Topic: Boringly not hot. One for George.

[livo]

I was feeling a little more active yesterday with much less pain so I decided to do a couple of easy dishes including 2 new ones for me, including ScottyM's Pilua Rice, which I think turned out pretty good actually.  I only did half qty though, and it was plenty for 4 people easily.

The other new one is a Zafrani Chicken Korma which is a rich and exotically flavoured dish with poppy seeds, fried onions, nutmeg / mace, nut paste, saffron and keora (aka kewra or pandan).

The other 2 dishes which I've done before were a Rajma Masala and Kheema Mattar. 

A couple of hours in the kitchen had me needing to lie back down though. I still have some recovery to do.

Anyway here's a couple of pics.  You'll notice the absence of bright red chilli and lashings of oil.

[George]

The other new one is a Zafrani Chicken Korma which is a rich and exotically flavoured dish with poppy seeds, fried onions, nutmeg / mace, nut paste, saffron and keora (aka kewra or pandan).

Thank you for the dedication.

Yes, that korma dish sounds interesting and with a lot more potential than most normal BIR kormas. Did the one you made taste good? And do you have a link to the recipe, please?

[livo]

George, yes and yes I enjoyed it and it had very interesting complexities in the flavour. 

It was the first time I've used Pandan and I could only obtain Essence which is very strong so it may have been a little excessive but it didn't spoil the dish at all.  I could smell the strong nutty / vanilla aroma of Pandan for hours as I think I got a little on my fingers.

The original recipe also suggests using Bereshta or Fried Onions but I've been unable to source the appropriate seed kernels to make it.  I used thigh cutlets (on the bone), which I cleaved into 2 or 3 pieces to get regular sizes without being too big to cook in quick time, rather than a whole bird cut into pieces. Any chicken would do I suppose but thigh retains moisture best of all cuts.

Also worth note is that I am led to believe that White Poppy Seeds are what is called for in the recipe as well as in the reading I've done on Bereshta. I only had Black Poppy Seed but used it anyway.

Here is the link.

http://khadizaskitchen.com/2014/01/20/zafrani-chicken-korma/

[livo]

Rose water may be less exotic and powerful than the pandan.

As for quantity, I used 6 thigh cutlets for a combined weight of just over 1.2 kg so used the given qty of spicing.

The reason I mention this is because I've just read down further and I found an interesting point in one of the comments underneath , regarding increased quantity and adjusting spicing.  The advice given seems to be to increase spicing by 50% at each doubling of the bulk ingredients.

Would this be a normal "rule of thumb" for most spicing adjustments?  What about reducing size? Would 1/2 quantity require 66% spicing rather than 50%? or is this in realm of being insignificant where most recipes are concerned?  too small to get accurate measurement?