I cook, I eat

I cook, big deal? Some guys make like its cross between nuclear physics & heart surgery but its damn easy once you get the knack of it. The real problem is cleaning up, that shit is where the "hard work" comes in. You see for me cooking is the fun & games part, being creative, letting your mouth & brain work in tandem judging what you make, how you make it & what go's in it. Once you got an idea of what you going to make, you think of things that could work with it.

Yesterday I was going to make the family meal but passed the responsibility onto my sister. Though sitting there relaxed, poised to read the Sunday paper, my mind bugged me that I havent successfully made a butter chicken curry that I really thought "this is the one". So I got off my butt & dug in the freezer for some fillets & the magic begun. So here's how it went down


the recipe 
ingredients for chicken

• 2 chicken fillets
• 3 minced red chillis
• 3 minced green chillis
• grated ginger
• minced garlic
• 1/2tsp tumeric power
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2tsp chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp coriander power
• 2tsp lemon juice
• biryani mix (dried :cinamon sticks, cloves, star aniseed, aniseeds & cardamom)
• oil  
• butter

ingredients for gravy

• 1 cup sour milk/ yoghurt
• 1 smallish round tomato
• 1 smallish onion
• 1 green chilli

Method:
the chicken

Take the 2 chicken fillets, cut into cubes. add the minced chilli's (green & red), the minced garlic & ginger, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp chilli power, 2 tsp lemon juice & some oil. Rub it well into the chicken & leave to marinate (It doesnt have to be long, I let it stand for 10min)

chicken cooking

In a pot, heat some oil, add the biryani mix & allow them to simmer so the flavours can come out, then add in your chicken mixture. Best is to cook it covered, it will steam up and will release all the excess water from the meat. Dont let all the water burn out though. Once the chicken is cooked, just take out the chicken, leave behind the water and the biryani mix (this will form part as the gravy).

cooked chicken

Mince your onion & tomato separately & add it into the pot with the remaining water from the chicken, cut your green chilli into strips & add to the pot as well.

onion, tomato & chilli

Then add your sour milk/ yoghurt in. Stir it well as it might begin to curdle. If you feel its too runny for your liking, you can always add some flour as a thickening agent, only a pinch or 1/2 tsp at most though! Then add 1 table spoon of butter.

gravy beginning to boil

Once it begins to boil, add your chicken pieces back into the pot & cover while the gravy mixes with the chicken for about 5 minutes. Stir well then serve!

I made a quick roti (Indian bread) to accompany the meal, which is basically cake flour, salt, oil & boiling water. Mix well until you get a dough similar to bread dough texture, roll it out round & cook on a hot non-stick frying pan. You can add garlic butter to it once cooked.

As I said earlier, its up to you what you want, so you can mix & match things in this recipe to suit your taste. The dishes on the other hand weren't that much, it gets messy when making the bread though, playing with flour isnt my strongest ability, last time I made pizza I successfully got flour all over the laptops keyboard as I was searching the net for the best dough recipe.

If you do decide to try it, hope it comes out great as it did for me!

Bon apetite.