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Ultimate Summer Drink – Watermelon Chilli Punch!

Well, I have been experimenting with watermelon based drinks – both alcoholic and mocktails – since the summer began. Here is an absolutely refreshing watermelon drink for you!

I am not sure if anything like this exists, but I just called it Watermelon Chilli Punch!

watermelon chilli punch

Ingredients (To serve Two)

Watermelon – 1/2

Lime – 2

Salt – 1/8th Teaspoon

Sugar – 3 Tablespoons (or as necessary)

Green chilli – 1/8th of a long chilli (Max 1/2 inch long)

Ice cubes – Two cups

Drinking water – 1/2 cup

Method of Preparation

In a blender add salt, sugar, lime juice from the two limes and green chilli. Cut half of a watermelon into cubes and add the same to the blender. Add water and Ice cubes and blend well for 10 to 15 seconds.

Pour into your favorite cocktail glass (typically highball) and enjoy!

As we all know, watermelons are excellent for hydrating your body in summer. What you probably don’t know about watermelon is the secret in its seeds. Watermelon seeds contain zinc and selenium which is said to be good to fight even cancer. And the seeds have powerful anti-oxidants to maintain a healthy heart. With a lot of lime juice added, our drink is enriched with Vitamin C and other essentials. Then the sugar provides much needed glucose and salt essential minerals in summer! Finally, to make it real Indian stuff, we have the chilli punch added!

Experiment with it or its variations and let me know how did you find it.

And never throw away the seeds. Blend them with your juice and to make things better, pick those watermelons with not so blackish and hard seeds.

Enjoy the Indian summer!

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Chicken Grill in OTG – Indian Style Chicken Grilled

Grilling lip smacking chicken in the Oven (OTG) is not all that difficult. Here’s how I do the Indian style Chicken Grill in OTG using the rotisserie setting in the electric oven. For your records, I use a Bajaj Majesty 3400TMC OTG that I purchased for Rs. 5500/- some five years back and it still works like a charm.

Oven grilled chicken

Ingredients

Whole chicken (without skin, guts): 1 Kg
(Live chicken weighing 1.5Kg will get you 1Kg meat after cleaning)

Salt: 1.5 teaspoon

Crushed pepper: 1.5 teaspoon

Chili Powder: 1 tablespoon

Garam Masala: 1 teaspoon

Ginger-Garlic Paste: 1 teaspoon

Lime Juice: 2 tablespoon

Yoghurt (Curd): 2 tablespoon

Sunflower Oil: 1 tablespoon

Melt Butter: 3-4 tablespoon

Method of Preparation

Clean the chicken well and drain off any water. Using a sharp knife make a few parallel shallow cuts or grooves on the fleshy parts of the chicken (i.e. on thighs, leg, front rib etc).

Mix all ingredients except butter together and apply well on the chicken inside and outside. Keep it marinated in the fridge overnight. Yes, a minimum of 12 hours is needed for all that flavors to get in and the chicken become really tender.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Skew the chicken on to the rotisserie, tighten the clamps and grill it at 200 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Keep applying butter on the chicken every five minutes. You can see the butter as well as any remaining fat on the chicken getting melt and dripping down there by making this preparation a highly healthy chicken grill variation. Unlike Tandoori chicken or other barbeque recipes, there’s no harmful carbon content in this preparation.

Once done well, enjoy your Indian style grilled chicken with your favorite drink, salads and carbs.

(Note: At the end of 25 minutes, if it is still not done, you may want to keep for another five minutes at 200-225 degrees. To check if it’s done well, create a deep cut in the fleshiest part and verify that it’s not pink near the bones)

In Pictures

whole chicken without skin

spices for chicken grill marinade

marinated chicken

chicken grill in OTG oven

Oven grilled chicken

Try out this super delicious and tender grilled chicken yourself and let me know how your variant turned out to be.

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Yogurt and Fruits Recipe

Okay, this one is so simple that anyone can make it under two minutes. This doesn’t even qualify to be a recipe 🙂 but it is an amazingly healthy and tasty food.

Ingredients
Nestle or Amul Yogurt (set dahi), refrigerated: one cup
Fresh fruits cut into small pieces: half cup
Sugar: 1 to 2 tablespoons or as per your taste

Preparation
Mix yogurt and sugar very well so that there are no lumps. Add fruits to it and mix well and it’s ready to go.

Suggested fruits are strawberries, ripe bananas, kiwi, seedless green grapes etc, though not all need to be used at a time.

This dish can be used as a dessert or anytime salad or filler.

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Peanut Masala Recipe

peanut-masala-recipePeanut Masala is more of a South Indian snack. Well, it is not exactly my favorite food but my vegetarian friends say that it is one of those few veg things that goes well with alcoholic drinks. And as a matter of fact, it does. It can also serve the purpose of an appetizer or starter at times.

I have prepared this dish only a couple of times but to be frank it is something that can be made in two minutes as there’s no cooking involved.

How to make Peanut Masala?

Here you go…

Ingredients

Roasted whole peanuts – 100 gms
Onion medium size – 1
Tomato medium size – 1 (Pulp and seed removed)
Coriander leaves – a few
Green chillies – 2
Lime juice – 1 teaspoon
Salt – as per taste

Preparation

Fine chop onion, tomato, green chillies and coriander leaves and add it to a deep bowl (or even tumbler) along with peanuts and lime juice. Add salt as per your needs and mix vigorously with a spoon or fork. Transfer into a plate and enjoy with something like the Chilli Vodka!

You can also try variations by adding or garnishing with fine chopped spring onions, sprinkling crushed black pepper etc.

Bonus tip: It tastes even better when prepared with those Masala peanuts (roasted with chilli powder and salted) that you get in the southern parts of India. If you use that, you may want to cut down on green chillies.

Bon Appetit!

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Chilli Vodka Cocktail recipe

I am not a daily drinker. However, I like drinking as and when I feel like enjoying it – usually 4-5 times a month.

At times, I also like experimenting with new and new cocktail recipes. Well, I do not have a bar setup at my home and hence most of the time it’s done without proper bar equipments. This time around the experiment was with Vodka – though I am not quite a Vodka fan.

Chilli Vodka

Add a length-wise split green chilli – stem and most of the seeds removed – into 60ml vodka. Pour 75ml sprite or 7-up into it and stir well. Pour this into a salt-rimmed cocktail glass that’s half filled with crushed ice. Put a quarter of a sweet and sour lime into this. Fill the rest of the glass with some club soda or sparkling water. Enjoy!

Cheers!

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Mango-Vanilla Ice Cream based dessert

You must try out this recipe that I accidentally invented. I had eaten ripe mango pieces topped with Vanilla ice cream in one of my friends house and thought why not improvise? So here’s what I did…

Mango Vanilla Ice Cream ‘whatever’

Ingredients

2 ripe mangoes pealed and cut into 1″ cubes (shouldn’t be over ripe mangoes)
Raisins – 3 teaspoons
Butter – 3 tbsp
Cashew nuts – broken – 20 to 30 gms (or 3- tbsp)
Sugar – 1 tbsp
Vanilla ice cream – a few scoops
Fresh mint leaves – 4 to 5

Preparation

Heat a medium sized pan, add 1tbsp butter and quickly fry the broken cashews until the are golden brown. Be careful as in no time they can turn black and bitter. Transfer the fried cashews on to a plate and remove the extra butter from the cashews by pressing with kitchen tissues.

Add 2tbsp butter into the pan again. When it’s melt, add the ripe mango cut pieces and stir continuously in medium flame. Do it until the mango pieces are soft but not mashed.

Heat up another small pan (or seasoning tawa) and add the sugar and stir it vigorously with a steel spoon. When the sugar turns to coffee color it is caramelized. Add three-four spoons of water into it keep stirring in high flame. You should not reduce the heat at this time else the caramel will be already becoming sticky. Add this to the toasted mangoes and stir once again.

Presentation

mango-caramel-vanilla-ice-cream-dessertIn a dessert bowl, add four to five table spoons of those prepared mangoes. Add two scoops of Vanilla ice cream on to it. Add five to six raisins and a teaspoon of the roasted cashews. Poke the whole content three four times with a spoon in a way that the caramel in the mango appears a bit on to the white Ice cream to give it a pleasant texture and look. Be careful not to stir it too much. Garnish with a fresh mint leaf and enjoy before the mangoes turn too cold!

Try it out and let me know how it turned out to be. You will like it for sure 🙂 You can try the variations of this recipe by adding a few banana pieces along with the mango, which is what I have done and shown in the picture. You can also add a small pinch of cardamom powder if you like that taste.

Bon Appetit!