The recipe: p37, "Oven-fried Chilli Chicken"
When this recipe came out of the random number generator, my first thought was "Oven-fried? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?" Google says no, anyway - and as an adopted child of SE London, I'm certainly up for what looks like a classier version of the atrocious late-night beer sponges peddled by local establishments called things like Quality Fried Chicken or - and I swear I am not shitting you here - Favourable Chicken and Ribs.
Now, it's fair to say that Anjum Anand and I have history. To cut a long story short, thus far the Indian Food Made Easy experience has been less "food made easy" and more:
Still, this week's recipe is mercifully free of anything that could curdle (I would hope...), so we might just be on safe territory here. Anjum describes this dish as "perfect sharing food, especially if men and TV are involved", because obviously women hate chicken and Netflix. Outdated patriarchal views notwithstanding, I am a man and I do like a bit of telly, so this can only be a winner, right?
The prep: Dead straightforward, particularly for someone who likes a bit of Indian cooking - there's very little here that isn't already in the spice cupboard. I don't even have to venture into town as our trusty Tesco Express provides me with all I'm missing, namely a lemon, some eggs, and 800g of "chicken joints" (I go with a mixture of thighs and legs, since this is going to form part of an actual evening meal, though I suppose you'd probably want all legs if you were making these as a handy beer snack).
The making: Ginger, garlic, green chillies (seeds removed "if wanted" - I do want), salt, garam masala, lemon juice and vegetable oil are blitzed into a paste. The chicken portions are then skinned and "forked all over" - Anjum, you tease - before being coated in the paste and left to marinate for a couple of hours. In my experience, stereotypical situations involving men and TV have a habit of occurring spontaneously, so the boys are obviously going to get hungry and crack open the green Pringles well before our marinating time is up, but never mind.
Once we're finally ready to roll, more vegetable oil is added to a heavy roasting tin and placed in a preheated oven to get nice and hot. Meanwhile, breadcrumbs are mixed in a bowl with more salt, freshly ground black pepper, and cumin powder. One by one, the chicken joints are removed from the marinade, rolled in the breadcrumbs, then dipped in the egg and rolled in the breadcrumbs again. And into the oven they go!
The temperature is lowered halfway through and the chicken pieces are turned, which inevitably means some of the coating sticks to the tin and ruins the visual effect of the whole thing. Other than that, though, this looks pretty much as it should. Very promising.
The eating: So this is pretty damn good. And that's about all I can say about it really. Anjum, you have redeemed yourself.
Obviously it's just a recipe for crispy-coated chicken so it's never going to be anything particularly revolutionary, but the chilli kick of the marinade means the chicken packs a gnarly punch, while the cumin and salt-and-pepper coating is super tasty and crisps up nicely without absorbing huge quantities of oil like it would if you fried it. Whilst certainly not a healthy option, it's a healthier option, and that's something.
Since we're not watching the football, I serve a couple of thighs on brown basmati rice as our main meal, accompanied by some spring (well, summer) greens sautéd with cumin and mustard seeds. (Although we do then go back and eat the two leftover drumsticks with our hands like REAL MEN.) The lemon wedges, incidentally, are recommended by the recipe but seem a little superfluous. Despite this, it's a very satisfying combination.
All of which makes for unspectacular blog content, I suppose - nothing went hugely wrong, nothing was particularly loltastic (other than the forking) - but a Random Kitchen meal that's both reasonably straightforward and reasonably successful? I, for one, am not complaining.
One-word verdict: MANLY.
Mantacular.
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