March 2016 - Westy's Chicken Pathia

[Westy]

(This recipe can be found in the recipe section here - Admin)

Chicken Pathia

Hot , sweet and sour - full flavoured curry

Serves 2 hearty eaters or 3 watching their figures:

[Greybeard]

That looks superb Westy, we desperately need smell-o-vision + taste-o-vision on this forum.

[rshome123]

Does look good Westy. With that amount of (Sharwoods) Mango Chutney and Sugar you must like the balance of Pathia in favour of Sweet.

[Westy]

Thanks rs - it's nicely balanced actually ( for my taste at least ) - usually I shy away from sweet . There is enough lemon juice and tamarind to more than compensate for the mango chutney I reckon - I would agree it's full flavoured though !

[charliebir]

Looks great, Westy. Photo just "winks" sweet and sour to me

[seafret]

Delicious sounding and great looking curry Westy. Have you been working at this recipe for a while?

[ScotchBonnet]

Certainly looks the part with plenty of runny gravy and authentic chunks of pale chicken. As luck would have it I've just got a few jars of Patak's mango chutney for 89p each.

[British Indian]

Now that DOES look the business. Another one to try....thanks for sharing Westy

[Westy]

That looks superb Westy, we desperately need smell-o-vision + taste-o-vision on this forum.

Thanks Gb - agreed

Looks great, Westy. Photo just "winks" sweet and sour to me

Thanks Charlie - it's a tasty winker alright

Delicious sounding and great looking curry Westy. Have you been working at this recipe for a while?

Thanks seafret - I tried a couple of others but I prefer my curries more robustly flavoured and wanted to make a Pathia that left you in no doubt about what you were eating

Certainly looks the part with plenty of runny gravy and authentic chunks of pale chicken. As luck would have it I've just got a few jars of Patak's mango chutney for 89p each.

I've tried Pataks mango chutney and it has a slight gingery flavour that may make an interesting addition - I'd be pleased if you'd try it SB

Now that DOES look the business. Another one to try....thanks for sharing Westy

Thanks BI - if you get around to trying this I'd be very interested in your thoughts

[Cory Ander]

Looks good, Westy, thank you for sharing your recipe with us

PS: Which "tamarind paste" are you using?

[Westy]

Thanks Cory

I'm using this one Cory - not through choice but due to the lack of !. Slovaks are not huge consumers of tamarind I have deduced.

[Alchemist]

Thanks to Greybeard for selecting this month's recipe, which can be found here.

As usual, please post your wonderful efforts into the recipe thread above. Good luck and enjoy!

[Alchemist]

Don't forget this is the Curry Club recipe of the month - so let's see a few attempts at this one!

[Greybeard]

Human beings are strange creatures. We love variety, but hate change. Anything outside our comfort zone for the majority of people, especially in this green and pleasant island – is met with a certain resistance. Sometime though, we lose our English reserve and jump in for the hell of it – and so it was with the Pathia. Which is just as well really, as I am a Scotsman.

Let me explain. There are certain curries with which I am intimately acquainted, and others that I have serious problems with. Pathia is one of them. Why? Apart from the simple fact I have not tried a range of them in Indian BIR restaurants, I don't know what a good one is supposed to taste like. Early on I cooked a Pathia for a friend who is very familiar with the dish, and while he enjoyed it, it was not up to BIR standard. Now this could have fatally scarred my BIR cooking endeavours as I was still a relative novice, but I realised it was my lack of understanding of the qualities of the curry. Hot, sour, sweet. Once I understood that, I could tie in the character of the curry with the ingredients and the technique.

This cooking session was scheduled for last weekend, but due to an unfortunate incident with a food processor blade, the middle finger of my right hand is a bit unwell at the moment. In theory, this should be OK as I am left handed, but I use a kitchen knife with my right. As I was out of reference base, this posed a problem, but by Thursday night after a marathon session (Base + 2 curries + GG paste) and multiple plasters and Steri Strips, I was ready for the off.

Up in the isolated regions of Cumbria, Tamarind paste is not a supermarket staple. Fortunately, Tesco now have a dedicated “foodie” range which includes this, and a jar had already been squirreled away in my ever growing spice stash. Other than that, no modification to the ingredients or measures was made, apart from the reduction of chilli powder from 1 tablespoon to three quarters, due to my better half's scathing comment about my pork vindaloo. I will not repeat it here as I have posted it elsewhere on the forum, but the maxims “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and “The female of the species is deadlier than the male” will give you some clue as to the verbal response I received when requesting a rating out of 10 for that dish.

So onto the cook. Provided you can get hold of the ingredients, it is simple to prepare and measure. I used pre-cooked chicken, but in a few minutes you can prepare fresh if you prefer. For someone starting out, there are no real “gotchas”, unlike a vindaloo or some madras's or Kormas where the quantity of spices can be difficult to control at the fry stage due to dryness. I left my largest burner on medium / high throughout, (I did not use my wok burner) simply because I was multitasking and wanted to wander away from the stove for a minute or so to get plates etc. The only point I had to keep an eagle eye on the curry was after adding the tomato paste and water mix, which was a a lot thicker than I usually add (I actually followed the measurements for once rather than going by “chef's guess” which for me is a more watery mix). This did bind to the pan a bit, but the addition of some base soon sorted this out.

I was worried upon pre-serve tasting that this was going to be too hot for my better half. I was originally going to swap the madras for a milder curry powder, but in the end I think I made the right decision to go with the hotter powder, as this gave the curry a nice “middle level” hum. I didn't need to adjust any ingredients prior to serving.

Paula rated this as a 8/10, which I say is a resounding accolade from someone who would only touch Korma when I first met them.

For me, this curry was a revelation. Prior to tonight, I didn't get the whole sweet / sour / hot Indian curry vibe, mainly as I have generally tended to lean towards the hotter end of the spectrum. Monday night was always Phal night. Flat out, Ferrari curry. Discussing with colleagues around the office Pathia is quite popular. And I can see why. When balanced right, it warms you, sweetens you and has that astringent edge that like a good appetizer, demands that you come back for more. I can see why some Pathia fans want to ramp up the heat, but that is the only potential failing of this curry (as a dish, not this recipe). Getting the balance right is tricky, and if you experiment with quantities, especially the sweet / sour / hot ingredients, you will come unstuck unless you know what you are doing. Which, as an apprentice, I succumbed to and got totally wrong. This is not an “in your face” curry, the whole idea is much more subtle. Yes it was hot, but I didn't sweat. Yes it was sour, but the sweetness counteracted that. You can't fake a Pathia. This is a binary curry. You either make a good one, or not. A good curry, yes, but not a Pathia. The fact my wife gave it an 8 says everything. I'll give it a qualified 9, only because I have not had a Pathia in a BIR so I can't vouch for that “real BIR taste”. And I am submitting my membership application to the “Pathia Lover's Club” forthwith, only on the understanding that they have a complete newbie on their hands.

Westy's Pathia is a paradox on a plate. Easy to cook, but with dimensions that suggest an awful lot more effort has gone in to the cooking. Provided of course, you stick to the quantities. Forgive me Westy, but that quarter tablespoon of Kashmiri chilli powder may have saved me from a weekend of living in the shed. Or worse still, potentially having another encounter with the food processor blade - this time clutched in the hands of my wife suffering chilli overdose, used to wreak revenge on the power leads of my rice cooker, spice grinder, hotplate, hand blender and curry station that currently clutter our kitchen and dining room.

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[rshome123]

[Westy]

Wow , that's how to write a review for the Curry Club

Thanks for taking the time to do that Gb - enjoyable as ever to read . I'm very pleased that you tried the recipe and followed it to the letter too ( chilli aside ) . Great photos !.

I'm very pleased as well that you both enjoyed the curry

[Alchemist]

You have earned yourself a place in the big easy chair in the snug area of the curry club for that write up gb! Once I get some more base made I will be having a go myself. I think I will make a separate portion for myself to experience the full chilli impact.

[Greybeard]

Thanks guys. I do hope the snug comes equipped with real ale, or horror of horror's - a decent red wine. To my utter amusement, I have discovered that my elderly compact camera with a proper flash takes much better curry photos (despite the lower resolution) than any of my mobile devices. So there will be a lot more photos to come ....

[ScotchBonnet]

When it comes to photo's, the lens is very important. Hence my mega-mega pixel phone camera is worse than my old 1.5 megapixel Fuiji camera with its compact, but very nice, Fujinon lenses. Remember that photos uploaded to this (and many other) sites are often way less than a megabyte in size.

[Squibo]

Made it, liked it, forgot to take a picture