Kolhapuri Chicken...

Another weekend gone and no change in status quo.. Another whole week and weekend spent on cleaning and showing the house...A spate of incidents where we had to spent our time outside the house while the realtor and their clients were seeing the house. Our house is so small that my little one keeps asking.,. what are they looking at so much...but still no response so keeping the fingers, toes and arms and legs crossed.

The only highlight of last week was a package from Nupur of "One Hot Stove" which arrived with aromatic messages. She sent me a sampler of the famous Kolhapuri masala, that too a homemade version. She was having a contest for it on her blog and she sweetly offered me a sample even though I didn't win the contest.

Searching for a chicken Kolhapuri recipe, I saw this interesting writeup on the Ten most popular Maharashtrian dishes and Kolhapuri curries was one of them.

The word "Kolhapuri" brings to mind the weirdest combination of items.. Padmini Kolhapuri of the 80s movies( brought back to mind by B4U music), Kolhapuri chappals of which I always had a pair of thru my college days and the stomach unsettling super spiced dhabha Kolhapuri food eaten on college tours.
My better experience with Kolhapuri cooking is limited to eating K. Chicken and veg Kolhapuri in Mumbai and once in Matheran and that too a long time ago. I remember its spine tingling spiciness after a long day walking and documenting Matheran, its spice just highlighting the heat around.( Some people like to eat spicy food and then drink hot tea, but that is a sure fire way of setting my head ablaze in the summer.) Now I just used to associate it with spice, the way Thai food is associated with spice now.

I deliberated over mutton or chicken Kolhapuri and settled on making Chicken Kolhapuri with it. The misal was also very tempting but I had no sprouted beans so went for the chicken. That's next on the agenda.

It turned out to be a very well spiced, ferociously red and fiery looking curry.... took the blandness out of the usual chicken curry. But it was not all heat.. there was a myriad other flavors in it now which I probably was unaware of years back. I didn't even know at that time it had coconut in it.

The combination of the dried coconut, fresh coconut and all the different spices gives it a taste very slightly similar to the varutha aracha chicken curry. I had run out of dried coconut, so I added only fresh coconut.. I am sure its tastes even better with dried coconut.

So I got one more chicken curry to my list of curries. Thanks a lot Nupur, we enjoyed the masala. Now I just need to learn to make it. :) For the Chicken Kolhapuri, I just followed Meera's recipe fully. So here is the recipe for those who want to try it out.

Mathi Mulakittathu / Moliyar/ Sardines in Spicy Curry...

The house sale has become just another factor in the list of daily chores and activities. Even my kids are pitching in the daily clean up now.:)
"The blushing bride" as one of my blogger friends called the house, is wilting under all the attention or the lack of it. We had one open house last week and nearly went a little berserk getting it ready. Still not much response. The house prices are falling so much that bigger houses than ours are encroaching on our price zone, while the buyers are just shopping around still. The daily headlines of unemployment and housing market in a down spin doesn't help either. But let's see, we still have to wait and bide our time.

We are also on the other end, like most of my blogger friends, looking for a house and I know how difficult it is to like a house. When we were living in an apartment, it was easy to go around seeing houses and visualize ourselves in it, since they were almost always bigger than the apartment. The second home is not so easy. Now when we do our round of house viewing, can't visualize it as where we want to live in and at the end of the day, just want to come back "home". We get back home, stretch our feet in the backyard patio, peruse the endless grass and hear the twitters (the original bird sounds, not the internet chatter) around, wave to the rabbit, sip a cup of tea and think aloud, "why again are we moving?"

Makes you wonder what is it that we call "home". It's bricks and mortar, alright, but there must be something primeval about it that we get so attached to it. I have lived in a lot of houses over the years yet when I dream, there is only house from my childhood that comes regularly in my dreams as Representative of "my home". As children, we probably get fixated on the house that we lived in the longest with our family. Now as adults with our own families, each house that we live in represents a phase of life..newly married, FOB, pre-kid, post kid...

Anyway, in a rebel state of mind, I didn't buy an induction stove, but started cooking some fish curries to "perfume" the house..just kidding...couldn't stay away from some spicy curry for too long..... just have to do a thorough airing and cleaning after each cooking though. Vinegar and a wet towel help a lot.

So here is a really easy Mathi Curry. When I went to my regular fish market this time, I had to regretfully decline the King Fish head..pheeeuu!!Couldn't afford to cook that as that smell will linger on like a bad memory. But they had these Sardines, so good looking that I couldn't resist it. Thinking of the heaped plates full of fried sardines, from last summer back in Calicut, I chose 3 sardines and came home smug to find my DH laughing at me..u bought just 3 sardines? Well, one for me and two for you... And I decided to make the curry as the leftover fry smell is another torture.
The recipe is the way my mom makes it but she couldn't give me numbers. Ummi Abdullah's book had a similar recipe so I used that to come up with the final recipe. There are only slight differences in the recipes such as we don't really use mustard and my mom almost never fries the shallots. But I like it this way.

You Will Need:
Sardines-3 or 4
Shallots-6 sliced finely
Green Chilies-2 slit vertically
Garlic- 3 big cloves crushed well.
Tomato-1 small one
Red Chili Powder- 2 tsp(substitute with Kashmiri chili powder if you don't like the spice level.)
Turmeric-1/2 tsp
Tamarind Extract- 1tbsp(Laxmi Natural Tamarind Concentrate.)
Mustard-1/2 tsp(optional)
Fenugreek-1 tsp
Coconut oil-2 tbsp
Curry leaves
salt to taste

Preparation:
Use a pan or clay pot. Some say the high heat damages the clay pot so you could do the spluttering of mustard in a pan and add to the clay pot.

Heat the oil in a pan/ meen chatti( clay pot) and add the mustard seeds.
Cover and reduce heat and let them splutter. Open and add the fenugreek, onions,green chilies and garlic. Fry till the onions are transparent and starting to brown at the edges. Add the tomatoes and saute for just a minute. Mix the chili powder, turmeric powder with 1 tbsp water and add to the pan.

Fry for a minute or so and then add the tamarind extract. This extract that I use has the natural taste and the light brown color of real tamarind. If you are using whole tamarind, soak a small ball in half cup warm water and extract the juice by squishing the tamarind into the water and straining it.

Add 1/2 cup to 1 cup water if there is no liquid left in the pan and let it come to a boil. Adjust the sourness and salt and then add the fish and the curry leaves. Cover, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 7 to 10minutes. Keep it covered for some more time. The fish will take time to imbibe the flavors and tastes better definitely the next day or later in the evening.