Roast Chicken… with Green Chillies you say?

Suddenly it’s winter here. One day we were soaking in perspiration and blaming the afternoon sun and whoa, suddenly sky is covered with grey misty clouds and we are shivering to our bones. Out came the overalls, sweaters, scarves and we changed to hot, hot beverages at all hours of the day. Spices lose their subtlety and pronounce their presence in a curry with more resonance. It’s time for a season change meal, a meal to celebrate the transition…a meal that will rejoice in the bounties of last summer and the impending winter spectacles. It’s time to call some friends and share our fortune.  The menu is simple, roast chicken served with raw green mango salsa and green salad. Well, it isn’t that boring as the salt, pepper, butter and herb roasted chicken. Obviously I can’t be that predictable. I added a twist of my own, inspired from my own culture… my home. 

Roast Chicken… Bong Style

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1.5 kg

Garlic - 15 cloves

Green Chillies - 10 to 12 (Adjust if you can’t take the heat and scrape down the seeds also)

Fresh Coriander, very finely chopped - 1 cup

Mustard Oil - Half a cup

Salt - as per taste

Lemon, halved - 1 whole

Garlic, halved - 1 whole head

Procedure:

1. Make a fine paste of garlic, chilli, fresh coriander and two tablespoon of mustard oil. This is the marinade for the chicken.
2. Clean the chicken. Remove the wishbone or butterfly cut it (I am guessing you know the method or I will soon put up a tutorial for the same, you can also ask your butcher to do it). Do so if you want to avoid mess during carving the bird in front of the spectators.
3. Now rub the chicken with the marinade. Use mustard oil generously. Make sure to put marinade and oil under the skin also.
4. Put the chicken in a roasting tray. Put halved lemon and garlic head inside the cavity of the bird. Secure the neck and stomach cavity with help of twines.
5. Roast at 180 degree Celsius for one hour. Just check by cutting a little of the leg. Take out and rest while cover the bird with aluminum foil to keep juice intact.
6. Slice and serve. I chose green mango salsa as a side. You can find the recipe link below. You can also serve it with spicy cumin potatoes or aubergines cooked with fresh fenugreek.

Our friends loved it so much that I think I am going to serve this roast chicken for Christmas also this year.  What about you?

Green Mango Salsa:

 

Spiced Orange Upside Down Cake…Yummylicious

It’s been almost a year. A year of oblivion.  A year of soul searching.  A year spent in facing my fears head on and feel alive. I just made one blog post last year and took a long sabbatical. Guess not much of a passionate blogger, ehh? Well, something happened... something so powerfully negative that I have to go do something to feel good about myself again. I went to work in print and web magazines with almost no experience. I completely changed my career and survived. Moreover my work was appreciated. I was happy and my life changed again. J got relocated and we came to a new city.

Starting a new life in a new city with a small kid is not easy. Rather it is challenging and deliriously intoxicating. Every experience is novel, everything seems beautiful. I live in a city now where horse-drawn cart and super luxury sedans cruise the city streets side by side. People are friendly and helpful. Neighborhoods are clean, covered with trees and adorned with parks. Every day when we go for our walk the street is covered with flowers. I feel blissfully happy.

There is one more reason that I fell in love with this city. It is a gourmet heaven. You can find any ingredient, however gourmet and rare it is, in a normal market. And the restaurants... almost of any cuisine, any standard can be found here. This city is, I tell you, a foodie’s heaven. I think I have arrived... to my haven. I feel the stirrings of passion, the beckoning of inspiration again... and I found oranges... in mid-April!!! Now I had to do something, something amazing... Voila! Decision is made and spent an afternoon in the kitchen. My prized ‘Spiced Orange Upside Down Cake’ is ready to serve.

 

Ingredients:

For the Cake

Flour – 200 gms

Butter – 200 gms

Caster Sugar – 200 gms

Eggs – 3

Baking Powder – 1tsp

Vanilla Concentrate – 1 tsp

Orange Flavouring – 1 tsp

Orange Zest – I used the zest I got from two oranges

Honey or Caramel – 4 tablespoons

For the Poaching Syrup

Large Oranges - 2

Sticks of Cinnamon – 2

Star Anise – 4

Water – 100 ml

Sugar- 100 gm

 

Procedure:

I do not have a baking oven. Everything is done using a microwave oven and gas stove. I forgot to use a baking parchment, which is a huge mistake I realize now. I recommend covering the base of the cake tin with a baking parchment after you grease the tin well.

First, take a pan, put water, sugar and the spices in it and set it on low heat. Slice the oranges thin and round, keeping the peel on.  After the sugar is dissolved, place the oranges in and cover. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let the orange slices soak in the syrup.

Grease a cake tin with butter and cover with baking parchment.

 

Sift together flour and baking powder. Cream the butter and sugar in a different bowl. Add eggs to the butter mixture one at a time and beat well. Add the dry mix spoon by spoon and mix well. Add the vanilla concentrate, orange flavoring and orange zest. Using a spatula, mix the batter well.

 

Put a little honey covering the base of the cake tin. You can use caramel also. Now take the orange slices out of the poaching liquid and arrange in a circle at the base of the cake tin.
 

Pour the cake batter over the orange slices and bake for 40-45 minutes at 180 degrees, or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let it cool completely and then turn it over onto a plate or cake stand. Serve with a drizzle of the poaching liquid. Sadly it doesn’t have much of a shelf life and if you are not careful you may miss the chance to taste it also! Living with two boys has its own price... sigh.

Fyanabhat... Risotto Style

Who doesn’t know that we Bengalis are CRAAAZY for our rice? Parents, since time immemorial, prayed to the God to provide their children with milk and rice (quite genius of a prayer actually, since this was considered utmost luxury at that time). Ideal wives were expected to serve their husbands dhoyan otha groom bhat (fresh hot rice), ghee (clarified butter), nalta shaker chochhori (a medley of vegetables and leafs) and mourola macher tok (spicy tangy mola carplet).  Our puja isn’t complete till we serve the Deity a fragrant rice pudding made with shortgrain rice, clarified butter, cardamom and honey. Mothers are always urging their child ‘Ar duto bhat ne baba. Roga hoye jachhis je’ (Have some more rice. You are becoming thinner). Well, in a bengali mother’s eyes her child is never ever properly fed if not fed with rice. You can have all the sandwiches, soups, chowmeins, pastas, cakes...virtually all types of food available in the planet to fill your tummy, but your bong mom will say ‘Pet ta ekkebare pore royeche je, duto bhat kha to shanto hoye bose’ (Your tummy isn’t full. You must be feeling hungry. Sit quietly and have some rice.)

My earliest memory of food is this fyanabhat or fensabhat. My mother used to boil gobindobhog chal (an immensely flavoured shortgrain rice thus named since it’s fragrance is so sweet and it’s taste is so good that it is the favourite of Lord Gobinda/Krishna) while letting the rice absorb all the water and keep a juicy, rasa consistency and serve it with salt, lots of butter, and lightly fried potatoes or an omelette. Although I was an extremely fussy child in terms of eating habits, I used to gobble this up in no time. In winter times my mother used to add finely diced potatoes, carrots and peas into the rice… ohhh the smell, I can still remember that divine smell. Nowadays I make the same for my little pirate and serve it with fried fish. Result??? Well, you can say the legacy is passed down well.

No wonder Lord Krishna went gaga over Gobindobhog or Gopalbhog rice. These rices are grown in small quantities in various pockets of West Bengal, India. The grains are extremely small, pearl like and aromatic, definitely so. Good quality Gobindobhog rice is so aromatic that it can make the whole house fragrant and when it is cooking… ohhh it can definitely pull a crowd, literally.

Growing up, I discovered Risotto… a silky, glossy, creamy concoction made with Arborio rice. The classic Italian dish is so similar in looks and style with my Bengali Fensabhat that I fell in love immediately. No doubt the dish is incredibly richer since it is cooked in a broth of meat, fish or vegetables and laced with lots and lots of cheese and wine. A few tweaks here and there and I got my own comfort food, easy to rustle up, soothing and divine in taste.

Gobindobhog Chaler Fyanabhat in Risotto Style Made with Pumpkin, Beans, Mushroom and Chicken

Ingredients (I do not care much for exact measurements but this is probably more than enough for two persons)

Gobindobhog Rice – 100gms.

Pumpkin, finely diced – 300gms.

Beans, diced – 6 short ones

Mushroom, diced – 200gms.

Boneless Chicken, diced – 200gms.

Onion, finely chopped – 50gms. Or take a half of a big one

Garlic, finely chopped – 6 medium cloves (I love garlic too much, if you don’t then take less)

Butter – 100gms. (Actually don’t measure. Go indulge yourself, but if you want to watch your weight then just substitute with sunflower oil or olive oil and just before serving add a little butter on top)

Sage – a sprinkle

Salt – as required

Cream – half a cup (for weight watchers, add milk but at least use whole milk for taste’s sake)

Scallions/ Green Shallots/ Spring Onions, finely chopped or cut by a scissor – as needed for garnishing

Cheese (I used Gouda, other hard cheeses can also be used), peeled – as needed for garnishing

Procedure

Grill the chicken using olive oil, salt and pepper only. If you do not have a grill then heat up your fry pan and marinate the chicken in oil, salt and pepper for 10 min. When the pan is superhot and smoke is rising, put the chicken in. Don’t put any oil in the pan, just the marinated chicken. Flip after a minute. After a minute cover the chicken. When the juices start to come out, just take the lid off. Cut a piece open to check if the inside is pink. If it is then take off the heat, rest for a few minutes and dice into smaller pieces.

Heat the butter in a pan. While heating, add a little oil so it won’t burn.

Do all the chopping and dicing. I never do it beforehand, rather go on doing it while cooking but it is definitely less stressful if you get your ingredients sorted beforehand.

When the butter is superhot, add the pumpkins and increase the heat. Fry till it’s caramelised (the edges will become brown). Add beans, mushroom and chicken pieces. Fry up a little till everything is caramelised well and add onion, garlic, salt, pepper and sage. Take the heat down and put the lid on.

After 5 to 7 minutes, add the rice and fry a little. Start adding water till everything is just immersed. Put the lid on and wait for 10 minutes to let the rice absorb all the water. If you want to follow the classic Italian route then substitute water with a good quality white wine. For me, the expensive wine tastes better in a glass… always.

Nudge the rice a little. If it needs more liquid then add water to it. Don’t disturb the rice too much or the rice will break down and the consistency will be lost. After 15 minutes the rice should have a creamy, moist consistency which is smooth but not runny. Add cream to it and take off of the heat.

Serve in a plate with help of a mould or bowl. Garnish with peeled cheese and finely chopped spring onions.