Oven ki murghi

As I said in my last post, my aim was to blog once a month.  I think I am a couple of days late but it could be worse!  I had big plans for this blog being something new, something that I’d not tried before but in the end, I decided to go for an old favourite that I’ve cooked many times but never been disappointed with.

It is based on the following recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ovenkimurghichickenb_76546

Madhur Jaffrey is a very popular Indian cook in the UK and she was quite influential in bringing Indian food to the UK so a very good person to feature here!

I don’t follow this recipe exactly as I think pretty much any combination you make with it will give you good results.  I was cooking for 2 so I used only one large chicken breast and started by cutting this into four pieces and lightly browning on each side.

Then I added half a chopped onion and half a chopped yellow pepper.  I think green or red work better in this dish but I had a yellow one in my fridge and was lacking energy to go food shopping!

I cooked the peppers and onion for about 5 mins with the chicken and then added the ingredients to a glass cooking dish, layering the ingredients with the chicken first and then the onion and pepper.

Then I added one teaspoon of mustard seeds to the pan (with a little more oil), cooked for about 30 seconds before adding a chopped clove of garlic.  I cooked this for about another 30 seconds before adding 3 tablespoons of tinned tomatoes and approx. 200ml of double cream and 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard.

For the spices, I chose 1 teaspoon each of cumin, coriander, garam massala and chilli flakes.

Once these were mixed in and the sauce started to bubble, I poured the sauce over the chicken and cooked in the oven for approx 30 minutes on 180 degrees.

I served with boiled rice.  In the end I think these ingredients would be enough to serve 4 people as we still have leftovers for tonight!

So now I have one month to think of my next recipe… I have a borrowed book that I could try one from; Mastering the Art of French Cooking (which is also featured in a great film; Julie and Julia 🙂 ).  I think if I do one from there I definitely need to set aside a good few hours so we will see what time is like over the next few weeks.  Also depends whether I can find the equipment I need from my very small kitchen!  I also think it is a little dangerous to start a book like that.  The assumption is that afterwards I will be a master of french cooking and I think that is a difficult promise to keep!