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There's a Scouse in the Kitchen ...Chicken Tikka Masala

There’s a Scouse in the Kitchen…

Chicken Tikka Masala  This recipe is based upon one from Pat Chapman of “the Curry Club”. So it must be good.

First :

You need to make a bowl of mixed spices, half of which you will use to marinade the chicken and the other half goes into the sauce.

Cumin Powder:  2 teaspoons  (get it at any supermarket but cheaper and in quantity at a middle Eastern or Indian store, comes in a packet, put it in an airtight jar and it keeps for ages.

Garlic Powder 2 teaspoons, you can used minced garlic in a jar from the supermarket and you only need half the quantity.

Ground ginger 1 teaspoon, as above I like to used the minced ginger in a jar, half measures.

Ground coriander 2 teaspoons, nice to have this spice but ok if you can’t find it. It is literally the ground seeds from a Cilantro plant.

Paprika , 2 teaspoons I like the smoked paprika from Fresh and Easy but any will do.

Chilli powder 1 teaspoon, heaped if you like a kick, level if you are a first timer.

Garam Masala, 1 ½ teaspoons, I like to buy a big bag of this as I use it a lot.

Chopped mint, 1 teaspoon of fresh or ½ teaspoon of dried (fresh is better)

Mix it in a bowl, if you use all dried ingredients it will keep for eternity in a sealed jar, but it is so easy to mix that I keep all the ingredients in an old box and knock it together as need it.

Prepare the chicken:

Chop it into big cubes about a generous inch, bigger chucks cook slower and seem to work better.

Place the cubes in a bowl with the juice of half the lemon and leave it in the fridge for an hour or so.  

Meanwhile….

Tandoori Marinade

3 or 4 oz of natural yoghurt, natural not flavored ! , full fat, low fat no fat doesn’t really matter.

3 fl oz of sour cream, milk is an ok substitute.

2 tablespoons ( about half of the tandoori marinade you have just made)

1 teaspoon of curry powder, you can use Patak’s curry paste if you prefer

2 teaspoons Garam Masala

Chili powder  ( from a ½ teaspoon for a hint of heat to 4 teaspoons if you want meltdown.

A handful of chopped cilantro, leaves and stalks (hard to get it wrong) .

Ditto Chopped mint

2 teaspoons of garlic puree, I liked the minced garlic but you can use paste or 2 or 3 bulbs of fresh in a liquidizer with a dash of water.

1 teaspoon of minced ginger or an inch of fresh ginger, scraped and sliced.

1 teaspoon of ground cumin,

juice of the other half of the lemon.

Mix it all in a big bowl.

Place the chicken cubes in it an let it sit, (for at least an hour, ideally overnight) in the fridge.

Tikkas

Big onion, cut in half across the middle then quartered:

Take a skewer and load onion chicken onion along it. Reserve the sauce.

Cook the tikkas on an oiled barbecue grill low heat, turning regularly until the chicken  is cooked right through, I like the edges to be blackened a little but it is personal preference.

Meanwhile..

Masala Sauce

1 jar of Pataks Curry sauce, available at Fresh and Easy and Ralphs

1 teaspoon of tandoori paste  ( the leftover spices mixed with a little vingar and oil) or you can buy a Patak's Curry paste.

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil  (ghee if you can find it but oil is healthier)

the rest of the tandoori marinade that the chicken was in

2 teaspoons of tomato paste

a can of tomatoes (chop them up as they are cooking)

a red pepper chopped up small

a handful of chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons of sour cream

Heat the oil in a large pan add the tandoori paste and keep it moving for a minute or two then add the jar of curry sauce,, use a little water in the jar to rinse out the remainder. Drop the heat and keep it moving around the pan, add the marinade (it’s important to keep the temperature low at this stage or the yoghurt and cream will separate).

Next add the tomato paste, the tomatoes and the pepper, you should have a creamy sauce, if it looks too thick add a little water. Now add the chopped cilantro and sour cream . Keep  it simmering and deskewer the tikkas straight into the sauce,

Serve on a bed of basmati rice or in pitta pockets as a snack.

Delicious with Garlic Naan bread.

This is a really easy curry..

Humming bird

You've got to be in it to win it..

Some time ago, back in England there was a roll-over weekend, the national lottery had not been won and the prize had doubled to an astronomical amount, for the sake of this story let's say 55 million pounds.


My Mom like many others bought a ticket. On the Friday evening before the big drawing she sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper and made a list of the family, friends and charities that would share in the prize with her.


At the side of each name she added an amount of money. Then she reached for the calculator and guess what it added up to 57 million.


Back up the list the amounts get switched and changed. This time there is a little to spare.
But there's a problem, she can't give cousins 80,000 if great aunts are only getting 75,000 and the League of Cats  and Dog's  Refuge ought to get equal amounts.


The night wears on and the more she works on the list the more the balance tilts, first this way then that way but each time there are winners and losers.


In the wee hours of the morning she gives up and goes to bed...but can't sleep. The worry of how this money is going to fracture a very strong family bond is simply too much to endure.
In the pale might of early morning she surveys the list, it is now a frantic scribble with increasingly frantic sums written all over it, scanning the figures and worrying again, she sits down closes her eyes and prays...she prays that she does not win.


I was told this tale on the Sunday morning when the power of prayer had done its thing and  she was happier not winning than she ever would have been otherwise.


 Like Johnny Cash's Boy named Sue , I think of it every now and then and every time I think and every time I win, she could have just given the whole lot to me !

Happy Valentines Day

Half Way Up the Stairs

This is Evan, Chocolate Lab of astonishing intelligence who has recently taken to sitting at the mid point of the staircase like a human, bottom on one step and feet on the lower.

The Archers

BBC Radio 4’s long running soap opera “The Archers” is 60 years old this week.

As I anticipated the bumper edition of the show, already hyped to “shake Ambridge (the mythical location of the drama) to the core” I had time to reflect on my own highs and lows during a decade shorter relationship with the Archers and the rest of the good people of  Ambridge.

A child of the 60’s, my kids delight when I tell stories of a time before Television, huddling round the radio, (“wireless”as my Mum still calls it), to listen to music and stories.

There is an immediacy with radio, a one to one relationship. When Petula Clarke sang about the lights being bright “downtown”, I knew she was singing to me, I had been downtown on the bus with my mum, we saw the Christmas lights and Petula was on the money.

Listen with Mother, was listened to with Mother and we would all listen while Marjory Antrobus and Walter Gabriel spoke  in tones and language rarely heard in the streets of Liverpool . The omnibus edition on Sunday, a compilation of the prior week’s episodes was a focal point of the week in our house.

In my own, 7 year old world, my bed time at 7:30 was heralded by the Archers theme, a bouncy number  called “Barwick green” to which at the tender age of seven I had already added lyrics:

Donkey, Donkey, Donkey Donk.

Donkey Donkey Donkey,

Donkey Donkey Donkey, Donk.

Donkey Diddley Donk…..

Hence, once the last syllables of the night’s cliffhanger had been uttered and the closing bars begun, it was “Donkey Donk” and time for bed.  “The Vet says it might be Foot and Mouth”…….. Donkey, Donkey, Donkey Donk, and off to bed I trudge.

Many years later, my wife and I are awaiting the arrival of child number 1, while we renovate our house from student hovel to family home, we renew an old acquaintance with Ambridge and quickly become part of a new village with new characters, an Indian lawyer who becomes the target of hate crime, the bumbling but congenial Food-stuff salesman Neil, Newly-weds David and Ruth, the motorcycling Northern accented vicar.

Ruth gave birth to Daughter Pip, shortly before  my Wife Jackie brought son Jack into the world. I have to say Jack’s arrival was significantly less dramatic, I don’t recall Jackie saying: ”Look Jeff, It’s a beebie”. Meanwhile, chinless wonder Nigel Pargiter bagged off with recently dumped Elizabeth Archer while looking for a leaking pipe.

As more kids arrived and career took flight we moved to Canada and thence to California. Here, The Archers took on a surreal importance as a link, not to the UK but the idea of the UK, a fantasy land, every bit as false as our neighbor Disneyland but equally enthralling, a place in your imagination, fed by rich characters and gripping stories.

I came to know my way around the Bull, I used to laugh at Sid Perks prices, “Pint of Shires and a packet of crisps, That’ll be five pound eighty five, cheers”, I could smell Eddie Grundy, a mixture of rotten fruit, creosote and cow shit.  I knew the snide grin on Brian’s lip and the sham smile from Matt, I think I may have tried out for the panto one year for a speaking part only to be pipped at the post by Titcombe.

In recent years I have despaired of Will and Edward, grew to admire Joleen and still imagine Jazzer to look like an older brother of Gregory from Gregory’s girl. Ruth grinds on my nervous system as she has always done and Tony simply irritates. I am deeply enamored of Lillian, easily my favorite character and the person I would most like to share a bottle of Gordon’s.

Many years later and many miles away, I still listen and stay in touch with an imaginary family in an imaginary place that for me will forever be England.