Indian Chicken Tidbits

From my friend Maria: This is my boyfriend's concoction. He grew up in India and claims he can’t cook, but every dish he’s made so far has been delicious. They’re all what he terms “experiments.” This one came about totally by accident when he was making a chicken dish and didn’t want to wait until the meal was done for a snack, so he took little bits of chicken from the whole and fried them separately. Hence the name.

All the spices in this recipe are commonly available in any Indian grocery. As a side note, getting your spices there is much less expensive than buying pre-packaged American style spices in your local grocery store. So it’s worth the special trip to pick them up if you have one in your neighborhood. And if you don’t, you can get away without the garlic and ginger paste. The chicken masala is important though, so try to at least find some garam masala if you can’t find the chicken version.

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 lbs chicken breast meat, cut into very tiny pieces (shouldn’t be thick)
  • ½ teaspoon of Turmeric
  • ¼ cup of Buttermilk
  • Oil (preferably not plain vegetable oil—but olive oil will do)
  • Several large onions chopped into small pieces.  Vidalia or other sweet onions work well
  • Red chili powder* (As desired but not much, it’s very hot)
  • 1 teaspoon of Garlic and ginger paste (optional)
  • Chicken Masala (As desired)
  • Salt  (As desired)
  • Few drops lemon juice

*It’s important to note that Indian red chili powder as used in this recipe is not the sort of chili powder you’d put in chili con carne. It’s a fine red powder, and while my package doesn’t say much, I believe it’s the powder version of red pepper flakes.

Method

  1. Marinate the chicken in a large bowl with a capful of oil, a sprinkling of turmeric, 1-2 spoons chicken masala, a splash of buttermilk, a spoon  of garlic & ginger paste, a few drops fresh lemon juice, and a tiny dash of red chili powder. Mix well with your hands to coat and set aside for thirty minutes.
  2. If you're using onions, add a good amount of high quality oil to a warmed, deep frying pan. Heat the oil on low to medium low for a minute or two before adding onions. Cook onions slowly over low heat. The idea is to get them translucent but never to brown them. If any get crispy fish them out and discard. You’re going to be cooking these onions for at least twenty minutes or so. Add a bit (tap the container two or three times over the pan) of turmeric and masala to the onions for color. They’ll turn a beautiful golden yellow. You can add a tiny bit of red chili powder now if you want.
  3. Once the onions are soft and translucent you can add the chicken, again cooking slowly over a low to medium low heat. You will never brown this chicken, it will just get soft and cook down. Add spices to your tastes as you go. My boyfriend calls this “repairing.” As a rule, you’ll use much more chicken masala powder than red chili, and you won’t use the turmeric again during cooking, it’s mainly for color and to remove the “meat” smell from the chicken during the marinating phase. There’s no hard and fast way to know when it’s done, but I would guess once you add the chicken you’ll cook for another half an hour or so. Make sure the heat is low, or else you’ll dry out the very small pieces of chicken. In the end it will be soft and moist and deliciously spicy.

I like to eat this dish with Indian “salad,” which is slices of good fresh tomato, chunks of onion, and lemon wedges (which get squeezed over the chicken) set out on a plate. But that’s just me. My boyfriend the actual Indian person in the household tells me that this dish is just an appetizer, and doesn’t deserve anything as fancy as salad to go along with it. But you could’ve fooled me. I love this. It’s my current favorite dinner.

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