Flavours Of India

If you wish to taste the vibrant recipes of Mughal rulers, you have to be in Delhi or in Lucknow or Kashmir. The mughlai foods are known for their richness, sweet aroma, and the taste they provide to your tongue to the exotic use of spices and food additives like dry fruits, jaffran and others. The style and splendor of Mughal kitchen still rules the heart of people who want to taste the exotic dishes specially non-vegetarians food. Mughlai recipes are rich in carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Here is a Shahi Mughlai Dish of Delhi and other North Indian places which is in great demand among food buffs.

Biryani Badshahi Recipe

Ingredients:
720 gm of mutton finely cut into bite pieces, 400 gm of rice parboiled, 4 tbsp lime juice, 10 blanched almonds, ½ tbsp mint leaves, 1 cup butter, 1 handful of chopped coriander leaves, ½ tbsp cumin seeds, 1 large sliced onion, 3-4 cardamom, 3 tbsp oil, 5-6 pods of garlic, 3-4 cloves, ginger finely grated, ½ tbsp saffron, 2-3 green chillies chopped, 1 cinnamon, ½ kg curd, 130 mg milk, 4 cups of water.

Wash the rice and boil it in a cooker. Soak the saffron in water. Now fry the sliced onions in the oil till they are brown in color. Put it aside. Fry the garlic, ginger, red chillies and almonds in fresh butter, add mutton to it and salt and stir the mixture well. Add little amount of friend onions to it. Now add water and cook on low flame till the meat is tender and some thick gravy is left. Put curd in a muslin cloth and let the water to drain away. Mix the cardamom, cumin seed, min leaves, chopped chillies, coriander in the drained curd. Strain the saffron water and add lemon juice to it. Add all these to the mutton on the pan and mix well. Now sprinkle half of the boiled rice and spread a layer of friend onion and then the rest of rice over it again. Pour the milk and some butter over it. Cover the vessel and seal the edges with flour paste. Place the can on flame for about 45 minutes. The Shahi Badshahi Biryani is ready for serving.

The other popular Shahi Mughlai dishes of Delhi and North India are – Murg Noorjehani recipe, Shahi Chicken Korma, Nehari, Bakra Tandoor Tangri and others. They are richly prepared with large amounts of butter, clarified butter and other ingredients.

Do you know that kozhi kuttan is a sumptuous dish of kerala? It is nothing much but a chicken prepared with different varieties of kerala’s herbs and condiments. Just read the following recipe of this splendid dish!

Kozhi Kuttan

Ingredients:

1 ½ kg chicken pieces, 4 tsp salt, 2 ½ cup grated coconut, 1 ½ tsp turmeric powder, 1 tbsp curd, 2 ¼ cup water, 5 whole dry kashmiri red chilies, 16 flakes garlic, 4 tbsp coconut oil, 6 whole dry red chilies, 1 tsp aniseeds, 10 gm chopped ginger, ½ tsp peppercorns, 10 cloves, 2 sticks cinnamon, 3 green cardamoms, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 2lt green chilies, 5 tbsp coriander seeds, 2 medium chopped onions, 2 medium sized pureed tomatoes

Method:

1. Make a paste of 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp salt, and curd and rub chicken pieces with it. Keep them aside.

2. Extract 1-cup milk from coconut using 1-cup water. Add ¼ cup water to the same coconut and extract ¾ cup thin milk.

3. Put 1 tbsp of oil in a pan and heat it for a minute. Except for onions, tomatoes and chilies roast all the other ingredients. Now grind together all the roasted ingredients to make a nice paste in a grinder by adding water to it.

4. Then heat 3 tbsp of oil in a cooker for 2 minutes and fry onions in the same until they turn golden brown. Add ground paste, turmeric powder and tomato puree with chilies into the same. Cook for about three minutes. Add chicken, salt and mix all the stuff well. Then add coconut milk and stir once.

5. Close the cooker. Bring to full pressure on high heat. Reduce heat and cook for 7 minutes.

6. Remove cooker from heat now and let it cool in a natural way.

7. Open cooker. Stir in thick coconut milk. Serve hot.