Monday, February 24, 2014

Murgh Anardana or Stewed Chicken with Browned Onions and Fresh Pomegranate.

Stewed Chicken with Browned Onions and Fresh Pomegranate

I haven’t posted on this blog for quite some time.   This was due to a number of factors: busy doing some outside work at the film school, the hard drive on our desktop was full, the scanner broke and then the memory card in my camera was corrupted. Phew!  Plus we went to Australia over the Christmas period ... lots of great food and eating and drinking with family & friends in Melbourne and Sydney.   But no time to blog!

Nevertheless, I haven’t stopped cooking throughout this time.   In fact in early January I had a fairly intensive week in the kitchen in Melbourne brought about by the temperature being in the mid ‘40s for several days. I was staying at my sister’s house in the Dandenong Ranges -20 k’s out of the CBD - and only had access to an old car my brother had kindly lent me .... which was in danger of overheating anytime I took it on a trip.   So I had to stay put most of the week and cooked up a storm for myself ... my sister and her family were away on holidays.  

‘Dinner for one’ can sometimes also be relaxing ... plus I had the budgerigar to talk to as he had to stay indoors all of that week too!

Anyway, last night I was back in the kitchen with one of my favourite Indian cookbooks ... Raghavan Iyer’s “660 Curries”.   Whilst the title makes it sound like one of those generic cover- all- bases badly written ‘cheapies’ you often find on the discount tables in newsagents, this book is actually a masterpiece!    As the great Madhur Jaffrey says on the back cover of this more than 800 page tome ... “this book is nothing short of a treasure chest ... bursting with the true flavours of India’s many regions”.


Raghavan Iyer grew up in Bombay but now lives in the US where he is a writer, culinary consultant and cooking instructor.   I am in awe at the depth of knowledge and research that is contained between the covers of “660 Curries”; many of the recipes he has personally collected from family cooks in households across India and from the expat’ community in the US; often their stories are incorporated into the introduction to a particular recipe.   And the book ranges across all the different sub-cuisines of India and carefully explains their varied ingredients and cooking techniques. His experience as a teacher shines through in the clearly written recipes.

                                    

Last night I cooked Murgh Anardana or Stewed Chicken with Browned Onions and Fresh Pomegranate.   It was a fantastic dish ... not too many ingredients, simple technique and a surprisingly unusual and refreshing sauce made from coriander and fresh pomegranate kernels, which popped in your mouth as you ate the dish.

Chicken marinating in the ginger/garlic paste
The recipe calls for the chicken to be marinated first in ginger and garlic paste for some time to allow the flavours to permeate the chicken.   And then you make up a sauce beginning with the onions; this frying stage provided the basis of the sauce to follow and contributed to its unusual and exotic tangy taste.

We served this with brown rice and a simple green salad.   Kids really loved it!


Ingredients:

1 T ginger paste   1 T garlic paste  1 chicken, skin removed & cut into 8 pieces    2 T veg oil    6 cloves    2 cinnamon sticks    2 black or green cardamom pods (I used 2 of each)    2 bay leaves    I red onion, cut in half and then sliced (I am going to use 2 next time!)    1 cup of half & half (that’s a US ingredient of equal parts milk & cream .... but I used coconut milk instead)    2 tsps garam masala (I also added dried mint)    1 tsp salt    2 T fresh coriander, finely chopped    seed kernels from 1 (or 2) pomegranates

Method: 

Mix  ginger & garlic pastes, smear over chicken pieces and leave to marinate ... for at least 30 mins or overnight.

Heat oil in pan and then add cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves.   Cook for 1 min till the spices perfume the oil.   Then add onions and cook 10 to 15 mins - stirring frequently - until they brown.   (Note: at this stage my onions disintegrated and stuck thickly to the pan ... which is why next time I will be using more than one and watching the temperature in the pot.)

Add chicken pieces meat side down and spoon the cooked onion over the top.   Brown chicken on first side for 5 to 7 minutes then turn and cook other side same time.   Then remove chicken to a plate.

Add some of your milk/cream mixture and deglaze the pan, scrapping onions and meaty bits off the bottom and sides.   Then add rest of the liquid and stir in garam masala, mint and salt.  Cook gently for a few minutes and then return chicken to the pan meat side down.   Spoon the sauce over the chicken in the pan and cook covered on medium-low temperature 15 to 20 minutes until chicken is cooked through.   Turn the chicken a few times during this process.   Remove and arrange on serving platter.

              Sauce with fresh pomegranates and coriander                         
Stir coriander and pomegranate seeds into sauce, heat to medium stirring occasionally until sauce is gravy-thick .... 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove large spices from sauce and pour sauce over chicken on platter.  Serve with brown rice!


Tony saab/Hyderabad, Feb 2014















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