Tandoori Chicken with Sweet and Spicy Stir Fry

Tandoori Chicken

Ingredients:

Tandoori Chicken with Sweet & Spicy Stir Fry
Servings: 4 (or 3 starving college students)

1 cup brown rice
1 white onion
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 cup plain non-fat yogurt
2 cups frozen corn
2 carrots
2 chicken breasts
Chinese Five Spice
Tandoori Spice
Soy Sauce
Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce
Sriracha


Method:

Brown rice a long time to cook, nearly 50-60 minutes. I got it going, then went to the store to buy the yogurt, because I had no clue how to make tandoori until after I started the rice. When the brown rice was done, I drizzled a small amount of peanut sauce over the rice for a tiny bit of spice and a nice jasmine/peanut aroma, and then dashed some soy sauce in to keep it moist while everything else was cooking.

1. I threw the chicken breasts into boiling water, and diced up the vegetables save for the tomato.
I have no clue why the tomato is in the picture.

2. I threw the chicken breasts into boiling water, and diced up the vegetables save for the tomato. I have no clue why the tomato is in the picture, that cheeky bugger.

3. I turned the heat off of the vegetables and let them sit on the burner. To make the tandoori, take 1 cup of yogurt and add tandoori spice. I used 3 teaspoons, and that made a good flavorful mixture. If I had wanted to make it a spicy tandoori, I would have bumped it up to 4 teaspoons and added ground chili peppers.

4: When the chicken is done, shred it all up. I use two forks and that seems to work well. Add the chicken to the tandoori mixture and toss thoroughly. About this time, I cooked the corn.

5: With a frying pan on medium, I scooped the chicken in and poured as much on top as I could get out. Then I cranked the heat up to high.

6: While that was boiling happily away, I added the rice and corn to the vegetables and squirted a healthy serving of sriracha over the whole concoction. The camera decided to do a flyby!

7: I let the tandoori liquids reduce down for a few minutes before serving, piping hot.

Tandoori Chicken with Sweet & Spicy Stir Fry is not the prettiest coloring of a meal, but it was tasty! The tandoori was smooth and meaty. The stir fry was sweet at first, then had quick soy flavoring and then WHAM spicy that sticks to the back of your throat! I dipped the chicken in sriracha, because I'm a sucker for hot stuff.

Chicken Dhansak

Chicken Dhansak

Ingredients:

- 500g (1.1 pounds) Chicken breast (you can also do this on the bone if you wish)
- 300g (.66 pounds) Toor dal (just go for green lentils if you can't find any)
- Fresh or minced ginger
- 6 garlic cloves
- 3 medium onions
- 1 red pepper
- 1 orange or yellow pepper
- 1 large potato
- 3 chopped tomatoes
- 1 lime (juice of)
- 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
- 1 small tin of pineapple rings in their own juice (optional)
- 1 bunch coriander (that's what you loyal allies of the Crown call cilantro)
- 1 tablespoon jaggery (substitute for dark brown sugar if you can't get jaggery)
- sunflower oil or butter/vegetable ghee if you can get it (we ran out of ghee so used oil)
- Salt and pepper

Spices:

- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 3 teaspoon good quality dhansak masala (or curry powder)
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- 2 teaspoons coriander powder
- 2 teaspoon red chili powder


Method:

1. Fill the kettle and put it on.
Peel and chop the potato into 1.5 inch chunks.
Roughly chop one of the onions and both peppers and put them all to a medium sucepan.
Peel and crush 3 garlic cloves with the side of the knife and add them to the saucepan.
Add the lentils and three teaspoon of minced ginger.
Add the turmeric and tamarind to the saucepan also.

2: Cover the mixture in the pot with boiling water and simmer over a medium flame.
You'll simmer the vegetables until the lentils are very soft, about 20 to 30 minutes.
If the vegetables start to stick or dry up, add more boiling water and turn the heat down.
Whilst this mixture is simmering, chop the remaining onions and fry them in a large saucepan over a medium heat in 2 tablespoons of oil.

3: Make a spice paste with the remaining spice powders and a little cold water.

4: When the onions are softening (5-10 minutes) add the spice paste and fry over a medium-low flame for 5 minutes. Frying the spices takes the bitter edge off them and prevents indigestion later on.

5: Chop the coriander, tomatoes and remaining garlic and add to the onions.
Fry for a further 5 minutes.

6: Chop the chicken into chunks.
When the vegetables are cooked add them to the large saucepan along with the chicken and the jaggery.

7: Allows this mixture to simmer for about 20 minutes then add the juice from the pineapple.
After another 20 minutes add the pineapple chunks and lime juice.
Cook for another 10 minutes until it looks like this:

8: Server with any rice(I usually just use simple boiled rice) and some Greek yogurt or soured cream.

9: Enjoy your chicken dhansak with a nice dry white wine.