Tandoori Chicken & Other Delicious Things...

I think I was 17 when, as a burgeoning foodnik, I thought I would, rather SHOULD, try Indian food. I was all about expanding my palate, and I'd heard people rave about vindaloo, and naan, and samosas, and lassi, and I was not going to be left out.

So as I walked into my first Indian restaurant in Huntington Beach (the name escapes me now) and the first waves of those heady, earthy, fragrant and altogether foreign aromas hit my nose, *THOUGHT* became the operative word of the day.  All those smells smelled like they belonged somewhere, just not on food. They overwhelmed me at the time, and with the second whiff, I was out the door. 

But time has a way of changing things - your life, your luck, your perspective, your palate - and years later, when I was schlepping away at my first and worst corporate job ever, I was invited to lunch at an Indian buffet with some co-workers. That first foray into Indian food wasn't exactly love at first bite, but as I tasted a little of that curry, a piece of this chicken, a bite of spinach, and a spoonful of raita, I realized a well orchestrated Indian meal, aromatic from here, heat from there, creamy from another place, mild sweet and tang from yet another, had the potential to be delicious to my palate.

Since then, I haven't delved quite as deeply into Indian cuisine as I have some others, but I continue to find that when I eat Indian food in spite of my usual inclinations, it is surprisingly delicious to me. And this meal of tandoori chicken, curried rice, roasted zucchini and raita has all the complementing and contrasting notes I look for in a good meal from any cuisine.

CHICKEN TANDOORI

Serves 5-6

Prep time: 15 mins.

Cook time: 1 hour.

w/o sauce

with

This recipe works best when the chicken can marinate at least an hour. 2 or 3 hours is even better, and you could marinate overnight if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.

- 3 lbs. bone-in chicken (about 10 pieces of chicken – large breast pieces

should be cut in half)

For the marinade…

- 1 ½ cups yogurt

- 2 tsp salt

- 2 tsp sugar

- 1 ½ tsp granulated onion

- ½ tsp granulated garlic

- 2 tsp cayenne

- ½ tsp paprika

- ½ tsp ground ginger

- 2 tsp garam masala*

- 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

- 2 tbsp oil (canola or vegetable)

- chopped cilantro for garnish

* Garam masala is an Indian spice blend that contains a buttload of spices you probably don’t have on hand. Here’s a substitution of spices you’re more likely to have and use again.

- ¼ tsp cumin

- ¼ tsp black pepper

- 1/8 tsp cinnamon

- ¼ tsp coriander

1) Remove skin from chicken (unless you like the skin, which I do, but I find the yogurt tenderizes the meat so much I don’t really need it).

2) Combine all the marinade ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until all ingredients are incorporated, i.e., until the salt and sugar are dissolved. A good way to tell is if you don’t find any salt or sugar granules when you look closely at a spoonful of marinade from the bottom of the bowl.

3) Add chicken and stir until all pieces are thoroughly coated in marinade and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour (2 or 3 is even better), redistributing the chicken 2 or 3 times to make sure the pieces get evenly marinated. Just about everything cooks better at room temperature, so try to remember to take the chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes in the oven.

4) About 15 minutes before cooking the chicken, preheat the oven to BROIL and line the broiler pan with foil.

5) Place chicken pieces on the lined broiler pan, about 1 to 1.5 inches apart, shaking off a little of the excess marinade. If you like extra sauce, keep the excess marinade for Step 7.

6) Cook chicken under the broiler until it gets a nice, brown char, about 8 minutes each side. Turn the oven down to 400 and continue to bake the chicken another 35 - 40 minutes. If your broiler is under the oven, move the chicken to the main oven.

7) For sauce, place 1 tablespoon of oil in a small pot or saucepan with the excess marinade plus 3 tablespoons of water or UNSALTED chicken stock and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Once it reaches a gentle boil – the sauce will make about 3 bubbles a second from the heat – turn the heat to low and simmer another 3 minutes or so. Pour over the chicken before serving.

8) Remove chicken to a serving platter, pour sauce over if desired, and sprinkle with chopped cilantro before serving.

CUCUMBER, JALAPENO & CILANTRO RAITA (RYE-tah)

Raitas are yogurt sauces that provide a nice, tangy contrast to the meal and also cool the heat from all them spices! Mint is also commonly used in raita and would make a yummy substitution for cilantro if cilantro doesn’t float your boat.

- 1 C yogurt

¼ C finely chopped cucumber (seeds removed)

1 finely chopped jalapeno (more or less to taste)

1 tbsp minced garlic (about 1 clove)

3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro (about 10 stalks)

1 tbsp oil (canola or vegetable)

½ tsp sugar

¾ tsp salt

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until sugar and salt are dissolved. Refrigerate before serving.

CURRIED RICE

Indian food is traditionally served with Basmati rice, and I like Basmati well enough, but not well enough to keep it as a pantry staple, so I used Jasmine instead. Jasmine rice usually takes about 1.5 cups liquid to 1 cup of rice. Basmati requires a little more.

- 2 cups onion, finely chopped (about 1 medium onion)

- 2 Tbsp butter

- 1 Tbsp oil

- 2 tsp curry powder

- 2 C jasmine rice

- 2 C unsalted chicken stock

- 1 ¼ C water

- 1 ½ tsp salt

1) Add oil and butter to a Dutch oven or other large pot and melt butter over medium heat.

2) Cook onions over medium heat until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes, and stir in curry powder until evenly distributed.

3) Add rice and stir to coat the grains with the oil/butter mixture.

4) Add all liquid (water and chicken stock) and salt, and give the rice a couple of stirs to make sure all the grains are moistened.

5) Leaving pot uncovered, increase heat to medium high and bring rice to a medium boil (about 4 to 5 bubbles a second).

6) Once it reaches a medium boil, reduce heat to low, and cook the rice, COVERED, until all liquid is absorbed and rice grains no longer have an opaque appearance.

7) Fluff rice immediately after it’s cooked. If you let it cool without fluffing, you’ll have one big rice clump. :)

Roasted Lemon Garlic Zucchini

Serves 6

Prep: 5 – 10 minutes

Cook: 12 + 3 minutes – for roasting and tossing

- 3 pounds zucchini (about six 6” – 7” zucchini)

- 2 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp oil (canola, veg or light olive)

- ½ tsp salt

- ¼ tsp sugar

- 1 Tbsp minced garlic

- 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

- 1 tsp lemon zest (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 425.

2) Cut zucchini into ¾” diagonal pieces and toss in 2 tablespoons oil to coat evenly.

3) Spread zucchini in one layer on a baking sheet, leaving as much space between pieces as possible.

4) Roast 6 minutes on one side then flip each piece and roast another 6 minutes.

5) Remove from baking sheet to a large mixing bowl.

6) While zucchini is still hot, add in salt, sugar, minced garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest and 1 tablespoon oil and toss to dress, making sure all the seasonings get evenly distributed. Sprinkling the salt and sugar over the entire area of the zucchini rather than in one spot will help ensure the seasoning is even.

Sequential pics of this menu can be seen in my Facebook album.

Lemme know if you got any questions. :)

shinae

Picking Produce - Jalapenos

My love of chilies - it's probably got something to do with the fact that I'm half Korean. Or maybe not.  There are, after all, lots of chili heads whose native cuisines have very little heat built into them... 

Whatever its origins, my love of hot and spicy foods has been with me since I was a kimchi gobbling toddler. When I was younger, I would eat some kind of hot sauce or chili with just about any savory food without much regard for whether it really suited the dish. But the past few years I've found my palate mimicking my life - editing, simplifying, and trying to appreciate things within their own unique contexts. No sriracha on my pizza, no sambal on my burger, and a lot less Tapatio on my pasta when I'm at a loss for red chili flakes.

That said, when a dish allows for the introduction of heat without some fundamental assault on its flavor profile, I still tend to like it extra spicy. And while there are chilis that do certain jobs better, the jalapeno is my go-to for a mild, multi-purpose flavor and a healthy capacity for heat - if you choose the right ones.

Hot, hotter, hottest.

When I want really hot jalapenos, I look for two things on the outside: STRETCH MARKS (pictured) and a SUNBURN (not pictured). By stretch marks, I mean those striations you can clearly see on that third pepper. And by sunburn, I mean patches of near black coloring usually found near the stem.

This sucker needs some Palmer's Cocoa Butter...

Another indication of higher heat levels is an orange-ish tinge to the veins found on the inside when you cut the pepper open.  If you're looking for something milder, pick the ones with a lighter, more verdant green like the kind you find on a fresh green bell pepper.  And if they feel relatively heavy for their size, that higher water content usually also results in a milder chili.

orange

veins

Now, this isn't scientifically proven to my knowledge.  But on the other hand, if you consider my cooking career a now decades long experiment in which nearly every jalapeno with stretch marks and sunburn has turned out to be much hotter than its more aesthetically pleasing counterparts, that's a lotta points of observation proving my hypothesis. 

Off to finish cooking tonight's Indian-inspired dinner with a healthy serving of cucumber, cilantro and extrahot jalapeno raita...

shinae


P.S. Do *NOT* rub your nose or eyes after handling a hot chili - no matter how wretched your springtime allergies - like I did last night even though I know so much better... :|

Sometimes Food Is Not Like Life...

The words have been blocked for the last month or so, my mental and emotional resources having been delegated to the task of achieving peace about a situation over which I have less control and more anxiety than I’d like…

This post has *NOTHING* to do with spaghetti,
but that's what I made for dinner last night.

One unintended blessing in divorced parenting is the release of liability over the ex’s personality or character by way of their parenting style, among other things. No more having to edit, defend, explain, soften, justify or repackage the ideas of someone who, as it turns out, doesn’t share your values about the things that really matter.

The flip side curse is the loss of influence over the environment in which your children live and the messages they receive while they’re not with you. This is not to say that I don’t recognize my flaws as a parent. But hopefully by this age, I have made some conscious and thoughtful choices about the legacy I want to leave my children, naturally believing those things and ideas I consciously choose are better than the ones I don’t.  And it’s not to say that the ex doesn’t also believe that his conscious choices, often at odds with my own, are superior to their alternatives.  If the tween could have met, I suppose we’d still be together.

But all choices in life are made to the exclusion of others.  And the most important ones seem, without fail, to come with a healthy serving of the kind of pain that comes with growth and good change. True, it’s painful in moments when I miss my kids. But the choice to seek a better and truer life, for myself, and ultimately a better and truer example of living, for my children, had to be made at the expense of being an everyday presence in their lives. 

And when I do feel that pang that comes with the realization of their absence, I remind myself that worthwhile decisions often come with a heavy and constant price, almost as if to remind us how precious the outcome. While I can no longer live under the same roof with my children every day, they can now witness a much more healthy relationship than the one that would have been their reality, and ultimately the model for their future relationships, had I gone back.

WTF does this have to do with food??? Nothing, really.  I could make some overwrought analogy between food and life in this instance, but it feels lower than cheap to trivialize the heartache that visits everyone, particularly the children, when a marriage of 11 years falls apart irreparably. But I write to let it pass through me, so I can look, think and move forward and get back to the business of not writing so much about my personal drama.

Soooo… Let’s just call this entry one of those odd little rosemary-lemon palate cleansing sorbets that comes in the middle of your six course meal so you, rather, * I *, can let go of the flavors of the last three courses and refresh myself for the next.

(And you doubted my ability to squeeze a feeble food analogy into this post…)


shinae