An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [37]
In a large pot, bring 4 quarts of water to boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and the vinegar. Remove the sweetbreads from the ice water and drain. Plunge them into the boiling water, drain, and plunge again into the ice water. Remove connecting tissue carefully (you can almost peel it off) and break sweetbreads into 1–1½-inch pieces.
After the sauce has cooked about 15 minutes, add the sweetbread pieces and lemon juice; stir, cover again, and cook gently for another 15 minutes.
To serve: Place in a warm dish. Sprinkle with the browned onions, and serve with hot chapatis and a vegetable and a yogurt dish of your choice. You could also serve any tomato or onion relish.
Chicken cooked with yogurt
Chicken in light sauce
Chicken with potatoes
Chicken with sliced lemon and fried onions
Chicken with tomato sauce and butter
Chicken cutlets
Marinated broiled chicken
Broiled chicken strips
Roast chicken stuffed with spiced rice
Murgh mussallam (whole chicken with spices)
Duck—stuffed and roasted
Khitcherie unda (scrambled eggs, Indian style)
Chicken Moghlai
Eggs Moghlai
SEE ALSO:
Tandoori chicken
Chicken biryani
ntil a few years ago there were only two ways one could buy poultry in India. Either you went up to the poultry market where live birds were kept in coops and you selected one, or you would wait at home for the poultry man to come around, hawking his wares. If he was somewhat affluent, he would arrive on a bicycle, but more often than not he came at a half-run, on his own two feet. On his humped shoulders he carried a bamboo, bent by the weight of a large basket dangling at each end. The lower section of these baskets was wicker, while the top was made of a rope mesh which could be opened and closed like an old-fashioned pouch. The occupants of these swaying baskets were the indignant birds—chickens and ducks mostly—which could not be seen except for a head here, a foot there, and a tail sticking out of the rope mesh; but they could be heard from a distance, squawking, quacking, and cackling. One had to know how to pick a bird by feeling its flesh. Experts like my father could even tell the age of the bird by prodding and squeezing in the right places.
In the last few years refrigeration and freezing have increased tremendously. The result is that poultry farms have mushroomed all over the country. The birds are sent, cleaned and plucked, to specialty stores where they can be bought very much as they are in America. Of course, this is true only of the larger cities. The small towns and villages still rely on the old system.
The chickens in India seem to me to have more flavor than chickens here, though they can frequently be fairly tough, requiring a much longer cooking time. The only chicken that can be broiled in India is the l½-2½-pound spring chicken, and even then the bird must first be tenderized in a marinade containing green papaya or yogurt.
The Moghul miniature painters of the seventeenth century often showed royalty at the hunt, the shikar. Seated on cushioned, thronelike howdahs atop elephants or camels, they hunted anything from tigers to quail. The shikar still goes on, and although big game is generally left to the very rich, duck, geese, partridge, and quail can still be had by the ordinary Mr. Singh on the street. Many restaurants have partridges on their daily menu, and many homes, like mine, serve roast duck frequently during the winter season.
The chicken available in American markets is so tender that it begins to fall apart well before it can go through the several stages