I have often thought about the difference between what I do versus your standard urban food blogger, cooking in his or her five star kitchen. Complete with all the electricity and associated equipment. I have also thought at length about what I call in Afrikaans “afskeepkos”. Food made in negligence. I have gone so far as to post (or is it “pose”?) the question on my FaceBook wall, with some reaction.
The answer is not easy to find, as the
term “afskeepkos” is a neologism, even in Afrikaans.
The proper answer needs to be
researched and pondered, if you will.
The gist lies in the application of the
mind in preparing food. Whatever food it is. Leftovers may look and
taste like, well, leftovers. Or you can apply your mind and use those
same leftovers in an altogether new dish.
Or you can use some of the stuff that
you munch on before dinner as part of the dinner dish ingredients.
We are not here to discuss the vagaries
of language and application of the mind, we need to cook up something
simple for dinner on board. Using two pots and one burner. Perhaps
this one will go down in history as having applied the mind.
Chicken Korma is one of the more
well-known dishes in India. It is made with onions and cashews, along
with the requisite spices. And it is extremely simple to make. If
this dish takes more than fifteen minutes in preparation, you are
doing something wrong.
The nominal recipe is to use the
ingredients in the list below. There are a myriad variations and even
my own version differs between batches. But they all taste exquisite.
This one is normally made in the
kitchen at home, where you have access to a stick blender or
equivalent. Aboard a small yacht there is none of that, hence this adaptation.
Ingredients
For the chicken
500 g (1 lb) de-boned chicken.3 medium sized onions. More is better for this dish.
½ cup whole cashew nuts. Or one whole cup, but then the dish becomes very rich.
1 clove fresh garlic

½ teaspoon coriander seeds
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
5 black peppercorns
1 cardamom pod, shedded
1½ teaspoon medium masala powder
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
Small stick cinnamon bark
1/4 teaspoon aniseed seeds.
Or combination of the above. The chillies, garlic, onions and cashews are not negotiable.
1 teaspoon green masala paste (recipe here)

bunch of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
spritz of fresh chives, chopped
some salt to taste
2 tablespoons butter
For the rotis
½ cup white or brown bread flour. I used brown bread flour
pinch of salt
¾ cup lukewarm water
Process
For the Chicken Korma



In the home version you chop the onions coarsely, then fry them until they are brown. The spices are added as above. When everything is ready, the fried whole cashews are added back to the mix and blitzed with a stick blender to make the sauce, adding water as required.
The sauce can be quite thick, leading to burning if careless, so watch it. Add a little water if you get worried.
Now add the chicken. I cut the chicken into thickish slices, as opposed to cubes. They cook faster if they are thinner. Cook slowly until the chicken is tender. Add salt as required. Make sure you don't use too much water. The dish needs to be almost just runny when done. If it is too watery it becomes a mess to eat and most of the flavourful parts get left in your plate. When the dish is nicely done, add the garum masala, the chopped coriander (dhania), and the chopped chives. Put the lid on and set this lot aside to rest.
For the Rotis
This was one of my more successful experiments. The internet is a wonderful place if you understand that different folks have different names for the same stuff. Like rotis. Some call them flat breads, others call similar bread tortillas, even though they may not be made from corn flour.
Roll each ball out into a small disk about 4mm thick. Bake in a dry pan on medium heat until it starts to puff, then turn over. You will know that it is done when it starts to burn in spots. You get a production line going, baking one at a time and rolling the next one while you wait. I used my 24 cm non stick frying pan from Le Creuset, it works a charm.

In the meantime, the main dish is resting and developing flavour. Don't worry. If you used a cast iron saucepan it will not even cool down to edible levels while you are making the rotis. Else heat it a little as required.



Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2013-07-06
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