With parents hailing from Punjab and Rajasthan, growing up, our Head of Research and Development-walla, Chef Rishi Anand had access to the flavourful foods from both states. “One of the reasons I am a chef today is because of my mum’s food and my dad’s love for food. Both of them loved to cook and, importantly, they loved to feed mouth-watering dishes to those around them”, he says.
Although a vast array of food came out of his family kitchen every day, he recounts his all-time favourite as his mother’s Rajasthani-style Chicken Stew. “When you hear Chicken Stew, you instantly think about South India and coconut milk and curry leaves. However, my mother’s stew is different. It’s a reflection of how people from parts of North India make this dish.” It’s rustic, homely, simple and pot-full of flavour.
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4–5 tbsp cooking oil
2 cloves
1 tsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed
½ tsp whole cumin
5 black peppercorn
2 bay leaf
1 black cardamom
Small stick of cinnamon
3–4 whole dry red chillies
350g red onion, roughly chopped
10 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
50g ginger, julienned
½ –1 tsp deggi mirch chilli powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp garam masala powder
450g tomatoes, roughly chopped
1kg bone-in chicken, cut into small pieces (can use boneless chicken thighs, if preferred)
100g natural yoghurt
3–5 fresh green chillies (add depending on level of spice)
TO FINISH
Coriander leaves, roughly chopped
For other Dishoom recipes, please see Dishoom: from Bombay with love, our cookery book and highly subjective guide to Bombay.
We’re turning page after page of Ayesha Erkin’s recipe book Date of the Day, featuring 30+ recipes for the modest date – timely for breaking fast and after. Our dear friend Ayesha has now kindly shared a recipe for you to make at home. Try it this Iftar or any time you need a salty-spiced sticky treat.
The holy month of Ramadan is upon us, when Muslims around the world fast daily from dawn till dusk. It is a time of private worship and spiritual discipline, but also of shared joy and abundant feasting. Families and communities come together at suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, and at iftar, the evening meal, to break their fasts with copious, delicious dishes. Join us on 7th April for our own Iftar celebration – for an evening of feasting and live music.
We often find it too easy to hurtle through the days, in an attempt to outpace the bustling city – be it London or Bombay – which always seems to be running away like a steam-engine train on a rickety track. Occasionally, it does us good to pause for thought, to disembark the carriage and sit on the platform awhile.
The month of Ramadan may be a period of fasting but it’s equally synonymous with feasting. Iftar – the evening meal with which Muslims break their fast – is an occasion for eating favourite dishes and indulging in the naughtiness of moreish snacks after a day of abstaining, and these cheese-and-pastry twirls make the perfect snack.