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| 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!
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.
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| 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.
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| 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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