Indian Chicken Kebabs

27 Apr

When I was in India many years ago, I accompanied one of my cousins to the market so she could buy a chicken for that evening’s dinner.  She instructed me to wait for her in the car while she ran into the market, so I did.  Two minutes later, my cousin emerged from the market holding a plastic bag.  She set the bag on the floor in front of the seat next to her, and we started home.

Now, as an admission of my total ignorance, when my cousin told me that she was buying a chicken at the store, I very much imagined her buying what I knew as a market chicken: a headless, featherless, organless chicken that came in a shrink wrapped bag.  Keeping that in mind (and the fact that I was still a very dedicated vegetarian), you can imagine my alarm when the bag on the floor of the car began to softly and almost indiscernibly cluck.  No, I thought.  Clearly I am imagining that.  I watched the bag for a moment, wondering if the subtle crinkling of the bag’s sides was a product of the car’s bumping along a dirt road.  Um, is that chicken… I started to ask, when, as though sensing my mild horror (can chickens smell fear?) the bag started to freak out.  By the time we got home, the chicken bag was expanding from all directions.  My cousin grabbed the bag, holding it out to her side like, well, like a plastic bag with a frenzied chicken contained within, and hurried along to the backyard.

I didn’t see my cousin or the chicken again until about an hour later, when both emerged from the kitchen.  My cousin was holding a platter of fresh (no, really, I mean fresh) kebabs, which, moments after she set on the table, people began to rave about.  The perfect seasoning, the fresh spices, the juicy meat—I was the only person at the table not enraptured by the kebabs, because I was the only person at the table not eating the kebabs.  Vegetarianism aside, I could not help thinking of how quickly and matter-of-factly that chicken made its way to the table, and how impressed I was by the whole affair.  Forget buying a trussed and refrigerated organic chicken from Whole Foods, my cousin had just bought a chicken.

More than a decade later, now a beginning meat eater, I found myself telling that story to a friend.  After justifiably laughing at my discomfort, she then said, “I’ll bet those kebabs tasted fantastic.”  Weirdly, no one had ever brought that up before.  It seemed almost unbelievable that she was the first person to mention the actual kebab in the story.  Since it didn’t seem right to leave that part of the story unsolved, I felt it was my duty to dig up a recipe for chicken kebabs and see what all the fuss was about.

Though the chicken I used was nowhere near as fresh as the chicken in my cousin’s kebabs, I now understand the revelry that surrounded them. The chicken is moist while the outer breading is pleasingly crunchy, and the earthy spices combine with fresh green chilies to make a fantastic blend of lightly spicy and savory elements in each bite.  I may be many years late to this wonderful dish, but I feel that makes me uniquely qualified to insist that you not wait as long as I did to discover it.  Eat it now.

Indian Chicken Kebabs

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking

Jaffrey’s original recipe called for slightly different ingredients and yielded a smaller number of larger kebabs.  I prefer a daintier portion of meat, so I made each kebab smaller, but I think these kebabs would be even better if they were sized into two or three bite portions.  I served the kebabs with basmati rice and a bit of cucumber and yogurt sauce, but you could also tuck one into a bit of naan to make yourself a lovely light meal.

Makes 8 kebabs

1 lb finely ground chicken (I bought ground chicken and then pulsed it in the food processor to make it even finer)

12 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs, or another very fine, dry breadcrumb

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon garam masala

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint

1 or 2 fresh, hot green chilies, finely chopped

1/2 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 teaspoons peeled, finely grated fresh ginger

1/2 medium fresh tomato, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

vegetable oil to line the bottom of a frying pan

lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Combine the chicken, 4 tablespoons of the breadcrumbs, salt, garam masala, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cilantro, mint, green chilies, onion, ginger, tomato, and cayenne in a bowl.  Mix well and form 8 patties.  Put the remaining 8 tablespoons breadcrumbs on a plate and dip each patty in them.  There should be a thin layer of breadcrumbs on all sides.  Cover and refrigerate the patties in a single layer until needed.

Put enough oil in a large frying pan to cover the bottom lightly and set over medium-high heat.  When hot, put in the patties–only as many as the pan will hold in a single layer.  Cook for 3 minutes on each side.  Turn heat to medium and cook for another 2-3 minutes on each side.  Place cooked patties on a large baking sheet and place in preheated oven for 5 minutes to keep warm and continue cooking all the way through.  If you make several very small patties instead of 8 medium ones, it will not be necessary to continue cooking the patties in the oven.

Before eating, top the patties with a generous squeeze of lemon juice.

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Yeasted Buttermilk Biscuits

22 Apr

In the past ten years, I can recall a total of one single Easter that did not suffer a torrential downpour of spring rain.  Spring (and autumn…and winter) puts forth a formidable battle in the Pacific Northwest, challenging trees and flowers to bloom, then pounding them with the type of rain that can oftentimes only be described as being vaguely menacing.  Easter egg hunts will be completed by children wearing heavy raingear, and casual brunches will be held indoors while a fireplace roars with every effort to try and stave off the soggy chill of the morning.

The upside to steeling oneself for a brisk and sodden Easter is the still welcome addition of piping hot baked goods.  It’s not that warm days do not allow for steaming hot treats that come straight from the oven, but it’s not difficult to notice that such things are greeted with a higher level of affection when presented on a chilly, wet day.  The only downside to making a baking commitment on Easter morning is the inevitable time crunch that will inhibit your productivity and, unfortunately, raise your crabbiness level to DEFCON 5.  Because the Easter Bunny waits for no one.

To remedy this problem, I have come up with the ridiculously simple time saving solution of merely spending the previous evening completing 50% of what needs to be done.  If it sounds totally over simplified, it’s because it is.  You are not, collectively, doing any less work, but you are managing your time in a way that makes it feel like you are getting away with something.  You can crack your eggs into a big bowl and leave them covered in the refrigerator to no ill effect.  You can slice bread for French toast, chop vegetables for a frittata, measure out dry and wet ingredients for pancakes or waffles, or you can whip up a batch of what has become my most favorite addition to any brunch or breakfast: yeasted buttermilk biscuits.

Allowed to sit in the refrigerator overnight, the dough for these biscuits has time to develop a fantastically light texture and flavor.  The mixing of the dough is simple to the point of being almost unbelievable, and the next morning’s work involves nothing more than a couple of passes kneading the dough, a quick roll and cut (assisted, in my case, by an eager preschooler), then a short rise while the oven preheats.  15 minutes in the oven later, you’ve got rich, flaky biscuits that are just waiting to be paired up with some tart jam or a selection of delicious flavored butters.

If you are in the presence of an Easter ham, word has it that these biscuits are amenable to being utilized as a soft and pillowy vehicle for ham consumption.  Brought while still warm to a recent to a potluck, these biscuits were received with great joy.  They were eaten outside, in a newly planted garden, while a soft rain fell.  An experience joining belly-warming sustenance with the damp shiver of the season, it was the perfect signifier of spring’s arrival in the Pacific Northwest.

Yeasted Buttermilk Biscuits

From that old standby, James McNair’s Breakfast 

It’s worth noting that this dough keeps in the refrigerator for several days.  This means that you can keep a batch in the fridge, then cut off, roll, and bake however much you want, whenever you want.  This realization–that I could bake fresh yeasted buttermilk biscuits every morning, several days in a row–was nothing short of magical for me.

1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons, or 1/4 ounce) quick-rising active dry yeast

5 tablespoons warm water (110 degrees to 115 degrees F)

5 cups all-purpose flour

5 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup canola or other high-quality vegetable oil

2 cups buttermilk

In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the water, stir to dissolve, and let stand until soft and foamy, about 5 minutes.  (Discard the mixture and start over with a fresh batch of yeast if bubbles have not formed in 5 minutes.)

In a bowl or food processor, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.  Cut the oil into the mixture with a pastry blender or the steel blade of the food processor until the mixture is the texture of coarse cornmeal.  If using a food processor, transfer the mixture to a large bowl (I recommend a very large bowl, because this mixture will expand a great deal more than you think).  Pour in the buttermilk and softened yeast.  Stir the mixture quickly to combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or preferably overnight.

Lightly grease baking sheets, or line with parchment paper, and set aside.

Form the risen dough into a ball and turn out onto a generously floured surface.  Knead lightly and quickly, about 1 minute.  Roll out with a lightly flour rolling pin to about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut with a floured 2 1/2 round cutter and place barely touching on the prepared sheets.  Cover with a kitchen towel and set aside to rise just until puffy, 20 to 30 minutes.

While the biscuits are rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Bake until lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes.  I bake two sheets of biscuits at a time, placing one sheet on the upper-middle shelf and one on the lower-middle shelf, then swapping the two sheets’ positions halfway through baking.

Makes about 48 biscuits.

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Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

19 Apr

One of the greatest sandwiches I’ve ever eaten came from a small café and bakery in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  It was a turkey sandwich, replete with fresh vegetables and fortified with huge slices of avocado.  I loved the texture, I loved the flavor, but most of all, I loved the bread.  The bread that enveloped this sandwich was a soft, thick cut white bread with a large swirl of cinnamon spiraling through it.  When I initially saw the description of the sandwich and its bread I was dubious (cinnamon bread with a turkey and avocado sandwich?), but as soon as I took my first bite of the sandwich, all my suspicions went out the window.  The bread was sturdy enough to hold together a generous pile of fillings, but soft enough to make each and every bite of that sandwich an absolute treasure.  The cinnamon flavor in the bread was very subtle, and the swirl in which the cinnamon was contained had the same texture as the rest of the bread. The bread had a pillowy crust, a delicate chew, and it was the perfect savory pairing for a sandwich.

This is not that bread.

Whereas the bread from that bakery was gentle in texture and flavor, this bread is loud and commands your attention from the get go.  The first thing you notice about this bread is the shatteringly crisp cinnamon sugar crust that crackles loudly as you slice into it.  The second thing to catch your eye is the gooey cinnamon swirl that puddles into thick caramelized drops as it slowly creeps out of each slice.

The next aspect is the toothsome chew of the bread, not bubbly and chewy like a crisp ciabatta, but certainly not yielding and soft.  Biting into this bread is like biting into something a bit less sandwich-y, a bit more dessert-ish.  It’s not entirely in the realm of a dessert, but it is certainly the sort of thing that, sliced, toasted, and spread with cream cheese or (why not?) Nutella, would easily satisfy anyone’s craving for a sweet roll or sticky bun.

This is, come to think of it, yet another defining characteristic of this bread.  It’s a perfectly sweet baked good that can be enjoyed as a snack, as an accompaniment at breakfast, or as a companion to a cup of tea, but the whole time you are enjoying it, you are overcome with the mild notion that you might just be getting away with something slightly mischievous.  It’s not a dessert!  It’s a snack!  It’s not a cinnamon roll!  It’s cinnamon bread.  And now that I’ve given you every excuse to eat this bread, I think that pretty much means you no longer have any excuse not to get up and make it right now.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

Barely adapted from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

I am of the opinion that if you are going to make bread with raisins in it, make bread with raisins in it. I found the original recipe’s raisin requirement to be far too scant, so I’ve taken the liberty of doubling the amount in the version below.  Conversely, if you don’t care for raisins, they can be left out to no ill effect.

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/4 cups warm milk (not skim, but 1% to whole is fine), heated to around 110 degrees

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing

2 large egg yolks

3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant or rapid-rise yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup raisins

Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl.  Measure out 2 tablespoons and reserve for the topping.  Whisk the milk, melted butter, and yolks together in a large liquid measuring cup or medium bowl.

Combine 3 1/2 cups of the flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of the cinnamon sugar in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook, or in a large bowl.  With the mixture on low speed, or if not using a standing mixer, with a rubber spatula, add the milk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 2 minutes.

Increase the mixer speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.  If after 4 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/2 flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.  If kneading by hand, turn the dough out onto a clean, lightly floured counter and knead by hand for 12-18 minutes, adding the remaining 1/2 cup flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead in raisins by hand until evenly distributed. Continue to knead the dough, forming it into a smooth, round ball.  Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and press into a 20 x 8 inch rectangle with the short side facing you.  Spray the dough lightly with water, then sprinkle evenly with the remaining cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1/2 inch border at the far edge.  Lightly spray the cinnamon sugar with water until it is damp but not wet.

Loosen the dough from the counter with a bench scraper or metal spatula, then roll the dough into a tight cylinder and pinch the seam closed.  Place the loaf seam side down in the prepared pan.  Mist the loaf with vegetable oil spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size and the dough barely springs back when poked with a knuckle, 45 to 75 minutes.

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Brush the loaf lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with the reserved  2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar, then spray lightly with water. Bake until golden, 40 to 60 minutes, rotating the loaf halfway through baking.  Cool the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving.

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