Indian Style Roasted Chicken with Minced-meat Stuffing

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Hi all,

Here is one Delicious recipe that I tried couple of weeks back. It was served along with arabic bread, hummus and veggies thats were roasted along side the chicken. I found this recipe at http://www.about.com/ and edited the recipe as I went along. If you have any doubts on how to prepare the chicken you can have a peek at my Kozhi nirachathu. That recipe is quite a long one and the filling is made of egg masala. But here I used mince meat for stuffing and the preparation is straight forward without much complexity. If you wish you can use Kozhi nirachathu recipe completely and just change the filling

Ingredients:
1 medium size chicken – 1 Kilo
Marinade:

2 Tbsp/30 mls thick creamy yogurt
½ Tbsp ginger paste (Fresh)
½ Tbsp garlic paste (fresh)
2-3 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt

For the filling:
350g Mince meat (chicken or lamb)
1-2 Tbsp vegetable oil
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 medium onion (100g), sliced and chopped
2 tsp freshly minced garlic
1 tsp freshly minced ginger
1 ½ tsp coriander powder
1-2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
¼ cup frozen peas
2 green chillies (optional)
1 large tomato chopped (120g, ½ cup)
3 tsp lime juice
Salt to taste
Oil to drizzle over chicken prior to baking
Extra lime juice to pour over chicken while serving

Preparation:

1. Skin chicken and clean well. Make shallow slits on breast and thighs.

2. Mix well the ingredients for the marinade and apply it all over the chicken; inside as well. Refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour, preferable overnight.

To make the filling:

1.Heat a large frying pan or sauce pan and add oil. When hot, splutter cumin seeds. As soon as they splutter, add chopped onion with salt and sauté till it softens. Add green chillies (if using), ginger and garlic and sauté for a minute or two until the raw smell goes off.

2. Add all the spices (except garam masala) and sauté for a minute on medium heat until the raw smell goes off. Sprinkle little water if it starts to stick to the pan.

3. Add chopped tomatoes, cover and cook till it goes mushy.

4. Add the washed and drained mince, stir well to break up the forming lumps. Add green peas. Stir well, cover and cook till the mince is cooked well and you get a wet filling, which is like a thick gravy and not dry at all. No need to add water since the water will be released from the meat while cooking. Add garam masala, lime juice and chopped coriander leaves and cook for 3-4 minutes until all the flavours are well blended. Adjust salt if need be. Let it cool slightly.

5. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (180 degrees for fan assisted oven) 10 minutes prior to baking. Stuff the chicken with meat filling, as full as possible. Tie the chicken legs in away that it covers the opening part. Place the stuffed chicken on baking tray, which has been lined with a greased foil. Pour any leftover marinade on the chicken and drizzle generously with oil. Bake for around one hour, less or more as required turning once or twice in between and pouring the liquid from the tray all over chicken. To ensure if it is fully cooked, poke the thicker parts like breast or thighs with a skewer or knife. If clear juice oozes out from the poked area, then it should be cooked. Make sure you don’t over cook it, as it gets really dry and rubbery. Squeeze generously with lime juice all as soon as it comes out off oven over and serve warm with naan, parattas, rice, Tandoor roti, Chappathis, rice, Arabic bread (khubz) etc.

Notes:

Whenever I bake whole chicken, I normally place quartered onions, chopped vegetables like carrot and potato in the baking tray along with chicken, half way through baking. These vegetables absorb the flavours from the chicken and it is really yummy. I normally add loads of onion, roasted onions tastes fantastic.