Earlier this week when Julia (who’s now two and a half) came home from her dance class, this dish was bubbling away on the stove. After my hug and kiss, she went straight to the kitchen and asked, “What are you cooking, Papa? Is it for me?”
The aroma from this dish beckons everyone to the kitchen. Judging only from the list of ingredients, it’s a pretty standard Indian chicken “curry” –its flavor is built around the classic fresh and dry trios of onions, ginger and garlic and coriander, cumin and turmeric. It’s just a bit of technique that separates it from the crowd: you fry half of the onions to a deep rich brown before incorporating them into the sauce. It’s a simple step, but the result is an extraordinarily deep, warm and satisfying aroma and flavor. As David put it, “It’s like the chicken stew my mother used to make when I was a kid –if I had grown up in Delhi instead of New Orleans.”
This dish is special enough for guests, but quick enough for a week night too. There’s very little prep — just a bit of onion chopping and slicing, which a food processor can help with– and the chicken isn’t browned before stewing, which saves time and spattered shirts. From a cold start, you can have dinner on the table in about an hour, with about 25 minutes of active cooking time.
Recipe
(adapted from Chicken in a Fried Onion Sauce from Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey, serves 4)
Ingredients
2 1/2 (1 kg) chicken parts, skinned.
4 medium onions, peeled
1 1/2 (4cm) cube of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled
7 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons plain yoghurt
2 1/2 cups (570 ml) water
2 medium tomatoes, chopped finely (fresh or canned)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
chopped cilantro or parsley
Instructions
1. Coarsely chop half of the onions. Cut the other half in two lengthwise and then slice into thin half rounds.
2. Put the chopped onions, the garlic and the ginger into a blender. Blend to a paste. (You will probably need to pause now and then and mix the contents of the blender with a spatula to accomplish this. For obvious reasons, avoid doing while the blender is running.) Set aside.
3. Warm the oil in a large saute pan or deep skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced onion and fry, stirring frequently, until the onions are a deep brown color. Take the pan off the heat, and use a slotted spoon to remove the onions from the pan, pressing down on the slotted spoon with another spoon to squeeze out as much oil into the pan as possible. Set your lovely, fragrant fried onions aside and try not to eat too many of them before they go back in the dish.
4. With the pan still off the heat, add the paste. (Look away as you do this in case the oil is still hot enough to splatter.) Put the pan back on the heat and stir and fry the paste until it is light brown in color and its fragrance mellows, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the coriander, cumin, turmeric and cayenne and stir. Then add the yoghurt about one tablespoon at a time, stirring to incorporate each addition.
6. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and toss them around a bit to roughly coat them with the paste.
7. Add the water, tomatoes and salt. Stir to mix, and bring to a simmer. Then cover, turn the heat to low and cook for about 25 minutes.
8. Sprinkle in the garam masala and the fried onions. Stir to mix and cook, uncovered, for about 8-10 minutes more until the sauce is nicely thickened and the chicken is tender. Taste and add salt, if necessary.
Serve with lots of the delicious sauce with plain rice or potatoes and a green vegetable or salad for a deeply satisfying lunch or dinner. The dish also keeps well in the refrigerator for several days — just reheat on the stove when you’re ready to eat.
