Simple Chicken Curry

The basic recipe. Preferably use a non-stick pan to cook this, so the masala does not stick to the pan. Makes a huge difference.

Ingredients

• Chicken - 1 kilo
• Ginger garlic paste, 2 tablespoons
• Curd - 2 tablespoons
• Onions - 3. Chop into fine pieces.
• Tomatoes - 2 big ones. Chop into small pieces.
• Clove, Cinnamon, bay leaf: a few pieces
• Red chilly powder: 1 teaspoon
• Pepper - a few corns
• Some coriander leaves

 Procedure

1. Marinate chicken in some ginger garlic paste, some curd, and a teaspoon of salt. Either for a few hours or overnight in the fridge, not freezer. The curd tenderizes the chicken.
2. Fry the chopped onion in a non-stick pan until brown. Sprinkle some salt if you want it to brown faster.
3. Add some pieces of clove, 2 sticks of cinnamon, and a couple of bay leaves if you have. Stir for a minute until you can feel the smell of spices coming out, they should not burn.
4. Add the red chilly powder and few crushed pepper corns. Pepper corns is according to your taste, you can add more later after you have checked the taste. Stir for a few seconds - don't leave chilly powder in too long, it will burn.
5. Add the marinated chicken and stir and cook until the water is gone and the chicken starts to brown. The masala would have coated the chicken well now. You can get the smell of the ginger garlic paste frying. The chicken will be half-cooked at the end of this.
6. Add the chopped tomato now and stir and cook. The tomato gives the gravy to the dish. Once the tomato is cooked nicely check salt and add more if needed. Add more pepper at this stage if you want it hotter.
7. Add a little water if you want more gravy, but not too much.
8. To check if chicken has cooked, use a fork and take out a piece and taste - it will be white inside and breaks easily.
9. Switch off and add the chopped coriander leaves and mix well.

 

Easy Chicken Biryani

https://www.sinamontales.com/easy-chicken-biryani-recipe/

Chicken Corn Soup

 

Very easy healthy soup, contains no artificial ingredients.

Ingredients
Serves 2 people

• Chicken pieces, preferably with a lot of bones in it, I used the leg pieces: 250 gms. If this is the main meal, then make it 500 gms and double all quantities.
• A big handful of sweet corn, or more, as you wish
• 6 – 7 big cloves of garlic (mildly crushed)
• A big piece of ginger (crushed)
• A few pepper corns coarsely crushed – you can always add more pepper later if you want
• Two tablespoons of cornflour, for thickening
• Salt, 1 teaspoon

For garnishing

• Some lemon juice/soya sauce
• Chopped coriander leaves/spring onions

Procedure

1. Boil the chicken pieces, corn, garlic, ginger, and pepper, with salt, and a lot of water (enough to submerge the chicken completely), in a pressure cooker. For 2 cups of soup, pour at least 3 cups of water. Keep for 4-5 whistles.
2. When cool, shred the chicken pieces and throw away the bones and any big pieces of ginger.
3. Dissolve two tablespoons of cornflour in some water. Add it to the soup and bring to a boil until the watery soup becomes slightly thick. Taste and add additional salt or crushed pepper as needed.
4. When serving into the bowls, garnish with some chopped coriander leaves and a bit of lime juice, just half a spoon/a few drops. The original recipes I saw had spring onion and soya sauce instead, I did not have them. This came out really well anyways. :) 

Easy Chicken Biriyani!

A colleague makes this very tasty chicken biriyani, her mother-in-law's recipe. She says this works well for mutton and vegetable biriyani too. The rice is cooked with the chicken, so it blends very well. Tried it out, it works! And the best thing is, all you need is one vessel, everything is done in that! I used a small cooker.
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Recipe from Sharmila

If you use Jeera rice, then add water in the ratio 1:1/2)

Ingredients: 

1. Cinnamon (pattai) 2 to 3 sticks
2. Cloves (Lavangam/Krambu) 5 to 6
3. Cardamom (Yelakkai) 2
4. Bay Leaf (Punnai ilai) 2
5. Cashewnuts 8
6. Big onions – 2 cut long and thin pieces
7. Tomato -2 cut into pieces
8. Green chilies – 5 (I used less, 3 big ones)
9. Ginger garlic paste 3 tea spoons
10. Coriander leaves little - remove stems and wash
11. Mint leaves one small bunch – remove stems and wash
12. Little turmeric powder
13. garam masala powder one tea spoon
14. Little Chilli powder to taste
15. Salt to taste
16. Oil and Ghee
17. ½ kg chicken
18. ½ kg basmati rice

 Method: 

1. Keep the cooker or thick bottomed vessel on stove and add oil. 
2. Once the oil is heated, add Cinnamon, Cloves, Cardamom, Bay Leaf, Cashewnuts and Big onions.
3. Sauté well.
4. To that, add Green chilies, tomato, Ginger garlic paste, Little turmeric powder, chilli powder, garam masala
5. Saute well.
6. Now wash the chicken and add to the mixture. Let it cook for 10 minutes.
7. Add water (1:2 portions - 1 glass basmati rice, 2 glasses water) and salt to taste.
8. Close the cooker and allow one or 2 whistles, for the chicken to cook.
9. In the mean time wash and soak the rice.
10. When the gas is released from the cooker, add rice to the mixture and mix it well.
11. Close the cooker with a plate. Note that the flame  must be kept high.
12. The briyani is ready for Dum, once you find that there is no more water in the cooker. (Keep an eye here, don't forget about it, the bottom will burn!)

Dum:

1. Remove the plate from the cooker, and close the cooker and put weight.
2. Keep the dosa tava, or any thick pan (in high flame) on the stove and place the cooker on the tava. 
3. Leave for 5 to 10 minutes and then remove the cooker form the stove.
4. Once the gas is released, remove the cooker and put ghee to the briyani and mix it without breaking the rice.
5. Fry the mint leaves in ghee and add, for flavour. Also add chopped coriander leaves. Mix well.
6. Serve hot.

Methi Chicken

Recipe from my friend Poorna - she's tried it out, says it's great:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRDBbwI0_sA

Methi = Fenugreek leaves

Chicken Cutlet

My mother's recipe - improvise as you deem fit :)

Ingredients

Minced chicken 500 gms (you can also buy pieces and cook and grind them in the mixie. I bought 500 gms and I got 12 cutlets out of it - reduce as required)

3 Potatoes medium sized, this acts as the binder

Chopped onions

Chopped green chilly

Chopped ginger

Chopped coriander leaves (cilantro)

2 eggs

Bread crumbs (I powdered rusk in the mixie, that's nice too)

Salt

Procedure

Boil potatoes and keep ready.

Fry the chopped onion, chillies and ginger until a lil brown.

Add the minced chicken and salt and stir and cook. This cooks real fast. The chicken may curl up and form lumps, keep breaking them.

Alternatively, cook chicken in salt separately and then pass in through grinder so that it becomes fiber-y. I am guessing this consistency may be nicer.

And then add that mix to the fried-onion-chilly-ginger mix. This mix should be dry in the end, no water.

Now let it cool enough for you to roll the mix with your hands.

Mash the potatoes and add to chicken. Also add the chopped coriander now and mix everything well.
Check taste.

Break 2 eggs and carefully separate the white and yellow. Use a sieve or just break in half and keep pouring out the white.

Mix one of the yellows into the chicken mix. Two will make it watery - so keep the second aside and make an omelette or something :)

Keep the white aside in a flat vessel.

Now make round patties with the chicken-potato mix so that they hold well together.

Keep the bread crumbs and the egg white ready in two separate open vessels.

Dip each cutlet into the egg white and then immediately into the bread/rusk crumbs so that it is coated well and dry.

Now heat oil in a wide pan and shallow-fry each cutlet.

Serve hot with tomato ketchup, if you like it that way! Or make a burger.

Quick Chicken Stir-fry!

From my friend Prabha, of the varied talents :)

Ingredients

200gms boneless chicken cut into thin juliennes or bite sized pieces. They cook fast.

Marinade - garlic (3-4 cloves) crushed, salt to taste, Green chilly (1 -2) crushed, lime juice (half), one egg beaten, 2-3 tsp of cornflour or maida.

Method

Marinate the chicken pieces with all of the above ingredients and ensure it is marinated for at least 30 to 60 mins.

Heat oil in a Wok or Kadai. 2 tbsp
When oil is hot, drop in pieces of the chicken in small batches and quickly toss them in the oil. You will see the chicken turning white and will be done in a matter of 2 mins. Remove them and drain excess oil.

Repeat with the other chicken pieces.

Note: you are not exactly deep frying them just stir frying them in a little bit of more oil :). This will ensure that the chicken is soft in the inside and crisp on the outside.

Variation in the marinade (lemon juice, egg and flour will always remain) - add soya sauce, or Barbeque sauce. or go the indian chicken 65 way add all these masalas (ginger -garlic paste, tandoori chicken masala powder, corriander, cumin, red chilly, and turmeric powder, pepper).

You can just eat it as a snack, as a side dish or wrap it in chappathis with left over vegetables and sliced onions and pudina chutney for yummy home-made katti rolls.

Goan Red Masala - for Shrimp and Fish and Chicken

From Christabel/Sundari:

This masala can be made in bulk and stored away. It's a typical Goan red masala. Apply it as a marinade to fish or shrimp as needed and fry. Can also be used with chicken but then you need to add some garam masala as well.

Red chilli powder - 8 tsp if using Catch brand or 10 tsp if using Kashmiri
Jeera powder - 1 tsp
Pepper powder - 3/4 tsp
Haldi - 1 tsp
Salt 1 tsp
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Mix the above with malt vinegar (as much as is required to make a thick paste that can be rubbed over the fish or shrimp). Marinate the seafood for minimum 30 mins and fry.

Chicken Cafreyal

From Christabel/Sundari:

Marinate 800 gm chicken in 2 tbsp lime juice and salt for 20 mins (remember to make slits in chicken).

Grind to a paste : 8 green chillies = 1 cup coriander leaves + 50 gm ginger + 25 gm garlic + 1 tsp pepper corns + 1 stick of cinamon + 4 cloves + 3tbsp malt vinegar. MArinate the chicken in this paste for minimum 2 hrs and then bake or fry.