Chicken Haleem

Recently, I started receiving some encouragement messages from friends, colleagues and family on this new blog post series. People started sharing their feedback, opinions about the blog. I thank you for that. 

Among all the emails/messages that I received, one of them reminded me about my trip to USA back in 2008. I must admit, at that time, I did not even know how to cook rice in a rice cooker!! :-). I remember how my ex-colleague and a dear friend Stephen Fuqua (here is his blog) showed me how to cook rice for the first time :-). I can not even explain how happy I was seeing those perfectly cooked rice!

Even, in today's recipe I will use rice :-). I would like to dedicate this recipe to Stephen to show him how far I have come since then :-). I wish he could taste it as well :-).

Also, just in case you are wondering what does Haleem means? It means soft in English. So today we are going to cook Chicken Soft :-).

Ingredients:

• 400 gm boneless chicken.
• Few pulses of your choice i.e. Red lentils, Bengal gram split (Channa Dal).
• 500 gm curd.
• 3 finely chopped onions. 
• 3 finely chopped tomatoes.
• Basmati Rice, half a cup or less.
• Oatmeal, half a cup or less.
• 2 Bay leaves.
• 6 Cloves.
• 2 tbs turmeric powder.
• 2 tbs red chili powder.
• 2 tbs coriander powder.
• 2 tbs cumin powder.
• Cumin seeds.
• 5-6 green chilies finely chopped.
• 2 Cinnamon.
• 6 tps butter or Desi Ghee.
• 3 tbs Ginger and Garlic paste.
• Garam masala.
• Cashews.
• Lemon Juice.
• Rose petals (optional)
• Salt to taste.

Cooking Process:

Chicken, Pulses, Oatmeal, Rice Mix

• Heat up the pressure cooker.
• Add 2 tps refined/ olive oil/ desi ghee.
• Add bay leaves, Add cloves.
• Add raw chicken into it. Stir well.
• Add 1 tbs red chili, 1 tbs turmeric powder.
• Cook it for 5 minutes.
• Add raw pulses and oatmeal. Mix well.
• Add enough water to cover them.
• Close the pressure cooker and cook it for 30 minutes on low heat.
• We need to over cook, so that every thing gets mashed up with each other.
• While it cooks, lets prepare the tempering.

Onion, Tomato, Curd Mix

• Heat up a pan.
• Add 4 tps refined/ olive oil/ desi ghee.
• Add cumin seeds, let them crackle.
• Add chopped onions. Cook till they turn brown.
• Add ginger and garlic paste.
• Add salt to taste, red chili, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder.
• Add green chilies and tomatoes paste. Mix well.
• Cook it for another 10 minutes.
• Add cashews.
• Add curd. 
• Add lemon juice.
• Add garam masala. Mix them well.

The real Mix

• By this time, the tempering is ready. And so is chicken mix.
• Empty the pressure cooker contents into the tempering slowly and gradually.
• Keep mixing them well.
• Add some butter.
• Keep mashing them and keep mixing them till desired consistency.
• And that's it!

Let's plate up:

Chicken Haleem - 2nd Attempt

Chicken Haleem - 1st Attempt

This dish can also be made up with mutton. However I have only tried with Chicken yet. And it tastes really awesome. Hey I am no expert, but I hope you will like it :-).

As always your comments are welcome.