My Sister-in-Law's Methi Chicken

Before any of you go ballistic and start crashing up your iPads and say this recipe is a hoax, let me come clean and tell you this recipe of Methi Chicken does not need a single sprig of fresh methi green.

I mean you can add fresh methi greens if you want and it definitely would be a nice thing to do but on a chilly October evening when you do not feel like donning a jacket to drive out in quest of fresh Methi greens, stay put. Chances are you still have those pale brown almost saffron colored methi seeds in a small dabba on the left corner of your second kitchen shelf. Pull them out and also the box of MDH Kasoori Methi, fragrant and crumbling like old parchment. This and the chicken and you are all set to make my sister-in-law's methi chicken.

She, the sister-in-law, the husband's younger sister cooked this for us when we visited her early last month. Well actually she cooked a lot of other dishes, a lot and I mean it. She would call me up every day, a week before our visit and diligently note down stuff we might want to eat. I really had no clue why she was asking stuff like "Do you eat Luchi for breakfast or Paratha?", "Do you prefer pav bhaji with afternoon tea or pakori?". I assumed this was some kind of survey to trend the obesity pattern among legal immigrants and tried to be as honest as I could.My oldest very innocently informed her pishi(aunt) that we actually eat luchi only when Didun(grandma) is here and thus made null&void my verybusy-cooking-working-notime image that I had painstakingly created over the years.

The sis-in-law took it to heart and cooked anything and everything that the nieces or we might have lacked in our diet.

So during our short stay, while I scoured through all her FB friend's albums, passed smart ass comments and raised my eyebrows in a very Bindu-ish manner ; trying to retain my elder bhabhi stature the poor girl cooked, cleaned and fed us like the sweet Jaya Bhaduri in Bawarchi.

The girl cooked umpteen delicious meals but her methi chicken stuck with me from the moment I saw the delicious curry with a gossamer thin veil of oil which smelled of heaven. It is magical what power those tiny seeds can unleash all by themselves. White fluffy basmati rice drenched in this aromatic chicken gravy is what I will always remember of those four days and oh yes, some of her FB friend's scandalous photos but that we will not discus...

I have cooked this particular dish about 3 times since. Come on, it is easy, convenient and quick. The first time it turned out to be really good, the second time I skimped on the oil and chili and it was meh, the third I skimped on the time and oil both and it was again okay but not like hers or my first attempt.

End point is, if you want this to be dramatic you have to go easy on the oil, spend the time a chicken needs for "kashano" or "bhuno" and also give in and raise the heat. A bird needs some love and also oil if I may say so.


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My Sister-in-Law's Methi Chicken

The recipe here is a rough one so feel free to use your cooking instinct

Marinate 2-2&1/2 lb of chicken( skinned and with bones or use boneless thigh portions) with
1 tsp Ginger paste
1 tsp Garlic paste
1 tbsp yogurt
1 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tsp Corriander powder
1/2 tsp Kashmiri Mirch
salt
a little Mustard Oil
a sprinkle of turmeric powder
Keep it in the refrigerator for 30 mins to an hour or more.

Now heat white oil in a deep bottomed pan or kadhai. Don't skimp on the oil unless you want a healthy chicken dish.

Temper the oil with 1/2 tsp of Methi seeds and 1/2 tsp of whole Cumin seeds. The Methi seeds should not burn but give out a nice fragrance. If you are unsure at the point the Methi seeds are turning brown, switch off the heat and wait for 2 minutes. Switch on the heat back again. The oil should be nicely flavored by now.

Add 1-2 cup of thinly sliced onions and fry till the onions are soft and turning brown. Meanwhile make a paste of about
4-5 cloves of garlic
4 hot Indian green chili
1" peeled and chopped ginger
Add this paste to above and fry for next 2 minutes

Follow with a chopped tomato and fry the masala till you know the usual "oil separates blah..blah"

Add
1 tsp of Cumin Powder
1 tsp of Corriander Powder
1 tsp of Kashmiri Mirch (I use kashmiri mirch powder but you can also use red chili powder according to taste)
and fry the masala with sprinkle of water

Add the chicken pieces, salt and then fry them till they change color.Let it cook uncovered for the next 15-20 mins or so, with frequent stirring. This process is actually called "bhuno" in Hindi or "kashano" in Bengali. At the end of this process you will see the oil separating , that indicates good things are in the making.

Now add 2 tsp kasoori methi crushed between your palm(or warmed a little in the microwave), mix everything well together and about 1/2-1 cup of warm water. Adjust salt for taste. Cook covered till chicken is done. By this point a thin layer of oil should float on the top indicating all is good.

Sprinkle some more of the kasoori methi and keep covered until you serve hot.

More Chicken recipes:

The Methi Murgh with methi greens


Indian Chicken recipes

Other chicken recipes

Young Hands at Play

When coking is not a chore it is fun. Why else do you think little hands fly around to make tiny rotis when the mother sucks big time at them.

This picture goes to Susan's lovely photo event Black & White Wednesday.

The second picture has nothing to do with food directly but a lot indirectly. It was taken on a rainy Saturday when we had gone all the way to the city for the sole purpose of eating Thai Jungle Curry at a place off Broadway. I loved this shot but was not sure if it suits Susan's theme so am sharing it here with you.

Nimki -- salty, crunchy for Bijoya

I used to like October a lot, a humongous size of a lot, more than 2.5 acres of a lot. I would count the days leading up to Shoshthi, the days of missing school, the days until the magazine guy would drop off the anandomela on the front porch and the days until we would pack up or suitcases and metal trunks to wait at the small station early in the morning with sleep in our eyes.

I still like it a lot though none of the above happens but today I will not tell you about Durga Pujo or its aftermath.It is anyway over and I have written enough posts about it in the last 4-5 years.And honestly some of them even read like pure sentimental crap if I go back and read them all over and I don't want to repeat that.

I mean come on it is just one more festival man ? So yes, it is like the Bengali Chirstmas if there is ever such a thing and if I have to explain to my non-Inidan colleagues who I am sure worry why I leave work obscenely early on certain 4 days in October. And we do not have a tree but we have a whole family of idols dressed in the finest jewellery that would give any Christmas tree bauble a run for its money. And everyone gives gifts mostly clothes instead of toasters, and since there is no brilliant tradition of gift receipt in India you end up with a whole lot of unnecessary madras silks and ikkats in colors like parrot green which you wouldn't be seen wearing even in your nightmare. Also if you are married there is enough tension running about who spends the Pujo at whose home and whose Mom gave the more expensive sari and who actually would rather spend Pujo vacation in Mauritius than in the by-lanes of Maniktala.

So if you look at it detached with a global angle it is really just one more festival. It took me a whole awful lot of years to understand that and I thought it is best I tell you that early.

Instead I will tell you about Ballerina today. Not a Ballerina but The Ballerina as in the ballerina by Bata, the shoe company who cried themselves hoarse months before Durga Pujo, declaring "Pujoy Chai Notun Juto"(You need new shoes for Durga Pujo). Their marketing tactics must have been well researched because my Baba took this to heart and waited all year until September, a month before Pujo,  to buy me a new pair of school shoes.

It really seems odd now that though the school year started those days in January and later in May or June, we always bought new school shoes just before Pujo in October. Along with the Ballerina, I would also get a fancy pair of Marie Claire open toed sandals with straps that went firmly around one's ankles. But it wasn't the Marie Claire that would be the high point of our shoe shopping, it was always the Ballerina.

Baba believed in value for money and a shoe that was to be worn for every single school day needed utmost care and scrutiny in selection. It had to be that perfect elusive size which would fit a growing feet all year round. This needed trial, lots of them. Even after my feet size was measured on that inclined plane which Bata offered by an all knowing Bata gentleman, the probabilities were still wide ranged.

As boxes of Ballerina were brought down and piled high, I would wear each pair and then walk around the store in them, very reluctantly if I may say so. Baba would then ask me to jump in those shoes and do short runs. Sometimes a stamp or two in preparation of days when I might need to show my anger. And also marches, left-right-left because the republic day parade was only 3 months away. Walk-Jump-Run-Stamp-March.

This routine was followed for at least 5-6 boxes, each followed by vague questions like, Did the shoes hurt ? Did I have to scrunch my toes as I walked around ? Did they tend to slip off when I jumped ? Did I think they slowed me down when I ran ? All this when I was the least athletic kid a school could produce and hadn't won a single race beyond the second grade.

This question-answer part of the process made me very nervous. A wrong answer on my part could lead me to be doomed with the wrong pair of shoes for the entire school year. And no one wants to be in wrong shoes, ask Cinderella. I would ho-hum and complain a bit about each pair, nothing significant but how none was perfect and thus try to remain my diplomatic self.

Finally after hours a pair of spit polished black ballerinas were decided on and instructed to be packed. The Bata gentleman strangely did not show any annoyance during the process and actually supported the whole ordeal by making serious weighted comments just like my Baba did.

The day after the Pujo vacation was over, I would go to school in my new Ballerina and that evening there would be a band-aid on my ankle where the much researched pair hurt the most.

Now to the salty, crunchy, Nimki a staple Bijoya snack along with Narkel Naru and Ghugni. This time three generations of women in our home, sat down together to make nimki. While my Mother made the dough the others pitched in with their own version. I took pictures. Suits me.


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Nimki

To make the dough

AP Flour or Maida -- 1&1/2 Cup
Whole Wheat -- 1/2 cup
Salt -- 1/2 tsp (adjust to taste)
Sugar -- 1/4 tsp
Kalonji -- 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder -- 1/4 tsp
Oil -- 4 tbsp
Water -- 1/2 cup added gradually.(I am not totally sure about this, may have needed a little more)

For Frying

White Oil -- 1 cup for frying

How we Do It

In a wide mouthed bowl add

All Purpose Flour/Maida -- 1+1/2 Cup
Whole wheat Flour -- 1/2 cup
Salt -- 1/2 tsp
Sugar -- 1/4 tsp
Kalonji -- 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder -- 1/4 tsp
Mix with your fingers

Now add about 4 tbsp of White oil. With your thumb and forefinger, rub the oil into the flour mixture so that the flour looks all crumbled.

Add the water gradually and work the flour to make a tight dough. Knead the dough well for about 5 mins till it is smooth. Cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes or so.

Divide the dough into 4-5 large round balls. Roll out each ball into thin circle. With a fork or sharp tip of the knife prick the rolled out dough to avoid the nimki fluffing up.

Now cut the circle in small diamond shapes.

Heat enough white oil for deep frying the diamond shaped pieces of dough (about 1 cup). Fry the pieces until they are uniformly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Once it cools down, store in air tight container.