Goan Food Recipes

Neureos for a Special Goan Christmas

2011-12-23T06:35:00.000-08:00

For all the people who requested Neureos, you can consider this to be our Christmas gift to you. As promised right in time for Christmas, wish we could put this up earlier but as they say better late then never :)

Before we indulge our selves, a quick fact, as usual, people who know your Goan history please feel free to add in the comments about how Neureos came up.

Neureos are part of consuada, (sweets sent to neighbours and relatives) and has been heavily influenced by hindu cooking, along with kalkals and shankarpalis.

Nuereo Ingredients for the Pastry:

1/4 kg sieved Maida
1 table spoon Melted Ghee
1/2 tea spoon Salt
A little warm water for kneading

Nuereo Ingredients for the Filling:

100 gms Rawa
2 table spoons Roasted Sesame Seeds
2 table spoons Khus khus (poppy seeds)
200 gms dessicated Coconut
Powdered Sugar as per taste
2 - 3 Table spoons broken Cashewnuts
2 - 3 Table spoons raisins (Kis mis)
Cherries optional
8 - 10 Elaichi (Cardamoms)

Hope your all set for some multi tasking, heat the ghee so its easy to mix with the maida.
While the ghee is getting hot, roast the rawa on low flame until it turns light brown.
As the rawa is getting roasted add the heated ghee to the maida.
Sprinkle a pinch of salt and knead the dough.
Continue to knead until the dough becomes soft and keep it aside.
Once the rawa is roasted, add poppy seeds, sesame seeds and stir it well.

Pound the cardamom until its powdered.
Add some ghee in the center of the rawa mix.
Fry the cashew nuts in the ghee. Before you mix the ghee with the rawa, add some raisins as well. Now its time to add dessicated coconut and stir all th ingredients.Mix all the ingredients for the Neureou filling well.
Put in the powdered cardamom and stir it up again.
Add the powdered sugar to the rawa mixture and continue to stir.

You can drop in pieces of cherry if you like, this step is completely optional, and mix it.
The Neureo filling is ready for now, keep it aside and get back to the pastry dough.
Divide the dough into small balls and roll out into thin circles like chapatis.
Add a spoonful of the neureo filling in the center of the circle.
Wet the edges of the neureo pastry so it doesn't open up and sticks well.

Fold the pastry as shown in the picture, you can probably spread the filling a little along the center to make this process easier.
You can use a fork to make a small design on the edges or a pastry wheel cutter.

Heat the oil in the pan and when hot its time to put in the Neureos.

Heres a bunch of Neureous just waiting to be fried!

Turn the neureos when the side gets golden brown.
When both sides turn golden brown you can take them off the fire.
Drain out the excess oil by placing it on a newspaper for a while.

It time to bite into a crispy goan sweet filled with the richness of the fruits of goa, coconuts and cashews. Neureos tastes lovely fresh, store it in an air tight container if not consuming immediately. Trust me your going to polish these off :)
A merry Christmas to all of you!

Kokad ~ Christmas Goes Coconuts!

2011-12-08T23:21:00.001-08:00

All Goan sweets require a lot of patience to get them right, getting them right the first time is always a task, the most important thing is to know when your sweet is ready to take off the fire the Kokad, Milk Cream, ,Doss, Coconut Ice all of them need to be removed when they begin to leave the vessel and form a ball.

Another way to know is when you pat the ball and it doesn't stick to your hand. If you remove it too early you can always put it back on the fire. If it is removed late, you can try adding milk and heating it again, but this is not recommended as then you end up getting hard lumps in the sweet.

Anyway we are confident that you will do it, so here comes another Goan Christmas Sweet, Kokad!

Kokad Ingredients:

1 Coconut (Scraped & Ground without Water)
300 Gms Rawa Semolina
650 Gms Sugar
2 Table Spoons Ghee
1 Table Spoon Butter
10 Cardamoms Ground
Water 3/4th Cup
Color Optional

Process:

Pour the water in a big vessel and place it on the fire, add the sugar and give it a stir.

While the sugar water is heating, roast the rava in another kadhai, generally done on slow fire so it doesn't burn.

When the sugar water begins to boil, add the ground tender coconut to it and mix it well.

By this time the rava should be roasted, add it to the Kokad mixture and stir again.

If you like sprinkle a pinch of salt, although its completely optional depending on your taste buds.

Stir the concoction on a medium flame

Now add the ghee and butter when its reasonably thick.

Continue to stir till the Kokad mixture thickens, that should take around 45-50 minutes, and like my 93-year old grandmother says - the essential ingredients of any Goan sweet is love and patience. You need to keep stirring the mixture and ensure it doesn't stick to the vessel, so you need loads of patience, while any dish made with love always turns out delicious.

Once you find the mixture thick enough that its difficult to stir, then sprinkle some cardamom powder. Its preferably added towards the end to retain the aroma and flavour of this delicious Indian spice.

Stir till the Cardamom is evenly mixed.

Apply some butter or ghee on a flat surface to spread the Kokad mixture.

Flatten it with a rolling pin while its hot.

Also use your hands to make it even and give the edges a round smooth shape.

Cut diamond-shape pieces and Kokad, a delectable Goan sweet, is ready to eat. Hope you enjoy this one, right in time for a special Christmas Season :)

Prawn Balchao: The Goan Prawn Pickle

2011-11-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

This is a special recipe, Prawn Balchao is something I adore. My wife, 10 month old baby and I are back from a road trip, we drove from Mumbai to Nepal and back. Prior to leaving my mother was over and we cooked this Prawn Balchao.

So when we got back there was this full bottle of Balchao waiting for me in the fridge, needless to say I finished the entire thing in one go. So I am excited to share this one with you. As usual, you guys are in for a treat!

Prawn Balchao Masala Ingredients:

24 Kashmiri Chillies
1 Inch Piece Ginger
6 Flakes Garlic
1 and 1/2 Teaspoon Jeera
1/2 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
A Small Ball of Tamarind
Vinegar around 200ml

Other Prawn Balchao Ingredients:

2 Medium Sized Cups of Prawns
4 Medium Onions cut fine
1/2 Inch Ginger cut into Jullians
6 Flakes of Garlic cut fine
2 Green Chillies
2 Sprigs of Curry leaves
300 to 500 ml of Oil depending on storage

Put all the masala ingredients in the blender

They needed to be blended in vinegar so add around 200ml

It needs to be a fine blend take for example the masala below is not quite done, can still see the chilly seeds and its coarse.

Hope your prawns are cleaned or you can do that while your masalas getting done.

Your Balchao Masala should look like what it is below.

Once your prawns are cleaned, saute them for a while.

Now you need to chop the second set of ingredients, onions, ginger and garlic.

Your prawns should be fried by now, keep them aside till they cool off and become easy to handle.

Put some oil into the pan and put the curry leaves on the fire.

Add the juliennes of ginger and stir fry with the curry leaves.

Then add the garlic pieces are continue frying

When slightly brown add the onions and yes, keep frying!

While thats happening, chop your prawns into pieces this is if you have large or medium size prawns. You want the masala flavour to get into it.

You have reached a culinary check point once your onions are nice and brown.

Its time to add the balchao masala to the ingredients.

Now mix the masala up with the ingredients and let it fry as well.

Once thats done, add the chopped pieces of prawn to the masala, your prawn balchao is nearly ready.

Mix the prawn balchao ingredients in the masala till its spread evenly.

Split and cut into pieces two green chillies or more if you want your prawn balchao extra spicy.

Add the green chilly to the prawn balchao and your done. If you are going to consume the balchao immediately you can use less oil during the steps.

If you plan on preserving it for a long time add more oil, you need to make sure once you bottle it, there should be oil floating above the contents for it to be well preserved.

Hope you enjoyed yet another recipe my mother had to offer :) As usual, please help us by spreading and sharing our website, thanks all!

Samarachi Kodi

2011-07-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Mum visited us a couple of weeks ago, cooked us up some Samarachi Kodi. For those who lived in Goa would know the significance of this meal, in the good old days Goa was shut during the monsoons, houses were stacked prior to the monsoons with dry prawns, dry fish, sausages to last till the end of the monsoons.

Then my Aunty Sunita from Moira came over and told us a little more of good old Goa in the monsoons how people bought rock salt, buy tamarind for the entire year as it was available on in april and may. Chillies too were stocked up on, the non spicy Aldona chillies for color and taste. The small red onions tied in bunches in the kitchen, that perhaps had a smoked effect.

Water pickles, feni, vinegar, all stored of course running out of feni was very common with an alcoholic in the house :) If you have some story to share of the good old days do post a comment!

This curry can be made with dry prawns and you can try experimenting with dry bombay ducks, todays Samarachi Kodi recipe is a dry prawn curry, perfect for the rainy season. A special thanks to Annarita for help with this recipe :)

Main Samarachi Kodi Ingredients

1 Tin dry prawns
2 Big onions
1/2 Scraped coconut
1 Small Ball Tamarind
1 Tomato
Salt to taste

Samarachi Kodi Masala Ingredients:

1/2 Coconut
6 - 8 Kashmiri Chillies
1/2 Orange Flower
1/2 Daggad phool (Star Anise)
1/2 Teaspoon Mace (Javitri)
1 Teaspoon Turmeric powder
2 Pieces of Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Methi seeds
3 - 4 Pepper corns
6 Cloves
1 Small Onion
2 Teaspoon Corriander seeds
6 Flakes of Garlic
1 Inch Ginger
A pinch of Jeera

So now that you've got your ingredients ready lets start making our Samarachi Kodi. Roast the half scraped coconut with the small onion and haldi powder
While thats getting done, clean the dry prawns by removing their heads if there are any and soak. You also need to soak the small ball of tamarind in water.

When the coconut is roasted, roast all the masala ingredients and grind.

Getting your Samarachi Kodi Masala was relatively simple, the only thing is this recipe requires a few unique ingredients as compared to what we have used in our other Goan recipes so far.

Keep the Masala aside, chop the onions, tomato, ginger, your prawns should be well soaked by now.

Get your coconut milk ready, if you have been following our recipes you would know how to do that by now :)

Sauté the onions till slightly brown.

Add the ginger and the big tomato and continue to fry

Add the soaked dry prawns, don't add the water only the prawns.

Keep frying for a while.

Then add the Samarachi Kodi masala along with the Tamarind water.

Depending on how thick you want your curry add the coconut milk
To give it a little more tangy taste you can add some raw mango to the dish.

Remember you are already adding tamarind water so according to your taste buds.

So there you have it, your Samarachi Kodi should be ready in a bit.

Enjoy eating it with hot rice and pickle on a cold rainy day.

Doce Bhaji

2011-01-25T00:11:00.000-08:00

Doce Bhaji or Doce Baji the lapsi from Goa, what every family should cook up for nursing mothers to nourish them and also put a smile on their face.

Apart from that, Doce Baji makes a very delicious tea time sweet. Delicious enough for the entire family to forget who it was originally cooked for. We have been blessed with a baby boy on the 23rd of December, and my parents with their third grand child :)

So lets take a look at how to cook up the Doce Bhaji for the entire family!

Doce Bhaji Ingredients:

250 Grams Broken Wheat
1 Coconut for Thick and Thin Coconut Milk
150 Grams or More Sugar
3 Tablespoons Ghee
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
3 - 4 Elaichi
Pinch of Salt

The Preparation of Doce Bhaji:

Doce Baji is fairly simple and doesn't take too much time and energy like some of the traditional Goan sweets. Hoping that you have the broken wheat ready, we didn't manage to get the wheat ground at the local mill as they weren't willing to grind only a kilo.

We managed to get a 250 grams packet of broken wheat for Rs 24. The first thing you do is wash it and soak it for around two to three hours so that it cooks faster.

Put your scrapped coconut in the blender to make your thick and thin coconut milk.

Just need to grind half the coconut with extra water for the thin milk and the remaining half with less water for the thick milk.

Then use a muslin cloth to filter the coconut pulp and squeeze the juice out.

Here's the thick and thin coconut milk, you can't make out the consistency in these pictures but in the coming steps you will be able to see the difference.

Put the broken wheat on the fire and add the thin coconut milk. Keep stirring the dish occasionally.

Grind the nutmeg for the powder if you don't have it ready, we make fresh nutmeg powder. Actually we try to make all the masala powders ourselves.

Open up the cardamom pods and crush the insides to gut your cardamom powder.

Once your doce bhaji looks like what it is in the picture you know its nearly done.

Add part of the thick coconut milk to the dish and get ready to add the other ingredients.

Just add a wee bit of the coconut milk, not necessary but this is how we did it.

Then the sugar, we have mentioned 150 Grams or more, this it totally dependent on your taste though. You can make it less as well if you like or more if you have a sweet tooth :)

Add a pinch or two of salt to the doce bhaji this again is as per taste!

Add the ghee to the doce bhaji!

As the ghee melts add the rest of the thick coconut milk and mix it well.

Add the cardamom and nutmeg powder to the dish and mix it up yet again.

Now bring it to a boil again, shouldn't take too long, but keep stirring it so it doesn't get burnt at the bottom.

Pour out the doce bhaji on grease proof paper to cool off and solidify and add some raisins or any other dry fruits you choose to decorate or add more substance to the dish.

Once it thickens it can be cut up into nice pieces or eaten whole and enjoyed.

Feijoada : Red Beans with Pork

2011-01-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

Feijoada is famous enough to have a wiki entry that states, Feijoada is a stew of beans with beef and pork, which is a typical Portuguese dish, also typical in Brazil, Angola and other former Portuguese colonies.

So yet again we have a Goan delicacy that has been handed down to us from the Portuguese, lets cook up some Goan Feijoada.

If you recollect that we had put up a simple recipe called Salted Pork up earlier. Our Feijoada utilizes the salted pork before its ready, so basically you can have two dishes on your table when you make Feijoada. The other option is to use goa sausages and beans to make an even easier Feijoada.

Feijoada Masala Ingredients:

4 - 6 Kashmiri Chillies
4 Tables Spoons Coconut
1/2 Teaspoon Jeera
1/4 Teaspoon Methi Seeds
1 Table spoons Coriander Seeds
4 - 5 Flakes Garlic
2 Leveled Teaspoons Poppy Seeds or Khus Khus
4 - 5 Pepper Corns
4 - 5 Cloves
Small Ball of Tamarind

Feijoada Main Ingredients:

250 Grams Red Beans (Osanay from Goa, the beans have to be soaked overnight)

Ingredients used for Salted Pork:

500 Grams Pork
2 Onions
4 Kashmiri Chillies
4 Kokam can be cut into tiny pieces

Firstly go to through the Salted Pork recipe and cook it till the pork looks like what it is in the picture below and then keep it aside.

Here are the Osanay (pronounced as Osahndeh) beans, soaked overnight.

Let's just drain out the water and rinse the beans thoroughly.

Add the beans to your pressure cooker.

Add less water here if you plan on using coconut milk, if your adding water can add a little extra but remember your pressure cookers limitation.

Add salt to taste, this can be as per your need but not much you have plenty of time later.

Set your cooker on the fire, get on your pan and begin to fry the Feijoada spices to make the masala. Remember when you are frying, start with one ingredient at a time, put the oil first then the chillies and then the next and so on, you can skip the tamarind and garlic.

When thats done, add a spot of water and put it in a blender. Your beans should be done and you have your masala ready as well.

You can add the fejioada masala to the beans in a vessel your going to cook in.

In the next step you can add coconut milk instead of water to give it an even richer taste, we added water as the feijoada masala has coconut in it as well.

Now its time to add the salted pork, this is when you remove it, before it turns reddish brown due to the kokam and heat.

Mix the pork pieces, in the curry, make sure you don't put the Kokams in the feijoada curry.

Bring the Feijoada to a boil and let it simmer till done.

Check the meat pieces and add salt to taste, enjoy your feijoada with rice or pois!

Mutton Xacuti

2010-10-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

Its been so long since we had the Chicken Xacuti recipe up, but recently I wanted to make Mutton Xacuti. Since I don't live with my Mum, I called her and asked her if it was the same procedure as the Chicken Xacuti .

Although it was, there are a few additional things that need to be done, I managed to make some yummy Mutton Xacuti, and here's how we got it done. All the ingredients are the same, except you replace the mutton with the chicken.

Xacuti Masala Ingredients:

6 Red Chillies (Kashmiri Chillies)
1/2 Scraped Coconut
2 Teaspoon of Cloves
1 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
8 Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Jeera
1/4 Teaspoon Methi Seeds
1 Teaspoon Badee Saunf (Moti Saunf)
4 - 5 Flakes Garlic
1/2 Inch Ginger
2 Inch Piece of Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Khus Khus
1 Table Spoon Corriander Seeds
1/2 Teaspoon Til
1/2 Onion

Mutton Xacuti Ingredients:

1 Kg Mutton
Small round Potatoes
Small Onions
Dash of Nutmeg Powder
Small Bits of Coconut

The steps are exactly the same as the Chicken Xacuti, so you can follow the entire procedure from here. Now the key differences is the time taken for the Mutton to cook. Since I made this myself I had to over cook the potatoes and onions because of the mutton was just too tough. It would be easier to first semi cook in a pressure cooker and then add it to the xacuti.

Another interesting variation is that, instead of just adding water to the dish for gravy, I added coconut milk that gave it a lovely flavour. My wife and I had a lovely dinner on Banana leaves, yes its so simple to make a special dinner by just eating on banana leaves, no washing to be done as well :)

We made Dosas, Sambar, Chutney, Mutton Xacuti and Rice, I also enjoyed a dosa with the Xacuti :) Don't forget the entire Mutton Xacuti steps can be found here, and apart from these small changes the procedure is entirely the same!

Salted Pork

2010-09-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

Salted pork is a simple dish to cook up, it hardly takes any time after you finish with the marination part, yet its a tasty dish to snack on. Its also is the way you cook the pork for Fejuada, that will be the next recipe up on the blog. If you joined us on facebook, you would have known that.

Salted Pork Ingredients:

1/2 Kilo Pork
1 Table spoon salt
2 Onions
4 Kashmiri Chillies
4 Kokam can be cut into tiny pieces

Salted Pork Method:

Prior to making the salted pork, the pork needs to be sliced without cutting completely, to help marination, salt it and store it in the fridge for three days.

Once your done with that, its time to slice and dice the meat into slight lager pieces than you would want to eat.

Put a vessel on the fire and add the pork, no need to add any oil as the meat will cook in its own fat.

Once it gets hot and begins to stick to the vessel add a little water to avoid that from happening.

Add the Kokam to the meat and stir it.

Immediately after that you can add the onions and chillies to the salted pork and stir occasionally.

Once the salted pork turns brownish in colour try a piece it should not take more than thirty minutes.

Unbelievably yummy for the simple procedure that it involves to cook it. This pork is also added to Feijoada, that will be the next dish to add to our lovely Goan cuisine recipe collection.

A Special Thank You to You! :)

2010-08-31T05:57:00.000-07:00

We would like to thank each one of you for all the support and love you have given us over the last two years. From a tiny blog, for me to document my mothers fabulous recipes, the blog has grown to a website dedicated to putting good goan food on the table in your home, wherever in the world you may be :)

Goan food has gotten people from USA, Dubai, UK, Canada and definitely not the least, India, stirring up our wholesome goan cuisine in their kitchens. Apart from that we also recently launched our Goan food delivery in Mumbai, which unfortunately we have pulled down 80% of the items and raised the prices due to the inability to cope with your demands :)

Thank you for such a response and we shall soon put up a first come first serve basis for fresh cooked products and send an email out when we launch a new item, so don't forget to subscribe. We also will start a telephone service where you can place orders over the phone.

Our first priority has always been authentic goan recipes, we have not forgotten all you people who love our recipes. For you we have something special. Most of you may be tired waiting for a recipe, or you don't get your comments responded to on time. (I'm sorry but my wife and I run around 7 different websites by ourselves, its tough)

We have set up a page on facebook where you can start a discussion about a particular recipe, get help from the goan food community and even get to know the line up of recipes before they are put up on this site. What are you waiting for become a member of the Goan food community today!

You can also become a member of the goan food community on facebook and twitter at any time by clicking the coffee cup icons on the right hand side of the blog!

Thank you all for your support and ill see you on facebook, have you checked what's the next recipe coming here yet??

Patoleo : the August 15th Goan Sweet

2010-08-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

Patolleo or Patoleo, pronounced at pathayo, is a Goan sweet prepared for the feast of the Assumption of Mary. The time when the first corn is offered for a good harvesting season. Lets learn how to make the Patoleo!

Patolleo Ingredients:

1/4 kg Goa red rice, or boiled rice (big fat unpolished rice)
1/2 a Coconut grated
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Pyramids Goa Jaggery
6 Cardamoms
Turmeric Leaves also known as Haldi Ka Patta
3/4th Cup Water

First we need to add the coconut to the jaggery and set it on a slow fire.

Add the 3/4th cup of water to the coconut and jaggery and stir it occasionally.

While thats on the fire, you can wash and clean the turmeric leaves.

Wash the rice and put it in the blender with a little water.

Once its ground to a paste pour it out into a vessel and get ready to keep it aside.

Don't forget to occasionally stir the jaggery and coconut mix :)

Now add the salt to the rice and put it on a slow fire.

While thats getting down clean the cardamom by removing the insides and getting rid of the outer covering.

Crush the cleaned cardamom into a powder, as fine as you can manage to.

Add the cardamom to the coconut and jaggery mix, that will end up being the filling for the Patolleo.

Mix the cardamom evenly in the coconut jaggery by stirring it up.

In the meantime your rice should be nearly done, when it thickens enough and begins to leave the side you'll know its ready.

Once its done allow it to cool off a bit, and then knead the rice dough.

This is my 92 year old grandmother teaching you to make a patolleo, take a small ball of the dough.

Line it along the main vein of the leaf and flatten it towards the sides.

The thinner the rice the better, the more the stuffing the yummier :) Stuff the patolleo with the jaggery and coconut mix and then fold the leaf as shown.

Once all patolleos are sealed you reach the final step, time to turn up the steam.

Ge out your steamer, that may look something like this, fill it up with water.

Place your Patolleos in the steamer, as much as you can get in there, theres no problem if one is on top of the other.

The Patoleos have to be cooked for around twenty minutes in the steamer before they are done.

This is what comes out of the steamer after twenty minutes.

The leaves give the rice a lovely flavor and the jaggery with coconut makes the patoleo sweet and wholesome, can also be made as a tea time snack :)

Here's another Goan sweet that we hope you enjoy making!

Goan Food Delivery Service!

2010-08-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the opening of the Goan shack. If you are hard-pressed for time and can't prepare your favorite Goan dish, then simply contact us and we will deliver the authentic home-cooked Goan food to your home!

At present the menu comprises all the favorite Goan dishes and will expand with time. Each item will be prepared with top grade ingredients to produce the renowned Goan taste and a very important ingredient, lots of love.

Currently we deliver only in Mumbai but plan to expand to other cities in future, depending on viability. There would be a small delivery charge and since its just on a trial basis we deliver this food only on weekends, so its good for parties, family gatherings or your weekend lunch!

Please bear with us until we can serve you better! To get your weekend treat you can click buy goan food! For assistance and order related queries you can use the order inquiry chat, located in the sidebar just under the subscribe by email section! If the light is green, means we are available for chat!

Pass on the good news to all your friends and family members living in Mumbai, cheers and thank you for all the love and support!

Crab Xacuti

2010-08-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

While we were in Goa, if you recollect the market visit where we clicked a picture of those delicious goan sausages, we also came across some lively crabs, pun intended. They were still well moving about, anyway we managed to get 8 crabs for Rs100, that was a pretty good deal.

Would never get a price like that in Mumbai and tough to get them so fresh. Anyway, a friend of my mothers called Roslyn, wanted to prepare this dish for us, so here comes the next recipe, the Crab Xacuti. A special thanks to Roselyn for her help with this recipe :)

Anyway, although Roslyn used a ready to mix Xacuti masala, you can always refer to the Chicken Xacuti recipe to get the authentic goan xacuti masala.

Ingredients:

Crabs
1 Coconut
4 - 5 Pods of Garlic
2 Onions
Curry Leaves
Coriander
Green Chillies
Small Ball of Tamarind

If you don't have a ready to mix Xacuti Masala, you need these ingredients for the masala below, and follow the procedure from this recipe.

6 Red Chillies (Kashmiri Chillies)
1/2 Scraped Coconut
2 Teaspoon of Cloves
1 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
8 Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Jeera
1/4 Teaspoon Methi Seeds
1 Tablespoon Khus Khus
1 Teaspoon Badee Saunf (Moti Saunf)
4 -5 Flakes Garlic
1 Table Spoon Corriander Seeds
1/2 Teaspoon Til
1/2 Onion
Although Roslyn used a ready mix, the dish turned out really tasty.

Firstly you need to wash the crabs and snap their claws, remove the really thin ones if you don't want them in the dish. But it sure will add some flavor at least.

To snap the claws you need to hold the crab with one hand and twist and pull the claws with the other.

After your crabs are done you need to put them on the fire with enough water to just cover them, boil for 15 minutes.

While thats getting done, work on the masala, crush the pods of garlic, chop the onions and keep them aside.

Grate one coconut and add the garlic to it.

Add a teaspoon of the Xacuti masala to the coconut, remeber if you are making your own masala following the other recipe, you will use only half a coconut here as there would be half in the masala, also you would need to add more masala than a teaspoon around 1/4th of the masala and no garlic.

Roslyn's dish uses a lot more coconut and the masala is a ready mix, so it misses the original xacuti colour. But it did taste really really good as well :) If you want the authentic colour, use less coconut with the chicken xacuti recipe.

In the mean time saute the onions, garlic and curry leaves, add some of the masala to the saute and fry it.

By this time, your crabs should have boiled and hopefully cooled down for you to begin splitting them open.

Split the crabs by pulling on the top and lower halves,you can clean out the meat and throw out some of the shells if you like.

Keep the eggs and other edibles in some part of the boiled crab water that you can use to cook with the

The lower part of the crab abdomen can be split in to two further halves if desired, I do not know why, perhaps the masala is absorbed much better.

Add the crabs to the saute.

Add the xacuti masala, to the dish and let it come to a boil with occasional stirring.

Add the water that you kept aside with the eggs and edibles.

Bring the dish to a boil and let it simmer for a few minutes.

You'r Crab Xacuti is ready, sorry no pictures for splendid photography as, we were in Goa. After Roslyn made the dish my wife and I went walking through Panjim doing some photography, drove all the way to Dona Paula and from there connected back to Bamboli. Scenic and beautiful in the monsoons :)

Add the coriander for garnishing and presentation. I do hope you enjoy the crab xacuti, will have our next recipe up soon!

Goa Sausages!

2010-06-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

We have been getting comments about the lack of new recipes, we were on vacation drinking feni and eating shenanaós in Goa.

Until the next recipe feast your eyes on these lovely Goan Sausages :)These picture was taken at Santa Cruz Market near Bamboli.

On the trip we managed to get fresh shenanaós from the market and cook them at home, those were the best we got. The food at Florentines was definitely enjoyed although the prices have gone up since the last visit, but its still value for money.

The worst dining experience was at Britto's on baga beach, hardly worth the price and some of the fish we ordered had zero taste as it was not fresh at all. Another lovely dish was the Goa Sausage Lasagna and Pork Ribs in Honey at Ernesto's at Panjim.

Ernesto's prices too are slightly on the higher side, but everythings getting expensive in Goa :) Also the best Beer, Kings is now priced at Rs 20 per bottle and is not very easy to get thanks to Kingfisher. But nothing beats a cold Kings, its the only beer you can drink warm as well, taste's great.

Roadside Goan Food:

You can find treasures at the road side eateries, like the bhaji pau and kapa (potato fried in batter) a friend and brother of ours got for us from a local dhaba called Hotel Vaasu in Moira.

We also had a snack at the road side stall at Aldona, capsicum stuffed with cooked cabbage and stuffed big chillies/jalapenos. But another interesting concoction they had was the poi stuffed with an omelette and chicken xacuti gravy (although this lacked salt) was an awesome experience.

Apa De Camarao

2010-03-04T03:06:00.000-08:00

Apa De Camarao, is something like a prawn pie, its a special kind of dough with a prawn stuffing. It does not have to be like the stuffing in this recipe, people use prawn balchao or any other masala prawns that you are fond of. This recipe we use a simple prawn saute with veggies and masala.

The Apa De Camarao can take quite a long time to make due to the fact of the dough having to rise. We faced a few problems with this dish, we ran out of gas and the cylinder had to be changed :)

Which lead to the oven cooling down and restarting a couple of hours later as mom goes to church in the mornings. But it still turned out well except the stuffing was a little on the dry side, perhaps due to the long hours in the oven. I am very tempted to try the Apa De Camarao dough with shredded chicken cafreal as a stuffing, I have a feeling it would turn out awesome.

Main Ingredients of Apa De Camarao:

1 Leveled Tablespoon Dried Yeast
1/2 Cup Water
350 Grams Maida
1 & a half Egg
2 Teaspoons Ghee
Coconut Milk
1 Teaspoon Sugar
Oil

Stuffing Ingredients Used:

Around 200 Grams Cleaned Prawns
A Masala of 8 Kashmiri Chillies,
1/2 Tsp Cumin Seeds Jeera
1/2 Tsp Turmeric Powder Haldi
5 - 6 Pepper Corns
5 Flakes Garlic
1/2 Inch Ginger
Small Ball Tamarind

Sauté Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Chopped Coriander Leaves
2 Onions
1 Big Tomato
1 Green Chilly

Procedure:

Time to do some, multi tasking for this recipe, relatively simple but as we said time consuming. There are three main parts to it, the first would be preparing the dough, second getting the stuffing ready and then putting it together and baking it.

So first go through the entire recipe as its possible to do the parts together. Lets start with heating some water, and setting aside the yeast in a cup.

Make sure the water is less than boiling temperature so if its boiling, wait for it to cool a little and then put it in.

Keep the cup with yeast aside and chop the onions, coriander, chilly and tomato.

Time to sauté the onions, in a little oil, cook the onions for a bit.

You can then add the tomato and the chilly until the onions get a little brown.

While thats cooking you need to grind the Masala ingredients mentioned above in a little water and add it to the Sauté.

Mix the masala with the bagaar.

Its time to add the cleaned weighed prawns.

Mix it with the masala and stir it.

Then add the Ginger Garlic paste

Keep it on a slow flame an stir the prawns till the masala is evenly distributed.

Cook it for a while and when the prawns are getting done add the coriander leaves stir it and keep it aside.

By this time your yeast should be bubbling, its ready to be used so lets get the dough ready, or you could have your dough mixture ready for the yeast at this point if you are multi tasking.

Blend the scraped coconut in a blender, you would probably want to know how much coconut milk is required. You don't need too much, you just need it to knead the dough, instead of using water you use coconut milk. We used around 150 grams of coconut.

Grind the coconut and place it in a muslin cloth.

Squeeze out all the juice and keep it aside.

Get your maida (refined flour) out in a nice big vessel that you can knead the dough in.

Add the one and a half egg to the maida.

Add a pinch of salt to it,

Add the Ghee to the mixture,

Add some of the coconut milk

Add the yeast to it,

Its now time to start kneading the mixture.

Keep adding coconut milk till the dough is ready.

Once the dough begins to stick to itself its getting ready.

Once that happens you can stop adding coconut milk your Apa De Camarao dough is ready.

You now need the dough to swell up, you need to keep it in an airtight plastic bag, we used a ziplock for the same. Before you use it, don't forget to oil the plastic so that the dough doesn't stick to it.

Once thats done put the dough in it, it needs to be kept in a warm place for the dough to rise faster.

If your room temperature is low, the dough will take longer to rise, we had to leave the dough overnight for the dough to rise fully.

Once it rises you need to break the dough into two pieces

Flatten one of the pieces to fit the bottom of a flan vessel or any decorative oven wear that you have.

Flatten the second ball so it can lay on top of the bottom layer and stuffing.

Add the masala prawns on the bottom layer of the dough and spread them evenly.

Use the second layer to seal the dish

If you like, once again the simple fork design or any other designs that you would like.

You need to turn on the bottom heat and bake it till it gets done and then turn on the top heat until its golden brown.

That's the ready to eat Apa De Camarao.

As you can see the ready to eat Apa De Camarao looks delicious and definitely is worth experimenting with.

Coconut Ice

2010-01-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

Yet another Goan sweet, that also finds its way to the table for Christmas, Coconut Ice. The Chef says that it used to be called the Coconut Cordial though it seems this is a liquid drink now days, anyone can shed some light on this? Was the coconut the Goan coconut cordial?

Like all Goan sweets, there are two main ingredients that go into making it, Patience and Love. The slower the flame, the tastier the sweet :) Lets see what goes into making this delicacy.

Coconut Ice Main Ingredients:

1 Cup Soji/Rava/Semolina
1 Cup Milk
Less than a Cup of Ghee
200 - 220 Gms Scrapped Coconut
2 & 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Ground Cashews
1 Table Spoon Butter
1 Tea Spoon Both Almond & Coconut Essence
Small Quantity of Cochineal or Red Colour

Procedure:

All the main ingredients have to be mixed together, you start off by heating the ghee and rava.

Make sure your flames on the lowest possible flame, add the sugar and ground cashew to the coconut ice mixture as well.

You can either do this step earlier, thats grind the coconut and milk together to get coconut milk.

Once your coconut milks ready you can add it to the mixture.

Now comes an essential part in most Goan sweets, stirring on a slow flame. Fast flames never get the desired result, patience is the key.

Keep Stirring the mixture, soon you shall see all the ingredients fusing together.

It changes texture and looks like what it does in the picture below.

Its not yet close to done, so change your stirring hand and go on.

As it thickens the stirring gets tougher, but its a good sign, the sweet is getting done.Once you notice the sweet beginning to leave the sides of the dish, its time for you to add the cochineal or red colour.

The trick to getting the right colour is to always add less, on adding more you cant get the colour you want back if you put in too much.

Once you add the colour, stir it to check and see if its enough.Add some more if the colours too pale.

Once thats done add the tablespoon of butter don't forget that you still need stir it a little more.Check the consistency in water, you pour some normal room temperature in a small bowl.
Add a small ball of the mixture in it, if it hardens your Coconut Ice is ready.
If the ball is soft, it still needs to be cooked for some more time.
Add the almond and coconut extract at this time, and remove the mixture from the dish.

You need to place the mixture on a greased surface, we use the granite platform itself, since its stone its cooler enabling faster cooling of the dish.

Once its out, flatten it, first with your hand and then with a baton to get an even surface.

Make sure its got the right thickness as well, that you would like.
Give it a little time for it too cool off and once thats done you can now cut your coconut ice.

We cut it into simple diamond shapes, which we have for other sweets as well.
Heres some of the coconut ice all cut up.

All the best with your Coconut Ice, I'm sure this coconut ice recipe will help you turn out another delicious goan special.

Channa Doss

2009-12-17T07:20:00.000-08:00

Channa Doss or Doce is a Goan sweet that requires very few ingredients but lot of patience and tremendous amount of stirring. Its fairly easy to make and the end result is one of the simplist sweets that still ends up getting consumed too soon.

Prior to starting let we warn you that its a tough one, family support is a boon when it comes to stirring. Enjoy this Christmas this with some Chonache Doss.

Chana Doss Ingredients:

1 Cup Bengal Gram Dal
1 and a half cup scraped coconut
1 Cup Sugar
6 Pods of Cardamoms (Elaichi)
Ghee
Pinch of Salt
Measure of the first three ingredients should be the same

Procedure:

Soak and Cook the Gram dal, then Grind the Gram and Coconut.
Once thats done, add 2 tablespoon of ghee to the vessel and heat it up. Add the ground channa dal and coconut first and start mixing them.
Once its mixed properly add sugar.
Blend the ingredients.
Now the stirring starts to mix all the three ingredients properly into a thick lump.
After stirring for a few minutes it turns slightly brown. Keep stirring.
When the mix begins to thicken add a pinch of salt to it. Continue to blend, and you will notice the difference in the mix. If it gets difficult to stir, it means you are doing a good job and your Doss will turn out to be perfect.
That also means you have to eep stirring. Add crushed elaichi to the mixture and stir again. The mixture collects together, so 2 tablespoons of ghee makes it a bit easier to stir. Keep the Doss mixture on the flame for a while, and don't forget to stir it regularly. After 25-30 minutes, stirring would become extremely difficult as the mixture solidifies. Stir some more and then its time to remove the doss off the fire. Flatten the mixture with a spatula on a greased plate. You can use your hands as well to spread the mixture across the plate evenly. Smoothen the edges. Use a fork to make some design on the edges. This is how Doss would look. Wait for it to cool down.
Cut diamond shape pieces and Channa Doss is ready. Sometimes the Doss takes longer to harden and get the right whitish colour, so you can leave it overnight to dry and then serve. The above doss could have been on the fire for ten more minutes before taking off.

Goan Christmas Sweets Special

2009-12-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Yes its that time of the year again, where we clean up our houses, put out our decorations and most importantly make all those lovely Christmas sweets. Here you shall have all the Goan Christmas Sweet Recipes laid out for you to choose!

Perad, Guava Jam or Cheese

Perad is a another well known Goan delicacy that serves two purposes, it can be eaten for breakfast on toast when it is not fully cooked or as a dessert when fully cooked. This recipe is the thick dark red Goan Perad.

Walnut Drops

This recipe was thought to my mother forty years ago, when she was in her 10th grade by her teacher. She never really made these sweets until much later on in her life, now its an every year Christmas Special that sells like hotcakes.

Milk Cream for a White Christmas

This is another yummy, easy to do, requires a lot of stirring not too many ingredients. I have been away from home for a while, I had some of these pictures with me so I decided to put this recipe up.

Bibinca Goa's Favorite Dessert

Bibinca, the multi layered Goan cake, that can be eaten at any time of the day. Put it in your chapatis and have it for breakfast, with ice cream or alone as a dessert, whichever way you like it.

A Simple Chocolate Fudge

Chocolate fudge also known as a Refrigerated Chocolate Cake, its an easy to do recipe that tastes yummy as a dessert especially when its complimented with some Vanilla ice cream. It has a tinge of rum and can also be converted in to a flambe.

Bolinhas the Teatime Treat

Bolinhas, a teatime coconut delight that is easy and quick to make. The end result is a soft, tasty Bolinha that crumbles in your mouth.

Kokad

Another Christmas time specialty with love from goa, Kokad, the crunchy coconut sweet with semolina cooked on a slow fire to delight your taste buds!

Bolinhas the Teatime Treat

2009-12-01T02:58:00.001-08:00

Bolinhas, another teatime delight that can double up as something special on your table's Christmas Offerings. Easy to do, the procedure is not time consuming but would be better if you can leave part mixture overnight.

The end result is a soft, tasty Bolinha that crumbles in your mouth and as always leaving you with the desire to have one more :)

Bolinhas Ingredients:

1 Medium Sized Coconut
1/4 Kg Rawa
1/4 Kg Sugar
1 Tbsp Ghee
3 Tbsp spoons Maida
1 Leveled Tsp Baking Powder
3 Eggs
Few Elaichi
1 Pinch Salt

Procedure:

Make a sugar syrup by heating the sugar in 1/2 a cup of water.While the sugar is melting on a slow flame, grind the coconut in 1/4th cup of water.Once the coconut is ground, stir the sugar that should have nearly dissolved by now.Add the Rawa to the sugar syrup and mis this up as well.Add the ground coconut to this mixture, mix it up and add the pinch of salt.Now add the Ghee and keep stirring it,Until it all becomes one nice blend.You can store the above mixture either overnight, for six hours or do it instantly. Its best you store it for a few hours and then proceed recommends the chef!

Once you stir it up, you can take the mixture off the fire.Out of the three eggs only add the the yokes, though it can be done with the entire egg as well. Remember to keep the egg white of one egg aside, the other two you can can store.Then mix the yokes with the Bolinha mixture.Once thats done, clean and powder the Elaichi and add it to the mixture.Mix the Maida and Baking powder,Add it to the Bolinha mix,
And stir it up again.Now beat the one egg white till its fluffy..Add it to the Bolinha mixture, thats the final ingredient to the Bolinha dough.So now that the doughs ready you can now get ready to bake.So now you need to shape your Bolinhas, take a ball out of the dough.With the help of some flour shape it as you would do to a cutlet.Flatten the top of it an next get a butter knife to press a few lines into the dought to make a design.You can make diamonds like these below quite easily and they do look better after baking.As you finish them place them on your baking tray, that you have greased with a little Ghee.So place all the Bolinhas on the tray at a little distance from each other.Put them in the oven with the base heat on.Leave it on for around twenty minutes, and then check and see if the base is firm by moving a Bolinha on the tray.If its cooked, switch over to top heat and bake till the top gets brown.Once your satisfied with the colour, its time to get them out of the oven and give yourself a special Christmas teatime treat!Some people also call these the goan cookies or goan biscuits, Bolinhas are pronounced as bolinyas.

Prawn Rissoles

2009-08-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

Today we have an authentic recipe handed down straight from the Portuguese while they were in our beloved Goa! Its called the Prawn Rissole, pronounced as Rissoee its a mouth watering appetizer, that melts in your mouth!

There are two steps involved in the Prawn Rissole Recipe, first is to make the stuffing that's put inside the rissole. Is possible to make it with even ham, corned beef or anything else you think will go well, but this Rissole is with prawns.

Prawn Rissole Stuffing:

White sauce with prawns!

Prawn Rissole Stuffing Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Milk
3 Teaspoons maida
1 Heaped Tsp Butter
1/2 Cup boiled prawns
Salt, Pepper and Cheese to taste
A dash of Nutmeg

Make a white sauce using the butter, maida & milk. Add the milk and butter on the fire, when warm add the maida slowly and stir continuously.

Clean and boil the prawns and keep them aside.

Add the salt, peeper and the dash of grated nutmeg to the white sauce.

When the mixture thickens add the prawns and keep stirring.

Grated cheese is for the taste, this really depends on how much flavor and taste you want. Add the cheese and stir it up, it should all blend pretty well.

Once thats done keep it aside, its now time to make the dough that will act as the enclosing for the Rissole mixture.

Prawn Rissole Dough Ingredients:

1 Tipri Atta
1/2 Tipri Maida
8 Ozs Water
2 Teaspoons Ghee
1 Teaspoon Salt

Pour the water into the vessel and heat it up

Bring the water, salt and ghee to a boil.

Then add the flours to the water.

Keep stirring till it all mixes well.

Remove on flat surface and knead into a smooth dough.

Roll out the dough and cut into circles using the lid of a container or anything you think should work.

Once you have your circle ready place the filling in the center.

Fold the rissole and fix the end with water

Dip each of theses pattys in a beaten egg

Once thats done turn both of its sides in bread crumbs

Fry until golden brown.

This is your ready to eat Prawn Rissoles, I can taste that melting stuffing in my mouth as I write this, you guys are in for a treat!

Caldine Curry

2009-07-27T06:18:00.001-07:00

The Caldine Curry is a yellow non spicy Goan curry, its usually made with fish, but some people make it with prawns as well as vegetables. But the original caldine curry is made with any fleshy fish. Let's take a look at what goes into making an authentic Goan caldine.

Caldine Juice Ingredients:

1 Coconut
1/2 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds
10 Pepper Corns
1 Tablespoon Coriander Seeds
2 Inch piece Turmeric
2 Flakes Garlic
Small Ball Tamarind
2 Cups Warm Water

Caldine Curry Ingredients

1/2 Kg Fish (Pomfret Mackerel or any fleshy fish)
2 Onion Sliced
1 Tomato Sliced without Skin
2 Tablespoons Oil
1/2 inch Ginger
2 - 3 Green Chillies
Salt n Vinegar to Taste

Lets start of with the Caldine masala, put all the ingredients mentioned above in the mixer, add the warm water and start blending.

Once your done with that you will get this lovely yellow masala that looks like what it is below, a very pleasing colour.

Sieve the masala with a strainer not a muslin cloth so that its nice and thick, once thats done keep the Caldin juice aside and lets proceed.

Put the two table spoon of oil in a vessel to get warm. Chop the skinned tomato and onions into small pieces.

Saute the onions, tomatos and the piece of ginger, which is once again diced into small bits.

Once thats done, you have two choices, you can either add a little water or a little coconut milk to the saute. Then add the fish, we had some thin coconut milk which we added and then dropped in the fish.

Once the fish is in, you add the Caldine masala's juice and let it cook for a while.

Once you add the Caldine juice to the saute and the fish, you can add the sliced green chillies and let the fish cook.

You can add some coriander for garnishing, when the fish cooks your caldine is ready to eat!

A Simple Chocolate Fudge

2009-07-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well this is not exactly a Goan Recipe, but since we have not shared a new recipe for a long time, we decided to put this one up here. Its also known as a Refrigerated Chocolate Cake, its an easy to do recipe that tastes yummy as a dessert especially when its complimented with some Vanilla ice cream

So lets take a look at how its done, your ingredients are,

Marie Biscuit: 100gms
Walnuts: 50gms - 100gms
Butter 100Gms
Castor Sugar: 50gms
1 Egg
Cocoa: 1 Tbsp
Vanilla Essence 1 Teaspoon
Rum 1 Teaspoon
Rum Essence

Now that we have the ingredients ready, lets start the procedure, you need to crush all the Marie biscuits with a Baton shown in the picture, we dont want it done in a blender because the crunchiness will disappear.

Once your done with that, sieve the coco. Then add it to the the crushed biscuits, you can also add the pieces of walnuts, prior to adding them make sure they are broken in to smaller pieces so its spreads evenly and is not difficult to eat as well as slice with a knife. Once this mixture is ready keep it aside for a while.

Create a water bath, also known as Bain-marie.

While it heats up you can get your castor sugar ready if you do not have any.

Take some normal sugar and blend it till its a fine powder.

Add the butter to the water bath and wait for it to melt.

As the butter is melting you can proceed to beat that egg up

Hopefully by this time the butter has melted quite a bit. Now add the castor sugar to it and then the egg into it.

Now keep stirring until the butter has melted completely and everything is mixed

When thats done take the water bath off the fire and add the walnut, cocoa and Marie biscuit mixture to it, you can start mixing it now

Add the vanilla essence

The rum also can be added, if you are adding rum no need of the essence, and if you don't want the rum flavor theres no need for the rum essence.

The rum though can be added as per desire, its good for taste and you can also have a flambe by pouring a little more on it later and lighting it up while serving.

Once its all mixed well you can remove it and place it in a mould.

Keep it in the refrigerator until its cold. Turn it around into a serving dish, here's your easy to make delicious choco fudge.

The refrigerated chocolate cake shown in the picture is of little more than double the quantity. You can also add a little more sugar if you have a sweet tooth.

Goan Fish Curry

2009-04-02T00:06:00.000-07:00

What is a Goan Food blog without the fish curry recipe? Xitt Codi is the staple diet of a goan anywhere across the world. We eat fish curry along with rice nearly every week, its also perhaps the cheapest dish to eat, at a restaurant in Goa.

Heres the Xitt Codi recipe, we will also explore various options while preparing the Goan Fish Curry!

Goan Fish Curry Masala Ingredients:

6 Kashmiri Chillies
1/2 Scraped Coconut
A Small Piece of Ginger
3 Flakes Garlic
5 - 6 Pepper Corns
1 Tea spoon Corriander seeds
A Pinch of Methi Seeds
Small ball of Tamarind if a raw Mango is used
1/2 Tea spoon Haldi Powder
1/2 Tea spoon Jeera
1 Green Chilly
Salt

Goan Fish Curry Main Ingredients:

1 Decent Sized Pomfret (You can also add Kingfish or Halwa)
1 Raw Mango

Slice, clean and salt the fish and keep the fish aside.

Procedure:

Grind the masala ingredients mentioned above, in a mixer with a little water.

Add it in your cooking dish and add some more water, now there are two optional things depending on how rich and heavy you want your Xitt codi. The first one is you can bagaar some chopped onions before you add the masala to it.

Instead of adding water you can add coconut milk to make it rich, but we made this fish curry by adding water, to make it thick enough as per choice. You can then add some salt and slit the green chilly, remove seeds as per spice requirement.

Once the entire mixture reaches a boil you can add the fish to the curry

Along with the fish add the cut pieces of raw mango, to give it that nice tangy flavor that it has. I personally like to eat the cooked pieces of mango, the sour taste of it, my mouths watering as I write this :)

Cook till the fish becomes edible, this is a relatively easy dish to cook and is not as time consuming as some of them. Bon Appétit, until the next Goan Recipe!

Shark Ambot Tik

2009-03-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

The meaning of Ambot is sour and tik is spicy in portugese and here comes another portugese influenced delicious dish from Goa, made with fish that has less bones, the Ambot Tik

In this recipe we make the lip smacking Shark Ambot Tik.

Shark Ambot Tik Main Ingredients:

1/2 Kg Shark (Preferably a fish without bones and is meaty like shark)
1 Onion Sliced Fine
1 Boiled and Skinned Tomato
2 Tablespoons of oil

Shark Ambot Tik Masala Ingredients:

10 Dry Kashmiri Chillies
1/2 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds
4 Pepper corns
1/4" Turmeric
4 Flakes of Garlic
1/2" Piece Ginger
A Small marble sized ball of Tamarind

Procedure:

Clean and wash the fish, cut it into desired pieces, apply some salt and keep it aside.

In the meantime grind the above masala ingredients with a little water to get the ambot tik masala.

Put the two tablespoons of oil in a vessel and heat it.

Fry the onion in the oil till it turns golden brown.

You can then add the tomatos and fry then for a while, just like the prawn xeque xeque make sure that the tomato pieces are all mashed, this helps with the curry and its composition.

Add masala to the bagaar and cook it for a few minutes. Now there are two methods that you can go about with this recipe. The first one is the one we have followed..

Add the masala and fry it for a bit.

Add pieces of shark to the masala and mix them up, you can then add some water till the pieces of fish are submerged.

Cook the pieces till they are tender and this is done on a low flame.

The one we followed here is a little less time consuming, where you directly drop the fish into the masala. The second method is to first add the water, give the masala a boil with the water and bagaar, then add the fish pieces and cook on a slow flame.

Taste the dish and add salt and vinegar if necessary, you can also add the sliced green chilly to make it spicier.

You can then spread some corriander leaves, decorate the dish as per choice and serve, the Goan Shark Ambot Tik!

Prawn Xeque Xeque

2009-03-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

Prawn Xeque Xeque, if your Goan you know how to pronounce that :), or if you are fond of Goan food. The others can keep trying, Xeque Xeque is an exotic goan dish that goes well with Sannas (Goan Speciality), Dosas (South Indian Speciality) and Fugias (East Indian Speciality).

Prawn Xeque Xeque Main Ingredients:

1 Cup Big Prawns around 20 to 25
1/2 Coconut Thick & Thin Milk with 2 Teaspoons Coriander Seeds Ground
Two Tomatoes
Two Onions
1/4" Ginger
One or Two Green Chillies
Salt

Other Ingredients:

8 Red Kashmiri Chillies
1 Teaspoon Jeera
1 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
5 - 6 Pepper Corns
1 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds
2 Cloves
6 Flakes Garlic and a Tamarind Ball

Procedure:

Clean and devien the prawns, add a pinch of salt and keep them aside.

Note that the coconut milk has to be ground with two teaspoons ofcorriander seeds.

Knock off the seeds of 4 out of the eight Kashmiri chillies, roast the dry spices of the masala ingredients on a tava, then proceed to grind the dry spices first. Then grind all the ingredients of the masala together.

Boil two tomatoes and peel off the skin.

Chop the two big onoions into fine pieces and fry them in a little oil with the julians of ginger.

After the onions turn a little brown you can add the chopped pieces of skinned boiled tomato to it.

Stir it for a little while and make sure you mash all the pieces of tomato, you do not want big pieces of Tomato.

Add the masala to the bagaar, sprinkle some water twice for the mixture to be fried well.

Add the prawns, and mix them with the masala, you can now add the green chillies or later.

Add the Coconut milk on a slow fire, you can make this dish with only thick coconut milk if you like to make the gravy thick and delicious.

If you are going to eat it with rice you may like to have some more gravy so depending on that add the thick and thin coconut milk.

Let it cook for a while on slow fire.

You can sprinkle some corriander leaves on top to decorate your Prawn Xeque Xeque, enjoy!

Chef's Favorite Recipes

2009-03-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

A Simple Chocolate Fudge