Cream Cheese Barfi (Indian)

When I had an Indian cooking phase, every week I'd go on this street to get ingredients for my cooking and I would always stop by this little Indian sweets shop and get some really cheap, really delicious treats.  My boyfriend used to prefer gulab jamun, but now I think he likes barfi as much, if not more than gulab jamun, which is a good thing since barfi takes 10-15 minutes to make and gulab jamun requires you to make homemade paneer, also deep-frying, it's a long process.

So my mister has been requesting barfi for some time now, and we had everything to make some except cream (and we're broke lately).  All I could find in the fridge was cream cheese. I melted the cream cheese with some water and used it instead of cream.  It's as simple as that and it worked fine.  It's a little different from regular barfi though, it tastes a little of cream cheese, it's really thick, slightly more salty and it feels less powdery/melty.  It's kind of a similar dessert to barfi, but different.

So here I share with you the regular nut barfi basic recipe I always use, and I included the cream cheese variation if you're curious or you have no cream too!  I tried being more precise than the book in my instructions.  The said book is Cuisine Indienne by Manju Malhi.

(makes 9 pieces, or enough for 3-4 persons)

-50g nuts: pistachios, cashews and/or almonds are the most common nuts used in Indian cooking, but you can use whatever you want, mix nuts, I used pecan on the pictures

-1tbsp unsalted butter

-50g powdered sugar

-100mL water + 50g cream cheese, melted and combined together in a double boiler (I use a bowl that fits over a pot of boiling water)

-125g powdered milk

-the seeds of 5 cardamom pods, crushed 

-other flavours? *

Roast your nuts in a pan on low/medium then coarsely crush them in mortar or chop them with a sharp knife.

Prepare a small container (one that shouldn't hold more than 2 cups).  I used a 9x9cm (3.5x3.5 inches) small plastic container.  Line it nicely with cling film.

Warm up a non-stick pan (medium/small if you have), get a silicon spatula and get ready for a workout!  Melt the butter first, then add the powdered sugar and mix for 3 minutes, incorporating the butter to the sugar by smudging them together against the bottom of the pan.  Add the cream or the cream cheese solution, and mix for 3 minutes.  Add the powdered milk and mix thoroughly and constantly for about 3 minutes again, then add the cardamom and nuts.  Mix well for a minute or two, then transfer to your prepared container.  Pack the mixture and flatten the top nicely with the wet back of a spoon.  Cover with cling film, flatten further with your fingers through the film if you want, and let the fudge rest for a couple hours to firm it up before cutting in small pieces.

*Other Indian dessert flavours you could use include rose water and saffron strands (from Iran or Spain, the good kind).  If you skip the cardamom, you could make a non-Indian barfi and use vanilla extract or seeds, orange blossom water, substitute some nuts by desiccated coconut... Experiment!

Shahjahani Murgh (Indian)

Maybe this will surprise you, but I'm not a stranger to Indian cuisine.  As with all my phases, my Indian phase lasted maybe four months where I would cook 2 different curries and serve them with rice and one of the many Indian flat breads, or some appetizers and chutneys and raita, and this EVERY day.  I love really spicy Indian curries that makes your nose leak!  By the way, Indians call "curry" everything in sauce, it doesn't need to contain "curry powder".

(I posted the best, most authentic butter chicken and a tandoori marinade before, see here: http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/search/label/Indian)

When you think curry, you probably think bold and spicy flavours.  This Chicken Shah Jahan doesn't fit in this category at all.  It is creamy and contains a lot of different spices like other curries, but it's not spicy at all (there's no chilli in any form in this curry) and has very mild but complex aromas.  It's a really subtle but delicious dish.

I took this recipe from the book Cuisine Indienne by Manju Malhi.  I have some really good cookbooks written by foreigners to the country where the recipes are from, but I usually trust, lets say, an Indian cookbook written by an Indian lady, I know it has more chances of being authentic, it's all about authenticity with me!  Anyways, in the book, they explain that Shah Jahan was the emperor who ordered the construction of the Taj Mahal for his favourite wife, Mumtaz-i Mahal.  This dish was created for him.  If that curry was made for an emperor, it has to be good for me, no?

You might be scared with all the spices, but just find a small Indian market, Indian people are usually really nice and happy to see non-Indians interested in their food!  They'll help you find whatever you need, and spices are like 2 to 4 dollars each. Once I asked a store-owner for some spice, he told me to wait, exited his shop and came back with the spices I needed, but since he didn't have them, he bought them for me from a near shop.  He also gave me a bag of fresh curry leaves on the branch for free.  Each time I go there I'm received like a friend! When I started my Indian cooking phase, my boyfriend bought me two books, I went through all the recipes and made a list of all the spices, seeds and powdered version.  It cost me a total of $30-40! Also, Indian cooking only requires a pan, and maybe a coffee grinder or small food processor to grind your own masalas.  It's a really easy, often quick and cheap cuisine.  And curries are essentially always cooked the same, first whole spices and onions, garlic and ginger, then meat/lentils/peas/paneer, then cream or yoghurt if used and powdered spices.  That simple. 

So here is the recipe for Shahjahani Murgh from the book Cuisine Indienne by Manju Malhi.  There is so many good chefs on YouTube and the internet, incredible authentic resources on the internet if you are interested in Indian cooking (luckily most Indians speak a good English, so it's easy to find real Indian food!).  If you are interested, I thought I'd post a list of all my resources for all different ethnic cooking I've been into since I started cooking seriously, 3-4 years ago (I still have a long post to write about Ramen today, so maybe the resources will wait tomorrow).

(serves 2-3)

Masala (is it the good term, I think masala is a spice mix...?)

-3 bay leaves

-3 black cardamom pods

-4 green cardamom pods

-1 cinnamon stick

-4 cloves

-1/4tsp cumin seeds

-10 black peppercorn

-2tbsp ghee or butter (to make a ghee replacement if you're motivated, melt a couple spoons of butter and remove the scums, there you have it, clarified butter!)

-1 onion, finely chopped

-3 garlic cloves, finely grated or puréed 

-1tsp peeled ginger, finely grated

-1/4tsp salt

-1/4tsp white pepper

-400g chicken breast in cubes

-4tbsp cream (I use fat 30%)

-10 saffron strands, Spanish and Iranian preferred to American of course (mixed and resting in the cream while cooking the rest)

-100ml water

-2tbsp almond powder (I grind almonds with skins in a coffee grinder)

-some fine ginger matchsticks for garnish

In a warm non-stick pan, on medium-high, melt the butter or the ghee and add the masala ingredients.  Roast a couple second until aromatic, then add the onion, the garlic and the ginger and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes. Add the chicken cubes and cook for 10 minutes (at this stage the chicken should be white, but it might not totally be cooked in the center, that's fine).

Make the almond powder rain over the chicken, mix and cook 2 minutes.  Add the salt, the white pepper and the saffron cream and water and cook 2 more minutes or until the thickness of the sauce is to your taste.  Top with ginger strips and serve with basmati rice (and maybe a lentil curry or some aloo gobi perhaps)?

Butter Chicken or Makhani Gravy for Butter Everything! And Tandoori/Tikka Chicken Marinade (Indian)

This recipe is the one I've been using for more than a year to make Murgh Makhani, known as Butter Chicken.  This recipe is for the tomato gravy sauce, and for real restaurant butter chicken you have to have to have to use cooked tandoori chicken (so I'll provide a marinade recipe in this post too!)!  I took this recipe from the very talented and funny celebrity chef Harpal Singh Sokhi.  This is a recipe from one of his videos, but written down by me for your commodity in the kitchen (and mine!).  You can see the video here:

http://youtu.be/-nzHXxasZ8E

So here's the written version of Murgh Makhani by Harpal Singh Sokhi:

(for 3-4 people)

-500g tomatoes, diced in big cubes

-1 tbsp oil

-1 tbsp butter

-3-4 green cardamom pods

-a couple blades of mace

-1/2tbsp garlic, chopped

-1/2tbsp ginger, finely julienned

-1-2 green indian chilies, cut in 2 lenghtwise and deseeded, julienned

-1tbsp butter again

-1/2tbsp red chili powder (or less if you can't stand spicy, this is authentic indian food!)

-salt to taste

-half a cup 30% cream

-a pinch or 2 of green cardamom powder

-1/2tbsp honey

-1/4tsp (I use 1/2tsp to a tsp) kasoori methi leaves

-tandoori chicken (see marinade at the end of this recipe) or paneer and/or vegetables... for 4 people

In a warm pan, add 1 tbsp butter and the oil.  Once it's hot, add cardamom pods and mace and stir a little.  Then add garlic and cook 2-3 minutes.  Add tomatoes and simmer 10 to 15 minutes until cooked and soft.  Allow to cool down a little then grind in the blender into a fine paste.

Add the remaining 1 tbsp butter to the empty pan and melt, then add ginger and chilies.  Strain the tomato mixture over the pan and simmer for another 10 minutes stirring once in a while, until the acidity and rawness of the tomatoes fades totally.  Add chili powder and salt to taste, then add your main ingredient (chicken, paneer, vegetables...) and cook 5 more minutes.  Stir in cream, cardamom powder, honey and crumbled kasoori methi.  Simmer a minute or two and it's done! 

Tandoori Chicken Marinade, from "Ginger and Lemongrass" book by Leemei Tan:

-5tbsp Greek yogurt

-4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

-2tsp red chili powder

-1tsp paprika

-2tsp cumin powder

-2tsp turmeric powder

-1tbsp coriander powder

-1/2tsp ground black pepper

-1/4tsp saffron powder

-1/2tsp sea salt

-the juice of half a lime

-1tbsp vegetable oil

-30g butter, soft

Mix everything and marinate 6 whole chicken legs (with 4 deep slashes on top) or 3-4 deboned breasts in cubes overnight, then bake in the oven (skewering the breast cubes is convenient).

Hope you enjoy this really addictive, delicious authentic butter chicken!