Narali Bhaat..recipe for coconut day (Narali Pournima)

We very often forget to celebrate coconut day nowadays due to the domination by the "Rakhi Pournima". I wonder if sisters still do need protection offered by their brothers? Yes, they probably do, sigh, as I saw from a recently published article that India is the fourth dangerous country for women in the whole world..(Afghanistan topped the list, followed by Pakistan and one more country I forgot..and next comes India!) I guess "Raksha Bandhan", however soppy it may be, is still very much required for Indian women. Anyways, coconut day or नारळी पौर्णिमा is much more fun, with sea-worship done by throwing coconuts into the sea and of course delicious नारळी भात! Here's a fool-proof (read me-proof) and easy recipe by my aayee, the result is a heavenly blend of rice and the respected coconut and jaggery..yumm!! You can have it for dessert or even as a snack.

Ingredients: Serves 4

1. Rice: 1 cup (200 ml cup). Use a fine and white variety here, forget about brown rice for this recipe. I use something called Jeera Samba rice that is available locally here in Bangalore. I think "Ambe Mohar" would be perfect for this, for those who are lucky enough to be able to get आंबे मोहर!

2. Ghee: 1 tbsn. Use home-made ghee if possible. Check out: http://tigressinapickle.blogspot.com/2011/07/ghee.html

3.Jaggery: 3/4th cup organic brown jaggery. Stick to organic here, who knows what chemical cocktail they use on jaggery and sugar!
4. Clove: 2
5. Cinanmon (Dalchini): 1 stick 1/2 inch long
6. Coconut milk: (thick, 1st pressing) 200 ml. I use Dabur's, available in 200 ml tetrapacks.
7. Water: 250 ml.

Procedure:
1. Wash and strain the rice.
2. Heat the ghee in a saucepan. Fry the cloves and the cinnamon in the ghee until aromatic.
3. Add rice and fry lightly until all grains are coated with the ghee.(I switch off the heat and do this because I am afraid of the hot ghee splashing, but that's me!).
4. Pour the coconut milk and water into the saucepan and cook the rice completely. You can add more water if required, don't worry about breaking the rice grains.
5. Once the rice is completely cooked, add the jaggery and mix it well. Switch off the heat.
6. You may garnish with nuts and raisins, but it is delicious even without those!

Kombdiche Kaalvan..chicken curry for the ckp soul..low calorie version

This is कोंबडीचे कालवण with a difference: no frying onions! I hate to fry onions..actually I hate to fry anything and so I tried out baking the onions whole and it worked perfectly well! This recipe is for quite a spicy version, vary the spices as per taste.

Ingredients: Serves 4
1. 1/2 kg chicken, curry cut into small pieces. Country(free-range) chicken tastes best. Have all the fat/skin removed.
2. 2 medium sized onions whole
3. Peppercorns: 8
4. Cloves: 2
5. Cinnamon stick: 1 inch long
6. Shredded Dry coconut: 1 tbspn..optional
7. Ginger: half inch piece
8. Garlic: about 20 cloves or one whole garlic
9. 2 green chillies
10. Turmeric powder: 1 tspn
11. Red chilli powder: 2 tspn
12. Salt: 2 tspn
13. Lemon juice: 2 tspn
14. Filtered groundnut oil/ghee: 2 tspn

15. Asafoetida ( हिंग ) : pinch

16: Water: as required for the gravy, I use 2 cups for a thick gravy.

17. Coriander leaves: chopped, 2 tbspn

Procedure:
1. Prepare the marinade by making a paste out of the ginger, garlic and green chillies, lemon juice and salt. Keep aside.
2. Clean the chicken. Apply the marinade to the chicken pieces by hand until the chicken pieces are completely coated. Try and rub in the marinade.
3. Let the chicken marinate for at least an hour. You could even marinate the chicken and refrigerate it overnight and cook it the next day.
4. Preheat oven at 150 deg celsius. Place the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns and the two whole onions(unpeeled) into the oven.
5. Take out the spices after you hear popping sounds from the cloves, this will take 3-4 minutes.
6. Continue to bake the whole onions for about 20 minutes.

7. While the onions are baking, do the following:

     a. Grind to a powder the roasted spices and shredded coconut. Let it remain in the mixie jar.

     b. Heat the oil/ghee in a wok ( कढई ). Add the asafoetida.

     c. Add the marinated chicken to the wok and cover. Let the chicken begin to cook.

8. Take out the onions from the oven. Peel them. The onions turn transparent inside when completely cooked. Cool them and grind them along with the powdered spices. 

Note: It's important to grind the spices and dried coconut separately before the onions as the spices are hard and need more grinding.

9. Add water, ground onions and spices to the wok and let the chicken come to a boil. Simmer covered for 10 minutes and switch off the heat. Garnish with coriander leaves.

11. Eat steaming hot with rice or chapati.