InsaneJournal

Chicken in a tart-spicy-fragrant tamarind and coconut sauce.

Think five-alarm mouth fire, with pumpkin and chickpeas. :3

Spinach and squeaky-cheese with an optional citrus twist from artichoke and lime.

Crisp vegetable salad marinaded in mild vinegar and spices.

Skillet-bread flavored as you like it.

Long grain rice cooked with spices and dressed with lemon juice and flavored sizzling oil.

1-2 tsp chaat masala
(OR 1-2 tsp taken from:)
2 Tbsp ground amchur (dried mango)
1 Tbsp ground dried mint leaves (can use herbal tea for this)
1 Tbsp tamarind powder (or add 2 Tbsp tamarind paste to wet tari)
1/2 Tbsp ground ginger
1/2 Tbsp ground ajwain
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cayenne

1 tsp honey or sugar
Up to 1 cup water

Options:
2 Tbsp plain yogurt
1 tsp sesame oil or other flavorful oil
3-4 Tbsp melted butter or ghee, divided

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1/4 tsp table salt or 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking powder (preferably the kind without aluminum)

Since our kind of food has soft-cooked onions in just about everything, collect up your onions and mince them all in advance, then portion them up for each recipe. (Trust me, your eyes and your timing will thank you tomorrow.) You can saute them tonight, or you can keep your house less onion-smelling overnight and saute them in the morning.

You can do all the dry-spice roasting the night before, let them cool, put them in a jar, and keep them in the fridge. (They'll keep in the fridge for a couple months, or for a long time in the freezer. You'll have more than one batch worth of spices.)

If using coconut meat rather than milk, dry-roast the coconut by itself until crisp and golden.

If you're feeling merciful, don't chop the chiles fine; leave the dry ones whole (or break them in half and shake out the seeds). Cut mostly-through the green ones and rinse the seeds out of the inside but leave the stems intact. This makes them easier to pull out during later taste-testing.

If you want to push the heat, leave all the seeds in place and chop the greens and the drys to bits and just go for it. :3

(L - R: Hungarian, Anaheim, poblano, finger-hot, serrano, and dried Japanese chiles. Also vinyl gloves to keep from getting hot pepper juice on fingers I might need to rub my eyes with!)

If you want to marinade the chicken, you can marinade it in the wet tari mixture overnight (and, if feeling brave and/or sadistic, chop the chiles in with it).

Wet tari and dry tari ready to go:

 Reserve some of your onion mincing spree for this dish.

Chickpeas:

If you have canned chickpeas: Consider yourself lucky! :3

If you have dry chickpeas: Soak them for at least 12 hours and boil them tonight, until they're tender, then put them in the refrigerator for the next day.

Pumpkin:

If you have canned pumpkin, put it away. Repeat after Uncle Zack: Pumpkin pie tari is not the answer!

If you don't have a fresh kabocha or other small cooking pumpkin, don't despair. You can also use butternut squash (easier to peel), acorn squash (harder to peel), or even carrots or sweet potatoes (easiest to find, least like the intended flavor).

Don't get crazy enough to try this with turnips, though. There's nearly no help for turnips, unless you've got mustard greens and vinegar and -- well, that's a different recipe. 

Whichever kind of orange root vegetable you've got, cut it into bite-sized cubes and simmer in lightly salted water with a splash of vinegar until it's just fork-tender but not too soft. (Leave some resistance for the second round of cooking.)

Alternatively, Tifa says to use the microwave on the squash - halve it, gut it, nuke it for 5-8 minutes, done:

Reserve some of your onion mincing spree for this dish too.

Spinach:

If using fresh spinach: Wash your spinach and roughly chop it.

If using frozen spinach: Thaw it in the refrigerator.

Paneer:

If you bought frozen paneer, thaw it in the refrigerator tonight too.

If making your own paneer, make it tonight. 

To make paneer
(twice what you need for the spinach tari, since you might as well have extra after going through all this):

1/2 gallon milk (skim works fine)
Up to 1 pint buttermilk or plain natural yogurt (not the kind set with pectin, the ingredients should basically be milk). Plain yogurt is important, and so is live culture. Vanilla paneer is bad. Strawberry paneer is even worse. :o
-or-
Up to 1/2 cup lemon or lime juice

Also locate:
A good-sized pot
Cheesecloth or a clean flour-sack dishtowel
A strainer or a second large pot

Heat milk to almost boiling, then add your curdling agent (yogurt or buttermilk or acidic juice) gradually. Cook for a couple more minutes until it separates into curds and whey. It goes from milky-colored with floating bits to pale-and-strawy with floating pieces of cheese. Add any extra curdler slowly though; you don't want to set it up too hard since the nice squeaky texture is one of the awesome points of paneer. :3

Strain out the whey through a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth or a flour-sack dishcloth, or else put the cheesecloth in another large pot and pour from one to the other. Tie a knot in the cloth and hang it from your sink faucet for a few minutes to drip. (Tip: Put the cooking pan under the faucet to catch your paneer ball, just in case the knot slips off the faucet. Not that I would know anything about this from experience. ...ehehehe... whoops?)

If you want a firmer consistency in your paneer, put the wrapped cheese between two salad plates and weight the top plate for about 10 minutes. 

Cover with saran wrap to keep it from forming a skin and refrigerate until cooking day. (It also freezes nicely, if any of it survives the snacking-on phase of the cooking prep.)

Sneaky Ninja Trick: If you do this with soy milk instead of regular milk, you basically have tofu paneer and it makes the spinach tari vegan friendly! \o/ Everything except the chicken tiki tone can be made vegan friendly if you like; just swap coconut milk for regular milk, olive oil for ghee, and a tablespoon of tamarind paste for up to 1/2 cup yogurt.

Chop the vegetables. Mix together the wet tari and pour over the vegetables; cover and refrigerate overnight. (If you don't have tamarind powder, add tamarind paste to the wet tari and mix it in now.)

Sneaky Ninja Speed Tricks: A mandolin (not the musical instrument) makes your life much MUCH easier. Make sure to use the hand guard, though! Cucumber julienned in 1:30, daikon in 0:50.

Mangos are fun to dissect. They've got a big flat seed. Cut the large pieces off each side, then the small pieces. Skin the small pieces by laying your knife flat on the board like you're peeling a fish.

Then cut a hash pattern into the large pieces and then turn them inside out so they get separated like chrysanthemum petals. Much faster and less dangerous this way than if you try to peel it first and have it all slippery on you!

If the dry tari haven't been toasted and ground yet, do that now. A spice grinder (or coffee grinder reserved for spices) works best; it takes a good amount of time to grind all those spices finely with a mortar and pestle.

Use a little sieve or sifter to get the cardamom pod hulls and unground pieces of the spices before they go in for cooking.

Saute all your onions in a little oil until they're golden brown and very soft, at least 10 minutes. Separate them out into three portions when you're done sauteeing them, since they go in all three tari dishes.

The dry tari in this dish are quick-fried in hot oil and served whole; don't grind these. (It'd make it too hard for people to avoid the chiles of death, particularly if you just happened to luck into a nice batch of dried Thai bird chiles, not that a nice guy like me would do such a thing, really, honest... even if it was really funny watching the expression on the shrimp's face! Tifa, if you ever read this, don't kill me please?)

Same as the tiki tone - toast and grind the dry tari in advance. Make sure you note which skillet is toasting which set of dry tari! (I cheat by wrapping matching-colored rubber bands around the handles of the different skillets and pots. All the red ones go to the same dish, all the green ones go to the other dish, etc.)

(You can't see under the edge of the bowls, but one is pink and the other green to go with their skillets. I keep the recipe cards next to the spice bowls as I fill 'em too.)

If you're using frozen spinach, wring the extra water out of it now. Rough-chop it so you end up with bite-size pieces of spinach and put it back in the refrigerator to wait.

Add your sugar/honey and any other wet tari options, and mix through with your fingertips. Note: don't use all the ghee here; use up to 2 Tbsp of the ghee, and save the rest for basting.

With just the wet tari, it'll probably still be on the dry side. Add a tablespoon of water at a time and keep working it through. You want it to be soft enough to work, but not sticky. If it sticks to your fingers too much, put a little water, ghee, or olive oil on your fingers.

Once it's cooperating enough to form a nice ball of dough, cover the bowl with saran wrap. Leave it on the countertop so it can get itself psyched up for its big performance in a nice warm backstage area instead of a cold refrigerator.

(Tip for pet and hungry-teenager owners:) Hiding things in the microwave also keeps unexpected noses and paws out of it...

 Wash your rice thoroughly. Put it in your rice cooker pan with the appropriate amount of water (you're going to have enough going on the stove that you really want a rice cooker for this). Add your dry tari spices to the cooking pan. 

Save the wet tari ingredients for later. If you want to garnish with a lemon, slice it thinly and put it in the refrigerator to wait for serving time.

Heat a teaspoon or two of oil.

Measure out about 1 Tbsp of the dry tari mix and fry it in the oil for a couple minutes. (Beware of splatters - a splatter shield is handy.) Add the cooked onions in to this skillet.

Add the chopped tomatoes, and the rest of the wet masala ingredients. Cook over medium to low heat into a paste. If you're feeling fancy, take it out of the pan, put it in a food processor, and blend til smooth. If you like it homestyle, just keep mashing the bits against the side of the pan.

When the sauce has come up to a slow boil, add the chicken pieces.

Leave on a slow boil/simmer to cook the chicken while the rest of the dishes are being prepared.

 Except for the hot sauce, bring the wet tari ingredients to a simmer and cook until moderately thickened.

Add the pumpkin, coconut, and chickpeas, and cook until pumpkin and chickpeas are tender. You might want to strain some of the liquid off later.

Hang on to the hot sauce and dry tari until just about serving time.

 Heat a tablespoon of oil on medium-high and fry the dry tari in it. (The spices should sizzle when they hit the hot oil.) Add the wet tari and cook for about a minute.

Add the spinach, cover the skillet, and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 3 minutes. Add the paneer (and the artichokes if you have 'em) and cook over medium heat until the liquid mostly evaporates.

Hang on to the yogurt and lemon until serving time.

You can make your barati toward the end of this stage, but don't start to cook them until about 5 minutes before serving time. Only start shaping these when everything else is in the final simmering stage, because you don't want them to dry out before you cook them.

To make your barati, tear off approximately tennis-ball-sized pieces of dough and flatten them out. A tortilla press covered with saran wrap and dusted with flour works nicely. So does a floured rolling pin, of course, but it takes more space, and by this point in the process I'm always out of countertop space. And tabletop space. And refrigerator-top space. And cutting-board-balanced-over-the-sink space. (That last is a really bad idea, by the way. It tips your food into the sink wayyy too easily. Ahem.)

Start your rice cooker about 35-45 minutes before serving time. The cooking cycle should take about 25 minutes. When it's done, don't open the rice cooker until 15 minutes after the cooker has switched off; just let it hang out and steam. At the end of the steaming time, open it briefly, fluff the rice, and put the lid back on to keep it warm. 

(If you're not using a rice cooker, use the package directions instead.)

Keep the wet tari ingredients saved for serving time.

Leave the cooked peppers in if you like -- I like eating the fresh ones alongside the chicken; they're just another vegetable, and Tifa's always telling "us kids" to eat our vegetables, so I figure we might as well get the tasty vegetables . :3 (I'm not so brave about eating the dried Thai bird peppers, though. Some things are too much even for the asbestos tongue!)

After you've put it into a serving bowl, sprinkle the 1/4 tsp rosewater over the top and lightly stir through. If you like, crush a couple seeds from the last cardamom pod and scatter over the top for a fragrance-burst.

 Heat 1 Tbsp peanut oil or other high-temperature-safe oil in a skillet. Fry the dry tari (except for the mustard seeds) for about 30 seconds - be prepared for splatters; keep your splatter shield handy.

Add the mustard seeds next; lower the heat, put the splatter shield on, and wait for the spluttering to subside. (Be ready to pull the oil off the heat to keep the spices from scorching.)

Drizzle the hot oil over the pumpkin and stir lightly through, leaving some of the chiles showing.

Add sriracha or your selected hot sauce to taste, to put the third chili spin on the ball. Serve hot (in more ways than one - sorry about that, Spikes!)

 Put the spinach tari in its serving dish. Stir the yogurt until it's smooth, and mix it through the spinach.

When the spinach goes on the table, give everyone their own lime wedge to squeeze over the top.

Remove from the refrigerator; if it's gotten too juicy overnight, pour some of the juice off. (You do want some of the juice remaining as dressing.)

Sprinkle 1-2 tsp of the chaat masala or chakanbir dry tari mix over it, stir through, and serve. If you have either fresh mint or fresh cilantro, chopping a few leaves and sprinkling over the top is good.

About 8-10 minutes before serving time, start heating up a nonstick griddle and melt your ghee in a separate container (a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave is handy. Yeah it's not traditional. By this point in the process, I can never be arsed to care.)

Once it's hot, about 5 minutes before serving, mist it lightly with oil and cook your baratis. You can peek under the edge carefully, but don't flip them until the first side is golden brown -- once you move them, they stop turning golden.

Put a piece of aluminum foil in the center of a folded-over kitchen towel and keep the kitchen towel over your catching-plate of baratis. The aluminum foil helps with catching the heat and the kitchen towel makes it look all rustic so Ma would still approve of the presentation. (Just call me the sneaky ninja food masquerade dude! ...or something!)

By the way, if your baratis will fit into one of those warm-tortilla-holding containers, those work great too.

Once they hit the table, you can brush 'em with the melted butter or ghee as you serve 'em. (Hey, this is all about pulling out the stops -- you think I cook like this every day?)

 Take the rice out of the rice cooker and spread it on a serving tray that allows you some stirring room.

Heat 1-2 Tbsp peanut or high-heat oil over medium high heat. Fry the mustard seeds, the fennel seeds, and any dry chiles for a minute or so -- be prepared for splatters. Pull the oil off the heat and drizzle over the rice, then stir through.

Drizzle the lemon juice over the rice and stir it through next.

(Options:) Scatter cilantro and pistachios over the top. Serve with lemon slices around the edges of the serving tray.