Chicken à la King

Chicken à la King seems to have been a favourite of the British Raj in India, perhaps because all the ingredients were available here, and the flavour, though rich, is bland. I have come across various recipes using egg yolk, wine, etc., but adding wine somehow gives a fermented flavour, which we Indians regard as the beginning of spoilage. Therefore, I searched for a recipe which was simple and, at the same time, wholesome. I found one in Children’s Party Cooking. Of course I had to tweak the recipe to suit the Indian palate and the ingredients available.

Chicken à la King

Thayir Kozhi Curry (Curd and Chicken Curry)

This is another handy recipe for when you have more curds than you need for your daily consumption, and you are looking for ways to use it up. I have created a very easy-to-prepare chicken dish with very few spices (compared to what we usually use in Tamil Nadu for non-vegetarian cooking) and thick fresh curds.

Thayir Kozhi Curry (Curd and Chicken Curry)

Kala’s Christmas Chicken Biriyani

Biriyani is a choice festive dish or perhaps THE choice festive dish for most occasions. During Christmas, chicken or mutton biriyani is prepared in Christian homes. There are varieties of biriyani in India, every part having its own speciality. This chicken biriyani is Tamilian and my own version and a big favourite with the family. My children say the aroma from the kitchen makes them drool and become ravenously hungry when I make it.

Christmas Chicken Biriyani with Sweet and Sour Brinjal Masala and Thayir Pachadi

Mince Packets

Christmas is the time when people gorge themselves on high protein and high energy food from Advent to New Year. I made these mince packets so that they could be served to guests, and if you are in the habit of receiving carolers hot and spicy mince packets are sure to be welcome.

Hot and Spicy Mince Packets – a Christmas treat 🙂

Kala’s Chicken and Capsicum Curry

I developed this chicken and capsicum curry to dish up a non-vegetarian preparation in a hurry. It is very mild and can be served to both children and the elderly, or anyone who is on a bland diet. Because it is not very spicy it goes better with fried rice or noodles rather than bread or chapathi.

Kala’s Chicken and Capsicum Curry

Asian Chicken Pulav

I came across an interesting combination of spices for chicken pulav in The Asian Cookbook. The recipe did not use any green spices such as green chillies, tomato, or coriander and mint leaves. It used spices that are usually available in the Indian kitchen, making it very easy to prepare as a special dish if you have unexpected guests.

Asian Chicken Pulav

Kala’s Festive Chicken Rice

This is a special preparation I came up with for Easter. I have always wanted to make a chicken and rice preparation without messing with grinding ginger and garlic, coconut, kus kus,  and chopping mint, coriander, tomatoes, and chillies. These are not only time consuming but also very spicy. I wondered how it would be if I made a chicken rice without the strong flavour of ginger and garlic. Here is a recipe for the faint hearted (stomached) but with all the rich aroma of chicken and rice. The stock that is used to cook the rice is made when the chicken is cooked, saving further time and effort of obtaining stock. To make it festive, one can garnish it with fried cashew nuts and raisins but my family relish it as it is.

Kala’s Festive Chicken Rice

Candlelit Chicken Pulav

My apologies if you were expecting something romantic based on the title 🙂 Last week saw extreme flooding in Chennai when two depressions, one in the Bay of Bengal and the other in the Arabian Sea, hit the Tamil Nadu coast. There was widespread power failure – the transformer in front of my home blew spectacularly under the deluge and left us without electricity for a long time. This presented me with 2 problems

• I had chicken in the freezer that had thawed out and would spoil if I didn’t cook it.
• I had no electricity to power my blender, which most Indian cooking depends on. Modern Indian homes also don’t have an ammi (grinding stone) to prepare the masala.

Standing in my candlelit kitchen, I came up with this simple recipe which does not require electricity to prepare the masala.

Candlelit Chicken Pulav

Murgh Makkanwali (Chicken in Butter)

In a book fair during the late ‘80s, I came across Meera Taneja’s Indian Cookery and I bought it immediately because of the way the recipes were written. She had given a slightly different preparation for Murgh Makkanwali. I modified it to suit the ingredients available then and also the facilities in my kitchen. This preparation is different from what one usually comes across in restaurants as ‘Butter Chicken’ which uses leftover Tandoori chicken pieces, whereas Meera Taneja had used fresh chicken.

Murgh Makkanwali (with Khamiri Roti)

Chicken Pulav

Earlier on I had acquired Fathima Shahjahan’s A-1 Muslim Samayal. I was so impressed by her recipes, I added her Chicken Special to my collection. I have corrected some errors and reworked the recipe for non pressure cooking. The wonderful thing about Tamil Muslim cooking is that the tastiest dishes are prepared with fewer ingredients than other kinds of cooking I have come across. Here is a recipe for Chicken Pulav, which does not use ground coconut or kus kus or even coconut milk. The cooking procedure is very simple yet seems to arrive at the most delicious and aromatic preparation in a very short time. My family was most delighted and impressed by the way in which I served this chicken pulav before they started to complain of hunger. The dish has a mild flavour (it is not very hot) but is very tasty.

Chicken Pulav