Masala Chicken

In this chicken dish from Chetna Makan, a crispy, well-seasoned exterior gives way to juicy meat inside. Makan says that after she developed this recipe, she couldn’t stop eating it, and we can see why.

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (1 ounce) chickpea flour
• 1/4 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (see Notes)
• 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder
• 1 teaspoon kasoori methi
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon kala namak
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 to 6 chicken thighs, halved, or quartered if large (1 1/4 pounds total)
• 3 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil
• Ginger-chili chutney, for serving (optional)
• Cooked white or brown rice, for serving (optional)
• Naan or flatbreads, for serving (optional)

Directions
Total: 30 mins

• In a large cast-iron or non-stick skillet over a low heat, toast the chickpea flour, stirring constantly, until it starts to darken, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and carefully wipe the hot pan clean.
• To the bowl with the flour, add the yogurt, chili powder, fenugreek, garam masala, kala namak and cumin and stir until well combined. Add the chicken and toss until well coated.
• In a skillet over a medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the chicken in a single layer — it’s okay if some pieces are touching. Cook, undisturbed, until the chicken turns brown and crisp, 4 to 5 minutes. Watch carefully and reduce the heat if the chicken starts to burn. Flip the pieces and continue cooking until the chicken is golden on all sides and cooked through to an internal temperature of 165 degrees C, 3 to 5 minutes. (Thicker pieces of chicken may take a bit longer.) Divide among shallow bowls and serve with chutney, rice and/or naan, if using.

Notes

Be sure to use plain yogurt, not Greek yogurt, when making this recipe. If you have only the latter, thin it with a few tablespoons of water or chicken stock until it is the consistency of plain yogurt.

Storage: Refrigerate for up to 3 days. Reheat in a 350-degree oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes, or until heated through.

Adapted from “Chetna's 30 Minute Indian: Quick and Easy Everyday Meals” by Chetna Makan (Mitchell Beazley, 2021).

In modern Indian cookery, "curry" refers to spice blends with turmeric as their key ingredient; spice blends without turmeric are called masala.

Source:  https://www.etymonline.com/word/curry#etymonline_v_491
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** Phil.

My wife's hotel has just been gifted four brace of freshly-shot pheasant, and I have been asked to "do the necessary".  I know that they need to be hung, but for how long ?  I have improvised with road-kill pheasants in the past, and of course have cooked pre-hung, drawn and plucked pheasants, but never had to deal with multiple pheasants all requiring the full process.  All advice welcome.
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** Phil.

As my lack of contributions has undoubtedly revealed, my motivation for cookery (Indian or otherwise) much diminished after my enforced move to Cornwall, and my last two attempts at something as simple as a steak-and-kidney pie, or steak-and-kidney with dumplings, were not a patch on my previous efforts when I lived in Kent.  However, the permanent closure of my local butcher (George Hawkes) last Saturday motived me to buy up all of the ox kidney that he could get before closing, and since then I have made both a steak-and-kidney pie and steak-and-kidney with parsley dumplings.  The pie was OK, but the crust was a bit thin because I had insufficient S.R. flour, but the last was absolutely superb.  My dumplings floated like little clouds, and the flavour and texture were out of this world; it was followed by equally superb freshly poached (and chilled) Victoria plums.  I now wonder whether I can perhaps recapture my former interest in BIR cuisine ...
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** Phil.

It is now some time since I last cooked a curry (sufficiently long, in fact, that I no longer remember when I last did so), but it is not that which inspires my question.  Rather, it is something that I experienced over the last two or three days.  On Sunday I played a bowls match in Newquay (Cornwall) and, as I always do when I am in Newquay, I later dined at Zaman's restaurant.  It is, as far as I am concerned, the best BIR in Cornwall, both food and service being beyond compare.  But after eating my starter (two extremely nice seekh kebabs, served with grilled onions which I wrapped in a chapati to eat), I felt too full to want to start on my main course, so asked the restaurant to pack it up for me to eat later.  I didn't eat it when I arrived home, I didn't eat it yesterday, but I ate it this evening.  It comprised a beautifully fragrant pulao rice, a well-textured sag aloo, and a lamb dhansak that clearly contained at least two different sorts of pulse/lentil.  But I didn't enjoy it (I ate barely one third).  Even after adding lime pickle (my standard accompaniment to a lamb dhansak) it just did nothing for me.  I am therefore beginning to think that I have tired of curries, and now need to find some other staple food on which to exist.  I realise that a BIR forum is perhaps not the best place to ask such a question, but I do wonder whether any current members of CR0 have ever had a similar experience.
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** Phil.