Chicken Roast (Kerala Style)

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Autumn is here and I love it! Finally we have some awaited cool weather. I hope you are enjoying good weather where ever you are as much I am. This morning, enjoying the cool breeze blowing in through my patio, bright sunlight finding its way through the lattice work and with some joyous music playing on my CD, I cooked. Have you tried cooking with music? It’s wonderful, rather therapeutic I should say.
So, what did I cook? I made naadan (Kerala style) chicken roast, chocolate chip muffins and healthy bran muffins. No, they are all not for today but it will take us through the rest of the week.
Now, having given you a glimpse of my day let me get down to business. The 'naadan' (country style) chicken roast recipe I am sharing comes from my mom which she got from her mother so we are talking some authentic Kerala cooking today. I spoke to both my mom and her sister so I guess I need to give them both the credit. They are like most of our parents; if you ask them how to make something they will rattle along, oh that, simple! Take a little of this and a little more of that put them all in together give it a good stir and voila! The dish is ready. It took me a couple of conversations with both my mom and aunt to get to the bottom of how much a little bit of this and a little bit more of that means. Either ways, I must tell you after a couple of experiments I have quite mastered the ROAST! Every time I make this dish we lap it up like we have been starving for days. So go ahead and try this and enjoy it with some rice or chapatti!



Ingredients:

Chicken - 4 lbs approximately 2 Kg
Whole red chili - 30 nos seeded
Shallots - 1 lb 450 gms
Ginger - 1/4 cup
Garlic - 1/4 cup
Vinegar - 2 tbspn
Salt - to taste
Garam Masala - 1 tbspn
Turmeric - 1/2 tspn
Coconut Oil or any oil of preference - 4 tbspn
Curry Leaves - 4 sprigs
Potato - 1 thinly sliced rounds
Friend onions for garnishing

Method:

1. Marinate chicken in 1 tbspn vinegar, 1/2 tspn turmeric and a little salt for 1 hour
2. Soak red chillies in 1 tbspn vinegar mixed with 1 tbspn of water after taking out the seed and leave it for a while to soak. (split chili in half and tap it to get the seeds off).  Add a little water to the vinegar
3. Crush the ginger, garlic, shallots and the soaked red chillies and add the mixture to the chicken and cook for 20 min on medium fire
5. Heat oil in a pan and on medium fire shallow fry the chicken and set aside
6. Once all the chicken pieces are fried (read golden brown on both sides) pour the gravy into the pan and cook till oil clears the pan
7. Pour the gravy on top of the fried chicken
8. Decorate with fried potatoes, onions and cashew nuts



Contributor: Sunitha

Dasara

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Happy Dasara to you!! Dasara/Vijayadashmi is being celebrated across India today and we are glad to celebrate it with you. The "vijayadasami" day marks the end of the Navarathri festival, a festival spanning 10 days starting on the first day of the Ashvin month of the Lunar Calender.
In Kerala, we consider this as the most auspicious day for "vidyarambham" (beginning of education letters, music or dance).
I especially would like to talk about the day before "Vijayadasami,” "Saraswathi Pooja. Saraswathi pooja as the name suggests is the worship of goddess Saraswathi the goddess of knowledge, art and music. As a custom we wrap all our books together and keep it in our prayer rooms to be blessed on this day. For the next two days we are not supposed to read or study and you can imagine a school goers excitement and relief in such a situation.
I remember my school days, we would wrap all our books together in brown paper or newspaper, pray and come off all excited in our minds about all the games we can play over the two days. Family and friends would get together and play all day. We would either be on our swing outdoors or play some indoor games. You get the picture? No reading, studying but just plain play. Ha! Those blissful days! This is the time of the year when my mother wouldn’t bat an eye over our going about.
Now, I have my own little people at home. One who has to go to school and the other too young to start his education. However, in a couple of years he will be ready on Vijayadashmi to be wrapped in the off white mundu lined with golden zari and sit on his Fathers lap and start writing his first word. Thereafter, his father or an elderly person will write on his tongue with a gold coin if we have one handy or with any other coin. With these rituals we believe he will be blessed by Saraswathi Devi with all the talents and he will excel in them. It is a wonderful day for new beginnings and I hope you, yes you who are reading this now will have a day of new beginnings, new blessings. A day to let go of your fears and troubles and embrace new joys and new blessings.
Contributor: Namitha P.S: We will be back with lip smacking recipes tomorrow.

Spinach/ paalak thoran

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Two years back, when I reached Uncle Sam's country, I was really nervous just like anybody who lands in a new place.I knew there won't be many Indians in the place we were going to live. For the same reason, I thought there won't be any Indian groceries either. It was a great relief when I saw spinach on our first trip to the grocery store. Like a flash of lightning this idea struck, "Why not make spinach thoran instead of cheera thoran".

I love my Amma's cheera thoran and I learned from her how to make them without any lumps. If this dish tastes good the credit is my mom's, but the idea to substitute spinach for cheera, I can proudly say is my own. I shared this idea with a couple of my Mallu friends and they are to date extremely happy about it. I hope you will have the same experience and be happy with this authentic amma's recipe with a twist.





Ingredients:

Spinach- 1bundle
Green chillies-2
shallots/chuvannulli/sambar onion -2-3(finely sliced)
Coconut-3-4 Tbsp(grated)
Turmeric-a pinch
salt-according to your taste
Rice(raw)-1 Tsp
Mustard-1/2Tsp
Red chillies-3(broken into halves)
Curry leaves-1 sprig
Oil-2Tbsp


Wisdom of the ages:

Always when you make a thoran with leaves , wash and dry the leaves completely before cutting.


Method:

1. Wash the spinach and spread it on a paper, at least 1hour before you cut them.This is very important, since if you have water on spinach you will end up having lumps in your thoran.
2.Cut the leaves into smaller pieces.
3. Grind(not much-maybe for a couple of seconds) coconut and green chillies together. If you do not have a grinder/small bowl for your mixer grinder, leave this step and just add more green chillies slit into halves.
4.Heat oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds followed by rice.
5.Add sliced shallots and saute it till golden brown.
6.To this add red chillies and curry leaves and saute .
7.Mix spinach with turmeric, salt and coconut mix from step 3 and add into the pan.
8.Mix everything together and cover the pan.
9.Cook on medium flame for about a minute or till the steam comes.Don't keep the lid for long, since the steam will accumulate ,which in turn end up in lumps.
10.Open the pan and cook till the thoran is done by stirring in between.

This is a very simple yet nutritious dish. This goes well with pulissery/ moru(buttermilk) curry and rice.

You could use the normal "cheera" instead of spinach and also scramble eggs while giving tadka(spluttring mustard) and mix it, if you like eggs.





Contributor: Namitha