook for a few minutes.
• If the beef gets dry, add little water to the pan.
• When the beef turns tender, add the carrots, green beans and lemon grass.
• Cover and cook for a few minutes till veggies turn tender.

• Don’t over cook the veggies.
• Remove the cover, stir fry the beef and veggies until it starts to turn brown in color.
• Pour the soy sauce, ground pepper and stir fry.
• Add the red wine vinegar or white vinegar, and stir fry for a minute.
• Finally garnish the stir fried beef with chopped green onions.

• Transfer to a serving bowl and enjoy as a side dish with your favorite entree.

Tips:

• Make sure to cut the beef thin, so that it cooks faster.
• Stir fry the beef and veggies till it turns brown in color, so that it get the taste of fried beef.
• Don’t skip the lemon grass, it gives a nice aroma to the dish.

It’s hard to find long beans in regular grocery stores, you can find them in either Indian stores which has vegetables or at some Asian markets. I get hold of long beans very rarely and I usually make this stir fry. This makes a great dish for rice or roti. If you don’t have long beans, you could even try this with other vegetables like beans, cauliflower , ivy gourd etc.

Long Beans Stir Fry

Ingredients

Cooking long beans:

• Long beans, cut small- a bunch
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Salt- 2 pinches
• Water- little

Stir fry

• Oil- 2 tbsp
• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Chana dal- 1tbsp
• Garlic, minced- 1 tsp
• Onion, large chopped-1
• Green chillies, chopped- 2
• Tomato, chopped-2
• Turmeric powder- 2 pinches
• Salt- to taste
• Coconut grated- 1/4 cup
• Lime juice- 2 tbsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful

Preparation:

• Cook the cut long beans along with turmeric powder, salt and little water in a saucepan until it turns tender, cover the pan while cooking the beans and keep aside.

• In the same saucepan, add oil, mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• Add the chana dal and let it turn golden in color.
• Add the chopped garlic and saute till it gets light golden color.
• Add the chopped onion and green chillies, saute till the onion gets tender.
• To the onion, add the tomatoes and cook till it gets mashed.
• Add turmeric powder and salt, combine well.

• Add the cooked long beans and give it a stir.
• To the beans add the grated coconut and stir it till the raw smell of the coconut goes away.
• Pour the lemon juice and combine well.
• At the end add the chopped cilantro and stir everything well.

• Transfer into a bowl and serve along with rice or roti.

Tips:

• You could even use Green beans, Cauliflower or Ivy gourd instead of long beans.
• Add salt according to your needs.

Weekend is right around the corner and just like me many of you will be busy browsing for some kool recipes to cook over the weekend. I always look out for simple and flavorful recipes, which will not make me feel that I am spending too much time in the kitchen rather than with my hubby. So, here is an easy breezy recipe from my cookbook for you to try during this weekend.

Have a fun filled long weekend guys!

Soy Chicken Stir fry

Ingredients:

To marinate Chicken:

• Chicken, boneless, cut long- 1 lb
• Ginger-garlic paste- 2 tsp
• Soy sauce, low sodium- 3 tbsp
• Ground pepper- 1 tsp
• Lemon juice- 1 tsp
• Salt- to taste

To stir fry:

• Sesame oil- 1 tbsp
• Whole red chilly- 2
• Garlic, minced- 1tsp
• Red onion, cut long- 1
• Carrot, cut long- 1 large
• Zucchini, cut long- 1 (optional)
• Scallions, cut small- 2 stalks

Preparation:

• Marinate the chicken with the above mentioned ‘to marinate chicken’ ingredients for 10 minutes.

• Heat a wok or non-stick pan over medium-high.
• Add sesame oil, whole red chilly and garlic minced, saute till garlic starts to turn golden in color.
• Add red onions and saute for a minute.

• Add carrots and zucchini and saute till it gets tender.

• Now, add the marinated chicken to the veggies and combine well.
• Close the pan with its lid and cook the chicken until it’s tender.

• Add the scallions to the chicken.
• Open the lid and stir fry the chicken along with the veggies till it starts to turn brown.

• Remove from the flame and serve along with rice or noodles.
• I served this with my hubby’s favorite Rosemary Mashed potatoes, I’ll be posting the recipe for this pretty soon.

Tips:

• If you want a strong flavor of soy sauce, you could add lil more soy sauce while stir frying the chicken.
• You can ignore zucchini if you want as it will turn mushy if cooked for long.

I told ya I am hooked on my griddle…

After making non-veg dishes on my griddle, I wanted to try a veggie dish, so I had made a stir fry with vegetables and noodles. I blindly threw few veggies on the griddle along with fried paneer and seasoned the veggies with few sauces. It was a simple stir fry made with less effort and tasted truly delicious.

Veggie Noodle Stir Fry

Ingredients:

• Rice Noodles, or any noodles of your choice- 8 oz
• Green pepper, diced- 1
• Carrots, cut lengthwise- 1
• Celery, diced- 1 stalk
• Onions. diced- 1
• Cabbage, chopped- 1/4 cabbage
• Paneer, fried (frozen)- 8 no’s (optional) or use Tofu
• Soy Sauce, low sodium- 2tbsp
• Oyster Sauce- 2tbsp
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Sesame oil- 2tsp
• Non-stick cooking spray- to grease the griddle

Preparation:

• Dice the veggies and keep it ready.
• Heat up the griddle to 350 F and grease the griddle with non-stick cooking spray.
• Spread the veggies on the griddle and let it turn tender.

• In the meantime cook the noodles: boil water in a pot, season with little salt and put the noodles into the water and cook till soft.
• Drain the water from the cooked noodles, add little vegetable oil and stir the noodles, keep aside. Don’t let the noodles stand for a long time as it would stick to each other.
• Stir-fry the veggies on the griddle and let it caramelize slightly.
• Add fried panner to the veggies and stir fry for a minute.

• Pour soy sauce and oyster sauce over the veggies and give it a stir.
• Add ground pepper and combine everything well.
• Now add the cooked noodles and stir fry along with the veggies.

• Add the sesame oil to the noodles and veggies and stir fry it for few seconds.
• Transfer the veggie noodle stir fry on a plate and serve immediately.

Tips:

• If you want your stir fry to be spicy add 1/2 tsp of Chilli-Garlic paste to it.
• You could use tofu instead of paneer.
• Paneer is available in the frozen aisle of Indian stores.
• You could make this stir fry completely vegetarian by not adding oyster sauce.

Plantain flowers, a Kerala veggie delicacy that I used to devour while growing up, that too plucked right from the plantain plant grown in the backyard of my house in kerala…

The scene of plantain flowers or blossoms hanging from the plantain plant is quite common to those living in Kerala. If you are in Kerala, you just have to look around to spot a plantain plant, you could spot not one but many plants standing in a row, soon you will be in the middle of plantain farm. While growing up, seeing a plantain plant or plantain flowers didn’t excite me much, as this was an everyday sight for me. But things got changed after coming to the US. Every time I see plantains in any grocery stores, I get excited. But, when I saw plantain flowers the other day at the Asian supermarket I got super excited and without any second thoughts I snatched one of them.

Lots of sweet childhood memories unwrapped along with this plantain flower…

Almost all parts of the plantain plant are useful in one way or the other. Not just the fruits from the plantain plants are edible, even the flower and the plantain shoots can be turned into delicious dishes. Plantain will fruit only once, so after harvesting the fruit, the plant can be cut and the layers peeled, the inner most white cylindrical shaped shoot is used for making delicious dishes, which has high health benefits. The plantain leaves are also used in preparing fish and other sweet dishes, by wrapping the fish or other ingredients in the leaves and steaming it will give nice aroma and flavor to the dish. Also, fresh plantain leaves are used instead of plates in South India and food is served on that. Leaves are also used as wrappers. Again, the fiber thread like part that comes out of the plant when pulled off is used for tying jasmine flowers and for making garlands, its stronger than the cotton thread.

Plantain flowers or Banana flowers:

The banana flower is a large, dark purple-red blossom that grows from the end of a bunch of bananas. Its sizable bracts, or leaves, snugly enclose delicate, sweetly scented male flowers. The female flowers, which do not require fertilization to become fruit, grow farther up the stem from the male flowers. Once the tougher, darker outer bracts are pulled away, the paler and more tender inner leaves are used in a number of dishes, prepared in a variety of ways: From Wise Geek.

Whenever my mom finds a banana flower, she used to make this stir fry and I loved this. When I saw this flower in the grocery store, I was reminded of the delicious stir fry my mom made and my mouth watered instantly. When I bought this, the only thing that I was aware was that the cleaning was a tedious and time consuming process. I recalled how my mom used to clean this staining her hands, that time I only cared about the tasty dish I would get to gobble, not helping her in anyway. I was a big time slacker then

After coming home, I called the expert, my mom and took notes on how to clean the flower and make the stir fry.

How to clean a banana or plantain flower:

• Wash the whole flower under running water.
• Cleaning the flower will stain your hands, so use kitchen gloves or you could even apply oil on your hands before doing this.
• Peel off the tough red bracts or leaves and save the bunch of florets attached to the top part of the leaves.

• Peel off all the tough red leaves till you reach a point where you can’t peel any more leaves and when you find tender ivory colored inner part in the shape of a bulb.

• You could use the red leaves for presentation, so save them.
• Save the ivory colored inner part of the flower, you are going to chop this finely, no need to separate this bulb as it’s tender.

• You can’t use the florets you saved as it is, you need to remove the stamen, looks like a string which tastes bitter.

• Open up the flower and you could see the stamen with a bulb shaped top, pull that off.

• The florets attached to the outer part of the leaves are quite big, so the stamens are visible and can be removed easily compared to those in the inner part.

• Florets found in the inner part are small, you have to open them gently with your fingers and remove the stamen from them.
• Once you separate the stamen from the florets and the inner tender bulb from the flower, chop these coarsely with a sharp knife and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice, this is to prevent the oxidation of the flowers and to prevent them from turning black in color.

• In a fresh banana flower, the florets attached to the outer leaves are white in color, but in not so fresh flowers it would look pale and black, discard those flowers and use only the white colored florets which is found inside.

I know what exactly you might be thinking now, “what a tedious and time consuming process”. I second your thoughts, but for someone like me who grew up eating this and who wants to enjoy the taste of this dish after so many years, could blindly go through this lengthy process. I actually had fun doing this and felt so happy when I made this dish from scratch. If you are someone who wants to try this exotic flower, next time when you see this don’t let go. Follow the instructions and it’s worth making this. This dish is really tasty, packed with many nutrients and great for your health.

What are Plantains?

Plantains are a member of banana family. They are starchy, longer than bananas with thicker skin. Raw plantains are treated like veggies, while ripe plantains can be eaten as it is or used in making many sweet dishes.

Here are some of the sweet dishes you could make with plantain:

Steamed Plantain Cake

Stuffed Plantain Fry

Sweet Plantain Fry

Plantain Pancakes

Plantain Flower Stir Fry: A Kerala veggie delicacy, recipe courtesy: My dear Mom

• Plantain flower, chopped- 1 flower
• Mung bean, cooked- 1 cup
• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Chana dal- 1 handful
• Urad dal- 1 handful
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Dry whole red chilly- 3
• Onion, chopped- 1
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 2tbsp

To grind:

• Coconut grated- 1/2 cup
• Cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Garlic, chopped- 1tsp
• Chilly powder- 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Water- 1 tbsp or so

Preparation:

• Chop the separated floret and the inner ivory colored bulb and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice.

• Wash Mung bean taken in a strainer under running water and cook it in a pressure cooker with enough water and salt until it’s cooked well. keep aside.

• In a blender, grind the above mentioned to grind ingredients to a paste.

• Heat oil in a non-stick pan, add mustard seeds and let it splutter, add dry red chilly.
• Then add chana dal and when it turns golden, add urad dal and saute till it turns golden brown.

• Add curry leaves, onions, little salt and saute till onions turn tender.

• Drain the water from the chopped flowers and add to the onions and saute.

• Add little more salt and saute the flowers till it turns tender and cooked.
• At this point, add the cooked, drained mung bean and combine with the cooked flowers.

• Now, add the ground coconut mixture and saute for few minutes.

• Combine everything well and remove from the heat.

• Serve this on the red leaves you have saved from the flower for a fancy plating.

• This makes a perfect side dish for rice or with any other flat breads.

Tips:

• In the US, I’ve seen banana flowers in Asian super markets and in some Indian stores.
• You could find mung bean, chana dal, urad dal in any Indian stores.
• Adding mung bean to this dish makes this even more delicious and rich, so don’t skip this.

A successful sunday cooking experimentation which made my day worthy…

Whenever I get into the kitchen to whip up lunch or dinner, I feel like I am a novice in cooking. I cannot think of a single day when I actually would have entered the kitchen with the pro feeling. Initially, I was a real novice and as I got better, I was hoping that this feeling would fade way after a while. But it hasn’t yet changed a bit, I still feel the same. Honestly, this is the worst feeling ever.

So this is what happens the moment I enter the kitchen:

As a novice I enter the kitchen, I wander around cluelessly for a while. I open the pantry and refrigerator at least ten times. I even stare at certain veggies or fruits or other ingredients a few times, something triggers my brain, my hands and legs seems to co-operate together. I get into action, I witness myself involved in sauteing, stirring, flipping and frying; at this point I act and feel like a pro. Finally, a spectacular dish would jump out of the cooking pan, now comes my favorite part: plating the food I’ve made and the verdict made by my hubby and my taste buds. If they approve, the-novice-feeling vanishes at once. This repeats all over again the next day…

All of the above things happened yesterday too when I entered the kitchen to whip up lunch, it was already 3 pm so I should rather call it “cooking for linner”. And I came out with a delicious Almond chicken. I was hoping to save any leftover for next day lunch, but there wasn’t any leftover it got finished so fast. Do I have to say any more to prove how this dish tasted?

Browned Spicy Almond Chicken:

• Chicken breast, boneless, diced- 1 pound
• Black Cumin seeds- 1tsp
• Red pearl onions or small red onions, cut lengthwise- 15 no’s
• Ginger-garlic paste- 1tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Ground pepper- 1/2 tsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1/4 cup
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 3 tbsp

To make into a coarse paste:

• Whole cardamom- 3
• Whole cloves-2
• Cinnamon stick- 2 inch
• Dry Red chilli- 3
• Ground fennel- 2 tsp
• Almonds, sliced- 1/2 cup
• Water- enough to make a paste

Preparation:

• In a blender, blend the above mentioned ingredients to make into a coarse paste with enough water, may be 3 tbsp or so and keep aside.

• Heat a wide non-stick pan over medium heat, add oil and add black cumin seeds to it and saute.
• Add chopped red pearl onions along with salt and saute till it gets slightly browned.

• Add ginger-garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes away.
• Add turmeric powder to this and saute for a minute.
• Now, add the coarse almond paste to the browned onion, also rinse the blender with little water and pour the water into the pan, saute till the oil starts to ooze out of this mixture.

• Add chicken and cover the pan with its lid and let the chicken cook in its own water.

• When the chicken has cooked well, remove the lid and stir fry till the chicken gets browned and all the water evaporates.

• Add chopped cilantro, ground pepper and salt, stir fry for some more time.

• This is a dry dish so there won’t be any gravy, however this dry dish will not disappoint you.
• Adjust the spice level by increasing or reducing the amount of ground pepper accordingly.
• Serve with Plain Basmati rice and Raita.

Almond chicken stir fried with Basmati Rice:

• Transfer the chicken to a separate dish.
• In the same pan used for cooking chicken (without washing it, as it has all the yummy flavors from the chicken buried in it) combine the chicken and rice depending upon how much you need and stir fry it for 2 minutes.

• Serve this with Raita.

Tips:

• Make sure to brown the chicken after cooking it, this enhances the taste of the chicken.
• You could also increase the amount of almonds for more nutty flavor according to your wish.

Easily mistaken for Burrito, could be called as Indian Burrito, wheat crepes stuffed with stir fired chicken…

As mush as dedication I have in blogging that much dedication my mom shows in giving out all the recipes she knows and tries in her kitchen to me. Nowadays, my mom and I talk mostly about food and cooking over the phone, and when it comes to sharing recipes we both are all ears.

Yesterday, I had spent most of the time organizing the food pictures in my laptop. My laptop is crowded with recipe folders and food pictures, I wish I had the time and energy to blog about everything I’ve saved over the years. At times I feel I should stop making new dishes until I blog about all the old ones, but this is not going to happen as everyday I come across new recipes and that tempts me to try it right away.

While going through the food pictures, my eyes caught on the Wheat crepes stuffed with Chicken stir fry that I had clicked last month. Some recipe calls only for simple ingredients, yet the dish turns out to be real delicious as if they were made with many complex ingredients. This is one such dish from my mom, made with simple ingredients and the outcome was super yummy that I started making this often for lunch and dinner.

I first stir fried the chicken, then made the homemade wheat crepes, placed the chicken on the crepes and  wrapped it which gave it the look of a burrito.

Chicken Stir Fry:

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast, boneless, cubed- 1 1/2 lbs

Masalas:

• Chilly powder- 1 1/2 tsp or more if you want it spicy
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Fennel powder- 2 tsp
• Coriander powder- 2 tbsp
• Salt- to taste

Other Ingredients:

• Onion, cut thin lengthwise- 2
• Tomato Paste or fresh tomato chopped- 3 tbsp or 3 fresh tomatoes chopped
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Cilantro chopped- 1 handful
• Coconut oil- 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp at the end

Preparation:

• Combine the diced chicken breast with the above mentioned masalas with the chicken and cook the chicken in a skillet until the chicken is cooked through and keep aside.

• Heat a cast iron skillet or wide skillet, add oil, onion, curry leaves and saute until the onion turns golden brown.

• Now add the cooked chicken, using a wooden fork or spoon shred the chicken while constantly stir frying it.
• Add the tomato paste or chopped tomato and stir fry until everything gets a fried texture.
• Finally add 1 tbsp coconut oil and give it a stir.
• Garnish with cilantro and remove from the flame.

Wheat Crepes:

Ingredients:

• Wheat flour- 1 cup
• Egg-1
• Water- 1 cup or more  to make not too watery batter
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Blend the wheat flour, egg, salt and water in a blender  until smooth and to a batter constituency.
• The batter should neither be too watery nor too thick, should have in between constituency.
• Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat.
• Fill the ladle upto the 3/4 level with the batter. Gently pour this batter onto the center of the pan – just as you would for a pancake – till the ladle is empty.
• Now begin to spread the batter in sweeping circular motions with the back of the ladle.
• Cook the wheat crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side.

Making the Burrito:

• Place about 2-3 tbsp of the stir fried chicken on to the middle of each wheat crepes.
• Fold the both ends of the crepes and wrap it nicely.

Tips:

• You could use Bone in Chicken, after cooking the chicken with all the masalas, remove the bone from the chicken before stir frying it.

Yet another stir fry experience at Stir crazy restaurant. This is one restaurant I can just walk in without any formalities and everyone can find there own perfect stir. The specialty about this restaurant is that cooking is done in front of us and we can create our own stir with our favorite veggies, meat and sauces, chosen from a wide variety. They give us 2 bowls, one for the veggies and the other for the sauce. We can literally pile up the bowl with as much as veggie as we want, many times I have seen people over loading the bowl so much that if they take another step, the veggies would start falling, including my darling hubby, lol. Also they have a variety of sauces, I always stand before the sauce bar confused on which one to pick. They have both Chinese and Thai sauces, for instance, Thai BBQ, spicy basil, schezwan, sweet and sour, teriyaki, Red curry, peanut, the list goes on.

After having so many stir fry experiences, I finally figured out that spicy basil is my favorite sauce, may be because I love my stir fry to be spicy. After we have the veggies and sauces ready, we hand it over to the chef. Now starts the stir magic. The way the chef make the stirring sound and the flame leaping from the wok, is definitely a great fun to watch for both kids and adults.

After a long day, I always prefer an express dinner. One express dish that is on my top list is Stir fry. With or without meat, stir fry tastes good for me. Stir fry is really a versatile dish, in which we can alter the ingredients and sauces according to our wish. We could literally add all kind of veggies to this, also any kind of meat goes well with this or even shrimp. So this time I used asparagus as the veggie. Most of the time I roast asparagus in the oven and hence it acts as the side dish for lunch or dinner. So to make a difference I stir fried asparagus with the chicken and added the sauces that were available in my kitchen. To make it more rich I even sprinkled some almonds on it. I had it with vermicelli pasta.

Whenever I make stir fry I make it generously so that I can have it for the next day. I love to have my stir fry spicy so I added sambal oelek. While making stir fry I do make the stirring sound, just to have the restaurant effect, I intentionally make a few extra stir, that’s when my hubby would realize that he is going to have stir fry for dinner. Unfortunately I am not yet an expert in making the flame. I am glad that I am ignorant about this stunt, otherwise I would have definitely tried this and would have set my house on fire.

Ingredients:

• Boneless Chicken breast, cut into long stripes or cubes-1 pound
• Asparagus, stems removed, cut into 1 inch- 8 stalks
• Onion, sliced lengthwise-1
• Garlic-1tsp
• Dry red chillies-2
• Sambal oelek-2tsp
• Soy sauce-2tbsp
• Worcestershire sauce-3tsp
• Almonds sliced-1/4 cup
• Green onions chopped-1 stalk
• Sesame oil/vegetable oil-2tbsp

Preparation:

* In a wok or deep bottomed skillet, add oil, fry the garlic until fragrant, and not brown.
* Add the chicken and stir fry it until almost done.
* Add sambal oelek and mix well.
* Add asparagus and onion and stir fry till it gets soft.
* Add dry chillies to this.
* Add the sauces and give it a good stir.
* Add almonds and stir fry for 1 minute and finally add the green onions.
* Serve warm with your choice of side dish: rice, vermicelli pasta, or any kind of noodles would go with this.

Tips:

• You could even stir the noodles or vermicelli along with the chicken/veggie at the end.
• You could control the spice level based on your needs.