CHICKEN SMACKDOWN

 GOTCHA! 

    

You’ve been chasing around and around after that free-running chicken and, just when you think you’ve got it, away it goes into the air.  It can’t fly far but just far enough. 

  

So Mom figured she’d save herself that kind of aggravation by grabbing a roosting chicken during the night.  Triumphantly, she stepped out of the henhouse into the moonlight . . . and nearly got clobbered by a baseball bat. 

Dad had sprung out of bed when he heard squawks coming from the henhouse.

Dad, late 1950s, henhouse in the background

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CHICKEN KORMA

3 lbs chicken pieces:  marinate for 2 hours or more in:

1 ½ cups yogurt

1 tbsp ground coriander

½ tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

1 tsp black pepper

Then:

½  pound onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

15 grams fresh ginger root:  peeled and finely chopped

4 cardamom pods

4 cloves

2 inch stick cinnamon

2 tbsp butter

½ tsp salt

1.  Melt butter over low heat.   Add  onion, garlic, ginger, whole cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon.  Cook over slow heat for 6 minutes.  Do not let the onions brown.
2. Add chicken with marinade.  Let simmer for one hour.
3. Add salt to taste.

  

·         If you cook the chicken early in the day, you can reheat it in the oven with the Spinach Potatoes for 20 to 30 minutes after your guests arrive.

·         This chicken is hot so you will want to serve cooling raita.

·         No Indian dinner is complete without a chutney.  This one is fantastic:

CORIANDER CHUTNEY

based on Mary Atwood’s recipe in A Taste of India

1 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 or 2 small fresh green chilies with seeds, finely chopped

¼ tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

¼ tsp sugar

Blend all ingredients in a food processor.