Healthy Recipe:Chicken Kofte/Chicken Balls in Yogurt Gravy

I have not gone for grocery shopping for about a week now except for maybe milk & bread.Given the crazy buyer in me, its unusual.P asks me every time we pass by the Wal-Mart or Trader Joe’s if I wanna buy something but I nod my head saying that I have enough in the house.And really it is so..I have unused lentil packs,I have cubes of cheese sitting in the fridge, I have 2 lb potatoes, onions & tomatoes bought during some stupid rollback,chicken, sausages,tortillas,fish fillets,whole lot of pasta,frozen peas & corn, eggs,and other things which are just lying around unattended and unused.The first thought that comes to my mind when I see these is the money I have spent in buying these perishable things, the second thought that comes to my mind is about those people who don’t have enough money to buy 2 square meals of a day and about how the grains I waste liberally could sum up to make up someone’s meal for the whole day.

I feel so ashamed of myself every time I throw food for reasons like I cooked too much of it or because I forgot to cook something which I bought weeks ago.I feel that GOD will certainly punish me some day for all the wastage I am doing.Such thoughts make me feel scared and famished even with stomach full at such times.Given the fact that both me & P do not fancy eating out too much or cooking big batches over the weekend , dumping it in the fridge and reheating & stuffing it in our belly..but still strangely enough I observed that over past few months that still lot of leftovers made their way to bins or the milk products went past the expiry dates without noticing .So I decided to stop shopping for a while and challenge myself to make use of whatever I have in the fridge untill I am not able to come up with some decent looking edible stuff.If I have tomatoes & onions in my kitchen , I am calm..coz I know that these form the basics of my cooking.I have been acting this crazy since last Sunday, its been over a week and trust me we are having terrific, yummy & satisfying meals.I am so very much tempted while passing by grocery aisles when my hands itch to reach out to those fresh looking veggies & fruits, but I control myself…its insane for somebody like me who can go to super markets morning & evening.Difficult but not impossible…atleast once in a while!!

These days in my life when I am on a “simplicity” and a “no waste “spree, I tend to behave as if I m in middle of a crisis.I care for each penny spent, each roti[flatbread]made in my kitchen is counted, each serving of vegetable is measured, the house is vacuumed daily,old clothes are collected and dropped to collection centres,.in fact each chore of the house is regular and is taken care as per the required rationing.I am on this massive rampage to avoid any unnecessary thing in my house. This brain conditioning way for no clutter in the closet,no mess in the pantry, no wrinkles on the clothes,no leftovers in the fridge, no piling in the trash cans, no disturbing thought in my mind and no fuss on my dinner plate.

It means uncomplicated,minimal,unadulterated and unsophisticated approach to life.

Along side,it also means that after the unused things have been put to use, house has been de-cluttered..it is time for new things to be brought to the home and to the kitchen.Its such a coincidence that I went into this state of clearing up the home just when Diwali is around the corner and Hindus the world over clean their house and decorate them to make way for Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, who is known to love cleanliness and reside in pure, uncluttered places.

Okay so for today’s recipe,I like simple, uncomplicated flavors in food especially the non vegetarian ones.My fundamental approach while cooking is that a home cooked meal should not taste like restaurant food.I dont like to load the gravies of my curry preparations  with strong fragrances.In my opinion,a chicken dish will taste anything but chicken if I put a strong sweet smelling spice into it in abundance.As evident from my posts till now,I am a huge fan of spices…but the ones that induce flavor and not fragrance.Too fragrant foods make my head spin.Okay this is my mom’s recipe, she makes the mutton koftas this way, I used the same recipe to make chicken koftas.The recipe uses

no cream
no egg or cornstarch for binding the koftas
no fragrances
no milk or half n half
no frying of koftas involved because they cook in the gravy….Can u believe that!!!!

The gravy is cooked in just 2 tablespoons of oil and lots of yogurt.The gravy is really light,is spicy but not hot and has a clear broth consistency, just dunk flatbread into it or mix up with steamed basmati rice and enjoy.Below it goes:

What I need : [recipe makes 13-15 medium-sized koftas]

1 lb minced chicken [or mutton or lamb or beef]
2 tsp each crushed garlic & ginger
2 tsp finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp thai chilli paste
1 tsp salt
a little beaten curd to dip the koftas
little oil for greasing the palms

For the spice powder: [yields about 1.5 tbsp ]

2 cloves
3-4 dry red chillies [adjust to taste]
1 tsp white pepper corns [adjust to taste]
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 ” shoot of cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

For the gravy:

1/4 cup onion paste
1 tbsp each finely chopped garlic & ginger
2 bay leaves
1 pod black cardamom [badi elachii]
1.5 cups beaten thick plain yogurt/curd/dahi mixed with 1/2 cup water
2 tbsp mustard oil [canola or olive can also be used]
1 cup water
Salt to taste

How I did it:

Mix all the ingredients listed for the koftas except yogurt.Grease your palms & make medium balls of the mixture.Set aside.Do not make big balls coz the koftas swell after cooking.
In a coffee grinder, coarsely grind all the spice listed under spice powder, mix the nutmeg powder and set aside.
In a pot with a lid, heat the oil.Once the oil is smoking, add the onion paste, reduce the heat to medium and cook till golden brown in color.Next,add the chopped garlic and ginger, bay leaves, black cardamom and cook for about 2 minutes.
Lower the heat to the minimum possible on your stove and add the yogurt-water mixture, the spice powder [as per taste] and salt to the pot. Add the water to the pot too.You can add more or less water depending as per your wish.
Cover the pot and let the mixture come to a boil over lowest heat.It takes a while but do not be tempted to increase the flame else the yogurt will cuddle.

Once the gravy is boiling, dip the koftas in yogurt and slowly add to the simmering gravy.
Let the koftas cook away in the gravy on low heat.Mine took about 22 minutes to cook completely.Remove from heat.
After adding all the koftas, do not use any kind of spoon to stir the gravy, either stir using the handle of the pot or cover with lid,lift the pot wearing gloves in your hands and move the pot.
Let the koftas rest for about 2-3 hours in the gravy for them to absorb flavors.I make them in the afternoon to be eaten for dinner.The more they rest the more the flavor.
Serve warm with roti or steamed rice.

Notes:

Test a single kofta first in the boiling gravy to make sure that its not spreading or crumbling away..In that case u need to add a binder [egg or cornstarch] to the mix.I didnt need any.

Enjoy

Sending this to Hearth n Soul #21