Fried Chilli Chicken

Readers of my blog will have noticed that I missed posting anything last week. My apologies … I had a sick child at home. Even though cooking itself was a challenge, writing was a bigger one. Now that I have become a parent, I am amazed at how children can have a total control over your life. Your moods, mental health and physical well-being all start revolving around how your little one is doing. I wonder – is it because of those innocent curious eyes which look at you once and melt your heart or is it their helplessness and total dependence on you?

Apart from being sick, my daughter had also become anorexic for a week. The situation had gotten so much out of control that we were persuading her to eat chocolates, M&Ms, chips, french fries and popcorns. As long as she ate ‘something’, we didn’t care if it was junk food anymore. I look back and I laugh at our desperation now. How those little beings can manipulate parents’ food beliefs and principles in a matter of minutes!

I noticed that she preferred only spicy food. Because fried dishes were not a taboo any more at home for this week, I decided to experiment with an Indian dish and the American technique of cooking wings.

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken thighs – 1lb (cubed)
Garlic, ginger, green chillies (pureed) – 2tbsp
Pancake mix , breadcrumbs & water for batter
1 egg
Canola oil
Salt & black pepper & paprika
Soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, hot sauce, tomato ketchup – to taste
Green onions & green chillies – chopped

The first step was to marinade the cubed chicken pieces in the garlic-ginger-chillies puree along with salt, 1tsp vinegar, 1tbsp soy sauce. The marinade was left at room temperature for 30 minutes. When I got up from babysitting to make the batter, I realized our pantry was out of flour. So, I had to improvise with pancake batter mix & breadcrumbs.

Pancake batter mix was actually not a bad choice for the batter. It had everything I needed – flour, eggs, salt, baking powder. However, it also had sugar which I did not need in my batter. So, I added black pepper & parika to the pancake powder, bread crumbs , 1 egg and water. After dipping the chicken pieces in the batter, I shallow fried them and soaked out the excess oil with a paper towel.

Contrary to the usual Indian chilli chicken, which is cooked in a gravy, I decided to use the same technique used in making American spicy wings. The fried chicken pieces were tossed in a bowl to which I had added soy sauce, hot sauce (chilli sauce), balsamic vinegar, ketchup, chopped green onions and chopped green chillies.

The outcome of this endeavor was quite a tasty one. However, it broke my spirits when the guest of honor for that evening’s dinner did not even look at it – forget tasting it. Her parents gobbled up platefuls after a long tiring day. The only solace was the she did eat it eventually – only a staler left over version from the fridge 2 days later!