Dal Chicken (Curried Chicken with Lentils)

I’m done with summer, even though it seems reluctant to let go of me.

I remember the time when I was younger and actually looked forward to summers. But back then summer meant time away from school, and going off on holiday with the family. Summers were also not as beastly hot as they are now, the sun a lot gentler on the skin and when SPF 15 and a sun-hat did the job, though my mum seems to recall that I regularly suffered from sun-strokes every summer like clockwork.

We have of course no one to blame but ourselves as we’ve learnt. The excesses of generations before, taken forward by ours, caused enough havoc before we came to our senses and tried to stem the damage we had done to the environment. Global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, the earth’s coat for many seasons, and CFC’s became words we grew acquainted with… but is it all too late? Sudden changes in temperatures around the world and what can only be called freaky weather patterns started emerging worldwide. Unexplained snowfall in areas that had never seen snow and sharp peaks in temperature around the world have become commonplace. The polar ice sheets are melting at an alarmingly rapid pace and we realise that we are hurtling down the road to extinction with brakes that no longer work like they used to and worse still, with a gaping hole in our gas tank.

In short this summer’s been beastly! A good thing for beer companies and the government if you ask me, both of who make a pretty packet out of our misery. One could always try drinking fresh fruit juices, but with inflation at its peak, and at a dollar for one decent juicy orange, it’s not within everyone’s reach. So water is at the end of the day your best bet, even if you have to buy the bottled options, the only down side is that it doesn’t come in flavours

Summer also means eating light, especially during the day, but then there are those occasions when the body and mouth craves something more substantial. So one night I thought I’d rustle up one of my favourite meals…

Dal Chicken or Curried Chicken with Lentils.

Dal Chicken garnished with spicy potato straws and peanuts

This dish can be made with red meat or with chicken and has three different dals (lentils) as its base. I’ve used split and hulled red lentil (masur dal), split and hulled moong dal and split and hulled black gram (urad dal… which is cream in colour once its black outer coat is removed).

Here are the ingredients -

500gms chicken on the bone (cut into pieces)

3/4″ piece of ginger (minced)

4 – 5 cloves garlic (minced)

juice of 1 lime (+ extra to finish the dish)

(marinade the chicken in the ginger, garlic, lime juice mix and keep refrigerated overnight)

1/4 cup masur dal

1/4 cup yellow moong dal

1/4 cup urad dal

(wash and soak the above dals overnight – then parboil and reserve)

1 medium onion (sliced fine)

1/2 teaspoon freshly milled black pepper

1/2 teaspoon sambar (sambhar) powder ( you should get this in stores that supply Indian spice powders)

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon kashmiri chilli powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon garam masala (1/4 teaspoon while frying the spices and a 1/4 teaspoon at the end to finish off the dish)

3 tablespoons sunflower oil

small sprig of curry leaves

2 green chillies (deseed if you don’t want it too hot)

2 small dried or fresh bay leaves

1 cup chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon + salt

2 teaspoons chopped fresh coriander

1 heaped teaspoon ghee (clarified butter)

pinch of dry mango powder (aamchur powder)

This dish involves quite a few steps but it’s well worth the effort, and makes for a soul satisfying meal.

Start by frying the sliced onions in the oil till they start to caramelise. Add in the curry leaves and the chopped tomatoes, with a pinch of salt and fry on high for 30 seconds, then reduce to low and simmer covered for 10 minutes till the tomatoes completely break down. Add the bay leaves and the powdered spices and fry them on low (lowest flame) for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Now add the chicken, one piece at a time, and turn up the flame a notch so that the chicken gets browned just a bit. Add the marinade, and a cup of warm water and bring the chicken to a simmer before turning down the gas to low. Cover and cook the chicken for 12 – 15 minutes before adding the pre-boiled dals, the chillies and a teaspoon of salt. Top with another 1/2 to 3/4 cup of warm water, cover and cook for at least 20 minutes (If you want your curry thinner you may want to increase the quantity of water to a cup or so).

Now add the balance garam masala, 2 teaspoons chopped coriander, a rounded heaped teaspoon of ghee or clarified butter (you can omit this if you like, but it makes the dish taste so much better), a squeeze of lime juice and a pinch of dry mango powder (optional).

Allow the dal chicken to rest for at least one hour if not more before you re-heat and serve, this allows all the flavours to come together.

Serve the Dal Chicken garnished with potato straws or plantain chips on a bed of white rice alongside a light refreshing salad.

Oh…don’t wait for me… Go right ahead and dig in!

Spice on the Go… Quick n Easy Pickled Prawns

I recently got a earful from a friend. Actually it was both ears full and all the space between ‘em.

“If you aren’t going to send anything my way, how about posting something spicy and super-quick” she grumbled in mock irritation. I’ve known her too long for her to be mad at me over the phone

“Something I can whip up even when I’m deadbeat” she said at the end of her little tirade on how selfish I was. She was looking for an add-on to her meal she told me, something in the nature of a condiment that would lift up the meal she had delivered to her house on week-nights. Packed in an insulated and compartmentalized ‘tiffin’ box, her dinner usually comprised a dal (Indian dish of lentils), rice, rotis (flat bread) and a vegetable or two, which she ate more out of compulsion than desire. Coming home from a work day that never seemed to end, negotiating traffic and crowded trains to get back to what she called a “mundane meal” she ate with distaste. Having take-out at lunch everyday was bad enough, and her stomach often rebelled.

So I was on the spot and I had to redeem myself. I know what it’s like to work the 9 am to 11 pm routine, coming home exhausted and irritated, peering into the fridge to see if there was anything in there which would perk me up, only to find bottles of sauces and cartons of juice. The weekends would come and go in a blur, and when I wasn’t trying to get out of the city for a breather, I had a zillion different chores that needed doing. Shopping for food though part of my ‘To Do’ list often got shelved.

I thought I should do something for her which would keep. Something which would be enjoyed over many, many meals. And then my fisherman got a batch of prawns in one morning, and I leapt up and reached for the curry paste.

I had ordered large prawns from the fisherman for another dish I had in mind but his idea of large didn’t quite meet mine. Or perhaps these prawns were destined for piquancy. More medium sized, some bordering on small, I immediately knew they were going to be pickled. A recipe that was quick and easy to fix… spice on the go. Bottled, this pickle keeps well if kept in a cool and dry place. You can even store it in the refrigerator.

So here it is. No soaking of red chillies in vinegar, none of the de-seeding and grinding that pickles usually involve. Quick n Easy Pickled Prawns.

We Indians love our pickles and chutneys, from the sweet mango murabbas, to the mild water-pickled raw baby mangoes I ate with bowls of steaming congee whenever I visited my grandmother in Goa… to the fiery hot pickles made with ground red or green chillies, with mustard seeds and other spices, cooked in copious quantities of oil, not a drop of water daring to find its way to contaminate the spicy treat in any way.

Summertime was pickling time, back at my grandmother’s place. Rows of sliced mangoes, carrots, aubergines, cauliflower, and different kinds of salted fish drying out in the sun. There were meats too… dried and cured, and mixed with a mélange of spices, then cooked, cooled and bottled. The weather was gentler in those days and the longer the pickle sat, the better it tasted.

This pickle is a simple one, made with a purpose. All it took was a couple of spoonfuls of curry paste, some spices, oil, and the prawns which was my key ingredient. I made the pickle a month and a half ago and left it sitting, all bottled up, waiting for its flavours to develop. You can of course eat it immediately as well, since the vinegar I used was well-cured home-made vinegar. But it does taste way better when it’s left to its own devices for a while. 

Here are the ingredients –

1 kg medium sized prawns (shelled, de-veined, washed, drained and then patted dry)

5 heaped tablespoons curry paste (I used a paste that said ‘hot n spicy’ )

1/4 to 1/3 cup palm vinegar (I used more but it really depends on whether you like the flavour)

2 tablespoons of granulated demerara sugar

1 level tablespoon salt

4 cups sesame seed oil (1 ½ cup to fry the prawns and 2 ½ cups to cook the curry paste and prawns) … many people prefer to use mustard oil but I love the nuttiness of the sesame oil which adds a surprise element to this pickle

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds

1 tablespoon minced garlic (almost to a paste – 4 large cloves should do)

A sprig of curry leaves

 Method –

Fry the prawns on high for 1 to 1 1/2 minute. Drain them well and reserve.

Meanwhile heat the second batch of oil, put in a sprig of curry leaves and flash fry, remove the leaves and discard them. Turn the flame down to low before adding the mustard seeds, toss them in the oil and immediately add the curry paste. Cook on low for about 20 – 25 minutes till the oil separates and the curry paste is well cooked.

Now add in the prawns, raise the heat up a notch and cook them, for roughly 2 – 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar and cook for about 4 – 5 minutes. Turn of the heat and leave the curried prawns to cool. Do not cover the dish with a lid as you don’t want any water caused by the rising steam to fall into the pickle.

Once the curried prawns have cooled completely, transfer them into clean, sterilised glass bottles, making sure that there is at least 1 cm of oil floating on top of the curried prawns. Cover the top of the bottle with a piece of muslin or a double piece of cling wrap and keep the bottle/s in a cool and dry place for at least a month before eating.

These pickled prawns are best enjoyed as an accompaniment to a simple meal of rice and dal.

I sent some over to my friend, along with the recipe and she ate it with buttered bread . I suppose anything goes when you’re hungry. 

Salmon in Coconut Milk Curry

Indian Salmon known locally as Rawas is a delicious fish and one of my personal favourites. As with most fish the cooking time on this recipe is very short, which makes it an easy to whip up curry, even at short notice.

The recipe calls for easily available ingredients, which you may in all probability have in your pantry, and the end result is a simple, light curry. All you may have to do is probably trot down to the market for fish. That is in case your fishmonger doesn’t deliver to your doorstep.

I’ve used 6 medium size salmon steaks – which makes about 3 average size servings, marinading the steaks in the juice of 1/2  a large lime, with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a 1/2 teaspoon each of turmeric powder, paprika and yellow mustard seeds (you can use English Mustard if you like – but half the quantity of the seeds).

Coating the fish with the spices and letting the flavours absorb into the fish, before frying the steaks for about a minute and a half on each side in hot oil, to give it a nice sear. Please do not over-fry the fish… because the purpose is merely to impart a lovely golden colour to the fish without overcooking it.

Drain the fish on paper towels to remove any excess oil and set aside.

For the curry, I used half a medium red onion – sliced, one medium tomato, chopped fine and two green chillies (with the seeds), along with 2 cloves of garlic and a half inch piece of ginger, sliced fine.

Heat about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a heavy bottomed pan. I used sunflower oil, but you can use any other neutral flavoured oil. [The heavy bottomed pan allows even distribution of heat, which in turn lets the the fish cook evenly, and prevents the coconut milk from burning or curdling.] Sauté the onion along with ginger and garlic, till it takes on a light golden hue, drop in the curry leaves and give it a quick stir before adding in the chopped tomatoes and a teaspoon of salt. Cover and cook for a couple of minutes on a very low flame.

In a mortar blend 1 teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds, a teaspoonful of cumin powder, a pinch of turmeric and kashmiri chilli powder with 1 – 2 teaspoons of oil. Add the spicy blend to the tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes, before adding in a 1/4 cup of water, simmer for an additional 10 minutes and then bring up to a boil. Add 3/4 cup of thin coconut milk at this point and reduce back to a simmer, lowering the fish steaks into the coconut curry. Add the green chillies and cook for 5 – 7 minutes.

Finish with a quarter cup of coconut cream and 2 tablespoons chopped coriander.

A few slices of raw mango would make an excellent addition to the curry, but I didn’t have any… and it really didn’t seem to matter in the end.

I served the curry with white rice and crisp aubergine (eggplant/brinjal) fritters.