“This recipe is so good I would love to have it on my menu when I have my restaurant”; A compliment i received from an aspiring restaurateur and a dear friend, now that’s something to savour and bask in the glory of, I am talking about the Chicken cordon bleu , a dish I bumped into while reading online and thought would give it a try along with the other things I was cooking( after all my close friends were coming in for dinner, they would be brutal if I messed up but would encourage me to do better the next time ). I served it with some white wine Sauce, was good I must say ..A pat on my back …. J
The Saturday prior to this weekend was when the dinner really was, I am sorry it’s a late post but like I said at least I am posting. I had planned for a pretty extensive menu considering I was going to be cooking alone and I did have a damn dentist appointment on Saturday itself so everything had to be fit in. It’s another story I had to postpone the appointment for another day as I would never finish the cooking, if I had gone for it. So here is what was on the menu;
Starters:
Mince meat balls
Fish wrapped in banana leaf (yes on popular demand once again)
Grilled chicken with sauce suggested by a friend doing her Cordon bleu from London (I eventually didn’t make it as there would be too much food, so that’s for later)
Chicken Cordon Bleu …… The winner………………………………………………..Yeah Yeah Yeah
Main course:
Mutton Biryani with a thick curd and spice gravy and Raita,
Butter garlic Prawns.
Here we go, the ingredients were all procured on Friday evening in order to start the basic process a day in advance, remember I still had my dentist appointment till then. The alcohol was bought, in abundance, hey comm’on what did you think a Saturday night without alcohol, no one would turn up man. The basics for the biryani was laid out, mincemeat with all the spices were arranged and the fish was marinated in the required paste and spices as earlier mentioned to let the meat rest in the spice and absorb the flavours.
Saturday morning 7:30 it was when I actually started cooking , and that’s really early as its one of the two days I get to sleep late being a holiday, but then if you want to , you must do these things right ? I got going with the gravy of the Biryani first being the easiest I guess, and the meat for the biryani was steamed with the required spices bundled up in a cloth so that just the flavours are infused without any overpowering the taste. The meat was then strained from the stock and the stock reserved to cook the rice in it. Next step was to cook the rice which had been soaking in water for over an hour, the meat was added to it and the rice was cooked till it was done. For the garnish, some finely chopped onions were socked in milk (it makes the onion crispy when you fry them rather than making it soggy) and then sautéed in Ghee.
It was very close to 11 by then and that’s when I called my dentist and requested her to postpone the appointment. I knew with the fish , the mincemeat , the grilled chicken and the Cordon Bleu I would never finish before it was time for the guests to pour in, and I had mentioned earlier that I always get pulled up for being in the kitchen when people were over and I did not want that happening.
Next the mincemeat was made into small balls and fried in a heavy bottom pan till it was brown on all sides, this was to be served with coriander chutney, the basic ingredients added to the mincemeat was finely chopped onions , green chillies, paste of ginger and garlic, coriander powder and cumin powder. By now , after speaking to one of my friends had realised and decided that the chicken for the grill could go into the freezer as it would just mean too much food and hence too much waste. The fish was already ready to be wrapped hence I left it as the last thing to do, (an intelligent decision by any standard, you will get to know later why). I then went about finishing off the butter garlic prawns, a dish my friends say I have mastered , I mean give me a break , how can you go wrong with something that has oodles of butter and lots of garlic ….. and add to that the prawns, just divine. It’s simple really, a lot of butter is added to a pan, once that’s hot just added the chopped garlic to it followed by some spring onions and white pepper, and finally the prawn goes in just for a few minutes till it turn opaque. Ready it is, trust me it’s that simple… oh! Butter is the best thing made for the palate. So let’s quickly move to the show stopper The Chicken Cordon Bleu, God I am exited …J
The recipe asked you to get equal portions of chicken breasts , hams and cheese, the chicken is then supposed to be placed between greased paper and beaten down with a steak hammer, the problem , I could neither find a steak hammer nor any greased paper. So here is what I did, I placed the chicken breasts on the chopping board and beat it down with a steel ladle evenly till it was thin enough but didn’t tear. This was garnished with some white pepper and a slice of ham was placed over it and finished off with a cheese slice, I rolled it all up and secured it with a tooth pick and kept it in the fridge for a bit to rest. Once done these rolls were rolled up in a batter of egg and milk and finally in bread crumbs. Now here I had chosen to mix the bread crumbs with thyme, basil and rosemary, (worked fine for me). The rolls were sautéed in regular oil for a bit and placed in a baking dish. Once all the rolls were done , I made the white wine sauce with simple butter and flour and added some wine and seasoning to it, the rolls were topped with this sauce and baked for ten minutes and ta’da the master piece was ready ….. Kudos…..A dish you must try if you want to entertain people …… it’s got bloody load of panache to rock a food lover’s world.
It was late evening by the time I was done with this and I had to set up the place before people walked in, so I let the fish be, thank fully one of my friends dropped in early to help me do that. She laid out the table and set up the living room beautifully before she left to go finish some work and join in later( God bless her for that). The first couple arrived in early as promised and here is why it was a brilliant decision to let the fish wait for the last, the lady volunteered to wrap the fish up so that I could get ready for evening. And, an evening it was ……. It started off slowly … but as the evening picked up … so did the alcohol and the food …. Of course the compliments as well… ha ha, ok ok I know I am boasting, but it’s just me reading or writing it so that’s cool. Eventually the music picked up and people hit the floor dancing their hearts out. It was simply outstanding. Later in the night we sat down to sing songs and believe you me I have some really gifted friends so it was perfect icing on the cake, thank God I don’t even try as I am atrocious. I prefer to stick to entertaining and feeding them so that they can return the favour by ending the evening perfectly for me with their melodious voice.
An outstanding day it was …… really was…. Way to go man.
Coming forward to this weekend, I wanted to keep it relatively simple, a mutton dish that was going to be a twist from the traditional one I always make taught by mom, with steam rice and a simple salad of onions tomatoes and chillies. The mutton was to be made in absolute dry roasted spices, as I did not want to use any packed spice for the same. The mutton was first marinated in mustard oil, lemon, turmeric and red chillies overnight. The dry roasted spices had nutmeg, cardamom both black and green, mace, bay leaves, cloves and red chillies. It was to be ground in a mortar and pestle to retain their coarse nature, but I didn’t have one so I chose to use the blender. To start the process post the preparation, mustard oil was first heated and to it fresh ginger garlic paste was added and fried till it was slightly brown, then the mutton with all the ingredients it was marinated in was sautéed with it for a while and the ground spices were added to it and this was allowed to cook on low heat for over 30 minutes stirring occasionally. The gravy was made by blending curd (to avoid granulation), fresh cream and fried onions (prepared in advance). This paste was added to the mutton and it was further cooked for another 20 minutes before finally seasoning it with fresh coriander and boiled eggs. I was told it was good, I guess I have an encouraging bunch of friends because they keep me going by their appreciative and critical comments.
A good two weekends we could say? The coming weekend happens to be a long one and a few of us do plan to go out but if we don’t I shall be making lunch one of the days. Shall keep you posted about the developments… Till then … be good …… Take care…… J
