Whole Chicken baked in Aluminium Foil - Murgh Musallam

It's been a bit of a while since a food post what with all those Treauries on Etsy taking up my blogging time!

So here's another slice of my culinary life.

Yesterday we took advantage of the Marks and Spencers food offer whereby for a measly £10 you can have a meal for two. For those of you who don't know about the National Treasure which is M&S they have stupidly expensive food halls in their shops packed full of tempting delights and I very rarely shop there as I find the prices to be a joke compared with my normal food shops. On the rare occasions on which we succumb we spend an unreasonable fortune on their 'real' food as against their ready meals which made them so famous way back in the 80s. So to get a good meal for two for such a low price is not to be missed. From a rather limited selection we chose the Oakham chicken, vegetables to roast (I had them with a foil baked salmon fillet while I was in on my own last night), a bottle of Cotes du Rhone and a lemon tart. Amazing value really.

The chicken was destined to be devoured on Sunday and as we had delicious roast chicken at mum's on Friday night and didn't fancy it again so soon so I turned to my collection of cook books and finally alighted on Madhur Jaffrey. Her recipes always work wonderfully and cooking Indian at home is always a treat as I love the ritual of finding the spices, lining them up, crushing, roasting and pureeing along with the grating or pounding of the inevitable ginger, garlic and chilli. Even better if there's something in the long ingredients list which I don't have in my well stocked larder as it means a trip to Rusholme to one of my favourite Indian food shops to buy whatever ingredient I need along with fragrant bunches of parsley, mint and coriander which will last well into the week wether they're needed for that day's cooking or not. A generous chopping of mint, parsley and coriander never fails to perk up any dish however dull and mundane. And I really resent buying my herbs from the supermarket - it diminishes the pleasure in the chopping when I think how much I've been ripped of for the tiny, mean plastic bags of slightly sad herbs.

Here's the recipe - if the ingredients list looks terrifingly long, it's not really as the two sections do have some repettion and most of these things should be in your larder anyway if you like to dabble in spices.

Whole Chicken baked in Aluminium Foil Murgh Musallam
by Madhur Jaffrey From Illustrated Indian Cookery

For the marinade:
2.5 cm cube of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
6 Tbs. natural yoghurt
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1 and 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
You will also need:
One 1.5 kg chicken
225g onions
4 cloves garlic peeled
4 cm cube fresh ginger,peeled and coarsely chopped.
25g blanched, slivered almonds (I didn't use these as I just don't like cooking with almonds)
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 Tbs paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tbs vegetable oil (I used a fraction of this amount, probably less than half)
2 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp garam masala (I used a whole spice mix which I whizz up in our coffee grinder, it tastes much better than the dust you buy in packets)

Make the marinade:
Put the ginger, garlic and 3 tbs of yoghurt into the container of a food processor or blender. Blend, pushing down at the edges until you have a paste.
Add the turmeric, salt, cayenne and black pepper. Blend for a second to mix. Empty into a bowl. (Do not wash out the food processor or blender yet) Add the remaining 3 tbs. of the yoghurt to the marinade and beat in with a fork.
Skin the entire chicken with the exception of the wing tips. Skin the neck.
Put the chicken breast up, in a large bowl or on a platter and put the giblets and neck near it. Rub the chicken, inside and out with the marinade. Set aside unrefrigerated for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, put the onions, garlic, ginger and almonds in the blender or processor. Blend, pushing down with a spatula occasionally until you have a paste. Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, cayenne and salt. Blend again to mix.
Put the oil in a large non-stick pan over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the paste. Fry stirring for 8 - 9 minutes. Add the lemon juice, black pepper and garam masala. mix. Turn off the heat and let this cool.
Pre heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4.
When the chicken has marinate for 2 hours, spread out a large sheet of aluminium foil, large enough to enclose the chicken. Put the chicken, breast up, in the centre of the foil and put the giblets near it. Rub the chicken inside and out with the fried spice mix. Bring the ends of the foil towards the centre to form a tight packet. All the 'seams' should be 5 cm (2 inches) above the floor of the packet.
Put the wrapped chicken on a baking tray and bake for one and a half hours or until chicken is tender.
It's a nice easy recipe with no tricky bits, but you need to get your hands dirty and if you're squeamish about chicken skin you probably won't be too happy as you do need to get down and dirty with your bird to get all the skin off. A mini chopper is fine for the quantities for both chopping operations and it's nice not to have to clean it out halfway through the recipe. The smell as the paste is frying (in the significantly reduced quantity of oil) is divine and it smells good enough to eat by the spoonful once it's cooled down. My willing helper and partner in eating kindly offered to do the second rub, so I managed a photo of this. I had intended to photograph the whole process, but as usual forgot the first bit and then it all proved a bit too messy to have my camera involved, so the pictures here are a bit random really. Perhaps next time I'll be a bit more organized!
I served the chicken with brown basmati rice which I cooked with a big onion and a good quantity of garlic in chicken stock and some steamed greens.
*Later*
That was seriously yummy - soft, tender and fragrant. The meat just fell from the bones once the steaming silver package had been carefully opened. It wasn't the best quality chicken in the world, but it was delicious. Where you had a forkfull of the spice paste it was a beautiful mouthful of spicy sweetness. I've never cooked a whole bird in a tin foil package before as I've always been worried about it being a bit limp and sad, but coated in this quantity of flavour, you really can't go wrong. I'll definitely make this dish again.
I didn't say that it was the prettiest dish in the world as these photos prove!

The blended marinade and my cup of tea

The chicken after two hours marinading.

All wrapped up and ready to cook.

Out of the oven and well worth the wait!

Indian Food through the ages. My ages.

I always hated Indian food when I was growing up. We had it rarely, but my dad liked a curry occasionally and we'd go to our local in Stanmore in North West London, it was called the Agra Tandoori which I (rather unkindly) called The Agro - I was only a brat, less then ten I think. I'd just have something English, probably an omelette. Then I was shipped off to boarding school and we had 'curry' occasionally and as far as I can recall it involved mince or chicken, raisins and even the odd bit of pineapple. Now can you see why I wasn't exactly keen. So I lived quite happily in ignorance of Indian food until I went to university in Stoke on Trent where if you wanted to eat out there wasn't really much choice apart from the mysterious (to me at the time) Balti houses with Al Sheik's being the chain I recall going to most frequently. I began to go there with friends who were more experienced in the Balti business than I so I learned from them. I did always fear the chicken and meat doubting it's provenance so I generally had vegetarian with the odd forkful of someone elses. It was good grub. I do recall one good friend of mine who I ate out with regularly always accompanied his meal with banana milkshake! Over the three years and for one or two afterwards I have very happy memories of some great times.

Then Manchester and the joys of Curry Mile or Rusholme as it's more correctly known. My mum and I used to go to a cafe type called Eastern Touch which was the best kind really, just simple stuff and a small selection. Then when I met Peter I found out that it was his favourite too. Indian still wasn't something I'd ever choose for a meal, I'd always prefer Chinese, Turkish or Italian but it was getting better. Anyway, fast forward 15 years or so and I'm a seasoned Indian Food Eater although I'm still very fussy and often will only have the vegetarian dishes if it's a restaurant I don't know or haven't chosen myself. Our absolute favourite is a cheap and modest little place called Al Faisals in the trendy Northern Quarter, it's not much to look at, but they do the best, freshest chicken tikka ever and served with some plain rice, salad and chickpeas I think it would count as one of my desert island dishes. We're generally found there on a Saturday with assorted friends having a mini feast with the aforementioned chicken tikka as well as the hot hot hot spicy lamb tikka, mince kebabs and the vegetable curry too. Did I mention it's as cheap as chapatis with it being very tricky to spend more than £5. There's no booze, just plastic jugs of water on the table or cans. I love to cook Indian food, but usually it's vegetables and pulses and sometimes I get a real craving for the rich soothing flavours of the cumin, coriander, ginger and chili. The other day I came across a recipe which just hit the spot for me and I've cooked it tonight. Here it is copied word for word from The Guardian website:

The new vegetarian - Yotam Ottolenghi's favourite way to stave off the cold
Spiced lentils with cucumber yogurt

Photograph: Colin Campbell

This chill breaker is the ultimate antidote to any seasonal malady; I could eat mountains of it. Serve as a thick soup, or alongside plain rice or roti. Serves two to four.

200g split red lentils
1 bunch fresh coriander
1 small onion, peeled
40g ginger, peeled
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 mild green chilli
1½ tsp black mustard seeds
4 tbsp sunflower oil
1½ tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp paprika
10 curry leaves
300g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 tsp caster sugar
½ tsp fenugreek (optional)
1 pinch asafoetida (optional)
Salt
150g Greek yogurt
75g finely diced cucumber
1½ tbsp olive oil
70g unsalted butter
1½ tbsp lime juice

Wash the lentils in plenty of water, drain and soak in 350ml of fresh water for 30 minutes. Cut the coriander bunch somewhere around its centre to get a leafy top half and a stem/root bottom half. Roughly chop the leaves. Put the stem half in the bowl of a food processor, add the onion, ginger, garlic and chilli - all roughly broken - and pulse a few times to chop up without turning into a paste.

Put the mustard seeds in a heavy-based pot and place over medium heat. When they begin to pop, add the onion mix and sunflower oil, stir and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. Add the spices and curry leaves, and continue cooking and stirring for five minutes longer. Now add the lentils and their soaking water, the tomatoes, sugar, fenugreek, asafoetida and a pinch of salt. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the lentils are fully cooked.

Before serving, whisk together the yogurt, cucumber, oil and some salt. Stir into the lentils the butter, lime juice and chopped coriander leaves, taste and season generously with salt. Divide into bowls, spoon yogurt on top and garnish with coriander.

Now this is me again - I can't resist messing with recipes and this one is no exception. I've only just finished cooking it to the 'lentils are fully cooked' stage and it's switched off waiting for later. I'm going to stir in a couple of big handfuls of baby spinach leaves and also some tiny little pink prawns. I think that served with some lovely basmati rice it will be the perfect healthy, nutritious dish for a cold miserable night.

Later

It was delicious and this is what my version looks like: