CURRY AND SPICE: ORIENTAL STYLE CHICKEN & SPICE COATED BATTER FRIED EGG

You see how self centric I am, I had to share something I enjoy on this day, not really thinking of the vegetarians around or of those veg lovers among my readers. I do not plan anything much ahead, I am not an organised planner, the husband can give you all an well described note in support of it. I had some boneless chicken in the freezer which I used in an evening last week. I actually went to the Indian Super Store on that day and got a bottle of Ching's Oriental style sauce back home. There is an aberration of that particular spelling, do not know clearly which one is the corrupted form of the other.

I do not enjoy chicken as before is true, I enjoy tender chicken fries or popcorn chicken and in Oriental sauces, minced chicken kebabs, the only curry with chicken I am enjoying now is a light soupy "robibarer murgir jhol" type I do in a microwave. The thick curries and kormas are not going down well with me, I keep doing them for the men, skip my share of chicken and taste a bit of the curry. Curries with almonds and milk and ghee together are getting difficult to digest for me, its an "ada-jirey bata diye patla jhol seasoned Bengali pet... that is stomach".. How I wish to survive on "choto rui, katla, tyangra, aar, kajoli, pabda, koi er patla jhol" majorly. That is the reason I am absolutely disliking eating at speciality restaurants while in Kolkata, there I wish to visit the local market, buy my kind of fish and vegetables, cook them and eat. On my last visit, I did not make any attempt to buy "hansher dim".. duck eggs, one reason is that it is summer... they rot faster in the heat, then if your man is so fond of eggs and more of duck eggs, you feel awkward eating it alone. It is better I cook something which we would enjoy together moderately, in fact our son gets overjoyed to see this kind of non-vegetarian platter ORIENTAL STYLE CHICKEN & SPICE COATED BATTERFRIED EGG. Both my men enjoy sleek platters of homemade bread with suitable vegetarian and non-vegetarian sides, a variety of fried rices. Their life is sorted out, I have a mental block here at this point, I told my loving readers several times that I experience severe amount of identity crisis if I do not cook authentic Bengali often. You can see below I was cooking "kochur shak"that is taro leaves, this time with smaller prawns simultaneously on that day.

If you have a Cristine, you can prepare them often, my men do not fancy such kind of Bengal's signature, pride, history associated to food .... I do and I keep cooking them though in less frequency. I share them with few of my Bengali neighbours. They too send me good food but when one of their mother is here for six months every year, I get to eat my preferences coming from her, "kathaler bichi + aloor dalna, potoler bharta, kathaler bichi diye niramish tarkari".... I immediately switch back to an "egaro-baro kathar opor birat bagan ghera bari, gorur goyal, dhan sheddo kora, jatitey chal guro kora, chirey-muri bhaja, pithey-puli banano, moya banano, chatey bori... achar.. sheyoi shukono, jhorey baganey aam porey thaka o ta kurono, kamini gachey shap joriye thaka, khater nichey jomano narkol o ta bosta bhorey bikri kora".... I did not want to shift to Kolkata from that home, how come I would get over that nostalgia? However, that does not stop me from baking often, I prepared a decent garlicky bread yesterday evening, just today I cannot associate Bengal, India or any other place other than this island and it's neighbours in particular to my share, it is unfair. I could not name the egg dish "byashoner golai moshola makha dim bhaja" which is actually so. I must show allegiance to my second home today that has given us safety & security, feeds our stomach.

I need not mention either what the occasion is, if I have learnt any good lesson from the blogger friends around, I will not do that. Let me call this non-vegetarian delight with boneless chicken and egg ORIENTAL STYLE CHICKEN & SPICE COATED BATTER FRIED EGG an Asian Delight that the entire world would love to have. Here is my plate;

INGREDIENTS FOR THE ORIENTAL CHICKEN :

BONELESS CHICKEN : 500GM [PORTIONS FROM THE BREST PREFERABLY]
CUBED ONION : 1MEDIUM TEA CUP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 3-4
SZECHUAN SAUCE : 100-150GM [I USED STORE BOUGHT]
SOYA SAUCE : 2TBSP + 1TBSP
CORN FLOUR : 2TBSP
WHITE SESAME SEED : 1/2TSP
BLACK PEPPER POWDER : 1/4TSP + 1/4TSP
VINEGAR : 2TBSP
SUGAR : 1/2TSP
GINGER MINCE : 1TSP
GARLIC MINCE : 1TBSP

EGG : 1
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP; THE EXTRA CAN BE RESERVED FOR A LATER USE

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SPICE COATED BATTER FRIED EGG :

BOILED & HALVED EGG : 4-5
TURMERIC POWDER : 1TSP
CUMIN POWDER : 1TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 1TSP
CHAAT MASALA : 1/2TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1/2TSP
GRAMFLOUR : 4-5TBSP
RICE FLOUR : 2TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED [REMEMBER CHAAT MASALA HAS SALT]
SUGAR : 1/2TSP
OIL : 5-6TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Let us prepare the Oriental Style Chicken at first.

I do not have the patience of chef Sanjot Keer who the other day I saw was so minutely slicing each chicken strips into same sizes for a stir fry item may be. I watch a few of them including that little boy of Cooking Shooking? or even Sayan's Kitchen too. Sayan knows the art well, do not know why his food pictures look overly dressed up to me, as if like an excess of make up on a face. Mr. K's casual cooking style rules over me though. So, I just chopped them into smaller cubes.

I washed the chicken cubes, drained the water, marinated in salt for half an hour. I washed the chicken again & drained the water! I marinated them with vinegar, little salt, 1/4tsp black pepper powder, 2 tbsp soya sauce. I kept the bowl aside for an hour or may be two.

Meanwhile, I prepared a mixture with the Szechuan sauce, 1tbsp soya sauce, 1/4tsp black pepper powder, sugar and salt.

After the stipulated time of marination, I drained off the marinade from the chicken and added very little salt, the rice flour & corn flour, an egg to it.

I folded in well and kept aside for 5 minutes. I heated 50ml oil in a wok. We are supposed to deep fry the chicken pieces but I do not wish to reserve too much of the excess oil.

Once hot, I fried the coated chicken cubes in batches until light brown.

Once the frying was done, I took off the excess oil leaving behind 2tbsp oil. I added and stirred the ginger garlic mince in it for a minute.

I added the cubed onions and slitted green chillies, stirred until the onions turned translucent pink.

I added the fried chicken pieces, stirred for a minute or two! Then I added the prepared sauce and stir cooked for 2-3 minutes.We should be done. The best is to serve it immediately.

Now let us do the South Asian style Spicy Egg.

You all know how to boil egg, it is so universal and you are not Parvin Babi's screen avatar. Then there is a point here, if I cannot insert a figure to an excel sheet even in 2019, August, there must be people like an on screen Parveen Babi.

Boil your eggs for not more than 4-5 minutes. Once cool, de shell, wash and half. Add salt, half of the turmeric, the cumin + coriander + chaat masala + half of the red chilli powder and marinate well. Keep aside for few minutes.