At last! Chicken Dopiaza
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| This is a restauarant made dopiaza but I thought I'd add a nice picture to kick things off... |
Hurrah! Happy February! I have finally had a few spare hours to type up what was one of the best curries I have ever made for myself, and all using cheap or local ingredients (bar the spices of course...)
This recipe can easily be extended to feed 4, or 8, but this is for one hungry dude.
The original recipe this is based on comes from the fantastic Loving Bangladeshi Kitchen blog but I have modified it slightly to my own ends.
First of all though, by way of a bonus, since this has taken so long, I did a compare and contrast exercise (albeit a restaurant and vegetable based one) with a dopiaza I had from my favourite Indian restauarant in Belfast as shown above.
*munch* - Good large slices of onion, but maybe not enough (as I shall show you why below ...) and beautiful par-boiled potatoes and peas, with crunchy red and green peppers, all garnished with coriander. The real hero is the sauce - have a look at the clarified butter (ghee) used to give the sauce some real taste and richness, as well as stop the whole thing burning. Great spice to it as well. A benchmark has been set.
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| That yellow liquid on the right of the spoon is ghee (clarified butter) used to make the sauce rich. Curry translates as "gravy" or "sauce" a good rich sauce is the cornerstone of any "curry". |
So on to the main event - my chicken dopiaza, with thanks to the LBK blog.
Ingredients
- 1 500g pack of value grade pre-sliced onions or 2 large onions, or 4 small ones. Dopiaza means "double onions" so use lots. Here's some I bought earlier...
- 1 portion of chicken. I have gone for a chicken quarter (breast and drumstick) from my local butcher - saving money on transport to the ValueSupermarket® but I can recommend thigh as being tasty as well as cheap; maybe more authentic too...
- 2 tomatoes. Normally I don't think tomatoes belong in a curry but I'm experimenting.
Now on to the spices for the sauce:
- 2 cloves of garlic, smashed into a paste with some salt
- 1 large tsp. ginger, either from a jar or, ideally, grated from fresh
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1tsp coriander powder, or, as I did, use half a bunch fresh for garnish
- 1 tsp turmeric. I used fresh but ground is also good, and won't stain your fingers when you grate it ...
- 1 tsp ground cardamon or 2 or 3 pods of the seeds, slightly ground, smashed up a bit if you will
- 1/2 stick of cinnamon or 1 large tsp of cinnamon powder
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tbsps oil. Plus some. Don't worry if that seems like a lot, as I will explain...
- 1 tbsp butter, or ghee (clarified butter) if you have it. I don't normally mind using ordinary butter in cooking as I am careful not to burn the solids, but you don't need to worry about that with ghee. To make clarified butter all you do is melt some butter and pour off and reserve the clear liquid; this is your ghee.
- 1 tsp chilli powder or half a rocket finger chilli and 1 dried regular SupermarketValue® chilli. Nice fresh chillis to give this some punch, but as always, make this as hot or as mild as you prefer. Dopiazas are usually mild-ish but I'm going all in, without scorpionizing my mouth...
Method
Step 1. - Sauce
Prepare all the spices by dry-frying the dry ingredients.
When they start to smell a little, add the oil and some of the onions, mix well, and allow the onions to caramelise. Start to get a nice char on them, but don't burn them...
Add the garlic when the onions start to turn translucent, then add the rest of the onions and a little more oil and the ghee, and cook them until just before the garlic burns but the first batch of onions look really soft or burnt - (Pay attention! Don't burn the garlic! The onions will survive a good fry, the garlic will not!) If you like, hold some of the onions back and add them when the main pan looks cooked through, just to warm them and add some bite.
The point of this two or three step onion frying process is to get a contrasting texture. Normally a restaurant dopiaza will have all the onions sweated through and cooked evenly - I want most of them to be cooked and sweet, but I want some of them to taste burnt and sugary, and some just a little bit on the raw side for texture (this is how mine were from the restaurant, cooked but still crunchy) This was tricky, but worth the effort.
Now I baked this sauce, drained of the oil but reserving some of it for future recipes (see what I did there?) in a balti pan with the whole tomatoes, split with a knife, for a while, in a low oven. 20 minutes in a hot oven if you prefer, but I left this to simmer for a couple of hours. I like slow food...
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| That's after we fried the onions and spice in oil, drained it, added more spice to taste, but before baking it. |
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| Recall I saved heat by cooking my prepped veg, dopiaza and roasted my chillies at the same time. |
Step 2
- Chicken prep
Rub the chicken with a mixture of salt and oil, but if you marinaded it in a spice mix, similar for a tandoori chicken, it would really work as well. But just not today... Just a simple rub of oil and salt while the sauce is simmering.
If you're cooking the chicken whole I recommend about half an hour to 40 minutes in the oven, followed by a good grilling to crisp the skin up and finish it off.
If you're using chopped chicken then I'd say 15-20 minutes in a hot oven, in a dish or in foil, followed by 5-10 minutes in the sauce. Or 7-8 minutes in a hot pan followed by a quick 5 minute roasting (220°) in the sauce to finish. Your call...
Chop it up and add to the sauce, or if using a chicken quarter, just serve the sauce on the side, with your choice of basmati rice, naan, flatbreads, roti, or saag aloo (*mental note*, make discount saag aloo...)
*munch*
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| After a long bake in the oven, the onions, tomatoes and extra spice just need mixed, and wow, did they taste good... |
I can report that, asides from the year my brother bought me a vindaloo kit (which I might try and recreate some time, *mental note*) this is the best curry I have made myself.
If was to change one thing I'd omit tomato and use a few teaspoons of tomato puree or tablespoons of passata - the sauce is too wet but I remedied that with an extra tablespoon of garam masala to bind it.
There's a lovely sweetness from the cinnamon, a nice bitterness from the clove, and background heat from the chillies. I got it just right - hot but not overpowering, more of a front on the fresh ones and a back of the mouth on the dried. Pleasantly fiery but not uncomfortable.
But the star are the double cooked onions, soft and sweet but their crunchier counterparts give it great texture. They make the dish what's great about it, which is the whole point of the dopiaza style.
What else can I say, if you haven't made your own curry from scratch with value for money and local ingredients, you will never want to get a take-away again! Definitely one for sharing.
In the forthcoming weeks, since I have moved into a new house (hence the delay in posting) - the SupermarketValueKitchen® will now no longer be plagued by overactive smoke alarms and defective freezers. I have a few plans including a late Burns Night supper on the cheap, plus a few more quick store cupboard favourites. Heck, I might do a late Valentine's supper as well - no reason not to be romantic all year round, even if it is a little thrifty <3
