Sunday 15 September 2013

Chicken Pasanda

There's 2 things I need to say about this before we kick off with the recipe...

1. Chicken Pasanda is a wonderfully creamy, spicy, yet subtle dish from what is now Pakistan (it was all India once...). 

2. I cheated. You know, if you go to an Asian store in the UK, you'll be dazzled by the fantastic array of ready-made spice mixes. Now, normally I'd make the mix myself and do it the slow and hard way. But I thought I'd make it easy and just show how simple and enjoyable it can be to cook a dish like this from (almost) scratch (with a little help from our spice-blending friends). And blend they can!

It's good served alongside a vegetarian curry. I combined it with an aubergine curry (baingan bharta - more of that later!)



Serves: 4
Cost per person: 3.50 zl (70 UK pence, 84 Euro cents)

What we need:

- 500g chicken breast cut into small pieces
- 2-3 tbsp yoghurt
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- salt and pepper
- 5-6 more good heaped tablespoons of yoghurt
- 2-3 good heaped tsp of Chicken Pasanda spice mix
- 2 onions finely sliced
- 2 tsp ginger-garlic paste
- 1-2 slit green chillies

Let's get on it!

1. The first part of this mimics the initial stages of the previous post (Mughlai Chicken - kid friendly) in its entirety. So, marinade the chicken in 2-3 tbsp yoghurt, 1/2 tsp turmeric, a good milling of black pepper and a little salt. Leave in the fridge overnight.


2. Get woking! 


3. 5 minutes later the chicken should be sealed. Remove from the wok. Set aside


4. Let's prep the stuff. Onions - sliced. Ginger and garlic minced into a paste with a fine grater. Chillies slit.


5. Prep the yoghurt and spice mix. 



6. Heat some oil in the wok. Get the sliced onions in there! Sprinkle over a little salt to speed up the cooking process.


7. Take your time! 10 minutes and they should be browned off a treat.


8. Grind up in a blender


9. Get that wok nice and hot. Glug in some veg oil. Get it hot. Ginger-garlic paste and green chillies in. Give them a minute to cook out.


10. Get the yoghurt and spice mix in there! Give it a couple of minutes for the spices to cook out and release their flavour.


11. Introduce the chicken you cooked earlier.


12. Not long after, get the onion paste in there


13. Simmer for around 1 minute. Add a little water if it's too thick. Ready to serve. Rice goes well. Or naan.


Cost:

- Chicken: 9 zl
- Yoghurt: 2 zl
- Rice: 1.60 zl
- Spices: 1 zl
- The rest: 0.40 zl

Total: 14 zl
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 3.50 zl

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