Maria’s Piri-Piri Chicken, Very-Very Good!

If you have a family recipe like Maria’s, it ought to be shared and talked about. Maria is my kind and affable butcher lady in downtown TO. Kensington Market to be precise. If you are looking for the best personalized cuts in town, visit Kensington Meat Shop.

(Maria getting ready a leg of goat for me)

Maria loves food. Its obvious from the way she will explain to you about many traditional recipes she has grown up with. The Piri-Piri Chicken which she shared with me, among many other of her customers is one such family treasure.

Piri-Piri means “hot”. So if you are in for a little taste adventure, I’d say, try this recipe soon and get your butcher to cut and open up a whole chicken just like Maria did it for me.

Here is Maria’s recipe, handwritten by her for you! I of course measured everything and used it for her recipe.

Ingredients for Maria’s Piri-Piri Chicken are:

1 cup red wine, I used Merlot
I whole chicken, with skin, cleaned, scored and opened up to lay flat on the surface (about 1.25 kg is ideal)
4-5 fat cloves of garlic, minced
Handful of flat-leaf parsley, minced
2 tablespoons chilli flakes (you can add more, if you like it hotter)
Juice of one lime (Maria mentioned it later!)
Quarter cup olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
Salt

Start by taking a large baking pan, lay the chicken flat on it and add all the ingredients. As Maria suggests, use your hands to rub everything in the chicken. Since I was taking pictures, my husband helped me with the prep work.

 


I marinated my chicken overnight in the fridge, turning once.

The red wine lent a beautiful dark, rich color to the meat. I have a feeling if you use white or beer, your meat will continue to retain its reddish-pink color. So if you love to cook with red, use it.

After about at least 6-8 hours’ of marinating time, keep the chicken out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.

Pre-heat oven to 350° F. Bake chicken face down for 15 minutes and then turn. I do face down first so that the chicken’s legs do not part in the heat and look obnoxious. A chicken should look dignified when served on the table!

Continue baking and basting (the chicken with the dripping marinade) for another 45-50 minutes or until done with some char on all sides. Make sure you turn it every 15 minutes of so.

It took me one hour and change to finish baking my chicken. Alternatively, you can also barbecue it outside on a good day.

I served Maria’s Piri-Piri Chicken with grilled vegetables and a fresh baguette. The result was awesome. I will make it hotter next time for the chilli lover in my life.

Miss Mahua’s Kolhapuri Murgi

So Mahua put a gun to my head yesterday and made me make her Kolhapuri Chicken. Here is the result.

Now for the process…

Make a spice blend by heating oil (I used mustard), and adding cumin seeds, whole cinnamon, cloves, black and green cardamoms, dry red chillies (Mahua suggests fresh green chillies), pods of garlic slices of ginger, slivered onions and freshly shredded coconut.

Making the Kolhapuri Masala, Mahua’s way.

I even added a pinch of turmeric and red chilli powder for extra love!

Cool the ingredients and then grind them to a smooth paste.

Start by heating some oil, and adding the pieces of chicken. Brown well and add the spice paste.

Cook on low-medium heat till you see oil surfacing. I even covered my Indian wok and slow cooked for about 30 minutes on low-medium to get the spice cooked with the chicken.

There! See that slick oil on top? That’s the look Mahua, my muse wants in her Kolhapuri Chicken.

Serve Mahua’s Kolhapuri Murgi with chapatis, paratha or plain white rice. Thank you, Mahua. You shall be remembered at dinner time tonight.

Malikah-e Tamatar-Murgh-ka-Salan

This is Farah Malik’s recipe. I have just re-created it in my kitchen with chicken. Her original recipe is with goat meat/mutton. I met Farah on the Facebook group called Indian Food Freak. IFF is a fun food group started by my former super boss and some of his food friends around the NCR region.

When I saw people like Aman Kahlon wolf down Farah’s recipe, I couldn't stay away from it for long. And yes, Aman did follow the goat meat protocol in his recipe.

Since the temptation to have Farah’s Tamatar Gosht-ka-Salan was immense, and I did have a whole chicken in my freezer, I decided to make it with what else – Murgh (Urdu for chicken!). The decision was made very, very late last night while writing photo comments on Farah and Aman’s creations. Maybe that explains why I dreamt of tomatoes and mutton and onions and spices.

Ingredients for Malikah-e Tamatar-Murgh-ka-Salan are:

800 grams chicken pieces (bone in and skinless)
1 large red onion, thinly slivered (the size of red onions here is super, I’d say about 300 grams of onions should suffice)
4 medium size ripe, hothouse tomatoes
1 tablespoon garlic paste
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garam masala (I pound together little quantities of cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and black peppercorns)
1 heaped tablespoon coriander powder
1 tablespoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
2-3 tablespoons mustard oil
1 tablespoon desi ghee/clarified butter
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped fine
5-6 whole green chillies (optional)
2 bay
Salt

Start by blanching the tomatoes for 8-10 minutes on high heat. Make sure you score the bottom of each tomato with a pairing knife to form a large “X” before you dunk them in water. This will help you take the skin off easily. Retain the water in which you have blanched the tomatoes. Remove the skin and keep the tomatoes whole.

Heat the mustard oil and ghee in a thick-bottom pan. Add the bay and the slivered onions.

Sauté the onions till they become translucent. Now add the ginger-garlic paste, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric and garam masala powder. Mix everything with the onions and slow cook till oil releases from the spices.

Now add the chicken pieces. Cook the chicken with the onions and spices till it becomes nicely browned. Do this on low-medium heat and scrape off any spices from the bottom of the pan, lest they burn. The chicken should take about 10-15 minutes to get browned and coated with the spices.

At this stage, add the blanched tomatoes. Let them break down on their own and mix with the chicken and spices. 10 minutes of medium heat cooking will do this for you. Season with salt and watch the chicken and tomatoes release tons of juices of their own. Mix well.

Add the water you retained from blanching the tomatoes to the chicken and tomatoes. Let it cook on high-medium for 5-6 minutes. Do a taste test, season with salt if necessary. Turn the heat off and add the chopped coriander and whole green chillies.

I will serve the Malikah-e Tamatar-Murgh-ka-Salan for dinner tonight with parathas and my desi salad.

Though I must confess I have already sneaked in spoonfuls of the shorba (gravy) in a bowl and already love the tangy taste of tomatoes in this dish. Thank you, Farah Malik for this gem. I promise I will make it with mutton next time.

Anamika Bharti’s Zafrani Tangri Kebab

When I saw the recipe Anamika posted on one of the food groups we both are part of on Facebook, I knew it was for keeps. Just for its sheer simplicity, if nothing else. And the nothing else part I was soon to discover last evening, when we had these saffron-flavoured leg kebabs for dinner.

Anamika lives in Belarus, and has a natural affinity towards creating flavours and tastes close to her home and heart. Just to warm up the long, cold months of the country she lives in.

The star ingredient of Anamika’s Tangri Kebabs is Saffron. Saffron or Zafran or Kesar is divine. Few food ingredients can taste so distinct based on what we use it to make. But misuse of saffron is a crime. I have used saffron in both desserts and biryanis. And I must admit, its mellow, fragrant flavour bowls me out every time. There is also this strange feeling of romanticism attached to it.

Now coming back to Anamika’s Zafrani Tangri Kebabs, if you can, make it with dark meat – the legs and thigh portions of the chicken. That’s what she recommends too. Especially because those portions are more tender and succulent than white meat.

Ingredients for Anamika Bharti’s Zafrani Tangri Kebabs are:

12 chicken drumsticks, skinless and scored
1 cup juice of red onion (I pureed one large onion and dunked it on a sieve to let the juice drip on its own in a bowl)
Juice of one and half lemons
Quarter teaspoon loose saffron/zafran/kesar strands, crushed lightly
Canola or olive oil for basting
Salt

Marinate the chicken drumsticks with the juice of red onion, lemons, saffron, and salt. Let it stay in the fridge (on a hot day) for up to 8-12 hours. Bring the marinated drumsticks to room temperature before you barbecue or grill them.

The plan for me was to barbecue the Zafrani drumsticks, but things don’t always don’t go the way you want them to. So I ended up throwing these saffron-infused drumsticks on my grill pan.

Start by firing up your grill (or barbecue or gas tandoor), brush some oil on it and start by neatly lining up the marinated drumsticks. Shake off extra marinade from the legs.

Start turning the drumsticks as soon as they begin to get that beautiful char. Make sure you get that nice char on all sides. You may adjust the temperature of your grill once you have locked in all the juices. Baste with the liquid marinade and more oil if needed. It takes about 10-12 minutes of grilling to get the drumsticks ready.

Remove from the pan and let it stand for five minutes before you bit into a rock and roll of flavours. My husband called it “beautiful”. And he is a man of few words.

Thank you, Anamika Bharti. You are the muse and the mojo for this keepsake. To Zafran, Tangri Kebabs and more new recipes.