C46 Chicken Manipur

This is inspired by a recipe from the North Eastern Indian state of Manipur. The method of cooking has been changed from the strictly traditional to the BIR (British Indian Restaurant) style. This necessitated some ingredient adjustments to conform to the BIR style. Manipur cuisine appears to add the spices and some mustard oil late in the cooking process and this recipe follows this custom, but not exactly. A pleasant mild/medium curry.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
2 tbspn mustard oil (see note 1)	300 ml c46 curry base sauce (see note 2)
75 gm onion (prepared weight)	2 tspn tomato purée
½ tspn ginger (grated)	1 portion c41 pre-cooked chicken
½ tspn garlic (crushed)	¼ tspn salt
½ tspn ground coriander (1)	75 gm potato (prepared weight)
½ tspn ground cumin (1)	1 tspn mustard oil (2)
½ tspn turmeric (1)	½ tspn ground coriander (2)
½ tspn chilli powder	½ tspn ground cumin (2)
¼ tspn cinnamon	½ tspn turmeric (2)

Preparation

Peel the potatoes and cut into about 1 inch cubes, add to salted boiling water, and cook for about 10 min or until cooked. (Optionally the onions can be cooked with 50 gm sliced onion, 5 gm chopped ginger, 5 gm chopped garlic, 1 tspn coriander, 1 tspn cumin and ½ tspn turmeric to add a little more flavour.)
Chop the onion.
Grate the ginger, chop the garlic and mix together with a little oil to make a paste.

Cooking 9½ min

Heat the oil in a suitable pan and fry the onion, stirring regularly, for 2 min.
Add the ginger/garlic paste and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds.
Add the ground coriander (1), ground cumin (1), turmeric (1), chilli powder and ground cinnamon and cook, stirring, for 1 min, adding a little c46 base sauce if needed to prevent drying and burning.
Add the tomato purée and 40 ml of c46 base sauce and cook, stirring, for 1 min.
Add the precooked chicken, 80 ml of c46 base sauce and the salt and cook, stirring regularly, for 3 min, adding c46 base sauce as required to maintain the desired sauce consistency.
Add the potatoes and cook, stirring carefully, for 1 min, adding c46 base sauce as required to maintain the desired sauce consistency.
Reduce the heat and stir in the mustard oil (2), ground coriander (2), ground cumin (2) and turmeric (2) and cook for 1 min.

Serving

Serve with rice and garnish with a little freshly chopped coriander.

Notes

(1) The European Commission insists that mustard oil be labelled 'For External Use Only', but it has been used by millions in India for many years with apparently no ill effects. The pictures show 3 different brands, Pride, KTC and East End. The East End brand has a very potent mustard flavour so if you are going to use mustard oil the KTC or Pride are probably more suited to the British palate. Strictly speaking due to the EC directive the use of mustard oil as a food product has to be discouraged.
(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

Mustard Oil

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