at 21:44

A Bong’s (that also Noakhailla) take on Kolhapuri Chicken Tambda Rassa

I never thought of a Marathi dish. If you asked me a month ago what my favorite Marathi dish was, I would have said none or I do not even know which are Marathi dishes. There was a time when I went to Mumbai every three months for work and have eaten typically Marathi food. Yet I never realised I was eating Marathi food. And that is very unlike me!! I am very curious about people, places, food and its spices. Yet why did I not take notice of Marathi food? How come it never caught my attention? Well, I do not know. I would need to go back to past.

Preeti’s Isingcake (http://isingcakes.wordpress.com/) giveaway got me thinking. I met Preeti through Bloggers Buzz event where she is one of the organizers. She also has a wonderful and a very successful blog called Isingcake.  Preeti has organized a giveaway where one needs to cook a Marathi dish for a modern table or a dish that resembles a Marathi dish. Please see the details here if you are interested

(http://isingcakes.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/a-quick-post-on-clarified-buttergheetup-and-ruchira-giveaway/#comment-1622 )

Now for me, it was an opportunity to read about Marathi food.  To my surprise, I realized I actually loved few of the regular Marathi food and did not know they were Marathi.  My ignorance and not at all bliss I must say in this occasion. I combed through the net to get an idea about Marathi food. Not that I was very successful as most wonderful site were in Marathi and most English ones  not interesting enough to keep me glued. However I found a list of foods that many people voted as most popular Marathi food like  Srikhand, Vara pao, Amrakhand, Missal Pao, Kolhapuri Tambda Rassa Chicken,  etc etc. Now, I keep making Srikhand, eat vara pao very regularly, do not like Amrakhand, love missal pao and never made Kolhapuri Tambda Rassa Chicken. Therefore, from among the list, I decided on Kolhapuri Tambda Rassa Chicken.

Now when I looked for the recipe of the dish, I realised that people have different version of the dish, which like any dish is, very interesting as cooking always varies from one household to another. I mainly checked the following blog,

Meera’s Blog http://enjoyindianfood.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/kolhapuri-tambda-rassa.html,  

Mallu Girl , http://malluspice.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/kolhapuri-chicken.html and http://madhurasrecipe.com/index.php?p=1_222_Kolhapuri-Chicken.

Although, all three had slightly different aspect to the recipe, what also attracted me to Kolhapuri Tambda Rassa Chicken is it’s nearness to a chicken dish that is cooked by my grandmother. Being from the coastal area of Bangladesh, coconut always plays an important role in many of the dishes that I am used to eating. I use a lot of coconut but do not use that much of tomatoes which  seemed like an integral aspect of the recipe. In addition, the amount of chili used in the original recipe, well I am not that brave nor do I have any likeness for food that is very very hot (the meaning of Tambda Rassa is red gravy , so I guess the use chili is justified) .  Therefore, I decided to make the dish mixing my grandmothers method and the Marathi method (I am no expert on Marathi method… so depending on the blogs that I have read). And it came out really well. I would want to try the real Marathi thing soon when I my friend J comes over who is in love with chili, until then I am happy with the fusion of Bong and Marathi Kolhapuri Tambda Rassa Chicken. Hope you like it too.

By the way, I am a Bong (for the uninitiated Bong is Bengali) and I love to eat in a Bong way. So I am serving my Bongalisious Kolhapuri Chicken Tambda Rassa in Bong way with rice.

A Bong way of eating... and ofcourse with hands.. god gifted forks I call them

 

Ingredients:

·        Baby chicken cut into small pieces

·        2-tomatoes cut into small slices (the Bengali/my grandmother’s recipe does not have tomatoes. I used based on the Kolhapur recipe)

·        1-green chili

·        1/2-teaspoon red chili powder

·        1-teaspoon cumin powder

·        1-teaspoon turmeric powder

·        ½-cup fresh coconut grated (original Kolhapur recipe calls for both fresh and roasted coconut but as I am mixing both the method I am suing fresh coconut, which is more common in Bengali cooking)

·        1-tablespoon pumpkin seeds (used in my grandmother’s recipe. poppy seeds used in Kolhapur recipe. However, use of poppy seed is not common in Bangladeshi food, but use of pumpkin seed is. So I am using pumpkin seeds)

·        4/5-cloves of garlic

·        2-inch ginger

·        3-medium sized onions, thinly sliced

·        2/3- cardamom

·        2-inch long cinnamon

·        1-bayleaf

·        ½-teaspoon mustard seed (the Bengali/my grandmother’s recipe does not have this. I used based on the Kolhapur recipe)

·        Salt to taste

·        Oil as per taste

 Method:

1.    Fry the onions until brown and soft

2.    Soak the powdered spices in little water ( chili, cumin, turmeric) and make a paste

3.    Now in a blender add the fried onions, garlic, green chili, ginger and make a paste

4.    Marinate the chicken with onion paste and keep aside

5.    Now fry the sliced tomatoes until soft and then cool them down

6.    Using a blender make tomato paste and keep aside

7.    Make a paste of coconut and pumpkin seeds and keep aside

8.    Now heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds

9.    When the starts to smell add the coconut paste and fry until oil separates

10. Add the spiced paste with fried coconuts and cook again until oil separates

11.  Add the marinated chicken, salt  and cook for 10mins

12. Add tomato paste and cook

13. Add cinnamon, bay leaf and cardamom and cook until chicken is soft and gravy ( not grave)  is thick ( I made it dry but you can also keep as much gravy as you like)

14. Serve with white boiled rice

at 02:00

Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas, Squash (or pumpkin) & Apricot

Pumpkin and Apricot with chicken?!!!!.....Yes! yes.! You are reading and seeing  right.

Do not judge and shy away from making this wonderful one pot dish due to it ingredients. Let me assure you- it is a wonderful dish with lovely mixture of sweetness of the pumpkin and Apricot along with tanginess from lemon, which goes delightfully with chicken. Serve this with bread, couscous, or even rice and this will be a star. Today and always.

Traditionally Tagine is a North African Berber dish. The dish is named after the earthen pot in which it is cooked.  I cooked the Moroccan version of the Tagine, which is slow cooked in a earthen pot called Tagine. I did not slow cook for hours neither I used the Tagine. However, I cooked for around 30/50mins to reduce the gravy and until the pumpkin and chicken became tender. Nevertheless, you can slow cook the dish and then serve in a colorful Tagine

Ingredients:

6- piece chicken thigh (fatless and skin less)

2-onions, roughly chopped

2-garlic cloves, chopped

300g pumpkin or squash, cut into large chunks

1-teaspoon of ground cumin

1-teaspoon of ground coriander

½-teaspoon of ginger paste

1-large cinnamon stick

1-teaspoon of honey

1/2-teaspoon red chili fleck

Pinch of black pepper crushed

Large pinch of saffron, soaked in 1 tablespoon of boiling water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

200g chickpeas

5/6-dried apricot

Small bunch of coriander

Salt to taste

2- Tablespoon oil

Method:

 1.    Heat oil in a large casserole

2.    Season the chicken and brown them and keep aside

3.    Add the  garlic the same oil and fry until you can smell garlic

4.    Add onions in the same oil and fry them until soft

5.    Add the pumpkin/squash and cook for 5 mins

6.    Add rest of the spices and cook for another 5 mins

7.    Now add saffron, honey and lemon juice

8.    Pour water and add chickpeas

9.    Add the browned chicken

10. Add apricot and salt to taste

11.  Cook for one hour or until squash/pumpkin and chicken is tender, the gravy thick

12. Stir through the coriander and serve with rice, bread or couscous  

 For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page Pet Pujo and Adda and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at my blog. I am featured at Networked Blog.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!

 

at 18:34

Shorshe Chicken (Mustard Chicken)

This is a classic Bengali dish, although mainly cooked with fish.  This is not for the faint hearted-for the dish has a punch from the mustard paste which is very different from the English mustard paste one would get in store. Usually mustard paste for the dish is made using mustard seeds and using ‘Shil Nora’ (pestle and mortar).

There are various ways to cook the dish. The traditional way (or it is said..Although debatable) of cooking, this dish is the simplest and I feel, also the tastiest. However, my mother thinks otherwise. She will add some fried red chili and curry leaves to the dish very often to make it a little different. Sometimes she also adds coconut milk or just milk. I am cooking it my way- the simplest way for me, so that I can get over with this week’s cooking and cleaning and then go out to enjoy the snow!

Happy cooking and enjoy the food.

Ingredients:

1 small chicken

2-onions finely copped

1-tablesppon ginger paste

1-tablespoon garlic paste

1-teaspoon turmeric powder

¼-teaspoon red chili powder (depending on taste)

3-tablespoon mustard paste (or powder. I used powder from kolkata)

3-tablespoon yogurt

2-tablespoon mustard oil/ white oil (I used combination of both)

4-green chili slit in the middle and deseeded to get rid of the hotness of the chili

Salt to taste

Pinch of sugar

 

Method:

1.     Heat oil in a pan and add sugar and caramelize it

2.    Add the onion and fry until soft and brown

3.    Add ginger and garlic paste and fry

4.    Add red chili and turmeric and salt and little water

5.    Cook it until oil separated

6.    Add chicken and cook until tender. Incase needed add little water. Otherwise it should release water anyway

7.    When chicken is cooked add the mustard paste ( if using package then soak the mustard with little salt for 10 mins before using)

8.    Add green chili

9.    Cook for 5/10 mins and then add the yogurt ( which is already beaten  in a bowl)

10. Cook for another 5/10 or until gravy reduced  but do not cook for long as the yogurt may separate

11.  Serve with boiled white rice

For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page here  and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at blog. I am featured at Network bloggers.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!

 

at 22:55

Winter Warmer Root Vegetables and Chicken One Pot Dinner

Well, after thousands of Christmas lunches, between shopping eating, endless New Year Parties and then of course the  Poush Sankranti eating extravagance- it is time for me to remember ( at least I am trying. So you are not allowed to laugh) that I had promised to eat healthy for my dinner.

I am not one of those people who think healthy food is essentially bad food or no food at all. I actually like my food to be light, easy to cook –something that does not make me sluggish after eating. I love eating vegetables, fish and chicken. At the same time, I do not like bland food. My food needs to have texture, flavor and the spices. A combination of sweetness from vegetables, that meaty taste of fish or chicken and the zing of Asian spices like little green chili, black pepper, mustard, cumin, coriander etc. And of course the color: it has to be inspiring.

I am cooking a one-pot dish today, which has everything that I like. Note:  I am using chicken for protein and as I like it so much. That is optional. You can use kidney bean (rajma), chickpeas (chana) or Paneer in case you want some protein in your food. Otherwise, you can make this dish with just vegetables and it tastes equally wonderful.  

 

Ingredients (Measured for Two):

100g-carrots cut into small cubes

100g-Swede cut into small cubes

100g-Parshnip cut into small cubes

100g-Potatoes cut into small cubes

6-small pieces of chicken (optional)

1-large onion, cut in to thick wedges

3-cloves of garlic, sliced

3-tablespoon of tomato puree/ketchup ( I used  no added sugar version)

1-tablespoon of whole grain mustard paste

½-cup red lentil, washed

1-teaspoon dried oregano

1/2-teaspoon red chili flakes
 

1-tablespoon oil

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

 Method:

1.     Heat a pan with oil and fry garlic until you can smell it

2.    Add onion and fry the onion until almost caramelised

3.    Add the chicken and salt

4.    Add black paper and fry for a while

5.    Add the washed lentil

6.    Add rest of the vegetables and fry for 10mins

7.    Add water and boil

8.    After 10 mins to add tomato puree,oregano and red chili flakes

,

9.    Slow cook until water has reduced, chicken cooked and gravy thickened

10. Add more water and add the mustard paste

11.  Cook until desired gravy achieved

12. Serve  hot as one course meal or with  a slice of bread

For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page Pet Pujo and Adda and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at my blog. I am featured at Network bloggers.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!



 

at 23:26

Honey Mustard Chicken Meatball Pasta

This is what I had for my dinner today. Honey Mustard Chicken Meatball Pasta a dinner made easy idea. And it never fails. I am going to carry it in my lunch box tomorrow too.  Two work taken care off. Check! Updating blog. Check. Need to sleep. Uncheck.

 

Here is the recipe……………………before I go  zzzzzzzzzzzz

By the way, mostly I cook by ‘andaaz ‘that is without any measure. So be innovative and add as per your likings!

Ingredients

10- Chicken meatball cut in to halve (today I used store bought one. However, you can make them at home too, which is much healthier then packed one. And very easy to make. How to make meatball? Have a look here Chicken Meat Ball

200g farfalle (bow tie paste) or any other shaped pasta

2-tablespoon whole grain mustard

3-tablespoon low fat mayonnaise

½-brown onion cut

2-sping onion with green cut

1-tomato diced and deseeded

1- Small cup low fat milk

Salt and pepper as per taste

Method:

Honey Mustard Sauce :

1.     If you made your meatball at home then they are cooked already. Therefore, you do not need the step 2 and 3.

2.    Otherwise, fry the meatball. I did not fry them in oil. Instead, I defrosted them first and then just put them on a non-stick frying pan over low heat. The store meatballs usually have lot of oil. Soon you will see that oil have started to come out and meatballs are being fried in their own oil.

3.    Cover them so that they properly cook and turn brown

4.    When the meatballs are cooked, add brown onion and spring onion and tomato and greens and fry for 5 mins

5.    Add low fat mayonnaise, mustard and milk cook until gravy is thick

6.    Add salt and pepper. So the sauce is ready

For the final product …….

7.    Meanwhile, boil water and add salt and oil

8.    Add the paste and boil them until al dente

9.    Drain water and cool under running water

10. Add the pasta in the sauce

Voila , your pasta is ready!

Now I can go to sleep. By the way, please visit my facebook fan page Pet Pujo and Adda  and do not forget to click ‘like’. Also please follow me at my blog

NOW Sleep. Check!

 

at 17:39

Roast Chicken with Indian Spices: A Bong way of celebrating Christmas!

 

Well into the New Year but I am yet to get over my holiday mood. It is not that I have not been feeding myself but I do not feel like putting down anything for my blog.  Just being lazy and watching a lot of TV these days- after office.

My work preoccupies me. Too much work on hand. Movement back home is making me restless. I should have been there with my friends who have taken to the roads of Delhi. My mind is there. It seems useless start of a year! I am angry, upset and demotivated. I watched the parliamentary discussion every morning before leaving for office-they disgust me. Police atrocities over protesting public infuriate me. Lack of political will for change makes me think…maybe it is time for violence…an eye for an eye. Is it so?? I am angry!

I would have preferred not to give any recipe for my blog, as it is not the top priority for me now- not at the moment. I did celebrate Christmas. P and A were at home, we had lunch together and watched movies on DVD. But it was not the same.

 I am going to give the recipe of the roast chicken that I made on Christmas-maybe feeling a little responsible to keep the blog alive.

Indian Spiced Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

1- Whole chicken with skin (around 1.5kg) (you can do without skin too)

4/5 cloves of garlic grated

2” ginger grated

1-teaspoon cumin powder

1-teaspoon coriander powder

1-green chili grated

150 ml coconut milk

50g of butter/oil /r vegetable spread

Salt as per taste

Method:

1.     Make a paste of vegetable spread, grated ginger, grated garlic, cumin, coriander ,salt and  chili

2.    Use half the paste to marinate the chicken both underneath  and over the skin

3.    Keep the marinated chicken in fridge for 30mins ( I kept overnight as I had to roast it first thing in the morning)

4.    Take out the chicken and keep in room temperature before roasting

5.    Pre heat the oven in 170c in fan oven

6.    Rub the chicken again with the paste ( don’t use all, keep aside little bit of the paste for later use)

7.    Place the chicken in the middle of a roasting pan and place the roasting pan in the middle shelf of the oven

8.    Roast the chicken for 45mins, occasionally bringing it out to spread the oil that have deposited in the roasting tray over the chicken. This way chicken will remain soft and moist.

9.    If the chicken had already browned, cover the chicken with foil and roast for another 20mins

10. Meanwhile, add the remaining of the paste with coconut milk

11.  Take the chicken out and pour the mixture over the chicken so that whole chicken is wet with coconut milk

Chicken after the coconut milk has been poured

12. Then cover with foil and roast for another 30 mins or until done.

13. Then uncover the chicken and roast for a while until new spices are golden  brown

14. Take out of the oven and rest for 20 mins before serving, so that chicken is soft

15. Place the chicken on the wide serving plate and arrange.

16. Use the gravy that is left in the roasting pan as gravy to be served with roast chicken. Do not have to mix any flour, as it will be thick from the coconut milk. You can  get red rid of residues of fat though

roast the coconutmilk along with chicken and then use as gravy to go with the chicken

17. Serve with roast potatoes.

Tip : How to know when is your roast is well done: Insert a skewer on the thickest part of the chicken thigh and take out. Then press the area and see the liquid coming out. If the liquid is clear then the chicken is well done otherwise it might need few more minutes of roasting.

For Roast Potatoes Repice look at Crispy Roast Potatoes

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have a wonderful new year!