![Cucumber Yogurt Sauce]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Feb 18, 2015 | Condiments & Sauces, Indian, South Asian, Turkish
I have no idea why I’ve been craving yogurt sauces lately. It’s not even the yogurt I’ve been craving, it’s more so the fresh herbs I love to put in it- maybe it’s a lack of Vitamin C around here lately, I mean we. are. freezing.
This is a recipe I’ve made many times before but this time, I’ve amped up the fresh dill because it looked so beautiful and smelled so amazing when I picked it up from the grocery store that visions of yogurt sauce over kebabs- and everything else I planned on eating during my run of cabin fever – would be ever so enhanced by its deliciousness.
I also love this yogurt sauce because it’s thick- and to me it’s a sign that it’s made really well. There is nothing that disappoints me more than watery yogurt sauce found indiscriminately at various events like weddings. I get so excited to eat exotic-to-me foods that are hot and spicy and I need that yogurt sauce to tone it down. Besides, for me a meal without some sort of dairy is kind of unnerving, and dairy water just doesn’t cut it. I know, #itsnotthatbigadealreally
Okay, so here’s what you need- beautiful fresh dill (I used about 1/4 of a fresh bunch as dried dill just does not make up for the fresh, in my opinion); one large cucumber, skins removed and cut in half; one large garlic clover (or more if you like it really garlicky)…
Two cups of fresh, whole milk yogurt (I prefer country or Greek style since it’s nice and rich and not watery), plus salt and pepper which you can add to taste.
First you need to scrape out the seeds of the cucumber otherwise the mixture will become watery and maybe even a little bitter. Just save that for compost or add it to a smoothie for breakfast time, it’s all good. One more thing- don’t do what I did in this picture below, which is to cut the cucumber before peeling it- I got a little too excited and should have peeled it beforehand because afterwards it was a little more time-consuming and weird to do, but definitely doable.
Now dry the cucumber really well- we didn’t remove all those seeds for no reason now. I like to use these towels (aka: linens)– they’re super efficient and it’s an eco-friendly way of keeping things dry in your kitchen.
Then chop it up really well, but not too small. Diced, that’s what I want to say…but I don’t always do it so perfectly.
Now for the dill. I don’t use all the stems of the dill, but a good and hefty portion of those leaves. I like a lot, you can use as little or as much as you like and prefer.
Chop it up well. You really don’t want to eat large chunks of this stuff.
Put it all in a bowl large enough for about 4 cups of ingredients total.
Add the salt, pepper and garlic. You can chop it (the garlic) up yourself finely (i.e. mince it), or use something like my handy dandy vintage garlic press. I mean this one is vintage but the concept is old and new, as they’re sold in all kinds of sorts around the country. I just love using the word “vintage” and using vintage things…
You have to cut the garlic in half if it’s a large clove, then use the metal flap to close it in and press. I love that it comes out in these nice and small pieces. I do not like to wash it afterwards.
Now pour the yogurt over the ingredients.
And the second cup of yogurt makes it even better, in my opinion.
You can add as little or as much yogurt as you like.
Mix and serve up however you like. It is so, so, so delicious over meat like kebobs made of lamb, beef or chicken, but I’ve been eating it up at breakfast with eggs and scooping it up with pita bread. It’s also so good over rice, of course, and I would think that vegetarians of the world would appreciate having this extra good creaminess atop rice and beans…but that’s just my Latina side talking!
What’s your favorite way to have yogurt sauce?
![Tandoori Spiced Baked Chicken in Yogurt Masala]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Jul 29, 2014 | Iftar, Indian, Ramadan
If you’ve ever been to an Indian restaurant that has a clay oven, you may have tried their tandoori. It’s typically made by adding the meat (usually chicken) to a very, very hot tandoor oven. They also make bread in this ovens in which the dough actually sticks to the side of the oven and cooks itself quickly- I absolutely love that! The smell is amazing- anything on fire tastes so good and that flavor is quite hard to replicate at home without your own clay oven, but it can be done with a few tweaks if you’re willing to make those changes. It may not be exact, but the flavor can be nicely emulated such as in this recipe for my version of Chicken Tandoori, which is baked in the oven- a regular home oven like mine. I’m going to give you a few options for making it, depending on how you like the results.
Start out with some really aromatic spices, plus the crown jewel of Indian cooking- ginger and garlic (paste). Onion, cilantro and lime is for garnish at the end; yogurt is for the marinade.
We’re using so many wonderful spices, all ground: smoked paprika, cayenne pepper (for the much-needed kick), ground annatto (for coloring and instead of artificial food colors), cumin, coriander, turmeric, sea salt.
You can add the spices to the yogurt in any order. This is the cumin, which looks so similar to the ground coriander.
Smoked paprika- it’s what adds that smoked flavor that resonates with a real smoky tandoor oven.
This is ground annato, or achiote. You can find it at most Latino or Mexican markets. It comes in a bottle or bag with annato seeds, which is a flower. You simply grind the seeds in a spice grinder and get this powder. It’s a great alternative to unnatural food coloring in savory dishes because it’s used to color foods, especially rice.
The turmeric adds a lovely color to the chicken, too. It also stains everything in sight so be careful! If you can find fresh turmeric, great- use it!
Add the remaining coriander and sea salt plus the ginger and garlic and lemon juice to the yogurt and mix it all in. It will smell amazing.
It’ll be a light orangish color, not the bright red you might be used to seeing in restaurants, because we’re not using artificial food coloring.
Now the chicken- you can use any cut you like, really but just know that if it has bones, it will need to cook longer than if it’s boneless. I’m mixing up the cuts because I’m interested in having both. The drumsticks are a popular cut for this dish, but it’s just not my favorite so I’m using what we have the most: split breast and boneless pieces which I’ve cut myself. You’ll also need to slit the meat so that the yogurt can penetrate the meat and tenderize it for easier cooking.
In a large bowl, mix the chicken with the yogurt and combine it all up. It needs to marinate for at least four hours, but the best is overnight so that the yogurt can do its thing: tenderize.
Simply mix it all then cover- and leave it alone in the fridge for the time being.
Once it’s ready to bake in your oven, place it all in a deep oven-safe dish. Add a few pats of butter, about six for about three pounds of meat. Trust me, it makes this dish turn out wonderful and prevents the yogurt from burning. I don’t suggest using oil, but ghee is a good replacement for the butter, if you don’t have it. You can choose to cook the chicken without the yogurt marinade, but the cooking temperature and time will be quite different.
Cover with foil (or lid) and poke some holes to let the steam out.
Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F. Open up the foil and turn all the pieces around. Bake for an additional 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare all the goods- naan bread, fresh cilantro, sliced white or yellow onions and quarter some fresh limes. Get some extra yogurt on the side so you can add it to the naan bread and make a sandwich, if desired.
Uncover during the last 5-10 minutes of baking. You’ll have a masala (sauce) in the pan. At this point, you can remove the chicken from the pan and place the chicken on broil to get the grilled effect. I did not do that because the masala was so tempting. I loved dipping my naan in it and mixing in some yogurt, adding the fresh lime juice, a few onions and fresh cilantro leaves.
Maybe not exactly like an Indian restaurant with a tandoor, but the flavor was definitely there and I’ll be making it over and over again, insha’Allah.
This recipe is sponsored by Zabiha Halal, a Canadian company that produces halal-certified (US andCanada) and hormone-free poultry products such as the split breast and boneless breast meat used to make this dish. They also provide fresh leg quarters, and even all natural and nitrite/nitrate-free deli meat like chicken breast or smoked chicken breast . You can learn more about Zabiha Halal on their website and even enter for a chance to try their products for FREE in this giveaway. They’re also offering a pretty grand contest on their Facebook page where you could win a trip worth $10,000 to anywhere in the world.
![Beef Samosa Puff Pastries]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Jul 1, 2014 | Appetizers & Snacks, Entertaining, Iftar, Indian, Ramadan, South Asian, Summer
If you’ve never tasted keema, or that wonderfully spiced Indian-style ground beef, you’re totally missing out on some great flavor. Surely every family makes it a little different- even I have a few different versions, but for samosas I like to recreate a certain flavor.
The first time I ever had it was at a suhoor in which I was a guest at a Muslim family’s home- it was my first experience staying overnight where I got to experience how suhoor was eaten in a Pakistani family and it was a fascinating one.
They served finely ground beef with freshly-made chappatis and carrot halwa, which is sweet. I will never forget all those flavors- it’s not anything I would have ever thought of eating, but I was hooked on the aroma, the taste and how satisfied I felt, making me strong and ready to face a day of fasting in Ramadan.
This time around since I’m making samosas (similar to latin-style empanadas), I use some pretty standard spices and ingredients that are kind of a must in samosas, although peas and potatoes aren’t exactly two of them- I like them and may even make them only with potatoes next time. You could leave them out of this recipe, if you like. I’m also baking these, not frying them.
Spices: garam masala (mixture of black peppercorns, black cardamom seeds, mustard seeds), cumin powder, turmeric powder, chili powder, coriander powder, sea salt.
Fresh ingredients: garlic/ginger paste, freshly cut jalapeño/green chili, freshly chopped cilantro, yellow or white onion, diced yukon gold potatoes, frozen peas.
We also need a great quality dhabiha halal ground beef. In this recipe, I use Midamar Halal’s USDA organic beef.
*Sidenote: One tip I’ve learned in terms of how to get the beef to be really, really fine if you don’t have a grinder, is to use a potato masher when cooking. You can do that if you don’t use potatoes in this recipe, otherwise, you’ll mash the potatoes, too.
I make the garam masala fresh, but you can also find it in most Indian stores already packaged up. I did not have mace so it’s not a part of my mixture, but you can definitely add it.
I use a coffee grinder to make it and clean it out in between grinding spices and coffee with a piece of fresh bread- works wonders!
It looks like this when it’s all ground up:
Then mix it up with all of the other spices so that they’re nicely combined and easy to add to the meat while it’s cooking. It’s good to have this ready ahead of time so they’re all incorporated at the same time.
It’s so pretty when mixed together, and smells amazing- smells like samosas-in-the-making to me!
To make the keema (ground beef), heat the oil gently. You can use olive or vegetable oil. If you’re making the samosas with potatoes, salt the oil at this time- it will help the potatoes to not stick to a non-stick pan.
Once the oil is nicely heated (but not burning), add the diced potatoes. Good idea to have this done way ahead of time, as you don’t want this heating up to much before you add the potatoes.
Let those cook for some time, about 4-5 minutes, using a spatula to move the potatoes around and help them use the salt to not stick to the pan.
Next, add the onion and cook until transparent then add the meat and all the spices.
The frozen peas are added last to prevent them from getting mushy.
After the meat has cooked for about 15 more minutes (and you’re continuously crushing up any bits of meat, since it should be finely ground), add the peas.
Now is the fun part! After the meat has cooled, you’ll be making the puff pastries and prepping them for baking. You need one package of puff pastry, two if you want to use up all the meat. One package makes about 12 pastries. Most will need to be cut into six pieces (two sheets come in a standard package), as seen below.
Since the meat is cooled, add about 2 tablespoons to each piece.
Fold each one over and crimp three edges with a fork (not the folded-over part).
Use an egg wash (one egg with 1-2 tablespoons whole milk), whisked.
Two people doing it goes a lot faster.
Now brush the tops generously.
This will help them to look golden when they’re baked- you want that!
On a parchment-lined baking sheet, place six, a few inches a part, to give them room to grow.
Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes.
I only use the top shelf in my oven. When I used the bottom, they didn’t puff well and went flat, so be sure to do the same.
The hardest part is waiting for them to cool off before trying them- if you open them too early, they’ll also flop. Just let them cool a few minutes and enjoy!
What’s your favorite way to enjoy a samosa? Baked, fried, with potatoes or without, with peas or without? Any special spices you must include? As always, I’d love to hear from you!
![Vegetarian Korma with Basmati Rice]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Jan 28, 2014 | Dinner, Indian
I’ve been cooking with Saffron Road products for a long time now and I really do enjoy them. They actually spoil me- made with high quality ingredients, part of the non-GMO project, many of which are gluten-free, and they’re really, really good. For something that makes your life easier, it’s a relief to find something of such value. The most recent recipe I made with their Korma Simmer Sauce is now one of my new favorites- it’s saucy, crunchy and has a bit of a kick.
I could concentrate on adding flavors I wanted because I didn’t have to worry about making the Korma sauce, too. That’s what the packet is for, which is nice. Told you I was spoiled by it. 
I love to add fresh ingredients to these simmer sauces, and most of the time some meat. This time I decided to go vegetarian to add to my repertoire of vegetarian dishes. You could add meat– strips of meat or chicken would be delicious here, too. 
Most of the veggies should be chopped or diced finely, which is what helps the dish cook so quickly. The only thing I didn’t chop up was the jalapeño pepper, which I cut in half and removed the seeds- I only added 1/2 of the pepper to the dish. I also add some sliced raw almonds (unsalted) to give the dish some crunch- that was great. 
The other ingredient I’m so glad was in this dish is cayenne pepper. It really helped to give it a kick, because I like things spicy. 
Start off the dish by heating up some butter and grape seed oil. Grape seed oil is more neutral so it won’t flavor the dish; if you choose extra virgin coconut oil then skip the butter. It would actually be a great choice because coconut milk is in the base of the Korma Simmer Sauce. 
Put the flame on medium-high and let those veggies sear. Don’t worry about the grape seed oil if you’re heating up the pan more as long as the veggies are in the pan (not an empty pan) because they actually help bring the heat down. 
Once they’ve heated up quite a bit, about 10 minutes- and after adding a bit of seasoning- salt, white pepper and cayenne- then add the Korma Simmer Sauce. It’s probably a good idea to shake up the bag a bit. I didn’t exactly do that, but it’s okay- you can still stir it up. 
My solution to this is to add some heavy cream, just to smooth it out a bit- this was a delicious idea and pairs nicely with the yogurt and coconut milk base that’s in the sauce already. 
Stir it in just a bit. 
Then add the raw sliced almonds. 
Stir again.
Simmer for about 7-10 minutes- that means on very, very low. You don’t want the mixture to bubble, which will basically burn the cream.
Get the rice ready- you should probably do that ahead of time because if you do the sauce first, you probably will have nothing left to eat with the rice. To learn how to make Basmati rice, read my recipe here.
It’ll all be gone- between the wafting smells and the tasty bites in between, believe me it won’t be around for long. And I don’t think it’ll taste good with bread.
Sprinkle with fresh cilantro upon serving, too. That’s the decorative and delicious…
You can get Saffron Road’s delicious Simmer Sauces in a variety of globally-inspired cuisines. They’re available at Whole Foods Markets across the country as well as Cost Plus World Market stores. Check the Saffron Road store locator for more options. Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post in which I was provided a packet of the Korma Simmer Sauce by Saffron Road. All opinions and recipes are my own.
![Cilantro Chutney]()
by Yvonne | Jul 26, 2013 | Appetizers & Snacks, Indian, South Asian
One of the very first Indian dishes I ever tried were samosas and their corresponding chutneys- one sweet sauce made with tamarind and the other with cilantro. Often times when you visit an Indian restaurant, it’s one of the appetizers; it’s also a common trio to be served within the Indo-Pakistani community at Iftar time, or at the breaking of the fast during Ramadan, just before the main meal is served. To me, it’s always a reminder that Ramadan is here and I absolutely love the crunch of the samosas with the pungency and freshness of the cilantro chutney the most.
And, fortunately for us, it’s not hard to make at home. All you need are a few simple ingredients and a blender or food processor: fresh cilantro, lemons, jalapeños, garlic, salt and sugar- to add just a little sweetness.
I take the very bottom of the stems off the cilantro, but otherwise leave the stems intact- they’re totally edible and don’t make anything bitter like some other herb stems might.
I also cut the tops off the jalapeño before proceeding to remove the seeds.
Some people like to keep the seeds in, which makes the dish considerably ‘hotter’ (spicier). If you like that, skip the next step.
Next I wash everything really well. My favorite thing to do is to spray white vinegar on everything before rinsing in cool water- it serves as a natural anti-bacterial agent.
The lemons should be cut in half and squeezed over the top of the ingredients before processing. If you like it a little less tangy, try one lemon first, then if you want more, add the juice of the second one. I prefer the juice of two lemons, personally.
And that’s it- once it’s blended, you’re done. You can refrigerate until serving but I would bring it to room temperature before doing that. It’s not going to go over well to have nice hot samosas with cold chutney, in my opinion.
Here’s the really delicious part- you don’t need to slave over a hot oven during this hot summer Ramadan. Get the Saffron Road‘s Vegetable Samosas instead. They’re super easy to make. Just pop them into the oven for about 22 minutes then you can shut it off and cool your kitchen back down again.
You’ve already made a homemade chutney to go with it, so if you’re in that mid-Ramadan cooking slump, this is the perfect way to make a semi-homemade appetizer for your family or for an Iftar party.
And, they’re really good. The phyllo is soft and buttery, so there’s no skimping on quality ingredients here. That’s important to me, because if I want something convenient, I don’t want to sacrifice taste or the quality of the product, which to me translates to what is healthiest for myself and my family.
Wouldn’t you agree?
My Halal Kitchen is proud to be a Brand Ambassador for Saffron Road Foods.
![Delicately Spiced Ground Beef]()
by Yvonne | Aug 9, 2012 | Beef, Dinner, Indian, Ramadan, Suhoor
The first time I ever had Keema (that wonderful Indian-spiced ground beef dish) was during one of my very first Suhoor (pre-dawn) meals with family friends. I was invited to spend the weekend with them in Chicago during Ramadan. I had no idea whatsoever that people actually ate savory foods for a meal so early in the morning.
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