Chicken Kabab

This is a recipe for times when you want to keep your meal light and simple. The broth we get while cooking  serves as an excellent combination of soup with the kabab, keeping the meal protein packed and tasty. The kababs can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge and can be shallow fried and served whenever you want. As for the soup, just strain and pour it in a soup bowl and serve hot. The kabab is best made using boneless chicken thighs because breast boneless tend to become fibrous at times and also the bengal gram or chana dal and thighs take almost equal time to cook.

Makes 12 kababs
Ingredients

1. 200 gms boneless chicken thighs
2. 50 gms of chana dal or bengal gram
3. 1 onion roughly chopped
4. 6 cloves of garlic
5. 1 inch piece of ginger
6. 2 cloves
7. 1 green cardamom
8. 1 bay leaf
9. 1 dried red chilli
10. 1 tsp coriander powder
11. 1 tsp butter
12. 100 ml water
13. 1 finely chopped fresh red chilli
14. 2 tbsps finely chopped coriander leaves
15. 2 tbsps finely chopped mint leaves
16. 1/2 tsp kasoori methi 
17. 1 tsp garam masala powder
18. 2 tbsps lemon juice
19. 1 egg
20. 2 tbsp brown onion paste
21. 1 tsp rose water
22. Salt to taste
23. Oil to shallow fry.

Procedure

1. Soak chana dal in 250 ml of water for a minimum of 3 hours. Strain and keep aside.
2. Deep fry finely sliced onion till it turns brown.Take it out on a tissue paper and after an hour transfer it to an air -tight container and keep aside.This can be kept in the fridge for months.
3. Take 2 tbsp of fried onion with 2 tbsps of fresh milk cream or coconut cream and blend well in the blender. Your brown onion paste is ready.Keep it aside.
4. Put the pressure cooker or a pan on the flame with butter in it.
5. Add ingredients no.1 to 10  and add water and salt.
6. Cook till 3 whistles in the cooker or for 15 mins in the pan checking to see whether the daal and the chicken are cooked or not.
7. Once it can be handled, pick out the whole spices and discard. Drain the broth and keep aside. Transfer chicken,dal and the aromatics from the cooker or the pan to a food  processor.
8. Let everything come together.Then,take out the mix into a bowl.
9. Then add ingredients no.13 to 21 and knead the mix well. Let it rest in the fridge for an hour or so.
10. Make balls out of it and shape it like patties.
11. Store it in a box in the fridge and shallow fry for 2 mins on one side and 1 min on the other side or until the crusts acquire brown colour.
12. We do not need to cook it for long because everthing has already been cooked.
13. Serve it with sauce or chutney of your choice, onion rings and lemon wedges.
14. The number of patties depend on what size you want to make.Small nugget size patties can be served as starters.