Shahi Biryani

I have started to enjoy making Biryanis, both to entertain and also for Sunday lunches. You can tell from the increase in the biryani recipes on the blog in the recent past. Once the rice and spiced veggies on done, then all is left to do is the layering part which is my favorite thing to do. The layered look is very pretty on the plate too. Also it is easy to multiply the ingredients and make them for a crowd.

I'm on the look out for new and interesting biryani recipes and when I saw this being made on a Telugu cooking show, I promptly noted it down. This biryani has a spice paste that gives all the flavor to the dish.

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Indian style Stuffed Peppers with Potato Curry

Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 3
Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers
Dish: Stuffed Peppers with Potato Curry

After a spicy pickle and a creamy pesto recipe with peppers, I have one of my favorite childhood stuffed bell pepper dish. My mom used to make it years ago and I loved the little capsicum boats stuffed with yummy potato curry. So for this week's 'Cooking with Capsicum/ Bell Pepper' theme, even though I had another dish in mind I ended up making this stuffed capsicum curry.

I have a paneer stuffed peppers cury already on the blog, but that is a rich dish with paneer and heavy cream. Today's dish is very homey with potato curry stuffing that is slightly spicy. Peppers in India are much smaller and the whole pepper can be hulled out and filled just like a plum tomato. But in the US, peppers are huge and so I halved them and stuffed the halves, then pan fried them until tender.

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Bell Pepper/ Capsicum Avakaya

Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers
Dish: Green Pepper/ Capsicum Avakaya

Day 2 of BM# 34 and today I have a spicy hot Andhra pickle made ith green bell peppers. I'm just learning that every vegetable can be used to make avakaya. I asked my mom what to make for this week's 'Cooking with Bell Peppers/  Capsicum' theme and she said let's make 'Avakaya'.
I wasn't sure how it was going to taste, but went ahead with her proposal. It was sure spicy and tasted just like hmmmm.. avakaya should taste like but with milder bell pepper instead of sour mango. I guess you can use any color pepper, but we used green pepper here.

I think any veggie can be made into 'avakaya'. I saw someone on a cooking show make 'eggplant' avakaya which by the way my mom and I tried right away. It tasted great to me (you know my love for eggplants.. don't you?? if not check my collection of eggplant recipes), but just OK to everyone else. May be one day I'll make it again to post here.

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Roasted Peppers Pistachio Pesto

Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers

Dish: Roasted Red Pepper & Pistachio Pesto with Cheese Ravioli

Its time to start this month's Blogging Marathon, BM# 34. My theme for this week is 'Cooking with Capsicum/ Pepper'. I use bell peppers a lot in my cooking either to make a curry or sambar or  add them to rice dishes. So when I saw the theme, I thought I should try making some new dishes with peppers.

For the first day, I'm using store-bought roasted red peppers from the jar. You could roast your peppers if you have the time, but store bought ones are just as good to make this dish. Recipe is from America's Test Kitchen. 

Here pesto is made with roasted red peppers, toasted pistachios and the usual pesto ingredients, parmesan, olive oil and garlic. This can be used as a pasta sauce or as a sandwich spread or even a dip for some crudites and bread.

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