Crab Cutlets

It was the first time I was buying crabs.. and was sure excited about how dishes will turn out.. At the fish monger place, I had placed order for 500 gms crab, for which he gave me quite a stare and he suggested take atleast 2 crabs ( blue sea crabs), which itself will be about 760 gms.. Later I realized that people buy at about 3- 4 Kgs at a time..but I dint want to buy too much and later have a big disaster at hand.

Either way, I had bought it cleaned and then extracted the crab meat which is quite a clumsy process. The meat is quite watery and pudgy. I was not quite sure of what I wanted to prepare.. some options where the minced varient like scrambled egg, or a curry with coconut milk.. but it dint seem interesting enought. Finally decided that it should be cutlets as we were expecting couple of friends for dinner and this would be a different starter..

Here is the recipe..

1. Crab meat : about 250 Gms ( after extraction from shell )
2. Ginger Garlic Paste : 1.5 tea spoon
  Green Chilli - 3 no:s
  Onion : 2 mid sized cut into small pieces
  Ground Black Pepper Powder : 2 teaspoon
  Salt to taste
  oil for shallow frying

3. Bread crumbs : 2 slice breads crumbled

For the coating

Egg white : 1 egg white

Bread crumbs ; 1 slice bread crubmled

Heat oil in a kadai, cook ingredients 2 & 1 without adding any water. Cook for about 10-15 mins.Mince this cooked crab masala mixture. Add the bread crumbs ( ingredient 3) to the minced crab and mix well. The purpose of bread crumbs it to hold the crab mixture together. Make small cutlets with this. Brush the cutlets in egg white and roll it in the breadcrumbs so that it gets a good coating. Shallow fry the cutlets. Serve hot..

It did turn out very well and I was quite happy with the result..the peppery taste and the surprise in crab meat is what went well I guess...

Lasooni Tikki

This is straight from a recipe book, I tried it at home, came out well but was a little extra salty. this particular recipe has paneer and garlic ( hence the name), but it can be tried with minced chiken, peas , mixed veggies and so on..

Gobi Manchurian

Gobi Manchurian is a very common vegetable dish in India. The good thing about this dish is that it is very adaptable and can be had in many ways, you can make it dry and have it for starters or in the evening especially if it is raining.. or have it as a curry along with noodles, or even modify it as soup..I like it best dry.
Manchuria is a region in north eastern China,I guess that is the only chinese connection this dish has. It is made to suit the indian palate and served in almost all kinds of restaurants.

Chicken Tikka

This is one of the most famous Indian Cusine dishes. A number of my colleagues from abroad are so familiar with Chicken Tikka and they even count it along with their fav dishes. I rememeber reading an artcile which said that this humble punjabi dish is amongst the top 5 favorite foods globally ( well Indian population itself is 1/6 of the global, so u know from where the votes have come in ).
Recently there has been some legal tussle going on to proclaim that tikka masla curry originates from Glasgow and should be given " the protected geographical status by the EU" . There are also some English officials who claim it as the true " British National Dish).

Chicken Sheek Kabab

Brief History - The word " kebab" means roast.Kebabs are generally associated with the north eastern frontier of India ( afghanistan / pakistan). Some food historians trace the origin to Turks and Arabs. Mughals introduced kebab's in India. Some say that during war time when fuel is scarce, small chunks of minced meat which were skewered using swords in charcoal where the first kebab's. Now kebab is an english culinary word.
This is how my recipe goes. The good thing about this dish is that it can be made with any meat, spices and combinations of marination's and sauces..