Ministerial Khoya Chicken

NDTV Goodtimes is one of my favourite television channels. And though I'm not a v.regular TV watcher, when I do, this is one of the very few Indian television channels which I find entertaining without falling prey to yellow journalism, cheap publicity or the saas-bahu-rural belle sagas!

Quite some time back, I dont remember on which show, I'd come across this food show where celebrity chefs cook up a meal and during that particular episode it was Renuka Chowdhury's turn. The dish sounded simple and looked great and the culmination of the myriad subtle flavours just had to make this chicken dish delicious !

But khoya not being a regular feature in my kitchen, somehow the recipe never got made, till the other day, when I had left over khoya after making the pantua.

Ingredients:
Chicken – 1 kg cut into medium sized pieces
Onion- finely sliced – 2 small or 1 large
ginger-garlic paste – 1-2 tbspn
Haldi/turmeric - a pinch
Khoya - 250gm (See procedure of previous post)
Curd about 250gm
green chillies slit coriander - finely chopped – a large bunch coconut milk – milk from a medium sized coconut salt - to taste
Oil

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a wok and fry the onions till pink & transparent.

2. Add the ginger-garlic paste and cook.
3. Add the chillies, chicken and turmeric. Stir well on medium flame. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes or till the chicken is golden brown in colour.
4.Add the curd and the khoya. Stir again.
5. Sprinkle ¾ th of the chopped coriander and mix well.

6. Continue cooking till the chicken is almost done.

7. Pour in the coconut milk and stir. Cook for 5-6 minutes.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve with steamed rice, Roti, Paratha, Naan.

It was finger licking delicious indeed!!

Mishti Doi...Sweet Curd

MISHTI DOI....the term conjures up an image of an earthen pot (Maatir Bhaar) containing a pink coloured sweetened curd. A must in any traditional Bengali feast. In most households, though the plain white and healthier curd is always homemade and available, Mishti Doi is rarely made at home. There have been occasions, though rare, when I have seen Ma prepare home made Mishti Doi.

So when my neighbour, while we were having our stair-side chatting sessions, asked me the recipe of Mishti Doi, stating casually that her young daughters loved it, I enquired the recipe from Ma and found it surprisingly simple.....

So just to share this simple recipe to dish up a rarely homemade dessert, here I am...

Ingredients : (What I used)

*Full cream milk - 1.5 litres.
*Sugar - 2.5 cups (I meaured the 2.5 cups and it was around 360gm)
*Plain curd - 2 -3 tbsp

Procedure :
1. Boil the 1.5 litre milk and bring it to half the volume.

2. Caramelise the sugar by heating it in a wok. Keep stirring while heating to ensure the caramelised sugar does not stick to the bottom of the wok and burn.


3. Pour the liquid caramelised sugar into the milk. Stir well to mix the milk and sugar. The milk mixed with caramelised sugar will be pinkish brown in colour. If needed you can bring the mix to a boil once again to ensure uniform mixing.

4.Cool milk-sugar mix to lukewarm temperature.

5. Smear the container/s in which you wish to set the curd with the plain white curd.

6. Pour the milk slowly into the curd smeared containers.

7. Cover and keep aside for 8-10 hours to set. (I had to keep for almost 11 hours)

8.Refrigerate to chill the curd


The yummilicious Mishti Doi is all yours to savour!

Paneer Tandoori

( Cottage Cheese marinated in curd and grilled )

I had this paneer preparation at a friend's place. And upon asking her the recipe, she said, just marinate the paneer cubes in curd, mixed with ginger-garlic & all masalas...grill it for 5 minutes and the Paneer is ready! It sounded simply simple....

So when I bought Paneer this week, thought of making this preparation. The Paneer cubes were diced and I was about to mix the 'masalas' into the curd, when something just didnt feel right! It was quite late (as I had presumed it'll be a fast to cook recipe, I had started just about 1/2 hr prior to dinner time...), so couldnt really call her up to enquire about the detailed recipe....

Well, kept the paneer back into the fridge, placed the curd in a cheese cloth (I use a big, clean piece of Dhoti as a Cheese Cloth ;) ) and hung it overnight.

[As you realise, the paneer had to be postponed to the next day and for that night's dinner had to fry some sausages !]

Next evening resumed the process and thereafter it was quite simple indeed!

Ingredients :
A. Basic
* Paneer - 300 gm
* Hung Curd - around 500 gm (made from Curd made out of 1.5 litres milk approx)
* Capsicum diced - 1 big or 1 & 1/2 small
* Tomatoes diced - 1 big
* Onions - Diced - 2
* Green Chilli - 3-4 slit longitudinally

B. Spices
* Ginger - 1 tbsp
* Garlic - 1 tbsp
* Haldi/Turmeric - 1 tsp
* Dhania / Coriander powder - 1 tsp
* Jeera / Cumin powder - 1 tsp
* Red Chilli pwder- 1 tsp
* Kashmiri Chilli pwder - 1 tsp
* Black pepper pwder - 1/2 tsp
* Kasuri Methi - 1 tsp (soaked in warm water)
* Sugar - to taste
* Salt - to taste

Procedure

1. Prepare the hung curd by folding curd in a cheese cloth or thin muslin cloth and hanging it for 4-5 hrs for the water / whey to drip out. I placed the cheese cloth with curd folded in it on my bigh plastic strainer and placed the strainer on a tall steel container.

2. Mix all ingredients at 'B' with the hung curd and beat the curd-masala mix well with a spoon.

3. Marinate the paneer cubes in the above prepared Curd-masala mix for 2 hrs minimum (I kept for exactly 2 hrs for lack of time)

4. If you have a Tandoor Oven or an OTG, use either of these, for best results. I used my Microwave Oven with Grilling mode, as my OTG is out of order and I dont have the other one. (I'm seriously planning to buy the Tandoor Oven)

5. Spray some oil in an ovenproof container. Place half the quantity of diced capsicum, onion and tomatoes and sprinkle some salt and chilli powder. With a spoon turn them around in the container to coat them with the oil. I microwaved these using the Microwave + Grill mode, for 3-4 minutes.

6. Pour the marinated Paneer into the container. Garnish with the remaining capsicum, onion and tomatoes. Spray some oil on top. Again microwave using the Microwave + Grill mode, for 7-8 minutes. Then, again on ONLY Grill mode, let it cook for another 4-5 minutes.




Serve HOT with Parathas or Naan. We had them with Phulkas.