Recipes and pictures after the jump.<\/p>\n
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Dheeraj’s Modified Shrimp Scampi<\/span><\/p>\n First of all, I hate the name “Shrimp Scampi”. It’s redundant. “Scampi” is Italian for “shrimp”. Really. Look it up. But it generically means shrimp cooked up with oil and citrus. I think that that’s okay, but a little boring. So here’s what I did, instead.<\/p>\n Ingredients<\/em><\/p>\n 1 lbs peeled shrimp (I buy it and peel it, but do what you want)<\/p>\n 1 yellow onion<\/p>\n 1 green pepper<\/p>\n 0.5 lbs sliced white mushrooms<\/p>\n 2 Tbs. finely chopped garlic<\/p>\n 1 Tbs. Black Pepper<\/p>\n 1.5 finely diced habanero pepper<\/p>\n 3 Tbs. Lemon juice<\/p>\n 1 tsp. combined diced fresh rosemary, oregano and basil (Do not use dried Italian Herbs mix. It sucks.)<\/p>\n Steps<\/em><\/p>\n Well, so as part of my diet and training, I’ve given up rich cooking oils. I KNOW, RIGHT? WHAT A FUCKING DISASTER! Anyway, I’m using a flavoured cooking spray now, and you can certainly use a cooking oil for this. In this case, I’d recommend using olive oil. You’re going to add a lot to it, so just about any grade will do. <\/p>\n So oil up a frying pan and let the oil start to warm up. While that’s happening, dice up your onion, habaneros and green capsicum, and then stick in the oil on low heat to start to cook. You want it to get soft, but you don’t want the onions to brown or the pepper to get too soft, so use low heat. When the capsicum is about half-way to where you want it to be, add in the mushrooms and black pepper. Mushroom consistency is critical, here. You don’t want them to be too floppy, but you want them to get the flavours and oils of the onion, habaneros and the capsicum. <\/p>\n Keep this in mind: the shrimp will be cooking for about seven minutes. That will help you judge when the mushrooms are at the right stage of cooking to add in the shrimp. When you’re ready, add the shrimp, garlic and lemon juice. Mix it up and make sure that everything cooks together.<\/p>\n The end result should look like this:<\/p>\n Enjoy! <\/p>\n Garlic Chicken<\/span><\/p>\n This is not really a recipe as much as it is me trying to recreate something that my mother used to make and trying to mod it up a little bit to accomodate what was on sale and what I needed to use up in the fridge.<\/p>\n Ingredients<\/em><\/p>\n 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts<\/p>\n 1 finely diced onion<\/p>\n 1 diced green capsicum<\/p>\n 6 Tbsp chopped garlic<\/p>\n 4 Tbsp garam masala<\/p>\n 2 chopped serrano chillies<\/p>\n 1\/2 cup nonfat, plain yogurt<\/p>\n 1\/4 cup lemon juice<\/p>\n 1\/2 cup chopped coriander<\/p>\n 1 tsp cumin seeds<\/p>\n 3 tsp shredded ginger<\/p>\n Steps<\/em><\/p>\n Again, I’m not using oil, but if I were, I’d use vegetable oil. Toss in the onions, capsicum, green chillies and ginger to get them cooking up. When the onions start to turn translucent, add in the diced chicken, half the garam masala, half the garlic and half the cumin. Actively stir and let the chicken get brown, while the chicken oils merge and mix in with the garam masala, cumin seeds, garlic and vegetables. When the chicken is well browned, through everything else in.<\/p>\n Now, you stir it up to make sure everything is mixed up well, cover it up and step away for a while. You can tell that it’s finished when the chicken is soft enough that you can easily slice it in half with a fork. Yes, it’s that tender.<\/p>\n Results look like this<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.dheerajchand.com\/site\/files\/IMG_0041.jpg\")
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