Fish Cutlet - With Canned Tuna

New pic above was added Sep 25, 2009 since I had always wanted to add a better picture. Granted this is not as best as it could be but I realize it is the best I could do before the whole set is gobbled up each time I make them now that my little girl also has joined the fish cutlet bandwagon.

Some years back when I came here as a student there was nary a kitchen bone in my body. Luckily my room mate was a business undergrad from Srilanka with at least a few of those bones if not many. She also was up to experimenting in the kitchen. This is based mostly on the canned tuna cutlet that she made successfully in our student kitchen. It was rather a welcome change from the calcium fortified orange juice which stood in for a meal many times for lack of time and inclination. She also had a toffee recipe that I diligently wrote down in my Mrs KMM cookbook then. That will come later.

My husband the resident 'beef cutlet' expert (yummy ones too!) kind of looked down on these 'fish cutlets' and they never got made. Finally he has turned his attention to fish as a possibility and this got me to look back on the forgotten recipe. The final version is mostly the old recipe with some cookbook references and some advice from the expert especially on techniques.

In The Mix

canned tuna - 500g (18oz)
green chili - 3
ginger - 3/4" piece
red onion - 1/4"
eggs - 2
potatoes - 2 medium sized
cinnamon stick - 1 piece ground (or 1/4 tsp powder)
cloves - 4 ground (or 1/4 tsp powder)
salt and pepper powder - to taste (can add chili powder instead of pepper)
oil - 1 tbsp + enough for frying
bread crumbs - enough to cover the cutlets

How To Do

Boil the potatoes, remove skin and mash very well.
Chop or thinly dice the onion, ginger and green chilies together.
Heat oil and saute onion, ginger, chili mix with salt.
Add cinnamon and cloves. This is optional but will add to the taste.
Mix together and add the tuna. Add pepper and more salt if needed.
Saute for a while and add the mashed potato.
Stir together in medium heat for 5-8 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.


Make into nice oval shapes by rolling and then flattening with your finger. I am obviously not an expert in this as witnessed in the pictures:-)

Beat the egg, dip the cutlets into this and roll in bread crumbs one by one. My husband has a very convenient system where he dips the cutlet with one hand, drops into the bed of crumbs and roll with the other hand which prevents your rolling hand from lumping up. This is indeed useful.


Now fill a pan with enough oil to cover more than half of the cutlet's sides and fry each side for a minute or two. Drain on paper towels and enjoy with old fashioned onion/vinegar/chili salad or with rice and papad. Had leftover oil? Fry those papads in it. Fishy papads are pretty good!

For Onion Salad
Slice one red onion. Squeeze together with vinegar, water and salt in a large strainer. Check for salt and a touch of vinegary taste. Mix with thinly sliced green chilies and onion salad is ready.

The pic below was the original top picture when I first published the post. Don't want to get rid of it...

Thoran - A Veggie-Coconut Preparation

I received an award from Geeta of paytpooja. Geeta's blog is very informative and I love browsing there. It was a wonderful way to start an otherwise ordinary weekend. Thanks Geeta! I pass it on to all my readers and bloggers.

Thoran does not need an introduction for Malayalees. Nostalgia at its height is the smell of fresh grated coconut cooking with vegetables in coconut oil. I was not too much into any form of veggies when I was home but realized my folly when the smell hit me here and I felt this pang in my heart for the long lost days. Like mallugirl once said I guess it is better to try to recreate memories rather than abandoning them altogether. As usual once I hit the stride I just couldn't be stopped:-) So here I am with Thoran made of two veggies!! The recipes are alike, only the veggie changed. I used beans and tindora in these pictures and we ate it like treasured items. You know, when you finish most of the rice and curries but keep the yummiest portion to the end for a lasting taste.

Reminds me of an old forgotten story. My sister and I used to daringly pick 'champakka' from the rose apple trees in our yard and eat them with relish. I always kept the largest almost red fruits to the last for maximum enjoyment and most of the time ended up having no space for them:-) So it is not always a good idea to keep the best for the last...

Coming back to the Thoran, which nancy reminded me of, let me go over the short details of this delightful soul filling recipe below:

In The Mix
beans - 2 fresh bunches or 1 frozen packet (any veggies ex: tindora, cabbage etc can be prepared like this)
mustard - 1/4 tsp
urad dal - 1/4 tsp
onion - 1/2 sliced
green chili - 3 diced into circular shapes
curry leaves - as much as you want or 1 sprig
coconut powder - 1/2 cup (optionally can be hydrated in water a half hour or so before)
salt to taste
oil - 1/2 tbsp

How To Do
Cut the veggies or shell them as applicable if you are using fresh veggies. I had fun shelling some of the well grown beans which of course brought back memories of sitting with my mom and grandmother to shell them whenever they would let me. It was a kitchen duty grandmother enjoyed and therefore was her main responsibility just like shelling boiled eggs. If you can shell some beans, that will make it extra tasty. I couldn't get as much as I hoped and had to cut the rest but what I had still made a difference.


Cook the veggie with little or no water. Add salt to taste. Cook covered in high heat for 6 to 7 minutes. Dry out any remaining water. Since you are cooking on high heat, be sure to be somewhere close by so you won't have to be jolted back into reality by a burning smell..


Heat oil in a separate pan. Break mustard and urad dal. Add thinly sliced onions, green chilies and curry leaves in that order. Mix well and saute for a while. Add the coconut, mix and saute well. Now add the cooked veggie, blend all together and remove from heat. Enjoy with hot rice and butter milk curry. If the rice, thoran and butter milk are rolled into 'bally balls' as my kids would call it, you will keep on eating without realizing one's tummy getting to burst levels:-)


The appearance of the end result will slightly differ depending on how long you were willing to saute the coconut/onion mix as evidenced by the two preparations above.

Fried Chicken - From Vanitha

Vanitha Magazine has this series where they write up on small local restaurants made famous through word of mouth. I find that I am becoming a fan of the one recipe that they usually give out from one of the popular items. So far everything I have tried have come out well. This is no exception.

The smell of the marinade is appetizing even before you start cooking. So I don't have to elaborate much on the aftermath. Guys and gals, get out your pans and aprons and get ready for a short and rewarding cooking experience.

In The Mix

Boned Chicken - 2 lbs (cut into medium pieces)
lemon drops - squeezed from 1/2 a lemon
salt to taste
oil - 1 cup or as needed

to crush
crushed red chili - 1 1/2 tbsp
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
cumin powder - 2 tsp
ginger - 2" piece (cut into 2 or 3 pieces)
garlic - 10 lean cloves

How To Do

Crush the 'to crush' items by adding one at a time to the mix. Add salt and lemon drops to this and mix well.


Marinate the chicken in the mix for 1/2 to 1 hour.


Heat oil and fry/cook the chicken on both sides. Drain on paper towels and enjoy as is or with rice and veggies. It is as easy as it sounds and yummy to boot. Want to try? Go for it!

Three-In-One

I don't have a recipe today. Wanted to post about something which probably is well known among the initiated. This is best done when making fried chicken curry. I had almost forgotten the way my Mom used to do this and how I used to just wait for it. Well, the picture says it all. How to get three items with the labor of one!

Make sure some cooked rice is on hand.

Start making your favorite chicken curry. On its way to the finish line, stop right before where you reduce the gravy so it forms a thick coat. Scoop some up into a bowl with enough light gravy so it can accompany appam, porotta or chapathi. Item 1 is ready:-)

Now reduce the gravy to your end and Item 2 is ready as intended. Remove to serving dish.

But wait! Don't wash of the wok/pan/cheenachatti that you used to make the dish. I hope you left some small chicken crumbs and stuff in the pan. Bring out the rice and add to the pan. Mix all together with some salt and your instant fried rice and thus Item 3 is ready!

Enjoy the fried rice with yogurt, papad and if you must, the chicken dish you prepared.

Enjoy the earlier gravied dish another day with suitable accompaniments.

My Grandmother and I were opponents when the rice was prepared in this manner. No one else I guess even knew this was available since the two of us saw to it immediately! Then of course we won't be 'that hungry' for the subsequent lunch or dinner:-) Mom always did this in a special cheenachatti made of bronze that shone like gold on the inside and like onyx on the outside. Another household favorite here.

Chicken Vindaloo

Not long after I got married, my Hmom lovingly sent us a cookbook and a bunch of handwritten notes with her own recipes. Little did she know the impoverished nature of my relationship with the kitchen then! I used the cookbook in addition to my KMM's book but didn't dare go near the handwritten recipes as they were written by an expert for an expert. It is only recently that I have come to believe that I could try out stuff from it to good results.

Vindaloo is not a favorite of me or my husband but he loves it when it is done in pork. Since I am not a fan of that particular meat, I had long wanted to try the recipe with chicken instead. This is exactly what I did this weekend and it came out very well if my husband the vindaloo connoisseur is to be believed. I made a discovery alongside the process and it is that this vindaloo could be the meat version of 'meen pattichathu'. Also the resulting dish tastes a hundred times better if you realize it to be meat pickle akin to shrimp pickle. Do try it and let me know if this is true or not. That is, if you happen to catch a vindaloo bug while reading this:-)

In The Mix

chicken - 2 lbs cut into medium to small pieces ( boneless chicken is best for this recipe)
water - as needed (not more than 1 cup)
vinegar - 8 to 10 tbsp depending on yout tolerance to its taste
sugar - 1 tsp (decrease or increase sugar content based on resulting taste)

to grind
red chili powder - 4 tbsp
kashmiri chili powder - 2 tbsp
dry red chili powder - 1 tsp
turmeric powder - 3/4 tsp
cumin powder - 1 tsp
ginger - 1" piece
garlic - 6to7 small to medium cloves
mustard - 1 tbsp
salt - to taste


to season
mustard - 1/4 tsp
shallot - 1/2sliced
curry leaves - 1 sprig or less
oil - 1 tbsp

How To Do

Grind all the 'to grind' ingredients together in a blender with 2-3 tbsp of vinegar and some water.

Heat oil, break mustard and add sliced shallots and curry leaves and saute for a while. Add the ground mixture and saute well till the mix is roasted. Now add the remaining vinegar, sugar, salt if needed to the mix and add the chicken pieces. Mix well together and cover and cook in low heat. Should not take more than 15 minutes.

Dilute with water if needed or add more vinegar for personal taste. If there is more liquid, heat on high to reduce as this is better to taste with minimal gravy. Enjoy with rice and vegetables. Since this is rather new to me I have not yet perfected this recipe but have noted here all the adjustments I made while making this as reference.

Kadala/Channa Curry for Puttu

Obviously cooking's been going on in Cheenachatti. No one can survive that long without food! OK, maybe some:-) Puttu was one of the stars that made many appearances and I remembered that I had not blogged about Kadala Curry which almost unfailingly accompanies Puttu in its journeys to the netherworld, er.., I mean tummy. I usually make it with canned garbanzo beans which is the best kind of kadala for this kind of curry. Since it is already cooked, soaking and cooking times are pretty much taken care of. But today is when I got blogging time and feeling a little nostalgic, I had made the curry with black kadala. So this post is on that.

In The Mix

Channa/Kadala - 2 cups of black kadala (or 2-3 cans of garbanzo beans)
mustard - 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - a sprig or two
green chili - 3 each cut to 3-4 pieces lengthwise
red onion - 1/2 sliced
ginger - 1/2" piece sliced to splinters
coriander powder - 4 1/2 tbsp
chili powder -2 tsp
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
garam masala - 1/4 tsp (made from equal measure mix of cardamom/cloves/cinnamon powder)
warm milk - 2 cups
water - 1 or 2 cups
salt to taste

How To Do

Soak kadala in water for 4-5 hours. This step is not needed when using canned garbanzo beans. Need to take care to drain the water out if using garbanzo.

Heat oil in a pan, break mustard and add curry leaves. Then saute onion, green chili and ginger in that order and mix well with salt. Add all the curry powders. Add 1-2 tbsp of water so everything mixes well together. Roast the mix till everyone at home get the scent of spice powders in the air and can't wait to taste the curry that goes with it:-)

Add the milk and water and boil. Add kadala, let boil once, lower heat to medium and cook covered for 12-15 minutes. (If you are adding garbanzo the cooking time is 2-3 minutes just so everything blends well.) Stir once or twice during this time so the milk won't get separated out too much. Channa curry is ready to be mixed in with puttu and devoured. Some eat this with flat appams and even rice and while I found it all not too bad, I must admit that for me kadala is made for puttu and puttu only.....

The seasoning part of breaking mustard with curry leaves can be done in the end too. Just do that in another small pan and add to the curry at the very end. The latter looks a lot better while taste remains pretty much the same in either case.

Smoothie - Smooth and Easy!

Smoothie shops are all abound. Yet there is only one shop that I care to have smoothie from and for this one I am willing to go the extra mile - the shop being at the other end of the mall :-) - just for my pine-orange-banana fix.

As always when a craving hits I have to get to work I guess. This was before food blogs. I had yet to discover them. But I could still search for a recipe couldn't I? I found a whole bunch and after many a try, public opinion settled on my current and final adaptation. Be forewarned that you will need a blender with ice crushing option for this.

In The Mix

ice cubes - 12
milk - 1 cup
ripe banana - 1
sugar - 4 tsp
frozen fruit concentrate - about 4 oz. or 120 ml.

How To Do

Put all the ingredients and blend using the 'ice crusher' button. Blend till all the ice is crushed but not so it turns into water. A smoothie needs the crunchiness of the 'yet to melt snow cone' ice texture to give it credit. Should not take more than a minute. Do the crushing in bursts to make sure the smoothie is retaining the desired texture. When it comes to a smoothie, it is all about texture, texture, texture. At least for me:-) Pour into glasses and settle down for a lazy afternoon. The above will make four cups.


Any fruit concentrate will do but pineapple-orange is the best with banana. Orange-mango is the next best and this is what I used here. I usually buy a 12 oz can and use 1/3rd of it each time. Also don't add more sugar than what is given no matter how much you are tempted as that will take away the subtle sweetness of the smoothie and render it rather common. I am sure using other fresh fruits instead of the fruit concentrate will also work but I just have not tried it, having found 'the one' already!