Mr. Parveez hails from Bangalore / Bengaluru. Now, if you ever want to eat good non vegetarian food in Bangalore, the right place is a Muslim wedding. There is no restaurant that can cook that much variety and that too with so much flavor.
I tried these Harabhara kebabs first time on our Valima, the after wedding party which is a celebration from your in laws and is as grand as the wedding. So, we were served with at least 25 varieties of foods that comprised of lip smacking Biryani, yummilicious curries, delicious sides and breads, awesome sweets and scrumptious kebabs and these kebabs were one of them. It was love at first sight and since then, my Father in law [God bless his soul] made sure these were always part of the menu for all the family weddings or parties.
Now, as much as I loved these kebabs, I could never get my hands on the recipe. The caterer was always sweet enough to say “Bhabhiji, we will cook it for you whenever you desire them”, which indirectly means “We ain’t sharing it, its our own”.
Eating these awesome kebabs every trip to India, I had to come up with my version of it. I tried and these are very close to the actual dish. They are pretty easy to make therefore, if you happen to be a new cook, this is an awesome recipe to impress your family or guests. If you make it with boneless chicken, these could make great filling for rolls too.
Buffalo Chicken Wings can easily come under one of the most favorite chicken dishes in America. Fried and crunchy wings, dipped in hot sauce is not just finger licking good but amazingly satisfying and juicy. This amazing dish is mandatory on game nights. And, if you happen to be an Indian family like us, and have men [my hubby and 2 boys] who happen to be fans of almost all sports, you need to learn this dish.
Chicken wings make it to our living room during cricket matches, Basket ball, Soccer and even wrestling. Yupp, we watch them all and if possible, sometimes over movies as well.
A few years ago, we discovered a halal restaurant that served Chicken Wings. That’s when we started bringing them in every game time. But with time we lost interest, since the fried wings with sauce would become soggy by the time we would bring them home and serve. So, Mr. Parveez gave up on eating wings altogether and our sports days were “wingless”..LOLzzz.
One fine day, while picking up my regular halal meat, I happened to ask the butcher if he sells wings separately. As much as the question sounds silly today, you have to understand that it was coming from a woman who has never bought them in her life. So, I got some chicken wings and hot sauce and came up with this recipe. It might be a little different from your regular chicken wings, slightly more spicier but trust me, its better. You could always reduce the spice level if you prefer.
So, since then, there was no looking back. These chicken wings are loved by our friends, friends of my kids. In fact, my son once told me that his friend was telling the whole class about the amazing wings he had on his last play date at our house, which of course made my son very happy and proud.
A wonderful recipe to win hearts.
This recipe was made when I once thought of making fried chicken for a play date. The children whom we were expecting didn’t consume too much spice. This recipe has moderate spice, easy to handle by kids and its super crunchy.
Once upon a time, we did get frozen chicken tenders or chicken nuggets. This was around 11 years ago, me a new mom trying to have my son taste everything out there ..I have no idea why I never wanted to try cooking things on my own with a fear that all these “gora khana” or “American food” cannot be tried at home. I believe its the motherhood, when new does not let you pay attention to other things that you might enjoy exploring. Funny, right but that’s a reality. Ask any new mom, its Baby, Baby and Baby and times when you get to breathe for yourself, all you want is your Pj’s and a cup of coffee, or wait a warm plate of reheated noodles, store bought, left overs from the restaurant or anything.
My older son suffered from reflux and believe it when I say, that I was ready to feed him anything that his body would not convert to vomit. It’s sad but a fact that store bought chicken tenders were preferred over home made Biryani, and I felt that my cooking skills were so bad that he prefers store bought. It took me a while to understand that being a little child finger foods made him happier and that helped him keep the food down. So, during those days, to keep my sanity I would buy anything that my son enjoyed eating. After around 2 years, once the home food made its place in his taste buds, I started feeling that the frozen chicken nugget is too much junk and I stopped bringing them in altogether. By the way, all along Mr. Parveez always told me to give up bringing in all the garbage from the frozen section. My husband has always been against frozen food.
So, years later, the play dates started increasing and it was getting hard to satisfy the little tummies with sandwiches and cheese toast so, I finally came up with my own version of chicken tenders and if you try this recipe, there will be no looking anywhere ever. Its easy to make and never met a kid [or even an adult] who didn’t take seconds.
Every Muslim family would tell you there deep bond with meat/ chicken samosas. Believe it or not, samosas are big part of the Muslim culture not just in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, but also the middle east. These fried triangular delicacy came in with Mughals. In the middle east, they are known as Sambosa and are either fried or baked. When Mughals came to India, they brought these with them and further added spices and veggies to it making them Indianized.
With time, the size of Indian vegetarian samosas became a little large, like the heart of Indian people but since meat samosas would be difficult to fill and make the same size, we stick to the original size of this Mughlai dish.
As a kid, Ramadan and Eid were never complete without these samosas and I would look forward to my mother’s samosas, but, since I grew up in a joint family, it was disappointing not to be able to get more than 2-3, but that taste would linger for a very long time. My mom would make samosa rotis at home from scratch and it was fabulous the way she would roll the rotis together, after putting a number small rotis with little oil in between . She would then cook them and keep taking the layer off. Trust me, its so amazing to watch them coming off and the samosas come out super crispy and delicious.
Keeping that taste alive, I regularly make them and my kids can never have enough. Samosa is a favorite of most people but eating frozen or those samosas that you find in desi grocery store that upset your stomach later a re a torture to your taste buds and body.
This recipe is fairly simple. It would be great if you make your own pastry at home but if for any reason you aren’t able to, buy them from the frozen section and make your own filling. Make sure you make extra, coz no one I know can eat within limit. 😉
Fritters/ Pakoras and chai are big part of Indian cuisine, or may be one of the most important ones. There is no one who hasn’t had them or doesn’t crave for them. Specially, when pakora can be made out of anything, and I mean anything, potato, onions, daal/lentil, green chilies, cauliflower, coriander leaves and inspired by all the wonderful types, I experimented the same with chicken.
I wanted to make sure that it doesn’t look or taste anything like fried chicken. These go well with tea and are best when served as an evening snack. If you are a non vegetarian and love pakoras [who doesn’t], this is a must try.
This is a lovely side dish that goes well with dal-chawal. I love the flavor of kasoori methi with chicken and therefore, you will see it finding its place in a lot of my recipes. The fact is that even a spoon enhances the flavor of the dish and brings out the flavor of the spices as well.
These kebabs are easy to make, little crunchy on the side since we add a little corn starch to it, soft from the inside thanks to the yoghurt and absolutely flavorful. If you are looking to impress guests or just have a little fast track kebab on the side at your dinner table, this is your go to dish.
Its an easy one to make so if you are a new cook, try this one.
This one is different from the regular Manchurian, which is partially dry. This one on the contrary has enough gravy to be served with boiled Rice. I substituted Bell pepper with Big green chili or Badi Mirch to change and experiment with flavor, or if I use the right term, I did that to to make the taste different from the regular dry Manchurian.
Isn’t it funny how playing with flavors id so exciting and yet so easy, even then most of the time people refrain themselves from trying out something new or do not make an attempt to alter the taste that they have inculcated with time. But, the fact is that basic flavor of all food is the same. The difference is only with the timing of when that flavor is introduced to the dish or which member of that family you pick. Like choosing bell pepper, Green chili or ghost pepper, same family, different members and each one holds the capability of changing the taste of your dish completely.
Now, at times, people use ingredients as a substitute and new flavors are invented. I, personally do not agree to substitute ingredients unless you willingly accept to experiment with the flavor. I am against using tamarind in place of lemon. Oh! yes I know people who would do that and even then disagree that they knowingly messed up a dish.
Cooking is an art and we all know that, and the one who masters this art becomes a very respectable artist/ chef and we all wish to be in that group and that’s the reason I created this website and the same reason why you are here. So, my suggestion is stick to the rules of nature. Switch flavors that you can imagine with your taste buds. Introduce new flavors little at a time because then you always have time to improvise. Making mistakes is acceptable but try to not ruin a dish to an extent where it isn’t edible.
This dish is an awesome option for school/ office lunch box. My boys look forward to Manchurian in their lunch box and it goes well with boiled rice.
I always had a soft corner for Chinese cuisine. Despite of all the horror stories about how unhealthy it can be at times, due to high contents of sodium in soya sauce and restaurants using MSG and more. The only thing was that my love for Chinese food was restricted to seafood only since most Chinese restaurants in USA do not serve halal food and if you are a meat eater, you do understand that sometimes, you just want your meat and though, fish is wonderful in taste but, doesn’t give you that satisfaction of meat. So, we got down to trying our own chicken version and when its Chinese and chicken, what can be better than making chicken Manchurian.
Its funny but the first time I tried Chicken Manchurian, I measured the ingredients tsp by tsp, and now I am so pro at it that i can cook this dish with my eyes closed, I mean it. Its a family favorite and the flavors are sweet and sour with a dash of spice and easily impresses anyone.
This version of Manchurian is dry, so its best served as a side dish or an appetizer. You cook serve it with strips of Butter naan [recipe in Bread] if you are looking to make it more fancier.
This is second kind of Chicken Lollipop that I invented and all because my older one came in asking that he needs sauce “dripping” on the lollipops. I have mentioned it numerous times in my other food stories of how well demanding my boys are. So, after thinking out in detail about how I can make them extra juicy, I came up with this recipe.
It requires a little marination and further its cooked in little oil, unlike other chicken lollipop recipes, where they are deep fried, so its kind of a guiltless pleasure that lets you over indulge. Further, more sauces are mixed in and you let it cook further in the sauces.
This recipe is super saucy and the chicken lollipops are not too crunchy but soft and juicy.
I have never met a kid or a person who enjoys chicken and does not go crazy over chicken lollipops. I, myself go overboard and hate to admit, but I go overboard when it comes to these little round juicy, crunchy creeps. After all, no one eats one chicken lollipop, NO, NEVER. In my books, if you don’t indulge and go crazy with them, you are committing a sin, BIG TIME.
This dish is meant to be enjoyed with friends/family and made enough so, everyone can enjoy to the max. I am posting a video as well that teaches you the easiest way to make lollipops out of your wings. The video isn’t just easy to follow but its the safest way to not cut your fingers. So, if you wish to try making these, please do watch the video and follow.
So, coming back to the lollipops. My boys love chicken wings and I would serve those on play dates/ game nights/ get together. The chicken wings I made gained so much popularity between our friends that I believe a lot of people went out of their way to be at our every party only to devour the juicy wings…LOLzzz. So once in Bangalore, my boys tried chicken lollipops and the dish just earned themselves a new fan. That’s when the mommy had to try her skills to make a new dish. Now, I make 4 different flavors of chicken lollipop but I still have not tried making something close to what my boys had tried but, I came up with my own recipes and they all are lip smacking delicious.
So if you are a fan of chicken lollipops like us, this recipe is a must try. Just like other recipes with chicken wings these will surely impress you and your loved ones.
