Bengali Five Spice Chicken (Inspired by Antara's Achari Murgh)

Bengali Five Spice Chicken 

(Inspired by Antara's Achari Murgh) 

This week our star is Antara of ' Antypasti ' I met Antara in my initial days of blogging It was my first Kolkata Food Bloggers' meet and it was great fun to meet this vivacious person. She runs a travel cum food blog and to me it is quite apparent that she loves the landscape and food from the North East region of India which is very fascinating for someone such as myself who has neither been to the land of the Seven Sisters and has practically no knowledge about the cuisine from North East except for the fact that one gets excellent pork in Meghalaya and as I have learnt from her blog and other food enthusiasts that the entire region makes excellent pork dishes.

Having said that the only time I have been to the North east was way back in 1996 as a child and what I remember is staying at a family friend's house where the grandmother of the house made some excellent dish out of squash which is a type of vegetable.

Anyway moving on to our star of the week. I had initially decided on her Pork curry which was extremely simple and which reminded me of the chicken curry that my friend Elizabeth from Mizoram had prepared for me a long time ago.She is my college friend and when she was studying in Kolkata I had the good fortune of visiting her in her hostel where she made this lip smacking chicken curry and I was extremely surprised when she shared the recipe which hardly contained any spice at all and yet it remains one of the tastiest chicken curries that I have ever tasted. Antara's pork curry is exactly like Elizabeth's chicken curry and so initially I had decided on that but then I am traveling to Delhi for a trip and so I had to opt for some other dish and the Achari Chicken caught my attention mostly because it uses the Bengali five spice and I have never used Bengali 5 spice to make chicken curry and this intrigued me greatly and so I quickly adapted the recipe to suit the ingredients I had at home and the result was lip smacking chicken curry which vanished in no time.

To be fair the way I prepared it makes it appropriate to be taken with Rice  but then you can always adapt this to suit your requirements. I wanted it really hot and used a lot of yellow chili power which happens to be my latest obsession.

Do take a look at Antara's Foreign Returned Achari Murgh .

Before I begin let me assure you that the Bengali five spice varies from home to home and while some use cumin seeds others use a local spice 'Rahuni' which has its own unique flavour

400gm chicken with bones (preferably from the leg an thigh)
1 tbsp Bengali five spice( An equal amount of mustard seeds ,Fenugreek seeds, Rahuni , Kalonji and Fennel seeds)
2 tbsp mustard oil (I used spice mustard oil since I always keep a jar of homemade Spice mango mustard oil 'Aaam tel' at home but otherwise the normal mustard oil would do)
1 tbsp smooth ginger garlic green chili paste (I used 2 hot green chili)
2 heaped tsp yellow chili powder or Paprika or Kashmiri red chili powder
Salt as per taste
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp whisked curd
Pinch of turmeric
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander leaves

Marinate the chicken with the curd  ginger garlic chili paste  freshly crushed black pepper and salt for 2 hours. Heat the oil and when it reaches its smoking point reduce the heat and add the 5 spice and once they splutter add the chicken and seal its juices on high heat for 1 minute stirring it constantly and then add the yellow chili powder and a bit of water and cook  covered on low heat till the oil separates taste an a salt if required and add the finely chopped cilantro and enjoy it with hot steaming rice.

Tip

Reducing the heat once the oil reaches its smoking point ensures that the spice does not get charred

Bengali Fish Fry

Bengali Fish Fry 

The Bengali fish fry is this crunchy breadcrumb coated delicious snack. Served with the piquant Bengali mustard sauce 'kasundi' and some thinly sliced cucumber and onions this makes for a superb snack.

To be fair the fish used in this recipe plays a major role. So yes, Bhetki aka Barramundi is irreplaceable for the Bengali fish fry.
I prefer my fillets to not be too thin or too thick so usually I purchase a 1kg to 1.5 kg Bhetki and then get about 16 fillets from it.


Serves 4 to 5 people

9 fillets (Bhetki/Tilapia) weighing 370gm  in total
2 tsp thick smooth garlic paste (Garlic paste can be smooth and watery or thick and smooth,  I used a number of garlic cloves to make it thick an smooth)

Juice of  1 Tbsp ginger paste 

Approximately 2 tsp onion paste which must be extremely smooth
2 tsp green chili coriander leaf paste  

Salt as per taste 

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper 

For the dipping batter
1 cup gram flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1tsp
Sufficient water to make it to a dripping consistency

3  cups bread crumb

Mustrad oil for frying 

Marinate the fillets for about 1 hour to 2 hours
Make a smooth batter -  If the batter if too thick it does not coat the fish well and the coat keeps coming off from the fish .
Dunk the fillets in the batter and then pat it with  breadcrumb making sure the breadcrumbs coat the fillets without leaving any spots. 

Important tip :-

1. If you use high heat while frying the fish easily becomes blackened on parts which is unwanted. 
2. Make sure you keep changing the oil when there is some residue at the bottom of the wok. In my experience this prevents the fish from crisping up. I do not know why this happens though.

Enjoy this lovely snack with some Bengali mustard base condiment (Kasuni)  onion rings 

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Bengali Scotch Eggs (Dimer Devil)

Bengali Scotch Eggs (Dimer Devil) 

I have this particular fascination with family recipes especially one that has survived 2 generations. When my fellow blogger and friend Pritha told me that she has some family recipes for chops and cutlets handed down by her grandmother to her aunt and mother, I was immediately excited with the prospect of family recipes. I knew that I had to get my hands on these recipes. For me, a recipe is a treasure and a recipe which survives 2 generations or more automatically becomes a part of history and culture and slowly heritage.

Pritha is an extremely dedicated person who sticks to her culinary challenges which she takes up every other month. Not that she doesn't keep preparing lip smacking dishes all round the year but every other month she takes up a challenge of creating  one recipe after a other for a particular time span on a theme she chooses.

I completely stuck to the recipe except for using coriander leaves aka cilantro rather than parsley leaves  .

Here is a little tip for you guys. In the recent past a very experienced lady who is part of the facebook Food group Ranna Bati brought this to light that the term Garam Masala is a very generalized term which makes so sense when it comes to Indian cuisine due to its vast range of cuisines. For instance a Punjabi would use Bay leaves and Black cardamom in his garam masala while a Bengali usually sticks to cinnamon, green cardamom , cloves and for special occasions there is the additional mace and nutmeg and usually we Bengalis do not grind our Garam Masal for most dishes  . Now in many of my previous recipes I myself have used the term 'garam masala' without specifying the spices used.

In this recipe's context since its Bengali when I was making the mince meat filling since I had halved Pritha's recipe I had used 2 green cardamom, 2 cloves , 1/4th inch cinnamon . I dry roasted it and then used a mortar and pestle to make a finely ground powder.

So go check out her recipe here : Dimer Devil

Here is a tip which might help you :

When you fill the cavity of the egg whites with the mince meat and then use a bit of mashed potato to coat the egg make sure the coating of potato is not too much because if you make a very large oval shaped Dimer Devil to be fried when you fry it , chances are that the coating of batter would break on both the sides.

I would suggest serving the dish with the classic 'Kasundi' (Bengali Mustard condiment) and in its absence any mustard condiment is the ideal choice for the condiment.

Spinach Oats Chicken

Spinach Oats Chicken 

Quite honestly I feel food tastes best when it is cooked in butter, clarified butter, bacon fat or duck fat or anything which is actually far from healthy but then on a daily basis after the last morsel of that ghee laden pilaf gets over after 2 days of revelry you have to go back to eating healthy. 

Now different diets work for different people and for me a low on carbohydrate high on protein diet works best but then there are those times when you feel you crave a bit of carbs and so here is one which is not only extremely tasty but is extremely healthy and filling.

For the dish a good pot of chicken stock is an absolute must though. So before you begin make sure you have chicken stock at home. The easiest way to make it is to save the chicken bones every time you buy chicken and then the day you make the stock just throw in the bones with water and along with a few cloves of garlic, an onion, bayleaf , salt and whole peppercorn and simmer for about 2 hours or so adding a bit of water from time to time making sure that it never comes to a boil .

Remove the scum which will form on your stock.

Coming back to the recipe this serves 2 or 1 depending on how hungry you are :-

1/2 cup of oats
250gm of spinach leaves
500ml of chicken stock
2 large cloves of garlic
1 ripe red chili or Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt as per taste
Half a chicken breast weighing 200gm

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer and blanch the spinach leaves in it for 3 minutes and then make a smooth paste of the spinach leaves with the garlic and chili and keep aside.

Make 2 to 3 pieces of the chicken breast and just simmer  the stock and chicken for 2 minutes and then cover and let the chicken rest in the stock for 7 minutes. This should yield the softest chicken ever. Shred this and keep aside.

Strain the stock and add 300ml of the stock to the oats with a bit of salt and simmer stirring frequently till it almost seems cooked and then add the spinach paste and simmer stirring continuously till it starts bubbling and splattering and just add the shredded chicken before serving and you have a bowl of goodness which is extremely filling.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken (Anwesha's Recipe)

Bacon Wrapped Chicken (Anwesha's Recipe) 

This week our (Kolkata Food Blogger's)  star is Anwesha who runs this beautiful travel cum food blog, Peanutsontheroad.
I personally have a strong believe that she or he who travels is always a blast to talk to because you can never run out of conversation with travelers who have so many stories to share and Anwesha despite having a very busy schedule takes out time to document her travels and once in a while shares a few foolproof and delightful recipes.

She is a researched with IIT Kharagpur and is an avid traveler and food enthusiast.

When her week approached I had initially decided on one of her recent recipes of mince meat stuffed buns but then again I went on reading her recipes one after the other and suddenly I was confused between the Bacon Wrapped Chicken, Meat Ghugni and Fish Cake.

I had initially made her Fish Cake but adjusted it to my needs my replacing the flour with mashed potatoes , omitting the cheese and mostly using milk instead of butter but then just as I was about to start writing my experience I saw that one of our other members has already made written and raved about the Fish Cake and I instantly felt joyous because it meant I was going to make the Bacon wrapped chicken.

Ah Bacon, well as a bacon lover this dish is an absolute delight. And its difficult to go wrong with a tangy apple filling inside succulent chicken breasts wrapped with crisp bacon.

I mostly stuck to her recipe which you can take a look here : Bacon Wrapped Chicken. 

I am not writing the  recipe because like I said , I mostly stuck to it.

Here is a helpful hint though :-

1. When you are wrapping the bacon around the chicken make sure it just about wraps it and bacon does over overlap its own layer because then the layer of bacon beneath the layer of bacon outside won't crisp up. 
2. Once baked let the bacon wrapped chicken rest for a good 10 minutes because then the chicken beneath the bacon will become absolutely juicy and succulent without a trace of dryness. 
3. Using granny smith apples (greenapples) gives a delightful tangy taste .

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