Sailaja's Chicken Masala Balls

I do not get the opportunity to leaf through many cookbooks to decide "What’s for dinner" or "lunch" or "snack". Not that I don't want to but simply because I don't get time. While coming to US I had packed two Bengali Recipe Books written in Bengali with me. One of them doesn't have great collection of food but I loved the author, Leela Majumdar, and her all other Literary works, so had to buy it. The other is a very ordinary looking book, no glossy pages, nor any nice pictures, no glam-sham that is, but has a very good collection of Bengali Recipes. Albeit this book is like me & Ma, it doesn't give any measurements, just the ingredient list and a general way to prepare, it has most of the Bangla Recipes I have ever heard of. Bengali Cook Books written in Bangla were not much in vogue in those days .Recently some very good cook books for Bengali recipes have been published but most of them are in English.

My Ma would mostly cook recipes she had gathered from her mother, from relatives, friends and from magazines which were a veritable source of good recipes
Me on the other rely a lot on the internet (other than Ma, friends & THE magazines) for recipes. It's easy, fast and convenient. So no wonder when I chanced upon food blogs I was delighted. What with their glossy design, beautiful pictures and all the traditions and tips thrown in they are better than any cook book for me.

At this point I need to narrate a funny incident. My daughter, who is in the "pretend play" stage, is extremely imaginative and goes on "Imagine, Imagine" all day. So a couple of nights back she was sitting on my parent's bed and planning a B'day party for her two dollies.

So my Dad said "What are you going to cook"

She says "Chole & Chicken and Bhatu (Rice)"

My Dad says "Ok, so ask your Mommy for the recipes"

She very confidently "Nah Ami nijei commen e dekhe nebo (No, I will look it up in the computer myself)" and with that she opened her "imagine" laptop with a real flick of the wrist

This shows how much I scour the net for recipes, even if I don't cook them I love reading them

Sailaja's food blog -- SailusFood is a wonderful place to be, her neat layout, the succinct steps and the crisp pictures give an idea as to what to expect of the dish. The moment I saw the "Chicken Masala Balls" in her recipe I knew all of my family and friends would love it and boy did they. Now it has become a kind of regular at my home. But since I make it so often I try not to fry it every time, though the fried ones taste the best. Thanks Sailaja for this wonderful recipe and many more that I am going to blog soon. So here’s my entry for this months MBP February-- Chicken masala balls from SailusFood. Thanks again to both Sailaja for this recipe and Coffee for hosting this wonderful event.

For the fear that soon Sailaja will get famous and her agent might restrict access to her blog I am jotting down the ingredients and the steps I follow here.
You don’t need go any further but check out her Original Recipe here. Her steps and picture are way better


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Sailaja's Chicken Masala Balls

What You Need

Ground Chicken ~ 1lb

Make a wet masala paste with the following

Onion ~ 1 medium
Green chillis ~ 8-10
Corriander leaves ~ small bunch chopped

Garlic ~ 15-20 cloves
Ginger ~ 3" piece chopped

Dry roast and grind the following to make a dry masala powder

5-6 dry red chillis (adjust according to your choice)
Corriander seeds ~ 4 tbsps
Cumin Seeds ~ 1 1/2 tbsps
Cinnamon ~ 2″ stick
Cardamom ~ 3
Cloves ~ 5-6
Cashewnuts ~ 10-20

Salt
Oil for deep frying


How I Do It

Though Sailaja asked to roast the dry spices in oil and then blend, I dry roast them and grind them in my dry grinder. The dry powder I store for future purposes too.
I use minced chicken and so I mix the dry powder, the wet masala and a little yogurt with the minced chicken and keep it for sometime, say a couple of hours and sometimes overnight
Then I make balls exactly as she does.
Deep Fry them and serve them as starters when we have friends over and they cannot stop eating
I also bake these balls for weeknight dinners. Spray the baking pan with Oil and bake them at 350F till they are lightly browned and done. Tastes yummy with Rotis and by themselves.

Note: Following is the baked version. I had less corriander leaves so the balls look a little less green

Trivia: Masalas are spices and other seasoning ground together to form the basis for Indian sauces

Tofu Burji

So the Valentines Day is over and here I have something for all your hearts which went through a lot on this day. So here’s to a healthier, better HEART --- Tofu.
Tofu Burji is something I learned recently from my wonderful friend S. The first time I had it , it tasted so good, I didn’t believe it was tofu, I was sure it was eggs. It is sooooooo tasty that you have to eat it to believe it and even if you are not a big time Tofu fan, I insist, yes insist that you try it at least once before giving a verdict.
Of course the fact that S is a great cook made the whole thing easier. She told me exactly what to do to make it simple yet very tasty. Thanks to S who is not only a great cook but also a entrepreneur, check out her business portal BombayAvenue

Tofu Burji, a very simple and easy recipe, healthy and yet delicious. This tastes exactly like egg burji or scrambled eggs. Only thing is it takes more time than to make egg burji, don’t try to rush it, doesn’t help. Since we are great “egg in all form” lovers ( Sunday ho ya Monday, roj khao Andey) but can’t have too much because of the cholesterol factor, this recipe was a delight. Now I make it enough and pack it for lunch often. You can have it with Roti or just by itself, what we end up doing most of the time. My daughter who is an egg fan too, eats this happily thinking its scrambled eggs and that is a big achievement I tell you


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Tofu Burji

What you Need

Tofu ~ 1 packet NaSoya soft tofu
Onion ~ 1 and ½ chopped fine
Tomato ~ 1 chopped in small pieces
Garlic ~ ½ clove chopped fine (not shown in pic)
Green Chilli ~ 4/ 5 finely chopped (not shown in pic)
Corriander leaves ~ quarter of a bunch chopped (not shown in pic)

Olive Oil
Salt

How I Do It

Drain water from the soft tofu packet and crumble it with your hands. It’s very soft and will crumble easily
Chop onions real fine, chop the tomatoes in small pieces. Same as you would for egg burji
Heat Olive Oil in a Frying pan
Add the chopped garlic
As soon as you get the flavor of garlic, add the chopped onion. Fry till they turn a nice pink
Add the chopped tomatoes and sauté till the tomatoes are well cooked and mixed well
Add the green chillies if you want them.
Add the crumbled tofu.
Sauté till all the water evaporates. Since soft tofu retains a lot of moisture a lot of water may come out and so this step will take some time. You need to dry up all the water and by the end of this the tofu should be dry
At this point you may need to add a little oil, add a lttle to add a little more flavor
Add half of the chopped coriander, salt and mix well and sauté for some more time
Taste to see if it tastes like scrambled eggs, if not yet, you need to sauté a little more.
The end result would look like the pic below
Garnish with rest of the coriander and serve with Roti or enjoy by itself

Note: More Tofu Burji Recipes
Tofu Podimas from PremaSundar

Update on May 2007: Did this with Firm Tofu and that turned out good as well

Trivia:The English word "tofu" comes from the Japanese tōfu which itself derives from the Chinese dòufǔ. Though Tofu is of Chinese origin in both languages it means "bean curd"

Gooseberry and Not Happy about Valentines Day

Gooseberry ? That’s what the package said. The fruit that you see in the above pic was known as “Tya(n)pari” in Bihar, it was sold by the cartful on the roadside and we used to love it. It was not much seen in Kolkata, the strange thing being D had never even heard of it. He would laugh at me whenever I said this name and was I elated to see this small pack in my local Shop Rite fruit aisle a month ago. Though the package said Gooseberry I think this the “Cape Gooseberry” according to Wiki. It is sweet and juicy and I love eating it raw. If you know more about this fruit please input your info.
Can you discern the heart in the picture? I didn’t plan it but when I saw it on my computer I was sure it was all because of Valentine Day and I had to write something I had wanted to keep to myself.

Ok, so let me come clean, I have stopped being a Valentines Day Fan. I feel it's overly hyped and there is too much brouhaha with it and the commercialization -- the less said the better.

Maybe I don't feel any attachment to this tradition because I have not grown up with it, Valentines Day was unheard of when I was in school, at least there was not much hullabaloo over it in our small township. At the close of the teens there was this hush in the air about this day and it was solely marketed for "romantic couples", we felt it was supposed to be for errrrrr stupid females with bfs, we ( the more stupid ones) had none so that was it.

By the time I was in college and we had moved to the city with an "Archies" store at every corner, the cute pink bears holding red hearts and the mushy-mushy card made my heart flip and if you would sniff hard, rising above the diesel and the fumes you could smell the red roses and "Love". That was the age to go rubbery in the knees on seeing such things and if someone so much as dropped the "L" word you would go red -pink & purple, ok not purple. "Archies" did a very good job of putting pressure on the millions of Indian youth and I bet even that gangly youth with oiled hair from Jhumritaliya shyly scribbled on an “Archies” card for the love of his life.

No such luck for me though and even later when I was friends with D we never succumbed to Valentines Day, the V day was still very much targeted for the mushy-mushy lovey-dovey couple of "Maine Pyar Kiya" and no way I was going to be labeled in such a category.

This changed however after marriage, the first Valentines day I totally flipped and sent a card worth 50 bucks to D who was far from India at work on an project. I was sane enough not to spend more of my hard earned bucks on postage and sent it with another good friend who was traveling to the same place around this time. Fortunately this was a guy and "happy & gay culture" was not in so there was no confusion as to "who gave the card to whom".

Since D did not send a card or claimed that his card was lost in transit I threw a hue and cry…all those years of not celebrating V day and "Archies" & now "Hallmark" was showing signs. So by the next V day when we were here in the "Valentines Day Mecca" D promptly bought me a bunch of roses, roses on V Day are you crazy ?? I was apalled by the price and again threw a hue & cry.

By now the poor guy would have been confused but he knew me well enough not to get ruffled. So the next year I asked him to get me a single stem of rose, that's it.

By now I was getting sick of Valentines Day anyway, and then it seems V day is no longer for "romantic couples" it is for everyone are you kidding me? Why the hell would I buy a dozen Roses worth $50 and present it to close, not so close, barely know them friends.And then they have Valentines Day parties at pre school and toddler classes too. This is getting on my nerves and so I put my foot down, "No Valentines Day For Me" this year

And so while I will hop around and check out all these wonderful blog events for Valentines Day, and die of guilt for not making a contribution, I will stay put and let Hallmark lose one buyer

Check out Valentines Day in other cultures in Wiki, fun info

Trivia: March 14 is celebrated as White Day in Japan & Korea by a concentrated marketing effort, when men are expected to return the favour to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day has emerged in Japan and Korea as a day on which women, and less commonly men, give candy, chocolate or flowers to people they like.