SLC-S31W3 -"My taste My Culture ; Festive Foods/ (Shahi Chicken Polao)!"

_{Hҽʅʅσ ҽʋҽɾყσɳҽ. I αɱ @mueeinislam
Fɾσɱ #Bangladesh 🇧🇩}

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Assalamu Alaikum, I hope you are all well, Alhamdulillah I am also healthy and well. I am very happy to participate in the Third week of Steemit Engagement Challenge Season 31. This week's theme is "SLC-S31W3 -"My taste My Culture ; Festive Foods" And a big thank you to @alexanderpeace ma'am for organizing such a beautiful competition.We have learned a lot in the past few weeks, and this week is my favorite because it is about festivals and those special festive foods that have brought us joy since childhood."So let's get started...!

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^{𝙏𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙗𝙣𝙖𝙞𝙡 𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙚}

Prepare your cultural festive meal. Show clear steps of your ingredients and cooking process.

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Required materials.

At the beginning of cooking, I measured and prepared all the ingredients. Below is a list:

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Ingredient Name	Quantity	Ingredient Name	Quantity
Chicken	1 kg (6-7 large pieces)	Poloa rice	1 kg
Liquid milk	1 cup	Sour curd	1/2 cup
Almond paste	1 cup	Chopped onion	1 cup
Ginger paste	2 tablespoons	Garlic paste	1.5 tablespoons
Onion paste	Half cup	Ghee or oil	As required
Bay leaves	4-5	Cinnamon	4-5 pieces
White cardamom	8-10	Black cardamom	2 large
Cloves	8-10	Peppercorns (black and white)	15-20
Raisins	10-15	Star anise (fennel flower)	2
Chili powder	1 teaspoon	Cumin powder	1 teaspoon
Coriander powder	1 teaspoon	Garam masalas	1 teaspoon
Jayafal/Jayatri	(optional)	Salt	to taste

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Step 01

✔ First, I washed the chicken pieces well with clean water and drained them. Now, in a large bowl, I mixed the chicken with 1 teaspoon of garam masala powder, 1 teaspoon of coriander powder, 1 teaspoon of cumin powder, 1 teaspoon of chili powder, a pinch of salt, 1 cup of sour curd, 1 cup of onion paste, 2 teaspoons of ginger-garlic paste, and 1 cup of almond paste and mixed all the ingredients very well. Then I covered the marinated meat and kept it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. So that the spices penetrate well into the meat and the meat becomes soft.

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Step 02

✔ Now I put a pot on the stove and added a generous amount of ghee. When the ghee was hot, I lightly fried the white and black cardamom, white and black chilies, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, jayafal/jayatri, and bay leaves.

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Step 03

✔ At this stage, I will add the marinated chicken and cook the chicken meat on medium heat on the stove. After 15-20 minutes, when the chicken meat is well cooked, I mix milk and water together and pour it into the meat and cover it with a lid, so that the chicken meat is cooked well.

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Step 04

✔ Once the chicken was fully cooked, at this stage, I mixed a generous amount of onion beresta and green chilies into the chicken and removed the chicken from the stove.

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Step 05

✔ I took 1 kg of fragrant polao rice in a large bowl, washed it thoroughly with water, and soaked it for about 30 minutes.

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Step 06

✔ Now I put another pan on the stove, heated some oil in it and lightly fried the cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves. Then I added the pre-soaked fragrant polava rice and salt as per the quantity and fried the rice for a while so that the ghee mixes well with the rice.

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Step 07

✔ This time, I added double the amount of boiling hot water to the lightly fried rice (i.e., 4 cups of water for 2 cups of rice). I added salt, kicmich, and 8-10 green chilies to taste. Then I mixed the water and rice and cooked it on medium heat with a lid, until the water in the rice dries up.

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Step 08

✔ When the polao is half cooked, I take half of it to another plate, now spread the chicken pieces on the bottom polao, add onion beresta and ghee and top with the remaining polao. I spread the chicken pieces on the polao again as before, add onion beresta and ghee. Then cover it with a lid, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.

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Final presentation of my recipe

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✅ Alhamdulillah! Finally My Shahi Chicken Polao is ready to serve.

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When is this meal typically prepared in your culture? Is it linked to a specific celebration, holiday, or special occasion?

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In our country's culture, a festival is a grand event, where the aroma of food brings joy to the entire house. We mainly prepare this special dish (Shahi Chicken Polao) at the times when it is prepared. Here are the highlights:

• Family Eid and Joy: It is an integral part of our two main religious festivals, Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha. When my mother cooks this Shahi Chicken Polao in a big pot with her own hands after the holy Eid prayers, a heavenly aroma spreads throughout the neighborhood. And that moment is not just about eating, but also about absolute peace for me.

• Special Family Moments: When we celebrate a special day of our family member, or when all our relatives get together on a weekend, then such a Shahi Chicken Polao is arranged at home.

• Social Events, Weddings and Hospitality: It is an unwritten rule for Bengalis in our country to serve this Shahi Morog Polao at weddings or any big social events. Even when a new guest comes to our house, we celebrate happiness with this dish. It is the biggest witness of our happy moments.

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What does this meal represent in your culture in terms of joy, togetherness, hospitality, and tradition? Explain how it reflects your people’s lifestyle, the spirit of festivities and festive values.

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The way this dish reflects the lifestyle of our people and the festive spirit is highlighted below:

• Hospitality and Generosity: We believe that any guest coming to our house is a blessing from Allah. Therefore, entertaining the guest who comes to our house with this Shahi Chicken Polao dish instead of ordinary food is one of the main features of our culture. And this shows our generosity.

• Bond of Unity: During any religious festival in our country, when we all sit at one table and share this food, the bond between us becomes stronger. Even when I put the first bite of this food in the mouth of my little son, the satisfaction I get is impossible to express in words.

• Inheritance of Tradition: The way our mothers, aunts, aunts, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers have preserved this taste with the right mix of spices for ages is truly commendable. My family and I are also cherishing that tradition. This food is not just a means of filling our stomachs, but an art taught to us by our ancestors.

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List the prices of your ingredients in Steem and your local currency.

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As a chef, I believe that the true taste of food depends on the freshness of the ingredients. I procure the freshest ingredients from the local market. Below is a detailed list of the ingredients used in my cooking and their cost:

Name of ingredients	Quantity	Approximate BDT Prices	STEEM Prices
Scented sugar-powdered rice	1 kg	150 taka	21.48 STEEM
Broiler chicken	1.5 kg	285 taka	40.80 STEEM
Ginger, garlic and onion paste	Adequate quantity	30 taka	4.29 STEEM
Chopped onion	250 g	10 taka	1.42 STEEM
Liquid milk and sour curd	500 ml	80 taka	11.46 STEEM
Ghee and soybean oil	200 ml	80 taka	11.46 STEEM
Shahi garam masala and others	As required	80 taka	11.46 STEEM
Gura spices (pepper, cumin, coriander) and salt	As required	30 taka	4.28 STEEM

Total cost = 745 taka / 106.46 STEEM

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Present your dish beautifully with a name tag and a selfie.

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Poetic Cultural Cliché

​"A plate painted in the colors of the festival, Shahi Chicken Polao is like a garland of flavors, each grain calls for unity, Biryani is the best in Bengali festivals."

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Engagement link:👇

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• ✅ https://steemit.com/traveling-steem/@mueeinislam/te9r16
• ✅ https://steemit.com/traveling-steem/@mueeinislam/te9qoh
• ✅ https://steemit.com/traveling-steem/@mueeinislam/te9qa8
• ✅ https://steemit.com/traveling-steem/@mueeinislam/te9rye

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I want to invite my friend @suboohi @jimiaera02 @solperez @ahsansharif @lhorgic @pandora2010 @sduttaskitchen @max-pro to join this contest.

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Thank you very much for taking the time to read my post. May you all always be well and healthy by the grace of allah. I end here by wishing you all a long life.

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