C46 Balti Tamarind Chicken

This has been adapted into a restaurant style from the book "Balti Cooking" by Shehzad Husain which is a tradional recipe for 4 - 6 persons. Balti does not describe a single recipe but rather a style of cooking and has been described as a delicately spiced stir fry. Many recipes, however, do not appear to follow this principle and maybe all they really have in common is being served in a small balti bowl.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
1 tbspn oil	2 tbspn tamarind juice (see note 1)
1 tbspn dessicated coconut	1 tbspn tomato purée
2 tspn white poppy seeds	½ tspn sugar
1 tspn extra hot chilli powder	¼ tspn salt
½ tspn ground coriander	1 portion c41 pre-cooked chicken
¼ tspn ground cumin	1 tomato
¼ tspn onion seeds	1 tspn green chilli
¼ tspn fenugreek	freshly chopped coriander to garnish
300 ml c46 curry base sauce (see note 2)

Preparation

Cut the tamarind block into enough small pieces to fill 1 tbspn and cover with boiling water, mash, and allow to infuse for 15 min, then pass through a sieve to remove any pips and large pieces.
Cut the tomato into 8 pieces.
Deseed the chilli and chop finely.

Cooking - 7 min

Heat the oil in a suitable pan and fry the coconut, poppy seeds, chilli powder, ground coriander, cumin, onion seeds and fenugreek for 1 min, adding a little c46 base sauce if necessary to prevent burning.
Stir in the tamarind, tomato purée, sugar, salt and 40 ml of c46 base sauce and cook for 3 min, stirring regularly, gradually adding c46 base sauce as needed to prevent drying.
Add the chicken, tomato pieces, green chilli and 80 ml of c46 base sauce and cook for 3 min, stirring regularly, gradually adding c46 base sauce as needed to prevent drying although the final sauce should be on the 'dry side'.

Serving

Serve with rice and garnish with freshly chopped coriander.

Notes

(1) Tamarind block can be purchased from many supermarkets or any Asian store.
(2) Dilute the 300 ml of c46 base sauce with 200 ml of water and heat before use. If defrosted from frozen the base sauce can be warmed and briefly blended to reconstitute the colour and consistency.

The main ingredients

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The finished meal

Tamarind

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