Gather friends and family for an evening of joy, laughter, and scrumptious dishes to ring in the New Year with lively gatherings and simple, delectable recipes! Simplify your hosting by serving some delicious finger foods that will surely delight your guests. Cheers to a delightful start to the year! We bring to you some lip-smacking recipes by Chef Aji Joseph, Head – Culinary Development, FreshToHome.
CORDON BLEU CHICKEN POPS
Cordon Bleu Pops are crumb fried spiced chicken mince dumplings filled with molten cheese. They are crunchy, tender, oozy, more like little bites of heaven and make for a perfect party food.
Ingredients:
Chicken mince : 200 g
Onion, finely chopped – 1 tbsp
Garlic, finely chopped – 1 tsp
Celery, finely chopped – 1 tbsp
Parsley, finely chopped – 1 tsp
Butter: 30 g
Mixed Herbs : 1 pinch
Salt : To taste
White pepper powder : 1tsp
Potato, mashed : 50 g
Cheddar cheese, grated : 25 g
Mozzarella cheese, grated : 25 g
Egg, beaten : 2 nos
Refined flour : 50 g
Bread crumbs : 100 g
Method:
Cooking the chicken:
Heat up a non-stick pan and melt the butter.
Add the chopped onion, garlic and celery and sauté till translucent. Add mixed herbs and white pepper powder.
Now add the minced chicken and cook till the mixture is almost dry with very little moisture content. Make sure the chicken mince is all separated and does not have any lumps.
Allow the mixture to cool down and then add the potato mash and mix well.
Preparing the cheese filling:
Mix together both grated cheeses, parsley and just enough salt to make a thick cheese mixture.
Assembling the dish:
With the chilled chicken mince mixture, make small dumplings of 15 g each. With the cheese mixture, make smaller dumplings of 1/4th the size of chicken dumplings.
Take the chicken dumplings in hand and slightly flatten them. Place the cheese dumplings in the centre of the flattened chicken mixture and reshape back to a ball with cheese completely covered inside.
Break 2 eggs and beat them in a bowl.
Take 50 g of flour in another bowl.
Place the breadcrumbs in the third bowl.
Dust the cheese filled dumplings with flour and then drop them into the egg mixture and then evenly coat them with breadcrumbs.
Keep the breaded chicken pops in a refrigerator and let them chill for some time.
Heat up a saucepan and add oil just enough to immerse couple of dumplings.
When the oil is hot, slide the breaded chicken balls into the oil and allow to fry to a golden brown.
Strain them from oil to a butter paper.
Serve along with your favourite sauce.
MUTTON SEEKH KEBAB
Seasoned and spiced mutton mince wrapped around metal skewers and cooked on charcoal fire. The heat and smoke of the charcoal give the seekhs a very earthy and smoky note.
Ingredients:
Mutton boneless: 500 gms
Mutton fat: 25 gms
Egg whole: 1 nos
Besan flour: 50 gms
Onion chop: 100 gms
Cashew nuts: 50 gms (soaked in water)
Ginger chop: 2 tbsp
Garlic chop: 2 tbsp
Green chilly: 2 tbsp
Kashmiri red chilli powder: 2 tsp
Garam masala powder: 2 tsp
Coriander powder: 1/5 tsp
Dry mango powder:1/5 tsp
Jeera powder: 1 tsp
Black cardomum powder: 1 tsp
Cinnamom powder:1 tsp
Black pepper powder: 1 tsp
Coriander leaves: 3 tbsp
Salt: 2 tbsp
Method:
Mince the mutton with all the ingredients except egg and besan flour to a fine mince. To this mince mixture, add beaten eggs and besan flour and mix well.
Take a metal skewer and with one’s wet hands take a handful of mince and press and spread it around the metal skewer.
Heat up a charcoal grill and place the skewers of meat above the hot charcoal and turn sides and cook around. Apply some ghee while the seekhs are getting cooked.
Once cooked, loosen the ends of the cooked seekhs and slide the seekhs out of the metal skewers.
Cut into bite size pieces and serve along with mint chutney and onion salad.
PEEL & EAT GARLIC PRAWNS
One of the simplest recipes to make in a jiffy. Whole prawns with shell is pan sauteed with garlic, olives and parsley. One of the easiest recipes to make this prawn preparation with garlic, olives,s chili flakes and parsley makes it very exotic, and the addition of white wine lifts the dish to a different level. The quick cooking retains all the goodness and flavour of the prawns. The outside shell turns a beautiful orangish red, and that’s quite a visual treat. This PEEL & EAT PRAWNS becomes a fun activity by itself along with good company and conversation.
Ingredients:
Prawn with shell: 250 gm
Olive oil (pomace): 30 ml
Prawns (head removed and shell cut open and inside intestine removed): 250 gm
Garlic slice: 10 cloves
Chilli flakes: 1 tsp
Olive slices: 5 black & 5 green olives
White wine: 50 ml
Parsley: 2 tbsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Butter: 20 gm
Lemon wedges: 4 nos
Ingredients for butter sauce:
Butter(salted): 50 gm
Lemon juice: half a lemon
Parsley chop: 2 pinches
Soften the butter and mix the lemon juice and parsley to form a soft butter dip.
Method:
Detach and remove the prawn heads and discard. With a sharp knife slit open the top or hump side of the prawn along with the shell. Slightly open the slit portion and remove the veins in running water.
Heat up a non-stick saucepan. Add olive oil and sliced garlic and saute to golden. To this, add the chili flakes. Drop the cleaned prawns into this hot pan and toss. Add the white wine, olive slices and salt. Toss till the white wine is evaporated. Add the chopped parsley,lemon wedges and butter and toss again. Don’t allow the butter to burn but just coat the prawns which gives them a buttery and silky coating.
Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with some chopped parsley. Serve along with the butter lemon dip.
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