Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- This week on Milk Street, we travel to Mumbai in India, and we do a spicy chicken vindaloo.

Then we move on to aloo matar, which is a potato and green pea curry, and finally, a restaurant dish at home called butter chicken.

So stay right here as we investigate three Indian classics.

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- So today is chicken vindaloo, which is about sweet, sour, and heat.

But since I'm standing next to someone who actually lived in Goa, maybe I shouldn't be the one to talk all about the recipe, because you grew up eating it.

- Vindaloo in general is a, a very traditional Goan recipe, and legend has it that the name vindaloo comes from vin, of vinegar, and aloo, which means garlic.

So there's a lot of garlic, there's a lot of tang from the vinegar, and a lot of heat.

- So we don't have Kashmiri chilies, which is sort of an essential part of this recipe.

So what are Kashmiri chilies?

- So Kashmiri chilies are from the, traditionally from the North of India, and they have a lot of flavor and a lot of depth, but they're not actually very hot, but they contribute to the sauce and the marinade of this dish, traditionally.

Now, we don't have that.

So what we're doing instead is using a combination, sweet paprika and cayenne, to make up for that.

So we have vinegar, which is going into our blender.

We're going to put everything into the blender, very easy.

And then the sweet paprika, cayenne.

And then whole spices, we have cumin and some clove.

And then turmeric and cinnamon for some sweet and heat.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So this is all going in, straight into our blender.

For our aromatics, we're going to have in some ginger.

Lots of garlic, these are 12 cloves of garlic.

And for sweetness, brown sugar.

And some salt and pepper.

Pepper being actually traditionally an Indian spice.

And to blend this all together, I'm just going to add a little bit of water in here.

This is so quick, too.

A lot of the times, Indian food is thought to be fussy and time-consuming.

And this is actually a really quick recipe.

(blender whirring) (blender stops) - Mmm.

- Lots.

- Yeah, that, also really fruity, which is nice.

- Mm-hmm, and our marinade now, very easy, going right into our chicken.

I've two pounds here of chicken thighs.

And this is going to coat our chicken.

One of the other interesting things, Chris, is, back in the day, when there was little to no refrigeration, chili and vinegar are used... - Preservative.

- As preservatives, so you can actually have the chicken be marinating in this at room temperature.

So our chicken is coated with the marinade and we're going to let this sit out at room temperature for about 15 minutes before we get cooking.

So, Chris, I have two tablespoons of neutral oil in here heating, on medium.

What I'm going to do is put the chicken into the pot, and the key here is to not fiddle and fuss with it.

It's going straight in, no touching for five to eight minutes.

- It's like you're really talking to me here, right?

You know that's what I would do.

- No fiddling, Mr. Kimball.

(laughter) (pot sizzling) So the chicken is in five to eight minutes.

No touching, we're just going to let it sit there and cook, and it will release automatically when it's done.

There's something so nostalgic about the smell that brings me straight back to home.

It's amazing, food has such a powerful effect.

So Chris, our marinade has started browning.

This is looking great and we are ready-- look at that.

It's starting to release easily.

A lot of the times, the fear is that it's going to stick to the pot.

It will not stick to the pot-- trust.

- Should I trust you?

I mean, is there historic evidence to suggest that I should always trust you?

- You've eaten my food and you're still standing.

- Okay.

- That's a good sign.

I'm going to add a third of a cup of water.

(pot sizzling) And we're going to stir this up.

This is going to cook 35 to 45 minutes on medium-low with the cover on until the chicken is fork-tender.

The chicken has been cooked, and I've added another two tablespoons of vinegar to this, just at the end.

We're topping it out with some extra tang.

- It's like you have a little extra vinegar, too.

You know that?

- I was wondering when you would realize, a little sweet, a little sour, a little spicy.

- Yeah, a little spicy... - (laughs): A little spicy.

So eight more minutes after adding the vinegar, what I'm looking for, really, is for this now to become a sauce that's going to coat the back of my spoon.

Okay, that sauce is looking wonderful now, I think... ...we are close to ready.

- Okay.

- So would you mind, Chris, helping me out?

If you could apportion us some rice.

I'd really like to eat this with short-grain rice.

A lot of people will assume all Indian food is eaten with basmati rice, which is long-grain.

But this is from the South, and in the South, short-grain rice is actually more prevalent.

In Goa, in fact, there's a traditional rice called red rice, which is... short-grain and nutty and starchy, but it's hard to find.

- So you must, it must drive you crazy when people talk about "Indian food," right?

- Yes.

- Yes, okay.

- Yes, I can expound a lot.

(laughing) - I'm sure we could be here all day talking about it.

- I did not grow up eating tandoori chicken or naan.

I had to go out to restaurants to eat that.

All right, this is fabulous.

I'm going to kill the heat here and serve us up some chicken vindaloo.

To me, this smells like home.

It's cheaper and faster than a flight all the way to India.

You could have this on the very same evening.

We have some options for condiments.

I know how much you love chilies.

You can add some and some cilantro.

- Go ahead.

- I will.

- I want to see if you go for the chilies.

It was amazing, this is so quick.

- The marinade comes together very fast in the blender, and it goes straight into the chicken and then into the pot.

So, let's see.

- Mmm.

- Oh, that looks yummy.

- Boy, is that good.

It's not, it's not actually that spicy.

- It's not that spicy.

- Okay, here comes the spice.

There's a little bit of spice, yeah.

- It hits slow.

- It does, a bit slow.

- It's a slow and long burn.

- Mmm.

This is-- I hate to sound like I'm ten years old, but this is amazing.

- (laughs) - There's a richness to it, which I didn't expect, you know.

I'm going to have some chili with this one.

- Live a little.

- Mmm.

- I mean, in most places, people would have whole chilies they would just bite into casually after every bite.

- I need more chili.

- Mm-hmm.

Wait, wait, I need... - I'm changing.

I'm changing.

So chicken vindaloo from Goa, originally Portuguese-inspired, has vinegar, Kashmiri chilies, you make a nice paste, and then that turns out to be a marinade for the chicken.

And into the pot, the whole thing takes under an hour.

It's a great exercise in sweet, sour, and heat.

A really nice balance, and it's not too hot, thank you.

You know, I always thought curry was like saying stew or soup.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's just such a broad...

It doesn't really mean anything.

- Right.

- But you found out there is a foundational concept.

- There's a method to it, there's a structure to it, and this is because Indian cooks understand that the way you prepare an ingredient and the order in which you cook them actually has an impact on the finished flavor of the dish.

So I was working with a cook, Shivani Unakar, who explained this whole process to me, and it's actually rather simple.

A curry always begins with fat, often ghee, sometimes oil.

The next thing that goes into the pot, once that fat is hot, are whole spices, things like cumin and coriander, because those can withstand the heat the longest.

After that, the wet seasonings go in, and by wet, we mean, like, grated ginger, grated garlic, onion, things like that.

After that is when we add the ground seasonings like paprika, ground cumin-- things that would easily burn if added earlier.

Now, all of this is happening, you're drawing out the flavors of these spices.

Then and only then do you add kind of what we would consider the main ingredients.

And in the case of some of the curries I was learning, you know, of aloo matar, you know, peas and potatoes.

- So this fundamental formula can be used over thousands of iterations, right?

Yeah.

- Exactly, exactly.

And in fact, it's not just, it's not particularly just to curries, because again, the way you add spices to the pot changes the finished dish.

If you add whole spices at the beginning and you draw out their flavors with the hot fat, that's going to have a very different impact on the finished dish than if you add those whole spices at the very end of the cooking.

And so this is kind of, this methodology is an underpinning to Indian cooking as a whole, not just curries.

- You also, I think, said that the potatoes in particular, which are in a lot of curries, soak up a lot of the flavor.

So you really liked the potatoes as an ingredient, too?

- It was phenomenal.

You've bloomed all of these spices.

You've drawn out all of these rich flavors.

And now you're putting them into the potato-- that's fantastic.

But then the potatoes also leach out starch as they cook, and that thickens the curry, making it richer, giving it more body.

- So the version we're making today is the potato and pea curry, aloo matar.

And I'm looking forward to the potatoes.

That's where all the flavor is-- thank you, J.M.

- Thank you.

- In Indian cooking, how you add ingredients to a pot is as important as what those ingredients are.

And this means that when you're making a curry, there are some common steps to follow.

Today, we're going to make aloo matar, which is a potato and green pea curry, and I'm going to show you those steps.

Our first step is to make a tarka, to heat up some whole spices in fat.

Today, we're using coconut oil, and I'm going to toast some whole cumin seeds in here.

This is really going to bring out their flavor.

This is the base of our curry, but a tarka can be used as a finishing seasoning, as well.

Let these toast for about 30 seconds just until they're aromatic.

And the next step, step two, is our aromatics.

So I'm going to start with some red onion.

(pan sizzling) So I'm going to get this started.

I'm going to cover it so it cooks a little bit faster.

This'll take about five minutes.

All right, let's check on these onions.

Nice and soft, just starting to brown a little bit.

I've got ginger and garlic here.

Now, these will only take about 30 seconds or so to cook.

(pan sizzling) Now, step three are our ground spices: turmeric, garam masala, sweet paprika, and cayenne.

And we're using sweet paprika and cayenne here as a substitute for Indian Kashmiri chili powder.

So here we're blooming our spices.

Ground spices have fat-soluble flavor compounds.

So when we add them to the fat, it really brings out their flavor.

Step four, I'm adding some water, some diced tomatoes with their juice.

I'm going to add a little bit of brown sugar.

That's just to sweeten up those tomatoes a little bit.

So our liquid is simmering, so now it's time for the vegetable, which is our potatoes.

These are russet potatoes that I peeled and cubed.

If you were going to make a curry with protein, it would go in now, as well.

A little bit of salt here.

And we'll cover it and let this cook for about 20 minutes.

You want to really get in there and stir kind of vigorously.

Don't be gentle here.

What that does is knock a little bit of the starch off the potatoes, and that will help thicken the sauce.

You want this to really cling to those potatoes at the end.

These are defrosted frozen peas, and that's an important point.

So I'm going to add these off the heat so they stay really nice and bright and actually bright green, as well.

So we'll let those sit for a couple of minutes, and we can talk about our last step, step five, which are finishing seasonings.

I'm going to add some fresh cilantro here.

We want to keep the cilantro really nice and fresh, which is why we add it off the heat.

So this is our potato and green pea curry.

You've learned five steps to making a curry, and you can use it to make this one or really any curry you want to make.

- So, when you were in Mumbai, one of the first things you did was to investigate how people got lunch.

- Yes.

- Which we've all heard of, but you've actually been there and seen it.

- The appreciation for home food, home cooking, is so strong, that there's an entire industry that built up around getting your lunch to you at the office every day.

It's these dabbawalas, they're called.

There's about 5,000 of them in Mumbai, and it's this impossibly intricate system whereby every morning, they go to your house, they pick up a lunch that your family has made for you, they deliver it to a train station, it gets stacked on the train, delivered to wherever your office is.

Another dabbawala on the other end grabs your lunch box and brings it to you at your office.

When you're done, that same person collects it, brings it back to the train, and the lunch box beats you home.

(laughter) It's, so strong is the dedication to home cooking.

What it really brought home for me, too, was this demarcation between home cooking, highly respected, and restaurant cooking, also highly respected.

But oftentimes, the recipes in one don't always translate to the other.

- So, is butter chicken a restaurant recipe or is it a home recipe?

- Very much a restaurant recipe, and part of the reason for that is the way it is prepared.

Chicken is marinated in a yogurt sauce, and then it's skewered and cooked-- really, charred-- in a tandoor oven.

The chicken is taken off of the skewer and sauced a second time, with tomatoes and pured cashews, butter and cream, hence the name, and this time, it's cooked in a saucepan.

The tandoor oven, though, is a piece of equipment that's particular to restaurants.

Now, I went off hunting for butter chicken, looking for restaurant chefs to teach me how to do it.

And I was told that the best butter chicken is made at dhabas, which are truck stops.

So I got a car and went out on National Highway 48, north of Mumbai, and I went from one dhaba to the next, to the next, to the next.

And they all thought it was very amusing that I would come in and ask them to teach me, because why teach me?

I couldn't possibly cook it at home.

- Well, a tandoor oven's going to weigh, like, 400 pounds or something, right?

So it's not something you would have necessarily at home... - Exactly, no, they were the ones in the right, because I was the one asking absurd questions.

But then I realized that if I wanted to learn how to make butter chicken at home, I should start with a home cook.

And that's how I encountered Rumya Misquitta, a very talented home cook, who, with her aunt years back, had kind of cracked the code for making a butter chicken at home.

She says, you can broil it, you can grill it.

Her favorite and quickest method actually is to do it in a skillet.

The other part of her version of the recipe that I really appreciated, and one of the reasons I wanted to bring it back to Milk Street, is, she eases off the butter and the cream, and she favors the pured cashews, which still give it a creaminess, but without all the heft of the dairy.

- So you traveled 10,000 miles to be laughed at at truck stops.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Because people thought you were nuts.

- Exactly.

- And they were right.

- And they were right!

- Mostly.

- Yes.

- But you did find someone, so, J.M., thank you.

- Thank you.

- You know, a lot of dishes we think are classic Indian dishes are really restaurant dishes, like chicken tikka masala.

But butter chicken is, as we know, a real dish in Indian restaurants, it's just not made at home very much.

And translating them from a tandoor oven to your oven at home, or your stovetop, actually worked.

- Yes, Chris, it worked amazingly.

We, we took a lot of cues from Misquitta's technique, but we agreed that browning, while it's great, charring is better.

So we took her other recommendation, which is using the broiler in our oven.

The other note that we took is, we eliminated cream altogether, and instead replaced it with a nice hit of pured cashews.

All these flavors that we're working with are often in the form of the spices.

So, here I have three tablespoons of garam masala, which is a spice blend.

But in addition to that, I have a tablespoon of sweet paprika, a tablespoon of ground cumin, half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper for a little bit of heat, two teaspoons of salt, and one tablespoon of grated fresh ginger.

I'm going to add in one cup of whole fat plain yogurt, and this is not Greek yogurt.

We're looking for a little bit more moisture here than what Greek yogurt can offer.

And in addition, we will also throw in two tablespoons of honey.

And that little bit of sweetness is going to offset the spice from the cayenne pepper.

But also, it's going to help all of this chicken char under the broiler.

Just give it a whisk.

And to this, we could go ahead and dump in our chicken.

Why don't you dump in the bowl for me, and I'll go ahead and give it a good stir?

Two-and-a-half pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs that have been cut into three strips crosswise.

So I'll give this a toss, and then we'll let it sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to a full hour.

- Okay.

- So, Chris, with our chicken marinating, we could take a look at our pured cashews.

So in that blender, I have three-quarters cup water, and I also have an entire cup of roasted, salted cashews in there.

So why don't you go ahead and blend that until it's smooth?

- Do you want this on low or high?

- Uh, you could do it on high.

(blender whirring) Beautiful.

(blender stops) Look at that.

To build the base of the butter chicken, we have to cook some things down.

So here I have two tablespoons of butter, one medium onion that's been finely chopped.

And we'll cook this down until it begins to brown, and that should only take five minutes.

So, Chris, as you could see, all of our onion is starting to take on just a slight golden hue.

And that's a good indicator to move on to the other aromatics, one tablespoon of grated ginger and six cloves of garlic that have also been grated.

We're going to cook out until it's aromatic, and if you notice that the ginger starts to stick on the bottom of the pan, relax-- it's meant to happen.

We're going to deglaze the pan later with some liquid and pick up all that flavor.

We're also going to add in another tablespoon of garam masala and a tablespoon of that ground cumin.

And once again, cook that until it's aromatic.

Now we could go ahead and add in that cashew cream, so why don't you pour that on in?

- You need a spatula there, I think.

- Yes, I want to ahead and take care of that for you.

Once you introduce the cashews in here, it will have a tendency to stick on the bottom.

That is expected, it is fine.

It's going to actually help toast some of the bits of cashew nut on the bottom here and develop more of that nutty, deep flavor.

But we want to cook this down until it thickens considerably and darkens just a little bit.

So the cashew cream has cooked down a little bit, and now we could go ahead and reintroduce some moisture in the form of 28 ounces of crushed tomato.

Goes right on in.

And we'll also add in two cups of water, and that'll help us scrape up anything else that's left on the bottom.

So I'll give this a stir to combine.

Now that everything is combined and I'm starting to see a little bit of bubblage, two tablespoons of butter are going to go in, and keep stirring it as it melts.

So that way it gets emulsified into the mixture.

Now, we'll cook this down until it can heavily coat the back of a spoon, and that should take 12 to 14 minutes.

It's cooked down quite a bit, so we're going to take that off heat, but we're going to keep it covered, so that way, it stays warm.

And meanwhile, we could focus on our chicken.

Now, here I have those marinated chicken thighs.

I'm just going to pop them onto this tray.

There's a wire rack set into it, and everything is sprayed down with a little bit of cooking spray.

Put the chicken right onto the tray without scraping off any of the marinade itself.

That marinade is going to really help this chicken char underneath the broiler.

Now, I've had the broiler going on high with a rack set about six inches away from the heating element.

We'll bang this in the oven and cook it for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping it halfway through, so that way, we could get char on both sides.

- And watching it carefully.

- Yes, all ovens vary, so you want to keep a close eye on this.

Chris, all of the chicken has been broiling for 15 minutes, and now we're going to take that charred tandoor oven flavor and throw it right into the sauce.

Drop each piece right on in.

So we'll get all of the chicken into the the butter chicken sauce and let it simmer for ten minutes.

So that way, all the flavor comes together.

- These really did char well, I have to say.

- It's thanks to that yogurt, as well as that honey.

The honey chars at a pretty low temp, especially under the heat of a broiler, so we could get that deep, deep flavor.

We'll go ahead and give that a stir.

Make sure everything is coated, and then, we'll bring this entire mixture up to a simmer, cook it down for ten minutes.

The last touch is going to be adding in just a little bit of brightness in the form of two tablespoons of lime juice.

Just going to take this completely off heat and introduce a quarter-cup of chopped cilantro.

And while I'm doing this, if you want to serve up some rice in our bowls, we could get to eating.

- Here you go.

- Okay, and I'll steal that spoon.

- Yup.

- Layer this right on top.

- Mmm.

You know, the pured nuts are really creamy.

I mean, it's like a cream sauce.

And the spice level, for me, is always important.

It's not too spicy.

And it's complex, too.

I mean, it's, it's really good.

- Yeah, you have so many different layers of flavor going on in here, especially with the help of broiling all that chicken in.

We have that toasty, roasty note going throughout the entire sauce.

- So this is an Indian restaurant dish that's rarely made at home.

But we found someone who gave us some guidance, and we decided to make a butter chicken at home and without any cream, a little bit of butter, and pured nuts to add that creaminess.

Delicious, and the broiler took the place of the tandoor oven.

Butter chicken-- thank you, Josh.

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The Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

(man speaking Hebrew) - (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

- Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

- So this is the Eduardo Garca blender.

- This is the no electricity.

- Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

- Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

- This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

- Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.