Topic: PanPot's Ashoka Precooked Chicken

[Peripatetic Phil]

Very very happy to get back on topic, CA : pax nobiscum 

[976bar]

Is that now Deuce or Truce? I've lost track.....  lol

[Peripatetic Phil]

Update : well, I have just finished cooking the chicken, and decided to cook it in a closed casserole dish so as not to risk it going dry; the resulting chicken is truly superb, with a flavour reminiscent of Chicken Piri-Piri (the original Madascar version, not the anglicised Nando's version) but of course not as suicidally hot.  I omitted the tomato paste and increased the chilli content to two teaspoons, but otherwise made no changes at all. 

And now to the finished dish.  This was KD1/PT, with the spicing reduced to take account of the extra spices used at the pre-cooked stage and the salt reduced in the light of comments by Spadge.  To 1 litre base, 2 teaspoons Bassar Curry Masala, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin, 3/4 teaspoon fenugreek, 1/4 teaspoon chat masala.  The result was OK, but by no means the best curry I have ever made.  With the benefit of hindsight, increasing the ground chillies in the marinade from 1 to 2 teaspoons was probably a mistake : as a result, the chicken was actually hotter than the sauce, which is not BIR-normal in my experience.  Next time I will not increase the chilli content in the marinade, and will use my normal level of spicing for the final dish : I hope that this will result in a better balance of flavour and heat between chicken and sauce.

** Phil.

[uclown2002]

Posted by PanPot an moved to here by CA

Ingredients:

- Diced Chicken 1kg
- Garlic/Ginger Paste 1 1/2 tbs (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3915.msg35417#msg35417)
- Salt 1 tsp
- Turmeric 1 tsp
- Red Chili Powder (Deggi Mirch) to taste 1 tsp
- Tomato Paste 1 tbs

Method:

- Mix by hand
- Add a little oil
- Gently mix again
- Marinate for 4 hours in the fridge
- Pre cook in oven at 150 degrees for 25 minutes (cooking from raw produces succulent chicken dishes)

Is the chicken cooked in the marinade?

Anyone still using this method to pre-cook?

Dave

[Ramirez]

The chicken is cooked in the marinade, but there is very little of it anyway, as it's quite thick. The chicken just ends up being lightly coated in the marinade.

I still use this method with the Ashoka recipes, which I rate as some of the best on the site.

[ELW]

As Ramirez said, it's very thick & is more  like a paste than a marinade & very garlicky(60/40). I tend to now use only 1tbls maximum Gg for 1 kg of chicken especially if I'm making the full Ashoka kit. There is more garlic in the dishes, base & onion paste which fairly mounts up. It tastes great from the oven

Regards
ELW

[Peripatetic Phil]

Ingredients:

- Diced Chicken 1kg
- Garlic/Ginger Paste 1 1/2 tbs (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3915.msg35417#msg35417)
- Salt 1 tsp
- Turmeric 1 tsp
- Red Chili Powder (Deggi Mirch) to taste 1 tsp
- Tomato Paste 1 tbs

Method:

- Mix by hand
- Add a little oil
- Gently mix again
- Marinate for 4 hours in the fridge
- Pre cook in oven at 150 degrees for 25 minutes (cooking from raw produces succulent chicken dishes)

Trying this today for the first time (scaled 1/3); does anyone have any idea what Panpot meant by "cooking from raw produces succulent chicken dishes", given that the whole method is predicated on pre-cooking in the oven rather than cooking from raw ?

** Phil.

[Stephen Lindsay]

Phil

I think it's just the way he has written it and what he refers to is the whole process, i.e. marination followed by oven cooking, then adding to the curry sauce.

Steve

[Naga]

I would venture to suggest that cooking chicken at 150C/Gas Mark 2 for 25 minutes will leave it somewhat underdone and, hence, retain a lot of its juices for the main event when it's heated and lightly cooked in the base gravy. But, it wouldn't be raw! If only PanPot posted these days.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Thank you both.  Given that I am cooking 1/3kg tonight, I am disinclined to give it the full 25 minutes; my sauce is recycled from numerous previous curries, so it will not get much cooking in the sauce, and I am therefore inclined to give it 15 minutes in the oven.  I far prefer my chicken on the underdone side, so I prefer to err in the direction of undercooking rather than over.

Update : well, the end results were distinctly average.  15 minutes was, I think, 5 minutes too long for 1/3 kg, and obviously putting it in recycled curry sauce was not going to display its qualities at their best.  It did indeed taste delicious straight from the baking tray.  Tomorrow the remaining 5 pieces will be cooked in a fresh curry sauce; we'll see what difference that makes.

** Phil.