Sunday Rocks : Hunger Games, Chicken Liver Masala & Pancham

Pasha of the Remote

When does a man truly appreciate bachelorhood? The answer to this is simple... only after he is married. The understanding would never come otherwise. What if he finds himself into this state again...albeit briefly...when the superior half has gone out...wouldn't that time be savoured? Most definitely.  Am I an exception to this general caveat? It would be a lie if the answer was yes.

And where would men like these generally love to spend their time...at home of course, being the sole lord and master of the space; enjoying the rarest of rare experiences, the total and absolute control of the TV remote. Just imagine, you can get to any channel without any sounds emanating from the side that subtly direct you to the channel that has soaps and not sports or news that you wanted to catch. You can now watch all Sci-Fi, Horror, Crime or Action movies.

The Movie

And here I was doing exactly that...watching Hunger Games; a movie that we had missed seeing on the big screen. I was riveted by the actor playing Katniss Everdeen – Jennifer Lawrence. I had briefly caught her in one of the X-men movies but here was she being absolutely terrific in the part. The gravitas that is needed for the character was embodied by the young actor in such a sublime style that it is little wonder that the movie had such a huge opening weekend as it did. Now I certainly have to see her Oscar winning “Silver Linings Playbook” with Bradley Cooper.

But that’s by the by because after a leisurely morning and a late chai-biscuit session at 11.15 am had nothing to eat after. Hunger Games had begun at 1.00 pm and it was nearly 2.20 pm now. The good part the movie was on HBO, why good because the commercial breaks on this channel are endlessly long. Today they would help me explore the makings of my lunch without having to rush back and forth for the movie.

The freezer yielded a packet of frozen Chicken Liver about 300 gms, and the breadbox had half a sliced bread packet of Wibs in it. Bread and Liver it was. The other compartment of the refrigerator yielded fresh coriander, green chillies, curry leaves, ginger and garlic paste, tomatoes. In the kitchen cabinet found Maggi Vegetable stock cubes, a large sized onion – the last one in the basket and that completed my list of ingredients. 

Making Music and Chicken Liver Masala

After gathering all of these in one place, went back to Katniss trying out her whistle for the mocking jays. The movie proceeded and I looked at the ingredients once again.  

Ingredients

Chicken Liver : 300 gms
I large/medium size  onion
3 cloves of Garlic or alternately I/2 tsp of Garlic paste
¼ inch fresh ginger or ½ tsp of Ginger paste.
1 medium sized tomato
2 inch long green chilly
½ tsp red chilly powder or flakes
1 vegetable stock cube powder ( Maggi)
Curry Leaves 8-10
Fresh Coriander , a small bunch
Three tablespoons of vegetable oil ( groundnut, sesame works just as fine)
Salt to taste

 Mis-en-place

Clean the fat and skin away from the liver. Wash it clean. Draining the water from it and keep aside.

Chop Onions, tomato, green chilly real fine.

If using fresh Ginger, cut them into thin slivers and crush the garlic cloves with the flat of the knife blade.

Separate out the curry leaves and set aside.

Clean the Coriander leaves on stalk and keep aside. I use the stalks chopped finely to garnish, they have as much and more flavour as the leaf

Preparation methodology

First and foremost came the music ;  R D Burman is my man for this.  Kishore Kumar started on ‘Hum Tum GumSum’ song from Humshakal and Asha bhosale raised the sensuality bar witha high note that had me swaying alongside the jhoom na sounds , the string and percussion started, lifted up and filled the kitchen . The energy level of the place rose up several notches and I felt RD Burmans presence as if he was peering over my shoulder laughing loudly...Ahaaaa Leeebhhhaaarr , the pronounced accent never having left him, and me nodding at him with a smile.

1.       Sprinkle some salt on the liver and add the ginger and garlic on to it and rub it gently together and set aside for ten minutes in a lidded container where the flavour remains trapped in. I didn’t want garlic on my breath till I had Jennifer Lawrence in the room with me, but to each his own

2.       Take a thick bottom pan and set it on a medium flame and pour 2/3rds of the oil on to it and as it heats up add the onions and chillies. Saute them till the chillies pop and the onions grow soft and golden brown on the edges.

3.       Add the tomatoes and sauté the mixture till the tomatoes blend in and with a wooden ladle puree them in the pan with the onion.

4.       Add the stock/tastemaker cube/ powder and blend it well into the puree

5.       The liver marinade is now poured into the mixture in the pan. The pan is well and truly hot and you can add the balance oil into the pan. Toss for about 1 or two minutes. Chicken liver should not take longer than that to cook. Be precise in this because the longer it stays on the pan the tougher it becomes and changes colour. You don’t want that. Remove pan from flame.

6.       Shred the curry leaves by hand and toss it into the hot pan. Cover and keep for a minute. The Liver lets go some juices and they keep the mixture and masala moist and fresh.

7.       Garnish liberally with coriander and if you are a greedy pig like me...Take the pan straight in front of the TV and eat it from the pan by soaking your bread into the juices. Tastes good with either Chappati or Pav...I prefer bread.

Tip

In the unlikely event the you have it left over, one option is that you can always have it the next day . But you can change its form. Chicken Liver when cooked is soft and with the flat end of a spoon you can blend it into a rough paste. Not too fine.  Cover this mixture tight and refrigerate it. For a lazy day, just fish it out and with a butter knife spread it on your bread slice, make a cuppa chai and your snack is set.

The special ingredient is love...mah friends

I had R D Burman , Asha Bhosale, Kishore Kumar and Jenny Lawrence keeping me company. It is my belief that great things happen in the company of greatness and it did. The Liver turned out to be spectacular, people only pay attention to the ingredients while cooking forgetting the most important factor that makes for a great dish, is the Chef. Love and Energy come from her/him and find itself into the dish, sample it savour it and at the end of the meal do be sure to thank the cook if you are outside and hug her if she is your own :-)

Honey Glazed Chicken : A Quick Lunch

It was a typical lazy Sunday afternoon and a leisurely third cup of tea was nearing its conclusion. No pleasure is greater than having a hot chai watching the heavy downpour splatter on your window, while you are sitting warm and snug inside listening to Geeta Dutt crooning ‘Waqt ne Kiya kya haseen sitam’. It was ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’ playing on Doordarshan an immensely more attractive proposition than suffering ‘Agneepath’ on Zee Cinema. The play of lights and shadows in that movie makes it a classic that can be experienced again and again just for what the cameraman Moorthy achieved on celluloid way way back; truly amazing. A small question crept up is how would lunch be managed now that this movie is on, when it’s a must view? Hence it needed to be something that can be rustled up during the many commercial breaks; 3 minute windows between 10 minutes of viewing. That was the challenge. Needless to say, any meal being a serious business in this abode, it needed to be complete and befitting the exacting standards of the wife who is an excellent cook herself. She is on some assignment and this was my baby today.

She went inside to work on her computer with a terse "Why don’t you take care of lunch, am busy today." "What would you want?" I ask looking out into the pouring rain sensing my dry snugness evaporating. “Surprise me” says she and closed the room door. I look back and see Guru Dutt in the frame remove his fedora and wiping his forehead. His expression seemed to say "I made a movie for you to enjoy, now you would want me to make your lunch too?”. He is not going to be a help, thought I so far as inspiration goes. As the commercials flash am in the kitchen, rustling up the shelves and looking through the refrigerator. One good thing is both are always stocked.

Commercial Break 1 ( Whats available?)

From the freezer I get two large boneless breasts of frozen chicken, couple of eggs, fresh curry leaves, ginger paste, garlic paste. I start the assembly and gosh...no vegetable oil. Talk about well stocked! From the shelves I pick a double pack of Maggi Noodles, Chicken taste maker (stock) cubes, soy sauce, a fresh unopened bottle of olive oil (whew ), chilli flakes, rosemary, thyme and oregano, red onions in the basket.  Ok so it had to be noodles, chicken and eggs. But exactly what dish...by then the commercials were off and put the breasts in a microwave bowl to defrost, while I came and sat back in front of the movie.

Commercial Break 2 ( The inspirational idea )

The breasts had thawed and being frozen had partially cooked in the bowl and looking so fat and juicy that it seemed criminal to dice them. They had to remain just like that, whole, juicy and thick. And then comes the inspiration, I could see them lying on a white plate golden brown and served on the side with a plate of noodles delicately seasoned (I opted out of the ready tastemaker which was masala...yikes, because it would have interfered with the overall meal flavour) and served with eggs.  When the objective is clearer with the ingredients ready and in front, then all that remains is the process. That’s not too bad, don’t blame me for thinking like this, am an engineer we are trained to think from the first principles and the creative solution too is looked at from a problem solving approach ;-) That’s in our DNA.

Step 1:

The marinade:

The two breasts of one chicken partially cooked in the microwave for about 2 and a half minutes while defreezing were from a fowl who simply for her cleavage would have been the toast of her coop in her heydays. Somewhere between Medium to Large size.
1 table spoon of ginger paste, 1 tablespoon of garlic paste, 1teaspoon of red chili powder, a dash of rosemary, a dash of thyme and oregano with a pinch of salt was mixed together as a paste. It was rubbed on all sides of the breast evenly and nicely and left to rest for one movie length (about ten minutes). 
In the mean time took one red onion and finely diced slivers and kept them aside. About 15 curry leaves, fresh and a deep green were ripped from the stem. My Mise En Place ( I love throwing some jargon to make this very simple dish look exotic and for those of you who don’t know this, there is always the Larousse Gastronomique or Google, you just don’t get free recipes without having to do something, even if it’s looking up a word )

Step 2: (Commercial Break 3)

Noodles, especially when they come out of a packet have a tendency to cook unevenly. So when one has to cook them Al Dente or just right here is a tip that I use. Boil water in a large sauce pan till it simmers and starts to bubble, drop in a couple of drops of oil till the oil breaks up. Today one packet of Maggi chicken tastemaker was added to this boil along with the stock left over from the defreeze chicken from the microwave bowl plus a few slices of that onion cut for the chicken. Why let go of genuine flavours, I say? While this boiled over put in a tablespoon of soy sauce. The aroma was unbelievable from so simple a boiler. Then added the noodles last and within a minute had them sieved off. The hot boil I kept on the pan to reduce, like a sauce or a soup. The starch from the noodles that gets left over turns it into a terrific soup, should one want it so. The noodles were spread off to cool on a plate. The oil ensures the noodles don’t stick to each other.

Step 3 : ( Commercial Break 4 )

Added two table spoons of olive oil and tossed in the onions once the oil was hot. Added the curry leaves and when they start to spatter and the onions are caramelizing (don’t worry about the onions even if a few char off they just add to the flavour) place the marinated chicken breasts on the pan. Cook it for 2-3 minutes on either side (at this point the food takes precedence over the movie) till the chicken is a golden brown on both sides. Stand them on the edges for a minute in the hot pan if they are thick, mine were, such that the juices seeped in are sealed within.

The glaze; Take four tablespoons of wild honey (we had some we had brought from Konkan, it has a slightly waxy smell but awesome body and smoothness) or any honey and add loads of red chilli flakes and mix it thoroughly.

The noodles unless they have gone real cold (then they can be tossed off on a lightly oiled pan) and served in soup plates. Pour the reduced sauce like a sprinkle on this spread of noodles.  

The Finale :

The flavours are light and delicate. I fried an egg (half fry/bulls eye/ sunny side up/light such that the whites are soft and not crispy) and placed it on the bed of sauced noodles. . Poured the reduced sauce from the noodles into a cup for added flavouring should it be required. The side dish was ready.

 

The two breasts were on the plate. Arranged the caramelized onions and the curry leaves in a small heap by the side. With a spoon glazed every surface of the hot golden brown chicken with the honey and flakes mixture. It shone with the red of the flakes dancing off throwing spots of light.

I knocked on the door and called the wife. No expression on her face till she had the chicken and then a smile. My Sunday lunch turned out perfect. Simple to turn out and delightfully sumptuous...

Kaus Fowl Curry (KFC) & Rice

For sure had tumbled out on the other side of the mattress; why do I say a different side? This anomaly has not one but three explanations. One, because it was not yet 8 o clock in the morning, two it was a Sunday and finally the wife was on tour( have never ever woken up in the morning unless someone shakes me awake ).

Was fresh, made my tea, opened the freezer slapped in two leftover ham slices between two slices of bread, picked up an orange and the breakfast was set. Sunday thought process especially when alone moves from one milestone to another. Each of these milestones are meal oriented. So now with Breakfast concluded successfully was looking forward to lunch. Sunday Lunches are special . Here I had found myself elevated to the best cook of the house position, so what if it was by default, had to live up to the title.

There were a few pre-conditions to this scenario. I was too lazy to step out into the market or mall in the morning. So the special meal had to come out of what was in the refrigerator and the kitchen cupboards. After the quite simple breakfast and a leisurely newspaper read, I turned my attention to the serious task of beginning lunch, starting with the ‘What’s available” search.

Ingredients: From the Freezer & Shelves

Looked into the deep freezer & found two fat chicken legs and two breasts; the likes of which would have made a pigeon proud.

Also from the cabinets several Ingredients were located ; some in containers clean and some from dusty ones ( indicating sparse use ) It was an interesting find.

Assorted nuts: About a small cupful of Walnuts, Almonds, Peanuts ( Who else but a certified nut would first lay his hands on assorted nuts? This was an omen…things were going to be nutty )

Some flakes of Saffron left over from what were used in the Basundi made a month back. It was a superb variety of Kashmiri saffron about 10-15 flakes. Black peppercorns found a huge quantity. Took about a tablespoon of about 20 corns. The whole spice box delivered to me a bark of Cinnamon (Dalchini) about an inch, Clove (Laung) pods about 8-10 pods of them), Fresh Green Cardamom about 8-10, Cummin seeds the tiny variety called Shahajeera and some black Mustard seeds; the staple of a typical Indian Kitchen. Went further and located the powdered Turmeric about 2 tablespoons and Red chilly powder about 3 tablespoons.

From the larder basket came out Red Onions medium size about 6 and Garlic about 10 pods small size.

There was salt but had run out of cooking oil had only about two tablespoons left in the container. Looked around for a substitute and found Ghee (clarified butter) about 100 ml. Also found some regular Cummin seeds and a cupful of long grained rice.

The Lunch Idea :

No rocket science after this. It had to be some variety of chicken and rice. Did not have stuff for a good biryani as the ingredients were insufficient and it was too much effort. So settled on what can be done under half an hour of preparation time. Cooking time did not count as it didn’t involve me to be present.

The process rather than selection began by eliminating options and eliminated the rice by deciding on Onion and Jeera rice. And the Chicken had to be some curry or with a thick gravy that went with rice. Heres what happened.

Kau’s Fowl Curry :

Cutting , Chopping , Grinding and Sectioning.

• Started with the Chicken. Washed and cleaned it after totally thawing it. The rather large pieces were chopped into smaller pieces of about two inches each and yielded about 12 pieces of Chicken. Totaling about 750 gms approximately. Kept it aside.


• Dry Spice powder : Took a frying pan and added just a drop of oil. Roasted dry the whole spices Cinnamon, Cummin, Cloves, Mustard and Pepper. Once they started to crackle and smoke a bit removed them into the pestle and roughly pounded them into a coarse powder. The spice masala was ready. Kept it aside in a cup.


• Garlic water : Crushed the Garlic into paste in my small kitchen pestle. Dissolved the paste in half a cup of water and strained the few uncrushed pieces of garlic out.


• Nut Paste: Soak the nuts in a cup of hot water and let them stay for about half an hour. Grind them into a fine paste. Keep the paste aside.


• Onion Paste: Dice the onions roughly about five of them and finely slice half an onion for the rice. Taking the rest of the oil on a hot pan sautéed the onions some mustard and Cummin till golden brown. Added the two tablespoon of turmeric to it and tossed it further for a minute on the hot pan. Removed into a food processor and ground to a fine paste.


• Red Chilly Paste : Take the 3 tablespoons of chilly powder and carefully add water till it became a thin and consistent paste.


• Chicken Saute : In the rest of the oil left on the hot pan tossed in the chicken pieces and turned them till they changed colour and the skin tightened around it.


• Clove Butter : In a fresh pan on a medium flame heat the clarified butter and coat the sides of the pan . Toss in the Cloves until they start popping.


• In three tablespoons of warm water dissolve the saffron.


• Salt to taste and few cups of water for gravy
  

The Making ( Chicken Curry )

On a medium flame, take the Clove flavored clarified butter. Add in the onion paste, the dry ground masala and the chicken. Toss till the ingredients inside change colour and the mixture thickens coating the chicken thoroughly. This takes about five minutes. Add in the garlic water and the red chilly paste and salt to taste. Pour in three cups of water, cover the pan and bring it to a slow boil. This may take about fifteen to twenty minutes. Lift the pan lid and add the nut paste and stir. Add the saffron water and bring it a quick boil in about 3 minutes. Turn off the burner and keeping the pan covered let the gravy thicken in and chicken cooks under the steam further marinating and soaking in the flavours of the curry. After half an hour pour it into a serving bowl. Warm it if required. Garnish with fresh chopped coriander if available. I didn’t. so it went without.

The Making ( Jeera Onion Rice )

Wash the cup of long grained rice thoroughly and remove the water. In a pan. Take a little bit of oil and toss the finely chopped onion and cumin seeds . Pour in the washed rice and toss till it dries off and each grain separates. Pour in two and half cup of water, cover and cook on a high flame. In about five minutes the water is absorbed, remove the lid and lower the flame and cook for about a minute. The rice would be ready.

The lazy one had rustled up a Chicken curry that turned out to be so surprisingly yummy that had to share it here. I have faithfully put in the ingredient quantities that I had used such that for varying quantities you gents and ladies may apportion appropriately. My serving of chicken was enough to serve five comfortably. The curry, not the rice. It tasted great with both Chappati as well as bread which became my dinner. The Rice was lunch.

Have fun guys. I had a lot of it and it is surprisingly less to medium spicy and despite the pepper corns and chilly powder doesn’t turn out fiery. I guess the nuts and onions helped here.

Mutton for Vegetarians - Jackfruit (Kathal ) Subzi

It’s that time of the year when the sun blazes down towards the end of April or May and its summer in Coastal Maharashtra. The region called Konkan ( Western Maharashtra, India) comes alive with its rich produce of fruits those that are unique to this region. The champion produce is the Alphonso Mango the king of all fruits. This fruit has put the region on the world map . The cashew nut is another but the one that actually never enters the mainstream is the Jackfruit, another summer marvel.

This fruit when ripened produces the sweetest fleshiest piece of fruit ever found in the fruit kingdom. It is a large fruit and varies in size from 6 inches to several feet. In appearance it has a thorny scaly thick skinned body and a strong green stem. This stem is very strong as it carries the enormous weight of this fruit. This fruit and its pods each of which has a unique seed is eaten for its fleshy pulp, used for pulpy jellies rolled into thick fudge ( called paapad or saath ), chips and wafers are made, but my personal favorite is the vegetable that is made out of the green jackfruit when it is not completely ripe.  

The vegetable the way it turns out is truly the vegetarian equivalent of mutton. Definitely the way the Brahmin’s of the coast make it. The recipe varies across the coastal line and it is popular in a vegetable form also across Karnataka and Kerala where they favor it as a curry. This hereunder is the Maharashtrian way,  where the Brahmins cock a snook at the others who tease them for never having sampled red meat. They convincingly say when we have this we don’t need to, and me a confirmed red meat eater do tend to agree with their conviction. This here is the recipe we tried from my paternal aunt’s kitchen and did it turn out yum...You just try it out and enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients

• ·         Jackfruit , green around a kg of fruit weight. This yields around 600gms of pulp.
  
• ·         Cashew nuts, peanuts or paavtey or green waal seeds about ¼ cup
  
• ·         6-7 red chillies
  
• ·         Turmeric powder ¼ tsp
  
• ·         Asafetida or Hing 1 tbsp
  
• ·         Jeera or cumin seeds 2 tbsp
  
• ·         Mustard seeds 2 tbsp
  
• ·         Coconut Oil/ Peanut Oil : ½  cup
  
• ·         Red Chilly powder, 1 tsp
  
• ·         Gur or Jaggery ; 2tbsp or 25gms shavings
  
• ·         Fresh coconut : 1/2 , grated fine
  
• ·         Coriander leaves ¼ bunch finely chopped
  
• ·         Salt to taste.

Preparation Method :

The jackfruit is a tough fruit to get into. The skin is tough and thick and the fruit being raw has sap in it which is sticky. Apply a little coconut oil on the surface of your chopping knife and thinly cut off the skin from end to end. We shall have a peeled fruit which is longish in shape and brown in colour. Now hold it horizontal on the chopping board and make circumferential cuts about half an inch thick to get circular slices quite akin to cuts we execute on pineapples. 

The internal layout of the fruit is such that you shall see a thick central core attached to a pulpy outer core with close fibrous tendons. Now cut along the centre where the dices made keep the inner core attached to the outer pulp approx ¼ to ½ inch according to preference. Then once you have a single piece slice the fibers exactly midway. This way you have a dice which has pulp at one end and fibers at the other end, looks like the head of a toothbrush in appearance. Seeds if any are diced along and are included with the cooking material. Keep the chopped jackfruit soaked in water such that the sap is washed off. The toughest part of your job is done. The rest is easy. For those who don’t want to go thru this rigor can open a tin of dices in brine. They are available in shopping malls, but believe me it won’t taste quite the same.

Now sprinkle a little salt on these dices, and pressure-cook them till they are done. Typically 3-4 whistles. Remove and keep aside and crush lightly by hand such that they separate. If you are using peanuts instead of cashews then you can add them along with the jackfruit dices and pressure cook them too. Cashews you soak in water and keep aside to be added later.

In a large frying pan put a tbsp of oil and fry the red chilies till they start to crackle. Remove, cool and crush them by hand.  

Supplement the hot oil in the pan with fresh oil and when it reaches a boil add cumin, mustard seeds, asafetida, turmeric, chili powder , grated coconut and the nuts. Add the jaggery shavings, the cooled jackfruit dices and toss it till the ingredients mix properly. Cover lid and steam for a while and remove in serving bowl. In another pan take some more oil for a second tadka which has cumin, mustard seeds asafetida and add the tadka over the jackfruit in the serving bowl. Garnish with fresh coriander and grated coconut and eat away to your heart’s content.

Accompaniments:

Tastes best with Indian breads like chapatti’s and if not can be eaten like a snack dish as it is.

Kheema : Dill Se

Dill Se re…Dill se

We tried out a different Kheema (mince) recipe. It is similar to the way Parsees treat their mutton with the herb Dill ( Shepu in Marathi).It turned out quite yummy. We did serve it to our friends who had come over. This is a green Kheema recipe that has a sharp and cool aftertaste but can light up a fire inside, so go easy on the chilly.

Ingredients:

• Meat (mutton or lamb) mince ½ kg
• Red onions finely chopped 200gms about 4 medium sized onions
• Ginger paste 2 tbsp
• Garlic paste 2 tbsp
• Fresh mint leaves 15-20 sprigs
• Dill leaves…finely chopped 20 -25 sprigs
• Green chili’s 6-7 small sized
• Fresh green Coriander 15-20 sprigs
• Curry leaves 2-3 sprigs
• Whole black peppercorns 6-8
• Cardamom 2-3 cloves
• Cinnamon ½ an inch bark
• Bay leaves 2-3 small size
• Garam Masala 1 tsp
• Asafetida (Hing) ½ tsp or a small pinch
• Turmeric Powder ½ tsp
• Salt to taste &
• Cooking Oil 5-7 tbsp (Groundnut, Sunflower-- strictly no corn oil)

Cooking method:

Heat the oil in pan on a medium flame. Add the asafetida and turmeric powders and add finely chopped onions. Sauté/ shallow fry for two minutes till steam forms then add ginger garlic pastes .

Cover the pan and allow it to cook on low flame while stirring from time to time, such that onions do not stick to the pan. Fry till onions get a translucent texture. Add mince; fry for 2 to 3 min’s to mix ingredients thoroughly on high flame. Cover the pan and lower the flame allowing the mince to cook in its own juices. While meat cooks…grind coriander, mint green chilies, curry leaves, pepper corns, cinnamon, cardamom and Garam masala and bay leaf. Dry grind it until fine. Add the ground masala when the meat is half cooked. Mix thoroughly cover and cook on low flame in its own juices. When meat starts to leave oil in the pan…add finely chopped dill leaves and mix. Cook till meat is completely done. When it is well done the juices separate and remain as thick greasy gravy in the Kheema.

Serving Instructions:

Dish out the cooked Kheema from the pan into a serving dish or a bowl. Garnish with finely chopped raw Dill leaves/Mint. Serve with thinly sliced fresh onion rings & quartered boiled eggs. Tastes best with Pau or baked loaves but can be served with pan baked Indian breads (Chapatti’s, Roti, Nan, and... Kulchas). Can be mixed with a portion of rice and had as a mince pilaf

Chicken : Two Unusual Preparations

Chicken was the topic and as gourmet meat eaters few of us were really great fans of the bird or white meat. This did not mean that we send away the Tandoori or the Tangdi Kebab when it is served . It just meant that given a choice we didn’t order it. So how did the bird find its way into our topic ? The talk touched upon the unusual manner of preparations of the Chicken. I had personally eaten two types in distinct locations; One at Alibaug off the coast of Mumbai and the other near the Tibetan camp at Darjeeling. They are similar in the style of preparation (both being fire baked) and eating as no knife and fork would do for them, the pleasure is to be had with your fingers.

Gorkha Recipe : ( Darjeeling)
This preparation was sampled during my Darjeeling holiday though the actual location of sampling it was somewhere in between Kurseong and Silliguri at a roadside eatery.

The bird is de-feathered but not skinned. Salt and mustard paste is rubbed on to it and the bird is pierced such that the paste seeps into the meat. Chilli flakes one tomato and 2 potatoes are cooked together into a mash and the mash is lightly coated over the mustard paste holding it in. The potato is the binder while the tomato adds to the sour body and colour. This is wrapped in large leaves of what I presumed to be Teak as the leaves were large. The whole bird marinated is thus completely sealed in the leaves with twigs almost half the size of tooth picks. Now on this package, wet clay or mud is slapped and it is rolled into a ball. The clay is around an inch thick all around and like a potter the hands making this are wet. Once the ball is ready it is rolled in dry ash. Three to four balls are rolled at the same time.

An earthen kiln with a coal fire was blazing away and the balls were placed right in the centre of the blaze. In the kiln the balls are roasted turned from time to time, while they served us DROOG an alcoholic beverage which eased the chill there. After half an hour with a metal wire tong the balls are rolled out. They are blazing hot and the brown mud has gone all dark and hard. The ball is held in the tong and with a stone rod the cook sharply tapped and it split open like a boiled egg. He peeled away the leaves and with it the clay shell, the aroma was mind blowing. He poked the bird with a skewer and served it on a bed of plain rice. The sizzling bird dripped its juices on the rice and became greasy dry yet smoked while the rice attained a gentle flavour from the spiced juice. It had cooked in its own juices and amazing was not the word for this concoction.The potato had gone hard , flaky and crumbled into the rice which was wet with the dribble from the chicken. The taste & the aroma of it from so long ago lingers on in my memory.

Its messy to eat but totally yummy, keep a lot of tissues handy if you are so particular. If one has the place for a barbecue then you should surely try this. Keep it light on spices while use good potters clay and jackfruit leaves if large teak leaves are unavailable. The fire can be coal or gas or electric. Please don’t use your domestic oven for this as the clay if not properly prepared can drip and then you can kiss one appliance goodbye.

Chicken Popati : (Alibaug)

This is a tribal preparation strictly made on occasions by the locals. This is similar in its principle to the preparation in Gujarat called Pok.

Here the Chicken is diced into bite sized pieces after being deskinned and cleaned. For one Chicken , two to four tablespoons of warm groundnut oil are taken in a cup and in this are added one green chilly vertically sliced, roughly ground pepper corns about two teaspoons, red chilly powder and two tablespoons of garam Masala. The pieces of chicken are smeared with salt and turmeric powder and kept for fifteen minutes on a flat tray. Two green tamarinds finely chopped are kept aside. Bite sized portions of vegetables like potatoes, (sliced into four quarters) tinda, cauliflower and whole tomatoes with green flat beans and string beans are kept aside.Small button onions or sweet white onions whole are peeled and added. All of these ingredients are put in an earthen pot along with the chicken. The mixture in the cup is poured over the chicken and vegetables. Two sprinklings of water are sprayed over the mixture by hand. The pot is lidded and the lid sealed with wet flour. This pot is put in a kiln and coal piled all around it and fired. The pot is removed after and hour of firing thus. The lid is cracked open and the mixture poured into a flat tray. This is an oily dry preparation and best eaten with hands. The locals like it spicy and on the ready chicken they add a dash of crushed dry red chilly flakes and green coriander. The chilly is an optional. One can have it straight or with pan baked bread or roti.

These preparations do not find a place in restaurant menu's but if you have friends there or camp out and trek in these parts, then a villager can be coaxed into preparing them for you. Also if you do have access to an earthen furnace and the provision for a barbecue then go ahead and make it at home and have a blast..

(The images shown above are representative purposes only..just to make ur mouth water even more. They closely resemble the way the above dishes turn out on the plate )

The Anytime Food - Kheema Pau

Kheema Pau: A whole blog space in this name? Then again why not?
Is this going to be a boring lesson on the history of kheema (lamb/beef mince)?

Is this a spectacular pinnacle of cuisine? Nope, mince is mince the world over till it becomes Kheema mutter at the hands of Bawarchi’s of Irani / Parsee restaurants.

Now it is transformed into a delight that can be a sizzling breakfast, a quick lunch or a leisurely dinner too. The vegetarians would be exempt from this account as they have not been done justice to here..

Story of the recipe’

Eating it often at a city Irani restaurant which is so famous, I got to know the owner chaacha ( uncle ) personally and asked him the recipe. Chaacha looked at me and said “ tumko kya lagta hai, hum bolega aur tumko kheema banana aa jayega” ( I shall tell u the recipe and u shall become an expert at it ) when I persisted he told me that a lot of factors go into making the perfect kheema . We also don’t hit the right note everyday, but when we do “poorey mohalley ko maloom padta hai ki aaj ke khaaney me jaadu hai”. ( the whole neighborhood is in the know that something magical is on the plates today)
The make of the vessels in which the mince is cleaned and marinated with a twig of mint are thick Aluminum, Hindalium is what he said , tumharey aeroplane is patrey se banaatey hai. In my quest for the recipe I didn’t dare doubt his claim.
Purists like the chaacha here would never make the mince in a grinder but it would be fine chopped on a wooden block with a sharp thick knife. The speed at which this process goes and the hand-eye co-ordination involved is a treat to watch. One blow missed by a millimeter and a complete finger would be lopped off. Doing it this way apparently preserves the juices in the meat than in a grinder which squeezes them out, hence the taste is never the same. Green papaya is sliced fine (so fine that you can see the other side thru the slice) and mixed with the mince in a pot to tenderize it.

The Recipe for serving 4

Ingredients
500 gm of lamb mince
50 gms green peas
1 twig of mint & 1 small green papaya
3 bay leaves
1 small ginger about 10 gms
3 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp saunf / fennel seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1/2 coconut, dry and grated or ready 3 tbsp of gratings
2 large onions: 1 finely chopped & 1 for rings
1/2 a bunch fresh green coriander leaves
4 tablespoon of ground nut oil
1 tomato
1 teaspoon red chilli powder & turmeric powder
salt to taste

Preparation Method
Finely chop the green papaya and with the mint leaves mix it with the mince and allow mixture to stay for half an hour.

Take the bay leaves, coconut, chopped onion, 2 tablespoon garam masala, fennel and coriander seeds and roast them on medium flame for few minutes till they start to crackle and smoke. Remove it in a grinder and add chopped tomatoes to it and grind it into a fine paste. In the same pan pour in the oil and on a medium flame add this ground masala paste till it changes colour , now add the mince and green peas with the sprig of mint and papaya into this pan and stir well. Add a little water and cover the pan with a lid. Allow it to simmer for fifteen minutes to half an hour ( tenderized mince wont take long to cook ) . Sprinkle red chilli powder, a little garam masala and salt to taste from top if so desired.

While serving garnish with finely chopped ginger & coriander ( This is sprinkled on the kheema in the serving dish) , onion rings and slices of lemon. Accompanied by fresh Pau. A glorious meal awaits. Try it taste it and let me know ..those who find grated coconut a boor can add a tbsp of coconut milk instead..all allowable or can do away with it too..some who would find this too spicy can increase the fried onion content more rather than sugar..the sweetness that onions impart is natural and less cloying on the tongue. Enjoy.