Recipe: Chicken Korma

Weekend cooking…..Chicken korma!

Friends, here is the recipe….

Take 1 kg of chicken, wash it properly.

Take 500 grams of दही (curd) (it should basically be half the quantity of chicken you have taken) and in it add 3 table spoons of धनिया पाउडर (Coriander powder), 1 table spoon of जीरा पाउडर (Cumin powder), 1 table spoon of हल्दी पाउडर (turmeric powder), 1table spoon of लाल मिर्च पाउडर (red chilli powder) and 2 table spoons of देगी मिर्च पाउडर (Kashmiri chilli powder) and salt to taste. Mix these well and keep aside.

Take 12 pieces of cashew and put it in a bowl of warm water and then add two table spoon of coconut powder in the cashew and grind it to make a soft paste. Keep aside.

Take 500 gram onion (half the quantity of the amount of chicken you take) and fry it till it turns golden brown. Then grind and make a smooth paste of these fried onions.

Take liberal quantities of oil/ghee (use Ghee for better taste) in a pressure cooker and add खड़ा मसाला (whole spices) ie. बड़ी इलाइची (big cardamom), छोटी इलाइची (small cardamom), लौंग (cloves), गोल मिर्च (black pepper), दाल चीनी (Cinnamon) and fry till these till they start cracking. In it add the chicken and fry on medium flame for about 10-15 minutes, then add 1 and a half table spoon of ginger garlic paste, and keep stirring till the water from chicken starts drying and oil starts to separate.

Then add a cup of water lest the chicken starts sticking to the pan (or burns).

Then add the curd with the masala which we had made earlier and kept aside in the chicken and keep frying till water of the curd evaporated and oil separates.

Now add the onion paste and after sometime, the cashew paste and if need be some water so that the Chicken does not stick to the pan. (चिकन लगे नहीं नीचे)।

Continue cooking on low flame. (If the chicken is not done, you can give one whistle in the pressure cooker…)

Then add 1 spoon of garam masala, ginger julians and 1 table spoon of kevada water (केवड़ा पानी) or rose water (गुलाब जल) and cook on low flame till chicken is done and oil separates.

After that ….फिर मेरे तरह फ़ोटो खींच के लगा दीजिए! (Take a snap and put it on the blog or social media 🙂 )

PS: This dish is not for the squeamish health conscious faddists, who have a desire enter the record books of life by scoring a perfect 100, in their match of life. It is only for those who play the game of life, for fun.

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Recipe: Golando Steamer Chicken Curry

 

Here comes the recipe for Golando Steamer Chicken Curry. It was a dish which my grandmother (Nani Ma) cooked for me. I loved having it on the cold wintery afternoons in my childhood. Apart from this, Chicken putpaat with spicy garlic chutney used to be my favorite on those balmy wintry afternoons. Having been bought up in Deoghar, Jharkhand, which has such a strong Bengali influence such dishes formed a regular part of our diet.

History goes that this Chicken curry was served in the steamers ferrying passengers from Golando Ghat, (now in Bangladesh) to the main lands of north eastern India. Story goes that the curry was pretty runny and was served with dal and steamed rice. A normal serving was two pieces of chicken in each bowl, but you could bribe the maharaj majhi to get a few more pieces on the sly. In any case then for the caste Hindus, the whole dish was generally eaten on the sly for chicken was generally considered a Muslim dish and the non-vegetarian among the caste Hindus ate either mutton or fish.

My friends helped me with the history of this dish and I am really grateful to them. Suvojoy Sengupta tells me that Golando was apparently the last railhead and that a trip from Kolkata (Calcutta) to Dhaka was first done by rail from Kolkata (Howrah must be) to Golando and then on steamer from Golando Ghat to Dhaka. Aditi Mukherji tells me that the place now remains famous for its watermelons. I really hope to taste them some day. It also came as a pleasant surprise when Shraman Jha informed me that Golando Steamer Curry remains on the menu of old Bengali cuisine restaurants like Bhojohori Manna. It is some tragedy I missed visiting the restaurant when I was based in Kolkata.

The dish is very basic and pretty simple to make. While researching the menu (out of curiosity), I found that some chefs recommended adding shrimp powder in the chicken, but I don’t remember Nani Ma adding it. Guess it was pre e-commerce days, and there was no way she could get such a powder in Deoghar.

So here is the recipe. Bon-appetite!

Ingredients:

Chicken: 1 kg

Mustard Oil: ½ Cup

Bay leaves (Tej patta): 4-5

Cardamoms Small (Chooti Elaichi): 3-5 crushed lightly

Cardamoms Big (Badi Elaichi): 3-5 crushed lightly

Cinnamon (Dalchini) Sticks: 3-4 broken and crushed lightly

Black Pepper Powder (Kali mirch): ½ table spoon

Cumin (Jeera) Powder: ½ table spoon

Potatoes: 4 (peel and cut into 8 pieces)

Marinating paste:

Onions: 5-6 grind to paste

Ginger garlic paste: 3 table spoons

Tomato: 4-5 grind to paste

Green Chilies: 4-5 chopped

Kashmiri Red Chili Powder (Deghi Mirch): As per taste

Turmeric Powder (Haldi): ½ table spoon

Garam Masala: 1 ½ table spoon

Sugar: 1 table spoons

Method:

Mix the marinated mix in the chicken and leave it for 1-2 hours. Heat oil in a wok, add bay leaves, the cardamoms and the cinnamon sticks. When it becomes to slightly splutter, add the marinated chicken and cook first in high and then in low flame till all water dries up and oil separates. Add potatoes and keep stirring for some more time. Now add water for the curry and let it cook. Add cumin powder and black pepper powder and cook for some time more time till gravy attains some thickness.

Serve with steaming hot rice with raw onions, cut lemon (neembu) and green chilies for company.

 

Recipe: Sookha Handi Chicken

“Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.”- Gordon Ramsay

Yesterday was another evening when the cooking bug got the better of me. Wanted to cook something easy to make, but also wanted to give it a different touch. Handi chicken is an easy to make recipe, and I just thought how would Handi chicken taste if it had no gravy? So here is my experiment with the recipe which I daresay christen ‘Sookha Handi Chicken’!!!

Here is the recipe. In case you like it, kindly leave a message.

Ingredients:

1. Chicken: Half a kg

2. Onions: 3 medium sizes chopped

4. Garlic: 4 cloves chopped

5. Cumim seeds: 1 tsp

6. Coconut paste: 1 tsp

7. Poppy seeds: 1 tsp

8. Green chillies: 3-4 pieces

9. Oil: 7-8 tsp

For marinating the chicken:

1. Ginger paste: 2 tsp

2. Garlic paste: 2 tsp

3. Kashmiri chilly powder: 2 tsp (depending on how chilly you want)

4. Turmeric: 1 tsp

5. Cloves: 4-5 pieces

6. Curd: half a cup

7. Salt to taste

 

Method:

Marinate the chicken mixing all the ingredients and keep aside in the fridge for about an hour.

In a wok, heat oil, add the cumim seeds and let it crackle. Then add the chopped onions and fry till the onions turn golden brown. Add the chopped garlic and fry. Then add the marinated chicken with the marinate and fry for about 5-6 minutes on low heat. Add chopped chillies, coconut and poppy seed paste. Mix will and keep frying on low heat till the water dries up and the chicken leaves oil. In case chicken still remains to be done, add little water and cook till done.

Serve hot with parathas.

 

 

Recipe: Hyderabadi Lagan ka Murg

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all” – Harriet van Horne

Yesterday evening was like any other evening, dull and quiet and as I plonked on to my beanbag in a posture no doctor would recommend, with a book in my hand pretending to read. It had been a long and a pretty tiring day. It was one of those days where you feel as if you were on a treadmill; you kept walking but reached nowhere. The need of the hour was to do something to lift my spirits. The experiences of last couple of years have taught me that being happy is not an end, but a process. And like any process, it can be worked upon. The formula is simple. Pursue those activities ‘ruthlessly’ which you enjoy doing. This will distract your mind from all your painful or negative emotions.

So the thought of cooking this strange sounding chicken called ‘Hyderabadi Lagan ka Murg,’ struck me. Cooking these days is my stress buster. (Writing this blog has been another, but more of that later). I have discovered that the heat of the kitchen, the smell and fragrance of the spluttering spices in oil/ghee, the changing shapes of the veggies and fowls/meat in the wok have a kind of therapeutic effect on me. So yours truly headed straight into the kitchen virtually taking it over much to the chagrin of my help. He is an old cooking aficionado and does not take kindly to yours truly, whom he believes to be a neo-convert and whose love for cooking in his eyes are nothing but a passing fad.

The Hyderabadi Lagan Murg took about an hour to cook. As it was getting cooked, the aroma of spices lifted in the air, elevating my mood too. Yes, you can be happy if you work at it.

The best part of course was the wholehearted approval of the dish, both by the old cooking hand and the high-command!!!

So here goes the recipe of the “Hyderabadi Lagan ka Murg”. Try it, and if you like it, leave a comment.

Ingredients:

1. Chicken: 1 kg
2. Onions: 4 medium size diced
3. Ginger garlic paste: 2 tsp
4. Tomato: 2 medium size diced
5. Kashmiri Degi Mirch (Kashmiri red chilly powder/red chilly powder): 1 tsp
6. Coriander powder: 1 tsp
7. Cumin  powder: 1 tsp
8. Green Chillies:  5-6 (moderate on how spicy you want)
9. Oil/Ghee: Half a cup
10. Curd: 1 cup
11. Garam masala powder: 1 tsp
12. Milk: 1 cup
13. Poppy seeds: 2 tsp
14. Cashwenuts: 5-6
15. Pistachio: 10
16. Coconut powder: 1/3 cup
17. Salt: To taste

Method:

1. In a flat pan roast cashew, pistachio, poppy seeds over low heat. When they turn slightly brown, remove them from heat. Allow it to cool and then mix these in a cup of milk and blend it into a fine paste in a blender. Your Hyderabadi Lagan paste is ready. Keep it aside.

2. Heat a thick bottomed kadhai/wok. Add oil/ghee. After the oil gets heated, add the diced onions and fry till golden brown. Take out one fourth to use as garnish in the end. Add ginger garlic paste, diced tomatoes, the Hyderabadi lagan paste, garam masala, Kashmiri chilly powder, green chillies, cumin powder and cook for about 4-5 minutes. Now add chicken, salt and curd and mix well by stirring.

3. Cook on a low flame till all the water dries and oil separates.  When the ghee/oil floats on the top, then your chicken is done.

4. Sprinkle fresh green coriander leaves and serve hot.

The Hyderbadi Lagan Murg goes best with Parathas. Yesterday however tried it with Roomali Roti and it turned out to be a great combination. How would you like to enjoy it?

PS: To enhance your cooking experience in the heat of the kitchen in this summer of soaring temperatures, I suggest that you keep a chilled bottle of Heineken beer by your side and keep sipping it. I finished two pints as I cooked and let me assure you, it felt great!!!