Topic: 1970s Chicken Dansak (Dhansak) for 4 people.

[livo]

"Back in the 70's .... we used to sell hundreds a week." 

Here is a video of a supposed 1970's BIR Chicken Dansak uploaded to YT by Chef Din fairly recently. He does say that back in the day it used to be just sweet and sour unless the customer asked for it hot and he says that the chilli heat is a variable to taste, as I feel is always the case anyway.  After thoroughly enjoying the Dhansak recipe posted by Tempest63 recently, I've decided I'm going to give this a go.  I know a few people here express interest (and disappointment) in the dish, so perhaps this one will tick a few boxes.  I do like Chef Din's approach and the recipes of his I've made so far have been good.  I can't see why this would be different.

He does have 4 different Chicken Dansak videos, but this is the most recent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi36tUI60NM

[George]

Chicken dhansak has been my favourite BIR dish for many years. I'd say about 40% of BIRs serve a dish with the flavours I regard as essential. It's more than sweet, sour and a little bit hot. The best BIRs produce an earthy, smokey type flavour, which is almost completely missing in the other 60% of restaurants.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Whereas for me, it has to be chicken for bhuna, Madras, vindaloo, etc., but most definitely lamb for dhansak ...

--
** Phil.

[livo]

Interesting George.  What do you think would give the ones you like that earthy / smoky taste?  Black Cardamom would be the spice I'd imagine for that, but I don't see it in this recipe.

Note for next time. Use way less water.  In general, Chef Din's stated amounts on the ingredient list do not appear to correlate to the video images of the quantities actually going into the pans, and I've ended up with a soup that will require a hell of a lot of reduction.  I didn't even add the full amount of water to either the lentils or the actual dish pot because I just knew it was too much by looking at it.  Tastes ok though, so I just hope the chicken doesn't disintegrate while I reduce the sauce.

Edit:  This is very tasty, and I made it mild (for Mrs L).  I used Kashmiri Chilli Powder and extra Paprika, but it certainly would cope with a bit of extra heat.  The sweet and sour balance is very good.  After 30 minutes of slow simmer and constant stirring in the final stage it reduced down to a good sauce consistency.  Another dish I'll be doing again.  Not fast BIR but worth the effort.

[George]

About 10 years ago, after a lot of experiments, I managed to produce a dhansak which I considered a match for some of the best examples at BIRs. But my method was incredibly time consuming and my guess was that restaurants achieve similar results but using faster techniques. I think I learned enough about what worked and what needs to be in the ingredients, to look at a recipe and know if it has potential or will probably be bland. An example of a really good dhansak was from the place mentioned by Phil recently - Zamans at Newquay. An example of a really bad dhansak was at Latifs just outside Stoke on Trent - the place behind the youtube channel Latifs Inspired.

[Secret Santa]

Chicken dhansak has been my favourite BIR dish for many years. I'd say about 40% of BIRs serve a dish with the flavours I regard as essential. It's more than sweet, sour and a little bit hot. The best BIRs produce an earthy, smokey type flavour, which is almost completely missing in the other 60% of restaurants.

Spot on. In the old days the dhansak was hot, sweet and sour but most importantly sooooo smoky! The only way to do it properly is to use the dhungar method (look it up it's quite simple). There's no quick smoking method that produces the same results.

Nowadays the dhansak's are polluted with pineapple and other crapifiers. By the way, I say this almost every time there's a dhansak thread, in my opinion the best are made purely with lemon and sugar as the sour and sweet elements and I strongly suggest Livo tries that mix first before proceeding to the plethora of alternatives.

[livo]

Santa, this recipe is just lemon juice and sugar, although it does have a fair spurt of Worcestershire sauce, which you can't really distinguish in the final dish.  The spicing is really quite basic and I liked it.  If it had the full compliment of hot chilli powder it would be hot.  Zero smoky element though.  I have used the dhungar method to introduce smokiness to another chicken dish.  I think it was an Arabic or Persian dish which I really enjoyed the first time. Second attempt didn't work as well. I still have the recipe.

George, you didn't give any clue as to what you believe goes into a recipe that has potential. Naming restaurants over there has no benefit on a globally read forum.  I'd be happy to try your time consuming procedure if you'd care to provide details.

I don't know how this would have been cooked in restaurants as even cooking the lentils at the same time as the dish takes at least an hour. There are 3 stages, melting onions, cooking and spicing chicken and then reduction and each stage is at least 20 minutes or more.

[Secret Santa]

There are 3 stages, melting onions, cooking and spicing chicken and then reduction and each stage is at least 20 minutes or more.

Not sure what you're referring to there livo? I know you know this already but the "melting onions" would be pre-cooked, I think they even call them dhansak onions. The lentils are precooked to a thick paste and the chicken will be pre-cooked as well as usual and the reduction would be five minutes on a busy night because you're using pre-cooked base sauce. So you're looking at a cooking time of about 10 minutes max.

[livo]

I was just referring to the fact that Chef Din appears to be demonstrating the way they cooked it back in the 1970s restaurant.  I will certainly give it a try in the BIR method to see if it is similar.  No! I won't put pineapple or other crapifiers (is that a real word) in it.  I do like it on pizza with ham and prawns though.

I'm now keen to try adding some smokiness.

Edit:  The dish I've prepared using the dhungar smoking method is Yemeni Chicken Mandi (Arabian Biryani).

Another interesting thing is that my kitchen has a wonderful residual Indian restaurant aroma this morning.  More than I usually experience after much bigger and more elaborate cook-ups.

[George]

George, you didn't give any clue as to what you believe goes into a recipe that has potential. Naming restaurants over there has no benefit on a globally read forum.  I'd be happy to try your time consuming procedure if you'd care to provide details.

I read on here years/decades ago that the distinctive flavour comes from browned garlic. I think someone else said highly cooked chillis. I then had the thought that almost everything needs to be roasted so that's what I did and it worked very well. So I started by baking the onions, garlic, peppers and carrots in the oven to make my normal (markJ) base sauce. After all, recipes for roast chicken gravy often say to use a tray of roasted vegetables. All the spices I used were roasted as much as possible, then ground if needed. I used spiced oil with roasted ingredients, also. At the end, I added a classic tarka of browned garlic. I tried lemon, lime and tamarind as souring elements. My favourite is lime, closely followed by lemon. I really don't like tamarind and doubt it's hardly ever used by BIRs. Adding smoke makes it even better. A bottle of 'liquid smoke' was awful. Real smoke was better.

As for lentils, I suggest 100% red lentils are fine. Using other types of lentils, or a mixture, didn't improve the flavour at all.

Good luck! I fear you are handicapped if you have never tasted the real thing.