Monday, March 28, 2016

Chicken Jalfrezi - Bengali Hot Chicken Curry

Chicken Jalfrezi - one of those dishes almost always found in many Indian restaurants that serves North Indian dishes. Little did I know earlier that the roots for this dish is actually from Bengal. "Jhal" meaning "Hot" in Bengali (apparently). Some websites claim that Jalfrezi has taken over Chicken Tikka as the No.1 dish for UK. This is again a dish I got introduced during my Bangalore Days. A spicy, tangy, thick, chicken curry suitable for roti or rice. There are multiple recipes available on the web, here's my version with a slight twist here and there. 


Ingredients
Ingredients for curry paste
  1. Chicken
  2. Onions
  3. Tomatoes
  4. Tomato Paste
  5. Green Chillies
  6. Dried Red Chillies
  7. Ginger Julienne
  8. Cashew
  9. Poppy seeds
  10. Garam Masala
  11. Cumin Seeds
  12. Cumin Powder
  13. Ginger and Garlic paste
  14. Cumin Powder
  15. Red Chilli Powder (If possible both regular and Kashmiri Chilli for the colour)
  16. Amchur Powder
  17. Turmeric Powder
  18. Vinegar
  19. Tomato Ketchup
  20. Ghee
Method

1) Take about half of the onions, few tomatoes, green chillies, poppy seeds, and cashews and grind it into a smooth paste.
2) Heat a large kadai and add a few tablespoons of vegetable / canola oil.
3) When oil is hot add cumin seeds and dried red chillies and saute until you get the cumin and chilli "fragrance" out.
4) Add the paste done in step #1, ginger garlic paste and saute well until oil separates.
5) Add chicken, few tablespoons of vineger, about a tea spoon of tomato paste, pinch of turmeric powder, tea spoon of cumin powder, red chilli powder, half a teaspoon of Amchur powder, garam masala and salt to taste.
6) After the chicken is say about 1/3rd cooked, add a tablespoon of tomato ketchup (or sauce depending on which part of the globe you are from), add the remaining onions, ginger julienne saute for a few minutes.
7) Add water and let the curry boil to thicken as needed. Watch out not to add too much water as this is meant to be a thick curry. Do also note that the cashew paste will assist in thickening this up later. By now you should be able to smell the tangyness in the curry.
8) Once the curry has reached the required consistency (by when the chicken must have been cooked as well), add a good dollop of ghee to give the curry a rich and creamy texture. Let it simmer for a few minutes.
9) The curry is done once you can see the oil separated and has reached the consistency you need.
10) Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with roti/chappati or rice.


Happy Cooking!!

C

Monday, March 21, 2016

Chettinadu Nandu Rasam a.k.a. Chettinadu Crab Soup

Nandu (Crab) Rasam (Soup), a delicacy we picked up from Anjappar the Chettinad restaurant during one of the many visits. It was a favourite for the 3 of us. Nandha is yet to get there yet, but it would be just a matter of time. With the onset of Autumn in Sydney and a coughing orchestra going on at home, decided to try this out as the Sunday special. There are enough blog posts that talk about the "medicinal" properties of crab soup so I will not bother to talk much about it. Just enough to say that it had a good effect on my cold even while preparing the soup. One of the interesting things I found about this recipe was that most of the ingredients had to be used both "as is" and also in a ground form. Whatever the reason behind, but the impact was awesome.


Ingredients
1) Crab - cut and cleaned. This time we used Blue Swimmer Crab - the male version. Apparently males are more meaty. ;-)
2) Cinnamon sticks
3) Poppy seeds (Khus khus)
4) Fennel Seeds
5) Cumin Seeds
6) Cloves
7) Cardamom

8) Black pepper seeds (I cheated with powder here)
9) Green chilies
10) Diced Onion - Shallots if you can get hold of them
11) Ginger
12) Curry leaves
13) Garlic
14) Diced Tomato
15) Dried Red chillies
16) Turmeric powder
17) Cashews
18) Coconut milk

Yes, it does seem like quite an handful of ingredients but am sure each one of them had a clear part to play. The easy way out would be to use garam masala powder just by itself.

The Method
1) Cut and clean the crab into reasonable sizes. Cleaning of course is a technique - not the most enjoyable one. You can look here for further cleaning tips.
2) Create a paste with half of the garlic, all of ginger, half of green chillies, poppy seeds, curry leaves and cashews.
3) In a large sauce pan saute all the dry ingredients in Gingelly Oil
4) Add the curry leave/green chilly paste and saute for a few minutes.
5) Add the remaining garlic (mashed up), green chillies, onions and tomatoes and saute until oil separates.
6) Add coconut milk and saute until the masala boils.
7) Add the crab and cook until the shell turns red - an indicator that the meat would be cooked. Normally takes about 10 minutes.
8) Add garam masala and black pepper powder to the level of "heat" required.
9) Add enough water to the level of consistency needed and let it boil.

Voila - Nandu Rasam Ready !!



This can be served directly as a soup or with steamed rice as you would normally eat rasam sadam (rice).

Enjoy Cooking !!

C