Chicken Tikka Masala

I do love ethnic food. Impromptu dinner plans with my cousin ended up resulting in a fun Indian style dinner. We made chicken tikka masala with rice, and I picked up a few sides at the local Indian grocery which has a hot food window. Here's the recipe for the masala. I started with a food network recipe and changed it some to my taste. 

Ingredients

Marinade and Chicken:

2 cups plain yogurt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon ginger juice

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Salt

1 teaspoon pepper

2 pounds chicken thighs, cut into bites

Sauce:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoons minced  jalapeno

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt 

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

2 cups tomato sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup yogurt

Chopped green onions and cilantro, for garnish

Directions

For the marinade and chicken: In a bowl, blend the yogurt, lemon juice, cayenne, cumin, gingers,cinnamon, salt as needed and pepper. Once well mixed, add the chicken and allow the meat to marinate covered in the fridge for 30 minutes. Do not over marinate because it gets really spicy. You can cut the cayenne back as desired but this dish is meant to be spicy.

For the sauce: Melt the butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Saute the garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. Season with cumin, salt and paprika. Stir in the tomato sauce, heavy cream and yogurt. Simmer on low heat until the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes.

In a nonstick (very important) wok or deep rounded skillet, which you have heated on high, cook the chicken in small batches on medium high to high heat on each side for 2-3 minutes. It's important to put just enough chicken to cover the bottom of the skillet, moving so each piece is on the bottom, and let sit to brown. Don't keep stirring. Then when browned stir and flip and let sit and brown again. 

Once cooked, add a couple spoonfuls of the prepared sauce. Allow the sauce to cook for 15-20 seconds on high heat and then place in serving dish. Continue with more batches till all the chicken is done.  Garnish with mounded chopped green onion and cilantro. Serve plated over rice, with a couple spoons of sauce on top. 

Dessert tonight wasn't exactly Indian. Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes. Mmmmm. But that's okay. Eclectic is the best cuisine I know. 

Glorious Pot Pie

Most pot pie recipes are 'how to use up leftover baked chicken' recipes. Well, I didn't have any and I wanted pot pie, so this is a 'from scratch' pie. 

Don't be discouraged by all the different parts of this tome. You could always substitute shortcuts and I'm sure it'd be just fine: refrigerated pie crust for homemade, leftover chicken for my poached chicken, frozen chopped veggies.  But that said, let's dive in. 

Glorious Pot Pie

Makes one 9" pie and two mini pies. The 9" pie serves 5 easily, maybe 6. 

The crust, cuisinart method 

2 1/2 c flour, 1/2 tsp salt, stick butter, ice water

In a cuisinart food processor with metal blade put 2 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 tsp salt. Pulse to blend. Add a stick of butter you've cut up into 6-7 pieces. Pulse until the butter is cut into tiny pieces, and in a cuisinart they're invisible. Change blade if you like to plastic dough blade and pulse while you add in 1/2 cup or so of ice water..just until the dough starts to make clumps.  Take off lid and see if it'll bind when you squeeze it. If not add a bit more water. Dump out on floured board, mash into two balls, cover with plastic wrap and pop in the fridge. 

The filling. 

4 small chicken breasts or 3 larger

1 cup diced fresh carrots

1/2 c diced celery

1/2 c frozen peas, rinsed and drained

1 c corn niblets, rinsed and drained

2 potatoes, peeled and diced

3/4 c white wine

Garlic powder

Savory, or herbs de Provence, or whatever you like. 

Salt n pepper

3 c chicken broth

Flour

1/2 c milk

1 egg white

Cut the chicken flat ways so you have twice the number of thinner fillets. Sprinkle salt and garlic on the chicken breasts, then rub with a tablespoon of flour...just till the chicken is lightly coated. Do both sides. Heat a very large skillet on medium high and add a drizzle of olive oil and your chicken. Cook chicken just to color, and remove to a large dish. 

Add more olive oil as needed and add carrot and celery. Sauté for 7 minutes. Remove to the same plate.  Add the white wine and scrub up all the brown bits. Let cook a minute to remove alcohol and then add the chicken broth. Add back in all the chicken, veggies, and the potatoes too. Add a tsp salt, a tablespoon of dried herbs, and bring to a boil, reduce to medium and simmer uncovered for 7 min, or until the potatoes are cooked but still very firm. 

Remove everything with a slotted spoon to that plate, and pour your broth into a saucepan or bowl (I made broth with water and bouillon so I put it back in that pan). 

The sauce. 

Now in your dry pan, on medium, add 3/4 stick of butter and melt. When melted add 3/4 c flour and stir to absorb all that butter. Cook, stirring around a bit, for 3 minutes. It'll coat the bottom but don't worry. Now take off heat and add in your broth again. It'll really bubble. Put back on heat, whisking, removing all the bits from the bottom. It'll be ready in just a minute or so. When starts to be thick remove from heat. Add a good bit of pepper and taste for salt. Whisk in the milk.  

Dice up your chicken now  

Assembly. 

Roll out one ring of dough to fill a 9" pie plate. Extra edges can be used to cover the mini pies. Put dough in a glass pie plate and cut off edges at outside rim of plate. Now put in COLD oven. Then turn on to 375. When oven dings that it's ready take pie plate out. Whip the egg white a little and brush bottom with egg white to seal a bit. 

Roll out the second piece of dough to cover the pie. Have ready.  

Mix the corn and peas into the sauce first to warm. Then add your veg and chicken. Take a bite to check for salt and pepper and adjust. Then pile into the pie plate. Extra can go into the mini pies. Or into muffin tins lined with extra dough. 

Cover with your other round of dough and pinch over the edge of the plate so it doesn't shrink. Brush with egg white and cut a hole in the center. 

Bake at 375 for 40 min or until browns and bubbles. Mini pies cook about 30 min. Let it really brown well. The bottom crust will be a little less brown than however the top is. 

Let set up a few minutes before cutting but it'll cut great and be servable with a pie server since you have that nice firm crust. 

Quick recipe:

1. Make two pie crusts

2. Brown chicken, then sauté hard veggies. Remove all and deglaze with white wine. Add broth and poach chicken with hard veggies and potatoes 7 min. Remove. 

3. Make a velouté sauce using the broth. Add milk when done.  Mix in all filling. 

4. Line plate with dough, prebake 5 min. Then brush w egg white, fill with filling, cover and bake 40-50 min at 375. 

Marmalade from Texas citrus?

Many would scoff at the notion of making marmalade from any orange except THE marmalade orange, the Seville. 

I don't have a Seville orange tree. I have a Texas Satsuma tree, and I'm not even sure of the actual variety. I do know that I hope it never dies. It's hardy, no thorns, and makes hundreds of pounds almost every year. 

My satsumas are wonderful. Thin skin, peelable with one hand, no seeds except for the 1 in 100 rebel that has 2-3, and super sweet and juicy. Can't beat them. But I've always been told they won't make marmalade.  Too juicy. Too thin of skin. .....

Then I married this Sicilian guy who told me that his family made marmalade out of every type of citrus grown on the island. The light bulb went on. And here I am making marmalade from Satsumas. 

The trick is doing it the old fashioned way. No timer. No thermometer. Just cooking and testing till it's done.  VERY IMPORTANT is to use organic unsprayed oranges. After all, you're eating the peel!  If you know they're organic but don't know about the spraying (as in you bought from the store), soak them in water with a half cup of white vinegar for an hour, scrub and rinse. 

Satsuma Marmalade 

Makes approx 9 pints 

4 kg organic clean satsumas (10lbs): 

*optional add 1 lemon per kilo for a change of taste. Yummy...

2400 gr sugar

1/2 -3/4 c water 

Jars, lids and rings 

You can halve this recipe for a first run and it still works great. 

In a large heavy bottom pot, dump in sugar and make a space in the center with a wooden spoon. Add the water and little by little stir in the sugar till it's all wet. Be patient and it'll happen. Then turn on the heat to medium and stir once in awhile. Cook till the sugar is dissolved. 

Meanwhile your fruit should be scrubbed and clean.  Slice each orange in half horizontally like this 

Flick out any seeds and set cut side down on a cutting board. With a sharp chopping knife slice in thin thin slices, rind, pulp and all.   

I like it really about 1/4" thick. Remember that they'll be staying about the same size in your marmalade. If you don't like the length of the strips you can cut them all in half, in the above photo it's just one more cut vertically. Cut them all, putting together with juices from the board into a bowl. 

When you're done cutting them all up, dump into your sugar. It doesn't have to be completely dissolved but if it dissolves before you're done, take the pot off the heat till you can put the fruit in. 

Mix in your oranges and poke down so that they're all sugared. 

Put on high heat until it comes to a boil, and then turn down to medium. It should stay at a nice medium boil (not a simmer or you'll be there all day). Boil for two hours, stirring every 8 minutes or so. I set a timer a I don't forget. 

Put a couple of saucers in the freezer if you haven't already and let freeze. Also wash your jars and set on a tray in the oven on 250. Put the flat lids in water in a saucepan and boil for a few minutes, then turn off and leave there. Your rings should be handy and if you have a wide mouth funnel for cleaner spooning in of marmalade have it out too. Lastly get a bath towel, fold in half, and lay on the counter off to the side (to set up the jam overnight). 

Your marmalade is looking like this 

Darker and more syrupy. After two hours, take a plate from the freezer and put a teaspoon of syrup in the center. Let sit a minute or two and then turn sideways. If it all runs off you need to cook it more. If just a drop runs out slowly you're ready. 

Take your jars out and set next to the pot, off the heat. Turn lids on medium and have tongs to get them.  Get a damp paper towel ready too.  

Using a hot pad, pick up a jar your with wide mouth funnel in it.  Spoon it full of orange bits, up to where the threading starts, and then fill in spaces with syrup. Leave that 1/2" threaded section of jar unfilled.  Wipe the rim with the wet paper towel, put a lid on with tongs, screw on the ring (not too tight), and invert on a towel. Yes upside down. When you've filled all the jars, fold the towel over the jars and tuck in to keep warm. 

Leave the jars there for about 90 minutes, then turn right side up and cover again. Let set up covered for about 8 hours or more.  All the lids should have popped down indicating a good seal. 

Now you can rinse off the sticky bits and store in the pantry. If you don't like the consistency you can either wait 2 weeks to see if it sets, and it does, or open those jars and cook some more. There is not enough syrup really to be runny and we love a little anyway on our bread, so a bit runny for us is fine. 

Not much else to say, except you can do this!  Once we learn the method behind our recipes we can learn to make adjustments to fit our circumstances. Some fruit is juicier than others, has more pectun, was picked longer ago...all these factors change how jelly sets up. I've cooked this marmalade between 2 and 3.5 hours depending on just the freshness of my satsumas. But it turned out each time wonderfully. Let me know how yours comes out! 

Citron is a fruit

This fruit has always frightened me a little.  I'd see these lemons that apparently were from Land of the Lost, bigger than a cantaloupe... 

They measure across about 6", with the white pith being around 1.5" thick and a little ultra sour lemon center. 

Cutting a slice of this monster, remove the peel leaving just the pith and lemon. Then slice up so that you have a good chunk of pith and only a taste of that sour lemon. And eat. Yep, the pith too. It's actually sweet! It tempers the lemon and makes for a refreshing snack. 

There are kiosks around Sicily that sell primarily this fruit with a sprinkling of baking soda as the ultimate foamy refresher in summer. I'm told it's true but I don't think I have the courage to eat that foamy sour thing. 

Have you ever looked in the candied fruit section of the baking aisle? You'll see lots of candied citron. This is that fruit. It really is wonderful candied, and not too shabby fresh. If you see one in the grocery maybe take the plunge! Now you know what to do with it!