Black Beauties...BERRY BERRY TASTY!

(Kaalojaam - Delicious & Healthy)

Delicious Kaalojaam (Black Berry) .....A summer fruit available for a limited period in June-July. Kaalojaam or BlackBerry has a unique taste...you have to have it to understand.... sweet with a coarse-acidic tang which leaves an aftertaste. But the purple juicy pulp of these small spherical fruits is almost addictive...you just cant seem to stop....and before you know you have a bowl full of seeds....remnants of the fruit you just ate up!

Though I love to eat them as it is, to add to its taste, I do as follows :

Ingredients
Kalojaam = 500gms
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Kashundi (Indian Mustard sauce) - 1 - 1.5 tsp

Procedure :
1. Just put a slit or two on each of the fruit
2. Marinate with salt, sugar and kashundi.
3. Refrigerate for 1/2 hour
4.Enjoy !

Side Effects : A purple tongue!!!

Some more info about the humble Kaalojaam - A wonderful fruit for combating stress, cardiovascular disease and cancer. It has very few calories so anyone with obesity can eat it happily. You can skip your evening tea and consume this fruit instead because it cools and body and prepares it for rest. The best thing would be to make a drink with kalo jam, pudina pata, salot or honey to guarantee a good night’s sleep.

Nameless Delight!

(Baked Bread stuffed with the goodness of vegetables, chicken and anything & everything healthy and tasty)
A dish without a name!

So dear friends, the onus lies on you to find one for this dish, once you read about it!

When visiting a cousin, she'd made this delicious preparation.

With hardly any time to note down or even hear the recipe, all she could say was "make it like a Cake sans the sugar but plus some salt and add anything as filling to it"...

She'd made it with chicken...when I decided to try out this Cake sans the sugar, I decided to make it more wholesome, and added chicken and some veggies too....

So without much ado, here goes the recipe...

Ingredient :
A. For the filling
1. Boneless Chicken pieces - 150-200gms
2.Onion finely chopped - 1
3. Cardamom-2
4.cinnamon stick - 1 (1" piece)
5. Bay leaf
6. Ginger + Garlic paste - 1 tsp
7.Carrot - blanched
8 Beans - blanched
9. Baby corn - 4-5 sliced
10. Butter - 2tbsp
11. Crushed pepper - 1 tsp
12. Chilli powder - 1 tsp (optional)

B. For the batter :
1. Flour - 2 cups (about 200gm)
2. Eggs - 3
3. Oil - 1 cup
4. Baking powder - 1tbsp
5. Salt - to taste
6. Crushed pepper corn - 6-8
7. Roasted Garlic sliced - (5-6 cloves of garlic) ** (I roasted the garlic as given here)
8. Butter - 1 tsp
9. Milk - 1 cup

C.For the final tempering
1. Butter - 1-2 tbsp
2. Red Chilli - Roasted and ground into flakes - 1 tsp
3. Roasted Garlic sliced

Procedure :
A.Filling
1. Take ingredients Sl. No. 1-6 in 'B' of Ingredients and pressure cook.
2. Chop the blanched carrot and beans into small cubes
3. In a wok, take some butter and when hot, add the sliced babycorn.
4. Fry till golden.
5. Add the cubed carrot-beans and stir fry. Add some salt and pepper.
6. Lastly add the boiled boneless chicken pieces and again saute for 2-3 minutes.
Keep aside

B. Batter
1. Whip 3 eggs and keep aside
2. As in making a cake, mix the flour and the baking powder well.
3. In a bowl, mix the whipped eggs, oil
4. Now in a big mixing bowl, mix together the flour+baking powder, egg+oil, salt, crushed pepper. Beat the mixture well
5. Now add the stirfired chicken-carrot-bean-babycorn into the batter .
6. Add some sliced roasted garlic
7. Mix well.

Preheat the oven for 5 minutes.

After spraying oil in a baking container, pour the chicken-vegetable containing batter

Bake at 180 deg Celsius for 25 minutes.

Insert a knife and if it comes out clean, it's done....else bake for another 5-10 minutes

Now in a skillet heat 2 tbsp of butter, add some roasted and flaked red chillies, slices of roasted garlic.
Now pour this butter-chilli flakes-garlic combo on the baked dish (as in chhaunk) The baked goody is ready to be sliced and eaten with some sauce.

*It makes a great breakfast dish ...
I had it with a cup of tea and finished off the breakbast with some fruits (a bowl of Papaya & Banana).

And so this is my entry to "EFM Theme - Breakfast Series" hosted by SriLekha of ME and MY KITCHEN . The logo for the event is ...

* Being a breakfast dish, this is my entry to 'SHOW ME YOUR BREAKFAST' hosted by Divya Vikram of DIL SE. The logo for the event is..

* It makes a great item to be packed in lunch box for kids along with some fruits ...
The chicken in the recipe can be removed or replaced with any or many of the following :
paneer/mushroom/cauliflower florets/carrot/bean/baby corn/corn kernel etc.

I gave some fruits (mango cubed) and hey presto! A wholesome nutrituous snack/light lunch box was ready!
This is my entry to CFK:HEALTHY LUNCH BOXES hosted by NEHA of TASTY RECIPES. The event was started by Sharmi of Naivedyam

The logo of the event is .....