CHICKEN-YOGURT(M)        USENET Cookbook        CHICKEN-YOGURT(M)

YOGURT CHICKEN

     CHICKEN-YOGURT - An Indian-style chicken dish with yogurt
     and red pepper

     This fail-safe recipe yields a delicious Indian-style
     chicken dish. Serve it with rice and you have a meal. It
     makes wonderful leftovers-in fact, it tastes much better as
     leftovers.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4)
     1         frying chicken
     1/4 cup   vegetable oil
     3         medium onions
     2         garlic cloves
     1 tsp     cayenne (red pepper)
     1 Tbsp    coriander (or less to taste)
     2 tsp     masala seasoning (see note)
     2 cups    plain yogurt
     1/4 cup   clarified butter
     2 tsp     salt (or less to taste)

PROCEDURE
          (1)  First prepare the sauce: Slice or chop the onions.
               Using a large heavy frypan that has a lid, sauté
               the onions in the oil. When they are translucent
               and beginning to brown, add the garlic. When its
               moisture evaporates, add the cayenne, coriander,
               and masala seasoning.  Add the yogurt. Lower heat
               and simmer 7 minutes, partly covered. Remove from
               heat.

          (2)  Cut the chicken into chunks. If you are feeling
               decadent, then remove the bones from the chicken
               to make this a boneless-chicken dish.

          (3)  Pureé the onion-and-spice mixture in your food
               processor or food mill.  Don't make it into baby
               food, but make sure there are no stringy pieces of
               onion left in it.

          (4)  Over medium-high heat, heat the clarified butter
               until it starts to smoke, then dump in the cut-up
               chicken all at once. Stir continuously for 2
               minutes, then sauté for 3 more minutes, stirring
               occasionally.

          (5)  Add the onion-and-spice puré to the cooking
               chicken. Add salt. Stir the mixture until it
               starts to bubble, then lower heat, cover, and sim-
               mer for 30 minutes.

          (6)  Let cool until ready to serve. The longer you
               wait, the better it will taste.

          (7)  Cook some rice to go with it.  Reheat over low
               heat, and serve.

NOTES
     Masala seasoning is an Indian "general-purpose" seasoning.
     Serious Indian cooks make their own, and no two are quite
     the same. The word masala means something like "blend of
     spices". Since this dish isn't trying to be authentically
     Indian, you can use most any store-bought mixture that you
     like, including "Tandoori" mixtures, ``curry powders'', etc.
     If you want to make your own, try some mixture of cardamom
     seeds, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, cumin, and coriander, suit-
     ably mixed and ground.

     If you don't want to use clarified butter you can use any
     cooking oil.

RATING
     Difficulty: easy.  Time: 1/2 hour preparation, 1/2 hour
     cooking, 1-24 hours sitting.  Precision: No need to measure,
     but be respectful of cayenne.

CONTRIBUTOR
     Brian Reid
     DEC Western Research Lab, Palo Alto, Calif., USA
     decwrl!!reid   reid@decwrl.dec.com
     Path: decwrl!recipes
     From: kyrimis@princeton.edu (Kriton Kyrimis)
     Newsgroups: alt.gourmand
     Subject: RECIPE: Chick-pea soup
     Message-ID: 
     Date: 28 Aug 87 03:11:49 GMT
     Sender: recipes@decwrl.DEC.COM
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     Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
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     Approved: reid@decwrl.dec.com

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