Lentil Chicken

Sorry to any regular followers, for not posting for some time. I have been busy travelling and tasting yummy foods. Recently experimented a variant of Dhansak..... lets call it urad-chicken or lentil chicken.I tried cooking chicken with various lentils, but it comes out best with white split urad dal (matpe beans). A very quick, easy, nutrious recipe and very appealing to the taste buds too.

Ingredients--
White urad dal- 1 cup, washed and soaked for atleast 1/2 hour.
2 chicken breasts cut to bite size pieces.
1 medium onion diced
Ginger-garlic paste 1 tbsp
1 tsp each of cumin powder, corriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and garam masala.
Oil spray -1 noozle.
2 cardamom pod seeds.
2/3 bay leaves.
2 cups water
salt to taste.
lemon juice-1 or 2 tbsp.
2 green chillies split lengthwise.
chopped corriander leaves to garnish.

Method--
1. Marinade the chicken with a little salt, ginger-garlic paste , lemon juice and set aside for 15-30 mins.
2. Cook the lentils with the water(2 cups) and some salt(remember there is salt in chicken too). When cooked, mash them to form a thick liquid, set aside.
3. Heat a pan and spray with oil. When heated well, pop in the bay leaves and cardamom seeds.Fry until bay leaves turn golden.
4. Add the chopped onion and fry until you get a nice aroma.
5. Next add the marinated chicken and all the powder spices. Fry well moving them in the pan for about 5 minutes. See that all chicken is well coated with the spices.
6. When chickens are all sealed and nearly done, add the mashed lentils, stir well to mix with the flavours in the pan, add the split green chillies, and cook covered on low heat for another 5 minutes. If too thick, you can add some water at this point.check salt and add if more is required. Cook covered, until chicken is fully done. Keep stirring in between.
7. When done, turn off the heat and garnish with the chopped corriander.

8. Your lentil-chicken is ready. Serve with plain boiled rice or fried rice or roti, naan etc.... whatever you fancy. I served it with peas and carrots pulao.

A low fat Fish curry--Mach-tenga (fish in tomato gravy)

I am currently in India, Assam. Fish and rice is the staple food here.
I tried the brilliant Assamese dish Mach-tenga (fish in tomato gravy), with my oil free twist.
It came out excellent! Try it out.

Ingredients:
Fish-cut into 1 inch fillets
2-3 tomatoes chopped
1 medium sized onion chopped
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 stem curry leaves(around 10 of the leaves)
2tsp turmeric powder,
salt to taste
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp of cumin powder
1 tsp corriander powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 green chilli slit lengthwise
1 bunch of green corriander chopped

Method:
1. Marinade the fish with 1 tsp turmeric and a little salt for 1/2 hour
2. Grill the fish until lightly done. Frying or grilling of fish is done to get the raw smell of fish away. if you like the smell of fish intact, then skip this step.
3.In a pan, spray with spray oil. I didn't have spray oil abvailable here, and used 1 tsp of sunflower oil.
4. Pop in the mustard seeds and let splutter. Add the curry leaves, ginger-garlic paste and the chopped onions and salt to taste.
Cook until onions are transparent.
5. Add the left over turmeric and the cumin, red chilli powder and corriander powder, fry for a minute. You'll get the nice aroma of spices and ginger-garlic now.
6.Add the chopped tomato, and fry until tomato starts leaving water.
7. Add 3 cups of water.
8. When water starts boiling, pop in the fish,the slit green chilli, give it a good stir, and cook covered for 1-2 minutes.
9. Turn off the heat and add the chopped corriander.

Your mach-tenga is ready. It is best when served with plain boiled rice.

Methi Chicken (Chicken with Fenugreek leaves)

Usually methi chicken traditional dish uses some dried methi leaves(kasoori-methi). I love the pungent-bitter taste of the raw fenugreek leaves(methi), which is usually missing when used dried kasoori-methi powder. So I tried cooking the chicken with raw methi leaves, to capture the raw taste of methi with the taste of chicken. It was so yummy. At the same time I successfully cut on the oil used too. Here is my version of low fat methi-chicken. Enjoy.

Ingredients:
2 chicken breast fillets, cut into bite size pieces.
Handful methi leaves, chopped
2 tomatoes, pureed
1 onion chopped
2 green chillies chopped
4 tbsps low fat yogurt
1 bsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp cumin seeds
a spice emulsion created by mixing 1 tsp each of cumin powder, corriander powder and turmeric powder in 2 tbsps water.
spray oil

Method:
1. Heat a pan. Add a nozzle of spray oil and when heated add the chopped onions and chopped green chillies.
2.When onions are slightly cooked, add a tsp of plain yogurt.fry for 30 seconds in low heat, and turn the heat off, let cool.
3.Once cool, gring this onion-yogurt mixture into a paste and set aside.
4.Once again heat the pan, and spray a noozle of spray oil, when heated add the cumin seeds.Add ginger garlic paste.
5.Once cumin seeds are browned,and ginger-garlic leaves nice aroma add the raw chicken,add the spice emulsion, sprinkle over the garam masala and fry until chicken is sealed and lightly cooked.
6.Add the chopped methi leaves and salt and the pureed tomato.Cook covered, until methi leaves are cooked, and wilted.
7.Add just a tiny amount of well beaten yogurt and water if you want a light gravy. Simmer till the chicken is cooked.

Low Fat Easy Chicken Curry

Chicken tikka masala is Britain's favourite curry dish.I wanted to try a low fat version of this brilliant chicken dish.But instead of taking the big leap at one single step,as a first step, I tried appling my ways of cuting fat and get a decent chicken curry dish.My plan is, if successful in this, I'll expand my low-fat chicken curry ranges.

So my low fat and easy chicken curry version goes this way--

Ingredients

2 chicken breast fillet, cut into bite size pieces.
1 large onion pureed
2 tomatoes pureed
2 tbsp garlic-ginger paste
4tbsp plain low fat yogurt
1 tsp cumin seeds
1tsp each of cumin powder, corriander powder, red chilli powder and turmeric
1 tbsp garam masala powder
1 tbsp lime juice
salt to taste

Method

1.Marinate the chicken with the half of the ginger-garlic paste, lime juice, salt,cumin powder, corriander powder. set aside for approx. 30 minutes.
2. Grill the chicken in the oven, until sealed, and lightly cooked.Set aside.
3.Heat a pan and spray a noozle of spray oil.
4.Pop in the cumin seeds, when starts crackling,add the onion puree and the other half of the ginger-garlic paste.Fry until you get the nice aroma.
5. Add the dried spice powders, fry for about a minute.Add 2 tbsps of yogurt and fry well.
6. Add the pureed tomato and cook until reduced a little. Add salt to taste, remember there is a little salt in the chicken too.
7. Add the grilled chicken and mix well.
8. Reduce heat, and add the remaining yogurt.
If gravy is too thick, you can add a little water at this point.Mix well, and let cook for another2-3 minutes.
9. Curry is ready, serve & njoy. I served it with a simple peas and carrots rice.

Low fat Dal Makhani

Dal Makhani, is probably the most recognized delicacy of northern india, originating in Punjab.It is also highly nutritious as it contains beans. A very popular vegetarian dish in northern India.It is part of a everyday punjabi meal. As all Punjabi cuisines,this dish is also heavy in dairy & hence fat.

On my quest of low-fat recreation of the popular indian dishes, I cooked it in the following way.
I was a bit in doubt, on the success of this experiment, as I planned to totally skip the main ingridient "makhan" (butter) in this makhani(buttery) dish. But it came out very well, and pretty close to the original. A tad less on the smoothness though (due to lack of butter & creame), but tasted very good.

Ingredients:

Whole urid dal(urd beans--black beans)--2 portions
Rajma dal(red coco beans/red kidney beans)-1 portion
green chillies-2
ginger--1 inch piece
garlic cloves-2
ginger-garlic paste-1 tbsp(apart from the above mentioned ginger-garlic)
1 bay leaf
1tsp turmeric
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp cumin powder
1tsp corriander powder
1tsp chilli powder
1/2 cup milk (cream can be used for a more smoother version)

Method:

1.Soak 2 portions of whole urid dal and one portion of rajma overnight.
2. next day boil the soaked dal with some adrak and green chillies cut into small pieces.Use less water than normal.
3. When cooked, mash the dal a little, keep aside.
4. Heat a non stick pan and spray one noozle spray oil.Pop in the cumin seeds and the bay leaf (fat rich version uses 2-3 knobs of butter here, instead of spray oil) .
5. When cumin seeds are fried,add the ginger-garlic paste and cook until you get the nice aroma of garlic-ginger..
6. Add pureed tomato, cook till tomato is reduced.
7. Add cumin powder, coriander powder, chilli powder(if desired a hot version), fry for 5-6 mins.
8. Add the cooked dals & fry for a while.
9. Add milk to get the dal to required consistency.(For a richer version you can use single cream).
10.Sprinkle garam masala and cook covered for another 2 minutes.
11.Serve & NJOY.