Topic: Chicken Chasni

[Stephen Lindsay]

This is my attempt at a Chasni, based on a Pathia sauce

Chicken Chasni

Ingredients:

oil, 1 fl. oz.
thinly sliced onion or pepper, a few slivers
tomato puree, 1 ? level tbsp., mixed with 2 tbsp water
BE spice mixture, 1 tsp.
1/4 teaspoon of chilli powder
1/2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tbsp of sugar
7 fl. oz. (approx 200 ml metric) BE curry base gravy
1 tbsp of mango chutney
2 tbsp of lemon juice
single cream to taste - 1/2 cup maximum?
fresh tomato, a few quarters
fresh coriander, to garnish

Method:

heat the oil in a pan, add the onion/pepper mix, and fry up for about a minute
add the tomato paste, mix powder, salt, chilli powder and fenugreek, stir in well and fry up for about 30 seconds
add half the base gravy and stir in well
add the sugar and mango chutney and stir in
add the lemon juice and stir
stir in the rest of the base gravy and let cook until the sauce has reduced to the right thickness
add the cream and stir in
add the pre-cooked chicken and stir in
cook and occasionally stir for about 1 1/2 minutes then add in the tomato quarters
garnish with fresh coriander

[Domi]

Sounds right up my street! ;D Going to give this one a go tomorrow since I've got the base and spice mix to match...Thanks SL

[Stephen Lindsay]

Hi Domi

Great minds think alike - I am doing this for tea this evening also!

[Razor]

Domi,

Going to give this one a go tomorrow since I've got the base

Oh, I see.  Two timing me with Mr Edwards eh?  How very dare you?

Ray

[Domi]

OI! This will be the first base I've tried since starting wi' yours...anyroad...variety is the spice of life yanno

[Domi]

Hi Stephen

Which pre-cooked chicken method do you use and how much? Also I have 3 jars of mango chutney...Geetas (with the spices in) a taste the difference alphonso mango chutney (chunky and sharpish) and a jar of Asda's own brand (almost like a jam!) - any idea which would work best? Really looking forward to giving this a go - pathias are big fave of mine - wonder if this one will turn my head too lol ;D

Cheers luv

[Stephen Lindsay]

Hey Domi you must be reading my mind or something because I use ASDA mango chutney. I tend not to bother pre-cooking chicken, or should I say I tend to sear some chicken in a pan then put it in the sauce and give it 5 minutes to finish it off.

[Domi]

lol great minds again, SL ;D I always use Asda's mango chutney in pathias because it's the nearest to BIR I've found.

I never precook my chicken either (except for tikka) as I prefer to add it raw after cooking the spices out in the G+G/tom puree to coat the chicken and get the spices cooked into the chicken and use a bit of base to cool the pan as/when needed - never had tough chicken and my curry's not ruined by the taste of some of the precook spices...

[976bar]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a Chasni?

I've never heard of it down here in the south. 

[Stephen Lindsay]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a Chasni?

I've never heard of it down here in the south. 

Hi 976bar good to see you back, I have pasted below my reply to a comment by Ray on my post "3rd Anniversary".

This is the link

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4860.msg46633#msg46633

This is what I posted

Thanks JivyJ and Razor, good to hear from you both.

re the difference between Scottish and English curries my own take on it is I think it's fairly complicated cause although there are differences I expect the a more varied. I think the Ashoka chain probably represents their style of cooking more than it does your average Scottish takeaway which is pretty dire. There is a big cultural difference between the West and East coasts of Scotland which I am sure gazman will agree with. It would therefore be logical to expect that this would be borne out by differences in curries too. One thing which is noticeable in Scotland is that the Chicken Chasni is a hugely popular dish, possibly more so than CTM, and especially so in Glasgow. My best stab at describing what it is would be to take, say a Pathia sauce, to get the sweet and sour flavour, and finish it off with cream, so it is kind of a cross between Pathia and CTM and along with Irn Bru and Mars Bars deep fried in batter it could be regarded as a Scottish national dish! Finished off with loads of beer of course.

My main experience of eating curries in England has been in Yorkshire - Huddersfield, Bradford and Halifax, though this was some time ago. I didn't find that there was a huge difference but the main thing was perhaps stronger use of spicing in Scotland, so a Scottish Madras in Scotland would be like a Vindaloo in Yorkshire. My pal also lived in Dorset for a few years and he said pretty much the same.

However there are posts on here that refer to a South-East English curry and a London Dhansak and so on which suggests to me that the variations are maybe more about region than one country as a whole. As I said I've a bit of experience to go on but I wouldn't hold much faith by it.

If you are interested in the Ashoka posts I'd encourage you to give them a go and see what you think. Panpot did a huge amount of work on them (last year I think it was) and it sounds like there's a few folk who have been pretty impressed by the results, myself included.

I've taken to working with BE base more recently, as it's much simpler than Ashoka which requires 3 separate recipes to be prepared in advance. However I've been thinking about taking the best elements of both and seeing where it leads so I will report on that if and when I get moving on that.