There is a new Hindi film called Quick Gun Murugan coming up. This is apparently an Austin Powerish take on Tamil cinema from South India.
One of the characters in the film is Mango Dolly. She is supposed to be a gangster moll in the best traditions of Tamil commercial cinema – heavily made up, well fed, tight fitting garish clothes, melodramatic, LOUD.
I made a chicken dish on Saturday which used curry leaves, mustard seeds and had a sour taste similar to the South Indian cooking ethos. It was very easy to cook and I made it while making the more laborious kosha mangsho (Bengali slow cooked, dry mutton). We had guests over at night and my brief was to make the two dishes taste as different from each other as possible.
So here’s a sneak preview into the making of Murg Mango Dolly… a Karmakar original
Cast:
- 750 g boneless chicken, cut into 3 inch pieces
- 4 table spoons oil, 2 table spoons if meant just for folks at home
- 1 finely chopped onion
- 1 finely chopped tomato
- 1 table spoon red chilly pickle, can use other pickles too. One table spoon East Indian Masala
- 10-15 curry leaves
- 1 tea spoon mustard seeds
- 1 tea spoon chopped garlic
- 4-6 split green chillies, try to get the light coloured, less fiery ones
I inaugurated a set of Ikea kitchen knives which a close friend of mine, SM, gave me sometime back. She’s started food blogging recently and I think I can take a bit of credit for that. The knives were amazing. I kept chopping everything in sight and was going to start on my fingers soon. Felt like Jamie Oliver. I even chopped the meat again though the shop had chopped and sent it to me. What a wonderful gift to give to a foodie.
Story:
- Take 4 table spoons of oil in a pan and heat it. I don’t skimp on oil while entertaining but you could do with half the amount
- Once the oil is hot, pop in a tea spoon of mustard seeds. They will crackle
- Add one finely chopped onion to this and let it fry till it becomes a bit soft and looks a bit transparent.
- Add a tea spoon of finely chopped garlic. I believe that garlic is used quite a bit in South Indian cuisine
- Add 10 – 15 curry leaves and let it fry for a short while. Curry leaves are the core taste binder on which the dish stands
- Add one chopped tomato, stir, don’t let it over cook and go soft as we want to feel the bite
- Add four split green chillies
- Add a table spoon of sour Indian pickle. I used red chilly pickle. You could even use mango or mixed pickle. This will give a sour taste to the dish
- Add 750 g boneless chicken cut into 3 inch pieces. Add about a table spoon of salt and a table spoon of East Indian Masala or red chilly powder
- Stir the mixture. Some juice will come out initially. Stir this on a high flame so that the chicken turns yellowish and the sauce dries up. This will take about ten minutes
- End of story. Garnish with some curry leaves and split chillies and coriander (if you want to)
- You can have this with roti, paratha, bread or lemon rice.
I took the picture of the finished dish in the box window outside our kitchen. Got a bit of sunlight.
The dish was a big hit with our guests. This was no mean task as it was competing with the very popular cult dish, kosha mangsho. Even I liked the dish though I normally don’t look at chicken if there is mutton around.
The full blown South Indian deal would have dessicated coconuts added along with the onions. Feel free to improvise, even I thought up the recipe as I went along/
Oh, and in case you are wondering, this is the original Mango Dolly … now take your pick
