A few months ago when a clay supply store was closing in San Jose, I found a South Asian market next to it and on a lark bought a bunch of boxed products.
I looked at the directions for the chicken masala, and instead decided to rework it into a marinade for a grilled chicken by combining the spices with garlic, ginger, cilantro and yogurt in my blender. I pounded boneless, skinless chicken thighs to make them uniform in thickness and then put the chicken into the spicy yogurt to marinade for a couple hours before grilling over charcoal.
And because I absolutely, positively must have a vegetable with dinner, I grilled a zucchini too. Before grilling the chicken, I read and was utterly perplexed by the directions on this box for biriyani.
The box directions called for a very involved preparation with chicken and yogurt before adding the rice. I decided imstead to just cook a less involved and simpler side dish of rice. I thinly sliced red onion and sautéed it in ghee before adding grated garlic and ginger and just a fourth of the spice mixture in the packet of this box. And then I added a cup of basmati rice and two cups of water before letting it all boil and then steam for 15 minutes.
I then sprinkled chopped green onion and cilantro before spooning it into a bowl.
Protein, carbohydrate, vegetable make for a complete meal in my book though I wished I had made a cucumber raita to tone down all the spiciness.
Maybe I didn't cook this South Asian meal according to directions or tradition, but the flavors of Pakistan and India were all there and delicious though I had to spoon some yogurt onto my plate in order to deal with all the fire in in my mouth.
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