Chicken Chili with Rice

I live in a small town in Connecticut. Small as it may be, it still has an annual chili festival. There are about 20 to 30 participants with quite a few delectable offerings. Since the festival is on the town green right outside my house, it is hard for me to miss. As I browsed through the various stalls I realized that though chili has latin american roots, we have a similar loving for kidney beans in north India - the famous "Rajma Chawal" (literally kidney beans and rice). Hence, since quite some time I have been thinking of a way of combining something like a chili with rice. The last attempt was a complete disaster, when the concoction turned out to be a mish-mash of ingredients, and VERY hot with 2 habanero chilies. However, recently, at the local Chipotle it hit me. I should make the rice, and chili separately and serve in layers. So I tried again. The end result - I loved it!

Here's what you need -

Chili
1 lb ground chicken (dark meat)
1lb canned red kidney beans (cooked)
2 cubes chicken bouillon (mixed in 1 cup hot water)
1 medium onion (chopped)
1 cup chopped hot cherry peppers
1/2 cup cilantro/coriander (finely chopped)
6 oz crushed/pureed tomatoes
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paparika
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp cornmeal (or makka flour)
4 cloves garlic (finale chopped)
4 cloves
1 stick cinnamon

Rice
1.5 cups basmati rice
1/2 cup green peas
1 tsp cumin


Toppings
1 medium onion (julliene and mixed with salt and 1/2 lemon)
Sour cream
Hot sauce
Or anything you want to top the dish with!

Cooking -
Chili
1) On medium heat heat 1tbsp oil and fry the chopped onion till soft and golden.
2) Add garlic and fry for 1 minute
3) Add the chicken and turmeric and fry for 5 minutes
4) Add the tomatoes, cloves, cinnamon and fry on high heat until tomatoes leave oil

5) Add this mixture, bouillon, peppers, paprika, ground cumin, coriander/cilantro, kidney beans, cornmeal and 1 cup water in a pressure cooker

6) Close the lid and cook for 3 whistles or about 10 minutes. Switch the heat off and let the pressure release on its own.
7) When all pressure is released, add the sugar and salt to taste - the chili is ready!

Rice
8) Wash and soak the rice for 10 minutes
9) In a broad pan/skillet, heat 1 tbsp of oil. When hot, add the cumin and let it crackle.
10) Add the peas and fry for 2 minutes.
11) Drain the soaked rice and add to the pan. Add 5.5 cups of water (The proportion of rice and water should be (1 : 3.75)
12) Add 1/2 tsp of salt, mix well and cover the pan

13) Cook for about 10 - 15 minutes till the top rice is just about done. Do not stir or disturb the rice at this point. Take the pan off the heat, cover it and let it sit for 15 minutes. After that just once of twice gently turn the rice in the pan - the rice is done!

To serve (as you see in the pic), serve the rice on the plate, then the chili on it. You can then put a side of sour cream, chopped cilantro, cheddar cheese, pickled onions etc, that people can serve to their taste.
The dish came out really amazing! It's really versatile. Goes well with rice and the chili tastes amazing just by itself. I am very glad with the outcome. A traditional chili, but very reminiscent of the Indian "Rajma Chawal".


Definitely a MAKE... and a very tasty combination. You can play with the heat, or soothe is down to your taste by adding (or not adding) various peppers while cooking and by adding the condiments like cheese and sour cream to cool down the heat. It's a dish that you can customize to your palette as you serve!

Spinach poppers

Given my interest in cooking my friends have come to expect something "different" whenever I have them over for a game weekend. This last Sunday as we were planning to catch some crazy March Madness action, I was wondering what to experiment with. Just like that I had a craving for spanakopita - the Greek spinach stuffed bread. And I had it - poppers on the same lines, but of course, with an Indian touch. Now it had to be vegetarian and not very spicy (for a few friends cannot handle it), so I thought I'd keep it very basic. I basically started blind and kept tasting and taking notes as I went along. The result was quite a hit! Spinach poppers for the party and a very quick and easy to make recipe...

I have kept the proportions less for a serving size of 8-10 poppers. Here's what you need -
1/2 lb chopped spinach
2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
4 oz paneer (Indian cottage cheese)
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tbsp garam masaala
Phyllo dough sheets (easily available at any supermarket)



Cooking -
1) Heat oil and fry the garlic for 30 seconds when hot.
2) Add the paneer and saute for about 10 minutes on medium heat. By this time the leaves should be tender.
3) Crumble the paneer and add it to the spinach along with the turmeric. Saute for another ten minutes.
4) Take off the heat and add the garam masaala and salt. Your filling is ready!

5) Set the oven to 350 F
6) Take one phyllo dough sheet at a time and brush it with melted butter (olive oil for the health conscious)
7) Fold the sheet about three times or until you have a 3-4 inch square

8) Place a dollop of the filling and fold up the sheet around it sealing the filling inside. Repeat until all your filling is used. With the measure above, you should have enough filling for 8-10 poppers.

9) Place the poppers on a baking tray and place in the oven for 25 minutes or until well browned (be sure to check often as phyllo dough burns easy)
(In the rush to get everything ready in time, I missed taking a photo of the end result. but its easily imaginable - looks like a bite sized puff pastry)


And that's it. Simple, right? Serve it with any dip or sauce - hot, ranch, ketchup. I served mine with a chinese sweet and sour sauce that tastes a lot like the Indian sweet tamarind chutney. I must say, the results were better than I expected! The spinach went very well with the paneer, and gave the poppers a very creamy texture. When served, they were gobbled up in 5 minutes!

Definitely a MAKE... and a very easy and quick make at that!

Stuffed tomatoes

My take on Jacque Pepin's stuffed tomatoes. It's a simple recipe with multiple variations as you go along the Mediterranean.  The first time I had stuffed tomatoes was at a small laid-back island in Greece. The dish says "home food" the moment you see it. That's how Pepin described it too - "like your mother used to make it"- that is if you are french, and spent your childhood in rural France. :) I guess the difference between the Greek and the French version would be the stuffing - pilaf in case of the Greek Gemista, and bread in case of Pepin's recipe.

In either case, the recipe is simple, quick and very customizable. You can suit is to your taste and to the ingredients you like best.

Here's what you need -
4 large tomatoes
4 spring (green) onions (chopped, 4 inch onion, 3 inch greens)
2 eggs
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
1/2 cup pilaf (cooked)
4 oz paneer (hard cottage cheese)
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin powder


Cooking -
1) Slice the top off the tomatoes and scoop the insides out with a sharp edged spoon

2) Puree the contents and add garam masala, coriander powder, cumin powder and salt to taste.
3) Pour the puree in a baking pan and add water (approx 1/4 cup) so that the consistency is watery. Make sure the pan is just wide enough to keep the puree to a 1/4th of an inch depth.

4) Sprinkle crushed black pepper and chopped cilantro as seasoning if you wish. You will place the tomatoes in this dish and bake.
5) To prepare the stuffing, dice the paneer into quarter inch pieces and saute them in butter on medium heat till they turn golden brown
6) Add the garlic and fry for a minute.
7) Take off the heat and add the cooked (and cooled) pilaf, the green onions and the eggs. Add some chopped cilantro and mix well.

8) Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture. in case you end up with some extra, you can stuff green peppers or more tomatoes. You can top with bread crumbs.

9) Pre-heat the oven to 400 F, place the tomatoes on the tray with puree and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, till the tomatoes look slighty browned.

Your piping hot stuffed tomatoes (or peppers) are ready. I like how versatile this dish is. I personally like pilaf, but you can go with chopped and soaked bread if you like more of a casserole like bite. Left overs can be mixed into the stuffing instead of the paneer, or you can put in various meats or veggies if you like. I've had this recipe with chopped cooked sausages, and that tastes as good. Depending on your tomato, the sauce may turn out to be very tangy, so you may want to reduce the acidity by adding cream to it. There are truly so many variations that you can try.

Unlike usual Indian cooking, where poaching or sauteing is the norm, this way you can make a rice pulao kind of a dish by baking, which makes it very exotic! The trick, though, is that you have to make the flavors work according to your taste - the technique in the dish is simple. When I cooked it for a party, I dont think many of my guests liked the tang because of the very muted appreciation i got! :)

Therefore I would call this dish a TRY... Try it once to find out how you would like it and then make it again and again when you know your ingredients!

Stuffed rice pockets (Stuffed Idli)

You've obviously seen and heard of the hot pockets. Here's a way to make some, South Indian style! Chettinaad is one of the most flavorful cuisines in India and I love it. It is characterized by the strong spices used. Thinking those strong spices would be very well complimented with the mellow flavor of the ground rice and pulse cakes (idlis), I tried to make something that could combine the two.

The following recipe uses a chettinaad spice mix that I use now, after trying multiple combinations of various spices. This masala works well with any recipe for dry sauteed meat or vegetables. Remember, the quantity of the spices below are for 6 oz chicken. You can vary the amount depending upon the amount of meat you are cooking.

Here's what you need -
6 oz (150 gm) boneless chicken (used thighs)
idli batter (you can use instant mix or prepare it yourself)
1 lemon
1/2 medium onion (chopped)
1/2 medium tomato (chopped)
1 garlic clove
ginger (same amount as garlic)
1/2 tsp poppy seeds (difficult to come by, can do without them)
1/2 tsp turmeric (powder)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp fennel
1 cardamom
1/4 cinnamon stick
3 black peppercorns (whole)
1 clove
3 curry leaves
2 dry red chillies/ 1 tsp chilli flakes


Cooking -
1) In 1 tbsp clarified butter (ghee) roast the dry spices, except turmeric,on medium heat till they are darkened. It will take about 2 minutes.
2) Take off the heat and add garlic, ginger and curry leaves and grind the mixture to a paste

3) Dice the chicken in to small 1/2 inch cubes
4) Add the above paste and turmeric to the chicken and set aside

5) In a flat pan, heat1 tbsp of ghee or oil and add the onion when hot.
6) Once the onions are browned nicely (3-4 minutes), add the tomato. Keep frying on medium heat till the mixture is well browned, and the oil separates (about 10 minutes).
7) Now add the marinated chicken and fry on medium heat. Keep stirring till the chicken is cooked.
8) Add salt and lemon juice to taste.

Your chicken is ready, and now for the idli
9) In a bowl add a spoonful of water and crush the cooked chicken with your fingers. We will use this for the stuffing.

10) In an idli mold (or any rounded mold that can be steamed), put half the batter of an idli
11) Make a lose ball of the chicken so it covers a good part (as in picture below)
12) Pour the other half batter on top

13) Steam for about 10 minutes till the idli appears fluffed
14) Take out of steamer and let sit aside for a couple of minutes before removing from the mold.
15) You can sizzle some mustard seeds and curry leaves in hot oil, add little water to it and pour on top of the idlis. Or, you can have it with "rasam" or any other way you like.

The combination really works. You have to be careful about the ratio of the chicken to the batter though. I would suggest a few test runs with a couple of idlis till you arrive at a ratio you like. Even if you don't like idlis, just follow the recipe to make the dry roasted chicken (up to step 8) as an appetizer. Takes 30 minutes to make and you will not regret it!
However, this recipe may not appeal to everyone's taste (unlike the butter chicken pizza - who can not like that!), so I will call this a TRY!

Let me know how it goes!

Fish with spinach and mushroom

The idea for this recipe came from a baked fish I had made a while back. That recipe combined quite a few contrasting flavors on a plate. I applied the same cooking technique to essentially come up with an Indian palak (spinach) gravy style dish, cooked in an oven.

Here's what you need -
2 fillets of white fish (used Tilapia)
4 oz mushroom (used baby portabella)
4 slices of lemon
1 medium onion (chopped)
3 garlic cloves (finely sliced)
8 oz spinach (chopped)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp garam masala (will get at any Indian grocery store)
2 tbsp sour cream


Cooking -
1) Rub some salt onto the fillet and place two slices of lemon per fillet on the top side

2) In a pan heat 3 tbsp oil
3) Add cumin when hot
4) After cumin has crackled, add the onion
5) Fry onion till well browned and then add the spinach and garlic
6) Reduce heat to medium and cook till spinach darkens (almost 15 minutes). You may have to add water to keep the spinach moist. Keep it well wet to a gravy consistency.
7) Add the garam masala and salt to taste to the spinach

8) Pre-heat oven to 375 F
9) For each fillet, place it upturned (with the lemon slice below) on a non-stick/oiled foil

10) Arrange the mushrooms on the fillet

11) Put half the spinach gravy on each fillet

12) Fold the foils and twist at ends to seal each fillet

13) Bake the fillets for 17 minutes. The fish should be flaky when you take it out.
14) Pick the fish up with a spatula leaving the lemon behind and arrange on a plate using the lemon slices as garnish
15) Spread the sour cream evenly on the spinach topping on the fish. You can garnish additionaly with some coriander (cilantro)

What worked very well in this recipe is that the fish absorbed the lemon tang really well, which gave a great contrast with the slight bitter of the spinach. The sour cream helped merge these contrasting flavors. The portabella though did not work well. The flavor of the mushroom did not stand out. I suppose using oyster or shitake may have more sense. Try that. Also, the garlic should not have been cooked with the spinach, but added in the end with the garam masala before baking the fish. The spinach should be wet to work as a sauce. Even though so many things went wrong, the flavor of the tangy fish worked really well with the mildly spiced spinach. Serve the fish with pilaf or white rice as per your preference.


I would call this a TRY! due to the changes I mention above. Would love to see if anyone else experiments and improves the recipe. Happy fishing!

Pate on Naan

The first time I had french liver pate, I was blown away by the texture and the flavor. Buttery and mildy spiced, it was the first time I had ever had something like it. Coming from a family of vegetarians, my access to non-vegetarian food had been very limited and rare, so not a big surprise that I had never had Galauti kebabs till then! And later when I had possibly the best and one of the most famous kebabs - from one Tunde Mia in the city of Lucknow, the parallel could not but be drawn. The same buttery smooth texture, heavily spiced with pepper and cardamom. This recipe is inspired by those flavors, intended to come up with a party snack that has the texture of pate and is had like it, but should taste like galauti kebab with naan. Sorry, don't have any pictures for this one....


Here's what you need -
8 oz chicken (I like dark meat with bone and would recommend that)
1 medium onion (1/2 finely chopped, 1/2 pureed)
1 medium tomato (1/2 finely chopped, 1/2 pureed)
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp black pepper (powder)
1 black(big) cardamom's seeds (ground)
2 garlic cloves (minced)
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp dry mango powder (amchur)
1/tsp red chili powder (adjust to taste)
1 tsp corn starch/ cornflour
2 frozen naans
Chopped coriander and mint


Cooking -
1) Boil the chicken pieces on medium heat in about 6 cups of water for 30 minutes (add warm water if you see the water level running low)
2) The meat should now easily separate from the bones. After separating the meat, throw the bones back into the water in which you boiled the chicken.
3) Boil  with the bones for another fifteen minutes. Throw the bones away. We will use this broth later to make gravy.
4) In a food processor finely mince the boiled chicken. Add slight water as you mince, if necessary, to maintain consistency like a bread spread.
5) Heat the butter in a pan and turn the heat to low
6) Add garlic and fry for half a minute
7) Add the chicken mince. Add about 1 tsp chopped coriander, 1 tsp chopped mint, red chilli powder, cardamom, black pepper and salt to taste to it and mix well. Keep stirring for about five minutes - you should now be able to smell the aroma of black pepper and cardamom.
8) The consistency of the mixture should be like a bread spread. Add slight warm water if necessary.
9) Thaw the frozen naans and spread this paste (about 2-3 mm of thickness) on each naan.
10) Baste with butter if you wish
11) Sprinkle the chopped onion and tomato on this mixture
12) Pre-heat the oven to 400 F and bake the naan in it for about 4 minutes
13) Sprinkle some lemon. Cut each naan into 6-8 pieces like a pizza.
14) Now let's make the gravy to go with this. In a pan, heat a tbsp of oil and crackle the cumin in it.
15) Add the mince onion & tomato to the oil and fry on medium heat, till well browned
16) Add the broth from step 3 above, dry mango powder, salt to taste and reduce to a simmer
17) Mix the corn starch well in cold water and mix in the gravy while constantly stirring
18) Let the mixture simmer till it has a thick soupy consistency

I would pour this gravy into a bowl and put the naan pieces around it on a plate. Just dip and eat! This one was not an immediate hit, but the flavors were recognizable and grew as we had more, and my friends liked the convenience of eating kebab and naan this way! :) I would say a MAKE, but would look forward to any comments for improvement!! 

Butter Chicken Pizza

Ever heard the story of the pizza? It was a poor man's food at a time. One would take leftovers and bake them on bread to create a pizza. Forward to today, and you have one of the most popular dishes in the world. Indian food has something similar and equally famous - the legendary butter chicken. Story goes that in a restaurant in old Delhi, an innovative chef tossed some unsold tandoori (roasted) chicken into a spicy creamy tomato sauce he concocted, and created one of the India's most loved dish. Now I make a mean butter chicken, so it came naturally to me to merge the two greatest (IMHO) dishes originating from leftover food together!

Here's what you need -

Chicken topping -
6 oz boneless chicken thighs (dark meat goes better, but you can use breast)
1/2 tsp ginger (powder or fresh)
1/2 tsp garlic (powder or fresh)
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp black pepper (ground)
1/4 tsp cumin (ground)
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 lemon

Sauce/Gravy -
1 medium onion (1/2 diced, 1/2 julienne)
3 medium tomatoes (pureed)
1/2 cup finely chopped coriander (cilantro)
1/2 tsp garam masaala
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp sour cream

1lb fresh pizza dough
2-3 oz grated mozzarella cheese


Cooking -
1) Slice the chicken into slivers (approx 1" x 1/4")
2) Mix the ingredients for the chicken topping. Add salt to taste and about 20 drops of lemon.

3) Let sit aside for 30 minutes.
4) Preheat the oven to 325 F
5) Spread the chicken onto a foil and place in the oven when heated for about 30 minutes.

6) Your topping is ready
7) In a pan, in 2 tbsp of butter (I use salted), crackle the cumin and the bay leaf.
8) Add the diced onion till dark brown.
9) Add the tomato and garam masaala. Cook till you have thick gravy, and you can see that the oil has separated. Remember not to overcook the tomatoes. They should retain their tangy favor.
10) Remove the bay leaf and add the cream and coriander to the sauce

11) Preheat oven to 475 F
12) Spread the pizza dough on a 13 inch plate
13) Evenly spread the sauce leaving about 1 inch on the rim
14) Place the cooked chicken pieces and baste them gently with butter
15) Sprinkle the jullienned onion between the chicken topping

16) Evenly sprinkle the mozzarella cheese

17) To give the rim a flavor, you can pat some ginger garlic paste mixed in butter/olive oil
18) Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes till it has risen and the crust is golden
19) Take out of oven and let sit for 5 minutes before slicing into pieces

The pizza just went desi! Enjoy. Each bite will give you a taste of butter chicken with naan and the crunch and convenience of a pizza. It is definitely a MAKE!!