Rediff Reader Saptama Pawar, who is based out of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, sent us this innovative recipe.
While watching the movie Chhoti si Baat with my husband and two kids, the youngest asked me can you make Chicken-Ala-Poo?
I googled the recipe but to my utter amazement there is no dish by the name.
This really motivated me to create a namesake dish and let my youngest kid taste it.
After a few attempts and failures I was able to conjure up a recipe which I'd like to call Saptama's Chicken Ala Poos:
Watch the video to see how to make Chicken Ala Poos:
Chicken Ala Poos has three main components
- Vegetable stock
- Vegetable sauce
- Fried chicken
Vegetable stock
Ingredients
- 1 cup carrot chopped
- 1 cup cauliflower chopped
- 1 cup cabbage chopped
- 1 cup onion chopped
- ½ cup green onion
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 inch ginger crushed
Whole/dry spices
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 cloves
- 5 black pepper
- 4 cardamom
- 1 inch cinnamon
Method
- In a cooking pot add 1 litre of water.
- Add all the above ingredients.
- Allow it to boil.
- When you see bubbles, turn the heat to medium-slow and let it cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Strain the stock and keep aside.
For vegetable sauce
Ingredients
- 4 tomatoes boiled and skin removed
- 1 cup carrot chopped
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 1 cup capsicum
- 1 tbsp ginger chopped
- 1 tbsp garlic chopped
Whole/dry spices
- ¼ tsp rosemary
- ¼ tsp thyme
- ¼ tsp black pepper powder
- ¼ tsp nutmeg powder
- 1 tsp paprika or Kashmiri red chili powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 bay leaves
Method
- Make small shallow cuts on the tomatoes. Boil them for about 3-4 minutes.
- Peel off the skin and chop well.
- Heat a pan and add 2 tbsp vegetable oil.
- Add garlic and ginger and roast till raw smell disappears.
- Add onion and saute till translucent.
- Add carrot and cook until it becomes soft and tender.
- Add capsicum and cook to make them soft.
- Add tomatoes and cook for few more minutes.
- Add 1 cup of vegetable stock.
- Add all whole/dry spices.
- Mix well. Cover the pan and cook for few minutes.
- Once everything is cooked well, remove bay leaves.
- Remove from heat and allow it to cool.
- Use a hand blender or mixer to grind it to a coarse to fine paste, like a sauce.
- Reserve this vegetable sauce.
Chicken Fry
Ingredients
- 400 gm skinless boneless chicken
- Butterfly chicken breast and cut into medium size pieces
Chicken coating ingredients
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp paprika
- ¼ tsp dry parsley
- ¼ black pepper powder
- ½ cup cream
- ½ cup red cooking wine
Method
- Mix the coating ingredients well to make the flour mixture.
- Coat chicken pieces generously in the flour. Remove excess flour, if any.
- In a pan heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil and 2 tbsp butter.
- Start frying the chicken pieces, don’t overcrowd the pan.
- Fry the chicken pieces till they're golden brown. It should take between 12 to 15 minutes.
- Drain oil and keep aside.
To make Chicken Ala Poos
- In a large flat plan add 3 tbsp vegetable oil and 2 tbsp butter.
- Once butter melts, add prepared vegetable sauce.
- Roast upto 5 minutes until oil starts separating.
- Add red cooking wine and let it cook for 2 minutes until the alcohol content is reduced.
- Add 1/5 cup vegetable stock. You can add as much as you want to make your gravy thin.
- Mix well and let it simmer for a minute or so.
- Add half of the cream and mix well.
- Add Chicken pieces carefully in the sauce.
- Cover the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes.
- Turn over the chicken carefully so that is covered in sauce on both sides.
- Add remaining cream.
- Cover the pan and let it cook for another 4-5 minutes
- Chicken Ala Poos is ready. Serve with bread, toast or plain rice.
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