Murghi roti: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:40, 14 November 2014

Murghi roti

Murghi roti served, with yoghurt and peas
Servings:	Serves 2
Ready in:	45 minutes
Prep. time:	25 minutes
Cook time:	20 minutes
Difficulty:

Murghi roti , (murghi ruti, chicken roti, chicken ruti): (rice cake with chicken) is a South Indian style dish made with cooked rice, cooked chicken and lots of spices.

A great recipe for using up left-overs. Please be very careful if storing cooked rice. Refrigerate the moment it has cooled and use within 1 day.

Try this using two pans, see Chef's notes below.

Ingredients

Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe

• 225 g (8 oz) uncooked basmati rice.
• 175 g (6 oz) cooked chicken pieces - remove any bones
• * Steamed chicken works well - Follow the Chinese style steamed chicken using a quartered onion and a handful of fresh herbs instead of the Chinese ingredients
• 2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
• 5 fat garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 5 cm (2") ginger, peeled and roughly grated
• 150 g (5 oz) onions, peeled and finely chopped
• The grated flesh from 1 fresh coconut
• * see Preparing a coconut
• 4 hot chilli peppers (red or green), finely chopped - de-seeded if desired
• 1 tablespoon lime juice

spices

• 2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds (white)
• 1/2 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder

Method

1. Quickly wash and drain the rice but don't rinse it as you normally would, this dish is best with rice of a starchy consistency.
2. Cook in boiling water for 7 to 11 minutes.
3. Rinse the cooked rice in cold water until it is cold. Drain well.
4. Add the rice to a food processor with a metal blade and blend to a thick creamy purée - adding a little milk if it needs thinning. Remember, the inside is not going to change much whilst being cooked and will remain at roughly the same consistency as it was when first mixed.
5. Heat the ghee in a wok or frying pan and stir-fry all of the spices for half a minute, then add the ginger and garlic and allow then to cook for a minute or so.
6. Add the onion and reduce the heat a little and let them cook until translucent; about 5 minutes.
7. Add the chicken, coconut and chilli to the onions, mix well and remove from the heat.
8. Lightly oil a large non-stick oven-proof frying pan put on a gentle heat.
9. Add half of the chicken mix to the rice purée and tip this into the pan.
10. Ensure the mixture is evenly distributed and cook gently for about 5 minutes or until the rice cake has properly solidified.
11. Pre-heat the grill.
12. Arrange the remaining chicken mixture over the top of the rice cake and brown under the hot grill.
13. Sprinkle with lime juice and serve immediately.

Variations

Chingri malai roti is an excellent variation of this using king prawns.

Instead of fresh green chillies, I have used 3/4 teaspoon of diced ancho & 3/4 teaspoon diced chipotle (dried) chillies.

Doing a 'freezer clean out', we made a marvellous version of this with 1 chicken breast and a bag of cooked red kidney beans. The chicken was thinly sliced and sautéed with lots of crushed garlic and the kidney beans fried with the chicken and mashed down a little - rather like re-fried beans. This was added in place of the normally cooked chicken in this recipe.

This recipe is great for using up the left-over Christmas turkey.

Chef's notes

Having made this many, many times now, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best part is the glorious toasted crunchy outsides. In future I will use two pans and made two thinner individual rotis.

I heeded my own advice and tasted the coconut before preparing it. It was totally rancid, thank you Morrisons. Luckily I had both coconut flakes and desiccated coconut. For two people, I used two big handfuls of flakes and 4 tablespoons of desiccated coconut soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes then drained in a sieve. It worked fine and saved the day!

See also

• Chingri malai roti
• Murghi roti with nectarines and extra coconut
• Get chicken pieces the economical way, joint the chicken yourself