Curry Recipes Online
Supplementary Recipes (Curry Powders, Curry Paste, Restaurant Spice Mixes) => Supplementary Recipes Chat => Topic started by: Muttley on January 11, 2005, 11:59 AM
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A while back I was thinking about the chicken pieces you get in BIR's nowadays (at least down here in the South, it's almost invariably chicken breast), and I realised, that they do not fry the meat at all.
When you get a BIR chicken dish, you can quite clearly see the shape of the chicken as it has been cut from a breast fillet. If you fry one of those, the shape of the piece of meat will change as the fibres tighten, no matter how gently you do it.
I tried this the next time I made a dish with a sauce. Just cut? the chicken into pieces and added them, uncooked, to a very, very gently simmering sauce.
The result was very tender chicken with exactly the texture you get in a BIR. This is one aspect of BIR cooking that I think it is well worth emulating.
Of course, chicken breast is not the best flavoured meat, so it's probably better not to use it exclusively.
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That Sounds similar to Kris Dhillion's method:
How to Prepare the Chicken
This is the basic method of preparation which is common to most recipes in this chapter.
Preparation and cooking time: 25 minutes.
For 6-8 persons you will require:
5 large chicken breasts (approx 2lb or 900g with skin and bone removed)
6 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 tablespoon of the reserved uncooked curry sauce.
With a sharp knife remove all fat and membranes from the chicken portions and cut each into eight equal sized pieces. Wash and drain.
Place the remaining ingredients into a large saucepan and mix well.
Cook on medium heat, stirring continuously until the sauce starts to darken in colour (approx 4-5 minutes).
Add chicken and stir until all the pieces are well coated with the sauce.
Turn down the heat and continue cooking with the lid on for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is tender, stirring frequently.
Remove chicken pieces (leaving behind the sediment) and place them in a clean container. The cooked chicken can now be used immediately for many of the chicken curries or cooled and refrigerated for up to four days.
Freezing. Freeze for up to 2 months.
cK
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That's interesting.
So in a resturant, they'd have a load of cooked chicken etc, and would just need to takes some basic sauce, add any extra vegetables (already cooked), the finishing spices and some chicken, and let the chicken warm through.
It's becoming clearer and clearer how they manage the almost miraculous range of dishes so quickly from (often) such small kitchens.
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Each dish will take 5-10 minutes for the chef to cook from start to finish, its all done with base sauce and pre cooked ingredients
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Having successfully gained entry to the kitchen of my local Takeaway I can tell you that they cook the chicken in a sauce very similar to the basic sauce. Loads of oil, onions, garam masala, turmeric & cinnamon sticks. This is all stored in a container then chicken removed to add to pan. I will try and find more details.
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A further thought on this.
After I started cooking the chicken by just simmering it very gently in the final sauce, I found the chickenwas much closer to BIR style.
I wonder, though, do they cook the breasts (which they now seem to use exclusively) in one piece and then cut them up?
I find the definition of the pieces in a BIR much sharper than the results I get by simmering cut pieces. Doesn't make any difference to the taste or texture, but I think getting the appearance just right is quite important to getiing that 'resturaunt' experience with the dish.
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In 3 of my local take-away`s the chicken pieces in the tindaloo are a hell of a lot hotter than the actual gravy,does any one else have this ? ,i assume they are put in a hot chili marinade ,anyone got any ideas ???
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Chicken- one restraunt up here places the chicken breasts in a large pot of vinegar. As i hope you all know chicken is a very perishable meat, it may contain salmonella, e.coli etc so by placing it in vinegar it creates an almost pickling effect, the acid of the vineagr reduces the water availabilty whihc cannot be utilised by microorganisms. The vinegar also softens the meat and gives an incredible soft moist texture to it. I urge you to try it with a few chicken breasts, just soak them for say 4-8 hours or so? Let me know what u think. I love the result.
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Thats very interesting, how do you cook them after they have been soaked in vinegar?
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Mark- you just use the chicken as you would normally, i.e depending on the dish chop into chunks and place in curry sauce to cook, the texture it has is lovely. So just treat it as raw chicken and cook accordingly.
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All chicken I use is pre cooked so I presume I would soak in vinegar first and then just pre cook as normal?
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Hi All
I spent many an hour in my local take away after i repaired their Tandoor and made good friends.
I was surprised that they used frozen whole chickens that they then skinned and took the meat of the carcass they then as you would expect use the bones to make a SIMPLE STOCK.
I am no expert but i suggest the following.
When the chicken is frozen the moisture in the cells expands as ice and ruptures the cells walls making the cells bigger. When its defrosted thses take on marinades and flavourings far better than fresh chicken, there is also the cost factor when in business.
The chicken was then cut up and put in a very large pan of water with plenty of tumeric added brought just to below boiling point and then simmered for 10 mins.
All of the impurities will be drawn out of the chicken and this will be seen in the froth that develops on the water.
strain and rinse with plenty of cold water to cool asap.
You could then use this chiken in most dishes and it is very moist.
This chicken would then be used in for example kormas etc.
If dishes were required with tandoori chicken then this was not the method used they rely totally on the marinade of spices etc to cleanse and tenderise the meat.
I must admit that i use fresh chicken breasts and that this pre cooking ensures very moist and clean tasting chicken
Regards Gary
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Gary,
quite a timely post. i made UB pathia this week which was very good. i followed the link in the recipe to cook the chicken
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,2525.0.html (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,2525.0.html)
i normally only make tikka which is great if u plan ahead like i normally do but not if u need pre cooked chicken at short notice.
having followed UB's base chicken recipe i like very much the taste but found the chicken very tough.
i think i'm going to try the vinegar next and then simmer for the 10 mins u suggest.
in terms of the chicken stock did u mean that they used this to broil the chicken in and not water?
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i tried the vinegar (8hr marinade) but found it overpowered and probably over cooked it. i think the simmer for 10 mins will be my next go.
i'm using pataks tikka paste with 1 tbsp of tandoori masala and 4 tbsp of yogurt as a quick mid week fix to CA's real mccoy. it works well.
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going to have to take back the comment on the pataks - made tikka for the 2nd time and got 2 no's from the family compared to the pre cooked chicken as follows:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,602.msg5563.html#msg5563 (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,602.msg5563.html#msg5563)
this got 3 yes's out of 3.
it's not as good by any means as CA's tikka but for a mid week meal or when times short it fits the bill well.
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i like to add chicken when the base goes in during mains cooking so i need to pre cook it.
after a few goes i've settled on using the ashoka chicken marinade http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3215.0;topicseen
(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3215.0;topicseen)
for the cooking i put the chicken in a pan, add water (1/2 to 3/4 covered), bring to simmer quickly (high heat), simmer 5 mins max, allow to cool in the water.
ps don't confuse - this is not for tikka
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I'm starting to use my oven a heck load more of late. I salt/Pepper/Spice on all sides. Make a yogurt marinade from the rest and let it sit for a few hours.
Bang it in the oven on about 320 for as long as it needs to precook. It's basically the same process as cooking raw chicken with onions and oil. It coats it allowing the juices to remain within, making it tender.
I'll try the Pan/onion/oil/Spice thing a little more however. Maybe I didn't get it right first time?