Cooking Her Own Harvest...

Alu Chaat (Spicy Potato Salad)

 My 7 year old was back from an outing to a vegetable farm! She was super excited and her most prized possession for the day was her precious bag full of fresh potatoes, other vegetables & cotton which she'd picked up / harvested herself! And she proclaimed that SHE & ONLY SHE would cook the potatoes and serve us!

And what would that be? Super confident after her debut as a masterchef just the week before with nothing less than SCRAMBLED EGGS, she proclaimed ALU CHAAT!!! I did a mental somersault in joy, thanking my lucky stars that she hadnt been too ambitious and opted for other lofty dishes!!!

So the potato harvester's recipe of Alu Chaat...

Ingredients for :

A) Potato Mash

8 medium-large sized potatoes

A bowl of Chhole - luckily it was readily available at home as when she announced her culinary plans for the day, the overnight soaked Kabuli Chana had been pressure cooked for our breakfast of Chana Masala!

very finely chopped onions - 1-2

rock salt

roasted jeera powder

chili flakes

Chaat masala

chopped green chilies (was not added today...for obvious reasons ;))

Chopped coriander

B) Tamarind chutney/water

2 tbsp of readymade tamarind paste or a 2" dia ball of tamarind soaked in water and made into a pulp

rock salt

roasted jeera powder

chili flakes

chaat masala

sugar - a little

a mug of water

Procedure :

1. Wash and pressure cook the potatoes after halving/quartering them. 2 whistles are enough. 

2. While the potatoes are being boiled, prepare the tamaring water (tetul jol/imli paani) by mixing all the ingredients under "B" with water.

3.Now coming back to the potatoes....Cool, dunk in cold water and peel the skin. Mash with hand or masher.

4. Mix the mashed potatoes with all ingredients (except chopped coriander) under "A".

5. Add the tamarind water / tetul jol to make a moist  spicy potato mash. Taste and adjust the other spices if required. 

6. Garnish with sev bhujia / crushed phuchka/paani puri's puri / cornflakes and then finally with chopped coriander leaves

The yummilicious ALU CHAAT was ready!! And what made it yummier was the fact that it was harvested and prepared (fully) by my little lady!

A bowl of Soup to calm a cold-cough-fever ridden cranky toddler

Chicken with Veggies & Egg Soup

A cranky toddler down with cold-cough-fever, holed up indoors for 4 long days....just needed to be perked up with something she loved....SOUP! So a bowlful of hearty wholesome soup it was.....

I did not have chicken stock...I more often than not, dont. But that hardly matters.....There's always an alternative and a pressure cooker....

So here it is...any vegetable can be used. I used the ones I had....

Ingredients
2 boneless chicken leg pieces or 1 large chicken breast - chopped into small pieces

1 Carrot cut into tiny cubes

3-4 french beans chopped into tiny pieces

A handful of corn kernels (I used frozen)

A handful of fresh peas 

1/2 Capiscum chopped 

Chopped onions - 1

5-6 cloves of garlic-sliced

fresh ginger - 1/2 inch - cut into thin strips

pepper corns-freshly crushed : 4-5
Black Pepper powder
Tej Pata - 1 or 2
Salt to taste
Butter - 1 tbsp
Sesame Oil - 1 tbsp
Eggs - 2

Got the idea to add the beaten eggs to the soup and to use sesame Oil , from Soma's Egg Drop Soup. 

Procedure :
1. In a large pressure cooker, heat butter. Add the Tej Pata, sliced ginger & garlic, crushed pepper corns and finally the chopped onions. Stir till the onions turns translucent.
2. Add the bit sized chicken pieces. Stir around on high heat till slightly browned. Add the fresh peas
3. Add 2 mugs full of water. And pressure cook till 2 whistles go off. If you have chicken stock, add only 1/2 mug of water and pressure cook the chicken and them add the chicken stock and again bring to a boil.
4. While the pressure cooking is on, heat a tawa without oil and dry roast the chopped capsicum. Dont overcook..just to remove the moistness/rawness of capsicum and to give it a smoky flavour.
5.After release of the pressure, take off the lid of the cooker, raise the heat and again bring to boil. When boiling, add all vegetables except capsicum/bell pepper and boil for a minute or less. The vegetables should retain their crunch and not turn soggy. Add the dry roasted capsicum.
6.Adjust the salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of sesame oil into the boiling soup.
7. Beat 2 eggs. Lower the heat and add the beaten eggs slowly in a thin stream while stirring (with a fork) the simmering soup in one direction as described in Soma's Egg Drop Soup. My egg ribbons/strands were not as fine and delicate as hers ..but tasted smooth and silky!

Serve Hot!!!
To see the kiddo's eyes light up with joy as she slurped the steaming bowl of soup was an immense relief after a long day of seeing her being ill and moody!

Chicken garnished with Sesame-seed-speckled Capsicum

Surprise in the fridge!
The weekend was near and the fridge almost empty. And I had resigned myself to a dinner of dal, cabbage and rice. Even the stock of eggs was dwindling to one....quite a sad affair indeed! (Yes! I am a shamelessly unrepentant carnivore!!)
Just as I was about to close the freezer door shut after having opened it out of sheer habit, saw a little flash of red lid peeping from behind the big packets of frozen peas and sweet kernels. The mood perked up and a quick shuffle and it was a red lidded box of marinated chicken breasts which I had completely forgotten about. I had marinated the meat in my perennial marination of lemon-salt-pepper-ginger-garlic and there it was sitting pretty in the freezer waiting to be discovered!

Ingredients

Chicken breasts - 500 gms
Lemon juice of 1 large or 2 small lemons
Ginger-garlic paste - 1tbsp
Bay leaf - 1
Sliced Garlic cloves - 4-5 cloves
salt
pepper
diced onions -1
diced capsicum
Worcestershire  sauce - 1.5-2 tbspn
White sesame seed (added as an afterthought!)
Potatoes diced - 1 large (optional...I'd added to add volume)
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp

Procedure

1. Marinate the chicken breasts in lemon juice + salt + pepper + ginger-garlic paste for a couple of hours. Though I had marinated or rather marinated and forgotten about it for more than 3 days.;)
2. Heat  oil in a wok. Temper with the Bay leaf.
3. Add the potatoes.
4. Add the diced onions and sprinkle some sugar on it for colour. Fry on high heat and keep stirring
5. Throw in the chopped garlic.keep stirring
6. Add the marinated chicken after cutting them into small pieces. Cook on high heat.Since it was in the marination for so long, the meat is very tender and takes very less time to cook.
7. Add some pepper powder, followed by Worcestershire  sauce. Toss around and keep stir frying.

8. Just as I was about to add the diced capsicum, an idead struck and I took out my tawa, put it on flame, threw the capsicum and tossed them around to dry roast. As a final touch of brainwave, threw in a tablespoon or two of white sesame seeds into the tawa and roasted till they were crisp and pale golden.

9. Now garnish the chicken with the dry roasted capsicum and white sesame seeds.

10. Finally throw in some green chilies and garnish with coriander leaves.

Hunger pangs and Frittata

Lunch skipped. No time to satiate my mid afternoon hunger pangs. Hallucinations of sinfully delicious cheese omelettes. Can you imagine my plight in office???? Even while driving back home, I was dreaming of the smell of eggs being fried, with my eyes wide open!!

The ravenous me attacked the fridge with full vigour and in a jiffy I had all I needed for a sinfully delicious stuffed omelette. The sausages sliced, onions & tomatoes ready (I always have some chopped onions & tomatoes in air tight containers for such emergencies!), cheese grated, eggs beaten and just as I was about to go ahead with the dish of my afternoon cravings, I changed my mind and what followed, culminated in a frittata !!



Ingredients :
Eggs - 2
Sausages - 3-4 (sliced)
Milk - 3-4 tbsp
Onions - 1 small - sliced
Tomatoes - diced - 1 small
Processed Cheese - 1 cube
crushed pepper - to taste
chopped green chilies - to taste / optional
chili flakes - to taste
Capsicum - 1 diced
Sweet corn kernels - a handful
Peas- a handful
Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup chopped
butter/oil (I used butter!!!)
salt to taste

Procedure :

1. Beat two eggs. Add 3-4 tbsp of milk/milk cream and keep beating till fluffy. Add salt and pepper...beat some more. And keep aside

2. Switch on the oven at around 200 deg. F for 10-15 minutes, to preheat

3.In a frying pan, add some oil. Throw in the onions. Fry till light brown.

4. Fry the sausages with tomatoes and capsicum

5. Add the sweet corn kernels, peas and add the salt pepper, chili flakes & green chillies. Toss around once again in the pan.

6. With the spatula, spread the fried stuff evenly on the pan and pour the beaten egg+milk/cream mix. Tilt the pan to spread the egg evenly to cover all the veggies and sausages. Keep on low flame for the egg to set.

7. When the top is almost set (but not fully), sprinkle the grated cheese and continue to cook on stove top on low flame till the cheese starts to melt.

8. Transfer the pan (after removing the handle) to your preheated oven and cook on grill mode for 5 minutes. I like my cheesy fritatta tops soft, with the cheese melting in my mouth. If you like the top crispier and browned, keep it in the grill for some more time while monitoring it.

9. Garnish with chopped coriander.
Enjoy!!!!!

I ate like a glutton....had almost 3/4th and suddenly remembered my little baby who loves eggs!
Dinner was a cakewalk with the fritatta and was over even before I could spell it out!!!

This can make a wonderful breakfast or brunch and can be packed in kids' tiffin. It can be eaten as it is (as I did) or with bread roll/slices or mashed potatoes!

Note : I used all the sinfully high calorie stuff....like cheese, butter, milk cream etc etc....it was an indulgence I should not practise often!!! Using olive oil, low fat milk, crumbled ricotta cheese/paneer will definitely be a healthier and low calorie option!! But........

Pav Bhaji comes to the rescue!

Weekends, or for the less fortunate of the human species (like me!), ONLY SUNDAYs, are often, busier and more jam packed with things-to-do than the weekdays!

We (AD & I) usually practise a division of labour when it comes to weekend stocking up the larder...he goes shopping for meat, fish etc while I go vegetable shopping. No particular reason, except for the fact, that though I love fish to death, i abhor the squalor in a traditional fish market. From this (and only this) aspect, I prefer the sanitised environment of a supermarket.

I wish some enlightened enterpreneur comes up with a retail outlet which has the feel of an Indian Bazaar sans the squalor and the mess !!!! The fresh & bright greens, oranges, purples, the scented aroma of the herbs, the smell of earth, the buzz of life and livelihood, the banter and bargaining...I love it all! The supermarkets with their racks of frozen stuff, with the uniformity and the impersonalised & almost mechanised service, bore me to death (read my take on shopping here) !

I want the best of both worlds!

I know I sound greedy and demanding..but I am! I want everything!!!!!! I want the quality, the variety, the bargain and the personal touch...i am the customer and the customer is the KING (oops! QUEEN!!)

The GenNex Biyanis, Ambanis.....are you listening?????

Well, coming back to where I started.....this weekend we decided to give schedule & discipline a miss and be lazy! We skipped the weekly marketing....

Consequence ? weekend masti and midweek crisis!!
Barely wednesday and my refrigerator was frighteningly empty.....there was a bit of this and a bunch of that and the freezer was worse off...it was empty !!!!!

So yesterday on my way back from office, which is the time i plan what we would have for dinner, I stopped at the neighbourhood kiraana shop and picked up a few packets of Pav, having decided it had to be PAV BHAJI for dinner.

Ingredients :

1. Pav - 2 packets

2. Masalas :
a) Pav Bhaji Masala - approx 2 tsp

b) Haldi/Turmeric - approx 1 tsp
c) Kashmiri mirch - 1 tsp
d) Red chilli powder - as per taste

3. Butter - the more the better! I used around 2 tbsp for the bhaaji & 2-3 tbsp to saute the pav

4. Lemon wedges - I had only 2 ..

5. Onions - finely chopped -3

6. Coriander leaves - chopped. (Thank god for my little pot of Dhaniya in the backyard!)

7. Tomatoes - 3 small tomatoes chopped

8. Green chillies - finely chopped

9. Ginger paste - 1 tsp

10.Garlic - 1/2 tsp (optional)

11.Oil - 2 tablespoons

12.Vegetables - the more the merrier!

- I used :

a) Potatoes - 4 medium sized
b) Brinjal - 2 small

c) Cabbage - 1/2

d) Carrot - 3

e) Beans - a small bunch...around 5-6

f) Bottle gourd- 1 small 2 " piece

g) Peas - 1/2 bowl (I used frozen peas)

13. Salt

14. Sugar

Procedure
1. Boil in a pressure cooker vegetables given above in 12a-12f. Mash them with a masher and keep aside.

2. Thaw the frozen green peas in salted boiling water.

3. Heat Oil in a wok and add garlic paste and 1 chopped onion and a pinch of sugar for taste and colour (very typical Bengali!!). Fry till the onions turn light brown & translucent.

4. Add the ginger paste followed by tomatoes.

5. Mix all masalas given at 2a-2d and salt with some water into a paste and add this to the fried onion-tomato-ginger-garlic. Cook till you see the oil separate out.

6. Add the mashed vegetables (prepared as in Sl. 1). Cook well for 3-4 minutes

7. Add a blob of butter and garnish with coriander leaves and finely chopped green chillies.


8. When serving, sprinkle finely chopped raw onions and squeeze a wedge or two of lemon.

9. Slice the pavs horizontally and pan fry them in butter, on a tawa till they are crisp yet moist.

10. Serve the hot buttered pavs with the bhaaji garnished with coriander-chopped onion & a dash of lime!

Celebrating Kali Pujo & Diwali with Chhanar Jilipi

(Jalebi made out of cottage cheese)


It's that time of the year again!

Come September/October/November and the Indian Calendar is choc-a-block with festivities. Religious, social, cultural ... our festivities are a joyous symphony of vibrant colours, myriad tastes that tingle the palate and religious fervour that embraces and engulfs our sprirts. It's a time of the year I love and yearn for. The smell of new clothes, the anticipation of going home to family and friends, the smell of Pujo in the air, the sound of the Dhakis in the background are all so familiar and nostalgia evoking....yet gives me goosebumps every year thus creating the magic of pujo. For us since childhood, Pujor Chhuti meant Durga Puja followed by Lakshmi Puja and finally the festivities and fun would culminate with Kaali Puja exactly two weeks after Dussehra and finally Bhai Phonta just two days thereafter!

Maa Kaali, the fierce incarnation the Durga, is worshipped on the Kartik Amavasya night in Bengal. While Ma Kaali is worshipped in Bengal, on the same day, Diwali is celebrated in the rest of the country and Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped in most homes of North, South and Western India.

Diyas, candles, fireworks are an intrinsic part of both Kali Pujo as well as Diwali. And as in case of all Indian festivities, be it religious/cultural/social, food, especially a wide variety of sweets is an integral part of all our celebrations!

So on this ocassion of Kali Puja, as we indulge our sweet tooth, shoving to the backseat for a couple of weeks the fear of calories, pretending to ignore for a while the clockwise swing of the weighing scale needle, I bring to you a sweetdish I love.... CHHANAR JILIPI. I learnt it from my Ma during my Puja vacation and here I am sharing it with you......


Ingredients:
Chhana from 2 litres milk (check here to see how chhana is made in Points 1 & 2 of Process)
3 Black Elaichis, made into a paste (I used the green elaichi/cardamoms-around 5)
Maida (refined flour) - 2 - 3 tbsp
Oil - 2 tbsp
Baking Powder - a pinch
Sugar syrup using sugar : Water in the ration 1:1.5
Oil for deep frying


Procedure:

1. Knead the Chhana into a soft and smooth dough

2. Mix the Maida with the Oil.

3. Then mix the maida-oil mix to the chhana to give some firmness to the very soft chhana dough

3.Mix the elaichi paste and baking powder and again knead very well.


4. Pinch of small balls of chhana and roll into smooth balls.

5. Roll it into a snake like shape as shown above

6. Twist the two ends as shown in pics below.

6. Deep Fry each formed jalebi in the wok

7. Keep the sugar syrup hot/boiling.

8.Fry the jilipis and dunk them in the sugar syrup.

9. Let them stay dunked in the sugar syrup for about an hour when the jalebis soak in the sweetness of the syrup and turns juicy.

Serve hot or cold......

HAPPY DIWALI!!

This is my entry to the event FF:DIWALI DHAMAKA hosted by Purva Desai of PURVA's DAAWAT. The logo for the event is ....

An Apology and heartfelt THANKS !

I AM SORRY.....!!!!!

About this unannounced break ......

What started off as a whimsical aversion to the cyber world, continued much longer than I had expected....followed by the aversion phase were guests, illnesses, festivities...or in other words, the REAL WORLD took its toll on my cyber world and there I was far far away from the land of blogging!

And peeping into my cyber home after 3 long months, what do I find? Some new friends and well wishers on my FOLLOWERS list!! My joy knew no bounds......
Welcome to my virtual kitchen!

And thanks also to my friends from my active blogging days for taking time, visiting and dropping in a line or two despite my utter inactivity!

Also, thanks to Sudeshna for featuring my blog on her list of 7 TOP Bengali Blogs! I am flatttered and honoured!!!

And last but not the least, I thank my blogger friends Babli and Indrani who showered me with some wonderful awards. I promise to put them up on my blog soon!

Tiffin Trouble!!

For the past two years, when my daughter AD went to a playschool-cum-daycare, tiffins were not such a break-my-head issue....for the simple reason, mid morning and evening snacks were provided by the school. For lunch, I used to pack a normal lunch like - rice (or its variations)/roti, dal, side dish and curd. The school-cum-daycare heated the food in their kitchen microwave and the kids enjoyed a hot lunch. And since the ayahs and teachers supervised and fed the kids, I knew her lunch was well taken care of.

Now what with her having started proper school, everything has been complicated manifold. She comes home instead of staying at the daycare. The fact pricks me as I was never comfortable keeping her alone with the maid. But then again I dont want to make her travel from school to daycare in the afternoons and again in the evening travel back home...it's too much of travel for a three and a half in a day's time. And since it's a normal school, there arent multiple ayahs taking care of the kids' needs. So tiffin time means she has to eat herself. The teachers on the very first day have given guidelines regarding the tiffins and tiffin boxes :

-This being a 'No-Plastic' year in their school, ONLY steel tiffin boxes to be given
-No Bread & Jam
-Bread Sandwiches are OK, but with healthy fillings
-No chips and chocolate
-No rice or noodles to ensure the classroom floor isnt messed up
-Pooris, Rotis, Idlis, if sent, have to be cut into pieces.

So all in all, quite a few dos and donts. On top of all this, I have to ensure that AD eats what I give her ...hence the tiffin has to be to her liking. And worst of all, my daugher being MY daughter....is genetically designed NOT to like the same food everyday.

Oh...my love and respect for my Ma's ability, patience and creativity has increased several times over in the recent past....how did she manage to pack tasty and healthy tiffins everyday .... for 14 long year...yet I remember clearly that I used to crib and complain!! Motherhood is indeed a learning experience on how it feels to be on the other side of the fence!!!!! ;)

So lately I have been racking my brains to formulate a variety of tiffins for AD which comply with all the above DOs & DONTs, be healthy & nutritious, and yet manage to win her heart and make her eat!

So I sat down and made a table of the various options available :
1. Chicken Roll
2. Fish Roll
3. Paneer Roll
4. Vegetable Roll
5. Alu Paratha
6. Gobi Paratha
7. Palak Paratha
8. Paneer Paratha
9. Chutney Sandwich
10.Chicken Sandwich
11. Fish Sandwich
12. Egg sanwich
13. Cucumber-Tomato Sandwich
14. Cheese-Chicken Sandwich
15. Small cubes of potato+Paneer+sweetcorn, stir fried in butter sprinkled with salt pepper and a little lemon juice squeezed to make it salty, tangy!
16. French Fries
17. Idli
18. Sponge cakes

Fruits & Salads(which dont get messy)
1. Cucumber
2. Tomato
3. Pineapple
4.Apple
5.Pears (she's sporadically fond of them....hence have to check and see)
6. Papaya
7.Orange

So I guess in the posts to come (click HERE)....I'll be posting quite a few of the above or variations of these.
Well only problem is clicking pics at the God forsaken early hours!!!!

CLICK! JUNE 2009 Entry for 'STACKS' - Luchi-Mangsho

(Fried Indian Flat Bread with Chicken Curry)

Sunday Dinner....what better way to end the lazy weekend and gear up for a Manic Monday, other than, a dinner of Luchi-Maangsho! Sinfully loaded with calories....but once in a while it does good to throw caution to the winds!! So Luchi Mangsho followed by Mishti Doi, it was, for our Sunday dinner....

No recipes for this simple dish....the pic is off to Jugalbandi's CLICK! June 2009 - STACK.

Paneer Tandoori

( Cottage Cheese marinated in curd and grilled )

I had this paneer preparation at a friend's place. And upon asking her the recipe, she said, just marinate the paneer cubes in curd, mixed with ginger-garlic & all masalas...grill it for 5 minutes and the Paneer is ready! It sounded simply simple....

So when I bought Paneer this week, thought of making this preparation. The Paneer cubes were diced and I was about to mix the 'masalas' into the curd, when something just didnt feel right! It was quite late (as I had presumed it'll be a fast to cook recipe, I had started just about 1/2 hr prior to dinner time...), so couldnt really call her up to enquire about the detailed recipe....

Well, kept the paneer back into the fridge, placed the curd in a cheese cloth (I use a big, clean piece of Dhoti as a Cheese Cloth ;) ) and hung it overnight.

[As you realise, the paneer had to be postponed to the next day and for that night's dinner had to fry some sausages !]

Next evening resumed the process and thereafter it was quite simple indeed!

Ingredients :
A. Basic
* Paneer - 300 gm
* Hung Curd - around 500 gm (made from Curd made out of 1.5 litres milk approx)
* Capsicum diced - 1 big or 1 & 1/2 small
* Tomatoes diced - 1 big
* Onions - Diced - 2
* Green Chilli - 3-4 slit longitudinally

B. Spices
* Ginger - 1 tbsp
* Garlic - 1 tbsp
* Haldi/Turmeric - 1 tsp
* Dhania / Coriander powder - 1 tsp
* Jeera / Cumin powder - 1 tsp
* Red Chilli pwder- 1 tsp
* Kashmiri Chilli pwder - 1 tsp
* Black pepper pwder - 1/2 tsp
* Kasuri Methi - 1 tsp (soaked in warm water)
* Sugar - to taste
* Salt - to taste

Procedure

1. Prepare the hung curd by folding curd in a cheese cloth or thin muslin cloth and hanging it for 4-5 hrs for the water / whey to drip out. I placed the cheese cloth with curd folded in it on my bigh plastic strainer and placed the strainer on a tall steel container.

2. Mix all ingredients at 'B' with the hung curd and beat the curd-masala mix well with a spoon.

3. Marinate the paneer cubes in the above prepared Curd-masala mix for 2 hrs minimum (I kept for exactly 2 hrs for lack of time)

4. If you have a Tandoor Oven or an OTG, use either of these, for best results. I used my Microwave Oven with Grilling mode, as my OTG is out of order and I dont have the other one. (I'm seriously planning to buy the Tandoor Oven)

5. Spray some oil in an ovenproof container. Place half the quantity of diced capsicum, onion and tomatoes and sprinkle some salt and chilli powder. With a spoon turn them around in the container to coat them with the oil. I microwaved these using the Microwave + Grill mode, for 3-4 minutes.

6. Pour the marinated Paneer into the container. Garnish with the remaining capsicum, onion and tomatoes. Spray some oil on top. Again microwave using the Microwave + Grill mode, for 7-8 minutes. Then, again on ONLY Grill mode, let it cook for another 4-5 minutes.




Serve HOT with Parathas or Naan. We had them with Phulkas.

Sunday Brunch with Pizza

The weekly grocery shopping is a chore I enjoy on most Saturday evenings. Normally its something SD and I do together. But yesterday since he was working, I went on my own and AD was bored and hence latched on to me...Once we reached the supermarket, and she was let free, pandemonium reigned supreme when completely unwanted stuff were being hurled into my cart in the guise of "helping you, Ma!". And since I didnt want to break her heart and more importantly didnt want a tantrum in a public place, I let her enjoy her shopping expedition. But as casually as possible and without drawing her attention, I would keep back the stuff at their places on the shelves. This is how, as I was about to return the packets of Pizza Breads, I touched the soft & superfresh breads and decided to keep them. It had been ages since I made Pizza @ home! I let the heart rule the head and decided a day's cheesy indulgence wouldnt be earth shattering !

So as I continued shopping I picked up some mushrooms, mozarella cheese...the remaining stuff were available at home!

Ingredients :

*Pizza Breads - 4

*mozzarella cheese - 300gm

* Butter

* Oregano (I use FABINDIA's Oregano+Chilli mix)

* Italian Seasoning (I use FABINDIA's Italian Seasoning)

* Chilli flakes (optional)

A.For the Topping

Aa) MUSHROOM-CAPSICUM STIR FRY

*Button Mushrooms - 1 packet (200gm)

*Onion (diced) - 1 large or 2 small

*Capsicum (diced) - 1

*Garlic sliced - 3-4 pods

*Green Chillies - 1 or 2 (chopped fine)

*Crushed Pepper Corns - 1 tsp

*Red Chilli flakes - 1 tsp

*Sugar - a pinch

*Salt to taste

*White Oil - 2 tbsp

Ab) MINCED CHICKEN STIR FRY

*Minced Chicken - 200gm

*Onion (Finely chopped) - 1

*Tomato (finely chopped) - 1

*Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 tsp

*Italian Seasoning - a sprinkling

*Chilli-Oregano seasoning - a sprinking

*White Oil - 2 tbsp

B. SAUCE :

Normally I blanch and puree fresh tomatoes, but since I was in a hurry, decided to use ONLY tomato ketchup.

*Tomato ketchup : 1.5 cup (if fresh tomato puree is being used, I use 3-4 tomatoes + 1/2 cup ketchup for the sauce)
*Garlic sliced - 3-4 pods

*Basil (Tulsi) leaves -5-6
*Olive Oil - 1 tbsp

*Pepper pod - crushed - 3-4

*Sugar, Salt - if required
*Oregano - 1/2 tsp

Procedure :
1. Prepare the Mushroom-Capsicum Stir Fry with all the ingredients at 'Aa'

2. Prepare the Minced Chicken Stir Fry with all ingredients at 'Ab'

3. Prepare the sauce with all ingredients at 'B'. First fry the sliced garlic in oil and add the tomato ketchup/tomato puree. If required make the consistency a bit thin by adding water. After it boil, add crushed pepper, basil leaves, Italian seasoning, Oregano and let it boil for a few more seconds before you take it off the flame.

4.Take each pizza bread. Smear with a tsp of butter.

5. Smear with a thick layer of the tomato sauce.

6. Sprinkle some grated cheese.

7. Arrange the toppings of chicken & mushroom as you like.

8. Again drizzle grated cheese as per your liking

9. Sprinkle pepper, chilli flakes, Italian seasoning, oregano powder.

10. Put it in the oven. My convection mode in microwave was not working. Hence I put it in Micro+Grill mode for 10-15 minutes or till the cheese melts.