Naan & Curry

Indian food is one of the tastiest things ever and also one of the few things my picky boyfriend will eat when I cook. Actually, I lie, he's getting more adventurous. But I am confident that my curry will always win him over. This past week I bought a lot of chicken from Safeway because it's been on sale ($1.99 a pound), so I had to stock up as I usually do when the chicken is on sale. Now to decide what to cook with the other chicken I have... But I have a bit to decide because I still have leftover curry out the wazoo. Anyway, this isn't all about curry. I also decided to try my hand at some naan. The cooking method isn't the traditional way to make naan. I've made it on a grill before and it tasted delicious, but I didn't have the time today to set up the grill for the task. So I found a recipe that used the oven and I doctored it slightly. While my naan is definately puffier than the naan you'd find in an Indian restaurant, it still tasted the same and that boyfriend of mine at 5 of the 6 pieces.

Naan Recipe

Ingredients

2 tablespoons warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup plain yogurt, room temperature
4 tablespoons melted butter
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon poppy seeds

Recipe

1. Put warm water in a small bowl, add sugar and yeast and stir until dissolved. Set aside for 5-10 minutes or until it foams.

2. Blend in the warm milk, yogurt and melted margarine. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder and poppy seeds. Pour in the yeast/milk mixture all at once and work it into the flour, using your hands. Continue mixing, adding flour or water as needed, until the mixture leaves the sides of the bowl.

3. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with a damp cloth and let stand in a warm place to rise for about 4 hours or until doubled in volume.

4. Preheat oven to 550 degrees F (285 degrees C) or your oven's highest setting and set a rack in the lower third of the oven. Place a large pizza pan or iron griddle on the rack and preheat. Also preheat the broiler.

5. Punch the dough down and knead briefly. Divide into six pieces and shape them into balls. Place them on an oiled plate and cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Let balls rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Roll out and stretch each ball until it is about 10 inches long and 5 inches wide. Remove the pizza pan from the oven, brush with oil and place one of pieces of bread on it.

6. Bake at 550 degrees F (285 degrees C) for about 4 to 5 minutes until bread is puffed and has brown spots, then transfer to a wire rack, returning pizza pan to oven to keep hot. Place bread under broiler until 'charcoal' dots appear on the surface. Wrap finished bread in a towel while baking the remaining loaves. (If your pizza pan is big enough, try baking two loaves at the time.)

NOTES: I doctored the recipe by rubbing the naan with melted butter and garlic prior to putting it in the oven. While the taste wasn't extreme, there was a slight hint of garlic on the bread. Next time I think I'm going to add minced garlic to the actual dough.

Of course, I didn't just make naan like I mentioned already. I also made my foil proof curry that's done me right in the past. Oh man, I'm stuffed right now after eating this massive amount of food (served over Basmati rice). Yum, I can taste it again.

Curry Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast

2 lb. onions

1 lb. tomatoes

1 sq. inch ginger

4 cloves garlic

2 tsp. tumeric

2 tsp. coriander

2 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. crushed red pepper (more or less to taste)

Salt to taste

4 tsp. cooking oil

Recipe

Saute finely diced onions, ginger and garlic on high heat, stirring constantly until light brown. Reduce heat to low, add finely diced tomatoes. Stir well, cook for 5-10 minutes. Add and stir in all spices in order above one at a time. Add 1 inch cubes of chicken. Cook 30-45 minutes on low/medium heat, stirring periodically.

bakebakebake: My Take On Indian Food

On livejournal I'm part of a community called bakebakebake. It's actually what prompted me to get back in the kitchen again, despite being busy with school work and whatnot. And when I got my mixer for Christmas, it was useful for making delights I could take pictures of and put online. One of the things that this community has is monthly themes. This month's theme was red because of 4th of July and whatnot. I've been stumped all month on what to make. Of course, cupcakes are easy, red velvet cake, something with strawberries. It was all so cliche though and I wanted to do something that I didn't think anyone else would be doing.

So two days ago it hit me: tandoori chicken! So I found a recipe from India Curry Recipes. When I was younger my family had these friends from India, and the lady, Eva, made and sold packets of spice mixtures for many different foods, tandoori chicken, curried rice, etc. Growing up whenever my mom would make tandoori chicken I'd get so excited for the red chicken, as I called it. It was one of those treats that I didn't get very often, because to make it takes more than a day, as the chicken needs to marinate. So being a working mom, making dishes that took lots of prep time didn't happen often.

Now, comes the frustration of making this dish. When I went to the grocery store yesterday to collect the spices I needed to make the tandoori I couldn't find the garam masala anywhere. Oh woe me, Safeway had sold out. So instead I got some curry spice and decided to deviate from tandoori chicken and make some chicken replacing the garam masala with curry powder. Of course, this makes the chicken taste different than had I used the garam masala (and why I can't call this tandoori chicken). But it still has the red tint (haha, food coloring?) that made the red chicken so special to me growing up.

Indian Spiced Chicken

Ingredients
2 pounds of chicken, cut into pieces
1 tsp salt
1 lemon, juiced
1 1/4 cups plain yogurt
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp grated resh ginger root
2 tsp curry
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp yellow food coloring
1 tsp red food coloring

Directions
1. Cut slits into chicken pieces lengthwise.2. Place in a shallow dish, sprinkle both sides of chicken with salt and lemon juice. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, combine yogurt, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne pepper. Mix until smoot. Stir in food coloring. Spread yogurt mixture over chicken. Cover and refrigerate over night.
4. Preheat oven to 450. Place chicken in a baking dish and bake 25 to 30 minutes (or until done).

And then I also made spiced potatoes and rice to go along with the meal. I made the rice as one normally makes rice, however, in the water I added some shakes of garlic salt and curry powder.

For the potatoes I cut them up into bite size pieces. In a skillet I melted some butter and added some water. I seasoned them with curry powder and paprika. I put the potatoes in and when boiling, I brought the heat down and covered them up and cooked until soft.

WHB: Chunky Chicken Cacciatore

Being that I'm still completely new to this world of blogging, I wanted to do something that could get me in touch with some other food bloggers - so I figured I should participate in a round-up! As I was browsing around internet land last week I found the WHB,or the Weekend Herb Blogging. I decided I would pick one recipe this week to fit this challenge. Of course, that required some thinking about what exactly I wanted to make - like I've been saying, since I'm moving I'm really trying my best to avoid buying a lot of new food (especially since one of our friends moved out of his house and left a TON of food in our refrigerator and freezer so he wouldn't have to move it). After some careful consideration I decided I would make chicken cacciatore, from a recipe I found on grouprecipes.com. All I needed to buy were the peppers and onions, with the rest of food waiting to be eaten in my pantry and fridge. And I am quite aware this meal just looks like mush, but it tasted good and while I do think presentation matters, flavor is definately more important to me. And after an hour and a half of cooking, I was just too hungry to care.

Considering the huge issue with the salmonella tainted tomatoes that has caused a huge problem as of late, I decided I would of course make a dish featuring tomatoes. However, I did use canned-stewed tomatoes, as that's what the recipe called for (and hey, I like to play it safe too). But I figured it would make a good post, with the issue on tomatoes and all. Apparently 228 have become ill from tomatoes. For some tips on safety in eating tomatoes, an article in the San Francisco Gate indicates the following:



On the do-not-eat list are raw red plum, red Roma or red round tomatoes, unless they were grown in specific states or countries that the FDA has cleared because they were not harvesting when the outbreak began or were not selling their tomatoes in places where people got sick.


Also safe are grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached. That is not because there is anything biologically safer about those with a vine but because the sick have assured investigators that is not the kind of tomato they ate.

I surely hope that the current tomato problem ends, because not getting tomatoes on my sandwiches at delis is quite upsetting. Though I assume getting food poisoning from a fruit would be the worse alternative.

For more information on WHB check out the rules here. To see other entries for WHB for the week of the 16th-22nd check out Joanna's Food after the weekend and see what other yummies people came up with!

Chunky Chicken Cacciatore (serves 4)

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1-1/2 to 2-inch pieces)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 (14.5 oz) cans strewed tomatoes
3/4 tbsp light brown sugar

Directions

1. In a small bowl comine, flour, oregano, basil, paprika, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper.
2. In a large skilet heat olive oil an cook chicken until sides are lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
3. Remove chicken and set aside; add to skillet onion, peppers, garlic, and 1 tbsp oil. Saute 10-15 minutes, until tender.
4. Sprinkle with flour/spice mix while cooking. Add tomates with the juice and stir until bubbly.
5. Add brown sugar, continue to stir, add chicken to mixture. Cook 10-15 minutes on low heat.