Shikari Chicken Rice

This is an invention by only hearing about the dish…Yeah I know I can go nuts when it comes down to trying to make a new dish. This happens to be one that I really planned out well and craved to make it.

Like I always say, every dish has a story. This one has one too. While speaking to a close friend about different Biryanis that we get at famous and not so famous eateries in India, I was told that a popular restaurant served something that was close to Biryani, but not Biryani. That really got my interest. Giving me further details, that its mildly flavored bed of Rice served under these awesomely juicy grilled chicken. I mean who wouldn’t want to act on this description and try and make it. It’s actually not just the details of the dish, but the way it was described and the fact that it topped the list of Chicken and Rice. I had not even seen the dish, yet I was head over heels in love with the dish and felt challenged to make it.

When you are aware of a dish, you tend to study it by searching about different chefs who have made it or by trying the dish out at different restaurants or even making the dish a couple of times to achieve the desired flavor or result. But when its a dish, you have never heard of until now, tried, seen or tasted, and you crave to cook it, you are definitely a crazy chef…LOLzzz. I think I fit the bill.

So, I am not aware of the Chicken served is with bones or without, but going according to my Biryani basics, I picked Chicken with Bones and marinated the chicken with spices and Yogurt for around 2-3 hours. Though my chicken came out delicious, I still recommend that a chicken is more flavorful if marinated overnight or for at least 6-8 hours, though in today’s time and age, things happen unplanned and we have a little time before we decide what we need to cook. For all those times, marinate, cover, and place the chicken in the refrigerator. Refrigeration helps blend the flavors faster and better. Once I was ready to cook them, I took them out of the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 400F or 180C. I placed them on the grill with a tray underneath to catch the dripping. The cooking time was around 25-30 minutes, with an extra 5 minutes of high heat grill, since I wanted them to look well done. If you want, you can cook them in the oven and do the latter process in a pan, or on naked fire. Any which way will give you great outcomes.

I made a gravy as well to spike up the layers of Rice. The gravy was made very similar to Biryani Yakhni shorba. For initial whole spices, I added fennel seeds along with cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, and cumin seeds. I further fried the onions, taking half of it out for garnishing and using them while layering the Rice. That was followed by Ginger garlic paste and spice powders. Further adding tomatoes and Yogurt, combined with green chilies, mint leaves, and coriander leaves. I also added the marination left behind after the chicken is taken out, so it gets a little flavor from the chicken as well since we aren’t cooking the chicken in the gravy.

This is a lovely recipe for a weekend Brunch or to display your cooking skills to those uninvited guests, when you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen. It’s a pretty quick fix to traditional Biryani and modern-day Chicken over Rice. One of my self invented and the best recipes ever…Enjoy!!!

Sweet Cinnamon Kachori

This is a fusion dish. I had some dough left from the kachoris I made a couple of days before. Being a Marwari, I love the mix of Onions, potatoes and loads of chilies, but that’s not the case with my family who has more of a sweet tooth and as much as they would try and appreciate everything I make, but they make it clear that gulping one down their throat is enough to prove their love for me, and anything more would come under third-degree torture… LOLzzz

So, when I had the dough left, I knew I cannot make something that I crave. I could have made Maawe ki Kachori but I was making something for evening coffee and I needed it to be different and that’s when I thought of making a mix of cinnamon, brown sugar, honey, nutmeg, and mace. So, this was when I thought of making this little scrumptious, crunchy, and buttery kachoris.

Now the sugar I used is soft brown sugar but you can use any kind you want to. White sugar is fine as well, but just remember to either use granulated sugar or just grind the sugar a little. Adding cinnamon, nutmeg and mace was a wonderful addition to the flavor. Somehow, the combination reminded me of this “cheeni ka parantha” that’s a huge hit between kids in most Indian homes and cinnamon rolls put together.

Though I made these with leftover dough, I am sharing the recipe for the dough in this recipe. The dough can be used for any Kachoris that you’d like.

Though, I don’t think adding nuts to something like this is a good idea but, you can always try crushed nuts as an addition. Any variations or creation of taste buds added to a dish is what cooking is all about. Enjoy!!!

Methi Chicken Curry

This curry is one of my most initial curries. My love for cooking during my earlier cooking days never had curries on the menu. I have always been more of a Biryani and Kebab person. It was much later that I started making curries and Methi chicken happened to be one of the first ones that I tried following a recipe I read in the book.

Now just to be clear, my mom does not make Methi Chicken, so honestly, I had no idea whatsoever if this dish will even come out and be edible. The dish really surpassed all my expectations and it became a must for special and not so special occasions, but with time, as I improved in my cooking skills, I felt few changes here and there would make it more flavorful.

The initial recipe required only tomatoes for Gravy, which I feel if made a few hours before tends to get a little dry. See, it’s simple logic, protein does tend to absorb moisture in the curry over time, therefore if you make a curry always make slightly saucy. Even with curries that are supposed to be thick in gravy, while making the curry should not be kept too thick, specially if you are cooking a few hours in advance. Once the curry is cooked, or for that matter when you cook any dish, it tends to get thicker as it cools down. Therefore, to make the consistency of the gravy a little thinner, I add Yogurt along with the tomatoes. Secondly, most recipes, actually almost all recipes where I see methi leaves as an ingredient for the dish, the recipes use kasoori Methi and as much as I like the way Kasoori Methi works its magic in curries, it can never beat fresh green Methi leaves. From my point of view, for curries where methi leaves are one of the main ingredients, we should use the fresh ones as opposed to the dry kasoori methi. Curries such as Butter Chicken or Malai Kofta require kasoori methi since its only needed for flavor enhancement and balancing the creamy texture of those curries.

I marinate the chicken in this recipe, for around 15-20 minutes, which is enough time for you to finish chopping the onions and start with the initial process of cooking this curry. A wonderful recipe and one of the best Methi Chicken curry that you can ever have. Enjoy!!!

Chicken Hari Bhari Udaan

Doesn’t the name sound super funny? Or weird? Well, I will tell you the story behind the name. To start with, this recipe is completely made up by me. Now you might think, that isn’t a big deal for someone who presents herself as a chef. Yeah, probably not. But the things used to make this dish were the Chicken wings which otherwise are only used for recipes made with hot sauce or masala. So when I thought of coming up with a name. Chicken wings added the ‘udaan’ which means flight, Chicken of course is Chicken, and since I used Green masala, it’s “Hari Bhari”…I am sure you will love the recipe as much as the name.

This dish is super spicy. While making it I could feel the rush to taste it and when I did, it was one of the most amazing flavors I have ever created. Just make sure that if aren’t the bravest of heart then you need to keep a glass of water next to you.

This dish is made from the heart, there was no basic recipe, nothing that I have tasted before, nothing similar seen or heard of either…. just something I wanted to cook at that moment. If you enjoy spiced-up food and enjoy something that makes your mouth sizzle for a few hours after you have consumed it, this is a must-try.

I had Chicken wings and boneless chicken and I felt like combining both with loads of spice. Do you ever have a spice craving? I do, Big time, and even though I know it would hit me hard later, but I want my taste buds to party and feel satisfied as well… As much as I love different spices, spice mix with coriander leaves, mint leaves, and green chilies have always been my favorite. In this dish, I also added Black pepper powder with some whole spices and most importantly, the green chili sauce and Anardana powder.

Fennel seeds to me are a little underestimated and I believe they add a lot of fragrance to your spicy food, just like cardamom powder to your sweet dishes, and even though adding it to your dish in the initial minutes makes your house smell like a fancy Indian Restaurant, not a lot of people use it.

I used Chicken wings and little boneless chicken, but you are free to use any chicken with or without bones. Just that if using Chicken with bones, it adds more flavor since the sauces extract juices off the bones. Any which way you make it, this dish is will surely make your mouth water. You don’t have to stick to Chicken, you can also try the sauce with Fish, preferably something that is not very strong in taste, something like Haddock or Cod Fish or Whitening fish would be a better option. For the vegetarian option, you can always use Soya chaanp or Paneer, or Tofu. The sauce mix is great and is a fabulous mix for any protein preference you like.

Chicken Reshmi Seekh Kebab

Reshmi is an Indian word used for “silk”. Reshmi Kebab are silk textured, soft, juicy and delicious kebabs made with minced meat or chicken from the Mughal Kitchen. As the name depicts, Reshmi Kebab is juicy succulence of meat added to the skewers. The meat has to have a perfect texture thanks to the marinade in which it is soaked.

The problem with seekh kebab that usually happens is that it goes dry if the marinade isn’t good enough. A good marinade for seekh kebab cannot be too saucy or it will be hard to hold the seekh shape and it cannot be too dry or the seekh would not taste so good. As much as you have to be careful about the ingredients that go into the dish and a lot of times, I see people messing it up with the seekh breaking mid way while being cooked, the process is simple. A few tricks and you are good to go.

In this recipe, I added a paste of fried onions. Onions by itself release water when added to a dish so the best way to add onions to a dish when you want the flavor and fear the dish getting excess moisture is by frying the onions. The process of frying onions dries up the moisture. The fried onions also tend to get a little sweeter so, make sure you adjust the spices accordingly. When you grind the coriander leaves with mint leaves and chilies, make sure that you don’t add too much water. In fact, add water a drop at a time and avoid if not needed. The green paste doesn’t really have to be a paste, it can be roughly chopped paste.

If you follow the recipe properly, you will be able to achieve a perfect seekh kebabs and trust me, these ones are to die for. They are perfect, juicy and absolutely delicious. Enjoy!!!

Chicken Cheesy Tikka

Chicken Tikka has always been my go to recipe whether I have to make quick kebabs for the family or friends or even if we decide late in the evening to have a barb-e-cue dinner, Chicken Tikka is always the easiest, safest and yummiest recipe to go to. The flavors can be any which way you want. The boneless chicken pieces easily absorb the flavors quickly and the result always comes out delicious, unless you are determined to mess it up, otherwise its hard to mess up the chicken marination.

This recipe is a chef’s fluke or should I say determination of make sure I make something using shredded cheese, making sure the kebabs are soft, but also making sure that the boys taste no cheese. Isn’t it funny, life as a mom who loves to cook but is restricted by the weird taste buds that won’t allow her to experiment with flavors stressing on the fact that their peculiar taste buds won’t allow them to enjoy their favorite tikka. Therefore, this recipe was a challenge, and if you are sailing in the same boat as me, this recipe is for you.

The chicken I used is boneless chicken breast and Chicken breast tends to go a little dry and cheese helps it stay moist and juicy. I love kebabs that have that crunch top and is super moist inside.

Tughlaqi Chicken Kebab

Tughlaq Dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Turkish-Indian origin which ruled over the Delhi sultanate in medieval India. Its reign started in 1320 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. Though Tughlaqs weren’t anywhere like Mughals who built numerous monuments in India and mingled and married princesses and came to India with a vision of settling down, but they weren’t too different either. Mohammed bin Tughlaq is the most famous ruler amongst all the rulers of that family and the dynasty expanded its territorial reach during his reign with the help of military campaign. As much as a lot of people while reading Indian history don’t appreciate these Persian or Turkish rulers entering the Indian territories, the fact that we fail to understand is, that it was a norm back then, just like today it is for each nation to compete and show their might by showcasing their missile or nuclear power. I enjoy reading history and love to read about how different kings ruled over their kingdoms, the culture, their traditions and specially their foods.

When the Tughlaq dynasty reigned, the Persians were still getting accustomed to the spice India offered and as much we take spice marinades and cooking like a walk in the park today, since our food palettes know the taste that each spice would give out to a dish, it wasn’t that easy when the blending took place in those old kitchens. Its easier to experiment with flavors now except if you go all out experimenting with something totally new. Getting back to this recipe, the name to this dish comes from someone who loves coming up with awesome names. After the name I started reading history about the Kitchen during the era of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq and discovered though the name came in a fluke but I did discover that this kind of recipes made it to the initial Turkish-Indo recipes. This recipe has a blend of both sides. The hint of Indian spices, the use of Ginger and Garlic which is inspired from Turk-Persian rulers, the idea of marinating chicken before cooking and of course frying them till crunchy. So, with all that I stick to the name and believe the name is apt.

This recipe has a mix of spices with flour and corn starch powder, fried with curry leaves served with my Garlic mayo sauce and some sliced Onions. Its a quick, easy and delicious recipe. Enjoy!!!

Dhaniya Pepper Chicken

With necessity being the mother of invention, I believe Kitchen is where the most inventions take place, some like Edison where we work hard to achieve the desired results and others like Newton where the apple just falls giving ideas to work on.

This dish is more like studying gravity…LOLzzz. It wasn’t something I was planning on making but it just happened and the result was so good with so little effort that its worth sharing. At times, when you start working in the kitchen and you all of a sudden remember 30 minutes before dinner time that one of your children would not enjoy and eat the Biryani you made, regardless of how much effort you have put in because he ain’t a Rice fan and though he might still eat to appreciate the effort you have put in but it will be equivalent to see him eat raw green grass …Yes!!! that’s my older child for you. He loves my food, but not a big fan of Biryani and no matter how hard I try, he only likes two kinds out of the 40 Biryanis I make and to make sure he is happy camper at dinner table, I am always trying to make these fancy and not so fancy curries for him when the whole family hogs on to Biryani.

Invention of this curry was on one of those days when I realized 30 minutes before dinner time that I don’t have his curry ready and that’s when this happened. The curry is pretty delicious for the time and effort I had put in and isn’t that the best thing we like about any dish. I used Dry Red chili with cumin in the oil for an initial flavor, followed by Garlic, followed by chopped onions, green chilies and loads of coriander leaves. You can always go easy on green chilies or omit the Dry red chilies altogether if you aren’t a big fan of food that’s too hot and spicy at the same time. It’s just that being Indian, we have to have that extra kick in our curries and somewhere I feel its kind of important.

Along with the spiked up Red chilies and green chilies, I also added Black pepper powder and White pepper powder with tomatoes and Yogurt. We all know how strong Black Pepper is. Any dish that contains Black pepper always displays its unique and prominent taste, except if there are other spices like Mace or Star Anise that over power it. Along with that, what also accentuates the flavor is Coriander leaves. It’s a wonderful recipe that can come very handy when you want to impress family or friends in little time, without going crazy over too much grinding and chopping or prep work. Serve with Roti or Parantha. Enjoy!!!

Chicken Kheema Boti

Some dishes are just so good when you try them once that you have to try recreate that magic. I was in my hometown Jodhpur and I was eating out at a local not so famous restaurant with my mom and boys. We placed an order for appetizers while we decide the main dish. The appetizers came in and we weren’t too happy but it was too late for us to walk out and eat somewhere else. We ordered a chicken curry with some basic naan, expecting that something that simple would be hard to go wrong.

To our surprise, the chicken curry was much better than we expected. The chicken curry we ordered was supposed to be with minced chicken. But instead of mincing the whole chicken, the curry had 75% of the chicken minced and the other 25% was cut to small pieces. The flavor of the curry was not that good but I kind of loved the idea of how the chicken was cut.

Months later, something just reminded me that I need to try the chicken curry that way. Of course I had to work on the curry paste and spices and that’s when I invented Chicken Kheema Boti. The chicken is minced and cut to small pieces as well. The curry has tomatoes and Yogurt that makes the sauce nice and creamy. The spices like fennel powder and White pepper powder add a lot flavor to the curry. I added a green paste to the curry, which is made with coriander leaves and green chilies.

This curry can be made pretty quickly and tastes great along with Sheermal, Parantha or Naan. It can be served for breakfast, brunch or dinner. Enjoy!!!

Bangalore Dalcha

Muslim families all over India and Pakistan serve Biryani. It is basically our go to dish when it comes to big occasions. Now we do have people who aren’t great cooks or who cannot make Biryani, but trust me we rank No. 1 when it comes to judging people over food and more if the Biryani is not cooked or if its not cooked properly. Yupp, we judge and please don’t go over the beautiful smile appreciating the Pulao because in our mind, we know it could have been better….LOLzzz.

I apologize for getting a little funny before but its honestly the truth. Now, getting to the biryani part. We always serve Biryani with some accompaniment. In North India, its usually with different kinds of Raita, with a variety from plain boondi, onion, cucumber or mint. Southern part of India on the other hand serves Mirch ka salan, khatte baingan, Raita and Dalcha. Each dish is equally delicious and makes your Biryani taste even nicer.

This is my second Dalcha recipe that I am sharing. The one before was the recipe from my in laws and this one is inspired by the catering service from where we order food on family functions in Bangalore. This was a time when we ordered Dalcha instead of khatte baingan and Raita. This Dalcha was very different from what we regularly make. It was called “Shaadi ka Dalcha”. Funny but true

The daal wasn’t just Chana Daal but, a combination of Toovar daal and Chana daal. The daals should be soaked for an hour or two and boiled till soft. The bottle gourd should be boiled as well. When you start cooking the Dalcha, along with the regular spices, we also add fennel seeds. The fennel seeds adds a lot of fragrance to the dalcha. Adding chopped onions, tomatoes and spices make it perfect. This Dalcha does not have pureed coconut, but garnishing with dry coconut powder does add a lot of flavor.

Though Biryani in Muslim Families is a non vegetarian dish, but its always accompanied with vegetarian dishes like these ones and you might find it hard to believe but, dishes like Dalcha taste great with plain rice as well. So, if you happen to be a vegetarian, I wouldn’t suggest you to make Dalcha with Vegetable Biryani, but it would go great with Paneer Biryani or even plain Rice.

Trying different Biryanis is always great. I have shared loads of different Biryani recipes on my website, and I feel trying different side dishes with the Biryanis also makes you add a lot of variety to your cuisine. Enjoy!!!