Can anyone help here?

I've been looking for a prawn jalfrezi recipe and have drawn a blank (another one I've been hunting for for ages is Chicken Pathia)

Many thanks,

Mezzaluna

Sorry - I just spotted I can use your Jalfrezi recipe and substitute prawns. The one I usually use (From Pat Chapman, from "Lal Quilla" restaurant), the chicken goes in first.

Still would like a Pathia Recipe though...

Cheers,

Mezzaluna

Hello Mezzaluna

Patia or Pathia is a Parsee dish. I have a Prawn Patia recipe by a Parsee friend on this site; http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=12919 .

You can adapt it to chicken, adding chicken after step 4, before step 5. Cook/stir-fry chicken in spice mix until it is almost done and then follow from step 5 onwards.

If I can get my friend to write the chicken recipe, I will post it. She works full time, so might be difficult right now.

If it comes out nice, let me know, along with any adjustments you have to make. If you can take any pictures and send to us by .Contact. link, it will be even better!

Mamta :-)

Will do and thanks for the reply. I'll be trying your Jalfrezi recipe tonight -I'll give a comparison to my other recipe soon after.

I will also try the Chicken Pathia next week!

Cheers,

Mezzaluna

One of our local restaurants serves Jalfrezi with egg beaten into it at the end of cooking, it may sound strange but tastes wonderful. I have tried to replicate the same sort of taste at home without success, however I did find that by making a chicken curry using one of the vindaloo pastes from an Indian store (not the common brand names)adding onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes etc, cooking in the oven and then beating in an egg at the end of cooking before stirring in fresh coriander produced a very nice curry.

Just did the chicken jalfarezi tonight: it looks like jalfarezi, it tastes like jalfarezi: it IS jalfarezi!

The egg idea is interesting, if a little difficult to take on board, though we have been doing a Chinese soup with an egg beaten in lately. However, with so little liquid in the jalfarezi, doesn't it come out like an Indian omelette?

Phil

I haven't asked my Indian friends, but what does Jalfrezi(sp?) mean?

Didn't this once get mentioned before? Doesn't Jalfrezi mean Stir Fry or something similiar?

Steve

Hello Steve AskCy

Long time no see?

I think that jalfrezi is like 'tikka' a British take on and Indian curry. It is a chicken curry where sliced green peppers (Bell peppers) and tomatoes etc. are added to a dish, to make it go far with less meat/chicken etc. It tastes nice anyway, whether you make it with chicken/prawns/fish or meat. Cooking times have to be changed.

Mamta

My understanding is that jalfrezi is a stir fry dish incorporating many green chillies. I believe it was originally an Anglo-Bengali creation (for the Brits in Bengal), to use up left-over meat. It therefore has little or no sauce, and is very hot, chilli-wise. As the spicing is minimal, it can be made with any meat/fish which does not require lengthy cooking. Therefore, chicken and prawns would be ideal, as would strips of tender meat.

It is my belief that most recipes which use one kind of meat, cannot easily (if at all) be used with another kind. Sure it can be done, but in my opinion, the end result often dissapoints. This is for two reasons; different meats require different cooking times (and maybe temperatures) and the spices chosen are for a particular meat, to compliment it and not mask it (which many recipes tend to do). For me, patia is for prawns, it is a sweet/sour/hot dish, and although chicken strips could be substituted, the taste and flavour balance may be less than ideal.

Another example is a vindaloo. It is a recipe for pork, and strong tasting pork at that. If chicken were substituted, then the spicing would be too powerful and the chicken (after the lenghty cooking times needed to develop the spice flavours) would be dehydrated and stringy.