Butter Chicken

Yesterday, while going through my cooking options, struck upon the idea of cooking butter chicken. Butter chicken originates from the Indian state of Punjab. It is also called Murg Makhani in hindi. The butter chicken came out very tasty and is easy to cook, so thought of sharing it with you.

Ingredients:

1. 600 gms chicken breasts cut into small pieces
2. 2 tablespoon butter
3. 2 pieces cinnamon about 1 inch each.
4. 4 green cardamoms
5. 3 cloves
6. 8 to 10 peppercorns
7. 2 parts of 1 star anise
8. 1 tsp. kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves, available in most of the Indian stores)
9. 100 gms sliced or crushed almonds
10. 1/2 can crushed tomatoes
11. 2 cm ginger grated
12. 4 cloves of garlic grated
13. 2 medium onion cut into fine pieces
14. 1/2 cup yogurt
15. 1 tblsp. lemon juice
16. 1 teaspoon garam masala or chicken masala
17. 1 teaspoon chilli powder
18. 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
19. some sprigs of coriander leaves for garnish
20. salt as per requirement

Method:

• Marinate the chicken pieces with lemon juice, turmeric powder, chillipowder, kasuri methi and salt for 45 minutes or more.
• Roast the whole spices of peppercorns, star anise, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon.
• Grind these spices into powder and then add the almonds and chicken masala and grind it further. Make this into a fine paste adding water and keep it aside.
• In a heavy bottomed pan, add the butter and then the onions, ginger and garlic and saute these for sometime until it is lightly brown and cooked. Add the chicken pieces to it and lightly fry it. (You can also add a bit of yogurt to the marination and then roast the chicken in an oven for a better effect than pan frying it).
• When the chicken is done, add the crushed tomatoes and stir it for a further 2 minutes. Now add the almond and spice paste, mix and let it cook until the chicken it is done. (Please uncover it and mix it in between as the almond paste can stick to the bottom, if needed add a little water from time to time.)
• Lastly add the yogurt and adjust salt according to your taste. Cook it for 2 or 3 minutes only as the yogurt can give out water if cooked for longer time.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Happy Onam

Wishing each one of my blog readers a "Happy Onam 2008".

Fruit Trifle

During my stay in the U.K., trifle is a dessert which fascinated me a lot. Trifle is an English dessert made with cake, custard, fruits, jelly and cream. All these items are gathered in a glass bowl, as this shows of those lovely colours and makes anybody's mouth water. Trifle can be made with various ingredients and in various ways. Here is my version of trifle. I am using all ready made items to make it easier. You can bake the cake yourself, or make the custard at home.

Ingredients:

1. 200 gms plain sponge cake
2. 800 gms fruit cocktail (500 gms fruit drained)
3. 1 packet of strawberry jelly (You may use different jelly depending on the fruits you use)
4. 500 ml. custard
5. 1 cup whipping cream
6. 1 tblsp. icing sugar

Method:

• Prepare the jelly according to the instructions and let it set before you start making the trifle.
• Cut the cake into 1 inch slices and layer the bottom of the glass bowl with it.
• Drain the syrup out of fruit cocktail and drizzle some of the syrup onto the sliced cake pieces, to soak it a bit.
• Now put half of the fruits on top of the cake layer.
• Pour some custard on top of the fruit layer.
• The next layer should be the jelly.
• You can again layer the items in the similar way or stop it wherever you please.
• Lastly add the whipped cream.
• Refrigerate it for atleast 5 hours and serve cold.

* Whipped cream . In a mixing bowl, beat the cream until it slightly thickens.
Add icing sugar and continue to whip until it forms firm peaks. Whipping cream can also be used to layer in between the ingredients. But always finish off with the whipping cream on top.

Onam Recipes

As Onam is fast approaching, I thought of contributing some recipes specifically for onam on my site. As many of these ingredients as such is not available in Cape Town, I am not posting it on this site and have posted it to my other site http://vanitharecipes.blogspot.com. These recipes are taken from old vanitha magazine, translated and then posted. More recipes will be posted in due course of time.

Chicken Manchurian

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 kg. chicken (deboned and cut into bite sized pieces)
2. 1 egg
3. 2 tblsp. cake flour/all purpose flour/maida
4. 1 tblsp. cornflour
5. 1 tblsp. soya sauce
6. 1 tsp. pepper powder
7. salt as required
8. 1 inch ginger cut into small pieces
9. 4 cloves of garlic cut into small pieces
10. 2 onions cut into small pieces
11. 1 green pepper (I use peppers of various colours)
12. 2 spring onions cut into small
13. 1/4 tblsp. chilli sauce
14. 2 tblsp. soya sauce
15. 1 tblsp. tomato sauce
16. 1 1/2 tblsp. cornflour (read as one and a half)
17. 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
18. Oil for frying and sauteing

Method:-

• Make a paste of items 2 to 7 (not too thick or too thin, able to coat the chicken)


• Heat the oil in a frying pan. Dip the chicken pieces in the above paste and deep fry them until golden brown.


• Take a bigger vessel like a wok and heat a little oil.


• Saute onions, garlic, ginger, spring onions and peppers.


• Now add soyasauce, chilli sauce and tomato sauce. Mix everything properly.


• Add the chicken stock to the 1 tblsp. corn flour and mix until all lumps are broken down. Add this to the entire mix of onions and peppers. When the gravy starts to thicken add the chicken pieces and mix. Adjust salt as per taste. Lower the fire and cook until done.


• Serve it with chappatis, and other breads.