Koli Curry: Flavorful chicken curry from Coorg

Coorg is a beautiful region located in the Western Ghats in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The people of Coorg -- Kodavas -- a brave, extremely good-looking race are fun loving and carry with them the beauty of their region. The region of Coorg, rich in coffee and spice plantations also has the most amazing cuisine. The Koli (chicken) curry and 'nool puttu' or rice noodles are only two of the best known dishes from this really picturesque Indian hill station. The recipe below is for Koli curry, it is really easy to make and tastes so good that it deserves pride of place in any spice-lover's favorite dinner party menu.


The Recipe


1 kg chicken cut and cleaned
1 large onion chopped fine
juice of 1 lemon
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
2 teaspoons chillie powder
salt to taste
oil for frying

In a mortar and pestle (or blender) make a paste of the following:

1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
1 piece of cinnamon
4 cloves
1 inch piece ginger
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon poppy seeds (posto)
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 bunch fresh coriander leaves chopped coarse (wash roots and stems well and include it in the paste)

Separately make a thick paste of the fresh grated coconut


In a large well heated pan add some oil and when it is smoking hot, add the onions and fry till translucent; add salt and the ground spice paste. Fry very well till a delicious fragrance is released, then add the chicken pieces and continue to fry well till the chicken is well coated with the spice paste. Pour in the two cups of warm water, bring to a boil, then cover reduce heat and simmer till chicken is cooked through.
Stir in the coconut paste gently, add the lemon juice and simmer about 2-3 minutes. Then remove from heat and serve hot with steamed white rice.

Pumpkin with yogurt and black mustard seeds

Thinking up vegetable dishes for everyday Indian meals can be a bit of a challenge. The other night I sort of created this surprisingly delicious pumpkin (called lal kumro or red pumpkin in Bengali) dish that takes little time and even less effort. Serve it hot with rice or rotis or even use it as an unusual sandwich filling.


The Recipe


200 gm pumpkin cubed
a handful of French beans cut into smallish pieces
1 Japanese cucumber cubed
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2-3 slit green or red fresh chillies
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
1 tablespoon yogurt
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
salt to taste
oil for frying


Heat the oil, add the black mustard seeds and when they start to splutter add the cubed vegetables and stir-fry quickly. Add salt, tumeric and chillies and keep frying for a few minutes. Reduce heat and cover and let the vegetables sort of cook in their own steam.
When the vegetables are nearly cooked (around 10 minutes) stir in the tablespoon of yogurt. Mix very well and remove from heat. Serve hot.

Fish curry in a piquant mustard gravy

This is an adaptation of a treasured Bengali recipe. The reason I say 'adaptation' is that I've added a few cubed vegetables to the curry, while in Bengal it is generally prepared with fish and potatoes only. Cooking fish with a pungent, piquant freshly ground mustard paste ('shorshe baata') is one of the commonest (and most delicious) fish preparations throughout Bengal. I normally use a stone mortar and pestle, if you don't have one a regular blender works just fine.


The Recipe

Make a paste using a mortar and pestle (or blender) of the following with a bit of water:

a little more than 1/4 cup black mustard seeds
4 fresh green or red chillies


3-4 medium sized fish steaks (milk fish, cod, carp) rubbed with salt and tumeric powder and kept aside
1 medium sized eggplant cubed
3-4 okra cubed
1 potato cubed (skin on, well washed)
2 tomatoes quartered
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
salt to taste
oil for frying



Fry the tumeric coated fish in hot oil a few minutes each side, till crisp and golden. Keep aside.
In the same oil, put the mustard-chillie paste and fry a few seconds, add a teaspoon or two of warm water, the tomatoes and sugar and fry well for a couple of minutes on medium heat. Add the cubed vegetables and keep frying (add a little more water if needed, just to keep the mixture a little thick). Add the fish, fry carefully making sure the pieces do not break. When the fish and vegetables are well coated with mustard, add salt and about two cups warm water. Reduce heat and simmer for about 12 minutes or till the vegetables are cooked.
Serve hot with white rice.

Fish curry with pumpkin and sweet potatoes

Typically Indian curries do not mix vegetables and meat or fish (that is of course if we don't count potatoes as vegetables). I'm not sure why this is so especially as in most east and south east Asian countries one-pot meals are quite common. In india we do find the odd curries of Bengal where fish is cooked with cauliflower florets or big cubes of 'potol', but like I said around the country as a whole, usually the meat/ fish etc is cooked by itself and the vegetable dishes are served separately.

Having lived in east Asia for a while now, I've got quite used to mixing up my meat/ fish with a selection of vegetables -- in essence creating a convenient one-pot meal. I've also got used to experimenting with spices and curry pastes, retaining a basic Indian flavor but freely borrowing from Asian techniques and ingredients that seem to me to go well with Indian spice mixes. The recipe below is the result of this sort of experimentation. In this dish I've used small chopped bits of fresh coconut -- it adds a delicious crunchy texture to the dish. Fresh coconuts are not always easily available, a good substitute would be a handful of lightly fried unsalted cashew nuts.



The Recipe


4 fish steaks (use a nice fish that absorbs flavors well like cat fish or carp)
200 gm sweet pumpkin cubed
1 large sweet potato peeled and cubed
2 tomatoes (medium sized) chopped fine
handful of curry leaves
2 tablespoons fresh coconut chopped into little cubes (or the cashew nut substitute)
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon sugar
salt to taste
oil for frying

Make a paste of the following using a mortar and pestle or blender:
2 shallots
1 inch piece ginger
3-4 fresh green or red chillies
1 teaspoon whole white pepper


Wash and pat dry the fish on kitchen towels. Rub some salt and tumeric powder on the fish and keep aside for about 10 minutes. Heat some oil in a pan and when smoking, put in the fish and fry about 2 minutes on each side till fish turns nice and golden. Keep the fried fish aside.
Add some more oil to the pan, put in the spice paste and fry well for a couple of minutes; add the teaspoon of tumeric and coriander powder, the tomatoes, salt and sugar. Fry some more and then add the vegetables and curry leaves and about a tablespoon of warm water. Fry very well 6-8 minutes till the vegetables are well coated with the paste.
Add about two cups of warm water bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer another 6-8 minutes. Add the fried fish and coconut pieces and simmer again for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and serve hot with steamed white rice.

Poha: Savory rice flakes

This picture shows black mustard seeds (rye)

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Snack food in India probably deserves an encyclopedia of its own. An amazing variety of fritters (telebhajas, pakoras or bhajis) is prepared from all kinds of vegetables, even vegetable peels -- in Bengal, fish, shrimp; small dosas called utthapams; varities of dried rice and rice flakes known as poha and muri are lightly spiced and served with hot tea; bhels and sevs -- dried fried dhals are another snack basic combined with all manner of nimkis and puris to make chaats; and then there is the paani puri or puchka of Bengal; vadas of the South and vada-pavs of Bombay to list just a few of India's commonly available snacks. In fact even the humblest tea stall in India will have a few glass jars of flaky pastry biscuit, or the hard nankhatais or even just simple rusks to accompany the tea. In the streets of Calcutta, evening tea stalls often sell hard boiled eggs or omelettes as accompaniments to the little bhars of cha.

I remember stopping at a picturesque tea stall on the winding road up from Siliguri to Gangtok with my husband, the little wooden shack that served as a tea stall sold hot sweet tea and crisp homemade savory biscuits studded with onion seeds.

Poha or rice flakes, are actually rice grains that have been parboiled, flattened by heavy rollers and then dried (also known as 'habalapethi' in Sri Lanka). Poha is eaten as a between meals filler in both north and south India (though more commonly in the north) and is easily available at all Indian groceries. My recipe uses typical southern Indian ingredients and takes a few minutes to prepare.


The Recipe

2 cups poha washed and drained in a colander
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
1/2 a small white onion finely diced
a handful of chopped coriander leaves
1 small tomato chopped fine
1-2 green chillies diced
oil for frying
salt to taste

Heat the oil till smoking, add the mustard seeds and when they start to crackle, the onion and tomato. Fry till onion is soft and transclucent and tomatoes pulpy, add curry leaves and chillies. Mix in the poha. Fry well for a minutes, add salt to taste and sprinkle with chopped coriander leaves before serving.
Serve hot with masala cha

Mangsher Korma: Spicy lamb

This is another dish from Bengal. Growing up, this delicious lamb (or mutton as it is made with in Bengal) would be prepared quite regularly and served with aloo bhaja, white rice and phulkopir torkari (cauliflower vegetable). For desert we'd have fresh sweet plums and mishti doi, a bengali yoghurt preparation where natural curds are thickened and sweetened with jaggery.


The Recipe

1 kg lamb cubed
3 white onions grated or diced very fine
5-6 big cloves of garlic grated or chopped very fine
cinnamon powder 2 teaspoons
chilli powder 2-3 teaspoons
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
1 cup yoghurt
3-4 tablespoons ghee
salt to taste
sugar to taste (about 1 teaspoon)


Marinate the lamb in the yogurt for about 1 and a half to 2 hours.
Heat the ghee in a heavy-bottomed casserole dish. Add the sugar, cinnamon powder, chilli powder, onion. Fry this mixture well until it releases a delicious fragrance and the oil separates from the paste. Frying the mixture till it is well cooked will give the dish its rich taste.
Add the lamb pieces, fry well and add salt to taste. Add a little warm water (quarter cup, as the meat will also release juices as it cooks) cover the dish and simmer till meat is well cooked about 45-50 mins. If you prefer, you can pressure cook the lamb with a little more water, at least a cup to a cup and a half. In which case, keep it under pressure (on a low gas) for about 30 mins. If you haven't used the pressure cooking method, check occasionally to see if the water is sufficient.
Serve hot with white rice

Khichuri

I have quite a few comfort foods but all of them have some things in common: they need to be piping hot, simple to make and have to be eaten straight out of a deep ceramic bowl, also preferably they need to be rice or noodle based one pot meals.

One of my favorite comfort foods then (satisfying all the ablove conditions) is simple khichuri. This dish is eaten all over Bengal, particularly during the monsoons and is a basic rice-and-dhal mixture (khichuri literally meaning mixture). Accompaniments to khichuri vary from family to family, my all time favorite is simple aloo bhaja or fried potatoes.

Though I don't usually mention the number of people a dish serves, most of my recipes will easily feed four people.


The Recipe

1/2 kg rice (basmati or even fragrant Thai rice works well)
1/2 kg muug dhal (moong)
the khichuri rule is that you need to use the exact same quantity of rice and dhal for the dish to be prepared perfectly
cinnamon 2-3 sticks
small green cardamoms 2, pinched open
3-4 cloves
1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
2 small bay leaves
2-3 whole green chillies slit down the middle
1 teaspoon tumeric powder
1 teaspoon grated ginger
vegetable oil for frying (though traditionally mustard oil is used)
sugar and salt to taste
1-2 teaspoons of pure ghee
a pinch of garam masala powder (optional)


Wash the rice and leave it to drain in a colander.
Wash the dhal and then dry-fry it in a large pan till it turns reddish brown and releases a nutty fragrance.
Heat some oil in the pan and when smoking add the bay leaves, cumin seeds, cardamoms, cloves. Then add the ginger and fry a few seconds. Add the drained rice to this and fry well about 2-3 minutes. Add the dry-fried dhal and tumeric and fry again a couple of seconds. Add some warm water (about a cup and a half) to cover the rice and dhal about 2-3 inches -- too much water will overcook the khichuri.
Cover and allow the rice to simmer about 12-15 minutes checking occasionally to see if the water is enough. When the khichuri is nearly done add the chillies, salt and sugar to taste. Just before serving pour the melted ghee on the khichuri and a pinch of garam masala powder if desired.

Sometimes quartered vegetables like skinned potols, potatoes and cauliflower florets are added to the khichuri. If you would like to do this, just quarter/ cube the vegetable and fry in mustard oil with some tumeric and salt and add these vegetables to the rice just before adding the dhal and warm water.

Serve khichuri hot with crisply fried potato cubes, fried fish or even deem boras (egg fritters)

Qabargah: Kashmiri lamb chops

When I lived in Delhi I remember visiting the Chor Bizzare restaurant once -- rather kitschy-nice in decor with really good Kashmiri food. As each region of India uses a primary combination of spices in its staple dishes, Indian cuisine on the whole has a rich repertoire of dishes, sharing some basic flavors but on the whole very individualistic.

Kashmiri cooking uses a lot of garam masala and milk, probably to create wholesome nutritious warming dishes suited to the cold climate of the region. This recipe is a delicious way to cook lamb steaks or chops. One of the ingredients used here is 'besan' which is chickpea flour and easily available from any Indian grocery.


The Recipe


8 small lamb chops (or steaks)
1 and a half cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
8 cardamoms bruised slightly to release the flavor
8 whole cloves
a small stick of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns


Wash the lamb chops, pat dry. Combine all the rest of the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and put the chops into this liquid, simmer till the meat is tender and the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and keep aside.

Prepare a smooth batter by mixing the following ingredients:

1/3 cup besan
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed cardamom
1/4 teaspoon chillie powder
a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and tumeric powder
a few powdered cloves (pound them in a mortar or powder them in a spice grinder)
1/3 cup water

Let batter stand for 30 minutes.

Dip the cooked chops one at a time in the batter to coat well on both sides. Shallow fry in hot oil till golden . Serve hot with a green salad and some pickles.

My favorite moshala cha

Most Indians who are passionate about food will have a favorite masala cha or moshola cha as we say in Bengal. Some people (like me) prefer it simple with just a bit of ginger and cinnamon, others like Gujaratis for example load their tea with a specially prepared chai-masala mix, south Indians crush a few cardamoms and ginger with the brewing tea and the list goes on with endless variations.

I make a big production of my evening tea, partly because I work out of home and have enough time to do this at around 4 pm, and also because I love tea especially on rainy or cold evenings. I also happen to love my 8 inch cannister shaped blue and white Chinese ceramic teapot with twisted wire handles.

I usually drink a few small cups of steaming hot tea with a small bowl of some Indian snack like bhujia or the south Indian chickpea murrukku. I use good quality tea leaf, at the moment I am using the Harrod's breakfast blend (Number 14, really delicious black teas from various countries) but when I am out of this, I use a local mix of Assam and Darjeeling tea that I buy on my visits back to Calcutta.


The Recipe

A few pieces of fresh ginger cut into small bits
1 cinnamon stick
milk
water
sugar


Heat some water in a pot and rinse out your teapot with this warm water just before pouring in your freshly made tea.

In a pot place the ginger pieces and cinnamon stick, cover with water and simmer gently for a couple of minutes. Then add milk as required and bring the mixture to a boil. Turn off heat and add tea leaves (the rule of thumb is a teaspoon of leaves for each cup + one for the pot). Cover and allow to brew for a while. Pour into your warmed teapot and serve with some spicy snack.
You may also prepare the tea and serve the milk and sugar separately in the Western way, but with masala tea the milk is usually added to the brewing tea and then served.

Dinner

The three dishes shown here are (clockwise) palak paneer, Andhra pepper chicken and chingri malai curry. This is what I had prepared for a dinner for some Taiwanese friends, the pictures are not very good as I am not much of a photographer...but the food was delicious!


ps: this is the same picture that is up in the corner with my profile

Bhindi pachadi

Pachadis or piquant side dishes that exist somewhere between relishes and pickles, are an essential part of a complete south Indian eating experience. Bhindi or okra pachadi is a favorite in my husband's family and this bhindi pachadi recipe is easy enough to prepare in around 10 minutes. Use tender fresh okra for it, sliced into very fine rings. As pachadis are usually prepared in small quantities, it isn't necessary to make a whole lot of this dish at a time.


The Recipe

50 grams okra finely sliced into rings
salt to taste
some curry leaves
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 dried red chilli
1 teaspoon oil for frying
1 cup beaten sour yoghurt

In a well heated pan add a teaspoon of oil, when it begins smoking add the cut okra, salt to taste and fry a few minutes till okra is crisp and a little blackened (not charred through though!)
Remove from heat. In the same pan, add a little more oil and place on a medium-high flame. Add the red chilli and fry a few seconds, then add the curry leaves and just as they begin to crispen (2-3 seconds) add the black mustard seeds. When the mustard starts to crackle (couple of seconds) lower heat and add okra back to pan. Stir-fry a couple of seconds and remove from heat. Pour this mixture into the bowl of beaten yoghurt and mix well, check seasoning and add a little more salt if needed. Ideally, the pachadi should taste a little salty to balance the sourness of the yoghurt.


Serve with boiled rice, sambhar and pickles and a glass of buttermilk.