Murgh Me

For those of you who aren't well versed in Indian food or any of the languages of India, murgh is chicken. Aloo would be potatoes. Dal is lentils. Put 'em all together and you get a happy belly.

But Saturday's Indian feast focused on murgh. Murgh pulao, or chicken and mixed sweet pepper pilaf, to be precise. Bored with the tried and tried again recipes in my recipe box, I opted to dip into my library of Indian cookbooks and found this one in Suvir Saran's American Masala, I book I initially passed over when I first saw it on sale at The Surly Table, bought on a "eh, let's see how it is" whim when I saw it at Half-Price Books and have surprisingly found it to be quite a treasury of tasty dishes I hope to make. I like those kinds of surprises.

Murgh PulaoJuice of 1 lemon
1 T ground coriander
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t turmeric
Pinch of ground peppercorns
1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut crosswise into 1/2"-wide strips
3 T canola oil
1 1/2 t cumin seeds
1 large red onion, halved and sliced
2" piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 jalepeno pepper (cored and seeded if you prefer a milder flavor), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 T koser NaCl
3/4 C chopped fresh cilantro
2 C basmati rice
4 C water

1. Mix the lemon juice, coriander, cayenne, turmeric and ground peppercorns in a medium bowl. Add the chicken, toss to coat and set aside.
   
2. Heat the oil with the cumin seeds in a large pot or Dutchie (preferably one with a lid) over medium-high heat, stirring often, until the cumin turns golden brown (about 2 min.).
   
3. Add the onion and ginger, then cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft (about 3 min.).
   
4. Add the bell peppers, garlic, jalapeño and salt, then cook until the peppers soften slightly (3-4 min.).
   
5. Mix the cilantro in with the chicken, then add it all to the Dutchie. Cook until the chicken is browned (4-6 min.).
   
6. Add the rice to the Dutchie and fry for 2 min., stirring only once or twice.
   
7. Add the water, bring the contents to a boil, then cover and let simmer for 20 minutes (or until the rice is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed).

Serving yield: 6 (pretty damn generous portions)

I have no nutritional info to offer for this recipe. Sorry!

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used two red bell peppers because I have a good supply of them currently (they're on sale at HEB--woohoo!) and because orange and yellow bells are too damn expensive (sorry, I won't pay $2 for a pepper--no way no how).
  
• I used a teaspoon of minced garlic, which the jar says is the equivalent of two garlic cloves, instead of chopped garlic.
  
• Instead of a jalapeño, I used a long strip of a Hatch chile pepper from the batch I roasted and peeled last weekend. I'm not sure how this substitution might have affected the flavor profile, but boy did that container of roasted and peeled Hatch peppers smell damn good!
  
• I used brown Texmati instead of white basmati, so while I upped the protein content of the recipe, I did have to let it simmer about 10 minutes longer since brown rices take longer to cook than white rices. I probably should have let it cook 40 minutes since the rice absorbed even more liquid after I'd turned off the heat and let it set while we were eating supper.
  
• Next time I'll probably heat the canola oil in the Dutchie before adding the cumin seeds. I don't know if Saran intends for the cumin seeds to absorb some of the oil in order to release their fragrance, or if he expects the oil to heat really quickly in the 2 minutes he proposes letting the cumin seeds toast. Cast iron takes a while to heat, so the oil took a while to heat, and the while it was heating, the seeds just swam in the oil and never really got golden brown.

New Recipe, New Ways
The making 'o the murgh pulao marked two changes to my cooking style. First off, I grated my own ginger. This I did because I failed to read the recipe carefully. I read the ingredient line listing the 2" piece of peeled ginger, but I completely missed the bit about grating it. I have grated ginger in a jar, which is wonderfully convenient, but I found grating my own to be surprisingly easy (it's easier to grate than cheese, if you ask me) and somewhat satisfy. Plus it left my hands smelling of fresh ginger, which is a delightful bonus.

Secondly, I exerted effort to achieve mise en place in a way that would truly reduce cooking time. Don't get me wrong, Gentle Reader: I usually try my best to have all my ingredients at the ready before I start cooking anything. However, this time I measured out some of the ingredients and placed them in prep bowls so I could just toss them into Clive when it was time. Why? Because this recipe called for ingredients to stir fry for certain lengths of time, and I wanted to try to keep true to the recipe.

In the past I've avoided full on mise en place because, to be honest, you wind up with a lot of dirty dishes. You dirty not just the tools you use to measure and prep ingredients with, but you also dirty several bowls or other containers you place the prepped ingredients in while they await their time to be added. And I'm not terribly keen on washing dishes, even now that I have a dishwasher. Our dishwasher is a little small--or we just use a helluva lotta dishes--and excessive dirty dishes require more water and soap, and that's costly. However, I can really see how a sound mise en place can save cooking time. I don't know that I'm ready to convert, but we'll see.

Oh, and my M&P made its debut at long last! Sadly, I wasn't the one wielding it. No, the husband got the honors because I was busy prepping other ingredients and mise en place-ing. He kindly ground up a few peppercorns for me, and he reports the M&P did a kick-ass job. Just a few twist-and-grind movements, and those peppercorns were done for. See for yourself, Gentle Reader:

Nifty, non?

By the way, even if you don't like red bell peppers or a lot of red onions, I recommend mixing up the lemon juice, coriander, cayenne, turmeric, black pepper and cilantro for a different kind of chicken marinade. It's quite tasty, and the volume of each ingredient as given in this recipe makes precisely enough marinade--there's not a lot left over, nor is the chicken left wanting for coating.

Results Show
So how did the murgh pulao turn out?


Quite deliciously, thanks for asking! Even the boy declared after a few bites that he now likes red bell peppers. That a recipe can manage to change his mind about a food is a miracle, if you ask me.