Chicken Curry

"Chicken Curry" is a dish seen almost too often in Indian cuisine & everybody has their own style of making chicken curry. I have 2 styles that my family likes & I'm going to share both of these styles with you all :)

Both the styles use almost the same ingredients.

This is the Bengali-style chicken curry:

Procedure:-

I have coated 1 kg chicken (with bones) with salt, turmeric powder and chilly powder.
Then take a pressure cooker and heat around 3 tsp of refined oil.
Once the oil heats up add onions- pasted (around 3 big onions) and 2 Tbsp of ginger & garlic paste.

Fry until they are brown & then add 1 tsp of turmeric powder, 2 tsp of Kashmiri lal (red-chilly powder) & a fine paste of 4 tomatoes.

While frying these add the marinated chicken to the paste and fry for another 10 minutes.

Then add a tsp of sugar and a Tbsp of garam masala and 2 tsp of ghee (clarified butter) to the chicken.

Now add the salt according to your taste and add 2 cups of water and put on the lid and wait for 2 whistles. 

Give it a standing time of 15 minutes and serve hot with white rice.

This is Spicy Indian Chicken:

Procedure:-

This chicken dish has less curry. 

Coat the chicken pieces as above and then fry the chicken pieces and keep it aside. 
Here we do not make a paste from onions and tomatoes, The onions and tomatoes are chopped into small pieces.
Then take some oil in a a pan /wok then fry the chopped onions, garlic & ginger.
Next add the chopped tomatoes and other masalas (spices as used above). 
Here I have used 2 Tbsp of chicken ready-made masala instead of garam masala powder.
Then add the fried chicken to it and cook till all the water gets dried up. 
This is cooked in medium flame in an open wok/pan so that the  chicken gets cooked properly from inside. 
Before serving you can add a Tsp of ghee or butter for additional flavor. This chicken recipe is enjoyed with roti and paratha (flat bread)

PS:-
The "Ready Made Chicken Masala" I used is this. It is a good spice mix which adds to the taste. You can buy it in any grocery store and even online.

Butter Naan (flat bread)

Indian "Butter Naan", is a flat bread variety. It tastes great with tandoori chicken/ other chicken dishes But some people eat the bread just like that too. But Indians usually eat it accompanied with a side dish (vegetarian/ non vegetarian). I ate this along with Tandoori chicken. You can find that recipe in my blog as well.

Butter Naan recipe:-

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour(maida)-2 cups
• Baking powder-1 tsp
• Salt-1tsp
• Sugar-1 tsp
• Yogurt-1/4th cup
• Grated ginger-3 tbsp
• Coriander leaves-1/4th cup
• Black sesame seeds-1 tbsp
• Water for kneading
• Butter
• 0il-2tsp

Procedure:

1st: Take a bowl & add flour, baking soda, salt and sugar.

Then add curd, ginger paste and coriander leaves and water if required. Knead the flour by adding 2tsp of oil to make a soft and sticky dough . Cover it with a wet cloth, and keep it for 4-5hrs.

2nd: Take a handful of dough and apply dry flour on a wooden board and roll it into a ball. Flatten it out by applying pressure on the dough ball using your hands, then sprinkle some black sesame seeds on it. Roll it out into an approximately round shape using a Rolling pin.

3rd: Now heat a nonstick pan and put the round shaped flattened out dough on the heated pan. Cook it without any oil. After 1 side puffs up flip the naan over.

Once it get slightly golden spots remove it from the pan.

4th: Now place it on a wire rack and place it directly on the flame (like below). Keep the flame on medium to low heat (take care not to burn the naan) flip it over and cook on both sides.

5th: Once you see brown spots on the naan, remove it from the burner. Now apply butter on both sides & serve hot!

~ENJOY~

Boneless Tandoori chicken

I am sure you all will love this recipe.

I didn't use my microwave for this recipe as there was a power issue that day. I cooked it using the good old stove. So I thought, Why not make a boneless version of Tandoori chicken with some of my homemade delicious naan!! Tandoori chicken & Naan is a great combination. 

Thank God I tried this method. It was really delicious and tasted exactly like the juicy tandoori chicken from restaurants. My family loved it

Ingredients used:

• Boneless chicken cubes: 500 grams
• Ginger garlic paste:1Tbsp
• Coriander powder:1 tsp
• Cumin powder: 1 tsp
• Chili powder: 1 tsp
• Lemon juice: 2 tsp
• Curd/sour cream: 3 Tbsp
• Garam masala: :1 tsp
• Dried methi: 1 tsp
• Mustard oil:2 Tbsp
• Salt according to taste

Procedure :

Marinate chicken with all the above spices and keep it for 1 hour.

Then take a wok/ pan and put the marinated chicken in it and cook it on a low flame till it's done.

Do not turn/stir the chicken. Let it get cooked in the water coming out from it.

When the chicken is tender and cooked, brush the other side with a little butter for giving it a glaze. 

Cook it for two minutes. Serve hot.

~ENJOY~

Gajar ka Halwa (Carrot Dessert-Halwa)

Sweets Week!! The holy festival of  "GANESH CHATURTHI"is going on, So I'm making sweet dishes to offer to the Elephant God. This "Gajar ka halwa" (or) "gajrela" is basically a sweet carrot dish originally from Pakistan and Punjab.
This Dessert is always seen in their marriages.
Today I will be sharing with you my recipe for this sweet carrot halwa, which is a little tedious and takes almost 2 hours to make. But sometimes if you really want to save time you can also boil these carrots in pressure cooker (or) instead of grating the carrots, put them in the mixer-grinder! But honestly the taste gets hampered a lot!!

Video Recipe: 

Ingredients:

• Carrots-1 kg
• 2 litres of  full cream.milk.
• 500gms of  sugar
• Cashewnuts and raisins (Handful ea
• Ghee 5 Tbsp (Clarified Butter)

Procedure:

-Firstly grate all the carrots nicely using a grater, Please do not use a mixer/grinder as the texture of halwa will get spoilt and it will become frothy. 

-In a big pan start boiling the full cream milk. It should become almost half its original quantity  by condensing with time (This will take time). 

-In a separate pan heat up the ghee and fry the dry fruits in it and keep it aside.  

-Then saute the grated carrots in that pan really well.

-When the amount of milk has reduced considerably add the shredded carrots and keep cooking on medium flame. 

-Never cook in high flame as there is a major possibility of it getting burnt towards the bottom and sticking to the vessel.

-Keep on stirring now and then. 

-It takes almost one and a half hours to cook it completely until the carrots are nice and soft and absorb all the milk.

-Now lastly add the sugar and mix it thoroughly with your ladle until it's completely melted into it.

But the question arises, how will you know its done?
-When you notice the halwa sticking to your ladle and there is not a single drop of water coming out from the carrots. It's DONE!!
-Lastly add the dry fruits & mix it well. Serve hot.

~ENJOY~

Malpua (sweet bengali pancakes)

Here comes another authentic traditional Bengali Sweet- "MALPUA". They are sweet Indian-style pancakes without eggs. I remember eating them as I grew up. It was very popular in the 80's. Now that I stay far away from my birthplace (Kolkata) I really miss the taste of those home-made pancakes. But a few weeks back, I came across the recipe for this dessert and it made me so nostalgic. It really inspired me and I decided to give it a try!

This post is for the future generation. So that they remember there were desserts like this. My daughter can open this post and see it anytime in the future, when she remembers her origins. Its a favorite of mine. Here is the recipe:-

Ingredients:

• 1/2cup -White flour (maida/all purpose flour)
• Rice dust -4tsp
• Semolina (suji) -1 cup
• Full cream milk -1 cup
• Sugar -2 cups
• Cardamom powder 1tsp
• Fennel seeds (saunf)1tsp
• Baking powder 1/4th tsp
• CAshew nuts -crushed
• Ghee (clarified butter)- 1tsp

Procedure:

First mix the semolina (suji), ricedust, white flour, ghee & sugar with the full cream milk and make the batter. 

The consistency of the batter should not be very thin.

Cover it and keep it aside for an hour. Then add the saunf (fennel seeds), cashew nuts, cardamom dust and , baking soda

Whip it really well and make sure that you mix everything properly.

Take a non-stick frying pan.

Heat little oil and pour 1 big spoonful of batter on the pan and spread it evenly like a pancake.

Fry it on both the sides. After frying them, plate them up and pour sugar syrup on them.

It's done!

~ENJOY~

You can also make a soggy version by soaking them in sugar syrup or dipping them in syrup and removing them after some time.

In my house we prefer without sugar syrup .

Enjoy Janmashtami with yummy Malpua. ,🙏