Recipe : Haleem - Mutton and Wheat Porridge

Haleem is a traditional dish of meat (mutton) and wheat that is stewed overnight during Ramadan, so it can be had as a nutritious and filling breakfast before sunrise the following day. Hyderabad has the most amazing varities of Haleem available during this period and we endeavoured to taste our way through as many of them as possible. It's a dish that is definitely worth waking up early for , but these days its available all around the year.

Haleem at home is served with toppings on the side, so everyone can choose their favourite flavours.

Since I wanted to recreate the recipe at home with better quality boneless mutton, I followed the recipe from the Essential Andhra Cookbook by Bilkees Latif, with my minor adjustments

Ingredients :

1/2 kg boneless mutton (or chicken)

1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste

Juice of half a lime

1/2 kg broken wheat (dalia)

1 handful each masoor (Egyptian / red), channa (Bengal gram) and moong (husked green gram) dhals/lentils
2 tbsp ghee (Bilkees recommends 1/2 cup)
2 onions finely sliced
6 cloves
6 cardamom
2 " cinnamon
1 tbsp corriander powder
red chilli powder to taste
1 tsp ground caraway seeds - I skipped this
3-6 green chillies sliced or ground
1/2 tsp haldi - for colour I added
water
salt to taste

Options For Garnish :
chopped mint
quartered limes
chopped corriander leaves

chopped green chillies

ginger juliennes

Method :

Marinate mutton overnight in ginger garlic paste and lime juice.

Wash the dhals.
Soak dhals and broken wheat for 1 hour (or overnight if you want to cook this as soon as you wake up as a breakfast dish)

Heat ghee

Fry sliced onions till crispy brown and then remove from the pan.

In the same ghee, fry cloves, cardamoms, cinnamon for a minute.

Add the spice powders and stir a bit.

Before the powders begin to burn, add the meat and marinade and saute till brown.

Add green chillies, soaked wheat, soaked dhal, 4 cups water and close the pressure cooker.

Cook under pressure for 30-45 minutes.

Open and dry out to desired consistency (like porridge)

Mash the meat and wheat a bit.

Add salt to taste.

Garnish with your choice and combination of fried onions, chopped chillies, chopped mint, ginger  or chopped corriander

Recipe : Hyderabadi Sheer Kurma - Vermicelli Pudding

A low-sugar, but slow cooked bowl of sheer khurma for that festive feeling. (Today is Ayudha pooja at home in Mangalore and Navami at the in-laws in Kanpur) It’s a Persian influenced - Hyderabadi vermicelli pudding.

Sheer Kurma is similar, yet different from the sevai ki kheer of North India and the vermicelli payasam of South India.

I used raisins instead of the traditional dates, but I got the “right” type of vermicelli from an Indian store in Brick Lane. These are much longer strands than the regular vermicelli.

Recipe :

Quickly fry a handful of raisins and cashewnuts or almonds in some ghee.

Roast the vermicelli in the same ghee.

Turn your flame to medium.

Add warm milk and slow cook until the milk thickens and the vermicelli is soft.

(Start with 2 measures of milk for 1 measure of vermicelli and keep adding milk)

Keep adding milk, so that the consistency isn’t sticky.

You want a smooth pudding consistency.

Add sugar to taste

And keep stirring gently, so that the milk and sugar caramelise together.

I left it a little more liquidy overnight, so it could absorb some more. But this is optional.

Garnish with powdered cardamom seeds or a few more roasted nuts.

A hint of rose water or saffron is also a lovely option for a different taste.

Served hot for breakfast or as a dessert.

To make it vegan, use coconut milk instead of regular milk.

It’s a simple recipe, but requires patience, constant monitoring and stirring.

I also don’t like having anything else going on the cooking top when making milk based sweet stuff, because I feel their delicate nature absorbs the other smells of food being cooked. But that’s me.

Recipe : ITC "Kitchens of India" - Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani

I love the food at most of ITC's restaurants, I have also tried their ready to eat Dal Bukhara which was quite good and the Mirch Ka Saalan which was ok.

So with the new range of pre mixes out, I picked up the Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani mix.

What i really loved about this premix, was that there was absolutely no chopping to be done. The recipe was extremely simple.

Add the pre-mix to curd/yoghurt, add the meat. Marinate.

Cook separately, layer with cooked rice and serve.

The meat was marinated overnight and I was really excited. I'd used my hands to mix the masala, yoghurt and meat and the fragrance of spices on my fingers were extremely enticing and lasted long after I had washed my hands, done the dishes and had a bath. So I was really, really looking forward to the end result.

As usual, I skipped the layering and cooking separately and went my most comfortable way (less washing up, faster production) of semi cooking the met in the pressure cooker. Add rice and water, stir and cook for 3 whistles, letting the steam escape on its own.

However, the final biriyani, did not have half the taste, that the original masala promised. I'd added a couple of chillies, but the biryani still wasn't spicy enough. The flavour did not penetrate either the rice or the chicken.

It did look and smell good, but the taste wasn't up to the normal ITC standard. This is not a product that I would buy again. Shaan Memoni Mutton biriyani mix is still firmly my favourite so far.

Chorizo and Shammi Kebabs

I picked up a lovely assortment of goodies from Godrej Nature's Basket (GNB) the other day and wanted to try some out on Sunday, which is a lazy day in the kitchen :)

I had picked up some ready-to-fry shammi kebabs. Shammi Kebabs are really soft ,well minced kebabs that can melt in your mouth if made right. These were delicate and ready to fall apart in my hands and I tried to gently ease them into a shallow frying pan.

The frothing, is from the egg content in the kebabs, nothing to worry about.

(You can try this recipe for Shimapuri Kebabs).

I would ideally serve these delicate kebabs on mini rotis. I've tasted it in a couple of places on mini 'Ulthe Tawa ke Parathe' which is a gorgeous combination. But I was in no mood to knead out dough, and make mini rotis for just myself. But,  I still needed a base to pick up these kebabs without having to resort to a spoon.

I  remembered the Chorizo slices that I had picked up from GNB. Now a roti would lend a sweetish taste, but this chorizo was tart and spicy.

 

They did come together beautifully on a plate, with colors playing off each other. I warmed the chorizo for 5 seconds in the microwave to get the fats to break up just a little bit and then plated the kebabs on top of the slices (not very neatly, but I was making it for myself and the aromas were forcing me to rush it a bit, so I could eat while it was still at the right temperature)

The taste together was not the best of combinations, because the shammis were melt-in-the mouth soft with crisp skins and the chorizo had that bit of a chew needed. The kebabs were very lightly flavored, but the chorizo was quite strong (sour and spicy) and hence overpowered the taste of the kebabs.

Each item tasted great separately, so I ended up using the chorizo slices as scoops to get the kebab into my mouth in one piece and then I ate all the slices up after I was done with the kebabs. I will have to make the mini rotis/parathas next time.

The chorizo was very good as an appetiser as it truly stimulated the taste buds.

I do love this store and will keep going back for more.

Recipe : Kebabs - Simple to Shikampuri

I first had the good fortune of tasting shikampuri kebabs at Hyderabad House in (you guessed it) Hyderabad, India. This has been one of my favorite kebabs ever since and a must eat when I visit Hyderabad.

I recently came across a recipe for making them, sadly it wasn't exactly the taste I was craving, but they were pretty good never the less.

This is an easily adaptable recipe.

You can try to make the shikampuri kebab which requires a little skill for the stuffing or just prepare it as regular cutlets/kebabs or turn them into deep fried meat balls or use it to make koftas for a mince kofta curry.

I use beef or mutton mince in my recipe but you can substitute with chicken mince if you prefer.

You can also lower the spice quotient by reducing the chilli powder.

This recipe is perfect for those who have trouble getting their cutlets/meat balls to the right consistency or end up breaking and splintering when frying.

Ingredients:

250gms of mince

1/2 cup of bengal gram dhal (channa dhal/ split chickpeas)

1/2 inch ginger

3 cloves of garlic

1 inch piece of cinnamon

tsp chilli powder (use less if you want it less spicy)

salt to taste

4 cloves

Method:

Soak the dhal as long as you can (I did not have time to do this today and it became difficult at the grinding stage, so you will see a lot of whole dhal in the pictures, which is tasty but spoils the texture) at least a couple of hours.

Clean the mince, don't squeeze out too much water, as we will not be adding any water in the cooking stage.

Mix all these ingredients in a pan and cook without adding any water until it is dry.

Once it is dry, turn the gas off and let it come down to room temperature.

Then grind the mixture to a fine paste adding 1 egg and Juice of 1 lime

The finer you grind it, the better the kebabs will turn out.

Filling:

1 onion finely chopped

1 green chilli finely chopped (I used red and many of them as you can see below)

a few drops of lemon juice

a little salt to taste

Mix thoroughly.

Take a lime size ball of the ground mince paste, hollow it out and stuff the filling into the hole.

Cover well and make a tight flattened cutlet.

Deep fry in hot oil.

Tip: Because of the egg in the mince, the oil will froth, don't worry too much, but remember to leave space in the pan for the frothing oil.

Serve hot with green chutney or sauce.

In this picture, you can see the effect of the filling in the stuffed cutlet. (kebab split in half)

The crisp onion contrasts sharply against the smooth mince paste.

Alternatives:

If you are not sure of your cutlets holding shape or you want mini appetisers, ignore the filling.

Roll the mince paste into little balls and deep fry.

You can even skip the deep frying step completely and drop the mince paste balls into a bubbling gravy of your choice for a kofta curry.

Shikampuri kebabs/meat balls can be served as appetisers or as sides with Indian bread/roti or even rice.

Kofta curries go well with rice. (the picture above has shikampuri kebabs, meat balls and ajwain puris)