Chicken Saag and Chapati

This is my favourite curry I could eat it everyday. My recipe was stolen and modified from an Indian housewife's bulletin board.

Serves a hungry two or four with a side dish.

For the saag

Ingredients

• 4 Chicken Thighs
• 1 big onion finely chopped
• 1" piece of fresh ginger skin on  grated
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1tsp ground coriander
• 1 1/2 birds eye chilli finely chopped or 1 bigger one (we are after some heat but not in-edible)
• 2 cardamoms crack them open
• 1 clove
• 1/2 a bag of fresh spinach or spinach beet, enough to fill a medium pan
• A big glug of milk, maybe 100ml
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp garam masala

Method

Brown the chicken thighs in veg oil for five minutes until the skin is golden brown. Reserve them and take the skin off if you prefer. I often leave it on, you can now bone it too if you want.

In the oil and chicken fat add the onion and fry it for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic and ginger and fry for 2 minutes more, then add the chopped tomatoes coriander, turmeric, chilli, clove, cardamom and that big glug of milk Add a good pinch of salt.

Simmer on a low heat for 35 minutes with no lid making sure it doesn't get too hot and stick. Meanwhile put the spinach in a pan add 75ml of water, cover and heat until the spinach wilts down, this takes only 2-3 minutes. Take off from the heat and liquidise a hand blender works best. Add a little more water if you need to.

When the Saag has had it's 35 minutes stir in the Spinach mush and add a teaspoon of garam masala and simmer on low for 15 minutes more until it is done. Check the seasoning adjust if needed.

Chapati

Ingredients

400g Extra strong bread flour 

1tbsp oil 

pinch of salt

1 glass of water (150ml)

method

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl adding the water last. Turn out and knead for a 5 minutes until you have a smooth elastic dough that is neither soggy nor too stiff. Roll into a long log and slice off 1/2" thick slices with a knife, you should get 10 to twelve slices from the log.

Pinch the slices around the edges with thumb and forefinger  until the slices are 100mm or so in diameter. Roll them out to 1or 2mm thick on a floured surface with floured hands making sure they don't stick.

Use a tawa or large flat bottomed pan which is as hot as you can get it. Toast the chapati on both sides. The first side takes a little longer, when you can see bubbling all over, turn it. Side two will only take 20 seconds or so. Finally with tongs put the chapati onto a naked gas flame. It should blow up like a pillow, don't burn it too much, but a few charred bits are fine.

Keep the chapati warm in a wet tea towel in an oven on minimum until the Saag is ready.

The chapati can be made prior to the saag, just wrap them in tinfoil and reheat in a warm oven for 10-15 minutes.

Eat wth your fingers, tear up the chapati and scoop the sauce, along with a decent lager.