Though we eat chicken, we do not cook it at home, but when I go to mom's place, though she does not eat chicken she cooks for papa. But there is only one dish papa wants and that is Butter Chicken, Mama and I are so bored of cooking the same thing for him every week and yes this has been for more than 4 years now. When I am there I always argue with him and try to make different recipes and at the end he tells us this is OK but next time please make Butter Chicken. I know the butter chicken is really good and tastes great but mama and I have collected so many recipes to try out. So when Vandana of Cooking Up Something Nice announced the "Chicken - My favorite" event and I was at moms place this last weekend, out of the blue he told mama that we can try another recipe for the chicken. Oh thank you papa. So Sunday morning over Tea mama and myself pulled out the old books with To try Recipes Most of the books that I have automatically inherited from mama. We finally decided on Mughlai Chicken cause it seemed lovely, easy and quick to prepare. It was not the same as Butter Chicken, OK Papa we know, by now we know what response we will be getting so it does not effect us at all. It was still a delight to have this with Naan.

We do not know where the original recipe was from, we did make some changes to it. This is our version.

Ingredients

1 kg chicken, with or without Bones washed and cut.
1/2 cup yogurt
2 tbsp sour Cream (Optional - You can substitute with yogurt) - Not in the original recipe
4 medium onion, chopped finely
1 tsp Garam Masala (Optional)
2 bay leaves
finely chopped fresh coriander leaves to garnish
salt to taste
2 green chili - Not in the original recipe
1 inch ginger - Not in the original recipe
2 tsp garlic - Not in the original recipe

To be ground to a fine Powder
Original recipe required to wet grind them, I preferred using the coffee grinder / spice grinder

3 dry red chili whole, roasted
1 tbsp poppy seeds, roasted
1 tbsp cumin seeds, roasted
2 tbsp cashew nut pieces
1 inch cinnamon stick
10 black pepper corns
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg grated
1 blade of mace
2 cloves
2 green cardamom

Method

1. Heat some oil or Ghee in a pan, fry about 1 and 1/2 chopped onions till they are golden brown. Remove from heat and cool.
   
2. Grind the cooled fried onion with the salt,green chili, ginger, garlic, yogurt and Sour Cream to a smooth paste.
   
3. Marinate the chicken pieces in this onion yogurt mixture for a few hours in the fridge. (Min. 3 hrs)
   
4. Heat oil/ghee in a non stick pan, add the bay leaves and fry for a few seconds.
5. Add the remaining 2 and 1/2 chopped onions and saute on medium heat till the onions are light brown in color.
   
6. Add the marinated chicken pieces , ground spice Mix and salt to taste. ( Remember that we have added salt to the chicken)
   
7. Cover and cook on low level for about 30 minutes or till the chicken is fully cooked.
   
8. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.
   
9. Serve with Naan, Roti.
   

Of this goes to Vandana of "Cooking Up Something Nice" for the "Chicken - My favorite" event.