I wanted Indian food tonight. I love Indian food. It is, without a doubt, my favorite ethnic food. I love it so much that I wanted to learn how to cook it after years of gorging myself on Indian takeout and curry buffets. I did a lot of research on a good Indian cookbook and one name kept popping up: Madhur Jaffrey. She is one of the world’s bestselling Indian cookbook authors, so I went out and bought her book “Indian Cooking.” Boy am I glad that I got it, too. There are FANTASTIC recipes in this cookbook.
Tonight I cooked a dish called Hare masale wali murghi which is a lemony chicken with cilantro. LOTS of cilantro. (If you don’t like cilantro, you are as crazy as the people who don’t like Bleu cheese. You can’t change my mind on this. If you dislike these two things, you are looney toons.) This is also a really easy dish to make. I had all of the ingredients on hand and I was able to have a lovely dinner on my table in about 45 minutes. Here’s the recipe, but let me say again that if you love Indian food, you really should consider buying this cookbook because it really is just awesome. I make homemade yogurt for my son because of this cookbook!
Here is the recipe:
Two 2.5 cm (1 inch) cubes fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
240 ml (1 cup) water, divided
6 Tblsp. vegetable oil
1 kg 175 g (2-1/2 lb.) chicken pieces, skinned
5 cloves garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
200 g (3 cups) cilantro (weight without roots or lower stems), very finely chopped
1/2- 1 fresh, hot green chili, very finely chopped
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1 tsp. salt or to taste
2 Tblsp. lemon juice
Put the ginger and 4 Tblsp. water into the container of an electric blender. Blend until you have a paste.
Put the oil in a wide, heavy, preferalby nonstick pot over medium high heat. When hot, put in as many chicken pieces as the pot will hold in a single layer and brown on both sides. Remove the chicken pieces with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl. Brown all the chicken pieces this way.
Put the garlic into the same hot oil. As soon as the pieces turn a medium-brown color, turn the heat to medium and pour in the paste from the blender. Stir and fry it for a minute. Now add the cilantro, green chili, cayenne, ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, and salt. Stir and cook for a minute. Put in all the chicken pieces as well as any liquid that might have accumulated in the chicken bowl. Also add 150 ml (2/3 cup) water and the lemon juice. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover tightly, turnheat to low, and cook for 15 minutes. Turn the chicken over. Cover again and cook another 10-15 minutes or until the chicken is tender.
If the sauce is too thin, uncover the pan and boil some of it away over a slightly higher heat. YIELD: 6 servings.
Now that you’ve looked the recipe over, I will offer my tips. I used boneless skinless chicken breasts today. It’s something that can be found in many American households these days and they are convenient for quick weeknight dinners. However, chicken with the bone still in them will yield much more flavor. The sauce for this dish is so flavorful that I wasn’t missing anything.
I didn’t have turmeric today. It would have added an extra tang to the dish as well as a gorgeous color. If you don’t have it or can’t find it, make the dish anyhow and just omit it. It’s still really delicious.
Since we are dealing with screaming hot oil in this recipe, you want to go ahead and do all of your chopping and measuring before you even begin cooking. Once you start, it’s going to go really fast. When you put the garlic in the hot oil, watch it like a hawk because it can burn very quickly and then it will turn bitter.
I went ahead and used a little bit of zest from my lemon to add to the sauce. The real flavor of citrus comes from the zest rather than the juice. It was a nice note in the complex taste of the dish.
This is the finished dish. There’s no pretty picture of the final product today because….well…I got excited and started eating before I remembered the need for a picture. Sorry about that, but I’m sure you understand! Please try this recipe and PLEASE consider buying this cookbook. I’m not being asked to pimp this cookbook or anything, (It doesn’t need pimping!) I just really really love this cookbook and it’s one of maybe three cookbooks that I can’t live without.
Enjoy everybody, and if you’ve never tried Indian food before, let me know and I can suggest some dishes to try that will hook you!
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Welcome home Somer!
) and to my kitchen!! 
D
haha! Thanks!