Zero Oil Chicken Rezalla

There are two types of people in this world. One, who eat to live and secondly, who live to eat. I, like most Bengalis, belong to the second category J But, as I have already crossed thirty (well, I don’t believe in the cliché idea of not disclosing my age being a woman), I want to be a little more conscious about my health as well. Actually, this is very important in the present time and scenario, especially for working women. We tend to neglect ourselves having our main focus on our duties, in the home, and outside the home. We actually don’t have time to follow a nutritionist-made diet accurately. That is why, I like to cook simple food in my kitchen. Now, simple does not necessarily mean bland in taste. Even with minimal amount of spice and oil, a good tasty dish can be prepared. As our grandmas used to tell, the taste in food comes from your love for cooking. So, all you need is your love and passion for cooking and everything you cook, will definitely come out tasty. And if you have someone, loving and appreciative, to cook for, you need not worry at all. Just think of the smile on your beloved one’s lips and you will definitely become a good cook.

Now, taste with health has always been my motto for my own cooking. Actually, in my childhood days, I have seen my grandparents having several restrictions over their meal due to various diseases like blood sugar, high cholesterol, high blood pressure etc. When we had family get together, they had to have different items than rest of us. They were not allowed to enjoy their meal on the same table with the same food. That would hurt me a lot. From then, I had an idea that when I would start cooking, I would try something that can be enjoyed by everybody. So now, when I am a full-fledged home manager (no matter whether you are working or not, every woman is a home manager and I am really proud of myself how I manage my home even after having a 9 hrs Office schedule), I always try to cook food less spicy and less oily, yet tasty at the same time. And believe me, you just need the very small amount of oil and spice to make your dish tasty. To consume lesser oil, I generally make my own modification in cooking. For example, to cook vegetables, I generally boil them first. Thus, I use oil only to fry the “panch phoron” or other phoron (such as whole jeera and whole garam masala which I like to use in paneer or mixed vegetable preparations). Moreover, I always cook in covered pan or kadai in low flame which helps the vegetables to get tender even in very small amount of oil.

In most non-vegetarian kitchen, it is a traditional belief that meat preparations are very rich with a handsome amount of oil and spices used up to cook them. But in my kitchen, I use the least amount of oil to cook mutton and chicken. Sometime I cook chicken with absolutely no oil. Yes, you read it right – NO OIL. What I noticed at the very initial days of my cooking, oil is required mainly to fry the onions in meat preparation. So to use lesser oil, I generally marinate the meat with grated onion. So, I require oil only to fry the garlic (I don’t like its raw aroma, so I usually fry it golden brown before adding the marinated meat). Actually all kind of meats have their own fat which is released during cooking and that is enough to cook the meat. And so, you do not need to add any extra oil to cook it. I swear, the preparations using very less oil or no oil are not less tasty at all, if not even tastier!

Let’s have a look on the recipe of one of my zero oil chicken preparations -  Oil free Chicken Rezalla. It is a damn easy to make preparation, with very little amount of spices and yet very tasty. Here we go…

Preparation Time – 40 mins (Active Time - 10 mins, Inactive Time - 30 mins), Cooking Time – 25 mins, Serving – 4-5

Ingredients:

1.     Chicken – 750 gms, cut into medium sized pieces, clened

2.     Hung Curd – 5 Tbsp

3.     Dried Red chilli – 4 Nos.

4.     Whole Garam Masala -  Green Cardamom and Clove – 4 Nos. each, Cinnamon stick – 1 medium

5.     Whole black pepper – 10-12 Nos.

6.     Bay Leaf – 2 large

7.     Onion – 2 large (grated or paste)

8.     Garlic – 4-5 large cloves (grated or paste)

9.     Ginger paste – 2 heaped Tbsp

10. Cashew nut – 8-10 Nos.

11. Poppy seed (Posto) – 2 Tbsp

12. Salt – to taste

13. Sugar – 1 ½ tsp

Method:

What?? What are thinking of? Have I missed something on my ingredient list? Are thinking that I have missed to mention about oil? No, I haven’t made any mistake. We are indeed going to make this with absolutely no oil at all !

First of all, marinate the chicken with the ingredients mentioned in 2-9 above.  Keep the whole spices as they are, don’t bother crushing them. Leave it for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, when the chicken is getting marinated, make a smooth paste of cashew nut and poppy seed. Keep it aside.

After the margination period, heat a deep pan or kadai on gas oven. After 2-3 minutes, add the marinated chicken. Add the extra marinade as well. Add salt and sugar to taste.

Yes, now again, I repeat, I have not made any mistake and you are to add the chicken on the dry pan only. In this recipe, I am not going to use even a single drop of oil (One of my friends made a parody on it – “oil, oil, everywhere, not any drop to use” … How funny !!!) . The chicken will get cooked in its own fat.

Cook the chicken on highest flame for the first 5 minutes.  Then reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. You can use this method while cooking anything with meat. The first few minutes of high flame cooking will help to keep the meat juicy. The subsequent low flame cooking will make it tender without burning it fast.

Keep checking the chicken from time to time. When it is 90% cooked, add the cashew-poppy seed paste. Add some water if required at this stage as the cashew paste will make the gravy thicker.

Boil it for few more minutes. When the chicken is completely cooked, turn off the heat.

Serve it with paratha or hot steamed rice. I prefer it with parathas.

I bet, you are going to love this and this will surely break your misconception of using more oil for more taste.

Happy Cooking... :)