Chicken65 from Fellow Blogs

It might seem that all I cook and eat is typically Bong Food and all others Cuisines are Greek & Latin to me, actually I like Greek and Latin Ameriacn food too and I like all other non Greek food too. Truth is I simply love to eat and try out different restaurants and eat outs.

We also cook a lot of non Bong food, of course the easy ones, but I never chronicle them because there are a lot of source out there on blogs and non blogs from where I and millions other get the recipe. However on many of these occasions I throw in some of my ideas (rotten though they may be) and the result turns out to be something which the originator might not have had in mind. Me on the other hand is unable to re-create the recipe when the need arises as I suffer from mild amnesia.

I don't know if it is with other people too but I have had a loss of memory after my pregnancy, though my husband claims it's just old age, I feel it's the hormones. I can well remember random stuff like my neighbour's daughter's third cousins dog's name but I have to scratch and stress my poor brain to remember the first Ash starrer, ok it might be because it's better if Ash starrers are forgotten but come on I do need that extra RAM.

So not relying too much on my memory I thought to borrow some server space with Blogger and upload the recipes that might not be Bengali but are eaten and liked at our home.

So here goes Chicken 65 from the great blogs like MyDhaba and PastPresent&Me.

This is a dish we liked during our stay down south in Bangalore where we were very surprised to find curry leaves in our chicken on our first day of restaurant hopping, but later got used to it :) Do not read further and Go to the above sites to find the authenticate versions.
On my part I liked both their recipes and merged them. A quick recap for myself

How I Did It

Marinade the chicken pieces in vinegar, 2 tsp garlic paste, salt, little turmeric powder, little red chilli powder, 1 tsp soya sauce, a sprinkle of corn flour and a dash of sambhar powder (this is what Vee said and boy did I like it) for a couple of hours
Heat Oil
Add Mustard seeds, Curry Leaves and finely chopped Garlic
Ideally it's good to add chopped green chillies, but I went light on it
When the spices sputter, add the chicken pieces (pick them up from the marinade and add)
Fry till they are browned
Check to see if they are done, else cover and cook in low heat, no water added
Great Chicken65 ready in a jiffy
Eat and thank VKN and Vee and other bloggers who have contributed this recipe.

Other Chicken65 Recipes on the same line

Shaheen of Malabar Spices -- Chicken 65

Trivia: Theory no.1:The story goes that an English traveller visiting Kerala in 1965 asked a chef to make this dish. The traveller expressed his contentment at the result and left, whereupon the bar staff tried the remainders, having never seen anything like it before. The result certainly was good and Chicken 65 was born, there being no other name for it.

Theory no.2:As legend has it, in all the country liquor bars, the favourite ‘food fight’ is: who can eat the maximum number of chillies? It is a symbol of machismo to be able to eat the most chilies. An enterprising hotelier capitalised on this and cooked up the dish Chicken 65, denoting that 65 chillies were used for every kilogram of chicken. Some chefs believe it is called so because of the 65 ingredients used in making it.

Theory no.3:It was the 65th. item on the menu of a restaurant at Palghat

Source: The India Tree

Of Barbie Dolls and Little Girls

Jump to Recipe

Diwali Barbie is what Mattel has come out with.
Those of you who are Barbie fans must have known this already. For me who is not in that league, I heard about it on NPR during my drive back home yesterday. What was exciting is that blogger Anna Johns who writes on SepiaMutiny was interviewed on NPR about her post where she disputes about the fact that Diwali Barbie is really wearing a lehenga and not a saree as Mattel claims. Read her post here. It's nice and encouraging that so many bloggers of Indian origin our dear Indira of Mahanadi fame among them is getting featured on NPR .

Back to Barbie, I have never really liked her, that hour glass figure, that perfect body is too much for me to endure. Mattel must have a real good marketing group because I can hardly imagine little girls being happy playing with a doll who is not cuddly and comfy. Growing up I never had a Barbie, maybe because they were not that IN when I was in the doll playing stage and also because they were pretty expensive. Later too, I felt no liking for her, though I like her accessories. As long as I can I will try to avoid that Barbie for my daughter, a cabbage patch doll is better any day.

Not that my little soon-to-be 3 year old is much interested in dolls, all she wants to do is talk, talk and talk and in the between times jump or hide. She is on this hiding spree these days, maybe this is this age when hide & seek becomes exciting. She drives my Dad around the house hiding in all possible closets and because she is not that patient creature she keeps on shouting from her hiding place. So every time I or anyone else is entering a room we have to say “Oh, so where is S…? Has she gone to school or some such thing” and then she jumps out with a big grin.


So to keep this active little one healthy we have to think up ideas to get those veggies into her. She is not among those angelic creature who eat broccoli with glee and bean without making a scene (sic sic !!) However she loves her “Chicken Jholu Bhatu” (As per her babytalk Jholu in Bengali means a light gravy and Bhatu is rice) and taking advantage of this I put all veggies and make a mutton or chicken stew for her. It tastes really good and you can have it too. with some peppercorns afor yourself

She also like to help me in the kitchen and she likes pounding away to glory on that mortar whenever I am making her Stew

Mutton or Chicken Stew

What You Need
Mutton/Chicken ~ about a pound
Onion ~ 1/2 of a small grated to a coarse paste, chopped is also fine
Tomato ~ ½ chopped
Raw Papaya ~ a quarter of a small one peeled and cut into pieces
Beet ~ 1 small chopped, about same quantity as in pic
Potato ~ 1 small chopped into 4 halves
Baby Carrots ~ 5 or more chopped
Beans ~ 5 or more chopped
Note: I didn’t have beans or carrots but usually I put them
For Phoron or Tempering
Elaichi or Cardamom ~ 2
Laung or Cloves ~ 2
TejPata or BayLeaves ~ 2
Darchini or Cinnamon Sticks ~ a small one

Garlic ~ a small clove of garlic finely chopped
Ginger Grated/Paste ~ 1 tsp of fresh paste, you can also use grated or crushed ginger
Yogurt ~ 2 tbsp for marinade
Turmeric Powder
Jeera or Cumin Powder
Salt

How I Do It

Marinade the mutton/chicken with yogurt, a little salt and turmeric powder for about an hour.For Mutton I usually keep it for couple of hours while for chicken half hour is fine
Heat Oil in Kadai/Frying Pan
Temper with TejPata, Elaichi, Laung and Darchini (this is also called as whole Garam Masala). I do not pound them as then it is difficult to fish them out from the stew and you know how kids are !!
Add the onion paste and the finely chopped garlic
Fry with a little sugar (this helps in browning the onion)
Add the tomatoes and sauté a little
Add all the chopped veggies and sauté again for some more time
Add the mutton or chicken.
Add about ½ tsp of jeera powder and mix well
Add 1 tsp of fresh ginger paste or grated ginger
Add salt
Cook for 2 /3 minutes so that the masala mixes well with the veggies and the chicken
Next I transfer the whole thing to my pressure cooker and add water as required for stew.
Pressure cook till the veggies and mutton is done. Beet takes a while to cook and mutton also. If you are making chicken and not using beet, you need not pressure cook.
Add butter to the hot stew and fish out the garam masala while serving to your little one
Can be had as a soup, but my daughter likes it with rice

Trivia: Garam Masala literally translated as "hot spice" is a mixture of several spices mainly Cardamom, Cinnamon, Cloves, Bay Leaves. Occasionally Peppercorn, Nutmeg and Mace is also included in this mixture. Powdered Garam Masala is added to the dish at tle last stage of cooking to enhance the flavor while Whole Garam Masala is often used for tempering. The hot referred to, however, is not hot as in spicy, its meaning comes from ancient ayurvedic medicine, according to which the blend "heats" the body, which is useful in a cold climate

Kancha Aamer Ambol ar Chaatni

Aam er Ambol | Aam er Chaatni

Aam er Ambol or Aam er Tok -- a subtly sweet, more tangy, light and soupy broth-- is a Bengali dish made with green, unripe mangoes in the peak of summer and usually served as a coolant at the end of a meal or along with the meal. It is a little different from the Bengali Mango Chutney which is also made with green, raw mangoes but is  sweeter and thicker in consistency.

Jump to Recipe

Green Mango Chutney to tickle your taste buds if the name hasn’t already. This recipe was long due considering we have it pretty often but as Chandrika said the pics never got taken. Need I say in not so many words I simply love this Ambol & Chutney.

As I said in an earlier post a traditional Bengali meal usually consists of five to six courses, starting off with something bitter and ending with a sweet dessert. The fifth course served just prior to the dessert is the sweet & sour ambol or chutney.

The chutney (pronounced cha-a-tni in Bengali) in Bengal is not the chutney, sold in jars in the Asian/Indian Aisle of your SuperMarket and hugely popular in the Western World . The Chutney as we have it in a Bengali household is almost always prepared fresh and is eaten as a course of a lunch or a dinner to accent the meal and not as a relish or as a dip. It is the pickle which is preserved for later day use.

Different regions in India specialize in the ingredients they use for their chutneys and Bengal specializes in Chutney made with fruits like raw mango, tomato, pineapple, papaya etc. Also since fish is a part of an everyday Bengali meal, chutney or ambol made with fish specially the head of Hilsa is also pretty popular. My Dida (maternal grandma ) would make this amazing chutney with head of hilsa and tamarind which she called “macher tak” . Another fellow blogger SpiceandCurry talks about ambol made with fish roe fritters here

As I already said I love all sorts of chutneys, tomato chutney and mango chutney being my favorites. I remember when I first started school in one of the hill stations of West Bengal and would be very miserable with the whole school thing, the bright spot of the day would be my Ma or the help at home arriving with my lunch which almost every day would be Rice, Chanar Dalna (Paneer in a light gravy) & Tomato Chutney. The spoonfuls of Tomato Chutney mixed with Rice (ok, that’s not the norm, that’s not how a decent Bengali should eat his chutney) would make my day. Instead of relegating Chutney to a position towards the end of the meal, I almost always start with it.

And my little daughter loves Chutney too. She calls it “Chantinge” and used to love it even a couple of months back, Now she is becoming more opinionated and has taken a fancy to eating ketchup, that too by itself. I sincerely hope she gets hooked on to my dear chutney again.
Difference between Ambol and Chaatni: The ambol is very light and is like a soup, the emphasis is more on the sourness. The chaatni is thick and is usually more sweet.