Chilly Cheese Toast

When it is bread & cheese, it can never go wrong. Here’s a simple n quick toast for those lazy days.

Ingredients for Chilly Cheese Toast:

Bread – 5-6 slices

Cheddar Cheese – 100g

Mozzarella Cheese – 100g

Mayonnaise – 50g

Butter – 1 tbsp

Parsley – 2 Tbsp (Fresh or Dry, either)

Chilly flakes – 2 Tbsp

Onions – 1 Big (Finely chopped)

Capsicum – 1 Big (Finely chopped)

Green Chilli – 4-5 (Finely chopped)

Salt & pepper to taste

Chicken sausages – 5-6 (finely sliced & sauteed a bit – optional)

Procedure - Chilly Cheese Toast:

Mix all the ingredients into a cheesy paste. Leave out the sausage for the toppings. All the ingredients should be at room temperature to get a smooth paste.

Apply the paste to the bread slices and top it up with sausages.

Now take a flat pan on medium high heat and place a slice on it and cover it with a lid for a minute. Keep a check on the heat to avoid burning the slice. Once the slice gets crispy at the bottom, flip it just for few seconds and flip it back onto a serving plate. The flipping of the slice is to make the cheese melt and give the soft texture to the toast. Hence, few seconds are more than enough.

It’s as simple as that folks. Feel free to top it with some oregano seasoning or tobasco sauce on the side. Enjoy the tasty Chilly Cheese Toast with favorite drink of yours, Cheers!!

P.S.: For the vegetarians, Chicken Sausages can be replaced with Corn/grated Paneer.

Pasta in Arrabiata Sauce (Red sauce)

Here is some Italian cooking folks! This delicious tomato based sauce goes perfectly with Penne.

Ingredients for Pasta in Arrabiata Sauce:

Pasta – 250g (Penne Rigate`)

Chicken – 100g (Boneless, cleaned & cut into thin strips)

Onion – 1 big (Finely sliced)

Tomato – 5 big (3 - boil, peel & puree, 2 - Chopped)

Garlic - 4-5 cloves (Finely chopped)

Crushed Pepper – 1-2 Tbsp

Chilly Powder – 1-2 Tbsp

Thyme – 1 tbsp

Parsley – 1 Tbsp

Olive oil & Salt – As required

Cheese - Optional

Process to prepare Pasta in Arrabiata Sauce:

Boiling Pasta:

Take a deep dish and fill it with water. Add salt & 1 Tbsp olive oil and bring it to boil. Now, put in the pasta and stir so that they do not stick to the bottom of the pan. It should normally take 8-10 minutes for it to cook. Do not stir much, as it leads to breaking of pasta. Once cooked, drain the water. Drizzle the pasta with some olive oil. This would glaze the pasta and avoids getting stuck to each other. Set it aside.

Arrabiata Sauce: (Arrabiata means ‘Angry’ in Italian)

Take a wide wok on medium heat with 2 Tbsp olive oil. Put in the sliced onions. Let them turn to a slight golden brown and now drop in the garlic. Give it a good stir and put in the chopped tomatoes, sprinkle little salt & chilly powder, stir and cover with lid. This would take about 5-6 minutes before the tomatoes get properly cooked. Now put in the chicken & crushed pepper and cover it. Crushed pepper is a must and not the pepper powder for the right flavour and aroma of the dish. Chicken should be cooked in 8-10 minutes. Take out the lid and pour in the tomato puree. Give it a good stir and a taste as well. You can very well adjust the taste to your preference in terms of salt, chilly powder & pepper. Remember the name! Arrabiata Sauce (angry & spicy sauce).

Now before you take it off heat, sprinkle the herbs and stir it.

Pour in the sauce into the boiled pasta and mix well. You can as well grate little of your favourite cheese to make it even yummier just before serving.

Hope you’d enjoy the Pasta in Arrabiata Sauce as much as I did.

Vegetarians:

The best replacement for chicken would be mushrooms. But the cooking time is lesser when compared to chicken. So please have an eye on that. 

Hash Brown

A Simple & Easy Crispy Hash Brown with Mayo dip...

Ingredients for crispy Hash Brown:

Potatoes – 4 Big

Egg white – 1

All-purpose flour (Maida) – 1 Tbsp

Onion – 1 Small (shredded)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Olive oil – enough to cover the bottom of the pan

Procedure - Hash Brown:

Hash Brown Prep:

Peel the potatoes and shred them. Once done, put the entire shredded potatoes into a bowl of cold water. This will pull out the starch from the potatoes. Let it soak for 5-10 minutes. Drain the water and pour the second round of cold water. Soak for another 10 minutes. Now take a kitchen towel, place the shredded potato and squeeze out the entire starch and water from the potatoes. They should seem like dry shredded coconut after squeezing the water.

Meanwhile, put a flat bottomed non-stick pan on medium low heat. N take a bowl, put in the potatoes, egg white, maida, shredded onion, salt & pepper. Mix all of them well. Once the pan is hot, take a desirable quantity of the mixture and put it on the pan and flatten it into a thin patty. It will take approx 6-7 minutes on one side, before you flip the patty onto the other side. Let it cook for another 5-6 minutes and then take it off heat once you see the nice golden brown colour on both sides.

If you get a crispy layer on the outside and soft & smooth texture in the inside, you’ve got the perfect Hash Brown. The best pals to this would be some bacon, a bull’s eye & a yummy dip.

Mayo Dip Prep:

Mix Mayonnaise + Shredded garlic + lime juice + parsley + salt.

All the ingredients’ quantities could be used in accordance to your palette.