Chicken khuddi curry

Chicken khuddi curry is one of my favourite go to chicken curries. I was introduced to bottle masala, an East Indian blend of approximately twenty five different spices, used to flavour meat curries and vegetables, about ten years ago by a dear friend Plakilla. For the last many years I have never run out of this spice mix and it is always stocked in my pantry. I also use it as a for garam masala substitute at times.

This bottle masala literally made me a hero in my toddler's eyes, for my son used to savour and slurp eating khuddi curry and rice. He would love this dish and literally wanted to eat this for all meals in the day. I can never forget what he said to me once after a hearty lunch of khuddi curry and rice, in all earnestness he said,"Mama you are the best cooker in the world."And that is why chicken khuddi will always have a special place in my heart and kitchen.

Recipe credit: Plakilla D'souza

Ingredients:

1. Chicken - 1 kg
2. Coconut - 1/2 cup
3. Onion - 1 large, roughly sliced
4. Garlic - 6 cloves, roughly sliced
5. Ginger - 1 inch piece
6. Tamarind - marble sized ball
7. Bottle masala - 2 tbsp
8. Potatoes - 2 nos, quartered
9. Salt - as required

Tempering:

1. Oil - as required
2. Onion - 1 medium sized, chopped
3. Tomatoes - 2 medium sized, chopped
4. Green chilly - 4 nos

Method:

1. Heat a pan, add very little oil and roast the sliced onions till they are brown, constantly turning and ensuring they don't burn. Once they are sufficiently browned, take them out into a plate and follow the same process for garlic, ginger and coconut.
2. Cool the roasted ingredients and grind it to a paste using water.
3. Soak tamarind in warm water and extract pulp, keep aside.
4. In a pan, heat oil and fry the chopped onions, till they soften and turn translucent. 
5. Add the bottle masala and salt, fry well, and then add the ground paste. Mix well, constantly stirring. After about a minute or so add the chicken, tomatoes, green chilly and tamarind pulp. 
6. Add 1 cup of hot water, bring to a boil, add the potatoes and cook on slow to medium flame till done. 
7. Once done you can garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Notes:
You can adjust the quantity of bottle masala as per your spice tolerance and taste.

You can follow the same recipe for Mutton curry too.

Green Meat

Green meat used to be an all time favourite with all at home, a few years ago. In fact, this was the first recipe I learnt from my mum-in-law after my marriage. During the initial days, following my marriage, I cooked this dish often as it was one of the few recipes I knew and it was easy to make, didn't require advance planning and was hassle free. Gradually as I learnt more recipes, this beef curry was relegated to a few times a year. Of course this recipe brings back many fond memories of my initial days in the kitchen, where I struggled with many things that come so easily to me now. Looking back to those days, I never thought I could cook as well as I do now. It only goes to show, practise literally can positively impact any skill including cooking.

Recipe credit: Ms Rozita Coutinho

The spice mix used in this recipe is home made and the recipe can also be found here.

Ingredients:

1. Beef  - 1/2 kg
2. Onions (medium) - 1 no (sliced finely)
3. Ginger paste - 1/2 tbsp
4. Garlic paste - 1/2 tbsp
5. Home made spice mix (mentioned above) - 1/2 tbsp
6. Green chillies - 2 nos (slit)
7. Tomatoes (medium) - 1 no(finely chopped)
8. Vinegar - 1 tbsp
9. Coriander leaves - few sprigs finely chopped
10. Oil and salt - as needed
11. Potato (large) - 1 no, cubed

Method:

1. Wash and cut the meat into small cubes. Apply salt and keep aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan, fry sliced onions till brown. Add ginger garlic paste, fry well.
3. Add meat pieces, fry on high heat till the water evaporates.
4. Add 1tbsp of the home made spice mix, chopped tomatoes and fry well.
5. Add 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Cook on slow flame till meat is half-cooked.
6. Add the potatoes and cook till both potatoes and meat are cooked.
7. Add two slit chillies, vinegar and simmer for two mins.
8. Adjust the consistency and check for salt. The gravy shouldn't be too runny. 
9. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. (Optional)

Serve with pulao or hot steamed rice. 

Bhuna Ghosht - Mutton Bhuna

Today's recipe is not only one of my favourite mutton curries, but also a favourite amongst all mutton eaters in my family. Some in my family don't enjoy mutton as much as the others do, but this recipe has been making us mutton eaters slurpppp for the last ten years or so. My elder sister - Anita used to cut out recipes from newspapers, magazines, parish bulletins etc, and this recipe is from one of her notebooks, where she diligently pasted these cut outs. This recipe appeared in Times of India many years ago, where many celebrities shared their favourite home cooked recipes and this recipe was shared by Abhishek Bachchan from his kitchen

We've been cooking this for at least ten years and we still can't get enough every time it is cooked. It is spicy and tangy and the mutton is oh so succulent. It is also an easy preparation, and you don't really need any special ingredients. The only thing to be noted is not to use the cooker for cooking the mutton, cook it on slow flame, and this will take some time. So keeping that in mind, let's begin.

Recipe credit: Abhishek Bachchan - courtesy Times of India 

Ingredients:

1. Mutton pieces - 500 gms
2. Onions - 3 medium, sliced
3. Green chillies - 2 to 3, slit
4. Cinnamon - 1 inch stick
5. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
6. Black cardamom - 1 no
7. Green cardamoms - 3 to 4
8. Bay leaves - 2 to 3
9. Thick curd - 250 gms or 1 cup
10. Red chilly powder 2 tsp
11. Coriander powder - 2 and 1/2 tsp
12. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds, once they splutter add the sliced onions and green chillies. Fry till the onion turns golden brown, and then toss in all the whole spices. Sauté for a minute or so.
2. Gradually add the beaten curd and continuously stir to prevent curdling.
3. Add the red chilly, coriander and turmeric powder and salt, continue sautéing for the next five minutes on low flame. 
4. Add the mutton pieces and mix well. Saute for the next 8 to 10 minutes or till the oil leaves the sides. 
5. Add 2 cups of water, mix well, and bring to a boil. Lower the flame cook with lid closed till mutton is done, occasionally stirring and checking if the mutton is cooked.
6. Lastly garnish with chopped coriander leaves, slit green chilly and lemon wedges.

Note:

The original recipe calls for saffron strands to be soaked in water and added to the curry after the mutton is cooked. You need to continue cooking for another five minutes and then switch off the flame.

I have never used saffron in this recipe and hence it is not a part of the ingredients. 

Dal palak (Spinach in lentil soup)

Any mum's worst night-mare is to get their little ones and not so little ones to eat vegetables. I have had my fair share of struggle and all mums will vouch for this, it's no picnic. Getting enough and different vegetables into a child's diet is important. However, I have realized making a simple vegetable sabzi or salad, no matter how tasty, doesn't ensure that it will be consumed. I have tried everything from threats to black-mail, from cajoling to simply yelling in frustration. Nothing works. The dinner table looked more like a war zone with neither party yielding for what seemed like an eternity. And then the battle ended only after I gave up. But after many failed attempts and might I add a lot of tears and frustration at both ends, I realized a very simple thing. I was being unreasonable and stupid, expecting a child to understand why vegetables are important in his diet. He didn't need to know that, he just had to consume them. And I didn't have to tell him that he was eating vegetables.

So I started making soups, and adding vegetables in pulao and curries. I had not made dal palak in a long time and when I saw these lovely greens recently I bought two packets. One bunch was kept aside for soup and the other one was kept for a side dish. I later figured that dal and rice goes down easily, so why not add spinach to the daal and make it a nutrient packed meal. Thankfully my son loved it, much to my relief and amazement.

This is a simple daal preparation, you can customise it to your needs, as loon as you keep the basics intact i.e. the lentils(dal), spinach and tempering.

Ingredients:

1. Toor dal (Split pigeon peas) - 1/2 cup
2. Yellow moong dal - 1/2 cup
3. Spinach - 3 to 4 cups packed
4. Garlic - 6 flakes
5. Ginger - 1 tbsp
6. Onion (medium) - 2 no
7. Tomatoes (medium) - 2 nos
8. Green chilly - 3 nos
9. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
10. Cumin (jeera) - 1/2 tsp
11. Asafoetida (hing) - 1/4 tsp
12. Salt - to taste
13. Oil and ghee -1 bsp each

Method:

1. Wash and soak the lentils for at least ten minutes before cooking. Pressure cook the lentils for three to four whistles and set aside. 
2. Finely chop garlic, onions, tomatoes and chilly. Grate the ginger. Wash, drain and roughly chop spinach.
3. Heat a deep pan, add oil and ghee, add the cumin when the oil is hot, let it splutter for about a minute, then add the garlic, add the asafoetida, let the garlic cook, then add the onions, fry well till they turn golden brown.
4. Now add the grated ginger, chilly, turmeric, asafoetida and tomatoes.Mix the contents well, and let it cook till the tomatoes are done. This should take about three to five minutes.
5. When the oil starts to float over the top, add the cooked lentils, salt and 1/2 cup of water. Mix the lentil well, and check the consistency. Lastly add the spinach.
6. Once the lentils come to a boil, lower the flame to the lowest setting of your stove and let it cook for about two to three minutes. 
7. Check for consistency and salt at this stage and switch off the flame.