Tandoori Chicken and Homemade Naan

How time does fly! It feels as though I just blogged my last recipe the other day. But it's been a rather jam packed few weeks. The last week of May especially in my mind now is just a manic blur of work, deadlines and other commitments. The 1 week break from school came as a much needed respite, and though my lack of posting boiled down to technological restraints, being "unplugged" for a few days felt quite refreshing. I sometimes get the urge to just throw away all pieces of technology and just live under a rock on a farm, but to be honest, I think I'm too much of a city girl slash technophile to ever really survive such a lifestyle. I suppose the key is finding the right balance, but that's the secret to pretty much everything in life, right?

The teacher side of me has the end of the academic year firmly in her sights, but sadly my brain is so fried at this point, that it's more like I'm dragging myself to the finishing line rather than a final sprint. Hashtag The Glamorous Life of a Teacher. However, I am currently super excited for the arrival of Ramadhan, my favourite time of the year. As for many people, it's a time of moral and spiritual renewal for me and to be able to take a step back and realise, amongst all the stress and the mayhem, what the bigger picture really is. It's also around this time of year that many start searching for and planning what meals to prepare to eat after breaking their fasts. So I thought I'd post some slightly more traditional yet surprisingly easy recipes.

The first recipe is a quick tandoori chicken recipe, using drumsticks from Aafiyah's frozen range, minus the tandoor or packaged tandoori spice masala. Like my sumac chicken, it's another great example of just leaving things to marinade for a while and then shove it into the oven. Exactly the kind of recipes you want for Ramadhan, when you do not want to be stuck in the kitchen all day. And as it's baked, it's a lot lighter than other heavier Indian dishes. 

Homemade naan makes a great accompaniment to the chicken. I have been wanting to try out so called instant naan recipes for a while now, however I always got put off thinking that it was too time consuming. But surprisingly it was a lot quicker and easier than I expected. There is no yeast used in the recipe, with all the rising power coming from the yoghurt, and baking powder/soda combo. 

 The dough is very elastic and malleable meaning that it's easy to roll out. As I was making them, I was far too impressed by how much the little circles of dough puffed up on the pan like pillows. It was quite the metamorphosis. The recipe I followed suggested smearing the naan with ghee to add a buttery taste, however, all of my family members agreed that it tasted better without. I also decided to add some black seeds to add a little contrasting spice to the naan. Whilst I was rolling out the naan, I sprinkled a handful of black seeds on top of each circle. I don't own a tawa at home so I just used a regular frying pan and the results turned out just fine. To try your hand at some instant naan, check out Kanakana's detailed instructions here. To find out how I made my tandoori style chicken, read on!

Ayr maas di aloo ar khomlar bakhol (Bengali Fish Curry with Potato and Orange)

Happy Monday, readers! I don't know about you, but last week flew by for me. I fully intended on posting a few more times last week, but somehow time eluded me. And it was a bit of a strange, up and down week, to be honest. 

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, I was awoken by a mosquito buzzing around my ear. I know what you're thinking, are you vacationing in some exotic resort, Abida? The answer is no, dear reader,  I'm still in the concrete jungle of London, and the temperature has hardly been sweltering. It was only when I got out of bed and looked in the mirror that I realised that I had been bit on my eyelid, and my whole left eye had swollen up as a result. I looked like something between Quasimodo and a heavyweight boxer. Not an attractive sight at all. 

I still had to go out though, much to my own trepidation, and so I tried to think of the best way to look less creepy. I tried curling the eyelashes on my swollen eye to make it look a little bigger, but when I curled my good eye, they just looked uneven again. Then I tried squinting my good eye, so at least the two matched a little, but it's surprisingly difficult to walk around in a busy city with squinted eyes. In the end, I just tried to keep my head down and minimise eye contact with other people as much as possible. Thankfully, my eye has gone back to normal now. 

Then after the Quasimodo-Eye Episode, my beloved mother accidentally threw an item that I needed into the bin. As we live in an apartment block, we have a communal rubbish storage system and so we ended up rifling through a giant metal bin trying to find said item. However, we managed to find said item in the end, so not all was lost. I'd like to say that's the only time I've ever accidentally thrown something in the bin and have had to fish it out, but it's actually happened a few more times than I care to admit. Forget misadventures in the kitchen, I think I should rename my blog to misadventures in life....

But anywho, on to the actual recipe, which I'm sure is the real reason you're here. I bring you today another traditional Bengali fish recipe. I do like my fish, and this curry makes a great meatless Monday meal. This dish uses Ayr fish, another freshwater Bengali fish which is great for the fish-phobic as it does not contain too many bones and has no scales to remove, yay! As when preparing any Bengali fish, the fish is cut into small pieces and then washed and left to soak in salted water before adding to the curry.

 The fish is paired with potato and orange peel, which although might sound a little strange, is quite a traditional combination in Bangladeshi, and especially Sylheti, home cooking.

Rather than adding only the zest, cut up pieces of orange peel are used. This adds a great citrus scent to the whole curry and the cooking process softens the orange peel and takes away any bitterness. It's a great way to jazz up a boring fish and potato dish and complements the spices in the sauce well. Even if you cannot get a hold of ayr fish, I would definitely recommend trying the potato and orange combination with another fish.

Murghi di Khadur Salan (Chicken with Bottle Gourd Curry)

Ah, the humble khadu. Sometimes known as doodhi or laukhi, this bottle gourd vegetable is now widely available in a lot of supermarkets in the UK. There are apparently lots of health benefits associated with doodhi too, from helping with digestion and weight loss to helping with stress relief. According to online sources, duudhi tastes great in desserts such as halwa, however, I bring you a recipe today using this vegetable in a curry. Typically, in Bangladeshi home cooking, khadu may be cooked either with fish or chicken. When it is cooked with fish, it is often cooked with less chilli. My preferred version however is in a spicy curry with chicken.

It is also around this time of year that many Bangladeshis in the UK attempt to grow  khadus in their own gardens. It's no easy feat considering the obvious difference in climate between the UK and Bangladesh. Even for the most seasoned of gardeners, growing a khadu takes dedication and and a good dose of coaxing. And in the end, you might only just end up with the one or two khadus, if even that. Yet, despite the odds, you get some people who will try to grow these vegetables year in and year out. If that doesn't show a love for vegetables, I don't know what does.

To prepare the khadu, you must first remove the outer green peel. You could do this with a vegetable peeler or a knife, but these days I like to do it using a traditional Bangladeshi sickle shaped knife called a da which you kind of crouch down over on the ground, allowing you to use both of your hands to hold the food item (remind me to blog about this strange but highly precise tool at a later date).
Once peeled, you need to cut the khadu in half lengthways. Then you can scoop out the seeds using a spoon. Once scooped out, roughly dice the khadu into big chunks.

Khadu as a stand alone vegetable doesn't really have a lot of taste to it, but it takes spice well and as such it makes a great accompaniment to the chicken in this curry. Some of my family members prefer this dish with minimum amounts of chilli so that they can enjoy the taste of the khadu more, as such I would recommend trying out the recipe and varying the amount of chilli powder according to your own taste. So if you like the flavour of South Asian curries but can't always tolerate the heat, then try this recipe out.

Meat and Potato Curry

I am really not a Monday person. Last night, I was trying to make the most of the final hours of the weekend and curled up on my bed with my iPad. At some point however, I must have zonked out fully dressed, contacts lenses in and lights still switched on. I awakened some time later with a jolt and with a furtive glance at the clock was seized with the panic that I was late for work. I flew out of my bed then and ran to the bathroom and attempted to brush my teeth and shower in lightening fast time. Then I returned to my room in a manner befitting only a headless chicken and glanced at the clock again to check how I was doing for time... only to find it reading 12.40am. You see, in my haste I had totally mixed up the big hand and the little hand. It was a real groan out loud moment, I won't lie. So yeah, I'm really, really, really not a Monday person at all.

But embarrassing stories aside, let's move on to today's blog post! This is my standard recipe to use when cooking any kind of meat curry or bhuna. Like my simple chicken curry recipe, it can easily be adapted and you can substitute the potato for other vegetables. 

I have used mutton for this recipe which is the go to meat in our family for traditional cooking rather than lamb. For dishes like curry which involve a lot of stewing, mutton is an ideal choice and actually has a lot more flavour than lamb. This is probably my favourite curry to make, namely because you can actually throw everything into one pot and leave it alone to simmer away.

This a very traditional and homely dish that you would find in a lot of Bangladeshi homes over the week. The meat is juicy with a rich gravy and is contrasted well with the softness of the potato. 

Simple Chicken Curry

Did you know that Bangladeshis run 85-90% of all Indian restaurants in the UK? Despite the notoriety attached to curry strips like Brick Lane, the amount of authentic Bangladeshi cuisine out there  remains limited. Enter me. I am here to bring you a taste of some real Bangladeshi home cooking that has been handed down through the generations. And let me tell you this, home cooking is 150% better than anything you will try in an Indian restaurant.

Let's start off with my version of an everyday chicken curry, which is found in most Bangladeshi households. This is something that can easily be adapted to include lots of other vegetables, such as potato, with a few tweaks. As it is an everyday curry, it does not feature any heavy creams or sauces and can easily be knocked up in an hour. This curry is packed with flavour and the gentle heat is perfect to warm you up in these cold winter evenings.  

It all starts off with a few simple ingredients. Onion, garlic and ginger are our staples for any meat or chicken curry base along with a few ground spices. My three whole spices, cinnamon, bay leaves and cardamon are also always included in any curry including meat or chicken. The three add a sweetness and fragrance that complements the heat of the chilli powder.