Burnt Garlic Fried Rice and Hot Garlic Chicken

“Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”

                                                       Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates

Garlic is called the world’s healthiest food. Garlic is widely used around the world for its pungent flavor. This has many medicinal values. It is highly nutritious and has very less calories. Garlic supplementation improves your immune system. This reduces blood pressure, improves bone health and cholesterol level, which may lower the risk of heart disease. So what are you waiting for??? Include garlic in your daily life and see the magic.

In my house garlic is used in almost all the dishes. We simply love the flavor of garlic. I made this burnt garlic fried rice and hot garlic chicken on a Sunday, as I was lazy to prepare an elaborate lunch. Usually it would be a one pot meal on holidays, but to go along with this fried rice, some side dish would taste wonderful and so here I made two awesome dishes out of garlic which I am sure that you all will cherish.

I had this burnt garlic rice in a Chinese restaurant back in India and as we are big fans of garlic, instantly fell in love with this rice and tried it at home which came out pretty well.  From then on this is made regularly and some of the side dishes for this rice are Chilli mushroom gravy, chilly chicken, orange chicken and so on.. This time I thought of making something that had garlic and this hot garlic chicken was perfect.

This hot garlic chicken is little bit spicy because of the chilli paste, but we can balance it by using kashmiri chillies. I have given the preparation of red chilli paste in the note on the bottom of this post. Let's see how it is prepared...

Ingredients:

For the Burnt garlic Rice:

1. Cooked Rice- 2 Cups
2. Garlic (chopped) 3 tbsp
3. Olive Oil- 2 tbsp
4. Vegetables( Carrot, Cabbage, Beans)- ¾ Cup
5. Soya sauce- 1 tbsp
6. Vinegar- 1 tbsp
7. Salt- as required
8. Pepper- 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Chop all the veggies using hand blender so that the vegetables are finely chopped.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add the chopped garlic. Saute for some time so that the oil gets infused with the flavors of garlic. Make sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.
3. Add the chopped vegetables along with required amount of salt. Add the soy sauce, vinegar and pepper powder.
4. In the above mix the cooked rice till all the flavors are well blended. Serve hot.

Ingredients :

For Hot Garlic Chicken:

1. Boneless Chicken- 250 gms
2. Garlic (chopped)- 2 tbsp
3. Ginger (chopped)- 1 tbsp
4. Red Chilli Paste- 2 tbsp (see note)
5. Oil- 1 tbsp
6. Corn Flour- 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp
7. Soy Sauce- 1 tbsp
8. Salt- as required
9. Pepper Powder- 1 tsp
10. Red Chilli Flakes- ½ tbsp
11. Capsicum (cubed)- 1 cup
12. Vinegar- 1 tsp
13. Onion- 1 no
14. Tomato sauce- 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Coat the cubed chicken pieces in a bowl of corn flour, pepper powder, salt and soy sauce. Keep this aside for some time.
2. Meanwhile heat a pan with 1 tbsp of oil, add the chopped garlic and ginger. Saute well.
3. In this add the red chilli flakes, red chilli paste, soy sauce, vinegar, tomato sauce and required amount of salt. Stir well.
4. Add the cubed capsicum and onions. Saute for a minute. Add pepper powder and add half a cup of water and let it boil for about 2 minutes.
5. Heat oil for deep frying. When it becomes hot, fry the above batter covered chicken till golden brown in colour. Keep this aside on kitchen towel.
6. Mix one tbsp of corn flour along with ¼ cup of water without forming any lumps. Add this to the above made gravy.
7. Add the fried chicken pieces in this and stir till it thickens. Switch off the flame and serve hot along with fried rice.

Note:

For Red Chilli Paste:

• Soak 6- 7 red chillies in hot water for about 30 minutes. Drain these and grind to a coarse paste.
• Heat 1 tbsp of  olive oil. Saute the ground red chilli paste for about 3- 4 minutes.
• When it is cooled down, store in an airtight container and use whenever required.