Makin' Masala

Believe it or not, Gentle Reader, for all my misadventures in Indian cookery, I've yet to make a true masala. Sure, I've made a chicken tikka masala dish, but I've not made a real masala.

"So what is an authentic masala?" you ask, Gentle Reader?

A masala is simply a blend of spices, often toasted and ground together or sometimes combined with some form of moisture and ground into a paste. In traditional Indian cookery, the making 'o the masala was the first step for curries and many other dishes, and a mortar and pestle or some kind of grinding apparatus was, in a way, the heart of an Indian kitchen.

While I have a mortar and pestle, I've never employed it for the purpose of making a masala. Until now--and not even for a chicken tikka masala dish, which the husband and boy love mightily. However, I did employ my mortar and pestle for a dish that the husband selected (solely for its off-beat name) from Suneeta Vaswani's Complete Book of Indian Cooking, a fun find at Half-Price Books I'd intended for my mother but so far haven't given her and probably won't (Sorry, Mum!) because Ms. Vaswani's arranged the contents first by primary ingredient, (e.g., poultry, vegetables, fish) and then by the region of Indian from which each dish originated. It's a very informative book in addition to being chocked full of tasty-sounding recipes.

Preeti's Chicken FrankiesMasala
5 to 6 dried Indian red chiles, broken into pieces, some seeds removed
1/4 C white vinegar
2 T cumin seeds
4 black peppercorns
8 to 10 garlic cloves

1. Soak chiles in vinegar in a small bowl for 15 min.
2. In a dry skillet over medium-high heat, toast the cumin seeds until fragrant (2-3 min.).
   
3. Combine the cumin seeds and peppercorns in a blender, then blend until a powder.
   
4. Add the garlic and chile mixture to the spice powder, then blend into a smooth paste.

Topping
3/4 C chopped red onion
1/2 C white vinegar
1/4 C cilantro leaves, chopped
1 T minced green chiles (preferably serranos)

1. Combine the onions, vinegar, cilantro and chiles in a small bowl.
   
2. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator from 1 hour or up 2 days.

Chicken
2 lb. chicken breast tenders or filets
3 T oil, divided
1 1/2 medium onions, pureed
1/3 C tomato paste
2 T white vinegar
1 t salt
1/4 t cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 C cilantro leaves
16 10" flour tortillas
3 eggs, beaten

1. Marinate the chicken in 1 tablespoon of masala for 15 min.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Add the pureed onion, saute until the onion puree is well-browned (6-8 min.), then set aside.
   
4. Reheat the skillet with the remaining oil, add the chicken mixture and saute 2 min.
   
5. Add the browned onion puree back to the skillet along with 1 tablespoon of masala, then saute 2-3 min.
   
6. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, salt and cayenne, mix well, then simmer until the chicken is no longer pink inside (about 5 min.).
   
7. Spray a clean skillet with vegetable spray, then heat over medium or low heat.
   
8. Add a tortilla, brushing the top with beaten egg, and allow to heat for 30 sec.
   
9. Flip the tortilla and allow to heat 30 more sec.
   
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for remaining tortillas.
    
11. On each heated tortilla, place some chicken, top with some onion-vinegar topping, then fold over, burrito-style.

Nutritional Info
As with her other book I own, Easy Indian Cooking, Ms. Vaswani does not include nutritional info. I can't imagine that this dish is all that bad for you, so long as you're careful with the amount of oil you use and the nutritional content of the flour tortillas you select. If you're keeping an eye on all things healthful, you certainly don't want to be using tortillas made with any kind of lard involvement.

The Faudie's Futzings
The idea of what amounts to Indian burritos had me somewhat skeptical. I mean, how authentic can a recipe be if it uses flour tortillas? I also felt some trepidation at making my own masala. All that grinding and mashing...how was I to know if I was doing it right or ruining it--and, consequently, the finished dish--completely? And then there was the white vinegar.... For all these reasons, I therefore tried not to stray far from Ms. Vaswani's recipe:

• I only made about half-batch of the topping because I knew for sure the boy wouldn't touch it and doubted that the husband and I wouldn't use much of it. Sorry, but I too strongly associate white vinegar with Easter eggs and cat piss, so my desire to consume it isn't very strong.
  
• Instead of 10" tortillas, I used 6" ones, and only five or six total, if that.
  
• I didn't add the cilantro to the chicken because I had to feed it to the boy and didn't need to give him another reason (the first being this dish was foreign to him and therefore immediately objectionable) to reject it.
  
• I used a bit of canned diced green chiles from HEB for the topping, and I don't think they're serranos. The list of ingredients on the label only states that they're "green chiles." So very helpful.
• I didn't fold my up like a burrito. I think I might have just folded the tortilla in half to make a soft taco-style frankie. Perhaps using larger tortillas would allow me to execute a proper burrito fold.
  

Although it hardly looks like any Indian food I've ever eaten or seen, the end result is wonderfully delicious. My concerns about the vinegar were unfounded, for I couldn't taste it at all, not even in the topping. I honestly don't know much about the culinary wonders of vinegar, so perhaps it toned down some ingredient (such as the onions or chiles) or gave the other ingredients a nice medium in which to blend together. I dunno.

If you're curious, Gentle Reader, about the recipe's back story, here it is from Ms. Vaswani:

Frankies are a popular Bombay wrap made with boneless pieces of baby goat meat. They tend to be rather greasy, but they are nevertheless delicious! This is my daughter-in-law Preeti's cleaned-up version, one that was an instant winner with the family.

I suppose if you wanted to go more authentic, you could use roti or chapati in lieu of tortillas, but the ingredients for all those breads are very similar.

By the way, if you follow the recipe for the masala, you end up with more than you need. The author recommends using the leftover masala on fish. I recommend making another batch of the chicken filling and serving it atop some fluffy basmati rice.

What a Grind
"So how was making your first masala?" you ask, Gentle Reader? Well, quite simply, it was some fun, somewhat labor-intensive work.

You may have noticed that Ms. Vaswani does not tell readers to use a mortar and pestle to make the masala. Her direction to use a blender is, if you ask me, overkill--or, really, useless. I don't know about your blender, Gentle Reader, but the design of my blender would never have ground the cumin seeds into powder because they'd have collected below the blades. The size of my mortar and pestle was perfect for grinding the spices and then mushing into a paste that powder along with the vinegar, chiles and garlic. See for yourself:

This paste tastes better than Elmer's!

I think, Gentle Reader, you can't be afraid of having to exert a little umphf! if you're going to make this or any other masala. Let's face it--you need some muscle to crush black peppercorns or mush dried chiles into something more than sticky particles that stink of vinegar. Or maybe my black peppercorns are old. But if you're all about convenience and ease in the kitchen, then by all means whip out your blender, Gentle Reader.