Chicken Biryani - Kerala style

There are many variations to Biryani. The 2 most famous ones are the Hyderabadi Biryani where the rice and meat are cooked together and the Lucknowi Biryani where the rice and meat are partly cooked separately, laid out in layers and finally cooked under pressure.

My favourite version however is the one from down south in Kerala.
Prawn Biryani at OneIndia
I came across the recipe when searching for prawns biryani. The interesting twist in this version of the biryani is that the rice is cooked in diluted coconut milk. This gives it a very nice flavour.

This is a very easy recipe where you only require one large vessel to cook it in. In my case, I use a pressure cooker. If you do not have a pressure cooker, you could use a vessel with a lid instead.

For the coconut milk, I use Maggi Coconut milk powder. I also use Shaan Bombay Biryani spice mix. You could use other brands of biryani spice mix instead. This biryani masala contains chilly powder which makes it hot enough for me. In case your spice mix doesn't contain chilly powder or you like it hotter, you could add Red Chilly powder just before you add the tomatoes.

Ingredients

• Chicken - I use thigh pieces.
• 1 Onion - Chopped
• 2 Tomatoes - Chopped
• Few mint leaves
• Handful of fresh coriander
• Ginger Garlic Paste
• Turmeric powder
• Basmati Rice - This depends on the number of people you cook for.
• Whole Spices
• 4 Green cardamom
• 2 Black cardamom
• 1 Stick cinnamon
• 2 Star Anise
• 4 Cloves
• 2 Bay leaves

Method

• Soak the Basmati Rice for about 10 minutes. Do not keep it in water for longer then 10 minutes or the results would be squishy Biryani.
• Heat oil in a pressure cooker base and add the whole spices to it.
• Add chopped onion and let it fry until the onions are brown.
• Add the chopped tomatoes to this mixture and cook till the tomatoes break down.
• Add mint and coriander leaves and fry for another minute.
• Add Chicken followed by the Biryani Spice mix. Mix the contents thoroughly.
• You now need to add water diluted with coconut milk. It is very important to get this right. The rough guide is to add slight less then twice the amount of rice in terms of volume. This is because chicken leaves a lot of water while cooking. So if you use 3 cups of rice, I would use 5 1/2 cups of water with coconut milk. Mix the contents thoroughly  making sure you don't have anything sticking to the bottom.
• Close the pressure cooker lid and let it cook until it lets out steam twice. In case you are not using a pressure cooker, let it cook till the water is completely soaked.
• Switch the gas off and let it cool down slightly. In case you use the pressure cooker, take it off the stove and let it cool until the pressure is sufficiently low so that you can open the lid without any difficulty.
• Serve with Raita.

Chicken Coriander

Fresh coriander is my favourite herb. The problem with fresh coriander is that cannot be stored for over 3-4 days even when kept in the fridge. We have stored it successfully in the past by freezing the leaves. However it just doesn't taste the same.

We had some left over coriander in the fridge which would have been destined for the bin if it wasn't used quickly. Having had and enjoyed chicken with coriander sauce back in India,  I wanted to cook some myself. I  decided to follow my own gut instinct in cooking it. The recipe is hardly original but the results turned out to be yummy.  I have tried to keep the usage of other spices to the bare minimum to avoid any distraction from the taste of coriander. The resulting sauce is tangy and has a strong taste of coriander.



Ingredients

• Fresh coriander leaves, 2 handfulls. 
• Onion - 1
• Tomato - 1
• Ginger Garlic Paste
• Green Chillies 2
• Full fat plain yoghurt 3 table spoons.
• Turmeric - half teaspoon
• Coriander Powder - one teaspoon
• 2 Chicken breast pieces chopped into cubes.
• Salt to taste

Method

• Chop the onion and tomato into small pieces. 
• In a blender, add half of the chopped onion, chopped tomato and fresh coriander. Add a bit of water if required. Blend to a paste.
• In a saucepan, add a table spoon of oil and the remaining onion and fry until the onions turns translucent.
• Add turmeric, ginger garlic paste and chopped green chillies to it and fry for another 2 minutes.
• Add the blended mixture to the saucepan. Stir in the coriander powder and fry for another 3 minutes.
• Add chicken and a small amount of water to prevent the sauce from burning. Cover the chicken with the coriander paste and let it cook until the chicken is partly done.
• Mix yoghurt into the mixture. 
• Add salt to taste. 
• Cook until the chicken is completely done.

 Serve with rice or bread.

Kerala Chicken Stew

My introduction to food from Kerala started with the Chicken Stew. We had the coconut milk based stew with loaves of bread called Pav.  The aroma of the spices in the mild tasting stew was the highlight of the dish and this was permanently etched into my memory. Whenever I think about Kerela food, this stew always comes up first. This dish is traditionally had with appams but the stew will taste just as good with bread.

The recipe is based on the one  at
http://dosamma.blogspot.com/2007/07/kerala-chicken-stew.html
with suitable modifications made for convenience sake. 


Ingredients:

• Chicken preferably boned else chicken stock cubes with boneless pieces.
• Mixed vegetables
• 2 small potatoes
• Onion - 1
• Chopped ginger and garlic
• 1 tomato, chopped into long pieces.
• 2 green finger chillies - Just chop the top off and drop in whole to avoid making a spicy stew.
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala.
• 2 small pieces cinnamon, 3 cardamom, 3 cloves, 2 Star Aniseed.
• 3-4 curry leaves.
• A can of coconut milk. Dilute half of the coconut milk in water to use a the medium while cooking. The rest of the will be used at the end.
• Salt to taste 

Method:

• Heat oil and stir in the whole spices.
• Add onions, curry leaves, chopped ginger and garlic, green chillies and fry till the onions are translucent.
• Add the chopped tomatoes, turmeric, coriander powder and garam masala. Fry for 20 seconds and add the diluted coconut milk. Add salt.
• Add vegetables.
• Add boned chicken and let the stew boil until the chicken is done. If using boneless chicken, first add the concentrated chicken stock and let the stew boil. At this point, the vegetables should be cooked half way. Add the chicken and let it boil for a further 10 - 12 minutes.
• Once the chicken is cooked, add the remaining half of concentrated coconut milk and let it simmer for a minute. Do not boil at this stage as the coconut milk may curdle.
• Serve with toasted bread.

Perfect Scrambled Eggs

I like runny scrambled eggs. After watching an episode of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon experiments to find a way to cook the perfect scrambled egg, I had a sudden urge to eat scrambled egg.

In true "The Big Bang Theory" fashion, I googled for the perfect recipe to make scrambled eggs. I came across this recipe from Gordon Ramsay on how to make the perfect scrambled egg.

To give it an Indian touch, I decided to substitute chives with fresh corriander. Since I didn't have any creme fraiche, I decided to skip that too.

The result was nice velvety scrambled eggs served on toast.