How to Cook Indian project - Dishes 4-6
This week, I wanted to make something with potatoes. Aloo Matar was a staple in my house growing up, so I sought out this recipe this week. To get some additional protein, I found another chicken recipe. And then to go with it all, I attempted my first chapati!
Starting from the upper left, and moving clockwise, I made the following dishes.
Aloo Matar (Potatoes and green peas in an onion-tomato gravy - page 230)
After making the first couple recipes I realized that either red onions are tiny in India or they are huge in the US. Either way, I decided I needed to cut down the number of red onions by half. That’s what I did here, only used 1 red onion, instead of two. For the potatoes, I used the Yukon Gold variety.
Making this recipe also included me making ginger paste and garlic paste. I followed the directions on page 12 of the cookbook, but in the end felt that effort was unnecessary.. I wonder if the reason is because the food processors I have, even my small 3 cup one, is still too big for the small amount of garlic and ginger used to make these pastes. Going forward, I think it will be easier to simply grate garlic and ginger and just mix in a few drops of water to create a paste. Maybe one day I’ll find a good wet-dry spice grinder, but haven’t found much available in the US so far.
The recipe turned out great! I was really happy with it and would happily make it again.
Hara Masala Murgh (Chicken in a green curry - pages 416-7)
Again, my lack of preparation came to bite me. The first step in the recipe is to create an almond paste, which entails soaking and peeling 35 almonds. I know there are easier ways I could have done this (for example, look for ready made almond paste, or buy already peeled almonds, or perhaps buy almond slivers and soak them), but as I wanted to learn how Indian food is made, I wanted to go through the steps, as they are described. It took a bit of time to peel 35 almonds, but I’m glad I did it. It just gives me further insights into the thought, time, and care people put into creating dishes in India. If you’re going to make this recipe, I suggest doing this step a day early, perhaps.
The recipe calls for 1.75 lbs of chicken. I used 2.75 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast, as I figured I just wanted more of it, but only ended up using 3 green chilies since I wanted the spice level to be manageable for my tastes. Finally, the recipe called for 1.5 cups of yogurt, but I felt like that was a bit too much and wonder if I should half it, if I were to make it again. Though, I’m not sure that I would end up making it again as I felt like it turned out ok, but not great.
Chapati (aka Roti, a basic Indian bread - pages 18-9)
Ok, if you know anything about Indian food, you’ll know that chapati is super common. We ate it with almost every Indian meal growing up. If the dish wasn’t eaten with rice, then it was eaten with chapati, and vice versa. I mention the pages here, but I actually didn’t use the recipe. This is one of the few recipes that my mom walked me through over the phone. (But I’m sure the recipe is great!) I sort of guessed at the ratio of flour to water and just kneaded it until it was the same consistency I remember my mom getting to, when I saw her making it growing up. Though, I’m not much of a baker, I strong dislike getting my hands sticky from making doughs in baking, so I used my KitchenAid to do the kneading.
I also learned that fresh flour makes a big difference! I had some older stone-ground wheat flour I had gotten in the past, and used that up, and none of those chapatis puffed up. But then I used this newer stone-ground pastry wheat flour and those turned out great! I still need to work on creating circles out of my chapatis, but this is a huge improvement already!
As I can’t just post the recipe from the book (I guess I don’t want to get in trouble over copyright) I am including links to similar recipes. That said, I didn’t make the linked recipes, so I can’t vouch for them. I’m only including them in case you want to make something similar, but don’t want to buy the book.
A Kapoor Aloo Matar recipe online
A Kapoor Chicken Hara Masala recipe online
There are a million roti/chapati recipes online. I’m not even going to link to one because I didn’t even use a recipe to make mine.