Chicken Hariyali Curry

This recipe was recommended by Shraddha, a close friend of mine. We were neighbors when we were growing up and used to spend hours talking about school and boys and the world, when we were not playing badminton or dabdaispais (I feel like this must be the first attempt of someone spelling this word on the internet). Like most kids, we used to engage in things like writing cryptographic messages, having silly "passwords" and one thing that at the time seemed particularly appealing in its audacity... we used to throw and exchange food from our windows. Doing that successfully without a single adult noticing what we were upto used to give us a rush I suppose? I have no idea.

Fast forward to 2019 and we are still bonding over food but in a far more meaningful way. We both love cooking and baking and love trying out new things and pushing our limits. Last month we made garam masala from scratch (not together as we live on different continents). Last weekend I attempted a chicken curry recipe that Shraddha has been raving about. We had it with warm garlic naan and it was very tasty.

Based on this recipe from the Hindu.

You will need

For the marinade

yogurt                           2 tbsp
garam masala               1/2 tsp
red chilly powder         1/2 tsp
garlic, crushed              2-3 cloves
salt to taste                       

For the curry
chicken breast               1/2 lbs
onion, chopped             1 cup
cilantro                          half a bunch
mint                               4-5 springs (~20 leaves)
green chillies                 2
dry red chillies               2
full fat yogurt                1/2 cup
garam masala                1-2 tsp
salt to taste 



Method

1. Chop the chicken. Mix the ingredients for the marinade, add the chicken to it. Make sure all the pieces are coated well with the marinade. Marinate for at least a few hours. I did it for 24 hours and the chicken really soaked in all the flavors.
2. In an electric blender, blend together the cilantro, mint, green chillies and dry red chillies. Set aside.
3. In a heated sauté pan, fry the chopped onion until it just starts browning.
4. Add the marinated chicken and sauté until it is mostly cooked.
5. Add the cilantro paste and let it cook for about 5-10 mins. Keep stirring occasionally.
6. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the hot gravy to the yogurt and mix well to temper it. Add the yogurt to the pan on low flame, mix well.
7. Add salt to your taste.

Serve with rice, naan or roti.

Hummus, Chicken and Paneer Skewers & Shahi Tukra

I made a middle-eastern lunch today for some friends. This is what the menu looked like:

Pita bread and homemade hummus for the appetizer, accompanied by a shiraz.

Chicken hariyali kabab and vegetarian kabab skewers, cucumber raita and saffron rice.

And my favorite shahi tukra for dessert. Love it!

Some changes I made to the recipes...

Hummus:

Followed Ina Garten's recipe linked above for the most part.

Out of sheer laziness, I did not roast the sesame seeds for the tahini. Nor did I make the tahini beforehand. I just added everything together in the blender and the result was great. Though the amount of lemon juice in the recipe would make it too sour IMHO so I reduced it. I substituted the hot sauce with red chilly flakes and garnished with red chilly flakes and a splash of olive oil.

I'd make hummus at home again. It is easy to make and cheaper than store-bought hummus.

Kababs:

I always found making chicken kababs for a party daunting, mainly because the chicken can get really dry in the oven in the process of reheating to serve them warm or trying to char them a bit for that great flavor. But a friend recently enlightened me on the magic of brining chicken. And boy, have I become a fan!
I thought kababs are a great candidate for brining to work its magic. So I tried that today and the result was fabulous. Brining gives you a lot more margin for error, so that 5 more minutes in the oven to reheat the kababs won't dry them out. They stay nice 'n juicy. One drawback is that they released a LOT of water which I had to throw out twice.

To brine the chicken, add 1/4 cup salt and  a tbsp of sugar to 5 cups of water and stir until it is dissolved completely. Then place the whole chicken breasts in the water so that they are fully submerged and refrigerate them for an hour. If needed, increase the amount of water and salt while maintaining their ratio until the chicken is submerged.
After that I followed the ecurry recipe linked above. The recipe is great. Such a nice change from the usual tandoori kabab.

The ideal time for cooking these kababs in the oven would be:

400 deg F for 15 mins, flip them over halfway. Then broil for 7-8 mins at 500 deg F.

Shahi Tukra:

Do not try to make this healthy by using whole wheat bread. It tastes much better with white bread.

Anyway, I didn't have ghee so I just spread butter on both sides of the slices and roasted them in a pan. Then mixed sweetened condensed milk with 2% milk, heated it until it reduced a bit, added saffron and cardamom and poured on top of the browned slices of bread. Turned out to be pretty good. Next time I'll try using unsweetened evaporated milk because I'd like a thicker sauce and want to be able to control the sweetness.