Have you eaten this food? If not, you either don’t like Indian food, and you lose nothing or you do and lose one of the tastiest chicken recipes you have ever eaten in your life. I know you may not agree with me here, this is only my humble opinion. 🙂
I started writing about Indian recipes for the moment and I thought of some that are worth knowing about. Chicken Badam Pasanda is one of them. I have it from the cookbook “Golden India – Indian Recipes” 1996. I was told that this book has the recipes closer to the original in their native land. I guess that most of the time, the international recipes in cookbooks are adapted to reach more people. And probably, the tastes differ. Not much, but there is a difference.
But no food is worth anything unless you share it with someone. I saw yesterday “Woman on top” and I thought that she was right: “the last and most important ingredient is to share it with someone you love.” All this talk about food and recipes, tastes and flavours, they are just bed-times stories. 🙂 I let you try this wonderfully tasty dish and share it. Share it with all your heart. Sharing is the magic ingredient.
Chicken Badam Pasanda
Chicken Steaks In An Almond Flavoured Sauce
Serves 4-5
Preparation time: 2 1/2 hours
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- 10 pcs chicken breasts (medium size), cleaned, flattened
- 50 g (1/2 cup) almonds, blanched and sliced
- 340 ml (1 3/4 cups) chicken stock
- 8 – 10 cloves
- 4 tsp coriander, chopped (optional)
- 1 tbsp corn flour (or plain flour if you don’t have corn flour)
- 3 tbsp garlic paste
- 3 tbsp ginger paste
- 5-6 green cardamoms
- 210 ml (1 1/4 cup) oil
- 2 onions (medium-sized), finely chopped
- 1 g saffron, dissolved in 1 tsp milk
- salt to taste
- 1 tsp white pepper powder
- 1 cup yoghurt
Method:
- Keep aside 6-7 blanched almonds. Grind the rest into a paste and keep aside.
- Rub ginger and garlic paste into the steaks. Whisk yoghurt and salt together in a bowl and coat the chicken pieces evenly with it. Keep aside for 2 hours. It smells so cover the bowl with plastic foil. I would try to do this in the evening and keep everything for the next day or early in the morning. That way, the chicken breasts marinade better. But you do as you like.
- Heat oil in a pan and fry the steaks till almost done. Remove and keep aside. At this time they smell like heaven. Try not to eat them yet. The best is yet to come.
- In the same oil, sauté onions, cardamoms and cloves. Stir in the almond paste, fry a while, then add white pepper powder, chicken stock and flour. Cook till the gravy is rich, smooth and thick.
- Remove from fire, strain the sauce to remove whole spices and reheat.
- Add the steaks to the gravy and let it simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is tender. Add dissolved saffron.
- To serve, garnish with sliced almonds and chopped coriander (optional). Serve hot, accompanied by Naan or Parantha bread. I have it eaten Naan bread, it is soo delicious, but if you don’t have it go with basmati rice. You can never be wrong with this one. Just mix it after boiling, with butter or not.
Bon appetite!
Sweet Nothings 