Hyderabadi Chicken Qorma

Hyderabadi Chicken Qorma

Ingredients
1 Whole chicken
Ginger garlic paste
Turmeric
Red Pepper
3Tbsp roasted & ground dessicated coconut
1 1/2 Tbsp roasted & ground cashew nuts
1/2 Tsp roasted & ground Chironji seeds/sunflower seeds (optional)
2 large onions finely sliced
1/2 - 1 cup yoghurt
1/2 Tsp garam masala
4-6 whole green chilli
salt to taste


1.Wash and marinate the chicken with basic ingredients- ginger garlic paste,turmeric,salt,red pepper.
2.Add some oil in a pan and fry the onions till golden brown.Keep aside.
3.In the same pan, cook the marinated chicken slightly until it changes color for about 20 mins.
4.Blend yoghurt and all the powdered spices with onion,green chilli and garam masala.
5.Add the yoghurt mixture to the chicken,cover and cook on medium heat until the chicken is cooked thoroughly on the inside.Add some whole green chilli and fresh coriander.Also, add some salt accordingly.Keep stirring until you see a thin layer of oil along the sides of the pan.You could also keep cooking uncovered until you reach the desired consistency of the Qorma.

Note The amount of yoghurt depends on the consistency you'd like for the Qorma.For a thicker consistency, use about 1/2 cup yoghurt for 1 whole chicken.

Serving Suggestion Tandoori Naan,Bagara khana,Matar Pulao

Welcome 2010

Hey all,

Welcome to year 2010.I know its too late :~ I had been busy getting things done and was away from blogging for a while. So here are my updates ...

I have enrolled for a graduate class which meets every thursday.Its a 45 minutes commute and is a 3 hour class.So my thursdays are pretty hectic.

Alhamdulillah it feels good to be back at school after about 2 years.I've already made friends with a really friendly freshman who walked me around campus to get me acquainted with the facilities and my neighbourhood.

I also have to put up pics of a yummy Moroccan meal I had at my friend's.Her entrees or appetizers were so yummy.She had two kinds of salad, spinach pies and cheese souffle.

This was followed by a delicious Moroccan chicken baked with olives.

I'll be getting the recipe very soon.Once I try it, I'll be putting it up with pics....I wish I could have it now.

The chicken was served with arabic bread, khubz and rice seasoned with knorr stock.

We were digging into the chicken like there's no tomorrow when she announced about another main dish waiting to be served.

This was mutton cooked with apricots or Lahm maa mush mush in Arabic.The traditional way of eating it was to dip the bread into the big plate and eat the bread soaked in the soup.The huge chunks of meat were to be eaten separately on the individual plates.

The meat flavored with the sweet taste of apricots was a totally new experience for me.Indian cooking never combines meat/chicken with sweet fruits or dried fruits.It tasted good.But the chicken flavored with sour olives and pickled lemons from Costco tasted absolutely delicious.All of us had huge pieces of the chicken and were digging into the gravy.

I can't wait to get together with her to learn some fine Moroccan cooking.Meanwhile, her hubby loves Hyderabadi biryani and she wants me to show her how to cook biryani.

I loved the lunch date at her place.It was perfect timing actually.The weekend we were back from our trip to Cleveland and Detroit was the lunch date with another family friend.

Thanks Loubna habeebti for a lovely meal.

Holiday Cheers

Howdy all,

Hows everyone coping with the holiday season the shopping,cooking,planning,traveling and so much more ?

I've been crazily busy planning for my trip to Cleveland and Detroit and I'm sooooooooooooooo excited.I've been going shopping for the perfect winter wear which looks elegant, keeps me warm and still has plenty of material on it to dress me modestly.Now thats a major hassle.Back home in the UAE, I never had problems finding clothes that were long enough to cover my derriere or loose enough on me to look like they were a comfy fit but not the perfect fit where all the curves of my body could be made out.Plus my petit size doesn't help me at all.So been hopping around from Kohl's to Macy's to Forever 21 to Zara's.

Besides all that shopping around, I've been procrastinating on so many posts on my eid affair and post eid.I can be such a lazy bum I know.
Also, I've started posting job vacancies that I find out about through my network in the middle east.The link can be found on my profile http://land-a-job.blogspot.com/.

Hmmmm, back to my holiday plans...So my hubby gets off work on thursday.We'll be leaving early morning on friday for cleveland if we do not encounter a snow storm.A day in cleveland then we'll drive on to Detroit.A day or two in Detroit and we might be headed to Chicago if we're not very tired and still upto driving some more.

I'll take pictures of anything crazy I encounter on my trip for my lovely blogger buddies :) and I look forward to hearing all about your holiday plans.

By the way this isnt my happy holidays post.I have another one to post before I leave for the trip.

Toodles

Capital Punishment for murderer of Moosa Mukhtiar Ahmed

After reading Alia's post where she wants to bring back real capital punishment for rapists and the like, my thoughts floated to a conversation I had with my Emirati friend a couple of years ago while I was at university doing my undergraduate studies.She seemed a little sad one day.I enquired about it.She usually had minor issues like stress and family related since she was a mother of two young girls.She would talk to me about her day to day challenges and would feel bettter.We would then head off for a steaming plate of Fettucine Alfredo with hot red sauce and laugh off all the worries.

Imagine the look on my face when she told me her source of concern for that day.She told me her mother's brother was at her place.Since she had 2 little girls and was a full time student, she stayed at her mom's place during the week where her kids were taken care of in her absence.So anyway, her uncle came over.He was very distressed because his son was behind bars.The reason being he had raped a young girl.

I was shocked to simply put it.My expression showed it all.I have never known a rapist or come close to someone thanks God.This was the closest I got.One of my bestest friend's cousin was a rapist awaiting trial ....

This was just the beginning.The bigger shock had yet to come when my friend told me her uncle was unhappy and she was unhappy for her uncle and wished her cousin got back home free.I was shocked,angry and upset.I was shocked because I couldn't imagine my friend being a woman herself with two young daughters felt sympathetic towards a rapist.I was angry because I felt she was acting selfish.She didn't care about the girl, the victim.All she cared was about her uncle and the cousin.I was upset because I couldn't believe this was one of my best friends talking  about rape like it happened everyday to every one and was no big deal.So anyway I totally flipped a lid and just went on and on about abuse and the physical and psychological effects on the girl and asked her to give a thought to the trauma she was going through.Finally, I asked her to imagine if something like that were to happen to her daughter.

Later, I felt sorry for her.She was confused.She didn't know how else to support her uncle.Her cousin was only 18 years old.She totally agreed with me on everything.She just felt it was unfair to her uncle.

My psychology professor used to say," Life isn't fair or unfair.Life just is."

Sexual abuse of any kind is a big deal and should be dealt likewise.I strongly support capital punishment.Besides being a severe punishment for perpetrators of sex crimes , it would be a lesson for other evil minded people to take heed and resist such temptations.I'm sure if they knew they'd be killed for it, they would not commit such criminal acts towards women and children.Of course, things are different thanks to our legal system.A crminal can easily get away with paying blood money or serving a sentence.

The story of 5 year old Moosa Mukhtiar Ahmed is so heart wrenching.My mom was so upset on reading half of the story, she couldn't finish reading.And to imagine something so monstrous taking place in the bathroom of the mosque.It was a sad, sad thing to happen and that too on eid.

Please remember the little boy's family  in your prayers.I hope justice is served for the sake of our daughters and children around the world.

The link to Alia's post is http://chasing-jannah.blogspot.com/2009/12/bring-back-real-capital-punishment-in.html.

More details on the tragic death of the little boy can be read at the following links.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091203/NATIONAL/712029832/1041

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091209/NATIONAL/712089912/1042

Prezi - The zoooming presentation Editor

Check out the cool online tool for delivering better presentations with many effects such as zooming,visual effects and so much more.Its has an extra edge over the regular presentations with new features and the extra feature of publishing your presentations on the web.

There's a variety of presentations available on the website titled showcase.Do check those out for some cool stuff and info.In fact, even the not so interesting info looks so attractive on the presentation and makes you want to read more on the prezi website.The presentations can be zoomed in between the generic and the specific.It kinda looks like a movie.
The website has options for users.There's the basic free prezi and two other advanced features with payment plans listed.

http://prezi.com/