Butter Chicken

Who wouldn't be tempted by the buttery flavourful chicken gravy that we so often come across at restaurants. Well I always assumed they add a lot of butter to get the gravy thick and creamy, but I was wrong. My microwave recipe booklet has this recipe for butter chicken that uses hung curd. I adapted the recipe from the booklet, except that I used the pressure cooker instead of the microwave.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Chicken - 350 gms

Hung curd - approximately 300ml

Oil - 1 tbsp

Lemon juice - 1 tbsp

Grind together:

Onion - 1 large

Tomato - 1                                                        

Curry leaves - 10

Ginger paste - 1 tbsp

Garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Chilli powder - 1 tbsp

Salt - to taste

Cumin powder - 1 tsp

How to make hung curd: Take creamy thick curd (I used Amul masti Dahi - 400 ml appox) and filter out the water with a thin muslin cloth. Leave the curd in the cloth to drain out the water for about 20 minutes. Scrape the hung curd from the muslin cloth and store in a bowl.

To make butter chicken:

Wash and clean the chicken pieces and marinate in lemon juice for 15-20 minutes.

Heat the oil in a heavy cooker. Add the ground masala paste and saute till the raw smell is gone and there is good aroma. Add the chicken pieces and fry for a few minutes. Add the hung curds and cook the chicken pieces well. When done, garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rotis or rice

Verdict: The flavour is wonderfully buttery (all the milk solids from the curd) and thick. It is a definite hit with both rotis and rice.


 

Chicken cutlet

I love Chicken starters... Anytime at a Chinese or North Indian restaurant, I do not miss the opportunity to try some new chicken starter.

I've been planning to make chicken nuggets for a while now and been buying boneless chicken for the same, but just didn't find the time. So the boneless chicken would be made into some semi solid chicken fry dish :)...

Last weekend dad bought 1/2 Kg of boneless chicken as usual; I decided to make shallow-fried  chicken cutlet this time, in contrast to the deep fried nuggets...

I just tried this intuitively from my experience with vegetable cutlets.
 

Here is the recipe:

For the chicken filling:

Boneless chicken - 500g

Medium sized onions, coarsely chopped - 2

Large Tomato, coarsely chopped - 1

Ginger paste - 1 tbsp

Garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Chilli powder - 1 tbsp

Salt - to taste

Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp

Oil - 1 tbsp

Water - 1/2 cup

Wash and clean the boneless chicken breast and cut into large pieces. 

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed cooker. Add the chopped onions and tomatoes and saute well. Add the ginger garlic paste, chilli powder, salt and garam masala and saute until the raw smell is gone and there is nice aroma. Add the chicken pieces and fry for a few minutes. There is very little fat content in chicken breast and hence you will not find oil separating from the meat. Add just enough water to cover the chicken pieces until halfway and close the cooker. Allow two whistles and turn it off. 

Once the pressure is gone, open the cooker and turn on the flame to let all the water dry out. When you get a semi-solid mass, turn off the flame again and let it cool down completely.

Pulse this entire preparation in a blender for 10-20 seconds. It becomes a soft light brownish paste. Make small balls the size of a lemon with this paste and keep aside.

To assemble:

Corn flour or Maida - 3 tbsp

Powdered rusk - 1 cup

Water - 1.5 tbsp

Mix the water and corn flour to make a paste. Take the chicken ball, flatten it and dip it in the maida/corn paste, then roll it over the rusk powder to coat all sides. Shape the cutlet as desired. 

You can shallow fry these cutlets in a girdle with 3 - 4 tbsp of oil. Heat the oil in a girdle and place three or four cutlets. The cutlets can easily break and hence you need to place them atleast an inch apart on the girdle. Wait until one side turns golden brown and then flip over to the other side and let them fry until golden brown. The second picture on top (right) is that of the shallow fried cutlets.

Alternately you can also grill them with the microwave-grill option. This uses very little oil and ensure even browning. Place the cutlets on a grill sheet and apply oil over both sides of the cutlets using a pastry brush. Place the tray on a high rack in the microwave; grill them on the microwave-grill option for 10 minutes. Midway through the grilling time, pause the oven and flip the cutlets. 

Here is a picture of one shallow-fried and one grilled cutlet.Serve with Mint chutney or Tomato Sauce.   Can be had as an evening snack with tea or as a starter. But remember that these are quite heavy and it is difficult to eat more than two at a time. This recipe makes 20 cutlets.         

 Verdict: Well this one was a winner, especially the grilled cutlets, but as I mentioned earlier, obviously we could not finish it between the 5 of us; We had my dad's friend joining us for dinner that night. So we sent some over to my friend who shares the same taste for chicken as I do ;) and put the left overs in the fridge for consumption with tea the next day.

Condensed milk Pound Cake

I remember when milkmaid first came into the market in India. Mom would buy it for payasam or some other dessert, and under the pretext of helping her, I would lick most of the sweet droplets from the lid and the outer surface of the tin. It was a treat to have that can of sweet condensed milk at home. Nestle used to publish a select recipe on the milkmaid tins and we would watch out for a new recipe and immediately bring one such can home, eager to try the new dessert based on Nestle's recipe. It has been ages and I have almost forgotten condensed milk and related recipes. Having a diet conscious husband keeps you away from such ingredients in your kitchen, you see ;).

While going through Divya's blog, I came across this recipe for condensed milk pound cake and got nostalgic about milkmaid. Sis-in-law had purchased this nice two-in-one, 9" springform tin from IKEA when she visited this time and hence I decided to try out this cake in the tube-pan. It was my birthday this Sunday and I had decided to make this cake for that occasion. Does your schedule ever roll out as per your plan when you have a toddler to manage? Especially when the little one is coming down with a cold? If you've been there, done that, you know exactly what I'm talking about... I finally put my little girl down for her afternoon nap and started getting the ingredients together...

I followed Divya's recipe but had to scale it by 1.5 times, since I have a 9 cup tube pan.

Here is the scaled recipe:

Ingredients

All purpose flour or maida - 2 cups
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 1/2 cups [ I used Nestle Milkmaid]
Powdered sugar - 1 cup scant
Unsalted butter at room temperature - 1 1/2 cups
Eggs - 3
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1 1/2 tsp
A pinch of salt

Method

Sieve the flour and baking powder until well combined. I usually whisk it well in a bowl with two spoons.

Beat butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy. Then add the condensed milk and repeat for the same time, until well combined.






Whisk eggs in a bowl for 2 mins with a fork and set aside.








Add the flour to the butter-sugar-condensed milk mixture and mix until just combined without beating too hard. Add the eggs, vanilla essence and salt and combine well again.
Transfer to a greased cake tin or loaf pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees C for 60 mins. Insert a toothpick at the center to test if the cake is done.
Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Then invert the cake onto a wire-rack and let it cool completely.

Midway through the mixing part, my angel woke up crying :(. So I was holding her in one arm and beating the batter with the other hand. I am not sure I did a thorough job. I finally put the cake pan into the oven and settled down to give my little girl her lunch. I had a full one hour to do that, didn't I... Believe me, even that time interval is not sufficient to get these little ones to eat :(.




I finally had the cake out at the end out an hour. The cake turned out slightly crusty and cracked on the outside and over-browned. I am suspecting if it is because the condense milk did not combine well with butter sugar mixture. Please help with this query!

I usually do not frost cakes. But since this is an occasion I was in two-minds, whether to frost it or not. Moreover, hubby dear did a great favor, publicizing a) my birthday b) my plans to bake a cake to the neighborhood children. Through out the day I had children calling out from the kitchen window if I was baking the cake and when I am expected to have it ready... So finally I decided to make buttercream icing for the cake. The icing tasted  great! But I dare not post a picture of the decorated cake;) forgive me for my clumsiness and lack of creativity, added to the toddler tantrums I already mentioned :). The kids loved it nevertheless.