1. NO RECIPE IS EVER PERFECT!
My goal in writing this series of articles is to present a few well-chosen recipes for some delicious Indian dishes, while presenting some interesting discussion on related matters. In this article I will present a recipe for CHICKEN WITH HONEY LEMON SAUCE.
No recipe is ever perfect. A recipe is only a direction, and you need to pursue your own journey on your own understanding and strength. Even with the same recipe, the resultant dish will be different in texture, taste, fragrance, and appearance in the hands of different people. And Indian recipes need more fine tuning because our spices are varied and even a small change in quantity may result in something unexpected! The key is to continue to cook the same dish as often as possible until you are sure that you have really arrived at your own brand of the dish! Let us say that a recipe is langue (the underlying represenation), and the resultant actual dish following the recipe is parole, the actual manifestation, in Saussurean terms. A recipe is Language and its resultant dishes are its Dialects! There are social and geographical varieties of dishes just as we have social and geographical dialects of a language!
2. CHICKEN IN INDIA!
In the Indian sub-continent chicken dishes are greatly relished. Chicken Curry, Chicken Masala, Chicken Korma, and Chicken Biriyani are some of the most favorite items. Poultry industry in India is a big industry, and is growing bigger. There are even newspaper reports that India will receive massive packages of processed broilers from China soon! Money gained through corporate poultry farming is no more chicken feed!
With the introduction of chicken broilers, chicken meat is available everywhere in the country. "Country chicken" (birds that are fed only natural grains, etc.) have almost disappeared. They have become more expensive.
Some regions or towns in India have come to be known as Chicken Breeding Centers, where millions of birds are bred, and sold. Poultry farmers' co-ops are well coordinated, and through them both the customers and farmers derive much benefit.
3. COOKING AND EATING HABITS
Despite the strong and wide-spread growth of poultry farming and abundant chicken, our culinary habits relating to cooking chicken have remained the same for many decades. For example, even now people in many parts of the country cook their chicken without removing the skin.
It is important to remove as much fat as possible from your chicken pieces before you cook the chicken in any form. Chicken fat is difficult to remove, but with some patience you will be able to remove a major part of chicken fat. Let us not be fooled by our thoughts that chicken meat is lean meat that has no fat.
A special feature of Indian cooking is that chicken is usually cut into small pieces. However, remember not to cut the chicken into very small pieces, because, then, only bones will remain in your pan and your mouth!
4. CHICKEN PARTS AND FOLK BELIEFS!
Chicken liver is a delicacy and is cooked and served in restaurants and homes in India. Chicken liver cooked with curry spices is a very popular dish in North-Eastern Indian states such as Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, etc. Excessive and regular consumption of chicken liver will add only to your bad cholesterol, with disastrous consequences over the years. I have noticed people saying that eating chicken liver is good for your own liver! This folk medicine will result in harmful consequences.
It is reported that some leaders in South India, for example, Kamaraj and E. V. R. Periyar, ate only chicken dishes every day. People have claimed that these leaders had good health because of their preference for chicken dishes. This, again, is folk belief.
People in South India were disinclined to eat 'country' roosters, because it was believed that eating rooster's flesh would lead to quarrel between the members of the family! Roosters were seen to be always fighting with one another, and this tendency to fight or quarrel would be transmitted, if we eat roosters, so ran the argument. Fortunately, these days we get mostly the broilers. It was also believed that rooster meat was less tasty.
There were many chicken thieves in the villages in the past, because it was easy to catch hens and roosters and spirit them away without anyone noticing this dastardly act! Chicken thieves were severely dealt with in the villages in the past. It is reported in some journals that these petty thieves would carry wet cloth ready in hand, and would throw the wet towel on the birds. The birds would be thus shocked and would stop cackling. That would help the thief to make a safe exit from the crime scene with his or her booty!
5. CHICKEN FEATHERS AND HUMAN CLOTHES
It is not always easy to identify the plump and tender chicken, but the vendors have a fine language to describe what they sell, and they would entice you to touch and feel the tenderness of the dressed bird they sell! As if touch will reveal everything! Chicken with feathers is sold for a lesser price, compared to the "dressed" chicken.
Chicken feathers and our clothes have certain diametrically opposite functions to perform. We carefully choose our clothes to wear so that our excessive, unwanted, and socially disapproved fat is hidden and carefully warped into an elegant body profile! On the other hand, chicken feathers may cleverly hide the lean and mean underneath body of a hen or rooster! It is amazing to note that removing the feathers is to dress the chicken, whereas removing our clothes is to undress our real figure! Chicken feathers help a hen or rooster to hide its lean body, and our clothes may help us to hide our excessive weight.
Let us cook something new now!
6. CHICKEN WITH HONEY LEMON SAUCE
INGREDIENTS
Chicken - 1
Remove the skin.
Remove the fat as much as possible.
Cut the chicken into into small pieces. Fleshy parts are better for the dish under discussion.
In order to make the batter, use the following:
Corn flour - 3 table spoons.
All purpose flour - 2 table spoons.
Egg - 1 Beat the egg well.
Mix together all the ingredients.
Add the chicken pieces, and also add salt and pepper to taste.
Let it stand for one hour.
Then deep fry the chicken pieces, drain and keep aside.
Ingredients for the gravy:
Ginger and garlic paste - 1 teaspoon.
Onion - 1 (thinly sliced)
Chicken stock - 1/2 cup
Salt and Pepper to your taste.
Lemon juice - 1 cup
Honey - 2 table spoons.
Oil - 2 table spoons.
Corn flour - 1 tea spoon.
Make these ingredients into a paste.
METHOD
Heat the oil in a pan, add the sliced onion and sauté
till it is transparent.
Add the ginger and garlic paste
and saute.
Now, add the chicken stock, lemon juice and
honey along with the pepper and salt.
Bring it to a boil.
Add the corn flour mixture.
Cook the sauce till it thickens, and add the fried chicken pieces.
Can be served with rice.
Serve it hot, and enjoy it with thanksgiving for all the blessings you've received so far.