Tag Archives: Chicken

Around the World #3: Carrot Sambol and a Round up!

Check out Indu @Indu’s International Kitchen tour of Sri Lankan cuisine.

Indu's International Kitchen

DSC_1214Its time for a round up of all the Sri Lankan recipes that I have made. I have been ogling at and drooling over countless recipes and I did end up making 7 different ones and have more lined up on my pinterest page that I hope to make soon!  My virtual journey has made me even more determined to visit Sri Lanka some day.  The cuisine just resonates with me so much because of the similarities between Kerala and Sri Lankan way of cooking. The liberal use of coconut and the abundance of seafood and spices! Gosh the recipes are so varied – There are simple salads like this carrot sambal that are made using fresh ingredients and serve as a side/ accompaniment to spicy rich dishes.  Then there are stuffed breads,  spicy chicken appetizers like spring rolls/cutlets and delicious curries using coconut milk.  The desserts are amazing too and mostly use rice…

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Sri Lankan Chicken Curry

Re-blogging Indu’s Sri Lankan chicken curry post. Thanks for sharing it on your blog, Indu!

Indu's International Kitchen


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Chicken Curry is one dish that I never get tired of trying out new recipes for!  Chicken is in fact a very safe thing to experiment on – since you can never go wrong with chicken! Any which way you cook it, it always turns out delicious! And those of you who think that ‘a curry is a curry is a curry…’, sorry but I beg to differ!   The different blend of spices as well as the proportion of those spices that goes in a curry is very important and gives the curry its own unique flavor.  And hence Kamala aunty’s chicken curry is so delicious but yet different from grandma’s chicken curry! That is the reason I am always asking folks for their chicken curry recipes! – Hey there is no shame in asking! 🙂

And I thought that there could be so many variations of chicken curry only all across…

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Chicken with Broccoli

The recipe for today has been sent in by Trevor Martil and I am sharing it at Fiesta Friday. I shared his mother’s savoury rice dish recipe last week.

I also felt like sharing some lovely Hindi movie music today from movies released within this decade but set in decades past. The first clip is from V.V.Chopra’s movie Parineeta (translation: The married woman, 2005), an adaptation of a 1914 Bengali novella starring Vidya Balan and Saif Ali Khan. The music was composed by Shantanu Moitra and the playback singers of this song are Sonu Nigam and Shreyal Ghoshal.

The second clip is from Anurag Basu’s movie Barfi! (2012), starring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz. Set in the 70s, the music was composed by Pritam and this particular song has been sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali.

The last clip is from V.Motwane’s movie Lootera (translation: Robber, 2013), set in the 50s and based on O.Henry’s 1907 short story ‘The last leaf,’ starring Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha. The music for this song has been composed and sung by Amit Trivedi.

Hope you enjoyed the lovely songs and do let me know if you try out this recipe!

Chicken with Broccoli and Spinach

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken breast
  • 150g broccoli
  • 100g spinach leaves
  • onions
  • ginger paste and garlic paste (Trevor’s mother prefers using the Sri Lankan MD brand)
  • 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce (Again, Trevor’s mother has mentioned the MD brand)
  • oil, for tempering
  • chili powder
  • turmeric
  • cumin seeds
  • fresh ginger and garlic, to taste
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

  1. Grind the cumin seeds, ginger, garlic and 50g spinach leaves to a paste. Keep aside.
  2. Cut chicken into large pieces, marinate in ginger and garlic paste and sauce for 30 minutes.
  3. Allow to cook in own juice.
  4. Add oil and stir-fry, adding the chopped onions.
  5. Add ground ingredients, the remaining spinach and the broccoli.
  6. Add 1/2 cup milk together with chili powder and turmeric as per your taste. Allow to simmer.
  7. Serve with steamed rice.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Savoury Rice

I had tried to get hold of some of the Sri Lankan Burgher cuisine recipes for some time now. While some of the dishes such as lamprais, frikkadels and some kinds of specialty cakes around Christmas time are very popular and are recreated by cafes and bakeries around the country, I was more interested in the home-cooking of Burgher families. Besides Refinceyaa who shared her aunt’s recipe for capsicum with eggs on this blog, I had also asked Trevor Martil who is another of my former colleagues. He recently sent me some of his mother’s favourite recipes. Today’s recipe is one such dish, which Trevor’s mother calls ‘savoury rice with a difference.’ This rice recipe (providing both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options) is what I am sharing at Fiesta Friday together with some special music clips.

The special song clip for today is a rendition, by Amitabh Bachchan, of renowned poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful Bengali poem Ekla Cholo Re written in 1905. This song is from Sujoy Ghosh’s acclaimed Hindi movie Kahaani (translation: Story, 2012) starring Vidya Balan. Translation of the lyrics can be found on Wikipedia.

The next song clip is from Aamir Khan’s talk show Satyamev Jayate (translation: Truth alone prevails). Composed by Ram Sampath for the lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Meenal Jain sings the beautiful Hindi song ‘Sakhi’ at the end of the episode on domestic violence. I think I must have watched all the episodes of the first season in 2012.

Hope you enjoyed the songs and do let me know if you tried out the recipe today!

Savoury Rice

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: average
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 250g cooked rice
  • 150g chicken (vegetarians can substitute this with tofu or mushroom)
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 capsicum chili
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon soya sauce (Trevor’s mother prefers to use Sri Lankan MD brand)
  • turmeric
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • chili powder
  • ginger paste and garlic paste (Again, Trevor’s mother prefers the ready-made MD brand)
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 30g green peas
  • 2 eggs
  • cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, star anise
  • curry leaves
  • 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock (vegetarians can substitute this with vegetable stock)
  • parsley
  • coriander leaves

Method:

  1. Temper spices, star anise, onions, curry leaves.
  2. Add cooked rice, 1/4 cup milk, turmeric. Allow to simmer.
  3. Add green peas, eggs and stir in a tablespoon of butter.
  4. Serve and keep aside.
  5. Cut chicken into small pieces, marinate in soya sauce, and place in a pan.
  6. Cook till water is absorbed.
  7. Add oil and stir-fry adding all vegetables, onions, ginger, garlic sauces and 1/2 cup chicken stock.
  8. Cook and take off heat with gravy.
  9. Pour over rice.
  10. Sprinkle parsley and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil

 

Chicken curry

Today’s guest blogger is Eating milk and honey blogger Flowers for the moon/ Sandamali, who graciously accepted my invite to share one of her favourite recipes. 

My name is Sandamali and I am a fellow blogger on WordPress with an interest in Food and Life. I would like to share with you my mother’s chicken curry recipe.

If you said you were stopping by our house for a meal, you can be sure this would be on the menu. Mum never specifically taught me how to make it, but I have watched her make it countless times and eventually came up with my own version. Usually it is accompanied by Ala Badun (Fried Potatoes), Dhal Curry and Batu Moju (Brinjal Pickle) and a salad and poppodums to be served with either Yellow Rice or Fried Rice.

Chicken curry

Preparation and cooking time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

  • 500g of skinned mixed chicken pieces
  • 2 tablespoons Oil
  • 1 tablespoon Vinegar
  • 1/2 cup canned coconut cream
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 3 cloves garlic peeled and chopped finely
  • 1 small onion diced finely
  • 1 inch piece fresh ginger crushed slightly
  • 1 large tomato diced
  • 2 inch piece Rampe (Pandan Leaf)
  • 3 green chillies chopped finely
  • 2 stalks of curry leaves
  • 2 teaspoons chillie powder
  • 1 and 1/2 tablespoons roasted curry powder (From a Sri Lankan ingredient shop or homemade with coriander seeds, cumin and fennel as the main ingredients)
  • 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
  • 3 cloves
  • 3 cardamoms
  • 2 inch piece cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon dill seeds
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt

Method:

Step 1

Peel and chop all the fresh ingredients...

Peel and chop all the fresh ingredients…

Step 2

Heat oil in medium sized pan and fry all the fresh ingredients except for tomato and green chillie for 2 minutes on medium heat

Heat oil in medium sized pan and fry all the fresh ingredients except for tomato and green chillie for 2 minutes on medium heat

Step 3

Add the chicken pieces and fry for 5 minutes

Add the chicken pieces and fry for 5 minutes

Step 4

Add all the dry spices and mix well and fry for a further 3 minutes until the chicken is well coated

Add all the dry spices and mix well until the chicken is well coated. Hold back 1/2 teaspoon for salt to taste and add later if required.

Step 5

Fry gently for 3 minutes

Fry gently for 3 minutes and add vinegar

Step 6

Add coconut milk and water and mix well

Add coconut milk and water and mix well

Step 7

Bring to a boil

Bring to a boil

Step 8

Simmer on medium heat for half an hour or until chicken is cooked.

Add tomato and green chillie and simmer on medium heat for half an hour or until chicken is cooked.

Step 9

Taste and add more salt if required.

Taste and add more salt if required.

Step 10

Serve hot with rice or roti

Serve hot with rice or roti

Enjoy

Enjoy

Recipe source: Sandamali/ Flowers for the moon from Eating milk and honey blog.

Butter chicken

Today’s guest blogger is Mohamed Muzain. A staff of UNDP, one of his hidden talents became known to colleagues after he cooked a delicious dish for a potluck. I requested Muzain to share one of his famous recipes and he shared his recipe for butter chicken.

Butter chicken

Time taken: 45 mins

Serves 8

Ingredients:

  • Chicken – 1 Kg
  • Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
  • Onion – 4, medium-sized, for puree + ½ , for frying
  • Tomato – 4
  • Ginger-garlic paste – 2 tbsp
  • Yoghurt – 1 cup
  • Chilli powder – 2 tsp, for marinating sauce + small tsp, at the end
  • Chillies – 5
  • Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
  • Rampe leaf
  • Cumin seeds/ Nacheeraham – ½ tsp
  • Cinnamon – 1 ½ “
  • Cardamom – 8 or 10
  • Butter – 125 g

Method:

  1. First, wash and clean the chicken and chop it up into smaller pieces. Rub some turmeric powder over the chicken pieces and keep aside.
  2. Next, prepare the marinating sauce.
  3. Peel the onions and tomatoes. Chop them up and blend them together. Transfer the puree to a mixing bowl.
  4. Add the yoghurt, 1 tbsp of the ginger-garlic paste and 2 tsp chilli powder to the puree. Mix the marinating sauce well.
  5. Transfer the turmeric powder coated chicken pieces to the marinating sauce bowl.
  6. Ensure that the chicken pieces are well coated. Let the chicken pieces soak in the marinating sauce for at least 30 minutes.
  7. Chop up ½ the onion and slit the green chillies in the middle.
  8. Heat some butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion, curry leaves, rampe and the slit chillies.
  9. When the onions turn golden, add the remaining ginger-garlic paste.
  10. Add the cumin seeds, cinnamon and cardamom to the pan. Mix the spices well.
  11. Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl, the chicken pieces together with the marinating sauce, to the pan and let the chicken cook on low to medium heat for about 30 mins.
  12. When the chicken is well cooked, add a small tsp of chilli powder and the remaining butter.
  13. Mix well before removing the pan from heat.
  14. Serve hot with rice or rotis.

Recipe source: Mohamed Muzain.