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A slice of Costa Rica – Casado

September 10, 2015 by manjirichitnis 2 Comments

With summer firmly on it’s way out and Autumn settling in, the chilly nights demand some great comfort food. I wanted to try something different so I choose a popular Costa Rican dish – Casado. Why? Well, it’s the ideal comfort food, easy to put together and tastes amazing! Best part is it’s very easy on the pocket and if you plate it well, it looks like a posh meal – no one would guess what went into making it!

Costa Rican Casado

Costa Rican Casado

Casado literally means a ‘married man’ and it is said that the name probably originates from how the local men expected food to be served when they were eating outside so that it reminded them of familiar tastes of a home cooked meal. An authentic Casado which is served at ‘sodas’ or local cafes is accompanied by what is known as a Lizano sauce. The brand name Lizano is now generic and retails in N. America.  Since this sauce is yet to hit UK shores ( believe me I did a fair bit of looking around in shops that sell Mexican ingredients, Asian, Carribean and most of my local supermarkets) I finally decided to make my own ,which was a great decision – why ? Well scope to experiment and innovate for one, coupled with freedom to incorporate easy to procure, local ingredients – resulting in a deliciously moorish creation! A traditional root vegetables dish from Costa Rico called Picadillo is a popular side dish with rice and tortillas. You can safely say that the gravy sauce is a marriage of sorts between the Lizano sauce and the Picadillo. I have done a fair amount of customisation and the most interesting part of cooking Casado was creating the gravy sauce, combining it with root vegetables and serving it as a wholesome gravy side dish. Let’s get started with the sauce aka gravy as this will take the most time to cook of all the other sides.

Costa Rican Casado

Costa Rican Casado

Recipe is good for 2 with generous helpings.

Root Vegetable Gravy Side

Prep & Cooking Time: 35 mins

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium juicy tomato – finely chopped
  • 2 small red onions finely chopped
  • 3 medium carrots chopped into tiny cubes
  • 3 small sweet fresh peppers finely chopped
  • A handful of cauliflower florets
  • A handful of very finely chopped sweet potato
  • 1 heaped tbsp of finely grated celeriac
  • A pinch of garlic puree
  • Half a dry red Kashmiri chilli
  • ½ tsp of thick tamarind puree
  • 2-3 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
  • 2 tsp freshly grated black pepper
  •  1/2 tsp sugar
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • ½ tsp roasted cumin powder
  • 2 tbsp Oil
  • Salt as per taste
  • A handful of finely chopped coriander

Method:

  1. In a large saucepan, heat oil and add the chopped onions, add the garlic puree and cumin powder and stir well.
  2. When the onion starts to reduce add the bay leaves, the chopped tomato and chopped sweet peppers, stir the the tomato & peppers around vigorously bit to get them to release their juices and reduce the flame to a minimum.
  3. Throw in the finely chopped carrot cubes, sweet potato, grated celeriac, tomato puree and add enough water to cover this mixture.
  4. Cook with lid on till the sweet potato and carrots begin to soften, then it’s time to toss in the cauliflower florets, season with the dry red chilli,tamarind,cracked black pepper, salt and sugar and give it a good stir.
  5. Let this cook on a low flame with lid for about 25 minutes.
  6. Keep opening the lid, stirring and adjusting the water if it becomes to run dry, we need a gravy like consistency.
  7. When it done, add some finely chopped coriander in the tamarind should give it a bit of tangy twist, while the dried Kashmiri chilli gives it colour and mild heat, the sweet pepper and tomato puree work their magic together and the gravy is delicious and wholesome what with so many veggies hidden inside!

Root Vegetable Gravy Sauce

Red Kidney bean side

Prep and Cooking Time: 15 min

Ingredients:

  • 1 can of red kidney beans
  • 1 medium sized red onion
  • 2 large tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tsp garlic puree
  • 1 tsp red chilli flakes
  • Salt to taste

Method:

  1. In a large saucepan, heat oil and sauté the chopped onions, add the garlic puree and stir well.
  2. After the onion has sautéed, add the tomato puree and stir then add the beans and mix well.
Red onions for Kidney Beans

Red onions for Kidney Beans

  1. Add some water to the mixture and reduce the flame to a minimum, cook with a lid on but check often so that it does not burn or run dry.
  2. 4.Since the canned and ready to eat red kidney beans are preserved in salty water, check the taste before adding in any more salt, chuck in some dry red chilli flakes for flavour and set aside.
Red Kidney Bean side is done

Red Kidney Bean side is done

Boiled white rice

  • Cook 1 cup rice using exactly double the water and a pinch of salt

Fried Plantain

  • Peel and chop the plantain into large chunks and fry in hot oil in a kadhai or wok until they are a light brown. It’s easy for them to char so get them out as soon as the colour turns a golden shade of brown, allow to cool on a plate on a bit of kitchen roll to soak excess oil.

Plaintains peeled

  • Don’t fret if like me you can’t peel the plantain I simply use a knife and remove the thick green skin, even if that means that the plantain pieces are hexagonal or cubes now, well I never was too good at geometry 😉

Frying Plantains in Kadhai

Fish

  • Casado can be served with meat, fish or chicken. Chop one large fillet of fresh salmon and pan fry both sides till done in about 1 tbsp oil.

Salmon Pan Shallow Fry

Cheese Tortilla

  • Heat a large flour tortilla –shop bought on a pan and adds a generous helping of grated parmesan cheese on tortilla. Just as the tortilla heats up and the cheese shows sign of melting fold the tortilla in half and flip over and toast each side till you have a crispy yum cheesy tortilla, slice into neat triangles ready to be served.

Tortilla on pan with grated cheddar

Cabbage Salad

  • Chop a fresh cabbage fine to get one large handful of cabbage, add half a red onion and a small handful of finely chopped cucumber, squeeze half a lime, sprinkle some cracked black pepper, a small amount of fresh finely chopped coriander and toss all these together. Easy-peasy right?

Folded Tortilla

Serve the steaming hot rice with the salmon on the side, topped with some of the root vegetable gravy. Mop up the beans with the cheesy tortilla and munch on the sweet fried plantain with generous bites of the tangy cabbage salad in between mouthfuls of everything else.

Costa Rican Casado

Costa Rican Casado

Filed Under: Featured Food and Drink, Food, Product Reviews, Rest of the World, seafood, Travel Tagged With: cabbage salad, casado, cheese tortilla, costa rican recipe, dishes from around the world, fish, foodblogger, Fried Plantain, recipe development, recipes, recipes from around the world, red kidney beans, travels for taste, travels for taste is a food and travel blog based in London, travels for taste recipe development, travelsfortaste, travelsfortaste blog, travelsfortaste food blog

Avocado,Spinach and fruity Green Smoothie

February 18, 2015 by manjirichitnis 23 Comments

It’s a relatively bright and sunny but chilly February morning and the bright sunlight streaming through my kitchen window is not letting me sit down work due to the blinding light getting into my eyes. I have now moved to a cozy spot on the couch but it’s making me drowsy…

While I was away in India and eating all the wonderful local food, I also started reading up on a lot of things related to food, what we eat and how it affects us and how our body reacts to it all.

Now let me share some facts about myself – I am lazy – very lazy and not the type who will ever go the gym even twice a week – I have ended up wasting money in 2 currencies and 3 cities so I should know that however fabulous the gym it simply does NOT work for me.

Nor does dieting – I feel deprived and end up stuffing my face even more.

So what’s the way out when I have finally made a decision to eat sensibly and loose as much weight as I can without going mad. Well, past 2 weeks I have broken down my meals to smaller portions, trying to eat 5 small meals instead of 3 every day and have drastically cut down on sugar consumption. By sugar I don’t mean granulated sugar but sugar hidden in various food.

I have procured a chart about which foods are high in carbs and thus break down into sugar while they are being digested. Am consciously trying to read up more and steer clear of obviously sugar laden foods and any sugary foods are out. Thankfully I quit sugar in my tea years ago so that is not a problem but yes saying no to alcohol and other foods is not going to be easy. But then nothing good come by too easy does it?

Avocado, Spinach and Fruity Green Smoothie - Bursting with the goodness your body NEEDS every day!

Avocado, Spinach and Fruity Green Smoothie – Bursting with the goodness your body NEEDS every day!

So here goes, my morning smoothie recipe – an attempt to start the day on a healthy note :

Serves: 1 – makes 2 small glass fulls

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 a Banana
  • 1/2 of a big pear
  • 1/2 of a big avocado
  • 1 Royal Gala Apple
  • 2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves
  • a small knob of ginger

Method:

  • Chop the ginger into small bits after roughly removing the skin, if the ginger is super fresh you can use the back of a spoon to easily peel of the fine layer of skin.
  • Roughly chop all the fruits into chunks.Break the banana half by hand.
  • Simply chuck all the above ingredients into a food processor and add very little water just to give the smoothie some movement and consistency.

I prefer a thick consistency the type you can scoop out using a spoon as it is simply more satisfying and increases the feeling of being full.

This made 2 small glasses and I had both of them , simply double up the quantity for 2 people and so on and so forth.

Avocado, Spinach and Fruity Green Smoothie - Bursting with the goodness your body NEEDS every day!

Avocado, Spinach and Fruity Green Smoothie – Bursting with the goodness your body NEEDS every day!

Leafy, green, tasty, bursting with fruity goodness and taste, this smoothie is an immune system booster and full of all things good for your body. It will definitely boost sagging energy levels and induce a feel-good factor. The smooth creamy taste added by the avocado is a bonus!

I have linked up my recipe with Credit Crunch Munch which is a frugal food recipe sharing challenge developed by Helen over at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla over at Fab Food 4 All and guest hosted by the lovely Elizabeth who blogs at Elizabeth’s Diary,  linked up for Feb 2015 on her blog post too.

 

Filed Under: Food, Healthy, Recipe Index, Smoothies Tagged With: apple, avocado, banana, breakfast smoothie, eat raw, eat with a spoon smoothie, fdbloggers, foodblogger, foodie goes green, ginger, green smoothie, Healthy recipes, how to stay healthy and positive, live healthy, Manjiri, Manjiri Chitnis, Manjiri Chitnis Kulkarni, Manjiri Kulkarni, pear, raw foods, recipe developer, recipedeveloper, sliceoffme, small changes for a better life, smoothie a day keeps the doctor away, spinach, start small, the goodness of raw, thick smoothie, think healthy, travelsfortaste

Jerk Chicken and Coconut Rice

July 20, 2013 by manjirichitnis Leave a Comment

The first time I ate Jerk Chicken, was at a pop up Caribbean food stall near Haymarket Station, it was served with some tasty rice with red kidney beans and the most deliciously sweet plantain. Ever since I have been waiting to experiment and make this spicy chicken at home. Please resist the temptation of using a jerk sauce out of a bottle, it’s almost a crime because in the recipe I used from the BBC Good Food guide, it makes preparing the marinade a thing of joy. Not only will you learn how each ingredient lends its individual flavour but you can learn how to adjust the ”heat” in this amazing marinade. An advance warning, if you have sensitive skin PLEASE use gloves to marinate the chicken as Scotch Bonnet peppers are PACKED with heat. Ensure you THOROUGHLY wash your hands after you handle these ”hot babies” too! Humm now for the recipe, it’s essentially what was in the original but of course, I have added my own touches and I think they make quite an impact 🙂 So read on folks.

Jerk Chicken

Manjiri Chitnis
Caribbean Jerk chicken is an all-time favourite and tastes even better with a home-mademarinade
Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 mins
Cook Time 45 mins
Total Time 1 hr 5 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Caribbean
Servings 4 people

Ingredients
  

For Jerk Chicken:

  • 12 chicken thighs with bone
  • 1 garlic sliced through the middle to go in the oven
  • 2 lemons halved to go in the baking tray
  • 1 pair of clean gloves if you have sensitive skin – to marinate the chicken

For the Jerk marinade:

  • 4 Garlic Cloves de-skinned
  • 1 small red onion
  • 1 bunch fresh spring onion roughly chopped
  • 1 portion ginger size that fits inside your closed fist washed, skinned and roughly chopped
  • 1 tbsp thyme – I had none so I used 1 tbsp of Mixed Italian herb powder
  • 3 scotch bonnet chillies de-seeded if you cannot handle very spicy
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp oil – I used sunflower
  • 4 heaped tbsp brown sugar – I used dark muscovado sugar
  • 1 tbsp ground allspice powder
  • 1 lime Juiced

Instructions
 

  • Blitz all the ingredients for the marinade in the mixer/food processor/blender and make a thick paste, do not add water as far as possible to ensure a thick puree like grainy paste
  • Wash and deskin the chicken thighs and make cuts using a knife
  • Then generously apply the marinade paste all over rubbing into the cuts made to ensure the flavour really seeps into the chicken
  • Marinate overnight in the fridge. Cover vessel with cling film
  • Keep about 2 tbsp marinade aside for adding in the baking tray
  • When you are ready to prepare the chicken pre-heat the oven to 180 – 200 degree Celsius, I have a fan oven
  • Prepare the baking tray by greasing with some oil, place the marinated chicken pieces and surround them with the lime slices and place the garlic halved
  • Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes or until juices run clear
  • When the chicken is in the oven start with the rice

Coconut Rice with Peas

Print Recipe
Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 10 mins
Total Time 15 mins
Servings 4 people

Ingredients
  

  • 200 g Basmati Rice
  • 400 g Coconut Milk can
  • 1 bunch fresh spring onion finely chopped
  • 2 large sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 2 large cloves of garlic skinned and chopped very fine
  • 1 tbsp ground allspice
  • 200 g green peas

Instructions
 

  • Wash the Basmati rice under cold running tap water
  • In a heavy-bottomed vessel, add the washed rice and coconut milk, chopped spring onions, thyme, garlic chopped and allspice
  • Add 300 ml water, mix and add salt to season
  • Cook with lid on a medium flame till water begins to boil
  • Stir with a wooden spatula and then add the green peas
  • Reduce flame and do not cover completely, leave a bit of space for the steam to pass
  • Cook until done

Although the recipe I followed, uses red kidney beans since I was already using them in my Caribbean Sweet Mini Pepper Salad, I choose green peas for my Coconut Rice. I made my own homemade replacement for allspice powder too, it’s very easy and I intend to make it fresh each time I need instead of the store-bought one, simply because it is so quick and easy to prepare! Actually allspice is a spice by itself but it tastes similar to a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper.

Also Known as: Jamaican Pepper or New spice

Home made all-Spice Powder recipe

Home made all-spice seasoning

Manjiri Chitnis
Try myeasy to prepare and store home-made all-spice seasoning
Print Recipe
Prep Time 2 mins
Cook Time 5 mins
Total Time 7 mins
Servings 1 portions

Ingredients
  

  • 1 tbsp Cinnamon powder or cinnamon stick – thumb-sized
  • 1 small tbsp pepper powder
  • 1 heaped tbsp of cloves
  • 1 full nutmeg grated

Instructions
 

  • In a pestle and mortar mix the ingredients and grate the nutmeg into it
  • Then smash together to makes a grainy powder
  • Some bits of the clove you may not be able to grind fine, I wouldn’t worry about it unless you want a fine powder then the smallest attachment on your mixer. I have an Indian mixer which I use for my coconut chutneys and it has 3 jars I used the one with 3 blades. Or else just use the pestle and mortar it should work.
  • Store away the remaining homemade allspice replacement powder in a tiny airtight container

A note about the brown sugar vs. dark muscovado sugar

Dark Muscovado sugar is the unrefined form of brown sugar ,its stickier ,heavier,has a longer shelf life than refined sugars and adds a more intense flavour to marinades and since it is stable at high temperatures is great for baking.If you do not have brown sugar its ok to replace it with dark Muscovado sugar. Although as the water content dark muscovado holds is higher one should accordingly taper the use of water in the recipe.

Brown sugar is white sugar and molasses and hence the colour and soft texture. It has the light and dark brown sugar varieties and the lighter it is the milder the flavour.

Muscovado,White & Light Brown Sugar

Filed Under: Food, Meat, Recipe Index Tagged With: allspice powder, bake, basmati rice, BBC Good Food Guide, can, caribbean, caribbean jerk chicken recipe, caribbean recipes, chicken thighs, cinnamon, coconut milk, coconut rice recipe, cook, cooking, delicious, easy home-made all-spice seasoning recipe, easy home-made caribbean jerck seasoning recipe, easy meals, eat, fiery, finely chopped, food, food blogger, foodblogger, garlic, green peas, homestyle jerk chicken recipe, hot, ingredient list, italian herbs, jerk chicken recipe, lemon, lime, marinate, muscovado sugar, nutmeg, oven, pepper, quick and easy recipes, red onion, roast, roughly chopped, scotch bonnet chillies, scotch bonnet peppers, simple jerk chicken recipe, sliceoffme, spicy, spicy lunch recipes, sprig f thyme, spring onion, summer party menu, sunflower oil, tarvelsfortaste blog, tasty, temper, tin, wikipedia, yum, yummy

Excited about Food Blogger Connect, yes am going back!

May 31, 2013 by manjirichitnis Leave a Comment

Hello hello! Along with my efforts to get things out of my drafts folder, I thought I must share that I am super excited to be going back to the Food Blogger connect, it’s happening this July. Last year I managed to only attend the LAST day but what a day it was! Action-packed and so full of activities, I met some really fun bloggers. I wish to especially mention Grace who blogs at ‘A life unhurried’ and takes the most amazing pictures!

It was a power-packed day with really informative and motivating sessions. The whole place had crazy vibrant energy going around and I came back power-packed with ideas for my blog.

I hope that this year I can really ”connect” with the other bloggers and enjoy my time and yes learn a whole lot of new stuff!

Well, let us get going then, oh yes, I will soon share pictures about FBC 4, a ”Quick Byte” with a fellow food blogger (that’s a secret for now!), and lots more! 3 cheers to Food Blogger Connect!

Im-Going-To-FBC5-Badge

Check out the Food Blogger Connect Facebook page

Follow them on Twitter  – @bloggerconnect

Let’s Connect Bloggers!

Filed Under: Events, Food Tagged With: bloggers, europe, FBC5, food blogger connect, foodblogger, inspire, london, meet, motivate, photography, slice, sliceoffme, travel blogger, write

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