Milagu, kozhi vathakkal / Pepper chicken

 

I  got this recipe from one of my friend. Thank you Raghavan for this simple and tasty recipe. When I heard about this dish, I am sure it is going to taste great. I do make pepper chicken but in a different way with many spices. But this recipe is very simple without any spices other than pepper. I have heard from my dad that his grandma prepares mutton only with salt and green chillies !!! Even NV when prepared in the simplest possible way,  tastes very yummy and satisfying and this dish is one such example. Try it you will defintely love it :).

 

Ingredients :

Chicken- 1/2 kg

Onions (preferably shallots)- one cup

Green chillies

Black pepper corns - 2 tbspns

Turmeric powder- 1/4 tspn

Salt to taste

Oil- 4 tbspns (preferably gingelly oil or seasame oil)

Method :

Clean the chicken and cut them into small pieces. Peel and slice the onions. Mince the green chillies. Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot enough add the onions, green chillies, salt and turmeric powder. Simmer the flame. Saute the onions until they become soft. Now add the chicken pieces and mix well. Let the chicken cook in a low flame. Mix the onion, chicken mixture frequently. When the chicken is cooked add the coarsely powdered black pepper and mix well. Remove from fire after 2 minutes. A very tasty pepper chicken will be ready. This dish tastes very yummy with hot rice. Try to eat it when you are run dowm with cold or flu, I am sure you will feel better :)

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe : If you need more gravy add more onions . Never add even a drop of water. This dish needs more oil the usual. Cook only in a very low flame and use a heavy bottomed vessel. Freshly ground pepper greatly enhances the taste. Use tender chicken. You can also add lots of curryy leaves. Happy cooking !!!

Kodi pulusu / Chicken gravy

 

The first time I tasted this chicken dish made by my mom-in-law, I immediately fell in love with it. Have you ever prepared chicken without onions?. In this preparation there is no onion, no tomato and no masala items like cloves, cinnamon or cardamom. A very simple way of preparing and it is very, very tasty too.  Give it a try, perhaphs you might also like it.

Ingredients :

Chicken- 1/2 kg

Ginger- 1 inch piece

Garlic- 10 pods

Coriander powder- 2 tbspns

Red chilli powder- 3 tspns (adjust according to your taste)

Turmeric powder- a pinch

Jeera seeds- 1 tspn

Coconut scrappings- 2 tbspns

Oil- 4 tbspns

Salt to taste

Method :

Clean and cut chicken into small pieces. Make a paste of ginger and garlic. Heat oil in a pan. When the oil becomes hot add jeera seeds. When they splutter add half of the ground ginger, garlic paste,  turmeric powder, chicken pieces and enough salt. Saute the mixture well until the flesh of chicken pieces turn white in colour. Now add the remaining ginger, garlic paste, coriander powder and chilli powder. Add half-a-cup of water. Now bring the mixture to boil and simmer it for another 10 minutes or until the chicken is done and the raw smell of the masala disappears. Before removing from fire garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with hot rice, lemon wedges and few raw onion slices.

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe : This recipe needs more oil than usual. If you cannot make dishes with more oil then it is better not to prepare this dish. Make it spicier. You cannot expect much gravy from this preparation. If you need more gravy then you have to add onions and tomato  but it definitely compromises the taste. You can add a teaspoon of garam masala (your choice) at the end of preparation. Happy cooking !!!

Chaalna / Salna

Chaalna with parotta, a drool-worthy combination :). In Madurai there are lots of road-side restaurants and they were in news very recently for the wrong cause too. Please do forget about it and enjoy this post. Most road-side restaurants in Madurai prepare parotta and chaalna in the evening. If you cross those stalls the smell of this chaalna will be very inviting. When I get a chance to eat something from hotel, I used to ask my grandpa for this. He orders it from the nearby hotel and ofcourse without the knowledge of my parents. My dad would have been very angry with me if he knew that I eat from road-side stalls :D.  I make this combo at home now-a-days,  but very rarely. Rajender is not a fan of such heavy dishes. He loves simple and healthy ones and no need to say I am a person with an opposite taste. It is not a very unhealthy dish altogether. But it is better to have it rarely because of the heavy fat and carb content of parotta. In this post I will concentrate on chaalna recipe. Hope you will love it. This chaalna tastes excellent with chappathi too.

Ingredients :

Chicken- 1/2 kg

Onion- 2 nos or 10 shallots

Green chilly- 4 nos

Ginger- an inch piece

Garlic- 5 pods

Coconut meat- 2 big pieces

Fennel seeds- 1 tspn (very important ingredient)

Pepper corns- 1 tspn

Coriander powder- 2 tbspns

Chilli powder- 2 tspns (adjust accordig to your taste)

Cinnamon- an inch piece

Cardamom- 3 nos

Cloves- 4 nos

Star anise- 1 no

Mace- 1 no

Oil- 5 tbspns

Salt to taste.

Method :

Mince onions. Seperate the minced onions into two equal parts and keep aside. Make thin slices of coconut meat. Slit the green chillies. Mince garlic and ginger. Now heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan. Add onions, ginger, garlic, fennel seeds, pepper corns and green chilli pieces. Saute well for two minutes. Now add the coconut slices to the sauteed mixture. Saute everything well for another five minutes on low flame. Switch off the stove and cool the sauteed ingredients. Now grind everything in a food processor. Cut and clean the chicken and keep aside. Add oil in a pan and when the oil is hot enough add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, star anise and mace. When they emit a nice aroma add the remaining onions and saute well until they turn translucent. Now add the chicken pieces and saute them in oil until the flesh becomes whitish in colour.  When the flesh of chicken becomes white add enough salt, coriander and chilli powder and mix everything well. Saute for a minute and then add the ground masala. Mix everything well and add enough water. Allow the mixture to boil and once it boils, simmer for further 15 minutes or until the chicken is soft enough. Serve with hot, hot parotta or lacha parathas.

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe : Never forget fennel seeds. Thats the ingredient which gives chaalna its nice flavour. Coconut is a must in this recipe. Do not discard the chicken fat completely. Add some fat pieces for a nice flavour and taste. The final preparation should not be too thick. It should be bit on the thinner side. When you pour it on the parotta it should soak the entire parotta and when you have them........hmmmmm...it will be simply yummy!!! I am drooling now :P. Happy cooking !!!

Thank you Prani :) I forgot the main ingredient chicken hehe...thats very kind of you to point it out.

Chicken fry/kozhi varuval/kodi vepudu

 

This is my most favourite dish. In my home I was the only NV eater. When sunday comes I would go to the meat shop and buy 1/4 kg of chicken. My mom would prepare this for me. Beautiful days they are !!! I will grind the masala in 'ammi kal'. The smell of garlic and ginger ground together....simply awesome!!! So until today if I smell garlic and ginger only this dish flashes in my mind. The smell of garlic and ginger not only made me happy but also the cats in my home. They will also be eagerly waiting for sundays :). My mom would marinate the ground masala on the chicken and will wait for sometime. Even that time appeared  to me very long. And finally she would drop the marinated chicken pieces in hot oil. The smell of chicken being cooked  along with the smell of ginger and garlic will make me more and more hungry. I will be waiting with a plate near her. As soons as they are in my plate it takes just a few minutes to gulp them down with a dash of lime juice on their top. Now, things have changed. Knowledge (?) I have gained has made me health conscious (!!). Even if I prepare this dish,  now-a-days I cannot enjoy it with a guilt-free mind. The books and articles I have read always told me that deep fried food is bad for health. Hmmm....some simple joys of childhood can never be brought back :(.

This chicken fry is very simple and very aromatic. I can swear that this is the best chicken fry in the whole world :).

Ingredients :

Chicken- 1/2 kg

Ginger- 1 large piece ( a 2 '' pieces?)

Garlic- some 6 pods ( take them in amount equal to that of ginger pieces)

Chilli powder - 2 tspns (adjust according to your taste)

Green chillies- 2 nos (optional)

Turmeric- 1/4 tspn

Maida ( All purpose flour)- 1 tspn

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method : 

Grind together ginger, garlic, green chillies, chilli powder, turmeric, all pupose flour and salt to make a paste. If you use chicken legs make small slits on the chicken meat. Apply the ground paste as a thin coating to the chicken and marinate for one hour. Otherwise you can marinate the chicken pieces the previous day and store them in deep freezer. This helps the salt and masala to seep deep inside the pieces. Heat oil in a vessel. When the oil is hot enough drop the chicken pieces in oil. Fry until the chicken acquires a deep brown colour. Serve with raw onions and lime wedges.

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe : If the chicken pieces have fat sticking to them, they will burst when frying. Be very careful when you are near the hot oil. The above mentioned masala is more than enough to do the magic. Avoid adding any additional masala items. A very tasty snack. It makes a perfect combo with rasam sadham. Happy cooking !!!

Chicken kuzhambu / Kozhi kuzhambu / Kodi pulusu

Cow meat is called as beef, pig meat is called as pork, goat meat is called as chevon and can you tell me what chicken meat is called as ? Chicken meat especially country chicken (naatu kozhi) meat is considered healthy when compared to red meat. There must be thousands of ways to cook chicken. Almost all parts of chicken are eaten including it's feet. Ofcourse chicken meat is delicious. When I am young my ayyama (my dad's mom) would come to visit us. When she comes, she  will bring with her a wonderful chicken kuzhambu. She reared chicken at home. So when visiting her son and grand children she will catch one of the veda kozhi ( a hen ready to lay egg), sacrifice the veda kozhi ( I don't want to use the word kill, I do feel guilty ) and make wonderful gravy out of it for us to eat. I still remember seeing small, small eggs in that kuzhambu (taken from the oviduct perhaps!!!). Unfortunately I don't remember the taste. She left us when we were young and my dad used to talk about his mom's cooking talents most of the time. I always would think, if ayyama would be alive I would have learned cooking from her. My dad used to say her cooking is very simple, with minimum ingredients, yet very tasty. To appreciate my cooking sometimes my dad would say '' you are gifted with my moms cooking talent'' .

Ok coming back to the chicken kuzhambu, this chicken kuzhambu I learned from my mom's mom. When I am studying 8th class my grandma came live with us for few months. She is also a good cook. One day on my mom's request she made this chicken kuzhambu. I remember standing beside her and helping her with obtaining all the necessary ingredients. So I still remember everything very well. Of all the different chicken gravy I make, this is my most favourite.

Ingredients :

Chicken- 1/2 kg

Curd- 2 tbspn

A pinch of turmeric

Onions- 2 nos

Green chillies- 4 nos

Ginger- an inch sized piece

Potato- 2 nos (optional)

Chilli powder - according to your taste

For frying and grinding:

Coriander seeds- 3 tbspns

Fennel seeds- 1 tspn

Cardamom seeds- 4 nos

Cinnamon- an inch piece

Cloves- 5 nos

Pepper corns- 6 nos

Coconut (scrapped)- 5 tbspns

For tempering :

Cardamom- 3 nos

Cloves-4 nos

Cinnamon- 1/2 inch piece

Curry leaves

Method :

Cut and clean chicken. Trim off the visible fat. But if you are young and healthy a few pieces of fat is not really bad for you. Fat is the taste providing ingredient in any item. After cleaning the chicken marinate in 2 tbspn of curd (yogurt) with a pinch of turmeric. Now take the items for frying. Heat a pan and fry all the items. Add the coconut scrappings at the end after you get a nice aroma of all the spices. Take care not to burn the coconut scrappings. Turn off the stove when the coconut scrappings turn brown. When you fry the coconut a mind-blowing aroma arises . Cool the fried items and with a mixer-grinder grind them into a paste with little water. Then cut onions and green chillies into small pieces. Crush the ginger piece. I love potatoes cooked along with chicken or goat meat. If you like it you can also add 2 potatoes (cleaned and cut into big pieces). Now take the pressure cooker. Heat it, add enough oil for tempering, When the oil gets heated add the items mentioned in the tempering section, saute for a minute and then add onions, green chillies, curry leaves, crushed ginger piece and enough salt. Saute well until the onions turn translucent. Then add the cut potatoes to it and mix. Now wash the marinated chicken in water to remove yoghurt (actually marinating in yoghurt makes the chicken meat tender). Do the above step atleast 10 minutes before so that the excess water from the chicken meat is drained out.  Then add the chicken pieces into the sauteed ingredients. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes. Do not add water. The chicken oozes water from its meat and gets cooked in it. When the chicken meat turns white in colour add the ground ingredients, chilli powder and enough water. Close the cooker and pressure cook for 2 minutes (if it is broiler chicken 2 minute time is enough, if it is country chicken you can leave for a whistle or two, since the naatu kozhi meat takes longer time to cook). Do not pressure cook the chicken more than the  time mentioned above. If you overcook the chicken all the taste will be lost. Then open the pressure cooker adjust salt and chilli level and simmer the whole mixture until the oil seperates out.

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe: Add fat pieces when making kuzhambu if you do not have any health issues. Beleive me you will be safe. Add more curry leaves, it enhances the flavour. Take care when frying the coconut. Do not allow it to burn. Non-vegetarian items should not be bland. Add enough chilli powder. More hot it is, better it tastes. Use red onions. Do not add water before the chicken gets cooked partly in oil. First saute the chicken well in oil and then when the flesh turns white add ground masala and enough water. Salt must be added along with chicken pieces or before that step. This helps the salt to enter the chicken pieces well. Add potatoes, you will love the taste of potato soaked in chicken gravy. If you are not sure about the time you can totally omit the pressure cooking part and cook normally. But pressure cooking for a short period makes the chicken a bit tender and tasty. Happy cooking!!!