Kitchen Konquest: Paalak Chicken

Yes, it's a silly segment name, but that's what I feel when I attempt a new recipe - it's a conquest...so to shilpa-fy it, I made it a Kitchen Konquest! Okay, enough about the name, here we go...!

I find myself cooking more and more these days, but since I was vegetarian for about 8 years of my life, I never really cooked meat that much and therefore am not comfortable with it.  Being married to a man that loves home cooked food (especially of the non-veg variety) makes me want to change this fact...so I took baby steps, and decided to try out a recipe that my mom made for us when we were really young...paalak chicken - healthy and non-veg...perfect! After posting pix of this dish on facebook, friends wanted the recipe so I figured what better way to share that then on the blog!  And since I got the recipe from my mom, it's written in Hinglish...but I included translations.  So, here it is...

Ingredients:
6-7 cloves of garlic - grated
1 med onion - chopped
1 spoon* garam masala
2 spoons* salt
1/2 spoon* lal mirchi (red chili powder)
1/2 spoon* haldi (turmeric)
4 roma tomatoes - chopped
6 chicken drumsticks (this is what i used, but you can have more or you can even use other cuts of chicken)
2 hari mirchi (Serrano peppers) - chopped
a hand full of hara dhaniya (cilantro) - chopped
chopped spinach - I used fresh spinach, but you can use frozen too...if frozen the 2 small boxes...if fresh then a big bunch...a note about fresh spinach, you have to wash it like 2-3 times b/c it take a bit of time getting the dirt off...

*by spoon i mean the masala dani (container) spoon...not a regular spoon...but if you only have a reg spoon...then I guess it's1/3 reg spoon = 1 shilpa's masala dani spoon

Making the food:
Saute the garlic, onion, and hari mirchi in oil - I used olive oil, but you can use veg oil too - like 4 regular spoons or so

Add the spices, tomatoes, and hara dhaniya and cover

Leave for 5-7 min on med heat...or until the tomatoes are mashable (yeah, I said mashable...it could be a term)

Mash the tomatoes and everything so that it forms a kind of a gravy

Add the spinach and mix it all together

Clean the chicken and cut some slits in it so that it marinates well

Add the chicken and 1/4 cup water (or less) and mix all together

Cover and let it cook on low heat for 45 min - 1 hr...mixing occasionally
...the picture is what it will look like right after this step...note the not-so-fun brown color...this is normal...and just means that there is some water present and just needs to boil off so the entire thing thickens a bit...so increase the heat to about med-low...just eyeball it.

Then, most important of all, enjoy! I served it with rice, but you can eat it by itself or with rotis (tortillas).

And thus we conclude our first Kitchen Konquest! Woo hoo!