E-Crossbats Online Learning and Instruction (ECOLI) series.

Don’t forget: NEXT FRIDAY 5 – 7 pm, 12th March – the inaugural Crossbats ON-LINE Dining Club. Anir Pradeep-White leads you in creating a fiery feast from Feltham in your very own kitchen to WOW your family.

All you need is to prepare the ingredients and Gordon Deoras will do the rest (as long as you copy what he does). We are very lucky to have secured Yoram Notonalengtheh for the evening.

This is the first in the E-Crossbats Online Learning and Instruction (ECOLI) series.

Menu as follows:

1. Butter chicken (Sub chicken with paneer for veggies folks)

2. Kadhai Chicken (substitute a mix of cauliflower, potatoes and carrot for veggies)

3. Naan bread 4. Jeera rice/pulao.

Ingredients

1. Chicken – 1.5 Kgs boneless cut into 1 inch cubes. Can also replace with prawns, fish, paneer, potatoes, mix veggies such as baby cucumber, beans, carrots etc. Ask Anir for suggestions for each dish
2. Tomatoes               – 1 Kg
3. Onions               – 1 Kg
4. Ginger                             – 100 grams
5. Garlic                             – 6 bulbs
6. Fresh Coriander – 150 grams
7. Lemon                             – 2 lemons
8. Butter                             – 200 grams (salted or unsalted)
9. Cream                             – 50 mls full fat double cream
10. Yogurt                             – 400 grams of Greek Yogurt
11. Cashew Nuts               – 20 odd – un roasted and un salted
12. Chilli Powder               – 100 grms mild Chilli powder, if not replace with Paprika or Cayenne pepper
13. Bay Leaf               – 3 leaves
14. Cinnamon sticks – 3 sticks of 3 inch
15. Ground Cumin               – 1 cup, roughly 130 grms. Could also use whole cumin & grind to a powder
16. Whole Cumin seed – 1 tablespoon
17. Turmeric powder – 3 tablespoon
18. Black Cardamom – 3 pieces
19. Whole cloves – 8 cloves
20. Green Cardamom – 6 pieces
21. Black Peppercorn – 25 grams or 50 odd peppercorns
22. Fenugreek leaves/powder – 1 tablespoon (optional, would give great flavour though)
23. Salt               – to taste
24. Sugar               – a pinch
25. Oil               – Roughly 100 mls
26. Plain Flour               – 2 cups about 300 grams
27. Rice – 125 grams of Basmati rice.
28. Water               – As needed
29. Baking Soda. – ½ teaspoon
30. Baking powder. – ½ teaspoon

Beer & Wine Pairing

Beer – Hoppy flavour to complement spices

1. Pilsener Urquell Czech spicier stronger hops fit the bill for lager drinkers 4.4%
2. Jaipur IPA as originally brewed hoppier and stronger, citrus flavours, to export to India …5.9%
3. Lagunitas IPA similar to Jaipur 6.2%

White Wine – Full bodied white which means a flavoursome mouth feely Chardonnay or Viognier, frequently described as buttery or creamy, apricots, oak. Still dry ish.

Red – Fresh fruit and blackberries to go with spice. NZ Pinot noir, or Chilean, Aussie Shiraz, or my favourite a Fruity Beaujolais Also known as Brouilly) which can be served slightly chilled!!!! The latter from Waitrose would be awesome

Preparation before the cooking

Butter Chicken

Preparations

1. Cut the 750 grams boneless chicken in 1 inch cubes.
2. 750 grams of Tomatoes diced – about 8 to 10 pieces of each tomato
3. 100 grams of Onions – diced/sliced – if diced – similar size to the tomatoes
4. Ginger –
   1. 2 inches – thin juliennes
   2. 1 tablespoon finely chopped/minced
5. Garlic – 4 tablespoons – small diced/chopped/minced/grated. Both Ginger and Garlic can be diced together.
6. Fresh Coriander – about 50 grams – finely chopped
7. 2 Lemons – juiced. If you want you can also grate half a teaspoon of the zest.
8. Pro Tip – if you want you can take 350 ml yogurt (save 50 ml for the naan bread) and tie it in a muslin/cheese cloth – kind of make a parcel – hang it with a bowl below to collect the water. You need to do this overnight or for at least 8 – 10 hrs. This is completely optional and you can ignore this step. However this will add a lot of flavour and depth to the chicken.
9. Pro tip – you can finely diced the stalks from all the coriander and add half in the butter chicken and half in the kadhai chicken. The stalks have a lot of flavour and fragrance so would add depth to the dishes.

Cheat – Instead of making the chicken tikka at home. You can substitute this with Ready meal chicken tikka from Waitrose, Tesco or other super stores. You can also use left over grilled or roast chicken as long as it is plain or with minimal flavouring. Peri Peri chicken also work great. You can also use any chicken Sheek kebab or lamb Sheek kebab (not doner kebab) too from your favourite kebab shop too. If you do this, you will not need 400 mls of yogurt, but just the 50 mls for the naan bread.

Utensils

1. Deep sauce pan to cook the sauce – so big enough to hold the onions, tomatoes etc.
2. Lid to cover sauce pan
3. Hand held blender – if not then a food processor would also do. However you would need the sauce to cool down. We will need to fine blend the sauce
4. Sieve to pass the sauce through
5. Oven to grill the chicken
6. Bowl to marinate the chicken

Kadhai Chicken

Preparations

1. Cut the 750 grams boneless chicken in 1 inch cubes.
2. 250 grams of tomatoes – halved and sliced
3. 750 grams of onions – halved and finely sliced
4. Ginger – roughly 3 inches – fine juliennes.
5. Garlic – 4 bulbs peeled and lightly smashed
6. Fresh Coriander – about 50 grams – finely chopped
7. If using cumin seeds to make the powder – two options –
   1. Lightly toast 1 cup/130 grams of cumin. Cool and then grind
   2. Straight Grind 1 cup/130 grams of cumin

Utensils

1. Deep sauce pan to cook the sauce so big enough to hold the onions, tomatoes etc. Typically we would not blend the sauce, volume would be more than the butter chicken, so take your bigger saucepan for this one.
2. Lid to cover saucepan.
3. Hand held blender – optional
4. Frying pan to pan fry the chicken and the spices.

Naan

Preparation

1. Garlic – 2 – 3 table spoon finely minced or grated or chopped
2. Fresh Coriander leaves – 2 – 3 table spoons finely chopped
3. Optional – 2 table spoon finely chopped green chillies.
4. 50 ml of yogurt

Cheat

1. You could use store brought ready to use naan and just grill them
2. Wholemeal Pitta bread also works really well. Cut into two and toast in a toaster and put butter in between the layers before serving.
3. If you do this, you will not need 50 mls of yogurt

Utensils

1. Bowl to mix dough.
2. Rolling pin
3. Fork
4. Flat Pan to roast or oven

Jeera Rice

Preparation

1. Prepare the rice as per the instructions on the packet or as you usually cook it.
2. Fresh Coriander – finely chopped – about 2 – 3 teaspoons.

Cheat

1. Uncle Bens or any other microwaveable basmati rice would also work. Though it would not be as good as home made rice, it is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
2. You could potentially also replace rice with couscous or even cauliflower rice. I have not tried these, but there should be no reason why it would not work.
3. Utensils
4. A wide pan to stir fry the spices and rice.