We had a snow storm 2 weeks ago that dumped about 12″ of snow here in Kansas. Just when we thought we could move around again, we got the second one last week. Although the driveways were cleaned, it was too cold to move around. We still have lot of snow on the ground. This kind of weather calls for some hot soup.
I don’t make chicken soups at home because V does not like chicken flavor in his soups. I love these kind of soups which are packed with nutrition with vegetables and chicken. So I went ahead and prepared this. It came out so well that both V and Ishaan enjoyed it. To be very honest, I wanted to make my favorite chicken noodle soup, but instead of adding noodles (which I did not have), I added a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. I marinated the chicken so that it got nice flavors.
Ingredients: 1 cup onion 1 cup celery 1 cup carrots 1/2 lb chicken chopped into 1/2″ pieces 1/2 tea spn tobasco sauce (optional) 1/2 tea spn pepper 1/2 tea spn dried basil 1 tbl spn parmesan cheese 1 tbl spn panco bread crumbs A little butter/olive oil Chicken/Vegetable stock or water Salt
Method:
Add tobasco sauce, pepper and a little salt to chicken and leave it aside for around 30mins.
Heat oil or butter and fry onions for few minutes till they are translucent. Add salt to onions to help them break down easily. Do not brown them. Now add celery, carrots, water or stock and cook till they are soft. I cooked them in pressure cooker.
Add the chopped chicken and let it cook.
Then add cheese and bread crumbs. Mix and let it get mixed.
Now add dried basil, pepper, cook another min. Serve hot.
PS: I used boneless chicken because that is all I had with me. If you are using chicken with bones, you can cook the marinated chicken separately in water/stock. Take out the pieces, then chop chicken in pieces and save them. Use the stock/water to cook vegetables. When vegetables are cooked, add chicken back to soup.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 20mins
Well, this is not the traditional chicken achari recipe, but my cousin Anirudh’s creation. Few months ago, we were chatting on google chat – he was in Germany and I was here in Kansas. It was one of those catch up sessions where we chat once in a while and catch up on what is going in our lives. That day I asked him what he was eating in his hostel. He mentioned he had prepared a chicken curry that day. He then said he has a recipe for me. He prepares this frequently and it is super hit with his friends. He also said he has become an expert in the kitchen and next time we meet, we will have a cook off! He was so confident that he said he will surely win :).
Anirudh uses actual achaar(pickle) in his recipe. He said he had a lot of pickle in his pantry and didn’t know what to do with it. He started applying it to chicken and grilling it in oven. He usually uses a Tamil pickle (he forgot the name of it). He liked the taste so he kept changing it to get to this recipe. It sounded so interesting to me. Instantly I knew how to finish off some of chili pickle that was sitting in my pantry begging to be finished. Anirudh uses chicken legs ( tangdi ) for this, since I almost always buy boneless chicken, I use that to make this. I tried my own variations to this recipe and it always comes out perfect.
Ingredients: 4 chicken legs (I used boneless chicken breast) 3-4 springs coriander leaves 1 tea spn chopped ginger 1 tea spn chopped garlic 5-6 mint leaves 1-2 tea spns masala from pickle (I used chili pickle) 1/2 tea spn red chilly powder 1 tbl spn yogurt (optional, not in original recipe) Lemon juice Salt
Method: Make a paste of coriander leaves, ginger, garlic, mint leaves, pickle masala, chilli powder, salt. Make some deep slits on the chicken. Apply the paste and yogurt to chicken and leave it aside for about 30mins. Grill in the oven, when it is almost half done, pull out and apply some lemon juice and put it back in oven. Grill till done. (I grill the chicken on my cast iron grill pan). Serve hot.
Variation : Instead of using pickle, I use fresh (Konkani) pickle ingredients directly. I leave out coriander and mint leaves so that chicken gets all the flavors from pickle masala.
Ingredients: 4 chicken legs (I used boneless chicken breast) 1 tea spn mustard seeds 1/4 tea spn fenugreek seeds A pinch asafoetida 1 tea spn chopped ginger 1 tea spn chopped garlic 2 green chillies 1 tbl spn yogurt (optional, not in original recipe) Lemon juice Salt
Method: Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add fenugreek seeds, asafoetida. Make a paste with green chillies, ginger, garlic. Â Here instead of making the masala, you can just add some ready pickle masala and skip the whole grinding process. Apply the masala, yogurt and salt to chicken and leave it aside for about 30mins. Grill in the oven, when it is almost half done, pull out and apply some lemon juice and put it back in oven. Grill till done. (or grill on a grill pan).
