Lunch

It’s the last weekend of Ramadan. Gosh, time really flies.  I wanted to make Chef Wan’s briyani gam with chicken kuzi, but I was missing a few ingredients and I’ll only be going to the market tomorrow.  Since I’ll also be eating out tomorrow, if I wanted to make something, tonight was my only window of opportunity to do so.  I decided on Eman’s chicken mandy, which I’ve been meaning to try for quite some time now.

I fell behind schedule and ended up rushing to have it ready for buka puasa, so this time I skipped the smoking process and completely forgot the fried onion and cilantro garnish.  Flavour-wise I think this was great, and the rice to water ratio was pretty spot on.  The original recipe called for saffron coloring which was supposed to give the chicken a nice reddish tone, but since I don’t have any on hand and have no idea where to get it, I’m thinking of using smoked paprika next time.

Will definitely make this again.

Last Ramadan I was binging on Middle Eastern recipes, but this year I stumbled upon this YouTube channel called Get Curried and was intrigued by their selection of Indian recipes.  At first I wanted to try their butter chicken, but it’s the weekend and I should do something fancier and Mom also suggested I try making briyani.

This isn’t like the briyani I’m used to here in Malaysia.  The video says this is a style specific to the Karnataka state of India, and even then looking at the comments there are a bunch of Karnatakans claiming that theirs is more authentic than the rest, so I can’t comment on that.  Nonetheless the mixture of flavors from the yoghurt, cilantro and mint, and the heat from the cili padi was really interesting and yummy, and I loved how the rice turned out nicely moist without being mushy.

I found the planning stage most exciting when making this.  I started off by mixing the saffron milk, then prepped the ingredients for the green paste.  After marinating the chicken I set a small pot of water on the stove, and prepped the rest of the ingredients while the potatoes were boiling.  I soaked the rice, then put the pot of water for the rice on the stove, and started on the gravy while waiting for the water come to a boil, which would take about as much time as required for soaking the rice.  By the time it was time to add the chicken to the pot, the chicken has been marinating for an hour as planned.  So all the tasks were timed quite nicely and the dish was ready 10 minutes before it was time to break fast.  It was a lot of fun for me.

Do try this out, whenever you’re feeling like a different style of briyani.

It was another one of those weekends when the freezer was full of stuff and Kak’mbang sent out her SOS.  I needed to help her clear at least one whole chicken, so I decided to try this recipe by Saudi Food Eman.  I found it interesting how good she claims the dish to be despite using so few ingredients, so I decided to give this a go.

This took me a few tries to get right.  The chicken Eman uses is way smaller than the mutant birdies we have here, which required me to do a lot of guesswork for the cooking time. I also had to adjust the water and salt quantities before finally getting the perfect taste and texture for the rice.  Rudy got me this amazing ThermoPro TP-20 food thermometer which alerts me as soon as the breast meat hits the optimal temperature, so I no longer had to guess how long I needed to leave the chicken in the oven.  If you don’t have a thermometer, be sure to weigh your chicken and use a roast timer to estimate your cooking time.  Because the chicken is butterflied and we’re cooking at very high temperature, you can check for doneness at the halfway point.

Overall, a great dish which is super easy to make.  Give it a try!