Chicken Cafreal

[pepperhead212]

Here is that dish again, posted in international, with the recipe, as you requested, msmofet.

This may be my favorite Indian chicken dish - this or Chicken 65, both loaded with garlic! Chicken cafreal is a Goan dish, influenced by the Portuguese (and visa-versa - probably why so much cilantro is used in Portuguese food!), when they occupied the small state of Goa, back in the days of the spice trades. Some of the spiciest foods, and also use a lot of vinegar, for their sour in the foods, though this also has tamarind. The foods of Goa are some of my favorites of Indian, along with those of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, due to all of the garlic and hot peppers!


Chicken Cafreal, start to finish. Recipe below the photos.

Spices for the green masala:
Spices for cafreal, before toasting. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Spices, after toasting:
Toasted spices, for chicken cafreal masala. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cafreal masala paste, with spices, green chiles, ginger, garlic, cilantro, and salt:
Cafreal masala paste, to marinate the chicken. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken, starting to cook after marinating 5 hours:
Chicken cafreal, starting to cook. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken cafreal, after cooking about 20 min., before adding vinegar. Here, I sucked off 2 tb of the fat, with a baster:
Cafreal, after cooking about 20 min., before adding the vinegar. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken cafreal, finished cooking, with most of the masala clinging to the chicken:
Cafreal, ready to serve. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken cafreal, topped with crispy onions:
Chicken cafreal by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken Cafreal

2-2 1/2 lbs dark meat chicken
1 tb tamarind pulp
8 tb warm water
1 large yellow or purple onion; sliced thin
7 tb vegetable oil; divided
1 tb Indian coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seeds, whole
5 cloves, whole
12 black peppercorns, whole
1 inch Cinnamon stick; broken up
1 tb white poppy seeds
5 cloves garlic; coarsely chopped
1 inch fresh ginger; sliced thin
5 serrano peppers; sliced (0.25 in)
3/4 cup cilantro (fresh); coarsely chopped
3/4 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp Salt; OR to taste
3 tb white vinegar

A. First, set the tamarind to soak in the warm water - set it in, and massage it around with your fingers, and let it soak, while prepping the other ing. When soft, press it through a fine strainer, scraping the paste off of the bottom.

B. The chicken can be boneless/skinless, or thighs, chopped up into about 4 or 5 pieces, or drumsticks, chopped up into 2 or 3 pieces. Skin can be left on, but i took it off. Set pieces aside in a bowl.

C. Heat your toasting pan over medium high heat for a little over a minute, then add the coriander, cumin, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, and white poppy seeds. Toss for a minute, or a little longer, until spices are slightly darkened, and a wisp of smoke is coming from the pan. Pour into a bowl, to cool.

D. Prepare the fresh ingredients, while the spices are cooling. When cool, grind the spices in a wet dry grinder until finely ground (make sure the cinnamon pieces are gone). Add the fresh ingredients, turmeric, and salt, along with the turmeric pulp, and grind to a paste, scraping down the sides a few times. Scrape the paste into the chicken bowl, and mix well. Cover, and marinate 5-6 hours, or overnight.

E. Before starting to cook the chicken, heat up 4 tb of the oil in about a 9" saute pan over medium heat, and add the onions. Cook, stirring frequently, until caramelized and crispy, reducing the heat toward the end. Remove to a paper towel on a plate with a slotted spoon, and let drain.

F. When ready to cook, heat 3 tb oil in a 12" NS skillet, and add the chicken, placing the smaller pieces around the sides. After 6-7 min., turn the pieces (I use a plastic tong spatula), turning two more times. After about 20 min., tilt the pan and suck out the fat with a baster - a lot will be there, if the skin is left on, but not much if skinless/boneless). Then add the vinegar to the bottom of the pan, tilting it around, to contact the pieces. Cook 7 or 8 more minutes, turning the pieces frequently. The sauce should be pretty much cooked away by now, and clinging to the chicken.

G. Serve garnished with the crispy onions. (I deleted the onion photo - I was told that I was limited to 8 photos, even though there are only 8, and it took all 8 on another thread!)


Notes: If no wet/dry grinder is available, the spices can be ground in a regular spice grinder, then everything can be put into a small blender or the small container of a FP, to grind the fresh ingredients in with the spices.

Or, if you want a workout, all this can be done in a large mortar and pestle!

 

[buckytom]

Wow, pepp. That looks and sounds really freakin good.

I've always been so intimidated by Indian cooking because of the number and scarcity of the ingredients involved, plus my cheap side not wanting to buy much more of something that I figure will go to waste.

But I recognize and probably have most of the ingredients (some may be old, ...whatever), and I know I can get the rest. This is on my to do list for sure.

Isn't Goan cooking famous for seafood? I'd love some fishy recipes as my soul on winter longs to be out on a boat or on the shore with a tight line.

 

[pepperhead212]

Yes, bucky, Goa is definitely known for their seafoods. They also eat a lot of meats - also a Portuguese influence, who sort of brought it from Europe, and there aren't nearly as many vegetarians in Goa, as some of the other areas.

Funny thing - I used to not like Indian food, because so much of what I had tried almost always had a raw cinnamon flavor in it. Any food in restaurants was usually Northern Indian, at least around here, and all of the spice mixes, like garam masala, had untoasted spices in them. Only after I discovered the method of toasting the spices, did I like the food!

Getting into Indian cooking can be somewhat intimidating. I had to stock up on a lot of ingredients, even more than with the other oriental cuisines I got hooked on. The one thing different was there are less essential fresh ingredients, like all those herbs in Thai and other SE Asian cooking. The curry tree is the only thing that I had to grow, though I started growing that originally for Malaysian cooking, where they are influenced by many ethnic groups, including India.

Most of the spices I have for this Indian cooking I keep in small containers - some, like coriander, mustard seed, and cumin larger containers, but all the rest gets kept in vacuum packs, with oxygen adsorbent packs in them, in the freezer, if not often used, or the vacuum packs of larger spices get kept in a black tub in the basement. It keeps pretty much forever this way. The spice mixes I make in small amounts, except things like sambar masala, which I use a lot of.

Here's one of 4 boxes I keep of spices for Indian foods. I have another of the spice mixes, one of less used spices, and another with larger jars, like coriander. This is the one I grab the most:
DSCF0841_zps475194ad by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A few of these things I've actually had to order on ebay, from India! You can find them here, but they aren't the same. Can you tell I'm obsessed? lol

 

[buckytom]

Lol, umm,.. ... ... No. Not a bit.



Keep it coming. We feed on new culinary souls, er, I mean we appreciate people with excitement for cooking.

 

[Andy M.]

Looks good! Since I have Indians as next door neighbors, I've been exposed to more of their foods. There is a significant Indian population here so I have my choice of Indian grocery stores. Their spices are MUCH cheaper than Penzeys.

 

[jennyema]

That looks delicious!!

And those ingredients are easy to find

Is Vindaloo a Goan preparation?

 

[Andy M.]

That looks delicious!!

And those ingredients are easy to find

Is Vindaloo a Goan preparation?

Yes. It's supposed to be one of the hotter dishes in Goan cuisine.

 

[jennyema]

Yes. It's supposed to be one of the hotter dishes in Goan cuisine.

Vindaloo is one of my very favorite Indian preparations.

You must have some Indian markets up by you, right?


There used to be one in Brookline but I'm not sure if its still there.

 

[Andy M.]

Vindaloo is one of my very favorite Indian preparations.

You must have some Indian markets up by you, right?


There used to be one in Brookline but I'm not sure if its still there.

There are several Indian markets near me. It's worth a visit just to go there and enjoy the aromas.

When my grandson was about 3-4 YO, we went to a spice store. The place was empty except for the family owners all lined up near the front, ready to serve you. When we walked in, Steven, in a loud enthusiastic voice, said "Yum yum!" as we were assailed by all the great smells. That brought big grins from all the folks in the place.

 

[cookieee]

Dave, first off, thank you for the Chicken Cafreal recipe, it looks and sounds delicious. Printed out, of course.

I am greatly impressed with the box of Most Used spices. You put me to shame. lol. I wrote them all down.

Do you have any Indian cookbooks? I have

"660 Curries" - Raghavan Iyer
"India's 500 Best Recipes" Shehzad Husain

I also have a 1" binder for India Spices and another binder for India recipes I have saved out of magazines and papers.

Would love to share.

P.S. Glad to see Turmeric in your Most Used box.

 

[jennyema]

There are several Indian markets near me. It's worth a visit just to go there and enjoy the aromas.

When my grandson was about 3-4 YO, we went to a spice store. The place was empty except for the family owners all lined up near the front, ready to serve you. When we walked in, Steven, in a loud enthusiastic voice, said "Yum yum!" as we were assailed by all the great smells. That brought big grins from all the folks in the place.

We went to some great spice stores and stalls in Morocco last month. I brought back a number of different things.

 

[Andy M.]

We went to some great spice stores and stalls in Morocco last month. I brought back a number of different things.

SO's daughter and granddaughter went to Morocco last Fall and brought me back some saffron and ras el hanout.

 

[pepperhead212]

Looks good! Since I have Indians as next door neighbors, I've been exposed to more of their foods. There is a significant Indian population here so I have my choice of Indian grocery stores. Their spices are MUCH cheaper than Penzeys.

You are lucky to have the neighbors, as well as the stores in your area, Andy! I have 3 stores in the area, but not real close - about 8 miles away. A small one just opened last
year, and the owner is willing to barter - he was shocked, and thrilled when I took him in a large bag of just cut curry tree branches (I trimmed at least 2/3 of my tree, to bring it indoors in the fall); he gave me some of the food they sell from a little take out kitchen there, and it was delicious, and HOT! He must have chosen those when I told him that I grow peppers, and that I'd bring him some samples next season. I told him that it was almost as hot as the food I make, and he got a laugh out of that, and when he something back into the kitchen (In Indian), the cooks busted out laughing, and came out to see who this was that liked such hot food!

Vindaloo is one of my very favorite Indian preparations.

You must have some Indian markets up by you, right?

There used to be one in Brookline but I'm not sure if its still there.

Vindaloo is one of my favorites, too, though some can get too heavy with the vinegar (this is the reason I'm not fond of Philipine cuisine - hot, but way too much vinegar in too many things).

There was nothing in the chicken cafreal that is hard to find, except the white poppy seeds. However, a friend uses regular poppy seeds in many Indian dishes, and, unless tasted side-by-side, I don't think I could tell the difference. The Indian coriander does taste different, but the regular would pass in most cases, like this.

Dave, first off, thank you for the Chicken Cafreal recipe, it looks and sounds delicious. Printed out, of course.

I am greatly impressed with the box of Most Used spices. You put me to shame. lol. I wrote them all down.

Do you have any Indian cookbooks? I have

"660 Curries" - Raghavan Iyer
"India's 500 Best Recipes" Shehzad Husain

I also have a 1" binder for India Spices and another binder for India recipes I have saved out of magazines and papers.

Would love to share.

P.S. Glad to see Turmeric in your Most Used box.

That first book you listed - 660 Curries - I would say is my favorite, if I had to pick one! He definitely has the best recipes for masalas of any of the books I have, and most are toasted, and ones that weren't, he would explain about how that area doesn't toast them, or toasts some of the spices in their masalas, and they would all turn out great. And this is where I found the method of mixing just a tsp. of oil into a bunch of whole spices, before toasting. This gives the masala a different, and delicious flavor. An Indian fellow in a convenience store I deliver to told me that they always add the oil to the spices before toasting - depends on where they are from, I guess. 660 Curries also has a great chapter on legumes, and something I haven't seen anywhere else - sprouted beans used in the curries, which is another delicious variation. He also has a bunch of bottle gourd recipes - an ingredient that I grew for the first time last year, and had huge numbers of, from just two plants!

I noted on another thread, that I never really liked Indian food until I started making it myself, as the food always seemed to have a "raw cinnamon" flavor. All store-bought garam masalas had this.
And the first Indian book I got - don't remember the name, or the CB author, but she was the "best selling Indian CB author in the country" at the time, so it had to be good...WRONG! Her masalas all had raw spices, and she would just say "or use store-bought - it's fine".

The first book, which had a recipe for garam masala, in which the spices were all toasted, and opened me up to this cooking was
Mangoes and Curry Leaves, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid - the same couple that wrote Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet , which is what made me buy it. I found better books later, but this got me started.

The next book, which I got used for less than shipping on Amazon, was
How To Cook Indian, by Sanjeev Kapoor. A lot of good recipes; no photos, but that doesn't bother me - I want recipes! Good section on masalas, and these were mostly toasted, as well. Also a great chapter on flatbreads - cornmeal, millet flour, sorghum flour, as well as the usual besan and atta. And one recipe has 30 cloves of garlic - imagine that!

The next book I got from a friend - the same one who told me about 660 Curries! He said he know I wouldn't look at it, because of the name (usually, those 1,000 recipe books aren't that great) - 1,000 Indian Recipes, by Neelam Batra. Has a lot of southern Indian recipes, and she explains the origins of many of them. This one has the best pickle, chutney, and papad selection of any book I've seen. The masala chapter is good, but she calls for toasting ground spices, which burns them easily, and everything makes 1 1/2 cups, which is too much, unless you are an Indian family! Minor problem - I just use whole spices, and reduce the amounts!

I have a number of other books that I have gotten through the years (too many to list here! lol), but those three - 660, how to cook, and 1000 recipes - are the ones I reach for, when looking for something Indian, with a particular ingredient.

I don't really have an Indian looseleaf notebook started yet, and only 8 recipes in the Indian file in my cooking software, compared to 48 for Thai! Back in the 70s I started what I call my "blue book", for all of my favorite recipes, and shortly after, when I got hooked on Chinese, I started my "black book", later adding my favorite SE Asian recipes, written in blue, to distinguish. I have to start one for Indian - not sure what color that will be!

It was only about 6 years ago that I went on my Indian cooking "kick", as I call it, when I try to learn all I can about a cuisine (and obtain all of the essential ingredients!). Something strange happened, without me even trying - I lost over 45 lbs, I assume because I dropped the jasmine white rice I was eating so much of (Indian cooking also serves basmati profusely, but I wasn't really doing that), and was trying all those odd grains, lentils, and other legumes! Since then, I've tried to incorporate them into my cooking, in place of the "empty" starches, though nothing tastes like jasmine rice!

 

[cookieee]

Hi Dave, back in '08, on the Cooking Light Bulletin Board, someone posted the question, "Why are lentils/legumes so friggin confusing?" Guess who answered his question? Raghavan Iyer himself. I was sooo surprised. I printed it out and saved it.

On the same CLBB a couple years later, someone posted an index they composed of recipes using Punjabi Garam Masala from Mr. Iyer's book. It is a shame that his book does not have an index listing spices used. Of course I saved that also.


Would that author be Madhur Jaffrey, Julie Sahni, or Suneeta Vaswani?

Re: 1,000 recipe books- glad you didn't pass yours up. I have one "1,001 Best Grilling Recipes" by Rick Browne that I just love. lol

It's nice to know that you like cookbooks. Maybe once in a while you will share the titles of some of your other books. Thank you for sharing what you have so far. Oh, how about green for your India binder, like the spine of Mr. Iyer's book?

The only rice we use is Basmati. Darn, I'm not loosing weight. lol

 

[pepperhead212]

Cookieee, I think that if 660 Curries, or any of these Indian books, for that matter, had an index with all of those recipes cross-indexed with the ingredients they use, the index would be half the book! lol

The number of lentils out there can be daunting, as anyone who has been in an Indian grocery can attest to. Look at it this way - any lentil can have 4 varieties: the plain lentil and the hulled and split (the two most common), but also the split, but not hulled, and the hulled, but not split! Fortunately, the latter two are rarely called for. I have tried just about every lentil in the stores, and the only two I wasn't crazy about the flavor of were the horse gram and the moth dal. Most have a relatively neutral flavor, so it's all what they are cooked with. The red chori have a unique and delicious flavor, and are great sprouted slightly, before cooking.

I probably have over 500 cookbooks! I have to build another bookcase, as I have two filled already, plus a bunch of tubs. When retired, I'll sell a bunch on ebay or Amazon, and just keep what I want.

I like the green idea for the Indian notebook - thanks!

 

[cookieee]

Your right, that would be one heck of a BIG book. lol

Over 500 cookbooks- WOW You would have been a great player for the Cooking Game of the Week that I hosted on the CLBB. Once a week I would pick a number. The players went to their cookbooks and that would be the number cookbook that they had to find a recipe and make for that week. We had a lot of fun, got a lot of use out of our cookbooks and ate a lot of really good food. OK a bummer now and then. lol It lasted for over 10 years till Cooking Light closed the bulletin board.

Glad you like my green idea-your welcome!

 

[pepperhead212]

Interesting game. Those on Cooking Light wouldn't have wanted the recipes from many of my books - all those chocolate and other dessert books in there! lol

 

[cookieee]

HA HA Don't let the name of the site confuse you. We had every kind of cookbook you could think of and then some. I had over 300 myself back then. Since then I have gone through a lot of them and copied just the recipes that appealed to us. Gave some away and holding on to some to sell. After over 30 years of collecting, I now have over 250 binders full of recipes. Yikes!!

 

[msmofet]

Thank you for the recipe.