Christmas cravings and chicken keema pulao

Well, I've been missing for a while. With good reason, thankfully. The restaurant was choc-a-bloc for the entire Christmas week and I got to meet a bunch of very old and very dear friends. All of whom ate the devil's chutney with such relish that I fear for their well-being the next morning.

In between all my hustle and bustle with Brown Sahib, I also managed to eat some of my favourite food in Delhi. The mutton fry and the chicken fry from Andhra Bhawan. All for the princely sum of Rs 80 for both. For all of those who haven't had the pleasure of tasting either of these yet - you should hotfoot it immediately to Andhra Bhawan. Simple, yummy, spicy fare.

Now that I've taken the evening off from the restaurant, I decided to get back to my favourite past-time - cooking. So tonight's dinner is chicken keema pulao and in true North Indian style, dal makhani. Such simple pleasures of life. Really.

Otherwise, life is carrying on. I keep hyper-ventilating over for what will come first, breaking even or breaking down. And I wake up daily and curse the Excise officers of Delhi. And then I plan the next weekend's brunch menu.  I'm currently torn between whether to include beef handi kebabs, which are superbly flavoured flattened beef kebabs which were cooked by the Bangladeshi muslim cooks in North Calcutta. If anyone has any thoughts on this, let me know.

In the meantime, in case you feel like whipping up a nice chicken keema pulao here's what you need to do.

Take 1/2 kg of chicken mince, wash well. Then soak 1 and a half cups of basmati rice in 2 cups of water. Chop up two tomatoes, finely slice 3 onions, take 3-4 green chilis and slit them and make a paste of a inch piece of ginger and a few cloves of garlic.

Now, take a pan, add a bit of oil and saute 3 cloves, 3 elaichis, a stick of cinnamon and 1 tsp of jeera/ cumin. Once they stop crackling, add the onions and saute till the onions change colour. Add the mince, cook for about 10 minutes, then add the ginger-garlic paste, tomatoes, 1tsp chili powder, stir for a few minutes and then add the rice. After sauteeing all these, add 3 cups of water and salt to taste, bring to a boil and then turn the flame on low and cover the pot. After 12 to 15 minutes, uncover the rice, and add a handful of chopped coriander leaves and a tsp of freshly ground garam masala. Stir again and cover and cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes. 

And ta-dah, it's all done. Add a raita, some kachumbar and a dal and you have a complete meal.