Saturday, March 31, 2012

Chicken Pakoda



Makes 20-30 ,Stage one: Pre cook the chicken.

Ingredients:
4 Chicken breasts,2 tsp Turmeric,4 tbsp (or ice cube block) of reserved green curry sauce.,4 tbsp ghee

Method:
Slice the chicken into small slivers.
Heat the ghee and gently fry the turmeric and the green curry sauce over a medium heat for 5 minutes or so.
Add the chicken and stir well to get it all coated. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until tender. Drain and put to one side.
Stage two. Make the Pakoras

Ingredients:

1 good sized onion., 8 oz (225g) gram flour. ,½ tsp chilli powder. ,1 tsp turmeric,1 tsp salt.
½ tsp of each of the following. Fennel seeds, Black Cumin seeds, Onion seeds and Ajwain seeds.

Method:
Sieve the gram flour into a bowl and then add the chilli powder, turmeric and salt.
Dry roast the remaining ingredients for 30 seconds or so until they just begin to smoke. (See chef's tip at the bottom of the page).
Grind these to a fine powder in a coffee mill or pestle and mortar. Add to the gram flour and mix thoroughly.
Add the chicken Now GENTLY add water until the mixture is just too stiff to drip off a spoon. Remember to get the whole lot blended evenly before adding more water. If you do over do it with the water just add a bit more gram flour.

Cooking:
Heat some vegetable oil in a wok or deep fat fryer (180°C) Test the temperature with a small amount of the mixture, it should sizzle and rise to the surface.
Using 2 teaspoons scoop blobs of the mixture into the hot oil. Initially it sticks to the bottom so try and get 9 or 10 blobs in then give it a gentle stir and the pakoras will float to the surface. Continue cooking for about 5 mins. Don't rush them or the outside will be cooked and the inside still too doughy. This can also happen if the blobs are to big or the fat is too hot. Have a play and you'll soon get the right combination.
Ideally you should cook these just before eating as they don't keep too well and certainly not over night.

CHEFS TIP
Dry roasting is easy so long as you don't over do the heat. I use a large cast iron pan with no oil (dry roast remember). Just wizz the spices around until they begin to colour and release their wonderful aromas

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...