Ugly is Delicious

What is there to lose, I thought?

Just a few more subscribers to my feeds (I'm sorry you don't enjoy my blog anymore! Maybe you'll change your mind and come back? Or maybe you just switched to another reader where you are not another statistic? I hope so!)

And traffic to this blog.

The former has been on a decline ever since I signed up for NaBloWriMo and then NaBloPoMo. The latter swings wildly based on the day of the week, although I think I have a fairly reasonable trend all mapped out. The name, Indian Food Rocks, could be considered a bit of a misnomer but if you go back enough into my archives - heck! just look at last month! - it's obvious that my blog isn't just about food. It's about life being spiced by food. So while food is one of the themes, it's also about family life, memories and vacations.

And, if Jai can bring out his pictures of food and pretend they are ugly, I can do better: bring out at least one genuinely atrocious picture. It's something I have been hiding for quite a while now, not knowing how it will affect further affect my dwindling readership - whether it will finally kill my blog? I've made this dish so many times that I could make it with my eyes closed; but for the life of me, I cannot seem to take a half decent picture of it! It looks like one of those generic dishes with a brown sauce, which all food stylists will tell you to avoid like the plague. Perhaps that holds me back. The last time I made it I decided to use less oil and make it healthier but instead, it looks like it is drowning in grease!

Chettinad Pepper Chicken

based on a recipe from Flavors of India by Madhur Jaffrey

• 1-2 tbsp oil (and another 1-2 tsp oil for the last step)
• 3 tamalpatra bay leaf
• 3 whole cardamoms
• 1 cinnamon stick, about 1 inch and broken
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 3 cloves
• 2 tsp urad dal
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 medium onions, chopped fine
• 2 tbsp Contadina tomato paste
• 8 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, diced into bite-size piece
• 20 curry leaves
• salt to taste
• For the paste:
  
• 1.5 tbsp cumin seeds
• 5 dried red chillies
• 3 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1.5 tsp fennel seeds
• 1.5 tsp black peppercorn
• 1.5 tsp white poppy seeds (optional)
• 3-4 medium cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 inch knob of ginger, chopped

1. Heat 1-2 tbsp oil in the pan of your pressure cooker.
2. Add bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel seeds, cloves and urad dal. Stir and fry over medium heat until the urad dal turns a golden red.
3. Add turmeric powder and the finely chopped onions. Sauté until they are soft and slightly golden.
4. While the onions are cooking down, lightly roast cumin seeds, red chillies, coriander seeds, fennels seeds, black peppercorn, and the poppy seeds till they are fragrant.
5. Allow them to cool slightly and blend into a paste with the chopped ginger and garlic.
6. Add this paste to the onions with a few tsp of water to prevent scorching. Sauté for a few minutes.
7. Add tomato paste and cook for a couple more minutes.
8. Add chicken pieces, salt, 2-3 cups water and stir well.
9. Cook under pressure for one whistle, then turn down the heat and cook for another 5-7 minutes.
10. Allow the pressure cooker to cool and open it only when it is possible to do so safely. Do not rush this process as you want the chicken to be cooked completely. Stir well and transfer into a serving dish.
11. Heat 1-2 tsp oil and add the curry leaves. Fry till the curry leaves are crisp. Pour over the chicken and serve with steaming hot white rice.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for 5 tbsp oil. That can be brought down to under 2 tbsp. Even though it looks like the chicken is swimming in oil in the picture above.
• Madhur Jaffrey asks for the whole spices to be roasted in oil and then ground to a paste in the coffee grinder. I prefer to dry roast my spices and I generally do not put wet ingredients like garlic and ginger into my coffee grinder. I use the blender and the resulting paste is therefore a little more coarse.
• I have halved the number of red chillies and I skip the white poppy seeds cos that's one thing I forget to pick up from the Indian grocery store every time I go!
• Chettinad Pepper Chicken is not cooked in a pressure cooker and has a thick sauce. Madhur Jaffrey recommends removing the chicken pieces from the pan and reducing the sauce till it is very thick. Once the sauce has thickened, the chicken should be returned to the pan, folding it in gently into the sauce and then cooking for another 5-6 minutes. We prefer to drown our rice in curry so I skip this step.
• You could garnish this chicken with chopped cilantro.

It doesn't look very good but it is mind-blowingly delicious. Urad dal adds a great texture to the sauce and the fennels seeds are a treat to discover with every other bite.

Like Jai, I was planning to send this to Cathy for The Ugliest Gourmet event but my internal clock crapped out - the deadline was yesterday. I sent in my entry on Friday in any case but as I expected, it is not included. So take a look at the competition for Who is The Ugliest Gourmet and cast your vote. A comment I posted there earlier this afternoon does not show up so I am passing on the voting. Have fun!

This dish looks better when plated as it is offset by luscious long grains of basmati rice and some salad greens.

Apparently, there is someone called Bee who rants. Never heard of her.