Hyderabadi Style Dum Murgh

I hate to call it a “songsar” (it’s what everyone call the family in Bengali which you start after your marriage), as “song” in Bengali means “clown” and “sar” means the “jist”. I hate it because it gives me the impression that we are literally monkeying  around for good for nothing, and we are always trying to get answers for those incidents which are so much self- created.  Sheess!!! I am happy calling them my family, “songsar” just gives me creeps and shivers. I, my husband and our cats are a big happy family!!!!!

After a long time I wanted to try something hyderabadi. AndI chose to make Hederabadi Dum Murgh, which is also called Lagan ka Murgh, indicating the cooking vessel “lagan”, which is a flat surfaced cooking pot.  

The chicken is slow cooked on dum or pressure and in one go. You can not peek through in between and will finally open to lid to experience the delicacy or a tragic catastrophe. To avoid tragic incidents like that, always cook this dish on very low flame, and if the flame is not low enogh put a tawa / skillet on the oven top and then put your cooking pot on top of that. I generally do not add water, but if you are really worried, add a little water, to make sure that nothing, neither the chicken nor the spices, get burned.

Hyderabadi Dum Murgh

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken with bones

1 large tomato – chopped

6-7 garlic cloves – paste

2 green chillies – finely chopped

2-3 dry red chillies – I used the Kashmiri ones

1 bunch of fresh coriander leaves – chopped

A handful of mint leaves - chopped

2, 1 inch ginger stick – paste

10-12 cashew nuts – soaked in water for 10-12 minutes

1 tbsp poppy seeds

½ cup thick greek yogurt / ¾ cup normal yogurt – whisked

1 and ½ tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 mace

½ of one nutmeg

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 tbsp ghee / oil (if you are using oil add 1 tsp ghee with it for flavour)

Salt

Method:

Dry roast the mace and nutmeg in a skillet or kadai for 1-2 minutes, and then grind them to a fine powder. You can use a mortar and pestle, because after dry roasting, they will break very easily and quickly.

Take the chicken in a big bowl and put in the chopped tomatoes, chopped onion, ginger – garlic paste, chopped red chillies, chopped coriander and mint leaves, along with salt, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, garam masala powder, nutmeg and mace powder, whisked yogurt and ghee. Mix everything and let them marinate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In a skillet or kadai dry roast the poppy seeds and dry red chillies, for 2 minutes or until the poppy seeds start to brown and you can smell the red chilli’s pungent aroma. Put off the flame and take them out of the skillet or kadai.

In the mean time, take the soaked cashew nuts, dry red chillies and dry roasted poppy seeds. With the help of a blender and little water, make a fine paste of it.

Mix this paste with the marinated chicken, just before cooking.

Once done, transfer the entire chicken with the marinating paste to your cooking vessel. It can be a kadai / baking pan / a heavy bottomed pan/ Dutch oven...anything that is suitable for slow cooking and which suits your fancy.

Since the dish is slow cooked and cooked on dum, I cover my cooking vessel with an aluminium foil and then put on the lid tightly, so that no steam can escape. You can also put flour dough on top of the edge of the pan and then put on the lid. The dough is similar like roti / chapatti dough. Then cook on very slow flame for 1 hour. After that put off the flame but do not open the lid. Let it sit like that for another 15 minutes.

If you’re baking in micro-oven then cover the baking dish with aluminium foil tightly and bake in the oven on 350F for 35-45 minutes.

Serve hot with steamed hot rice, along with some onion, cucumber and tomato salad with a drizzle of lemon and a sprinkle of salt over them.