Food glorious food

[torquill]

I had a craving tonight, so I fixed myself some fried chicken. I had the tail end of a gluten-free loaf I baked two days ago, so on a whim I crumbled that up, then made a batter similar to that for pakora: chickpea (besan) flour, salt, pepper, a touch of cayenne, and water. I cut a 1-pound chicken breast into strips, battered them, dredged them in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried them a few at a time for 2-3 minutes at 325-340 degrees. They came out exquisitely tender, moist, and crunchy, just what I wanted. I was running a bit low on protein lately, and this really hit the spot. Besan flour was exactly the right thing.

Deep-frying is made so much easier by a probe thermometer. I've also learned what the chicken says to indicate it's done: it often starts to rumble, like somebody dripped water in, and the temperature suddenly climbs. That's when I need to pull it out, roll it around in paper towels, and put it on a rack. I should try this with fish...

The other day I made an Indian meal and finished it off with a firni, which is like kheer with no rice grains left in it (sort of a soft custard). The recipe directs the cook to make almond milk from scratch, and I figured I could shortcut that by buying some instead. Or maybe not: all commercial almond milk I could find had soy in it, and one of my friends is sensitive to soy. I ended up making it by hand after all. I never would have expected that, though.

I have another meal coming up, and I'm torn between trying to make a mild vindaloo (hey, it might work), a biryani, or some ground beef ball thing (what, I'm not sure). We've done tomato-based curry, cream-based curry (roganjosh), saag paneer, chicken tikka, and various side dishes like daal and chana. I'm holding off on chicken tikka masala until I can extract a recipe from the owner of my favorite restaurant. Thoughts?

Comments

[klrmn.livejournal.com]

hmmm. chickpea flour...that might indeed work better for me for deep-frying than some of the other options...