A Curry Odyssey Episode 8: Chicken Masala

The Great Curry Odyssey continues!

I'll have to tell the truth here. All that hard work with the spices and the grinding and the frying and the blending and all that was never going to catch on. I think it's like Marmite or Chicken & Waffles; you really have to be brought up with it for it to make sense. That's not to say I've given up, mind you, or that I won't plunge into the hard work of real curry again. But for now, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm going to be looking for some shortcuts.

(Yes, you're right, I am ashamed. I'm weak and broken and deserve to be given the task of grinding coriander seeds and lemongrass to paste by hand for a thousand years with tennis elbow, but hey, that's not going to happen, is it?)

So for my first stop on the road to curry-shortcut-ville, I took the Garam Masala turnoff. I know that this is a vagary, but it is also a redemption of sorts. Garam Masala can be as unique as the person blending it. You can either pick it off the shelf at a supermarket, buy it pre-ground from your local Indian or Asian grocer, or, if you have the talent and the tastebuds, you can grind your own. Essentially Garam Masala is a blend of ground dried spices, and can include anything from coriander seeds to turmeric to cinnamon to cumin.

I got a nice pre-blended one from the little Indian grocer who used to be across the road, but which went out of business some months ago. It's probably going a wee bit stale, but it still suits us, and that's the one I used in this recipe.


Gluten-Free Casserole Chicken Masala

(Serves 6)
Ingredients
3kg Chicken Pieces, thawed, skin on
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
4T Potato Flour
2T Garam Masala
1/2 a whole bulb of Garlic, minced
4T Avocado Oil
2t Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil for frying
1/2 C White Wine
150g Tomato Paste
3 Onions, sliced
1 400g tin Chopped Tomatoes

Toss the chicken in the salt and pepper, flour, Garam Masala, garlic, avocado oil, and vinegar.
Fry in batches in a heavy pan.
Place the browned chicken in an oven dish.
Deglaze the pan with the white wine, then add the tomatoes and onions. Pour over the chicken.
Bake, uncovered, at 200C for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
The meat should be falling off the bone. Serve with rice and steamed veges.

Honey Soy Chicken Wraps

There's been a hint of summer in the air these last couple of weeks, even if it just turned cold again a few days ago.

Such warm tidings get me thinking about crisp salads and food I can take out onto the deck to enjoy in the sun. It might not be quite that way yet, but it's not far off. I'll be blogging stews and casseroles for a week or two to come, but this incarnation of classic honey-soy chicken counts as one of my personal successes.

I've tried time and again to make a good honey-soy mix that I can whip up in the frying pan, only to have the honey burn and ruin everything.

Finally, after much banging of my head against the bench, I had the brilliant thought: Add the honey right at the end.

Ping!

The most obvious solutions are often the most easily overlooked.

Since making this for these wraps, this recipe has come out again and again to make stirfries, applying the same technique, and it has worked every time.

Dip your brush and paint me proud.

Honey Soy Chicken (For Wraps, Stir-fries, etc)

(Serves 2)

Ingredients
1 Fresh Chicken Breast, diced into 1cm pcs;
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
1T Balsamic Vinegar
1 dsp Potato Flour
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
Olive Oil or Rice Bran Oil, for frying
1/2 Red Onion, finely chopped
2T Honey
2T Soy

Heat the oil in a pan. Season the chicken with the salt and pepper, and toss in the vinegar and potato flour. (Normal flour probably works fine, too; I've found the lighter texture of potato flour prevents it from clumping and is a bit less thick and gluggy. Using potato flour won't make this recipe Gluten-Free unless you also have Gluten-Free Soy Sauce, which most commercial brands are not.)

Add the chicken to the pan and brown all over. Add the onion and soften.

Place the Soy Sauce and honey in a microwave-proof dish and heat in the microwave for about 45 seconds (1200w microwave). Remove and mix well.

When the chicken is cooked, add the honey-soy mixture to the pan, mix through, bring to a brief simmer and serve.
We spooned ours into tortilla wraps, with grated carrot, salad greens, beetroot, peppers, cheese, sour cream, and fresh sliced tomatoes. We could almost convince ourselves it was summer already by the looks of them.

Secret Family Recipe Barbeque Chicken

There's nothing quite like spilling the beans on a secret family recipe, is there?

This one's been in our family for generations - two, at the very least (including my own progeny).

So not exactly a secret extracted from the depths of time, but pretty good nonetheless. Add to that the fact that I've adapted it to work in our slow-cooker that we've only had for about a year, and the mystique all but dissolves.

Not to worry.

Slow-cooked Barbeque Chicken it is.

I will warn you in advance, however, that my precious notebook full of recipe notes went wandering sometime between cooking and eating dinner, so I'm trusting to the original oven-bake recipe here. Let's hope I didn't get too creative when I modified it.

Crock-pot Barbeque Chicken

(Serves 2)

Ingredients
2 Large Chicken Legs (Thigh and Drumstick, skin on)
1 T Soy Sauce
1/4 Cup Steak Sauce
1 T Honey
1 Dsp Brown Sugar
1 T Cider Vinegar
1/4 t Crushed Ginger
3 Cloves Garlic, minced
1/4 C Hot Water
Combine all the marinade ingredients and mix well.
Pour the sauce over the Chicken and cover well.
Place the Chicken in the crockpot and pour any excess sauce over top. Slow-cook on High for 3-4 hours.
Serve up with oven-baked chips and fresh veges. Pour the excess sauce from the bottom of the crockpot into small cups and place these in the centre of each plate for dipping.

Fusion Chicken

"Fusion of what?" you say.

Very hard to know.

But Uncle I and I (by which I mean me and Uncle I, in case that was unclear) went to the store to get more chicken and on the way settled on a bottle of wine that suggested it would go well with "fusion dishes", whatever that means.

Since I had no nuclear reactor on hand with which to fuse my chicken, we settled on a fusion of mustard and mushrooms, because hey, who's ever done mustard and mushrooms before?

Since my last go at mixing up chicken and mustard was such a blinding success, I saw no reason why this shouldn't work for a second effort, but I decided to make this one more of a casserole.

Overall: Well-fused. Fusionality. Fusacious. (by which I mean: it was good, in case that was unclear.)

Mushroom Chicken Fusion Casserole

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

1.5kg Chicken Drumsticks and Nibbles
2T Mustard Powder
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
2T Potato Flour
2T Dried Basil
2T Worcester Sauce
Olive Oil for frying
1/2C White Wine
2 Chopped Onions
1C Chicken Stock
200g Sliced Mushrooms
Hot Water
Toss the Chicken Pieces in the mustard powder, salt and pepper, potato flour, basil and Worcester. Coat well and cook in hot olive oil until browned all over.

Add 1/4 Cup of the white wine and reduce, then add the onions.

Allow the onions to soften slightly, then remove the chicken and onion to an oven dish.
Deglaze the pan with the rest of the white wine and the chicken stock. Add the gravy to the oven dish and place the mushrooms over and around the chicken.
Add enough hot water to almost cover the chicken, then cover and place in the oven at 200C for 1 hour.
Serve with piles of fresh veges and mashed potato. (And keep your Geigermeter handy, just in case...)

Blue Chicken

OR: Cooking for the Morgue.

So you'd think that if I had a reputation to maintain I would take some steps to protect it, wouldn't you? You'd think that if New Zealand's No. 51 Blogger was coming to dinner, I'd be at pains to research the best recipe I could and to make sure it was all as good as it could be, wouldn't you?

I say: Nah. Although I had a concept in mind, I didn't actually make up my mind about what I was going to cook for Morgue and StrongerLight until I went into the kitchen and, to be quite honest, happened to open up the fridge looking for a spark of inspiration.

What I saw instead was not something expensive or gourmet or haute cuisine: It was two packets of Blue Cheese, bang on their Best Before dates, and reduced from $4.70 each to 0.50c each, which Dessert Chef had spotted and bought a few days earlier. But hey, it's Blue Cheese. What's it going to do, go mouldy?

I had my inspiration. I will keep this brief:
Take your deliciously ripe Blue Cheese and slice it into thin, flat pieces. Dispose of annoying crumbly bits in your nearest mouth.
Slide the cheese under the skin of 4-5 large chicken legs. Wrap whole rashers of bacon around the chicken, fixing in place with skewers, and place on a bed of sliced leek, halved cherry tomatoes, cubed pre-cooked potato and kumera, and sliced mushrooms. Season and drizzle with a viniagrette mixture.
Bake at 200C for 1 1/2 hrs. Cook up a pot of jasmine rice, and reserve the starchy water when you drain it.

Remove the chicken from the roasting tray, placing onto your plates with the rice and steamed veges. Drain the juices from the pan into a bowl. Scoop off the bulk of the fat (there will be HEAPS due to the melting of the cheese) and return to the roasting tray. Add the starchy water from the rice as a thickener and mash up the veges there to make a thick and chunky gravy, while you heat it over an element. And guess what? That gravy is completely Gluten-Free.

OK, it was a bit more like a soup than a gravy, but with a little bit of stock and some more time on the stove, it would have been much more like the gravy we know and love. As it was, it was delicious regardless. And not to be outdone, Morgue and StrongerLight brought the dessert. What a grand way to top off a fabulous night.

Thanks, guys. Let's do it again sometime soon.

The Ugliest Chicken in the Room

Righto, lets get back into the "Recipes-I-Made-Up-As-I-Went-Along" genre.

I was so doubtful of this recipe that I didn't even take any shots during the cooking process, but it came out so nice that I had to get a final photo.

Basically, this is Chicken with Mustard and Apple. I know, it doesn't exactly sound appetising does it? So I was surprised and awfully pleased when these two flavours fused and made for some of the nicest chicken for which I've ever made up a recipe on the fly.

Mustard Apple Chicken

(Serves 3)

Ingredients
6 x Drumsticks
2T Wholegrain Mustard
1T Malt Vinegar
2T Flour (Use Potato Flour for Gluten Free)
3T Tomato Paste
Olive Oil for Frying
1/4 Cup of White Wine
2T Brown Sugar
1 Onion, Chopped
1 Apple, Chopped

Toss the drumsticks in the Mustard, Vinegar, Flour, Tomato Paste and freshly ground Salt and Pepper to coat.

Shallow fry for 10 minutes, to sear the flavour into the meat. Place the onion and apple into the bottom of an oven dish, and place the chicken on top.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine and remove the pan from the heat when the liquid has reduced by half. Add the sugar and stir to thicken.

Pour the gravy over the chicken and place in the oven to cook at 220C for 50 minutes.

Serve up with rice and salad, spooning the apple-onion gravy over the chicken. Seriously, this chicken comes out looking ugly and it sounds really wierd, but it's delicious.

I wouldn't lie to you. Give it a try, then let me know what you think.

Chicken Quesidillas

There has been a minor mishap in the world of food photography that is Freshly Ground (when it's not a speculative fiction review site). That mishap involved a two-and-a-half year old, the camera, and a short sudden trip for said camera to the floor. Since that day, I can't quite seem to get anything in focus.

Not a great state of affairs for the art of macro photography. Luckily, I still have a good reserve of drafts to publish, so I'll use them for now while I figure out if the camera can be fixed or if this is a good excuse to finally upgrade to a digital SLR.

I'm also wondering if the split between food and fiction is maybe not really working for this blog. I've put a poll on the side here, to gather your opinions on whether or not I should create a new site dedicated to my podcast reviews and suchlike. Please take a minute to cast your vote, and feel free to leave a comment if you have an opinion one way or another.

And while you're mulling over that, here's a lovely, IN FOCUS photoessay on how to make great chicken quesidillas.

Chicken Quesidillas
Ingredients
Tortilla wraps
1 Carrot, grated
2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1/4 Cup grated cheese
handful of mushrooms, sliced
2 Cooked Chicken Breasts, slicedPlace the filling over one half of the wrap, leaving about 1cm clear at the edge. Moisten the clear edge, fold over, and press down.
Heat oil in a pan and fry the quesidillas rapidly to brown and heat through.
Serve with chopped salad and sour cream.

Chicken Hash

This will be quick post, because I have to be on a ferry very shortly. We'll be away down south for a couple of days, attending a funeral. Accordingly, here's a quick recipe for using up those leftovers after you've cooked a roast chicken with vegetables.

What a roast chicken dinner has to do with funerals, I don't know. But I do know that dealing with grief and stress often involves keeping the cooking down a minimum, and whipping up something like this fills that gap very nicely.

I'm also hoping that the pictures will do the talking, as I must be off out the door in a few minutes.

Chicken Hash
Ingredients
2 Leftover Chicken Breasts, diced
Leftover Roast Potatoes, Onion, Pumpkin, Kumera, etc, grated
3 Eggs
1 Fresh chopped tomato
Grated Cheese
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
1 T Plain Flour, or Potato Flour for Gluten-Free
(Think of this as a blank page - you can add to it as you see fit)
Mix everything together in a bowl...
...like so. (Evidence here that I sometimes forget to add stuff, like the essential flour.) The mixture should hold together in solid balls, but should also be light and fluffy. Whip it up with a fork to get air through it.
Heat some oil in a pan. Only add the balls of hash when the oil is almost spitting. If it's too cold, the hash will just absorb the oil and go mushy. Gross.
Keep moving in the oil to prevent sticking, and turn when brown on the underside.
When the hash is cooked through, serve up with sour cream and a tangy sauce. Catch you all later in the week!

Orange Cinnamon Chicken

A wee while back, I ran into the Alligator at the Market.

We waxed poetic about getting together and cooking dinner or something, but alas, circumstances conspired against us, and the deed was never done. Now we are separated by an ocean, but I'm sure that day will come.

Meanwhile, it's important to point out one thing: The Alligator is a real, bonafide chef, as opposed to me who is just a weekend foodie with a macro lens. I was therefore at serious risk of being shown up as a sad charlatan in the kitchen. Accordingly, I decided I had to do something drastic:

Practice.

I thought that if I was going to make something to feed to a real chef, it had better be delicious and original, and I wasn't going to take any chances. I made up a recipe and gave it a trial run.

Turns out I would've been OK just going with the flow like I always do. And as it was, the Alligator never got to chomp my chicken anyway.

So here it is, Alligator. I offer up my Orange Cinnamon Chicken for you to take away and make better, to make...professional.

Then send me a drumstick.
Orange Cinnamon Chicken

(Serves 3)

Ingredients:
3 Chicken Thighs, Skinned & Seasoned
2 Oranges
12 Cloves
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
Olive Oil
Semolina flour for Dusting
1 Cinnamon Quill
1 Whole Nutmeg
2 Bay Leaves
1 Onion, wedged
1 Carrot, peeled and sliced
1/3 Cup Red Wine
1/3 Cup Boiling Water
Juice 1 orange. Grate the zest from the other orange. Reserve the wedges of orange flesh, broken in half.

To the juice, add 6 cloves, salt and pepper, the orange rind and 2T olive oil. Stir it all up and sit for a few minutes to extract the flavour from the cloves. Strain the juice, reserving, and press the wet orange rind into the chicken thighs.
Sprinkle with semolina flour and drizzle with olive oil.
In a large pan, heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom to a depth of 1mm. When the oil is hot, add the cinnamon quill, halved, the nutmeg, 6 cloves, and the bay leaves. Fry until fragrant and smoking.
Push the spices to the edge of the pan and add the chicken. Shake constantly, browning both sides to seal the meat.
Layer the onion and carrot in an oven dish that will fit the chicken snugly. Place the seared chicken on top of the veges.
Press the orange wedges around the chicken and drizzle the juice over top.

Cover and bake at 220C for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, add the red wine and water to the dish, pouring around the bottom of the chicken, not over top of it. Reduce heat to 200C and cook for a further 1/2 hour.
Dish up with couscous and fresh veges, layering the chicken on top of the cooked carrots, onions and oranges.

Gluten-Free Roast Chook with Apple Gravy

It's been a little while since I actually posted a recipe here. I have a dozen food posts drafted, but more interesting stuff seems to keep coming up that I feel the need to blog about.

But since I'm also dealing with a serious case of writer's block right now, I figure it's time to get back to what I do best: making your tummy rumble.

It was Nan's birthday, and I hadn't shoved my fingers inside a dead chicken for some time, so I decided to do a special birthday roast chook. This recipe is based on a Jamie Oliver classic, but it incorporates my trademark apple gravy, and is Gluten-Free. (JO's is also GF, but he doesn't have the added bonus of apple gravy).

Gluten-Free Roast Chicken with Apple Gravy

(Serves 6)

Ingredients:
1 Large Whole Chicken, (size 20) fresh or thawed
50g Butter, softened
3 Cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
3 Stalks of Rosemary, leaves roughly chopped
Zest of 1/2 a Lemon (Keep the lemon to stuff the cavity)
Freshly Ground Salt and Pepper

For the Gravy:
1 Apple, cut into eighths
1 Onion, sliced
Pulverise together all ingredients except the chicken, apple and onion. Preheat the oven to 220C.
Take a small sharp knife and slit the skin away from the breast above the neck. Carefully prise the skin away, being careful not to let it split. Stuff the butter into the space between, pressing it as far as you can over the breast and into the thighs and legs. Spread any leftover butter over the skin.
Season the skin. Slice the lemon in half and squeeze into the cavity (the lemon that is, not you).
Place the segments of apple in the centre of a roasting dish and layer the onion rings over the top of this. Place the chicken on top, breasts up.
Roast at 220C until cooked, about 2 1/2 hours. Turn and baste after 40 mins and again after 80 mins.
And now for a picture of a posh-looking beer, cos we haven't done that for a while. Not necessarily recommended as an accompaniment to this dish, but certainly recommended. (Thanks Uncle I!)
When the chicken is done, remove it to a cutting board to stand for about 10 minutes. What you have left should look like this. To make the gravy, simply blitz everything in the roasting dish, either using a hand-held blender, or by straining it into a blender, or even by mashing it all through a sieve. It will self thicken without you needing to add anything or heat it again.
Serve with roast veges, fresh garden veges, and a nice crisp Pinot Gris. Then get out of the kitchen before they make you do the dishes.