A LoCal SoCal Butter Chicken

Today, the post will be slightly different. We'll go straight to the point. So, thought I'd start with the image. That should say it all, eh?
     We Bengalis usually don't make chicken with butter so much. We're more of a chicken with potatoes in turmeric and tomatoes curry type of clan. Butter Chicken is primarily a North Indian dish, and most Indian restaurants here carry this as standard staple. Most restaurants also carry butter paneer and really, the flavor profile is nothing to talk about. Just by dunking meat or cheese in cream and butter doesn't make it great. It just makes it heavy and greasy. My theory is that in North India, when it was really cold in the olden Mughal days, eating something with ghee (घी) helped warm people, especially with rotis (रोटी). But here, in the US (and even in India), we're not exposed to cold nights really, it doesn't make sense to eat mounds of chicken drenched in cream. So, my advice when you make this dish--eat less, and enjoy each morsel. I'm sure it'll be difficult to resist but at least you can pretend to try, right?
    So as a twist to the southern California region where I live, I've titled this chicken a "low-cal" one--it's not true. It's made here, so SoCal. But it's low-calorie only compared to what is the 'real' butter chicken.
     I usually don't make Butter Chicken as often as I'd like to eat it primarily because of the butter and cream that's needed to make it really delicious. So I thought of other ways to make it as good, or close enough as guilt-free as possible. This is my version, slightly (only slightly low-fat).

Butter Chicken (hopefully, lower fat)
Ingredients:
8-10 pieces chicken (breasts, and thighs, preferably some with bones)
1 cup yogurt
4 medium tomatoes, diced
2 medium onions, grated
4 tbsp heavy cream
3 tsp garam masala
2 tsp turmeric
3 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp cloves, ground
5-6 green cardamom, crushed
3 green chilies, chopped
1/2 inch ginger, grated
5-6 garlic cloves, chopped
3-4 tbsp घी ghee
3-4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp oil for cooking
salt to taste
2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped for garnish
Recipe

• Add a little oil (1 tsp or so) to the chicken pieces in a glass bowl, followed by grated onions, yogurt, cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, half the cloves/cardamom/cinnamon (3Cs), 1 green chilie, half the garlic and ginger with salt
• Mix well, and marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for about 1-3 hours
• Heat oil in a skillet, and brown/braise each chicken piece so it looks half-cooked (it should brown). Note: if you want the high fat, high calorie recipe, mix in butter with the oil
• Drain excess oil off the chicken
• Use the same pan to cook the rest of the 3Cs, with cumin, coriander, chilies, tomatoes and ginger/garlic
• Once the tomatoes are cooked well, add in the grated onions from the marinade (remove all the liquid by squeezing each handful of onions in) along with 2 tbsp cream and part of the yogurt marinade. Cook for at least 4-5 minutes so the sauce base is thick.
• Add the chicken, and lower flame to medium-low, cover the pan. Cook on a slow fire for 20 minutes or so. Keep checking so the bottom doesn't catch. The chicken is done when the sauce is thick, and the chicken is cooked through.
• Add a dash of ghee and cream at the end
• Garnish with coriander leaves
• Serve hot with white rice or naan bread

It should look somewhat like this, really.

     I hope the dish turns out well when you make it. Try to reduce the amount of cream and butter in this. I guarantee you, it'll still taste good if it's primarily yogurt instead of cream, more oil instead of butter.

     Trust me, and enjoy!

Halloween Desi Style or Olan

Of course we have no Halloween. But we've been here for over a decade and a half, so, really, I'm not sure what 'we' have or what 'we' are. So last year, finally, I gave into the Halloween spirit--no I didn't dress up as Jason or the Scream guy, I carved my first pumpkin. It was quite an event since I had no idea how labor-intensive the process is. This is what the grinning guy looked like:

I know, quite pathetic. But besides that, I'm all for cooking pumpkin, desi style. In the eastern states, pumpkins are sauteed with kaala jeera (काला जीरा) and purple onions as a dry curry with dried red chilies. In southern India, pumpkins are dunked in sambhar or vettal kozhumba quite often. In this country, however, pumpkins are used primarily to scare people and in desserts (interesting combination, huh?)
So, in the holiday spirit, I decided to share a pumpkin recipe, that's neither scary, nor pathetic. Olan--It's from Kerala, a southern state (with a 100% literacy rate--which means, everyone is educated. Now why I had to tell you that, I'm not sure, but I'm filled with facts and info that really have nothing to do with food, and I had to share that with you). Anyway, here it is:
Kerala Olan
Ingredients
3 cups chopped pumpkin, (cubes)
1/2 cup black eyed beans, cooked (or soaked overnight)
1 cup coconut milk
1 large green chilie chopped
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp coconut oil
7-8 curry leaves
1 dry red chilie, for tempering
salt to taste
grapeseed oil for tempering
Recipe

• Pressure cook the pumpkin cubes with the green chilie, and a little coconut oil with salt
• Add the beans to the cooked pumpkins, let the water evaporate
• Add half the coconut milk and simmer
• In another pan, heat the rest of the coconut oil with grapeseed oil and add the mustard seeds, red chilie, curry leaves
• Once the mustard seeds start popping add the pumpkin/bean mixture to the oil and cook for 2-4 minutes
• Adjust the liquid in the olan by reducing the water and adding more coconut milk if need be (the dish should be slightly liquid, like a thick (very thick) soup)
• Add a dash of coconut oil before serving
• Serve hot with rice

     The first time I had olan, it was like magic. It's a very simple dish, and yet, tastes fantastic. If you have the energy to chop pumpkins into cubes, you should try to make this dish. It's that good. Really. Till then, happy Halloween, and enjoy!

A Deep Discussion on Daal (Makhani)

I realize I'm a big daal (lentils) addict. I suppose all Indians are. It's great with rice, naan, rotis, rich in proteins, fiber, it's just wonderful. And it's easy to make if you have a pressure cooker. Indians eat over ten (twenty?) types of daals, a mixture of them, individually, boiled, sprouted, steamed, cooked with curry leaves, with coriander leaves, with or without cream, with or without lime (and lemon), +/- ginger, with deep fried onions (or not), with tomatoes, with meat, with vegetables...you get the idea. The obsession is almost similar our obsession with mangoes, but that's a different topic. Back to daal.
  When I was in India, a 100 years ago, Ma cooked and I ate. Those were the roles assigned, and we didn't deviate. Imagine my surprise upon landing in New York, with my trusty suitcases, packets of chaat masala, cumin seeds, and Indian outfits that would remain in their pristine, starched form for years, and I realize, not only do I have to study, stay in school, do the dishes, pay my rent, balance my checkbook, have money in the bank to survive & pay bills but I also have to cook! Cook enough and cook edible. For the first year and a half I survived on butter chicken (there's only so much butter chicken you can eat every week, I realized that on month 3), half-thawed vegetables sautéed with almost raw coriander and cumin powder (I still can't buy those frozen packs, the trauma was well...traumatic), mushed rice from the rice cooker, cereal and milk (my lifesaver). Twenty pounds and a dress size (or two) later, I returned home to a crash course on cooking--especially daal. This time I was back in New York with every Indian grad student's favorite cookware, a Prestige pressure cooker. Since then, I've acquired three more cookers, and I have no idea how I lived without them or without lentils for so long. Urad, Moong, Masoor, Rajma, Choley, Toor..you name it. The world of daals opened up for me--a really heavenly experience, with the church music and halo lights around my pressure cooker...well, not quite that dramatic. But I even acquired a few cookbooks. That's how I started over a decade and a half ago. No, wait, a 100 years ago.
And this was my first daal I made, it's my sister's recipe. She's of course, the best cook in the world, and here's my attempt.
Note: If you don't understand the hindi names of these lentils, go to any Indian store, and they'll help you out. Promise.
Daal Makhani
Ingredients
1 cup उरद urad daal (चिल्का (chilka), unpeeled)
1/2 cup चना chana daal
1/2 cup kidney beans (राजमा rajma daal)
1/2 inch ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic
3 medium tomatoes, diced
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
4 tbsp yogurt
or 2 tbsp yogurt and 2 tbsp heavy cream
2 medium green chilies, chopped
coriander leaves for garnish
salt to taste
2 tbsp clarified butter, घी
Recipe

• Pressure cook the lentils with ginger, garlic, घी (ghee), chilies and tumeric powder
• Remove lid, and slow cook the same till the lentils blend with the spices
• Add cream/yogurt and cook some more before removing from the flame
• In a separate pan, heat ghee, ginger, tomatoes, green chilies, garam masala and salt
• Add the daal to this, and mix
• Add more cream if you want it richer (you've added tons of घी (ghee) and cream already, so stop!)
• Garnish with coriander leaves
• Serve with rice or रोटी rotis

This really should work. If it doesn't, let me know. But if a novice cookbook reader can make it, you can too. And it should look somewhat like this:

 Enjoy!

Festival of Lights Dinner and Post-Dinner Food Coma

Don't know about you guys, but cooking for this Diwali's get-together has put me in quite a state of exhaustion. I would say it's got to do with age, but as my friend Marcie says, we'll always be 29, so I can't blame my tiredness on that, huh!
Hope Diwali was fun for you. For us, it was great, after a long while. Not because we rushed off to the temple and did all temple-y (is that a word?) things but because we ate (what else?) and ate a whole lot. I think that's what I have right now, food coma! Yes, that's my excuse for this late post. How's that?

On Diwali, we did light our little tea lights, and pretended they were diyas. This year, having been quite a crazy one (more on that on a later post), I thought it'll be great if we had our close friends with us to celebrate the 'new year' with. And so we did. But the problem with these people (and you know who you are!), is that they're too demanding--they want recipes of all the food they ate. I mean, really, come on, will you really, really make them? 'Coz if you do, and you're reading this, you have to send me images of the same, no exceptions, got it?

Anyway, this year I printed out a menu for the gang, just to increase their knowledge but did any one of them take their cards home? Oh, no, of course not. And when they're reading this post, they'll say, oh, c'mon, we know you'll post it here. I know them! And they know me. So here's the silly menu:

 And yes, the picture is somewhat fuzzy, but this is what I made--Sev Bhelpuri, Moong Dal Pakoras, Daal Makhani, Butter Chicken, Olan, Rice Kheer (though we were planning to make tapioca kheer but that was a disaster, more on that in the next post).
Anyway, as you can see, I made a lot and we ate it all up. And everyone wanted to know how to make Sev Bhelpuri, so this is for you you, V!

The next few posts will have the rest of the Diwali menu, so don't say I didn't warn you and if you overdose on Indian recipes, just go look at Orangette or The Hungry Chef, would you?


Appetizer: Sev Bhelpuri

'Sev' stands for the chickpea flour-based spaghetti like crunchy appetizer you find in any Indian store. It's sold in small bags, you can substitute that with aalu bhujia, very similar and slightly spicy in this dish. Bhelpuri means small, wheat-flour based deep fried disks, which makes Sev Bhelpuri crunchy and soft (with the tomatoes). But in an effort to avoid an overdose of fried additives, I've substituted bhelpuri with diced potatoes sautéed with a pinch of salt, chili powder, toasted cumin powder and chaat masala. I usually buy chaat masala (MDH varieties are great).

The tamarind and coriander chutneys can be made at home or bought. I made mine by boiling tamarind, adding sugar and chilies (it's got to be a slightly more spicy since you'll add half a teaspoon to each serving), and blending 5-8 Tbsp coriander leaves with rock salt, chilies and a half tsp of ginger. Buying a jar of each is also good if you're not in the mood to make them from scratch. They store well in the fridge for quite a while.

Ingredients
Traditional recipe:
1 cup  tomatoes, diced
1 cup purple onions, diced
2-3 medium chilies (jalapenos, or serranos)
1 cup boiled garbanzo beans (or 1 can)
1 cup Persian cucumbers, diced
5 Tbsp coriander leaves, diced
1 cup sautéed potatoes, diced
4 Tbsp puffed rice
4  Bhelpuri
2 tsp lime juice
1 Tbsp chaat masala
salt to taste
1 tsp chili powder

Serve with coriander and tamarind chutneys

Alternate recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup tomatoes, diced

1 cup purple onions, diced
2-3 medium chilies (jalapenos, or serranos)
1 cup boiled garbanzo beans (or 1 can)
1 cup Persian cucumbers, diced
5 Tbsp coriander leaves, diced
1 cup sautéed potatoes, diced
2 tsp lime juice
1 Tbsp chaat masala
salt to taste
1 tsp chili powder
Serve with coriander & tamarind chutney


Recipe (Traditional)
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, add salt, lime juice, chilies, chili powder, chaat masala, coriander leaves
Add puffed rice, bhel puri & sev right at the end so they don't get soggy with the cucumbers and tomatoes
Serve with a splash of coriander & tamarind chutneys 
Recipe (Alternate)
Add the potatoes to the serving bowl
Mix garbanzo beans, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes with coriander leaves, lime juice, salt, chili powder and chaat masala
Finally add the sev.

Serve with coriander & tamarind chutneys
Serve with an extra sprinkling of sev



We've actually made a dinner meal out of several bowls of bhelpuri, so that's an option too. If you take out the sev, then it's almost a salad, (or salsa!) which may be an alternate recipe. But then, it won't be sev bhelpuri, or as fun. 

Anyway, have a blast making this, enjoy!