Chicken Kofta Curry/ Chicken Balls Curry/ Fried Meat Balls Curry

A few weeks back, I made some chicken cheese balls for my family. They all loved it very much and my baba asked me to make a kofta curry some day. I made it finally on this Saturday night. The entire process of making kofta curry is quite time consuming and really needs patience. There are several stages of making the curry; here I’ll describe each and every stage one by one.

Ingredients for chicken balls: chicken minced, finely chopped onion, garlic paste, small pieces of chilli, coriander powder, salt, cumin powder, black pepper powder, corn flour, a little amount of oil of your choice.

Ingredients for the curry: chopped onions, ginger garlic paste, chilli paste, tomato sauce, curd, cumin powder, coriander powder, ajwain, garam masala powder, bay leaf, salt, turmeric, black pepper powder ( if you like it to be spicy).

Stage 1# All the ingredients of the balls should be mixed together except corn flour. Take a small amount of the mixture between your palms and form medium sized balls out of it and set it aside. Make balls out of the whole mixture. In a flat dish, put some corn flour and roll the balls in it one by one so that each ball gets the coating of the corn flour.

Balls formed out of minced chicken

Balls coated with corn flour

Stage 2# Take a deep kadhai and fill it with refined oil. Bring it to the gas and wait for the oil to get hot. When the oil is hot enough, drop the balls in it and fry until lite golden. Do not fry it so much that it turns out to be hard. Keep the balls in a pot where all the extra oils can go out.

Frying balls

Fried balls

Stage 3# In a mixture grind all the items of the curry except, onion and bay leaf.

Stage 4# Take a pan, add some oil of your choice, bay leaf and fry the onions until golden. Add some salt and turmeric. And gradually add all the grinded masala. Let it cook for few minutes. After it starts secreting oil from it, add water in it, and wait until it starts boiling. The moment it starts boiling, add the balls in it and cover the lid. Let it cook for 5 to 10 minutes with flame turned high.

Balls added to the masala while it was boiling.

Chicken kofta curry

Stage 5# Open the lid, add some ghee and sugar in it (it enhances the colour). Turn off the heat. Serve the dish hot with chapathhi, parantha, polao, fried rice.

P.S# The same dish can be made with mutton also, just add some ginger paste in the balls mixture. :)

Hot & Spicy Egg Pasta

That was a Sunday morning, and me and my mom, both were suffering from cough and cold. I woke up very late that day, at around 10.30 a.m. My mashimoni (maternal aunt) made me a strong ginger tea and that really helped me to feel better. As I was sipping my tea, ma asked if I can make something hot and spicy for breakfast as she was craving for it. My father by then already came back from the market and I could not ask him to go again to the market to buy something, so I was flicking my mind about making chowmein. But then, last week only we had that, so not really wanted to make it. Then my mother brought a packet of pasta in front of me and asked if I could make something out of it. The tube light in my head quickly turned on and I started arranging things for making a spicy dish.

I chopped 2 big onions in big slices, chopped garlic and ginger, cut some chilli in length wise, chopped tomatoes in small pieces. 

Chopped onion (Image courtesy Google)

 

chopped garlic ( Image courtesy Google)

Chopped tomato (image courtesy Google)

Chilli pieces (Image courtesy Google)

Boiled and drained pasta. (image courtesy Google)

Chopped ginger 9Image courtesy Google)

 As my mom wanted it to be spicy, I get some black pepper powder, some chilli sauce, soya sauce, tomato sauce, coriander powder, two dried red chilli soaked in vinegar.

I had very small amount of pasta which would not have been sufficient for three people, so I decided to add some plenty quantity of vegetables in it. I get some sliced carrot, beans, peas, capsicum, and spring onion.

Chopped spring onion (image courtesy Google)

Chopped beans (image courtesy Google)

Capsicum pieces (image courtesy Google)

Carrot cubes (image courtesy Google)

All my family members are true non-vegetarian and cannot even think about starting a Sunday with a veg preparation so I eventually cracked two medium sized eggs in a bowl with a pinch of salt.

I had one slice of cheese in my fridge, so thought of adding that too in the preparation along with corn flour.

In a deep bowl I put some water to boil and added the pastas, carrots, bean and peas in it along with a little refined/ olive oil, so that it won’t stick together. After 5 minutes of boiling, I turned off the flame and get everything out of the water.

In another pan, I get some refined oil, after it gets hot; I added the onion, ginger, garlic and chillies one by one. Added some salt. Kept stirring it and after 2 minutes like this, I added the chopped tomatoes and then gradually I added all the boiled vegetables and spring onion, capsicum. After 3 minutes of it I started adding all the sauces one by one and kept on mixing all the ingredients so that it won’t start sticking. After a while I made a point in the center of the pan and poured two eggs in it and started mixing the whole thing very fast while keeping the flame high. After all the things mix well together, I added black pepper powder, coriander powder, red chillies and the pastas in it. I added a very little amount of water into it, as the whole thing became dry. After 3 to 4 minutes like this, I added the corn flour and put the flame low while mixing the whole thing. After almost 30 seconds of this, I turned off the flame and put some chopped cheese over it.

Hot and Spicy Egg Pasta

The outcome was very nice, it was spicy, filling, and tasty and most of all my mashimoni and maa loved it.

P.S# you can add chicken in it and any other vegetable as per your choice.

Phirni for the sweet teeth

Finally, finally I'm giving my hobbies and ideas a space of their own :)
 I was always interested in cooking but somehow with me becoming busier, the passion got lost somewhere. . but as they say, if there is a will, there is a way. So following that I have again started pouring all my love into cooking in spite of being a regular office goer. I have realised that, work is for surviving but passion is for living well :). So from now I would give my cooking a broader space to fly. 

Though I love to cook a lot, I do not get much time to indulge in it, that is why I eagerly wait for the weekend to come :). Every weekend I try to make something, be it spicy, sweet or just a regular chicken curry, but I make sure that I atleast cook something.

Few weeks back, a colleague of mine brought some home made Phirni for all of us. I liked the taste very much and then and there decided that I have to make this someday. As I had a  basic idea about the recipe, I just asked her about the quantities, she was really helpful and did not hesitate to tell me. She served the Phirni in some nice earthen pots garnished with aluminum foil. I loved the presentation. Which she got for us was flavored with rose and kewra water, which I'm not very fond of; so I decided that I would make it with some different flavor.

I asked my fellow  colleague if she could bring me some earthen pots because I could not find any in my locality. She was very sweet so she agreed and bought me some by the mid of the week. The week was running towards the weekend and I was literally waiting for the Saturday to come so that I can try my hands on it.

Finally the day came and I made sure that I had all the ingredients ready so that the moment I come back from work, I can start cooking; silly me ;).

The Ingredients which I needed was very simple and easily available. I needed 100 gm of Gobindo bhog chal ( one kind of basmati rice), 1 litre milk with enough fat, some cashew and almond nuts, cardamom powder, sugar 100 gm and a little food colour.

Rice soaked in water for 1 hour and then made into a coarse paste. I added cardamom while mixing.

Boiling Milk

Chopped cashew and almond for garnishing

After boiling the milk for 5 minutes, i added the rice paste and kept on mixing it otherwise it would have formed lumps. 
Again after 5 minutes of this, when the whole thing starts to thicken a bit, I added the sugar and kept on stirring.
At the last stage when it was thick enough to turn of the flame, i added the food colour and put the flame off.

Poured the Phirni in the earthen glass while it was still hot

Garnished the Phirni with chopped cashew, almond and edible aluminum foil

 Put the whole thing in refrigerator for atleast 1 hour and then serve.

PS# I preferred cardamom flavour though it can be made in whatever flavour you want, be it rose, kewra or simple without no flavour at all :)