Chicken Biryani

Biryani is rice based food item made with meat, spices and of course rice. Although single dish it is a complete food. Tasty, aromatic biryani is a kind of food which is irresistible. 

Biryani was originated in Iran. The term is derived from Persian word berya meaning roasted or fried.  The dish has many local variants as Hyderabadi, Kacchi, Awadhi, Sindhi and so on.

We can easily get recipes of Biryani, but in many recipes there is long list of spices and other ingredients. To make required masala from the khada masala ingredients is a bit tedious process.  So we tend to use ready to cook mixtures available in the market. Although instructions on such items advise not to add anything, but many times it doesn’t give us a taste that we look for. My experience is; blending of traditional method and use of ready to cook items gives best results.

Lazeez chicken biryani masala is one of the best available items. Ready to cook biryani spice mix of Parampara is also available in the form of dry paste.       

To make biryani for 5 to 6 people; we need

• Rice Basmati: 1 kg
• Chicken: 1 kg – get leg/breast pieces as per your choice
• Lazeez Chicken biryani masala: 50 gm
• Parampara ready to cook spice mix: one packet
• Onion: 0.5 kg
• Tomatoes: 400 gm
• Curd: 100 gm
• Cashew (optional)
• Saffron for flavor
• Badi ilaichi, cloves, pepper and tez patta

Mix lazeez masala and parampara ready to cook spice. Add curd and mix it well, marinate the chicken with it. Cut the tomatoes and add it in the chicken and mix it well. Keep chicken marinated for at least one hour.  Wash rice, remove the water and also keep it for one hour. Actual cooking starts after one hour when chicken gets marinated and rice soaked.

Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan and add ghee and fry the khada masala items. Add rice and salt and fry it. Add water and let the rice cooked. Add saffron and cover the pan. Generally quantity of water required is that of double to the rice but in case of basmati rice, little less water is required.   

Heat the oil in another pan and deep fry chopped onion. Add cashews and fry it. Put marinated chicken in the pan and add a handful of water. Let the chicken cook on sim flame.

Spread a layer of half cooked rice on chicken, add some ghee, cover the pan and let it cooked. Turn off the gas when remaining rice is cooked in the first pan. After chicken gets cooked, turn off the gas but keep the pan covered, let it cooked further on dum (steam) for 15-20 minutes. As you open the lid, kitchen smells fragrant with the rich aroma.    

Serve the biryani with papad, lemon and raita.

Cakes

Joy in having homemade oven fresh cake is exclusive. Without getting entangled in icing business, let’s know the basic cake.

Ingredients for Basic Cake

• Eggs 2
• Vanilla Essence: 1 Tea spoon
• Baking Powder: 1 tea spoon
• Sugar: 1oo gm
• Butter//Makhkhan (लोणी): 100 gm
• Milk: half bowl
• Maida/wheat flour: 100 gm

Microwave oven with convection facility, Electric beater, silicon moulds are the pre requisites for best results.

Beat the eggs in a bowl little bit. Add vanilla essence and beat. Add baking powder and beat again. After adding sugar, beat it till the batter has ribbon fall texture. If you are using makhkhan add a pinch of salt while mixing it. No need of salt if you use branded butter. Butter gets blended well if defrosted before mixing. After beating little bit add milk and beat again. Keep the beater aside now. This is the time to keep oven for pre-heating. Set the oven on 180⁰ on convection mode.

Add sieved maida or whole wheat flour in the batter and mix it well with spoon. Through Silicon spatula it can be done very well.

Pour the batter in the moulds. If moulds are of aluminium, grease it well before putting batter. By this time, Oven gets preheated. Put the moulds in the oven and keep for baking for 26 to 28 minutes.

Mawa cake

Ingredients and procedure is almost same. Instead of 100 gm Maida, get 75 gm maida and 25 gm khoya (खवा). Add khoya beofre putting milk and mix it well. Defrosted khoya gets blended very well.

Chocolate Cake

Instead of vanilla essence used in basic cake, add chocolate essence.

Secondly instead of 100 gm Maida, combine 80 gm maida and 20 gm coco powder. If you like bitter taste this proportion can be 75-25.

Add sieved maida and coco powder and mix it well.

Put cashew nuts on the top of batter in moulds. Cashews get roasted in the process and add taste to the cake.

Useful appliances: Silicon Moulds and measure/Cup/T/table spoons

Neyyappam (नैय्यप्पम)

Neyyappam is a tasty sweet from South India. Neyya means Ghee and appam, we know pancakes. It is a common preparation in kerala and Tamilnadu. It is made on the occasion of ‘karhikai deepam’ celebrated on kartik pournima (full moon night in the month of kartik) Neyyapam is often given as Prasad especially in the temples of Krishna.

There are regional differences in the recipe of Neyyapam. I am giving here one quick recipe of Neyyappam from Kerala.

Banana is integral ingredient of Neyyapam. It makes neyyappam full of flavor.

Generally neyyappam are deep fried but it can be made in aappe patra and as such to make it little less heavy.

In traditional recipes, rice is soaked to make paste. But here we will be using rice flour to make it faster.

Ingredients

Rice Flour: 1 and ¼ cup

Ripe banana: two

Jaggery: one cup

Coconut: 1 tablespoon

Cardamom powder, cashew nuts and ghee

Heat ¼ cup water and add jaggery. When it starts boiling add coconut. Remove from the heat when it starts thickening and keep it aside.

Mash bananas, preferably in mixer, add cardamom powder while mashing the bananas.

If you like, add cashew nuts (broken) in rice flour and mix it well with jaggery. Before mixing please ensure that temperature of jaggery is normal. Mix it well clearing lumps in flour.

Heat the aappe patra, put ghee in the moulds and pour batter. Fry it well from both the sides.

In traditional kerala recipe, black jaggery is used. We can get it in kerala stores. But if black jaggery is not available, one can use kolhapuri gul or kanak gul powder but avoid yellow jaggery. Same with banana, its good if long yellow bananas from kerala are available. But if it is not, we can use the bananas we regularly get, but don’t use velachi keli for this.

Multi grain Dosai/बहुधान्य डोसा

Generally everybody likes dosai. We have our own versions of dosai such as धिरडे or घावन in Maharashtra. Innovation here is use of different grains and not just Rice and Urad, it adds on nutrition value.

Ingredients: 2 measures (bowl, cup whatever as per the requirement) of rice and 1 measure of Mung, Urad, Lentil (masur) and chana dal each. Wash it properly and soak overnight. Grind it in the morning, texture of batter should be like regular dosai batter. Mix it well adding salt and little bit sugar. We can add half measure of soya, Finger millet and corn flour each. If these flours are not available, rawa can be used. Mix it well and keep the batter for 4-5 hours for fermentation. (म्हणजे पंचधान्य धिरड्याऐवजी अष्टधान्य धिरडे तयार होईल.)

After 4-5 hours it will be ready to make dosai. The batter doesn’t get stick to tawa (Sometimes things get stuck to non stick pan also, but it doesn’t) so can be made without oil or if you prefer you can use butter or cheese. You can serve it with chutney.

आप्पे पात्र असल्यास ह्याचे आप्पेही करू शकता. To make appe, add green masala in the same batter. Grind chili, coriander, ginger, garlic, coconut and 1 small onion together and add it in batter. You can make tasty appe with this.

Curry: half coconut grated, 5-6 bedgi mirachya, coriander, 1 small onion, 4-5 garlic cloves. Make tadka with ghee, cumin seeds, asafoetida and pour on these ingredients. Grind all the contents. Fry chopped onion on coconut oil, add gravy paste. Add necessary water and salt. Cook it well. Curry goes very well with the dosai. One can try it instead of sambar some times for different taste.

Small tips which makes cooking convenient

• Usually we get the potatoes cooked (बटाटे उकडणे) in pressure cooker. It may result in overcooked, tasteless potatoes. It can be cooked well in oven in a few minutes. Wash potatoes and prick it by fork at 4-5 spots. Take cleaned bag of milk (दुधाची पिशवी) and wet it. Keep 2-3 potatoes in bag, spray water, fold the bag and keep it in oven. Set the oven at microwave mode for 2 to 2.5 minutes. While cooking in oven, standing time is very important. Here also keep the potatoes inside for 3-4 minutes after oven stops. Well cooked potatoes are ready. We can cook beetroot by same way. But please use the bag only once.

• Winter is in full swing currently. Many people prefer drinking warm water. That can be done very easily in oven. Take water in a glass and keep that in oven for 30 seconds at microwave mode. Water becomes warm to drink comfortably. But be sure that the glass should be plane, it should not have painting, golden border etc.

· Peeling garlic is sometimes difficult especially if it is wet. Keep the garlic in oven on microwave mode for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Garlic can be easily peeled off.

मुखशुद्धी

Today's recipe is not really recipe. We can get now many readymade eatables etc in market. I think every Marathi home has Masala Supari (मसाला सुपारी). After meals we prefer to eat supari as मुखशुद्धी. Many brands of masala supari are available in market. But what if supari doesn't have perfect जायका? Few suparis taste astringent, few taste very sweet, few even hot and most of the suparis are भरड even if they claim to be सुपारी विरहित सुपारी.

To resolve this, I buy suparis of major brands (5-6) with fennel (बडीशेप - घरी भाजल्यास उत्तम) and liquorice powder (ज्येष्ठमध). I sieve liquorice powder. Then add it in all suparis, mix it well and grind it in mixer for two or three times. While grinding I add 7 to 8 cardamom and 2 to 3 cloves. I sieve the entire content again twice or thrice and get fine powder, वस्त्रगाळ चविष्ट सुपारी तयार. Such fine supari doesn't end up in hiccup (अशी सुपारी ‘लागत’ नाही) and enhances flavor of meals.

P.S. My experience is combination of branded products gives better taste, that is true in case of spices also.

Let's Start

Cooking is done since time immemorial and will always be there in human society. The methods, utensils, devices of cooking undergone change time to time. Modernization of kitchen was inevitable in modern urban life. This has reduced drudgery in cooking to a great extent. I am here presenting some tips regarding use of small devices to make cooking easy.

Water Spray

Water is part and parcel of cooking. Many times we need it in very small quantity and water may be dropped in excess by pouring it. We usually sprinkle water be hand when little water is needed. Use of spray gives us better control over release of water and also helps to spread water evenly.

Few Examples;

• While making Dosa, we can spray water on tawa in between two dosas. Spraying avoid burns which one may get while doing by hand with wet cloth.
• While making Bhakari, it is easy to spray water on its surface rather applying water by hand.
• While making dough of Chapatti, flour can be well put together at the end by spraying water. Pouring may result into excess of water; which may affect texture of dough.
• Spray is very important in microwave cooking. Spraying water helps to cook Khichadi, Upama, Shira perfectly in oven.
• Rice, Pulav, Biryani can be cooked well in oven on microwave mode. In case it is cooked little less even after standing time, a little water is needed. We can spray the needed water and cook it in oven for 1 to 2 minutes.
• We cook some of the green vegetables by applying besan; spray helps to cook such vegetables by adding exact quantity of water.

Oil Container with Pourer

We are now health conscious and want to use less oil. 500 gm of oil per person/month is normally recommended. (Various options of edible oils such as Sunflower, Groundnut, Sesame, Karadi, coconut are available; its good to explore)

Oil container with pourer enables us to release optimum quantity of oil and also to spread it evenly.

Brush for greasing

Use of brush for greasing gives best results compared to applying it by fingers.

Various types of such devices are available in market in different sizes. We can buy as per our requirement but while buying please ensure that it is made of food grade plastic.

Here is one recipe on the occasion of Christmas;

On festivals or birthdays, we get sweets especially Mithai in large quantities. One may find it difficult to finish it. Such Mithai especially what we call 'Barfi' in Marathi, can be used to make stuff Poli (पोळी) or even cakes. Here is one such recipe of Mango Maawa cake.

Ingredients

• Two cubes of Mango Barfi (चितळे बंधुंची असेल तर उत्तम)
• Two eggs
• Vanilla Essence - 1 Table spoon
• Baking Powder - 1 Table spoon
• Sugar - 100 gms (we can use sugar replacement)
• Butter - 100 gms
• Milk - half bowl
• Maida - 80 gms

Defrost mango Barfi in oven for 1 to 1.5 minutes. Mix the eggs and essence well in one bowl. After biting it for a while, add baking powder and bit it well. Add sugar and bit again. Add sugar and bit again till you get texture of ribbon fall of the batter. Add mango mawa and bit again for one minute. If you use electric bitter, stop using it at this point. Add sieved maida and mix it well. Silicon spoon is best in mixing the batter. Preheat the oven on 180 degrees. Pour the batter in the mold of your choice and bake it for 26 to 28 minutes on convection mode. Yummy cake will be ready.