Yam Paratha Stuffed With Red Spring Honey Chicken, Served With A Bitter Carilla Salad
Author: Kiran Jethwa
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Ingredients
- For the Poached Chicken:
- 1 Large Deboned Chicken
- 500ml Red Spring Honey (or any wild honey)
- 4 tsp. Cumin Seeds
- 4 tsp. Sichuan Pepper
- Cooking oil for frying
- Juice of 2 Lemons
- 2 Green Chilies
- Salt to taste
- For the Paratha (Indian bread):
- 350g Roti Flour (or whole meal flour)
- 4 Yams (alternatively a floury potato)
- 100ml Canola oil
- 2 tsp. Garam Masala
- Salt to taste
- Water to bind
- For the Salad:
- 2 large White Radish
- 1 Red Onion
- 4 Carillas (bitter cucumber)
- 100ml Honey
- 1 Bunch Fresh Coriander
- 1 Red Chili
- Salt to taste
- Juice of 2 lemons
Instructions
- For the Poached Chicken:
- Debone the chicken and cut it into small cubes. Poach the cubes in honey for 20 minutes on a low heat making sure not to let it boil.
- Once cooked, drain off the honey and set both aside separately.
- To a hot pan, add cumin seeds and Sichuan pepper, and toast in hot oil.
- As soon as the seeds release their aroma, throw in the poached chicken. (Be careful not to burn the seeds)
- Add a green chilli, a sprinkle of salt and a touch of lemon juice, and then set aside.
- For the Paratha Dough:
- Peel, cube and boil the yams in hot salted water.
- When cooked, mash to a smooth consistency. If you don’t have yams you can use any floury potato.
- Add the Roti flour, 100ml of oil (keep the rest for frying), the masala, and a pinch of salt into the mashed yams.
- Then knead well to develop the gluten as much a possible in the dough.
- Roll out the dough into plate sized disks.
- Place a spoonful of the honey chicken onto each disc and fold each one over into a small rectangle to form a 5-7 cm square parcel. Make sure you seal the edges properly.
- Do this until all the chicken is used up. Set any excess dough aside for another day.
- Shallow Fry these in hot oil until they are a lovely golden colour. Plate, season with salt and set aside.
- For the salad (this can be made in advance):
- Into a bowl add some chopped radish, white onion, finely sliced coriander, red chilli and a splash of lemon juice, then set aside.
- Chop, deseed and finely slice the Carilla. Then heavily salt the Carilla and set aside for fifteen to twenty minutes to draw out some of the Carilla’s bitterness.
- Blanche the Carilla in hot water.
- Then plunge them into cold water to slow down the cooking process.
- Let it sit again for at least ten minutes in the cold water to pull out as much of the salt as possible.
- Take the now soaked Carilla out of the water and put it straight into the honey, which will sweeten it up.
- After 20 minutes remove the honey pickled Carilla slices from the pot and add them to the salad for a lovely bit of sweetness.
- You are now ready to serve up platter style.
