Chicken Noodle Soup

QUES:Forget about fancy restaurant soups, can you give me the recipe for a simple, home-made chicken noodle soup?
�Susan Corderio, Goa
ANS: This is the simplest recipe we could find. However, remember to add the noodles close to serving time otherwise they will soften too much. Also, if you don�t have ready chicken stock, use eight cups of water with 1 tablespoon chicken stock powder.

Ingredients:
8 cups chicken stock
1 cup finely shredded cooked chicken
1 cup broken thin noodles
3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Pepper to taste

Procedure:
Place stock in pan and bring to boil. Add shredded chicken. Just before serving, add the noodles and parsley to pan and simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until noodles are tender. Add pepper and serve.

Rice-stuffed vegetables

QUES: With peppers and juicy red tomatoes so freely available in the market, is there an easy recipe for making stuffed vegetables? Something that does not require too many ingredients
Anjali Sheth, Bombay
ANS: Of course, there is. This is not only an easy to cook recipe but the ingredients are also freely available in the market.

Ingredients:
2 large tomatoes
2 small red or green capsicums
1/2 cup rice
2 tbsps olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp dried oregano leaves
3 tbsps pinenuts;3 tbsps currants,
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
3 tbsps chopped fresh parsley
Olive oil, to brush

Procedure:
Lightly oil a large baking dish. Preheat the oven to warm degree 160C (degree 315F/Gas 2-3). Cut a slice from the top of each tomato. Spoon out the flesh into a bowl, put in a strainer to drain the juice and then finely dice. Reserve the juice and pulp separately. Leave the tomato shells to drain, upside-down, on a rack. Cut the capsicums in half width ways; discard the seeds membrane. Trim the bases a little so they sit flat � don�t cut all the way through.

Cook the rice in a large pot of boiling salted water for 10-12 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and set aside in a mixing bowl to cool.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Cook the onion, garlic and oregano for 8-10 minutes, or until the onion is tender. Add the pinenuts and currants and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and stir in the herbs. Season to taste.

Add the onion mixture and reserved tomato pulp to the rice and stir well to combine. Fill the tomato and capsicum shells with the rice mixture, piling it up over the top. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the reserved tomato juice on top of the rice and replace the tomato caps. Lightly brush the vegetable shells with olive oil. Arrange the capsicums in a baking dish; cover lightly with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bake for a further 30 minutes, or until cooked. Serve warm or cold.

Garlic Prawns

QUES: On a recent visit to Spain many of the restaurants served a very basic dish of prawns with a strong flavour of garlic. Without any recipe, I wouldn�t know how to recreate the dish. Can you help?
Sachin Shetty, Bangalore
ANS: What you tasted was a classic Spanish dish. Typically it is prepared in individual fireproof dishes. Below is the basic recipe followed by the fireproof recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups cooking oil
90 gm butter
12 cloves garlic, peeled
3 small red chillies, seeded and finely chopped
30 raw medium king (large) prawns, shelled, deveined, tails intact
Crusty French bread, to serve

Procedure:
Pour oil into a large frying pan. Add butter to pan. Crush garlic cloves into the pan. Add chilli to pan and stir.

Heat frying pan and contents until butter is very hot and bubbling. Add the prawns and cook for 3-4 minutes or until prawns are pink and cooked. Serve immediately with slices of fresh French bread.

To prepare this dish in individual fireproof dishes, place 1/4 cup oil into each of 6 small fireproof dishes. Cut the butter into 6 cubes and add one cube to each dish. Crush 2 cloves of garlic into each dish. Divide the chopped chilli into six portions and add to the bowls. Heat dishes and their contents until the butter is very hot and bubbling. Add 5 prawns to each dish. Cook prawns for 3-4 minutes or until they are pink and cooked through. Serve at once with French bread.

The barbecue is good for cooking this recipe as a direct flame is ideal for heating the oil and butter to a sufficiently high temperature. A cast iron pan is the best thing to use for cooking on the barbecue.

Fried Green Tomatoes

QUES: I have tried deep-frying sliced tomatoes but they never come out light and crisp. Could I be doing something wrong with the recipe?
Rajashree Shah, Ahmedabad.
ANS: Perhaps you are using the wrong kind of batter. Here is a simple method. Green tomatoes are simply tomatoes that have yet to ripen and turn red. Use half-green, half-red tomatoes, if the green ones are difficult to find.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup plain flour
1 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp white pepper
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 egg; 3/4 cup milk
4 medium green tomatoes
Oil, for frying

Procedure:
Sift flour, salt and pepper into medium bowl. Add cornmeal and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre. Combine egg and milk and add gradually to flour mixture. Whisk batter until just combined, but do not overbeat.

Cut tomatoes into thick slices. Heat about 1 cm oil in a frying pan. Dip tomatoes into batter; drain excess and fry 1 minute each side, turning once with tongs. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.