Recipe: Chawla's Cream Chicken

This is the first recipe that I cooked from The Food Trail of Punjab. Mr Yashbir Sharma says that this is the original Chawla's recipe for Cream Chicken.

The recipe in the book was for 700gms chicken, I had a 1.2 kilo chicken with me so I changed the quantitites around.

The ingredients are very simple and can be found around any pantry except perhaps the kasuri methi. Given how the dish tasted, when I make it next time, I will add more ginger and garlic and also a few split green chillies to contrast against the richness of this dish.

For this time, the pickled onions were a great contrast and palate cleanser between bites of the rich chicken.

Ingredients:
1.2kg chicken
12 cloves garlic crushed
2 tsp ginger paste
900 ml milk (room temperature or warm)
1.5 tbsp black peppercorns (kalimirch) crushed
3 tbsp kasuri methi coarsely ground
1 cup cream
salt to taste

Method:
Clean and dry the chicken and marinate it with garlic, ginger and salt for at least 10 minutes.
Heat a deep bottomed pan, drop the chicken into it (no need for oil if its a non stick) and slightly sear the chicken, it will start to give a nice caramelisation.
Add milk and boil for 10 minutes or so. (Don't worry if it looks like the milk is splitting, it will come back together when you add the cream later.)
Add pepper powder and kasuri methi and cook till alost done. Let the milk dry out a bit.
Add cream and cook on low flame for another 5-10 minutes. (This is the stage at which I would also add the split green chillis)
I just let it simmer gently until it reached the consistency that I wanted.

Serve hot with parathas or rotis. This dish when thickened, doesn't go as well with rice.

As you look at the ingredients, you will realise that this dish is very rich in calories. Its a lovely dish for the original Punjabis who used to work hard in their fields and then consumed a lot of milk, ghee, cream and butter with their meals. But not the lightest option for those of us with desk jobs.

Lower fat option:
I've found that I get a similar consistency and texture, by adding hung curd to the chicken marinade. That is a dish I've been cooking since quite a few years. Then, there is no need for milk or cream when cooking.
You just have to make sure that you bring the marinated chicken to room temperature before you start to cook it (so the curd won't split) and keep it on a low flame so it cooks gently.