Kannur Chicken Biriyani

Though I’m supposed to post Kozhikodan Biriyani recipe for Aakrantham fans, I’m not yet ready with fine photos for it. So thought of posting a Kannur Biriyani’s recipe, for which some snaps were clicked few days back by my hubby, when we made it at home.

This recipe is a dedication to my friend Ammu and there’s an interesting story behind this dedication. We used to have a year-end gift exchanging, amongst a group of my Cognizant friends called ‘Roofians’, similar to the Christmas friend activity done in school days.  As we are spread across different locations, the friend selection is done by an online tool developed by few of us and the gifts are ordered online. Moreover, from a common mailbox we use to assign different funny tasks to our friend anonymously. And this year, Ammu got a task to prepare Hyderabadi Biriyani and post the recipe as well as the photos. Poor girl! How can she do this if she doesn’t even know how to make an ordinary Biriyani? But she was clever enough to post the pictures in the Face book group along with the recipe copied and customized from a blog. But the cleverer group members made it out from her attire, hairstyle, serving dishes and the suspicious ‘scissors’ found in the photo, that the Biriyani was bought from some hotels on her way back from office and she mixed it in a steel vessel to serve. Also the scissors were used to cut the pickle’s and raitha’s packet. And what more?! In the photo, she eats the self made Biriyani at her dining table, with the neatly tied hairstyle and beautifully pinned salwar kameez and shawl!! Finally since the truth shined through the lie, she had to admit the fraud.

So for her, I’m posting a Biriyani recipe here…

Ingredients:

For frying Chicken

Chicken – 1 kg

Chilli powder – 1 Tb spoon

Kashmiri chilli powder – 1 Tb spoon

Lemon juice – 1 Tbspoon

Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon

Ginger-garlic paste – 1 teaspoon

Salt – as needed

Ghee – 2 Tb spoon

Oil – 1 Tb spoon

For Masala:

Onion – chopped - 8 medium sized

Tomato – cut into small pieces - 2 big sized

Green chilli – 7 no.s

Ginger – 2 thumb sized pieces

Garlic – 15 big cloves

Corriander, Pudina and curry leaves – chopped – a handful

Garam masala – 1 ½ teaspoon

Curd – 3 Tb spoon

Pepper powder – as needed

Salt – as needed

Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon

Ghee – 2 Tbspoon

For Rice:

Kayama rice – 4 cups

Ghee – 3 Tb spoon

Oil – 1 Tb spoon

Cinnamon – 3 small pieces

Cloves – 3 no.s

Bay leaves – 2 no.s -  cut into pieces

Water – 5 ½ cups

Salt – as needed

For layering:

Onion – ½ chopped

Cashew nuts – 10 no.s

Raisins – 15 no.s

Garam masala – 1 teaspoon

Lemon juice – 1 Tbspoon

Corriander leaves chopped – 3 stems

Ghee – 1 Tbspoon

How to:

1. Drain water from washed and cut chicken pieces. Marinate chicken using chilli powder, kashmiri chilli powder, lemon juice, turmeric powder, ginger-garlic paste, salt and keep for 30 minutes. Heat ghee and oil in a fry pan. Shallow fry the chicken.

2. Heat ghee in a non-stick vessel. Add chopped onions and sauté well till the onions turn translucent.  Crush ginger, garlic and green chillies in a grinder and add this to the onion. Sauté for a minute. Add coriander, curry and pudina leaves to this and fry well.  Once the raw smell of this mixture is changed, add tomato and mix well. Sauté all these together for two more minutes. Add gharam masala, salt and turmeric powder, sauté and add curd to it. If needed, add pepper powder also.

3. Adding the remaining ghee from the chicken fry to the masala and sauté well. To this, add the fried chicken. Mix the masala and chicken well and cover the dish. Keep the flame to low and leave it to cook for 10- 15 minutes.

4. Drain water from the washed Kayama rice. (do not soak the rice). Add ghee and oil to a pressure cooker and on heating, add cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves. Sauté well. Add the drained rice and fry in low flames for about 5-8 minutes. Make sure that the rice grains are not sticking to the bottom. Now pour water to the fried rice and add needed salt. Close the pressure cooker and wait for one whistle. Switch off the flame and pull the vent weight (pressure regulator) upwards to blow off the steam (or place under flowing water). Now open the Pressure cooker and sauté the rice with a flat spoon making sure that the rice grains are not broken.

Note: I’m using Kayama rice here which actually needs 6 cups of water for 4 cups of rice for proper cooking. But since the rice will again be cooked during layering, I’ve poured only 5 ½ cups. Similarly you can use water depending on the type of rice (Basmati/Kayama/Jeerakasala) you are using.

5. In a small frying pan, add some ghee. Fry the chopped onion till golden brown. Fry the nuts and raisins as well. Take off from the pan and keep this aside.

6. In a big vessel, put an even layer of the cooked rice. On top of it spread a pinch of gharam masala, pudina leaves and sprinkle a little of  ghee and lemon juice. Above this put a layer of masala along with chicken pieces. Again a layer of rice and masala similarly and on top of it, rice layer. (depending on the vessel’s size, decide the layer count. Anyhow bottom and top layer should be rice). On top of this rice spread pudina, fried onions, nuts and raisins. Close the vessel tightly with a lid. On top of the lid, place a vessel with  hot water in it. Switch on the stove and keep in the lowest possible flame, for 30 minutes. Switch off and don’t open the vessel for 20 minutes.

7. Serve hot, with raitha, pickle and pappadam.

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Chicken Lollipop

It was while going through the menu in the Lifestyle Restaurant at Barwa Village, that my wife mentioned about her friend Vinjusha’s love for Chicken lollipop and how they used to find new restaurants in their office premises to have better chicken lollipops. Hearing this, I told her about my expertise in making this delicious starter dish, though she did not take it seriously as I used to blabber such 'self praising lies’ now and then.

But to mine and her astonishment, my chicken lollipop proved out to be really yummy, in looks and taste.  Let me share the recipe and snaps here for you too. Have a try and let us know the comments.

Ingredients:

Chicken wings – ½ kg

Oil – for frying

For marinating:

Ingredients:

Courn Flour – 3 tsp

Chilli powder – 1 ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Vinegar – 1 tsp

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp

Salt – as needed

Water – as needed

For batter:

Ingredients:

Maida – 3 Table spoon

Courn flour – 2 Table spoon

Red food color – 1 ½ tsp

Chilli powder – 2 tsp

Corriander – 1 tsp

Soya sauce – 1 ½ tsp

Celery – 1 tsp

Vinegar – 2 tsp

Ginger garlic paste – ½ tsp each

Salt as needed

Water as needed

 How to:
1.       The video below shows how to make lollipops out of chicken wings. You may (or may not) peel off the skin from the chicken wings as you like it. Cut the chicken wings at the centre separating the smaller and bigger bone. Wipe off the flesh towards the ball-shaped end on the bigger bone, which makes a lollipop. Also wipe off the flesh from the smaller bone towards the bigger bone side. Your Lollipops are now ready for marinating.

2.       Mix the ingredients for marinating and spread on the fleshy side of the chicken. Keep it aside for half an hour.


3.       Prepare the batter with a thicker consistency. Now dip each of the lollipop pieces fully in the batter and deep fry in the hot oil.

4.       Serve the dish hot by covering the stick side of the lollipop with a piece of foil paper, garnishing with chopped onion/carrot along with pudina/tomato/mayo sauce.

This so called Chicken lollipops (Drums of Heaven) can be served as a starter for  any of the Indian/Chinese/ Continental Main courses

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Arabic Chicken Rice - Customised Version

Recently I’ve got a query from one of my blog readers asking why I’m not giving any recipes for Main dishes like Rices/Rotis/Pathiris e.t.c. It was actually an eye opener for me in fact. A lot of yummy rice recipes passed through my mind in fraction of a second. Amongst those, I prepared the one I love the most, a customized version of Arabian chicken rice/Majboos. I believe the below formula of mine will help you...

 

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice – 2 cups

Chopped Onion – ½ medium sized

Tomato -2 (1 tomato as whole and one tomato chopped)

Cloves – 3-4 no.s

Cinnamon – 2 pieces

Cardamom – 3-4 no.s

Pepper – 10-12 no.s

Green chilli – 2 no.s

Oil – for frying

Chicken with skin – ½ Kg (Preferably 4 Chicken legs without cutting into pieces)

Salt - to taste

Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon

Saffron essence – 1 teaspoon or Saffron -1 pinch

 

For Frying chicken (optional)

 

Chilli powder – 2 Tb spoon

Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon

Curd – 1 Tb spoon

Ginger & garlic paste – ½ teaspoon

Salt – to taste

 

How to:

1.       Wash the rice and soak in water for 30 minutes.

2.       In the rice cooking vessel, add oil. On heating, put chopped tomatoes, onion and sliced green chillies. Sauté for few minutes and mix the spices – cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Crush pepper with a grinding stone using hand and add to the mixture. Add turmeric powder, salt and saffron/saffron essence and sauté for two minutes.

3.       Put the washed and drained skinned chicken leg pieces into the above mixture and mix well. Pour 3 cups of water and leave it to boil. Put the whole tomato too into the mix. Let the chicken boil for about 15-20 minutes in high flame. Make sure that chicken flesh should not start to get separated from bones.

4.       Take off the chicken pieces and whole tomato from the boiling water and keep it aside. Confirm that remaining water is enough to cook 2 cups of rice (as per the quantity of water you use to cook Basmati rice). Add the washed and drained rice to the boiling water and leave it to get cooked. Switch of the flame once the rice gets properly cooked and water is drained.

5.       The Chicken should be grilled until its skin turns brown. If you would like chicken to be spicier, you can spread the paste made by mixing red chilli powder, turmeric powder, curd, ginger garlic paste and salt before grilling chicken. This chicken can be deep fried in oil too.

6.       While serving, you can garnish the rice with Grilled chicken pieces and boiled full tomato on top along with some fried nuts and raisins.

 

For Tomato gravy:-

 

Ingredients:

Tomato – 3-4 big sized

Garlic – 10-15 cloves

Red chilli powder – 1 teaspoon

Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon

Salt – to taste

 

How to:

1.       Cut the tomatoes and put into a mixer jar add 1/2 cup of water and make tomato juice.

2.       Pour the tomato juice into a cooking vessel and add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt and leave it to boil for 5 minutes.

Slice the peeled garlic cloves into long pieces an put this into the boiling tomato gravy and boil for another 5 minutes. 

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Chicken Noodle Balls

I’ve got an invite from one of my Tamilian friends for Eid (Bakrid) day lunch. But as I’ve already committed to Aneesh that I’ll be at his home for lunch I could not go there. I made it up by going for an evening tea at their home. There were so many delicious snacks made by his wife. Chicken noodle ball was one amongst those, the taste of which still lingers to my tongue. I took the recipe from her and tried it by myself. Here I’m posting for you.

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken – 200g
Noodles – 2 small packets
Ginger garlic paste – 2 teaspoon
Pepper powder – 1 teaspoon
Salt – to taste
Grated cheese – 50 g
Egg white – 3 eggs or Maida - 3 Tb spoon
Bread crumbs – (quantity enough to cover the balls)
Oil – for frying

How to:

1.       Boil chicken with ginger garlic paste, pepper powder and salt in a cup of water until chicken is properly cooked and the taste is fully absorbed by chicken. Mince the chicken pieces to smaller pieces by hand.
2.       Cook the noodles in a separate vessel, but with 2 cups of extra water. Make sure that the noodle does not stick to the bottom of the vessel and cook till all the water contents are evaporated. Mix this Noodle well by pressing it with hand. Make sure that it’s not made to a fine paste.
3.       To the noodle mix in step 2, add the minced chicken as in step 1 and mix both well with hand.
4.       Take small parts of the above mixture in hand and press it. In the centre, put few grains of grated cheese and make it to a ball. Finish off the mixture by making such small balls.
5.       Roll the balls lightly in egg white so that a thin outer layer is made and roll in the bread crumbs so as to cover the roll with it.
(Mix maida with a half cup water to make a thin paste.  This can be used instead of egg white.)
6.       In a non-stick pan, pour enough oil to deep fry the balls.

The fried chicken noodle balls can be served with tomato ketchup or mayonnaise. The cheese at the centre of the ball will be melted on deep frying and will give a delightful taste.

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Chicken Cutlet

I felt extremely happy last week to receive a call from an old blogger friend of mine. She just called into say that she is actively following and referring my ‘Aakrantham’ and trying out dishes from this. With a little hesitation, she asked me whether I can publish few of her recipes too in my blog. Though my joy knew no bounds when I heard this question, with a little show-off, I told her “aah..!! lemme see, anyhow you send me a recipe. After reviewing, I’ll let you know”. Within an hour an e-mail with subject line ‘Chicken cutlet’ popped up in my gmail window, which read as below:

Ingredients:

• Boneless chicken – 250 gm
• Cooking oil – for frying
• Onion - 2
• Garlic (cut into small pieces) - 2        
• Green chilli (finaly diced) - 1        

• Mint, coriander & curry leaves (chopped) – 1 Tbspoon 

• Ginger (cut into small piece) – ½ teaspoon
• Chicken Masala - 2½ Tbspoon
• Chilli powder – ½ teaspoon
• Turmeric Powder – ¾ teaspoon
• Potato – 1 Big
• Bread crumbs – as needed to cover
• Egg – 1 or 2
• Salt - to taste

How to:

 1.       Boil the washed chicken pieces with 1 Tb spoon of chicken masala and salt with a half cup of water till chicken is properly cooked. Drain the water if any, and mince the chicken.

2.       Peeled potato should be cut into small pieces. Pressure-cook this potato along with ½ tea spoon turmeric powder, salt and one cup of water. Mash these cooked potatoes well using a spoon and keep it aside.

3.       Heat 2 Tb spoon oil in a frying pan, add onion, green chilli, mint, coriander and curry leaves, ginger and garlic and fry until soft. Add chicken masala, chilli powder, ¼ tea spoon turmeric powder and salt and mix well. Fry for few minutes.  Add the minced chicken (as in step 1) and mashed potato (as in step2) and stir until mixed well.

4.       Take 2 Tb spoons of bread crumbs in a plate. Break egg and take the white part alone into another plate.  Make small balls out of the mixture made in Step 3. Dip this ball in egg white and then roll it in the plate of bread crumbs till it is fully covered. Shape the ball into a perfect round/heart as needed.

5.       Pour oil into a flat frying pan. To the heating oil, place the cutlets as made in step 4. Carefully fry both sides of the cutlet till it turns brown. Serve hot with tomato ketchup.

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Chicken Samosa - Malabar Recipe

I bet no cuisine in the whole world can beat the traditional Malabar snacks’ taste. The ‘kozhikodan samosa’ is amongst the executive committee members of these snacks family.  It’s an essential item on any iftar table and the most sought morning and evening tea-time snack for all in Kozhikode. I took the recipe of the same recently from a friend of mine. Are you ready for a try with me?

How To:

For filling:

Boneless chicken – 250 gm

Chicken masala – 1 Tbspoon

 

Boil the washed chicken pieces with chicken masala and salt with a half cup of water till chicken is properly cooked. Drain the water if any, and mince the chicken.

Cooking oil – 2 Tbspoon

Onion - 2

Garlic (cut into small pieces) - 2

Green chilli (finaly diced) - 1

Mint, coriander & curry leaves (chopped) – 1 Tbspoon

Ginger (cut into small piece) – ½ teaspoon

Chicken Masala - 1½ Tbspoon

Chilly powder – ½ teaspoon

Turmeric Powder – ¼ teaspoon

salt - to taste

 

Heat the oil in a frying pan, add onion,green chilli, mint, coriander and curry leaves, ginger and garlic and fry until soft. Add chicken masala, chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt and mix well. Fry for few minutes.  Add the minced chicken and stir until mixed well. Chicken masala filling is ready.

for covering:

 

Maida - 225gm.

Rava – 2 Tb spoon

Salt – to taste

Cooking oil – 2 Tbspoon

Mix flour and salt into a bowl. Make a well into the centre and add the oil and enough warm water to make firm dough. Press the dough on a flat surface until smooth. Divide the dough into small balls and roll out the balls to bigger circles. Cut the circle into four equal pieces with a knife. Wet the longer edge with a little water with fingers and form a cone shape around your fingers, sealing the dampened edge.

Fill the cases with a Tbspn of your chicken masala filling and fold the opened corner to seal the top of the cone so that a triangular shape is made.

Deep fry the samosas in hot oil until crisp and brown take out and drain on a paper towel.

Delicious Malabar Samosa is ready to be served

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Chicken Stew - Malabar Traditional

That’s fabulous! To hear from Jasna that her trial on chilli chicken was impressive. Now I’m really in a trap. I don’t think she’ll release me so soon from the post of her ‘cooking Guru’. The dedication series to Entry level cooks continues....

This time I’m here with an easy chicken curry recipe as she is more interested now in curries. Let’s try chicken stew? There is not much difference from Traditional Beef stew. Please follow the trailing instructions.   

Ingredients

Chicken (with bone) – ½ kg

Potato (peeled and cut into medium size) – 2 small sized

Green chilli (sliced) – 10-15 no.

Fenugreek – ¼ teaspoon

Onion (chopped) – ½ small sized

Ginger - 1 small piece

Coriander/mint/curry leaves chopped – 2 Tb spoon full

Grated coconut – 1

Curd – 1 Tb spoon

Salt to taste

Tomato – 1

How to:

1.       Put the grated coconut into a mixer jar, pour water just enough to dip the coconut and mix well. Squeeze this mixture to take thick coconut milk. The squeezed coconut milk should again be put in the mixer with more water and squeezed to take thin coconut milk. Keep both thick and thin milk separately in bowls.

2.       Put washed and cut chicken into an open vessel. Add potato, green chilli, minced ginger, coriander, fenugreek, mint and curry leaves cut into small pieces, curd and salt. Mix these ingredients well with hand and pour two cups of water. Boil it till chicken get properly cooked.

3.       Put the cut tomato into it and boil in low flame for 3 minutes. Add the thin coconut milk into this and boil for 5 minutes.

4.       Pour the thick coconut milk and mix. Simmer for 1-2 minutes. Switch off the flame.

Note:  depending on the piquancy of the green chillies, the count can be increased or decreased. And if needed, can be adjusted with a little amount of ground pepper also. Also to adjust thickness, one or teaspoon of corn flour can be mixed with some water and poured in to the curry while boiling.

Thus the easy and scrummy chicken stew is ready.

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Chilly Chicken - My Version

 Jasna called in telling that she is going to give iftar day after tomorrow for her tuition students and she wants to try some different chicken curries for the same. Being a Hotel management graduate brother I did not have any other go other than nodding my head for her request. I asked her to check my blog for the next recipe post to get some chicken curry selections.

I was thinking which chicken formula I should reveal for such entry level cooks, who is sitting idle at home after finishing off their graduation and wanna slay their time by killing the great innovative art ‘cooking’..!! Anyhow my chilli chicken recipe is here, dedicated for such entry level cooks.

Chilli chicken (without ajinomoto)

Ingredients:

Chicken – ½ kg

Soya sauce – 2 ½ Tb spoon

Chilli Sauce – 2 ½ Tb spoon

Vinegar – ½ tea spoon

Capsicum green – 1 medium sized

Onion – 3 medium sized

Corn flour – 1 Tb spoon

Salt to taste

Sugar – 1/4  teaspoon

Spring onion and coriander leaves – to garnish

Oil – for frying

How to make:

1.       Mix ½ Tb spoon chilli sauce and ½ Tb spoon soya sauce well with chicken and keep this aside for 10 minutes. Boil this chicken with a half cup of water till chicken is half-cooked and drain water if any.

2.       Cut one onion into four equal parts and peel of the layers one by one. Pour one Tb spoon oil to a pan and fry this onion and capsicum which is cut into medium sized pieces till these are softened. Make sure that this is not over-fried.

3.       Cut two onions into thin slices and wash this after cutting (so that fried onion will be crispy). Pour oil into a pan just enough to deep fry this onion. Fry till dark brown and drain the onion from oil. Crush this fried onion with hands into small pieces.

4.       Add more oil into the same pan to deep fry the chicken mixture as in step1.  Drain the chicken pieces from oil after deep frying.

5.       Mix 2 Tb spoon soya sauce and 2 Tb Spoon chilli sauce in an open vessel. Dissolve 1 Tb spoon of corn flour into half cup of water and pour it to the mixture. Add a cup of water, vinegar, salt and sugar. Leave the mixture to boil. Once a thick enough gravy is made up, add the crushed onion as in step 3 and fried chicken as in step 4. Boil the mixture for some time and lower the flame. Add the onion and capsicum as in step 2 and keep in low flame for 3 minutes.

6.       Serve the gravy hot in a bowl and garnish with thin-sliced spring onion and coriander leaves cut into small pieces.

Yummy Chinese style chilli chicken is ready to be served with batura or any other Indian bread.

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Special Chicken Fry - My Recipe

Unexpected Special Guest at home..??
don't you have time and ingredients to think and work on big or complicated recipes..??
Here is an easy way out..!!
You can Make this special chicken fry in thick red semi gravy in not more than 20 minutes and that too with minimum ingredients.
Trust me.. its yummy... Try it out and let me know your suggestions. well, you can suggest a name also for this recipe.


*FYI - Photo is not Mine ;)

1. Chicken (with bone) – ½ kg
2. Kashmiri Chilli powder – 3 Tb spoon
3. Coconut oil – 4 Tb Spoon
4. Tomato Sauce – 2 teaspoon
5. Curry leave – 2 sprigs
6. Salt – to taste
7. Coriander leaves to garnish

Mix chilli powder, coconut oil and salt well with washed chicken pieces in a non-stick pan. Keep it on high flame for 5 minutes and then low flame till chicken gets properly cooked. Add tomato sauce to this and stir well. Cook on low flame for 2-3 minutes. Add curry leaves, mix it with the dish well and switch off the flame. Keep the pan closed with a lid for 5 minutes. Scrummy red chicken fry with an alluring aroma is ready to be served with any Indian breads or rotis after garnishing with coriander leaves

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