Sunday, December 2, 2012

Reviving Old Dishes

কেচাপ দিয়ে মুরগী

Chicken Ketchup Curry


My first attempt at the curry

This dish is one of my earliest food memories. When I was about four, we lived in Hong Kong, and I remember one day mom made this chicken with ketchup combo so that we'd eat something a little different. Mom used to experiment with food quite a lot back in those days, and unfortunately I get the feeling she doesn't quite have that kind of time any more. This dish actually disappeared from our table almost a decade ago, but I called her up and pestered her for the recipe. I've since made it a few times and served it to other people, and the feedback has been positive. A Bangladeshi friend did mention though that quite a lot of Bangladeshi families have versions of this dish - so maybe it wasn't as original as I thought!



Ingredients
  • 1.00 onion
  • 1.50 tablespoon of garlic paste
  • 1.50 tablespoon of ginger paste
  • 6 to 7 cardamoms
  • 4 to 5 2.00 cm cinnamon sticks
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste (I'd use 1.50 tablespoons because I love black pepper)
  • Chilli powder, to taste
  • 1.00 kg of chicken on the bone, cut into appropriate pieces
  • 7 to 8 pieces of fresh green chilli
  • 2.00 tablespoons of tomato ketchup
  • Salt, to taste

    Method
        • Heat some oil in a pot, chop up the onions and fry them for a few minutes on medium heat until they soften and go translucent. Transfer the onions to a bowl and set aside. 
        • In the same pot add the ginger paste, garlic paste and chilli powder and fry for 5 to 6 minutes, adding a little boiling water to the mixture now and again when it starts drying out.

        The garlic, ginger and chilli mixture

        • Add the chicken to the spice mixture along with cinnamon sticks, cardamoms, black pepper powder and salt, stirring to mix everything together thoroughly. 

        I didn't cook chicken on the bone when I took
        these photos. See the additional info section 
        for changes to the method


        • Turn the heat down to medium low and cook the dish uncovered for 15 minutes. When it starts to dry out, add 2 cups of boiling water to the pot.

        The dish gets very dry, hence the water added at this step


        • Turn the heat down low and partially cover the pot and cook for a further 30 minutes, adding the onions previously set aside at the 15 minute mark.
        • After that add the fresh chilli and continue the cooking for anther 5 to 6 minutes.
        • Finally add the tomato ketchup and keep the dish on heat for another 5 to 6 minutes.

        The dish as its almost done,
        though I've let it dry out a little too much

        Additional Info
        • Spice amounts get tricky when not all spices have the same strength. I've realised that a lot of spices bought from supermarkets are pretty pathetic. So the amounts specified above aren't always enough. Check how the dish smells as your cooking it - if you only smell cooking chicken and not fragrant spices, add more cinnamon, cardamom and black pepper little by little till you do.
        • If you're cooking chicken breast as opposed to chicken on the bone, reduce the long 30 minute cooking step to 20 minutes, and reduce the amount of ketchup to 1.50 tablespoons. 

                    2 comments:

                    1. Well, I believe my mother had a similar 'original' recipe. Though clearly it wasn't as original as I'd assumed. Still good to see online since I've attempted to make this a few times with less than stellar reaults

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                      Replies
                      1. I've since found out that experimenting with "new" ingredients like ketchup was an early 90's thing - that's probably where this dish comes from!

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