Topic: Chicken Phall!!

[DARTHPHALL]

Sorry but im unable to find all my old notes, so i will post this very good Phall recipe.

Most of it is taken from Pat Chapmans Indian Restaurant Cookbook with amendments from my memory.

I will be cooking this tomorrow & hopefully the old cooking habits will come flooding back. I hope also to post some pictures.

This is the Oven version without a base, a base can be added, see below.

Please read all the way through before cooking.

Salt may be added but ive not included in ingredients or spice mix, read below.

Ingredients:

1 1/2LB/675g Chicken Breast.
1 Large Onion, finely chopped.
8 cloves Garlic, finely chopped (you can use Galic paste).
1oZ /25g fresh Ginger, finely chopped (You can use Ginger paste)
3 tablespoons Oil.
Half a 400g tin tomatoes (A full tin makes this dish too rich) or 200g passata.
20 Fresh or dried chillies, Add more if you wish, but the taste will change, if you like extreme heat, use one of the chilli essences available online 

Spice Mix:

1 teaspoon ground Cumin.
1 Teaspoon ground Coriander.
3 Teaspoons chilli powder (more can be added, as some like the chili powder taste)
1 Teaspoon dried Fenugreek leaves.
1 Teaspoon Garam masala.

Method:

Make the spice mix add a little warm water to help make a paste.
Chop Chicken breast.
Fry Onion, Garlic & Ginger until it starts to go golden brown in half of the oil, keep eye on this as the garlic tends to stick to the pan very quickly, keep mixing & stirring. Add spice mix, cook for further 5 minutes.
Add 200g chopped tomatoes/or Passata, half tin of water (200g) & chopped chicken breast cook for 5 minutes.
Added a 400g tin of water to stop it burning/catching.
Pre heat oven at 400f/200c, Gas 6.
Add all cooked ingredients to a Pyrex or casserole dish (must have a lid)

Cook for 40 minutes. DONE! 

Brief notes I can remember 

1. The art to the oven method is how the ingredients reduce & learning to achieve a consistency in ingredient reduction which in turn you will also learn to maintain consistency in flavour.

2. Reduce too much & it will turn out very thick, sweet & rich, not enough & it may turn out a little too bland, also you need to decide on the amounts of Salt to your particular taste.

3. I have made the above & added my base mix, this will just give more curry & also give you a texture closer to a BIR.

4. You can blend the ingredients also to give an even more authentic texture, but i feel that you should keep it simple, concentrate on consistency of taste first; the other aspects of the BIR are easier to achieve. 

5. I haven

[DARTHPHALL]

Just to add, don't be put off by the simplistic recipe above, having read many posts on this forum, i still see people looking for the secret, i was said over four years ago by one of the members then & i will say it again, its all here.

The real secret is cooking technique:
keep it simple.
Timing.
learning consistency.
Make cooking notes each time you cook/keep a log.

If you complicate a recipe you make it even more difficult to control the end result/flavour & you'll end up with so much variation it will be very difficult to judge the recipe on its merit 

Ironically if you keep trying different recipes how will you be able to judge your results, master a few recipes first 

I will make this Phall tomorrow & I hope to add photos of the process, i will post results, but as this is the first curry cooked by myself in well over 12 months it will be as though I'm new to this which is good for the newer members as well as myself 

Also, just remembered something else, in my quest in making Bir style curries a few years past I have on several occasions achieved it.

Pick one of the base sauces & main dishes, stick with it, make notes each time you cook it, you'll be surprised how different the same dish tastes every time you cook it. 

 

[Ramirez]

Thanks for posting Darth. Will give this a try and report back (with a pic).

[DARTHPHALL]

Thanks for posting Darth. Will give this a try and report back (with a pic).

I hope it turns out as good for you as it has for me in the past & hopefully today. Looking forward to your pics. 

[DARTHPHALL]

Now that I've started to cook i have amended the above : amendments in red

Smells good, consistency is a bit runny.

Taste was actually ok, something akin to a BIr but nothing like my past attempts. But im not going to be hard on myself after all these years of not cooking curries.

Will try again next week, will post results.

First attempt =  a Fail