Free India on My Platter by Sanjeev Kapoor, Saransh Goila Page B

butter from the top.’ They were very hush-hush about the rara chicken recipe and I was sure they wouldn’t give it away. Nonetheless, they were doing so much for me that it would have been unfair to not showcase some of my own culinary skills to them. With help from their tandoor specialist I invented a new dish called Balle Balle Chicken. It used chicken tikka (Indian dish of small pieces of meat or vegetables marinated in a spice mixture and grilled) as a base, which was wrapped with a thin roti and the corners were pinched so that the chicken stayed inside the roll. Then, it was covered with a tandoori marinade and grilled in the tandoor. It came out perfectly cooked in a beautiful colour. ‘Trust me, you’ll do a balle balle dance step once you try it!’ owner Manpreet said as he took a big bite.
    B ALLE B ALLE C HICKEN
    (Charcoaled chicken stuffed inside a bread roll.)
    Ingredients
    ½-inch pieces or 500 gm boneless chicken breasts, tikka cut
    ¾ cup or 6 tbsp thick yoghurt
    1½ tsp red chilli paste
    2 tbsp ginger-garlic (adrak-lasun) paste
    ¼ tsp turmeric (haldi) powder
    ½ tsp garam masala powder
    1 tsp coriander (dhania) powder
    1 whole lemon, juiced
    ½ tsp sugar
    1 tbsp mustard (sarson) oil
    Salt to taste
    2½ cups refined flour (maida)
    ¾ cup water, to knead
    1 tbsp butter
    Method
    1.  Marinate the chicken pieces with a marinade prepared by mixing thick yoghurt, red chilli paste, ginger-garlic paste, turmeric, garam masala powder, coriander powder, lemon juice, sugar, mustard oil, and salt together.
    2.  Keep only two tablespoons of the marinade aside for later use.
    3.  Keep the marinated chicken tikka in the fridge for at least two hours.
    4.  Meanwhile, prepare the dough with maida, butter, salt and water. Make soft dough just like you would make for rotis.
    5.  Preheat the oven/electric tandoor/BBQ. Mix one tablespoon maida to the chicken tikka marinade that had been kept aside. Now put only two chicken pieces in each skewer or shashlik sticks. Cook this for seven to eight minutes in the oven on high heat (220°C) until it is 80 per cent cooked and has a slightly charred appearance.
    6.  While the chicken is cooking, roll out small round rotis from the dough.
    7.  Now wrap this roti around both the chicken tikkas (that are 80 per cent cooked) on one skewer. Pinch the ends (basically, you’re enveloping the chicken with the dough). Brush little leftover marinade on this outer cover. Repeat this for all the tikkas.
    8.  Put these back in the oven for two to three minutes. Keep rotating to ensure that the outer layer is cooked evenly and gets a nice colour.
    9.  Gently pull these out from the skewers, in similar fashion in which you would take out tikkas.
    10.  Balle Balle Chicken is ready! Now you can dunk these in chutney and enjoy with your drinks. (This recipe may look tough but when you pull it off, you’ll be glad!)
    ∼
    After the cooking was done, I moved on to explore the Chaura Bazaar of Ludhiana. One is sure to get something or the other to eat at every corner of this popular street; be it the famous Amritsari dal ki wadiya or the dal chaat. Panditji di Hatti is where you would get special paranthas. It was a small shop with 10-12 seats and all paranthas were being made only on the griddle, no tandoor at all. Panditji explained, ‘We make it with butter. We have paranthas stuffed with potato, onion, cauliflower mixed with roasted carom seed masala ( ajwain masala) and they are all cooked only on a griddle.’ I ordered my favourite, the aloo-pyaaz (potato-onion) one. And as I took a bite, the flavour of onions and its crispiness satiated me. The combination of potato and onions was also superb. I must admit that the secret of Panditji’s paranthas was in his kitchen. As I had mentioned, there was no tandoor, all paranthas were made on the tawa, there were eight tawas in one line to help bring out the orders speedily, as a tawa makes the process slower because paranthas take time to