Chicken Curry - Chettinad Style

This is my favorite chicken curry. I have been making this curry for a few years now and it never occurred to me that I have not posted the recipe yet. There are many different versions of chicken chettinad floating in the web. This is my version..it may not be the authentic one but surely is one of the awesome recipe.

Kori Rotti - Chicken Curry with Rice crisps

This is a authentic recipe from Mangalore. Kori in tulu is Chicken and Rotti is the dried rice crepe.



My version of the recipe is a fusion of various recipes over the internet. Though I found many recipes for this, the ingredients were almost the same with the variation of techniques. I merged the recipes to arrive at a technique that I am comfortable with and I advise the readers to do the same.

Thai fish cake & Sweet chilli sauce

It has been a while since I posted. I hope this will be the beginning of a new episode for my blog. Thanks to all my reader and friends who have been writing and encouraging me to get back to blogging.
Its been a while since I tried any new recipes. When I did I have been procrastinating for a long time.

Recently I was in a mood to try something new with Thai dishes. I looked for Thai fish cake recipes and decided on trying a combination of few recipes including the ingredients that I am comfortable with.

Quick Basil Chicken Curry

I am a little admant when it comes to trying out new cuisines. My husband always makes fun of me that I cook food in my plate in the restaurants. I am always adjusting salt and pepper. I had a very hard time initially in US eating exotic foods. By exotic I mean anything non Indian and non-pizza!

For my surprise I just fell in love with Thai cuisine the very first time. The only secret being its so much closer to Konkani food. Yeah, true Thai and Konkani- bhai Bhai..!!

Konkani Style Fish Fry

Fish Fry with rice flour on the right, rava fry on the left
The konkani style of making fish fry is very different from the rest. Most of my friends get surprised to find out that we use hing in fish! Its very unusual to use hing in any non-veg dishes. But some of the konkani sea food cuisines do have hing.

In the MangaLooru area the sardines/bootai-kannada/peDvo-konkani, macarel/bangude-kannada/raaju-konkani, pomfret/maanji-konkani, small white fish boLinjeer-tuLu/motyaLe-konkani are the konkani favorite fishes. These are the small fishes unlike salmon, catfish or seer. They are fried along with the bones. I am quite bored of pomfret, the only Indian fish found here in US. One of my freind told me that smelt fish is like motyaLe and I made konkani fish fry with it. It was delicious, similar taste as motyaLe.

Special care has to be taken to clean the small fishes. They have a lot of scales and the end result largely depend on how well the fishes have been cleaned. Most of the konkanis do remove the head and the tail while cleaning fish. So the fishes in my pictures are well trimmed.

cleaned fish
1 tsp chilli powder
1/4-1/2 cup rice flour or soji rava.
chick pea size hing
salt

Clean and cut fish. Sprinkle some salt and set aside for 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, dissolve hing in little water. Mix the chilli powder. Add little salt. If you choose to use rice flour, mix that in and make a thick paste. Drain any water from the fish and add to the paste. Apply the paste to all the sides of the fish. Set aside for another 10 minutes.

If you have chosen to use soji rava instead of rice flour, spread some rava on the plate, take individual fish pieces that is already dipped in chilli powder and roll it in the rava and set aside. Do this with all the pieces. Set aside for 5 minutes. By doing this the rava soaks in a little sticking to the fish and will not drop into the oil when frying.

Heat oil in a kadai for deep frying. Fry the fish on both the sides till deep red.

Egg Curry

Unlike the other recipes for Egg Curry, this curry has a thin sauce with pieces of onion floating around. The only thickener here is tomatoes. The sauce is very common North Indian red curry sauce. As a kid, I always ate Konkani food, because my Mom is a all Konkani cuisine lady. But my Mom-in-law is open to all kinds of kitchen experiments, she is one who introduced me to a lot of non Konkani foods. This is her recipe for Egg Curry.

2 Hard boiled eggs, cut into halves
2 medium onion
2 tomatoes
1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste, optional
1/4 bunch cilantro

masala powders
1/2 tsp chilli
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp turmeric

for the seasoning
1/4 tsp jeera
1 sprig curry leaves

Hard boil eggs, cut them into 2 halves. Set aside.
Chop onions, tomatoes.
Heat oil in a kadai, add jeera, curry leaves. Add onions and fry till they are wilted. Add ginger garlic paste. Saute for a minute. Add all the masala powders and stir. Add tomatoes, cover and cook on a medium flame till the tomatoes are mushy and turn into a thick paste. Keep stirring so that they don't char in the bottom.

Add water to the desired consistency. Add salt, bring the sauce to rolling boil. Place egg halves on the sauce so that they float on the top. Garnish with cilantro on top. Put on low flame and cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve with rice.

Pomfret ginger onion curry ( Alle piyav gashi)

Mangaloreans love fish. Sardines/peDvo, Pomfret/maanji, Mackerel/raaju are the mot popular fishes among the konkani's. The konkani fish curries are often made with coconut gravy, that makes it very different from other cuisines. They are a bit hot and savory taste. Alle piyav gashi one of them. In konkani alle means ginger, piyav means onion and gashi is a curry with coconut gravy.

Alle piyav gashi goes well with pomfret or crabs. This time I made it with white promfrets.

2 white pomfrets
1 cup shredded coconut
8 red chillies
1 inch cube tamarind
1 onion
2 green chillies
1/2 inch cube ginger

Clean the pomfrets. Cut of the fins and tail. If you prefer to keep the skull you may retain it. But I discard the head. That's how I was thought to clean the fish by my Mom. Discard the viscera/internal organs. Rinse thoroughly changing the water a few times. Cut the fish across the bones with 1/2- 1 inch width. Set aside

In a tsp of oil, roast the red chillies on low flame. Grind together coconut, tamarind and roasted red chillies to a smooth paste. It is very important to get a smooth paste, do not stop grinding when the coconut is coarse.

Chop onions and ginger finely. Slit green chillies

In a saucepan bring the coconut paste to a boil. Add water and bring it to the desired consistency. You can keep it to the consistency of the Dal. But not too thin. Add onions, ginger and green chillies. Boil the sauce for 5 minutes, add salt. Add the fish pieces one by one to the sauce. Cook it on low flame. Cook for about 10 minutes. Adjust salt.

Serve with rice.

Mangalore Chicken Curry

Mangalore Chicken Curry with Parboiled Rice
This is one of the recipes I learnt from my Mother-in-law. She got this recipe many years back from a friend in Mangalore. This curry has no garam masala or any strong pungent flavor. The spicy and savory taste comes from freshly roasted spices and the coconut.

Here is the ingredient list
1/2 kg chicken, preferably with bones
3 medium sized onions
1/2 tsp jeera
1 coconut, shredded
3tsp oil

Ingredients for the Masala
8-12 Hot red chillies
3 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp jeera
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
5 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp turmeric
10 seeds of methi
6 peppercorns

Roast the ingredients listed for the masala in a tsp of oil. Let it cool. Grind into a smooth paste. Now chop 1 onion and grind along with the spices to a paste. Set aside.

Grind the shredded coconut and 1/2 tsp jeera into a smooth paste and keep set aside.

Remove the skin from the chicken pieces and discard the skin. Clean the chicken and keep it ready. In a saucepan add chicken, water and the ground spices and salt. Chop another onion and add to the chicken. Bring it to a boil, cover and cook on allow flame for 20 minutes.Add the coconut paste to the chicken and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Chop the remaining 1 onion finely, fry it in 1 tsp oil until golden brown and add to the chicken.

Serve with rice.

Prawns Masala (sungaTa paNNa upkari)

paNNa upkari is a popular konkani side dish. Its same to like batate song, but when made with seafood, its called paNNa upkari. I donno why. It usually made very spicy and tangy with a good balance between red chillies and tamarind which are the only spice ingredients in the dish.

paNNa upkari can be made with fresh or dried prawns, small fishes or pomfrets too. Sardine paNNa upkari is the best. This time made it dried prawns.

Dried Prawns Panna upkari

The first time I had dried prawns was at my cousins place. She had made a pulav which was more like ghee rice. And the pulav was served with a prawns paNNa upakri. It was a wonderful combination. Dried prawns have a typical smell, very unpleasant to the beginners.

2 medium onions
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 inch cube tamarind
2 tsp oil
1 cup dried prawns
1 tbsp coconut, optional
salt

Clean the dried prawns. Konkani people usually do like to remove the head and tail of the prawn. That leaves behind only a tiny amount of prawns left behind. You can leave the head and tail intact of you wish to. That will not a difference in the end result. The trimming job can take a good 1 hr hence its good to clean the prawns ahead and store.

Wash the dried prawns in water. Soak it in water for 10-15 minutes. Rub the prawns between fingers, this will wash away any sand particles in the prawns. Rinse till all the sand particles are washed away.

Soak tamarind in half a cup of water. Squeeze out the fibers and keep the pulp ready.

Heat oil in a kadai. Stir in the onions and keep frying till all the onions are turned golden brown. Its very important to get the onions fried evenly to golden brown. Do it on a low flame for a better result.



Add prawns and fry till they turn pink. Add coconut and fry for 5 minutes. Add red chilli powder and fry till its aromatic. Add tamarind pulp and salt. Simmer on low flame till the prawns are cooked.
The dish should not be completely dry. Keep some liquid.

Serve with plain rice or ghee rice or jeera rice.