I made this recipe. It was delicious, except for the roasted vegetables, because I didn’t use all the oil called for in the recipe. Instead I used a little oil (a generous amount, I thought), and then halfway through I ladled over some of the cooking juices of the chicken. It was alright. the chicken where it was coated in the spice paste was amazing, though. The interior was alright. The lemon didn’t infiltrate the skin very well, even after a couple hours of marinating. A day would have been better…But that’s a modern recipe for you – quick and relatively easy. Except for the garam masala, which wasn’t actually part of the recipe. But I made it from another BBC Madhur Jaffrey recipe so I knew it would work well. Unfortunately the whole quick and easy part went out the window when it took 20 minutes to shuck the cardamom seeds (can you shuck cardamom?) – to remove them from their shells, I mean. It was worth it. But it took time.
And I didn’t have any fresh nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg is a world apart from ground. I bought the most aromatic nutmeg in Peru at the Surquillo Market No. 1 and I could smell it from across the room. It was like vanilla mixed with almond, and when I grated it I wanted to eat it. But I mixed it with almond milk instead, which was even better. So for the pickle I used ground and it was…you guessed it, fine. But not amazing. Not like dessert mixed with an Italian sunset.
This is the recipe for the cauliflower and carrot Indian pickle. It’s also BBC Madhur Jaffrey. I followed it precisely, even weighing and carefully measuring ingredients, but I think the “5 carrot” thing messed me up because my carrots were absolutely enormous, meaning that some of my vegetables weren’t covered in vinegar brine in the end since there were just too many of them. The ones that were covered tasted great after a day in the fridge. The others not so much. They were – yup – fine. So make this pickle recipe at least a day in advance and skimp on the oversized, GMO-carrots.
Make the chicken recipe a day in advance too and leave it to marinate a day in the fridge before cooking. It’ll be awesome. And roast some carrots with your potatoes. I did. It worked. It’s hard to overdose on carrots. You’ll be fine.
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