Tuna cutlets with potato

Tuna cutlets are eaten with relish in my home. A simple meal of dal rice with tuna cutlets can be very comforting and lift spirits even on the dullest days. I have two tuna cutlet recipes and I alternate them so we get to eat both. This recipe was shared by my younger sister Doreen, who is quite the chef and baker. She is always trying out new recipes, and loves to experiment.

This recipe is a little different from the one I used to make regularly. The addition of potatoes and spices to the cutlets in this recipe, adds a lot of flavour and also gives it a lovely texture.

Recipe Credit : Ms. Doreen D'sa

Ingredients:

1. Tuna flakes(360-400 gms) - 2 tins 
2. Boiled potatoes - 3 medium
3. Onion - 1 large, chopped finely
4. Garlic -1 tsp finely chopped
5. Ginger - 1 tsp finely chopped
6. Green chilies - 2 finely chopped
7. Coriander leaves - 3 tbsp finely chopped 
8. Chili powder - 1 tsp 
9. Turmeric powder - ½ tsp 
10. Freshly ground pepper - 1 tsp 
11. Garam masala powder - 1 tsp 
12. Oil, as required for shallow frying
13. Salt, as per taste
14. Eggs - 2 nos
15. Breadcrumbs - 1 cup  

Method:

1. In a pan fry the chopped onions, ginger, garlic and green chili till the whole mixture turns brown.
2. Add all powders except the garam masala powder and stir well.
3. Add the tuna and mix well, keep stirring and let it cook for about two minutes.
4. Add the garam masala powder and coriander leaves and mix well. Put off the flame.
5. Let the tuna mixture cool, post which add the mashed boiled potatoes. Mix the whole thing well and make round balls and flatten it out like patties.
6. Refrigerate the patties for half hour.
7. Break the two eggs in a bowl and lightly beat it. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Spread the breadcrumbs in a plate.
9. Heat a pan, add oil for shallow frying. When the pan is hot, dip the patty in egg and coat it in the breadcrumbs, and put it in the hot pan.
10. Shallow fry on both sides for five minutes each or till they turn brown and look done.

1. Steamed rice with plain coconut juice curry

2. Tuna cutlets with potato

3. Steamed broccoli with pepper 

Click here to find the other recipe of Tinned tuna cutlets published a few weeks ago on this blog.

Pork Sorpotel (Goan style)

Today's post is truly special. I am posting the recipe of my most favoritest pork dish. SORPOTEL. I have eaten pork sorpotel for every Christmas for the last so many years And of course on other special occasions too, like a wedding in the family, Easter and a loved one visiting after a long time. The credit for this recipe completely goes to my mum in law (MIL). She has been laboriously cooking this dish year after year on every special occasion and she has been kind enough to share the exact details not only of the ingredients but the method too. She in fact made a smaller quantity once, no special occasion, just so that I could watch and learn. How great is that! I learnt to cook this a few years ago when my MIL was visiting her daughter in another city for Christmas and we would be without sorpotel. I took this opportunity to put my notes to good use and voila....here we are

Sorpotel has Portugese influence, and is made by the Goan, Manglorean and East Indian Christian communities. This dish is made in large quantities since it is mostly served on special occasions like weddings, birthdays and parties. The best part about this dish is that it can be cooked well in advance. In fact it tastes much better and more pickled with each passing day. Each community makes it differently, for instance the Manglorean community cook sorpotel with the pork offals, and parts of the pig that are otherwise usually discarded. They also add pig blood to the preparation. I have never eaten this dish, as it is not available commercially. So unless you get invited to someone's house for a meal, where this dish is prepared and served, there is a slim chance of you getting to taste this. The East Indian community, on the other hand, has two versions of the sorpotel, one red sarpatel, where they  use their famous bottle masala and the green sarpatel, where they use whole ingredients i.e.without being ground. And finally the Goan community cook this dish with pork meat and liver. The method is mostly the same, where the meat is par-boiled and then chopped into tiny pieces and fried in its own fat, after which the spices are ground in vinegar and added to the meat, and is left to soak in the spicy goodness for a few hours after which it is finally cooked. This dish tastes best a couple of days after it is made.

This dish is not for the faint hearted. So brace yourselves for some hard work, and no shame in asking for help, specially when it comes to chopping the meat. But you will love it when it's ready and when you see your loved ones taking third and fourth helpings. All the hard work will be worth it! So let the cooking begin!

IMPORTANT NOTE :

• The ingredients in the recipe are for half kg meat (meat includes liver). Please adjust ingredients as per the quantity of meat you will cook.
• It is recommended that for every 1 kg of pork meat, add 1/2 kg pork liver. This combination tastes best. However this is optional. You can adjust these quantities based on your preference.
• Use pork belly for this dish, as the belly portion has the best distribution of meat, fat and skin.

Spice Mix: For 1/2 kg meat

1. Kashmiri Cilly - 5 nos
2. Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
3. Black peppercorns - 20 nos
4. Cinnamon - 1 inch stick
5. Cloves - 5
6. Cardamom - 2
7. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
8. ***Vinegar - as required

Dry grind the above ingredients to a fine powder. Add vinegar last to make a paste. Use as much vinegar as needed but be careful as too much will make the dish too sour. You may use water sparingly.

Ingredients for chopping:

1. Onion - 1 medium (finely chopped)
2. Garlic - 5 medium flakes (finely chopped) 
3. Ginger - 1/2 inch piece (finely chopped)
4. Green chilly - 1 no (finely chopped)

Method:

1. Wash the meat well. Place the whole chunk of meat in a sauce pan and add 1 cup of water. Bring it to a boil, lower the flame to medium and let the meat cook for ten to fifteen minutes. 
2. Set the meat aside for cooling. Reserve the water. Cool the water and refrigerate.
3. Once the meat has cooled, cut the meat into quarter or half inch cubes. Keep the meat and liver pieces separate.
4. Heat a pan, pour little oil, fry the chopped meat first. Fry till it changes colour. Use a little oil initially to get started, as later the pork will release its fat and you will not need oil. 
5. Fry the liver till it turns black. Note that the liver needs to be fried longer than the meat. Set aside the fried meat.
6. Heat oil in a sauce pan, fry the onions till they turn golden brown, then add the remaining chopped ingredients. Fry well. 
7. Add the ground red paste and fry it well. 
8. Add the meat and liver, and salt, mix well. Put off the flame. Note: No cooking.
9. Let the meat marinate for four to six hours. 
10. After six hours, put the pan with the meat on the stove, add the reserved water, and bring to a boil, and then cook on slow flame for thirty minutes. 
11. Sorpotel is ready but don't serve it yet. For the next three days, heat the meat twice a day on medium to slow flame, preferably once in the morning and once at night. 
12. It is ready to be served.
13. If you have made a large quantity you can refrigerate and use it for a week to ten days.
14. You can also freeze it and eat it for up to three months.

You can serve this with sannas, pau or pulao. 

French Toast

French toast or egg bread as David calls it, is a favorite breakfast dish in my house. This is one of the only two ways David eats eggs, the other being eggs fried sunny side up. He refuses to eat eggs made any other way and that is extremely frustrating. But reserach says children refuse any new food twenty times before they decide to try it. So I have a long journey ahead of me, I guess. Phew! But that's just a mum's rant.

Coming back to today's post, French toast is a easy breakfast recipe and can be tweaked to suit individual tastes and preferences. Typically, french toast is sweet but I remember eating this snack in my office cafeteria, where the chef added green chillies to suit our palates and there was no hint of sweetness whatsoever. It was more like eating a masala omelette bread. :-) But it was a popular dish and I loved it for my evening snack.

It is a simple and easy breakfast recipe and can be made in a matter of minutes. This is not traditional French toast and I make it the way we like it at our home. But you can add more sugar (than mentioned) to the egg mixture and sprinkle some cinnamon powder for a more authentic taste.

Ingredients:

1. Egg - 1 no
2. Milk - 1 tbsp
3. Sugar - 1 tsp (as per taste)
4. Salt & pepper
5. Bread slices - 2 nos
6. Oil - for shallow frying

Method:

1. In a bowl, break the egg, add the milk, sugar, salt and pepper. Beat it well.
2. Dip one slice of bread completely and let it soak in the egg mixture.
3. Immediately transfer to a hot pan that has been drizzled with oil, and shallow fry on each side for a minute or two, till it is browned on both sides.
4. Repeat the same process with second slice. 
5. Serve with tomato sauce and a hot cup of tea/coffee/milk.

Cabbage foogath

In South India, vegetables are cooked simply. They primarily start with tempering mustard seeds and curry leaves, include chilly - red or green, and most importantly end with fresh coconut. Depending on the vegetable, the dish may include onions, but it is mostly optional. Vegetables cooked this way retain the original colour, flavour and texture. It is a great and healthy accompaniment to spicy curries and you can pat yourself for having retained most of the vegetables nutritional value.

Foogath, Upkari, Thoran and Poriyal are different types of dry vegetable preparations, typically used in a South Indian kitchen to cook cabbage, French beans, cluster beans, string beans, all types of gourds, carrot, beetroot etc. All the preparations mentioned above employ the same basic ingredients and method of cooking. The names differ depending on which region you belong to, so in Goa, you will eat cabbage foogath, in Mangalore it will be called cabbage upkari, in Tamil Nadu it will be cabbage poriyal and in Kerala it will be cabbage thoran. These are some of the simplest recipes that can be made in the Indian cuisine.

Today I am sharing my mum's cabbage foogath recipe. It is one of the simplest things you can make in the kitchen apart from cooking rice. Nothing fancy, no frills, just a great accompaniment for your fish curry and rice.

Recipe credit: Mrs Cecilia Sequeira

Ingredients:

1. Cabbage - 1 medium sized
2. Onion - 1 large
3. Tomato - 1 large
4. Green chilly - 2 nos
5. Grated coconut - 1/4 - 1/2 cup
6. Salt and oil - as required

Method:

1. Finely slice the cabbage, wash and drain. Slice the onion and tomato. Slit the green chilly and de-seed if you cannot tolerate spice.
2. In a pan arrange the onion and tomato at the bottom, spread the sliced cabbage, and the green chilly. 
3. Cover the pan and put it the stove. Cook on high heat till you see the steam at the top. Add salt and drizzle oil ( a table spoon or two).
4. With a spoon mix the contents of the pan, lower the heat and cook till the vegetable is half done. Essentially the cabbage shouldn't be over cooked.
5. Add the grated coconut, mix well and take it off the stove after the cabbage has cooked.

You can follow the exact recipe for cooking French beans, string beans and bottle gourd.