Burdwan.—This is made of almost any kind of meat which has been previously roasted or boiled. Poultry, game-birds, hare, rabbit, kid, veal, or venison are all suitable for the purpose. If the material chosen happens to be raw, it can easily be made available by being semi-boiled or semi-roasted especially for the purpose. The following typical example will explain the mode of procedure. For the chicken used therein, any other kind of meat, as fancy may suggest, can be substituted.
Take a good chicken which has been left from a previous meal, or purposely prepared, as explained above; a small teacupful of good clear stock, a small Spanish onion, a wineglassful of white wine (Chablis is the best), ½ oz. butter, 6 chillies (a little cayenne pepper will do instead), the juice of ½ lemon, a small piece of garlic. Mix the stock, onion (previously boiled or roasted), wine, butter, chillies, and garlic, and let them thoroughly amalgamate in a stewpan over a moderate fire. Then add the chicken cut up as for curry. Allow the whole to simmer till done, when squeeze in the lemon juice. It ought to be served very hot, accompanied by a dish of boiled rice or kichri.
Chachki or Vegetable Curry.—Ingredients: 1 breakfastcupful shelled peas, ½ lb. pumpkin, 1 small teacupful clear veal stock or water, 2 onions 1 in. diameter, 3 green chillies, a small clove of garlic, 1 tablespoonful curry powder, salt to taste, 1 wineglassful mustard oil, or 2 oz. butter. Mode: Chop the onions, garlic, and chillies, and then reduce them all to a pulp in a mortar. Boil the oil (or butter) in a frypan, add the curry powder, onion, garlic, and chilli pulp, and salt; let it fry for a few minutes, stirring constantly, then put in the peas and pumpkin; when of a golden colour put the whole into a saucepan. Pour the stock or water into the frypan just used; let it boil up, scraping it as you do in making gravy; when it has boiled for a few minutes, add it to the contents of the saucepan, and let it simmer till tender, when serve. All vegetable curries are made in the same manner, and any number of vegetables may be used according to taste. When potato or spinach is one of the ingredients, it will be necessary to ¾ boil them in water before frying them; this will prevent the objectionable liquor given off by them from entering into the gravy.
Chapatis.—1 lb. flour (the coarse kind preferable), 2 oz. butter, 1 teaspoonful salt, some water. Work the butter and salt into the flour, add gradually sufficient water to form the whole into a dough. Roll some of it out on a board with a rolling pin till about 1/16 in. thick; cut it into a circular form with an inverted saucer, and bake it on a girdle over a clear fire; when done on both sides, place it on a trivet before the fire, turning it occasionally. By the time that the second cake is baked on the girdle, the first will be toasted enough. Now butter the first chapati, and put it on a plate in the oven. Repeat the process till all are ready.
Chicken Country-Captain.—A plump chicken, 4 oz. butter, 4 onions 1 in. in diameter, ½ teaspoonful each ground green chillies, ground coriander seed, and salt, ½ teaspoonful ground turmeric. Cut up the chicken as for curry; if uncooked veal, mutton, &c., is about to be used instead of the chicken, it must be cut up after it has been semi-broiled or semi-roasted. Slice the onions as fine as possible, fry ¼ the quantity in the butter till of a golden brown colour, drain them carefully from all superfluous grease, and put aside in an oven to get crisp. Now put the ground chillies, coriander seed, tumeric, and salt into the frypan, and after the contents have fried for a minute, add the chicken and the remainder of the onions, and keep constantly stirring the whole till the chicken is quite tender. Serve garnished with the crisped onions. Boiled rice is generally an accompaniment when time is no object.
Chicken Curry.—A small fowl, 1 pint stock, 6 onions about 1 in. in diameter, 4 oz. butter, 1 small clove of garlic chopped fine, 2 green chillies (failing which, 3 dried bird’s-eye chillies) chopped fine, 1½ heaped tablespoonfuls curry powder and ½ lemon. Slice the onions fine, take a third of them and fry with half the butter till crisp and of a nice golden colour; drain them carefully from all superfluous grease and put them aside. Then fry the chicken, cut up as directed, in the surplus of the butter left from the last operation; when the meat is slightly coloured, put them also aside. Now take a saucepan, put into it the curry-powder and the remaining half of the butter; let it fry for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, then throw in the uncooked onions. Amalgamate well with the contents of the saucepan, and after they have fried for a few minutes add the stock chillies, salt, and garlic; stir well, and let the liquor reduce to one-third of its original quantity, the cover of the pan being drawn slightly aside to enable the steam to escape. When it has reduced, add the chicken. Allow the whole to boil briskly for 2 minutes; then place it on the edge of the hob to simmer gently till cooked, stirring the curry frequently to enable the meat to take up the gravy. In about 20 minutes it ought to be ready, but the surest guide is to observe the appearance of the drumsticks; if the bones are found protruding by the flesh having shrunk, it is done. Finally, the piece of the lemon and the fried onions, which have been put aside from the first operation, must be added to the contents of the saucepan, and the whole quickly stirred, after which no time should be lost in serving the curry.
Coconut Pudding.—Grate fine a large coconut, fry it slightly with a little butter. Make 1 pint custard with some new milk, 4 well beaten eggs, a little nutmeg, 1 tablespoonful loaf sugar; stir in gradually a small glass of brandy, adding the coconut by degrees. When well mixed, fill a pie dish, that has been lined with puff paste with the mixture, bake in a gentle oven; about 20 minutes will suffice.
Coconut Soup.—3 pints prepared stock, the kernels of 2 large coconuts, yolks of 2 eggs, juice of a lemon, 2 blades of mace, 1 saltspoonful ground cinnamon, salt and white pepper to taste, a little corn or rice flour. Throw away the liquor inside the kernels of the coconuts, remove the brown outside rind, and rasp them as fine as possible. Mix the stock with the rasped kernel, add the mace, cinnamon, pepper and salt, and let the whole simmer for ½ hour or so, when carefully strain it through fine muslin. Make a paste with the lemon-juice, the yolks of the eggs beaten up, and sufficient cornflour till of the consistency of thin batter; add this gradually to the liquor before prepared, stirring all the while. Let it simmer till ready, when serve with a separate dish of plain boiled rice.
Curries.—Oriental dishes, with few exceptions, are prepared in sufficiently small morsels to permit of their being eaten with the hand, without the aid of knife, fork, or spoon. When, however, this cannot be avoided, as in the case of pilau of poultry, game, or joints, the meat is cooked just long enough to allow of its being separated from the bone by the fingers without being stewed to rags. Indeed, the whole art of curry and pilau making consists in correctly timing the simmering process. If it is removed off the fire too soon, the meat, though done, will be tough, and the spices will not have had time to permeate the tissues; while again, if too much cooked, the disintegration of the fibres will have caused the spices to return into the gravy. Therefore, in either case, a failure will be the inevitable result. A curry properly cooked must hit the happy mean between these extremes, yet ought to be able to be eaten with a spoon and fork only, which is the practice among Europeans in India. The next rule to be borne in mind is the correct dressing of the meat which is to be used. Beef, mutton, pork, fish, &c., must be cut into dice not larger than 1 in. square. Poultry, partridges, &c., should be disjointed as follows: The wings and legs into 2 parts at the joints, and the backs crossways, according to size, into 3 or 4, and the merrythought separated. It may be as well stated that 2 smaller birds are preferable to one large. Hares and rabbits, according to size, ought to have the legs each cut into 3 or 4 pieces, and the backs crossways into 8 or 9; pigeon’s wings and legs whole, backs in two. Small birds as quails, larks, &c., in two, lengthwise.
Dal-puri.-½ lb. lentil curry, 1 lb. ordinary light pie pastry. When the lentil curry has become quite cold, mash it thoroughly in a mortar till reduced to a fine pulp. Divide it and the pastry into pieces each of the size of a walnut. There ought to be now twice the number of the latter as of the former. Take 2 of the lumps of paste and form them into small shallow bowls, put one of the lumps of the curry-pulp into one of these bowls; carefully adjust a second bowl on the first, and roll the whole out to the size of a dessert plate on a paste board. Make similar cakes till all the materials are used up. Fry each cake separately in a frying-pan with boiling oil, lard, or butter, and serve very hot with the dam-pukht.