Sunday lunch is always a luxury to food lovers. Nothing beats the combination of Pulao, the delicate rice dish, with the spicy curried meat for that. In fact, the combination gets really unique when you put a slightly different preparation of meat with Pulao. Today, I am giving the recipe of Safed Murgh (white chicken) which takes a bit long to make, but I hope, you can take your Sunday time out to prepare it. The pulao recipe is completely in Bengali style which is best prepared with “Gobindo bhog” rice. As it is not available outside India. I prepared it with basmati rice. Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients to serve 4 :

For Safed Murgh

1. Chicken – 600 gms. (medium size pieces)
2. Plain yogurt – 250 gms.
3. Ginger paste – 2 teaspoon
4. Garlic paste – 1 tbspoon
5. Onion(large) – 2
6. White pepper powder (Samorich) – 1 tbspoon
7. Kabab Chini – 3 to 4 seeds
8. Star Anise – 1 seed
9. Mace (Javitri) – ¼ teaspoon
10. Cashew nuts – ¼ cup
11. poppy seeds – 1 tbspoon
12. Fresh Cream – ½ cup
13. sugar – ½ tbspoon
14. Salt to taste
15. Cooking oil – ½ cup

For Pulao

1. Basmati rice as required – say 2 cups
2. warm water – 4 cups
3. Ghee – 2 tbspoon
4. Yellow food colour or Turmeric powder
5. Whole garam masala (Cinnamon stick – 1 inch, Cloves – 5, Green Cardamom – 5)
6. Bay leaves – 2
7. Cashew Nuts + Raisins –  ½ cup
8. Salt & Sugar to taste

Procedure :

Safed Murgh

1. Marinate the chicken with salt, white pepper powder, ginger & garlic paste and 200 gm. of yogurt for 1 hour.
2. Roast kabab chini, star anise and mace in a frying pan and then grind the mixture till it gets a half dust texture.
3. Soak the cashew nuts in warm water and make a paste out of them. Similarly make a paste of poppy seeds.
4. Cut the onions into thin slices. In a deep pan, heat sufficient amount of oil until it is almost smoking. Reduce the heat to medium, and wait about 30 seconds. Add the onions a few at a time and deep-fry until they turn golden brown and crispy. Transfer the onions onto a paper towel to absorb the extra oil. Continue until all the onions have been fried.
5. Heat 1 tbspoon of oil in a large pan. Add the roasted, half dust spice mixture to it and saute for a while.
6. Then add the marinated chicken into the pan and cook until oil comes out of it.
7. Add 1½ cup of water, salt & sugar as required. As the water comes to boil cover the pan with a lid and let it cook till the chicken becomes tender.
8. After that add remaining yogurt, cashew nut & poppy-seed paste, 2/3 of the fried onion/barista and fresh cream. Put the flame on low and let it cook for another 5 – 7 minutes with the lid on.
9. Switch the gas off and garnish with the remaining barista. You can also serve this chicken with Roti/Paratha.

Pulao

1. Wash the rice and let it soak for 30 min. in water. Then drain it out and spread over a large plate. Add 1 or 2 drops of yellow food colour or 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder and mix it with the rice very well. Now let it dry.
2. Heat a heavy bottom pot on low-medium flame. Add ghee, let it melt, then add the whole garam masala and bey leaves, saute them for a while.
3. After that add the cashew nuts and raisins, fry them slightly.
4. Now add rice and fry for 2-3 minutes.
5. Then add warm water (twice as much as rice i.e. 4 cups) followed by adding salt and sugar as per your test. However the taste of this Pulao is little bit sweet.
6. Put the flame on medium and wait till the water dries up, however not entirely. At this point rice can be seen at the surface.
7. Now cover the pot and let the rice cook on low flame for 8-10 minutes.
8. Put the gas off when the rice is completely cooked and all the water dries out. Don’t over cook the rice otherwise it may get burnt at the bottom.
9. Unlid the pan after 3-4 minutes and serve hot.